Quitting this gayest portion of the scene about us (and it must have been so even when the whole was in its glory) we find ourselves in a little sequestered spot-half garden, half church-yard-containing the grave of two rustic lovers, who were struck dead by lightning in each other's arms, at the time Pope and Gay were on a visit to Lord Harcourt, at his neighbouring seat of Cockthorpe. This interesting circumstance is very prettily related in a letter of Gay's :-" John Hewet was a well-set man of about five and twenty; Sarah Drew might be rather called comely than beautiful, and was about the same age. They had passed through the various labours of the year together, with the greatest satisfaction; if she milked, it was his morning and evening care to bring the cows to her hand; it was but last fair that he bought her a present of green silk for her straw hat, and the posy on her silver ring was of his choosing. Their love was the talk of the whole neighbourhood; for scandal never affirmed that they had any other views than the lawful possession of each other in marriage. It was that very morning that he had obtained the consent of her parents, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps in the intervals of their work they were now talking of the wedding clothes, and John was suiting several sorts of poppies and field flowers to her complexion, to choose her a knot for the wedding-day. While they were thus busied (it was the last day of July, between two and three in the afternoon) the clouds grew black, and such a storm of lightning and thunder ensued, that all the labourers made the best of their way to what shelter the trees and hedges afforded. Sarah was frighted, and fell down in a swoon on a heap of barley. John, who never separated from her, sat down by her side, having raked together two or three heaps, the better to secure her from the storm. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack, as if heaven had split asunder. Every one was now solicitous for the safety of his neighbour, and called to one another throughout the field. No answer being made to those who called to our lovers, they stepped to the place where they lay; they perceived the barley all in a smoke, and then spied the faithful pair: John with one arm about Sarah's neck, and the other held over her, as to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and stiffened in this tender posture. Sarah's left eyebrow was singed, and there appeared a black spot on her breast; her lover was all over black; but not the least signs of life in either. Attended by their melancholy companions, they were conveyed to the town, and the next day were interred in Stanton-Harcourt church-yard."

This is better than twenty "Celadon and Amelias," and the event it describes deserves a better commemoration than it has met with in Pope's epitaph, engraved on a tablet in the church-wall opposite the grave of the lovers. It is, in this case, the grave, and not the epitaph, which consecrates the spot; and those who do not look upon it with the same reverent tenderness that they would feel on visiting the grave of a beloved poet, are worshipping the name instead of the thing: for the one contains but the ashes of the expounder of poetry, while the other contains the ashes of poetry itself.

As I was about to take leave of this interesting spot-interesting on so many accounts-the chivalrous associations with which I had en tered upon the examination of it had been nearly dissipated, or dis

placed, by the purely pastoral ones excited in me by the recollection of the above "oure true story;" but the former were brought back in their full force by the sight of a tame hawk, which stood in the pathway as I was going out, holding under his foot a sparrow which he had just caught. In a moment came streaming through the old arched gateway, where I was standing, a gay train of dames and cavaliers, such as we see them in Wouvermans' pictures, with hooded hawks and leashed hounds, returning from their inspiring sport, to again join in the princely hospitalities which for ages graced the halls and bowers of

Stanton Harcourt.

Unknown to him alike life's joys, or fears,

Its gracious smiles, its yet more gracious tears.

Ir must seem to foreigners extraordinary that there should be no English term to express a condition of the mind to which, if we may credit the testimony of all Europe, Englishmen are peculiarly subject that while the more serious part of the community are so frequently following the example of

Jean Rosbif écuyer

Qui pendit soi-même pour se désennuyer,

and while our listless men of fashion daily commit the sin of suicide in detail, by the waste of an existence they cannot enjoy, we should be obliged to apply to our neighbours for the loan of the word ennui.

Upon this point there are two remarks to be made: first, that England being a commercial nation, and a nation much given to politics and stock-jobbing, it is very probable we are not nationally so bad as we are represented; and next, that our ennuyés par excellence, the dandies, have done their endeavours to remedy the evil, by establishing, legitimizing, and making negotiable the homespun, but fashionable "bore." It is indeed greatly to be lamented that no writer of eminence should have authorized this word, and by giving it the stamp of his name, emancipated the country from such a subjection to ("I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word") its "natural enemies." Let me therefore suggest to any purist, who may tremble to put into print, for the first time, a neologism which passes current in every mouth, that though the word may not appear textually in any writer of authority, yet it is often to be found substantially in whole pages of the very best of them.

It is the more necessary that we should be able to "speak our minds in plain English" on this subject, because the thing itself is daily gaining ground in the country; and notwithstanding every effort of the taxgatherer to remove from amongst us the proximate cause of the discase, as the doctors call it, yet the number of people who are " bored” to death, and of the "bores" who annoy them, and of the “d—d bores" they have to encounter in the business of life, is hourly increasing. Pascal has described the complaint to admiration. "Celui est (says he) une peine insupportable que de vivre avec soi, et de penser à soi: ainsi tout son soin est de s'oublier soi-même, et de laisser couler ce

temps si court, si précieux sans réflexion." The ennuyé is, in fact, eternally flying from himself to externals, and he is only displeased with them, because he attributes to them the fault which is in himself. But however well Pascal understood the appearances of the disease, that he was mistaken in attributing it to the fall of man I am the more inclined to think, because, of all mankind, those who bear the largest portion of the common curse pronounced on the species, and, in the force of the term, get their bread in the sweat of their brow, are the least liable to this affliction. Although there are too many who prefer living by the most profligate corruption, and who think honest industry a devilish bore," yet I never knew a single instance in which one of these sturdy beggars among the great were obliged to buckle too, without a speedy cure of his habitual ennui.

66

It assuredly was a very ill-natured turn of Dame Nature's to force this malady into the company of riches and pleasures, and thus to damp the joys of "the higher classes of society;" driving the educated and the noble to seek the company of the very lowest and worst part of the community-black-legs, dog-fighters, jacko-maccako men, cockers, &c. &c. and compelling them to throw overboard their superfluities in order to lighten the vessel, and to dissipate the enormous wealth, which prevents them from enjoying one moment of satisfaction.

There are, indeed, who think this distribution of Providence has for its object the equalizing the condition of the species, and abating the envy of the poor. But notwithstanding the instance of the French epicure, who, when a mendicant told him he was hungry, replied, "Ah! le coquin heureux, que je le porte envie," I can never consent to put these two cases upon an equality, nor be brought to believe that a "fat sorrow and a lean one" are quite on a par. Ennui, it is true, drove Alexander the Great to India, and Poverty has often sent a vast many persons to the same place, which in both instances has produced a great deal of bloodshed and robbery :—and so far things are pretty much on the square. But who ever heard of Poverty's making a man get tipsy with his mistress and set fire to Persepolis? Who ever knew Poverty offer a reward for the discovery of new pleasures? Was Poverty ever reduced to kill flies? or (coming nearer to home) did Poverty ever make a man walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or ride 150 miles, walk twenty, and kill forty brace of birds, all within the narrow compass of one natural day?

"Aurum (says Horace) perrumpere amat saxa:" but though many an honest fellow is glad to get his living by breaking stones, I never heard of one poor enough to take a pleasure in the operation.

Bene est cui Deus obtulit

Parca quod satis est manu,—

The poor have the best of it. "Potemkin, first minister of Russia, the favourite of his sovereign, covered with glory, loaded with riches and ribands, and sated with pleasures, was disgusted with every thing, because he had enjoyed every thing. On one day, he envied the peaceable dignity of a bishop, and left his ministerial concerns to embark in the disputes of the Greek church; on another, he sighed for retirement and monkish tranquillity. Then again, he formed projects for making himself Duke of Courland, or King of Poland. In

the bosom of peace he meditated war, and in the camp his whole desire was peace. Fatigued with honours, yet jealous of rivals, he was always bored' with what he did, and always regretted what he did not

What a picture! Can workhouses and hospitals afford its equal? "Con cio sia cosa che," (as the Italians with a laconic brevity express themselves) that all the world complains of ennui, all the world, nevertheless, envies the unfortunate fortunates who are the most subject to the malady. The reason is obvious: all the world can see the glittering of the star, but none but the owner can know the dreary solitude of the heart that beats under it. Those who go but "once in a way" to a play or an opera, dine only now and then well at a lord mayor's feast, or visit the Park only on some very fine Sunday, have no conception of the "bore" of faring sumptuously every day, or of the ennui of being forced to listen night after night to the same music. They see not the two demons of bile and calomel drugging the voluptuary's malachatuuni soup with insipidity; they know not the disgust of " that eternal bore-the eternal Rotten-row."

To endure ennui well, it requires to be bred to the trade. The most intolerably "bored" of all ennuyés are the nouveaux riches. When the snug, warm citizen realizes his gains, and, lodging his plumb securely in the stocks, retires to ease and rurality, he at once becomes the most wretched of human beings; and, unless, his cidevant clerks and successors let him sometimes into their counting-house, to inspect their balance, or he can contrive to slip into town and "see how things are going on upon 'Change," 'tis ten to one that in the first twelvemonth he joins his carp in his own fish-pond, or hangs himself up under the shade of his own horse-chesnut. Thus it comes to pass, that to endure ennui is a mark of dignity; and though it is no longer the fashion to be "gentlemanlike and melancholy," yet eternal listlessness and yawning are affected as the supreme "bon ton" of the supreme "bon genre:" and every social affection, every human passion is discarded, in order to arrive at that pitch of selfishness, necessary to be perfectly "bored." For Delille has well observed of the egotist,

"Le moi de lui fait le centre du monde,

Mais il en fuit le tourment et l'ennui."

Upon this subject of ennui much remains to be said: but "malheur à lui qui dit tout ce qu'il sçait."

"L'art d'ennuyer est l'art de tout dire ;"

and, though writing ex professo on the theme, that is not a sufficient reason for "boring" the readers of the New Monthly, being myself the great sublime I draw. So without farther ceremony amplius addam."

66 non verbum

M.

Segur, Galerie Morale.

INDEX

TO THE

FIFTH VOLUM E.