Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 8

Money, it seems, according to dictionary ideas, has no existence in his vocabulary; for Monsieur Say has formed a sort of Berkleian conception of wealth being immaterial, while we confine our views to its materiality. Hence ensues from this "confusion of words," this most brilliant paradox,--that "a glutted market is not a proof that we produce _too much_ but that we produce _too little_! for in that case there is not enough produced to exchange with what is produced!" As Frenchmen excel in politeness and impudence, Monsieur Say adds, "I revere Adam Smith; he is my master; but this first of political economists did not understand all the phenomena of production and consumption." We, who remain uninitiated in this mystery of explaining the operations of trade by metaphysical ideas, and raising up theories to conduct those who never theorise, can only start at the "confusion of words," and leave this blessed inheritance to our sons, if ever the science survive the logomachy.

Caramuel, a famous Spanish bishop, was a grand architect of words.

Ingenious in theory, his errors were confined to his practice: he said a great deal and meant nothing; and by an exact dimension of his intellect, taken at the time, it appeared that "he had genius in the eighth degree, eloquence in the fifth, but judgment only in the second!"

This great man would not read the ancients; for he had a notion that the moderns must have acquired all they possessed, with a good deal of their own "into the bargain." Two hundred and sixty-two works, differing in breadth and length, besides his ma.n.u.scripts, attest, that if the world would read his writings, they could need no other; for which purpose his last work always referred to the preceding ones, and could never be comprehended till his readers possessed those which were to follow. As he had the good sense to perceive that metaphysicians abound in obscure and equivocal terms, to avoid this "confusion of words," he invented a jargon of his own; and to make "confusion worse confounded," projected grammars and vocabularies by which we were to learn it; but it is supposed that he was the only man who understood himself. He put every author in despair by the works which he announced. This famous architect of words, however, built more labyrinths than he could always get out of, notwithstanding his "_cabalistical_ grammar," and his "_audacious_ grammar."[46] Yet this great Caramuel, the critics have agreed, was nothing but a puffy giant, with legs too weak for his bulk, and only to be accounted as a hero amidst a "confusion of words."

Let us dread the fate of Caramuel! and before we enter into discussion with the metaphysician, first settle what he means by the nature of _ideas_; with the politician, his notion of _liberty_ and _equality_; with the divine, what he deems _orthodox_; with the political economist, what he considers to be _value_ and _rent_! By this means we may avoid, what is perpetually recurring, that extreme laxity or vagueness of words, which makes every writer, or speaker, complain of his predecessor, and attempt sometimes, not in the best temper, to define and to settle the signification of what the witty South calls "those rabble-charming words, which carry so much wildfire wrapt up in them."

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Turner's "History of England," i. 514

[43] We owe this curious unpublished letter to the zeal and care of Professor Dugald Stewart, in his excellent "Dissertations."

[44] It is still a Chancery word. An answer in Chancery, &c., is referred for _impertinence_, reported _impertinent_--and the _impertinence_ ordered to be struck out, meaning only what is immaterial or superfluous, tending to unnecessary expense. I am indebted for this explanation to my friend, Mr. Merivale; and to another learned friend, formerly in that court, who describes its meaning as "an excess of words or matter in the pleadings," and who has received many an official fee for "expunging impertinence,"

leaving, however, he acknowledges, a sufficient quant.i.ty to make the lawyers ashamed of their verbosity.

[45] Sen. Epist. 21.

[46] Baillet gives the dates and plans of these grammars. The _cabalistic_ was published in Bruxelles, 1642, in 12mo. The _audacious_ was in folio, printed at Frankfort, 1654.--Jugemens des Savans. Tome ii. 3me partie.

POLITICAL NICKNAMES.

Political calumny is said to have been reduced into an art, like that of logic, by the Jesuits. This itself may be a political calumny! A powerful body, who themselves had practised the artifices of calumniators, may, in their turn, often have been calumniated. The pa.s.sage in question was drawn out of one of the cla.s.sical authors used in their colleges. Busembaum, a German Jesuit, had composed, in duodecimo, a "Medulla Theologiae moralis," where, among other casuistical propositions, there was found lurking in this old Jesuit's "marrow" one which favoured regicide and a.s.sa.s.sination! Fifty editions of the book had pa.s.sed unnoticed; till a new one appearing at the critical moment of Damien's attempt, the duodecimo of the old scholastic Jesuit, which had now been amplified by its commentators into two folios, was considered not merely ridiculous, but dangerous. It was burnt at Toulouse, in 1757, by order of the parliament, and condemned at Paris. An Italian Jesuit published an "apology" for this theory of a.s.sa.s.sination, and the same flames devoured it! Whether Busembaum deserved the honour bestowed on his ingenuity, the reader may judge by the pa.s.sage itself.

"Whoever would ruin a person, or a government, must begin this operation by spreading calumnies, to defame the person or the government; for unquestionably the calumniator will always find a great number of persons inclined to believe him, or to side with him; it therefore follows, that whenever the object of such calumnies is once lowered in credit by such means, he will soon lose the reputation and power founded on that credit, and sink under the permanent and vindictive attacks of the calumniator." This is the politics of Satan--the evil principle which regulates so many things in this world. The enemies of the Jesuits have formed a list of great names who had become the victims of such atrocious Machiavelism.[47]

This has been one of the arts practised by all political parties. Their first weak invention is to attach to a new faction a contemptible or an opprobrious nickname. In the history of the revolutions of Europe, whenever a new party has at length established its independence, the original denomination which had been fixed on them, marked by the pa.s.sions of the party which bestowed it, strangely contrasts with the state of the party finally established!

The first revolutionists of Holland incurred the contemptuous name of "Les Gueux," or the Beggars. The d.u.c.h.ess of Parma inquiring about them, the Count of Barlamont scornfully described them to be of this cla.s.s; and it was flattery of the great which gave the name currency. The Hollanders accepted the name as much in defiance as with indignation, and acted up to it. Instead of brooches in their hats, they wore little wooden platters, such as beggars used, and foxes' tails instead of feathers. On the targets of some of these _Gueux_ they inscribed "Rather Turkish than Popis.h.!.+" and had the print of a c.o.c.k crowing, out of whose mouth was a label, _Vive les Gueux par tout le monde!_ which was everywhere set up, and was the favourite sign of their inns. The Protestants in France, after a variety of nicknames to render them contemptible--such as _Christodins_, because they would only talk about Christ, similar to our Puritans; and _Parpaillots_, or _Parpirolles_, a small base coin, which was odiously applied to them--at length settled in the well-known term of _Huguenots_, which probably was derived, as the Dictionnaire de Trevoux suggests, from their hiding themselves in secret places, and appearing at night, like King Hugon, the great hobgoblin of France. It appears that the term has been preserved by an earthen vessel without feet, used in cookery, which served the _Huguenots_ on meagre days to dress their meat, and to avoid observation; a curious instance, where a thing still in use proves the obscure circ.u.mstance of its origin.

The atrocious insurrection, called _La Jacquerie_, was a term which originated in cruel derision. When John of France was a prisoner in England, his kingdom appears to have been desolated by its wretched n.o.bles, who, in the indulgence of their pa.s.sions, set no limits to their luxury and their extortion. They despoiled their peasantry without mercy, and when these complained, and even reproached this tyrannical n.o.bility with having forsaken their sovereign, they were told that _Jacque bon homme_ must pay for all. But _Jack good-man_ came forward in person--a leader appeared under this fatal name, and the peasants revolting in madness, and being joined by all the cut-throats and thieves of Paris, at once p.r.o.nounced condemnation on every gentleman in France! Froissart has the horrid narrative; twelve thousand of these _Jacques bon hommes_ expiated their crimes; but the _Jacquerie_, who had received their first appellation in derision, a.s.sumed it as their _nom de guerre_.

In the spirited Memoirs of the Duke of Guise, written by himself, of his enterprise against the kingdom of Naples, we find a curious account of this political art of marking people by odious nicknames. "Gennaro and Vicenzo," says the duke, "cherished underhand that aversion the rascality had for the better sort of citizens and civiller people, who, by the insolencies they suffered from these, not unjustly hated them.

The better cla.s.s inhabiting the suburbs of the Virgin were called _black cloaks_, and the ordinary sort of people took the name of _lazars_, both in French and English an old word for leprous beggar, and hence the _lazaroni_ of Naples." We can easily conceive the evil eye of a _lazar_ when he encountered a _black cloak_! The Duke adds--"Just as, at the beginning of the revolution, the revolters in Flanders formerly took that of _beggars_; those of Guienne, that of _eaters_; those of Normandy that of _bare-feet_; and of Beausse and Soulogne, of _wooden-pattens_." In the late French revolution, we observed the extremes indulged by both parties chiefly concerned in revolution--the wealthy and the poor! The rich, who, in derision, called their humble fellow-citizens by the contemptuous term of _sans-culottes_, provoked a reacting injustice from the populace, who, as a dreadful return for only a slight, rendered the innocent term of _aristocrate_ a signal for plunder or slaughter!

It is a curious fact that the French verb _fronder_, as well the noun _frondeur_, are used to describe those who condemn the measures of government; and more extensively, designates any hyperbolical and malignant criticism, or any sort of condemnation. These words have only been introduced into the language since the intrigues of Cardinal de Retz succeeded in raising a faction against Cardinal Mazarin, known in French history by the nickname of the _Frondeurs_, or the Slingers. It originated in pleasantry, although it became the pa.s.sword for insurrection in France, and the odious name of a faction. A wit observed, that the parliament were like those school-boys, who fling their stones in the pits of Paris, and as soon as they see the _Lieutenant Civil_, run away; but are sure to collect again directly he disappears. The comparison was lively, and formed the burthen of songs; and afterwards, when affairs were settled between the king and the parliament, it was more particularly applied to the faction of Cardinal de Retz, who still held out. "We encouraged the application," says de Retz; "for we observed that the distinction of a name heated the minds of people; and one evening we resolved to wear hat-strings in the form of slings. A hatter, who might be trusted with the secret, made a great number as a new fas.h.i.+on, and which were worn by many who did not understand the joke; we ourselves were the last to adopt them, that the invention might not appear to have come from us. The effect of this trifle was immense; every fas.h.i.+onable article was now to a.s.sume the shape of a sling; bread, hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, fans, &c.; and we ourselves became more in fas.h.i.+on by this folly, than by what was essential." This revolutionary term was never forgotten by the French, a circ.u.mstance which might have been considered as prognostic of that after-revolution, which de Retz had the imagination to project, but not the daring to establish. We see, however, this great politician, confessing the advantages his party derived by encouraging the application of a by-name, which served "to heat the minds of people."

It is a curious circ.u.mstance that I should have to recount in this chapter on "Political Nicknames" a familiar term with all lovers of art, that of _Silhouette_! This is well understood as a _black profile_; but it is more extraordinary that a term so universally adopted should not be found in any dictionary, either in that of _L'Academie_, or in Todd's, and has not even been preserved, where it is quite indispensable, in Millin's _Dictionnaire des Beaux-Arts_! It is little suspected that this innocent term originated in a political nickname!

_Silhouette_ was a minister of state in France in 1759; that period was a critical one; the treasury was in an exhausted condition, and Silhouette, a very honest man, who would hold no intercourse with financiers or loan-mongers, could contrive no other expedient to prevent a national bankruptcy, than excessive economy and interminable reform!

Paris was not the metropolis, any more than London, where a Plato or a Zeno could long be minister of state without incurring all the ridicule of the wretched wits! At first they pretended to take his advice, merely to laugh at him:--they cut their coats shorter, and wore them without sleeves; they turned their gold snuff-boxes into rough wooden ones; and the new-fas.h.i.+oned portraits were now only profiles of a face, traced by a black pencil on the shadow cast by a candle on white paper! All the fas.h.i.+ons a.s.sumed an air of n.i.g.g.ardly economy, till poor Silhouette was driven into retirement, with all his projects of savings and reforms; but he left his name to describe the most economical sort of portrait, and one as melancholy as his own fate!

This political artifice of appropriating cant terms, or odious nicknames, could not fail to flourish among a people so perpetually divided by contending interests as ourselves; every party with us have had their watchword, which has served either to congregate themselves, or to set on the ban-dogs of one faction to worry and tear those of another. We practised it early, and we find it still prospering! The _Puritan_ of Elizabeth's reign survives to this hour; the trying difficulties which that wise sovereign had to overcome in settling the national religion, found no sympathy in either of the great divisions of her people; she retained as much of the catholic rites as might be decorous in the new religion, and sought to unite, and not to separate, her children. John Knox, in the spirit of charity, declared, that "she was neither gude protestant, nor yet resolute papist; let the world judge quilk is the third."

A jealous party arose, who were for reforming the reformation. In their attempt at more than human purity, they obtained the nickname of _Puritans_; and from their fastidiousness about very small matters, _Precisians_; these Drayton characterises as persons that for a painted gla.s.s window would pull down the whole church. At that early period these nicknames were soon used in an odious sense; for Warner, a poet in the reign of Elizabeth, says,--

If hypocrites why _puritaines_ we term be asked, in breese, 'Tis but an _ironised terme_; good-fellow so spels theese!

Honest Fuller, who knew that many good men were among these _Puritans_, wished to decline the term altogether, under the less offensive one of _Non-conformists_. But the fierce and the fiery of this party, in Charles the First's time had been too obtrusive not to fully merit the ironical appellative; and the peaceful expedient of our moderator dropped away with the page in which it was written. The people have frequently expressed their own notions of different parliaments by some apt nickname. In Richard the Second's time, to express their dislike of the extraordinary and irregular proceedings of the lords against the sovereign, as well as their sanguinary measures, they called it "The _wonder-working_ and the _unmerciful_ parliament." In Edward the Third's reign, when the Black Prince was yet living, the parliament, for having pursued with severity the party of the Duke of Lancaster, was so popular, that the people distinguished it as the _good_ parliament. In Henry the Third's time, the parliament opposing the king, was called "_Parliamentum insanum_," the mad parliament, because the lords came armed to insist on the confirmation of the great charter. A Scottish parliament, from its perpetual s.h.i.+ftings from place to place was ludicrously nicknamed the _running_ parliament; in the same spirit we had our _long_ parliament. The nickname of _Pensioner_ parliament stuck to the House of Commons which sate nearly eighteen years without dissolution, under Charles the Second; and others have borne satirical or laudatory epithets. So true it is, as old Holingshed observed, "The common people will manie times give such _bie names_ as seemeth _best liking to themselves_." It would be a curious speculation to discover the sources of the popular feeling; influenced by delusion, or impelled by good sense!

The exterminating political nickname of _malignant_ darkened the nation through the civil wars: it was a proscription--and a list of _good_ and _bad_ lords was read by the leaders of the first tumults. Of all these inventions, this diabolical one was most adapted to exasperate the animosities of the people, so often duped by names. I have never detected the active man of faction who first hit on this odious brand for persons, but the period when the word changed its ordinary meaning was early; Charles, in 1642, retorts on the parliamentarians the opprobrious distinction, as "The _true malignant party_ which has contrived and countenanced those barbarous tumults." And the royalists pleaded for themselves, that the hateful designation was ill applied to them: "for by _malignity_ you denote," said they, "activity in doing evil, whereas we have always been on the suffering side in our persons, credits, and estates;" but the parliamentarians, "grinning a ghastly smile," would reply, that "the royalists would have been _malignant_ had they proved successful." The truth is, that _malignancy_ meant with both parties any opposition of opinion. At the same period the offensive distinctions of _roundheads_ and _cavaliers_ supplied the people with party names, who were already provided with so many religious as well as civil causes of quarrel; the cropt heads of the sullen sectaries and the people, were the origin of the derisory nickname; the splendid elegance and the romantic spirit of the royalists long awed the rabble, who in their mockery could brand them by no other appellation than one in which their bearers gloried. In the distracted times of early revolution, any nickname, however vague, will fully answer a purpose, although neither those who are blackened by the odium, nor those who cast it, can define the hateful appellative. When the term of _delinquents_ came into vogue, it expressed a degree and species of guilt, says Hume, not exactly known or ascertained. It served, however, the end of those revolutionists who had coined it, by involving any person in, or colouring any action by, _delinquency_; and many of the n.o.bility and gentry were, without any questions being asked, suddenly discovered to have committed the crime of _delinquency_! Whether honest Fuller be facetious or grave on this period of nicknaming parties I will not decide; but, when he tells us that there was another word which was introduced into our nation at this time, I think at least that the whole pa.s.sage is an admirable commentary on this party vocabulary. "Contemporary with _malignants_ is the word _plunder_, which some make of Latin original, from _planum dare_, to _level_, to _plane_ all to nothing! Others of Dutch extraction, as if it were to _plume_, or pluck the feathers of a bird to the bare skin.[48]

Sure I am we first heard of it in the Swedish wars; and if the name and thing be sent back from whence it came few English eyes would weep thereat." All England had wept at the introduction of the word. The _rump_ was the filthy nickname of an odious faction--the history of this famous appellation, which was at first one of horror, till it afterwards became one of derision and contempt, must be referred to another place.

The _rump_ became a perpetual whetstone for the loyal wits,[49] till at length its former admirers, the rabble themselves, in town and country, vied with each other in "_burning rumps_" of beef, which were hung by chains on a gallows with a bonfire underneath, and proved how the people, like children, come at length to make a plaything of that which was once their bugbear.

Charles the Second, during the short holiday of the restoration--all holidays seem short!--and when he and the people were in good humour, granted anything to every one,--the mode of "Pet.i.tions" got at length very inconvenient, and the king in council declared that this pet.i.tioning was "A method set on foot by ill men to promote discontents among the people," and enjoined his loving subjects not to subscribe them. The pet.i.tioners, however, persisted--when a new party rose to express their abhorrence of pet.i.tioning; both parties nicknamed each other the _pet.i.tioners_ and the _abhorrers_! Their day was short, but fierce; the _pet.i.tioners_, however weak in their cognomen, were far the bolder of the two, for the commons were with them, and the _abhorrers_ had expressed by their term rather the strength of their inclinations than of their numbers. Charles the Second said to a _pet.i.tioner_ from Taunton, "How _dare_ you deliver me such a paper?" "Sir," replied the pet.i.tioner from Taunton, "my name is DARE!" A saucy reply, for which he was tried, fined, and imprisoned; when lo! the commons pet.i.tioned again to release the _pet.i.tioner_! "The very name," says Hume, "by which each party denominated its antagonists discovers the virulence and rancour which prevailed; for besides _pet.i.tioner_ and _abhorrer_, this year is remarkable for being the epoch of the well-known epithets of _whig_ and _tory_." These silly terms of reproach, whig and tory, are still preserved among us, as if the palladium of British liberty was guarded by these exotic names, for they are not English, which the parties so invidiously bestow on each other. They are ludicrous enough in their origin. The friends of the court and the advocates of lineal succession were, by the republican party, branded with the t.i.tle of _tories_, which was the name of certain Irish robbers;[50] while the court party in return could find no other revenge than by appropriating to the covenanters and the republicans of that cla.s.s the name of the Scotch beverage of sour milk, whose virtue they considered so expressive of their dispositions, and which is called _whigg_. So ridiculous in their origin were these pernicious nicknames, which long excited feuds and quarrels in domestic life, and may still be said to divide into two great parties this land of political freedom. But nothing becomes obsolete in political factions, and the meaner and more scandalous the name affixed by one party to another the more it becomes not only their rallying cry or their pa.s.sword, but even const.i.tutes their glory. Thus the Hollanders long prided themselves on the humiliating nickname of "Les Gueux:" the protestants of France on the scornful one of the _Huguenots_; the non-conformists in England on the mockery of the _puritan_; and all parties have perpetuated their anger by their inglorious names. Swift was well aware of this truth in political history: "each party," says that sagacious observer, "grows proud of that appellation which their adversaries at first intended as a reproach; of this sort were the _Guelphs_ and the _Ghibellines_, _Huguenots_ and _Cavaliers_."

Nor has it been only by nicknaming each other by derisory or opprobrious terms that parties have been marked, but they have also worn a livery, and practised distinctive manners. What sufferings did not Italy endure for a long series of years under those fatal party-names of the _Guelphs_ and the _Ghibellines_; alternately the victors and the vanquished, the beautiful land of Italy drank the blood of her children.

Italy, like Greece, opens a moving picture of the hatreds and jealousies of small republics; her _Bianchi_ and her _Neri_, her _Guelphs_ and her _Ghibellines_! In Bologna, two great families once shook that city with their divisions; the _Pepoli_ adopted the French interests; the _Maluezzi_ the Spanish. It was incurring some danger to walk the streets of Bologna, for the _Pepoli_ wore their feathers on the right side of their caps, and the _Maluezzi_ on the left. Such was the party-hatred of the two great Italian factions, that they carried their rancour even into their domestic habits; at table the _Guelphs_ placed their knives and spoons longwise, and the _Ghibellines_ across; the one cut their bread across, the other longwise. Even in cutting an orange they could not agree; for the _Guelph_ cut his orange horizontally, and the _Ghibelline_ downwards. Children were taught these artifices of faction--their hatreds became traditional, and thus the Italians perpetuated the full benefits of their party-spirit from generation to generation.[51]

Men in private life go down to their graves with some unlucky name, not received in baptism, but more descriptive and picturesque; and even ministers of state have winced at a political christening. Malagrida the Jesuit and Jemmy Twitcher were nicknames which made one of our ministers odious, and another contemptible.[52] The Earl of G.o.dolphin caught such fire at that of Volpone, that it drove him into the opposite party, for the vindictive purpose of obtaining the impolitical prosecution of Sacheverell, who, in his famous sermon, had first applied it to the earl, and unluckily it had stuck to him.

"Faction," says Lord Orford, "is as capricious as fortune; wrongs, oppression, the zeal of real patriots, or the genius of false ones, may sometimes be employed for years in kindling substantial opposition to authority; in other seasons the impulse of a moment, a _ballad_, a _nickname_, a _fas.h.i.+on_ can throw a city into a tumult, and shake the foundations of a state."

Such is a slight history of the human pa.s.sions in politics! We might despair in thus discovering that wisdom and patriotism so frequently originate in this turbid source of party; but we are consoled when we reflect that the most important political principles are immutable: and that they are those which even the spirit of party must learn to reverence.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] See Recueil Chronologique et a.n.a.lytique de tout ce qui a fait en Portugal la Societe de Jesus. Vol. ii. sect. 406.

[48] _Plunder_, observed Mr. Douce, is pure Dutch or Flemish--_Plunderen_, from _Plunder_, which means _property_ of any kind. May tells us it was brought by those officers who had returned from the wars of the Netherlands.

[49] One of the best collections of political songs written during the great Civil War, is ent.i.tled "The Rump," and has a curious frontispiece representing the mob burning rumps as described above.

[50] The "History of the Tories and Rapparees" was a popular Irish chapbook a few years ago, and devoted to the daring acts of these marauders.

[51] These curious particulars I found in a ma.n.u.script.

[52] Lord Shelburne was named "Malagrida," and Lord Sandwich was "Jemmy Twitcher;" a name derived from the chief of Macheath's gang in the _Beggar's Opera_.

THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A POET.--SHENSTONE VINDICATED.

The dogmatism of Johnson, and the fastidiousness of Gray, the critic who pa.s.sed his days amidst "the busy hum of men," and the poet who mused in cloistered solitude, have fatally injured a fine natural genius in Shenstone. Mr. Campbell, with a brother's feeling, has (since the present article was composed) sympathised with the endowments and the pursuits of this poet; but the facts I had collected seemed to me to open a more important view. I am aware how lightly the poetical character of Shenstone is held by some great contemporaries--although this very poet has left us at least one poem of unrivalled originality.

Mr. Campbell has regretted that Shenstone not only "affected that arcadianism" which "gives a certain air of masquerade in his pastoral character," adopted by our earlier poets, but also has "rather incongruously blended together the rural swain with the disciple of virtu." All this requires some explanation. It is not only as a poet, possessing the characteristics of poetry, but as a creator in another way, for which I claim the attention of the reader. I have formed a picture of the domestic life of a poet, and the pursuits of a votary of taste, both equally contracted in their endeavours, from the habits, the emotions, and the events which occurred to Shenstone.

Four material circ.u.mstances influenced his character, and were productive of all his unhappiness. The neglect he incurred in those poetical studies to which he had devoted his hopes; his secret sorrows in not having formed a domestic union, from prudential motives, with one whom he loved; the ruinous state of his domestic affairs, arising from a seducing pa.s.sion for creating a new taste in landscape gardening and an ornamented farm; and finally, his disappointment of that promised patronage, which might have induced him to have become a political writer; for which his inclinations, and, it is said, his talents in early life, were alike adapted: with these points in view, we may trace the different states of his mind, show what he did, and what he was earnestly intent to have done.

Why have the "Elegies" of Shenstone, which forty years ago formed for many of us the favourite poems of our youth, ceased to delight us in mature life? It is perhaps that these Elegies, planned with peculiar felicity, have little in their execution. They form a series of poetical truths, devoid of poetical expression; truths,--for notwithstanding the pastoral romance in which the poet has enveloped himself, the subjects are real, and the feelings could not, therefore, be fict.i.tious.

In a Preface, remarkable for its graceful simplicity, our poet tells us, that "He entered on his subjects occasionally, as particular _incidents in life_ suggested, or _dispositions of mind_ recommended them to his choice." He shows that "He drew his pictures from the spot, and, he felt very sensibly the affections he communicates." He avers that all those attendants on rural scenery, and all those allusions to rural life, were not the counterfeited scenes of a town poet, any more than the sentiments, which were inspired by Nature. Shenstone's friend Graves, who knew him in early life, and to his last days, informs us that these Elegies were written when he had taken the Leasowes into his own hands;[53] and though his _ferme ornee_ engaged his thoughts, he occasionally wrote them, "partly," said Shenstone, "to divert my present impatience, and partly, as it will be a picture of most that pa.s.ses in my own mind; a portrait which friends may value." This, then, is the secret charm which acts so forcibly on the first emotions of our youth, at a moment when, not too difficult to be pleased, the reflected delineations of the habits and the affections, the hopes and the delights, with all the domestic a.s.sociations of this poet, always true to Nature, reflect back that picture of ourselves which we instantly recognise. It is only as we advance in life that we lose the relish of our early simplicity, and that we discover that Shenstone was not endowed with high imagination.