ESSAYS (continued 3)

As to the proofs that Hamlet's family was closely connected with the tailoring interest, they are so thickly scattered through the entire tragedy, and are so apparent even to the casual reader, that, even if I had room, it would only be necessary to mention a few of the principal ones. In the very first scene in which he is introduced, Hamlet talks in an experienced manner about his "inky cloak," "suits of solemn black," "forms" and "modes," and tries to defend himself from the suspicion which he feels is attached to him by many of the courtiers, by saying plainly, "I know not seams." This first speech of Hamlet's is a key to the wanton insincerity of his character. His mother has begged him to change his clothes,—to "cast his nighted colour off,"—and he answers her requests with, "I shall in all my best obey you, madam;" yet it is notorious that he heeds not this promise, but wears black to the end of his career.

He repeatedly uses the expressions which a tailor would naturally employ. His figures of speech frequently smell of the shop. As, for instance, he says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb;" in the scene preceding the play he declares that, though the devil himself wear black, he'll "have a suit of sables." In the interview with his mother, who may be supposed not to have forgotten the early history of the family, he uses such figures with still greater freedom:—

"That monster custom who all sense doth eat

Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on."

In his instruction to the players he speaks of tearing "a passion to tatters, to very rags" and says of certain actors that when he saw them it seemed to him as if "some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well." In the fourth act, he calls Rosencrantz a sponge.

What better evidence of the skill of Hamlet and his father in their common trade can we have than that afforded by the fair Ophelia, who speaks of the Prince as "the glass of fashion and the mould of form"? In the chamber scene with his mother, Hamlet is taken entirely off his guard by the sudden appearance of his father's ghost, whom he apostrophizes, not in the set phrases which he used when Horatio and Marcellus were by, but as "a king of shreds and patches". Old Polonius does not wish his daughter to marry a tailor, but is too polite to tell her all of his objections to Lord Hamlet's suit; so he cloaks his reasons under these figures of speech, instead of telling her, out of whole cloth, that Hamlet is a tailor, and the match will never do:—

"Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers,

Not of that dye which there in vestments show,

But implorators of unholy suits," &c.

Some late editions of the Bard make the second line of this passage read,—

"Not of that die which their investments show,"——

which is as evident a corruption of the text as any of those detected by the indefatigable Mr. Payne Collier.

If any further proof is needed of a matter which must be clear to every reasoning mind, it may be found in that solemn scene in which the Prince, oppressed by the burden of a life embittered and defeated in its highest aims, meditates suicide. Now, if there is a time when all affectation of worldly rank would be likely to be forgotten and swallowed up in the contemplation of the terrible deed which occupies the mind, it is such a time as this. And here we find Shakespeare as true as Nature herself. The soldier, weary of life, uses the sword his enemies once feared, to end his troubles. Hamlet's mind overleaps the interval of his princely life, and the weapon which is most naturally suggested by his youthful career is "a bare bodkin."

Had I not already written more than I intended on this subject, I might go on with many other evidences of the truth of my view of this remarkable character. I did wish also to show that Hamlet was a most disreputable character, and by no means entitled to the sympathy or admiration of men. Suffice it to say that he was, even to his last hour, fonder of drink than became a prince (except perhaps a Prince Regent)—that he treated Ophelia improperly—that he often spoke of his step-father in profane terms—that he indulged in the use of profane language even in his soliloquies, as for example,—

"The spirit I have seen

May be a devil; and the devil hath power

To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps

Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,

(As he is very potent with such spirits)

Abuses me too,—damme!"

His familiarity with the players likewise is an incontrovertible proof of his depravity; for the theatrical people of Denmark in his age were not what the players of our day are. They were too often people of loose and reckless lives, careless of moral and social obligations, and whose company would by no means be acceptable to a truly philosophic prince.

If this pre-Raphaelite sketch of Hamlet's character should seem unsatisfactory, it can be filled out by a perusal of the play itself, if the reader will only cast aside the trammels which the commentators have placed in his way. It may be a new view to most of my readers; but I am convinced that the theory, of which I have given an outline, is fully as tenable as many of the countless conjectural essays to which that matchless drama has given rise. If it be untrue, why, then we must conclude that all similar theories, though they may be sustained by as many passages as I have adduced in support of my Hibernico-sartorial hypothesis, are equally devoid of a foundation of common sense. If my theory stands, I have the satisfaction of having connected my name (which would else be soon forgotten) with one of Shakespeare's masterpieces; and that is all that any commentator has ever done. And if my theory proves false, it consoles me to think that the splendour of the genius which I so highly reverence is in no wise obscured thereby; for the stability and grandeur of the temple cannot be impaired by the obliteration of the ambitious scribblings and chalk-marks with which some aspiring worshippers may have defaced its portico.

MEMORIALS OF MRS. GRUNDY

Of all the studies to which I was ever impelled in my youth, either by fear of the birch or by the hope of the laurel or the bays, mythology was perhaps the most charming. It was refreshing, after trying in vain to conjugate a verb, and being at last obliged to decline it—after adding up a column of figures several times, and getting many different results, and none of them the right one—and after making a vain attempt to comprehend the only algebraic knowledge that ever was forced into my unmathematical brain, viz., that x equals an unknown quantity,—it was, I say, refreshing to turn over the leaves of my Classical Dictionary, and revel among the gods and heroes whose wondrous careers were embalmed in its well-thumbed pages. Lemprière was the great magician who summoned up before my delighted eyes the denizens of a sphere where existence was unvexed by any pestilent arithmetics, and where the slavery of the inky desk was unknown. It always seemed to me as if the knowledge that I gained out of those enchanted chronicles not only improved my mind, but made my body more robust; for I joined in the chase, fought desperate battles, as the gods willed it, and breathed all the while the pure, invigorating air of old Olympus. The consecrated groves were the dwelling-place of my mind, and I became for a time a sharer in the joys of beings in whom I believed with all the ardour and simplicity of childhood. I enjoyed my mythological readings all the more because they did not generally find favour with my school companions, most of whom vindicated their nationality by professing their affection for the Rule of Three. One of them, I remember, was especially severe on the uselessness of the studies in which I took pleasure. He, parcus deorum cultor, et infrequens, could get no satisfaction out of the books in which I revelled; if he had got to study or read, he could not afford to waste his brains over the foolish superstitions of three thousand years ago. He did not care how much romance and poetic beauty there might be in the ancient mythology: what did it all come to in the end? It didn't pay. It was a humbug. Our paths in life separated when we graduated from jackets and peg-tops. He remained faithful to his boyish instincts, and pursued the practical as if it were a reality. After a few years his face lost all its youthful look; an intense spirit of acquisitiveness gleamed in his calculating eye, and an interest table seemed to be written in the lines of his care-worn countenance. We seldom had any conversation in our after years, for he always seemed to be under some restraint, as if he feared that I wished to borrow a little money of him, and he did not wish to refuse for the sake of the old time when we sat at the same desk, although he knew that my note was good for nothing. His devotion to his deity, the practical, did not go unrewarded. He became like the only mythological personage whom he would have envied, had he known any thing of the science he despised. His touch seemed to transmute every thing into gold. His speculations during the war of 1812 were all successful. Eastern lands harmed him not. The financial panic of 1837 only put money in his purse. He rolled up a large fortune, and was happy. He looked anxious, but of course he was happy. What man ever devoted his life to the working out of the dreams of his youth in the acquisition of riches, and succeeded beyond his anticipations, without being very happy? But, if his gains were something practical and real, his losses were doubly so. Each one of them was as a dagger stuck into that sere heart. His only son gave him much trouble by his wild life, and, what touched him still more, wasted the money he had laboured to pile up, at the gaming tables of Baden. I saw him walking down Tremont Street the other day, looking care-worn and miserable, and I longed to ask him what he thought of the real and practical after trying them. He would certainly have been willing to acknowledge that there is more reality in the romance and poetry of mythology than in the thousands which he invested in the Bay State Mills. His practical life has brought him vanity and vexation of spirit, while the old Lemprière, which he used to treat so contemptuously, flourishes in immortal youth, unhurt amid the wreck of fortunes and the depreciation of stocks.

But I am not writing an essay on mythology. I wish to treat of one who is sometimes considered a myth, but who is a living and breathing personality like all of us. This wide-spread scepticism is one of the most fatal signs of the times. Because the late Mrs. Sairey Gamp supposed herself justified in cultivating a little domestic mythology in the shade of the famous Mrs. Harris, are we to take all the personages who have illustrated history as myths and unrealities? Shade of Herodotus, forbid it! There are some unbelieving and irreverent enough to doubt whether there is really such a person as Mrs. Partington; other some there are so hardened in their incredulity as to question the existence of the individual who smote Mr. William Patterson, and even of the immortal recipient of the blow himself. Therefore we ought not to think it strange that the lady whose name adorns the title of this article should not have escaped the profane spirit of the age.

Unfortunately for us, Mrs. Grundy is no myth, but a terrible reality. She is a widow. The late Mr. Grundy bore it with heroic patience as long as he could, and then, by a divine dispensation in which he gladly acquiesced, was relieved of the burden of life. If he be not happy now, the great doctrine of compensation is nought but a delusion and a sham. If endless happiness could only be attained through such a purgatory as poor Grundy's life, few of us, I fear, would yearn to be counted among the elect. Martyrs, and confessors, and saints of every degree have won their crowns of beatitude with comparative ease; if they had been subjected to a twenty years' novitiate with Mrs. Grundy and her tireless tongue, they would have found how much more terrible that was than the laborious life or cruel death by which they passed from earth, and fewer bulls of canonization would have received the Seal of the Fisherman. I have heard from those who were acquainted with that estimable and uncomplaining man that he married for love. His wife was a person of considerable attractions, of an inquiring turn of mind, and of uncommon energy of character. In her care of his household there was nothing of which he might with reason complain. She kept a sharp look-out over all those matters in which the prudent housewife delights to show her skill; her table was worthy to receive regal legs beneath its shining mahogany and spotless cloth, and I have even heard that her husband never had occasion to curse mentally over the lack of a shirt-button. Yet was Giles Grundy, Esquire, one of the most miserable of men. Of what avail was it to him that his wife could preserve quinces, if she could not preserve her own peace of mind? What did it matter how well she cured hams, if she always failed so miserably in curing her tongue? What profit was it that her accounts with her butcher and grocer were always correctly kept, if her accounts of all her neighbours constantly overran and kept her and her spouse in a perpetual state of moral bankruptcy? What difference did it make how well she took care of her own family, if they were to be kept in an unending turmoil by her solicitude concerning that of every body else?

If you had visited Mrs. Grundy, and remarked the brightness of the door-knocker, the stair-rods, the andirons, and every other part of her premises that was susceptible of polish, and the scrupulous cleanliness that held absolute sway around her, you would have sworn that she was gifted with the hundred arms of Briareus: if you had listened for fifteen minutes to her observations of men and things, you would have had a conviction amounting to absolute certainty that she possessed the eyes of Argus. Nobody ever doubted that she was a most religious person. She attended to all her religious duties with most edifying exactness. She was always in her seat at church, and could tell you, to a bonnet ribbon, the dress of every person who honoured the sacred edifice with his or her presence. If you would know who of the congregation were so lacking in fervour of spirit as to neglect to bow in the creed, or to commit the impropriety of nodding during the sermon, Mrs. Grundy could give you all the information you could wish. She carried out the divine precept to the letter: she watched as well as prayed. But her religion did not waste itself in mere devotional ecstasy; it took the most attractive form of religion—that of active benevolence. And her pious philanthropy was not of that exclusively telescopic character that looks out for the interests of the Cannibal Islands and the king thereof, and cannot understand that there is any spiritual destitution nearer home. She subscribed, it is true, to support the missionaries with their wives and numerous children, who were devoted to the godly work of converting the Chinese and the Juggernauts; but she did something also in the way of food and flannel for the victims of want in her own neighbourhood. She established a sewing circle in the parish where she lived, and never appeared happier than when busily engaged with her female companions in their weekly task and talk. I am afraid that there was other sowing done in that circle besides plain sewing. The seeds of domestic unhappiness and strife were carried from thence into all parts of the parish. Reputations as well as garments took their turn among those benevolent ladies, and were cut out, and fitted, and basted, and sewed up, and overcast. The sewing circle was Mrs. Grundy's confessional. Do not misapprehend me—I would not asperse her character by accusing her of what are known at the present day as "Romanizing tendencies"; for she lived long before the "scarlet fever" invaded the University of Oxford and carried off its victims by hundreds; and nobody ever suspected her of any desire to tell her own offences in the ear of any human being. No, she detested the Roman confessional in a becoming manner; but she upheld, by word and example, that most scriptural institution, the sewing circle—the Protestant confessional, where each one confesses, not her own sins, but the sins of her neighbours. Mrs. Grundy's success with her favourite institution encouraged others to emulate her example; and now sewing circles are common wherever the mother tongue of that benevolent lady is spoken. It must in justice be acknowledged that there are few institutions of human invention which have departed from the spirit of their original founder so little as the sewing circle.

Yet, in spite of all her virtues as a housekeeper, a philanthropist, and a Christian, Mrs. Grundy had her enemies. Some people were uncharitable enough to say that she was the cause of more trouble than all the rest of the female population of the town. They accused her of setting herself up as a censor, and giving judgments founded upon hearsay testimony rather than sound legal evidence. They even said that she made her visits among the poor a cloak for the gratification of her inquisitiveness; and, if it is ever pardonable to judge of the motives of a fellow-being, I think that, in consideration of their exasperation, they must be excused for making so unkind a charge, it seemed to be so well founded. Far be it from me to say that Mrs. Grundy ever wilfully misrepresented. She would have shrunk instinctively from a falsehood. But she delighted to draw inferences; and no fact or rumour ever came to her without being classified properly in her mental history of her neighbours, and being made to shed its full influence upon her next conversation. It is astonishing how much one pair of eyes and ears will do in the collection of information when a person is devoted to it in earnest. In her younger days, Mrs. Grundy had taken pleasure in watching her neighbours and keeping up a running commentary on their movements; as she advanced in life, it became her business. Her efforts in that way were rather in the style of an amateur up to the time of her marriage; afterwards she adopted a professional air. She placed herself at her favourite window, ornamenting its seat with her spools, and though she stitched away with commendable industry, nothing escaped her that came within range of her keen powers of observation.

If Mr. Brown called on Mrs. White over the way, Mrs. Grundy set it down as a remarkable occurrence: if he repeated his visit a week later, she would not declare it positively scandalous, but it was evident that her nicer sense of propriety was deeply wounded: if he passed by the door without calling, it was clear that there had been a falling out—that Mrs. White had seen the error of her ways, or that her husband had, and had given Brown a warning. If a stranger was seen exercising Jones's bell-pull on two consecutive days, this indefatigable woman allowed not her eyes to sleep nor her eyelids to slumber until she had satisfied herself concerning his name and purpose. If Mr. Thompson waited upon pretty Miss Jenkins home in a shower, and treated her kindly and politely, (and who could do otherwise with a young angel in blue and drab, who might charm a Kaffir or a Sepoy into urbanity?) Mrs. Grundy straightway instituted inquiries among all the neighbours as to whether it was true that they were engaged. After this fashion did Mrs. Grundy live. Her words have been known to blast a reputation which under the sunshine of prosperity and the storms of misfortune had sustained itself with equal grace and honour. It was useless to bring up proofs of a life of integrity against her sentence or her knowing smile. There was no appeal from her decision. Not that she was uncharitable,—only it did seem as if she were rather more willing to believe evil of her neighbours than good; and she appeared slow to trust in the repentance of any one who had ever fallen into sin, especially if the person were of her own sex. I am not complaining of this peculiarity; we must be circumspect and strict, and mercy is a quality too rare and divine to be wasted on every trivial occasion. But I cannot help thinking that, if the penitent found it as hard to gain the absolving smile of that Power to which alone we are answerable for our misdeeds as to reinstate himself in the good graces of Mrs. Grundy, how few of us could have any hope of the beatific vision!

Mrs. Grundy had great influence; she was respected and feared. People found that she would give her opinion ex cathedra, and that, however unfounded that opinion might be, there were those who would reëcho it until common repetition gave it the force of truth; so they tried to conciliate her by graduating their actions according to what they supposed would be her judgment. When this was seen, she began to be envied by some who had once hated her, and her idiosyncrasies were made the study of many of her sex who longed to share her empire over the thoughts and actions of their fellow-creatures. Thus, by a sort of multiplex metempsychosis, were Mrs. Grundy's virtues perpetuated, and she was endowed with a species of omnipresence. In this country Mrs. Grundy is a power. She is the absolute sovereign of America. Her reign there is none to dispute. Our national motto ought to be, instead of E pluribus unum, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" There is no class in our community over which she does not exercise more or less power. Our politicians, when they cease to regard their influence as a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, act, not from any fixed principles, but with a single eye to the good will of Mrs. Grundy. If a man is buying a house, it is ten chances to one that Mrs. Grundy's opinion concerning gentility of situation will carry the day against cosiness and real comfort. If your wife or daughter goes to buy a dress, Mrs. Grundy's taste will be consulted in preference to the durability of the fabric or the condition of your purse. Mrs. Grundy dictates to us how we shall furnish our houses, and prescribes to us our whole rule of life. Under her stern sway, multitudes are living beyond their means, and trying to avert the bankruptcy and unhappiness that inevitably await them. It is not merely in the management of temporal affairs that Mrs. Grundy makes her power felt. Her vigilance checks many a generous impulse, stands between the resolution to do justice and its execution, and is a fruitful source of hypocrisy. She presides over the pulpit; the power of wardens and vestrymen is swallowed up by her; and the minister who can dress up his weekly dish of moral commonplaces so as not to offend her discriminating taste deserves to retain his place, and merits the unanimous admiration of the whole sewing circle. She is to be found in courts of law, animating the opposing parties, and enjoying the contest; actions of slander are an agreeable recreation to her; petitions for divorce give her unmixed joy. Like the fury, Alecto, so finely described by Virgil, Mrs. Grundy can arm brothers to deadly strife against each other, and stir up the happiest homes with infernal hatred; to her belong a thousand woful arts—Sibi nomina mille, mille nocendi artes. Mrs. Grundy's philanthropy confines itself to no particular class; it is universal. Nothing that relates to human kind is alien to her. There is nothing earthly so high that she does not aspire to control it, nor any thing too contemptible for her not to wish to know all about it.

Mrs. Grundy is omnipresent. Go where you will, you cannot escape from her presence. She stands guard unceasingly over your front door and back windows. Her watchful eye follows you whene'er you take your walks abroad. Your name is never mentioned that she is not by, and seriously inclined to hear aught that may increase her baleful stock of knowledge. It is all the same to her whether you have lived uprightly or viciously; beneath her Gorgon glance all human actions are petrified alike. And if she does not succeed in sowing discord around your hearthstone, and in driving you to despair and self-murder, as she did poor Henry Herbert the other day, it will be because you are not cursed with his fiery sensitiveness, and not because she lacks the will to do it.

There is but one way in which the Grundian yoke can be thrown off. We must treat her as the English wit treated an insignificant person who had insulted him; we must "let her alone severely." We pay a certain kind of allegiance to her if we take notice of her for the purpose of running counter to her notions. We must ignore her altogether. It is true, this requires a great deal of moral courage, particularly in a country where every body knows every body else's business; but it is an easier task to acquire that courage than to submit patiently to Mrs. Grundy's dictation and interference. Who shall estimate the happiness of that millennial period when we shall cease to ask ourselves before our every action, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" and shall begin in earnest to live up to the golden rule that counsels us to mind our own business? When that day comes, what a world this will be! How will superficial morality and skin-deep propriety, envy and uncharitableness, be diminished! How will contentment, and mutual good will, and domestic peace be augmented! Think on these things, O beloved reader; mind your own business, and the day is not far distant when, for you at least, the iron sceptre of Dame Grundy shall be powerless, and the spell broken that held you in so humiliating a thraldom.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

Life is what we make it. The same scenes wear a very different appearance to an ingenuous youth "in the bright morning of his virtues, in the full spring blossom of his hopes," and to the disappointed wretch who gazes on them "with the eyes of sour misanthropy." The horse that was turned by his benevolent owner into a carpenter's shop, with a pair of green spectacles prefixed to his nose, and mistook the dry pine shavings for his legitimate fodder, was very much in the condition of a youth looking upon life and yielding to the natural enthusiasm of his unwarped spirit. Like the noble brute, however, the young man is undeceived as soon as he tries to sustain himself with the vanities which look so tempting and nutritious. He may, like a Wolsey, a Charles V., or a Napoleon, attain to the heights of power before the delusive glasses drop off; but even though the moment be delayed until he lies gasping in the clutch of that monarch to whom the most absolute of sovereigns and the most radical of republicans alike must yield allegiance, it is sure to come, and show him the ashes that lay hid beneath the fair, ripe-looking rind of the fruit he climbed so high to obtain. Life passes before us like a vast panorama, day by day and year by year unrolling and disclosing new scenes to charm us into self-forgetfulness. At one time, we breathe the bracing air of the mountains; at another, our eyes are gladdened by the sight of sunshiny meadows, or of fertile and far-reaching prairies; and then the towered city, with its grove of masts and its busy wharves, makes all mere natural beauty seem insignificant in comparison with the enterprise and ambition of man; until, at last, the canvas is rolled away, the music ceases, the lights are put out, and we are left to realize that all in which we delighted was but an illusion and a "fleeting show."

Nevertheless, in spite of the vanities that surround us,—in spite of the sublime world-sickness of Solomon and the Preacher, and the fierce satire of Juvenal, (who was as anxious to ascertain the precise weight of Hannibal as if that illustrious dux had been a prize-fighter,)—there is considerable reality in life. The existence of so much sham and make-believe implies the existence of the real and true. Sir Thomas Browne tells us that "in seventy or eighty years a man may have a deep gust of the world"; and it were indeed melancholy if any one with hair as gray as mine should look despairingly over the field of human existence and effort, and cry, "All is barren."

Life, as I have before said, is whatever we choose to make it. Its true philosophy is that divine art which enables us to transmute its every moment into the pure gold of heroic and changeless immortality. Without that philosophy, it is impossible for the world not to seem at times as it did to the desponding Danish prince, "a sterile promontory," and a "foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." Without it, life is like an elaborate piece of embroidery, looked at from the wrong side; we cannot but acknowledge the brilliancy of some of its threads, and the delicate texture of the work, but its lack of system, and of any appearance of utility, fatigues the mind that hungers after perfection, and tempts it to doubt the divine wisdom and goodness from which it originated. With it, however, we gaze with admiration and awe upon the front of the same marvellous work. Our sense is no longer puzzled by any straggling threads, or loose ends; the exquisite colours, the contrast of light and shade, and the perfect symmetry and harmony of the design, fill the heart of the beholder with wonder and delight, and draw him nearer to the source of those ineffable perfections which are but imperfectly symbolized in the marvels of the visible universe.

The philosophy which can do all this is sincerity. "I think sincerity is better than grace," says Mr. T. Carlyle; and the Scotch savage is right. All the amenities of life that spring from any other source than a true heart, are but gratuitous hypocrisy. The kind-hearted knight whom I have already quoted showed how highly he esteemed this virtue when he said, "Swim smoothly in the stream of nature, and live but one man." This double existence, that most of us support,—that is, what we really are, and what we wish to be considered,—is the source of many of our faults, and most of our vexation and wretchedness. He is the truly happy man who forgets that "appearances must be kept up," and remembers only that "each of us is as great as he appears in the sight of his Creator, and no greater." A great French philosopher has truly said, "How many controversies would be terminated, if the disputants were obliged to speak out exactly what they thought!" And surely he might have gone farther in the same line of thought; for how much heartburning, domestic unhappiness, dishonesty, and shameful poverty might be prevented, if my neighbour Jinkins and his wife were content to pass in the world for what they are, instead of assuming a princely style of living that only makes their want of true refinement more apparent, and if Johnson and his wife could be induced not to imitate the vulgar follies of the Jinkinses! Believe me, incredulous reader, there is more wisdom in old Sir Thomas's exhortation to "live but one man" than appears at first sight.

But to leave this great primary virtue, which policy teaches most men to practise, though they love it not,—there are two or three principles of action which I have found very useful in my career, and which form a part of my philosophy of life. The first is, never to anticipate troubles. Many years ago, I was travelling in a part of our common country not very thickly settled, and, coming to a place where two roads met, I applied, in my doubt as to which one I ought to take, to an old fellow (with a pair of shoulders like those of Hercules, and a face on which half a century of sunshine, and storm, and toddies had made an indelible record) who was repairing a rickety fence by the wayside. He scanned me with a look that seemed to take in not only my personal appearance, but the genealogy of my brave ancestor, who might have fallen in a duel if he had not learned how "to distinguish between the man and the act," and then directed me to turn to the left, as that road saved some three or four miles of the distance to the farm-house to which I was journeying. As it was spring-time, I manifested some anxiety to know whether the freshets, which had been having quite a run of business in some parts of the country, had done any damage to a bridge which I knew I must cross if I took the shorter road. He sneered at my forethought, and said he supposed that the bridge was all right, and that I had better "go ahead, and see." I was acting upon his advice, when a shout from his hoarse, nasal voice caused me to look back. "I say, young man," he bawled out to me, "never cross a bridge till you come to it!" There was wisdom in the old man's rough-spoken sentence—"solid chunks of wisdom," as Captain Ed'ard Cuttle would fain express it—and it sank deep into my memory. There are very few of us who have not a strong propensity to diminish our present strength by entertaining fears of future weakness. If we could content ourselves to "act in the living present,"—if we could keep these telescopic evils out of sight, and use all our energies in grappling with the difficulties that actually beset our path,—how much more we should achieve, and how greatly would our sum of happiness be increased!

Another most salutary principle in my philosophy is, never to allow myself to be frightened until I have examined and fairly established the necessity of such a humiliation. I adopted this principle in my childhood, being led to it in the following manner: I was visiting my grandfather, who lived in a fine old mansion-house in the country, with high wainscotings, capacious fireplaces, heavy beams in the ceilings, and wide-arching elms overshadowing the snug porch where two or three generations had made love. Sixty years and more have elapsed since that happy time, yet it seems fresher in my memory than the events of only quarter of a century back. My grandfather was a lover of books, and possessed a good deal of general information. He thought it as advisable to keep up with the history of his own times as to be skilled in that of empires long since passed away. It is not to be wondered at that he should have treasured every newspaper—especially every foreign journal—that he could lay his hands upon. It was under his auspices that I first read the dreadful story of the Reign of Terror, and acquired my anti-revolutionary principles.

I shall never forget the bright autumnal afternoon when the mail coach from Boston brought a package of books and papers to my grandfather. It was the last friendly favour, in fact the last communication, that he ever received from his old Tory friend, Mr. Barmesyde, whom I mentioned with respect in a former essay; for that genial old gentleman died in London not long after. The parcel had made a quick transit for those days, Mr. Barmesyde's letter being dated only forty-six days before it was opened by my grandsire, and we enjoyed the strong fragrance of its uncut contents together. The old gentleman seized upon a copy of Burke's splendid Essay on the French Revolution, which the package contained, and left me to revel in the newspapers, which were full of the dreadful details of that bloody Saturnalia. I got leave from my grandfather (who was so deep in Burke that he answered me at random) to sit up an hour later than usual. Terrible as all the things of which I read seemed to my young mind, there was a fascination about the details of that sanguinary orgie that completely enchanted me. My imagination was full of horrible shapes when I was obliged to leave the warm, cheerful parlour, and Robespierre, Danton, and Marat were the infernal chamberlains that attended me as I went up the broad, creaking staircase unwillingly to bed. A fresh north-west breeze was blowing outside, and the sere woodbines and honeysuckles that filled the house with fragrance, and gave it such a rural look in summer, startled me with their struggles to escape from bondage. Had it been spring, my young imagination was so excited that I should have feared that they might imitate the insurgents of whom I had been reading and begin to shoot! In the night my troubled slumbers were disturbed by a noise that seemed to me louder than the discharge of a heavy cannon. I sat up in the high, old-fashioned bed, and glared around the room, which was somewhat lighted by the beams of the setting moon. There was no mistake about my personal identity—I was neither royalist nor jacobin; there was no doubt that I was in the best "spare chamber" of my grandfather's house, and not in the Bastile, and that the dark-looking thing in the corner was a solid mahogany chest of drawers, and not a guillotine; but all these things only served to increase my terror when I noticed a dark form standing near the foot of the bed and staring at me with pale, fiery eyes. I rubbed my own eyes hard, and pinched myself severely, to make sure that I was awake. The room was as still as the great chamber in the pyramid of Cheops. I could hear the old clock tick at the foot of the stairs as plainly as if I had been shut up in its capacious case. In the midst of my perturbation it made every fibre of my frame tremble by striking one with a solemn clangour that I thought must have waked every sleeper in the house. The stillness that followed was deeper and more terrifying than before. I heard distinctly the breathing of the monster at the foot of the bed. I tried to whistle at the immovable shape, but I had lost the power to pucker. At last, I formed a desperate resolution. I knew that, if the being whose big, fierce eyes filled me with terror were a genuine supernatural fiend, it was all over with me, and I might as well give up at once. But, if perchance a human form were hid beneath that dreadful disguise, there was some room for hope of ultimate escape. To settle this point, therefore, became necessary to my peace of mind, and I determined that it should be done. Bending up "each corporal agent to the terrible feat," I slid quietly out of bed. The monster was as motionless as before, but I noticed that his head was covered with a white cloth, which made his head seem ghastlier than ever. Setting my teeth firmly together, and clinching my little fists to persuade myself that I was not afraid, I made the last, decisive effort. I walked across the room, and stood face to face with that formidable shape. My grandfather's best coat hung there against the wall, its velvet collar protected from the dust by a white cloth, and the two gilt buttons on its back glittering in the moonlight. This was the tremendous presence that had appalled me. The weakness in the knees, the chattering of my teeth, and the profuse perspiration which followed my recognition of that harmless garment, bore witness to the severity of my fright. Before I crawled back into the warm bed, I resolved never in future to yield to fear, until I had ascertained that there was no escape from it; and I have had many occasions since to act upon that principle.

Speaking of fear, a friend of mine has a favourite maxim, "Always do what you are afraid to do;" to which (in a limited sense, so far as it relates to bodily fear) I subscribed even in my boyhood. I was returning one evening to my grandfather's house, during one of my vacation visits, and yielded to the base sentiment of timidity so far as to choose the long way thither by the open road, rather than to take the short cut, through the graveyard and a little piece of woodland, which was the ordinary path in the daytime. I pursued my way, thinking of what I had done, until I got within sight of the old mansion and its guardian elms, when shame for my own cowardice compelled me to retrace my steps a quarter of a mile or more, and take the pathway I had so foolishly dreaded. The victory then achieved has lasted to this hour. Dead people and their habitations have not affrighted me since; indeed, some grave men whom I have met have excited my mirth rather than my fears.

But overcome our fears and our propensity to borrow trouble, as we may,—in spite of all our philosophy, life is a severe task. I have heard of a worthy Connecticut parson of the old school, who enlarged upon the goodness of that Providence which dealt out time to a man, divided into minutes, and hours, and days, and months, and years, instead of giving it to him, as it were, in a lump, or in so large a quantity that he could not conveniently use it! Laugh as much as you please, gentle reader, at the seeming absurdity of the venerable divine, but do not neglect the great truth which inspired his thought. Do not forget what a great mercy it is that we are obliged to live but one day at a time. Do not overlook the loving kindness which softens the memory of past sorrows, and conceals from us those which are to come. I have no respect for that newest heresy of our age, which pretends to read the secrets of the unseen world, nor any sympathy with those morbid minds that yearn to tear away the veil which infinite wisdom and mercy hangs between us and the future. With all our boasted learning we know little enough; but that little is far too much for our happiness. How many of our trials and afflictions could we have borne, if we had been able to foresee their full extent and to anticipate their combined poignancy? Truly we might say with Shakespeare,—

"O, if this were seen,

The happiest youth—viewing his progress through,

What perils past, what crosses to ensue—

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die."

He only is the true philosopher who uses life as the usurer does his gold, and employs each shining hour so as to insure an ever-increasing rate of interest. He does not bury his gift, nor waste it in frivolity. Like the old Doge of Venice, he grows old but does not wear out: Senescit, non segnescit. And he truly lives twice, as an old classical poet expresses it, inasmuch as he renews his enjoyment of the past in the recollection of his good actions and of pleasures "such as leave no sting behind."

BEHIND THE SCENES

There is no pleasure so satisfactory as that which an old man feels in recalling the happiness of his youthful days. All the woes, and anxieties, and heart-burnings that disturbed him then have passed away, and left only sunshine in his memory. And this retrospective enjoyment increases with every repeated recital, until the scenes of his past history assume a magnificence of proportion that bewilders the narrator himself, and sets the principles of optics entirely at defiance. It is with old men looking back on their younger days very much as it is with people who have travelled in Italy. How do the latter glow with enthusiasm at the mere mention of the "land of the melting lyre and conquering spear"! How do their eyes glisten as they tell of the time when they mused among the broken columns of the Forum, or breathed the air of ancient consecration under the majestic vaults of the old basilicas, or walked along the shores of the world's most beautiful bay, and watched the black form of Vesuvius striving in vain to tarnish with its foul breath the blue canopy above it! They have forgotten their squabbles with the vetturini, the draughtless chimneys in their lodgings, and the dirty staircase that conducted to them; the fleas, with all the other disagreeable accompaniments of Italian life, have fled into oblivion; and Italy lives in their memories only as a land of gorgeous sunsets, and of a history that dwarfs all other human annals. And so it is with an old man looking back upon his youth: he forgets how he cried over his arithmetic lessons; how unfilial his feelings were when his governor refused him permission to set up a theatre in the cellar; how sheepishly he slunk through all the back alleys on the day when he first mounted a tail-coat and a hat; how unhappy he was when he saw his heart's idol, Mary Smith, walking home from school with his implacable foe, Brown; how his head used to ache after those noctes cœnæque deûm with his club at the old Exchange Coffee House; and what a void was created in his heart when his crony of cronies was ordered off by a commission from the war department. There is no room in his crowded memory for such things as these. Sitting by his fireside, as I do now, he recalls his youth only as a season of bats and balls, and marbles, of sleds, and skates, and bright buttons, and clean ruffled collars, of Christmas cornucopias of hosiery, and no end of Artillery Elections and Fourths of July, with coppers enough to secure the potentiality of obtaining egg-pop to an alarming extent.

How he fires up if you mention the theatre to him! He will allow that Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Warren are most excellent in their way; but bless your simple heart, what is the stage now compared to what it was in the first part of this century? And he is about right. It is useless for us, who remember the old Federal Street playhouse, and the triumphs of Cooke and the great Kean, to try to go to the theatre now. Our new theatre is more stately and splendid than Old Drury was, but our players do not reach my youthful standard. I miss those old familiar faces and voices that delighted me in times long past, and the stage has lost most of its charms. I can find my best theatrical entertainment here at home. I call up from among the shadows that the flickering firelight casts upon the wall, the tall, knightly figure of Duff, the brisk, busy, scolding Mrs. Barnes, the sedate and judicious Dickson, the grotesque Finn, the stately and elegant Mrs. Powell, looking like the personification of tragedy, and bluff old Kilner, fat and pleasant to the sight, and with that hearty laugh that made all who heard it love him.

What is the excitement occasioned by the Ellsler or Miss Lind compared to that which attended the advent of the elder Kean? What crowds used to beset the box office in the ten-footer next to the theatre, from the earliest dawn until the opening! I often think, when I meet some of our gravest and grayest citizens in their daily walks, what a figure they cut now compared with the days when they were fighting their way into the box office of the old theatre! Talk of enthusiasm! What are all our political campaigns and public commemorations compared with that evening during the last war with Great Britain, when Commodore Bainbridge came into Boston Bay after his victory over the Java! That admirable actor, the late Mr. Cooper, was playing Macbeth, and interrupted his performance to announce the victory.

But, pardon me, I did not sit down here to lose myself in the reminiscences of half a century ago. Let me try to govern this truant pen, and keep it more closely to my chosen theme. Do you remember, beloved reader, your second visit to the theatre? If you do, cherish it; let it not depart from you, for in the days that are in store for you, when age and infirmity shall stand guard over you, and you are obliged to find all your pleasures by your fireside, the memory of your second play will be very precious to you. You will find, on looking back to it through a vista of sixty years or more, that all the pleasure you then enjoyed was placed on the credit side of your account, and has been increasing by a sort of moral compound interest during the long years that you have devoted to delights less innocent, perhaps, and certainly less satisfactory, or to the pursuit of objects far more fleeting and unreal than those which then fascinated your youthful mind. I say your "second play," for the first dramatic performance that the child witnesses is too astonishing to afford him its full measure of gratification. It is only after he has told his playmates all about it, and imitated the wonderful hero who rescued the beautiful lady in white satin, and dreamed of the splendour of the last great scene, when all the persons of the drama stood in a semicircle, and the king, with a crown of solid gold upon his head, addressed to the magnanimous hero the thrilling words,—

"It is enough: the princess is thine own!"—

and all the characters struck impressive attitudes, and the curtain descended upon a tableau lighted up by coloured fires of ineffable brilliancy,—it is only after all these things have sunk deep into the young mind, and he has resolved to write a play himself, and never to rest satisfied until he can bring down the house with the best of the actors he has seen, that he fully appreciates the entertainment which has been vouchsafed to him.

What a charm invests the place where we made our first acquaintance with the drama! It becomes an enchanted spot for us, and I doubt if the greatest possible familiarity in after life can ever breed contempt for it in our hearts. For my own part, I regarded the destruction of the old theatre in Federal Street, and the erection of warehouses on its hallowed site, as a positive sacrilege. And I cannot pass that spot, even at this late day, without mentally recurring to the joys I once tasted there. Perhaps some who read this may cherish similar sentiments about the old Tremont Theatre, a place for which I had as great a fondness as one can have for a theatre in which he did not see his first play. The very mention of it calls up its beautiful interior in my mind's eye,—its graceful proscenium, its chandeliers around the front of the boxes, its comfortable pit, where I enjoyed so much good acting, and all the host of worthies who graced that spacious stage. Mr. Gilbert was not so fat in those days as he is now, nor Mr. Barry so gray. What a picturesque hero was old Brough in the time when the Woods were in their golden prime, and the appearance of the Count Rodolpho on the distant bridge was the signal for a tempest of applause! Who can forget how Mr. Ostinelli's bald head used to shine, as he presided over that excellent orchestra, or how funny old Gear's serious face looked, as he peered at the house through those heavy, silver-bowed spectacles? Perhaps for some of my younger readers the stage of the Museum possesses similar charms, and they will find themselves, years hence, looking back to the happy times when Mr. Angier received their glittering quarters, and they hastened up stairs, to forget the wanderings of Æneas and the perplexities of arithmetic in the inimitable fun of that prince-regent among comedians, Mr. William Warren.

But wherever we may have commenced our dramatic experience, and whatever that experience may have been, we have all, I am sure, felt the influence of that mysterious charm which hangs over the stage. We have all felt that keen curiosity to penetrate to the source of so much enjoyment. Who has not had a desire to enter that mysterious door which conducts the "sons of harmony" from the orchestra to the unknown depths below the stage? It looks dark and forbidding, but we feel instinctively that it is not so, when we see our venerated uncle Tom Comer carrying his honest and sunshiny face through it so often. That green curtain, which is the only veil between us and a world of heroes and demigods,—how enviously do we look at its dusty folds! With what curiosity do we inspect the shoes of varied make and colour that figure in the little space between it and the stage! How do we long to follow the hero who has strutted his hour upon the stage into the invisible recesses of P. S. and O. P., and to know what takes the place of the full audience and the glittering row of footlights in his eyes when he makes his exit at the "upper entrance, left," or through the "door in flat" which always moves so noiselessly on its hinges! I think that the performance of the "Forty Thieves" awakened this curiosity in my mind more than almost any other play. I longed to inspect more closely those noble steeds that came with such a jerky gait over the distant mountains, and to know what produced the fearful noise that attended the opening of the robbers' cave. I believed in the untold wealth that was said to be heaped up in those subterranean depths, but still I wished to look at the "cavern goblet," and see how it compared with those that adorned the cases of my excellent friends, Messrs. Davis and Brown. I can never forget the thrill that shot through me when Morgiana lifted the cover of the oil jar, and the terrible question, "Is it time?" issued from it, nor my admiration for the fearlessness of that self-possessed maiden when she answered with those eloquent and memorable words, "Not yet, but presently." I believed that the compound which Morgiana administered so freely to the concealed banditti was just as certain death to every mother's son of them as M. Fousel's Pabulum Vitæ is renewed life to the consumptives of the present day; and, years after I had supposed my recollections of the "Forty Thieves" to have become very misty and shapeless, I found myself startled in an oriental city by coming upon several oil jars of the orthodox model, and I astonished the malignant and turbaned Turk who owned them, and amused the companion of my walks about Smyrna, by lifting the lid of one of them, and quoting the words of Morgiana. My superstitions concerning that pleasant old melodrama of course passed away when I became familiar with the theatre by daylight, and was accustomed to exchange the compliments of the morning with the estimable gentleman who played Hassarac; but the illusion of its first performance has never been entirely blotted from my mind.

Some years ago it was my privilege to visit a place which is classical to every lover of the drama and its literature. Drury Lane Theatre, now that its ancient rival, Covent Garden, has passed away, and been replaced by a house exclusively devoted to the lyric muse, is the only theatre of London which is associated in every mind with that host of geniuses who have illustrated dramatic art from the times of Garrick to our own. That gifted and versatile actor, Mr. Davenport, who stands as high in the favour of the English as of the American public, conducted me through that immense establishment. We entered the door, which I had often looked at with curiosity as I passed through the long colonnade of the theatre, encountering several of those clean-shaven personages in clothes that would be much refreshed if they were allowed to take a nap, and, after traversing two or three dark corridors, found ourselves upon the stage. The scene of so many triumphs as have there been achieved is not without its attractions, even though it may look differently en déshabille from what it does in the glitter of gaslight. The stage which has been trod by the Kembles, the Keans, Siddons, Macready, Young, Palmer Dowton, Elliston, Munden, Liston, and Farren, is by no means an ordinary combination of planks. We know, for Campbell has told us, that

"——by the mighty actor brought,

Illusion's perfect triumphs come;

Verse ceases to be airy thought,

And sculpture to be dumb."

Yet what a shadowy, intangible thing the reputation of a great actor would seem to be! We simply know of him that in certain characters his genius held the crowded theatre in willing thraldom, and made the hearts of hundreds of spectators throb like that of one man. Those who felt his wondrous power have passed away like himself; and all that remains of him who once filled so large a space in the public eye is an ill-written biography or a few hastily penned sentences in an encyclopædia.

I was too full of wonder at the extent of that vast stage, however, to think much of its ancient associations. Those lumbering stacks of scenery that filled a large building at the rear of the stage, and ran over into every available corner, told the story of the scenic efforts of Old Drury during nearly half a century. How many dramas, produced "without the slightest regard to expense," and "on a scale of unparalleled splendour," must have contributed to the building up of those mighty piles! The labyrinthine passages, the rough brick walls, darkened by time and the un-Penelope-like spiders of Drury Lane, were in striking contrast to the stage of that theatre as it appears from the auditorium. The green-room had been placed in mourning for the "goodlie companie" that once filled it, by the all-pervading, omnipresent smoke of London. Up stairs the sight was still more wonderful. The space above the stage was crowded full of draperies, and borders, and dusty ropes, and wheels, and pulleys. Davenport enjoyed my amazement, and led me through a darksome, foot-wide passage above the stage, through that wilderness of cordage to the machinists' gallery. Take all the rope-walks that you have ever visited, dear reader, and add to them the running gear of several first-class ships, and you may obtain something of an idea of the sight that then met my view. I have often heard an impatient audience hiss at some trifling delay in the shifting of a scene. If they could see the complicated machinery which must be set in motion to produce the effects they desire, their impatience would be changed to wonder at the skill and care which are so constantly exerted and make so few mistakes. A glance into two or three of the dressing-rooms, and a hasty visit to the dark maze of machinery beneath the stage for working the trapdoors, completed my survey of Old Drury, and I left its ancient walls with an increased respect for them, and a feeling of self-gratulation that I was neither an actor nor a manager.

Not long after the above visit, I availed myself of an opportunity to make a similar inspection of the Théâtre Français, in the Palais Royal at Paris. The old establishment is not so extensive as that of Drury Lane, but its main features are the same. There was an air of government patronage about it which was apparent in its every department. The stage entrance was through a long and well-lighted corridor that might have led to a banking-house. Its green-room was a luxurious saloon, with a floor of tessellated walnut and oak, waxed and polished so highly that you could see your figure in it, and could with difficulty avoid becoming a lay figure upon it. Its frescoed ceiling and gilded cornices, its immense mirrors, and its walls covered with the portraits of several generations of players, whose genius has made the very name of that theatre venerable throughout the civilized world, were very different from most of the green-rooms that I had seen. In the ancient colleges in Italy the walls of the classrooms are hung with portraits of the distinguished scholars, illustrious prelates, and sometimes of the canonized saints, who once studied under their time-honoured roofs. In the same spirit, the green-room of the Théâtre Français is adorned with busts and pictures; and the chairs that once were occupied by a Talma, a Mars, and a Rachel are held in honour in the place where their genius received its full development. The dressing-rooms of the brilliant company which sustains the high reputation of that house are in perfect keeping with its green-room. Each of the leading actors and actresses has a double room, furnished in a style of comfortable elegance. In the wardrobe and property rooms, the imperial patronage is visible in the richness of the stage furniture and the profusion of dresses made of the costliest silks and velvets. The stage, however, is very much like that of any other theatre. There were the same obscure passages, the same stupendous collection of intricate machinery, and the same mysterious odour, as of gas and musty scenery, pervaded the whole. I was permitted to view all its arcana, from the wheels that revolve in dusty silence eighty or ninety feet above the stage to the ponderous balance weights that dwell in the darkness of the second and third stories below it; and enjoyed it so keenly that I regretted to be told that I had seen all, and to find myself once more in the dazzling sunshine of the Rue de Richelieu.

We are accustomed to speak of the theatre as a repository of shams and unrealities, and to contrast it with the actualities of every-day life. I hope that you will excuse me, gentle reader, for venturing to deny the justice of all such figures of speech. They are as false as that common use of the expressions "sunrise" and "sunset," when we know that the sun does not really rise or set at all. No, it is the theatre that is the reality, and the life we see on every side the sham. The theatre is all that it pretends to be—a scenic illusion; and if we compare it to the world around us, with its loving couples, my-dearing each other before folks, and exchanging angry words over the solitary tea-tray,—its politicians, seeking nominations and votes, and then reluctantly giving up their private interests and comforts for the "public good," (as the spoils of office are facetiously termed,)—its so-called ministers of the gospel, who speak of an offer of increased salary as "an opportunity to labour in a wider sphere of usefulness,"—and its funerals, where there is such an imposing show of black crape and bombazine, but where the genuine mourning commences only after the reading of the will of the deceased,—I am sure that we shall be justified in concluding that the fictitious affair which we try to dignify with the title of "real life" is a far less respectable illusion than the mimic scene that captivates us in the hours of relaxation.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CANT

Be not dismayed, kind reader,—I have no intention of impressing you for a tiresome cruise in the high and dangerous latitudes of German metaphysics; nor do I wish to set myself up as a critic of pure reason. In spite of Noah Webster and his inquisitorial publishers, I still cherish a partiality for correct orthography; and I would not be understood as referring in the caption of this article to the celebrated founder of the transcendental school of philosophy. I cannot but respect Emmanuel Kant as a remarkable intellectual man; and I hope to be pardoned for saying that his surname might properly be anglicized, by spelling it with a C instead of a K. Neither did I allude to the useful art of saying "No" opportunely, which an excellent friend of mine (whose numerous virtues are neutralized by his propensity to fabricate puns in season and out of season) insists upon denominating the "philosophy of can't." That faculty which is, in more senses than one, a negative virtue, is unhappily a much harder thing to find than the vice of which I have a few words to say.

I do not mean cant in the worse sense of the word, as exemplified in the characters of Pecksniff, Stiggins, Chadband, and Aminadab Sleek, nor even in those of that large school of worshippers of propriety and bond-servants of popular opinion, who reverse the crowning glory of the character of Porcius Cato, and prefer to seem, rather than to be, good. The cant I allude to is the technical phraseology of the various virtues, which some people appear to think is the same thing as virtue itself. They do not remember that a greasy bank-note is valueless save as the representative of a given quantity of bullion, and that pious and virtuous language is of no account except its full value be found in the pure gold of virtue stored away in the treasure-chambers of the heart. For such cant as this I have less respect than for downright hypocrisy; for there is something positive about the character of your genuine villain, which certainly does not repel me so strongly as the milk-and-watery characteristics of that numerous class of every-day people who (not being good enough to serve as examples, nor bad enough to be held up as warnings) are of no use whatever in their day and generation. What possible solace can he who deals in the set phrases of consolation administer to the afflicted spirit in that hour, when (even among the closest friends) "speech is silver, but silence is golden"?

There is scarcely a subject upon which men converse, in which this species of cant does not play its part; but there are some matters in which it makes itself so conspicuous that I cannot resist the temptation to pay particular attention to them. And, as the subject is rather an extensive one, I will parley no longer in its vestibule, but pull off my overcoat, and make myself at home in its front parlour. I wish to make a few observations on cant as it manifests itself in regard to morality, philanthropy, religion, liberty, and progress. My notions will excite the sneers of some of my younger readers, I doubt not, and perchance of some older ones; but, while I claim the privilege of age in speaking out my mind, I shall try to avoid the testiness which senility too often manifests towards those who do not respect its opinions. Convinced that mine are true, I can afford to emulate "Messire de Mauprat" in his patience, and wait to see my fellow-men pass their fortieth birthday, and, leaving their folly and enthusiasm behind them, come round to my position.

The cant of Morality is so common that it is mistaken by many excellent people for morality itself. To leave unnoticed the people who consider it very iniquitous to go to the theatre, but perfectly allowable to laugh at Mr. Warren on the stage of the Museum; who enjoy backgammon, but shrink from whist with holy horror; and who hold up their hands and cry out against the innocent Sunday recreations of continental Europe, yet think themselves justified in reading their Sunday newspapers and the popular magazines, or talking of the style of the new bonnets which made their first appearance at the morning service,—to say nothing about the moralists of this school, I am afraid that the prevailing notions on matters of greater import than mere amusement are not such as would stand a very severe moral test. When I see so much circumspection with regard to external propriety, joined with such an evident want of principle, it seems to me as if the Ten Commandments of the Old Law had been superseded by an eleventh: Thou shalt not be found out. When I see people of education in a city like Boston, dignifying lust under the title of a spiritual affinity, and characterizing divorce as obedience to the highest natural law,—and still more, when I see how little surprise the enunciation of such doctrines occasions,—I no longer wonder at infidelity, for I am myself tempted to ask whether there is any such thing as abstract right or abstract wrong, and to question whether morality may not be an antiquated institution, which humanity is now sufficiently advanced to dispense with. It is a blessed thing that we have not the power to read one another's hearts. To pass by the unhappiness it would cause us, what changes it would occasion in our moral classifications! How many men, clad in picturesque and variegated costumes, are labouring in the public workshops of Charlestown, or Sing Sing, or Pentonville, who, if the heart were seen, would be found worthier by far than some of those ornaments of society who are always at the head of their pews, and whose names are found alike on false invoices and subscription lists for evangelizing some undiscovered continent! What a different balance would be struck between so-called respectability in its costly silks and its comparative immunity from actual temptation, and needy wantonness displaying its rouge and Attleborough jewelry all the more boldly because it feels that the ban of society is upon it!

And this brings me to the cant of Philanthropy. That excellent word has been so shamefully abused of late years, by being applied to the empirical schemes of adventurers and social disorganizers, that you cannot now say a much worse thing of a man than that he is a "philanthropist." That term ought to designate one of the noblest representatives of the unselfish side of human nature; but to my mind, it describes a sallow, long-haired, whining fellow, who has taken up with the profession of loving all men in general, that he may better enjoy the satisfaction of hating all men in particular, and may the more effectually prey upon his immediate neighbours; a monomaniac, yet with sufficient "method in his madness" to make it pay a handsome profit; a knave whose telescopic vision magnifies the spiritual destitution of Tching-tou, and can see nothing wanting to complete our Christian civilization but a willingness to contribute to the "great and good work," and whose commissions for disbursing the funds are frightfully disproportionate to the amount collected and the work done. But there is a great deal of the cant of philanthropy passing current even among those who have no respect for the professional philanthropist. With all possible regard for the spirit of the age, I do not believe that modern philanthropy can ever be made to take the place of old-fashioned Christian charity. Far be it from me to underrate the benevolent efforts which are made in this community; but I cannot help seeing that while thousands are spent in alms, we lack that blessed spirit of charity which imparted such a charm to the benevolent institutions of the middle ages. They seemed to labour among the poor on the principle which Sir Thomas Browne laid down for his charities—"I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my God; I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it, but His that enjoined it." We irreverent moderns have tried to improve upon this, and the result is seen in legal enactments against mendicancy, in palatial prisons for criminals, and in poorhouses where the needy are obliged to associate with the vicious and depraved. The "dark ages" (as the times which witnessed the foundation of the greatest universities, hospitals, and asylums the world ever saw, are sometimes called) were not dark enough for that.

Do what we may to remedy this defect in our solicitude for the suffering classes, the legal view of the matter will still predominate. We may imitate the kindliness of the ancient times, but we cannot disguise the fact that pauperism is regarded not only as a great social evil, but as an offence against our laws. While this is so, we shall labour in vain to catch the tone of the days when poverty was ennobled by the virtues of the apostolic Francis of Assisi and the heroic souls that relinquished wealth and power to share his humble lot. The voice of our philanthropy may be the voice of Jacob, but the hand will be the hand of Esau. That true gentleman and kind-hearted knight whom I have already quoted, had no patience with this contempt for poverty which was just growing into sight in his time, but is now so common; and he administered to it a rebuke which has lost none of its force by the lapse of more than two hundred years: "Statists that labour to contrive a commonwealth without poverty, take away the object of charity, not understanding only the commonwealth of a Christian, but forgetting the prophecy of Christ."

In making any allusion to religious cant, I am sensible that I tread on very dangerous ground. Still, in an essay on such a subject as the present, revivalism ought not to go unnoticed. God forbid that a man at my time of life should pen a light word against any thing that may draw men from their worldliness to a more intimate union with their Creator. But the revival extravagances which last year made the profane laugh and the devout grieve, merit the deprecation of every person who does not wish to see religion itself brought into contempt. I do not believe in the application of the high-pressure system to the spiritual life. Some persons seem to regard a religious excitement as an evidence of a healthy spiritual state. As well might they consider a fever induced by previous irregularity to be a proof of returning bodily health. As the physician of the body would endeavour to restore the patient to his normal state, so too the true physician of the soul would labour to banish the religious fever from the mind of his patient, and to plant therein the sure principles of spiritual health—a clearly-defined dogmatic belief, and a deep conviction of the sinfulness of sin. We all need to be from time to time reminded that true religion is not a mere effervescence, not a vain blaze, but a reality which reflects something of the unchangeable glory of its divine Author. It is not a volcano, treasuring within its bosom a fierce, destructive element, sullenly smouldering and smoking for years, and making intermittent exhibitions of a power as terrible as it is sublime. No; it is rather a majestic and deep-flowing river, taking its rise amid lofty mountains whose snowy crags and peaks are pure from the defilement of our lower world, fed from heaven, bearing in its broad current beauty, and fertility, and refreshment, to regions which would else be sterile and joyless, and emptying at last into a shoreless and untroubled sea, whose bright surface mirrors eternally the splendour of the skies.

That the cant of Liberty should be popular with the American tongue is not, perhaps, to be wondered at. A young nation,—which has achieved its own independence in a contest with one of the most powerful governments in the world,—which has grown in territory, population, and wealth beyond all historical precedent,—and which has a new country for its field of action, so that its progress is unimpeded by the relics of ancient civilization or the ruins of dead empires,—could not reasonably be expected to resist all temptations to self-glorification. The American eagle is no mere barnyard fowl—content with a secure roost and what may be picked up within sight of the same. He is the most insatiable of birds. His fierce eye and bending beak look covetous, and his whole aspect is one of angry anxiety lest his prey should be snatched from him, or his dominion should be called in question. In this regard he differs greatly from his French relative, who squats with such a conscious air of superiority on the tops of the regimental standard-poles of the imperial army, and surveys the forest of bayonets in which he makes his nest as if he felt that his power was undisputed. And we Americans are not less uneasy and wild than the bird we have chosen for our national emblem, and appear to think that the essential part of liberty consists in keeping up an endless talk about it. Our cant of freedom needs to be reminded of Tom Hood's observation concerning religious cant:—

"'Tis not so plain as the old hill of Howth,

A man has got his bellyful of meat,

Because he talks with victuals in his mouth!"

With all our howling about liberty, we Americans are abject slaves to a theory of government which we feel bound to defend under all circumstances, and to propagate even in countries which are entirely unfitted for it. This constitutional theory is a fine thing to talk about; few topics afford so wide a range to the imaginative powers of a young orator. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that the subject should be so often forced upon us, and that so many startling contrasts should be drawn between our governmental experiment and the thousand-years-old monarchies of Europe. These comparisons (which some people who make republicanism such an article of faith, that they must find it hard to repeat the clause of the Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come,"—are so fond of drawing) remind me of the question that was discussed in the Milesian debating society—"Which was the greatest man, St. Patrick or the Fourth of July?" and the conclusions drawn from them are very like the result of that momentous debate, which was decided in the affirmative.

For my own part, I have got past the age when eloquence and poetry are of much account in matters of such vital importance as government. When I buy a pair of overshoes, my first object is to get something that is water-proof. So, too, in the matter of government, I only wish to know whether the purposes for which government is instituted—the protection of the life, property, and personal liberty of its subjects—are answered; and, if they are, I am ready to swear allegiance to it, not caring a splinter of a ballot-box whether it be founded on hereditary succession or a roll of parchment, or whether its executive authority be vested in a president, a king, or an emperor. That is the best government which is best administered; it makes little difference what you call it, or on what theory it is built. I love my country dearly, and yield to no one in my loyalty to her government and laws; but (pardon me for being so matter-of-fact, and seemingly unpatriotic) I would willingly part with some of this boasted liberty of ours, to secure a little more wisdom in making laws, and a good deal more strength in executing them. I count the privilege of talking politics and of choosing between the various political adventurers who aspire to be my rulers, as a very insignificant affair compared with a sense of security against popular violence and the dishonesty of dealers in the necessaries of life. And I cannot help thinking, that for the inhabitants of a country where there is little reverence for authority or willing obedience to law, where the better class of the citizens refuse to take any part in politics, and where the legislative power is enthroned, not in the Senate, nor in the House of Representatives, but in the Lobby,—for the inhabitants of such a country to boast of their liberty aloud, is the most absurd of all the cants in this canting world.

Little as I respect the cant of liberty, I care even less for the cant of Progress. I never had much patience with this worship of the natural sciences, which is rapidly getting to be almost the only religion among certain cultivated people in this quarter. I remember in my boyhood startling by my scientific apathy a precocious companion who used to bother his brains about the solar system, and one useless ology and another, in the precious hours which ought to have been devoted to Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. He had been labouring hard to explain to me the law of gravitation, and concluded with the bold statement that, were it not for that law, an apple, with which he had been illustrating his theory, instead of falling to the earth, might roll off the unprotected side of this sublunary sphere into the abyss of space,—or something to that effect. He could not conceal his contempt for my want of scientific ardour, when I asked him whether he should really care if it did roll off, so long as there was a plenty left! I did wrong to joke him, for he was a good fellow, in spite of his weakness. It is many years since he figured himself out of this unsatisfactory world, into a state of existence where vision is clearer even than mathematical demonstration, and where x does not "equal the unknown quantity."

Pardon this digression: in complaining of the vaunted progress of this rapid age, I am making little progress myself. It appears to me that the people who laud this age so highly either do not know what true progress is, or suffer themselves to mistake the means for the end. Your cotton mills, and steam engines, and clipper ships, and electric telegraphs, do not constitute progress; they are means by which it may be attained. If gunpowder, immediately after its invention, had been devoted to the indiscriminate destruction of mankind, could such an invention have justly been termed progress? If the press were used only to perpetuate the blasphemies and indecencies of Mazzini and Eugene Sue, who would esteem Gutenberg and Fust as benefactors, or promoters of true progress? And if the increased facilities for travel, and the other inventions on which this age prides itself, only tend to make men's minds narrower by absorbing them in material interests, and their souls more mean by giving them the idol of prosperity to worship, then is this nineteenth century a century of progress indeed, but in the wrong direction. And if our mode of education only augments the ratio of crime among the lower class, and makes superficial pretenders of the higher orders of society, it is not a matter which will justify our setting ourselves quite so high above past ages and the rest of the world.

I cannot see what need nor what excuse there is for all this bragging. A great many strong men lived before Agamemnon,—and after him. We indeed do some things that would astonish our forefathers; but how are we superior to them on that account? We enslave the lightnings of heaven to be our messengers, and compel the sun to take our portraits; but if our electric wires are prostituted to the chicanery of trade or politics, and the faces which the sun portrays are expressive of nothing nobler than mercantile shrewdness and the price of cotton, the less we boast of our achievements, the better. Thucydides never had his works puffed in a newspaper, Virgil and Horace never poetized or lectured for a lyceum; Charlemagne never saw a locomotive, nor did St. Thomas Aquinas ever use a friction match. Yet this unexampled age possesses, I apprehend, few historians who would not shrink from being compared with the famous Greek annalist, few poets worthy to wear the crowns of the friends of the great Augustus, few rulers more sagacious and firm than the first Emperor of the West, and few scholars who would not consider it a privilege to be taught by the Angelic Doctor.

True progress is something superior to your puffing engines and clicking telegraphs, and independent of them. It is the advancement of humanity in the knowledge of its frailty and dependence; the elevation of the mind above its own limited acquirements, to the infinite source of knowledge; the cleansing of the heart of its selfishness and uncleanness; in fact, it is any thing whatever that tends to assimilate man more closely to the divine Exemplar of perfect manhood.

THE END.