Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

manding of Goldsmith, Garrick, Boswell, and Reynolds, Who's for poonch?

And Sir John Hawkins," exclaimed Uncle Timothy, with unwonted asperity, whose ideas of virtue never rose above a decent exterior and regular hours! calling the author of the Traveller an idiot! It shakes the sides of splenetic disdain to hear this Grub Street chronicler of fiddling and fly-fishing libelling the beautiful intellect of Oliver Goldsmith! Gentle spirit thou wert beloved, admired, and mourned by that illustrious corner-stone of religion and morality, Samuel Johnson, who delighted to sound forth thy praises while living, and when the voice of fame could no longer soothe thy "dull cold ear," inscribed thy tomb with an imperishable record! Deserted is the village; the hermit and the traveller have laid them down to rest; the vicar has performed his last sad office; the good-natured man is no more-He stoops but to conquer !'

The Laureat, well comprehending an expressive look from his Mentor, rose to the pianoforte, and accompanied him slowly and mournfully in

THE POET'S REQUIEM.

Ah! yes, to the poet a hope there is given
In poverty, sorrow, unkindness, neglect,

That though his frail bark on the rocks may be driven,
And founder-not all shall entirely be wreck'd;

But the bright, noble thoughts, that made solitude sweet,
His world! while he linger'd unwillingly here;
Shall bid future bosoms with sympathy beat,
And call forth the smile, and awaken the tear.

If, man, thy pursuit is but riches and fame;
If pleasure alluring entice to her bower;
The Muse waits to kindle a holier flame,
And woos thee aside for a classical hour.

And then, by the margin of Helicon's stream,

Th' enchantress shall lead thee, and thou from afar,
Shalt see, what was once in life's feverish dream,

A poor broken spirit,† a bright shining star!

The negative qualities of this sober Knight long puzzled his acquaintances (friends we never heard that he had any !) to devise an epitaph for him. At last they succeeded

'Here lies Sir John Hawkins,
Without his shoes and stockings !'

+ Plautus turned a mill; Terence was a slave; Boethius died in a jail; Tasso was often distressed for a shilling; Bentivoglio was refused admission into an hos pital he had himself founded; Cervantes died (almost) of hunger; Camoens ended his days in an almshouse; Vaugelas sold his body to the surgeons to support life; Burns died penniless, disappointed, and heart-broken; and Massinger, Lee, and Otway, were steeped in poverty to the very lips.' Yet how consoling are John Taylor, the Water Poet's lines! Addressing his friend, Wm. Fennor, he exclaims,

'Thou say'st that poetry descended is

From poverty: thou tak st thy mark amiss

In spite of weal or woe, or want of pelf,

It is a kingdom of content itself.'

To the above unhappy list may be added Thomas Dekker the Dramatist. Lent

Hail and farewell! to the Spirits of Light,

Whose minds shot a ray through this darkness of ours-
The world, but for them, had been chaos and night,

A desert of thorns, not a garden of flowers!

An involuntary tremble came over us, which only found relief in silence and tears. This was a subject that awakened all Uncle Timothy's enthusiasm; and how beautiful was that enthusiasm! how tender and enduring!

'Age could not wither it, nor custom stale
Its infinite variety.'

But it produced fits of abstraction and melancholy; and Mr. Bosky, knowing this, would interpose a merry tale or song. Upon the present occasion he made a bold dash from the sublime to the ridiculous, and striking up a comical voluntary, played us out of Little Britain.

When I behold the setting sun,

And shop is shut, and work is done,
I strike my flag, and mount my tile,
And through the city strut in style;
While pensively I muse along,
Listening to some minstrel's song,
With tuneful wife, and children three-
O then, my love! I think on thee.

In Sunday suit, to see my fair
I take a round to Russell Square;
She slyly beckons while I peep,
And whispers,' down the area creep!'
What ecstasies my soul await;

It sinks with rapture-on my plate!
When cutlets smoke at half-past three-
And then, my love! I think on thee.

But, see the hour-glass, moments fly-
The sand runs out-and so must I!
Parting is so sweet a sorrow,
I could manger till to-morrow!
One embrace, ere I again
Homeward hie to Huggin Lane;
And sure as goose begins with G,
I then, my love! shall think on thee.

Mr. William Shakspeare says
In one of his old-fashion'd plays,

That true love runs not smooth as oil-
Last Friday week we had a broil.
Genteel apartments I have got,
The first floor down the chimney-pot;
Mount Pleasant! for my love and me-
And soon one pair shall walk up three!

'Gentlemen,' said Uncle Timothy, as he bade us good night, 'the rogue, I fear, will be the spoil of you, as he hath been of me!'

unto the Company the 4 of February, 1598, to discharge Mr. Dicker out of the Counter in the Poultry, the some of Fortie Shillinges. In another place Mr. Henslowe redeems Dekker out of the Clinke.

THE PORCELAIN BATH:

A LEGEND OF THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE.

BY 'T. T. T.'

THE gallant Si-Long, who, though yet quite a youth, had attained. to high rank as a civil mandarin, was charged with an imperial message from Peking into the province of Honan. The object of his mission was to order the attendance in the capital of a celebrated physician, whose extensive astrological lore had enabled him successfully to combat all diseases, and had spread his fame throughout the northern provinces of China. The Emperor had been seized with a sudden sickness, which appeared the more dangerous, as the physicians of his court admitted their ignorance of its nature; and were at a loss whether to ascribe it to hot or cold humours, to the influence of some undetected comet, to too great a prevalence of red, white, green, or yellow, in the furniture of the palace and the foliage and ornaments of the gardens, or to the withering of a peach-tree in a court of the imperial residence.

It was necessary, as the doctors were undecided in opinion, to seek some further advice; and none, it was considered, was so able to supply it, as Nu-Moun, the mighty astrologer. To him, therefore, Si-Long was sent; and, mounted on his fiery Tartar steed, which, however, was more remarkable for his roadway capabilities than for his beauty or condition, the young mandarin had proceeded indefatigably for some days, when on his making inquiries at a barber's shop, where he dismounted for a few minutes to get shaven and shampooed, he learned that he had arrived within thirty ly of Honan, and was distant six or seven only from the residence of the physician. The situation of the latter was pointed out to him from that spot.

It lay a little out of the high road, and he struck across to it accordingly. Nu-Moun had retired from the general practice of his art, being of studious habits, and fond of retirement; and he now lived in a small country house in a sequestered spot, with the companionship only of a daughter; his wife having died some years since without other offspring. Si-Long had no difficulty in discovering the villa, as the spot was on the slope of a hill opposite to the path by which he approached, and was sufficiently marked by a group of bamboos, among which the house was hidden. No other habitations were in its vicinity except huts of the meanest class.

Si-Long had just reached the gateway, and was congratulating himself on having finished his toilsome journey, when an unfortunate circumstance occurred. He intended to have alighted there, and to have proceeded on foot towards the house; and he had already gone over in his mind the bows, the bends, turns, gestures, and verbal compliments necessary to be observed; both those set down in the ritual code, a copy of which he carried in his bosom, and those which the College of Forms and Ceremonies had appointed for the particular occasion. But just as he was about to rein up his Bucephalus (called Jee-Wop in the language of China,) the astrologer himself, who at the moment was walking in the garden, appeared at

the gate; and the steed taking fright at his spectacles (of which, of course, as the wisest man in the empire, he wore the largest pair), reared right on end, by which unexpected evolution the young mandarin was thrown, whilst yet more unfortunately the horse fell upon him.

The philosopher hastened to his assistance; that is to say, he ran away as fast as he could, and called loudly for help. Persons came, and poor Si-Long was released; but one of his legs and five of his ribs were broken.

When the physician had recovered from his fright, he went into his house to see the luckless youth, whom the servants had conveyed thither. He dismounted the majestic spectacles that jockeyed his own reverend nose, wiped the crystals in the bow of his pig-tail, and by means of two silken cords which passed behind his ears, and which for greater gravity were finished with huge tassels, again suspended them in their place. He approached the bed, and, by a catechism of learned questions, soon ascertained that the youth was seriously hurt, but in what particular way he was not able to discover. He repaired therefore to his observatory, that he might hold a consultation with the stars and it was soon decided between them that the case of the young equestrian was desperate, and that a raging fever would be followed by his speedy death.

Under these circumstances, there was little to be done but to prescribe some medicines and several ceremonies; of which the former were rather intended to facilitate death, and dispose the body to suffer embalming kindly, than to ward away a fate which was considered inevitable. The patient, however, was not yet so far gone but that he remembered the object of his mission, and delivered to the astrologer the written order commanding his immediate departure for Peking.

Nu-Moun was startled at this communication, and seizing in each hand the pullies of his spectacles, and drawing them downwards with some force, so as to fix the lenses more firmly in their place, he proceeded to examine the letter. No sooner did he perceive that it was signed at top with the imperial signature than, placing it reverentially on a small table, and supporting it against a vase, he performed the kow-to before it; that is to say, he knelt three times, and struck his forehead nine times against the floor. This done, he took the epistle, and squatting down cross-legged upon a mat, perused the document with great attention.

The Emperor's well-known liberality was such, that it was certain the service thus required of the physician would not be meanly rewarded. But Nu-Moun had shown how little regard he paid to the acquisition of wealth, by foregoing a profitable and honourable profession just when he had attained, by general acknowledgment, the highest rank therein, and retiring to dwell in an humble manner in a secluded country place. Yet, as he read, there was a smile upon the countenance of the philosopher, and his eyes were expanded with a pleasant surprise almost to the size of the spectacle lenses. This did not arise from any prospective calculation of the emolument to accrue from his visit. The high honour conferred upon him was that by which his great mind was so gratified; and the privilege he should enjoy of beholding his august sovereign, for whom he entertained the most filial and profound veneration.

Had it been otherwise than agreeable, the Emperor's mandate must not the less have been obeyed. The physician prepared, therefore, to commence his journey by the dawn of day.

There was, however, one matter which caused him some uneasiness, and it will not be difficult to divine what that might be. The young Si-Long was bruised and battered in a manner that rendered it impossible, without the utmost inhumanity, to attempt his removal from the house; and the philosopher's daughter, a beautiful young lady, just arrived at a marriageable age, must be left under the same roof with him, without any guardian, and with only the fellowship of two or three domestics. This was certainly awkward; although of real danger there could be little or none; for the maiden was discreet, and the youth a youth of honour and of several broken bones. But the situation of affairs was such as admitted of no remedy; and the certainty that Si-Long had not long to live was a source of consolation to Nu-Moun.

The physician, before his departure, at the same time that be gave her much other very sensible advice, recommended his daughter to keep herself, during his visit to the capital, entirely to her own apartments; but desired her to make inquiries daily concerning the health of the young invalid, and to be sure that the domestics were not wanting in attention to him. To them also he gave discreet rules of conduct, and instructed them how to act upon the death of the stranger; an event which he stated would take place in about ten days.

He departed, and his dutiful daughter began the management of affairs in his absence with the properest circumspection. She ordered that several screens should be expanded in the passage that separated her apartment from that in which the young man was placed; and was careful as much as possible, though several walls were between them, to keep her back turned in that direction.

A female servant, who was old and ugly, was occasionally engaged in attendance on the youth. From her the beautiful TouKeen learned that he was handsome and had a pleasant voice. She soon found that it was awkward to be constantly moving backwards or sideways, and relaxed the severity of her observance in that particular.

Contrary to all expectation, Si-Long survived the tenth day, and at the expiration of that time showed evident symptoms of improvement. Tou-Keen, in obedience to her father's desire, received a daily report of his progress from her old attendant; and, with great consideration for his health, when she found that he was gaining strength, ordered that the screens might be removed, to admit of the better ventilation of his apartment.

After the lapse of a few weeks he could rise from his bed and move about the chamber; and she then recommended that he should take exercise in the passage, which was of greater extent. The youth, whose feelings of propriety were of the properest description, finding himself so far recovered, considered it time, though he was still weak, to leave a house where accident had placed him under circumstances of so delicate a nature; and he, therefore, with every due form, sent in his compliments to his youthful hostess, to express his gratitude for the attentions he had received, and bid her a respectful farewell. Tou-Keen, however, thought it would not be becoming, in the absence of her father,

« PreviousContinue »