He must imagine also the air breathing upon them most sweetly, and all the place as being suffused with a general pleasure showing like the peaceful bower of happiness. He must not forget to note the time also of this meeting; for, as the German writer has already told us, there is something in that too, since the evening like the dawn has peculiar attractions; and not for men alone, but it would almost seem for some plants, like the mignonette, which is sweeter and more penetrating at the setting as well as at the rising of the sun than at noon. In short, he must suppose every thing co-operating to form one of those happy hours that are easier felt than analyzed and defined. One might have felt like Aminta saying to Lisauro, in the "Maid in the Mill," "Pray be merry, The birds sing as they meant to entertain you; Every thing smiles abroad; every thing is in love." Or like Raybright, in the "Sun's Darling," exclaiming, "The rose-lipp'd dawning Is not so melting, so delicious; Turn me into a bird, that I may sit Still singing in such boughs." Or, for we must be in the vein of poesy now, one might have had the feeling of another when he says,— "Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Every thing is happy now, Every thing is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue 'Tis the natural way of living." But who are these friends supposed to be? Why, as for that, reader, you must know that the real is already changed into the ideal, and so you will be relieved from the burden of your curiosity, unless you would even still inquire as to whom we suppose them to be in their transformed character, though even then we have no answer perhaps that will perfectly satisfy you. However, this much ought to be sufficient. Every book you know that is composed after certain approved models must begin by the mention of some listeners or speakers. Plato and Cicero introduce their dialogues by representing as the speaker a Gorgias or a Protagoras, a Brutus or a Cato, all very grand personages in their way, no doubt. Mr. Southey, for the same purpose, in bis Colloquies on Society, rather unhappily perhaps, brings in actually the ghost of Sir Thomas More and himself under the mellifluous name of Montesinos. Compared with such characters our henceforth fictitious couple, who seem unconscious that they are observed, would cut but a poor figure. Ask no more about them. As they must be persons of a condition and character expressly appropriate to the subject that is to be discussed, it must suffice to feel sure that they do not come direct from Belgravia, or, as the ancients would say, that they neither wear Jove's sandals nor arrive "from the Academy." It is not necessary therefore to speak more about them, they are intended to have such little pretensions to notice and are so common. Perhaps if you asked them you would only hear sung, 66 As Festus says: Supposing I were you, Supposing you were me, Supposing each was somebody else, "The lady was of course like others fair, But you are inquisitive. Before their change into the mythical state with what were they regaling themselves? Nothing very precious; only blackberries that they had just been gathering. But what had they been reading there? Neither the Tusculan Disputations nor the Phædo nor the Banquet. It is, if you will know all, a song book and the London Journal. You see what revelations come from asking irrelevant questions. Briefly and once for all, you must put out of your head the fancy that there was any thing in the place or in the persons to suggest what is at all extraordinary or in the least out of the common way either in regard to the reading or to the pastime or to the characters. It was not the moment to have one's thoughts directed either to the lofty page of old romance or to the philosophy of history or to mystic learning, as when men are drinking deep draught of forest solitude, walking through its holy colonnades. But it did seem to be the very place and time to open our eyes to admire the beauty, and our heart to love the good, and our understanding to discern the depth of common things, of familiar every-day things. To a looker on at least, finding himself in such a spot, with so great a charm shed around, appreciating the beauty of the sky, the trees, and shrubs, and the no less moral beauty of an artless nature, with such a deep, quiet sense of the sweetness of moments in which every thing strange, unusual, or transcendental was excluded, or at least invisible, the occasion might have suggested the plan of such a work as the present, bearing the two titles of the "Lover's Seat," to signify the point of view from which, for a reason you shall shortly hear, the world will be looked at, and "Cathemérina," to sound grander, which the printer need not trouble himself to put into Greek characters, because all that the word means to say is "daily things," which of course are common things. For one so placed, observer of such a scene, might naturally have begun to think on the excellence of common as distinguished from out-of-the-way things in relation to beauty, virtue, and truth. If one of the friends before him referred to beauty, there was the sun that shines for all the world with such a divine, incomparable charm; if to truth, there was the book of nature before him, represented by the scenery, by the wild berries and the grass-grown path, of which "there is not a leaf or blade too mean to be some happy creature's palace;" if to goodness, there was what could be found perhaps in every garret of the city they had just left-without any social distinctions or conventional respectability—his companion. "What happy things are youth and love and sunshine! To know it is lighting up the rosy blood, And with all joyous feelings, prism-hued, Making the poor breast shine like a spar-grot* ! " And yet there is a dash of melancholy too in this golden chalice; and therefore he who saw the couple seated thus, when he came to think about them afterwards, composed these lines, not perhaps inappropriately inscribed upon a lover's seat: 66 Enjoy while you may the hour bright, While you and she sit near; 'Tis sweet, 'tis blissful, and 'tis right, For days may come when you must part, To-morrow speaks of hope and bliss, What is all beauty then to you? The garden it is sweet and gay; But it is bitterness to stay Within these trellised bowers. For they recall the scene and day No more that silver voice you hear, No more can see that smile, Which could all heaven then bring near, *Festus. Oh! sadly show those flowers bright; The sun can please no more; But why such ills anticipate? Why fear ideal sorrow? Fond pair, do not distrust your fate, Nor cease to say To-morrow." But enough of this. Let us proceed to our general subject. It is strange what pleasure many persons feel in seeking things that appear extraordinary and elevated above the common, forgetting that "Not to know at large of things remote Is the prime wisdom; what is more is fame, And renders us in things that most concern The educated classes at all times, and at certain periods of life those persons who seem the best disposed for self-culture, contract a most irrational disdain for whatever does not wear the character of the uncommon. Seeking all the rareness and variety the world can offer, they seem to hold the principle, “Quæ rara, cara;" and to agree with only one part of Aristotle's proposition, saying "that the more rare good is greater than the abundant*," which he qualifies in the next sentence by observing, that in another view the abundant or common is better than the rare. They are unutterably shocked when things about them seem brought by some accident on a level, and when they think "there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon." Akenside even, in treating on the pleasures of imagination, requires the same vast expenditure of prodigious things, of objects new and strange. "A musician," as Hazlitt says, "if asked to play a tune, will select that which is the most difficult and the least intelligible. A painter, if shown a work * Rhet. |