The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 38

THE RELIGION OF ACTORS

(1826)

The world has. .h.i.therto so little troubled its head with the points of doctrine held by a community, which contributes in other ways so largely to its amus.e.m.e.nt, that, before the late mischance of a celebrated tragic actor, it scarce condescended to look into the practice of any individual player, much less to inquire into the hidden and abscondite springs of his actions. Indeed it is with some violence to the imagination that we conceive of an actor as belonging to the relations of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind with the characters which they a.s.sume upon the stage. How oddly does it sound, when we are told that the late Miss Pope, for instance--that is to say, in our notion of her, _Mrs. Candour_--was a good daughter, an affectionate sister, and exemplary in all the parts of domestic life!

With still greater difficulty can we carry our notions to church, and conceive of Liston, kneeling upon a ha.s.sock; or Munden uttering a pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "making mouths at the invisible event." But the times are fast improving; and, if the process of sanct.i.ty begun under the happy auspices of the present licenser go on to its completion, it will be as necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith, as of his conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and d.i.c.ky Suett, if he were alive, would have to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought fit to oblige the world with a confession of his faith; or, BR----'S RELIGIO DRAMATICI.

This gentleman, in his laudable attempt to shift from his person the obloquy of Judaism, with the forwardness of a new convert, in trying to prove too much, has, in the opinion of many, proved too little. A simple declaration of his Christianity was sufficient; but, strange to say, his apology has not a word about it. We are left to gather it from some expressions which imply that he is a Protestant; but we did not wish to inquire into the niceties of his orthodoxy. To his friends of the _old persuasion_ the distinction was impertinent; for what cares Rabbi Ben Kimchi for the differences which have split our novelty? To the great body of Christians that hold the Pope's supremacy--that is to say, to the major part of the Christian world--his religion will appear as much to seek as ever. But perhaps he conceived that all Christians are Protestants, as children and the common people call all that are not animals, Christians. The mistake was not very considerable in so young a proselyte; or he might think the general (as logicians speak) involved in the particular. All Protestants are Christians; but I am a Protestant; _ergo_, &c. as if a marmoset, contending to be a man, overleaping that term as too generic and vulgar, should at once roundly proclaim himself to be a gentleman. The argument would be, as we say, _ex abundanti_. From whichever cause this _excessus in terminis_ proceeded, we can do no less than congratulate the general state of Christendom upon the accession of so extraordinary a convert. Who was the happy instrument of the conversion, we are yet to learn: it comes nearest to the attempt of the late pious Doctor Watts to christianize the Psalms of the Old Testament. Something of the old Hebrew raciness is lost in the transfusion; but much of its asperity is softened and pared down in the adaptation. The appearance of so singular a treatise at this conjuncture has set us upon an inquiry into the present state of religion upon the stage generally. By the favour of the churchwardens of Saint Martin's in the Fields, and Saint Paul's Covent-Garden, who have very readily, and with great kindness, a.s.sisted our pursuit, we are enabled to lay before the public the following particulars.--Strictly speaking, neither of the two great bodies is collectively a religious inst.i.tution. We had expected to have found a chaplain among them, as at Saint Stephen's, and other court establishments; and were the more surprised at the omission, as the last [? late] Mr. Bengough, at the one house, and Mr. Powell at the other, from a gravity of speech and demeanour, and the habit of wearing black at their first appearances in the beginning of _fifth_, or the conclusion of _fourth acts_, so eminently pointed out their qualifications for such office. These corporations then being not properly congregational, we must seek the solution of our question in the tastes, attainments, accidental breeding, and education of the individual members of them. As we were prepared to expect, a majority at both houses adhere to the religion of the church established, only that at one of them a pretty strong leaven of Catholicism is suspected: which, considering the notorious education of the manager at a foreign seminary, is not so much to be wondered at.

Some have gone so far as to report that Mr. T----y, in particular, belongs to an order lately restored on the Continent. We can contradict this: that gentleman is a member of the Kirk of Scotland; and his name is to be found, much to his honour, in the list of Seceders from the congregation of Mr. Fletcher. While the generality, as we have said, are content to jog on in the safe trammels of national orthodoxy, symptoms of a sectarian spirit have broken out in quarters where we should least have looked for it. Some of the ladies at both houses are deep in controverted points. Miss F----e, we are credibly informed, is a _sub_, and Madame V---- a _supra_-lapsarian.

Mr. Pope is the last of the exploded sect of the Ranters. Mr. Sinclair has joined the Shakers. Mr. Grimaldi, Senior, after being long a Jumper, has lately fallen into some whimsical theories respecting the Fall of Man; which he understands, not of an allegorical, but a _real tumble_, by which the whole body of humanity became, as it were, lame to the performance of good works. Pride he will have to be--nothing but a stiff-neck; irresolution--the nerves shaken; an inclination to sinister paths--crookedness of the joints; spiritual deadness--a paralysis; want of charity--a contraction in the fingers; despising of government--a broken head; the plaister--a sermon; the lint to bind it up--the text; the probers--the preachers; a pair of crutches--the old and new law; a bandage--religious obligation: a fanciful mode of ill.u.s.tration derived from the accidents and habits of his past calling _spiritualised_, rather than from any accurate acquaintance with the Hebrew text, in which report speaks him but a raw scholar.--Mr. Elliston, from all that we can learn, has his religion yet to choose; though some think him a Mu[g]gletonian.

A POPULAR FALLACY

(1826)

_That a deformed person is a lord_.--After a careful perusal of the most approved works that treat of n.o.bility, and of its origin, in these realms in particular, we are left very much in the dark as to the original patent, in which this branch of it is recognised. Neither Camden in his "Etymologie and Original of Barons," nor Dugdale in his "Baronage of England," nor Selden (a more exact and laborious enquirer than either) in his "t.i.tles of Honour," afford[s] a glimpse of satisfaction upon the subject. There is an heraldic term, indeed, which seems to imply gentility, and the right to coat armour, (but nothing further) in persons thus qualified. But the _sinister bend_ is more probably interpreted, by the best writers on this science, of some irregularity of birth, than of bodily conformation. n.o.bility is either hereditary, or by creation, commonly called patent. Of the former kind, the t.i.tle in question cannot be, seeing that the notion of it is limited to a personal distinction, which does not necessarily follow in the blood. Honours of this nature, as Mr. Anstey very well observes, descend moreover in a _right line_. It must be by patent then, if any thing. But who can show it? How comes it to be dormant? Under what king's reign is it pretended? Among the grounds of n.o.bility cited by the learned Mr.

Ashmole, after "Services in the Field or in the Council Chamber," he judiciously sets down "Honours conferred by the sovereign out of mere benevolence, or as favouring one subject rather than another, for some likeness or conformity observed (or but supposed) in him to the royal nature;" and instances the graces showered upon Charles Brandon, who "in his goodly person being thought not a little to favour the port and bearing of the king's own majesty, was by that sovereign, King Henry the Eighth, for some or one of these respects, highly promoted and preferred." Here, if any where, we thought we had discovered a clue to our researches. But after a painful investigation of the rolls and records under the reign of Richard the Third, or Richard Crouchback, as he is more usually designated in the chronicles, from a traditionary stoop, or gibbosity in that part,--we do not find that that monarch conferred any such lordships, as are here pretended, upon any subject, or subjects, on a simple plea of "conformity" in that respect to the "royal nature." The posture of affairs in those tumultuous times, preceding the battle of Bosworth, possibly left him at no leisure to attend to such niceties. Further than his reign we have not extended our enquiries; the kings of England who preceded, or followed him, being generally described by historians to have been of straight and clean limbs, the "natural derivative (says Daniel[51]) of high blood, if not its primitive recommendation to such enn.o.blement, as denoting strength and martial prowess--the qualities set most by in that fighting age."

Another motive, which inclines us to scruple the validity of this claim, is the remarkable fact, that none of the persons, in whom the right is supposed to be vested, do ever insist upon it themselves. There is no instance of any of them "sueing his patent," as the law-books call it; much less of his having actually stepped up into his proper seat, as, so qualified, we might expect that some of them would have had the spirit to do, in the House of Lords. On the contrary, it seems to be a distinction thrust upon them. "Their t.i.tle of Lord (says one of their own body, speaking of the common people) I never much valued, and now I entirely despise: and yet they will force it upon me as an honour which they have a right to bestow, and which I have none to refuse."[52] Upon a dispa.s.sionate review of the subject, we are disposed to believe that there is no right to the peerage incident to mere bodily configuration; that the t.i.tle in dispute is merely honorary, and depending upon the breath of the common people; which in these realms is so far from the power of conferring n.o.bility, that the ablest const.i.tutionalists have agreed in nothing more unanimously, than in the maxim that the King is the sole fountain of honour.

[51] History of England, "Temporibus Edwardi Primi et sequentibus."

[52] Hay on Deformity.

REMINISCENCES OF JUKE JUDKINS, ESQ., OF BIRMINGHAM

(1826)

I am the only son of a considerable brazier in Birmingham, who dying in 1803, left me successor to the business, with no other inc.u.mbrance than a sort of rent-charge, which I am enjoined to pay out of it, ninety-three pounds sterling _per annum_ to his widow, my mother; and which the improving state of the concern, I bless G.o.d, has. .h.i.therto enabled me to discharge with punctuality. (I say, I am enjoined to pay the said sum, but not strictly obligated; that is to say, as the will is worded, I believe the law would relieve me from the payment of it; but the wishes of a dying parent should in some sort have the effect of law.) So that though the annual profits of my business, on an average of the last three or four years, would appear to an indifferent observer, who should inspect my shop-books, to amount to the sum of one thousand three hundred and three pounds, odd shillings, the real proceeds in that time have fallen short of that sum to the amount of the aforesaid payment of ninety-three pounds sterling annually.

I was always my father's favourite. He took a delight to the very last in recounting the little sagacious tricks, and innocent artifices, of my childhood. One manifestation thereof I never heard him repeat without tears of joy trickling down his cheeks. It seems that when I quitted the parental roof (August 27th, 1788,) being then six years and not quite a month old, to proceed to the Free School at Warwick, where my father was a sort of trustee, my mother--as mothers are usually provident on these occasions--had stuffed the pockets of the coach, which was to convey me and six more children of my own growth, that were going to be entered along with me at the same seminary, with a prodigious quant.i.ty of gingerbread, which I remember my father said was more than was needed; and so indeed it was, for if I had been to eat it all myself, it would have got stale and mouldy before it had been half spent. The consideration whereof set me upon my contrivances how I might secure to myself as much of the gingerbread as would keep good for the next two or three days, and yet none of the rest in a manner be wasted. I had a little pair of pocket compa.s.ses which I usually carried about me for the purpose of making draughts and measurements, at which I was always very ingenious, of the various engines and mechanical inventions, in which such a town as Birmingham abounded. By the means of these, and a small penknife, which my father had given me, I cut out the one half of the cake, calculating that the remainder would reasonably serve my turn, and subdividing it into many little slices, which were curious to see for the neatness and niceness of their proportion, I sold it out in so many pennyworths to my young companions, as served us all the way to Warwick, which is a distance of some twenty miles from this town; and very merry, I a.s.sure you, we made ourselves with it, feasting all the way. By this honest stratagem I put double the prime cost of the gingerbread into my purse, and secured as much as I thought would keep good and moist for my next two or three days eating. When I told this to my parents on their first visit to me at Warwick, my father (good man) patted me on the cheek, and stroked my head, and seemed as if he could never make enough of me; but my mother unaccountably burst into tears, and said "it was a very n.i.g.g.ardly action," or some such expression, and that "she would rather it would please G.o.d to take me,"--meaning, G.o.d help me, that I should die--"than that she should live to see me grow up a _mean man_"--which shows the difference of parent from parent, and how some mothers are more harsh and intolerant to their children than some fathers; when we might expect quite the contrary. My father, however, loaded me with presents from that time, which made me the envy of my schoolfellows. As I felt this growing disposition in them, I naturally sought to avert it by all the means in my power; and from that time I used to eat my little packages of fruit, and other nice things, in a corner so privately, that I was never found out. Once, I remember, I had a huge apple sent me, of that sort which they call _cats' heads_. I concealed this all day under my pillow; and at night, but not before I had ascertained that my bedfellow was sound asleep, which I did by pinching him rather smartly two or three times, which he seemed to perceive no more than a dead person, though once or twice he made a motion as if he would turn, which frightened me--I say, when I had made all sure, I fell to work upon my apple; and though it was as big as an ordinary man's two fists, I made shift to get through it before it was time to get up; and a more delicious feast I never made,--thinking all night what a good parent I had (I mean my father) to send me so many nice things, when the poor lad that lay by me had no parent or friend in the world to send him any thing nice; and thinking of his desolate condition, I munched and munched as silently as I could, that I might not set him a longing if he overheard me: and yet for all this considerateness, and attention to other people's feelings, I was never much a favourite with my school-fellows, which I have often wondered at, seeing that I never defrauded any one of them of the value of a halfpenny, or told stories of them to their master, as some little lying boys would do, but was ready to do any of them all the services in my power, that were consistent with my own well doing. I think n.o.body can be expected to go further than that. But I am detaining my reader too long in the recording of my juvenile days. It is time that I should go forward to a season when it became natural that I should have some thoughts of marrying, and, as they say, settling in the world.

Nevertheless my reflections on what I may call the boyish period of my life may have their use to some readers. It is pleasant to trace the man in the boy; to observe shoots of generosity in those young years, and to watch the progress of liberal sentiments, and what I may call a genteel way of thinking, which is discernible in some children at a very early age, and usually lays the foundation of all that is praiseworthy in the manly character afterwards.

With the warmest inclinations towards that way of life, and a serious conviction of its superior advantages over a single one, it has been the strange infelicity of my lot, never to have entered into the respectable estate of matrimony. Yet I was once very near it. I courted a young woman in my twenty-seventh year--for so early I began to feel symptoms of the tender pa.s.sion! She was well to do in the world, as they call it; but yet not such a fortune as, all things considered, perhaps I might have pretended to. It was not my own choice altogether; but my mother very strongly pressed me to it. She was always putting it to me, that "I had comings in sufficient, that I need not stand upon a portion." Though the young woman, to do her justice, had considerable expectations, which yet did not quite come up to my mark, as I told you before. She had this saying always in her mouth, that "I had money enough, that it was time I enlarged my housekeeping, and to show a spirit befitting my circ.u.mstances." In short, what with her importunities, and my own desires _in part_ co-operating--for, as I said, I was not yet quite twenty-seven--a time when the youthful feelings may be pardoned, if they show a little impetuosity--I resolved, I say, upon all these considerations, to set about the business of courting in right earnest.

I was a young man then; and having a spice of romance in my character (as the reader has doubtless observed long ago), such as that s.e.x is apt to be taken with, I had reason in no long time to think my addresses were any thing but disagreeable.

Certainly the happiest part of a young man's life is the time when he is going a courting. All the generous impulses are then awake, and he feels a double existence in partic.i.p.ating his hopes and wishes with another being. Return yet again for a brief moment, ye visionary views--transient enchantments! ye moonlight rambles with Cleora in the Silent Walk at Vauxhall--(N.B. about a mile from Birmingham, and resembling the gardens of that name near London, only that the price of admission is lower)--when the nightingale has suspended her notes in June to listen to our loving discourses, while the moon was overhead (for we generally used to take our tea at Cleora's mother's before we set out, not so much to save expenses, as to avoid the publicity of a repast in the gardens, coming in much about the time of half-price, as they call it)--ye soft intercommunions of soul, when exchanging mutual vows we prattled of coming felicities! The loving disputes we have had under those trees, when this house (planning our future settlement) was rejected, because though cheap it was dull; and the other house was given up, because though agreeably situated it was too high-rented--one was too much in the heart of the town, another was too far from business. These minutiae will seem impertinent to the aged and the prudent. I write them only to the young. Young lovers, and pa.s.sionate as being young (such were Cleora and I then) alone can understand me. After some weeks wasted, as I may now call it, in this sort of amorous colloquy, we at length fixed upon the house in the High-street, No. 203, just vacated by the death of Mr. Hutton of this town, for our future residence. I had till that time lived in lodgings (only renting a shop for business) to be near to my mother; near I say, not in the same house with her, for that would have been to introduce confusion into our housekeepings, which it was desirable to keep separate. O, the loving wrangles, the endearing differences, I had with Cleora, before we could quite make up our minds to the house that was to receive us--I pretending for argument sake that the rent was too high, and she insisting that the taxes were moderate in proportion; and love at last reconciling us in the same choice. I think at that time, moderately speaking, she might have had any thing out of me for asking. I do not, nor shall ever regret that my character at that time was marked with a tinge of prodigality. Age comes fast enough upon us, and in its good time will prune away all that is inconvenient in these excesses. Perhaps it is right that it should do so. Matters, as I said, were ripening to a conclusion between us, only the house was yet not absolutely taken--some necessary arrangements, which the ardour of my youthful impetuosity could hardly brook at that time (love and youth will be precipitate)--some preliminary arrangements, I say, with the landlord respecting fixtures--very necessary things to be considered in a young man about to settle in the world, though not very accordant with the impatient state of my then pa.s.sions--some obstacles about the valuation of the fixtures, had hitherto precluded (and I shall always think providentially) my final closes with his offer, when one of those accidents, which, unimportant in themselves, often arise to give a turn to the most serious intentions of our life, intervened, and put an end at once to my projects of wiving and of housekeeping. I was never much given to theatrical entertainments; that is, at no time of my life was I ever what they call a regular play-goer; but on some occasion of a benefit-night, which was expected to be very productive, and indeed turned out so, Cleora expressing a desire to be present, I could do no less than offer, as I did very willingly, to 'squire her and her mother to the pit. At that time it was not customary in our town for tradesfolk, except some of the very topping ones, to sit as they now do in the boxes. At the time appointed I waited upon the ladies, who had brought with them a young man, a distant relation, whom it seems they had invited to be of the party. This a little disconcerted me, as I had about me barely silver enough to pay for our three selves at the door, and did not at first know that their relation had proposed paying for himself. However, to do the young man justice, he not only paid for himself, but for the old lady besides, leaving me only to pay for two, as it were. In our pa.s.sage to the theatre, the notice of Cleora was attracted to some orange wenches that stood about the doors vending their commodities. She was leaning on my arm, and I could feel her every now and then giving me a nudge, as it is called, which I afterwards discovered were hints that I should buy some oranges. It seems it is a custom at Birmingham, and perhaps in other places, when a gentleman treats ladies to the play,--especially when a full night is expected, and that the house will be inconveniently warm, to provide them with this kind of fruit, oranges being esteemed for their cooling property.

But how could I guess at that, never having treated ladies to a play before, and being, as I said, quite a novice at these kind of entertainments? At last she spoke plain out, and begged that I would buy some of "those oranges," pointing to a particular barrow. But when I came to examine the fruit, I did not think that the quality of it was answerable to the price. In this way I handled several baskets of them, but something in them all displeased me. Some had thin rinds, and some were plainly over ripe, which is as great a fault as not being ripe enough, and I could not (what they call) make a bargain. While I stood haggling with the women, secretly determining to put off my purchase till I should get within the theatre, where I expected we should have better choice, the young man, the cousin, who it seems had left us without my missing him, came running to us with his pockets stuffed out with oranges, inside and out, as they say. It seems, not liking the look of the barrow fruit, any more than myself, he had slipped away to an eminent fruiterer's about three doors distant, which I never had the sense to think of, and had laid out a matter of two shillings in some of the best St. Michael's, I think, I ever tasted. What a little hinge, as I said before, the most important affairs in life may turn upon! The mere inadvertence to the fact that there was an eminent fruiterer's within three doors of us, though we had just pa.s.sed it without the thought once occurring to me, which he had taken advantage of, lost me the affections of my Cleora. From that time she visibly cooled towards me, and her partiality was as visibly transferred to this cousin. I was long unable to account for this change in her behaviour, when one day accidentally discoursing of oranges to my mother alone, she let drop a sort of reproach to me, as if I had offended Cleora by my _nearness_, as she called it, that evening. Even now, when Cleora has been wedded some years to that same officious relation, as I may call him, I can hardly be persuaded that such a trifle could have been the motive to her inconstancy; for could she suppose that I would sacrifice my dearest hopes in her to the paltry sum of two shillings, when I was going to treat her to the play, and her mother too (an expense of more than four times that amount), if the young man had not interfered to pay for the latter, as I mentioned? But the caprices of the s.e.x are past finding out; and I begin to think my mother was in the right; for doubtless women know women better than we can pretend to know them.

ELIA.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO HONE'S _EVERY-DAY BOOK_ AND _TABLE BOOK_

(1825-1827)

I.--REMARKABLE CORRESPONDENT

(1825)

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

Sir,--I am the youngest of Three hundred and sixty-six brethren--there are no fewer of us--who have the honour, in the words of the good old Song, to call the Sun our Dad. You have done the rest of our family the favour of bestowing an especial compliment upon each member of it individually--I mean, as far as you have gone; for it will take you some time before you can make your bow all round--and I have no reason to think that it is your intention to neglect any of us but poor Me. Some you have hung round with flowers; others you have made fine with martyrs' palms and saintly garlands. The most insignificant of us you have sent away pleased with some fitting apologue, or pertinent story.

What have I done, that you dismiss me without mark or attribute? What though I make my public appearance seldomer than the rest of my brethren? I thought that angels' visits had been accounted the more precious for their very rarity. Reserve was always looked upon as dignified. I am seen but once, for four times that my brethren obtrude themselves; making their presence cheap and contemptible, in comparison with the state which I keep.

Am I not a Day (when I do come) to all purposes as much as any of them.

Decompose me, anatomise me; you will find that I am const.i.tuted like the rest. Divide me into twenty-four, and you shall find that I cut up into as many goodly hours (or main limbs) as the rest. I too have my arteries and pulses, which are the minutes and the seconds.

It is hard to be dis-familied thus, like Cinderella in her rags and ashes, while her sisters flaunted it about in cherry-coloured ribbons and favors. My brethren forsooth are to be dubbed; one, _Saint_ Day; another, _Pope_ Day; a third, _Bishop_ Day; the least of them is _Squire_ Day, or _Mr._ Day, while I am--plain Day. Our house, Sir, is a very ancient one, and the least of us is too proud to put up with an indignity. What though I am but a younger brother in some sense--for the youngest of my brethren is by some thousand years my senior--yet I bid fair to inherit as long as any of them, while I have the Calendar to show; which, you must understand, is our t.i.tle Deeds.

Not content with slurring me over with a bare and naked acknowledgement of my occasional visitation in prose, you have done your best to deprive me of my verse-honours. In column 310 of your Book, you quote an antique scroll, leaving out the last couplet, as if on purpose to affront me.

"Thirty days hath September"--so you transcribe very faithfully for four lines, and most invidiously suppress the exceptive clause:--

Except in Leap Year, that's the time When February's days hath twenty and--

I need not set down the rhyme which should follow; I dare say you know it very well, though you were pleased to leave it out. These indignities demand reparation. While you have time, it will be well for you to make the _amende honorable_. Ransack your stores, learned Sir, I pray of you, for some attribute, biographical, anecdotical, or floral, to invest me with. Did n.o.body die, or n.o.body flourish--was n.o.body born--upon any of my periodical visits to this globe? does the world stand still as often as I vouchsafe to appear? Am I a blank in the Almanac? alms for oblivion? If you do not find a flower at least to grace me with (a Forget Me Not would cheer me in my present obscurity), I shall prove the worst Day to you you ever saw in your life; and your Work, instead of the t.i.tle it now vaunts, must be content (every fourth year at least) to go by the lame appellation of

The Every-Day--but--one--Book.

Yours, as you treat me,

TWENTY NINTH OF FEBRUARY.

II.--CAPTAIN STARKEY

(1825)

_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book_

DEAR SIR,

I read your account of this unfortunate Being, and his forlorn piece of self-history, with that smile of half-interest which the Annals of Insignificance excite, till I came to where he says "I was bound apprentice to Mr. William Bird, an eminent writer and Teacher of languages and Mathematics," &c.--when I started as one does on the recognition of an old acquaintance in a supposed stranger. This then was that Starkey of whom I have heard my Sister relate so many pleasant anecdotes; and whom, never having seen, I yet seem almost to remember.

For nearly fifty years she had lost all sight of him--and behold the gentle Usher of her youth, grown into an aged Beggar, dubbed with an opprobrious t.i.tle, to which he had no pretensions; an object, and a May game! To what base purposes may we not return! What may not have been the meek creature's sufferings--what his wanderings--before he finally settled down in the comparative comfort of an old Hospitaller of the Almonry of Newcastle? And is poor Starkey dead?----

I was a scholar of that "eminent writer" that he speaks of; but Starkey had quitted the school about a year before I came to it. Still the odour of his merits had left a fragrancy upon the recollection of the elder pupils. The school-room stands where it did, looking into a discoloured dingy garden in the pa.s.sage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's Buildings. It is still a School, though the main prop, alas! has fallen so ingloriously; and bears a Latin inscription over the entrance in the Lane, which was unknown in our humbler times. Heaven knows what "languages" were taught in it then; I am sure that neither my Sister nor myself brought any out of it, but a little of our native English. By "mathematics," reader, must be understood "cyphering." It was in fact a humble day-school, at which reading and writing were taught to us boys in the morning, and the same slender erudition was communicated to the girls, our sisters, &c. in the evening. Now Starkey presided, under Bird, over both establishments. In my time, Mr. Cook, now or lately a respectable Singer and Performer at Drury-lane Theatre, and Nephew to Mr. Bird, had succeeded to him. I well remember Bird. He was a squat, corpulent, middle-sized man, with something of the gentleman about him, and that peculiar mild tone--especially while he was inflicting punishment--which is so much more terrible to children, than the angriest looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent; but when they took place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining, whence we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened the decorum and the solemnity. But the ordinary public chastis.e.m.e.nt was the bastinado, a stroke or two on the palm with that almost obsolete weapon now--the ferule. A ferule was a sort of flat ruler, widened at the inflicting end into a shape resembling a pear,--but nothing like so sweet--with a delectable hole in the middle, to raise blisters, like a cupping-gla.s.s. I have an intense recollection of that disused instrument of torture--and the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness, with which its strokes were applied. The idea of a rod is accompanied with something ludicrous; but by no process can I look back upon this blister-raiser with any thing but unmingled horror.--To make him look more formidable--if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings--Bird wore one of those flowered Indian gowns, formerly in use with schoolmasters; the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into hieroglyphics of pain and suffering. But boyish fears apart--Bird I believe was in the main a humane and judicious master.

O, how I remember our legs wedged in to those uncomfortable sloping desks, where we sat elbowing each other--and the injunctions to attain a free hand, unattainable in that position; the first copy I wrote after, with its moral lesson "Art improves Nature;" the still earlier pothooks and the hangers some traces of which I fear may yet be apparent in this ma.n.u.script; the truant looks side-long to the garden, which seemed a mockery of our imprisonment; the prize for best spelling, which had almost turned my head, and which to this day I cannot reflect upon without a vanity, which I ought to be ashamed of--our little leaden inkstands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into the desks; the bright, punctually-washed morning fingers, darkening gradually with another and another ink-spot: what a world of little a.s.sociated circ.u.mstances, pains and pleasures mingling their quotas of pleasure, arise at the reading of those few simple words--"Mr. William Bird, an eminent Writer and Teacher of languages and mathematics in Fetter Lane, Holborn!"