ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

is asked, to do her justice, which, in my opinion, is the principal beauty in playing.' "The mother is right," thought I, after I heard the two first bars of the London March, "her willingness is the principal beauty in Miss Betsy's playing!"-" Won't you accompany it with your voice, my dear?" said her mother; and Miss Betsy began to sing "Logie o' Buchan" in a voice which, as somebody says, I might have heard had we been shut up together in the same bandbox. This was no salvo for my illhumour; 1 felt it increasing every moment. "Behold," said I to myself," the evils of over-refinement! Fifteen years ago I might have listened to this with patience, at least, if not with approbation; but now, when the classical melodies of Haydn and Mozart have become, as it were, naturalized amongst us, while those of Winter, Paer, Mayer, and Cimarosa, are rapidly advancing towards adoption; and, when we hear these melodies sung by our female acquaintance, with voices and science little inferior to those of professors, our taste has become fastidious, and we reject with disdain what we once received readily. Thus it ever is that factitious refinements produce in us a loathing of those pure and simple pleasuresSpite of my ill-humour, I could not suppress a smile at the absurdity of my own reasoning. "Simple indeed," thought I, as I heard the voice of Miss Betsy following the notes of the piano one after another, as if they had been so many stepping-stones. I rather think my smile had been observed by the mother, and favourably construed; for, when the music had ceased, and conversation was resumed, she chatted with great glee and volubility. To do my friend Miss F- - justice, she is not much addicted to anecdote; but to-night she was forced to suit her conversation to her visitors; and we had a great deal of private family history. I happened to make a remark on a lady who has been lately married; this produced a dissertation on the dress in which she appeared at church. The value of her pelisse was calculated, and there was something said about a pair of French white boots, then "such a bonnet! a shower of rain would make it quite useless." Then we had the history of a gentle

man and his wife, who did not agree very well; Miss F- declared it to be the gentleman's fault, Miss G— loudly maintained it was the lady's. "After all," thought I, "the new school is preferable. In the young ladies of the present day we meet with none of that petty, vulgar, interference with the concerns of others, which is so tiresome and disgusting." Alas! I was soon doomed to change my opinion; I was forced to make the same remark on the habits of society, that an eminent moral philosopher has lately made on the powers of the human mind, namely, that we are apt to be deceived by a new modification of a known principle; and that we sometimes consider as a new faculty, what is only the same energy differently applied. The ringing of the door-bell announced the return of Miss F—— ́s fair nieces. “Thank heaven!" said I internally," we shall have done with silks, and ribbons, and family quarrels." Misses Jane and Margaret entered. They are girls of good parts; and their understandings have been well cultivated; they are accomplished without display, and well-informed without pedantry. Had I been asked, a week ago, what were their faults, I should have been at a loss how to reply; now, I could answer the question without hesitation. "Well, ladies, have you had a pleasant party?" "O yes, pleasant enough." "Of whom did it consist?" "Oh!" said Miss Jane, we had, in the first place, Captain ing, as Edie Ochiltree says, as if he durst not look down, for fear he should see his shoes. I was highly amused with him; he was at one time twirling a painted fire-screen, which he happened to let fall; with an air of the most perfect insouciance, he suffered it to remain on the ground, and continued conversing to the lady next whom he was standing, without appearing conscious that he had dropped it." Nay," said Margaret, "I think that may be easily accounted for; I suppose the tightness of his stays did not permit him to come within arms-length of the ground.” "Who were the ladies of your par ty?" asked Miss F. "Oh, there was Miss, and her cousin Miss

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

seem

who performed the entrée précipitée in finer style than I have ever seen it. When the door was opened

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

1920.

66

[ocr errors]

"My dear Mr M-
passed?"
you are giving me quite a lecture, Í
really will have no more of it; I must
go and sing the savageness out of you.
Come Margaret, I think we must
Vecchio arrogante.'
give Mr M-

With some such finesse does woman
ever stop the discussion, when the ar-
guments against her are too strong to
be confuted.

Amongst the marked propensities of the present age, there is none more obvious than a general tendency to satire. It seems to be universally diffused throughout this kingdom, without exception of rank, sex, or age; and although it assumes different forms, the spirit is everywhere the same; in the little Miss who quizzes her friend's ball-dress, as in the reviewer who criticises the last new publication. Whether or not satire is allowable, and if it be, to what extent it may be carried without reprehension, are questions of some importance to the comfort of society.

they rushed into the room with the velocity of a ship launching; then they seized upon poor Mrs, and I verily thought would have shaken her arm off." "Then," said Jane, 66 we had that solemn piece of furniture Mrs ; one would think there never had been a widow in the world before, she looks so grim, and sighs "I declare," said Marso piteously." garet, "I think she took that way of making love to poor Mr, who lost his wife lately." "I had almost forgotten to mention the all-accomplished Miss," said Jane, "with her studied unaffectedness and labour ed naïveté; there is a quiet self-importance about that girl, which provokes me ten times more than the most downright pedantry; then she requires to be drawn out; and when she is drawn out she speaks in such neat sentences, and rounded periods, that I always think she is repeating a "Miss bit of the Spectator." said I angrily, "is but I thought it advisable to gulp down a comparison I was about to inake, and I quietly added, a very fine girl." "I did not "Bless me!" said Jane, know she was an acquaintance of yours, or I would not have quizzed her so much." Nay, Miss Jane," said I, "I think it is better you should quiz my acquaintance than those who are strangers to me; in the former case, there is no chance that the absent should be hurt by it, because my opinion of them is already established; in the latter, there is some danger of my being prepossessed against them." "Come, come, I know this is a rebuke to me; but after all, where is the great harm of a little quizzing? I am sure no one "Are you was ever the worse of it." quite sure of that? Are you sure, if I were to meet with any of those ladies to-morrow, whom you have to-night been cutting up so unmercifully, that I should see them without prejudice?" "But you know I have said nothing but what they have deserved; and if it is truth,-why, then, you know, there is no harm in telling you what you would soon find out yourself." "Do you never change the opinion you at first form of a person? Do you not sometimes find out that your judgments have been premature, and do you not sometimes wish to retract those strictures that you have hastily

[ocr errors]

The advocates for duelling maintain that it is conducive to the preservation of order and good breeding, and that these being so necessary to the peace and happiness of social life, duelling is therefore allowable. In this, as in some other cases, the remedy is worse than the disease. There are few individuals with whom the dislike of their acquaintance, and their consequent banishment from good society, would not serve as a sufficient check to the indulgence of coarse and surly manners; and even if the number were greater, it were better that society should be infested, with some of these nuisances, than that several human creatures should be every year hurried into the presence of their God, in the very act of By a sidisobeying his commands. milar mode of reasoning do satirists endeavour to defend the severity of They allege that it their censure. imposes a salutary restraint upon the conduct of others; that it prevents those irregularities and absurdities, those deviations from received and established principles, of which the weak and the self-sufficient are ever This appears prone to be guilty. plausible; the advantage held out is considerable; but before we admit the force of the argument, we must examine whether there be not some attendant evil, sufficient to counter

balance all the good to the perform- sive, become in turns the victims of ance of which the satirist lays claim. his sport or his malice ;-the cravings Were satire directed only against of his appetite are never satisfied ;vice, or against those imprudencies and when he can discover no new which frequently lead thereto, it would prey, he is forced to make a meal on then become one of the most power- the mangled carcases he has already ful auxiliaries of virtue; it would be torn and disfigured. the preserver of order and peace in society; and by punishing those crimes of which the law takes no cognizance, might be regarded as the supplement to legislative authority. But to this, its true and legitimate use, it is never applied; these high and important ends are altogether neglected; while it wastes its force upon trifling peculiarities and harmless foibles: nay, it is often made the tool of envy and malice, and directed by them against what is really good and praiseworthy. According to its present mode of application it may cure an awkwardness, but it will not repress a vice; and the benefits it may confer on others, in pointing out follies, and warning them against their commission, seem few and trifling, when they are offered as an equivalent for the pain inflicted on those individuals who are the objects of censure.

But I do not content myself with laying aside as unjust the claim which the satirist makes to our thanks and approbation. I become his accuser, and charge him with being the disturber, instead of the guardian, of the peace of society. He is not the fair and open enemy who challenges you to the encounter, and thereby gives you an opportunity of defending yourself; he does not frankly tell you, that by your words, or your actions, you have forfeited your title to some property of which the world believes you to be the legal possessor; but he visits you at noon-day with the countenance of a friend, he marks the vulnerable part, and returns under cover of night to rob you of what can ne'er enrich himself. When the Demon of satire is abroad, no one can feel himself secure from his attacks. Whatever may be in reality the motives or the tendency of an action, when seen through the false medium which he holds to the eyes of the spectators, and through which he finds but too many who are willing to look, it appears distorted and stained. The old and the young, the learned and the unlearned, the keenly enterprising, and the quietly inoffen

This is the age of freedom; perhaps I ought rather to say, of the abuse of freedom. Formerly men were contented with making verbal critiques upon their neighbours; but now, satirical speculations stalk forth in the shape of thick octavos; and remarks on the cut of your friend's wig are entered at Stationers' Hall. The British public, however, is not so easily entertained as to rest satisfied with a description barely ludicrous; the mixture must be seasoned with a little of that agreeable bitter, which the satirist so well knows how to infuse.-1 do not mean to reprehend the manner in which authors are treated in the present day; because I do not find that they now fare any worse than they have done from time immemorial. When a man presents to the world the effusions of his brain, he invites the notice of the public, he calls upon all to "come and see ;" and that is a request with which the reading part of the community are so often disturbed, that one need not be surprised to find them not always in good humour. Neither ought the author to feel any enmity against those reviewers who handle his book a little roughly; did they decoy him, with false promises, to throw himself upon their mercy, he would have some reason to complain of their treatment; but they hold out no lures; and the severity he sees exercised upon his elder brothers, may serve as a warning to him. As he marches along to present his yet uncut volume at the foot of the awful throne, he may, if he choose to make use of his eyes and ears, see the outer court (like that of Giant Despair) strewed with the bones of former victims, aud hear the choir of the temple of criticism chaunting the canone perpetuo of "dilly, dilly, come and be killed." Very different from all this is the case of the quiet private citizen, who never dreamed of his name appearing in print, save at his marriage or his death, when he unexpectedly finds himself dragged upon the stage, for the amusement of the spectators. He feels himself the

object of an unprovoked outrage; and his first emotions are rather those of anger, than of that cool contempt which philosophy and common sense alike dictate as the proper mode of treating his brutal insulters.

The boldness of these attacks increase in proportion as it is found they may be committed with impunity. At first there are only obscure hints given of the person intended, which none but the knowing ones can understand; next the initials of the name make their appearance; then they give the consonants of it, leaving the vowels only to be supplied by the ingenious reader; and at last comes the name at full length, so that he who runs may read. This is contrary to every rule of propriety and good breeding; it is a direct violation of the laws of society-a trampling upon all the decencies and charities of social life. There may be some who imagine that there is little more harm in mention ing directly the person alluded to, than in pointing him out by some circumstance which plainly indicates him; but this is a very erroneous idea: blameable as both those modes of proceeding are, the former is infinitely more mischievous in its consequences. The anecdote which now announces its hero as distinctly as his proper name would, may, in a few years, be entirely forgotten, or, at least, the knowledge of it is confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the parties concerned. I appeal to every one possessed of humanity, whether there be not, in the indecent freedom of which I complain, much to harrow up the feelings of many an amiable individual. Suppose a wife yet sinking under the recent loss of an affectionate husband, or a daughter newly bereft of a kind and tender father, would it not add unspeakable bitterness to their grief, should they chance to cast their eyes on a page where that name which they never pronounced without feelings of mingled love and respect, whose very mention now calls up the tears of regret, is made the subject of a bitter sarcasm, or of rude and mocking ribaldry? This is not a fanciful case; those who have been the objects of unprovoked censure may soon go hence and be no more seen; and then, perhaps, may the authors of such censure regret what they cannot recal.

Yet against those invaders of social rights, I never feel inclined to indulge in that torrent of invective, which some think justly their due. I neither upbraid them with malice, nor envy, nor all uncharitableness. It will generally be found, that the authors of such injudicious satire are still in the morning of life, in all the heyday of youthful health and spirits. Malice and envy are not the natural faults of youth; at that happy period men possess a gaieté du cœur which is inimical to the deep indulgence of the former, and a self-conceit, which prevents the excitation of the latter. This thoughtless inattention to the feelings of others,-this wanton indulgence of mirth without regard to its consequences, proceeds solely from the same exuberance of youthful spirits, which, ten years ago, when they gamboled in the court-yard of the school, prompted them to amuse themselves with throwing stones and mud at the inoffensive passengers. I would hope, that their intention is now, as it then was, not to hurt the objects of their sport, but merely to show how cleverly they can hit the mark; that they do not enjoy the pain they inflict, but simply the vanity of observing their own dexterity.

But although the motive may not be malicious, an action which is productive of unnecessary pain to others, must not be allowed to pass unreproved. I would appeal to their reason, whether this be a proper use to make of the faculties bestowed on them. I would ask them if it be consistent with the account they must one day render of their application of these faculties. No one can plead the possession of a talent for satire as an excuse for improper indulgence in it; such a talent is nothing more than the having a quick perception, and a lively imagination; and these are qualities which might be applied to a better purpose. Above all, I would ask if it be agreeable to the intention of Him who placed us here for our mutual support and comfort; who, knowing the many unavoidable evils of our earthly pilgrimage, has commanded us, as the best method of ameliorating those evils, to be kindly affectioned

one to another.

This is an error which time is likely to cure. As we advance in life, we grow weary of courting opposition;

[blocks in formation]

PETER BELL v. PETER BELL,
BY PETER CORCORAN.

[THE ingenious work entitled "The Fan-
cy, a Selection from the Poetical Remains
of the late Peter Corcoran of Gray's Inn,
Student at Law, with a brief Memoir of
his Life," has indeed been literally "gut-
ted or cleaned out" before we could lay
our hands on its contents, and we find
little left to reward our search, except
the jeu d'esprit of which we have given
the title above. We have mislaid Mr
Wordsworth's last volume, or we should
have quoted, as a rejoinder, his exquisite
sonnet, beginning

[blocks in formation]

I pity Simplicity's Poet,

I pity its tradesmen in town ;"Tis a dead drug, and few so well know it, As L, H, R

B.

VERSES BY A YOUNG LADY.

LAST night I strove, but strove in vain,
One fleeting glance from thee to gain;
But ah! you rov'd from fair to fair,
Nor once imagin'd I was there.
And 1 was sad,-yet glad to see
You did not throw your eyes on me,
For I could gaze unseen on thee.
Oh! it was sweet to hang the while

"A book was writ of late called Peter Upon your look, and on your smile; Bell,"

of which it is surely high praise to say that it is not at all inferior to Milton's fine original, which, till now, we had supposed quite inimitable—

"A book was writ of late called Tetrachor

don."

Magazine compilers are often greatly put
to it for filling up their last page, parti-
cularly when it is left in so scrubby a
state as this has been, by our friend
the Bystander. We suspect we must
put our hand into our Poetical Reposi-
tory, and draw out something or other;
at the same time, informing our friends
Jannes and Jambres, that our drawer is
again overflowing, and that we are ready
to receive another visit from them when
ever they are so inclined.]

Two Peters!-two Ballads!-two Bells!
Ah, which is the serious Poem ?
The tales which Simplicity tells,

To watch each beam of light that fell
Upon the face I lov'd so well;
To hear your voice, whose mellow tone
I felt could make me all your own;
To gaze until my aching sight
Was lost in visions of delight;
Almost to fancy I could trace
Your balmy breath pass o'er my face;
Play 'mid the ringlets of my hair,
And breathe its perfume on the air.
To wish yet fear to meet your eye,—
To wish yet fear-and know not why;
For well I knew I should not trace
One smile of greeting on thy face;
I knew thine eye would pass me o'er,
Unconscious we had met before;
And yet I shrunk behind my screen,
And fear'd I might, perchance, be seen.
Oh! then, 'twas almost sweet to be
Unknown, unnoticed, love, by thee.
For had I been a lovely flower,
And fit to deck thy favour'd bower,
Thine eye had told a mutual flame,
And mine had sunk with maiden shame;
But Beauty smiles not, love, on me,

Are the tales for my heart,--when I And I unseen can gaze on thee.

know 'em!

London, September, 1815.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »