{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2075/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2075","id":"gutenberg_2075","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2075","summary":null,"tags":["Authors -- Fiction","Category: British Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Novels","England -- Fiction","Philosophy -- Fiction"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1887 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n                       CASSELL\u2019S NATIONAL LIBRARY.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n\n                             CROTCHET CASTLE\n\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    BY\n                           THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.\n\n                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]\n\n                       CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:\n                _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.\n                                  1887.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nTHOMAS LOVE PEACOCK was born at Weymouth in 1785.  His first poem, \u201cThe\nGenius of the Thames,\u201d was in its second edition when he became one of\nthe friends of Shelley.  That was in 1812, when Shelley\u2019s age was twenty,\nPeacock\u2019s twenty-seven.  The acquaintance strengthened, until Peacock\nbecame the friend in whose judgment Shelley put especial trust.  There\nwere many points of agreement.  Peacock, at that time, shared, in a more\npractical way, Shelley\u2019s desire for root and branch reform; both wore\npoets, although not equally gifted, and both loved Plato and the Greek\ntragedians.  In \u201cCrotchet Castle\u201d Peacock has expressed his own delight\nin Greek literature through the talk of the Reverend Dr. Folliott.\n\nBut Shelley\u2019s friendship for Peacock included a trust in him that was\nmaintained by points of unlikeness.  Peacock was shrewd and witty.  He\ndelighted in extravagance of a satire which usually said more than it\nmeant, but always rested upon a foundation of good sense.  Then also\nthere was a touch of the poet to give grace to the utterances of a\nclear-headed man of the world.  It was Peacock who gave its name to\nShelley\u2019s poem of \u201cAlastor, or the Spirit of Solitude,\u201d published in\n1816.  The \u201cSpirit of Solitude\u201d being treated as a spirit of evil,\nPeacock suggested calling it \u201cAlastor,\u201d since the Greek \u1f00\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1 means an\nevil genius.\n\nPeacock\u2019s novels are unlike those of other men: they are the genuine\nexpressions of an original and independent mind.  His reading and his\nthinking ran together; there is free quotation, free play of wit and\nsatire, grace of invention too, but always unconventional.  The story is\nalways pleasant, although always secondary to the play of thought for\nwhich it gives occasion.  He quarrelled with verse, whimsically but in\nall seriousness, in an article on \u201cThe Four Ages of Poetry,\u201d contributed\nin 1820 to a short-lived journal, \u201cOllier\u2019s Literary Miscellany.\u201d  The\nfour ages were, he said, the iron age, the Bardic; the golden, the\nHomeric; the silver, the Virgilian; and the brass, in which he himself\nlived.  \u201cA poet in our time,\u201d he said, \u201cis a semi-barbarian in a\ncivilised community . . . The highest inspirations of poetry are\nresolvable into three ingredients: the rant of unregulated passion, the\nwhining of exaggerated feeling, and the cant of factitious sentiment; and\ncan, therefore, serve only to ripen a splendid lunatic like Alexander, a\npuling driveller like Werter, or a morbid dreamer like Wordsworth.\u201d  In\nanother part of this essay he says: \u201cWhile the historian and the\nphilosopher are advancing in and accelerating the progress of knowledge,\nthe poet is wallowing in the rubbish of departed ignorance, and raking up\nthe ashes of dead savages to find gewgaws and rattles for the grown\nbabies of the age.  Mr. Scott digs up the poacher and cattle-stealers of\nthe ancient Border.  Lord Byron cruises for thieves and pirates on the\nshores of the Morea and among the Greek islands.  Mr. Southey wades\nthrough ponderous volumes of travels and old chronicles, from which he\ncarefully selects all that is false, useless, and absurd, as being\nessentially poetical; and when he has a commonplace book full of\nmonstrosities, strings them into an epic.\u201d  And so forth; Peacock going\non to characterise, in further illustration of his argument, Wordsworth,\nColeridge, Moore, and Campbell.  He did not refer to Shelley; and Shelley\nread his friend\u2019s whimsical attack on poetry with all good humour,\nproceeding to reply to it with a \u201cDefence of Poetry,\u201d which would have\nappeared in the same journal, if the journal had survived.  In this novel\nof \u201cCrotchet Castle\u201d there is the same good-humoured exaggeration in the\ntreatment of \u201cour learned friend\u201d\u2014Lord Brougham\u2014to whom and to whose\nlabours for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge there are repeated\nallusions.  In one case Peacock associates the labours of \u201cour learned\nfriend\u201d for the general instruction of the masses with encouragement of\nrobbery (page 172), and in another with body-snatching, or, worse,\u2014murder\nfor dissection (page 99).  \u201cThe Lord deliver me from the learned friend!\u201d\nsays Dr. Folliott.  Brougham\u2019s elevation to a peerage in November, 1830,\nas Lord Brougham and Vaux, is referred to on page 177, where he is called\nSir Guy do Vaux.  It is not to be forgotten, in the reading, that this\nstory was written in 1831, the year before the passing of the Reform\nBill.  It ends with a scene suggested by the agricultural riots of that\ntime.  In the ninth chapter, again, there is a passage dealing with Sir\nWalter Scott after the fashion of the criticisms in the \u201cFour Ages of\nPoetry.\u201d  But this critical satire gave nobody pain.  Always there was a\nground-work of good sense, and the broad sweep of the satire was utterly\nunlike the nibbling censure of the men whose wit is tainted with\nill-humour.  We may see also that the poet\u2019s nature cannot be expelled.\nIn this volume we should find the touch of a poet\u2019s hand in the tale\nitself when dealing with the adventures of Mr. Chainmail, while he stays\nat the Welsh mountain inn, if the story did not again and again break out\ninto actual song, for it includes half-a-dozen little poems.\n\nWhen Peacock wrote his attack on Poetry, he had, only two years before,\nproduced a poem of his own\u2014\u201cRhododaphne\u201d\u2014with a Greek fancy of the true\nand the false love daintily worked out.  It was his chief work in verse,\nand gave much pleasure to a few, among them his friend Shelley.  But he\nfelt that, as the world went, he was not strong enough to help it by his\nsinging, so he confined his writing to the novels, in which he could\nspeak his mind in his own way, while doing his duty by his country in the\nEast India House, where he obtained a post in 1818.  From 1836 to 1856,\nwhen he retired on a pension, he was Examiner of India Correspondence.\nPeacock died in 1866, aged eighty-one.\n\n                                                                     H. M.\n\nNOTE that in this tale Mac Quedy is Mac Q. E. D., son of a demonstration;\nMr. Skionar, the transcendentalist, is named from Ski(as) onar, the dream\nof a shadow; and Mr. Philpot,\u2014who loves rivers, is Phil(o)pot(amos).\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\nTHE VILLA.\n\n\n    _Captain Jamy_.  I wad full fain hear some question \u2019tween you tway.\n\n                                                                  HENRY V.\n\nIN one of those beautiful valleys, through which the Thames (not yet\npolluted by the tide, the scouring of cities, or even the minor\ndefilement of the sandy streams of Surrey) rolls a clear flood through\nflowery meadows, under the shade of old beech woods, and the smooth mossy\ngreensward of the chalk hills (which pour into it their tributary\nrivulets, as pure and pellucid as the fountain of Bandusium, or the wells\nof Scamander, by which the wives and daughters of the Trojans washed\ntheir splendid garments in the days of peace, before the coming of the\nGreeks); in one of those beautiful valleys, on a bold round-surfaced\nlawn, spotted with juniper, that opened itself in the bosom of an old\nwood, which rose with a steep, but not precipitous ascent, from the river\nto the summit of the hill, stood the castellated villa of a retired\ncitizen.  Ebenezer Mac Crotchet, Esquire, was the London-born offspring\nof a worthy native of the \u201cnorth countrie,\u201d who had walked up to London\non a commercial adventure, with all his surplus capital, not very neatly\ntied up in a not very clean handkerchief, suspended over his shoulder\nfrom the end of a hooked stick, extracted from the first hedge on his\npilgrimage; and who, after having worked himself a step or two up the\nladder of life, had won the virgin heart of the only daughter of a highly\nrespectable merchant of Duke\u2019s Place, with whom he inherited the honest\nfruits of a long series of ingenuous dealings.\n\nMr. Mac Crotchet had derived from his mother the instinct, and from his\nfather the rational principle, of enriching himself at the expense of the\nrest of mankind, by all the recognised modes of accumulation on the windy\nside of the law.  After passing many years in the Alley, watching the\nturn of the market, and playing many games almost as desperate as that of\nthe soldier of Lucullus, the fear of losing what he had so righteously\ngained predominated over the sacred thirst of paper-money; his caution\ngot the better of his instinct, or rather transferred it from the\ndepartment of acquisition to that of conservation.  His friend, Mr.\nRamsbottom, the zodiacal mythologist, told him that he had done well to\nwithdraw from the region of Uranus or Brahma, the Maker, to that of\nSaturn or Veeshnu, the Preserver, before he fell under the eye of Jupiter\nor Seva, the Destroyer, who might have struck him down at a blow.\n\nIt is said that a Scotchman, returning home after some years\u2019 residence\nin England, being asked what he thought of the English, answered: \u201cThey\nhanna ower muckle sense, but they are an unco braw people to live amang;\u201d\nwhich would be a very good story, if it were not rendered apocryphal by\nthe incredible circumstance of the Scotchman going back.\n\nMr. Mac Crotchet\u2019s experience had given him a just title to make, in his\nown person, the last-quoted observation, but he would have known better\nthan to go back, even if himself, and not his father, had been the first\ncomer of his line from the north.  He had married an English Christian,\nand, having none of the Scotch accent, was ungracious enough to be\nashamed of his blood.  He was desirous to obliterate alike the Hebrew and\nCaledonian vestiges in his name, and signed himself E. M. Crotchet, which\nby degrees induced the majority of his neighbours to think that his name\nwas Edward Matthew.  The more effectually to sink the Mac, he christened\nhis villa \u201cCrotchet Castle,\u201d and determined to hand down to posterity the\nhonours of Crotchet of Crotchet.  He found it essential to his dignity to\nfurnish himself with a coat of arms, which, after the proper ceremonies\n(payment being the principal), he obtained, videlicet: Crest, a crotchet\nrampant, in A sharp; Arms, three empty bladders, turgescent, to show how\nopinions are formed; three bags of gold, pendent, to show why they are\nmaintained; three naked swords, tranchant, to show how they are\nadministered; and three barbers\u2019 blocks, gaspant, to show how they are\nswallowed.\n\nMr. Crotchet was left a widower, with two children; and, after the death\nof his wife, so strong was his sense of the blessed comfort she had been\nto him, that he determined never to give any other woman an opportunity\nof obliterating the happy recollection.\n\nHe was not without a plausible pretence for styling his villa a castle,\nfor, in its immediate vicinity, and within his own enclosed domain, were\nthe manifest traces, on the brow of the hill, of a Roman station, or\n_castellum_, which was still called the \u201cCastle\u201d by the country people.\nThe primitive mounds and trenches, merely overgrown with greensward, with\na few patches of juniper and box on the vallum, and a solitary ancient\nbeech surmounting the place of the pr\u00e6torium, presented nearly the same\ndepths, heights, slopes, and forms, which the Roman soldiers had\noriginally given them.  From this  castellum Mr. Crotchet christened his\nvilla.  With his rustic neighbours he was, of course, immediately and\nnecessarily a squire: Squire Crotchet of the Castle; and he seemed to\nhimself to settle down as naturally into an English country gentleman, as\nif his parentage had been as innocent of both Scotland and Jerusalem, as\nhis education was of Rome and Athens.\n\nBut as, though you expel nature with a pitch-fork, she will yet always\ncome back; he could not become, like a true-born English squire, part and\nparcel of the barley-giving earth; he could not find in game-bagging,\npoacher-shooting, trespasser-pounding, footpath-stopping,\ncommon-enclosing, rack-renting, and all the other liberal pursuits and\npastimes which make a country gentleman an ornament to the world and a\nblessing to the poor: he could not find in these valuable and amiable\noccupations, and in a corresponding range of ideas, nearly commensurate\nwith that of the great King Nebuchadnezzar when he was turned out to\ngrass; he could not find in this great variety of useful action, and vast\nfield of comprehensive thought, modes of filling up his time that\naccorded with his Caledonian instinct.  The inborn love of disputation,\nwhich the excitements and engagements of a life of business had\nsmothered, burst forth through the calmer surface of a rural life.  He\ngrew as fain as Captain Jamy, \u201cto hear some argument betwixt ony tway,\u201d\nand being very hospitable in his establishment, and liberal in his\ninvitations, a numerous detachment from the advanced guard of the \u201cmarch\nof intellect,\u201d often marched down to Crotchet Castle.\n\nWhen the fashionable season filled London with exhibitors of all\ndescriptions, lecturers and else, Mr. Crotchet was in his glory; for, in\naddition to the perennial literati of the metropolis, he had the\nadvantage of the visits of a number of hardy annuals, chiefly from the\nnorth, who, as the interval of their metropolitan flowering allowed,\noccasionally accompanied their London brethren in excursions to Crotchet\nCastle.\n\nAmongst other things, he took very naturally to political economy, read\nall the books on the subject which were put forth by his own countrymen,\nattended all lectures thereon, and boxed the technology of the sublime\nscience as expertly as an able seaman boxes the compass.\n\nWith this agreeable mania he had the satisfaction of biting his son, the\nhope of his name and race, who had borne off from Oxford the highest\nacademical honours; and who, treading in his father\u2019s footsteps to honour\nand fortune, had, by means of a portion of the old gentleman\u2019s surplus\ncapital, made himself a junior partner in the eminent loan-jobbing firm\nof Catchflat and Company.  Here, in the days of paper prosperity, he\napplied his science-illumined genius to the blowing of bubbles, the\nbursting of which sent many a poor devil to the gaol, the workhouse, or\nthe bottom of the river, but left young Crotchet rolling in riches.\n\nThese riches he had been on the point of doubling, by a marriage with the\ndaughter of Mr. Touchandgo, the great banker, when, one foggy morning,\nMr. Touchandgo and the contents of his till were suddenly reported\nabsent; and as the fortune which the young gentleman had intended to\nmarry was not forthcoming, this tender affair of the heart was nipped in\nthe bud.\n\nMiss Touchandgo did not meet the shock of separation quite so\ncomplacently as the young gentleman: for he lost only the lady, whereas\nshe lost a fortune as well as a lover.  Some jewels, which had glittered\non her beautiful person as brilliantly as the bubble of her father\u2019s\nwealth had done in the eyes of his gudgeons, furnished her with a small\nportion of paper-currency; and this, added to the contents of a fairy\npurse of gold, which she found in her shoe on the eventful morning when\nMr. Touchandgo melted into thin air, enabled her to retreat into North\nWales, where she took up her lodging in a farm-house in Merionethshire,\nand boarded very comfortably for a trifling payment, and the additional\nconsideration of teaching English, French, and music, to the little\nAp-Llymrys.  In the course of this occupation she acquired sufficient\nknowledge of Welsh to converse with the country people.\n\nShe climbed the mountains, and descended the dingles, with a foot which\ndaily habit made by degrees almost as steady as a native\u2019s.  She became\nthe nymph of the scene; and if she sometimes pined in thought for her\nfaithless Strephon, her melancholy was anything but green and yellow: it\nwas as genuine white and red as occupation, mountain air, thyme-fed\nmutton, thick cream, and fat bacon could make it: to say nothing of an\noccasional glass of double X, which Ap-Llymry, who yielded to no man west\nof the Wrekin in brewage, never failed to press upon her at dinner and\nsupper.  He was also earnest, and sometimes successful, in the\nrecommendation of his mead, and most pertinacious on winter nights in\nenforcing a trial of the virtues of his elder wine.  The young lady\u2019s\npersonal appearance, consequently, formed a very advantageous contrast to\nthat of her quondam lover, whose physiognomy the intense anxieties of his\nbubble-blowing days, notwithstanding their triumphant result, had left\nblighted, sallowed, and crow\u2019s-footed, to a degree not far below that of\nthe fallen spirit who, in the expressive language of German romance, is\ndescribed as \u201cscathed by the ineradicable traces of the thunderbolts of\nHeaven;\u201d so that, contemplating their relative geological positions, the\npoor deserted damsel was flourishing on slate, while her rich and false\nyoung knight was pining on chalk.\n\nSquire Crotchet had also one daughter, whom he had christened Lemma, and\nwho, as likely to be endowed with a very ample fortune was, of course, an\nobject very tempting to many young soldiers of fortune, who were marching\nwith the march of mind, in a good condition for taking castles, as far as\nnot having a groat is a qualification for such exploits.  She was also a\nglittering bait to divers young squires expectant (whose fathers were too\nwell acquainted with the occult signification of mortgage), and even to\none or two sprigs of nobility, who thought that the lining of a civic\npurse would superinduce a very passable factitious nap upon a thread-bare\ntitle.  The young lady had received an expensive and complicated\neducation, complete in all the elements of superficial display.  She was\nthus eminently qualified to be the companion of any masculine luminary\nwho had kept due pace with the \u201castounding progress\u201d of intelligence.  It\nmust be confessed, that a man who has not kept due pace with it, is not\nvery easily found: this march being one of that \u201castounding\u201d character in\nwhich it seems impossible that the rear can be behind the van.  The young\nlady was also tolerably good looking: north of Tweed, or in Palestine,\nshe would probable have been a beauty; but for the valleys of the Thames\nshe was perhaps a little too much to the taste of Solomon, and had a nose\nwhich rather too prominently suggested the idea of the tower of Lebanon,\nwhich looked towards Damascus.\n\nIn a village in the vicinity of the Castle was the vicarage of the\nReverend Doctor Folliott, a gentleman endowed with a tolerable stock of\nlearning, an interminable swallow, and an indefatigable pair of lungs.\nHis pre-eminence in the latter faculty gave occasion to some etymologists\nto ring changes on his name, and to decide that it was derived from\nFollis Optimus, softened through an Italian medium into Folle Ottimo,\ncontracted poetically into Folleotto, and elided Anglic\u00e9 into Folliott,\nsignifying a first-rate pair of bellows.  He claimed to be descended\nlineally from the illustrious Gilbert Folliott, the eminent theologian,\nwho was a Bishop of London in the twelfth century, whose studies were\ninterrupted in the dead of night by the Devil, when a couple of epigrams\npassed between them, and the Devil, of course, proved the smaller wit of\nthe two.\n\nThis reverend gentleman, being both learned and jolly, became by degrees\nan indispensable ornament to the new squire\u2019s table.  Mr. Crotchet\nhimself was eminently jolly, though by no means eminently learned.  In\nthe latter respect he took after the great majority of the sons of his\nfather\u2019s land; had a smattering of many things, and a knowledge of none;\nbut possessed the true northern art of making the most of his\nintellectual harlequin\u2019s jacket, by keeping the best patches always\nbright and prominent.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\nTHE MARCH OF MIND.\n\n\n    Quoth Ralpho: nothing but the abuse\n    Of human learning you produce.\u2014BUTLER.\n\n\u201cGOD bless my soul, sir!\u201d exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott,\nbursting, one fine May morning, into the breakfast-room at Crotchet\nCastle, \u201cI am out of all patience with this march of mind.  Here has my\nhouse been nearly burned down by my cook taking it into her head to study\nhydrostatics in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect\nSociety, and written by a learned friend who is for doing all the world\u2019s\nbusiness as well as his own, and is equally well qualified to handle\nevery branch of human knowledge.  I have a great abomination of this\nlearned friend; as author, lawyer, and politician, he is _triformis_,\nlike Hecate; and in every one of his three forms he is _bifrons_, like\nJanus; the true Mr. Facing-both-ways of Vanity Fair.  My cook must read\nhis rubbish in bed; and, as might naturally be expected, she dropped\nsuddenly fast asleep, overturned the candle, and set the curtains in a\nblaze.  Luckily, the footman went into the room at the moment, in time to\ntear down the curtains and throw them into the chimney, and a pitcher of\nwater on her nightcap extinguished her wick; she is a greasy subject, and\nwould have burned like a short mould.\u201d\n\nThe reverend gentleman exhaled his grievance without looking to the right\nor to the left; at length, turning on his pivot, he perceived that the\nroom was full of company, consisting of young Crotchet, and some visitors\nwhom he had brought from London.  The Reverend Doctor Folliott was\nintroduced to Mr. Mac Quedy, the economist; Mr. Skionar, the\ntranscendental poet; Mr. Firedamp, the meteorologist; and Lord Bossnowl,\nson of the Earl of Foolincourt, and member for the borough of\nRogueingrain.\n\nThe divine took his seat at the breakfast-table, and began to compose his\nspirits by the gentle sedative of a large cup of tea, the demulcent of a\nwell-buttered muffin, and the tonic of a small lobster.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014You are a man of taste, Mr. Crotchet.  A man of\ntaste is seen at once in the array of his breakfast-table.  It is the\nfoot of Hercules, the far-shining face of the great work, according to\nPindar\u2019s doctrine: \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03c1\u1f74 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03c0\u03b7\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03b3\u03ad\u03c2.  The\nbreakfast is the \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd of the great work of the day.  Chocolate,\ncoffee, tea, cream, eggs, ham, tongue, cold fowl, all these are good, and\nbespeak good knowledge in him who sets them forth: but the touchstone is\nfish: anchovy is the first step, prawns and shrimps the second; and I\nlaud him who reaches even to these: potted char and lampreys are the\nthird, and a fine stretch of progression; but lobster is, indeed, matter\nfor a May morning, and demands a rare combination of knowledge and virtue\nin him who sets it forth.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, and what say you to a fine fresh trout, hot\nand dry, in a napkin? or a herring out of the water into the frying-pan,\non the shore of Loch Fyne?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, I say every nation has some eximious\nvirtue; and your country is pre-eminent in the glory of fish for\nbreakfast.  We have much to learn from you in that line at any rate.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014And in many others, sir, I believe.  Morals and\nmetaphysics, politics and political economy, the way to make the most of\nall the modifications of smoke; steam, gas, and paper currency; you have\nall these to learn from us; in short, all the arts and sciences.  We are\nthe modern Athenians.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I, for one, sir, am content to learn nothing\nfrom you but the art and science of fish for breakfast.  Be content, sir,\nto rival the Boeotians, whose redeeming virtue was in fish, touching\nwhich point you may consult Aristophanes and his scholiast in the passage\nof Lysistrata, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u2019 \u1f04\u03c6\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u1f10\u03b3\u03c7\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, and leave the name of Athenians\nto those who have a sense of the beautiful, and a perception of metrical\nquantity.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Then, sir, I presume you set no value on the right\nprinciples of rent, profit, wages, and currency?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014My principles, sir, in these things are, to take\nas much as I can get, and pay no more than I can help.  These are every\nman\u2019s principles, whether they be the right principles or no.  There,\nsir, is political economy in a nutshell.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014The principles, sir, which regulate production and\nconsumption are independent of the will of any individual as to giving or\ntaking, and do not lie in a nutshell by any means.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, I will thank you for a leg of that capon.\n\n_Lord Bossnowl_.\u2014But, sir, by-the-bye, how came your footman to be going\ninto your cook\u2019s room?  It was very providential to be sure, but\u2014\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, as good came of it, I shut my eyes, and ask\nno questions.  I suppose he was going to study hydrostatics, and he found\nhimself under the necessity of practising hydraulics.\n\n_Mr. Firedamp_.\u2014Sir, you seem to make very light of science.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Yes, sir, such science as the learned friend\ndeals in: everything for everybody, science for all, schools for all,\nrhetoric for all, law for all, physic for all, words for all, and sense\nfor none.  I say, sir, law for lawyers, and cookery for cooks: and I wish\nthe learned friend, for all his life, a cook that will pass her time in\nstudying his works; then every dinner he sits down to at home, he will\nsit on the stool of repentance.\n\n_Lord Bossnowl_.\u2014Now really that would be too severe: my cook should read\nnothing but Ude.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No, sir! let Ude and the learned friend singe\nfowls together; let both avaunt from my kitchen.  \u0398\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u2019 \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\n\u03b2\u03b5\u03b2\u03ae\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2.  Ude says an elegant supper may be given with sandwiches.\n_Horresco referens_.  An elegant supper.  _D\u00ee meliora piis_.  No Ude for\nme.  Conviviality went out with punch and suppers.  I cherish their\nmemory.  I sup when I can, but not upon sandwiches.  To offer me a\nsandwich, when I am looking for a supper, is to add insult to injury.\nLet the learned friend, and the modern Athenians, sup upon sandwiches.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Nay, sir; the modern Athenians know better than that.  A\nliterary supper in sweet Edinbro\u2019 would cure you of the prejudice you\nseem to cherish against us.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, sir, well; there is cogency in a good\nsupper; a good supper in these degenerate days bespeaks a good man; but\nmuch more is wanted to make up an Athenian.  Athenians, indeed! where is\nyour theatre? who among you has written a comedy? where is your Attic\nsalt? which of you can tell who was Jupiter\u2019s great-grandfather? or what\nmetres will successively remain, if you take off the three first\nsyllables, one by one, from a pure antispastic acatalectic tetrameter?\nNow, sir, there are three questions for you: theatrical, mythological,\nand metrical; to every one of which an Athenian would give an answer that\nwould lay me prostrate in my own nothingness.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, as to your metre and your mythology, they may\ne\u2019en wait a wee.  For your comedy there is the \u201cGentle Shepherd\u201d of the\ndivine Allan Ramsay.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014The \u201cGentle Shepherd\u201d!  It is just as much a\ncomedy as the Book of Job.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, if none of us have written a comedy, I cannot\nsee that it is any such great matter, any more than I can conjecture what\nbusiness a man can have at this time of day with Jupiter\u2019s\ngreat-grandfather.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014The great business is, sir, that you call\nyourselves Athenians, while you know nothing that the Athenians thought\nworth knowing, and dare not show your noses before the civilised world in\nthe practice of any one art in which they were excellent.  Modern Athens,\nsir! the assumption is a personal affront to every man who has a\nSophocles in his library.  I will thank you for an anchovy.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Metaphysics, sir; metaphysics.  Logic and moral\nphilosophy.  There we are at home.  The Athenians only sought the way,\nand we have found it; and to all this we have added political economy,\nthe science of sciences.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014A hyperbarbarous technology, that no Athenian\near could have borne.  Premises assumed without evidence, or in spite of\nit; and conclusions drawn from them so logically, that they must\nnecessarily be erroneous.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014I cannot agree with you, Mr. Mac Quedy, that you have\nfound the true road of metaphysics, which the Athenians only sought.  The\nGermans have found it, sir: the sublime Kant and his disciples.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014I have read the sublime Kant, sir, with an anxious\ndesire to understand him, and I confess I have not succeeded.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014He wants the two great requisites of head and\ntail.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014Transcendentalism is the philosophy of intuition, the\ndevelopment of universal convictions; truths which are inherent in the\norganisation of mind, which cannot be obliterated, though they may be\nobscured, by superstitious prejudice on the one hand, and by the\nAristotelian logic on the other.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, I have no notion of logic obscuring a\nquestion.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014There is only one true logic, which is the transcendental;\nand this can prove only the one true philosophy, which is also the\ntranscendental.  The logic of your Modern Athens can prove everything\nequally; and that is, in my opinion, tantamount to proving nothing at\nall.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014The sentimental against the rational, the intuitive\nagainst the inductive, the ornamental against the useful, the intense\nagainst the tranquil, the romantic against the classical; these are great\nand interesting controversies, which I should like, before I die, to see\nsatisfactorily settled.\n\n_Mr. Firedamp_.\u2014There is another great question, greater than all these,\nseeing that it is necessary to be alive in order to settle any question;\nand this is the question of water against human life.  Wherever there is\nwater, there is malaria, and wherever there is malaria, there are the\nelements of death.  The great object of a wise man should be to live on a\ngravelly hill, without so much as a duck-pond within ten miles of him,\neschewing cisterns and waterbutts, and taking care that there be no\ngravel-pits for lodging the rain.  The sun sucks up infection from water,\nwherever it exists on the face of the earth.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, sir, you have for you the authority of the\nancient mystagogue, who said: \u2019\u0395\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd \u1f54\u03b4\u03c9\u03c1 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1fc7 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.  For my part I\ncare not a rush (or any other aquatic and inesculent vegetable) who or\nwhat sucks up either the water or the infection.  I think the proximity\nof wine a matter of much more importance than the longinquity of water.\nYou are here within a quarter of a mile of the Thames, but in the cellar\nof my friend, Mr. Crotchet, there is the talismanic antidote of a\nthousand dozen of old wine; a beautiful spectacle, I assure you, and a\nmodel of arrangement.\n\n_Mr. Firedamp_.\u2014Sir, I feel the malignant influence of the river in every\npart of my system.  Nothing but my great friendship for Mr. Crotchet\nwould have brought me so nearly within the jaws of the lion.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014After dinner, sir, after dinner, I will meet you\non this question.  I shall then be armed for the strife.  You may fight\nlike Hercules against Achelous, but I shall flourish the Bacchic thyrsus,\nwhich changed rivers into wine: as Nonnus sweetly sings, \u039f\u03af\u03bd\u03c9 \u03ba\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\n\u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03c1\u03c5\u03b6\u03b5\u03bd \u03a5\u03b4\u03ac\u03c2\u03c0\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._\u2014I hope, Mr. Firedamp, you will let your friendship\ncarry you a little closer into the jaws of the lion.  I am fitting up a\nflotilla of pleasure-boats, with spacious cabins, and a good cellar, to\ncarry a choice philosophical party up the Thames and Severn, into the\nEllesmere canal, where we shall be among the mountains of North Wales;\nwhich we may climb or not, as we think proper; but we will, at any rate,\nkeep our floating hotel well provisioned, and we will try to settle all\nthe questions over which a shadow of doubt yet hangs in the world of\nphilosophy.\n\n_Mr. Firedamp_.\u2014Out of my great friendship for you, I will certainly go;\nbut I do not expect to survive the experiment.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014_Alter erit tum Tiphys_, _et altera qu\u00e6 vehat\nArgo Delectos Heroas_.  I will be of the party, though I must hire an\nofficiating curate, and deprive poor dear Mrs. Folliott, for several\nweeks, of the pleasure of combing my wig.\n\n_Lord Bossnowl_.\u2014I hope, if I am to be of the party, our ship is not to\nbe the ship of fools: He! he!\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014If you are one of the party, sir, it most\nassuredly will not: Ha! ha!\n\n_Lord Bossnowl_.\u2014Pray sir, what do you mean by Ha! ha!?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Precisely, sir, what you mean by He! he!\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014You need not dispute about terms; they are two modes of\nexpressing merriment, with or without reason; reason being in no way\nessential to mirth.  No man should ask another why he laughs, or at what,\nseeing that he does not always know, and that, if he does, he is not a\nresponsible agent.  Laughter is an involuntary action of certain muscles,\ndeveloped in the human species by the progress of civilisation.  The\nsavage never laughs.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No, sir, he has nothing to laugh at.  Give him\nModern Athens, the \u201clearned friend,\u201d and the Steam Intellect Society.\nThey will develop his muscles.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\nTHE ROMAN CAMP.\n\n\n    He loved her more then seven yere,\n    Yet was he of her love never the nere;\n    He was not ryche of golde and fe,\n    A gentyll man forsoth was he.\n\n                                                _The Squyr of Lowe Degre_.\n\nTHE Reverend Doctor Folliott having promised to return to dinner, walked\nback to his vicarage, meditating whether he should pass the morning in\nwriting his next sermon, or in angling for trout, and had nearly decided\nin favour of the latter proposition, repeating to himself, with great\nunction, the lines of Chaucer:\n\n    And as for me, though that I can but lite,\n    On bokis for to read I me delite,\n    And to \u2019hem yeve I faithe and full credence,\n    And in mine herte have \u2019hem in reverence,\n    So hertily, that there is gam\u00e9 none,\n    That fro my bokis makith me to gone,\n    But it be seldome, on the holie daie;\n    Save certainly whan that the month of Maie\n    Is cousin, and I here the foulis sing,\n    And that the flouris ginnin for to spring,\n    Farwell my boke and my devocion:\n\nwhen his attention was attracted by a young gentleman who was sitting on\na camp stool with a portfolio on his knee, taking a sketch of the Roman\nCamp, which, as has been already said, was within the enclosed domain of\nMr. Crotchet.  The young stranger, who had climbed over the fence,\nespying the portly divine, rose up, and hoped that he was not\ntrespassing.  \u201cBy no means, sir,\u201d said the divine, \u201call the arts and\nsciences are welcome here; music, painting, and poetry; hydrostatics and\npolitical economy; meteorology, transcendentalism, and fish for\nbreakfast.\u201d\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014A pleasant association, sir, and a liberal and\ndiscriminating hospitality.  This is an old British camp, I believe, sir?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Roman, sir; Roman; undeniably Roman.  The vallum\nis past controversy.  It was not a camp, sir, a _castrum_, but a\n_castellum_, a little camp, or watch-station, to which was attached, on\nthe peak of the adjacent hill, a beacon for transmitting alarms.  You\nwill find such here and there, all along the range of chalk hills, which\ntraverses the country from north-east to south-west, and along the base\nof which runs the ancient Iknield road, whereof you may descry a portion\nin that long straight white line.\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014I beg your pardon, sir; do I understand this place to be\nyour property?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014It is not mine, sir: the more is the pity; yet\nis it so far well, that the owner is my good friend, and a highly\nrespectable gentleman.\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014Good and respectable, sir, I take it, means rich?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014That is their meaning, sir.\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014I understand the owner to be a Mr. Crotchet.  He has a\nhandsome daughter, I am told.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014He has, sir.  Her eyes are like the fish-pools\nof Heshbon, by the gate of Bethrabbim; and she is to have a handsome\nfortune, to which divers disinterested gentlemen are paying their\naddresses.  Perhaps you design to be one of them?\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014No, sir; I beg pardon if my questions seem impertinent; I\nhave no such design.  There is a son too, I believe, sir, a great and\nsuccessful blower of bubbles?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014A hero, sir, in his line.  Never did angler in\nSeptember hook more gudgeons.\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014To say the truth, two very amiable young people, with\nwhom I have some little acquaintance, Lord Bossnowl, and his sister, Lady\nClarinda, are reported to be on the point of concluding a double marriage\nwith Miss Crotchet and her brother; by way of putting a new varnish on\nold nobility.  Lord Foolincourt, their father, is terribly poor for a\nlord who owns a borough.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, sir, the Crotchets have plenty of money,\nand the old gentleman\u2019s weak point is a hankering after high blood.  I\nsaw your acquaintance, Lord Bossnowl, this morning, but I did not see his\nsister.  She may be there, nevertheless, and doing fashionable justice to\nthis fine May morning, by lying in bed till noon.\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014Young Mr. Crotchet, sir, has been, like his father, the\narchitect of his own fortune, has he not?  An illustrious example of the\nreward of honesty and industry?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014As to honesty, sir, he made his fortune in the\ncity of London, and if that commodity be of any value there, you will\nfind it in the price current.  I believe it is below par, like the shares\nof young Crotchet\u2019s fifty companies.  But his progress has not been\nexactly like his father\u2019s.  It has been more rapid, and he started with\nmore advantages.  He began with a fine capital from his father.  The old\ngentleman divided his fortune into three not exactly equal portions; one\nfor himself, one for his daughter, and one for his son, which he handed\nover to him, saying, \u201cTake it once for all, and make the most of it; if\nyou lose it where I won it, not another stiver do you get from me during\nmy life.\u201d  But, sir, young Crotchet doubled, and trebled, and quadrupled\nit, and is, as you say, a striking example of the reward of industry; not\nthat I think his labour has been so great as his luck.\n\n_The Stranger_.\u2014But, sir, is all this solid? is there no danger of\nreaction? no day of reckoning to cut down in an hour prosperity that has\ngrown up like a mushroom?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Nay, sir, I know not.  I do not pry into these\nmatters.  I am, for my own part, very well satisfied with the young\ngentleman.  Let those who are not so look to themselves.  It is quite\nenough for me that he came down last night from London, and that he had\nthe good sense to bring with him a basket of lobsters.  Sir, I wish you a\ngood morning.\n\nThe stranger having returned the reverend gentleman\u2019s good morning,\nresumed his sketch, and was intently employed on it when Mr. Crotchet\nmade his appearance with Mr. Mac Quedy and Mr. Skionar, whom he was\nescorting round his grounds, according to his custom with new visitors;\nthe principal pleasure of possessing an extensive domain being that of\nshowing it to other people.  Mr. Mac Quedy, according also to the\nlaudable custom of his countrymen, had been appraising everything that\nfell under his observation; but, on arriving at the Roman camp, of which\nthe value was purely imaginary, he contented himself with exclaiming:\n\u201cEh! this is just a curiosity, and very pleasant to sit in on a summer\nday.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014And call up the days of old, when the Roman eagle spread\nits wings in the place of that beechen foliage.  It gives a fine idea of\nduration, to think that that fine old tree must have sprung from the\nearth ages after this camp was formed.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014How old, think you, may the tree be?\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014I have records which show it to be three hundred years\nold.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014That is a great age for a beech in good condition.  But\nyou see the camp is some fifteen hundred years, or so, older; and three\ntimes six being eighteen, I think you get a clearer idea of duration out\nof the simple arithmetic, than out of your eagle and foliage.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014That is a very unpoetical, if not unphilosophical, mode of\nviewing antiquities.  Your philosophy is too literal for our imperfect\nvision.  We cannot look directly into the nature of things; we can only\ncatch glimpses of the mighty shadow in the camera obscura of\ntranscendental intelligence.  These six and eighteen are only words to\nwhich we give conventional meanings.  We can reason, but we cannot feel,\nby help of them.  The tree and the eagle, contemplated in the ideality of\nspace and time, become subjective realities, that rise up as landmarks in\nthe mystery of the past.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, if you understand that, I wish you joy.  But\nI must be excused for holding that my proposition, three times six are\neighteen, is more intelligible than yours.  A worthy friend of mine, who\nis a sort of amateur in philosophy, criticism, politics, and a wee bit of\nmany things more, says: \u201cMen never begin to study antiquities till they\nare saturated with civilisation.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014What is civilisation?\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014It is just respect for property.  A state in which no\nman takes wrongfully what belongs to another, is a perfectly civilised\nstate.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014Your friend\u2019s antiquaries must have lived in El Dorado, to\nhave had an opportunity of being saturated with such a state.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014It is a question of degree.  There is more respect for\nproperty here than in Angola.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014That depends on the light in which things are viewed.\n\nMr. Crotchet was rubbing his hands, in hopes of a fine discussion, when\nthey came round to the side of the camp where the picturesque gentleman\nwas sketching.  The stranger was rising up, when Mr. Crotchet begged him\nnot to disturb himself, and presently walked away with his two guests.\n\nShortly after, Miss Crotchet and Lady Clarinda, who had breakfasted by\nthemselves, made their appearance at the same spot, hanging each on an\narm of Lord Bossnowl, who very much preferred their company to that of\nthe philosophers, though he would have preferred the company of the\nlatter, or any company to his own.  He thought it very singular that so\nagreeable a person as he held himself to be to others, should be so\nexceedingly tiresome to himself: he did not attempt to investigate the\ncause of this phenomenon, but was contented with acting on his knowledge\nof the fact, and giving himself as little of his own private society as\npossible.\n\nThe stranger rose as they approached, and was immediately recognised by\nthe Bossnowls as an old acquaintance, and saluted with the exclamation of\n\u201cCaptain Fitzchrome!\u201d  The interchange of salutations between Lady\nClarinda and the Captain was accompanied with an amiable confusion on\nboth sides, in which the observant eyes of Miss Crotchet seemed to read\nthe recollection of an affair of the heart.\n\nLord Bossnowl was either unconscious of any such affair, or indifferent\nto its existence.  He introduced the Captain very cordially to Miss\nCrotchet; and the young lady invited him, as the friend of their guests,\nto partake of her father\u2019s hospitality, an offer which was readily\naccepted.\n\nThe Captain took his portfolio under his right arm, his camp stool in his\nright hand, offered his left arm to Lady Clarinda, and followed at a\nreasonable distance behind Miss Crotchet and Lord Bossnowl, contriving,\nin the most natural manner possible, to drop more and more into the rear.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014I am glad to see you can make yourself so happy with\ndrawing old trees and mounds of grass.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Happy, Lady Clarinda! oh, no!  How can I be happy\nwhen I see the idol of my heart about to be sacrificed on the shrine of\nMammon?\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Do you know, though Mammon has a sort of ill name, I\nreally think he is a very popular character; there must be at the bottom\nsomething amiable about him.  He is certainly one of those pleasant\ncreatures whom everybody abuses, but without whom no evening party is\nendurable.  I dare say, love in a cottage is very pleasant; but then it\npositively must be a cottage orn\u00e9e: but would not the same love be a\ngreat deal safer in a castle, even if Mammon furnished the fortification?\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Oh, Lady Clarinda! there is a heartlessness in that\nlanguage that chills me to the soul.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Heartlessness!  No: my heart is on my lips.  I speak\njust what I think.  You used to like it, and say it was as delightful as\nit was rare.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014True, but you did not then talk as you do now, of\nlove in a castle.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Well, but only consider: a dun is a horridly vulgar\ncreature; it is a creature I cannot endure the thought of: and a cottage\nlets him in so easily.  Now a castle keeps him at bay.  You are a\nhalf-pay officer, and are at leisure to command the garrison: but where\nis the castle? and who is to furnish the commissariat?\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Is it come to this, that you make a jest of my\npoverty?  Yet is my poverty only comparative.  Many decent families are\nmaintained on smaller means.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Decent families: ay, decent is the distinction from\nrespectable.  Respectable means rich, and decent means poor.  I should\ndie if I heard my family called decent.  And then your decent family\nalways lives in a snug little place: I hate a little place; I like large\nrooms and large looking-glasses, and large parties, and a fine large\nbutler, with a tinge of smooth red in his face; an outward and visible\nsign that the family he serves is respectable; if not noble, highly\nrespectable.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I cannot believe that you say all this in earnest.\nNo man is less disposed than I am to deny the importance of the\nsubstantial comforts of life.  I once flattered myself that in our\nestimate of these things we were nearly of a mind.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Do you know, I think an opera-box a very substantial\ncomfort, and a carriage.  You will tell me that many decent people walk\narm-in-arm through the snow, and sit in clogs and bonnets in the pit at\nthe English theatre.  No doubt it is very pleasant to those who are used\nto it; but it is not to my taste.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014You always delighted in trying to provoke me; but I\ncannot believe that you have not a heart.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014You do not like to believe that I have a heart, you\nmean.  You wish to think I have lost it, and you know to whom; and when I\ntell you that it is still safe in my own keeping, and that I do not mean\nto give it away, the unreasonable creature grows angry.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Angry! far from it; I am perfectly cool.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Why, you are pursing your brows, biting your lips, and\nlifting up your foot as if you would stamp it into the earth.  I must say\nanger becomes you; you would make a charming Hotspur.  Your\nevery-day-dining-out face is rather insipid: but I assure you my heart is\nin danger when you are in the heroics.  It is so rare, too, in these days\nof smooth manners, to see anything like natural expression in a man\u2019s\nface.  There is one set form for every man\u2019s face in female society: a\nsort of serious comedy walking gentleman\u2019s face: but the moment the\ncreature falls in love he begins to give himself airs, and plays off all\nthe varieties of his physiognomy from the Master Slender to the\nPetruchio; and then he is actually very amusing.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Well, Lady Clarinda, I will not be angry, amusing\nas it may be to you: I listen more in sorrow than in anger.  I half\nbelieve you in earnest: and mourn as over a fallen angel.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014What, because I have made up my mind not to give away my\nheart when I can sell it?  I will introduce you to my new acquaintance,\nMr. Mac Quedy: he will talk to you by the hour about exchangeable value,\nand show you that no rational being will part with anything, except to\nthe highest bidder.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Now, I am sure you are not in earnest.  You cannot\nadopt such sentiments in their naked deformity.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Naked deformity!  Why, Mr. Mac Quedy will prove to you\nthat they are the cream of the most refined philosophy.  You live a very\npleasant life as a bachelor, roving about the country with your portfolio\nunder your arm.  I am not fit to be a poor man\u2019s wife.  I cannot take any\nkind of trouble, or do any one thing that is of any use.  Many decent\nfamilies roast a bit of mutton on a string; but if I displease my father\nI shall not have as much as will buy the string, to say nothing of the\nmeat; and the bare idea of such cookery gives me the horrors.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nBy this time they were near the Castle, and met Miss Crotchet and her\ncompanion, who had turned back to meet them.  Captain Fitzchrome was\nshortly after heartily welcomed by Mr. Crotchet, and the party separated\nto dress for dinner, the Captain being by no means in an enviable state\nof mind, and full of misgivings as to the extent of belief that he was\nbound to accord to the words of the lady of his heart.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\nTHE PARTY.\n\n\n    En quoi cognoissez-vous la folie anticque?  En quoi cognoissez-vous\n    la sagesse pr\u00e9sente?\u2014RABELAIS.\n\n\u201cIF I were sketching a bandit who had just shot his last pursuer, having\noutrun all the rest, that is the very face I would give him,\u201d\nsoliloquised the Captain, as he studied the features of his rival in the\ndrawing-room, during the miserable half-hour before dinner, when dulness\nreigns predominant over expectant company, especially when they are\nwaiting for some one last comer, whom they all heartily curse in their\nhearts, and whom, nevertheless, or indeed therefore-the-more, they\nwelcome as a sinner, more heartily than all the just persons who had been\npunctual to their engagement.  Some new visitors had arrived in the\nmorning, and, as the company dropped in one by one, the Captain anxiously\nwatched the unclosing door for the form of his beloved: but she was the\nlast to make her appearance, and on her entry gave him a malicious\nglance, which he construed into a telegraphic communication that she had\nstayed away to torment him.  Young Crotchet escorted her with marked\nattention to the upper end of the drawing-room, where a great portion of\nthe company was congregated around Miss Crotchet.  These being the only\nladies in the company, it was evident that old Mr. Crotchet would give\nhis arm to Lady Clarinda, an arrangement with which the Captain could not\ninterfere.  He therefore took his station near the door, studying his\nrival from a distance, and determined to take advantage of his present\nposition, to secure the seat next to his charmer.  He was meditating on\nthe best mode of operation for securing this important post with due\nregard to _bien-s\u00e9ance_, when he was twitched by the button by Mr. Mac\nQuedy, who said to him: \u201cLady Clarinda tells me, sir, that you are\nanxious to talk with me on the subject of exchangeable value, from which\nI infer that you have studied political economy, and as a great deal\ndepends on the definition of value, I shall be glad to set you right on\nthat point.\u201d  \u201cI am much obliged to you, sir,\u201d said the Captain, and was\nabout to express his utter disqualification for the proposed instruction,\nwhen Mr. Skionar walked up and said: \u201cLady Clarinda informs me that you\nwish to talk over with me the question of subjective reality.  I am\ndelighted to fall in with a gentleman who daily appreciates the\ntranscendental philosophy.\u201d  \u201cLady Clarinda is too good,\u201d said the\nCaptain; and was about to protest that he had never heard the word\n\u201ctranscendental\u201d before, when the butler announced dinner.  Mr. Crotchet\nled the way with Lady Clarinda: Lord Bossnowl followed with Miss\nCrotchet: the economist and transcendentalist pinned in the Captain, and\nheld him, one by each arm, as he impatiently descended the stairs in the\nrear of several others of the company, whom they had forced him to let\npass; but the moment he entered the dining-room he broke loose from them,\nand at the expense of a little _brusquerie_, secured his position.\n\n\u201cWell, Captain,\u201d said Lady Clarinda, \u201cI perceive you can still man\u0153uvre.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat could possess you,\u201d said the Captain, \u201cto send two unendurable and\ninconceivable bores to intercept me with rubbish about which I neither\nknow nor care any more than the man in the moon?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d said Lady Clarinda, \u201cI saw your design, and wished to put your\ngeneralship to the test.  But do not contradict anything I have said\nabout you, and see if the learned will find you out.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is fine music, as Rabelais observes, in the _cliquetis\nd\u2019asssiettes_, a refreshing shade in the _ombre de salle \u00e0 manger_, and\nan elegant fragrance in the _fum\u00e9e de r\u00f4ti_,\u201d said a voice at the\nCaptain\u2019s elbow.  The Captain turning round, recognised his clerical\nfriend of the morning, who knew him again immediately, and said he was\nextremely glad to meet him there; more especially as Lady Clarinda had\nassured him that he was an enthusiastic lover of Greek poetry.\n\n\u201cLady Clarinda,\u201d said the Captain, \u201cis a very pleasant young lady.\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014So she is, sir: and I understand she has all the\nwit of the family to herself, whatever that _totum_ may be.  But a glass\nof wine after soup is, as the French say, the _verre de sant\u00e9_.  The\ncurrent of opinion sets in favour of Hock: but I am for Madeira; I do not\nfancy Hock till I have laid a substratum of Madeira.  Will you join me?\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014With pleasure.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Here is a very fine salmon before me: and May is\nthe very _point nomm\u00e9_ to have salmon in perfection.  There is a fine\nturbot close by, and there is much to be said in his behalf: but salmon\nin May is the king of fish.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014That salmon before you, doctor, was caught in the Thames,\nthis morning.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014\u03a0\u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6!  Rarity of rarities!  A Thames salmon\ncaught this morning.  Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, even in fish your Modern Athens\nmust yield.  _Cedite Graii_.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Eh! sir, on its own around, your Thames salmon has two\nvirtues over all others; first, that it is fresh; and, second, that it is\nrare; for I understand you do not take half a dozen in a year.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014In some years, sir, not one.  Mud, filth,\ngas-dregs, lock-weirs, and the march of mind, developed in the form of\npoaching, have ruined the fishery.  But, when we do catch a salmon, happy\nthe man to whom he falls.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014I confess, sir, this is excellent: but I cannot see why\nit should be better than a Tweed salmon at Kelso.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, I will take a glass of Hock with you.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014With all my heart, sir.  There are several varieties of\nthe salmon genus: but the common salmon, the _salmo salar_, is only one\nspecies, one and the same everywhere, just like the human mind.  Locality\nand education make all the difference.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Education!  Well, sir, I have no doubt schools\nfor all are just as fit for the species _salmo salar_ as for the genus\n_homo_.  But you must allow that the specimen before us has finished his\neducation in a manner that does honour to his college.  However, I doubt\nthat the _salmo salar_ is only one species, that is to say, precisely\nalike in all localities.  I hold that every river has its own breed, with\nessential differences; in flavour especially.  And as for the human mind,\nI deny that it is the same in all men.  I hold that there is every\nvariety of natural capacity from the idiot to Newton and Shakespeare; the\nmass of mankind, midway between these extremes, being blockheads of\ndifferent degrees; education leaving them pretty nearly as it found them,\nwith this single difference, that it gives a fixed direction to their\nstupidity, a sort of incurable wry neck to the thing they call their\nunderstanding.  So one nose points always east, and another always west,\nand each is ready to swear that it points due north.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014If that be the point of truth, very few intellectual\nnoses point due north.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Only those that point to the Modern Athens.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Where all native noses point southward.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Eh, sir, northward for wisdom, and southward for profit.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._  Champagne, doctor?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Most willingly.  But you will permit my drinking\nit while it sparkles.  I hold it a heresy to let it deaden in my hand,\nwhile the glass of my _compotator_ is being filled on the opposite side\nof the table.  By-the-bye, Captain, you remember a passage in Athen\u00e6us,\nwhere he cites Menander on the subject of fish-sauce: \u1f40\u03c8\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u1f30\u03c7\u03b8\u03cd\u03bf\u03c2.\n(The Captain was aghast for an answer that would satisfy both his\nneighbours, when he was relieved by the divine continuing.)  The science\nof fish-sauce, Mr. Mac Quedy, is by no means brought to perfection; a\nfine field of discovery still lies open in that line.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Nay, sir, beyond lobster-sauce, I take it, ye cannot go.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014In their line, I grant you, oyster and\nlobster-sauce are the pillars of Hercules.  But I speak of the cruet\nsauces, where the quintessence of the sapid is condensed in a phial.  I\ncan taste in my mind\u2019s palate a combination, which, if I could give it\nreality, I would christen with the name of my college, and hand it down\nto posterity as a seat of learning indeed.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, I wish you success, but I cannot let slip the\nquestion we started just now.  I say, cutting off idiots, who have no\nminds at all, all minds are by nature alike.  Education (which begins\nfrom their birth) makes them what they are.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No, sir, it makes their tendencies, not their\npower.  C\u00e6sar would have been the first wrestler on the village common.\nEducation might have made him a Nadir Shah; it might also have made him a\nWashington; it could not have made him a merry-andrew, for our newspapers\nto extol as a model of eloquence.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Now, sir, I think education would have made him just\nanything, and fit for any station, from the throne to the stocks; saint\nor sinner, aristocrat or democrat, judge, counsel, or prisoner at the\nbar.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I will thank you for a slice of lamb, with lemon\nand pepper.  Before I proceed with this discussion,\u2014Vin de Grave, Mr.\nSkionar,\u2014I must interpose one remark.  There is a set of persons in your\ncity, Mr. Mac Quedy, who concoct, every three or four months, a thing,\nwhich they call a review: a sort of sugar-plum manufacturers to the Whig\naristocracy.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014I cannot tell, sir, exactly, what you mean by that; but\nI hope you will speak of those gentlemen with respect, seeing that I am\none of them.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, I must drown my inadvertence in a glass of\nSauterne with you.  There is a set of gentlemen in your city\u2014\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Not in our city, exactly; neither are they a set.  There\nis an editor, who forages for articles in all quarters, from John o\u2019\nGroat\u2019s house to the Land\u2019s End.  It is not a board, or a society: it is\na mere intellectual bazaar, where A, B, and C, bring their wares to\nmarket.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, sir, these gentlemen among them, the\npresent company excepted, have practised as much dishonesty as, in any\nother department than literature, would have brought the practitioner\nunder the cognisance of the police.  In politics, they have ran with the\nhare and hunted with the hound.  In criticism, they have, knowingly and\nunblushingly, given false characters, both for good and for evil;\nsticking at no art of misrepresentation, to clear out of the field of\nliterature all who stood in the way of the interests of their own clique.\nThey have never allowed their own profound ignorance of anything (Greek\nfor instance) to throw even an air of hesitation into their oracular\ndecision on the matter.  They set an example of profligate contempt for\ntruth, of which the success was in proportion to the effrontery; and when\ntheir prosperity had filled the market with competitors, they cried out\nagainst their own reflected sin, as if they had never committed it, or\nwere entitled to a monopoly of it.  The latter, I rather think, was what\nthey wanted.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Hermitage, doctor?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Nothing better, sir.  The father who first chose\nthe solitude of that vineyard, knew well how to cultivate his spirit in\nretirement.  Now, Mr. Mac Quedy, Achilles was distinguished above all the\nGreeks for his inflexible love of truth; could education have made\nAchilles one of your reviewers?\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014No doubt of it, even if your character of them were true\nto the letter.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014And I say, sir\u2014chicken and asparagus\u2014Titan had\nmade him of better clay.  I hold with Pindar, \u201cAll that is most excellent\nis so by nature.\u201d  \u03a4\u1f78 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c6\u03c5\u1fb7 \u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f05\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd.  Education can give\npurposes, but not powers; and whatever purposes had been given him, he\nwould have gone straight forward to them; straight forward, Mr. Mac\nQuedy.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014No, sir, education makes the man, powers, purposes, and\nall.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014There is the point, sir, on which we join issue.\n\nSeveral others of the company now chimed in with their opinions, which\ngave the divine an opportunity to degustate one or two side dishes, and\nto take a glass of wine with each of the young ladies.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\nCHARACTERS.\n\n\n    Ay imput\u00e9 a honte plus que m\u00e9diocre \u00eatre vu spectateur ocieux de tant\n    vaillans, disertz, et chevalereux personnaiges.\n\n                                                                 RABELAIS.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_ (_to the Captain_).\u2014I declare the creature has been\nlistening to all this rigmarole, instead of attending to me.  Do you ever\nexpect forgiveness?  But now that they are all talking together, and you\ncannot make out a word they say, nor they hear a word that we say, I will\ndescribe the company to you.  First, there is the old gentleman on my\nleft hand, at the head of the table, who is now leaning the other way to\ntalk to my brother.  He is a good-tempered, half-informed person, very\nunreasonably fond of reasoning, and of reasoning people; people that talk\nnonsense logically: he is fond of disputation himself, when there are\nonly one or two, but seldom does more than listen in a large company of\n_illumin\u00e9s_.  He made a great fortune in the city, and has the comfort of\na good conscience.  He is very hospitable, and is generous in dinners;\nthough nothing would induce him to give sixpence to the poor, because he\nholds that all misfortune is from imprudence, that none but the rich\nought to marry, and that all ought to thrive by honest industry, as he\ndid.  He is ambitious of founding a family, and of allying himself with\nnobility; and is thus as willing as other grown children to throw away\nthousands for a gew-gaw, though he would not part with a penny for\ncharity.  Next to him is my brother, whom you know as well as I do.  He\nhas finished his education with credit, and as he never ventures to\noppose me in anything, I have no doubt he is very sensible.  He has good\nmanners, is a model of dress, and is reckoned ornamental in all\nsocieties.  Next to him is Miss Crotchet, my sister-in-law that is to be.\nYou see she is rather pretty, and very genteel.  She is tolerably\naccomplished, has her table always covered with new novels, thinks Mr.\nMac Quedy an oracle, and is extremely desirous to be called \u201cmy lady.\u201d\nNext to her is Mr. Firedamp, a very absurd person, who thinks that water\nis the evil principle.  Next to him is Mr. Eavesdrop, a man who, by dint\nof a certain something like smartness, has got into good society.  He is\na sort of bookseller\u2019s tool, and coins all his acquaintance in\nreminiscences and sketches of character.  I am very shy of him, for fear\nhe should print me.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014If he print you in your own likeness, which is that\nof an angel, you need not fear him.  If he print you in any other, I will\ncut his throat.  But proceed\u2014\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Next to him is Mr. Henbane, the toxicologist, I think he\ncalls himself.  He has passed half his life in studying poisons and\nantidotes.  The first thing he did on his arrival here was to kill the\ncat; and while Miss Crotchet was crying over her, he brought her to life\nagain.  I am more shy of him than the other.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014They are two very dangerous fellows, and I shall\ntake care to keep them both at a respectful distance.  Let us hope that\nEavesdrop will sketch off Henbane, and that Henbane will poison him for\nhis trouble.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Well, next to him sits Mr. Mac Quedy, the Modern\nAthenian, who lays down the law about everything, and therefore may be\ntaken to understand everything.  He turns all the affairs of this world\ninto questions of buying and selling.  He is the Spirit of the Frozen\nOcean to everything like romance and sentiment.  He condenses their\nvolume of steam into a drop of cold water in a moment.  He has satisfied\nme that I am a commodity in the market, and that I ought to set myself at\na high price.  So you see, he who would have me must bid for me.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I shall discuss that point with Mr. Mac Quedy.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Not a word for your life.  Our flirtation is our own\nsecret.  Let it remain so.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Flirtation, Clarinda!  Is that all that the most\nardent\u2014\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Now, don\u2019t be rhapsodical here.  Next to Mr. Mac Quedy\nis Mr. Skionar, a sort of poetical philosopher, a curious compound of the\nintense and the mystical.  He abominates all the ideas of Mr. Mac Quedy,\nand settles everything by sentiment and intuition.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Then, I say, he is the wiser man.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014They are two oddities, but a little of them is amusing,\nand I like to hear them dispute.  So you see I am in training for a\nphilosopher myself.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Any philosophy, for Heaven\u2019s sake, but the\npound-shilling-and-pence philosophy of Mr. Mac Quedy.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Why, they say that even Mr. Skionar, though he is a\ngreat dreamer, always dreams with his eyes open, or with one eye at any\nrate, which is an eye to his gain: but I believe that in this respect the\npoor man has got an ill name by keeping bad company.  He has two dear\nfriends, Mr. Wilful Wontsee, and Mr. Rumblesack Shantsee, poets of some\nnote, who used to see visions of Utopia, and pure republics beyond the\nWestern deep: but, finding that these El Dorados brought them no revenue,\nthey turned their vision-seeing faculty into the more profitable channel\nof espying all sorts of virtues in the high and the mighty, who were able\nand willing to pay for the discovery.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I do not fancy these virtue-spyers.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Next to Mr. Skionar sits Mr. Chainmail, a good-looking\nyoung gentleman, as you see, with very antiquated tastes.  He is fond of\nold poetry, and is something of a poet himself.  He is deep in monkish\nliterature, and holds that the best state of society was that of the\ntwelfth century, when nothing was going forward but fighting, feasting,\nand praying, which he says are the three great purposes for which man was\nmade.  He laments bitterly over the inventions of gunpowder, steam, and\ngas, which he says have ruined the world.  He lives within two or three\nmiles, and has a large hall, adorned with rusty pikes, shields, helmets,\nswords, and tattered banners, and furnished with yew-tree chairs, and two\nlong old worm-eaten oak tables, where he dines with all his household,\nafter the fashion of his favourite age.  He wants us all to dine with\nhim, and I believe we shall go.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014That will be something new, at any rate.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Next to him is Mr. Toogood, the co-operationist, who\nwill have neither fighting nor praying; but wants to parcel out the world\ninto squares like a chess-board, with a community on each, raising\neverything for one another, with a great steam-engine to serve them in\ncommon for tailor and hosier, kitchen and cook.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014He is the strangest of the set, so far.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014This brings us to the bottom of the table, where sits my\nhumble servant, Mr. Crotchet the younger.  I ought not to describe him.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I entreat you do.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Well, I really have very little to say in his favour.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I do not wish to hear anything in his favour; and I\nrejoice to hear you say so, because\u2014\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Do not flatter yourself.  If I take him, it will be to\nplease my father, and to have a town and country house, and plenty of\nservants and a carriage and an opera-box, and make some of my\nacquaintance who have married for love, or for rank, or for anything but\nmoney, die for envy of my jewels.  You do not think I would take him for\nhimself.  Why, he is very smooth and spruce as far as his dress goes; but\nas to his face, he looks as if he had tumbled headlong into a volcano,\nand been thrown up again among the cinders.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I cannot believe, that, speaking thus of him, you\nmean to take him at all.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Oh! I am out of my teens.  I have been very much in\nlove; but now I am come to years of discretion, and must think, like\nother people, of settling myself advantageously.  He was in love with a\nbanker\u2019s daughter, and cast her off at her father\u2019s bankruptcy, and the\npoor girl has gone to hide herself in some wild place.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014She must have a strange taste, if she pines for the\nloss of him.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014They say he was good-looking, till his bubble schemes,\nas they call them, stamped him with the physiognomy of a desperate\ngambler.  I suspect he has still a penchant towards his first flame.  If\nhe takes me, it will be for my rank and connection, and the second seat\nof the borough of Rogueingrain.  So we shall meet on equal terms, and\nshall enjoy all the blessedness of expecting nothing from each other.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014You can expect no security with such an adventurer.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014I shall have the security of a good settlement, and then\nif _andare al diavolo_ be his destiny, he may go, you know, by himself.\nHe is almost always dreaming and _distrait_.  It is very likely that some\ngreat reverse is in store for him: but that will not concern me, you\nperceive.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014You torture me, Clarinda, with the bare\npossibility.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Hush!  Here is music to soothe your troubled spirit.\nNext to him, on this side, sits the dilettante composer, Mr. Trillo; they\nsay his name was O\u2019Trill, and he has taken the O from the beginning, and\nput it at the end.  I do not know how this may be.  He plays well on the\nvioloncello, and better on the piano; sings agreeably; has a talent at\nversemaking, and improvises a song with some felicity.  He is very\nagreeable company in the evening, with his instruments and music-books.\nHe maintains that the sole end of all enlightened society is to get up a\ngood opera, and laments that wealth, genius, and energy are squandered\nupon other pursuits, to the neglect of this one great matter.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014That is a very pleasant fancy at any rate.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014I assure you he has a great deal to say for it.  Well,\nnext to him, again, is Dr. Morbific, who has been all over the world to\nprove that there is no such thing as contagion; and has inoculated\nhimself with plague, yellow fever, and every variety of pestilence, and\nis still alive to tell the story.  I am very shy of him, too; for I look\non him as a walking phial of wrath, corked full of all infections, and\nnot to be touched without extreme hazard.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014This is the strangest fellow of all.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Next to him sits Mr. Philpot, the geographer, who thinks\nof nothing but the heads and tails of rivers, and lays down the streams\nof Terra Incognita as accurately as if he had been there.  He is a person\nof pleasant fancy, and makes a sort of fairy land of every country he\ntouches, from the Frozen Ocean to the Deserts of Sahara.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014How does he settle matters with Mr. Firedamp?\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014You see Mr. Firedamp has got as far as possible out of\nhis way.  Next to him is Sir Simon Steeltrap, of Steeltrap Lodge, Member\nfor Crouching-Curtown, Justice of Peace for the county, and Lord of the\nUnited Manors of Spring-gun-and-Treadmill; a great preserver of game and\npublic morals.  By administering the laws which he assists in making, he\ndisposes, at his pleasure, of the land and its live stock, including all\nthe two-legged varieties, with and without feathers, in a circumference\nof several miles round Steeltrap Lodge.  He has enclosed commons and\nwoodlands; abolished cottage gardens; taken the village cricket-ground\ninto his own park, out of pure regard to the sanctity of Sunday; shut up\nfootpaths and alehouses (all but those which belong to his electioneering\nfriend, Mr. Quassia, the brewer); put down fairs and fiddlers; committed\nmany poachers; shot a few; convicted one-third of the peasantry;\nsuspected the rest; and passed nearly the whole of them through a\nwholesome course of prison discipline, which has finished their education\nat the expense of the county.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014He is somewhat out of his element here: among such\na diversity of opinions he will hear some he will not like.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014It was rather ill-judged in Mr. Crotchet to invite him\nto-day.  But the art of assorting company is above these _parvenus_.\nThey invite a certain number of persons without considering how they\nharmonise with each other.  Between Sir Simon and you is the Reverend\nDoctor Folliott.  He is said to be an excellent scholar, and is fonder of\nbooks than the majority of his cloth; he is very fond, also, of the good\nthings of this world.  He is of an admirable temper, and says rude things\nin a pleasant half-earnest manner, that nobody can take offence with.\nAnd next to him again is one Captain Fitzchrome, who is very much in love\nwith a certain person that does not mean to have anything to say to him,\nbecause she can better her fortune by taking somebody else.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014And next to him again is the beautiful, the\naccomplished, the witty, the fascinating, the tormenting, Lady Clarinda,\nwho traduces herself to the said Captain by assertions which it would\ndrive him crazy to believe.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Time will show, sir.  And now we have gone the round of\nthe table.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014But I must say, though I know you had always a turn\nfor sketching characters, you surprise me by your observation, and\nespecially by your attention to opinions.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Well, I will tell you a secret: I am writing a novel.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014A novel!\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Yes, a novel.  And I shall get a little finery by it:\ntrinkets and fal-lals, which I cannot get from papa.  You must know I\nhave been reading several fashionable novels, the fashionable this, and\nthe fashionable that; and I thought to myself, why I can do better than\nany of these myself.  So I wrote a chapter or two, and sent them as a\nspecimen to Mr. Puffall, the book-seller, telling him they were to be a\npart of the fashionable something or other, and he offered me, I will not\nsay how much, to finish it in three volumes, and let him pay all the\nnewspapers for recommending it as the work of a lady of quality, who had\nmade very free with the characters of her acquaintance.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Surely you have not done so?\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Oh, no!  I leave that to Mr. Eavesdrop.  But Mr. Puffall\nmade it a condition that I should let him say so.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014A strange recommendation.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Oh, nothing else will do.  And it seems you may give\nyourself any character you like, and the newspapers will print it as if\nit came from themselves.  I have commended you to three of our friends\nhere as an economist, a transcendentalist, and a classical scholar; and\nif you wish to be renowned through the world for these, or any other\naccomplishments, the newspapers will confirm you in their possession for\nhalf-a-guinea a piece.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Truly, the praise of such gentry must be a feather\nin any one\u2019s cap.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014So you will see, some morning, that my novel is \u201cthe\nmost popular production of the day.\u201d  This is Mr. Puffall\u2019s favourite\nphrase.  He makes the newspapers say it of everything he publishes.  But\n\u201cthe day,\u201d you know, is a very convenient phrase; it allows of three\nhundred and sixty-five \u201cmost popular productions\u201d in a year.  And in\nleap-year one more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\nTHEORIES.\n\n\n    But when they came to shape the model,\n    Not one could fit the other\u2019s noddle.\u2014BUTLER.\n\nMEANWHILE, the last course, and the dessert, passed by.  When the ladies\nhad withdrawn, young Crotchet addressed the company.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._  There is one point in which philosophers of all\nclasses seem to be agreed: that they only want money to regenerate the\nworld.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014No doubt of it.  Nothing is so easy as to lay down the\noutlines of perfect society.  There wants nothing but money to set it\ngoing.  I will explain myself clearly and fully by reading a paper.\n(Producing a large scroll.)  \u201cIn the infancy of society\u2014\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Pray, Mr. Mac Quedy, how is it that all\ngentlemen of your nation begin everything they write with the \u201cinfancy of\nsociety?\u201d\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Eh, sir, it is the simplest way to begin at the\nbeginning.  \u201cIn the infancy of society, when government was invented to\nsave a percentage; say two and a half per cent.\u2014\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I will not say any such thing.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, say any percentage you please.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I will not say any percentage at all.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014\u201cOn the principle of the division of labour\u2014\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Government was invented to spend a percentage.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014To save a percentage.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No, sir, to spend a percentage; and a good deal\nmore than two and a half percent.  Two hundred and fifty per cent.: that\nis intelligible.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014\u201cIn the infancy of society\u2014\u201d\n\n_Mr. Toogood_.\u2014Never mind the infancy of society.  The question is of\nsociety in its maturity.  Here is what it should be.  (Producing a\npaper.)  I have laid it down in a diagram.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014Before we proceed to the question of government, we must\nnicely discriminate the boundaries of sense, understanding, and reason.\nSense is a receptivity\u2014\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._\u2014We are proceeding too fast.  Money being all that\nis wanted to regenerate society, I will put into the hands of this\ncompany a large sum for the purpose.  Now let us see how to dispose of\nit.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014We will begin by taking a committee-room in London,\nwhere we will dine together once a week, to deliberate.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014If the money is to go in deliberative dinners,\nyou may set me down for a committee man and honorary caterer.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Next, you must all learn political economy, which I will\nteach you, very compendiously, in lectures over the bottle.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I hate lectures over the bottle.  But pray, sir,\nwhat is political economy?\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Political economy is to the state what domestic economy\nis to the family.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No such thing, sir.  In the family there is a\n_paterfamilias_, who regulates the distribution, and takes care that\nthere shall be no such thing in the household as one dying of hunger,\nwhile another dies of surfeit.  In the state it is all hunger at one end,\nand all surfeit at the other.  Matchless claret, Mr. Crotchet.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Vintage of fifteen, Doctor.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014The family consumes, and so does the state.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Consumes, air!  Yes: but the mode, the\nproportions: there is the essential difference between the state and the\nfamily.  Sir, I hate false analogies.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, the analogy is not essential.  Distribution\nwill come under its proper head.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Come where it will, the distribution of the\nstate is in no respect analogous to the distribution of the family.  The\n_paterfamilias_, sir: the _paterfamilias_.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, let that pass.  The family consumes, and in\norder to consume, it must have supply.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, sir, Adam and Eve knew that, when they\ndelved and span.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Very true, sir (reproducing his scroll).  \u201cIn the\ninfancy of society\u2014\u201d\n\n_Mr. Toogood_.\u2014The reverend gentleman has hit the nail on the head.  It\nis the distribution that must be looked to; it is the _paterfamilias_\nthat is wanting in the State.  Now here I have provided him.\n(Reproducing his diagram.)\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Apply the money, sir, to building and endowing an opera\nhouse, where the ancient altar of Bacchus may flourish, and justice may\nbe done to sublime compositions.  (Producing a part of a manuscript\nopera.)\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014No, sir, build _sacella_ for transcendental oracles to\nteach the world how to see through a glass darkly.  (Producing a scroll.)\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014See through an opera-glass brightly.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014See through a wine-glass full of claret; then\nyou see both darkly and brightly.  But, gentlemen, if you are all in the\nhumour for reading papers, I will read you the first half of my next\nSunday\u2019s sermon.  (Producing a paper.)\n\n_Omnes_.\u2014No sermon!  No sermon!\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Then I move that our respective papers be\ncommitted to our respective pockets.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Political economy is divided into two great branches,\nproduction and consumption.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Yes, sir; there are two great classes of men:\nthose who produce much and consume little; and those who consume much and\nproduce nothing.  The _fruges consumere nati_ have the best of it.  Eh,\nCaptain!  You remember the characteristics of a great man according to\nAristophanes: \u1f45\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03bf\u1f36\u03b4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b2\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd.  Ha! ha! ha!  Well,\nCaptain, even in these tight-laced days, the obscurity of a learned\nlanguage allows a little pleasantry.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Very true, sir; the pleasantry and the obscurity go\ntogether; they are all one, as it were\u2014to me at any rate (aside).\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Now, sir\u2014\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Pray, sir, let your science alone, or you will\nput me under the painful necessity of demolishing it bit by bit, as I\nhave done your exordium.  I will undertake it any morning; but it is too\nhard exercise after dinner.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Well, sir, in the meantime I hold my science\nestablished.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014And I hold it demolished.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._  Pray, gentlemen, pocket your manuscripts, fill\nyour glasses, and consider what we shall do with our money.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Build lecture-rooms, and schools for all.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Revive the Athenian theatre; regenerate the lyrical drama.\n\n_Mr. Toogood_.\u2014Build a grand co-operative parallelogram, with a\nsteam-engine in the middle for a maid of all work.\n\n_Mr. Firedamp_.\u2014Drain the country, and get rid of malaria, by abolishing\nduck-ponds.\n\n_Dr. Morbific_.\u2014Found a philanthropic college of anticontagionists, where\nall the members shall be inoculated with the virus of all known diseases.\nTry the experiment on a grand scale.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Build a great dining-hall; endow it with beef and ale,\nand hang the hall round with arms to defend the provisions.\n\n_Mr. Henbane_.\u2014Found a toxicological institution for trying all poisons\nand antidotes.  I myself have killed a frog twelve times, and brought him\nto life eleven; but the twelfth time he died.  I have a phial of the\ndrug, which killed him, in my pocket, and shall not rest till I have\ndiscovered its antidote.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I move that the last speaker be dispossessed of\nhis phial, and that it be forthwith thrown into the Thames.\n\n_Mr. Henbane_.\u2014How, sir? my invaluable, and, in the present state of\nhuman knowledge, infallible poison?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Let the frogs have all the advantage of it.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Consider, Doctor, the fish might participate.  Think of\nthe salmon.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Then let the owner\u2019s right-hand neighbour\nswallow it.\n\n_Mr. Eavesdrop_.\u2014Me, sir!  What have I done, sir, that I am to be\npoisoned, sir?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, you have published a character of your\nfacetious friend, the Reverend Doctor F., wherein you have sketched off\nme; me, sir, even to my nose and wig.  What business have the public with\nmy nose and wig?\n\n_Mr. Eavesdrop_.\u2014Sir, it is all good-humoured; all in _bonhomie_: all\nfriendly and complimentary.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, the bottle, _la Dive Bouteille_, is a\nrecondite oracle, which makes an Eleusinian temple of the circle in which\nit moves.  He who reveals its mysteries must die.  Therefore, let the\ndose be administered.  _Fiat experimentum in anim\u00e2 vili_.\n\n_Mr. Eavesdrop_.\u2014Sir, you are very facetious at my expense.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, you have been very unfacetious, very\ninficete at mine.  You have dished me up, like a savoury omelette, to\ngratify the appetite of the reading rabble for gossip.  The next time,\nsir, I will respond with the _argumentum baculinum_.  Print that, sir:\nput it on record as a promise of the Reverend Doctor F., which shall be\nmost faithfully kept, with an exemplary bamboo.\n\n_Mr. Eavesdrop_.\u2014Your cloth protects you, sir.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014My bamboo shall protect me, sir.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Doctor, Doctor, you are growing too polemical.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, my blood boils.  What business have the\npublic with my nose and wig?\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Doctor! Doctor!\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._  Pray, gentlemen, return to the point.  How shall\nwe employ our fund?\n\n_Mr. Philpot_.\u2014Surely in no way so beneficially as in exploring rivers.\nSend a fleet of steamboats down the Niger, and another up the Nile.  So\nshall you civilise Africa, and establish stocking factories in Abyssinia\nand Bambo.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014With all submission, breeches and petticoats\nmust precede stockings.  Send out a crew of tailors.  Try if the King of\nBambo will invest in inexpressibles.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_, _jun._\u2014Gentlemen, it is not for partial, but for general\nbenefit, that this fund is proposed: a grand and universally applicable\nscheme for the amelioration of the condition of man.\n\n_Several Voices_.\u2014That is my scheme.  I have not heard a scheme but my\nown that has a grain of common sense.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Gentlemen, you inspire me.  Your last exclamation runs\nitself into a chorus, and sets itself to music.  Allow me to lead, and to\nhope for your voices in harmony.\n\n          After careful meditation,\n          And profound deliberation,\n    On the various pretty projects which have just been shown,\n          Not a scheme in agitation,\n          For the world\u2019s amelioration,\n    Has a grain of common sense in it, except my own.\n\n_Several Voices_.\u2014We are not disposed to join in any such chorus.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, of all these schemes, I am for Mr.\nTrillo\u2019s.  Regenerate the Athenian theatre.  My classical friend here,\nthe Captain, will vote with, me.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I, sir? oh! of course, sir.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Surely, Captain, I rely on you to uphold political\neconomy.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Me, sir! oh, to be sure, sir.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Pray, sir, will political economy uphold the\nAthenian theatre?\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Surely not.  It would be a very unproductive investment.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Then the Captain votes against you.  What, sir,\ndid not the Athenians, the wisest of nations, appropriate to their\ntheatre their most sacred and intangible fund?  Did not they give to\nmelopoeia, choregraphy, and the sundry forms of didascalics, the\nprecedence of all other matters, civil and military?  Was it not their\nlaw, that even the proposal to divert this fund to any other purpose\nshould be punished with death?  But, sir, I further propose that the\nAthenian theatre being resuscitated, the admission shall be free to all\nwho can expound the Greek choruses, constructively, mythologically, and\nmetrically, and to none others.  So shall all the world learn Greek:\nGreek, the Alpha and Omega of all knowledge.  At him who sits not in the\ntheatre shall be pointed the finger of scorn: he shall be called in the\nhighway of the city, \u201ca fellow without Greek.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014But the ladies, sir, the ladies.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Every man may take in a lady: and she who can\nconstrue and metricise a chorus, shall, if she so please, pass in by\nherself.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014But, sir, you will shut me out of my own theatre.  Let\nthere at least be a double passport, Greek and Italian.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No, sir; I am inexorable.  No Greek, no theatre.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Sir, I cannot consent to be shut out from my own theatre.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014You see how it is, Squire Crotchet the younger;\nyou can scarcely find two to agree on a scheme, and no two of those can\nagree on the details.  Keep your money in your pocket.  And so ends the\nfund for regenerating the world.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Nay, by no means.  We are all agreed on deliberative\ndinners.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Very true; we will dine and discuss.  We will\nsing with Robin Hood, \u201cIf I drink water while this doth last;\u201d and while\nit lasts we will have no adjournment, if not to the Athenian theatre.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Well, gentlemen, I hope this chorus at least will please\nyou:\u2014\n\n    If I drink water while this doth last,\n    May I never again drink wine:\n    For how can a man, in his life of a span,\n    Do anything better than dine?\n    We'll dine and drink, and say if we think\n    That anything better can be,\n    And when we have dined, wish all mankind\n    May dine as well as we.\n    And though a good wish will fill no dish\n    And brim no cup with sack,\n    Yet thoughts will spring as the glasses ring,\n    To illume our studious track.\n    On the brilliant dreams of our hopeful schemes\n    The light of the flask shall shine;\n    And we\u2019ll sit till day, but we\u2019ll find the way\n    To drench the world with wine.\n\nThe schemes for the world\u2019s regeneration evaporated in a tumult of\nvoices.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\nTHE SLEEPING VENUS.\n\n\n    Quoth he: In all my life till now,\n    I ne\u2019er saw so profane a show.\u2014BUTLER.\n\nTHE library of Crotchet Castle was a large and well-furnished apartment,\nopening on one side into an ante-room, on the other into a music-room.\nIt had several tables stationed at convenient distances; one consecrated\nto the novelties of literature, another to the novelties of\nembellishment; others unoccupied, and at the disposal of the company.\nThe walls were covered with a copious collection of ancient and modern\nbooks; the ancient having been selected and arranged by the Reverend\nDoctor Folliott.  In the ante-room were card-tables; in the music-room\nwere various instruments, all popular operas, and all fashionable music.\nIn this suite of apartments, and not in the drawing-room, were the\nevenings of Crotchet Castle usually passed.\n\nThe young ladies were in the music-room; Miss Crotchet at the piano, Lady\nClarinda at the harp, playing and occasionally singing, at the suggestion\nof Mr. Trillo, portions of _Matilde di Shabran_.  Lord Bossnowl was\nturning over the leaves for Miss Crotchet; the Captain was performing the\nsame office for Lady Clarinda, but with so much more attention to the\nlady than the book, that he often made sad work with the harmony, by\nturnover of two leaves together.  On these occasions Miss Crotchet paused,\nLady Clarinda laughed, Mr. Trillo scolded, Lord Bossnowl yawned, the\nCaptain apologised, and the performance proceeded.\n\nIn the library Mr. Mac Quedy was expounding political economy to the\nReverend Doctor Folliott, who was _pro more_ demolishing its doctrines\n_seriatim_.\n\nMr. Chainmail was in hot dispute with Mr. Skionar, touching the physical\nand moral well-being of man.  Mr. Skionar was enforcing his friend Mr.\nShantsee\u2019s views of moral discipline; maintaining that the sole thing\nneedful for man in this world was loyal and pious education; the giving\nmen good books to read, and enough of the hornbook to read them; with a\njudicious interspersion of the lessons of Old Restraint, which was his\npoetic name for the parish stocks.  Mr. Chainmail, on the other hand,\nstood up for the exclusive necessity of beef and ale, lodging and\nraiment, wife and children, courage to fight for them all, and armour\nwherewith to do so.\n\nMr. Henbane had got his face scratched, and his finger bitten, by the\ncat, in trying to catch her for a second experiment in killing and\nbringing to life; and Doctor Morbific was comforting him with a\ndisquisition to prove that there were only four animals having the power\nto communicate hydrophobia, of which the cat was one; and that it was not\nnecessary that the animal should be in a rabid state, the nature of the\nwound being everything, and the idea of contagion a delusion.  Mr.\nHenbane was listening very lugubriously to this dissertation.\n\nMr. Philpot had seized on Mr. Firedamp, and pinned him down to a map of\nAfrica, on which he was tracing imaginary courses of mighty inland\nrivers, terminating in lakes and marshes, where they were finally\nevaporated by the heat of the sun; and Mr. Firedamp\u2019s hair was standing\non end at the bare imagination of the mass of malaria that must be\nengendered by the operation.  Mr. Toogood had begun explaining his\ndiagrams to Sir Simon Steeltrap; but Sir Simon grew testy, and told Mr.\nToogood that the promulgators of such doctrines ought to be consigned to\nthe treadmill.  The philanthropist walked off from the country gentleman,\nand proceeded to hold forth to young Crotchet, who stood silent, as one\nwho listens, but in reality without hearing a syllable.  Mr. Crotchet,\nsenior, as the master of the house, was left to entertain himself with\nhis own meditations, till the Reverend Doctor Folliott tore himself from\nMr. Mac Quedy, and proceeded to expostulate with Mr. Crotchet on a\ndelicate topic.\n\nThere was an Italian painter, who obtained the name of _Il Bragatore_, by\nthe superinduction of inexpressibles on the naked Apollos and Bacchuses\nof his betters.  The fame of this worthy remained one and indivisible,\ntill a set of heads, which had been, by a too common mistake of Nature\u2019s\njourneymen, stuck upon magisterial shoulders, as the Corinthian capitals\nof \u201cfair round bellies with fat capon lined,\u201d but which Nature herself\nhad intended for the noddles of porcelain mandarins, promulgated\nsimultaneously from the east and the west of London, an order that no\nplaster-of-Paris Venus should appear in the streets without petticoats.\nMr. Crotchet, on reading this order in the evening paper, which, by the\npostman\u2019s early arrival, was always laid on his breakfast-table,\ndetermined to fill his house with Venuses of all sizes and kinds.  In\npursuance of this resolution, came packages by water-carriage, containing\nan infinite variety of Venuses.  There were the Medicean Venus, and the\nBathing Venus; the Uranian Venus, and the Pandemian Venus; the Crouching\nVenus, and the Sleeping Venus; the Venus rising from the sea, the Venus\nwith the apple of Paris, and the Venus with the armour of Mars.\n\nThe Reverend Doctor Folliott had been very much astonished at this\nunexpected display.  Disposed, as he was, to hold, that whatever had been\nin Greece, was right; he was more than doubtful of the propriety of\nthrowing open the classical _adytum_ to the illiterate profane.  Whether,\nin his interior mind, he was at all influenced, either by the\nconsideration that it would be for the credit of his cloth, with some of\nhis vice-suppressing neighbours, to be able to say that he had\nexpostulated; or by curiosity, to try what sort of defence his city-bred\nfriend, who knew the classics only by translations, and whose reason was\nalways a little ahead of his knowledge, would make for his somewhat\nostentatious display of liberality in matters of taste; is a question on\nwhich the learned may differ: but, after having duly deliberated on two\nfull-sized casts of the Uranian and Pandemian Venus, in niches on each\nside of the chimney, and on three alabaster figures, in glass cases, on\nthe mantelpiece, he proceeded, peirastically, to open his fire.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014These little alabaster figures on the\nmantelpiece, Mr. Crotchet, and those large figures in the niches\u2014may I\ntake the liberty to ask you what they are intended to represent?\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Venus, sir; nothing more, sir; just Venus.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014May I ask you, sir, why they are there?\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014To be looked at, sir; just to be looked at: the reasons\nfor most things in a gentleman\u2019s house being in it at all; from the paper\non the walls, and the drapery of the curtains, even to the books in the\nlibrary, of which the most essential part is the appearance of the back.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Very true, sir.  As great philosophers hold that\nthe _esse_ of things is _percipi_, so a gentleman\u2019s furniture exists to\nbe looked at.  Nevertheless, sir, there are some things more fit to be\nlooked at than others; for instance, there is nothing more fit to be\nlooked at than the outside of a book.  It is, as I may say, from repeated\nexperience, a pure and unmixed pleasure to have a goodly volume lying\nbefore you, and to know that you may open it if you please, and need not\nopen it unless you please.  It is a resource against _ennui_, if _ennui_\nshould come upon you.  To have the resource and not to feel the _ennui_,\nto enjoy your bottle in the present, and your book in the indefinite\nfuture, is a delightful condition of human existence.  There is no place,\nin which a man can move or sit, in which the outside of a book can be\notherwise than an innocent and becoming spectacle.  Touching this matter,\nthere cannot, I think, be two opinions.  But with respect to your Venuses\nthere can be, and indeed there are, two very distinct opinions.  Now,\nSir, that little figure in the centre of the mantelpiece\u2014as a grave\n_paterfamilias_, Mr. Crotchet, with a fair nubile daughter, whose eyes\nare like the fish-pools of Heshbon\u2014I would ask you if you hold that\nfigure to be altogether delicate?\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014The sleeping Venus, sir?  Nothing can be more delicate\nthan the entire contour of the figure, the flow of the hair on the\nshoulders and neck, the form of the feet and fingers.  It is altogether a\nmost delicate morsel.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Why, in that sense, perhaps, it is as delicate\nas whitebait in July.  But the attitude, sir, the attitude.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Nothing can be more natural, sir.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014That is the very thing, sir.  It is too natural:\ntoo natural, sir: it lies for all the world like\u2014  I make no doubt, the\npious cheesemonger, who recently broke its plaster facsimile over the\nhead of the itinerant vendor, was struck by a certain similitude to the\nposition of his own sleeping beauty, and felt his noble wrath thereby\njustly aroused.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Very likely, sir.  In my opinion, the cheesemonger was a\nfool, and the justice who sided with him was a greater.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Fool, sir, is a harsh term: call not thy brother\na fool.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Sir, neither the cheesemonger nor the justice is a\nbrother of mine.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, we are all brethren.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Yes, sir, as the hangman is of the thief; the squire of\nthe poacher; the judge of the libeller; the lawyer of his client; the\nstatesman of his colleague; the bubble-blower of the bubble-buyer; the\nslave-driver of the negro; as these are brethren, so am I and the\nworthies in question.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014To be sure, sir, in these instances, and in many\nothers, the term brother must be taken in its utmost latitude of\ninterpretation: we are all brothers, nevertheless.  But to return to the\npoint.  Now these two large figures, one with drapery on the lower half\nof the body, and the other with no drapery at all; upon my word, sir, it\nmatters not what godfathers and godmothers may have promised and vowed\nfor the children of this world, touching the devil and other things to be\nrenounced, if such figures as those are to be put before their eyes.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Sir, the naked figure is the Pandemian Venus, and the\nhalf-draped figure is the Uranian Venus; and I say, sir, that figure\nrealises the finest imaginings of Plato, and is the personification of\nthe most refined and exalted feeling of which the human mind is\nsusceptible; the love of pure, ideal, intellectual beauty.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I am aware, sir, that Plato, in his Symposium,\ndiscourseth very eloquently touching the Uranian and Pandemian Venus: but\nyou must remember that, in our universities, Plato is held to be little\nbetter than a misleader of youth; and they have shown their contempt for\nhim, not only by never reading him (a mode of contempt in which they deal\nvery largely), but even by never printing a complete edition of him;\nalthough they have printed many ancient books, which nobody suspects to\nhave been ever read on the spot, except by a person attached to the\npress, who is, therefore, emphatically called \u201cthe reader.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Well, sir?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Why, sir, to \u201cthe reader\u201d aforesaid (supposing\neither of our universities to have printed an edition of Plato), or to\nany one else who can be supposed to have read Plato, or, indeed, to be\never likely to do so, I would very willingly show these figures; because\nto such they would, I grant you, be the outward and visible signs of\npoetical and philosophical ideas: but, to the multitude, the gross,\ncarnal multitude, they are but two beautiful women, one half undressed,\nand the other quite so.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Then, sir, let the multitude look upon them and learn\nmodesty.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I must say that, if I wished my footman to learn\nmodesty, I should not dream of sending him to school to a naked Venus.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Sir, ancient sculpture is the true school of modesty.\nBut where the Greeks had modesty, we have cant; where they had poetry, we\nhave cant; where they had patriotism, we have cant; where they had\nanything that exalts, delights, or adorns humanity, we have nothing but\ncant, cant, cant.  And, sir, to show my contempt for cant in all its\nshapes, I have adorned my house with the Greek Venus, in all her shapes,\nand am ready to fight her battle against all the societies that ever were\ninstituted for the suppression of truth and beauty.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014My dear sir, I am afraid you are growing warm.\nPray be cool.  Nothing contributes so much to good digestion as to be\nperfectly cool after dinner.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Sir, the Laced\u00e6monian virgins wrestled naked with young\nmen; and they grew up, as the wise Lycurgus had foreseen, into the most\nmodest of women, and the most exemplary of wives and mothers.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Very likely, sir; but the Athenian virgins did\nno such thing, and they grew up into wives who stayed at home\u2014stayed at\nhome, sir; and looked after their husbands\u2019 dinner\u2014his dinner, sir, you\nwill please to observe.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014And what was the consequence of that, sir? that they were\nsuch very insipid persons that the husband would not go home to eat his\ndinner, but preferred the company of some Aspasia, or Lais.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Two very different persons, sir, give me leave\nto remark.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Very likely, sir; but both too good to be married in\nAthens.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, Lais was a Corinthian.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Od\u2019s vengeance, sir, some Aspasia and any other Athenian\nname of the same sort of person you like\u2014\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I do not like the sort of person at all: the\nsort of person I like, as I have already implied, is a modest woman, who\nstays at home and looks after her husband\u2019s dinner.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Well, sir, that was not the taste of the Athenians.  They\npreferred the society of women who would not have made any scruple about\nsitting as models to Praxiteles; as you know, sir, very modest women in\nItaly did to Canova; one of whom, an Italian countess, being asked by an\nEnglish lady, \u201chow she could bear it?\u201d answered, \u201cVery well; there was a\ngood fire in the room.\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, the English lady should have asked how the\nItalian lady\u2019s husband could bear it.  The phials of my wrath would\noverflow if poor dear Mrs. Folliott \u2014: sir, in return for your story, I\nwill tell you a story of my ancestor, Gilbert Folliott.  The devil\nhaunted him, as he did Saint Francis, in the likeness of a beautiful\ndamsel; but all he could get from the exemplary Gilbert was an admonition\nto wear a stomacher and longer petticoats.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Sir, your story makes for my side of the question.  It\nproves that the devil, in the likeness of a fair damsel, with short\npetticoats and no stomacher, was almost too much for Gilbert Folliott.\nThe force of the spell was in the drapery.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Bless my soul, sir!\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Give me leave, sir.  Diderot\u2014\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Who was he, sir?\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Who was he, sir? the sublime philosopher, the father of\nthe Encyclop\u00e6dia, of all the encyclop\u00e6dias that have ever been printed.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Bless me, sir, a terrible progeny: they belong\nto the tribe of Incubi.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014The great philosopher, Diderot\u2014\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, Diderot is not a man after my heart.  Keep\nto the Greeks, if you please; albeit this Sleeping Venus is not an\nantique.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Well, sir, the Greeks: why do we call the Elgin marbles\ninestimable?  Simply because they are true to nature.  And why are they\nso superior in that point to all modern works, with all our greater\nknowledge of anatomy?  Why, sir, but because the Greeks, having no cant,\nhad better opportunities of studying models?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, I deny our greater knowledge of anatomy.\nBut I shall take the liberty to employ, on this occasion, the _argumentum\nad hominem_.  Would you have allowed Miss Crotchet to sit for a model to\nCanova?\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Yes, sir.\n\n\u201cGod bless my soul, sir!\u201d exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott,\nthrowing himself back into a chair, and flinging up his heels, with the\npremeditated design of giving emphasis to his exclamation; but by\nmiscalculating his impetus, he overbalanced his chair, and laid himself\non the carpet in a right angle, of which his back was the base.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\nSCIENCE AND CHARITY.\n\n\n    Chi sta nel mondo un par d\u2019ore contento,\n    N\u00e8 gli vien tolta, ovver contaminata,\n    Quella sua pace in veruno momento,\n    Puo dir che Giove drittamente il guata.\n\n                                                              FORTEGUERRI.\n\nTHE Reverend Doctor Folliott took his departure about ten o\u2019clock, to\nwalk home to his vicarage.  There was no moon, but the night was bright\nand clear, and afforded him as much light as he needed.  He paused a\nmoment by the Roman camp to listen to the nightingale; repeated to\nhimself a passage of Sophocles; proceeded through the park gate, and\nentered the narrow lane that led to the village.  He walked on in a very\npleasant mood of the state called reverie; in which fish and wine, Greek\nand political economy, the Sleeping Venus he had left behind, and poor\ndear Mrs. Folliott, to whose fond arms he was returning, passed, as in a\ncamera obscura, over the tablets of his imagination.  Presently the image\nof Mr. Eavesdrop, with a printed sketch of the Reverend Doctor F.,\npresented itself before him, and he began mechanically to flourish his\nbamboo.  The movement was prompted by his good genius, for the uplifted\nbamboo received the blow of a ponderous cudgel, which was intended for\nhis head.  The reverend gentleman recoiled two or three paces, and saw\nbefore him a couple of ruffians, who were preparing to renew the attack,\nbut whom, with two swings of his bamboo, he laid with cracked sconces on\nthe earth, where he proceeded to deal with them like corn beneath the\nflail of the thresher.  One of them drew a pistol, which went off in the\nvery act of being struck aside by the bamboo, and lodged a bullet in the\nbrain of the other.  There was then only one enemy, who vainly struggled\nto rise, every effort being attended with a new and more signal\nprostration.  The fellow roared for mercy.  \u201cMercy, rascal!\u201d cried the\ndivine; \u201cwhat mercy were you going to show me, villain?  What!  I warrant\nme, you thought it would be an easy matter, and no sin, to rob and murder\na parson on his way home from dinner.  You said to yourself, doubtless,\n\u201cWe\u2019ll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home\n(you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond).\u201d\nAnd with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to\nhimself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist.\n\u201cAh, rogue!\u201d he proceeded, \u201cyou can roar now, marauder; you were silent\nenough when you devoted my brains to dispersion under your cudgel.  But\nseeing that I cannot bind you, and that I intend you not to escape, and\nthat it would be dangerous to let you rise, I will disable you in all\nyour members.  I will contund you as Thestylis did strong smelling herbs,\nin the quality whereof you do most gravely partake, as my nose beareth\ntestimony, ill weed that you are.  I will beat you to a jelly, and I will\nthen roll you into the ditch, to lie till the constable comes for you,\nthief.\u201d\n\n\u201cHold! hold! reverend sir,\u201d exclaimed the penitent culprit, \u201cI am\ndisabled already in every finger, and in every joint.  I will roll myself\ninto the ditch, reverend sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cStir not, rascal,\u201d returned the divine, \u201cstir not so much as the\nquietest leaf above you, or my bamboo rebounds on your body, like hail in\na thunder-storm.  Confess, speedily, villain; are you a simple thief, or\nwould you have manufactured me into a subject for the benefit of science?\nAy, miscreant caitiff, you would have made me a subject for science,\nwould you?  You are a school-master abroad, are you?  You are marching\nwith a detachment of the march of mind, are you?  You are a member of the\nSteam Intellect Society, are you?  You swear by the learned friend, do\nyou?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no! reverend sir,\u201d answered the criminal, \u201cI am innocent of all\nthese offences, whatever they are, reverend sir.  The only friend I had\nin the world is lying dead beside me, reverend sir.\u201d\n\nThe reverend gentleman paused a moment, and leaned on his bamboo.  The\nculprit, bruised as he was, sprang on his legs, and went off in double\nquick time.  The Doctor gave him chase, and had nearly brought him within\narm\u2019s length, when the fellow turned at right angles, and sprang clean\nover a deep dry ditch.  The divine, following with equal ardour, and less\ndexterity, went down over head and ears into a thicket of nettles.\nEmerging with much discomposure, he proceeded to the village, and roused\nthe constable; but the constable found, on reaching the scene of action,\nthat the dead man was gone, as well as his living accomplice.\n\n\u201cOh, the monster!\u201d exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott, \u201che has made a\nsubject for science of the only friend he had in the world.\u201d  \u201cAy, my\ndear,\u201d he resumed, the next morning at breakfast, \u201cif my old reading, and\nmy early gymnastics (for, as the great Hermann says, before I was\ndemulced by the Muses, I was _ferocis ingenii puer_, _et ad arma quam ad\nliteras paratior_), had not imbued me indelibly with some of the holy\nrage of _Fr\u00e8re Jean des Entommeures_, I should be, at this moment, lying\non the table of some flinty-hearted anatomist, who would have sliced and\ndisjointed me as unscrupulously as I do these remnants of the capon and\nchine, wherewith you consoled yourself yesterday for my absence at\ndinner.  Phew! I have a noble thirst upon me, which I will quench with\nfloods of tea.\u201d\n\nThe reverend gentleman was interrupted by a messenger, who informed him\nthat the Charity Commissioners requested his presence at the inn, where\nthey were holding a sitting.\n\n\u201cThe Charity Commissioners!\u201d exclaimed the reverend gentleman, \u201cwho on\nearth are they?\u201d\n\nThe messenger could not inform him, and the reverend gentleman took his\nhat and stick, and proceeded to the inn.\n\nOn entering the best parlour, he saw three well-dressed and bulky\ngentlemen sitting at a table, and a fourth officiating as clerk, with an\nopen book before him, and a pen in his hand.  The church-wardens, who had\nbeen also summoned, were already in attendance.\n\nThe chief commissioner politely requested the Reverend Doctor Folliott to\nbe seated, and after the usual meteorological preliminaries had been\nsettled by a resolution, _nem. con._, that it was a fine day but very\nhot, the chief commissioner stated, that in virtue of the commission of\nParliament, which they had the honour to hold, they were now to inquire\ninto the state of the public charities of this village.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014The state of the public charities, sir, is\nexceedingly simple.  There are none.  The charities here are all private,\nand so private, that I for one know nothing of them.\n\n_First Commissioner_.\u2014We have been informed, sir, that there is an annual\nrent charged on the land of Hautbois, for the endowment and repair of an\nalmshouse.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Hautbois! Hautbois!\n\n_First Commissioner_.\u2014The manorial farm of Hautbois, now occupied by\nFarmer Seedling, is charged with the endowment and maintenance of an\nalmshouse.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_ (_to the Churchwarden_).  How is this, Mr.\nBluenose?\n\n_First Churchwarden_.\u2014I really do not know, sir.  What say you, Mr.\nAppletwig?\n\n_Mr. Appletwig_ (_parish clerk and schoolmaster_; _an old man_).  I do\nremember, gentlemen, to have been informed, that there did stand, at the\nend of the village, a ruined cottage, which had once been an almshouse,\nwhich was endowed and maintained, by an annual revenue of a mark and a\nhalf, or one pound sterling, charged some centuries ago on the farm of\nHautbois; but the means, by the progress of time, having become\ninadequate to the end, the almshouse tumbled to pieces.\n\n_First Commissioner_.\u2014But this is a right which cannot be abrogated by\ndesuetude, and the sum of one pound per annum is still chargeable for\ncharitable purposes on the manorial farm of Hautbois.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Very well, sir.\n\n_Mr. Appletwig_.\u2014But, sir, the one pound per annum is still received by\nthe parish, but was long ago, by an unanimous vote in open vestry, given\nto the minister.\n\n_The Three Commissioners_ (_un\u00e2 voce_).  The minister!\n\n_First Commissioner_.\u2014This is an unjustifiable proceeding.\n\n_Second Commissioner_.\u2014A misappropriation of a public fund.\n\n_Third Commissioner_.\u2014A flagrant perversion of a charitable donation.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014God bless my soul, gentlemen!  I know nothing of\nthis matter.  How is this, Mr. Bluenose?  Do I receive this one pound per\nannum?\n\n_First Churchwarden_.\u2014Really, sir, I know no more about it than you do.\n\n_Mr. Appletwig_.\u2014You certainly receive it, sir.  It was voted to one of\nyour predecessors.  Farmer Seedling lumps it in with his tithes.\n\n_First Commissioner_.\u2014Lumps it in, sir!  Lump in a charitable donation!\n\n_Second and Third Commissioner_.\u2014Oh-oh-oh-h-h!\n\n_First Commissioner_.\u2014Reverend sir, and gentlemen, officers of this\nparish, we are under the necessity of admonishing you that this is a most\nimproper proceeding: and you are hereby duly admonished accordingly.\nMake a record, Mr. Milky.\n\n_Mr. Milky_ (_writing_).  The clergyman and church-wardens of the village\nof Hm-ra-m-m- gravely admonished.  Hm-m-m-m.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Is that all, gentlemen?\n\n_The Commissioners_.\u2014That is all, sir; and we wish you a good morning.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014A very good morning to you, gentlemen.\n\n\u201cWhat in the name of all that is wonderful, Mr. Bluenose,\u201d said the\nReverend Doctor Folliott, as he walked out of the inn, \u201cwhat in the name\nof all that is wonderful, can those fellows mean?  They have come here in\na chaise and four, to make a fuss about a pound per annum, which, after\nall, they leave as it was: I wonder who pays them for their trouble, and\nhow much.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Appletwig_.\u2014The public pay for it, sir.  It is a job of the learned\nfriend whom you admire so much.  It makes away with public money in\nsalaries, and private money in lawsuits, and does no particle of good to\nany living soul.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Ay, ay, Mr. Appletwig; that is just the sort of\npublic service to be looked for from the learned friend.  Oh, the learned\nfriend! the learned friend!  He is the evil genius of everything that\nfalls in his way.\n\nThe Reverend Doctor walked off to Crotchet Castle, to narrate his\nmisadventures, and exhale his budget of grievances on Mr. Mac Quedy, whom\nhe considered a ringleader of the march of mind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\nTHE VOYAGE.\n\n\n    \u039f\u1f30 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bd \u1f14\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u2019 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b2\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u03ad\u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u1f51\u03b3\u03c1\u1f70 \u03ba\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03b1.\n\n    Mounting the bark, they cleft the watery ways.\u2014HOMER.\n\nFOUR beautiful cabined pinnaces, one for the ladies, one for the\ngentlemen, one for kitchen and servants, one for a dining-room and band\nof music, weighed anchor, on a fine July morning, from below Crotchet\nCastle, and were towed merrily, by strong trotting horses, against the\nstream of the Thames.  They passed from the district of chalk,\nsuccessively into the districts of clay, of sand-rock, of oolite, and so\nforth.  Sometimes they dined in their floating dining-room, sometimes in\ntents, which they pitched on the dry, smooth-shaven green of a newly-mown\nmeadow: sometimes they left their vessels to see sights in the vicinity;\nsometimes they passed a day or two in a comfortable inn.\n\nAt Oxford, they walked about to see the curiosities of architecture,\npainted windows, and undisturbed libraries.  The Reverend Doctor Folliott\nlaid a wager with Mr. Crotchet \u201cthat in all their perlustrations they\nwould not find a man reading,\u201d and won it.  \u201cAy,\u201d said the reverend\ngentleman, \u201cthis is still a seat of learning, on the principle of\u2014once a\ncaptain, always a captain.  We may well ask, in these great reservoirs of\nbooks whereof no man ever draws a sluice, _Quorsum pertinuit stipere\nPlatona Menandro_?  What is done here for the classics?  Reprinting\nGerman editions on better paper.  A great boast, verily!  What for\nmathematics?  What for metaphysics?  What for history?  What for anything\nworth knowing?  This was a seat of learning in the days of Friar Bacon.\nBut the Friar is gone, and his learning with him.  Nothing of him is left\nbut the immortal nose, which, when his brazen head had tumbled to pieces,\ncrying \u201cTime\u2019s Past,\u201d was the only palpable fragment among its minutely\npulverised atoms, and which is still resplendent over the portals of its\ncognominal college.  That nose, sir, is the only thing to which I shall\ntake off my hat, in all this Babylon of buried literature.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014But, doctor, it is something to have a great reservoir of\nlearning, at which some may draw if they please.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014But, here, good care is taken that nobody shall\nplease.  If even a small drop from the sacred fountain, \u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03be \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u1fc6\u03c2\n\u1f40\u03bb\u03af\u03b3\u03b7 \u03bb\u03b9\u03b2\u1f70\u03c2, as Callimachus has it, were carried off by any one, it would\nbe evidence of something to hope for.  But the system of dissuasion from\nall good learning is brought here to a pitch of perfection that baffles\nthe keenest aspirant.  I run over to myself the names of the scholars of\nGermany, a glorious catalogue: but ask for those of Oxford,\u2014Where are\nthey?  The echoes of their courts, as vacant as their heads, will answer,\nWhere are they?  The tree shall be known by its fruit: and seeing that\nthis great tree, with all its specious seeming, brings forth no fruit, I\ndo denounce it as a barren fig.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014I shall set you right on this point.  We do nothing\nwithout motives.  If learning get nothing but honour, and very little of\nthat; and if the good things of this world, which ought to be the rewards\nof learning, become the mere gifts of self-interested patronage; you must\nnot wonder if, in the finishing of education, the science which takes\nprecedence of all others, should be the science of currying favour.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Very true, sir.  Education is well finished, for\nall worldly purposes, when the head is brought into the state whereinto I\nam accustomed to bring a marrow-bone, when it has been set before me on a\ntoast, with a white napkin wrapped round it.  Nothing trundles along the\nhigh road of preferment so trimly as a well-biassed sconce, picked clean\nwithin and polished without; _totus teres atque rotundus_.  The\nperfection of the finishing lies in the bias, which keeps it trundling in\nthe given direction.  There is good and sufficient reason for the fig\nbeing barren, but it is not therefore the less a barren fig.\n\nAt Godstow, they gathered hazel on the grave of Rosamond; and, proceeding\non their voyage, fell into a discussion on legendary histories.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014History is but a tiresome thing in itself: it becomes\nmore agreeable the more romance is mixed up with it.  The great enchanter\nhas made me learn many things which I should never have dreamed of\nstudying, if they had not come to me in the form of amusement.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014What enchanter is that?  There are two\nenchanters: he of the north, and he of the south.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Rossini!\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Ay, there is another enchanter.  But I mean the\ngreat enchanter of Covent Garden: he who, for more than a quarter of a\ncentury, has produced two pantomimes a year, to the delight of children\nof all ages; including myself at all ages.  That is the enchanter for me.\nI am for the pantomimes.  All the northern enchanter\u2019s romances put\ntogether would not furnish materials for half the Southern enchanter\u2019s\npantomimes.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Surely you do not class literature with pantomime?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014In these cases, I do.  They are both one, with a\nslight difference.  The one is the literature of pantomime, the other is\nthe pantomime of literature.  There is the same variety of character, the\nsame diversity of story, the same copiousness of incident, the same\nresearch into costume, the same display of heraldry, falconry,\nminstrelsy, scenery, monkery, witchery, devilry, robbery, poachery,\npiracy, fishery, gipsy-astrology, demonology, architecture,\nfortification, castrametation, navigation; the same running base of love\nand battle.  The main difference is, that the one set of amusing fictions\nis told in music and action; the other in all the worst dialects of the\nEnglish language.  As to any sentence worth remembering, any moral or\npolitical truth, anything having a tendency, however remote, to make men\nwiser or better, to make them think, to make them ever think of thinking;\nthey are both precisely alike _nuspiam_, _nequaquam_, _nullibi_,\n_nullimodis_.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Very amusing, however.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Very amusing, very amusing.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014My quarrel with the northern enchanter is, that he has\ngrossly misrepresented the twelfth century.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014He has misrepresented everything, or he would\nnot have been very amusing.  Sober truth is but dull matter to the\nreading rabble.  The angler, who puts not on his hook the bait that best\npleases the fish, may sit all day on the bank without catching a gudgeon.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014But how do you mean that he has misrepresented the\ntwelfth century?  By exhibiting some of its knights and ladies in the\ncolours of refinement and virtue, seeing that they were all no better\nthan ruffians, and something else that shall be nameless?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014By no means.  By depicting them as much worse than they\nwere, not, as you suppose, much better.  No one would infer from his\npictures that theirs was a much better state of society than this which\nwe live in.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014No, nor was it.  It was a period of brutality,\nignorance, fanaticism, and tyranny; when the land was covered with\ncastles, and every castle contained a gang of banditti, headed by a\ntitled robber, who levied contributions with fire and sword; plundering,\ntorturing, ravishing, burying his captives in loathsome dungeons, and\nbroiling them on gridirons, to force from them the surrender of every\nparticle of treasure which he suspected them of possessing; and fighting\nevery now and then with the neighbouring lords, his conterminal bandits,\nfor the right of marauding on the boundaries.  This was the twelfth\ncentury, as depicted by all contemporary historians and poets.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014No, sir.  Weigh the evidence of specific facts; you will\nfind more good than evil.  Who was England\u2019s greatest hero\u2014the mirror of\nchivalry, the pattern of honour, the fountain of generosity, the model to\nall succeeding ages of military glory?  Richard the First.  There is a\nking of the twelfth century.  What was the first step of liberty?  Magna\nCharta.  That was the best thing ever done by lords.  There are lords of\nthe twelfth century.  You must remember, too, that these lords were petty\nprinces, and made war on each other as legitimately as the heads of\nlarger communities did or do.  For their system of revenue, it was, to be\nsure, more rough and summary than that which has succeeded it, but it was\ncertainly less searching and less productive.  And as to the people, I\ncontent myself with these great points: that every man was armed, every\nman was a good archer, every man could and would fight effectively, with\nsword or pike, or even with oaken cudgel; no man would live quietly\nwithout beef and ale if he had them not; he fought till he either got\nthem, or was put out of condition to want them.  They were not, and could\nnot be, subjected to that powerful pressure of all the other classes of\nsociety, combined by gunpowder, steam, and _fiscality_, which has brought\nthem to that dismal degradation in which we see them now.  And there are\nthe people of the twelfth century.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014As to your king, the enchanter has done him ample\njustice, even in your own view.  As to your lords and their ladies, he\nhas drawn them too favourably, given them too many of the false colours\nof chivalry, thrown too attractive a light on their abominable doings.\nAs to the people, he keeps them so much in the background, that he can\nhardly be said to have represented them at all, much less misrepresented\nthem, which indeed he could scarcely do, seeing that, by your own\nshowing, they were all thieves, ready to knock down any man for what they\ncould not come by honestly.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014No, sir.  They could come honestly by beef and ale,\nwhile they were left to their simple industry.  When oppression\ninterfered with them in that, then they stood on the defensive, and\nfought for what they were not permitted to come by quietly.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014If A., being aggrieved by B., knocks down C., do you\ncall that standing on the defensive?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014That depends on who or what C. is.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Gentlemen, you will never settle this\ncontroversy till you have first settled what is good for man in this\nworld; the great question, _de finibus_, which has puzzled all\nphilosophers.  If the enchanter has represented the twelfth century too\nbrightly for one, and too darkly for the other of you, I should say, as\nan impartial man, he has represented it fairly.  My quarrel with him is,\nthat his works contain nothing worth quoting; and a book that furnishes\nno quotations, is _me judice_, no book\u2014it is a plaything.  There is no\nquestion about the amusement,\u2014amusement of multitudes; but if he who\namuses us most is to be our enchanter \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u2019 \u1f10\u03be\u03bf\u03c7\u1f74\u03bd, then my enchanter is\nthe enchanter of Covent Garden.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\nTHE VOYAGE, CONTINUED.\n\n\n    Continuant nostre routte, navigasmes par trois jours _sans rien\n    descouvrir_.\u2014RABELAIS.\n\n\u201cTHERE is a beautiful structure,\u201d said Mr. Chainmail, as they glided by\nLechlade church; \u201ca subject for the pencil, Captain.  It is a question\nworth asking, Mr. Mac Quedy, whether the religious spirit which reared\nthese edifices, and connected with them everywhere an asylum for\nmisfortune, and a provision for poverty, was not better than the\ncommercial spirit, which has turned all the business of modern life into\nschemes of profit and processes of fraud and extortion.  I do not see, in\nall your boasted improvements, any compensation for the religious charity\nof the twelfth century.  I do not see any compensation for that kindly\nfeeling which, within their own little communities, bound the several\nclasses of society together, while full scope was left for the\ndevelopment of natural character, wherein individuals differed as\nconspicuously as in costume.  Now, we all wear one conventional dress,\none conventional face; we have no bond of union but pecuniary interest;\nwe talk anything that comes uppermost for talking\u2019s sake, and without\nexpecting to be believed; we have no nature, no simplicity, no\npicturesqueness: everything about us is as artificial and as complicated\nas our steam-machinery: our poetry is a kaleidoscope of false imagery,\nexpressing no real feeling, portraying no real existence.  I do not see\nany compensation for the poetry of the twelfth century.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014I wonder to hear you, Mr. Chainmail, talking of the\nreligious charity of a set of lazy monks and beggarly friars, who were\nmuch more occupied with taking than giving; of whom those who were in\nearnest did nothing but make themselves and everybody about them\nmiserable with fastings and penances, and other such trash; and those who\nwere not, did nothing but guzzle and royster, and, having no wives of\ntheir own, took very unbecoming liberties with those of honester men.\nAnd as to your poetry of the twelfth century, it is not good for much.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014It has, at any rate, what ours wants, truth to nature\nand simplicity of diction.\n\nThe poetry, which was addressed to the people of the dark ages, pleased\nin proportion to the truth with which it depicted familiar images, and to\ntheir natural connection with the time and place to which they were\nassigned.  In the poetry of our enlightened times, the characteristics of\nall seasons, soils, and climates may be blended together with much\nbenefit to the author\u2019s fame as an original genius.  The cowslip of a\ncivic poet is always in blossom, his fern is always in full feather; he\ngathers the celandine, the primrose, the heath-flower, the jasmine, and\nthe chrysanthemum all on the same day and from the same spot; his\nnightingale sings all the year round, his moon is always full, his cygnet\nis as white as his swan, his cedar is as tremulous as his aspen, and his\npoplar as embowering as his beech.  Thus all nature marches with the\nmarch of mind; but among barbarians, instead of mead and wine, and the\nbest seat by the fire, the reward of such a genius would have been to be\nsummarily turned out of doors in the snow, to meditate on the difference\nbetween day and night and between December and July.  It is an age of\nliberality, indeed, when not to know an oak from a burdock is no\ndisqualification for sylvan minstrelsy.  I am for truth and simplicity.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Let him who loves them read Greek: Greek, Greek,\nGreek.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014If he can, sir.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Very true, sir; if he can.  Here is the Captain\nwho can.  But I think he must have finished his education at some very\nrigid college, where a quotation or any other overt act showing\nacquaintance with classical literature was visited with a severe penalty.\nFor my part, I make it my boast that I was not to be so subdued.  I could\nnot be abated of a single quotation by all the bumpers in which I was\nfined.\n\nIn this manner they glided over the face of the waters, discussing\neverything and settling nothing.  Mr. Mac Quedy and the Reverend Doctor\nFolliott had many digladiations on political economy: wherein, each in\nhis own view, Doctor Folliott demolished Mr. Mac Quedy\u2019s science, and Mr.\nMac Quedy demolished Dr. Folliott\u2019s objections.\n\nWe would print these dialogues if we thought anyone would read them; but\nthe world is not yet ripe for this _haute sagesse Pantagrueline_.  We\nmust therefore content ourselves with an _\u00e9chantillon_ of one of the\nReverend Doctor\u2019s perorations.\n\n\u201cYou have given the name of a science to what is yet an imperfect\ninquiry, and the upshot of your so-called science is this: that you\nincrease the wealth of a nation by increasing in it the quantity of\nthings which are produced by labour: no matter what they are, no matter\nhow produced, no matter how distributed.  The greater the quantity of\nlabour that has gone to the production of the quantity of things in a\ncommunity, the richer is the community.  That is your doctrine.  Now, I\nsay, if this be so, riches are not the object for a community to aim at.\nI say the nation is best off, in relation to other nations, which has the\ngreatest quantity of the common necessaries of life distributed among the\ngreatest number of persons; which has the greatest number of honest\nhearts and stout arms united in a common interest, willing to offend no\none, but ready to fight in defence of their own community against all the\nrest of the world, because they have something in it worth fighting for.\nThe moment you admit that one class of things, without any reference to\nwhat they respectively cost, is better worth having than another; that a\nsmaller commercial value, with one mode of distribution, is better than a\ngreater commercial value, with another mode of distribution; the whole of\nthat curious fabric of postulates and dogmas, which you call the science\nof political economy, and which I call _politic\u00e6 \u00e6conomi\u00e6 inscientia_,\ntumbles to pieces.\u201d\n\nMr. Toogood agreed with Mr. Chainmail against Mr. Mac Quedy, that the\nexisting state of society was worse than that of the twelfth century; but\nhe agreed with Mr. Mac Quedy against Mr. Chainmail, that it was in\nprogress to something much better than either\u2014to which \u201csomething much\nbetter\u201d Mr. Toogood and Mr. Mac Quedy attached two very different\nmeanings.\n\nMr. Chainmail fought with Doctor Folliott, the battle of the romantic\nagainst the classical in poetry; and Mr. Skionar contended with Mr. Mac\nQuedy for intuition and synthesis, against analysis and induction in\nphilosophy.\n\nMr. Philpot would lie along for hours, listening to the gurgling of the\nwater round the prow, and would occasionally edify the company with\nspeculations on the great changes that would be effected in the world by\nthe steam-navigation of rivers: sketching the course of a steamboat up\nand down some mighty stream which civilisation had either never visited,\nor long since deserted; the Missouri and the Columbia, the Oroonoko and\nthe Amazon, the Nile and the Niger, the Euphrates and the Tigris, the\nOxus and the Indus, the Ganges and the Hoangho; under the over canopying\nforests of the new, or by the long-silent ruins of the ancient, world;\nthrough the shapeless mounds of Babylon, or the gigantic temples of\nThebes.\n\nMr. Trillo went on with the composition of his opera, and took the\nopinions of the young ladies on every step in its progress; occasionally\nregaling the company with specimens; and wondering at the blindness of\nMr. Mac Quedy, who could not, or would not, see that an opera in\nperfection, being the union of all the beautiful arts\u2014music, painting,\ndancing, poetry\u2014exhibiting female beauty in its most attractive aspects,\nand in its most becoming costume\u2014was, according to the well-known\nprecept, _Ingenuas didicisse_, etc., the most efficient instrument of\ncivilisation, and ought to take precedence of all other pursuits in the\nminds of true philanthropists.  The Reverend Doctor Folliott, on these\noccasions, never failed to say a word or two on Mr. Trillo\u2019s side,\nderived from the practice of the Athenians, and from the combination, in\ntheir theatre, of all the beautiful arts, in a degree of perfection\nunknown to the modern world.\n\nLeaving Lechlade, they entered the canal that connects the Thames with\nthe Severn; ascended by many locks; passed by a tunnel, three miles long,\nthrough the bowels of Sapperton Hill; agreed unanimously that the\ngreatest pleasure derivable from visiting a cavern of any sort was that\nof getting out of it; descended by many locks again through the valley of\nStroud into the Severn; continued their navigation into the Ellesmere\ncanal; moored their pinnaces in the Vale of Llangollen by the aqueduct of\nPontycysyllty; and determined to pass some days in inspecting the\nscenery, before commencing their homeward voyage.\n\nThe Captain omitted no opportunity of pressing his suit on Lady Clarinda,\nbut could never draw from her any reply but the same doctrines of worldly\nwisdom, delivered in a tone of _badinage_, mixed with a certain kindness\nof manner that induced him to hope she was not in earnest.\n\nBut the morning after they had anchored under the hills of the\nDee\u2014whether the lady had reflected more seriously than usual, or was\nsomewhat less in good humour than usual, or the Captain was more pressing\nthan usual\u2014she said to him: \u201cIt must not be, Captain Fitzchrome; \u2018the\ncourse of true love never did run smooth:\u2019 my father must keep his\nborough, and I must have a town house and a country house, and an opera\nbox, and a carriage.  It is not well for either of us that we should\nflirt any longer: \u2018I must be cruel only to be kind.\u2019  Be satisfied with\nthe assurance that you alone, of all men, have ever broken my rest.  To\nbe sure, it was only for about three nights in all; but that is too\nmuch.\u201d\n\nThe Captain had _le c\u0153ur navr\u00e9_.  He took his portfolio under his arm,\nmade up the little _valise_ of a pedestrian, and, without saying a word\nto anyone, wandered off at random among the mountains.\n\nAfter the lapse of a day or two, the Captain was missed, and everyone\nmarvelled what was become of him.  Mr. Philpot thought he must have been\nexploring a river, and fallen in and got drowned in the process.  Mr.\nFiredamp had no doubt he had been crossing a mountain bog, and had been\nsuddenly deprived of life by the exhalations of marsh miasmata.  Mr.\nHenbane deemed it probable that he had been tempted in some wood by the\nlarge black brilliant berries of the _Atropa Belladonna_, or Deadly\nNightshade; and lamented that he had not been by, to administer an\ninfallible antidote.  Mr. Eavesdrop hoped the particulars of his fate\nwould be ascertained; and asked if anyone present could help him to any\nauthentic anecdotes of their departed friend.  The Reverend Doctor\nFolliott proposed that an inquiry should be instituted as to whether the\nmarch of intellect had reached that neighbourhood, as, if so, the Captain\nhad probably been made a subject for science.  Mr. Mac Quedy said it was\nno such great matter to ascertain the precise mode in which the surplus\npopulation was diminished by one.  Mr. Toogood asseverated that there was\nno such thing as surplus population, and that the land, properly managed,\nwould maintain twenty times its present inhabitants; and hereupon they\nfell into a disputation.\n\nLady Clarinda did not doubt that the Captain had gone away designedly;\nshe missed him more than she could have anticipated, and wished she had\nat least postponed her last piece of cruelty till the completion of their\nhomeward voyage.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\nCORRESPONDENCE.\n\n\n    \u201cBase is the slave that pays.\u201d\u2014ANCIENT PISTOL.\n\nTHE Captain was neither drowned nor poisoned, neither miasmatised nor\nanatomised.  But, before we proceed to account for him, we must look back\nto a young lady, of whom some little notice was taken in the first\nchapter; and who, though she has since been out of sight, has never with\nus been out of mind: Miss Susannah Touchandgo, the forsaken of the junior\nCrotchet, whom we left an inmate of a solitary farm, in one of the deep\nvalleys under the cloud-capt summits of Meirion, comforting her wounded\nspirit with air and exercise, rustic cheer, music, painting, and poetry,\nand the prattle of the little Ap Llymrys.\n\nOne evening, after an interval of anxious expectation, the farmer,\nreturning from market brought for her two letters, of which the contents\nwere these:\n\n                         \u201c_Dotandcarryonetown_, _State of Apodidraskiana_.\n                                                          \u201c_April_ 1, 18..\n\n    \u201cMY DEAR CHILD,\n\n    \u201cI am anxious to learn what are your present position, intention, and\n    prospects.  The fairies who dropped gold in your shoe, on the morning\n    when I ceased to be a respectable man in London, will soon find a\n    talismanic channel for transmitting you a stocking full of dollars,\n    which will fit the shoe as well as the foot of Cinderella fitted her\n    slipper.  I am happy to say I am again become a respectable man.  It\n    was always my ambition to be a respectable man, and I am a very\n    respectable man here, in this new township of a new state, where I\n    have purchased five thousand acres of land, at two dollars an acre,\n    hard cash, and established a very flourishing bank.  The notes of\n    Touchandgo and Company, soft cash, are now the exclusive currency of\n    all this vicinity.  This is the land in which all men flourish; but\n    there are three classes of men who flourish especially,\u2014methodist\n    preachers, slave-drivers, and paper-money manufacturers; and as one\n    of the latter, I have just painted the word BANK on a fine slab of\n    maple, which was green and growing when I arrived, and have\n    discounted for the settlers, in my own currency, sundry bills, which\n    are to be paid when the proceeds of the crop they have just sown\n    shall return from New Orleans; so that my notes are the\n    representatives of vegetation that is to be, and I am accordingly a\n    capitalist of the first magnitude.  The people here know very well\n    that I ran away from London; but the most of them have run away from\n    some place or other; and they have a great respect for me, because\n    they think I ran away with something worth taking, which few of them\n    had the luck or the wit to do.  This gives them confidence in my\n    resources, at the same time that, as there is nothing portable in the\n    settlement except my own notes, they have no fear that I shall run\n    away with them.  They know I am thoroughly conversant with the\n    principles of banking, and as they have plenty of industry, no lack\n    of sharpness, and abundance of land, they wanted nothing but capital\n    to organise a flourishing settlement; and this capital I have\n    manufactured to the extent required, at the expense of a small\n    importation of pens, ink, and paper, and two or three inimitable\n    copper plates.  I have abundance here of all good things, a good\n    conscience included; for I really cannot see that I have done any\n    wrong.  This was my position: I owed half a million of money; and I\n    had a trifle in my pocket.  It was clear that this trifle could never\n    find its way to the right owner.  The question was, whether I should\n    keep it, and live like a gentleman; or hand it over to lawyers and\n    commissioners of bankruptcy, and die like a dog on a dunghill.  If I\n    could have thought that the said lawyers, etc., had a better title to\n    it than myself, I might have hesitated; but, as such title was not\n    apparent to my satisfaction, I decided the question in my own favour,\n    the right owners, as I have already said, being out of the question\n    altogether.  I have always taken scientific views of morals and\n    politics, a habit from which I derive much comfort under existing\n    circumstances.\n\n    \u201cI hope you adhere to your music, though I cannot hope again to\n    accompany your harp with my flute.  My last _andante_ movement was\n    too _forte_ for those whom it took by surprise.  Let not your\n    _allegro vivace_ be damped by young Crotchet\u2019s desertion, which,\n    though I have not heard it, I take for granted.  He is, like myself,\n    a scientific politician, and has an eye as keen as a needle to his\n    own interest.  He has had good luck so far, and is gorgeous in the\n    spoils of many gulls; but I think the Polar Basin and Walrus Company\n    will be too much for him yet.  There has been a splendid outlay on\n    credit, and he is the only man, of the original parties concerned, of\n    whom his Majesty\u2019s sheriffs could give any account.\n\n    \u201cI will not ask you to come here.  There is no husband for you.  The\n    men smoke, drink, and fight, and break more of their own heads than\n    of girls\u2019 hearts.  Those among them who are musical, sing nothing but\n    psalms.  They are excellent fellows in their way, but you would not\n    like them.\n\n    \u201c_Au reste_, here are no rents, no taxes, no poor-rates, no tithes,\n    no church establishment, no routs, no clubs, no rotten boroughs, no\n    operas, no concerts, no theatres, no beggars, no thieves, no king, no\n    lords, no ladies, and only one gentleman, videlicet, your loving\n    father,\n\n                                                      \u201cTIMOTHY TOUCHANDGO.\n\n    \u201cP.S.\u2014I send you one of my notes; I can afford to part with it.  If\n    you are accused of receiving money from me, you may pay it over to my\n    assignees.  Robthetill continues to be my factotum; I say no more of\n    him in this place: he will give you an account of himself.\u201d\n\n                                             \u201c_Dotandcarryonetown_, _etc._\n\n    \u201cDEAR MISS,\n\n    \u201cMr. Touchandgo will have told you of our arrival here, of our\n    setting up a bank, and so forth.  We came here in a tilted waggon,\n    which served us for parlour, kitchen, and all.  We soon got up a\n    log-house; and, unluckily, we as soon got it down again, for the\n    first fire we made in it burned down house and all.  However, our\n    second experiment was more fortunate; and we are pretty well lodged\n    in a house of three rooms on a floor; I should say the floor, for\n    there is but one.\n\n    \u201cThis new state is free to hold slaves; all the new states have not\n    this privilege: Mr. Touchandgo has bought some, and they are building\n    him a villa.  Mr. Touchandgo is in a thriving way, but he is not\n    happy here: he longs for parties and concerts, and a seat in\n    Congress.  He thinks it very hard that he cannot buy one with his own\n    coinage, as he used to do in England.  Besides, he is afraid of the\n    Regulators, who, if they do not like a man\u2019s character, wait upon him\n    and flog him, doubling the dose at stated intervals, till he takes\n    himself off.  He does not like this system of administering justice:\n    though I think he has nothing to fear from it.  He has the character\n    of having money, which is the best of all characters here, as at\n    home.  He lets his old English prejudices influence his opinions of\n    his new neighbours; but, I assure you, they have many virtues.\n    Though they do keep slaves, they are all ready to fight for their own\n    liberty; and I should not like to be an enemy within reach of one of\n    their rifles.  When I say enemy, I include bailiff in the term.  One\n    was shot not long ago.  There was a trial; the jury gave two dollars\n    damages; the judge said they must find guilty or not guilty; but the\n    counsel for the defendant (they would not call him prisoner) offered\n    to fight the judge upon the point: and as this was said literally,\n    not metaphorically, and the counsel was a stout fellow, the judge\n    gave in. The two dollars damages were not paid after all; for the\n    defendant challenged the foreman to box for double or quits, and the\n    foreman was beaten.  The folks in New York made a great outcry about\n    it, but here it was considered all as it should be.  So you see,\n    Miss, justice, liberty, and everything else of that kind, are\n    different in different places, just as suits the convenience of those\n    who have the sword in their own hands.  Hoping to hear of your health\n    and happiness, I remain,\n\n                                         \u201cDear Miss, your dutiful servant,\n                                                    \u201cRODERICK ROBTHETILL.\u201d\n\nMiss Touchandgo replied as follows to the first of these letters:\n\n    \u201cMY DEAR FATHER,\n\n    \u201cI am sure you have the best of hearts, and I have no doubt you have\n    acted with the best intentions.  My lover, or, I should rather say,\n    my fortune\u2019s lover, has indeed forsaken me.  I cannot say I did not\n    feel it; indeed, I cried very much; and the altered looks of people\n    who used to be so delighted to see me, really annoyed me so, that I\n    determined to change the scene altogether.  I have come into Wales,\n    and am boarding with a farmer and his wife.  Their stock of English\n    is very small; but I managed to agree with them, and they have four\n    of the sweetest children I ever saw, to whom I teach all I know, and\n    I manage to pick up some Welsh.  I have puzzled out a little song,\n    which I think very pretty; I have translated it into English, and I\n    send it you, with the original air.  You shall play it on your flute\n    at eight o\u2019clock every Saturday evening, and I will play and sing it\n    at the same time, and I will fancy that I hear my dear papa\n    accompanying me.\n\n    \u201cThe people in London said very unkind things of you: they hurt me\n    very much at the time; but now I am out of their way, I do not seem\n    to think their opinion of much consequence.  I am sure, when I\n    recollect, at leisure, everything I have seen and heard among them, I\n    cannot make out what they do that is so virtuous, as to set them up\n    for judges of morals.  And I am sure they never speak the truth about\n    anything, and there is no sincerity in either their love or their\n    friendship.  An old Welsh bard here, who wears a waistcoat\n    embroidered with leeks, and is called the Green Bard of Cadeir Idris,\n    says the Scotch would be the best people in the world, if there was\n    nobody but themselves to give them a character: and so I think would\n    the Londoners.  I hate the very thought of them, for I do believe\n    they would have broken my heart, if I had not got out of their way.\n    Now I shall write you another letter very soon, and describe to you\n    the country, and the people, and the children, and how I amuse\n    myself, and everything that I think you will like to hear about: and\n    when I seal this letter, I shall drop a kiss on the cover.\n\n                            \u201cYour loving daughter,\n\n                                                     \u201cSUSANNAH TOUCHANDGO.\n\n    \u201cP.S.\u2014Tell Mr. Robthetill I will write to him in a day or two.  This\n    is the little song I spoke of:\n\n    \u201cBeyond the sea, beyond the sea,\n    My heart is gone, far, far from me;\n    And ever on its track will flee\n    My thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea.\n\n    \u201cBeyond the sea, beyond the sea,\n    The swallow wanders fast and free;\n    Oh, happy bird! were I like thee,\n    I, too, would fly beyond the sea.\n\n    \u201cBeyond the sea, beyond the sea,\n    Are kindly hearts and social glee:\n    But here for me they may not be;\n    My heart is gone beyond the sea.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\nTHE MOUNTAIN INN.\n\n\n    \u2018\u03a9\u03c2 \u1f21\u03b4\u1f7a \u03c4\u1ff4 \u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b1\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n    \u2019\u0395\u03c1\u03b7\u03bc\u03af\u03b1.\n\n    How sweet to minds that love not sordid ways\n    Is solitude!\u2014MENANDER.\n\nTHE Captain wandered despondingly up and down hill for several days,\npassing many hours of each in sitting on rocks; making, almost\nmechanically, sketches of waterfalls, and mountain pools; taking care,\nnevertheless, to be always before nightfall in a comfortable inn, where,\nbeing a temperate man, he whiled away the evening with making a bottle of\nsherry into negus.  His rambles brought him at length into the interior\nof Merionethshire, the land of all that is beautiful in nature, and all\nthat is lovely in woman.\n\nHere, in a secluded village, he found a little inn, of small pretension\nand much comfort.  He felt so satisfied with his quarters, and discovered\nevery day so much variety in the scenes of the surrounding mountains,\nthat his inclination to proceed farther diminished progressively.\n\nIt is one thing to follow the high road through a country, with every\nprincipally remarkable object carefully noted down in a book, taking, as\ntherein directed, a guide, at particular points, to the more recondite\nsights: it is another to sit down on one chosen spot, especially when the\nchoice is unpremeditated, and from thence, by a series of explorations,\nto come day by day on unanticipated scenes.  The latter process has many\nadvantages over the former; it is free from the disappointment which\nattends excited expectation, when imagination has outstripped reality,\nand from the accidents that mar the scheme of the tourist\u2019s single day,\nwhen the valleys may be drenched with rain, or the mountains shrouded\nwith mist.\n\nThe Captain was one morning preparing to sally forth on his usual\nexploration, when he heard a voice without, inquiring for a guide to the\nruined castle.  The voice seemed familiar to him, and going forth into\nthe gateway, he recognised Mr. Chainmail.  After greetings and inquiries\nfor the absent: \u201cYou vanished very abruptly, Captain,\u201d said Mr.\nChainmail, \u201cfrom our party on the canal.\u201d\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014To tell you the truth, I had a particular reason\nfor trying the effect of absence from a part of that party.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014I surmised as much: at the same time, the unusual\nmelancholy of an in general most vivacious young lady made me wonder at\nyour having acted so precipitately.  The lady\u2019s heart is yours, if there\nbe truth in signs.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Hearts are not now what they were in the days of\nthe old song: \u201cWill love be controlled by advice?\u201d\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Very true; hearts, heads, and arms have all degenerated,\nmost sadly.  We can no more feel the high impassioned love of the ages,\nwhich some people have the impudence to call dark, than we can wield King\nRichard\u2019s battleaxe, bend Robin Hood\u2019s bow, or flourish the oaken graft\nof the Pindar of Wakefield.  Still we have our tastes and feelings,\nthough they deserve not the name of passions; and some of us may pluck up\nspirit to try to carry a point, when we reflect that we have to contend\nwith men no better than ourselves.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014We do not now break lances for ladies.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014No; nor even bulrushes.  We jingle purses for them,\nflourish paper-money banners, and tilt with scrolls of parchment.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014In which sort of tilting I have been thrown from\nthe saddle.  I presume it was not love that led you from the flotilla?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014By no means.  I was tempted by the sight of an old\ntower, not to leave this land of ruined castles, without having collected\na few hints for the adornment of my baronial hall.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I understand you live _en famille_ with your\ndomestics.  You will have more difficulty in finding a lady who would\nadopt your fashion of living, than one who would prefer you to a richer\nman.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Very true.  I have tried the experiment on several as\nguests; but once was enough for them: so, I suppose, I shall die a\nbachelor.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014I see, like some others of my friends, you will\ngive up anything except your hobby.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014I will give up anything but my baronial hall.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014You will never find a wife for your purpose, unless\nin the daughter of some old-fashioned farmer.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014No, I thank you.  I must have a lady of gentle blood; I\nshall not marry below my own condition: I am too much of a herald; I have\ntoo much of the twelfth century in me for that.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Why, then your chance is not much better than mine.\nA well-born beauty would scarcely be better pleased with your baronial\nhall than with my more humble offer of love in a cottage.  She must have\na town-house, and an opera-box, and roll about the streets in a carriage;\nespecially if her father has a rotten borough, for the sake of which he\nsells his daughter, that he may continue to sell his country.  But you\nwere inquiring for a guide to the ruined castle in this vicinity; I know\nthe way and will conduct you.\n\nThe proposal pleased Mr. Chainmail, and they set forth on their\nexpedition.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\nTHE LAKE\u2014THE RUIN.\n\n\n    Or vieni, Amore, e qu\u00e0 meco t\u2019assetta.\n\n                                                       ORLANDO INNAMORATO.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Would it not be a fine thing, Captain, you being\npicturesque, and I poetical; you being for the lights and shadows of the\npresent, and I for those of the past; if we were to go together over the\nground which was travelled in the twelfth century by Giraldus de Barri,\nwhen he accompanied Archbishop Baldwin to preach the crusade?\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Nothing, in my present frame of mind, could be more\nagreeable to me.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014We would provide ourselves with his _Itinerarium_;\ncompare what has been, with what is; contemplate in their decay the\ncastles and abbeys, which he saw in their strength and splendour; and,\nwhile you were sketching their remains, I would dispassionately inquire\nwhat has been gained by the change.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Be it so.\n\nBut the scheme was no sooner arranged, than the Captain was summoned to\nLondon by a letter on business, which he did not expect to detain him\nlong.  Mr. Chainmail, who, like the Captain, was fascinated with the inn\nand the scenery, determined to await his companion\u2019s return; and, having\nfurnished him with a list of books, which he was to bring with him from\nLondon, took leave of him, and began to pass his days like the heroes of\nAriosto, who\n\n    \u2014tutto il giorno, al bel oprar intenti,\n    Saliron balze, e traversar torrenti.\n\nOne day Mr. Chainmail traced upwards the course of a mountain stream to a\nspot where a small waterfall threw itself over a slab of perpendicular\nrock, which seemed to bar his farther progress.  On a nearer view, he\ndiscovered a flight of steps, roughly hewn in the rock, on one side of\nthe fall.  Ascending these steps, he entered a narrow winding pass,\nbetween high and naked rocks, that afforded only space for a rough\nfootpath, carved on one side, at some height above the torrent.\n\nThe pass opened on a lake, from which the stream issued, and which lay\nlike a dark mirror, set in a gigantic frame of mountain precipices.\nFragments of rock lay scattered on the edge of the lake, some half-buried\nin the water: Mr. Chainmail scrambled some way over these fragments, till\nthe base of a rock sinking abruptly in the water, effectually barred his\nprogress.  He sat down on a large smooth stone; the faint murmur of the\nstream he had quitted, the occasional flapping of the wings of the heron,\nand at long intervals, the solitary springing of a trout, were the only\nsounds that came to his ear.  The sun shone brightly half-way down the\nopposite rocks, presenting, on their irregular faces, strong masses of\nlight and shade.  Suddenly he heard the dash of a paddle, and, turning\nhis eyes, saw a solitary and beautiful girl gliding over the lake in a\ncoracle: she was proceeding from the vicinity of the point he had\nquitted, towards the upper end of the lake.  Her apparel was rustic, but\nthere was in its style something more _recherch\u00e9e_, in its arrangement\nsomething more of elegance and precision, than was common to the mountain\npeasant girl.  It had more of the _contadina_ of the opera, than of the\ngenuine mountaineer; so at least thought Mr. Chainmail; but she passed so\nrapidly, and took him so much by surprise, that he had little opportunity\nfor accurate observation.  He saw her land, at the farther extremity, and\ndisappear among the rocks: he rose from his seat, returned to the mouth\nof the pass, stepped from stone to stone across the stream, and attempted\nto pass round by the other side of the lake; but there again the abruptly\nsinking precipice closed his way.\n\nDay after day he haunted the spot, but never saw again either the damsel\nor the coracle.  At length, marvelling at himself for being so solicitous\nabout the apparition of a peasant girl in a coracle, who could not, by\nany possibility, be anything to him, he resumed his explorations in\nanother direction.\n\nOne day he wandered to the ruined castle, on the sea-shore, which was not\nvery distant from his inn; and sitting on the rock, near the base of the\nruin, was calling up the forms of past ages on the wall of an ivied\ntower, when on its summit appeared a female figure, whom he recognised in\nan instant for his nymph of the coracle.  The folds of the blue gown\npressed by the sea-breeze against one of the most symmetrical of figures,\nthe black feather of the black hat, and the ringleted hair beneath it\nfluttering in the wind; the apparent peril of her position, on the edge\nof the mouldering wall, from whose immediate base the rock went down\nperpendicularly to the sea, presented a singularly interesting\ncombination to the eye of the young antiquary.\n\nMr. Chainmail had to pass half round the castle, on the land side, before\nhe could reach the entrance: he coasted the dry and bramble-grown moat,\ncrossed the unguarded bridge, passed the unportcullised arch of the\ngateway, entered the castle court, ascertained the tower, ascended the\nbroken stairs, and stood on the ivied wall.  But the nymph of the place\nwas gone.  He searched the ruins within and without, but he found not\nwhat he sought: he haunted the castle day after day, as he had done the\nlake, but the damsel appeared no more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\nTHE DINGLE.\n\n\n    The stars of midnight shall be dear\n    To her, and she shall lean her ear\n    In many a secret place,\n    Where rivulets dance their wayward round,\n    And beauty, born of murmuring sound,\n    Shall pass into her face.\u2014WORDSWORTH.\n\nMISS SUSANNAH TOUCHANDGO had read the four great poets of Italy, and many\nof the best writers of France.  About the time of her father\u2019s downfall,\naccident threw into her way _Les R\u00e9veries du Promeneur Solitaire_; and\nfrom the impression which these made on her, she carried with her into\nretirement all the works of Rousseau.  In the midst of that startling\nlight, which the conduct of old friends on a sudden reverse of fortune\nthrows on a young and inexperienced mind, the doctrines of the\nphilosopher of Geneva struck with double force upon her sympathies: she\nimbibed the sweet poison, as somebody calls it, of his writings, even to\na love of truth; which, every wise man knows, ought to be left to those\nwho can get anything by it.  The society of children, the beauties of\nnature, the solitude of the mountains, became her consolation, and, by\ndegrees, her delight.  The gay society from which she had been excluded,\nremained on her memory only as a disagreeable dream.  She imbibed her new\nmonitor\u2019s ideas of simplicity of dress, assimilating her own with that of\nthe peasant-girls in the neighbourhood: the black hat, the blue gown, the\nblack stockings, the shoes, tied on the instep.\n\nPride was, perhaps, at the bottom of the change: she was willing to\nimpose in some measure on herself, by marking a contemptuous indifference\nto the characteristics of the class of society from which she had fallen.\n\n    And with the food of pride sustained her soul\n    In solitude.\n\nIt is true that she somewhat modified the forms of her rustic dress: to\nthe black hat she added a black feather, to the blue gown she added a\ntippet, and a waistband fastened in front with a silver buckle; she wore\nher black stockings very smooth and tight on her ankles, and tied her\nshoes in tasteful bows, with the nicest possible ribbon.  In this\napparel, to which, in winter, she added a scarlet cloak, she made\ndreadful havoc among the rustic mountaineers, many of whom proposed to\n\u201ckeep company\u201d with her in the Cambrian fashion, an honour which, to\ntheir great surprise, she always declined.  Among these, Harry\nAp-Heather, whose father rented an extensive sheepwalk, and had a\nthousand she-lambs wandering in the mountains, was the most strenuous in\nhis suit, and the most pathetic in his lamentations for her cruelty.\n\nMiss Susannah often wandered among the mountains alone, even to some\ndistance from the farmhouse.  Sometimes she descended into the bottom of\nthe dingles, to the black rocky beds of the torrents, and dreamed away\nhours at the feet of the cataracts.  One spot in particular, from which\nshe had at first shrunk with terror, became by degrees her favourite\nhaunt.  A path turning and returning at acute angles, led down a steep\nwood-covered slope to the edge of a chasm, where a pool, or resting-place\nof a torrent, lay far below.  A cataract fell in a single sheet into the\npool; the pool boiled and bubbled at the base of the fall, but through\nthe greater part of its extent, lay calm, deep, and black, as if the\ncataract had plunged through it to an unimaginable depth, without\ndisturbing its eternal repose.  At the opposite extremity of the pool,\nthe rocks almost met at their summits, the trees of the opposite banks\nintermingled their leaves, and another cataract plunged from the pool\ninto a chasm, on which the sunbeams never gleamed.  High above, on both\nsides, the steep woody slopes of the dingle soared into the sky; and from\na fissure in the rock, on which the little path terminated, a single\ngnarled and twisted oak stretched itself over the pool, forming a fork\nwith its boughs at a short distance from the rock.  Miss Susannah often\nsat on the rock, with her feet resting on this tree; in time, she made\nher seat on the tree itself, with her feet hanging over the abyss; and at\nlength, she accustomed herself to lie along upon its trunk, with her side\non the mossy bole of the fork, and an arm round one of the branches.\nFrom this position a portion of the sky and the woods was reflected in\nthe pool, which, from its bank, was but a mass of darkness.  The first\ntime she reclined in this manner, her heart beat audibly; in time she lay\ndown as calmly as on the mountain heather; the perception of the sublime\nwas probably heightened by an intermingled sense of danger; and perhaps\nthat indifference to life, which early disappointment forces upon\nsensitive minds, was necessary to the first experiment.  There was, in\nthe novelty and strangeness of the position, an excitement which never\nwholly passed away, but which became gradually subordinate to the\ninfluence, at once tranquillising and elevating, of the mingled eternity\nof motion, sound, and solitude.\n\nOne sultry noon, she descended into this retreat with a mind more than\nusually disturbed by reflections on the past.  She lay in her favourite\nposition, sometimes gazing on the cataract; looking sometimes up the\nsteep sylvan acclivities, into the narrow space of the cloudless ether;\nsometimes down into the abyss of the pool, and the deep bright-blue\nreflections that opened another immensity below her.  The distressing\nrecollections of the morning, the world and all its littlenesses, faded\nfrom her thoughts like a dream; but her wounded and wearied spirit drank\nin too deeply the tranquillising power of the place, and she dropped\nasleep upon the tree like a ship-boy on the mast.\n\nAt this moment Mr. Chainmail emerged into daylight, on a projection of\nthe opposite rock, having struck down through the woods in search of\nunsophisticated scenery.  The scene he discovered filled him with\ndelight: he seated himself on the rock, and fell into one of his romantic\nreveries; when suddenly the semblance of a black hat and feather caught\nhis eye among the foliage of the projecting oak.  He started up, shifted\nhis position, and got a glimpse of a blue gown.  It was his lady of the\nlake, his enchantress of the ruined castle, divided from him by a barrier\nwhich, at a few yards below, he could almost overleap, yet unapproachable\nbut by a circuit perhaps of many hours.  He watched with intense anxiety.\nTo listen if she breathed was out of the question: the noses of a dean\nand chapter would have been soundless in the roar of the torrent.  From\nher extreme stillness, she appeared to sleep: yet what creature, not\ndesperate, would go wilfully to sleep in such a place?  Was she asleep,\nthen?  Nay, was she alive?  She was as motionless as death.  Had she been\nmurdered, thrown from above, and caught in the tree?  She lay too\nregularly and too composedly for such a supposition.  She was asleep,\nthen, and, in all probability, her waking would be fatal.  He shifted his\nposition.  Below the pool two beetle-browed rocks nearly overarched the\nchasm, leaving just such a space at the summit as was within the\npossibility of a leap; the torrent roared below in a fearful gulf.  He\npaused some time on the brink, measuring the practicability and the\ndanger, and casting every now and then an anxious glance to his sleeping\nbeauty.  In one of these glances he saw a slight movement of the blue\ngown, and, in a moment after, the black hat and feather dropped into the\npool.  Reflection was lost for a moment, and, by a sudden impulse, he\nbounded over the chasm.\n\nHe stood above the projecting oak; the unknown beauty lay like the nymph\nof the scene; her long black hair, which the fall of her hat had\ndisengaged from its fastenings, drooping through the boughs: he saw that\nthe first thing to be done, was to prevent her throwing her feet off the\ntrunk, in the first movements of waking.  He sat down on the rock, and\nplaced his feet on the stem, securing her ankles between his own: one of\nher arms was round a branch of the fork, the other lay loosely on her\nside.  The hand of this arm he endeavoured to reach, by leaning forward\nfrom his seat; he approximated, but could not touch it: after several\ntantalising efforts, he gave up the point in despair.  He did not attempt\nto wake her, because he feared it might have bad consequences, and he\nresigned himself to expect the moment of her natural waking, determined\nnot to stir from his post, if she should sleep till midnight.\n\nIn this period of forced inaction, he could contemplate at leisure the\nfeatures and form of his charmer.  She was not one of the slender\nbeauties of romance; she was as plump as a partridge; her cheeks were two\nroses, not absolutely damask, yet verging thereupon; her lips\ntwin-cherries, of equal size; her nose regular, and almost Grecian; her\nforehead high, and delicately fair; her eyebrows symmetrically arched;\nher eyelashes, long, black, and silky, fitly corresponding with the\nbeautiful tresses that hung among the leaves of the oak, like clusters of\nwandering grapes.  Her eyes were yet to be seen; but how could he doubt\nthat their opening would be the rising of the sun, when all that\nsurrounded their fringy portals was radiant as \u201cthe forehead of the\nmorning sky?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\nTHE FARM.\n\n\n    Da ydyw\u2019r gwaith, rhaid d\u2019we\u2019yd y gwir,\n    Ar fryniau Sir Meirionydd;\n    Golwg oer o\u2019r gwaela gawn\n    Mae hi etto yn llawn llawenydd.\n\n    Though Meirion\u2019s rocks, and hills of heath,\n       Repel the distant sight,\n    Yet where, than those bleak hills beneath,\n       Is found more true delight?\n\nAT length the young lady awoke.  She was startled at the sudden sight of\nthe stranger, and somewhat terrified at the first perception of her\nposition.  But she soon recovered her self-possession, and, extending her\nhand to the offered hand of Mr. Chainmail, she raised herself up on the\ntree, and stepped on the rocky bank.\n\nMr. Chainmail solicited permission to attend her to her home, which the\nyoung lady graciously conceded.  They emerged from the woody dingle,\ntraversed an open heath, wound along a mountain road by the shore of a\nlake, descended to the deep bed of another stream, crossed it by a series\nof stepping-stones, ascended to some height on the opposite side, and\nfollowed upwards the line of the stream, till the banks opened into a\nspacious amphitheatre, where stood, in its fields and meadows, the\nfarmhouse of Ap-Llymry.\n\nDuring this walk, they had kept up a pretty animated conversation.  The\nlady had lost her hat, and, as she turned towards Mr. Chainmail, in\nspeaking to him, there was no envious projection of brim to intercept the\nbeams of those radiant eyes he had been so anxious to see unclosed.\nThere was in them a mixture of softness and brilliancy, the perfection of\nthe beauty of female eyes, such as some men have passed through life\nwithout seeing, and such as no man ever saw, in any pair of eyes, but\nonce; such as can never be seen and forgotten.  Young Crotchet had seen\nit; he had not forgotten it; but he had trampled on its memory, as the\nrenegade tramples on the emblems of a faith which his interest only, and\nnot his heart or his reason, has rejected.\n\nHer hair streamed over her shoulders; the loss of the black feather had\nleft nothing but the rustic costume, the blue gown, the black stockings,\nand the ribbon-tied shoes.  Her voice had that full soft volume of melody\nwhich gives to common speech the fascination of music.  Mr. Chainmail\ncould not reconcile the dress of the damsel with her conversation and\nmanners.  He threw out a remote question or two, with the hope of solving\nthe riddle, but, receiving no reply, he became satisfied that she was not\ndisposed to be communicative respecting herself, and, fearing to offend\nher, fell upon other topics.  They talked of the scenes of the mountains,\nof the dingle, the ruined castle, the solitary lake.  She told him, that\nlake lay under the mountains behind her home, and the coracle and the\npass at the extremity, saved a long circuit to the nearest village,\nwhither she sometimes went to inquire for letters.\n\nMr. Chainmail felt curious to know from whom these letters might be; and\nhe again threw out two or three fishing questions, to which, as before,\nhe obtained no answer.\n\nThe only living biped they met in their walk was the unfortunate Harry\nAp-Heather, with whom they fell in by the stepping-stones, who, seeing\nthe girl of his heart hanging on another man\u2019s arm, and, concluding at\nonce that they were \u201ckeeping company,\u201d fixed on her a mingled look of\nsurprise, reproach, and tribulation; and, unable to control his feelings\nunder the sudden shock, burst into a flood of tears, and blubbered till\nthe rocks re-echoed.\n\nThey left him mingling his tears with the stream, and his lamentations\nwith its murmurs.  Mr. Chainmail inquired who that strange creature might\nbe, and what was the matter with him.  The young lady answered, that he\nwas a very worthy young man, to whom she had been the innocent cause of\nmuch unhappiness.\n\n\u201cI pity him sincerely,\u201d said Mr. Chainmail and, nevertheless, he could\nscarcely restrain his laughter at the exceedingly original figure which\nthe unfortunate rustic lover had presented by the stepping-stones.\n\nThe children ran out to meet their dear Miss Susan, jumped all round her,\nand asked what was become of her hat.  Ap-Llymry came out in great haste,\nand invited Mr. Chainmail to walk in and dine: Mr. Chainmail did not wait\nto be asked twice.  In a few minutes the whole party, Miss Susan and Mr.\nChainmail, Mr. and Mrs. Ap-Llymry, and progeny, were seated over a clean\nhomespun table cloth, ornamented with fowls and bacon, a pyramid of\npotatoes, another of cabbage, which Ap-Llymry said \u201cwas poiled with the\npacon, and as coot as marrow,\u201d a bowl of milk for the children, and an\nimmense brown jug of foaming ale, with which Ap-Llymry seemed to delight\nin filling the horn of his new guest.\n\nShall we describe the spacious apartment, which was at once kitchen,\nhall, and dining-room,\u2014the large dark rafters, the pendent bacon and\nonions, the strong old oaken furniture, the bright and trimly-arranged\nutensils?  Shall we describe the cut of Ap-Llymry\u2019s coat, the colour and\ntie of his neckcloth, the number of buttons at his knees,\u2014the structure\nof Mrs. Ap-Llymry\u2019s cap, having lappets over the ears, which were united\nunder the chin, setting forth especially whether the bond of union were a\npin or a ribbon?  We shall leave this tempting field of interesting\nexpatiation to those whose brains are high-pressure steam-engines for\nspinning prose by the furlong, to be trumpeted in paid-for paragraphs in\nthe quack\u2019s corner of newspapers: modern literature having attained the\nhonourable distinction of sharing, with blacking and Macassar oil, the\nspace which used to be monopolised by razor-strops and the lottery;\nwhereby that very enlightened community, the reading public, is tricked\ninto the perusal of much exemplary nonsense; though the few who see\nthrough the trickery have no reason to complain, since as \u201cgood wine\nneeds no bush,\u201d so, _ex vi oppositi_, these bushes of venal panegyric\npoint out very clearly that the things they celebrate are not worth\nreading.\n\nThe party dined very comfortably in a corner most remote from the fire:\nand Mr. Chainmail very soon found his head swimming with two or three\nhorns of ale, of a potency to which even he was unaccustomed.  After\ndinner Ap-Llymry made him finish a bottle of mead, which he willingly\naccepted, both as an excuse to remain and as a drink of the dark ages,\nwhich he had no doubt was a genuine brewage from uncorrupted tradition.\n\nIn the meantime, as soon as the cloth was removed, the children had\nbrought out Miss Susannah\u2019s harp.  She began, without affectation, to\nplay and sing to the children, as was her custom of an afternoon, first\nin their own language, and their national melodies, then in English; but\nshe was soon interrupted by a general call of little voices for \u201cOuf! di\ngiorno.\u201d  She complied with the request, and sang the ballad from Pa\u00ebr\u2019s\n_Camilla_: \u201cUn d\u00ec carco il mulinaro.\u201d  The children were very familiar\nwith every syllable of this ballad, which had been often fully explained\nto them.  They danced in a circle with the burden of every verse,\nshouting out the chorus with good articulation and joyous energy; and at\nthe end of the second stanza, where the traveller has his nose pinched by\nhis grandmother\u2019s ghost, every nose in the party was nipped by a pair of\nlittle fingers.  Mr. Chainmail, who was not prepared for the process,\ncame in for a very energetic tweak from a chubby girl that sprang\nsuddenly on his knees for the purpose, and made the roof ring with her\nlaughter.\n\nSo passed the time till evening, when Mr. Chainmail moved to depart.  But\nit turned out on inquiry that he was some miles from his inn, that the\nway was intricate, and that he must not make any difficulty about\naccepting the farmer\u2019s hospitality till morning.  The evening set in with\nrain: the fire was found agreeable; they drew around it.  The young lady\nmade tea; and afterwards, from time to time, at Mr. Chainmail\u2019s special\nrequest, delighted his ear with passages of ancient music.  Then came a\nsupper of lake trout, fried on the spot, and thrown, smoking hot, from\nthe pan to the plate.  Then came a brewage, which the farmer called his\nnightcap, of which he insisted on Mr. Chainmail\u2019s taking his full share.\nAfter which the gentleman remembered nothing till he awoke, the next\nmorning, to the pleasant consciousness that he was under the same roof\nwith one of the most fascinating creatures under the canopy of heaven.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\nTHE NEWSPAPER.\n\n\n    \u03a0\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u2019 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c6\u03cd\u03c4\u03bb\u03c5\u03c2\n    \u2019\u039f\u03c1\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c3\u03ba\u03b9\u03bf\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd;\n\n    Sprung from what line, adorns the maid\n    These, valleys deep in mountain-shade?\n\n                                                          PIND. _Pyth._ IX\n\nMR. CHAINMAIL forgot the Captain and the route of Giraldus de Barri.  He\nbecame suddenly satisfied that the ruined castle in his present\nneighbourhood was the best possible specimen of its class, and that it\nwas needless to carry his researches further.\n\nHe visited the farm daily: found himself always welcome; flattered\nhimself that the young lady saw him with pleasure, and dragged a heavier\nchain at every new parting from Miss Susan, as the children called his\nnymph of the mountains.  What might be her second name, he had vainly\nendeavoured to discover.\n\nMr. Chainmail was in love: but the determination he had long before\nformed and fixed in his mind, to marry only a lady of gentle blood,\nwithout a blot in her escutcheon, repressed the declarations of passion\nwhich were often rising to his lips.  In the meantime he left no means\nuntried to pluck out the heart of her mystery.\n\nThe young lady soon divined his passion, and penetrated his prejudices.\nShe began to look on him with favourable eyes; but she feared her name\nand parentage would present an insuperable barrier to his feudal pride.\n\nThings were in this state when the Captain returned, and unpacked his\nmaps and books in the parlour of the inn.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Really, Captain, I find so many objects of attraction in\nthis neighbourhood, that I would gladly postpone our purpose.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Undoubtedly this neighbourhood has many\nattractions; but there is something very inviting in the scheme you laid\ndown.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014No doubt there is something very tempting in the route\nof Giraldus de Barri.  But there are better things in this vicinity even\nthan that.  To tell you the truth, Captain, I have fallen in love.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014What! while I have been away?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Even so.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014The plunge must have been very sudden, if you are\nalready over head and ears.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014As deep as Llyn-y-dreiddiad-vrawd.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014And what may that be?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014A pool not far off: a resting-place of a mountain stream\nwhich is said to have no bottom.  There is a tradition connected with it;\nand here is a ballad on it, at your service.\n\n                           LLYN-Y-DREIDDIAD-VRAWD.\n                        THE POOL OF THE DIVING FRIAR.\n\n    Gwenwynwyn withdrew from the feasts of his hall:\n    He slept very little, he prayed not at all:\n    He pondered, and wandered, and studied alone;\n    And sought, night and day, the philosopher\u2019s stone.\n\n    He found it at length, and he made its first proof\n    By turning to gold all the lead of his roof:\n    Then he bought some magnanimous heroes, all fire,\n    Who lived but to smite and be smitten for hire.\n\n    With these on the plains like a torrent he broke;\n    He filled the whole country with flame and with smoke;\n    He killed all the swine, and he broached all the wine;\n    He drove off the sheep, and the beeves, and the kine;\n\n    He took castles and towns; he cut short limbs and lives;\n    He made orphans and widows of children and wives:\n    This course many years he triumphantly ran,\n    And did mischief enough to be called a great man.\n\n    When, at last, he had gained all for which he held striven,\n    He bethought him of buying a passport to heaven;\n    Good and great as he was, yet he did not well know,\n    How soon, or which way, his great spirit might go.\n\n    He sought the grey friars, who beside a wild stream,\n    Refected their frames on a primitive scheme;\n    The gravest and wisest Gwenwynwyn found out,\n    All lonely and ghostly, and angling for trout.\n\n    Below the white dash of a mighty cascade,\n    Where a pool of the stream a deep resting-place made,\n    And rock-rooted oaks stretched their branches on high,\n    The friar stood musing, and throwing his fly.\n\n    To him said Gwenwynwyn, \u201cHold, father, here\u2019s store,\n    For the good of the church, and the good of the poor;\u201d\n    Then he gave him the stone; but, ere more he could speak,\n    Wrath came on the friar, so holy and meek.\n\n    He had stretched forth his hand to receive the red gold,\n    And he thought himself mocked by Gwenwynwyn the Bold;\n    And in scorn of the gift, and in rage at the giver,\n    He jerked it immediately into the river.\n\n    Gwenwynwyn, aghast, not a syllable spake;\n    The philosopher\u2019s stone made a duck and a drake;\n    Two systems of circles a moment were seen,\n    And the stream smoothed them off, as they never had been.\n\n    Gwenwynwyn regained, and uplifted his voice,\n    \u201cOh friar, grey friar, full rash was thy choice;\n    The stone, the good stone, which away thou hast thrown,\n    Was the stone of all stones, the philosopher\u2019s stone.\u201d\n\n    The friar looked pale, when his error he knew;\n    The friar looked red, and the friar looked blue;\n    And heels over head, from the point of a rock,\n    He plunged, without stopping to pull off his frock.\n\n    He dived very deep, but he dived all in vain,\n    The prize he had slighted he found not again;\n    Many times did the friar his diving renew,\n    And deeper and deeper the river still grew.\n\n    Gwenwynwyn gazed long, of his senses in doubt,\n    To see the grey friar a diver so stout;\n    Then sadly and slowly his castle he sought,\n    And left the friar diving, like dabchick distraught.\n\n    Gwenwynwyn fell sick with alarm and despite,\n    Died, and went to the devil, the very same night;\n    The magnanimous heroes he held in his pay\n    Sacked his castle, and marched with the plunder away.\n\n    No knell on the silence of midnight was rolled\n    For the flight of the soul of Gwenwynwyn the Bold.\n    The brethren, unfeed, let the mighty ghost pass,\n    Without praying a prayer, or intoning a mass.\n\n    The friar haunted ever beside the dark stream;\n    The philosopher\u2019s stone was his thought and his dream:\n    And day after day, ever head under heels\n    He dived all the time he could spare from his meals.\n\n    He dived, and he dived, to the end of his days,\n    As the peasants oft witnessed with fear and amaze.\n    The mad friar\u2019s diving-place long was their theme,\n    And no plummet can fathom that pool of the stream.\n\n    And still, when light clouds on the midnight winds ride,\n    If by moonlight you stray on the lone river-side,\n    The ghost of the friar may be seen diving there,\n    With head in the water, and heels in the air.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Well, your ballad is very pleasant: you shall show\nme the scene, and I will sketch it; but just now I am more interested\nabout your love.  What heroine of the twelfth century has risen from the\nruins of the old castle, and looked down on you from the ivied\nbattlements?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014You are nearer the mark than you suppose.  Even from\nthose battlements a heroine of the twelfth century has looked down on me.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Oh! some vision of an ideal beauty.  I suppose the\nwhole will end in another tradition and a ballad.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Genuine flesh and blood; as genuine as Lady Clarinda.  I\nwill tell you the story.\n\nMr. Chainmail narrated his adventures.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Then you seem to have found what you wished.\nChance has thrown in your way what none of the gods would have ventured\nto promise you.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Yes, but I know nothing of her birth and parentage.  She\ntells me nothing of herself, and I have no right to question her\ndirectly.\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014She appears to be expressly destined for the light\nof your baronial hall.  Introduce me in this case, two heads are better\nthan one.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014No, I thank you.  Leave me to manage my chance of a\nprize, and keep you to your own chance of a\u2014\n\n_Captain Fitzchrome_.\u2014Blank.  As you please.  Well, I will pitch my tent\nhere, till I have filled my portfolio, and shall be glad of as much of\nyour company as you can spare from more attractive society.\n\nMatters went on pretty smoothly for several days, when an unlucky\nnewspaper threw all into confusion.  Mr. Chainmail received newspapers by\nthe post, which came in three times a week.  One morning, over their\nhalf-finished breakfast, the Captain had read half a newspaper very\ncomplacently, when suddenly he started up in a frenzy, hurled over the\nbreakfast table, and, bouncing from the apartment, knocked down Harry Ap\nHeather, who was coming in at the door to challenge his supposed rival to\na boxing-match.\n\nHarry sprang up, in a double rage, and intercepted Mr. Chainmail\u2019s\npursuit of the Captain, placing himself in the doorway, in a pugilistic\nattitude.  Mr. Chainmail, not being disposed for this mode of combat,\nstepped back into the parlour, took the poker in his right hand, and\ndisplacing the loose bottom of a large elbow chair, threw it over his\nleft arm as a shield.  Harry, not liking the aspect of the enemy in this\nimposing attitude, retreated with backward steps into the kitchen, and\ntumbled over a cur, which immediately fastened on his rear.\n\nMr. Chainmail, half-laughing, half-vexed, anxious to overtake the\nCaptain, and curious to know what was the matter with him, pocketed the\nnewspaper, and sallied forth, leaving Harry roaring for a doctor and\ntailor, to repair the lacerations of his outward man.\n\nMr. Chainmail could find no trace of the Captain.  Indeed, he sought him\nbut in one direction, which was that leading to the farm; where he\narrived in due time, and found Miss Susan alone.  He laid the newspaper\non the table, as was his custom, and proceeded to converse with the young\nlady: a conversation of many pauses, as much of signs as of words.  The\nyoung lady took up the paper, and turned it over and over, while she\nlistened to Mr. Chainmail, whom she found every day more and more\nagreeable, when suddenly her eye glanced on something which made her\nchange colour, and dropping the paper on the ground, she rose from her\nseat, exclaiming: \u201cMiserable must she be who trusts any of your faithless\nsex! never, never, never, will I endure such misery twice.\u201d  And she\nvanished up the stairs.  Mr. Chainmail was petrified.  At length, he\ncried aloud: \u201cCornelius Agrippa must have laid a spell on this accursed\nnewspaper;\u201d and was turning it over, to look for the source of the\nmischief, when Mrs. Ap Llymry made her appearance.\n\n_Mrs. Ap Llymry_.\u2014What have you done to poor dear Miss Susan? she is\ncrying ready to break her heart.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014So help me the memory of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, I have\nnot the most distant notion of what is the matter.\n\n_Mrs. Ap Llymry_.\u2014Oh, don\u2019t tell me, sir; you must have ill-used her.  I\nknow how it is.  You have been keeping company with her, as if you wanted\nto marry her; and now, all at once, you have been insulting her.  I have\nseen such tricks more than once, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014My dear madam, you wrong me utterly.  I have none but\nthe kindest feelings and the most honourable purposes towards her.  She\nhas been disturbed by something she has seen in this rascally paper.\n\n_Mrs. Ap Llymry_.\u2014Why, then, the best thing you can do is to go away, and\ncome again tomorrow.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Not I, indeed, madam.  Out of this house I stir not,\ntill I have seen the young lady, and obtained a full explanation.\n\n_Mrs. Ap Llymry_.\u2014I will tell Miss Susan what you say.  Perhaps she will\ncome down.\n\nMr. Chainmail sat with as much patience as he could command, running over\nthe paper, from column to column.  At length he lighted on an\nannouncement of the approaching marriage of Lady Clarinda Bossnowl with\nMr. Crotchet the younger.  This explained the Captain\u2019s discomposure, but\nthe cause of Miss Susan\u2019s was still to be sought: he could not know that\nit was one and the same.\n\nPresently, the sound of the longed-for step was heard on the stairs; the\nyoung lady reappeared, and resumed her seat: her eyes showed that she had\nbeen weeping.  The gentleman was now exceedingly puzzled how to begin,\nbut the young lady relieved him by asking, with great simplicity: \u201cWhat\ndo you wish to have explained, sir?\u201d\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014I wish, if I may be permitted, to explain myself to you.\nYet could I first wish to know what it was that disturbed you in this\nunlucky paper.  Happy should I be if I could remove the cause of your\ninquietude!\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014The cause is already removed.  I saw something that\nexcited painful recollections; nothing that I could now wish otherwise\nthan as it is.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Yet, may I ask why it is that I find one so accomplished\nliving in this obscurity, and passing only by the name of Miss Susan?\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014The world and my name are not friends.  I have left the\nworld, and wish to remain for ever a stranger to all whom I once knew in\nit.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014You can have done nothing to dishonour your name.\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014No, sir.  My father has done that of which the world\ndisapproves, in matters of which I pretend not to judge.  I have suffered\nfor it as I will never suffer again.  My name is my own secret: I have no\nother, and that is one not worth knowing.  You see what I am, and all I\nam.  I live according to the condition of my present fortune, and here,\nso living, I have found tranquillity.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Yet, I entreat you, tell me your name.\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014Why, sir?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Why, but to throw my hand, my heart, my fortune, at your\nfeet, if\u2014.\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014If my name be worthy of them.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Nay, nay, not so; if your hand and heart are free.\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014My hand and heart are free; but they must be sought from\nmyself, and not from my name.\n\nShe fixed her eyes on him, with a mingled expression of mistrust, of\nkindness, and of fixed resolution, which the far-gone _inamorato_ found\nirresistible.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Then from yourself alone I seek them.\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014Reflect. You have prejudices on the score of parentage.\nI have not conversed with you so often without knowing what they are.\nChoose between them and me.  I too have my own prejudices on the score of\npersonal pride.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014I would choose you from all the world, were you even the\ndaughter of the _ex\u00e9cuteur des hautes \u0153uvres_, as the heroine of a\nromantic story I once read turned out to be.\n\n_Miss Susannah_.\u2014I am satisfied.  You have now a right to know my\nhistory, and if you repent, I absolve you from all obligations.\n\nShe told him her history; but he was out of the reach of repentance.  \u201cIt\nis true,\u201d as at a subsequent period he said to the captain, \u201cshe is the\ndaughter of a money-changer: one who, in the days of Richard the First,\nwould have been plucked by the beard in the streets: but she is,\naccording to modern notions, a lady of gentle blood.  As to her father\u2019s\nrunning away, that is a minor consideration: I have always understood,\nfrom Mr. Mac Quedy, who is a great oracle in this way, that promises to\npay ought not to be kept; the essence of a safe and economical currency\nbeing an interminable series of broken promises.  There seems to be a\ndifference among the learned as to the way in which the promises ought to\nbe broken; but I am not deep enough in this casuistry to enter into such\nnice distinctions.\u201d\n\nIn a few days there was a wedding, a pathetic leave-taking of the\nfarmer\u2019s family, a hundred kisses from the bride to the children, and\npromises twenty times reclaimed and renewed, to visit them in the ensuing\nyear.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\nTHE INVITATION.\n\n\n    A cup of wine, that\u2019s brisk and fine,\n    And drink unto the lemon mine.\n\n                                                         _Master Silence_.\n\nTHIS veridicous history began in May, and the occurrences already\nnarrated have carried it on to the middle of autumn.  Stepping over the\ninterval to Christmas, we find ourselves in our first locality, among the\nchalk hills of the Thames; and we discover our old friend, Mr. Crotchet,\nin the act of accepting an invitation, for himself, and any friends who\nmight be with him, to pass their Christmas Day at Chainmail Hall, after\nthe fashion of the twelfth century.  Mr. Crochet had assembled about him,\nfor his own Christmas festivities, nearly the same party which was\nintroduced to the reader in the spring.  Three of that party were\nwanting.  Dr. Morbific, by inoculating himself once too often with\nnon-contagious matter, had explained himself out of the world.  Mr.\nHenbane had also departed, on the wings of an infallible antidote.  Mr.\nEavesdrop, having printed in a magazine some of the after-dinner\nconversations of the castle, had had sentence of exclusion passed upon\nhim, on the motion of the Reverend Doctor Folliott, as a flagitious\nviolator of the confidences of private life.\n\nMiss Crotchet had become Lady Bossnowl, but Lady Clarinda had not yet\nchanged her name to Crotchet.  She had, on one pretence and another,\nprocrastinated the happy event, and the gentleman had not been very\npressing; she had, however, accompanied her brother and sister-in-law, to\npass Christmas at Crotchet Castle.  With these, Mr. Mac Quedy, Mr.\nPhilpot, Mr. Trillo, Mr. Skionar, Mr. Toogood, and Mr. Firedamp were\nsitting at breakfast, when the Reverend Doctor Folliott entered and took\nhis seat at the table.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, Mr. Mac Quedy, it is now some weeks since\nwe have met: how goes on the march of mind?\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Nay, sir; I think you may see that with your own eyes.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Sir, I have seen it, much to my discomfiture.\nIt has marched into my rickyard, and set my stacks on fire, with chemical\nmaterials, most scientifically compounded.  It has marched up to the door\nof my vicarage, a hundred and fifty strong; ordered me to surrender half\nmy tithes; consumed all the provisions I had provided for my audit feast,\nand drunk up my old October.  It has marched in through my back-parlour\nshutters, and out again with my silver spoons, in the dead of the night.\nThe policeman who has been down to examine says my house has been broken\nopen on the most scientific principles.  All this comes of education.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014I rather think it comes of poverty.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No, sir.  Robbery, perhaps, comes of poverty,\nbut scientific principles of robbery come of education.  I suppose the\nlearned friend has written a sixpenny treatise on mechanics, and the\nrascals who robbed me have been reading it.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Your house would have been very safe, Doctor, if they had\nhad no better science than the learned friend\u2019s to work with.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, sir, that may be.  Excellent potted char.\nThe Lord deliver me from the learned friend.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014Well, Doctor, for your comfort, here is a declaration of\nthe learned friend\u2019s that he will never take office.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Then, sir, he will be in office next week.\nPeace be with him.  Sugar and cream.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014But, Doctor, are you for Chainmail Hall on Christmas Day?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014That am I, for there will be an excellent\ndinner, though, peradventure, grotesquely served.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014I have not seen my neighbour since he left us on the\ncanal.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014He has married a wife, and brought her home.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Indeed!  If she suits him, she must be an oddity: it\nwill be amusing to see them together.\n\n_Lord Bossnowl_.\u2014Very amusing.  He! He!  Mr. Firedamp.  Is there any\nwater about Chainmail Hall?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014An old moat.\n\n_Mr. Firedamp_.\u2014I shall die of malaria.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Shall we have any music?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014An old harper.\n\n_Mr. Trillo_.\u2014Those fellows are always horridly out of tune.  What will\nhe play?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Old songs and marches.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014Among so many old things, I hope we shall find Old\nPhilosophy.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014An old woman.\n\n_Mr. Philpot_.\u2014Perhaps an old map of the river in the twelfth century.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No doubt.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014How many more old things?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Old hospitality; old wine; old ale; all the\nimages of old England; an old butler.\n\n_Mr. Toogood_.\u2014Shall we all be welcome?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Heartily; you will be slapped on the shoulder,\nand called Old Boy.\n\n_Lord Bossnowl_.\u2014I think we should all go in our old clothes.  He! He!\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014You will sit on old chairs, round an old table,\nby the light of old lamps, suspended from pointed arches, which, Mr.\nChainmail says, first came into use in the twelfth century, with old\narmour on the pillars and old banners in the roof.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014And what curious piece of antiquity is the lady of the\nmansion?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No antiquity there; none.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Who was she?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014That I know not.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Have you seen her?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I have.\n\n_Lady Clarinda_.\u2014Is she pretty?\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014More,\u2014beautiful.  A subject for the pen of\nNonnus or the pencil of Zeuxis.  Features of all loveliness, radiant with\nall virtue and intelligence.  A face for Antigone.  A form at once plump\nand symmetrical, that, if it be decorous to divine it by externals, would\nhave been a model for the Venus of Cnidos.  Never was anything so goodly\nto look on, the present company excepted; and poor dear Mrs. Folliott.\nShe reads moral philosophy, Mr. Mac Quedy, which indeed she might as well\nlet alone; she reads Italian poetry, Mr. Skionar; she sings Italian\nmusic, Mr. Trillo; but, with all this, she has the greatest of female\nvirtues, for she superintends the household and looks after her husband\u2019s\ndinner.  I believe she was a mountaineer: \u0397\u03b1\u03c1\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f40\u03c5\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03c6\u03bf\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f10\u03c1\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03b4\u03b9\n\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f55\u03bb\u1fc3 {175} as Nonnus sweetly sings.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\nCHAINMAIL HALL.\n\n\n    Vous autres dictes que ignorance est m\u00e8re de tous maulx, et dictes\n    vray: mais toutesfoys vous ne la bannissez mye de vos entendemens, et\n    vivez en elle, avecques elle, et par elle.  C\u2019est pourquoy tant de\n    maulx vous meshaignent de jour en jour.\u2014RABELIAS, 1. 5. c. 7.\n\nTHE party which was assembled on Christmas Day in Chainmail Hall\ncomprised all the guests of Crotchet Castle, some of Mr. Chainmail\u2019s\nother neighbours, all his tenants and domestics, and Captain Fitzchrome.\nThe hall was spacious and lofty; and with its tall fluted pillars and\npointed arches, its windows of stained glass, its display of arms and\nbanners intermingled with holly and mistletoe, its blazing cressets and\ntorches, and a stupendous fire in the centre, on which blocks of pine\nwere flaming and crackling, had a striking effect on eyes unaccustomed to\nsuch a dining-room.  The fire was open on all sides, and the smoke was\ncaught and carried back under a funnel-formed canopy into a hollow\ncentral pillar.  This fire was the line of demarcation between gentle and\nsimple on days of high festival.  Tables extended from it on two sides to\nnearly the end of the hall.\n\nMrs. Chainmail was introduced to the company.  Young Crotchet felt some\nrevulsion of feeling at the unexpected sight of one whom he had forsaken,\nbut not forgotten, in a condition apparently so much happier than his\nown.  The lady held out her hand to him with a cordial look of more than\nforgiveness; it seemed to say that she had much to thank him for.  She\nwas the picture of a happy bride, _rayonnante de joie et d\u2019amour_.\n\nMr. Crotchet told the Reverend Doctor Folliott the news of the morning.\n\u201cAs you predicted,\u201d he said, \u201cyour friend, the learned friend, is in\noffice; he has also a title; he is now Sir Guy de Vaux.\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Thank heaven for that! he is disarmed from\nfurther mischief.  It is something, at any rate, to have that hollow and\nwind-shaken reed rooted up for ever from the field of public delusion.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014I suppose, Doctor, you do not like to see a great\nreformer in office; you are afraid for your vested interests.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Not I, indeed, sir; my vested interests are very\nsafe from all such reformers as the learned friend.  I vaticinate what\nwill be the upshot of all his schemes of reform.  He will make a speech\nof seven hours\u2019 duration, and this will be its quintessence: that, seeing\nthe exceeding difficulty of putting salt on the bird\u2019s tail, it will be\nexpedient to consider the best method of throwing dust in the bird\u2019s\neyes.  All the rest will be\n\n    \u03a4\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf.\n    \u03a0\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03af, \u03c0\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03af\n    \u03a4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03af\u03b3\u03be.\n    \u039a\u03b9\u03ba\u03ba\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u1fe6, \u03ba\u03b9\u03ba\u03ba\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u1fe6.\n    \u03a4\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03bb\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b3\u03be,\n\nas Aristophanes has it; and so I leave him, in Nephelococcygia.\n\nMr. Mac Quedy came up to the divine as Mr. Crotchet left him, and said:\n\u201cThere is one piece of news which the old gentleman has not told you.\nThe great firm of Catchflat and Company, in which young Crotchet is a\npartner, has stopped payment.\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Bless me! that accounts for the young\ngentleman\u2019s melancholy.  I thought they would overreach themselves with\ntheir own tricks.  The day of reckoning, Mr. Mac Quedy, is the point\nwhich your paper-money science always leaves out of view.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014I do not see, sir, that the failure of Catchflat and\nCompany has anything to do with my science.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014It has this to do with it, sir, that you would\nturn the whole nation into a great paper-money shop, and take no thought\nof the day of reckoning.  But the dinner is coming.  I think you, who are\nso fond of paper promises, should dine on the bill of fare.\n\nThe harper at the head of the hall struck up an ancient march, and the\ndishes were brought in, in grand procession.\n\nThe boar\u2019s head, garnished with rosemary, with a citron in its mouth, led\nthe van.  Then came tureens of plum-porridge; then a series of turkeys,\nand in the midst of them an enormous sausage, which it required two men\nto carry.  Then came geese and capons, tongues and hams, the ancient\nglory of the Christmas pie, a gigantic plum pudding, a pyramid of mince\npies, and a baron of beef bringing up the rear.\n\n\u201cIt is something new under the sun,\u201d said the divine, as he sat down, \u201cto\nsee a great dinner without fish.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Fish was for fasts in the twelfth century.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Well, sir, I prefer our reformed system of\nputting fasts and feasts together.  Not but here is ample indemnity.\n\nAle and wine flowed in abundance.  The dinner passed off merrily: the old\nharper playing all the while the oldest music in his repertory.  The\ntables being cleared, he indemnified himself for lost time at the lower\nend of the hall, in company with the old butler and the other domestics,\nwhose attendance on the banquet had been indispensable.\n\nThe scheme of Christmas gambols, which Mr. Chainmail had laid for the\nevening, was interrupted by a tremendous clamour without.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014What have we here?  Mummers?\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Nay, I know not.  I expect none.\n\n\u201cWho is there?\u201d he added, approaching the door of the hall.\n\n\u201cWho is there?\u201d vociferated the divine, with the voice of Stentor.\n\n\u201cCaptain Swing,\u201d replied a chorus of discordant voices.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Ho, ho! here is a piece of the dark ages we did\nnot bargain for.  Here is the Jacquerie.  Here is the march of mind with\na witness.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Do you not see that you have brought disparates\ntogether? the Jacquerie and the march of mind.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Not at all, sir.  They are the same thing, under\ndifferent names.  \u03a0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u1f74 \u03bc\u03af\u03b1.  What was Jacquerie in the\ndark ages is the march of mind in this very enlightened one\u2014very\nenlightened one.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014The cause is the same in both; poverty in despair.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Very likely; but the effect is extremely disagreeable.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014It is the natural result, Mr. Mac Quedy, of that\nsystem of state seamanship which your science upholds.  Putting the crew\non short allowance, and doubling the rations of the officers, is the sure\nway to make a mutiny on board a ship in distress, Mr. Mac Quedy.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Eh! sir, I uphold no such system as that.  I shall set\nyou right as to cause and effect.  Discontent arises with the increase of\ninformation.  That is all.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I said it was the march of mind.  But we have\nnot time for discussing cause and effect now.  Let us get rid of the\nenemy.\n\nAnd he vociferated at the top of his voice, \u201cWhat do you want here?\u201d\n\u201cArms, arms,\u201d replied a hundred voices, \u201cGive us the arms.\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014You see, Mr. Chainmail, this is the\ninconvenience of keeping an armoury not fortified with sand bags, green\nbags, and old bags of all kinds.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Just give them the old spits and toasting irons, and\nthey will go away quietly.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014My spears and swords! not without my life.  These\nassailants are all aliens to my land and house.  My men will fight for\nme, one and all.  This is the fortress of beef and ale.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Eh! sir, when the rabble is up, it is very\nindiscriminating.  You are e\u2019en suffering for the sins of Sir Simon\nSteeltrap and the like, who have pushed the principle of accumulation a\nlittle too far.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014The way to keep the people down is kind and liberal\nusage.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014That is very well (where it can be afforded) in the way\nof prevention; but in the way of cure the operation must be more drastic.\n(Taking down a battle-axe.)  I would fain have a good blunderbuss charged\nwith slugs.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014When I suspended these arms for ornament, I never\ndreamed of their being called into use.\n\n_Mr. Skionar_.\u2014Let me address them.  I never failed to convince an\naudience that the best thing they could do was to go away.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Eh! sir, I can bring them to that conclusion in less\ntime than you.\n\n_Mr. Crotchet_.\u2014I have no fancy for fighting.  It is a very hard case\nupon a guest, when the latter end of a feast is the beginning of a fray.\n\n_Mr. Mac Quedy_.\u2014Give them the old iron.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Give them the weapons!  _Pessimo_, _medius\nfidius_, _exemplo_.  Forbid it the spirit of _Fr\u00e8re Jean des\nEntommeures_!  No! let us see what the church militant, in the armour of\nthe twelfth century, will do against the march of mind.  Follow me who\nwill, and stay who list.  Here goes: _Pro aris et focis_! that is, for\ntithe pigs and fires to roast them.\n\nHe clapped a helmet on his head, seized a long lance, threw open the\ngates, and tilted out on the rabble, side by side with Mr. Chainmail,\nfollowed by the greater portion of the male inmates of the hall, who had\narmed themselves at random.\n\nThe rabble-rout, being unprepared for such a sortie, fled in all\ndirections, over hedge and ditch.\n\nMr. Trillo stayed in the hall, playing a march on the harp, to inspirit\nthe rest to sally out.  The water-loving Mr. Philpot had diluted himself\nwith so much wine as to be quite _hors de combat_.  Mr. Toogood,\nintending to equip himself in purely defensive armour, contrived to slip\na ponderous coat of mail over his shoulders, which pinioned his arms to\nhis sides; and in this condition, like a chicken trussed for roasting, he\nwas thrown down behind a pillar in the first rush of the sortie.  Mr.\nCrotchet seized the occurrence as a pretext for staying with him, and\npassed the whole time of the action in picking him out of his shell.\n\n\u201cPhew!\u201d said the divine, returning; \u201can inglorious victory; but it\ndeserves a devil and a bowl of punch.\u201d\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014A wassail-bowl.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No, sir.  No more of the twelfth century for me.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Nay, Doctor.  The twelfth century has backed you well.\nIts manners and habits, its community of kind feelings between master and\nman, are the true remedy for these ebullitions.\n\n_Mr. Toogood_.\u2014Something like it: improved by my diagram: arts for arms.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014No wassail-bowl for me.  Give me an\nunsophisticated bowl of punch, which belongs to that blissful middle\nperiod, after the Jacquerie was down, and before the march of mind was\nup.  But, see, who is floundering in the water?\n\nProceeding to the edge of the moat, they fished up Mr. Firedamp, who had\nmissed his way back, and tumbled in.  He was drawn out, exclaiming, \u201cthat\nhe had taken his last dose of malaria in this world.\u201d\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Tut, man; dry clothes, a turkey\u2019s leg and rump,\nwell devilled, and a quart of strong punch, will set all to rights.\n\n\u201cWood embers,\u201d said Mr. Firedamp, when he had been accommodated with a\nchange of clothes, \u201cthere is no antidote to malaria like the smoke of\nwood embers; pine embers.\u201d  And he placed himself, with his mouth open,\nclose by the fire.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014Punch, sir, punch: there is no antidote like\npunch.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014Well, Doctor, you shall be indulged.  But I shall have\nmy wassail-bowl, nevertheless.\n\nAn immense bowl of spiced wine, with roasted apples hissing on its\nsurface, was borne into the hall by four men, followed by an empty bowl\nof the same dimensions, with all the materials of arrack punch, for the\ndivine\u2019s especial brewage.  He accinged himself to the task with his\nusual heroism, and having finished it to his entire satisfaction,\nreminded his host to order in the devil.\n\n_The Rev. Dr. Folliott_.\u2014I think, Mr. Chainmail, we can amuse ourselves\nvery well here all night.  The enemy may be still excubant: and we had\nbetter not disperse till daylight.  I am perfectly satisfied with my\nquarters.  Let the young folk go on with their gambols; let them dance to\nyour old harper\u2019s minstrelsy; and if they please to kiss under the\nmistletoe, whereof I espy a goodly bunch suspended at the end of the\nhall, let those who like it not leave it to those who do.  Moreover, if\namong the more sedate portion of the assembly, which, I foresee, will\nkeep me company, there were any to revive the good old custom of singing\nafter supper, so to fill up the intervals of the dances, the steps of\nnight would move more lightly.\n\n_Mr. Chainmail_.\u2014My Susan will set the example, after she has set that of\njoining in the rustic dance, according to good customs long departed.\n\nAfter the first dance, in which all classes of the company mingled, the\nyoung lady of the mansion took her harp, and following the reverend\ngentleman\u2019s suggestion, sang a song of the twelfth century.\n\n                           FLORENCE AND BLANCHFLOR.\n\n    Florence and Blanchflor, loveliest maids,\n       Within a summer grove,\n    Amid the flower-enamelled shades\n       Together talked of love.\n\n    A clerk sweet Blanchflor\u2019s heart had gain\u2019d;\n       Fair Florence loved a knight:\n    And each with ardent voice maintained\n       She loved the worthiest wight.\n\n    Sweet Blanchflor praised her scholar dear,\n       As courteous, kind, and true!\n    Fair Florence said her chevalier\n       Could every foe subdue.\n\n    And Florence scorned the bookworm vain,\n       Who sword nor spear could raise;\n    And Blanchflor scorned the unlettered brain\n       Could sing no lady\u2019s praise.\n\n    From dearest love, the maidens bright\n       To deadly hatred fell,\n    Each turned to shun the other\u2019s sight,\n       And neither said farewell.\n\n    The king of birds, who held his court\n       Within that flowery grove,\n    Sang loudly: \u201c\u2019Twill be rare disport\n       To judge this suit of love.\u201d\n\n    Before him came the maidens bright,\n       With all his birds around,\n    To judge the cause, if clerk or knight\n       In love be worthiest found.\n\n    The falcon and the sparrow-hawk\n       Stood forward for the fight:\n    Ready to do, and not to talk,\n       They voted for the knight.\n\n    And Blanchflor\u2019s heart began to fail,\n       Till rose the strong-voiced lark,\n    And, after him, the nightingale,\n       And pleaded for the clerk.\n\n    The nightingale prevailed at length,\n       Her pleading had such charms;\n    So eloquence can conquer strength,\n       And arts can conquer arms.\n\n    The lovely Florence tore her hair,\n       And died upon the place;\n    And all the birds assembled there\n       Bewailed the mournful case.\n\n    They piled up leaves and flowerets rare\n       Above the maiden bright,\n    And sang: \u201cFarewell to Florence fair,\n       Who too well loved her knight.\u201d\n\nSeveral others of the party sang in the intervals of the dances.  Mr.\nChainmail handed to Mr. Trillo another ballad of the twelfth century, of\na merrier character than the former.  Mr. Trillo readily accommodated it\nwith an air, and sang:\n\n                      THE PRIEST AND THE MULBERRY TREE.\n\n    Did you hear of the curate who mounted his mare,\n    And merrily trotted along to the fair?\n    Of creature more tractable none ever heard;\n    In the height of her speed she would stop at a word,\n    And again with a word, when the curate said Hey,\n    She put forth her mettle, and galloped away.\n\n    As near to the gates of the city he rode,\n    While the sun of September all brilliantly glowed,\n    The good priest discovered, with eyes of desire,\n    A mulberry tree in a hedge of wild briar,\n    On boughs long and lofty, in many a green shoot,\n    Hung large, black, and glossy, the beautiful fruit.\n\n    The curate was hungry, and thirsty to boot;\n    He shrunk from the thorns, though he longed for the fruit;\n    With a word he arrested his courser\u2019s keen speed,\n    And he stood up erect on the back of his steed;\n    On the saddle he stood, while the creature stood still,\n    And he gathered the fruit, till he took his good fill.\n\n    \u201cSure never,\u201d he thought, \u201cwas a creature so rare,\n    So docile, so true, as my excellent mare.\n    Lo, here, how I stand\u201d (and he gazed all around),\n    \u201cAs safe and as steady as if on the ground,\n    Yet how had it been, if some traveller this way,\n    Had, dreaming no mischief, but chanced to cry Hey?\u201d\n\n    He stood with his head in the mulberry tree,\n    And he spoke out aloud in his fond reverie.\n    At the sound of the word, the good mare made a push,\n    And down went the priest in the wild-briar bush.\n    He remembered too late, on his thorny green bed,\n    Much that well may be thought cannot wisely be said.\n\nLady Clarinda, being prevailed on to take the harp in her turn, sang the\nfollowing stanzas.\n\n    In the days of old,\n    Lovers felt true passion,\n    Deeming years of sorrow\n    By a smile repaid.\n    Now the charms of gold,\n    Spells of pride and fashion,\n    Bid them say good morrow\n    To the best-loved maid.\n\n    Through the forests wild,\n    O\u2019er the mountains lonely,\n    They were never weary\n    Honour to pursue.\n    If the damsel smiled\n    Once in seven years only,\n    All their wanderings dreary\n    Ample guerdon knew.\n\n    Now one day\u2019s caprice\n    Weighs down years of smiling,\n    Youthful hearts are rovers,\n    Love is bought and sold:\n    Fortune\u2019s gifts may cease,\n    Love is less beguiling;\n    Wisest were the lovers\n    In the days of old.\n\nThe glance which she threw at the captain, as she sang the last verse,\nawakened his dormant hopes.  Looking round for his rival, he saw that he\nwas not in the hall; and, approaching the lady of his heart, he received\none of the sweetest smiles of their earlier days.\n\nAfter a time, the ladies, and all the females of the party, retired.  The\nmales remained on duty with punch and wassail, and dropped off one by one\ninto sweet forgetfulness; so that when the rising sun of December looked\nthrough the painted windows on mouldering embers and flickering lamps,\nthe vaulted roof was echoing to a mellifluous concert of noses, from the\nclarionet of the waiting-boy at one end of the hall, to the double bass\nof the Reverend Doctor, ringing over the empty punch-bowl, at the other.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\n\nFROM this eventful night, young Crotchet was seen no more on English\nmould.  Whither he had vanished was a question that could no more be\nanswered in his case than in that of King Arthur after the battle of\nCamlan.  The great firm of Catchflat and Company figured in the Gazette,\nand paid sixpence in the pound; and it was clear that he had shrunk from\nexhibiting himself on the scene of his former greatness, shorn of the\nbeams of his paper prosperity.  Some supposed him to be sleeping among\nthe undiscoverable secrets of some barbel-pool in the Thames; but those\nwho knew him best were more inclined to the opinion that he had gone\nacross the Atlantic, with his pockets full of surplus capital, to join\nhis old acquaintance, Mr. Touchandgo, in the bank of Dotandcarryonetown.\n\nLady Clarinda was more sorry for her father\u2019s disappointment than her\nown; but she had too much pride to allow herself to be put up a second\ntime in the money-market; and when the Captain renewed his assiduities,\nher old partiality for him, combining with a sense of gratitude for a\ndegree of constancy which she knew she scarcely deserved, induced her,\nwith Lord Foolincourt\u2019s hard-wrung consent, to share with him a more\nhumble, but less precarious fortune, than that to which she had been\ndestined as the price of a rotten borough.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES.\n\n\n{175}  A mountain-wandering maid,\nTwin-nourished with the solitary wood.","title":"Crotchet Castle","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":37515}