aid of a satire on vanity.* It is the writer only who, without hurting the most delicate propriety of the representation, can leave no doubt of all his intentions,-who can insinuate his object, in two or three words, to the dullest conception; and, in conversing with the most foreign minds, take away all the awkwardness of interpretation. What painting gains in universality to the eye, it loses by an infinite proportion in power of suggestion to the understanding. There is something of the sort of sketches we are recommending in Sterne: but Sterne had a general connected object before him, of which the parts apparently detached were still connecting links: and while he also is apt to overdo his subject like Hogarth, is infinitely less various and powerful. The greatest master of detached portrait is Steele: but his pictures too form a sort of link in a chain. Perhaps the completest specimen of what we mean in the English language is Shenstone's School-Mistress, by far his best production, and a most natural, quiet, and touching old dame. -But what? Are we leaving out Chaucer? Alas, we thought to be doing something a little original, and find it all existing already, and in unrivalled perfection, in his portraits of the Canterbury Pilgrims! We can only dilate, and vary upon his principle. of cities, and even find there as much reason to do justice to Providence, as he does in the haunts of sportsmen, and anglers, and all-devouring insects. To think, for instance, of that laborious and inelegant class of the community- Washerwomen, and of all the hot, disagreeable, dabbing, smoaking, splashing, kitcheny, cold-dining, anti-company-receiving associations, to which they give rise. What can be more annoying to any tasteful lady or gentleman, at their first waking in the morning, than when that dreadful thump at the door comes, announcing the tub-tumbling viragoes, with their brawny arms and brawling voices? We must confess, for our own parts, that our taste, in the abstract, is not for washerwomen; we prefer Dryads and Naiads, and the figures that resemble them ; Fair forms, that glance amid the green of woods, Yet, we have lain awake sometimes in a street The reader knows the knock which we mean. It comes like a lump of lead, and instantly wakes the maid, whose business it is to get up, though she pretends not to hear it. Another knock is inevitable, and it comes, and then another; but still Betty does not stir, or stirs only to put herself in a still snugger posture, knowing very well that they must knock again. "Now, 'drat that Betty," says one of the washerwomen; "she hears as well as we do, but the deuce a bit will she move till we give her another;" and at the word another, down goes the knocker again. "It's very odd," says the master of the house, mumbling from under the bed-clothes, "that Betty does not get up to let the people in; I've heard that knocker three times."-"Oh," returns the mistress, "she's as lazy as she's high," and off goes the chamber-bell ;-by which time Molly, who begins to lose her sym But we are making a very important preface to what may turn out a very trifling subject; and must request the reader not to be startled at the homely specimen we are about to give him, after all this gravity of recommendation. Not that we would apologise for homeliness, as homeliness. The beauty of this unlimited power of suggestion in writing is, that you may take up the driest and most common-place of all possible subjects, and strike a light out of it to warm your intellect and your heart by. The fastidious habits of polished life generally incline us to reject, as incapable of interesting us, whatever does not present itself in a graceful shape of its own, and a readymade suit of ornaments. But some of the plainest weeds become beautiful under the microscope. It is the benevolent provision of nature, that in proportion as you feel the necessity of extracting interest from common things, you are enabled to do so;-and the very least that this familiarity with homeliness will do for us is to render our artificial deli-pathy with her fellow-servant in impatience of cacy less liable to annoyance, and to teach us how to grasp the nettles till they obey us. The reader sees that we are Wordsworthians enough not to confine our tastes to the received elegancies of society; and, in one respect, we go farther than Mr. Wordsworth, for, though as fond, perhaps, of the country as he, we can manage to please ourselves in the very thick * See the cannon going off in the turbulent portrait of a General-Officer: and the cow's head coming just over that of the citizen who is walking with his wife. what is going on, gives her one or two conclusive digs in the side; when the other gets up, and rubbing her eyes, and mumbling, and hastening and shrugging herself down stairs, opens the door with- Lard, Mrs. Watson, I hope you haven't been standing here long?" "Standing here long, Mrs. Betty! Oh don't tell me; people might stand starving their legs off, before you'd put a finger out of bed." "Oh don't say so, Mrs. Watson; I'm sure I always rises at the first knock; and thereyou'll find everything comfortable below, 66 with a nice hock of ham, which I made John leave for you." At this the washerwomen leave their grumbling, and shuffle down stairs, hoping to see Mrs. Betty early at breakfast. Here, after warming themselves at the copper, taking a mutual pinch of snuff, and getting things ready for the wash, they take a snack at the promised hock; for people of this profession have always their appetite at hand, and every interval of labour is invariably cheered by the prospect of having something at the end of it. Well," says Mrs. Watson, finishing the last cut, 66 some people thinks themselves mighty generous for leaving one what little they can't eat; but, howsomever, it's better than nothing."- Ah," says Mrs. Jones, who is a minor genius, 66 one must take what one can get now-a-days; but Squire Hervey's for my money."-" Squire Hervey !" rejoins Mrs. Watson, "what's that the great what's-hisname as lives yonder ?"-"Ay," returns Mrs. Jones, "him as has a niece and nevvy, as they say eats him out of house and land;"-and here commences the history of all the last week of the whole neighbourhood round, which continues amidst the dipping of splashing fists, the rumbling of suds, and the creaking of wringings-out, till an hour or two are elapsed; and then for another snack and a pinch of snuff, till the resumption of another hour's labour or so brings round the time for first breakfast. Then, having had nothing to signify since five, they sit down at half-past six in the wash-house, to take their own meal before the servants meet at the general one. This is the chief moment of enjoyment. They have just laboured enough to make the tea and bread and butter welcome, are at an interesting point of the conversation, (for there they contrive to leave off on purpose,) and so down they sit, fatigued and happy, with their red elbows and white corrugated fingers, to a tub turned upside down, and a dish of good christian souchong, fit for a body to drink. We could dwell a good deal upon this point of time, but shall only admonish the fastidious reader, who thinks he has all the taste and means of enjoyment to himself, how he looks with scorn upon two persons, who are perhaps at this moment the happiest couple of human beings in the street, who have discharged their duty, have earned their enjoyment, and have health and spirits to relish it to the full. A washerwoman's cup of tea may vie with the first drawn cork at a bon-vivant's table, and the complacent opening of her snuff-box with that of the most triumphant politician over a scheme of partition. We say nothing of the continuation of their labours, of the scandal they resume, or the complaints they pour forth, when they first set off again in the indolence of a satisfied appetite, at the quantity of work which the mistress of the house, above all other mistresses, is sure to heap upon them. Scandal and complaint, in these instances, do not hurt the complacency of our reflections; they are in their proper sphere; and are nothing but a part, as it were, of the day's work, and are so much vent to the animal spirits. Even the unpleasant day which the work causes up stairs in some houses, the visitors which it excludes, and the leg of mutton which it hinders from roasting, are only so much enjoyment kept back and contrasted, in order to be made keener the rest of the week. Beauty itself is indebted to it, and draws from that steaming out-house and splashing tub the well-fitting robe that gives out its figure, and the snowy cap that contrasts its curls and its complexion. In short, whenever we hear a washerwoman at her foaming work, or see her plodding towards us with her jolly warm face, her mob cap, her black stockings, clattering pattens, and tub at arm's length resting on her hip-joint, we look upon her as a living lesson to us to make the most both of time and comfort, and as a sort of allegorical compound of pain and pleasure, a little too much, perhaps, in the style of Rubens. 1814. LV. THE NIGHTMARE. I. WE Do not hesitate to declare to the reader, even in this free-thinking age, that we are no small adept in the uses of the Occult Philosophy, as I shall thoroughly make manifest.-Be it known then, that we are sometimes favoured with the visits of a nocturnal spirit, from whom we receive the most excellent lessons of wisdom. His appearance is not highly prepossessing; and the weight of his manner of teaching, joined to the season he chooses for that purpose, has in it something not a little tremendous; but the end of his instruction is the enjoyment of virtue; and as he is conscious of the alarming nature of his aspect, he takes leave of the initiated the moment they reduce his lessons to practice. It is true, there are a number of foolish persons who, instead of being grateful for his friendly offices, have affected to disdain them, in the hope of tiring him out, and thus getting rid of his disagreeable presence; but they could not have taken a worse method; for his benevolence is as unwearied as his lessons and appearances are formidable, and these unphilosophic scorners are only punished every night of their lives in consequence. If any curious person wishes to see him, the ceremony of summoning him to appear is very simple, though it varies according to the aspirant's immediate state of blood. With some, nothing more is required than the mastication of a few : meeting, and fell into an obscure kind of reverie upon the identity of popular superstitions in different ages and nations. The comic dramatist, however, had been too much for us; the weather, which had been warm, but was inclining to grow cloudy, conspired with our heaviness, and the only sounds to be heard, were the ticking of a small clock in the room, and the fitful sighs of the wind as it rose without, The moaning herald of a weeping sky. By degrees our eyes closed, the hand with the book dropped one way, and the head dropped back the other upon a corner of the sofa. unripe plums or a cucumber, just before midnight others must take a certain portion of that part of a calf, which is used for what are vulgarly called veal-cutlets: others, again, find the necessary charm in an omelet or an olio. For our part, we are so well acquainted with the different ceremonies, that, without any preparation, we have only to lie in a particular posture, and the spirit is sure to make its appearance. The figures under which it presents itself are various, but it generally takes its position upon the breast in a shape altogether indescribable, and is accompanied with circumstances of alarm and obscurity, not a little resembling those which the philosophers underwent on their initiation into the Eleusinian and other mysteries. The first sensations you experience are those of a great oppression and inability to move; these you endeavour to resist, but after an instant resign yourself to their control, or rather flatter your-pie, which we had lately attacked, began swellself you will do so, for the sensation becomes so painful, that in a moment you struggle into another effort, and if in this effort you happen to move yourself and cry out, the spirit is sure to be gone, for it detests a noise as heartily as a monk of La Trappe, a traveller in the Alps, or a thief. Could an intemperate person in this situation be but philosopher enough to give himself up to the spirit's influence for a few minutes, he would see his visitant to great advantage, and gather as much knowledge at once as would serve him instead of a thousand short visits, and make him a good liver for months to come. It was by this method some time ago, that we not only obtained a full view of the spirit, but gradually gathering strength from sufferance, as those who are initiated into any great wisdom must, contrived to enter into conversation with it. The substance of our dialogue we hereby present to the reader; for it is a mistaken notion of the pretenders to the Cabala, that to reveal the secrets on these occasions is to do harm, and incur the displeasure of our spiritual acquaintances. All the harm is in not understanding the secrets properly, and explaining them for the benefit of mankind; and on this head we have an objection to make to that ancient and industrious order of Illuminati the Freemasons, who, though they hold with our familiar that eating suppers is one of the high roads to wisdom, differ with him in confining their knowledge to such persons as can purchase it. | When you are in a state the least adapted to bodily perception, it is well known that you are in the precise state for spiritual. We had not been settled, we suppose, for more than a quarter of an hour, when the lid of a veal ing up and down with an extraordinary convulsion, and we plainly perceived a little figure rising from beneath it, which grew larger and larger as it ascended, and then advanced with great solemnity towards us over the dishes. This phenomenon,which we thought we had seen often before, but could not distinctly remember how or where, was about two feet high, six inches of which, at least, went to the compoIsition of its head. Between its jaws and shoulders there was no separation whatever, so that its face, which was very broad and pale, came immediately on its bosom, where it quivered without ceasing in a very alarming manner, being, it seems, of a paralytic sensibility like blanc-manger. The fearfulness of this aspect was increased by two staring and intent eyes, a nose turned up, but large, and a pair of thick lips turned despondingly down at the corners. Its hair, which stuck about its ears like the quills of a porcupine, was partly concealed by a bolster rolled into a turban, and decorated with duck's feathers. The body was dressed in a kind of armour, of a substance resembling what is called crackling, and girded with a belt curiously studded with Spanish olives, in the middle of which, instead of pistols, were stuck two small bottles containing a fiery liquor. On its shoulders were wings shaped like the bat's, but much larger; its legs terminated in large feet of lead; and in its hands, which were of the same metal, and enormously disproportioned, it bore a Turkish bowstring. We had returned at a late hour from the At sight of this formidable apparition, we felt representation of a new comedy, and after an indescribable and oppressive sensation, eating a sleepy and not very great supper, which by no means decreased, as it came reclined ourself on the sofa in a half-sitting nearer and nearer, staring and shaking its face posture, and taken up a little Horace to see if we at us, and making as many ineffable grimaces could keep our eyes open with a writer so full as Munden in a farce. It was in vain, however, of contrast to what we had been hearing. We we attempted to move; we felt, all the time, happened to pitch upon that Ode, At O Deorum like a leaden statue, or like Gulliver pinned to quisquis, &c., describing an ancient witches' the ground by the Lilliputians; and was wondering how our sufferings would terminate, when the phantom, by a spring off the table, pitched himself with all his weight upon our breast, and we thought began fixing his terrible bowstring. At this, as I could make no opposition, we determined at least to cry out as lustily as possible, and were beginning to make the effort, when the spirit motioned us to be quiet, and, retreating a little from our throat, said, in a low suffocating tone of voice, "Wilt thou never be philosopher enough to leave off sacrificing unto calf's flesh?" "In the name of the Great Solomon's ring," we ejaculated, "what art thou ?" "My name," replied the being, a little angrily, "which thou wast unwittingly going to call out, is Mnpvtglnau-auw-auww, and I am Prince of the Night-mares." "Ah, my Lord," returned we, "you will pardon our want of recollection, but we had never seen you in your full dress before, and your presence is not very composing to the spirits. Doubtless this is the habit in which you appeared with the other genii at the levee of the mighty Solomon." "A fig for the mighty Solomon !" said the spirit, good-humouredly; "this is the cant of the Cabalists, who pretend to know so much about us. I assure you, Solomon trembled much more at me than I did at him. I found it necessary, notwithstanding all his wisdom, to be continually giving him advice; and many were the quarrels I had on his account with Peor, the Dæmon of Sensuality, and a female devil named Ashtoreth." "The world, my Prince," returned we, "do not give you credit for so much benevolence." "No," quoth the vision, "the world are never just to their best advisers. My figure, it is true, is not the most prepossessing, and my manner of teaching is less so; but I am nevertheless a benevolent spirit, and would do good to the most ungrateful of your fellow-creatures. This very night, between the hours of ten and one, I have been giving lessons to no less than twelve priests and twenty-one citizens. The studious I attend somewhat later, and the people of fashion towards morning. But as you seem inclined at last to make a proper use of my instructions, I will recount you some of my adventures, if you please, that you may relate them to your countrymen, and teach them to appreciate the trouble I have with them." "You are really obliging," said we, "and we should be all attention, would you do us the favour to sit a little more lightly, for each of your fingers appears heavier than a porter's load; and, to say the truth, the very sight of that bowstring almost throttles us." LVI.-THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. Ar these words the spectre gave a smile, which we can compare to nothing but the effect of vinegar on a death's-head. However, he rose up, though very slowly, and we once more breathed with transport, like a person dropping into his chair after a long journey. He then seated himself with much dignity on the pillow at the other end of the sofa, and thus resumed the discourse :-"I have been among mankind, ever since the existence of cooks and bad consciences, and my office is two-fold, to give advice to the well-disposed, and to inflict punishment on the ill. The spirits over which I preside are of that class called by the ancients Incubi; but it was falsely supposed that we were fond of your handsome girls, as the Rosicrucians maintain, for it is our business to suppress, not encourage the passions, as you may guess by my appearance." "Pardon us," interrupted we, "but the poets and painters represent your Highness as riding about on horseback; some of them even make you the horse itself, and it is thus that we have been taught to account for the term Night-mare." Here the phantom gave another smile, which made us feel sympathetically about the mouth as though one of our teeth was being drawn. "A pretty jest," said he: " as if a spiritual being had need of a horse to carry him! The general name of my species in this country is of Saxon origin; the Saxons, uniting as they did the two natures of Britons and Germans, ate and drank with a vengeance; of course they knew me very well, and being continually visited by me in all my magnificence, called me, by way of eminence, the Night Mara, or Spirit of Night. As to the poets and painters, I do not know enough of them to be well acquainted with their misrepresentations of me; though all of those gentlemen who could afford it have been pretty intimate with me. The moralizing Epicurean, whom you have in your hand there, I knew very well. Very good things he wrote, to be sure, about temperance and lettuces; but he ate quite as good at Mecænas' table. You may see the delicate state of his faculties by the noise he makes about a little garlick. There was Congreve, too, who dined every day with a duchess, and had the gout: I visited him often enough, and once wreaked on him a pretty set of tortures under the figure of one Jeremy Collier. My Lord Rochester, who might have displayed so true a fancy of his own without my assistance, had scarcely a single idea with which I did not supply him, for five years together, during which time, you know, he confessed himself to have been in a state of intoxication. But I am sorry to say, that I have had no small trouble with some of your poetical moralists, as well as men of pleasure. Something, I con- "No," replied the phantom, "it is my poetical look. I have all sorts of looks and shapes, civic, political, and poetical. It is by particular favour that I appear to you as I really am; but as you have not seen many of my shapes, I will, if you please, give you a sample of some of my best." "Oh, by no means," said we, somewhat hastily; "we can imagine quite enough from your descriptions. The philosophers certainly illused you when they represented you as a seducer." of beauty. Reposed, did I say? As well might you stretch a man on a gilded rack, and fan him into forgetfulness. No sooner had he obtained a little slumber, but myself and other spirits revenged the crimes of the day; in a few minutes the convulsive snatches of his hands and features announce the rising agitation; his face blackens and swells; his clenched hands grasp the drapery about him; he tries to turn, but cannot, for a hundred horrors, the least of which is of death, crowd on him and wither his faculties; till at last, by an effort of despair, he wakes with a fearful outcry, and springs from the bed, pale, trembling, and aghast, afraid of the very assistance he would call, and terrified at the consciousness of himself. Such are the men before whom millions of you rational creatures consent to tremble." "You talk like an orator," said we; "but surely every ambitious prince has not horrors like these, for every one is neither so luxurious as Alexander, nor so timid and profligate as a Domitian or Heliogabalus. Conquerors, one would think, are generally too full of business to have leisure for consciences and night-mares." "Why, a great deal may be done," answered the spirit, "against horrors of any kind by mere dint of industry. But too much business, especially of a nature that keeps passion on the stretch, will sometimes perform the office of indolence and luxury, and turn revengefully upon the mind. To this were owing, in great measure, the epilepsies of Cæsar and Mohammed. With the faces of most of the Roman Emperors I am as familiar as an antiquary, particularly from Tiberius down to Caligula; and again from Constantine downwards. But if I punished the degenerate Romans, I nevertheless punished their enemies too. were not aware, when scourged by Attila, what nights their tormentor passed. Luckily for justice, he brought from Germany not only fire and sword, but a true German appetite. I know not a single conqueror of modern times who equalled him in horror of dream They "The false philosophers did," replied the spectre ; "the real philosophers knew me better. It was at my instance that Pythagoras forbade the eating of beans; Plato owed some of his schemes to my hints, though I confess not his best; and I also knew Socrates very well from my intimacy with Alcibiades, but the familiar that attended him was of a much higher order than myself, and rendered my services unnecessary. However, my venerationing, unless it was a little, spare, aguey, peevish, for that illustrious man was so great, that on the night when he died, I revenged him finely on his two principal enemies. People talk of the flourishing state of vice, and the happiness which guilty people sometimes enjoy in contrast with the virtuous; but they know nothing of what they talk. You should have seen Alexander in bed after one of his triumphant feasts, or Domitian or Heliogabalus after a common supper, and you would have seen who was the true monarch, the master of millions, or the master of himself. The Prince retired perhaps amidst lights, garlands, and perfumes, with the pomp of music, and through a host of bowing heads: everything he saw and touched reminded him of empire; his bed was of the costliest furniture, and he reposed by the side supper-eating fellow, whom you call Frederick the Great. Those exquisite ragouts, the enjoyment of which added new relish to the sarcasms the latter dealt about him with a royalty so unanswerable, sufficiently revenged the sufferers for their submission. Nevertheless, he dealt by his dishes as some men do by their mistresses: he loved them the more they tormented him. Poor Trenck, with his bread and water in the dungeon of Magdeburg, enjoyed a repose fifty times more serene than the royal philosopher in his palace of Sans Souci, or Without Care. Even on the approach of death, this great conqueror this warrior full of courage and sage speculation-could not resist the customary pepper and saucepiquante, though he knew he should inevitably |