Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1848-07-06


killed, rise, prompting me that there was
London, and that was of that old Jerusa-
lem. In dreams am in Fleet market. but
| wake and cry to sleep again. die hard,
stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paro-
cle,e. What have gained by health in
tolerable dizziness. What by early hours
and moderate meals: total blank. O.!
never let the lying poets be believed, who
tlce men from the cheerful haunls of streets,
or think they mean j, not Of country viii
age In the ruins of Palmyra could grid
myself up to solitude, or muse to the snor-
'ngs OF the Seven Sleepers but to have a
little teasing image Of town about one !;
country folks that do not look like country
folks; shops two yards square, half do
zen apples and two penn'or,hs Of overlook
ed gingerbread for the lofty fruiterers of
Ox'ord-slreel; and for the immortal book
and print stalls, circulating library tina,
stands still, where the show picture is a last
years valentine, and whittier the fame of the
last ten Scotch novels has not yet travelled
* marry, they just begin to be conscious
OF The RedgaunIlet;) to have new plaster
ed flat church, and to be wishing that i. was
but cathedral! The very blackguards
here are degenerate; the topping gentry
st"ck-brokers; the passengers too many
to ensure your quiet, or let you 60 about
wh'sll1ng or gaping; too few to be the
f1ne Indifferent pageants of Fleel-street.-
Combining, housekeeping, ,hickest winter, is
yet more bearable here than the gaudy
months. Among ones books at ones fire.
by candle, one is soo,hed into an oblivion
that one is not in the country but with the
light the green fields return, till gaze, and
ina calenture can pluge myself into ST. Giles
y! let no native Londonel imagine that
health, and rest, aud innocent occupation,
Interchange of converse sweet, and recrea-
tive study can make The country anything
better than altogether odious and de,estable
A garden was the primitive prison, till man /,
with Prome,hean felicity and boldness. luck-
ly sinned himself gu. it, Thence followed
Babylon, Ninevah, London, haberIashers,
goldsmi'hs, taverns, play houses. salires, cpl
grams, puns-lhese all came in on the town
part. and the ,hi,her side of innocence"
Nor was this the feeling of moment; ii
was his taste through life He had no eve
for the picturesque. Human nature in lis
miseries, infrmities, its virtues, and social
ties, was what lovingly attracted him; and
he liked towns because they spoke of man.
In the same way he loved books. Mere
descriptive passages, mere caprices of fancy,
except in the authors he loved, were los,
upon him. He cared nothing for theories :;
specuIa,ions on the grA, questions of phi
losophy and religion never troubled him,
and he humorously describes Proclus Cole
ridge having asked him to procure a copy
as one Of those books the lid of which he
shut faster than he opened it, But The dra-
ma'ists were his especial favori,es He saw
no flaws IN them. To his guieless mind
their reckless disregard of the boundaries of
morality and decency was nothing but the
spor,ive freedom of agina,ion. He has
written a most elaborate in ingenious de-
fence of the comic dramalists of the res,o-
ration, upon the ground that they were dea-
ling with the fictitious world of wit, and
ought not to be measured by the ordinary
standards Of morality, because they treated
not Of actual life. No one but himself
could have written this no one bu, him
self could believe it. Besides the drama,isls,
he also laved the old humorists and moral
lists; was fond of Quaker folios, because
they led him into quaint, honest world :;
and had an especial regard for all old books.
He had the spirit of an an'iquary, not the
grubbing patience, not the inordinate appre-
citation Of minute points, which accompa-
MES the antiquarian spirit. He was not a
Cockletop he was no, R,son. To dis
cover that some obscure man was born on
the 10Th Of Nav, and not, as generally sup
posed, on the 18Th, inspired him with no
thrill of delight, nor did it make him assume
conlemptuous airs toward the ignorant rest
of mankind.
A book was not better in his ewes than
all other books, because it was older and
more illegible; but in that affecliona,e re-
gard for the mysterious past, in that linger-
ing ovor the fragments Of the ruined edifice,
in that endeavor 10 reanimate IN his mind
the times which had been, and and were no
more, he showed the antiquarian spirit in
its true aspect. He loved TO recall the scenes
of his boyhood, to live over again the emo
lions which had agilaled his youthful heart;
and in the same back ward looking spirit. he
threw himself into the bygone years of his
counlry's life. 1t was no affectation in him:
il was the bias of his mind Without the
strong pulse of hope, without the forward
looking speculations of philosophy, he was
more prone to recall than to prophesy.*-
His very style was tinged with an archaic
hue and this, not as a matter of literary
arli6ce, but because his thoughts themselves
had that color. His careless letters show
it quite as plainly as his studied essays.
A great reader, he cared lillle for modern
books; the only contemporary writings
which interested him were those of his per-
sonal friends. SCOTS novels had no attrac-
ton for him; bu. Fielding, Smollet and
Compare his beautiful essay on New Years Eve