Chapter V · (continued 3)

Now, finding that he was dead, and that the thirst was gaining also upon me, I sucked the inside of the water bags, for there was no water in them, and mounting my horse I rode on in search of a well; and I went along the sand like lightning, for the fear of death was behind me. But no well could I find, and every instant the fire within my heart and on my lips grew more and more burning; I felt as if a serpent were eating my eyeballs; and when I looked round upon the desert and the angry sky, the world seemed all to be in flames. For another hour I rode on, and then I felt a few drops of water, for they were not tears, start out of my eyes and roll over my cheeks, burning as they went. I knew that it was the sign of death, and my heart turned sick when I thought of my own home and the pleasant shores of the Red Sea; and giving up hope, I turned towards these rocks, to find some spot where I could at least die in the shade; but ere I reached them life was forgotten, and I remembered the world no more.

What happened for some time, I know not, but at length I woke as from a deep sleep, yet so weary did I feel that I could not move hand nor foot; but I could see that I was lying at the mouth of a cave, and the large stars were shining bright in the sky. As soon as I began to move, a sweet woman's voice said, "Rest thee, brother; be thy cares at peace, for God has seen thee in the desert, and has brought thee help." And the voice was as soft and musical as the wind of heaven. So I lay still, but I could not sleep for weariness; and all through the night I saw a white figure moving round me, and every now and then it poured some cool liquor on my lips, and murmured what seemed a prayer, in a tongue that I could not understand. At length, towards morning, I fell into a sound sleep, and after a long time was wakened by some one kissing my forehead; whereupon I opened my eyes, and beheld, a woman, more beautiful than can be described. I was now strong with repose, and I rose up on my feet; but no sooner had I done so than the woman gave a great cry, and fled into the depth of the cave.

It was in vain that I called, and in vain that I sought, touching the rock all round; no one answered, and no one was to be found; and after a time I went out of the cave and found my horse feeding upon some of the rushes of the desert. I then went into the cave again, and lay down where I had been lying before, upon the bed of dry straw, thinking that the beautiful woman would come back when she thought I was asleep; but it was not so. And after having lain there some time, I heard two or three persons come into the cave, and one of them said, "Here is Abul Coumel, lying dead also." Upon which I opened my eyes, and found that it was a party of my friends, who had come back from the caravan to seek me. When I told them what had happened, at first they laughed at me, and said I had dreamed; but presently, seeing the bed of straw that had been made for me, they began to search also, but found no one, neither could they by any means discover another outlet to the cavern. At length they all determined that it must have been one of those spirits of the desert called Siltrims; but I maintained another opinion, for the Siltrims are always a malevolent and wicked race; whereas, this, by its actions, showed itself to belong to that order of genii, which were at first rebellious, but which, having submitted, are allowed to wander about the earth, doing good actions, and counteracting the efforts of the evil genii. In this I was confirmed when I came to say my prayers, for I then perceived that during the night a piece of lead had been bound round my arm, which was evidently a talisman against all bad spirits; and ever since that time, in addition to the prayers appointed by the law, I every day thank God for having sent one of these good spirits to my relief.

Such was the story told by my Indian friend; and thousands of such tales are still common in the Landes of France. The similarity of character which prevails amongst the superstitions of all countries and all nations, from Indus to the pole, may, perhaps, be the effect of tradition, more probably the effect of the universal principles of human nature, acting upon an indefinite, but no less deeply implanted conviction of the existence of another order of beings nearly approaching to ourselves in the scale of creation. While I remained in the Landes, I gathered together a great number of these stories, which were found in abundance round the Christmas fireside of our little inn at Guizan. Nothing, however, of any great interest, affecting ourselves, occurred during our farther residence in the Landes, and after staying a few days longer we procured two of the horses which are employed in carrying fish from La Teste to Bordeaux, and proceeded to the latter city, at a pace well calculated to dislocate every bone in our skins.

BOBECHE.

And in his brain,

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places crammed With observations, the which he vents In mangled forms.

Distance of time, like distance of space, gives to everything that sort of indistinctness which excites curiosity and even admiration. The deeds of our forefathers, as they gradually fade away and lose their place among the things that are, become clothed with an unreal splendour, and the habits and customs of other days, however insignificant in themselves, acquire a degree of interest as they recede from us, as much owing to their age as their originality. I will own I am fond of prying into old fashions and peculiarities; there is something attractive in their simplicity; and, in travelling along, whenever I find any vestige of the kind, I am as much rejoiced as ever was antiquary who had fished up a noseless bust out of the Tiber.

Amongst all the usages of former times, none was better than that of the court-fool, or licensed jester; but now-a-days men's vices and their weaknesses have become too irritable, and few are inclined to do penance under the scourge of satire.

Satirical talent is the most dangerous thing in the world. Those who possess it may be admired, but they are seldom liked; and who would barter love for admiration? In other days, none but a wit could be a fool, but now none but a fool would be a wit.

There is a man in France who, by some odd mistake of nature, has been born a couple of centuries too late, and has thus been deprived of an opportunity of turning either his wit or his folly to account. Poor Bobeche found it did not answer in Paris; the scene was too large for him; and he has retired for a time to Bordeaux, to exercise his talents amongst the Gascons; and here every evening he harangues the multitude from a little stage erected in the Alées de Tourny. Sometimes it is a dialogue between the fool and another; sometimes a soliloquy; and the people listen to both with profound respect and attention. I have often mingled with the crowd, and stood for a good hour, not so much to listen to his jests, as to examine the jester; for he is the only approximation to the old court-fool I ever saw. Of course his dress is peculiar to himself. It consists of a small three-cornered cocked-hat, stuck on one side of his head, and a close red coat of the ancient cut. His countenance has a strange mixture of vacancy and meaning, of solemnity and fun. He seems always to be searching for one idea, and stumbling upon another by accident, and appears scarcely to know whether it be wit or nonsense when he has uttered it; and in truth there is, nine times out of ten, somewhat of both. But still, he keeps his imperturbable gravity; and his round unmeaning face, and dull leaden eye, prepossess you in favour of his folly; so that any wit which he displays has the greater effect, from giving no notice of its approach.

Bobeche has the same failing as all his predecessors: he has no respect for the great. In fact, he cares not upon whom or on what subject he breaks his jest. It must have its way, light were it will; and they say that he has more than once been obliged to expiate the offences of his noddle by two or three weeks' cool reflection in prison. If this be true, it has not made him a whit the wiser; for I have heard the very questions most tender in France made the subject of his unlucky witticisms, and the king and every member of the government sported with in turn.

Bobêche is not "le Glorieux," but it is a variety of the same genus. The extraordinary author of Waverley is always true to nature in his depiction of character, and it has been a great subject of interest to me to trace in remote spots and corners of the earth the original lines which he has beautifully copied, and very often to find that realized, which I had before imagined to be merely the conception of a brilliant imagination.

Though I have undertaken to tell my own history, I feel a strange disinclination to speak much of myself, especially during my stay at Bordeaux. My mind was in that vacillating and unsettled state which is perhaps the most painful that human nature can endure. It was at that point where sorrow degenerates into both levity and bitterness, the most dangerous of all conditions; but a letter which I wrote about this time, and which has since fallen into my hands again, will give a better picture of my state of thought than any thing I could write now.

My dear R----,

Surely if I am an odd being, as you say, you are another! What in the name of heaven could induce you to write to any other person at Bordeaux about the letter which lay at the post-office for you? However, I have taken the business out of your friend's hands, and sent it on to you myself. It was in verity my own letter, and, as you will see by the post-marks, has been upon its travels for some time. The truth is, I put it in the post for Boulogne, where I fancied you were, and to which it went without the postage being paid. Some friend of yours at Boulogne, you being gone, put your London address upon it, without affranchissement, and in consequence it was sent back to the postmaster here, and so forth.

What its contents were, I quite forget; some great nonsense, I dare say. But who in this age of the world would write sense, when Feeling has been strangled for a traitor, Virtue publicly whipped for breaking all the commandments, Generosity turned out to beg his bread, and Charity (I do not mean ostentation) sent to the treadmill? In short, when Vice is triumphant, Folly is sure to come in for a share in the administration, and Nonsense becomes the only patron to whom a wise man can apply. There is no such thing, my dear R----, as being mad in this world. It is only being in the minority; and instead of saying that a man has been put in a lunatic hospital, we ought to say that he has been confined by the majority. However, I hope that my letter, which was a sad raw cub when it left my hands, has been improved by travelling, in which case it may give you some amusement.

You ask me a variety of questions, to very few of which I can reply. What has made me stay at Bordeaux so long is a problem which I should be happy if any one could solve for me. It has been from no particular or general attraction. Here the climate is disagreeable, and the society, generally, not much better. There are few that I care about, there is none that I love, there is little to amuse, there is little to interest. It must have been by some law of gravitation that I settled down here, and until some propelling force of sufficient power acts upon me, I suppose I shall not budge.

Your next question is, "When do you return to England?" I cannot tell. The very idea is wretchedness to me. I think it was the Helvetii--was it not?--who, without rhyme or reason, collected together all the provisions they could find, burnt their towns and villages, and left their own country to seek another. But with me it is not from any distaste to England that I leave it. I love it because it is my country. I love it for its free institutions and noble privileges; for its brave spirits and generous hearts; and I am proud of it for its grand pre-eminence over a corrupted world. But it is a country where I have suffered much and lost much, and I cannot calmly think of returning to the scenes which must recall so much bitterness.

But, to change the subject, I have been to see a curious receptacle for our mortality. It is a sort of bone-house, called "Le Caveau des Morts," placed under the tower of an old church, now converted into a station for a telegraph. The first notice we had of such a place being in existence, (for the people of Bordeaux know nothing,) was the sight of the name placarded on the door, and entering, we found ourselves in the inside of an old Gothic building, in company with an animal that at first view might be taken for Caliban. He was a shapeless man, dressed in a rough, shaggy coat, that descended to two feet clad in immeasurable sabots. On his head he wore a large black nightcap, that alone suffered to appear the lower part of his face and two small dark eyes, together with the tips of a pair of elephantine ears. For the first few minutes we could get nothing from him but a kind of growling bark, which proved to be cough, and he himself turned out the sexton and bell-ringer, and very readily, in consideration of a franc, conducted us down a narrow staircase in the wall, to descend which, I was obliged to bow my head, and my companion to go almost double.

On getting to the bottom we entered an almost circular vault, roofed by Gothic arches and paved with the mouldering remains of frail humanity. B---- took the candle from our sexton, and standing in the midst, held it high above his head, looking like some colossal spectre; while the light gleamed faintly round, catching on the groins of the vault and the rows of ghastly dead, half skeleton half mummy, which were ranged along the walls. As soon as he had lighted a lamp in the middle, our guide, in the true tone of a showman at a fair, began to give us an account of the place and what it contained. He told us first, that the ground on which we stood was fifty feet deep in dead. When the family vaults of the cemetery, he said, were full, the bodies which were not found corrupted were removed to this cavern, and took their station against the wall, as we saw them; and pointing to the one next the door, he assured us that it had lain in the earth for five hundred years, although the skin and flesh, dried to a thick kind of leather, were still hanging about its bones. He then went round them all, occasionally giving us little bits of their history, which might or might not be true, sometimes moralising and sometimes jesting, bringing strongly to my mind the grave-digger in Hamlet. It was strange to see him, just dropping into the grave, joking with the grim tenants of the tomb as if he were himself immortal. At length, he conducted us once more into the upper air of the tower, from whence we immediately issued into the most populous part of Bordeaux, swarming with the busy and the gay, the beautiful and the strong, all hurrying through an agitated existence towards the same great receptacle we had just left. It was a strange contrast.

The cathedral here is not so fine as many others we have seen. A few days ago we heard a fine military mass, at which the archbishop assisted. I was pleased with the service, notwithstanding all the overdone stage-effect of the Catholic ceremonies; but after the soldiers had marched out and the church was cleared, it was most disgusting to observe the effects of the French people's bad habit of spitting. There was actually a rivulet of saliva on each side of the church where the military stood. The archbishop is one of the best men in existence, but they say rather superstitious. A good story is told of him here, which, most probably, has its portion of falsehood. His cook-maid, it is said, gave herself out as possessed by a demon. Now, Monseigneur having no taste for such an inmate as this in his cook-maid or his house, proceeded instantly to exorcise the gentleman, ordering his chaplain to put his head to the lady's stomach and collect the devil's answers.

"Does the devil speak?" asked the archbishop, after a long address to the unearthly visitant.

"Yes," replied the chaplain.

"What does he say?" demanded the prelate.

"He says," answered the other, "Je m'en fiche--i. e. I do not care a groat."

So the archbishop gave it up as a bad job.

You say true: it is an extraordinary country, "La belle France;" but yet, in other days, I used to find much in it that gave me pleasure; and amidst the many faults that crowd upon the eye of a stranger on his first visit to any foreign country, I could descry many good qualities. At present my eye is jaundiced, and I dare not judge. I should be sorry to form an opinion of France from Bordeaux, but certainly there is vice enough here to supply a moderate kingdom.

I do not remember whether I have given you any account of Bordeaux before; if so, pardon the repetition. Not satisfied with the ordinary means of gambling, the good people have here invented one for themselves expressly. The price of brandy, you must know, is excessively subject to variation, and upon this they speculate, making bargains for time, as our stock-jobbers do, by which means fortunes are lost and won with extraordinary facility. The life of one of these men is brandy: he rises thinking of brandy--he writes about brandy all the morning--at dinner he talks about it--at the coffee-house he asks the news of brandy--at the theatre he makes a bargain between the acts, and then going to bed he dreams of a hogshead.

The upper classes of the Bordelois have the reputation of being not a little depraved. The next rank is a degree less corrupt; and lower down comes a race rather famous. You have heard of course of the Grisettes of Bourdeaux, and certainly they do appear the prettiest little beings that ever were turned out of a band-box, as they go tripping along the streets with their neat shoes and well-turned ankle and leg, which they do not at all scruple to show somewhat more than necessary. When in their working-dress, they wear a handkerchief shrewdly twisted round their head, a gown of common printed muslin, but cut in the most elegant form, and a little black silk apron, with a pocket on each side before, into which they put their hands to keep them warm in the winter.

Their dress at balls, and on fête days, is of the richest materials that can be found--expensive silks of the brightest colours, and a quantity of lace, which is principally displayed in the cap, that is then substituted for the handkerchief on the head. I am sorry to say that these young ladies are not generally famous for their morals. It is not, indeed, to be expected that they should be so. The same disgrace is not attached to the loss of virtue in this class as it is in England. If I may use the expression, they do not lose cast as they would with us, and are far from being disgraced amongst their fellows, by any degree of immorality except infidelity. All this does not prevent them from marrying when they arrive at a certain period of life, and making often better wives than those who, in the higher ranks, never went astray till they were married.

It is extraordinary, amidst this general dissolution of morals, how our fair countrywomen at Bordeaux keep themselves from all contamination. As you may suppose, there are a multitude of English families here, and I have never yet heard, a whisper against the female part of them. I know several persons here; some very agreeable, some who might be very agreeable if they would; but in general the society is confined to cold formal dinner-parties, which are little calculated to promote sociality. I do not at all thank a man for giving me a dinner. I can always get that for myself; but if he invites me to meet pleasant people, and adds one happy hour to the little stock of enjoyment that man can find in life, he lays me under an absolute obligation.

There are many Protestants in Bordeaux, and consequently a Protestant chapel, which I have attended frequently. Did you ever remark how intolerant a persecuted sect becomes? The horrible severities exercised for long upon the French Protestants have excited in them the most violent hatred to the Church of Rome; and even from the pulpit they do not spare their mother church. There is, however, here one of the best preachers I have ever heard, a Monsieur Vermeille. His sermons are by no means equally good; but I have heard him on many occasions burst into the most powerful strain of eloquence you can conceive. But my own eloquence is becoming rather tedious, and therefore I shall merely bid you farewell.

Your's ever,

J.P.Y.

LA CHASSE.

* * * * But if the sylvan youth, Whose fervent blood boils into violence, Must1have the chase, behold, despising flight, The roused-up lion, resolute and slow, Advancing full on the protended spear.--Thomson.

I had been wandering about one day in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, indulging a variety of desultory meditations, following the uneven tenor of my own mind, sometimes sad and sometimes gay, and sometimes of that odd mixed nature where melancholy and mirth are so intimately commingled, that there is no separating them, when turning round an angle in the road, I had a figure before me whose occupations puzzled me not a little. He was one of that class of beings now nearly extinct, who still cling with pertinacity to powder and pigtails. His face was round, his cheekbones high, his complexion mummy-coloured, his nose turned up and primed with snuff, and in the cavities on each side stood two little dark eyes like black currants shining through a dumpling. The castor which covered his head was intended for a modern hat, but it had still a strange hankering for the form of the old-fashioned shovel, far more pinched behind than before, with the rear rim strongly turned up, as if to avoid the collar of his coat. It seemed that his head had been so long accustomed to wear cocked-hats, that whatever he put upon it assumed something of that form. To finish the whole, on each side under the brim lay two long rows of powdered curls, which flew off in an airy pigtail behind. This sort of man ought to be recorded, for in the course of years it will become unknown, like the mammoth; and strange remnants of whigs and pigtails will be found to puzzle the naturalist and antiquary.

But it was his occupation that I did not understand. He was creeping along by the side of a ditch, with his knees bowed, and eagerness in his air, and ever and anon he clapped to his shoulder a long machine, which seemed of a mongrel breed, between a duck-gun and a cross-bow; having the long barrel and stock of the one, and the arc and cord of the other. Continually as he placed it at his shoulder, I heard something plump into the ditch, on which he shook his head with evident mortification, and proceeded a little farther. I followed at the same stealthy pace, and he seemed rather flattered than discomposed by the attention I gave to his movements. At length he look a long and steady aim, drew the trigger, the bow twanged, and rushing forward with a shout of exultation, he seized an immense frog he had just shot, and held it up in triumph by the leg.^[10]

"Qu'elle est belle! Qu'elle est belle!" cried he, turning to me as I came up. "It was a long shot, too," he added.

I paid him a compliment upon the achievement, and asked if he had had much sport.

He said, "No, that the weather was so hot that the frogs kept principally to the water, and they had been so much hunted that they were very wild."

"How!" cried I; "you do not shoot them sitting?"

He told me that he did, and asked me how I thought they ought to be shot?

I told him that to shoot them sitting was mere poaching, that he ought to take them in the leap.

He said "that a young man like me might do those things, but for an old man like him it was not so easy, but, however, that he would try."

I assured him that he ought to do so, and having examined his arbalète, I left him to endeavour to shoot frogs flying if he could.

As I went home I could not help moralizing upon the change which has taken place in Frenchmen since the revolution--a change which has altered them entirely, and yet left them nearly as different from the English as ever. I then asked myself in what the difference between us and our neighbours consisted, and I laid down in my own mind a whole table of

DISTINCTIONS.

Liberiùs si Dixero quid, si fortè jocosiùs, hoc mihi juris Cum veniâ dabis.--Horace.

They may be true or they may be false, but I beg it to be understood that they are given with perfect good humour towards a people for many of whom I have a high personal regard.

An Englishman is proud, a Frenchman is vain. A Frenchman says more than he thinks, an Englishman thinks more than he says. A Frenchman is an excellent acquaintance, an Englishman is a good friend. A Frenchman is enterprising, an Englishman is indefatigable. An Englishman has more judgment, a Frenchman more wit. Both are brave, but an Englishman fights coolly, a Frenchman hotly. The latter will attack anything, the former will be repulsed by nothing. An Englishman in conversation seems going a journey, a Frenchman is taking a walk. The one plods hard on to the object in view, the other skips away from his path for the slightest thing that catches his attention. There is more advantage in conversing with the one, more pleasure with the other. An Englishman generalizes, a Frenchman particularizes. An Englishman when he tastes anything says that it is good, that it has an agreeable flavour; a Frenchman describes every sensation it produces in his mouth and throat, from the tip of the tongue down to the stomach, and winds it up with a simile. An Englishman remarking an opera-dancer sees that she dances well, with grace, with agility; a Frenchman notes every entrechat, and can tell to a line where her foot ought to fall. An Englishman must have a large stock of knives and forks to change with every plate: a Frenchman uses but one for all, and it sometimes serves him for a salt-spoon, too. An Englishman in his own country must have two rooms; a Frenchman can do very well with one; he dines there when he cannot go out, receives his company there, and can do everything there. A married Englishman requires but one bed, a married Frenchman must have two. In general an Englishman is willing to submit to the power of the law, but inclined to resist military force; the contrary proposition is the case with the French.

A Frenchman is constitutionally a happier animal than an Englishman. He is born a philosopher. He enjoys to-day, he forgets the past, and lets to-morrow take care of itself. No misfortunes can affect him, he floats like a bit of cork on the top of the waves which seem destined to overwhelm him. He makes his servant his confidant, the coffee-house his library, the man next him his friend, the theatre his fireside;--and his home--but he has nothing to do with that.

He is gay, witty, brave, and not unfeeling, but his character is like the sand on the sea-shore, where you may write deeply, but a few waves sweep it away for ever. That perverted word 'sentiment' in its true sense he knows little of. But are there many men in all the world who know much more.

A Frenchman is not so insincere as he has been called. It is true he makes vehement professions which mean nothing, but he makes them in a language the expressions of which are all overcharged, and in a country where they are justly appreciated. As money, the representative of labour, has in every country its relative value, so words, the current coin of conversation, vary in import amongst various nations, and have a rate of exchange with foreigners. Thus, if an Englishman takes a Frenchman's professions at the value the same would hear in England, it is his own fault, for the rate of exchange is against them. Besides, they are obliged to use large words, there is no small change in France. In conversation, as well as in commerce, there is nothing circulating but heavy five-franc pieces. A boot is said to fit "divinement," and a tailor tells you that there is "de quoi se mettre à genoux devant" the coat he has just made for you. I have heard a boot-jack called superb, a pair of stockings magnifique, and a wig angelique. A man offered me "poudre à la rose," to make my boots slip on; and an old woman who had strayed a kitten, called it "expatriating her cat." An Englishman says, "I am glad to see you;" a Frenchman "Je suis ravi de vous voir." It comes to the same thing in the end. Everything in France is au dessus du vraisemblable, and the language not more than the rest. An Englishman's passions are like his own coal fire, difficult to kindle; but long before they go out, have more heat than flame, more intensity than brilliancy. A Frenchman is like a fire of wood that crackles and flames and blazes, that is lighted in a minute, and in a minute extinguished.

The French, though they are daily improving, are still certainly a dirty people,^[11] not in their persons but in their houses and habits. In this, as in everything else, they are the most inconsistent nation in the world. In their habitations there is the strangest mixture of splendour and want of cleanliness, and in their manners an equal mingling of elegance and coarseness. One must often walk up a staircase where every kind of dirt is to be found in order to arrive at a palace, and a thousand things that shock all notions of delicacy are here openly done and talked of by the most polite.

A Frenchman's politeness consists much more in small talk and petty ceremonies than in any real elegance of person or of mind. They have told the world so often that they are the most civilized nation in Europe, that the world believes it. It is true, they have an immensity of the jargon of society, a quickness in catching and appreciating the tastes and ideas of others, and a great fund of good-nature, which makes them love to see all around them at their ease; but their vanity stands much in the way of their politeness. An Englishman may perhaps over-rate both himself and his country, but he is contented with his own opinion, and cares little what others think on the subject; but a Frenchman wishes every one to acknowledge, and takes the greatest pains to prove, that France is the first country and himself the first man in the world. A Frenchman, however, has much more of the two great principles on which real politeness is founded than an Englishman. He is by nature an infinitely more good-humoured being, and he has more of that inestimable quality which he himself calls tact.

If the French called themselves simply the most polite nation in the world, we might be inclined to admit the claim. When they say they are the most civilized, we instantly deny it. I have seen an actress and a famous actress too, stop in the midst of one of Racine's finest speeches to spit in her pocket handkerchief, before the whole audience. I asked the gentleman next me if such were a common occurrence. He seemed surprised at the question, and said, what could she do? She must spit! Did we not spit in England? he asked. I told him not in general, and never in genteel society. He said, "Oh!" and without doubt did not believe a word I said; for, let it be remarked, that the French generally have no more idea of our manners and customs than if we were placed at one pole and they at the other. A great proportion of the French people look upon us as a kind of Sandwich Islanders--imagine that we never see the sun--that our atmosphere is one constant fog--that we eat nothing but beef and potatoes--that we drink nothing but tea and porter--and that our only ripe fruit is. baked apples.^[12] Let me do them justice, however; rarely or ever would an Englishman have been insulted by the populace of France with those brutal appellations which the lower classes in England did not fail to bestow upon the French, when they discovered them in the streets of London during the war. If the higher class of society in France, is not so refined as the same class in England, and I do not scruple to say that it is not, there is much more urbanity, and real or acquired politeness, amongst the peasantry of the former country. One or the greatest differences, however, between the two countries is the one which is least favourable to England and the most honourable to France. France is always anxious to improve, and the whole nation drags on the unwilling few. England is always suspicious of improvement, and the talented few drag on the unwilling nation.

I have hitherto in general spoken of French men; what shall I say of French women? If I say but little, it is not that I think them in any degree less charming, less graceful, less fascinating than others have thought. To criticise them would be a task invidious and not for me. If they have anything about them that might as well be altered, I say, heaven forbid that it should be otherwise; for as perfection is certainly not to be found amongst men, it would place too terrible a difference between the sexes if it were to be met with in women.

BEGGARS.

I'll bow my leg and crook my knee, And draw a black clout o'er my e'e; A cripple or blind they will ca' me,

While we shall be merry and sing.

The Gaberlunzie Man.

There is a singular mode of begging existing at Bordeaux, which at all events has the merit of novelty. In passing along the Cours de Tourny, which is lined on each side by a row of fine elms, the eye is attracted by a number of little boxes, and cups, with a small slit in the top, large enough to admit a two-sous piece. Some of these are fixed to the trees, and some are placed in the centre of a chair left at the road side, without any one to guard it. It was some time before it struck me that this was for the purpose of soliciting charity; but upon inquiry, I found that it was an invention of late years, which at first had considerable success. The originator did not at once hazard his little box on the highway without interpretation, but fixed a placard upon one of the trees just above it, stating that it belonged to a "pauvre malade," who could not quit his bed; and, adding a list of as many misfortunes as he thought necessary, he summed up by begging the charitable passenger to drop his alms into the coffre below.

As he neglected to take out a patent for his invention, of course there immediately appeared an infinity of other "pauvres malades," who contrived to levy a considerable contribution from the inhabitants of Bordeaux. Some placed a chair to represent their person: some were afflicted with one disease, some another. In short, various improvements took place, the thing being understood, and everybody knowing what the box meant, the placard was dispensed with, and the passenger's imagination was left to supply any malady for which he had a particular predilection.

Begging is in France a perfect trade, and by no means one of the least profitable. The streets, the highways, and all public places are infested with troops of beings of the most miserable appearance, with everything, that rags, filth, and disease can do to make them equally objects of disgust and compassion. But let it not be thought that these wretches, often scarcely human, are left to so sad a fate by any mismanagement of the many excellent charitable institutions of France. Misery is their profession. To cure than of their maladies would be a robbery, and to furnish them with any employment, they would consider as one of the worst sorts of tyranny. Idleness is their liberty, and disease is their fortune. A sore leg is at any time better than a trade, and a withered arm is a treasure.

In the towns, they have particular stations, which may be looked upon as shops where they expose their miseries, as they would any other kind of merchandise. There was one, I remember, at Bordeaux, who had scarcely any vestige of form left. He used to come to his station on horseback, (for he was a man of some consideration), and setting himself on the ground, he displayed his legs, which were dreadfully deformed; as a tradesman sets out his goods in his shop window.

All the cottages that border the high road are filled with little mendicants, who rush forth at the first sound of a carriage, and torment the unhappy traveller, sometimes for miles. One of their most common methods of begging is to throw a bunch of flowers into the window, and then never quit the vehicle till they are paid for them. Such a mode of soliciting charity may seem very poetical; but never in my life did I see such a race of dirty, ragged, pertinacious little vagabonds.

It is the same all over France. In every thing else the various provinces differ essentially, but in beggars they are all equally well supplied. I have visited the north, the south, the east, and the west of France, and have found no visible difference. From the Place de la Comédie, at Bordeaux, passing along the allées and the Cours de Tourny to the Place Dauphine, a distance of about half a mile, I once met three-and-twenty beggars; and on the bridge at Pau I have counted nineteen. Although many of those who are now common mendicants, played parts, more or less conspicuous, in the French revolution, I do not believe that it added greatly, if at all, to the number of beggars in France. The wars of the League and those of the Fronde certainly did add to the number; but in those wars there was no purifying principle, no ennobling motive on the part of the insurgents: all was selfishness, vice, or caprice. In speaking of the wars of the Fronde, Voltaire says:

Les Anglais avaient mis dans leurs troubles civiles un acharnement mélancolique et une fureur raisonée. Ils donnaient de sanglantes batalles et le fer décidait tout.

Les Français, au contraire, se précipitaient dans les séditions par caprice et en riant. Les femmes étaient à la tête des factions, l'amour faisait et rompait les cabales.--Voltaire--Siecle de Louis XIV.

Amongst the beggars in the streets of Bordeaux there is an old man, said to have been bourreau, or executioner, in that city, during the revolution. Perhaps an executioner is one of the most extraordinary beings in nature. Cut off from all human feeling, to embrace by choice the occupation of deliberately slaying his fellow-creatures, seems a paradox in the history of man. There is certainly a strange principle of destructiveness mingled with all nature, in a way and for reasons that we cannot divine. But here seems an innate cruelty getting the better of all that man learns from his infancy. An executioner must be a being apart from all nature, who, without passion or prejudice to stimulate him, throws off all feeling of humanity, breaks from all social charity, and exposes himself to the abhorrence of mankind, for the sole delight of embruing his hands in human blood.

Before the revolution the office of bourreau was confined to particular families. It was a curse that descended from generation to generation; all fled from, all detested the unfortunate man fated to be the instrument of his fellows' death, and he himself, cut off from society with kindred beings, often grew morose and cruel, destroying without regret that race which refused him all community.

But when this odious inheritance was abolished, and it became a voluntary act, thousands stepped forward eager for the office of blood-spiller, and in all the horrors which succeeded, no one was ever wanting to do the work of death.

As the office of executioner is the most extraordinary that man can choose, so perhaps the French revolution is the most extraordinary event in the history of mankind.

It seems as if all nations were more or less like a man subject to occasional fits of insanity, and that they cannot proceed beyond a certain period without an unconquerable desire to destroy everything, which at other times they are most careful to preserve. From some of these maladies they recover, and have afterwards a more perfect health than if they had never occurred, but often the effects of the disease remain long after it has itself ceased.

The French revolution in general, taking it from its very commencement to its close, produced some good amidst a mass of evil; but there were particular periods, when all thought of right seemed abandoned, which did as much as the destruction of all order, the abolition of all law, the contempt of all religion; and the annihilation of every principle and every feeling, can effect towards a nation's overthrow. It often happens that man in doing wrong in one way, unintentionally do good in another; but those who governed France at the periods of which I speak, with a comprehensiveness of mind which, happily for the world, is not always attendant upon crime, contrived to be uniform at least in evil; and left no one good act for which history could accuse them of inconsistency. At the same time, they took care to prove to the world, by a rare combination of qualities, that it was in ill alone that they were uniform, by mixing the maddest display of folly with the affectations of philosophy, and uniting levity with slaughter. Humanity shudders at the remembrance of such deeds; not alone because they were bloody, but at the horrid frivolities with which they were accompanied. It appears as if the love of destruction had seized like a mania upon all the nation with a power ungovernable, had taken the place of every better feeling, and left every weakness and every defect in more than original force.

Never was the national levity of the French more conspicuous than during great part of the reign of terror. While every day shed fresh blood, and the deputy who superintended the work of murder at Nantes, found the guillotine but a means of slaughter in detail, not at all suited to his comprehensive mind; while he fell upon the happy expedient of embarking his victims in a covered boat, and sinking them wholesale in the river: at that very time the opera was as fully attended and the card-tables as gay as ever; jokes were cut upon the guillotine by those who were next to undergo its stroke, and the murderer handed his snuff-box to the victim whom to-morrow he condemned to death. In future ages the minute points of this vast tragedy will scarcely be believed. Many of its horrors are but faintly remembered even now, and the benefits which accrued from it are far overrated. The dîme, the corvée, and almost all the droits seigneuriaux were falling or had fallen even before the actual revolution began, and every other abuse would have gradually yielded to the power of time and the increase of knowledge. But the French were not contented to wait; they slew a good king, deluged their fields in blood, and stained their annals with crime, to obtain what a few years would have peaceably brought about.

France has never yet perfectly recovered the revolution; the character of the people has been injured by it, and all the foundations of society have been shaken. No definite ideas regarding any of the great questions which affect the happiness of a community have been left; and though it is not improbable that from this chaotic condition a new and brighter system may arise, yet the state of transition has already lasted long enough to be an intolerable evil. Though I am inclined to believe that in France, as in other countries, an improvement in morals has taken place in regard to religion, the bad results produced by the revolution have been very extensive. Yet it is curious to observe, that among all the blasphemies and follies with which the French amused themselves at that period, a feeling of the absolute necessity of some religion manifested itself continually. Even in their greatest absurdities, it is evident. At the moment that a statue to eternal sleep was erected, pointing to the tomb, it was proposed to grant a patent to the Almighty for the invention of the world, upon condition that he ceased to meddle with human affairs. At another time, fruits and all things necessary to the support of man were proposed as the object of human adoration; but the conviction of our dependence upon some superior being, and the necessity of worship, was always breaking forth.

The revolution has, in a manner, divided the kingdom into various sects, of which the three principal are bigots, sceptics, and hypocrites. The bigots consist in general of that portion of the higher ranks who actually suffered in the revolution, and that portion of the lower whom it neither enlightened nor led astray. The sceptics consist of those who either never had any religion, or who lost it in the theories and sophistry of the day, and these form the great bulk, I am sorry to say, of the thinking and scientific in one class, and the vicious and thoughtless of another. The hypocrites are those in all stations to whom long practice in political dissembling has given a facility in dissembling altogether. There are two other sects. The French protestant and the unbigotted and enlightened French catholic, but these are few in comparison. They comprise, however, many of the most talented and most virtuous of the nation.

The sceptics are, of course, divided between many opinions. Many are materialists; one or two fancy themselves atheists, but a great majority follow what they call a purism. They allow the existence of a supreme Being, are doubtful in regard to the immortality of the soul, and profess to hold the moral doctrine of the Evangelists, although they deny it a divine origin. They labour, according to the reasoning of various pseudo-philosophers, to prove that the moral code of Christianity was merely a compilation by the eclectists of Alexandria from the most celebrated doctrines of the ancient philosophers, joined with the principle of universal charity which they own to be found in no other composition than the gospel. But they attempt by no means to dispose of the sect of Christians mentioned in the celebrated letter from Trajan to Pliny; nor to account for the extraordinary circumstance of the philosophers of Alexandria having borrowed the name of Christ, (as they suppose,) and having raised upon it such an apocrypha of history, circumstances, and details, all of which could have been contradicted at the time, had they been false. According to their own theory they are obliged to imagine much more and believe much more without proof, than if they were to receive the history which the divine volume gives of itself.

From all that I have seen in France of the consequences of their great national calamity, I am convinced, that however revolutions may call forth latent talent, and acuminate the mind of man, however necessary they may sometimes be as a defence to liberty and a check to tyrants, general virtue owes them little, and the very principles of social happiness are by them destroyed.

LA BREDE.

Tutta fra se di se siessa invaghita.--Bernardo L'Unico.

What the world are accustomed to consider as great and brilliant actions, have very often their origin in pride or ostentation, while home virtues, and less obtrusive qualities, though their motive does not admit of doubt, and their nature is mixed with no evil, are scarcely ranked in the catalogue of good deeds, and even if known are rarely appreciated. The rich man who spends a part of his fortune and bestows a portion of his time on public charities, claims unanimous applause as his just reward, and mankind are willing to grant it without any investigation, either of his actions or their incitements; but the man who without possessing any wealth to give, delights to see every one cheerful and happy around him, and finds his pleasure in his fellow-creature's peace, receives but small gratitude, and meets with little admiration.

For my own part, I am thankful to every one who gives me happy moments. There was a little circle at Bordeaux, in which I have spent some of the most pleasant hours of my existence. The follies and vices, the turmoil and discontent, of a large city never set foot there. It was composed of a few, that could feel and enjoy all that was beautiful in art or nature, whose native resources were equal to their own contentment, and who without shunning, required nothing from the world. Time passed not slowly with them; music, and reading, and conversation succeeded; each borrowing a charm from the other, and linking themselves together; so that the evenings flew insensibly; and the hour of our separation always arrived before we were aware of its approach.

In the mornings, we often left the town and spent the day in the most beautiful parts of the environs; and the scenery was always sure to suggest some new idea, which again celled forth a thousand more, and every one happy themselves, endeavoured to add to the happiness of others. It was in one of these expeditions that we went to visit the little town and château of La Brède, once the residence of the famous Montesquieu. The house is a true old French château, with its turrets, and drawbridges, and garden within the ditch, and loopholes for firing through the walls and all the little et cæteras, which carry one's mind back to ancient days; but the devil, or some spirit hostile to antiquity, has put it into the proprietor's head to whitewash the towers of La Brède; and there they were, hard at it, trying to metamorphose the old mansion of Montesquieu into the likeness of a Cockney cottage on the Hampstead road.

The owner was absent, but we were admitted immediately, and taken, in the first place, into the apartment where Montesquieu had composed his Esprit des Lois. A little more reverence for old times had been shown here; the room was exactly in the state he left it when he died; there was his arm-chair, and all the rest of the old damask furniture, spotted and stained in a truly classical manner; and there was the hole the sage had worn in the marble by resting his foot with mathematical precision always on one spot. We saw it all--all, which is nothing in itself, but something in its associations. We were then taken through the house, which appeared a large rambling kind of building; but, to tell the truth, I do not recollect much about it, except one large hall of very vast dimensions, where lay an old helmet, which something tempted me to put upon my head, and which I once thought must have remained there for ever, for, as if to punish me for the whim, during some time I could get it off by no manner of means. I have said that I remember little about the house; the reason was this--I was thinking more at the time of the woman who showed it to us than of anything else in it, aye, or of Montesquieu into the bargain. Now there may be many people who would judge from this confession, that she was some pretty soubrette, whose beauty had taken my imagination by the ear. But no such thing: not that I am not fond of beauty in every shape, but the case was different in the present instance. What or who she was I do not know; but if Dame Fortune had placed her in any other situation than that of a lady, the jade of a goddess ought to be put in the pillory for a cheat and an impostor. Her dress was of that dubious description which gave no information; but her manners--her air--her look--told a great deal. She was grave without being sad. It was a sort of gentle gravity, that seemed to proceed more from a calm, even disposition than from any grief or sorrow; and when she smiled, there was a ray of pure, warm light came beaming from her eyes, and said that there was much unextinguished within. They were as fine eyes, too, as ever I beheld. Yet she was not handsome; though, if I were to go on with the description, perhaps I should make her out a perfect beauty, for I saw nothing but the expression, and that was beautiful. I could draw her character, I am sure, and would not be mistaken in a single line; for her voice was exactly like her eyes, and when the two go together one cannot be deceived; there was a mild elegance in it that was never harsh, though sometimes it rose a little, and sometimes fell, and gave more melody to the French tongue than ever I had heard before.

Now reader, for aught I know, you may be as arrant a fool as ever God put breath into--for I hope and trust this book will be read not by the wise part of mankind only--should that be the case, Lord have mercy upon the publisher. But do not be offended. You may, (under the same restrictive "for aught I know,") be as wise as king Solomon or wiser; but, whatever be your portion of wit, you will have seen, in all probability, long before now, that there was something in this girl that interested me not a little. What that was can be nothing to you, for it proceeded from private feelings and private recollections, which you would make nothing of if you knew them this minute.

However, there was a question which none of us could decide: was she one of the family of the château or was she not, and how were we to bestow the little donation usually given to the servants under such circumstances? However, the elder lady of the party took it upon herself; and while I was standing in the garden where Montesquieu used to work with his own hands, figuring to myself the philosopher of the laws, digging away in his full nightcap and variegated dressing-gown, she put the money, into the hands of her companion, begging that she would give it to the servants. The other looked at her with a smile which might have been translated half a dozen ways. It might have been, "I am a servant myself"--it might have been, "I see your embarrassment." But, however, she said that she would give it to them, and bidding her adieu, we proceeded to the carriage. We had scarcely all got in, when she came tripping over the drawbridge, with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. She gave them with one of those same bright smiles, saying, that perhaps we might like to have "Quelques fleurs du jardin de Montesquieu." We took them thankfully, and she re-entered the house, leaving us more than ever in doubt.

THE CHATEAU DE BLANCFORD.

Quant è bella giovinezza

Che si fugge tutta via Che vuol esser lieto, sia

Di doman non c'è certezza.--Triomfo de Bacco.

There is scarcely any character in the range of history, which I am so much led to admire as that of Edward the Black Prince. Combining all the brightest qualities of a hero and a man, his glorious actions and his early death, all give him a title to our interest and admiration. One of the last excursions which we made with the friends I have just mentioned was to a little town called Blancford. It lies, as it were, behind Bordeaux, upon an eminence which commands all the country round, with a far view over the plains of Medoc, and the bend of the Garrone lying at your feet. In a valley, at a short distance, stand the walls of an old castle, in which the Black Prince is said to have passed some of the last hours of his existence; and this was the real object of our pilgrimage.

Having ordered dinner, and left the carriage at Blancford, we wandered down, through some of the beautiful lanes, all breaking forth into the first blossoms of spring, to the ruins of the old château, which afford a sad picture of the decay of human works.

The walls, built to resist armies, had crumbled to nothing before the power of Time. We nevertheless amused ourselves for more than an hour, climbing amongst the old ivy-grown remains, and fancying the various beings that, from time to time, had tenanted that spot now so desolate. It was all imagination, it is true; but 'tis one of the greatest arts in life, thus to give food to fancy and to supply her with materials from the past. It is less dangerous than borrowing from the future. I forget whether it is Lord Kaimes, or Allison, or who, that accounts for the pleasure which we feel in the sublime and beautiful, principally from the exercise of the mind in new combinations. I feel that there is some truth in it; for when I can let my imagination soar without restraint, I try to separate myself, as it were, from her, and view her, as I would a lark, rising and singing in the sky, and enjoy her very wanderings.

So much amusement did we derive from our speculations that we lingered there long. A variety of shrubs and foliage had decorated the old ruin in a fantastic manner; and as we descended into one of the dungeons, where probably many a captive had told his solitary hours, a free wild bird started out, at our approach and took its flight into the unconfined air. On the highest pinnacles of the walls, where the hand of man could never reach, Nature has sown little groups of wild pinks, that hung bending in the wind, as if to tempt one to take them. I endeavoured in vain to obtain some of them, for one of the ladies of the party, between whom and my friend B---- feelings were growing up which ended in much happiness at an after period. To punish my awkwardness, they called upon me to write a ballad on the subject. I did my best to comply, for we all strove to bring our little share of amusement into the common stock, and I felt myself more peculiarly bound to contribute, as I believed in my heart that many of these amusements, and especially that of whiling away the evening with little tales and sketches, had been devised for the purpose of turning my mind from every painful thought. These contributions gradually accumulated into a short miscellany, which, as it comes decidedly into the recollections of this year, I will give, as far as my memory serves, and call it "Scraps."

We left the old castle with a feeling of regret. We had had time to establish a kind of friendship with it, and did not like to quit it. After dinner we wandered on to the brow of the hill, and sitting down, watched the landscape as the closing evening varied all its hues. It had been a fine clear day; no pain had reached us ourselves and no storm had come across the sky--all had been bright and unshadowed. The last moments of such a day are precious, for who can say what to-morrow will bring forth? and all feeling it alike, we lingered on till the edge of the sun touched the horizon, and then returned to the busy haunts of man.

SCRAPS.--NO. I.

THE LADY AND THE FLOWER.

There be of British arms and deeds

Who sing in noble strain,

Of Poitiers' field, and Agincourt,

And Cressy's bloody plain.

High tales of merry England,

Full often have been told,

For never wanted bard to sing

The adieus of the hold.

But now I tune another string,

To try my minstrel power,

My story of a gallant knight,

A lady, and a flower.

The noble sun, that shines on all,

The little or the great,

As bright on cottage doorway small,

As on the castle gate.

Came pouring over fair Guienne

From the far eastern sea;

And glisten'd on the broad Garrone,

And slept on Blancford lea.

The morn was up, the morn was bright,

In southern summer's rays,

And Nature caroll'd in the light,

And sung her Maker's praise.

Fair Blancford! thou art always fair,

With many a shady dell,

And bland variety and change

Of forest and of fell.

But Blancford on that morn was gay,

With many a pennon bright,

And glittering arms and panoply

Shone in the morning light.

For good Prince Edward, England's pride,

Now lay in Blancford's towers,

And weary sickness had consumed

The hero's winter hours.

But now that brighter beams had come

With Summer's brighter ray,

He called his gallant knights around

To spend a festal day.

With tournament and revelry,

To pass away the hours,

And win fair Mary from her sire,

The lord of Blancford's towers.

But why fair Mary's brow was sad

None in the castle knew,

Nor why she watch'd one garden bed,

Where none but wild pinks grew.

Some said that seven nights before

A page had sped away,

To where Lord Clifford, with his power

On Touraine's frontier lay.

To Blancford no Lord Clifford came,

And many a tale was told,

For well 'twas known that he had sought

Fair Mary's love of old.

And some there said, Lord Clifford's love

Had cool'd at Mary's pride,

And some there said, that other vows

His heart Inconstant tied.

Foul slander, ready still to soil

All that is bright and fair,

With more than Time's destructiveness,

Who never learn'd to spare!

The morn was bright, but posts had come

Bringing no tidings fair,

For knit was Edward's royal brow

And full of thoughtful care.

The lists were set; the parted sun

Shone equal on the plain,

And many a knight there manfully

Strove fresh applause to gain.

Good Lord James Talbot, and Sir Guy

Of Brackenbury, he

Who slew the Giant Iron arm

On Cressy's famous lea.

Were counted best; and pray'd the prince

To give the sign that they

Might run a course, and one receive

The honours of the day.

"Speed knights! perhaps those arms that shine

In peace," Prince Edward said,

"Before a se'nnight pass, may well

In Gallic blood be dyed.

"For here we learn that hostile bands

Have gather'd in Touraine,

And Clifford with his little troop,

Are prisoners, or slain.

"For with five hundred spears, how bold

Soe'er his courage show,

He never would withstand the shock

Of such a host of foe."

Fair Mary spoke not; but the blood

Fled truant from her cheek,

And left it pale as when day leaves

Some mountain's snowy peak.

But then there came the cry of horse,

The east lea pricking o'er;

And to the lists a weary page

A tatter'd pennon bore.

Fast came a knight, with blood-stain'd arms,

And dusty panoply,

And beaver down, and armed lance,

In chivalric array.

No crest, no arms, no gay device

Upon his shield he wore,

But a small knot beside his plume

Of plain wild pinks he bore.

For love, for love and chivalry,

Lord Clifford rides the plain!

And foul lies he who dares to say

His honour ere knew stain!

And Mary's cheek was blushing bright,

And Mary's heart beat high,

And Mary's breath, that fear oppressed,

Came in a long glad sigh.

Straight to the prince, the knight he rode,

"I claim these lists," he cried,

"Though late unto the field I come

My suit be not denied.

"For we have fought beside the Loire,

And dyed our arms in blood,

Nor ever ceased to wield the sword

So long as rebels stood.

"Hemmed in, I one time never thought

To die in British land,

Nor see my noble prince again,

Nor kiss his royal hand.

"But well fought every gallant squire,

And well fought every knight,

And rebels have been taught to feel

The force of British might.

"And now in humble tone they sue,

To know thy high command,

And here stand I these lists to claim,

For a fair lady's hand.

"For Mary's love and chivalry

I dare the world to fight;

And foul and bitterly he lies

Who dares deny my right!"

"No, no, brave Clifford," Edward said,

"No lists to-day for thee,

Thy gallant deeds beside the Loire

Well prove thy chivalry.

"Sir Guy, Sir Henry, and the rest

Have well acquit their arms,

But Edward's thanks are Clifford's due

As well as Mary's charms.

"My lord, you are her sire," he said,

"Give kind consent and free,

And who denies our Clifford's right

Shall ride a tilt with me."

Gay spake the prince, gay laugh'd the throng,

And Mary said not nay,

And bright with smile, and dance, and song,

Went down the festal day.

And when Lord Clifford to the board

Led down his Mary fair,

A knot of pinks was in his cap,

A knot was in her hair.

For it had been their sign of love.

And loved by them was still,

Till death came gently on their heads

And bowed them to his will.

And now though years have passed away,

And all that years have seen,

And Clifford's deeds and Mary's charms

Are as they ne'er had been.

Some wind, as if in memory,

Has borne the seeds on high,

To deck the ruin's crumbling walls,

And catch the passing eye.

They tell a tale to those who hear,

For beauty, strength, and power,

Are but the idlesse of a day,

More short-lived than a flower.

Joy on, joy on, then, whilst ye may,

Nor waste the moments dear,

Nor give yourselves a cause to sigh,

Nor teach to shed a tear.

SCRAPS.--No. II.

LINES TO A WITHERED ROSE.

I cast thee from me, poor child of day

Like the lost heart that bore thee now wither'd and dead,

To open no more in the sunshiny ray.

Thy fragrance exhausted, thy loveliness fled.

'Tis the bright and the happy, the fresh and the gay,

Alone that are fitted to flaunt in man's sight,

When withered, far better to cast them away,

Than to mock their dull hues with the glitter of light.

No culture can ever restore thee thy bloom,

Or waken thy odour, or raise up thy head,

The wretch's last refuge, the dust and the tomb,

Is all I can give, now thy sweetness has fled.

O who would live on, when life's brightness is past,

When the heart has lost all that once bade it beat high?

When hopes still prove false, and when joys never last,

'Tis better to wither--'tis better to die.

I cast thee from me--away to the earth,

More happy than others that must not depart,

Doom'd to bear on their grief 'neath the semblance of mirth,

With silence of feeling, and deadness of heart.

SCRAPS.--No. III.

DESULTORY CONVERSATIONS WITH THE MAN IN THE MOON.

BY A TRAVELLED GENTLEMAN.

I have wandered almost all over the face of this globe, which, notwithstanding everything that geographers have said upon the subject, appears to me to be nothing more nor less than a great melon; and I am much mistaken, if, when Parry gets to what we call the North Pole, he does not find it to be only a stalk.^[13] But as I was saying, I have wandered almost all over it, and in so doing, I have met with a great many extraordinary characters, but with perhaps none more singular than the person with whom I held the conversations which follow.

Now, though I do not suppose anybody will have the hardihood to doubt my having had what Sterne calls an affair with the moon, in which, as he justly observes, there is neither sin nor shame, yet, for the gratification of the present society, I am very willing to explain how I first became acquainted with the gentleman from whom I have since derived so much moonlight and information.

I remember one day when I was at Shirauz, I had been out into the Vakeel's garden, drawling away my time, as is usual with me, and finding myself tired, I went into the tomb of Hafiz, squatted myself down in a corner, and began stroking my beard slowly with my right hand like a pious Mussulman. Several Persians came in while I was thus employed, and seemed wonderfully edified by my piety and solemnity, and after they were gone I fell asleep.

I always make a point of dreaming; indeed I should think I lost one half of my existence if I did not. During our dreams is perhaps the only portion of our being, that we live without doing any harm to ourselves or anything else.

That evening I jumbled a great many odd things in my head, and whether it was the influence of Hafiz's tomb or what, matters little, but I became critical in my sleep. I quarrelled with my old friend Shakspeare--I found out all his anachronisms. "How the mischief, sir," said I "could you be such a fool as to make the Delphic oracle exist at the same time with Julio Romano in the Winter's Tale?" Shakspeare hung his head. "And, besides," I continued, "having written many a stiff sentence, which neither you yourself nor any one else understand, you have stolen, most abominably stolen, from Saadi. 'And the poor beetle that we tread upon, etc.,' is absolutely the same as that passage in which he says, 'Life is sweet and delightful to all who possess it, and the ant feels as much as the hero in dying.' Billy, Billy! I am afraid you have not taken enough pains to correct your sad propensity to deer stealing."

"My dear sir," answered Shakspeare mildly, laying his hand upon the sleeve of my vest, "I never heard of Saadi in all my life; and let me assure you, that it is perfectly possible for two authors to think alike, aye, and write very much alike too, without at all copying from each other."

"But the reviewers don't think so," said I.

"There were no reviewers in my day," answered Shakspeare. "I have been plagued enough with commentators, Heaven knows! but with reviewers, thank God, I have had nothing to do. Why, my dear sir, I should have died under the operation."

Shakspeare was going on, but the last call to evening prayer, which a bell-mouthed muezzin was bellowing from a neighbouring minaret, put a stop to his oratory by wakening me from my dream.

It was a beautiful evening; the sun was just going down over far Arabia; the sky was purpled with the last rays of his departing splendour, the evening breath of the rose pervaded all the air, and the ear of heaven was filled with the reposing hum of creation. I offered up my prayers with the rest, and then stood gazing at the great orb of light as he sunk to his magnificent repose.

The moment that the last bright spot of his disk had disappeared, the eastern world was all darkness. No soft twilight in that climate smooths the transition from the warm light of day to the depth of night; but to compensate, the stars shine more brightly and come quicker upon the track of day, and in a moment a thousand beaming lights broke out in the heaven as if they were jealous that the sun had shone so long; while on the earth, too, the fire-flies kept hovering about as if the sky "rained its lesser stars upon our globe."

Men have strange presentiments sometimes, and we have a great many great instances of them in a great many great men. Now whether it was a presentiment that I should meet the Man in the Moon that evening, which made me linger out of the city, I cannot tell at this interval of time. But so it was that I did linger, and got wandering about down in the valley till the moon rose clear and mild, and weaving her silver beams with the dark blue of the sky, it became all one tissue of gentle light. Just at that moment, on a bank where the moonbeams appeared all gathered together, I saw a little old man with a dog by his side and a lantern in his hand--take him altogether, not at all unlike Diogenes.

Wherever I go I adopt the country that I happen to be in, lest at a pinch it should have nothing to say to me, not as most men do, by halves, growling like a bear all the time they do it; no, but altogether as a man does a wife, for better, for worse--laws, manners, superstitions, and prejudices. Now, had I followed this excellent custom in the present instance, I ought, in Persia, to have imagined my old man to be a Ghole instanter, or, at best, a Siltrim; but somehow forgetting a few thousand years, I could not get his likeness to Diogenes out of my head, and walking up to him, I asked him if he were looking for an honest man, adding, that if he were, I should be happy to help him, for that I wanted one too.

"No," said the old man, "I am looking for sticks."

"Sticks!" echoed I, "you will find none on this side of the valley--you must cross the stream, and amongst those bushes you will find sticks enough."

"But I cannot go out of the moonshine," said the old man.

I now began to smoke him, (as the vulgar have it.) "Ho, ho!" said I, "you are the Man in the Moon, I take it?"

"At your service," said my companion, making me a low bow.

"Well, then," I continued, "I will go and gather you a faggot, and afterwards we will have some chat together, and you shall tell me something about your habitation up there, for I have often wished to know all that is going on in it."

The Man in the Moon seemed very well pleased with the proposal. The sticks were soon gathered, and sitting on the bank together, he set the lantern down beside him whistled to his dog, which was one of those little, black, round-limbed, short-tailed curs, which seem of no earthly use but to bark at our horses' heels, and then entered into conversation without further ceremony. Indeed, ever after, in the many conversations which I have had with him, and which perhaps the malicious may term fits of lunacy, I have had reason to think of him as I did at first--namely, that he was a very shrewd, chatty old gentleman, not at all slack in showing any knowledge he possessed, and who, if he had not read much, had at least seen a good deal.

CONVERSATION I.-PERSIA.

"Sages and philosophers," said the Man in the Moon, "always show the certainty of what they advance by the descrepancy of their opinions. You must have remarked, my dear young friend----"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted I, "it is rather an odd appellation to bestow upon a man of my standing, who have more white hairs in my head than black ones."

The Man in the Moon burst out laughing with such a clear, shrill, moonlike laugh, that he made my ears ring. "Why you are but a boy," said he, "in comparison to me, when you consider all the centuries that I have been rolling round and round this globe. But listen to me. You must have remarked that no two wise men ever were known to think alike upon the same subject, while the gross multitude generally contrive to coincide in opinion, and, right or wrong, don't trouble their brains about it. Now, while in every age different theories have been formed amongst the learned respecting the moon and its structure, the vulgar have uniformly come to the same conclusion--namely, that it is made of cream-cheese."

"But, my dear sir," cried I, "remember that science very often, like a part of algebra, sets out with a false position; the error of which being subsequently discovered and corrected, leads to a just conclusion."

"As you say," replied the Man in the Moon, "philosophy is little better than a concatenation of errors."

"I did not say any such thing," interrupted I.

"Well, well, don't be so warm," he continued, "I am not going to discuss the point. I will now tell you what it really is, which is better than all theory. The common classes have not judged with their usual sagacity about the moon, which is not, in fact, made of cream-cheese, nor, indeed, as Mr. Wordsworth obscurely hints, in his profound old poem of 'Peter Bell,' has it any similarity to a little boat, except that of carrying me about in it. Nor is it a crepitation from the sun, nor a windfall from the earth, which has gone on in statu quo ever since Galileo took the business out of the sun's hands by crying out, E pur se mouve. As to all that Ariosto said upon the subject, that is a pure fudge. No, sir, the moon is----but I must tell you that another time, for I see that I must be gone!" So saying, he snatched up his lantern, laid his faggot on his shoulder, and called to his dog, who appeared to have a mortal aversion to the excursion, for no sooner did he perceive his master's intentions than he clapped his tail between his legs, and ran away howling.

"Truth! Truth!" cried the Man in the Moon to his dog. "I call him Truth, sir, for he is very difficult to be caught hold of," said the old man, when he had got him; and now, having tied him by a string, he wished me good bye, and began walking up a moonbeam which soon conducted him out of sight.

SCRAPS--No. IV.

A YOUNG LADY'S STORY.

It was somewhere in Italy--the precise spot matters but little; one might fix it anywhere, from the Milanese to Calabria, though in all probability it was some place in the southern part of that beautiful land which has met the fate that so often follows loveliness--ruin even for its charms.

It was the close of a burning day about the middle of September; there had been a sort of feverish heat in the air during the whole morning, which, as the evening came on, settled down into an oppressive sultriness, that impeded respiration, and rendered the whole world languid and inactive. All was still, but it was not the stillness of repose. No animal enlivened the scene, but where a heavy crow took its long, slow flight across the sky, or a straggling fire-fly gave a dull and fitful gleans amongst the dank vapours that came reeking up from the flat marshy fields on either side of the road.

A solitary traveller rode along towards the dark wood before him, and ever and anon seemed to turn his eyes towards the edge of the horizon, where enormous masses of deep bleak clouds appeared to swallow up the setting sun. From time to time the roll of distant thunder announced the coming storm; and as darkness grew over the face of the earth quick flashes of lightning started like genii of fire from the gloom, and shed a livid horror on the scene. The traveller hurried on dismayed, while torrents of rain began to drench the bosom of nature; but strange to say, and unaccountable, he never once thought of returning to the inn where he had spent the day, and which was not half a league behind. However, as storms, like all other uncomfortable things, are rarely of eternal duration, the one in question began to subside. The rain ceased, and the traveller went on at an easy pace, hoping every moment to find some hospitable shed where he might dry his clothes and wait out the rest of the tempest.

The road at length turned off abruptly to the right, and narrowing insensibly, assumed the appearance of a winding lane, at the end of which stood a house of respectable, but dreary, aspect. The traveller paused: a strange, undefinable, dreamy apprehension took possession of his mind, and though by a strong effort he forced himself to proceed, it was not without something like a presentiment of evil that he clambered through a gap in the garden-wall, leading his horse by the bridle.

The first object that struck his view was a tall white figure, standing in a menacing attitude, at the end of a long, bleak, gravel walk. Start not; it was not a ghost, though the traveller was half-inclined to think so, till he walked up to it, and found that it was merely a noseless, moss-grown statue, rising from a wilderness of weeds which had once been an arbour. Our traveller smiled at his mistake, and leaving his horse to explore the garden alone, he made the best of his way to the house. It was a square building of gray stone, and as the pale lightning gleamed from time to time on its broken windows and yawning doors, it looked astonished and frightened at its own solitude. The traveller participated in its emotions, and as he entered the dreary vestibule his heart sunk within him. There were doors on either side, and a staircase at one end of the vestibule, but the traveller felt no inclination to penetrate into the interior of so gloomy an abode--the more so, as it appeared totally uninhabited, and every one knows that such places are always the most alarming, seeing that there must be some cause for leaving them thus to their fate. The wind moaned sadly through the half-opened doors, and the traveller's situation became every moment more unpleasant; so that he resolved at last to do that which he might as well have done at first, namely, return to the inn, and wait for the morning to continue his journey. The dead leaves which the wind had driven into the vestibule rustled fearfully under his feet as he walked towards the door; but he made his exit in safety, and taking his horse by the bridle, regained the broken garden wall with a step of forced composure, for the traveller wished sadly to persuade himself that he was not frightened at all. When, however, he found himself safe on horseback, and in a fair way of reaching the inn, the rapidity of his movements and the long deep shudder which accompanied his parting steps, gave sufficient evidence of the uneasiness of his sensations.

Arrived at the place of his destination, of course his first inquiry was on the subject of the mysterious habitation he had left; so while he drank some warm wine to raise his spirits, he sent for the landlord to tell him all about it. The host stared,--he had never heard of such a place. The traveller described its position and appearance exactly. The landlord had been born and brought up in that neighbourhood but had never seen either lane or house answering the description.

The boys of the inn were called, but they were as ignorant, or as lying, as the host, who said, with a smile, that perhaps his guest was mistaken.

This was not to the borne; the traveller offered a reward to any one who would accompany him in a second visit to the house in question. As money does great things, he had soon more than one volunteer, and off they set with lights and horses. They travelled on for some way at a rapid pace, and the stranger frequently stopped to look about him,--no house was to be seen. He perfectly recognized every object on the road which he had seen before, to a certain point, but there it assumed a new appearance. He must have passed the lane, he thought, and turned back again, amid the stifled merriment of his companions, but neither lane nor house was visible. All was straight, flat, and uniform. The traveller was as grave as a judge, but the rest could no longer conceal their laughter, and he himself, feeling rather shy on the subject, was glad to dismiss them with the promised reward.

He then proceeded on his journey alone, endeavouring to persuade himself that his late adventure was a dream, or something very like it. Scarcely, however, were the people of the inn well out of sight when, strange to say, the road bent mysteriously, as if by magic, to the right, and there it stood--the enchanted house at the end of the lane!!!

This time (thought the traveller) I will pierce the mystery, if it cost me my life. Leaving his horse in the lane, he entered the garden by the breach in the wall; he passed the old statue, he ascended the broken steps, and soon found himself in the solitary vestibule. There his nervous terrors redoubled. It seemed as if all the inhabitants of the Red Sea had agreed to haunt his imagination at once. Still, however, he went on, and began to mount the ruined staircase. He had reached the first landing, and was about to continue his ascent, when the whole building seemed to give way at once, and he sunk senseless amid the crashing ruin.

11 was a bright, clear, autumnal morning; all nature seemed to waken refreshed from her sleep; the dew began to sparkle in the early beams; the birds sang up the rising sun; and the clouds of night rolled sullenly away, as if to avoid the brilliant presence of the day, when some peasants, who were gaily going forth to their morning labour, were suddenly struck by seeing a horse saddled and bridled, but without a rider, engaged in cropping a scanty breakfast of the herbage which grew at the side of the road. A few steps further showed them our poor traveller, lying senseless and bleeding near a heap of stones. The good souls took him up, and carried him to one of their cottages, where they succeeded in bringing him once more to life. It was only, however, for a short period. He gave directions for sending off a messenger to his friends, and to the inquiries concerning the state in which he was found, replied, by relating the above adventure, after which he lingered for an hour or two without speaking, and expired.

The people of the neighbourhood are divided in opinion respecting the traveller's narrative. Some opine that he fell asleep on his horse, dreamed the whole story, and was killed by a very opportune and natural tumble. But others, with much more show or probability, attribute the whole to the machinations of some evil spirit.

SCRAPS--No. V.

THE LAW OF BABYLON.

MEMOIR.

Sheweth,

That although there be one person in this society who has obstinately and wilfully refused to make any contribution in writing towards our evening's amusement, it is, nevertheless, proposed to excuse him on the same principle that the grand Desterham of Babylon excused a certain wit of that city.

Be it known, then, that the laws of Babylon were all founded on the grand principle, that crimes are simply diseases, and that punishments are the remedies by means of which alone the malefactor can be cured of the malady under which he labours. Thus, when a man was afflicted with the thieving disease, they applied hanging, which was found infallible. For minor maladies, such as lying, cheating, swearing, etc., they had various remedies;--the bastinado, ear-slitting, nose-cutting, actual cautery, and many others; but it was all for the patient's good, and to cure him of his ailment. Now, in Babylon, as in all large and flourishing cities, one of the greatest and most unpardonable crimes was wit. It was held as the most dangerous species of treason, and punished accordingly, especially as the grand Desterham, at the time I speak of, had once been suspected of having thought a witty thing, though he never said it, and was of course much more severe than any other judge, in order to prove his zeal for the law, and abhorrence of witty practices.

It happened in the moon Assur, at twenty-three o'clock in the forenoon, twenty-five thousand years four days and seven minutes after the world's creation--as specified in the indictment, and copied into the register of the court--a certain citizen of Babylon was brought before the grand Desterham and his four colleagues, charged upon oath, with being a wit and a traitor. After the court had slept over five-and-twenty witnesses for the accusation, the prisoner was put upon his defence, being first told that he was indefensible.

The prisoner, however, undertook to prove that he was not a wit but a fool. "For," said he, "if I had possessed any wit, I should not have been fool enough to show it. If, therefore, I have not shown any, you must acquit me of having any; and if I have shown any, you must pronounce me to be a fool for so doing, and consequently must acquit me any way."

The judges all looked at one another, and not understanding what the prisoner meant they judged it to be blasphemy, and ordered him to be bastinadoed on the soles of his feet, after which they proceeded to judgment on the accusation, and unanimously found the prisoner guilty.

But the prisoner's counsel running over the indictment with his nose, found a flaw therein. For whereas it was stated that the time was twenty-five thousand years four days and seven minutes after the creation of the world; it was proved by the chief astrologico-astronomer to the Empire, that it was only twenty-five thousand years four days, six minutes and a half, so that the prisoner saved his life by half a minute, and was dismissed with the court with a suitable admonition.

But the warning was in vain, he soon fell into his old courses; and one unlucky day was again brought before the grand Desterham, his guilt clearly proved, and finally he himself ordered to be hanged, in the hope that this application might entirely remove the disease.

The grand Desterham himself assisted at the operation, and the poor patient was exhibited on a high scaffold with a rope about his neck.

"Citizens of Babylon," said he, addressing the people, "rejoice! You shall soon see into what elevated situations wit brings a man in this sublime empire."

As he spoke the hangman hoisted him up, but the grand Desterham vociferated, "Cut him down, cut him down; he is incorrigible."

The other members of the court objected greatly; but the grand Desterham quoted the universal principle of the law, and added, "that as the patient before them was evidently incurable, the remedy could have no effect."

The poor wit was therefore allowed to go at liberty, but the grand Desterham brought an old house over his head, for he was shortly after banished, being strongly suspected of good sense and judgment, though it was never clearly proved against him.

SCRAPS.--No. VI.

WRITTEN IN A BOOK OF DREAMS.

This life 's a dream--so all have thought,

Philosophers and poets too,

And rhyme and reason both have wrought,

To prove what most have felt is true.

The warrior's dream 's a fiery chaos,

For glory ever flying on;

The statesman's an unceasing race,

Full often lost and seldom won.

The merchant dreams of loss and gain,

And gold that never brings content;

The student's a dull dream of pain,

'Midst mouldered books and hours misspent.

The lover in his airy hall

Has joy-dreams ever in his view,

And, though the falsest of them all,

His dream perhaps is sweetest too.

The poet's dream 's a dream of dreams,