Basket Prayer Book. There hung Peter in his uneasy posture-holy Bartlemy in the troublesome act of flaying, after the famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti.I honoured them all, and could almost have wept the defalcation of Iscariot-so much did we love to keep holy memories sacred: -only methought I a little grudged at the coalition of the better Jude with Simon-clubbing (as it were) their sanctities together, to make up one poor gaudy-day between them-as an economy unworthy of the dispen sation. These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life-" far off their coming shone.”—I was as good as an almanac in those days. I could have told you such a saint's-day falls out next week, or the week after. Peradventure the Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, would, once in six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better than one of the profane. Let me not be thought to arraign the wisdom of my civil superiors, who have judged the further observation of these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. Only in a custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses the Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded but I am wading out of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and ecclesiastical authority-I am plain Elia-no Selden, nor Archbishop Usher-though at present in the thick of their books, here in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley. I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of academic institution, no where is so pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the Universities. Their vacation too, at this time of the year, falls in so pat with ours. Here I can take my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please. I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bedmakers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsey, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor. The walks at these times are so much one's own,-the tall trees of Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open doors, inviting one to slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their own. Then, tó take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality: the immense caves of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cordial recesses; ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago; and spits which have cooked for Chaucer! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Manciple. Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art every thing! when thou wert, thou wert not antiquity-then thou wert nothing, but had'st a remoter antiquity, as thou called'st it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing! What were thy dark ages? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as now, and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it that we can never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our ancestors wandered to and fro groping! Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane, the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings, is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard. Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. Those variæ lectiones, so tempting to the more erudite palates, do but disturb and unsettle my faith.* I am no Herculanean raker. The credit of the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G. D.whom, by the way, I found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of the old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign him his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula. D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, is consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's-inn where, like a dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken up his unconscious abode, amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, " in calm and sinless peace.” The fangs of the law pierce him not-the winds of litigation blow over his humble chambers-the hard sheriff's officer moves his hat as he passes-legal nor illegal discourtesy touches him-none thinks of offering violence or injustice to himt-you would as soon ❝ strike an abstract idea." D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two Universities; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters, relative to C, by which he hopes to settle some disputed points-particularly that long controvery between them as to priority of foundation. The ardor with which he engages in these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the encouragement it deserved, either here, or at C. Your caputs and heads of colleges, care less than any body else about these questions.-Contented to suck the milky fountains of their Alma Maters, without enquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they rather hold such curiosities to be impertinent-unreverend. have their good glebe lands in manu, and care not much to rake into the title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is not a man to complain. They D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. A priori it was not very probable that we should have met in Oriel. But D. would have done the same, had I accosted him on the sudden in his own walks in Clifford's Inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a provoking short * There is something to me repugnant, at any time, in written hand. The text never seems determinate. Print settles it. I had thought of the Lycidas as of a full-grown beauty as springing up with all its parts absolute-till, in evil hour, I was shown the original written copy of it, together with the other minor poems of its author, in the Library of Trinity, kept like some treasure to be proud of. I wish they had thrown them in the Cam, or sent them, after the latter cantos of Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How it staggered me to see the fine things in their ore! interlined, corrected! as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable at pleasure! as if they might have been otherwise, and just as good! as if inspiration were made up of parts, and those fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the work-shop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his picture, till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were to be alive again, and painting another Galatea. + Violence or injustice certainly none, Mr. Elia. But you will acknowledge, that the charming unsuspectingness of our friend has sometimes laid him open to attacks, which, though savouring (we hope) more of waggery than malice-such is our unfeigned respect for G. D.-might, we think, much better have been omitted. Such was that silly joke who, at the time the question of the Scotch Novels was first agitated, gravely assured our friend-who as gravely went about repeating it in all companies-that Lord Castlereagh had acknowledged himself to be the author of Waverly!-Note-not by Elia. of L sightedness (the effect of late studies and watchings at the midnight oil) D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other morning at our friend M.'s in Bedford-square; and, finding nobody at home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in the book-which ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of the untimely or unfortunate visitor -and takes his leave with many ceremonies, and professions of regret. Some two or three hours after, his walking destinies returned him into the same neighbourhood again, and again the quiet image of the fire-side circle at M.'s- -Mrs. M. presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty A. S. at her side—striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call (forgetting that they were tainly not to return from the country before that day week”) and disappointed a second time, enquires for pen and paper as before: again the book is brought, and in the line just above that in which he is about to print his second name, (his re-script)-his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly encounter his own duplicate!—The effect may be conceived. D. made many a good resolution against any such lapses in future. I hope he will not keep them too rigorously. 66 cer For with G. D.-to be absent from the body, is sometimes (not to speak it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, personally encountering thee, he passes on with no recognition- -or, being stopped, starts like a thing surprized at that moment, reader, he is on Mount Tabor-or Parnassus-or cosphered with Plato-or, with Harrington, framing "immortal commonwealths "-devising some plan of amelioration to thy country, or thy species-peradventure meditating some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to thee thyself, the returning consciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at thy obtruded personal presence. board and lodging. Of this poor stipend, he never received above half in all the laborious years he served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, that when poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, has sometimes. compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at arrears, Dr. *** would take no immediate notice, but, after supper, when the school was called together to even-song, he would never fail to introduce some instructive homily against riches, and the corruption of the heart occasioned through the desire of them-ending with "Lord, keep thy servants, above all things, from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, let us therewithal be content. Give me Agar's wish," and the like ;which, to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine full of Christian prudence and simplicity, but to poor. D. was a receipt in full for that quarter's demands at least. And D. has been under-working for himself ever since;-drudging at low rates for unappreciating booksellers, -wasting his fine erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those unostentatious but solid services. to learning, which commonly fall to the lot of laborious scholars, who have not the art to sell themselves to the best advantage. He has published poems, which do not sell, because their character is inobtrusive like his own, and because he has been too much absorbed in ancient literature, to know what the popular mark in poetry is, even if he could have hit it. And, therefore, his verses are properly, what he terms them, crotchets ; voluntaries; odes to Liberty, and Spring; effusions; little tributes, and offerings, left behind him, upon tables and window-seats, at parting from friends' houses; and from all the inns of hospitality, where he has been courteously (or but tolerably) received in his pilgrimage. If his muse of kindness halt a little behind the strong lines, in fashion in this excitement-craving age, his prose is the best of the sort in the world, and exhibits a faithful transcript of his own healthy natural mind, and cheerful innocent tone of conversation. D. commenced life, after a course of hard study in the "House of pure D. is delightful any where, but he Emanuel," as usher to a knavish fa- is at the best in such places as these. natic schoolmaster at *** at a sa- He cares not much for Bath. He is lary of eight pounds per annum, with out of his element at Buxton, at Scar borow, or Harrowgate. The Cam, and with you to show you the halls and Aug. 5th, 1820. 'ELIA. OLD STORIES. No. II. GUIDO, THE WITLESS. HE is still there! Still is he to be seen in the miller's orchard! His feet wet with the morning dew; his brow furred with the evening mist; his hair clotted with the rain of night. He is ever there,-pacing amongst the fruit trees. The peasants call to him when they go forth, and point to him when they return. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter; in sultriness and in frost; in drouth and in damp; in storm and in calm, still is Guido there. The stars shift in the heavens, but Guido shifts not. He is still to be seen, smiling to himself, in the miller's orchard! The owlet shrieks over his head in the dark; With a shout of wild mockery Guido replies; But he smiles to himself when the earliest The miller's cottage stands in a small and narrow valley; and near it are the dark waters of the snowswollen Aarve. The noisy impetuous current is chafed by the broken arches of a bridge; and savagely the waves roar and dance around the ferry-boat, which, slowly and slauntingly, labours across the stream. Patiently it comes with its freight, many times a day, by the help of the bleached cord. In the cord there is a knot: it hath been broken; and, as it dashes on the water, and rebounds into the air, casting spray against the sunbeam,-Guido laughs from the orchard-wall. Then the peasants in the boat shudder, and pray for the souls of her that is dead and of him that yet lives. They drop their beads when they hear his strange laughter, And look to the Cross standing high o'er the ford; They pray for the soul of the old miller's daughter, And for Guido, the witless, the son of a lord. Proudly rise those castle-towers, but a sad heart is within its walls, and tearful eyes look over its broad moat. The aged lady stretches forth her arms to heaven, and her pale and reverend face is ever to be seen at the small window fronting the miller's orchard. Sorrow shines in that countenance with a spectral light: grief flourishes there, while the sun shines bright in the blue heavens. The breeze, as it passes the lady's turret, clouds love to throw their shadows; howls lowly of misery. There the but the raven will not fly across,-it turns, with a hoarse scream, to the neighbouring pine wood. The large clock sounds the quarters, and strikes the hours, over the aged lady's head: the tick of the moments drops heavily amidst the silence that surrounds her: the leaden image, which stands, amidst dark ever-greens, in the garden beneath, is the lady's only companion: she is fixed, and cold as it is; as heedless of time and season: but, alas, her heart is conscious of the woe that has befallen the hope of her house, the joy of her maternal pride! For Guido's youth was a morning of spring, Till a cloud came across with perishing blight: His panoply shone in the justs, at the ring; And lordly of soul was young Guido, the knight. Why hath Guido left the hall of his ancestors; the seat of his house's power:-why hath he ceased to preside over his fair domains; to tower over the young men, his companions, as the eagle towers over the creeping fowls; to make the maidens sigh, feeling tender wishes in their hearts ? 1 Why doth his eye no longer kindle in the brightness of his fortunes,braving the day with a fiery glance, as the white plumes of his helmet shake and spread in the light wind? Why doth his step no more rise with disdainful spring from the ground; why are the voices of his cheerful hounds all mute; the neighing of his noble steed never more heard; where is his gallant train of friends, his standard-bearers, his horns-men, his huntsmen, his falcon-holders? Why does the peasant no more hear the stormy tumult of the chase, sweeping, like a thunder-cloud, over the green fields; and no more listen to the sound of music and the dancers' tread, streaming through the high windows of the castle? Why is the heart of Guido's lady-mother broken; -and why does he, with sunken haggard cheeks, his hair laden with snow-flakes, his limbs graceless and heavy, still for ever pace, to and fro, amidst the fruit-trees of the miller's orchard? Hark, he sings,—and as he sings he smiles!→→ She's gone for ever gone from me Yet none hath seen her bier! But is there not worse misery? The waters now run cold o'er that breast Move with the weeds in the storm: But she is not in her grave! Still the sun shines out, and the world goes round, And nature is fair to see; But the fairest things are not long to be found; Alas, she's gone from me! And each appears in its place- Than rises on heaven's face! She's gone for ever;-gone from me! Yet none hath seen her bier! But is there not worse misery? Oh yes, for I am here! THE PARROT OF THE VISITANDINES. BEFORE the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco de Gama, when the way to the East Indies lay by the Isthmus of Suez, and the Red Sea, there was a convent of nuns established at a place called Nevers, in France, the which felt itself blessed above other like holy houses in the possession of a beautiful parrot. The fair bird had come, by land and water, even from those far distant countries where Alexander the Great went to reap glory under a hot sun, but where the natives, alas, know little or nothing of the mysteries of the Catholic religion where lions and elephants abound, but confessors are wholly wanting: nor is there in these tropical parts any Pope. The parrot had passed through many dangers and hardships; having travelled in a caravan through Persia, where the people eat pillaw, pray to the sun, and commonly practise polygamy: afterwards he embarked on the shores of the Black Sea, where insects abound in great numbers, and near to which are the Tartars of the Crimea: furthermore, he visited the countries of the Nile, which are watered periodically by the rise of that river, and where there are said to be Mamelukes. Passing through the straits of Abydos, where Leander perished in a sinful attempt, he stemmed the current of the Gut of Gibraltar, where the English have a strong settlement, and Hercules in former times raised two huge and lofty pillars, to prove that he was sorely fatigued with travel. Arrived at the egress or mouth of the Gut, the parrot, like our first father and mother, when they were justly expelled from Paradise, had the world before him to choose a dwelling place: nor, under such circumstances, is it strange that he should have pitched upon the goodly kingdom of France; after which that he should proceed to Nevers, on the Loire, and take up his abode with the Visitandine Nuns, was to be expected-and even so, gentle reader, it turned out. At Nevers, then, in a nunnery, lived this fair bird,-whom, aptly for his colour, the devout sisterhood named Green-back. He was indeed a brilliant, vivacious, nimble, and talkative creature; worthy to be placed with the sisters, both because of his gentleness and his chattering. |