ground,—a habit he has likewise given occasion in examination (for the Laureateship) to deliver an the host to notice : "What man art thou (quoth he), That lookest as thou wouldst find a hare; For ever on the ground I see thee stare?" The general expression of his countenance combined a mixture of animation, of lurking, good natured satire, of unruffled serenity, sweetness, and close thought. As in the above passages from his great poem we are let into a lively portrait of some of his personal peculiarities, so in the Testament of Love' as perfect an idea of his actions and manner in conversation are further displayed; so that one may almost fancy oneself in the prison with him, listening to his discourses on philosophy. "The downcast look (says Urry), the strict attention, the labouring thought, the hand waving for silence, the manner of address in speaking, the smooth familiar way of arguing, the respectful way of starting his objections, and, in short, every expression in that dispute, figures a lively image of him in the mind of the reader." His features, as in most instances of sincere and transparent natures, were an index of his temper, and this comprised a mixture of the lively, grave, and modest. Yet was the gaiety of his disposition more prominent in his writings than in his general demeanour, which, it may be said, was repressed by his modesty. This bashfulness it was which gave occasion to the Countess of Pembroke often to banter him; declaring, that this absence was preferable to his conversation, since the latter was nought, on account of his reserve and distant respect; whereas, when he was away from her, the chance was, he might be preparing some composition to afford her delight. His behaviour with the pilgrims is uniformly in keeping with this habit of silence and seclusion. He scarcely appears in person, and when called upon for his tale, endeavours to avoid the task by singing a ballad; the host, however, protesting against this departure from the general compact, his own story (or rather discourse) is one of the least interesting in the whole series. During his relaxations from the duties of public business, he continually retired to his study. Reading, indeed, was his chief delight, as appears, by his own confession, in the introduction to his Dream,' and to the Legend of Good Women.' He preferred it to every amusement, with the exception of a morning walk in May-tide. He lived almost exclusively in his own world of meditation, never interfering, as he says of himself, in the concerns of others. He was temperate and regular in his diet; he "arose with the lark, and lay down with the lamb; hence the marvellous truth and freshness of his early morning pictures. PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO. [THE following interesting passages, relative to these illustrious friends, are taken from the book mentioned in our last,-the Lives of Eminent Italians,' In characthe new volume of Dr Lardner's series. terizing the prominent geniuses of literature, Petrarch, for his long and passionate devotion to one object, may be styled the Lover; as Boccaccio, for his book of stories, and his earnest, hearty way of telling them, may be called the Story- Teller. There are few things more delightful to contemplate than the friendships of such extraordinary men; and the present writer of their lives has judiciously shown them in that connexion as much as possible.] PETRARCH AND YOUNG BOCCACCIO. THE future author of the Decameron," was present when Petrarch was examined by Robert King of Naples, previous to his coronation (as a poet) in the capitol. King Robert was a philosopher, a physician, and an astrologer, but hitherto he had despised poetry being only acquainted with some Sicilian rhymes, and a few of the compositions of the Troubadours. Petrarch, discovering the ignorance of his royal patron, took an opportunity, at the conclusion of his oration in praise of poetry, setting forth its magical SELF FOR A GIFT TO PETRARCH. This celebrated manuscript belongs to the Vatican Library. The epistle (written by the donor) is addressed to " Francis Petrarch, illustrious and only poet ;" and is subscribed "The Giovanni da Certaldo." The manuscript is illuminated, and the arms of Petrarch, consisting of a gold bar in an azure field, with a star, adorn the head of each canto. There are a few notes of emendation, and the whole is written in a clear and beautiful hand. [Lovers of books will delight in reading of this gorgeous and fond "getting up", of a manuscript, for the purpose of making a present of it; and what sort of present! a Dante written out by a Boccaccio, to give to a Petrarch! The arms and the illuminations too, turn the book into a painting.] BOCCACCIO, PETRARCH, AND CHAUCER. It is a singular circumstance that one of the last acts of Petrarch was, to read the Decameron.' Notwithstanding his intimate friendship with the author during twenty years, Boccaccio's modesty prevented his speaking of the work, and it fell into Petrarch's hands by chance. "I have not had time," he writes to his friend," to read the whole, so that I am not a fair judge; but it has pleased me exceedingly. Its great freedom is sufficiently excused by the age at which you wrote it, the lightness of the subject, and of the readers for whom it was destined. With many gay and laughable things are mingled many that are serious and pious. I have read principally at the beginning and end. Your description of the state of your country during the plague, appears to me very true and very pathetic. The tale at the conclusion made so lively an impression on me, that I committed it to memory, that I might sometimes relate it to my friends." This is the story of Griselda. Petrarch translated it "Learned it at Padowe of a worthy clerke, Chaucer had been sent ambassador to Genoa, just LIVE WITH HIM. You owe You com Reflect whether you cannot, as I have long wished THE signature to the note sent with the remarks on Dr Smith's 'Philosophy of Health' should have been P. Y. not S. Y. The fair writer will accept our thanks for the kind expressions in her last communication. We have faith in F. O. W. and he must have faith in us, and think the best of it, when we say that we cannot have the pleasure (at present) of With regard to availing ourselves of his kind offer. the question he asks us respecting poetry or not poetry, it is one of a sort to which we do not like to give abrupt answers. The samples might or might not be the best; and the answers might repress proper confidence or excite expectations too great in degree. There is a look of something not common in the lines sent us. The problem alluded to was proposed, we conceive, in jest. The Lines for an Album' have merit; but the theology on which they turn might appear uncharitable to an age which proposes to teach rather than to condemn. Will H. C. (Deptford) favour us with the grounds of his dissent? The approbation of IGNOTUS is very gratifying to us. We made no objection, as our Correspondent J. G. supposes, in remarking that his Joshua's portrait by himself is a reverse, as seen in a mirror. We merely drew attention to the fact, that the painter's appearance, in propria persona, is a reverse of the portrait ; and thus far, that the positive amount of resemblance is lessened. J. G. thinks the reversal a beauty. He observes, that it says as plainly as if the words were labelled on the picture, "This is the portrait of a painter, painted by himself." It does so; but would not the handling and style have been sufficient testimonies of his Joshua's autograph? When the ancient artist, calling at a friend's house, " wrote his name at Co," it consisted of a line drawn by a sweep of his brush. Nobody would have mistaken the hand of Sir Joshua, whether left or right. LONDON: Published by H. HOOPER, Pall Mall East, and supplied to Country Agents by C. KNIGHT, Ludgate-street. From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street LONDON JOURNAL. TO ASSIST THE ENQUIRING, ANIMATE THE STRUGGLING, AND SYMPATHIZE WITH ALL. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 1835. SPRING, THIS morning as we sat at breakfast, thinking of our present article, with our eyes fixed on a set of the British Poets, which stand us in stead of a prospect, there came by the window, from a child's voice, a cry of "Wall-flowers." There had just been a shower; sunshine had followed it; and the rain, the sun, the boy's voice, and the flowers, came all so prettily together upon the subject we were thinking of, that in taking one of his roots, we could not help fancying we had received a present from Nature herself, with a penny for the bearer. There were thirty lumps of buds on this penny root; their beauty was yet to come; but the promise was there,-the new life, the Spring,—and the rain-drops were on them, as if the sweet goddess had dipped her hand in some fountain, and sprinkled them for us by way of message; as who should say, " April and I are coming." What a beautiful word is Spring! At least one fancies so, knowing the meaning of it, and being used to identify it with so many pleasant things. An Italian might find it harsh; and object to the Sp and the terminating consonant; but if he were a proper Italian, a man of fancy, the worthy countryman of Petrarch and Ariosto, we would convince him that the word was an excellent good word, crammed as full of beauty as a bud,-and that S had the whistling of the brooks in it, andr the force and roughness of whatsoever is animated and picturesque, ing the singing of the birds, and the whole word the suddenness and salience of all that is lively, sprouting, and new-Spring, Spring-time, a Springgreen, a Spring of water-to Spring-Springal, a word for a young man, in old (that is, ever new) English poetry, which with many other words has gone out, because the youthfulness of our hearts has gone out, to come back with better times, and the nine-hundreth number of the LONDON JOURNAL. If our Italian, being very unlike an Italian, illnatured and not open to pleasant conviction, should still object to our word, we would grow uncourteous in turn, and swear it was a better word than his Prima-vera,—which is what he calls Spring-Prima-vera, that is to say, the first Vera, or Ver of the Latins, the Veer (Bng Ionice) or Ear of the Greeks; and what that means, nobody very well knows. Prima-Vera? and what is Seconda, or second Vera? But why No. 53. and starting, like the boundings of the kids! Prima- "Earine,' Who had her very being, and her name, The lightest thoughts have their roots in gravity, and the most fugitive colours of the world are set off by the mighty back-ground of eternity. One of the greatest pleasures of so light and airy a thing as the vernal season arises from the consciousness that the world is young again; that the spring has come round, that we shall not all cease, and be no world. Nature has begun again, and not begun for nothing. One fancies somehow that she could not have the heart to put a stop to us in April or May. She may pluck away a poor little life here and there; nay, many blossoms of youth,- but not all, not the whole garden of life. She prunes, but does not destroy. If she did, if she were in the mind to have done with going on with, as a set of ungenial and obstinate PRICE THREE HALFPENce. that we may all get our remedies for these evils in time, if we co-operate as before said. People in South America for instance, may learn from experience, and build so as to make a comparative nothing of those rockings of the ground. It is of the gross itself that we speak; and sure we are, that with an eye to that, Nature does not feel as Pope ventures to says she does, or sees "with equal eye ”– "Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world." He may have flattered himself that he should think it a fine thing for his little poetship to sit upon a star, and look grand in his own eyes, from an eye so very dispassionate; but Nature, who is the author of passion, and joy, and sorrow, does not look upon animate and inanimate, depend upon it, with the same want of sympathy. "A world" full of leves, and hopes, and endeavours, and of her own life and loveliness, is a far greater thing in her eyes, rest assured, than a "bubble;" and, à fortiori, many worlds, or a "system," far greater than the "atom" talked of with so much complacency by this divine little whipper-snapper. Ergo, the moment the kind mother gives promise of a renewed year with these her green and budding signals, be certain she is not going to falsify them; and that being sure of April, we are sure as far as November. As to our existence any further, that, we conceive, depends somewhat upon how we behave ourselves; and therefore we would exhort everybody to do their best for the earth, and all that is upon it, in order that it and they may be thought worth continuance. What! shall we be put into a beautiful garden, and turn up our noses at it, and call it a "vale of tears," and all sorts of bad names (helping thereby to make it so), and yet confidently reckon that Nature will never shut it up, and have done with it, or set about forming a better stock of inhabitants? Recollect, we beseech you, dear "Lord Worldly Wiseman," and you," Sir Having," and my lady "Greedy," that there is reason for supposing that man was not always an inhabitant of this very fashionable world, and somewhat larger globe; and that perhaps the resident before him was only of an inferior species to ourselves (odd as you may think it), who could not be brought to know what a beautiful place he lived in, and so had another chance given him in a different shape. Good heavens ! If there were none but mere ladies and gentlemen, and city-men, and soldiers, upon earth, and no poets, readers, and milk-maids to remind us that there was such a thing as Nature, we really should begin to tremble for Almack's and Change Alley about the 20th of next October! 98 HOW ARE WE TO GET HAPPILY THIS is really a very interesting question. A truce then for the next five minutes to politics; let the Whigs and the Tories worry each other as much as they please, but let us, taking no heed to the state of Parliament, think a little about our domestic affairs. Since everybody marries-or may marry-I had almost said, ought to marry, it is surely worth considering what the necessary conditions may be for obtaining that which, I take it for granted, everyone promises himself in marrying, namely, an increased degree of comfort and happiness. I may be told that it is not only quite idle, but that it smacks a little of presumption, to pretend to instruct people in the road to felicity; that everyone judges pretty correctly in what relates to himself, and therefore may be safely left to work out his own happiness, after his own manner. I have only to say, that I disclaim all idea of teaching; I only wish to rouse attention to the importance of a subject that nearly concerns the well-being of every member of the great human family. However knowing people may be in every-day and worldly matters, I am not disposed to admit that they are so clever in the management of this affair of matrimony, as is commonly imagined. Every person, male or female, has the power of determining for himself the two material and preliminary questions:-firstly, whether he will be married or not? secondly (if the first be answered affirmatively), to whom will he be married? Having this power, then, if people knew what was good for them, there would be no unhappy marriages; but there are unhappy marriages: therefore they do not know what is good for them. Not only are there some unhappy marriages, but there are unfortunately a great many-in short, it is no use blinking the question, there is scarcely one in a hundred that is otherwise. Matrons, with a large family of daughters to establish, may bristle up, and look feline at such an insinuation, and their husbands loudly and fiercely deny it. This is but natural; they have got into a scrape, and would fain have companions in misfortune. I hope no one suspects me of a design to treat this subject with levity. If anything I may have dropt has given rise to this impression, I am sorry for itthe intention is farthest from my thoughts. It is too sad a subject to be discussed for the sake of amusement; if one jests upon it, he but acts like the child who grins to conceal the fact that he is weeping. But to resume. This cat-and-dog like state of things, this universal misery, is owing, in many cases, not to the error of judgment, which we shall presently have to consider, but to not judging at all. I heard, the other day, of a man, in a humble walk of life, who married a woman for no other earthly reason (according to his own admission) than because she had a pretty foot and ancle !-she was, otherwise, both physically and morally deformed. I knew a young lady, who was led to the altar from a boarding-school, and who confessed, that she became a wife in order that she might be at liberty to lie in bed as long as she pleased in the morning, and have buttered toast for breakfast! People of the world would laugh no doubt at the idea of being actuated by motives so whimsically absurd. But let us see if they act a whit more wisely themselves. It cannot be denied that some of them marry exclusively for wealth. This is to fall into the mistake of the man who, finding that an apple pie was improved by the adhibition of a quince, caused a pie to be made intirely of quinces. Others are attracted by personal beauty. This is no better. Voyagers tell us that, though, when first they near the shores of India, their senses are intoxicated by the delicious odours of the flowers with which the land is covered; yet, in a short time, they not only regard this fragrance with indifference, but cease altogether to perceive it. It may be said, that all this is nothing to the purpose; that these are people who do not exercise their reasoning faculties, and have no business to expect to be happy. $ It may be se. There are others, certainly, who, The fact is one of every day observation, that The common opinion referred to may have arisen from observing that a similarity of tastes, habits, and dispositions (whether good or bad) is apt to draw young people of different sexes together, and give birth to love, or something resembling it; and there is said to be sympathy between them. But this love has no stamina, no quality of endurance; and as to the sympathy, the less we have to do with it, perhaps, the better. I do not attach much value to proverbial sayings and saws, otherwise it would not be difficult to adduce a good many that appear to bear me out; such, for example, as, "Love matches are seldom happy ones ;" and "In marrying, it is best to begin with a little aversion," &c. I only mention these here to show that I am urging no new-fangled theory—the principle is known, but disregarded. easily surmounted; but they shared no better fate than their predecessors. Too self-subsistant-too independent of each other-each confided in his own strength and dexterity, and scorned to receive while he thought it unnecessary to offer assistance. Thus, rushing together upon the narrow and uneven path, they jostled violently on the way, and were, like the others, precipitated into the stream. The story goes on to say, that the next who came up, and who were the first who succeeded in reaching the opposite side without accident, were two way-farers who had travelled a long way very cheerfully together. One was tall, strong, and active, but quite blind; the other was, on the contrary, of a diminutive and feeble frame, but his eyes were piercing as the falcon's They advanced without hesitation to pass the stream; for they knew that, though neither singly could accomplish the task, yet, together, and confiding in each other, no harm could come to them; the blind one relying upon his bright-eyed companion to point out the best places, whereupon he might set his feet, and the weak-one feeling quite sure that his strong friend would never, for his own sake, release the firm grasp with which he hugged him to his side. The drift and moral of this story will, from what has been already said, be sufficiently obvious. We are most of us, indeed, feeble or dimsighted creatures, not formed to stand alone, or buffet along the rugged path of life without some friendly shoulder to lean on some arm to cling to. We must select, then, a companion by whose side to toil-always bearing in mind, at the same time, that as it is impossible, so is it quite unnecessary, that our fellow pilgrim should be altogether free from infirmity and error. All that is necessary is, that he should not be obnoxious to the same infirmities, errors, and pre judices as ourselves-that he should so far form a contrast to ourselves, as to be strong, precisely in those points where we are weak, and weak where we are strong; in order that a want and a consciousness of mutual support and assistance, be constantly present to both. F. C. M. Our correspondent has started an interesting but perplexing subject for reflection; and will not wonder if we think he has failed, like others, in cutting the Gordian knot. The fable he has told, alas! will hardly enable the morally and intellectually infirm to discover, much less to acknowledge their respective deficiencies. The question between the conflicting parties will still be, which is the lame or the blind, and which has the greater need of the other's assistance. ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE. LXIV. WILLIAM AND CATHERINE SHAW. To make myself better understood, I will relate [We take this edifying sample of Circumstantial an old nursery tale : It chanced, that once upon a time, a small stream Pre Evidence from the Sixty Curious Narratives' (before-mentioned), the compiler of which quotes it from the Theory of Presumptive Proof.' sumptive proof is really a very presumptuous personage, and his circumstantial evidence frequently deserves to have a halter brought round its own neck. People circumstantially found guilty ought, we think, at the very worst, to undergo only a circumstantial hanging. A gallows should be peraded round them; the executioner should make a circuitous pretence of turning them off; and the bystanders should exclaim, "There you are, not positively hung-but you are circumstantially ;—you may presume that you are dead;-the proof of your being so is not direct; but strong symptoms of an execution are round about you;-you may say that you have been in very hanging circumstances." We take poor William Shaw to have been no very pleasant father; and his unfortunate daughter (perhaps in consequence of a violent bringing-up) was furious and vindictive. But their characters must have been known; a surgeon should have been able to distinguish between a throat cut by the deceased's own hand, and by that of another person; and the groans and exclamations of a highly probable suicide ought not to have been construed into evidence of murder, not even with a shirt spotted with blood, especially as the spots turn out to have been owing to what the man said. But the simpletons kill him, and then wave a flag over his grave, by way of consoling his innocence! There is something in this action ludicrously of a piece with the rest of the folly; though the instinct was a good one, and the poor people must have been very sorry. We believe there will be no great haste to hang any more criminals upon circumstantial evidence, after the publication of works of this kind, and the fate of the unfortunate Eliza Fenning.] WILLIAM SHAW (says our authority) was an upholsterer at Edinburgh, in the year 1721. He had a daughter, Catherine Shaw, who lived with him. She encouraged the addresses of John Lawson, a jeweller, to whom William Shaw declared the most insuperable objections, alleging him to be a profligate young man, addicted to every kind of dissipation. He was forbidden the house; but the daughter continuing to see him clandestinely, the father, on the discovery, kept her strictly confined. William Shaw had, for some time, pressed his daughter to receive the addresses of a son of Alexander Robertson, a friend and neighbour; and one evening, being very urgent with her thereon, she peremptorily refused, declaring she preferred death to being young Robertson's wife. The father grew enraged, and the daughter more positive; so that the most passionate expressions arose on both sides, and the words, barbarity, cruelty, and death, were frequently pronounced by the daughter! At length he left her, locking the door after him. The greatest part of the buildings at Edinburgh are formed on the plan of the chambers in our inns of court; so that many families inhabit rooms on the same floor, having all one common staircase. William Shaw dwelt in one of these, and a single partition only divided his apartment from that of James Morrison, a watch-case maker. This man had indistinctly overheard the conversation and quarrel between Catherine Shaw and her father, but was particularly struck with the repetition of the above words, she having pronounced them loudly and emphatically! For some little time after the father was gone out, all was silent, but presently Morrison heard several groans from the daughter. Alarmed, he ran to some of his neighbours under the same roof. These, entering Morrison's room, and listening attentively, not only heard the groans, but distinctly heard Catherine Shaw, two or three times, faintly exclaim" Cruel father, thou art the cause of my death!" Struck with this, they flew to the door of Shaw's apartment; they knocked-no answer was given. The knocking was still repeated-still no answer. Suspicions had before arisen against the father; they were now confirmed: a constable was procured, an entrance forced; Catherine was found weltering in her blood, and the fatal knife by her side! She was alive, but speechless; but, on questioning her as to owing her death to her father, was just able to make a motion with her head, apparently in the affirmative, and expired. Just at the critical moment, William Shaw returns and enters the room. All eyes are on him! He sees his neighbours and a constable in his apartment, and seems much disordered thereat; but, at the sight of his daughter he turns pale, trembles, and is ready to sink. The first surprise, and the succeeding horror, leave little doubt of his guilt in the breasts of the beholders; and even that little is done away on the constable discovering that the shirt of William Shaw is bloody. He was instantly hurried before a magistrate, and, upon the depositions of all the parties, committed to prison on suspicion. He was shortly after brought to trial, when, in his defence, he acknowledged the having confined his daughter to prevent her intercourse with Lawson; that he had frequently insisted on her marrying Robertson; and that he had quarrelled with her on the subject the evening she was found murdered, as the witness Morrison had deposed: but he averred, that he left his daughter unharmed and untouched; and that the blood found upon his shirt was there in consequence of his having bled himself some days before, and the bandage becoming untied. These assertions did not weigh a feather with the jury, when opposed to the strong circumstantial evidence of the daughter's expressions, of "barbarity, cruelty, death," and of "cruel father, thou art the cause of my death,"-together with that apparently affirmative motion with her head, and of the blood so seemingly providentially discovered on the father's shirt. On these several concurring circumstances, was William Shaw found guilty, was executed, and was hanged in chains, at Leith Walk, in November 1721. Was there a person in Edinburgh who believed the father guiltless? No, not one! notwithstanding his latest words at the gallows were, "I am innocent of my daughter's murder." But in August 1722, as a man, who had become the possessor of the late William Shaw's apartments, was rummaging by chance in the chamber where Catherine Shaw died, he accidentally perceived a paper fallen into a cavity on one side of the chimney. It was folded as a letter, which, on opening, contained the following: "Barbarous Father, your cruelty in having put it out of my power ever to join my fate to that of the only man I could love, and tyrannically insisting upon my marrying one whom I always hated, has made me form a resolution to put an end to an existence which is become a burthen to me. I doubt not I shall find mercy in another world; for sure no benevolent Being can require that I should any longer live in torment to myself in this! My death I lay to your charge: when you read this, consider yourself as the inhuman wretch that plunged the murderous knife into the bosom of the unhappy-CATHERINE SHAW." This letter being shown, the hand-writing was recognized and avowed to be Catherine Shaw's by many of her relations and friends. It became the public talk; and the magistracy of Edinburgh, on a scrutiny, being convinced of its authenticity, they ordered the body of William Shaw to be taken from the gibbet, and given to his family for interment; and, as the only reparation to his memory and the honour of his surviving relations, they caused a pair of colours to be waved over his grave, in token of his innocence. THOUGHTS ON LANGUAGE. BY EGERTON WEBBE. No II. I no not think that anything I have advanced, or mean to advance, on the subject of language, will give umbrage either to the philologist or to the poet. With the former I agree in loving his study, though little qualified to estimate its beauties, or do justice to its importance. With the latter, I share his gratitude towards the eloquent "interpreter," the great organ of the reason and the imagination, without which we were little distinguishable from the beasts of the field; with which we are what we are, and may be what we would. But I think we are too apt to transfer to the account of language praises that belong of right to the understanding only, and to conceive, when some remote and exquisite object is brought suddenly, and as if by miracle, into the focus of our perception by nothing more than a sin gle stroke of the poetic wand, that the magic is in the language, and not in ourselves; and then, on the other hand, we deal with it too much as with a favorite; and because it is our perpetual companion and helpmate, and flatters us with its ready services, we are blind to, or reluctantly admit, its manifold offences and incorrigible defects. In my last chapter I considered a few of these of the more obvious kind, and, I propose to push those considerations somewhat further hereafter. But, in the meantime, perhaps a few observations on the origin of language will not be unacceptable to the Reader. I will therefore beg him to consider me here (to compare great things with small) as working after the manner of the epic poets, who, at first setting out, rush into the middle of things, but pre sently take occasion to relate some circumstances of a previous date, proper for the Reader to know, though not equally suitable for an exordium. Little can be gathered concerning the origin of language; and, fortunately, the question is not one of much practical importance, though a curious subject for conjecture. The favorite theory, that words at first were imitative sounds, suggested by the nature and properties of their objects, is plausible, but, except in a very limited sense, I venture to think not well founded. That a rushing stream should receive a name significant of the quality of its sound, or that the voices of birds and other animals, as well as the noise of winds, of the sea, of thunder, &c., should give rise to words imitative of their different tones and modulations, it is not difficult to suppose. But your naked savage has something else to do than to invoke nightingales and soliloquise on waterfalls; he has to cut his daily faggot from a tree that says nothing-to prepare his meal on some "silent stone." Let us, indeed, make every reasonable allowance for analogy and the association of ideas; let us grant it possible that some of the nice metaphysical relations existing between sound and sight-sound and touch, &c., may have been seized upon by the mind, and turned to account in language, even in the earliest stage (though Professor Porson tells us that our first fathers were plain men who called a spade a spade"); still, allowing all this, can we suppose that the whole of inanimate nature was christened after this manner?-that the most hidden and subtle properties of things, in this way, became their title to a name, among savages? But, it may be said, there are few substantive things which do not produce some kind of sounds when put into motion. This is true, but to proceed on this ground, we must needs assume that such evidences in every But case preceded the nomenclature. would the tree be sure to receive its appellation in a high wind? would there be no allusion to the stone before it was heard whizzing through the air? would the faggots remain anonymous till they crack led in the fire? If I cannot agree with the assertors of an imitative origin, neither can I assent to the opinion of those who save themselves a world of difficulty, while, at the same time, they throw an air of sanctity over their cause, by making language a matter of divine revelation. And I dissent, not merely because there is no authority for such an opinion, that I am aware of, in the Mosaic history, nor because the following verse in Genesis (chap. ii, v. 19) would seem pretty plainly to announce the contrary "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof”— but I dissent, partly for the reason already urged by those who have combated on the same side, viz. that if language had been a direct gift from God, it would have been a perfect instrument, or one at least of much greater perfection than it is or ever has been (to which may be added, that it would have been most perfect in its beginning, and would rather have lost than gained power as it descended from its first possessors, whereas the reverse is the fact), and partly, because I do not see the dignus vindice nodus. For is there not a much simpler account of the origin of language, nearer home? Observe a little baby at the age when it first begins to be sensible that it has a tongue. How it delights to rattle out a succession of easy syllables, without any other object or meaning than its own amusement. It talks to its coral, it talks to its cradle, every new object excites it to talk. Do we not see in this an evidence of a strong natural instinet? If this were merely an act of imitation consequent upon hearing the voices of grown people, it would be accompanied with other acts of imitation provoked in a similar manner. But this chattering, and this articulation of syllables, takes place long before the development of any regular power of observation. Now the instinct of the child is so soon adulterated, so soon lost and huddled up with the movements of experience and the effects of example, that we can, as it were, only snatch a transient and imperfect glimpse of Nature as she here momentarily appears to us. And yet this glimpse, I think, is sufficient to set our doubts at rest on one or two points. It may satisfy us, perhaps,— 1st. That we are sent into the world with the seeds of this faculty within us, and that it is as much a part of our instinct to use the tongue and the voice in those articulations and inflexions that have their accomplishment in speech, as it is to apply the hands, the arms, the legs, &c. to the several uses for which they are designed by Providence. 2d. That there is a propensity to accompany every new discovery, by which I mean the first sight of every new object, with some exclamation. made to trace all languages to one common source; the connection between the Hebrew, the Phoenician, the Pelasgian, and the Greek, has been studiously laboured; it has been asserted that the Latin was in its origin no more than Æolic Greek, while the modern European languages are only branches from the Latin. If all these relations were clearly made out, instead of being in a great measure open to dispute, the fact would not prove that, in evidence of which it is adduced. For with respect to any one of these derived languages, it is not surely denied that there must have pre-existed some species of oral communication, however imperfect that may have been; the acquired language then, in any case, must have been a graft-not a plant-and must have superseded its rude predecessor by virtue only of its superior 3rd. That this exclamation is not imitative, except capacity, and by its being ready-made to hand, in a rare and very limited sense. 4th. That it is for the most part purely capricious and accidental, admitting of no critical inquiry, except as concerns the superior facility of utterance of certain syllables or sounds. 5th. That the syllable or sound thus uttered becomes a name for the object which called it forth. as As regards the first of these propositions (to which this chapter will be confined), it may be objected by the upholders of the divine origin, that if the use of the tongue in speech were as much a matter of instinct as the application of the other members to their respective purposes, the same degree of efficiency would be exhibited in the result; but that whereman in a savage state attains in a single life-time to the perfect command of his limbs, his efforts at language are forlorn and hopeless to the last degree, and never advance beyond that condition (say they) until a new direction is given to them by intercourse with civilized nations. This objection, I conceive, can give us no embarrassment. If the fact of speech having no development among savage tribes corresponding to that of their other faculties, be a proof in favour of the theory of divine interposition, the same might be urged with respect to the understanding itself—which I think was never done. But if it is not disputed that Time is the sufficient ripener of the human mind, why should there be a question as to its power to bring the faculty of speech to the same maturity through the same degrees? As to the perfection of the physical powers amongst barbarians—while still no more than "mutum et turpe pecus "—it argues nothing but this, that Nature in giving to man his full quota of bodily strength in that condition of his being, has provided him, as her custom is, with the thing most necessary to him;-the luxury of language she reserves for a fitter season. There is no evidence to prove and vastly improbable it is—that a savage experiences any trouble or perplexity through poverty of speech, or, as we say, is ever "at a loss for a word." We may rest assured that that little which he desires to communicate, between cries and gestures, he communicates readily enough. But the extension of language is coequal with the extension of the understanding, and as soon as the mind begins to quicken with perception and to seek more earnestly the pleasures of sympathy, it is not long in improving its old resources or devising new expedients. Necessity is not the only mother of invention-Desire operates hardly less powerfully in creating the means of its own gratification; and when our necessities are provided for, our desires usurp their place. With respect to the assertion, that language makes no progress amongst a people until intercourse with civilized communities gives it the necessary impulse, it seems to be a pure assumption, and to an assumption one can only oppose a doubt. Strongly do I doubt the correctness of the assumption. Yet is this point not hastily to be dismissed, as well because it has been a good deal insisted upon, as because, if it could be substantiated, I confess I think it would needs overturn the theory here contended for. The doctrine then, as far as I understand, is, that language, and the arts, and whatever makes up the sum of human knowledge, has been derived to us from the East, whence issuing it has gradually spread itself over the world. Accordingly, endeavours have been and not because the latter had no power of cultivation or improvement in se. The only kind of evidence, as it seems to me, on which it would be possible to ground a substantial argument against the human origin of language, would be to show that all barbarians when first discovered were literally "mutum et turpe pecus;" but if their possession of any aboriginal form of speech whatsoever, any indigenous words, however few be admitted, I cannot but think it a virtual admission of the whole argu ment "Cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi." For if mankind have wit enough without direction to possess themselves of the first elements of language, what, in the name of reason, is to prevent them from acquiring the remainder in the same manner? We who say we are civilized, and who count the arts of navigation and of war amongst our accomplishments, transport ourselves to some newly discovered region, where, having reduced the natives to subjection, we give them arts and letters in exchange for liberty, and then say and they are taught to believe usthat they ought to be vastly obliged to us, for, that if it had not been for the lucky accident of our finding them out and murdering the greater part of their naked fathers, they could never have tasted the blessings of knowledge; and their language, as well as their manners, must inevitably have remained in statu quo to doomsday. What a superfluous piece of insolence is this! And this has been the trick played on the conquered by the conquerors ever since the flood! If savage tribes exhibit-and they do exhibit-degrees of difference in their condition, if they are found not equally-but more or less removed from the point of civilization, it must be accepted as proof sufficient of an indefinite power of advancement; and the same of language. To admit the existence of the primum mobile, and question the power of progression, is to deny that the greater includes the less, and to overturn the first principles of ratiocination. That any country in a state of high civilization would be discovered by the explorers of new worlds, was not to be expected. One of the first results of that condition of a country is emigration; as ripe fruits shed their seeds, so a ripe country, by a natural effort, shoots off its superabundant population, whence infant states-as from the seed new fruit. distant nation had been rising and progressing pari passu with ourselves, not only would their motives to colonization have become the same, (for many reasons besides those alleged,) but that she presents us with examples innumerable of a natural state of society so far possessed of our own materials of civilization, that it would be the ne plus ultra of drivelling vanity to suppose that we were any otherwise important to them, than as useful forcing instruments to hasten and facilitate the intellectual season. I defer to the next chapter some concluding observations on this first head. SPECIMENS OF WIT, HUMOUR, AND MRS BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST. [HERE followeth, gentle Reader, the immortal record of Mrs Battle and her whist; a game which the author (as thou wilt see) wished that he could play for ever; and accordingly in the deathless pages of his wit, for ever will he play it.—ED.] "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 at 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 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 slipt 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 sate 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 de clare, 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 snuffbox when it was her turn to play; or snuff a candle in the middle of the 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 lastcentury 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 If a serious studies, in recreations of that kind! She harm in unbending the mind now and then, after 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. but curiosity and the spirit of enterprise would, as with us, long since have spread them over the globe, and they would have found us, if we did not find them. The gradual procession of knowledge and humanity out of Holy Land, which history teaches us, this "march of mind" from East to West,may very well consist with these opinions. Because it may have pleased God to provide a certain course, if I may say so, for the education of the world, and to ordain that one community shall instruct another till all be perfected in knowledge, we are not therefore warranted in saying—as it has been so confidently said that no society of men have the power of attaining to that perfection of themselves. The facts are against those who say it: they cannot persuade history to support so absurd a position. Not that history Quadrille, she has often told me was her first records such a phenomenon as that above imagined love; but whist had engaged her maturer esteem. Pope was her favourite author: his Rape of the Lock' her favourite work. She once 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 au thor. |
