Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand XVI ΙΟ "Now yield thee, or, by Him who made CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834) THE TWO RACES OF MEN 30 The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and Medes, 20 and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall in with one or other of these primary distinctions. The infinite superiority of the former, which I choose to designate as the great race, is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The latter are born degraded. "He shall serve his brethren." There is something in the air of one of this caste, lean and suspicious; contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manners of the other. Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all ages - Alcibiades 3. FalstaffSir Richard Steele - our late incomparable Brinsley-what a family likeness in all four! What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower! what rosy gills! what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest, taking no more thought than lilies! 5 What contempt for money, - accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross! What a liberal confounding of those pedantic distinctions of meum and tuum! or rather, what a noble simplification of language (beyond Tooke 7), resolving these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible pronoun adjective! — What near approaches doth he make to the primitive community, to the extent of one-half of the principle at least! --- 8 9 He is the true taxer "who calleth all the world up to be taxed"; and the distance is as vast between him and one of us, as subsisted betwixt the Augustan Majesty and the poorest obolary 10 Jew that paid it tributepittance at Jerusalem! - His exactions, too, have such a cheerful, voluntary air! So far removed from your sour parochial or stategatherers, those ink-horn varlets, who carry their want of welcome in their faces! He cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt; confining himself to no set season. Every day is his Candlemas, or his Feast of Holy Michael." He applieth the lene tormentum 12 of a pleasant look to your purse, 1 Acts, ii: 9 2 inaccurately quoted from Genesis, ix: 25 3 a pupil of Socrates, celebrated for his beauty, talents, insolence, and extravagance Richard Brinsley Sheridan, dramatist, orator, and spendthrift 5 Cf. Matthew, vi: 28 6 mine and thine 7 Horne Tooke, an English philologer (1736-1812) 8 Cf. Luke, ii: 19 Roman government 10 able to pay only a halfpenny customary dates for settling debts 12 mild torture, Horace, Odes, III, xxi, 13 11 which to that gentle warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak of the traveller, for which sun and wind contended! He is the true Propontic which never ebbeth!1 The sea which taketh handsomely at each man's hand. In vain the victim, whom he delighteth to honour, struggles with destiny; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O man ordained to lend that thou lose not in the end, with thy worldly penny, the reversion promised. Combine not preposterously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and of Dives! 3 but, when thou seest the proper authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way. Come, a handsome sacrifice! See how light he makes of it! Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy. Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by the death of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who departed this life on Wednesday evening; dying, as he had lived, without much trouble. He boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and sentiments he belied not the stock to which he pretended. Early in life he found himself invested with ample revenues; which, with that noble disinterestedness which I have noticed as inherent in men of the great race, he took almost immediate measures entirely to dissipate and bring to nothing for there is something revolting in the idea of a king holding a private purse; and the thoughts of Bigod were all regal. Thus furnished, by the very act of disfurnishment; getting rid of the cumbersome luggage of riches, more apt (as one sings) To slacken virtue, and abate her edge, he sets forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, "borrowing and to borrow!" In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this island, it has been calculated that he laid a tithe part of the inhabitants under contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly exaggerated: but having had the honour of accompanying my friend, divers times, in his perambulations about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at first with - With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, which he had often in his mouth, that "money kept longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it while it was fresh. A good part he drank away (for he was an excellent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he threw away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him as boys do burs, or as if it had been infectious, into ponds, or ditches, or deep holes, inscrutable cavities of the earth:or he would bury it (where he would never seek it again) by a river's side under some bank, which (he would facetiously observe) paid no interest - but out away from him it must go peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring 2 into the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed it. The streams were perennial which fed his fisc.3 When new supplies became necessary, the first person that had the felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency. For Bigod had an Undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched with grey (cana fides). He anticipated no excuse, and found none. And, waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, I would put it to the most untheorising reader, who may at times have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing, than to say no to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who, by his mumping visnomy," tells you that he expects nothing better; and, therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations you do in reality so much less shock in the refusal. 1 Milton, Comus, ii, 151-2 2 Genesis, xxi: 14 treasury hoary faith, i.e., a sign of honesty, Eneid, i, 292 5 begging countenance 3 Milton, Par. Re When I think of this man; his fiery glow of heart; his swell of feeling; how magnificent, how ideal he was; how great at the midnight hour; and when I compare with him the companions with whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I am fallen into the society of lenders, and little men. To one like Elia,1 whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your borrowers of books · those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch,2 matchless in his depredations! That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth knocked out (you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, Reader!) — with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing) once held the tallest of my folios, Opera Bonaventurae, choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters (school divinity also, but of a lesser calibre, Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas) showed but as dwarfs, itself an Ascapart! 8. that Comberbatch abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that "the title to property in a book" (my Bonaventure, for instance) "is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the same." Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves is safe? The slight vacuum in the left-hand case two shelves from the ceiling — scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser was whilom the commodious resting-place of Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to discover its beauties - but so have I known a foolish lover to praise his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her off than himself. - Just below, Dodsley's dramas 1 want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona 2 is! The remainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the fates borrowed Hector. Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy,3 in sober state. There loitered the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side. In yonder nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with "eyes closed," mourns his ravished mate.4 -- One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small under-collection of this nature (my friend's gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little memory at mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalised. The latter seem as little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am. I charge no ware-house-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses. To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are sure that he will make one hearty meal on your viands, if he can give no account of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K.,7 to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely woman, thrice noble Margaret Newcastle? 8 ing at the time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio: what but the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish the know 1 a collection of Elizabethan plays 2 a play by John Webster 3 a curious and learned book by Robert Burton (1621) The Life of John Buncle, Esq., a novel in two volumes, by Thomas Amory a late Rabbinical title for sojourners in Israel, cf. Exod., xx: ΙΟ 6 Used loosely for "forfeited objects" James Kenney, dramatist (1780-1849) 8 Duchess of Newcastle (1624?-74), a talented and learned woman 7 love of getting the better of thy friend? Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the Gallican land Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness, - hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and fancies, about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou keepest all companies with thy quips and mirthful tales? Child of the Greenroom, it was unkindly, unkindly done of thee. Thy wife, too, that partFrench, better-part-Englishwoman!- - that she could fix upon no other treatise to bear away, in kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brook 2 - of which no Frenchman, nor woman of France, Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted to comprehend a tittle! Was there not Zimmermann3 on Solitude? Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate collection, be shy of showing it; or if thy heart overfloweth to lend them, lend thy books; but let it be to such a one as S. T. C. he will return them (generally anticipating the time appointed) with usury; enriched with annotations, tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are these precious Mss. of his (in matter oftentimes, and almost in quantity not unfrequently, vying with the originals) in no very clerkly hand legible in my Daniel; in old Burton; in Sir Thomas Browne; and those abstruser cogitations of the Greville, now, alas! wandering in Pagan lands. I counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy library, against S. T. C. MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST "A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game." This was the celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle (now with God), who, next to her devotions, loved a good game of whist. She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and-half players, who have no objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber; who affirm that 1 apparently composed by Lamb himself 2 Sir Philip Sidney's friend 3 a Swiss philosopher (1728-95) 4 Coleridge 5 Samuel Daniel an imaginary name and person 6 . they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one game and lose another; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no; and will desire an adversary who has slipped a wrong card, to take it up • and play another. These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, as I do, from her heart and soul; and would not, save upon a striking emergency, willingly seat herself at the same table with them. She loved a thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She took, and gave, no concessions. She hated favours. She never made a revoke, nor ever passed it over in her adversary without exacting the utmost forfeiture. She fought a good fight: cut and thrust. She held not her good sword (her cards) "like a dancer." She sat bolt upright; and neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people have their blind side - their superstitions; and I have heard her declare, under the rose, that Hearts was her favourite suit. I never in my life - and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of it saw her take out her snuff-box when it was her turn to play; or snuff a candle in the middle of a game; or ring for a servant, till it was fairly over. She never introduced, or connived at, miscellaneous conversation during its process. As she emphatically observed, cards were cards; and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand; and who, in his excess of candour, declared, that he thought there was no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, in recreations of that kind! She could not bear to have her noble occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came into the world to do, and she did it. She unbent her mind afterwards over a book. Pope was her favourite author: his Rape of the Lock her favourite work. She once 1 Cf. Eccles., x: 1 2 Cf. Ant. and Cleop., III, xi, 35-6 did me the favour to play over with me (with the cards) his celebrated game of Ombre in that poem; and to explain to me how far it agreed with, and in what points it would be found to differ from, tradrille. Her illustrations were apposite and poignant; and I had the pleasure of sending the substance of them to Mr. Bowles; but I suppose they came too late to be inserted among his ingenious notes upon that author. Quadrille,' she has often told me, was her first love; but whist had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she said, was showy and specious, and likely to allure young persons. The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners a thing which the constancy of whist abhors; the dazzling supremacy and regal investiture of Spadille 3- absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of whist, where his crown and garter give him no proper power above his brother-nobility of the Aces; the giddy vanity, so taking to the inexperienced, of playing alone; above all, the overpowering attractions of a Sans Prendre Vole,5. to the triumph of which there is certainly nothing parallel or approaching, in the contingencies of whist; — all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captivation to the young and enthusiastic. But whist was the solider game: that was her word. It was a long meal; not like quadrille, a feast of snatches. One of two rubbers might coextend in duration with an evening. They gave time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate steady enmities. She despised the chance-started, capricious, and ever-fluctuating alliances of the other. The skirmishes of quadrille, she would say, reminded her of the petty ephemeral embroilments of the little Italian states, depicted by Machiavel: perpetually changing postures and connections; bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings to-morrow; kissing and scratching in a breath; - but the wars of whist were comparable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational antipathies of the great French and English nations. A grave simplicity was what she chiefly admired in her favourite game. There was nothing silly in it, like the nob 7 in cribbage nothing superfluous. No flushes - that most irrational of all pleas that a reasonable being can set up: that any one should claim four by virtue of holding cards of the same mark and colour, without reference to the playing of the game, or the individual worth or pre. tensions of the cards themselves! She held this to be a solecism; as pitiful an ambition at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She despised superficiality, and looked deeper than the colours of things. Suits were soldiers, she would say, and must have a uniformity of array to distinguish them: but what should we say to a foolish squire, who should claim a merit from dressing up his tenantry in red jackets, that never were to be marshalled never to take the field? She even wished that whist were more simple than it is; and, in my mind, would have stripped it of some appendages, which, in the state of human frailty, may be venially, and even commendably, allowed of. She saw no reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. Why not one suit always trumps? - Why two colours, when the mark of the suit would have sufficiently distinguished them without it ? "But the eye, my dear madam, is agreeably refreshed with the variety. Man is not a creature of pure reason - he must have his senses delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman Catholic countries, where the music and the paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker spirit of unsensualising would have kept out. You, yourself, have a pretty collection of paintings- but confess to me, whether, walking in your gallery at Sandham,' among those clear Vandykes,2 or among the Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom glow with an elegant delight, at all comparable to that you have it in your power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged assortment of the court-cards? -the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a procession the gay triumph-assuring scarlets the contrasting deadly-killing sables the 'hoary majesty of spades' - Pam in all his glory! 4 "All these might be dispensed with; and |