my surprise; for although I had left Europe in great hesitation on this subject, and rather believed that it ran in the contrary direction, I had made such frequent inquiries during my progress concerning this river, and received from Negroes of different nations such clear and decisive assurances that its general course was towards the rising sun, as scarcely left any doubt on my mind; and more especially as I knew that Major Houghton had collected similar information in the same manner. A Kind-hearted African Housewife. I waited more than two hours without having an opportunity of crossing the river, during which time the people who had crossed carried information to Mansong, the king, that a white man was waiting for a passage, and was coming to see him. He immediately sent over one of his chief men, who informed me that the king could not possibly see me until he knew what had brought me into his country, and that I must not presume to cross the river without the king's permission. He therefore advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed, for the night, and said that in the morning he would give me further instructions how to conduct myself. This was very discouraging. However, as there was no remedy, I set off for the village, where I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable-for the wind rose, and there was great appearance of a heavy rain-and the wild beasts are so very numerous in the neighbourhood that I should have been under the necessity of climbing up the tree and resting amongst the branches. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow her. Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused to be half-broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress-pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehension -called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves great part of the night. They lightened their labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: 'The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk-no wife to grind his corn. Chorus-Let us pity the white man-no mother has he,' &c. Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass buttons which remained on my waistcoat-the only recompense I could make her. An account of Park's second journey was published in 1815. A Life by Wishaw was prefixed to the Journal of 1815; and Joseph Thomson, himself a well-known African traveller, wrote a little monograph on Mungo Park (1890). Sophia and Harriet Lee were the daughters of John Lee, who had been articled to a solicitor, but adopted the stage as a profession. Sophia was born in London in 1750, Harriet not till 1757, and the early death of their mother devolved the cares of the household upon the elder sister, who nevertheless secretly cherished a strong attachment to literature. Sophia's first appearance as author was not made till 1780, when her comedy, The Chapter of Accidents, based on Diderot and brought out at the Haymarket by the elder Colman, was received with applause. The profits served to establish a Seminary for Young Ladies at Bath, a family enterprise rendered the more necessary by the death of the father in 1781; and to Bath accordingly the sisters repaired. Happily their accomplishments and prudence secured rapid and permanent suc cess. In 1784-85 Sophia published The Recess, or a Tale of Other Times (the times, namely, of Queen Elizabeth), which instantly became popular. The melancholy and contemplative tone of the Recess appears also in the blank-verse tragedy, Almeyda, Queen of Grenada (1796). Harriet Lee, who had meanwhile produced two rather tedious novels and a dull comedy, now published The Canterbury Tales (5 vols. 1797-1805), in which the introduction and two of the tales, tender and sympathetic both, are from the pen of Sophia-The Young Lady's Tale, or the Two Emilys, and The Clergyman's Tale. But the best things in the Canterbury Tales are all Harriet's. Kruitzner, or the German's Tale, fell into Byron's hands when he was about fourteen: 'It made a deep impression upon me,' he recorded, and may indeed be said to contain the germ of much that I have since written.' While at Pisa in 1821 Byron dramatised Miss Lee's romantic story, and published his version of it under the title of Werner, or the Inheritance. The incidents and much of the language of the play are taken straight from the novel, and the public were unanimous in considering Harriet Lee as more interesting, passionate, and poetical than her illustrious dramatiser. She herself adapted it for the stage as The Three Strangers, but it was only played four times. The compactness of these tales and the liveliness of the frequent dialogues made them a pleasing contrast to the average three-volume novel. In 1803 Sophia Lee gave up the school having earned a provision for the rest of her life. In 1804 she published The Life of a Lover, a tale written early, and showing juvenility both of thought and expression. In 1807 a comedy from her pen, called The Assignation, was performed at Drury Lane, but played only once, the audience conceiving that some of the satirical portraits were aimed at popular personages. Sophia died in 1824; Harriet lived on till 1851, remarkable to the last for her vigorous intellect and lively conversation. William Godwin was a devoted admirer of Harriet's, and, in 1798, a formal suitor for her hand; but his religious views were an insuperable barrier to a union. Both sisters were buried in Clifton Church. From the Introduction to 'The Canterbury Tales.' There are people in the world who think their lives well employed in collecting shells; there are others not less satisfied to spend theirs in classing butterflies. For my own part, I always preferred animate to inanimate nature, and would rather post to the antipodes to mark a new character or develop a singular incident than become a Fellow of the Royal Society by enriching museums with nondescripts. From this account you, my gentle reader, may, without any extraordinary penetration, have discovered that I am among the eccentric part of mankind, by the courtesy of each other, and themselves, ycleped poets-a title which, however mean or contemptible it may sound to those not honoured with it, never yet was rejected by a single mortal on whom the suffrage of mankind conferred it; no, though the laurelleaf of Apollo, barren in its nature, was twined by the frozen fingers of Poverty, and shed upon the brow it crowned her chilling influence. But when did it so? Too often destined to deprive its graced owner of every real good by an enchantment which we know not how to define, it comprehends in itself such a variety of pleasures and possessions that well may one of us cry 'Thy lavish charter, Taste, appropriates all we see !' Happily, too, we are not like virtuosi in general, encumbered with the treasures gathered in our peregrinations. Compact in their nature, they lie all in the small cavities of our brain, which are, indeed, often so small as to render it doubtful whether we have any at all. The few discoveries I have made in that richest of mines, the human soul, I have not been churl enough to keep to myself; nor, to say truth, unless I can find out some other means of supporting my corporeal existence than animal food, do I think I shall ever be able to afford that sullen affectation of superiority. Travelling, I have already said, is my taste, and, to make my journeys pay for themselves, my object. Much against my good liking, some troublesome fellows, a few months ago, took the liberty of making a little home of mine their own; nor, till I had coined a small portion of my brain in the mint of my worthy friend George Robinson, could I induce them to depart. I gave a proof of my politeness, however, in leaving my house to them, and retired to the coast of Kent, where I fell to work very busily. Gay with the hope of shutting my door on these unwelcome visitants, I walked in a severe frost from Deal to Dover, to secure a seat in the stage-coach to London. One only was vacant; and having engaged it, 'maugre the freezing of the bitter sky,' I wandered forth to note the memorabilia of Dover, and was soon lost in one of my fits of exquisite abstraction. With reverence I looked up to the cliff which our immortal bard has with more fancy than truth described; with toil mounted, by an almost endless staircase, to the top of a castle, which added nothing to my poor stock of ideas but the length of our Virgin Queen's pocket-pistol —that truly Dutch present: cold and weary, I was pacing towards the inn, when a sharp-visaged barber popped his head over his shop-door to reconnoitre the inquisitive stranger. A brisk fire, which I suddenly cast my eye on, invited my frozen hands and feet to its precincts. A civil question to the honest man produced on his part a civil invitation; and having placed me in a snug seat, he readily gave me the benefit of all his oral tradition. 'Sir,' he said, 'it is mighty lucky you came across me. The vulgar people of this town have no genius, sir-no taste; they never shew the greatest curiosity in the place. Sir, we have here the tomb of a poet!' "The tomb of a poet!' cried I, with a spring that electrified my informant no less than myself. What poet lies here? and where is he buried?' 'Ay, that is the curiosity,' returned he exultingly. I smiled; his distinction was so like a barber. While he had been speaking, I recollected he must allude to the grave of Churchill-that vigorous genius who, well calculated to stand forth the champion of freedom, has recorded himself the slave of party and the victim of spleen! So, however, thought not the barber, who considered him as the first of human beings. 'This great man, sir,' continued he, 'who lived and died in the cause of liberty, is interred in a very remarkable spot, sir; if you were not so cold and so tired, sir, I could shew it you in a moment.' Curiosity is an excel· lent greatcoat: I forgot I had no other, and strode after the barber to a spot surrounded by ruined walls, in the midst of which stood the white marble tablet marked with Churchill's name-to appearance its only distinction. 'Cast your eyes on the walls,' said the important barber; they once enclosed a church, as you may see!' On inspecting the crumbling ruins more narrowly, I did indeed discern the traces of Gothic architecture. 'Yes, sir,' cried my friend the barber, with the conscious pride of an Englishman, throwing out a gaunt leg and arm, Churchill, the champion of liberty, is interred here! Here, sir, in the very ground where King John did homage for the crown he disgraced.' The idea was grand. In the eye of fancy, the slender pillars again lifted high the vaulted roof that rang with solemn chantings. I saw the insolent legate seated in scarlet pride; I saw the sneers of many a mitred abbot; I saw, bareheaded, the mean, the prostrate king; I saw, in short, everything but the barber, whom in my flight and swell of soul I had outwalked and lost. Some more curious traveller may again pick him up, perhaps, and learn more minutely the fact. Waking from my reverie, I found myself on the pier. The pale beams of a powerless sun gilt the fluctuating waves and the distant spires of Calais, which I now clearly surveyed. What a new train of images here sprang up in my mind, borne away by succeeding impressions with no less rapidity! From the monk of Sterne I travelled up in five minutes to the inflexible Edward III. sentencing the noble burghers; and having seen them saved by the eloquence of Philippa, I wanted no better seasoning for my mutton-chop, and pitied the emptyheaded peer who was stamping over my little parlour in fury at the cook for having over-roasted his pheasant. William Gilpin (1724-1804), author of works on the picturesque aspects of the scenery of Britain, illustrated by his own aquatint engravings, was in his own way an apostle of romanticism. Born at Scaleby, Carlisle, he studied at Queen's College, Oxford; kept a school at Cheam; and in 1777 became vicar of Boldre in Hampshire. He published, besides some theological works, a series of books on the scenery of the Wye, of the Lake District, of the Scottish Highlands, and of the Isle of Wight, which drew on him the ridicule of the author of Dr Syntax. His best-known book was his too poetic Remarks on Forest Scenery, in which he says: 'It is no exaggerated praise to call a tree the grandest and most beautiful of all the productions of the earth;' and he describes trees, singly and in masses, under all conditions of light and weather. In not a few points he may rank as an early forerunner of Ruskin. Sunrise in the Woods. The first dawn of day exhibits a beautiful obscurity. When the east begins just to brighten with the reflections only of effulgence, a pleasing progressive light, dubious and amusing, is thrown over the face of things. A single ray is able to assist the picturesque eye, which by such slender aid creates a thousand imaginary forms, if the scene be unknown, and as the light steals gradually on, is amused by correcting its vague ideas by the real objects. What in the confusion of twilight perhaps seemed a stretch of rising ground, broken into various parts, becomes now vast masses of wood and an extent of forest. As the sun begins to appear above the horizon, another change takes place. What was before only form, being now enlightened, begins to receive effect. This effect depends on two circumstances-the catching lights which touch the summits of every object, and the mistiness in which the rising orb is commonly enveloped. The effect is often pleasing when the sun rises in unsullied brightness, diffusing its ruddy light over the upper parts of objects, which is contrasted by the deeper shadows below; yet the effect is then only transcendent when he rises accompanied by a train of vapours in a misty atmosphere. Among lakes and mountains, this happy accompaniment often forms the most astonishing visions, and yet in the forest it is nearly as great. With what delightful effect do we sometimes see the sun's disk just appear above a woody hill, or, in Shakspeare's language, 'Stand tiptoe on the misty mountain's top' and dart his diverging rays through the rising vapour. The radiance, catching the tops of the trees as they hang midway upon the shaggy steep, and touching here and there a few other prominent objects, imperceptibly mixes its ruddy tint with the surrounding mists, setting on fire, as it were, their upper parts, while their lower skirts are lost in a dark mass of varied confusion, in which trees and ground, and radiance and obscurity, are all blended together. When the eye is fortunate enough to catch the glowing instant -for it is always a vanishing scene-it furnishes an idea worth treasuring among the choicest appearances of nature. Mistiness alone, we have observed, occasions a confusion in objects which is often picturesque ; but the glory of the vision depends on the glowing lights which are mingled with it. Landscape-painters, in general, pay too little attention to the discriminations of morning and evening. We are often at a loss to distinguish in pictures the rising from the setting sun, though their characters are very different both in the lights and shadows. The ruddy lights, indeed, of the evening are more easily distinguished, but it is not perhaps always sufficiently observed that the shadows of the evening are much less opaque than those of the morning. They may be brightened perhaps by the numberless rays floating in the atmosphere, which are incessantly reverberated in every direction, and may continue in action after the sun is set; whereas in the morning the rays of the preceding day having subsided, no object receives any light but from the immediate lustre of the sun. Whatever becomes of the theory, the fact, I believe, is well ascertained. Sir Uvedale Price (1747-1829), another notable apostle of the picturesque, was educated at Eton and Christ Church, where he became the friend of Fox, inherited a fortune on the death of his father and the estate of Foxley in Herefordshire, and was made a baronet in 1828. In his Essay on the Picturesque he earnestly recommended the study of the great landscape painters, their works and art, in order to improve real scenery, as well as to promote landscape gardening on true principles. He wrote also 'with elegance' on artificial water, on house decorations, architecture, and buildings. He insisted that the picturesque in nature is distinct from the sublime and the beautiful; and in enforcing and maintaining this, he attacked the style of ornamental gardening which Mason the poet had recommended, and Kent and Brown, the great landscape improvers, had reduced to practice. Some of Price's positions had the honour to be debated and confuted by Dugald Stewart. Price was credited with having greatly stimulated public interest in questions of art and taste, in provoking the desire to observe and enjoy and conscientiously reproduce natural beauty. Atmospheric Effects. It is not only the change of vegetation which gives to autumn its golden hue, but also the atmosphere itself, and the lights and shadows which then prevail. Spring has its light and flitting clouds, with shadows equally flitting and uncertain; refreshing showers, with gay and genial bursts of sunshine, that seem suddenly to call forth and to nourish the young buds and flowers. In autumn all is matured; and the rich hues of the ripened fruits and of the changing foliage are rendered still richer by the warm haze, which, on a fine day in that season, spreads the last varnish over every part of the picture. In winter, the trees and woods, from their total loss of foliage, have so lifeless and meagre an appearance, so different from the freshness of spring, the fullness of summer, and the richness of autumn, that many, not insensible to the beauties of scenery at other times, scarcely look at it during that season. But the contracted circle which the sun then describes, however unwished for on every other consideration, is of great advantage with respect to breadth, for then even the midday lights and shadows, from their horizontal direction, are so striking, and the parts so finely illuminated, and yet so connected and filled up by them, that I have many times forgotten the nakedness of the trees, from admiration of the general masses. In summer the exact reverse is the case; the rich clothing of the parts makes a faint impression, from the vague and general glare of light without shadow. John O'Keefe (1747–1833), a prolific farcewriter, was born in Dublin, and for a year or two was an art student, but, smitten with a passion for the stage, he came out as an actor in his native city. He generally produced some dramatic piece every year for his benefit, and one of these, Tony Lumpkin in Town, was played with success in 1778 at the Haymarket Theatre in London. Failing eyesight disqualified him for acting, but, settling in London about 1780, he continued to supply the theatres with new pieces, and up to the year 1809 had written about fifty plays and farces. Most of these were called comic operas or musical farces, and some of them enjoyed great success, such as The Agreeable Surprise, Wild Oats, Modern Antiques, Fontainebleau, The Highland Reel, Love in a Camp, The Poor Soldier, and Sprigs of Laurel, in the first of which the character of Lingo the schoolmaster is a laughable piece of broad humour. Wild Oats is still sometimes played. O'Keefe's things were merely intended to make people laugh, and they fully answered that object. The lively dramatist, who was one of the victims of Gifford's savage criticism in the Baviad and Mæviad, went quite blind by 1797, and in 1800 he had a benefit at Covent Garden Theatre, and delivered a poetical address. He died at the age of eighty-five. His songs, brightly conceived and cleverly written, had many of them the good luck to become popular, and wedded to the music of such composers as Shield and Arnold, have kept their place in popular song-books. 'I am a friar of orders grey' is a standard song; 'Amo, amas, I loved a lass,' is still occasionally sung, and so are 'The Thorn' and 'Flow, thou regal, purple stream.' George Colman 'the Younger' (1762-1836) was the most able and successful comic dramatist of his day. The son of the author of The Jealous Wife and Clandestine Marriage (see page 561), Colman had an hereditary attachment to the drama. He was educated at Westminster School, and was afterwards entered at Christ Church College, Oxford; but his idleness and dissipation led his father to withdraw him hence and banish him to Aberdeen, where, though still distinguished for his eccentric dress and folly, he applied himself to classical and other studies. At Aberdeen he published a poem on Charles James Fox, entitled The Man of the People, and wrote a musical farce, The Female Dramatist, which was brought out by his father at the Haymarket Theatre, but condemned. A second dramatic attempt, Two to One (1784), had some success and fixed his inclinations; for though his father intended him for the Bar and entered him of Lincoln's Inn, the drama engrossed his attention. In 1784 he contracted a thoughtless Gretna Green marriage, and next year brought out a second musical comedy, Turk and no Turk, and when his father became incapacitated by attacks of paralysis, undertook the management of the Haymarket. Numerous pieces proceeded from his pen: Inkle and Yarico, a musical opera based on a story from the Spectator, brought out with success in 1787; Ways and Means, a comedy (1788); The Battle of Hexham (1789); The Surrender of Calais (1791); The Mountaineers (1793); The Iron Chest (1796), founded on Godwin's novel of Caleb Williams, and at first a failure; The Heir at Law (1797); Blue Beard (1798), a mere piece of scenic display and music; The Review, or the Wags of Windsor (1798), an excellent farce; The Poor Gentleman (1802); Love Laughs at Locksmiths (1803); Gay Deceivers (1804); John Bull (1805); Who Wants a Guinea? (1805); We Fly by Night (1806); The Africans (1808); X Y Z (1810); The Law of Java (1822), a musical drama, &c. It was after the condemnation of the Iron Chest, which afterwards became a standard acting play, that Colman added 'the younger' to his name. 'Lest my father's memory,' he says, 'may be injured by mistakes, and in the confusion of aftertime the translator of Terence, and the author of The Jealous Wife, should be supposed guilty of The Iron Chest, I shall, were I to reach the patriarchal longevity of Methuselah, continue (in all my dramatic publications) to subscribe myself George Colman, the younger? No modern dramatist has added so many stock pieces to the theatre as Colman, or given so much genuine mirth and humour to playgoers. His society was much courted; he was a favourite with George IV., and, in conjunction with Sheridan, was wont to set the royal table in a roar. His gaiety, however, was not allied to prudence, and theatrical property is a very precarious possession. As manager, Colman got entangled in lawsuits, and was forced to reside in the King's Bench. The king relieved him by appointing him to the post of licenser and examiner of plays, worth from £300 to £400 a year. In this office Colman incurred the enmity of several dramatic authors by the rigour with which he scrutinised their productions. His own plays are far from being strictly correct or highly moral, but not an oath or double-entendre, not even a mild 'O Lord,' was suffered to escape his expurgatorial pen, and he was peculiarly keen-scented in detecting all political allusions. Besides his numerous plays, Colman wrote some poetical travesties and levities, published as My Nightgown and Slippers (1797), and republished (1802), with additions, as Broad Grins; also Poetical Vagaries, Vagaries Vindicated, and Eccentricities for Edinburgh. In these delicacy and decorum are often sacrificed to broad mirth and humour. The last work of the lively author was memoirs of his own early life and times, entitled Random Records (1830). Colman's comedies abound in witty and ludicrous delineations of character interspersed with bursts of tenderness and feeling, somewhat in the style of Sterne, whom indeed he closely copied in his Poor Gentleman. Sir Walter Scott praised John Bull as by far the best effort of recent comic drama : 'The scenes of broad humour are executed in the best possible taste; and the whimsical yet native characters reflect the manners of real life. The sentimental parts, although one of them includes a finely wrought-up scene of paternal distress, partake of the falsetto of German pathos. But the piece is both humorous and affecting; and we readily excuse its obvious imperfections in consideration of its exciting our laughter and our tears.' Ollapod in the Poor Gentleman is one of Colman's most original conceptions; Pangloss in the Heir at Law is a satirical portrait of a pedant, proud of being both LL.D. and A. double S.; and his Irishmen, Yorkshiremen, and country rustics are entertaining though overcharged portraits. A tendency to farce is the besetting sin of Colman's comedies; and in his more serious plays there is a curious mixture of prose and verse, high-toned sentiment and low humour. Their effect on the stage is, however, irresistible. Octavian in the Mountaineers was a complimentary sketch of John Kemble : Lovely as day he was-but envious clouds 'Tis not of late that I have heard his voice; But if it be not changed-I think it cannot- Would charm the towering eagle in her flight, The following extracts are both from the Poor Gentleman: Sir Charles at Breakfast. Sir Charles Cropland. Has old Warner, the steward, been told that I arrived last night? Valet [adjusting Sir Charles's hair]. Yes, Sir Charles; with orders to attend you this morning. Sir Cha. [yawning and stretching]. What can a man of fashion do with himself in the country at this wretchedly dull time of the year? Valet. It is very pleasant to-day out in the park, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Pleasant, you booby! How can the country be pleasant in the middle of spring? All the world's in London. Valet. I think, somehow, it looks so lively, Sir Charles, when the corn is coming up. Sir Cha. This same lumbering timber upon my ground has its merits. Trees are notes, issued from the bank of nature, and as current as those payable to Abraham Newland. I must get change for a few oaks, for I want cash consumedly.-So, Mr Warner. Warner [entering]. Your honour is right welcome into Kent. I am proud to see Sir Charles Cropland on his estate again. I hope you mean to stay on the spot for some time, Sir Charles? Sir Cha. A very tedious time. Warner. Three days, Mr Warner. Ah, good sir, things would prosper better if you honoured us with your presence a little more. I wish you lived entirely upon the estate, Sir Charles. Sir Cha. Thank you, Warner; but modern men of fashion find it difficult to live upon their estates. Warner. The country about you so charming! Sir Cha. Look ye, Warner-I must hunt in Leicestershire-for that's the thing. In the frosts and the spring months, I must be in town at the clubs-for that's the thing. In summer I must be at the watering-places-for that's the thing. Now, Warner, under these circumstances, how is it possible for me to reside upon my estate? For my estate being in Kent— Warner. The most beautiful part of the country. Warner. A land of milk and honey! Warner. A land of fat! Sir Cha. Hang your fat! Listen to me. being in Kent Warner. So woody! My estate Warner. Ah! I was afraid so! Dice on the table, and then the axe to the root! Money lost at play, and then, good lack! the forest groans for it. Sir Cha. But you are not the forest, and why do you groan for it? Warner. I heartily wish, Sir Charles, you may not encumber the goodly estate. Your worthy ancestors had views for their posterity. Sir Cha. And I shall have views for my posterity-I shall take special care the trees shan't intercept their prospect. Servant [entering]. Mr Ollapod, the apothecary, is in the hall, Sir Charles, to inquire after your health. Sir Cha. Shew him in. [Exit servant.] The fellow's a character, and treats time as he does his patients. He shall kill a quarter of an hour for me this morning.—In short, Mr Warner, I must have three thousand pounds in three days. Fell timber to that amount immediately. 'Tis my peremptory order, sir. Warner. I shall obey you, Sir Charles; but 'tis with a heavy heart! Forgive an old servant of the family if |