Chapter C: Lamb (1)

[273] It was.--ED.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXVI.

[From “Doctor Dodypol,” a Comedy, Author unknown, 1600.]

_Earl Lassenburgh, as a Painter, painting his Mistress_ al grotesco.

_Lass_. Welcome bright Morn, that with thy golden rays
Reveal’st the radiant colours of the world;
Look here, and see if thou can’st find dispers’d
The glorious parts of fair Lucilia!
Take them, and join them in the heavenly spheres;
And fix them there as an eternal light,
For lovers to adore and wonder at.
_Luc._ You paint your flattering words, Lord Lassenburgh,
Making a curious pencil of your tongue;
And that fair artificial hand of yours
Were fitter to have painted Heaven’s fine story,
Than here to work on antics, and on me:
Thus for my sake you of a noble Earl
Are glad to be a mercenary Painter.
_Lass._ A Painter, fair Lucilia: why, the world
With all her beauty was by PAINTING made.
Look on the heavens, colour’d with golden stars,
The firmamental part of it all blue.
Look on the air, where with an hundred changes
The watery rainbow doth embrace the earth.
Look on the summer fields, adorn’d with flowers,
How much is Nature’s painting honour’d there.
Look in the mines, and on the eastern shore,
Where all our metals and dear gems are drawn;
Though fair themselves, made better by their foils.
Look on that little world, the Two-fold Man,
Whose fairer parcel is the weaker still;
And see what azure veins in stream-like form
Divide the rosy beauty of the skin.
I speak not of the sundry shapes of beasts;
The several colours of the elements,
Whose mixture shapes the world’s variety,
In making all things by their colours known.
And, to conclude--Nature herself divine
In all things she has made is a mere Painter.
_Luc._ Now by this kiss, the admirer of thy skill,
Thou art well worthy th’ honour thou hast given
With thy so sweet words to thy eye-ravishing Art;
Of which my beauties can deserve no part.
_Lass_. From these base antics, where my hand hath ’spersed
Thy several parts, if I, uniting all,
Had figured there the true Lucilia,
Then might thou justly wonder at my art;
And devout people would from far repair,
Like pilgrims, with their duteous sacrifice,
Adorning thee as Regent of their loves.
Here in the center of this Marigold
Like a bright diamond I enchased thine eye.
Here underneath this little rosy bush
Thy crimson cheeks peer forth, more fair than it.
Here Cupid hanging down his wings doth sit,
Comparing cherries to thy rosy lips.
Here is thy brow, thy hair, thy neck, thy hand,
Of purpose in all several shrouds dispersed!
Lest ravish’d I should dote on mine own work.
Or envy-burning eyes should malice it.

_A Cameo described._

--- see this Agate, that contains
The image of the Goddess and her Son,
Whom ancients held the Sovereigns of Love.
See naturally wrought out of the stone,
Besides the perfect shape of every limb,
Besides the wondrous life of her bright hair,
A waving mantle of celestial blue,
Embroidering itself with flaming stars;
Most excellent! and see besides,--
How Cupid’s wings do spring out of the stone,
As if they needed not the help of Art.

_Earl Lassenburgh, for some distaste, flees Lucilia, who follows him._

_Lass._ Wilt thou not cease then to pursue me still?
Should I entreat thee to attend me thus,
Then thou would’st pant and rest; then your soft feet
Would be repining at these niggard stones:
Now I forbid thee, thou pursuest like wind;
Ne tedious space of time, nor storm can tire thee.
But I will seek out some high slippery close,
Where every step shall reach the gate of death,
That fear may make thee cease to follow me.
_Luc._ There will I bodiless be, when you are there;
For love despiseth death, and scorneth fear.
_Lass._ I’ll wander where some desperate river parts
The solid continent, and swim from thee.
_Luc._ And there I’ll follow, though I drown for thee.
_Lass._ O weary of the way, and of my life,
Where shall I rest my sorrow’d, tired limbs?
_Luc._ Rest in my bosom, rest you here, my Lord;
A place securer you can no way find--
_Lass._ Nor more unfit for my unpleased mind.
A heavy slumber calls me to the earth;
Here will I sleep, if sleep will harbour here.
_Luc._ Unhealthful is the melancholy earth;
O let my Lord rest on Lucilia’s lap.
I’ll help to shield you from the searching air,
And keep the cold damps from your gentle blood.
_Lass._ Pray thee away; for, whilst thou art so near,
No sleep will seize on my suspicious eyes.
_Luc._ Sleep then; and I am pleased far off to sit,
Like to a poor and forlorn centinel,
Watching the unthankful sleep, that severs me
From my due part of rest, dear Love, with thee.

_An Enchanter, who is enamoured of Lucilia, charms the Earl to a dead sleep, and Lucilia to a forgetfulness of her past love._

_Enchanter (to Lassenburgh.)_ Lie there; and lose the memory of
her,
Who likewise hath forgot the love of thee
By my enchantments:--come sit down, fair Nymph,
And taste the sweetness of these heav’nly cates,
Whilst from the hollow crannies of this rock
Music shall sound to recreate my Love.
But tell me, had you ever Lover yet?
_Lucilia._ I had a Lover, I think; but who it was,
Or where, or how long since, aye me! I know not:
Yet beat my timerous thoughts on such a thing.
I feel a passionate heat, yet find no flame;
Think what I know not, nor know what I think.
_Ench._ Hast thou forgot me then? I am thy Love,--
Whom sweetly thou wert wont to entertain
With looks, with vows of love, with amorous kisses.
Look’st thou so strange? dost thou not know me yet?
_Luc._ Sure I should know you.
_Ench._ Why, Love, doubt you that?
Twas I that led you[274] thro’ the painted meads,
Where the light fairies danced upon the flowers,
Hanging on every leaf an orient pearl,
Which, struck together with the silken wind
Of their loose mantles, made a silver chime.
Twas I that, winding my shrill bugle horn,
Made a gilt palace break out of the hill,
Fill’d suddenly with troops of knights and dames,
Who danced and revel’d; whilst we sweetly slept
Upon a bed of roses, wrapt all in gold.
Dost thou not know me now?
_Luc._ Yes, now I know thee.
_Ench._ Come then, confirm this knowledge with a kiss.
_Luc._ Nay, stay; you are not he: how strange is this!
_Ench._ Thou art grown passing strange, my Love,
To him that made thee so long since his Bride.
_Luc._ O was it you? come then. O stay awhile.
I know not where I am, nor what I am;
Nor you, nor these I know, nor any thing.

C. L.

[274] In charmed visions.

* * * * *

~Life of an Usurer.~

HUGH AUDLEY.

There are memoirs of this remarkable man in a rare quarto tract, entitled “The Way to be Rich, according to the practice of the great Audley, who began with two hundred pounds in the year 1605, and died worth four hundred thousand.” He died on the 15th of November, 1662, the year wherein the tract was printed.

Hugh Audley was a lawyer, and a great practical philosopher, who concentrated his vigorous faculties in the science of the relative value of money. He flourished through the reigns of James I., Charles I., and held a lucrative office in the “court of wards,” till that singular court was abolished at the time of the restoration. In his own times he was called “The great Audley,” an epithet so often abused, and here applied to the creation of enormous wealth. But there are minds of great capacity, concealed by the nature of their pursuits; and the wealth of Audley may be considered as the cloudy medium through which a bright genius shone, of which, had it been thrown into a nobler sphere of action, the “greatness” would have been less ambiguous.

Audley, as mentioned in the title of his memoir, began with two hundred pounds, and lived to view his mortgages, his statutes, and his judgments so numerous, that it was observed, his papers would have made a good map of England. A contemporary dramatist, who copied from life, has opened the chamber of such an usurer,--perhaps of our Audley--

------“Here lay
A manor bound fast in a skin of parchment,
The wax continuing hard, the acres melting,
Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town,
If not redeem’d this day, which is not in
The unthrift’s power; there being scarce one shire
In Wales or England, where my monies are not
Lent out at usury, the certain hook
To draw in more.--”

_Massinger’s City Madam._

This genius of thirty per cent. first had proved the decided vigour of his mind, by his enthusiastic devotion to his law-studies: deprived of the leisure for study through his busy day, he stole the hours from his late nights and his early mornings; and without the means to procure a law-library, he invented a method to possess one without the cost; as fast as he learned, he taught; and by publishing some useful tracts on temporary occasions, he was enabled to purchase a library. He appears never to have read a book without its furnishing him with some new practical design, and he probably studied too much for his own particular advantage. Such devoted studies was the way to become a lord-chancellor; but the science of the law was here subordinate to that of a money-trader.

When yet but a clerk to the clerk in the Counter, frequent opportunities occurred which Audley knew how to improve. He became a money-trader as he had become a law-writer, and the fears and follies of mankind were to furnish him with a trading-capital. The fertility of his genius appeared in expedients and in quick contrivances. He was sure to be the friend of all men falling out. He took a deep concern in the affairs of his master’s clients, and often much more than they were aware of. No man so ready at procuring bail or compounding debts. This was a considerable traffic then, as now. They hired themselves out for bail, swore what was required, and contrived to give false addresses. It seems they dressed themselves out for the occasion: a great seal-ring flamed on the finger, which, however, was pure copper gilt, and they often assumed the name of some person of good credit. Savings, and small presents for gratuitous opinions, often afterwards discovered to be very fallacious ones, enabled him to purchase annuities of easy landholders, with their treble amount secured on their estates. The improvident owners, or the careless heirs, were soon entangled in the usurer’s nets; and, after the receipt of a few years, the annuity, by some latent quibble, or some irregularity in the payments, usually ended in Audley’s obtaining the treble forfeiture. He could at all times out-knave a knave. One of these incidents has been preserved. A draper, of no honest reputation, being arrested by a merchant for a debt of 200_l._ Audley bought the debt at 40_l._, for which the draper immediately offered him 50_l._ But Audley would not consent, unless the draper indulged a sudden whim of his own: this was a formal contract, that the draper should pay within twenty years, upon twenty certain days, a penny doubled. A knave, in haste to sign, is no calculator; and, as the contemporary dramatist describes one of the arts of those citizens, one part of whose business was

“To swear and break--they all grow rich by breaking--”

the draper eagerly compounded. He afterwards “grew rich.” Audley, silently watching his victim, within two years, claims his doubled pennies, every month during twenty months. The pennies had now grown up to pounds. The knave perceived the trick, and preferred paying the forfeiture of his bond for 500_l._, rather than to receive the visitation of all the little generation of compound interest in the last descendant of 2000_l._, which would have closed with the draper’s shop. The inventive genius of Audley might have illustrated that popular tract of his own times, Peacham’s “Worth of a Penny;” a gentleman who, having scarcely one left, consoled himself by detailing the numerous comforts of life it might procure in the days of Charles II.

Such petty enterprises at length assumed a deeper cast of interest. He formed temporary partnerships with the stewards of country gentlemen. They underlet estates which they had to manage; and, anticipating the owner’s necessities, the estates in due time became cheap purchases for Audley and the stewards. He usually contrived to make the wood pay for the land, which he called “making the feathers pay for the goose.” He had, however, such a tenderness of conscience for his victim, that, having plucked the live feathers before he sent the unfledged goose on the common, he would bestow a gratuitous lecture in his own science--teaching the art of making them grow again, by showing how to raise the remaining rents. Audley thus made the tenant furnish at once the means to satisfy his own rapacity, and his employer’s necessities. His avarice was not working by a blind, but on an enlightened principle; for he was only enabling the landlord to obtain what the tenant, with due industry, could afford to give. Adam Smith might have delivered himself in the language of old Audley, so just was his standard of the value of rents. “Under an easy landlord,” said Audley, “a tenant seldom thrives; contenting himself to make the just measure of his rents, and not labouring for any surplusage of estate. Under a hard one, the tenant revenges himself upon the land, and runs away with the rent. I would raise my rents to the present price of all commodities: for if we should let our lands, as other men have done before us, now other wares daily go on in price, we should fall backward in our estates.” These axioms of political economy were discoveries in his day.

Audley knew mankind practically, and struck into their humours with the versatility of genius: oracularly deep with the grave, he only stung the lighter mind. When a lord, borrowing money, complained to Audley of his exactions, his lordship exclaimed, “What, do you not intend to use a conscience?” “Yes, I intend hereafter to use it. We monied people must balance accounts: if you do not pay me, you cheat me; but, if you do, then I cheat your lordship.” Audley’s monied conscience balanced the risk of his lordship’s honour, against the probability of his own rapacious profits. When he resided in the Temple among those “pullets without feathers,” as an old writer describes the brood, the good man would pule out paternal homilies on improvident youth, grieving that they, under pretence of “learning the law, only learnt to be lawless;” and “never knew by their own studies the process of an execution, till it was served on themselves.” Nor could he fail in his prophecy; for at the moment that the stoic was enduring their ridicule, his agents were supplying them with the certain means of verifying it; for, as it is quaintly said, he had his _decoying_ as well as his _decaying_ gentlemen.

Audley was a philosophical usurer: he never pressed hard for his debts; like the fowler, he never shook his nets lest he might startle, satisfied to have them, without appearing to hold them. With great fondness he compared his “bonds to infants, which battle best by sleeping.” To battle is to be nourished, a term still retained at the university of Oxford. His familiar companions were all subordinate actors in the great piece he was performing; he too had his part in the scene. When not taken by surprise, on his table usually lay opened a great Bible, with bishop Andrews’s folio sermons, which often gave him an opportunity of railing at the covetousness of the clergy! declaring their religion was “a mere preach;” and that “the time would never be well till we had queen Elizabeth’s Protestants again in fashion.” He was aware of all the evils arising out of a population beyond the means of subsistence. He dreaded an inundation of men, and considered marriage, with a modern political economist, as very dangerous; bitterly censuring the clergy, whose children, he said, never thrived, and whose widows were left destitute. An apostolical life, according to Audley, required only books, meat, and drink, to be had for fifty pounds a year! Celibacy, voluntary poverty, and all the mortifications of a primitive Christian, were the virtues practised by this puritan among his money bags.

Yet Audley’s was that worldly wisdom which derives all its strength from the weaknesses of mankind. Every thing was to be obtained by stratagem, and it was his maxim, that to grasp our object the faster, we must go a little round about it. His life is said to have been one of intricacies and mysteries, using indirect means in all things; but if he walked in a labyrinth, it was to bewilder others; for the clue was still in his own hand; all he sought was that his designs should not be discovered by his actions. His word, we are told, was his bond; his hour was punctual; and his opinions were compressed and weighty: but if he was true to his bond-word, it was only a part of the system to give facility to the carrying on of his trade, for he was not strict to his honour; the pride of victory, as well as the passion for acquisition, combined in the character of Audley, as in more tremendous conquerors. His partners dreaded the effects of his law-library, and usually relinquished a claim rather than stand a suit against a latent quibble. When one menaced him by showing some money-bags, which he had resolved to empty in law against him, Audley, then in office in the court of wards, with a sarcastic grin, asked, “Whether the bags had any bottom?” “Ay!” replied the exulting possessor, striking them. “In that case I care not,” retorted the cynical officer of the court of wards; “for in this court I have a constant spring; and I cannot spend in other courts more than I gain in this.” He had at once the meanness which would evade the law, and the spirit which could resist it.

The genius of Audley had crept out of the purlieus of Guildhall, and entered the Temple; and having often sauntered at “Powles” down the great promenade which was reserved for “Duke Humphrey and his guests,” he would turn into that part called “The Usurer’s Alley,” to talk with “Thirty in the hundred,” and at length was enabled to purchase his office at that remarkable institution, the court of wards. The entire fortunes of those whom we now call wards in chancery were in the hands, and often submitted to the arts or the tyranny of the officers of this court.

When Audley was asked the value of this new office, he replied, that “It might be worth some thousands of pounds to him who after his death would instantly go to heaven; twice as much to him who would go to purgatory; and nobody knows what to him who would adventure to go to hell.” Such was the pious casuistry of a witty usurer. Whether he undertook this last adventure, for his four hundred thousand pounds, how can a sceptical biographer decide! Audley seems ever to have been weak, when temptation was strong.

Some saving qualities, however, were mixed with the vicious ones he liked best. Another passion divided dominion with the sovereign one: Audley’s strongest impressions of character were cast in the old law-library of his youth, and the pride of legal reputation was not inferior in strength to the rage for money. If in the “court of wards” he pounced on incumbrances which lay on estates, and prowled about to discover the craving wants of their owners, it appears that he also received liberal fees from the relatives of young heirs, to protect them from the rapacity of some great persons, but who could not certainly exceed Audley in subtilty. He was an admirable lawyer, for he was not satisfied with _hearing_, but _examining_ his clients; which he called “pinching the cause where he perceived it was foundered.” He made two observations on clients and lawyers, which have not lost their poignancy. “Many clients, in telling their case, rather plead than relate it, so that the advocate heareth not the true state of it, till opened by the adverse party. Some lawyers seem to keep an assurance-office in their chambers, and will warrant any cause brought unto them, knowing that if they fail, they lose nothing but what was lost long since, their credit.”

The career of Audley’s ambition closed with the extinction of the “court of wards,” by which he incurred the loss of above 100,000_l._ On that occasion he observed, that “his ordinary losses were as the shavings of his beard, which only grew the faster by them; but the loss of this place was like the cutting off of a member, which was irrecoverable.” The hoary usurer pined at the decline of his genius, discoursed on the vanity of the world, and hinted at retreat. A facetious friend told him a story of an old rat, who having acquainted the young rats that he would at length retire to his hole, desiring none to come near him: their curiosity, after some days, led them to venture to look into the hole; and there they discovered the old rat sitting in the midst of a rich parmesan cheese. It is probable that the loss of the last 100,000_l._ disturbed his digestion, for he did not long survive his court of wards.

Such was this man, converting wisdom into cunning, invention into trickery, and wit into cynicism. Engaged in no honourable cause, he however showed a mind resolved, making plain the crooked and involved path he trod. _Sustine et abstine_, to bear and to forbear, was the great principle of Epictetus, and our monied stoic bore all the contempt and hatred of the living smilingly, while he forbore all the consolations of our common nature to obtain his end. He died in unblest celibacy.--And thus he received the curses of the living for his rapine, while the stranger who grasped the million he had raked together, owed him no gratitude at his death.--_D’Israeli._

* * * * *

AVARICE.

There are two sorts of avarice. One consists in a solicitude to acquire wealth for the sake of those advantages which wealth bestows, and the dread of poverty and its attendant evils; the other, in an anxiety for wealth on its own account only, and which sacrifices to the attainment of it every advantage that wealth can give. The first is the exaggeration of a quality, which when not carried to excess is praiseworthy, and is called economy. The other, when indulged in the extreme, produces the effect of a species of prodigality. Where is the great difference between the man who reduces himself to the want of the common necessaries of life, by completing a collection of books, pictures, or medals, and the man who brings himself in effect to the same situation, for the sole end of leaving a precise sum of money to his executors? What signifies whether I starve myself and my family, because I will possess a copper farthing of Otho, or will not part with a golden guinea of king George?

But if there is more folly in one, the other is more likely to be productive of vice. A man who considers wealth as the object of his passion, will hardly refrain from acts of dishonesty when strongly tempted; and yet some of these jackdaw hoarders are men of inviolable integrity.

There are remarkable instances of improvident expenditure by misers on particular occasions. The money-loving Elwes, at his first election for Berkshire, besides opening houses, giving ribbons, and incurring every expense common on those occasions, dispersed guineas and half-guineas among the populace, with a profusion as useless as unprecedented.

Perhaps there is no character so seldom to be met with, as that of a man who is strictly reasonable in the value he sets on property--who can be liberal without profusion, and economical without avarice.

* * * * *

ECONOMY.

A rich and parsimonious person, remarkable for having by his will preferred public charities to his relations, was fond of going to the theatre, and taking his great coat with him. But where should he leave this useful appendage during the performance? The box-keepers would expect at least sixpence; and, should he leave it at a coffee-house, he must spend threepence to obtain house-room for it. His invention supplied him with a method cheaper and equally secure. He pledged his garment every evening that he attended the play, at a pawnbrokers, near the door, for a shilling. This sum he carried back at the close of the play, added _one penny_ to it for interest, and received his great coat again safe and sound, as it had literally been laid up in lavender.

* * * * *

Then Mrs. Gilpin sweetly said
Unto her children three,
“I’ll clamber o’er this style so high,
And you climb after me.”

But having climb’d unto the top,
She could no further go,
But sate, to every passer by
A spectacle and show:

Who said “Your spouse and you this day
Both show your horsemanship,
And if you stay till he comes back,
Your horse will need no whip.”

The sketch, here engraved, (probably from the poet’s friend Romney,) was found with the above three stanzas in the handwriting of Cowper, among the papers of the late Mrs. Unwin. It is to be regretted that no more was found of this little _Episode_, as it evidently was intended to be, to the “Diverting History of Johnny Gilpin.” It is to be supposed that Mrs. Gilpin, in the interval between dinner and tea, finding the time to hang upon her hands, during her husband’s involuntary excursion, rambled out with the children into the fields at the back of the Bell, (as what could be more natural?) and at one of those high aukward styles, for which Edmonton is so proverbially famed, the embarrassment represented, so mortifying to a substantial City Madam, might have happened; a predicament, which leaves her in a state, which is the very Antipodes to that of her too loco-motive husband; in fact she rides a restive horse.--Now I talk of Edmonton styles, I must speak a little about those of Enfield, its next neighbour, which are so ingeniously contrived--every rising bar to the top becoming more protuberant than the one under it--that it is impossible for any Christian climber to get over, without bruising his (or her) shins as many times as there are bars. These inhospitable invitations to a flayed skin, are planted so thickly too, and are so troublesomely importunate at every little paddock here, that this, with more propriety than Thebes of old, might be entitled Hecatompolis: the Town of the Hundred Gates, or _styles_.

A SOJOURNER AT ENFIELD.

_July 16, 1827._

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

SAWSTON CROSS.

In the summer of the year 1815, I fulfilled my long standing promise of spending a day with an old schoolfellow at Sawston, a pleasant little village, delightfully situated in a fertile valley about seven miles south of Cambridge, the north of which is encompassed by the Gogmagog hills, which appear Apennines in miniature; the south, east, and west, are beautifully diversified with trees and foliage, truly picturesque and romantic. After partaking of the good things at the hospitable board of my friend, we set out for a ramble among the quiet rural scenery, and suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a group of people, near the road leading to the church. They were holding a conversation on a grass-plot; from the centre of which rose a _cross_, enclosed in a small covered building, like an amphitheatre, that added not a little to the romantic appearance of the village; towards the bottom of the southern slope of the grass-plot, propped with uncommon care, and guarded by a holy zeal from the ravages of time, stood an ancient sycamore-tree; and on the east side, to the terror of evil-doers, stood the stocks. Alas! unsparing ignorance has, since then, destroyed this fine tree; “the place that knew it knows it no more,” and the stocks are fallen never to rise again.

My friend, taking me aside, informed me the persons assembled were residents of the place, and that the meeting was convened to sell the cross. “This cross,” continued my friend, “is the ornament of the village. It escaped the phrenetic rage of the puritans in the civil wars, and is of such antiquity, that when it was built is not to be traced with certainty in the records of history. It may be supposed, however, to have been erected by the Knights Templars, as the living belonged to them; for, I believe, it was usual for them to erect crosses on their property. Upon the abolition of the Templars, the living came into the hands of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, afterwards called the Knights of Rhodes, and lastly, of Malta. So early as the thirteenth century public officers sat on this cross to administer justice; at other times, the bishop’s house, near the Campion-field, was used for that purpose: this house is now in ruins, but the cross,” continued my friend, “we possessed as an inheritance from our forefathers, and at this moment the cupidity and folly of the covetous and ignorant are conspiring to destroy the venerable relic.”

Wishing to preserve a memoranda of the old cross, I took a hasty sketch of it, (too hastily perhaps to be sufficiently accurate for an engraving,) and having reached my home, recorded the adventures of the day in my pocket-book, from whence the above extract is taken. Passing through the village in the following autumn, I found that the inhabitants had sacrilegiously levelled the cross and sold the remnants.

The Jews of old, as we’ve been told--
And Scriptures pure disclose--
With harden’d hearts drew lots for parts
Of our Salvator’s clothes.

The modern Jews--the Sawstonites--
As harden’d as the Israelites--
In ignorance still more gross--
Thinking they could no longer thrive
By Christian means, did means contrive--
Drew lots, and sold the cross!

_Cambridge._

T. N.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. II.

THE METHOD AND LOGIC OF DESCARTES AND LOCKE DERIVED FROM THE ANCIENTS.

Within the last two centuries some notions were advanced in logic and metaphysics, which were taken to be new; and Descartes, Leibnitz, Mallebranche, and Locke, were regarded as innovators, although nothing be put forth in their works, but what is clearly laid down in those of the ancients.

Descartes sets forth, as a first principle, that whoever searches for truth, ought once in his lifetime at least to doubt of every thing. He then lays down the four following rules, wherein consists the whole of his logic.--1. Never to admit any thing as true, but what we evidently discern to be so; that is, we should carefully avoid rashness and prejudice, and assent to nothing, till it present itself so clearly to the mind, that there be no occasion to hesitate about it.--2. To reduce every difficulty into as many separate parts, as may be necessary to come at its solution.--3. So to arrange our thoughts, that we may gradually arise from the more simple and obvious, to the more complex and remote, adhering to the order wherein they naturally precede one another.--4. To take so extensive a view of our subject, and be so exact in the enumeration of its parts, that nothing may escape our observation.

The first of these principles of doubt and circumspection, so boasted of in Descartes, is clearly laid down by Aristotle, and forcibly recommended by the very arguments that Descartes assumes. “Whoever seeks after instruction,” says Aristotle, “ought first of all to learn to doubt; for that simplicity of mind, which accompanies hesitation, contributes to the discovery of truth:” and, “whoever searches for truth, without beginning his investigation by doubting of every thing, is like one who wanders he knows not whither, and having no fixed scope, cannot determine where he is; whilst, on the contrary, he who hath learned to doubt, so as to inquire, will find, in the end, the place where he ought to rest.” So, also, speaking of the method to be observed in our investigations, Aristotle bids us begin always with what is most evident and best known; and carefully trace to its first elements and principles whatever is obscure, by properly severing and defining them.

Descartes imagined he had been the first discoverer of one of the most proper engines for sapping and demolishing the great bulwark of scepticism, when he reared even upon doubt itself a basis for truth; for he looked upon himself as the original advancer of the Enthymem,[275] “I doubt (or think) therefore I am.” To Descartes has been assigned the whole honour of this argument, though in reality it is to be found in St. Augustine. “I do not see,” says that great man, “what mighty force there is in the scepticism of the academics. For my part, I look upon it as a very just observation of theirs, that we may deceive ourselves. But if I deceive myself, may I not thence conclude that I am? For he who has no existence, cannot deceive himself; wherefore, by that very circumstance, that I deceive myself, I find that I am.”

Locke, in his “Essay on the Human Understanding,” merely advances the fruits of an exact attention to the principles of Aristotle, who taught that all our ideas originally spring from the senses, insomuch that a blind man can never conceive the idea of colours, nor a deaf man of sounds; and who makes the senses to convey truth, so far as the imagination can discern it; and the understanding, so far as truth regards the conduct of life and morals. It was Aristotle who laid the foundation of that principle, so celebrated among the Peripatetics, that “there is nothing in the understanding but what came into it by the senses.” This principle diffuses itself through his works in a thousand places, and Locke was singularly indebted for the very foundation of his system to the Stoics. The basis of his work is, that our sensations are the materials which reflection makes use of to come at mental notions; and that our sensations are simple ideas. It is true, that he has thrown great light upon our manner of acquiring and associating ideas; but the Stoics reasoned in the very same manner; and if all that they advanced on this subject, in those works of which we have nothing now remaining but the titles, had reached our times, we had not needed the labours of a Locke. There is a most remarkable passage to this point in Plutarch. He says, “The foundation of the doctrine of Zeno and his school, as to logic, was, that all our ideas come from sensation. The mind of man at his birth, say they, is like white paper, adapted to receive whatever may be written on it. The first impressions that it receives come to it from the senses: if the objects are at a distance, memory retains those types of them; and the repetition of these impressions constitutes experience. Ideas or notions are of two kinds, natural and artificial. The natural have their source in sensation, or are derived from the senses; whence they also gave them the name of anticipations: the artificial are produced by reflection, in beings endowed with reason.” This passage, and others in Origen, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius, and St. Augustine, may serve to trace the true origin of the principle, “That there is nothing in the understanding, but what entered into it by the senses.” It may be observed, that this axiom, so clearly expressed by the ancient Stoics and Epicureans, and by Locke among the moderns, has been erroneously attributed by several learned men, especially Gassendi and Harvey, to Aristotle.

[275] _Enthymem_: an argument consisting only of an antecedent and
consequential proposition; a syllogism, where the major proposition is
suppressed, and only the minor and consequence produced in words.

_Johnson._

* * * * *

MECHANICAL POWER.

Mr. Robert Owen calculates that two hundred arms, with machines, now manufacture as much cotton as twenty millions of arms were able to manufacture without machines forty years ago; and that the cotton now manufactured in the course of one year, in Great Britain, would require, without machines, sixteen millions of workmen with simple wheels. He calculates further, that the quantity of manufactures of all sorts produced by British workmen with the aid of machines is so great, that it would require, without the assistance of machinery, the labour of four hundred millions of workmen.

In the wool manufacture, machines possess an eminent advantage over common wheels. The yarn on thirty or thirty-six spindles is all equally twisted and drawn to the same degree of fineness. The most dexterous spinners cannot twist so equally and so gently twenty slips of yarn from wool of the same quality, as a machine can do twenty thousand.

At one of the cotton mills in Manchester yarn has been spun so fine, as to require 350 hanks to weigh one pound avoirdupois. The perimeter of the common reel being one yard and a half, 80 threads or revolutions would measure 120 yards; and one hank seven times as much, or 840 yards, which multiplied by 350, gives 294,000 yards, or 167 miles and a fraction.

A steam-engine of the ordinary pressure and construction, with a cylinder of thirty inches in diameter, will perform the work of forty horses; and, as it may be made to act without intermission, while horses will not work more than eight hours in the day, it will do the work of one hundred and twenty horses; and as the work of a horse is equal to that of five men, it will perform as much as six hundred men can; while its whole expense is only equal to about half the number of horses for which it is substituted.

The only purpose to which steam-engines were first applied was the raising of water from coal-pits, mines, &c.; but they are now used for many different purposes in which great power is required. Mr. Bolton applied the steam-engine to his apparatus for coining; and, by the help of four boys only, it was capable of striking thirty thousand pieces of money in an hour; the machine itself was made to keep an accurate account of the number struck off.

* * * * *

MANUFACTURING CELERITY.

In 1811 a gentleman made a bet of one thousand guineas, that he would have a coat made in the course of a single day, from the first process of shearing the sheep till its completion by the tailor. The wager was decided at Newbury, on the 25th of June in that year, by Mr. John Coxeter, of Greenham Mills, near that town. At five o’clock that morning, sir John Throckmorton, bart. presented two Southdown wedder sheep to Mr. Coxeter, and the sheep were shorn, the wool spun, the yarn spooled, warped, loomed, and wove; and the cloth burred, milled, rowed, dried, sheared, and pressed, and put into the hands of the tailors by four o’clock that afternoon: and at twenty minutes past six the coat, entirely finished, was presented by Mr. Coxeter to sir John Throckmorton, who appeared with it before upwards of five thousand spectators, who rent the air with acclamations at this remarkable instance of despatch.

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

BALLAD.

SUGGESTED ON READING THE NOVEL OF “CASTLE BAYNARD.”

“And must thou go, and must thou go,
So very, very soon?
There is not time to say farewell
Before the morrow’s noon.”

“O let me kiss away those tears
That dim thine eyes of blue,
The king’s behest must be obeyed,
And I must sigh, adieu.”

“Yet stay! oh stay! my Eustace, stay!
A little, little while;
I fear me that in Gallia’s court
Thou’lt woo another’s smile.”

“Nay, nay, Matilda, say not so,
Thy knight will aye be true,
True to his own betrothed maid,
So now, sweet love, adieu.”

“Yet tarry--canst thou tarry not
One other, other day?
Then guard this pledge of plighted faith
When thou art far away.”

“This precious gift, this flaxen lock,
How fondly shall I view,
And cherish next my heart--but now,
One last, last kiss, adieu.”

* * *

_July 3, 1827._

* * * * *

HELL BRIDGE.

There is a narrow pass between the mountains in the neighbourhood of Bendearg, in the Highlands of Scotland, which, at a little distance, has the appearance of an immense artificial bridge thrown over a tremendous chasm: but on nearer approach it is seen to be a wall of nature’s own masonry, formed of vast and rugged bodies of solid rock, piled on each other as if in giant sport of architecture. Its sides are in some places covered with trees of a considerable size; and the passenger who has a head steady enough to look down, may see the eyrie of birds of prey beneath his feet. The path across is so narrow, that it cannot admit of persons passing, and indeed none but natives attempt the dangerous route, though it saves a circuit of three miles; yet it sometimes happens that two travellers meet, owing to the curve formed by the pass preventing a view over it from either side, and, in that case, one person lies down while the other creeps over his body. One day, a highlander walking along the pass, when he had gained the highest part of the arch, observed another coming leisurely up, and being himself one of the patrician order, called to him to lie down; the person addressed disregarded the command, and the highlanders met on the summit. They were Cairn and Bendearg, of two families in enmity to each other. “I was first at the top,” said Bendearg, “and called out first; lie down, that I may pass over in peace.” “When the Grant prostrates himself before the M‘Pherson,” answered the other, “it must be with a sword through his body.” “Turn back then,” said Bendearg, “and repass as you came.” “Go back yourself, if you like it,” replied Grant; “I will not be the first of my name to turn before the M‘Phersons.” They then threw their bonnets over the precipice, and advanced with a slow and cautious pace closer to each other--both were unarmed. Preparing for a desperate struggle, they planted their feet firmly on the ground, compressed their lips, knit their brows, and fixing fierce and watchful eyes on each other, stood prepared for an onset. They both grappled at the same moment; but, being of equal strength, were unable to shift each other’s position, and stood fixed on the rock with suppressed breath, and muscles strained to the “top of their bent,” like statues carved out of the solid stone. At length M‘Pherson, suddenly removing his right foot so as to give him greater purchase, stooped his body, and bent his enemy down with him by main strength, till they both leaned over the precipice, looking into the terrible abyss. The contest was doubtful, for Grant had placed his foot firmly on an elevation at the brink, and had equal command of his enemy, but at this moment M‘Pherson sunk slowly and firmly on his knee, and, while Grant suddenly started back, stooping to take the supposed advantage, whirled him over his head into the gulf. M‘Pherson himself fell backwards, his body partly hanging over the rock, a fragment gave way beneath him, and he sunk further, till, catching with a desperate effort at the solid stone above, he regained his footing. There was a pause of death-like stillness, and the bold heart of M‘Pherson felt sick and faint. At length, as if compelled by some mysterious feeling, he looked down over the precipice. Grant had caught with a death-like gripe by the rugged point of a rock--his enemy was almost within his reach. His face was turned upward, and there was in it horror and despair--but he uttered no word or cry. The next moment he loosed his hold, his brains were dashed out before the eyes of his hereditary foe: the mangled body disappeared among the trees, and his last heavy and hollow sound arose from the bottom. M‘Pherson returned home an altered man. He purchased a commission in the army, and fell fighting in the wars of the Peninsula. The Gaelic name of the place where this tragedy was acted signifies “Hell Bridge.”

* * * * *

~Clubs~

AT BIRMINGHAM.

The whole British empire may be justly considered as one grand alliance, united for public and private interest; and this vast body of people is subdivided into an infinity of smaller fraternities, for individual benefit.

Perhaps there are hundreds of these societies in Birmingham, under the name of “clubs;” some of them boast the antiquity of a century, and by prudent direction have acquired a capital, at accumulating interest. Thousands of the inhabitants are connected; nay, to be otherwise is rather unfashionable, and some are people of sentiment and property.

Among a variety of purposes intended by these laudable institutions, the principal one is that of supporting the sick. Each society is governed by a code of laws of its own making, which have at least the honour of resembling those of the legislature; for words without sense are found in both, and we sometimes stumble upon contradiction.

The poor-rates, enormous as they appear, are softened by these brotherly aids; they tend also to keep the mind at rest, for a man will enjoy the day of health, with double relish, when he considers he has a treasure laid up for that of sickness. If a member only of a poor family be sick, the head still remains to procure necessaries; but if that head be disordered, the whole source of supply is dried up.

The general custom is to meet at a public house every fortnight, spend a trifle, and each contribute sixpence, or any stated sum, to the common stock. The landlord is always treasurer, or father, and is assisted by two stewards, annually or monthly chosen.

As honour and low life are not always found together, we sometimes see a man, who is idle, wish the society may suppose him sick, that he may rob them with more security; or, if a member hang long “upon the box,” his brethren seek a pretence to expel him. On the other hand, we frequently observe a man silently retreat from the club, if another falls upon the box, and fondly suppose himself no longer a member; or if the box be loaded with sickness, the whole club has been known to dissolve, that the members might rid themselves of the burden. The Court of Requests finds an easy remedy for these evils, at a trifling expense.

The charity of the club is often extended beyond the grave, and terminates with a present to the widow.

Philosophers tell us, “There is no good without its kindred evil.” This amiable body of men, marshalled to relieve disease, has one small alloy, and perhaps but one. As liquor and labour are inseparable, the imprudent member is apt to forget to quit the club-room when he has spent his necessary two-pence, but continues there, to the injury of his family.

One of these institutions is the “_Rent Club_,” where, from the weekly sums deposited by the members, a sop is regularly served up twice a year, to prevent the growlings of a landlord.

In the “_Breeches Club_” every member ballots for a pair, value a guinea, _promised_ of more value by the maker. This club dissolves when all the members are served.

The intentions of the “_Book Club_” are well known to catch the productions of the press as they rise.

The “_Watch Club_” has generally a watchmaker for its president, is composed of young men, and is always temporary.

If a tailor be short of employment, he has only to consult a landlord over a bottle, and by their joint powers, they give birth to a “_Clothes Club_,” where every member is supplied with a suit to his taste, of a stipulated price. These are chiefly composed of bachelors, who wish to shine in the eyes of the fair.

A bricklayer stands at the head of the “_Building Club_,” where every member perhaps subscribes two guineas per month, and each house, value about one hundred pounds, is balloted for as soon as erected. As a house is a weighty concern, every member is obliged to produce two bondsmen for the performance of covenants.

I will venture to pronounce another, the “_Capital Club_;” for when the contributions amount to fifty pounds, the members ballot for this capital, to bring into business, here also securities are necessary. It is easy to conceive the two last clubs are extremely beneficial to building and to commerce.

The last I shall enumerate is the “_Clock Club_.” When the weekly deposits of the members amount to about four pounds, they cast lots who shall be first served with a clock of that value, and continue the same method till the whole club is supplied; after which, the clock-maker and landlord cast about for another set, who are chiefly young housekeepers. Hence the beginner ornaments his premises with furniture, the artist finds employment with profit, and the publican empties his barrel.[276]

[276] Hutton’s History of Birmingham.

* * * * *

HYPOCHONDRIA.

A person at Taunton often kept at home for several weeks, under an idea of danger in going abroad. Sometimes he imagined that he was a cat, and seated himself on his hind quarters; at other times he would fancy himself a tea-pot, and stand with one arm a-kimbo like the handle, and the other stretched out like the spout. At last he conceived himself to have died, and would not move or be moved till the coffin came. His wife, in serious alarm, sent for a surgeon, who addressed him with the usual salutation, “How do you do this morning?”

“Do!” replied he in a low voice, “a pretty question to a dead man!”

“Dead, sir! what do you mean?”

“Yes, I died last Wednesday; the coffin will be here presently, and I shall be buried to-morrow.”

The surgeon, a man of sense and skill, immediately felt the patient’s pulse, and shaking his head, said, “I find it is indeed too true; you are certainly defunct; the blood is in a state of stagnation, putrefaction is about to take place, and the sooner you are buried the better.”

The coffin arrived, he was carefully placed in it, and carried towards the church. The surgeon had previously given instructions to several neighbours how to proceed. The procession had scarcely moved a dozen yards, when a person stopped to inquire who they were carrying to the grave? “Mr. ----, our late worthy overseer.”

“What! is the old rogue gone at last? a good release, for a greater villain never lived.”

The imaginary deceased no sooner heard this attack on his character, than he jumped up, and in a threatening posture said, “You lying scoundrel, if I was not dead I’d make you suffer for what you say; but as it is, I am forced to submit.” He then quietly laid down again; but ere they had proceeded half way to church, another party stopped the procession with the same inquiry, and added invective and abuse. This was more than the supposed corpse could bear; and jumping from the coffin, was in the act of following his defamers, when the whole party burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, the public exposure awakened him to a sense of his folly, and he fought against the weakness, and, in the end, conquered it.

* * * * *

~Prisons,~

ANCIENT AND MODERN.