The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume II Part 4

I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have experienced something vastly lulling and agreeable:--afterwards followeth the languor, and the oppression. Like that disappointing book in Patmos; or, like the comings on of melancholy, described by Burton, doth music make her first insinuating approaches:--"Most pleasant it is to such as are melancholy given, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by some brook side, and to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect him most, _amabilis insania_, and _mentis gratissimus error_. A most incomparable delight to build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose, and strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done.--So delightsome these toys at first, they could spend whole days and nights without sleep, even whole years in such contemplations, and fantastical meditations, which are like so many dreams, and will hardly be drawn from them--winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and still pleasing their humours, until at last the SCENE TURNS UPON A SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such meditations and solitary places, can endure no company, can think of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, _subrusticus pudor_, discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise them on a sudden, and they can think of nothing else: continually suspecting, no sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to their minds; which now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions they can avoid, they cannot be rid of it, they cannot resist."

Something like this "SCENE-TURNING" I have experienced at the evening parties, at the house of my good Catholic friend _Nov----_; who, by the aid of a capital organ, himself the most finished of players, converts his drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays, and these latter into minor heavens.[1]

When my friend commences upon one of those solemn anthems, which peradventure struck upon my heedless ear, rambling in the side aisles of the dim abbey, some five and thirty years since, waking a new sense, and putting a soul of old religion into my young apprehension--(whether it be _that_, in which the psalmist, weary of the persecutions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's wings--or _that other_, which, with a like measure of sobriety and pathos, inquireth by what means the young man shall best cleanse his mind)--a holy calm pervadeth me.--I am for the time

--rapt above earth, And possess joys not promised at my birth.

But when this master of the spell, not content to have laid a soul prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more bliss than lies in her capacity to receive,--impatient to overcome her "earthly" with his "heavenly,"--still pouring in, for protracted hours, fresh waves and fresh from the sea of sound, or from that inexhausted _German_ ocean, above which, in triumphant progress, dolphin-seated, ride those Arions _Haydn_ and _Mozart_, with their attendant tritons, _Bach_, _Beethoven_, and a countless tribe, whom to attempt to reckon up would but plunge me again in the deeps,--I stagger under the weight of harmony, reeling to and fro at my wit's end;--clouds, as of frankincense, oppress me--priests, altars, censers, dazzle before me--the genius of _his_ religion hath me in her toils--a shadowy triple tiara invests the brow of my friend, late so naked, so ingenuous he is Pope, and by him sits, like as in the anomaly of dreams, a she-Pope too,--tri-coroneted like himself!--I am converted, and yet a Protestant;--at once _malleus hereticorum_, and myself grand heresiarch: or three heresies centre in my person:--I am Marcion, Ebion, and Cerinthus--Gog and Magog--what not?--till the coming in of the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, and a draught of true Lutheran beer (in which chiefly my friend shows himself no bigot) at once reconciles me to the rationalities of a purer faith; and restores to me the genuine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced host and hostess.

[Footnote 1: I have been there, and still would go; 'Tis like a little heaven below.--_Dr. Watts_.]

ALL FOOLS' DAY

The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first of April to us all!

Many happy returns of this day to you--and you--and _you_, Sir--nay, never frown, man, nor put a long face upon the matter. Do not we know one another? what need of ceremony among friends? we have all a touch of _that same_--you understand me--a speck of the motley. Beshrew the man who on such a day as this, the _general festival_, should affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest to-day, shall meet with no wise-acre, I can tell him. _Stultus sum_.

Translate me that, and take the meaning of it to yourself for your pains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, at the least computation.

Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry--we will drink no wise, melancholy, politic port on this day--and let us troll the catch of Amiens--_duc ad me_--_duc ad me_--how goes it?

Here shall he see Gross fools as he.

Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authentically, who was the greatest fool that ever lived. I would certainly give him in a b.u.mper. Marry, of the present breed, I think I could without much difficulty name you the party.

Remove your cap a little further, if you please: it hides my bauble.

And now each man bestride his hobby, and dust away his bells to what tune he pleases. I will give you, for my part,

--The crazy old church clock.

And the bewildered chimes.

Good master Empedocles, you are welcome. It is long since you went a salamander-gathering down aetna. Worse than samphire-picking by some odds. 'Tis a mercy your wors.h.i.+p did not singe your mustachios.

Ha! Cleombrotus! and what salads in faith did you light upon at the bottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I take it, of the disinterested sect of the Calenturists.

Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, bring in your trowel, most Ancient Grand! You have claim to a seat here at my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if I remember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on Fish-street Hill, after your alt.i.tudes. Yet we think it somewhat.

What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears?--cry, baby, put its finger in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty moppet!

Mister Adams--'odso, I honour your coat--pray do us the favour to read to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipslop--the twenty and second in your portmanteau there--on Female Incontinence--the same--it will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the time of the day.

Good Master Raymund Lully, you look wise. Pray correct that error.--

Duns, spare your definitions. I must fine you a b.u.mper, or a paradox.

We will have nothing said or done syllogistically this day. Remove those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender s.h.i.+ns of his apprehension stumbling across them.

Master Stephen, you are late.--Ha! c.o.kes, is it you?--Aguecheek, my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.--Master Shallow, your wors.h.i.+p's poor servant to command.--Master Silence, I will use few words with you.--Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in somewhere.--You six will engross all the poor wit of the company to-day.--I know it, I know it.

Ha! honest R----, my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out of mind, art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new, threadbare as thy stories:--what dost thou flitting about the world at this rate?--Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to read long ago.--Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure, thou canst hawk a volume or two.--Good Granville S----, thy last patron, is flown.

King Pandion, he is dead, All thy friends are lapt in lead.--

Nevertheless, n.o.ble R----, come in, and take your seat here, between Armado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be _happy with either_, situated between those two ancient spinsters--when I forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile--as if Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands of periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could have given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertied and meritorious-equal damsels, * * * * *

To descend from these alt.i.tudes, and not to protract our Fools'

Banquet beyond its appropriate day,--for I fear the second of April is not many hours distant--in sober verity I will confess a truth to thee, reader. I love a _Fool_--as naturally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived not below the surface of the matter, I read those _Parables_--not guessing at their involved wisdom--I had more yearnings towards that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the hard censure p.r.o.nounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; and--prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my apprehension, somewhat _unfeminine_ wariness of their compet.i.tors--I felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a _tendre_, for those five thoughtless virgins.--I have never made an acquaintance since, that lasted; or a friends.h.i.+p, that answered; with any that had not some tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or fish,--woodc.o.c.ks,--dotterels,--cod's-heads, &c. the finer the flesh thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, minions of the G.o.ddess, and, her white boys?--Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are the _April Fool_.

A QUAKER'S MEETING

Still-born Silence! thou that art Flood-gate of the deeper heart!

Offspring of a heavenly kind!

Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind!

Secrecy's confident, and he Who makes religion mystery!

Admiration's speaking'st tongue!

Leave, thy desert shades among, Reverend hermits' hallowed cells, Where retired devotion dwells!

With thy enthusiasms come, Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb![1]

Reader, would'st thou know what true peace and quiet mean; would'st thou find a refuge from the noises and clamours of the mult.i.tude; would'st thou enjoy at once solitude and society; would'st thou possess the depth of thy own spirit in stillness, without being shut out from the consolatory faces of thy species; would'st thou be alone, and yet accompanied; solitary, yet not desolate; singular, yet not without some to keep thee in countenance; a unit in aggregate; a simple in composite:--come with me into a Quaker's Meeting.

Dost thou love silence deep as that "before the winds were made?" go not out into the wilderness, descend not into the profundities of the earth; shut not up thy cas.e.m.e.nts; nor pour wax into the little cells of thy ears, with little-faith'd self-mistrusting Ulysses.--Retire with me into a Quaker's Meeting.

For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold his peace, it is commendable; but for a mult.i.tude, it is great mastery.

What is the stillness of the desert, compared with this place? what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes?--here the G.o.ddess reigns and revels.--"Boreas, and Cesias, and Argestes loud," do not with their inter-confounding uproars more augment the brawl--nor the waves of the blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds--than their opposite (Silence her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more intense by numbers, and by sympathy. She too hath her deeps, that call unto deeps.

Negation itself hath a positive more and less; and closed eyes would seem to obscure the great obscurity of midnight.

There are wounds, which an imperfect solitude cannot heal. By imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. The perfect is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, but nowhere so absolutely as in a Quaker's Meeting.--Those first hermits did certainly understand this principle, when they retired into Egyptian solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one another's want of conversation. The Carthusian is bound to his brethren by this agreeing spirit of incommunicativeness. In secular occasions, what so pleasant as to be reading a book through a long winter evening, with a friend sitting by--say, a wife--he, or she, too, (if that be probable), reading another, without interruption, or oral communication?--can there be no sympathy without the gabble of words?--away with this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-haunting solitariness. Give me, Master Zimmerman, a sympathetic solitude.

To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some cathedral, time-stricken;

Or under hanging mountains, Or by the fall of fountains;

is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that which those enjoy, who come together for the purposes of more complete, abstracted solitude. This is the loneliness "to be felt."--The Abbey Church of Westminster hath nothing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and benches of a Quaker's Meeting. Here are no tombs, no inscriptions,

--sands, ign.o.ble things, Dropt from the ruined sides of kings--

but here is something, which throws Antiquity herself into the fore-ground--SILENCE--eldest of things--language of old Night--primitive Discourser--to which the insolent decays of mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as we may say, unnatural progression.

How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, Looking tranquillity!

Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmischievous synod! convocation without intrigue! parliament without debate! what a lesson dost thou read to council, and to consistory!--if my pen treat of you lightly--as haply it will wander--yet my spirit hath gravely felt the wisdom of your custom, when sitting among you in deepest peace, which some out-welling tears would rather confirm than disturb, I have reverted to the times of your beginnings, and the sowings of the seed by Fox and Dewesbury.--I have witnessed that, which brought before my eyes your heroic tranquillity, inflexible to the rude jests and serious violences of the insolent soldiery, republican or royalist, sent to molest you--for ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, the out-cast and off-scowering of church and presbytery.--I have seen the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle, with the avowed intention of disturbing your quiet, from the very spirit of the place receive in a moment a new heart, and presently sit among ye as a lamb amidst lambs. And I remembered Penn before his accusers, and Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as he tells us, and "the Judge and the Jury became as dead men under his feet."

Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the Quakers.

It is in folio, and is the abstract of the journals of Fox, and the primitive Friends. It is far more edifying and affecting than any thing you will read of Wesley and his colleagues. Here is nothing to stagger you, nothing to make you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, no drop or dreg of the worldly or ambitious spirit. You will here read the true story of that much-injured, ridiculed man (who perhaps hath been a by-word in your mouth,)--James Naylor: what dreadful sufferings, with what patience, he endured even to the boring through of his tongue with red-hot irons without a murmur; and with what strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, which they stigmatised for blasphemy, had given way to clearer thoughts, he could renounce his error, in a strain of the beautifullest humility, yet keep his first grounds, and be a Quaker still!--so different from the practice of your common converts from enthusiasm, who, when they apostatize, _apostatize all_, and think they can never get far enough from the society of their former errors, even to the renunciation of some saving truths, with which they had been mingled, not implicated.

Get the Writings of John Woolman by heart; and love the early Quakers.