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advancement so easily combined with it; and at the moment he should unsheathe his claymore, it might be difficult to say whether it would be most with the view of making James Stewart a king, or Fergus Mac-Ivor an earl. This, indeed, was a mixture of feeling which he did not avow even to himself, but it existed, nevertheless, in a powerful degree.

CLXXIV.

We remained awhile in silence looking upon the assemblage of dwellings below. Here, and in the adjoining hamlet of Millbeck, the effects of manufactures and of agriculture may be seen and compared. The old cottages are such as the poet and the painter equally delight in beholding. Substantially built of the native stone, without mortar, dirtied with no white lime, and their long roofs covered with slate, if they had been raised by the magic of some indigenous Amphion's music, the materials could not have adjusted themselves more beautifully in accord with the surrounding scene; and time has still further harmonised them with weather-stains, lichens, and moss, short grasses and short fern, and stoneplants of various kinds. The ornamented chimneys, round or square, less adorned than those which, like little turrets, crest the houses of the Portuguese peasantry, the hedge of clipt box beneath the windows, the rose-bushes beside the door, the little patch of flower-ground, with its tall hollyhocks in front, the garden beside, the bee-hives, and the orchard with its bank of daffodils and snowdrops, the earliest and the profusest in these parts, indicate in the owners some portion of ease and leisure, some regard to neatness and comfort, some sense of natural, and innocent, and healthful enjoyment. The new cottages of the manufacturers are upon the manufacturing pattern-naked, and in a row. "How is it,” said I, “that everything which is connected with manufactures presents such features of unqualified deformity? From the largest of Mammon's temples down to the poorest hovel in which his helotry are stalled, these edifices have all one character."

CLXXV.

His life during the thirty years which followed was one hard struggle with poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no aggravation, but was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound mind. Before the young man left the university his hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurable hypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolving felons, and for setting aside wills. At dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post in the streets through which he walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he would go back a hundred yards and repair the omission. Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life, but he was afraid of death; and he shuddered at every sight or sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour.

CLXXVI.

The scaly wings of the beetle genus furnish an example of this kind. The true wing of the animal is a light, transparent membrane, finer than the finest gauze, and not unlike it. In order to protect this delicate structure, and, perhaps, also to preserve it in a due state of suppleness and humidity, a strong, hard case is given to it in the shape of a horny outer wing. When the animal is at rest, the gauze wings lie folded up under this impenetrable shield. When the beetle prepares for flying he raises this integument, and spreads out his thin membrane to the air. And it cannot be observed without admiration what a tissue of cordage, i. e. of muscular tendons, must run in various and complicated but determinate directions along this fine surface, in order to enable the animal either to gather it up into a certain precise form whenever it desires to place its wings under the shelter which nature has given to them, or to expand again their folds when wanted for action. Many or most of the beetle species lodge in holes in the earth environed by hard, rough substances, and have frequently to squeeze their way through narrow passages, in which situation wings so tender and so large could hardly have escaped injury without both a firm covering to defend them and the capacity of collecting themselves up under its protection. Another contrivance, equally mechanical, and equally clear, is the awl or borer fixed at the tails of various species of flies; and with which they pierce, in some cases, plants; in others, wood; in others, the skin and flesh of animals; in others, the coat of the chrysalis of insects of a different species; and in others, even lime, mortar, and stone. I need not add that, having pierced the substance, they deposit their eggs in the hole.

CLXXVII.

Minds differ as rivers differ. There are transparent and sparkling rivers, from which it is delightful to drink as they flow; to such rivers the minds of such men as Burke and

Johnson may be compared. But there are rivers of which the water when first drawn is turbid and noisome, but it becomes pellucid as crystal and delicious to the taste if it be suffered to stand till it has deposited a sediment; and such a river is a type of the mind of Goldsmith. His first thoughts on every subject were confused even to absurdity, but they required only a little time to work themselves clear. When he wrote they had that time; and therefore his readers pronounced him a man of genius; but when he talked he talked nonsense, and made himself the laughing-stock of his hearers. He was painfully sensible of his inferiority in conversation; he felt every failure keenly; yet he had not sufficient judgment and self-command to hold his tongue. His animal spirits and vanity were always impelling him to try to do the one thing which he could not do. After every attempt he felt that he had exposed himself, and writhed with shame and vexation; yet the next moment he began again. His associates seem to have regarded him with kindness, which, in spite of their admiration of his writings, was not unmixed with contempt. In truth, there was in his character much to love, but very little to respect. His heart was soft even to weakness; he was so generous, that he quite forgot to be just; he forgave injuries so readily, that he might be said to invite them; and was so liberal to beggars, that he had nothing left for his tailor and his butcher. He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident.

Specimens of Orthographical Exercises, to be corrected.

CLXXVIII.

The debaits upon the Treeson and Seedition Bills have been enlyvened by an eppesode in which the opasition found the meens of rittallyating upon the govvament and its suporters. A pamflit of ultra-monarkicle prinsipals was publisht entitled Thoughts on the English Govvament. One

passidge repprasented the king as the antient stocke of the constetution, and the Lords and Kommuns as mearly branchis, which might be lopped off wethout any fatel injery to the constetution itself. It was a specculattiv essa which at any other time would meerly have ixited a smile; but it was descuvvered to be the work of the chareman of a sosiaty for prottecting libbuty and propputty from Reepubblecans and Levvellers, better known as the Croun and Anker Asoceation. The sentiments of the work were in accordance with those which had been erged by the more indescreat surporters of rippressive mesures. As the oposition had often condemmed the Govvumment for rippressing specculation, it would have been more consistant with their prinsupples to answer than to punnish the pamflitear; but the opertunety was too temting to be lossed. The auther was obnoxeus and had comitted himself. Their spoakesman said he did not wish the auther to be prossicuted; but prurposed that he should be reppremanded at the Barr of the House, and his book burned in Pallice Yard by the common hangman. Minnesters, howevver, preferred a prossecution. The Aternygeneral was therefore derected to prossecute the auther, who was acquitted by the jurey. Durin this peereod of exitement the regulation of nuspapers often ocuppide the atention of the lejeslature. The stampe and advertisment duties were increesed, and seecuretys were taken for ensuring the responsabillity of printers. The London Corrisponding Sociaty continued their bainful activvety. Their ranker aganst the Guvvumment knew no boundes. They denownced the Premmier and his coleegs as tirunts and hennemys of the human race.

CLXXIX.

Minnisters and Parlimant were no less alive to the dainjerus princeples on which recrooting for the navey had hetherto been conducted, and devized new expeedeants more consistant with the nashonal defenses of a free country. Hier wages, larger bounties, shorter peereods of serviss, and a

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