He went out later with his basket of roots. It is not for the poor to indulge grief in idleness; death or no death indoors, money must be earned. The world was as busy as though no little child, free from want now, had just been laid to rest; people jostled each other on the pavements; and the sun shone down, direct and hot, from the clear blue sky. As Richard Sale looked up, he wondered how long it might be before God removed him to the same bright world: and he took his stand meekly in a convenient spot for the sale of the flowers. II. FEAR OF DEATH. Since nature's works be good, and death doth serve SIX SONNETS. [I. William Dunbar, born 1460, died 1520. He was a Scottish poet, but there is little known as to the events of his life. He commemorated the marriage of James IV. with Margaret Tudor in The Thistle and Rose; and received a yearly pension of £10, which was afterwards increased. II. Sir Philip Sidney, born in Penshurst, Kent, 29th November, 1554; died in Arnheim, 7th October, 1586. A soldier, courtier, and poet, and eminent in the three characters. He was the author of the Arcadia, and the Defence of Poesie. The nobility of his nature is best illustrated by the anecdote related by Lord Brooke. He was governor of Flushing during the war between the Spaniards and the Hollanders. Wounded in one of the battles, he was leaving the field faint and bleeding when he was attracted by the cries of a dying soldier who craved water. Sidney gave the man his own supply, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." IV. John Milton, born in Bread Street, London, 9th December, 1608; died 8th November, 1674. Paradise Lost was first published in 1667, and the author, it is said, received £10 for his work. He became blind about the year 1654. Whilst his poems are to be found in almost every household, it is to be regretted that his prose works are seldom read. He published a History of England in 1670.] I. TO A LADYE. Sweit rois of vertew and of gentilness; I doute that Merche, with his caulde blastis keyne, WILLIAM DUNBAR. III. DEGENERACY OF THE WORLD. What hapless hap had I for to be born In these unhappy Times and dying days Of this now doating World, when Good decays, Love's quite extinct and Virtue's held a scorr! When such are only prized, by wretched ways, Who with a golden fleece them can adorn; When avarice and lust are counted praise, And bravest minds live orphan-like forlorn! Why was not I born in that golden age When gold was not yet known? and those black arts By which base worldlings vilely play their parts, With horrid acts staining Earth's stately stage? To have been then, O Heaven; 't had been my bliss, But bless me now, and take me soon from this. DRUMMOND of Hawthornden. IV. TO MR. LAWRENCE. Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, V. WORLDLINESS. JOHN MILTON. The world is too much with us!-late and soon, Those clouds that will be weeping at all hours, Or hear old Triton blow his many-wreathed horn. VI. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. The poetry of earth is never dead !-- When all the birds are faint with the hot sun With his delights; for when tired out with fun Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills JOHN KEATS. FACT AND FICTION. HERE BE TRUTHS." "When the heathen philosopher had a mind to eat a grape, he would open his lips when he put it into his mouth, meaning, thereby, that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open.' These are "Facts;" and as such are detailed by Monsieur Touchstone the clown, "a great lover of the same." "Shepherd," quoth he, "learn of me: To have is to have;" another sage maxim, and much acted upon in these enlightened times. Touchstone's relish, however, for "matter of fact" is but the substratum of a vein of humour which puts him a little out of the pale of your true and veritable matter-of-fact people. They-God help them!don't understand jokes. They would no more think of disguising a fact under a covering of fun, than an unsophisticated Costar Pearmain or Tummas Apple-tree would of metamorphosing a piece of fat bacon into a sandwich. They deal in simples, and love what's what for its own sake, as a patron of the "pure disinterestedness" system does virtue. In their vocabulary "whatever is, is right." "Quicquid agunt homines, nostri est farrago libelli," might be their motto. They are of Sir Isaac Newton's opinion, who thought all poetry only "ingen ious nonsense." They ask, with the professor of the mathematics who read Homer, "What does the Iliad prove?" They are the precise antipodes to the lady who doated on Plutarch's Lives until she unluckily discovered, that, instead of being romances, they were all true. With the Irish bishop, they think Gulliver's | Travels a pack of improbable lies, and won't believe a word of them! Some of their favourite authors are David Hume, Sir Nathanael Wraxall, Pepys, Sir John Carr, Bubb Doddington, Sir John Mandeville, and John Wesley. While they eschew, as downright fables, the Waverley Novels, The History of John Bull, Robinson Crusoe, The Annals of the Parish, Sinbad the Sailor, Adam Blair, and Humphrey Clinker. If they meet with a book that is dull, "it is useful, for it contains matter-of-fact." If they happen to meet with one that is not dull, they say the same thing. They never for a moment, as other worthies sometimes do, mistake their imagination for their memory; for which there is perhaps a sufficient reason, "if philosophy could find it out." In short, all imaginative literature they call "light reading;" at the same time they are unaccountably shy of calling their own peculiar favourites heavy, which is odd enough, considering that they seem to estimate usefulness (upon which they lay mighty stress) a good deal by weight, and prefer, as in duty bound, "a pound of lead to a pound of feathers." They are most gravelled by the metaphysics, of which they are rather at a loss what to make. They contrive, however, to avoid studying them as being something "not tangible." To conclude-they write themselves under the style and title of "Lovers of Fact," and are yclept "matter-of-fact people" by the rest of Europe. That "Facts are chiels wha winna ding, An' downa be disputed," is a truth which Burns has, after his own manner, long ago asserted, and which will not be readily controverted. But still this is no more a reason for loving them, than it is for a henpecked husband to love his better-half, because he dare not contradict her. "Facts are indisputable things," quoth Doctor Dryasdust. Very true; but so much the worse; for, in that case, there is an end of the conversation. Rosalind knew better when she recommended "kissing" as "the cleanliest shift for a lover lacking matter;" for if it be resisted, argues she, "this breeds more matter"-a result the very reverse of the doctor's definition. It is a strange thing, but in all ages divers potent, grave, and reverend signors seem to sible. The wildest inventions are only partial departures from the order of nature. But to nature they always look back, and must ultimately be referred. They are no more independent of her, than a balloon is of the earth, although it may mount for a while above its The connection between them may not be so obvious, but it is no less certain. Fact, then, is the primary substratum-the primitive granite-upon which all Fiction is formed. And this being so, Fiction has always more or less of the advantages of truth, besides superadded advantages peculiar to itself. In its employment we have this privilege. We can, at will, produce such a concatenation of supposed and yet natural events, as may be have got it into their heads that "a fact," as they call it, has a sort of intrinsic value, as a fact, per se. They attach a mystical and peculiar value to it, as mortals (before the new birth of the political economists) used to do to gold, without reference to its uses, its origin, or its adjuncts. Adam Smith and Peter Mac-surface. culloch have put the gold-doctrine to flight; but the other, its twin brother, remains there still, "unbated and envenomed." "Facts," say they triumphantly, "are true; now Fiction is untrue." Very well, doctor; and suppose it were the reverse. Suppose the "Fact" was untrue and the Fiction true-what then? This is a sort of query that sometimes makes a man's head spin like a teetotum; and what an effect were this to befall a head that never spun any-requisite to bring about the effect, and teach thing but almanacks during life? "Tilly Vally!" The value of a Fact lies not in its being what it is, but in the effect it produces. A historical series is valuable, not because it is true, but because, being true, it, in consequence, produces certain effects upon the human mind. Could that same effect be produced by a fictitious narrative, it would be just as good. The same effect cannot be so produced, to be sure; and what does this prove? It proves that truth is capable of producing certain effects, of which fiction is incapable. This is all very well; but it happens to be true also of fiction, and to a much greater extent. This is no joke; but of it more by-and-by. If we take a series of historical or other truths, its value seems to lie in this, that, being true, it forms, as it were, an extended experience. It serves as a rule of action for those who read it. To do this, the truth of the series is no doubt absolutely necessary. It is essential to the process. But it is in the effect upon the mind that the value really resides; and the truth of the record is only one aid, amongst others, to the production of that end. The sagacious personages who are, for the most part, accustomed to dogmatize upon this subject, take it broadly for granted that Fiction is something directly the opposite of Fact. They make them out at once to be as light and darkness, virtue and vice, or heat and cold. This is short-sighted work. There are no fictions absolute. None which do not in their essence partake of Fact. For all Fiction is, and must be, more or less, built upon nature. Nor have the most extravagant any very distant resemblance to it. We can only combine. It is beyond the power of man to invent anything which shall have no smack and admixture of reality throughout its whole. If it were possible, it would be incomprehen the lesson we wish. We can always do poetical Dark deeds and Macbeth murders and repents three times a' tion of the strength of timber, as opposed to week. Boxes, pit, and galleries are witnesses the weight of a column of water multiplied into to the subtle poison of his ambition and the, its velocity. If we want a full perception of terrible shrinkings of his remorse. The LESSON the power of the beautiful, Professor Camper's which in nature would have been imprinted facial angle, and Sir Joshua's waving line, sink but once, is stereotyped by the art of the poet, to nothing before Shakespeare's Imogen or and diffused amidst thousands who else had Cleopatra, or Kit Marlowe's description of never known either its import or its name. Helen, in the play of Faustus. All the topoIn the circle of the sciences the reign of graphical quartos that ever were written afford Fact would, at the first blush, seem to be fully no such prospects as the Lady of the Lake or established. Fiction there would either seem Thomson's Seasons. The true lover of flowers to be an open usurper, or at best a sort of, had rather read Lycidas, or Perdita's descripPerkin Warbeck-a pretender who can only tion of her garden, than hunt for "habitats" in hope to succeed by counterfeiting the appear-herbals or botanists' guides;—and whether ance of another. They, however, who acquiesce in this, see a short way into the question. The exact sciences, beautiful and invaluable as they are, seldom embrace the whole, even of the subjects of which they profess to treat. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your-philosophy. Glencoe and Borrodale be primary or secondary formations, their sublimity and grandeur remain the same, in freedom and in contempt of systems and scientific arrangements. All this, however, is still not directly to the question. The point is-has Fact or Fiction produced the most important changes in society? This is the real gist of the matter, The simplest natural objects have bearings and as this is answered, so must the dispute which calculation does not touch, and appear- terminate. It sounds perhaps somewhat like ances and relations which definition fails to a paradox, yet the reply must be given in include. They must have a poor conception of favour of the latter. Let us look at it. The "this goodly frame the earth," of "this brave exact sciences have, without doubt, most overhanging firmament, this majestical roof, changed the outward and bodily frame and fretted with golden fire," who think that these, condition of society. But the great mutations in all their infinitude of variety and beauty, of the world have not their origin in these can be ranged in categories, and ticketed and things. They spring from those causes, whatlabelled in definitions. Can we get an idea of ever they may be, which soften the manners, the splendour and odour of the flower by looking modify the passions, and at once enlarge and out genus and species in Linnæus? Do we purify the current of public thought. The hear the roar of the waterfall, or behold the Spartan legislator who punished the poet for tints of the rainbow, in the theory of acoustics, adding another string to his lyre, well knew the law of falling bodies, and the prismatic this. A people are the most quickly affected decomposition of the solar ray? Can we strain through their imaginative literature. A few an idea of a storm at sea out of an analysis of ballads have altered the character and destiny salt-water and the theories of the tides and of a nation. The Troubadours were amongst winds? Can we compass the sublimity of the the most early and most successful civilizers of heavenly vault by knowing every constellation, Europe. The obscure writers of romances, and every star of every magnitude, of every fabliaux, and metrical legends were the most name, and of every character, Latin or Greek, potent changers of the face of society. Upon upon the celestial globe? Can geography or a barbarous and treacherous brutality, they geology show us Mont Blanc in his unap-gradually ingrafted an overstrained courtesy proachable majesty, or Chamouni in her beauty? and the most romantic maxims of love and It is in vain to ask these questions. Of the honour. Romance, the mother of chivalry, at sublimer qualities of objects, science (so called) length devoured her own offspring, affords no ideas. It gives us substance and Quixote and the Knight of the Burning Pestle measurement, but for the aggregate intellectual put down the errant-knights and the paladins; effect, we must resort to imaginative description and what Archbishop Turpin and the author and the painting of the poet. He who never of Amadis began, Cervantes and Fletcher saw Dover Cliff, will find it in King Lear, and ended. Looking at the literature of England, not in the County History or the Transactions it is certain that the plays of Shakspeare and of the Geological Society. To him who never his fellows have produced a greater effect upon beheld a shipwreck, Falconer and Alexander the English mind than the Principia of Newton. Stevens are better helps than the best calcula- | Had the laws of attraction never been demon Don strated, and the planetary system of Ptolemy | are, to be sure, certain worthy and, upon the remained uncontroverted, the general intellect whole, well-meaning persons, who make a would have been much as it is. These great loud outcry about what they exclusively call truths come little into common use. 66 They do 'Utility.' If, however, you happen to ask not mix themselves with our daily concerns. them of what use is utility, excepting to adWe love, hate, hope, fear, and revenge, without minister to the pleasure and comfort of manonce considering, or caring, whether the earth kind, they ("bless their five wits") are at a revolves from west to east, or from east to west. nonplus. They have confounded themselves Whatever stimulates or purges our passions- and others with a notion that things necessary, whatever gives a higher pulse to generosity, or or which cannot be done without, are therea deeper blush to villany-whatever has enriched fore more useful than things which can. This pity with tears, or love with sighs-whatever they take to be an axiom. It happens only to has exalted patriotism and laid bare ambition- be a mistake. It arises out of a confused perthat it is which ferments and works in the mind ception of the real scope and meaning of the of a nation, until it has brought it to the relish term Usefulness. They forget that their sort of its own vintage, be it good or evil. Such of usefulness is negative and collateral, not were the writings of Shakspeare and his great positive and intrinsic. It is only a consequence contemporaries, Spenser, Marlow, Fletcher, of the imperfection and infirmity of human Chapman, Deckar, and "the immortal and nature, which requires certain things to enable forgotten Webster." In all ages, the imagina- it to enjoy certain other things. This, however, tive writers, when they had scope, have ex- only is a negative merit, being the filling up a hibited the same powers of changing and defect, and not the addition of a positive good. moulding the habits of a nation. The Puri- Necessaries are better than superfluities, quoad tanical authors of the Commonwealth turned the infirmity of our nature-but not in the abEngland into a penitentiary; and the wits and stract. To supply, or rather avoid a defect, is poets of Charles II., by way of revenge, next a negation, as far as enjoyment is concerned. turned it into a brothel-until the poetical To obtain a positive pleasure is "the very satires of Pope, and the moral wit of Addison, entelechia and soul" of our being. Were this Steele, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay, again not so, we might as well assert that the child's helped to " purge it to a sound and pristine A, B, C, are better than all the learning to the health." Look over the page of history where acquisition of which they are necessary-that we will, and the footsteps of the poet, the the foundation is better than the house, water dramatist, and the essayist, may be traced as than wine, oaten cake than ambrosia, a jakes plainly as those of the lawgiver and the philo- than a summer-house. That the sum of intelsopher. Amongst the light stores of the play- lectual pleasure afforded by Fiction is beyond wright, the novelist, and the ballad-maker, must that obtained from other sources, is tolerably the historian and the antiquary look for ma- plain. It is evident in this, that imaginative terials, as well as amidst the graver annals of compositions will bear almost infinite repetition, their predecessors. He who wishes to ascertain whilst other descriptions of writing hardly enHannibal's route across the Alps, must read dure repeating at all. We make ourselves Silius Italicus as well as Polybius. He who acquainted with a series of facts, and having wishes to behold the true features of the done so, are contented, excepting in as far as Rebellion of Forty-five, must read the Jacobite we may make them the means of arriving at Relics as well as the Culloden Papers. The other facts. The only passion to be gratified is antiquary who would illustrate the idiom, curiosity, and that can only be once gratified. manners, and dress of Queen Elizabeth's reign, We take a pursuit, and having got as far as we must go to Shakspeare, Lyly, and Heywood. can, the delight is for the most part at an end. Nay, even the politician who would construct Not so with works of the imagination. They a perfect commonwealth, must read Plato, address themselves, in turn, to every feeling More, Sir John Harrington, Swift, and Lord and passion of our nature; and as long as we reErskine, as well as Montesquieu or Locke. tain those feelings, so long are we enchained by them. There are few minds by which they cannot more or less be felt and appreciated, and, once felt, they never fail us. Poetry may be said to be the only thing of this world which is at once universal and immortal. Time obscures every other monument of human thought. History becomes obsolete, doubtful, and for There is yet another view to be taken of this question, and that perhaps the most decisive. It is this that Fiction has probably contributed in a double proportion to the sum of human delight. If then rational and innocent enjoyment be the end of life-(and if it be not, what is?)—there is little more to be said. There |