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an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company: at which times she will answer yes or no to a question, without fully understanding its purport-which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably.

Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old

maids.

In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; but best, when she goes a journey with

you.

We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that fine corn country.

remainder of our joint existences; that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grandmother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing in that part of the county, but the Fields are almost extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery End-kindred or strange folk-we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore.

By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in our way from St. Albans, we arrived at the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though I had forgotten it, we had never forgotten being there together, and we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the aspect of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to that, which I had conjured up so many times instead of it!

Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart of June," and I could say with the poet,

But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation!

Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered her old acquaintance again—some altered features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy; but the scene soon re-confirmed itself in her affections-and she traversed every out-post

The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; a farm-house,-delightfully situated of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the

orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown)

with a breathless impatience of recognition, which was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. But Bridget in some things is behind her years.

palace-or so we thought it. We were made welcome by husband and wife equally-we,

The only thing left was to get into the house-and that was a difficulty which to me singly would have been insurmountable; and our friend that was with us.-I had for I am terribly shy in making myself almost forgotten him-but B. F. will not so known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he Love, stronger than scruple, winged my shall read this on the far distant shores where cousin in without me; but she soon returned the kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was with a creature that might have sat to a made ready, or rather was already so, as if sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was in anticipation of our coming; and, after an the youngest of the Gladmans; who, by appropriate glass of native wine, never let marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress me forget with what honest pride this hospiof the old mansion. A comely brood are table cousin made us proceed to Wheathampthe Brutons. Six of them, females, were stead, to introduce us (as some new-found noted as the handsomest young women in rarity) to her mother and sister Gladmans, the county. But this adopted Bruton, in who did indeed know something more of us, my mind, was better than they all-more at a time when she almost knew nothing.comely. She was born too late to have With what corresponding kindness we were remembered me. She just recollected in received by them also-how Bridget's early life to have had her cousin Bridget memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed once pointed out to her, climbing a stile. into a thousand half-obliterated recollections But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, of things and persons, to my utter astonishwas enough. Those slender ties, that provement, and her own-and to the astoundment slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up together; were familiar, even to the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her-it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins! There was a grace and dignity, an amplitude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have shined in a

that was not a cousin there,-old effaced images of more than half-forgotten names and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth,-when I forget all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget no more remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender charge- as I have been her care in foolish manhood since-in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire.

MY FIRST PLAY.

Ar the north end of Cross-court there yet our going (the elder folks and myself) was, stands a portal, of some architectural preten- that the rain should cease. With what a sions, though reduced to humble use, serving beating heart did I watch from the window at present for an entrance to a printing-office. the puddles, from the stillness of which I was This old door-way, if you are young, reader, taught to prognosticate the desired cessation! you may not know was the identical pit I seem to remember the last spurt, and the entrance to old Drury-Garrick's Drury-all glee with which I ran to announce it. of it that is left. I never pass it without We went with orders, which my godfather shaking some forty years from off my F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now shoulders, recurring to the evening when I Davies's) at the corner of Featherstonepassed through it to see my first play. The buildings, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave afternoon had been wet, and the condition of person, lofty in speech and had pretensions

above his rank. He associated in those days I journeyed down to take possession, and

with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy; if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with him from a boarding-school at Bath-the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious charge. From either of these connexions it may be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the then Drury-lane theatre at pleasure—and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley's easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had received for many years' nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that theatre -and he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan's familiarity or supposed familiarity was better to my godfather than money.

F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin from an oilman's lips!), which my better knowledge since has enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded vice versa-but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro-in his own peculiar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicised, into something like verse verse. By an imposing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow.

planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an acre, with its commodious mansion in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all betwixt sky and centre was my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.

Beshrew

In those days were pit orders. the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!— with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door-not that which is left-but between that and an inner door in shelter-O when shall I be such an expectant again!—with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, "Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play; "-chase pro chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed-the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's Shakspeare-the tent scene with Diomede—and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening.— The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit: and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling-a homely fancy-but I judged it to be sugarcandy-yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!—The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fair Auroras!" Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again

and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up-I was not past six years old and the play was Artaxerxes!

He is dead-and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talismans !-slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises!) and moreover that by his testamentary benefi- I had dabbled a little in the Universal cence I came into possession of the only History-the ancient part of it-and here landed property which I could ever call my was the court of Persia.-It was being own-situate near the road-way village of admitted to a sight of the past. I took no pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When proper interest in the action going on, for I

understood not its import-but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time, and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awestruck, and believed those significations to be something more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams. -Harlequin's invasion followed; where, I remember, the transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys.

I saw these plays in the season 1781-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all—

Was nourished, I could not tell how

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, was gone !-The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to bring back past ages to present a “royal ghost,”—but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights-the orchestra lights-came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the

The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the Manor, of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost—a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead-but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity as Lud—the father of a line of Harlequins transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patch-prompter's bell-which had been, like the work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.

note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and My third play followed in quick succession. women painted. I thought the fault was in It was the Way of the World. I think them; but it was in myself, and the alteraI must have sat at it as grave as a judge; tion which those many centuries,― of six for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of short twelvemonths-had wrought in me. good Lady Wishfort affected me like some-Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe play of the evening was but an indifferent followed; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and comedy, as it gave me time to crop some the parrot, were as good and authentic as unreasonable expectations, which might have in the story. The clownery and pantaloonery interfered with the genuine emotions with of these pantomimes have clean passed out of which I was soon after enabled to enter upon my head. I believe, I no more laughed at the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons them, than at the same age I should have in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection been disposed to laugh at the grotesque soon yielded to the present attraction of Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old Round Church (my church) of the Templars.

the scene; and the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most delightful of recreations.

MODERN GALLANTRY,

you have not seen a politer-bred man in

In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to compliment ourselves Lothbury. upon the point of gallantry; a certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are supposed to pay to females, as females.

I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct, when I can forget, that in the nineteenth century of the era from which we date our civility, we are but just beginning to leave off the very frequent practice of whipping females in public, in common with the coarsest male offenders.

I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my eyes to the fact, that in England women are still occasionally · hanged.

I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject to be hissed off a stage by gentlemen.

I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife across the kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up her wandering fruit, which some unlucky dray has just dissipated.

Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such principle influencing our conduct, when more than one-half of the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by women.

Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted point to be anything more than a conventional fiction; a pageant got up between the sexes, in a certain rank, and at a certain time of life, in which both find their account equally.

I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fictions of life, when in polite circles I shall see the same attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features as to handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear to the woman, as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title.

I shall believe it to be something more than a name, when a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company can advert to the topic of female old age without exciting, and intending to excite, a sneer:- when the phrases "antiquated virginity," and such a one has "overstood her market,” pronounced in good company, shall raise immediate offence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken.

I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler life, who would be thought in their way notable adepts in this refinement, shall act upon it in places where they are not known, or think themselves not observed when I shall see the traveller for some rich Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, mertradesman part with his admired box-coat, chant, and one of the Directors of the Southto spread it over the defenceless shoulders of Sea company-the same to whom Edwards, the poor woman, who is passing to her parish the Shakspeare commentator, has addressed on the roof of the same stage-coach with a fine sonnet-was the only pattern of conhim, drenched in the rain-when I shall no sistent gallantry I have met with. He took longer see a woman standing up in the pit of me under his shelter at an early age, and a London theatre, till she is sick and faint bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his with the exertion, with men about her, precepts and example whatever there is of seated at their ease, and jeering at her dis- the man of business (and that is not much) tress; till one, that seems to have more in my composition. It was not his fault manners or conscience than the rest, signi- that I did not profit more. Though bred a ficantly declares "she should be welcome to Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, his seat, if she were a little younger and he was the finest gentleman of his time. handsomer." Place this dapper warehouse- He had not one system of attention to man, or that rider, in a circle of their own females in the drawing-room, and another in female acquaintance, and you shall confess the shop, or at the stall. I do not mean that

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