scratchers who conceit that the title of writer | jest freely, which a writer cannot do. Three fingers do the work (so they say of writers), but the whole body and soul must co-operate. is scarce worthy to be named or heard. Well, then, regard not that, but think on this wise: these good people must have their amusement and their jest. Leave them their jest, but remain thou, nevertheless, a writer before God and the world. If they scratch long, thou shalt see that they honour, notwithstanding, the pen above all things; that they place it2 upon hat and helmet, as if they would confess, by their action, that the pen is the top of the world, without which they can neither be equipped for battle nor go about in peace; much less scratch so securely. For they also have need of the peace which the emperors, preachers, and teachers (the lawyers) teach and maintain. Wherefore thou seest that they place our implement, the dear pen, uppermost. And with reason, since they gird their own implement, the sword, about the thighs; there it hangs fitly and well for their work; but it would not beseem the head: there must hover the plume. If, then, they have sinned against thee, they herewith expiate the offence, and thou must forgive them. There be some that deem the office of a writer to be an easy and trivial office; but to ride in armour, to endure heat, cold, dust, thirst, and other inconvenience, they think to be laborious. Yea! that is the old, vulgar, daily tune; that no one sees where the shoe pinches another. Every one feels only his own troubles, and stares at the ease of others. True it is, it would be difficult for me to ride in armour; but then, on the other hand, I would like to see the rider who should sit me still the whole day long and look into a book, though be were not compelled to care for aught, to invent, or think, or read. Ask a chancery-clerk, a preacher, or an orator, what kind of work writing and haranguing is? Ask a schoolmaster what kind of work is teaching and bringing up of boys? The pen is light, it is true, and among all trades no tool so easily furnished as that of the writing trade, for it needeth only a goose's wing, of which one shall everywhere find a sufficiency gratis. Nevertheless, in this employment, the best piece in the human body (as the head), and the noblest member (as the tongue), and the highest work (as speech) must take part and labour most; while, in others, either the fist, or the feet, or the back, or members of that class alone work; and they that pursue them may sing merrily the while, and 1 Scharrhansen, men who scratch for money, and think of nothing else.-TR. The word Feder, feather, is used indifferently in German to denote pen or plume.-TR. I have heard of the worthy and beloved emperor Maximilian, how, when the great boobies complained that he employed so many writers for missions and other purposes, he is reported to have said: "What shall I do? They will not suffer themselves to be used in this way, therefore I must employ writers.' And further: "Knights I can create, but doctors I cannot create." So have I likewise heard of a fine nobleman, that he said, "I will let my son study. It is no great art to hang two legs over a steed and be a rider; he shall soon learn me that; and he shall be fine and well-spoken." They say, and it is true, the pope was once a pupil too. Therefore despise me not the fellows who say "panem propter Deum" before the doors and sing the bread-song.3 Thou hearest, as this psalm says, great princes and lords sing. I too have been one of these fellows, and have received bread at the houses, especially at Eisenach, my native city. Although, afterward, my dear father maintained me, with all love and faith, in the high-school at Erfurt, and, by his sore sweat and labour, has helped me to what I have become still I have been a beggar at the doors of the rich, and, according to this psalm, have attained so far by means of the pen, that now I would not compound with the Turkish emperor, to have his wealth and forego my art. Yea, I would not take for it the wealth of the world many times multiplied; and yet, without doubt, I had never attained to it had I not chanced upon a school and the writers' trade. Therefore let thy son study, nothing doubting, and though he should beg his bread the while, yet shalt thou give to our Lord God a fine piece of wood out of which he can whittle thee a lord. And be not disturbed that vulgar niggards contemn the art so disdainfully, and say, Aha! if my son can write German, and read and cipher, he knows enough; I will have him a merchant. They shall soon become so tame that they will be fain to dig with their fingers, ten yards deep in the earth, for a scholar. For my merchant will not be a merchant long, when law and preaching fail. That know I for certain; we theologians and lawyers must remain, or all must go down with us together. It cannot be otherwise. When theologians go, then goes the Word of God, and 3 A song or psalm which the poor students of Luther's time sang, when they went about imploring charity at the doors of the rich. remains nothing but the heathen, yea! mere devils. When jurists go, then goes justice together with peace, and remains only murder, robbery, outrage, force, yea! mere wild beasts. But what the merchant shall earn and win, when peace is gone, I will leave it to his books to inform him. And how much profit all his wealth shall be to him when preaching fails, his conscience, I trow, shall declare to him. I will say briefly of a diligent pious schoolteacher or magister, or of whomsoever it is, that faithfully brings up boys and instructs them, that such an one can never be sufficiently recompensed or paid with money; as also the heathen Aristotle says. Yet is this calling so shamefully despised among us, as though it were altogether nought. And we call ourselves Christians! And if I must or could relinquish the office of preacher and other matters, there is no office I would more willingly have than that of schoolmaster or teacher of boys. For I know that this work, next to the office of preacher, is the most profitable, the greatest, and the best. Besides, I know not even which is the best of the two. For it is hard to make old dogs tame and old rogues upright; at which task, nevertheless, the preacher's office labours, and often labours in vain. But young trees be more easily bent and trained, howbeit some should break in the effort. Beloved! count it one of the highest virtues upon earth, to educate faithfully the children of others, which so few, and scarcely any, do by their own. MY LOVE. A tender paleness stealing o'er her cheek Then knew I how the spirits of the blest Communion hold in heaven; so beamed serene That pitying thought, by every eye unseen Save mine, wont ever on her charms to rest. Each grace angelic, each meek glance humane, Her lovely looks in sadness downward bent, PETRARCH. THE COMMON LOT.! BY JAMES MONTGOMERY. Once, in the flight of ages past, There lived a man:-and WHO was HE?Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast, That man resembled thee. Unknown the region of his birth, That joy and grief, and hope and fear, Alternate triumph'd in his breast; His bliss and woe,-a smile, a tear!— Oblivion hides the rest. The bounding pulse, the languid limb, The changing spirits' rise and fall; We know that these were felt by him, For these are felt by all. He suffer'd, but his pangs are o'er; He loved, but whom he loved, the grave He saw whatever thou hast seen; Encounter'd all that troubles thee: He was whatever thou hast been; He is what thou shalt be. The rolling seasons, day and night, To him exist in vain. In 1806 Byron wrote an "Answer to a beautiful poem entitled The Common Lot," in which he pleads that honour and fame never die. The following stanzas will show the argument of the poem: "The rolling seasons pass away, And Time untiring waves his wing; Then do not say the common lot I was once for a few hours only-in the militia. I suspect I was in part answerable for my own mishap. There is a story in Joe Miller of a man who, being pressed to serve his majesty on another element, pleaded his polite breeding, to the gang, as a good ground of exemption; but was told that the crew being a set of sad unmannerly dogs, a Chesterfield was the very character they wanted. The militiamen acted, I presume, on the same principle. Their customary schedule was forwarded to me, at Brighton, to fill up, and in a moment of incautious hilarity-induced, perhaps, by the absence of all business or employment, except pleasure--I wrote myself down in the descriptive column as "Quite a Gentleman." The consequence followed immediately. A precept, addressed by the High Constable of Westminster to the Low ditto of the parish of and endorsed with my name, informed me that it had turned up in that involuntary lottery, the ballot. St. M At the sight of the orderly, who thought proper to deliver the document into no other hands than mine, my mother-in-law cried, and my wife fainted on the spot. They had no notion of any distinctions in military service -a soldier was a soldier-and they imagined that, on the very morrow, I might be ordered abroad to a fresh Waterloo. They were unfortunately ignorant of that benevolent provision, which absolved the militia from going out of the kingdom-"except in case of an invasion." In vain I represented that we were "locals;" they had heard of local diseases, and thought there might be wounds of the same description. In vain I explained that we were not troops of the line;-they could see nothing to choose between being shot in a line, or in any other figure. I told them next that I was not obliged to "serve myself;"-but they an*wered, "'twas so much the harder I should be obliged to serve any one else." My being sent abroad, they said, would be the death of them; for they had witnessed at Ramsgate the embarkation of the Walcheren expedition, and too well remembered "the misery of the soldiers' wives at seeing their husbands in transports!" I told them that, at the very worst, if I should be sent abroad, there was no reason why I should not return again;-but they both declared, they never did, and never would believe in those "Returns of the Killed and Wounded." The discussion was in this stage when it was interrupted by another loud single knock at the door, a report equal in its effects on us to that of the memorable cannon-shot at Brussels; and before we could recover ourselves, a strapping sergeant entered the parlour with a huge bow, or rather rainbow, of party-coloured ribbons in his cap. He came, he said, to offer a substitute for me; but I was prevented from reply by the indignant females asking him in the same breath, "Who and what did he think could be a substitute for a son and a husband?" The poor sergeant looked foolish enough at this turn; but he was still more abashed when the two anxious ladies began to cross-examine him on the length of his services abroad, and the number of his wounds, the campaigns of the militiaman having been confined doubtless to Hounslow, and his bodily marks militant to the three stripes on his sleeve. Parrying these awkward questions he endeavoured to prevail upon me to see the proposed proxy, a fine young fellow, he assured me, of unusual stature; but I told him it was quite an indifferent point with me whether he was 6-feet-2 or 2-feet-6, in short, whether he was as tall as the flag, or "under the standard." The truth is, I reflected that it was a time of profound peace, that a civil war or an invasion, was very unlikely; and as for an occasional drill, that I could make shift, like Lavater, to right-about-face. Accordingly, I declined seeing the substitute, and dismissed the sergeant with a note to the war-secretary to this purport-"That I considered myself drawn, and expected therefore to be well quarter'd. That, under the circumstances of the country, it would probably be unnecessary for militiamen 'to be mustarded;' but that if his majesty did call me out,' I hoped I should give him satisfaction."" The females were far from being pleased with this billet. They talked a great deal of moral suicide, wilful murder, and seeking the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth; but I shall ever think that I took the proper course, for, after the lapse of a few hours, two more of the general's red-coats, or general postmen, brought me a large packet sealed with the war-office seal, and superscribed “Henry Hardinge," by which I was officially absolved from serving on horse or on foot, or on both together, then and thereafter. And why, I know not-unless his majesty doubted the handsomeness of discharging me in particular, without letting off the rest; but so it was, that in a short time afterwards there issued a proclamation by which the services of all militiamen were for the present dispensed with, and we were left to pursue our several avocations, of course, all the lighter in our spirits for being disembodied. -From the Comic Annual. THE PROGRESS OF POESY. A VARIATION. Youth rambles on life's arid mount, The man mature with labour chops And then the old man totters nigh, And feebly rakes among the stones. The mount is mute, the channel dry! And down he lays his weary bones. MATTHEW ARNOLD. HAPPINESS. Because the Few with signal virtue crowned, LORD HOUGHTON. THE LADY OF GOLLERUS. On the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at daybreak, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth. "Tis just the pattern of a pretty morning." said Dick, taking the pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean. which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. "Well, to be sure," continued he, after a pause, "tis mighty lonesome to be talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul to answer onenothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I know this, that if I had the luck, or maybe the misfortune," said he, with a mei ancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this way with me!-and what in the wide world is a man without a wife? He's no more surely than a bottle without a drop of drink in it, or dancing without music, or the left leg of a scissors, or a fishing-line without a hook, or any other matter that is no way complete. Is it not so?" said Dick Fitzgerald. casting his eyes towards a rock upon the strand. which, though it could not speak, stood up as firm and looked as bold as ever Kerry witness did. But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that rock, a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a sea-green colour; and now, the salt water shining on it, appeared, in the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage. Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen one before, for he spied the cohuleen driuth, or little enchanted cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying upon the strand, near her; and he had heard, that if once he could possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian. When the Merrow saw that her little divingcap was gone, the salt tears-doubly salt, no 1 From Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South Ireland. See Casquet, page 177, vol. i. doubt, from her came trickling down her cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was crying for, determined to keep the cohuleen driath, let her cry never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel, let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a mighty tender heart of his own. "Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that. Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand by way of comforting her. Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a small web between the fingers, as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell. "What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure now, either that she could not peak, or did not understand him: he therefore squeezed her hand in his, as the only way he had of talking to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it. The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation; and, making an end of her whining all at once- ."6 Man," says she, looking up in Dick Fitzgerald's face, "man, will you eat me?" "By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself, my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet? Now, twas some ugly ill-looking thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this morning!" 'Man," said the Merrow, "what will you do with me, if you won't eat me?" Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he aw, at the first glimpse, that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any real woman, he was fairly in love with her. Twas the neat way she called him man, that settled the matter entirely. 46 'Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion; "fish," says he, "here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this blessed morning, that I'll make you Mistress Fitzgerald before all the world, and that's what I'll do." "Never say the word twice," says she, "I'm ready and willing to be yours, Mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, 'till I twist up my hair." It was sometime before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she would be looked at. When that was done, the Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the water that was close to the foot of the rock. Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the top of the sea, going out towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and, says he, in the greatest wonder, Is it speaking you are, my darling, to the salt water?" 66 "It's nothing else," says she, quite carelessly, "I'm just sending word home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep him from being uneasy in his mind." "And who's your father, my duck?" says Dick. "What!" said the Merrow, "did you never hear of my father? he's the king of the waves, to be sure!" "And yourself, then, is a real king's daughter?" said Dick, opening his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to be. "Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your father:-to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of the sea!" |