I kiss'd thee, and all past away;

I stood, and still gazed on;
I thought of more I had to say,
But thou, alas! wert gone.

Oh! when will come that blessed day
Which leads us to the shore
Where all, as wisest teachers say,

Shall meet to part no more*?”

The pleasures of the river are not unknown even to the laborious poor who frequent its banks; and Mr. Mayhew relates an instance, which should be given in the words of the honest fellow that recounts it. A dredger or river-finder said to him, "Father, and grandfather afore him, was a dredger and fisherman. As soon as I could crawl father took me with him in the boat to help him to pick up and use me to the water. When I got bigger and stronger I was sent to school; but I didn't like it half as well as the boat, and couldn't be got to stay two days together. At last I went above bridge, and went along with a fisherman, and used to sleep in the boat every night; I liked to sleep in the boat! I used to be as comfortable as could be. Lor bless you! there's a tilt to them boats, and no rain can't get at you. I used to lie awake of a night in them times and listen to the water slapping agin the boat, and think it fine fun... How do I get on now, sir? Tho' times ain't near so good as they was, I manages purty tidy, and hasn't got no occasion to hollor much."

But it is time to leave the subject of common pleasures. This way of treating it, perhaps, has not much suited you. "If you be not pleased, mate, put your hand in your pocket and please yourself," as the old saying is. There is, however, one grave observation that suggests itself at the close of this long chapter, which seems to be not without great practical importance for all of us. Heaven grants pleasure, and why are not we grateful? It is because unfeeling pedants have acted austerely and stoically with us, and told us it was wrong; a horrible sentence, which custom, life, manners, the community itself reject. Still it weighs upon us, and so we take

* Patell, The Excursion.

pleasure stealthily, and fear to thank God for it as a thing for-
bidden. Oh, if other voices had been heard, distinguishing the
exigencies of duties, of places, of times, the vicissitude of labour
and of pleasure, how we should thank Him for the common
things in days of recreation! How we should feel grateful for
little things for the public garden-yes, for the cheerful tea-
party within the arbour, for the pic-nic on the grass, for the
day's row on the river, for the stroll by moonlight, for the
prattle we had listened to, for the flowers we had gathered, for
the play that we had laughed at, for the song that we had
sighed at, for the hands we had pressed fondly, for the hearts
that had been opened to us, for the hopes that we had retained
on parting, for the belief that to-morrow would bring back
to-day and yesterday, for that brightness at intervals without a
shadow, for that joy with a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow!
When Dickens's Kit marks the effects in his mother of going to
Little Bethel, he entreats her, as we just heard, to retain her
good-humoured face and the bows in her bonnet.
"Can you
suppose," he asks, "there's any harm in looking as cheerful,
and being as cheerful, as our poor circumstances will permit?
Do I see any thing, in the way I'm made, which calls upon me
to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, sneaking about as
if I couldn't help it, and expressing myself in a most unpleasant
snuffle?" And we may remark that it was after recovering
twice or thrice from a fit of laughter, and as often relapsing,
that he wiped his eyes and said grace. The common pleasures
of life, and even the thought of them, when he heard them
vilified, inspired him instinctively with a religious gratitude.
Can there be a more truthful or forcible delineation of the
excellence of pleasure, or one more calculated to justify the
poet for representing Euphrosyne as sent from heaven to man-
kind with these delightful words,—

"Lo! I am here, to answer to your vows,
And be the meeting fortunate! I come
With joyful tidings; we shall part no more.'

I hope this allusion and the design of the whole chapter will not be understood as identical with the inexcusable fault of trying to push the human heart towards the side to which it leans. That would be worse than ridiculous. But there may be at

times an undue pressure of transcendentalism laid upon it, which it is well to remove or alleviate by recurring to what is common in relation to virtue, in order that the heart itself may be enabled to rise and obey the invitation of "sursum corda."

We heard in the beginning good reasons in behalf of those common pleasures which are provided for us amidst all the varieties of life. We have remarked briefly in what they generally consist. We must now proceed to notice the excellence of other common things in relation to virtue.

CHAPTER X.

ADHERENCE to nature, fidelity to the designs of nature in regard to manhood, womanhood, and youth-such is the next subject that suggests itself from the class of common things in relation to virtue, of which I think it would be neither unimportant nor uninteresting to observe the excellence; for there is sometimes either an involuntary or a systematic opposition to these common features of our humanity, the consideration of which can hardly fail to bring out in deeper and more lively colours the charm of what has been ordained for us by our Creator. First, then, let us consider manhood, and the contrasts to it that arise from neglecting what is common, which verify the saying of the Italians, "Non ogni uomo e uomo.

It would be in vain to deny that some individuals wearing hats and coats, very respectable characters according to the world, “all over whom,” as some one says, "respectable is written, from the crowns of their heads to the very tips of their polished boots, have-by dint of affecting singularity, superiority, and, in short, the uncommon-nothing of man about them but the name." We try most of us to turn away our eyes and to direct our thoughts elsewhere, and to banish the memory of such faces, such forms, such tones of voice, such answers, and such discourse; but the disagreeable impression from this concrete sinks very deep, even deeper than we can account for, unless, indeed, we explain it like Shamont, saying,—

It afflicts us

When we behold unseemliness in an image

So near the Godhead! 'Tis an injury
To glorious eternity."

Whatever may be the external cause of displeasure, the source of the evil appears to be, at least for the greatest part, in the mind, for nothing purely organic could produce the phenomenon. Moreover, it is easier to perceive than define it. At one time it

presents the form of

"The jewel of all the court, you may wear him,
As Sir Moth says. He is

A chrysolite, a gem, the very agate

Of state and policy, cut from the quar

Of Machiavel."

You feel tempted to say with Shakspeare, "Originally God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man."

"He is a lawyer, and must speak for his fee
Against his father and mother, all his kindred,
His brothers or his sisters; no exception
Lies at the common law. He must not alter
Nature for form, but go on in his path."

At another,

In vain would you say to him, "Lose not the fashion of a man.” Perhaps he never wore it, and now affects it not—“ walking in crooked insolence," as Pindar says. The phenomenon assumes the form one time of a scholar or philosopher. When Bellafont has her last interview with Hipolito, she says to him,

"Hear me but speak; my words shall be all music.

Hear me but speak."

The pedant cries, "Hence!" and, addressing his attendants, says,

"Guard the chamber: let no more come on,
One woman serves for man's damnation.
Beshrew thee, thou dost make me violate
The chastest and most sanctimonious vow,
That e'er was enter'd in the court of heav'n;
I was on meditation's spotless wings
Upon my journey thither; like a storm
Thou beat'st my rip'ned cogitations

Flat to the ground; and like a thief dost stand
To steal devotion from the Holy Land."

She entreats him still

"If woman were thy mother; if thy heart
Be not all marble; or if it marble be,
Let my tears soften it, to pity me.

I do beseech thee, do not thus with scorn

Destroy a woman

His tender conscience bids him act so; he has vowed, and

The copy of that obligation

Where my soul's bound in heavy penalties."

She makes a last effort

"Be greater than a king; save not a body,
But from eternal shipwrack keep a soul;
If not, and that again sin's path I tread,

The grief be mine, the guilt fall on thy head!"

He concludes with a kind of sermon, bids her read some pious book, and so with a scowl departs. At another time this character appears in the enslaved husband, who lives under the sign of the "cat's foot," as the saying is, acting the counterpart of the married lover. Again, at another it is seen in the ferocious and deceitful foe, who says with the Greek poet, "May it be mine to love my friend! But against an enemy I will, as an enemy, make a secret attack like a wolf, going now this way and now that, in crooked course *." Then, as if to show itself in all oppositions, it can be traced in the mere man about town," when nobles are their tailor's tutors-the superfluous and lust-dieted man, that will not see because he doth not feel. "This is the imposthume of much wealth, that inward breathes and shows no cause without why the man dies." But him woman's quick-reading eye unmasks, and brands with words like those of Argellina, in the Elder Brother, saying,

"You have the outside of a pretty gentleman,
But, by my troth, your inside is but barren.

* Pyth. ii.

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