38 Chapters on Churchyards. Chap. X. memory, as set forth in crabbed "It were endless to enumerate the palsy-waters-balsams― tinctureselixirs-electuaries, which occupied one department of the still-room, and almost profane to reveal the mysteries of that sacred chamber, during the season of concoctions mysteries as jealously guarded as those of the Bona Dea from the eyes of the uninitiated and ignorant. "In after days of complete naturalization in the family, I was privileged with les grandes et petites entrées even of that generally prohibited closet and great was my delight in accompanying thither my venerable cousin, when her occupation lay within the spicery or confectionary region, and in receiving her instructions in the arts she excelled in-those always excepted which related to the medicinal department; for to my shame be it spoken, I derived infinitely more gratification from the pastime of sticking over blancmange hedgehogs with almond bristles, than in compounding the most infallible ointment, nor could I (with all deference to Mrs Helen's superior wisdom) ever go the length of agreeing, that her tincture of rhubarb was to the full as palatable as her fine old raisin wine, and her walnuts preserved with sugar and senna equally delicious with those guiltless of the latter ingredient. "Among the various concerns transacted in that notable chamber, one of the most important, that of breaking up the loaves of double refined sugar, was always superintended by Mrs Helen; and on those occasions, with a fine cambric handkerchief pinned on over her clear lawn apron, she assumed even an active share in the operation, and I used to delight in watch ing the lady-like manner with which the clumsy nippers were managed by her pretty little pink fingers, and the quiet dexterity which supplied their deficiency of muscular strength. If Mrs Helen Seale had chosen by way of variety, to twirl a mop, or handle a carpet-broom, she must have done [July, it with the air and grace of a perfect gentlewoman. "But you are impatient to know Rectory. It was full of delightful more of my first day at Summerford incident to me, though little or nothing to make a story out of. I have her morning round through the stilltold you how Mrs Helen took me room, the housekeeper's room, and various offices; and then we visited the dairy-Such a dairy! such a paradise of milk, and cream, and butter, and curds, and whey, and cream cheeses, grance! for many bouquets of the sweetand crystal water, and purity and fraest flowers were dispersed among the low reservoir of a marble slab in the glossy milk pans, and round the shalcentre of the octagon building; on the of many a fantastic shape were curipolished surface of which, butter pots ously arranged, half floated by a conwater, conveyed thither from a neighstant supply of the purest and coldest bouring spring. From the dairy we passed into the poultry-yard, and there I was introduced to a train of milkwhite turkeys, and fowls of the same colour-a few bantams, and three galenics-Mrs Helen's especial favourites, though the perverse creatures could never be brought to submit to any of blishment, straying away over pales, the regulations of the feathered estawalls, roofs, and barriers of every description, scratching up seedbeds, and flower-borders, to the despair of the gardener, and laying their eggs on those, or on the bare gravel walk, in flagrant dereliction of all fitness and propriety. Yet those irreclaimables with their order-loving mistress; and were, as I told you, prime favourites I, who partook in some measure of their wild, and wandering, and untameable nature, very shortly became the object of her tender and unbounded indulgence, though the dear lady's placidity, were frequently startled innice sense of decorum, and habitual exclamation at sight of her éléveswingto a gesture of amazement and a hasty ing on the orchard gate-scrambling like a cat along the top of the garden wall-running knee-deep in mud, with meadow, or with a frock torn to tata lap full of cresses from the water ters, in some lawless excursion over hedges and hurdles, when, as dear Mrs Helen mildly assured me, the common roadway was so much shorter and pleasanter.' It was some time, indeed, before I astounded the decorous inhabitants of the Rectory, with these feats of prowess. On my first arrival, I was far too weak and languid for such performances, even if I had not been restrained a while by natural shyness, but that soon yielded to the affectionate encouragement of my kind hosts; and in a month's time, the pure air of Broad Summerfordgentle exercise in the old calash, in which Mr Seale took me a daily air ing-simple but nourishing diet, and asses' milk, had so effectually restored my health, that my natural exuberance of animal spirits began to manifest itself by the indications aforesaid, somewhat to the consternation of Mrs Helen, though she could not find in her heart to repress the fine spirits of the poor dear child, so wonderfully recovered (under God's blessing) by Summerford air, and her good manage ment.' So much for one "night's entertainment," as I have faithfully recorded it, from the well-remembered words of my dear historian. She shall resume the narrative in an ensuing chapter, for the benefit of all those who have patience with a subject, which has neither invention-magic adventure- sentiment - eccentricity-passion-love-murder, or metaphysics, to recommend it-only TRUTH. DE OMNIBUS REBUS ET QUIBUSDAM ALIIS. I WISH I was a Jew. Not that I envy the wealth of Mr Rothschild, to whom Solomon, in all his glory, was but as a parish poor-box to the Catholic rent. Not that I love (more than beseems a devout and continent Christian,) the black-eyed Rebeccas of Duke-street, though I have seen looks among them that might have melted an inquisitor. I wish they would attend a little better to the cleanly precepts of the Mosaic law They seem to think it unworthy of their sacred nation to wash in any waters but those of Siloa or Jordan. Their large gold ear-rings and brilliant eyes remind me of Virgil's obligations to Ennius. Yet it is not for their sakes that I wish myself an Israelite. No, good reader, neither avarice nor amativeness prompts this strange hankering. I envy not the Jew his bar gains; I covet not his wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, nor anything that is his, except his pedigree, and his real property in the Holy Land. The Jew is the only gentleman. The tree of his genealogy is the oak of Mamre His family memoirs are accounted sacred, even by his worst enemies. He has a portion far away-in the land which, above all others, is the land of imagination, the scene of the most certain truths, and of the wildest fictions. He may, at least, feed his fancy with the product of his never-to-be-seen acres; and, though forbidden to possess a single foot of ground, may rank himself with the landed aristocracy. A strange passion possessed the Enropean nations, of deriving their origin from the thrice-beaten Trojans. Even the Greeks caught the infection. So enamoured are mankind of a dark antiquity-so averse to consider themselves the creatures of a day-that, not content with the hope of a future immortality, they would fain extend their existence through the dusk backward and abysm of Time, and claim a share in the very calamities of past generations. How great then the prerogative of the Jew, whose nation is his own domestic kindred; who needs not to seek his original amid the dust of forgetfulness, and the limitless expanse of undated tradition, but finds it recorded in the Book that teaches to live and to die! I am not ungrateful for the privilege of being an Englishman: but an Englishman, of all nations, has the least ground for national family pride. For my part, I know not whether my stock be Celtic or Teutonic, Saxon, Dane, or Norman. For land-I cannot tell whether any of my ancestors ever owned or claimed an acre. were a pleasant thing could I say of one green field, one sunny-sided hillthis was my forefathers' property, even though they had been dispossessed by the followers of Hengist and Horsa. It is certain that I had ancestors even in the days of Cæsar-Did my great It grandsire oppose his naked breast to the invader, or slept he in the depth of German forests, or chased the wild deer in the pine woods of Scandinavia? - I will, however, assume that my forefathers were Aboriginal Britons; perhaps the last remnant of the rude giant race whom the Trojan Brute expelled-descended either of Hercules Lybicus or Albion Museoticus; or, as Marianus the monk, John Rous, David Pencaim, and William Caxton affirm, from Albina, the king of Syria's daughter, and her thirty sisters, who, having murdered their husbands, were compelled to put to sea without men, oars, or tackle, and, by course of the waves and winds, were driven ashore on this fair island, where, from the embraces of demons, they bore a giant progeny: Such a pedigree is surely better than none; especially as it makes me, by right of preoccupation, hereditary and legitimate landlord of every rood of British earth, from John o'Groat's house to the Land's End. 'Tis pleasant to think so; though nothing but an Agrarian law is likely to put me in actual possession of so much as a handful of sand. Concerning my ancestors, the Aboriginal Britons, it is to be regretted that we are in a very unsatisfactory state of ignorance. What we learn from ancient writers is little; and what tradition and Welsh manuscripts add thereto, at best uncertain. It is a heavy offence of the Roman conquerors that they inform us so scantily about the nations they conquered and governed. The most of the little we do know, is derived from mere compilers, such as Strabo, Pliny, and Solinus, men of much credulity, trust ing much to their ears, and little to their eyes; and, I doubt not, often wilfully hoaxed by fools who despised their laudable curiosity. Such tricks were put upon honest Goldsmith; and the classical taste in jokes was as little refined, and as unscrupulous, as that of any practical wit of these degenerate days. The Roman state does not seem to have published many books by authority, which is the less to be lamented, as books published by authority seldom convey any information but what can be expressed in figures-and, even in matters purely statistic, labour under the suspicion of politic colour The ing. But is it not wonderful, that few or none of the Roman officers, often men of elegant acquirement, should have left journals, observations, or minutes, on the countries where they were stationed—that there scarce remains the name of a traveller for knowledge? The few extant diaries are merely military. The Romans cultivated no acquaintance with the language, habits, or superstitions of the subjected tribes. invaluable treatise of Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, is as unique as it is excellent; and even that is the work of a senator, and must have been com piled from the reports of others. Was this arrogant people above knowing how their vassals lived? Did they think it derogatory to study the jargon of barbarians, as some wiseacres in the present enlightened age would think it a woful letting-down not to be ignorant of the countrified talk of their poor neighbours? Or was it not rather a maxim of their state-craft to abolish the remembrance of all that had been previous to their own domination, as the speediest means of Romanizing the speech, the manners, the very heart of the empire? Both these causes may have contributed to the effect; but other, and yet more frivolous prejudices were concurrent. With a few, and but a few, honourable exceptions, (among which Varro and the elder Pliny stand conspicuous,) the Latin writers took little pains to im part information, for which the bulk of their readers would not have thanked them. Philosophy, science, history, whatever the theme, the work was little more than a display of rhetoric. The sense, the matter conveyed, was hardly more regarded than the words of an opera. An effeminate delicacy of ear, similar to that which influences novelists in naming their heroines, excluded from the fashionable literature all knowledge that would not glide into well sounding words and polished periods, lusciously smooth, or poignantly stimulant. The artificial rhetoric of the latter Romans did more to cramp and enervate the human mind, to prevent the increase and diffusion of real learning, than all the subtle distinctions and hair-splitting casuistry of the long-neglected and ignorantly reviled schoolmen. Logic has borne the blame of her showy cousin's misdemeanours. It is doubtful whether even the Goths and Vandals destroyed much living know. ledge, when there was so little for them to destroy. Some good books perhaps perished in the flames of war; some the monks superscribed with legends and homilies; and some the Popes and prelates devoted to Vulcan, anticipating the spirit of the Vice-society, and wisely considering a good fire-before the invention of printingmore efficacious than an index expur gatorius, a Chancellor's injunction, or a libel law. Yet it is not improbable that this narrow piety saved more than it caused to perish; since, in every age, what was prohibited would be eagerly retained, and avarice would carefully preserve volumes, for which a high price might be extorted from curiosity. The current literature of the empire was indeed doomed to just oblivion, by its own exceeding great worthlessness; for it is a vain hope, that fine literature can long survive the austerer studies. The writer or the age that aim exclusively at ele gance or effect, will be sure to miss the scope of their pitiful ambitionas the woman, who sacrifices her health to her beauty, will soon lose both. That the unmanly taste fos tered by the precepts and exhibitions of the rhetors, impaired oratory, and almost murdered poetry, we have abundant and indignant testimony: could any testimony be needful, where every remaining fragment testifies against itself. It is more to our purpose to remark, how much it must have tended to check the spirit of research, and the importation of know ledge from the remoter provinces. Words and names that would have made Quintilian stare and gasp, could not grow sleek to the sensitive ears of an audience accustomed to listen to little else than sonorous flattery or piquant invective. With the shape and hue of foreign men and animals, the very mob of Rome must have been familiar, from the triumphal processions and gladiatorial games: and all classes were too vicious and indolent to seek for more information than entered, uninvited, at their eyes. The lingo of the barbarian was, no doubt, often enough the subject of stage mi micry, to the great edification of the useful classes; but there were no linguists among the literati, no curious inquirers after strange varieties of human life. Commerce, which has enlarged our knowledge no less than our VOL. XXII wealth, was never honourable at Rome. It was the expensive slave of luxury, cherished by the vain, the idle, the ef feminate; but despised by the great, censured by the moralist, and discou raged by the statesman. Our merchants and sailors, our captains and lieutenants, our very mechanics, have thrown more light on man and nature, than all the philosophers, the orators, the high-bred scholars of the eternal city. Perhaps Cæsar may be called an exception. His Commentaries are part of my family history. The information he affords is, indeed, scanty; but our family gave him little time to look about him. Proud as I justly am of my progenitors, and especially of the diabolical cross in our blood, I cannot find that Cæsar "whispers he was beat." It is certain that we were beat at last; and surely a beating from Julius is as honourable as from any of his successors. Yet some writers have contended this point, as if at this day it really concerned the glory of England. Every boy and girl have read of the woad-stained bodies and tatooed skins of the long-haired progenitors of the Ap-Rices and Cadwalladers. But au thors differ as to the important ques tion, Whether beauty or terror was the object of this barbaric finery? What a sensation would such a costume pro duce at a fancy-ball! A dance of ancient Britons, habited, or rather unhabited, in antique uniform, would secure the success of a melo-drame and, under the rose, I intend to try it myself in a grand spectacle, which I shall acknowledge when it has run thirty nights. One thing I will maintain, that this painted and sculptured nudity was neither more indecorous nor less becoming, than fifty fashions of later date. Towards the end of the 15th and commencement of the 16th century, the dress of our beaux was not only insufficient for the ends of clothing, but furnished with appendages which cannot be named, much less described, without gross indelicacy. The Callipygian devices of our fair ones have not escaped severe animadversion; and the ladies seem but lately to have discovered the just medium between too much and too little covering. Let it not be said, that these matters are too light for serious criti cism, seeing that more than one Father has shown a most intimate acquaintance with the most sacred arcana of the F toflet. Saints have declaimed against head-gearthe martyred Latimer preached upon caps and bonnets; and the pious Baxter wrote a treatise on the Unloveliness of Love Locks." As for the question of taste, symmetry, and the beau ideal, were not the immeasurable trunk-breeches of the cavaliers, often containing stuff enough for the poor of a parish-the various aggregations of false hair known under the name of periwigs-the deep cuffs, long-flapped waistcoats, and other voluminous absurdities of the old court, not to mention the pointed shoes buckled to the knee, which were restrained by statute in the reign of Richard II.-the stays and pillories of dandyism and a hundred like monstrosities of mode, as irreconcilable with the xanov as the serpents, ravenous birds, and ill-shaped fishes, which constituted the regimentals of a Silurian or Brigantine warrior? The Lady-Britons, blues as they were, observed a distinction, which I would gladly see enforced among their lovely posterity. The skins of the matrons were embroidered with figures appropriate to the dignity of wives and mothers-such as dragons, lions, suns, moons, and stars; while the pretty persons of the young virgins were garnished all over with the effigies of fair herbs and flowers which (as a quaint old Historian saith) could not but yield, though a strange, yet no unpleasing aspect. Now this distinction showed good taste, and good feeling. It is a dire perplexity in modern times, that you cannot learn, without asking impertinent questions, whether any female you chance to meet in stage-coach or steam-packet is maid, wife, or widow -and a scandal to our manners, that a woman who is the mother of children, may dress herself as airily, as temptingly, as a miss that has to look out for a husband. Now, though I am, by predestination and election, foreordained to a final perseverance in celibacy, I think a wife and mother the most venerable thing on earth, and in consequence, bound, above every creature, to venerate herself. If we should be offended to see an archdeacon in the costume of a huntsman, or a parish priest in the undress of a hussar,-much more justly may we censure any incongruous levity in a female, whom the matrimonial and maternal character sets far above the sanctity of bishop, priest, or deacon. Yet such is my compassion for the very frailties of the sex, that I would not, at least for a first offence, refuse the virgin livery to such unfortunates, as had loved not wisely, but too well. How the Britons acted in these cases, we are not informed; but their morals do not seem to have been very austere. Their scarifying or tatooing seems to have been a very painful operation. We might be puzzled to account for such fortitude in the service of vanity, which nevertheless lacks not its parallel in the annals of civilized fashion. Men, even men who in passive endurance fall far short of their sis ters, have been known to sleep or lie awake with a plate of lead on their foreheads, lest the lines thereon might slander them with thinking. The tortures which many of both sexes have undergone for the removal of bodily defects, no way inconvenient, but only unsightly-might do honour to an inquisitor. I read not long since of an heroic dandy, who permitted his misshapen leg-bone to be filed and scraped by an ignorant quack, till his life was in imminent danger. Who does not know that the order of Jesuits owes its foundation (under Satan) to the personal vanity of Ignatius Loyola, and his ambition to be like the Homeric warriors-bene ocreatus? Had loose boots, or cossack trowsers, been the fashion, Loyola might have died without the odour of sanctityand the name of Jesuit had never been heard for reproach or for praise. To such slight occasions are mighty agencies indebted for their first motion. The process of putting a dandy shoe upon the foot of a gallant in the age of Loyola, is detailed in a very curious extract among the notes to Southey's tale of Paraguay, a book well worth purchasing,-were it for the notes alone. This shin-galling mode seems to have extended to England-for it is mentioned among the accomplishments of Poins, that he wears his boot very smooth like the sign of the leg. Did it suggest to the facetious Lauderdale and his colleagues in the council of state, the punishment of the boot, inflicted on the poor wandering covenanters ? Vanity, it seems, will make man endure almost as much as zeal. After such instances of self-torments, it may appear like an anti-climax to allude to the tight lacing of our grandmothers, the diet and medicines taken to preserve the delicacy of complexion-the painful twisting of the hair-" the pa |