as there was no fire in the room below, they had to be shown up to the library, where, on my return, I found the Yankee still seated in Carlyle's chair, very actively doing, as it were, the honors of the house to them; and there he sat upwards of an hour, not one of us addressing a word to him, but he not the less thrusting his word into all that we said. Finding that I would make absolutely no answer to his remarks, he poured in upon me a broadside of positive questions. "Does Mr. Carlyle enjoy good health, Mrs. Carlyle ?' "'No.' "Oh! he doesn't! What does he complain of, Mrs. Carlyle?' "Of everything.' 66 6 Perhaps he studies too hard. "Who knows?' Does he study too hard, Mrs. Carlyle?' "How many hours a day does he study, Mrs. Carlyle ?' 666 'My husband does not study by the clock.' "And so on. "At last the gentleman, having informed himself as to all possible and probable omnibuses, reluctantly took his leave, without an opportunity of baiting the bear, who would certainly have left the marks of the teeth on him." Not all Carlyle's visitors, however, were Americans. George Gilfillan, the once famous preacher, lecturer, and critic of the Spasmodic School, once called upon the sage at Chelsea. Carlyle himself opened the door. He was in even grimmer humor than usual. Who are you?" he asked. 66 "I am George Gilfillan," was the reply, “and I have been giving lectures on your books throughout the country.' "You have, have you? Damn your impudence! Good-morning." And the door was shut in his face. Emerson too, in his quiet home at Concord, was besieged by visitors of all sorts. "His mind," says Hawthorne, "acted upon other minds of a certain constitution with wonderful magnetism, and drew many men upon long pilgrimages to speak with him face to face." Some were visionaries and theorists, others were mere curiosity-seekers. They pestered him even in his declining years, when mind and memory had failed him. One morning his daughter found him entertaining a strange Boston woman in his library. "Ellen," said the sage, looking up with an expression of hopeless bewilderment, "I wish you would attend to this lady: she wants some of my clothes." And then the visitor volubly explained she was making a "poets' rug" on the principle of a crazy-quilt. Mr. Longfellow had already given her an old shirt. She wanted a pair of Emerson's cast-off pantaloons. She called them pants, by the way. Tennyson, who has always an acute horror of being lionized, for many years has intrenched himself in his house as his castle, denying himself to strange visitors. He has been obliged to build a high wall around his grounds, with locked gates. But these very methods have whetted public curiosity to intensity. Not unfrequently when he walks out he finds a row of heads all around the wall. They stare, they make audible comments about him. The land around is trampled, the grass is killed by the waiting crowd. They bring their lunches with them, and leave relics behind in the shape of dinnerpapers, crusts, and empty bottles. Professor Jowett has sought equal seclusion, with even less success. Hc is one of the lions of Oxford. That town is subjected to constant inroads of tourists, all of whom crave a sight of the famous professor. It so happened, while he was engaged on his translation of Plato, that a guide discovered the professor's study-window looked into the broad street. Coming with his menagerie under this window, the guide would begin: "This, ladies and gentlemen, is Balliol College, one of the very holdest in the huniversity, and famous for the herudition of its scholars. The 'ead of Balliol College is called the Master. The present Master of Balliol is the celebrated Professor Benjamin Jowett, Regius Professor of Greek. Those are Professor Jowett's studywindows, and there" (here the ruffian would stoop down, take up a handful of gravel and throw it against the panes, bringing poor Jowett, livid with fury, to the window), "ladies and gentlemen, is Professor Benjamin Jowett himself.” In one of his "Roundabout Papers" Thackeray makes a humorous protest against the social miseries that are entailed upon famous men. He complains that he does his comic business with the greatest pains, seriousness, and trouble. It is his profession. Why cannot he leave that profession behind him when he goes out into society? “If you ask Mr. Blondin to tea," he says, "you don't have a rope stretched from your garret-window to the opposite side of the square and request Monsieur to take his tea out on the centre of the rope." Perhaps lions should take some concerted action to do no roaring in private life. Indeed, by a wise provision of nature, many of them are unable to roar except in print. Like his African brethren, your literary lion is a very tame animal outside of his native jungle. There is a familiar story of Francis Jeffrey's first meeting with Talleyrand. By his own request he had been seated next to the famous statesman at dinner. It was a proud moment, and one from which he had hoped to carry away imperishable memories. The only remark that Talleyrand made was, A propos of your cock-a-leekie soup, M. Jeffrey, do you take it with prunes or without ?" Recently a London lady was taken down to dinner by a famous actor. She was in ecstasies. "I have met him at last," she thought; "he is the funniest actor in London, and he is going to talk to me for at least an hour and a half. How lucky I am!" But the soup was disposed of, and then the fish and the entrées, and still the funniest man in London had not uttered a word. Suddenly his eyes fell on his wife, who sat opposite. Then he turned to his companion. "It has been a long time coming," she thought, "but it has come," and she prepared to receive the joke. Do you see that dress on my wife?" asked the comedian. "Yes." "Well, it cost nine pounds." And not another syllable did he utter. Another lady who was taken down by Tennyson suffered an equal disappointment, after equal preliminary expectation. The only utterance which the Laureate let fall was the unpoetical remark, "I like my mutton cut in chunks." Dr. Buckley tells a story of how years ago he followed Tennyson, who was with his wife and family, through the South Kensington Museum for two hours and a half, hoping to hear him speak. At last he made signs as if he were about to do so. Hoping to hear some notable criticism, the doctor listened intently, and this is what he heard: "You take care of the children, while I go and get some beer." A young woman in Cambridge one day saw Longfellow and Lowell strolling a little ahead of her. She had often wished to know what poets talked about when they were together, so she quickened her pace. Just before she overtook them a little child came along. That seemed to give Lowell an idea. The young woman pricked up her ears. "What are little girls made of?" said Lowell to Longfellow. The reply was equally brilliant : "Sugar and spice and all that's nice; It is a curious, and from the point of view of the lion a really distressing feature of the lion-hunter's character that he cares very little for the work of his professed idol. The author of a gushing series of letters to the Duke of Wellington which have recently made their appearance had never heard of the battle of Waterloo. The actor finds that his admirers have never seen him on the stage, the author that they have never read his works. A rich German recently gave a dinner in honor of a famous poet. After dinner the guests begged the poet to read some of his verses. He agreed, after much apologetic modesty. But the host was now observed to show great uneasiness. When a copy of Herr M's poems were called for he was obliged to confess that he had not one in his house. There was great consternation and much suppressed laughter. But the host was equal to the occasion. He sent out and got a copy, not at the bookseller's, however, but at a circulating library. Lion sermon, a sermon preached annually on October 16, at St. Catherine Cree Church in London, commemorative of the escape of Sir John Gayer, Lord Mayor of London, 1646-47, from a lion in the deserts of Arabia. This is in accordance with the terms of his will, dated December 19, 1648, leaving a bequest of two hundred pounds to the church. In perpetuation of an ancient custom annually celebrated at St. Catherine Cree Church, in Leadenhall Street, the Rev. W. M. Whittemore, D.D., rector, on Saturday preached what is termed the "Lion" sermon. The preacher, in the course of his remarks, alluded to the fact that about two hundred and fifty years ago upon that very day Sir John Gayer, a citizen of London, who afterwards became Lord Mayor, was in the deserts of Arabia upon business which required his own personal attention. By some means he became detached from the caravan, and while quite alone and unarmed he was much alarmed at seeing a lion approaching him. Scarcely knowing what to do, he fell upon his knees and asked the Lord to deliver him from his perilous position. The lion looked at him savagely, but upon seeing him in this position, after a few moments, walked away in an opposite direction. The merchant on rising from his knees made a solemn vow that upon his safe return home he would commemorate this providential deliverance by some benevolent act. Upon reaching England he accordingly left a sum of money to provide for this sermon every year, in addition to a bequest to the parish church of his native town,-Plymouth. The rector further mentioned that Sir John Gayer, in consequence of his loyal attachment to King Charles I., was ordered by Cromwell's Parliament to pay a fine of £500, a considerable sum at that time, and that in default of payment he was committed to the Tower. In the British Museum might be seen a copy of his petition to Parliament asking not for mercy, but for justice. He ultimately obtained his freedom, and soon afterwards died. Considerable interest was displayed in the service, and it was understood that some descendants of Sir John Gayer were among the congregation.-London Citizen, October 18, 1886 Lion's provider, a humble friend who plays into the hands of an important personage to show him to best advantage, a foil or butt for another's wit, and who feeds on the leavings. The simile is drawn from the jackal, who is supposed to serve the lion much the same as the dog serves the sportman, and who yells to advertise his lord that prey is close at hand. Lions, Seeing the. Formerly there was a menagerie in the Tower of London in which lions were kept; it was discontinued about 1815. During these earlier times of comparative simplicity, when a stranger visited the city for the first time he would of course be taken to see the lions, and on his return to the country it was usual to ask him whether he had seen the lions. This is the origin of the phrase. The transition from real lions to figurative ones-i.e., all remarkable sights or personages-was easy, and the term is still used in this sense. Now, however, the lions are more frequently understood to be the people who are supposed to add lustre and interest by their presence at a social gathering, from their position or accomplishments. In America the phrase is "to see the elephant," with a humorous allusion to the sometimes sad experience of sight-seeing country-cousins with all manner of sharpers who lie in wait for them in the large cities. Lion's share,-ie., all or nearly all; derived from Æsop's fable of the fion, who, when the spoil of a joint hunt of a number of beasts was being divided, claimed one quarter in right of his prerogative, one for his superior courage, one for his dam and cubs, "and as for the fourth, let who will dare dispute it with me." Lipograms (Gr. λɛinw, “I leave"), a form of literary trifling in which the author carefully excluded from his composition some letter or letters of the alphabet. A good story is told of Jami, the Persian critic, which seems applicable to all these useless tours de force. A certain poet had read him a copy of verses, but Jami seemed unmoved. "You will at least allow it to be curious," said the author, slightly nettled, "for you will observe that the letter A does not occur in it from beginning to end." To which Jami replied, "It would have been a great improvement had you left out also all the other letters." The most gigantic lipograms on record are two Greek poems produced by a certain Tryphiodorus in those early centuries of our era during which the world, or the greater part of it, seems to have been in a state of blue mould for want of work,-the one a kind of Iliad in twenty-four books, each excluding absolutely the letter of the alphabet marking its own number; the other an Odyssey composed on the same principles. "It must have been very pleasant," says Addison, in his "Spectator," No. 59, "to have seen this poet avoiding the reprobate letter as much as another would a false quantity, and making his escape from it, through the different Greek dialects, when he was presented with it in any particular syllable; for the most apt and elegant word in the whole language was rejected, like a diamond with a flaw in it, if it appeared blemished with the wrong letter." Nevertheless, Tryphiodorus might have claimed that he was kept in countenance by no meaner precedent than that of Pindar, who, according to Athenæus, wrote an ode from which the letter Sigma was carefully excluded. And in the Middle Ages he found numerous imitators. There was Gordianus Fulgentius, who congratulated himself on the fact that he had produced a wonderful work,-"De Ætate Mundi et Hominis,"-and so it was, for in the chapter on Adam he excluded the letter A; from that on Abel, the letter B; from that on Cain, the letter C, and so on through twenty-three chapters. There was Gregorio Leti, who presented to the Academy of Humorists at Rome a discourse entitled "The Exiled R," because the letter R was omitted throughout. There was Lope de Vega, among whose voluminous works are five novels each of which avoids some particular vowel. And to come down to more recent times, there is the famous "Pièce sans A," written in 1816 by one Ronden, which was acted at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris. The public thronged to see this tour de force. The curtain rose. Duval entered from one wing, Mengozzi from the opposite side of the stage. The first words the latter uttered were, Ah, monsieur! vous voilà. The whole audience roared with laughter at this curious beginning of a piece without A. The laugh gave the prompter time to set the actor right. He corrected himself with, Eh, monsieur! vous voici. So goes the story. To which there is only one objection,-namely, that nothing like the sentence quoted is to be found in the published piece. To be sure, it contains others very like it. The author may have made an alteration in proof. He confesses, by the way, in his preface, that the performance was not suffered to proceed to the end. From all and various these portentous literary trifles we only pray to be delivered. Our citations shall be taken from the fugitive pieces, which, though easier to make, are easier to read. To appreciate them at their full value it well to keep in mind the following table of the relative proportions in which the various letters of the alphabet are used: It follows, therefore, that the letter E must be the most nearly indispensable letter in the alphabet. That it is not absolutely indispensable is shown by the following, written, as the author says, with ease without e's: Here is another. has a further and alphabet except E: THE FATE OF NASSAN. Not work of man, nor sport of child, Lax grow his joints, limbs toil in vain, Poor wight! why didst thou quit that plain? Vainly for succor Nassan calls. Know, Zillah, that thy Nassan falls; But prowling wolf and fox may joy But this example not merely excludes the letter E. It singular merit. Each stanza contains every letter of the A jovial swain should not complain Of any buxom fair, Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain To quiz his awkward air. Quixotic boys who look for joys A lass annoys with trivial toys, A jovial swain may rack his brain, To quiz is vain, for 'tis most plain The following verses contain every letter except S: COME, LOVE, Come. Oh! come to-night; for naught can charm The heather-bell hath mildly flung To-night the liquid wave hath not- Do breathe, and laugh, and home it there. 間 7 |