two girls in the neighbourhood of the school. The countenances of the two lads drew suspicions upon them; and, confession being made, Lady Lucy was fetched to the house of her father-in-law. His lady, see ing her so very much of a child in appear ance, said, on receiving her, in a tone of vexation Why, child, what can we do with you? Such a baby as you are, what can you know?' With equal humility and frankness Lady Lucy replied-It is very true, Madam, that I am very young and very ignorant; but whatever you will teach me I will learn.' All the good lady's prejudice was now overcome; and Lady Lucy's conduct proved the sincerity of her submission. She lived seven years in Wales under the tuition of her mother-inlaw-conforming to the manners, tempers, and prejudices of her new relations.' We have now "squeezed" a volume of 351 pages, according to our promise: we hope Miss Hawkins will forgive us. She must also forgive us for gently blaming her diction. She says (p. 277), "I read but little English.' We thought as much; and wish she read more. The words "duple" (p. 145), "decadence' (p. 123), and "cumbent" (p. ), all point to another language than English: as to "maux" (p. 254), we know not what language it belongs to, unless it be Coptic. It is certainly not "too big for an island;" but it will not do for this island, and we beg it may be transported. Miss Hawkins says a worse thing, however, of the English language, than that she reads it but little: instead of admiring my native language," says she, "I feel fettered by it." That may be: but her inability to use it without difficulty and constraint is the very reason why she ought not to pronounce upon its merits: we cannot allow of any person's deciding on the value of an instrument until he has shown himself master of its powers in their whole compass. For some purposes (and those the highest), the English language is a divine instrument: no language is so for all. When Miss Hawkins says that she reads "little English," the form of the expression implies that she reads a good deal of some more favoured language: may we take the liberty of asking-what? It is not Welsh, we hope? nor Syriac? nor Sungskrita? We say hope, for none of these will yield her any thing for her next volume: throughout the Asiatic Researches no soul has been able to unearth a Sanscrit bon-mot. Is it Latin? or Greek?-Perhaps both: for, besides some sprinklings of both throughout the volume, she gives us at the end several copies of Latin and Greek verses. These, she says, are her brother's: be they whose they may, we must overhaul them. The Latin are chiefly Sapphics, the Greek chiefly Iambics: the following is a specimen of the Sapphics :One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns; If your daughters will not eat them, give But, if you have none of those pretty little them to your sons: elves, You cannot do better than eat them yourselves. Idem Latine redditum a Viro Clariss. Henrico Hawkins. Asse placentam cupiasne solam? Respuant natæ ? dato, quæso, natis: Our opinion of this translation is, that it is worthy of the original. We hope this criticism will prove satisfactory. At the same time, without offence to Mr. Hawkins, may we suggest that the baker's man has rather the advantage in delicacy of expression and structure of verse? He has also distinguished clearly the alternative of sons and daughters, which the unfortunate ambiguity of "natis" has prevented Mr. Hawkins from doing. Perhaps Mr. Hawkins will consider this against a future edition. Another, viz. a single hexameter is entitled, "De Amandâ, clavibus amissis." Here we must confess to a signal mortification, the table of "Contents" having prepared us to look for some sport; for the title is there printed, (by mistake, as it turns out,)" De Amandâ, clavis amissis,"-i. e. On Amanda, upon the loss of her cudgels. Shenstone used to thank God that his name was not adapted to the vile designs of the punster: perhaps some future punster may take the conceit out of him on that point by extracting a compound pun from his name combined with some other word. The next best thing, however, to having a name, or 1823.1 Old China. title, that is absolutely pun-proof, is the having one which yields only to Greek puns, or Carthaginian (i. e. Punic) puns. Lady Moira has that felicity, on whom Mr. Hawkins has thus punned very seriously in a Greek hexameter: On the death of the Countess of Moira's new-born infant. Μοιρα καλη, μ' ετεκες με ανελές μεν, Μοιρα κραταιή. Of the iambics we shall give one specimen: my lead penImpromptu returned with cil, which I had left on his table. Βοηθος ἐιμι καλλίω παντ' ἐξ ἐμε Εκ τε μολιβδου ἡ νοησις έρχεται. The thought is pretty: some little errors there certainly are, as in the contest with the baker's man; and in this, as in all his iambics, (especially in the three from the Arabic) some little hiatuses in the metre, not adapted to the fastidious race of an Athenian audience. But these little hiatuses, these "little phrase enormities," (to borrow a from the sermon of a country clergy man) will occur in the best regulated On the whole, our opinion of Mr. Hawkins, as a Greek poet, is -that in seven hundred, or say verses. 269 seven hundred and fifty years-he To return to Miss Hawkins; there X. Y. Z. Seriously, however, Mr. Hawkins's translation of Lord Erskine's celebrated punning epigram on Dr. Lettsom is "very clever," as Miss Hawkins thinks it, and wants only a little revision. She is mistaken, however, in supposing that Lord Erskine meant to represent Dr. Lettsom "as illiterate: " the bad grammar was indispensable to the purpose of working the name-I. Lettsom-into the texture of the verse; which is accomplished with great ingenuity both in the English and the Greek. Is people sick? to me apply: I blisters, bleeds, and sweats 'em : Τις νόσει; ἔλθε· νόσων πασων οἷοστε κρατείσθαι μετα ταυτα πικρον έλοιτο, θανατον Αλλ', μεν ΕΛΛΕΤ, ΣΩΜ' ερέει «δε μεμηλεν ἐμοι, OLD CHINA. I HAVE an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see any great house, I inquire for the china closet, and next for the picture gallery. I cannot defend the order of preference, but by saying, that we have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering distinctly that it was an acquired one. I can call to mind the first play, and the first exhibition, that I was taken to; but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and saucers were introduced into my imagination. I had no repugnance then-why should I now have?-to those little, lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques, that under the notion of men and uncircumfloat about, women, scribed by any element, in that world before perspective-a china tea-cup. I like to see my old friends-whom distance cannot diminish-figuring up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on terra firma still-for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring up beneath their sandals. I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, with still more womanish expressions. Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a lady from a salver-two miles off. See how distance seems to set off respect! And here the same lady, or another-for likeness is identity on tea-cups-is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in a right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infallibly land her in the midst of a flowery mead-a furlong off on the other side of the same strange stream! Farther on-if far or near can be predicated of their world-see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays. Here-a cow and rabbit couchant, and co-extensive-so objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere of fine Cathay! I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over our Hyson, (which we are old fashioned enough to drink unmixed still of an afternoon) some of these speciosa miracula upon a set of extraordinary old blue china (a recent purchase) which we were now for the first time using; and could not help remarking, how favourable circumstances had been to us of late years, that we could afford to please the eye sometimes with trifles of this sort-when a passing sentiment seemed to over-shade the brows of my companion. I am quick at detecting these summer clouds in Bridget. deal happier. A purchase is but a purchase, now that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to get you to consent to it in those times!) we were used to have a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and think what we might spare out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt the money that we paid for it. "Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so thread-bare-and all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late at night, from Barker's in Covent-garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be too late-and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome-and when you presented it to me-and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you called it)—and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till day-break-was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that over-worn suit-your old corbeaufor four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of "I wish the good old times would fifteen-or sixteen shillings was it? come again," she said, "when we a great affair we thought it thenwere not quite so rich. I do not which you had lavished on the old mean, that I want to be poor; but folio? Now you can afford to buy there was a middle state;"-so she any book that pleases you, but I do was pleased to ramble on," in not see that you ever bring me home which I am sure we were a great any nice old purchases now. "When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number of shillings upon that print after Lionardo, which we christened the 'Lady Blanch; when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture was there no pleasure in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi's (as W calls it) and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet do you? "Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holyday-holydays, and all other fun, are gone, now we are rich-and the little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our day's fare of savory cold lamb and salad-and how you would pry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where we might go in, and produce our store-only paying for the ale that you must call for-and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow us a table-cloth,-and wish for such another honest hostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant banks of the Lea, when he went a fishing and sometimes they would prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon us-but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat our plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? Now, when we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we ride part of the wayand go into a fine inn, and order the best of dinners, never debating the expense-which, after all, never has half the relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy of uncertain usage, and a precarious welcome. "You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit or boxes. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the Battle of Hexham, and the Surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the Children in the Wood-when we squeezed out our shillings a-piece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling gallery-where you felt all the time that you ought not to have brought me-and more strongly I felt obligation to you for having brought me--and the pleasure was the better for a little shame-and when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? You used to say, that the gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play socially-that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion to the infrequency of going that the company we met there, not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and did attend, to what was going on, on the stage-because a word lost would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then-and I appeal to you, whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and accommodation, than I have done since in more expensive situations in the house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases, was bad enough,--but there was still a law of civility to women recognised to quite as great an extent as we have ever found it in the other passages-and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards! Now we can only pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then -but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our poverty. "There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite common-in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear-to have them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we were to treat ourselves now that is, to have dainties a little above our means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is the very little more that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor can get at, that makes what I call a treat-when two people living together, as we have done, now and then indulge themselves in a cheap luxury, which both like; while each apologises, and is willing to take both halves of the blame to his single share. I see no harm in people making much of themselves in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to make much of others. But nowwhat I mean by the word-we never do make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. gle with, as we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now complain of. The resisting power-those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straiten-with us are long since passed away. Competence to age is supplemental youth; a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must ride, where we formerly walked; live better, and lie softerand shall be wise to do so-than we had means to do in those good old days you speak of. Yet could those days return-could you and I once more walk our thirty miles a-daycould Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, and you and I be young to see them-could the good old one shilling gallery days return "I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the end of the year to make all meetand much ado we used to have every Thirty-first Night of December to account for our exceedings-many a long face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriving to make it out how we had spent so much-or that we had not spent so much-or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year and still we found our slender capital decreasing-but then, betwixt ways, and projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk of curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the future-and the hope that youth brings, and laughing spi--they are dreams, my cousin, now rits (in which you were never poor till now), we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with lusty brimmers' (as you used to quote it out of hearty cheerful Mr. Cotton, as you called him), we used to welcome in the coming guest.' Now, we have no reckoning at all at the end of an old year-no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us." 6 Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could not help, however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor hundred pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not much mend our selves. That we had much to strug but could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument by our well-carpeted fire-side, sitting on this luxurious sofa-be once more struggling up those inconvenient stair-cases, pushed about, and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblerscould I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours-and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed when the top-most stair, conquered, let in the first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us-I know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth than Croesus had, or the great Jew R is supposed to have, to purchase it. And now do just look at that merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed-tester, over the head of that pretty insipid half-Madona-ish chit of a lady in that very blue summer house." ELIA. |