No More Learning

" Ah! thought I, she has found out that double cap, and
is going to rectify Miss Matty's head-dress. No; it was simply
to extend her invitation to Miss Matty and to me.
Miss Matty
bowed acceptance; and I wondered that in the graceful action
she did not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary height of
her head-dress. But I do not think she did, for she recovered
her balance, and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind, con-
descending manner, very different from the fidgety way she
would have had if she had suspected how singular her appear-
ance was.


## p. 6216 (#186) ###########################################

6216
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
"Mrs. Jamieson is coming, I think you said? » asked Miss
Matty.
“Yes. Mrs. Jamieson most kindly and condescendingly said
she would be happy to come. One little stipulation she made,
that she should bring Carlo.
I told her that if I had a weakness,
it was for dogs. "
"And Miss Pole? " questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking
of her pool at Preference, in which Carlo would not be available
as a partner.
"I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could not think
of asking her until I had asked you, madam the rector's
daughter, madam. Believe me, I do not forget the situation my
father held under yours. "
"And Mrs. Forrester, of course? "
"And Mrs. Forrester. I thought, in fact, of going to her
before I went to Miss Pole. Although her circumstances are
changed, madam, she was born a Tyrrell, and we can never for-
get her alliance to the Bigges of Bigelow Hall. "
Miss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her
being a very good card-player. Miss Barker looked at me with
sidelong dignity, as much as to say, although a retired milliner,
she was no democrat, and understood the difference of ranks.
"May I beg you to come as near half-past six to my little
dwelling as possible, Miss Matilda? Mrs. Jamieson dines at five,
but has kindly promised not to delay her visit beyond that time
half-past six. " And with a swimming curtsy Miss Betty Bar-
ker took her leave.
The spring evenings were getting bright and long, when three
or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker's door.
Do you
It is a covering worn over caps, not
on old-fashioned gigs; but sometimes
This kind of head-gear always made
know what a calash is?
unlike the heads fastened
it is not quite so large.
an awful impression on the children in Cranford; and now two
or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little street, and
gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole, Miss Matty,
and myself. We were silent too, so that we could hear loud
suppressed whispers inside Miss Barker's house: "Wait, Peggy!
wait till I've run up-stairs and washed my hands. When I cough,
open the door; I'll not be a minute. "
And true enough, it was not a minute before we heard a
noise, between a sneeze and a crow; on which the door flew


## p. 6217 (#187) ###########################################

ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6217
open. Behind it stood a round-eyed maiden, all aghast at the
honorable company of calashes, who marched in without a word.
She recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into a small
room, which had been a shop, but was now converted into a
temporary dressing-room. There we unpinned and shook our-
selves, and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet
and gracious company face; and then, bowing backwards with
"After you, ma'am," we allowed Mrs. Forrester to take precedence
up the narrow staircase that led to Miss Barker's drawing-room.
There she sat, as stately and composed as though we had never
heard that odd-sounding cough, from which her throat must have
been even then sore and rough. Kind, gentle, shabbily dressed
Mrs. Forrester was immediately conducted to the second place of
honor a seat arranged something like Prince Albert's near the
Queen's-good, but not so good. The place of pre-eminence
was of course reserved for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson, who
presently came panting up the stairs-Carlo rushing round her
on her progress, as if he meant to trip her up.
And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman!
She stirred the fire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as
she could, quite on the edge of her chair. When Peggy came
in, tottering under the weight of the tea-tray, I noticed that
Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her
distance sufficiently. She and her mistress were on very familiar
terms in their every-day intercourse, and Peggy wanted now to
make several little confidences to her, which Miss Barker was on
thorns to hear, but which she thought it her duty as a lady to
repress. So she turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs;
but she made one or two very malapropos answers to what was
said; and at last, seized with a bright idea, she exclaimed, "Poor
sweet Carlo! I'm forgetting him. Come down-stairs with me,
poor little doggie, and it shall have its tea, it shall! »
In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as be-
fore; but I thought she had forgotten to give the "poor little
doggie" anything to eat, judging by the avidity with which he
swallowed down chance pieces of cake. The tea tray was abun-
dantly laden-I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry; but I
was afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly heaped up.
I know they would have done at their own houses; but some-
how the heaps disappeared here. I saw Mrs. Jamieson eating
seed-cake slowly and considerately, as she did everything; and


## p. 6218 (#188) ###########################################

6218
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
I was rather surprised, for I knew she had told us on the occa-
sion of her last party that she never had it in her house, it
reminded her so much of scented soap. She always gave us
Savoy biscuits. . However, Mrs. Jamieson, kindly indulgent to
Miss Barker's want of knowledge of the customs of high life,
and to spare her feelings, ate three large pieces of seed-cake,
with a placid, ruminating expression of countenance, not unlike a
cow's.
After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. We
were six in number; four could play at Preference, and for the
other two there was Cribbage. But all except myself (I was
rather afraid of the Cranford ladies at cards, for it was the most
earnest and serious business they ever engaged in) were anxious
to be of the "pool. " Even Miss Barker, while declaring she did
not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently hankering to take
a hand.
The dilemma was soon put an end to by a singular
kind of noise. If a baron's daughter-in-law could ever be sup-
posed to snore, I should have said Mrs. Jamieson did so then;
for overcome by the heat of the room, and inclined to doze by
nature, the temptation of that very comfortable arm-chair had
been too much for her, and Mrs. Jamieson was nodding. Once
or twice she opened her eyes with an effort, and calmly but
unconsciously smiled upon us; but by-and-by even her benevo-
lence was not equal to this exertion, and she was sound asleep.
"It is very gratifying to me," whispered Miss Barker at the
card table to her three opponents, whom notwithstanding her
ignorance of the game she was "basting" most unmercifully-
"very gratifying indeed, to see how completely Mrs. Jamieson
feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she could not have paid
me a greater compliment. "
Miss Barker provided me with some literature, in the shape
of three or four handsomely bound fashion-books ten or twelve
years old; observing, as she put a little table and a candle for
my special benefit, that she knew young people liked to look at
pictures. Carlo lay and snorted and started at his mistress's feet.
He too was quite at home.
The card table was an animated scene to watch: four ladies'
heads, with niddle-noddling caps, all nearly meeting over the
middle of the table in their eagerness to whisper quick enough
and loud enough; and every now and then came Miss Barker's
"Hush, ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs. Jamieson is asleep. "


## p. 6219 (#189) ###########################################

ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6219
It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs. Forrester's
deafness and Mrs. Jamieson's sleepiness. But Miss Barker man-
aged her arduous task well. She repeated the whisper to Mrs.
Forrester, distorting her face considerably in order to show by
the motions of her lips what was said; and then she smiled
kindly all round at us, and murmured to herself, "Very grati-
fying indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive to see this
day. "
Presently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his
feet with a loud snapping bark, and Mrs. Jamieson awoke; or
perhaps she had not been asleep-as she said almost directly,
the room had been so light she had been glad to keep her eyes
shut, but had been listening with great interest to all our amus-
ing and agreeable conversation. Peggy came in once more, red
with importance. Another tray! "O gentility! " thought I, "can
you endure this last shock? » For Miss Barker had ordered (nay,
I doubt not prepared, although she did say, "Why! Peggy, what
have you brought us? " and looked pleasantly surprised at the
unexpected pleasure) all sorts of good things for supper-scal-
loped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called "little Cupids »
(which was in great favor with the Cranford ladies, although too
expensive to be given except on solemn and state occasions-
macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not
known its more refined and classical name). In short, we were
evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and
we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our
gentility-which never ate suppers in general, but which, like
most non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special
occasions.
――――――――――――
Miss Barker in her former sphere had, I daresay, been made
acquainted with the beverage they call cherry brandy. We none
of us had ever seen such a thing, and rather shrank back when
she proffered it us-"just a little, leetle glass, ladies; after the
oysters and lobsters, you know. Shell-fish are sometimes thought
not very wholesome. " We all shook our heads like female man-
darins; but at last Mrs. Jamieson suffered herself to be per-
suaded, and we followed her lead. It was not exactly unpalatable,
though so hot and so strong that we thought ourselves bound to
give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by
coughing terribly-almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done,
before we were admitted by Peggy.


## p. 6220 (#190) ###########################################

6220
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
"It's very strong," said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty
glass; “I do believe there's spirit in it. "
"Only a little drop-just necessary to make it keep," said
Miss Barker. "You know we put brandy paper over preserves
to make them keep. I often feel tipsy myself from eating dam-
son tart. "
I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs.
Jamieson's heart as the cherry brandy did; but she told us of a
coming event, respecting which she had been quite silent till
that moment.
"My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me. "
There was a chorus of "Indeed! " and then a pause.
Each one
rapidly reviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness to appear in the
presence of a baron's widow; for of course a series of small fes-
tivals were always held in Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at
any of our friends' houses. We felt very pleasantly excited on
the present occasion.
Not long after this, the maids and the lanterns were announced.
Mrs. Jamieson had the sedan-chair, which squeezed itself into
Miss Barker's narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most liter-
ally "stopped the way. " It required some skillful manœuvring
on the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, but when
summoned to carry the sedan, dressed up in a strange old livery
-long greatcoats with small capes, coeval with the sedan and
similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth's pictures) to edge,
and back, and try at it again, and finally to succeed in carrying
their burden out of Miss Barker's front door. Then we heard
their pit-a-pat along the quiet little street, as we put on our ca-
lashes and pinned up our gowns; Miss Barker hovering about us
with offers of help, which if she had not remembered her former
occupation, and wished us to forget it, would have been much
more pressing.


## p. 6221 (#191) ###########################################

6221
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
(1811-1872)
BY ROBERT SANDERSON
HEOPHILE GAUTIER was born in Tarbes (Department of the
Hautes-Pyrénées) in Southern France, August 31st, 1811.
Like all French boys, he was sent to the lycée (academy),
where he promised to be a brilliant scholar; but his father was really
his tutor, and to him Gautier attributed his instruction. Young Théo-
phile showed marked preference for the so-called authors of the
Decadence-Claudianus, Martial, Petronius, and others; also for the
old French writers, especially Villon and Rabelais, whom he says he
knew by heart. This is significant, in view
of the young man's strong tendencies, later
on, towards the new romantic school. The
artistic temperament was very strong in
him; and while still carrying on his studies
at college he entered the painter Rioult's
studio. His introduction to Victor Hugo in
1830 may be considered the decisive point
in Gautier's career: from that day he gave
up painting and became a fanatic admirer
of the romantic leader.

A short time afterwards, the first repre-
sentation of 'Hernani' took place (Febru-
ary 25th, 1830), an important date in the
life of Gautier. It was on this occasion that
he put on for the only time that famous red waistcoat, which, with his
long black mane streaming down his back, so horrified the staid
Parisian bourgeois. This red waistcoat turns out, after all, not to
have been a waistcoat at all, but a doublet; nor was it red, but pink.
No truer is the legend, according to Gautier, that on this memorable
occasion, armed with his two formidable fists, he felled right and
left the terrified bourgeois. He says that he was at that time rather
delicate, and had not yet developed that prodigious strength which
later on enabled him to strike a 520-pound blow on a Turk's-head. In
appearance Gautier was a large corpulent man with a leonine counte-
nance, swarthy complexion, long black hair falling over his shoulders,
black beard, and brilliant black eyes; an Oriental in looks as well as
THEOPHILE GAUTIER


## p. 6222 (#192) ###########################################

6222
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
in some of his tastes. He had a passion for cats. His house was
overrun by them, and he seldom wrote without having one on his
lap. The privations he underwent during the siege of Paris, doubly
hard to a man of Gautier's Gargantuesque appetite, no doubt hast-
ened his death. He died on October 23d, 1872, of hypertrophy of
the heart.
Gautier is one of those writers of whom one may say a vast deal
of good and a vast deal of harm. His admirers think that justice
has not been done him, that his fame will go on rising and his name
will live as one of the great writers of France; others think that his
name may perhaps not entirely disappear, but that if he is remem-
bered at all it will be solely as the author of 'Émaux et Camées'
(Enamels and Cameos). He wrote in his youth a book that did him
great harm in the eyes of the public; but he has written something
else besides 'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' and both in prose and poetry
we shall find a good deal to admire in him. One thing is certain: he
is a marvelous stylist. In his earliest poems Gautier already possesses
that admirable artistic skill that prompts him to choose his words as
a painter his colors, or a jeweler his gems and stones, so as to pro-
duce the most brilliant effects: these first compositions also have a
grace, a charm, that we shall find lacking later on, for as he pro-
ceeds with his work he pays more and more attention to form and
finish.
'Albertus, or Soul and Sin,' the closing poem of Gautier's first col-
lection, is a "semi-diabolic, semi-fashionable" legend. An old witch,
Veronica, a second Meg Merrilies, transforms herself into a beauti-
ful maiden and makes love to Albertus, a young artist- otherwise
Gautier himself. He cares for nothing but his art, but falls a victim
to the spell cast over him by the siren. At the stroke of midnight,
Veronica, to the young man's horror, from a beautiful woman changes
back to the old hag she was, and carries him off to a place where
witches, sorcerers, hobgoblins, harpies, ghouls, and other frightful
creatures are holding a monstrous saturnalia; at the end of which,
Albertus is left for dead in a ditch of the Appian Way with broken
back and twisted neck. What does it all mean? the reader may ask.
That "the wages of sin is death" seems to be the moral contained in
this poem, if indeed any moral is intended at all. Be that as it may,
'Albertus' is a literary gem in its way; a work in which the poet
has given free scope to his brilliant imagination, and showered by
the handful the gems and jewels in his literary casket. Gautier may
be said to have possessed the poetry of Death - some would say its
horrors. This sentiment of horror at the repulsive manner of man's
total destruction finds most vivid expression in 'The Comedy of
Death,' a fantastic poem divided into two parts, 'Death in Life' and


## p. 6223 (#193) ###########################################

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6223
'Life in Death. ' The dialogue between the bride and the earth-
worm is of a flesh-creeping nature.
It is however as the poet of 'Émaux et Camées' (Enamels and
Cameos) that Théophile Gautier will be chiefly remembered. Every
poem but one in this collection is written in short octosyllabic verse,
and every one is what the title implies, -a precious stone, a chiseled
gem. Gautier's wonderful and admirable talent for grouping together
certain words that produce on one's eye and mind the effect of a
beautiful picture, his intense love of art, of the outline, the plastic,
appear throughout this work. You realize on reading 'Émaux et
Camées,' more perhaps than in any other work by this writer, that
the poet is fully conscious of his powers and knows just how to use
them. Any poem may be selected at random, and will be found a
work of art.
The same qualities that distinguish Gautier as a poet are to be
found in his novels, narratives of travels, criticisms,-in short, in
everything he wrote; intense love for the beautiful,-physically beau-
tiful,- wonderful talent for describing it. Of his novels, properly
speaking, there are four that stand out prominently, each very dif-
ferent in its subject,-a proof of Gautier's great versatility,—all
perfect in their execution. The first is 'Mademoiselle de Maupin'; it
is an immoral book, but it is a beautiful book, not only because
written with a rare elegance of style, but also because it makes you
love beauty. Briefly, 'Mademoiselle de Maupin' may be called a
pæan to beauty, sung by its high priest Théophile Gautier.
The other remarkable novels by this writer are 'Le Capitaine
Fracasse (Captain Smash-All), 'Le Roman de la Momie' (The Ro-
mance of the Mummy), and 'Spirite. ' 'Captain Fracasse,' although
not published until 1863, had been announced long beforehand; and
Gautier had worked at it, off and on, for twenty years. It belongs
to that class of novel known as picaresque romances of adventures
and battles. 'Captain Fracasse' is certainly the most popular of
Gautier's works.
-
'The Romance of the Mummy' is a very remarkable book, in
which science and fiction have been blended in the most artistic
and clever manner; picturesque, like all of Gautier's writings, but the
work of a savant as well as of a novelist. Here more than in any
other book by this author,-with the exception perhaps of Arria
Marcella, Gautier has revived in a most lifelike way an entire civ-
ilization, so long extinct. 'The Romance of the Mummy' abounds in
beautiful descriptions. The description of the finding of the mummy,
that of the royal tombs, of Thebes with its hundred gates, the tri-
umphal entrance of Pharaoh into that city, the crossing of the Red
Sea by the Israelites, are all marvelous pictures, that not only fill the


## p. 6224 (#194) ###########################################

6224
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
reader with the same admiration he would evince at the sight of a
painting by one of the great masters, but give him the illusion of
witnessing in the body the scenes so admirably described.
'Spirite,' a fantastic story, is a source of surprise to readers famil-
iar with Gautier's other works: they find it hard to conceive that so
thorough a materialist as Gautier could ever have produced a work
so spiritualistic in its nature. The clever handling of a mystic sub-
ject, the richness and coloring of the descriptions, together with a
certain ideal and poetical vein that runs through the book, make of
'Spirite' one of Gautier's most remarkable works.
Théophile Gautier has also written a number of nouvelles or short
novels, and tales, some of which are striking compositions. Arria
Marcella' is one of these; a brilliant, masterly composition, in which
Gautier gives us such a perfect illusion of the past. Under his magic
pen we find ourselves walking the streets of Pompeii and living over
the life of the Romans in the first century of our era; and 'Une Nuit
de Cléopâtre' (A Night with Cleopatra) is a vivid resurrection of the
brilliant Egyptian court.
Of his various journeys to Spain, Italy, and the Orient, Gautier
has given us the most captivating relations. To many this is not the
least interesting portion of Gautier's work. The same qualities that
are so striking in his poems and novels-vividness of description,
love of the picturesque, wonderful power of expression—are likewise
apparent in his relations of travels.
As a literary and especially as an art critic, Gautier ranks high.
Bringing to this branch of literature the same qualities that distin-
guish him in others, he created a descriptive and picturesque method
of criticism peculiarly his own. Of his innumerable articles on art
and literature, some have been collected under the names of 'Les
Grotesques,' a series of essays on a number of poets of the end of
the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries, ridiculed by
Boileau, but in whom Gautier finds some wheat among the chaff.
The History of Dramatic Art in France for the Last Twenty-five
Years,' beginning with the year 1837, will be consulted with great
profit by those who are curious to follow the dramatic movement
in that country. Of his essays on art, one is as excellent as the
other; all the great masters are treated with a loving and admiring
hand.
Among the miscellaneous works of this prolific writer should be
mentioned 'Ménagerie Intime' (Home Menagerie), in which the author
makes us acquainted in a most charming and familiar way with his
home life, and the various pets, cats, dogs, white rats, parrots, etc. ,
that in turn shared his house with him; la Nature chez elle (Nature at
home), that none but a close observer of nature could have written.


## p. 6225 (#195) ###########################################

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6225
The last book written by Gautier before his death was Tableaux
de Siège (Siege Pictures, 1871). The subjects are treated just in the
way we might expect from such a writer, from a purely artistic
point of view.
Gautier has written for the stage only short plays and ballets;
but if all he ever wrote were published, his works would fill nearly
three hundred volumes. In spite of the quantity and quality of his
books, the French Academy did not open her doors to him; but no
more did it to Molière, Beaumarchais, Balzac, and many others.
Opinions still vary greatly as to Théophile Gautier's literary merits;
but his brilliant descriptive powers, his eminent qualities as a stylist,
together with the influence he exercised over contemporary letters as
the introducer of the plastic in literature, would seem sufficient to
rank him among the great writers of France.
Robert Lanternz
THE ENTRY OF PHARAOH INTO THEBES
From The Romance of a Mummy'
A
T LENGTH their chariot reached the manoeuvring-ground, an
immense inclosure, carefully leveled, used for splendid
military displays. Terraces, one above the other, which
must have employed for years the thirty nations led away into
slavery, formed a frame en relief for the gigantic parallelogram;
sloping walls built of crude bricks lined these terraces; their tops
were covered, several rows deep, by hundreds of thousands of
Egyptians, whose white or brightly colored costumes blazed in the
sun with that perpetually restless movement which characterizes
a multitude, even when it appears motionless; behind this line
of spectators the cars, chariots, and litters, with their drivers,
grooms, and slaves, looked like the encampment of an emigrat-
ing nation, such was their immense number; for Thebes, the
marvel of the ancient world, counted more inhabitants than did
some kingdoms.
The fine, even sand of the vast arena, bordered with a million
heads, gleamed like mica dust beneath the light, falling from a
sky as blue as the enamel on the statuettes of Osiris. On the
south side of the field the terraces were broken, making way for
IX-390


## p. 6226 (#196) ###########################################

6226
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
a road which stretched towards Upper Ethiopia, the whole length
of the Libyan chain. In the corresponding corner, the opening
in the massive brick walls prolonged the roads to the Rhamses-
Maïamoun palace.
A frightful uproar, rumbling, deep, and mighty as that of an
approaching sea, arose in the distance and drowned the thousand
murmurs of the crowd, like the roar of the lion which hushes
the barking of the jackals. Soon the noise of instruments of
music could be distinguished amidst this terrestrial thunder, pro-
duced by the chariot wheels and the rhythmic pace of the foot-
soldiers. A sort of reddish cloud, like that raised by the desert
blasts, filled the sky in that direction, yet the wind had gone
down; there was not a breath of air, and the smallest branches
of the palm-trees hung motionless, as if they had been carved on
a granite capital; not a hair moved on the women's moist fore-
heads, and the fluted streamers of their head-dresses hung loosely
down their backs. This powdery fog was caused by the march-
ing army, and hung over it like a fallow cloud.
The tumult increases; the whirlwinds of dust opened, and the
first files of musicians entered the immense arena, to the great
satisfaction of the multitude, who in spite of its respect for his
Majesty were beginning to tire of waiting beneath a sun which
would have melted any other skulls than those of the Egyptians.
The advance guard of musicians halted for several instants;
colleges of priests, deputations of the principal inhabitants of
Thebes, crossed the manoeuvring-ground to meet the Pharaoh,
and arranged themselves in a row in postures of the most pro-
found respect, in such manner as to give free passage to the
procession.
The band, which alone was a small army, consisted of drums,
tabors, trumpets, and sistras.
The first squad passed, blowing a deafening blast upon their
short clarions of polished brass, which shone like gold. Each of
these trumpeters carried a second horn under his arm, as if the
instrument might grow weary sooner than the man.
The cos-
tume of these men consisted of a short tunic, fastened by a
sash with ends falling in front; a small band, in which were
stuck two ostrich feathers hanging over on either side, bound
their thick hair. These plumes, so worn, recalled to mind the
antennæ of scarabæi, and gave the wearers an odd look of being
insects.


## p. 6227 (#197) ###########################################

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6227
The drummers, clothed in a simple gathered skirt, and naked
to the waist, beat the onagra-skin heads of their rounded drums
with sycamore-wood drumsticks, their instruments suspended by
leathern shoulder-belts, and observed the time which a drum-
major marked for them by repeatedly turning towards them and
clapping his hands.
After the drummers came the sistra-players, who shook their
instruments by a quick, abrupt motion, and made at measured
intervals the metal links ring on the four bronze bars.
The tabor-players carried their oblong instruments crosswise,
held up by a scarf passed around the neck, and struck the
lightly stretched parchment with both hands.
Each company of musicians numbered at least two hundred
men; but the hurricane of noise produced by trumpets, drums,
tabors, and sistras, and which would have drawn blood from the
ears inside a palace, was none too loud or too unbearable beneath
the vast cupola of heaven, in the midst of this immense open
space, amongst this buzzing crowd, at the head of this army
which would baffle nomenclators, and which was now advancing
with a roar as of great waters.
And was it too much to have eight hundred musicians pre-
ceding a Pharaoh who was the best loved of Ammon-Ra, repre-
sented by colossal statues of basalt and granite sixty cubits high,
whose name was written in cartouches on imperishable monu-
ments, and his history painted and sculptured and painted on
the walls of the hypostyle chambers, on the sides of pylons, in
interminable bas-reliefs, in frescoes without end? Was it indeed
too much for a king who could raise a hundred conquered races
by the hair of their heads, and from his high throne corrected
the nations with his whip; for a living sun burning their dazzled
eyes; for a god, almost eternal?
After the musicians came the barbarian captives, strangely
formed, with brutish faces, black skins, woolly hair, resembling
apes as much as men, and dressed in the costume of their coun-
try, a short skirt above the hips, held by a single brace, embroid-
ered in different colors.
An ingenious and whimsical cruelty had suggested the way in
which the prisoners were chained. Some were bound with their
elbows drawn behind their backs; others with their hands lifted
above their heads, in a still more painful position; one had his
wrists fastened in wooden cangs (instruments of torture, still used


## p. 6228 (#198) ###########################################

6228
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
in China); another was half strangled in a sort of pillory; or a
chain of them were linked together by the same rope, each victim
having a knot round his neck. It seemed as if those who had
bound these unfortunates had found a pleasure in forcing them
into unnatural positions; and they advanced before their conqueror
with awkward and tottering gait, rolling their large eyes and
contorted with pain.
Guards walked beside them, regulating their step by beating
them with staves.
Tawny women, with long flowing hair, carrying their children
in ragged strips of cloth bound about their foreheads, came be-
hind them; bent, covered with shame, exhibiting their naked
squalor and deformity: a wretched company, devoted to the most
degrading uses.
Others, young and beautiful, with lighter skin, their arms en-
circled by broad ivory bracelets, their ears pulled down by large
metal discs, were enveloped in long tunics with wide sleeves, an
embroidered hem around the neck, and falling in small flat folds
to their ankles, upon which anklets rattled. Poor girls, torn from
country, family, perhaps lovers, smiling through their tears! For
the power of beauty is boundless; strangeness gives rise to ca-
price; and perhaps the royal favor awaited one of these barbarian
captives in the depths of the gynæceum.
They were accompanied by soldiers who kept away the
crowd.
The standard-bearers came next, lifting high the gilded staves
of their flags, representing mystic baris, sacred hawks, heads of
Hathor crowned with ostrich plumes, winged ibexes, inscriptions
embellished with the King's name, crocodiles, and other religious
or warlike emblems. Long white streamers, spotted with black,
were tied to these standards, and floated gracefully with every
motion. At sight of the standards announcing the appearance of
Pharaoh, the deputations of priests and notables raised towards
him their supplicating hands, or let them hang, palm outwards,
against their knees. Some even prostrated themselves, with
elbows pressed to their sides, their faces in the dust, in attitudes
of absolute submission and profound adoration.
The spectators
waved their large palm-leaves in every direction.
A herald, or reader, holding in one hand a roll covered with
hieroglyphics, came forward quite alone between the standard-
bearers and the incense-bearers who preceded the King's litter.
>
W
S
•
-1


## p. 6229 (#199) ###########################################

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6229
He proclaimed in a loud voice, resounding as a brass trumpet,
the victories of the Pharaoh; he recounted the results of the dif-
ferent battles, the number of captives and war chariots taken from
the enemy, the amount of plunder, the measures of gold dust, and
the elephant's tusks, the ostrich feathers, the masses of fragrant
gum, the giraffes, lions, panthers, and other rare animals; he
mentioned the names of the barbarian chiefs killed by the jave-
lins or the arrows of his Majesty, Aroëris, the all-powerful, the
loved of the gods.
At each announcement the people sent up an immense cry,
and from the top of the slopes strewed the conqueror's path with
long green palm-branches they held in their hands.
At last the Pharaoh appeared!
Priests, turning towards him at regular intervals, stretched out
their amschiras to him, first throwing incense on the coals blazing
in the little bronze cup, holding them by a handle formed like a
sceptre, with the head of some sacred animal at the other end;
they walked backwards respectfully, while the fragrant blue smoke
ascended to the nostrils of the triumpher, apparently as indiffer-
ent to these honors as a divinity of bronze or basalt.
Twelve oëris, or military chiefs, their heads covered by a light
helmet surrounded by ostrich feathers, naked to the waist, their
loins enveloped in a narrow skirt with stiff folds, their targes
suspended from the front of their belts, supported a sort of huge
shield, on which rested the Pharaoh's throne. It was a chair,
with arms and legs in the form of a lion, high-backed, with large
full cushion, adorned on the sides with a kind of trellis-work
of pink and blue flowers; the arms, legs, moldings of the seat
were gilded, and the parts which were not, flamed with bright
colors.
On either side of the litter, four fan-bearers waved enormous
semicircular fans, fixed to gilded staves; two priests held aloft a
large richly decorated horn of plenty, from which fell bunches of
enormous lotus blooms. The Pharaoh wore a mitre-like helmet,
cut out to make room for the ear, and brought down over the
back of the neck to protect it. On the blue ground of the hel-
met scintillated a quantity of dots like the eyes of birds, made of
three circles, black, white, and red; a scarlet and yellow border
ran along the edge, and the symbolic viper, twisting its golden.
coils at the back, stood erect above the royal forehead; two long
curled feathers, purple in color, floated over his shoulders, and
completed his majestically elegant head-dress.


## p. 6230 (#200) ###########################################

6230
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
A wide gorget, with seven rows of enamels, precious stones,
and golden beads, fell over the Pharaoh's chest and gleamed
brightly in the sunlight. His upper garment was a sort of loose
shirt, with pink and black squares; the ends, lengthening into
narrow slips, were wound several times about his bust and bound
it closely; the sleeves, cut short near the shoulder, and bordered
with intersecting lines of gold, red, and blue, exposed his round,
strong arms, the left furnished with a large metal wristband,
meant to lessen the vibration of the string when he discharged
an arrow from his triangular bow; and the right, ornamented by
a bracelet in the form of a serpent in several coils, held a long
gold sceptre with a lotus bud at the end. The rest of his body
was wrapped in drapery of the finest linen, minutely plaited,
bound about the waist by a belt inlaid with small enamel and
gold plates. Between the band and the belt his torso appeared,
shining and polished like pink granite shaped by a cunning work-
man. Sandals with returned toes, like skates, shod his long nar-
row feet, placed together like those of the gods on the temple
walls.
His smooth beardless face, with large clearly cut features,
which it seemed beyond any human power to disturb, and which
the blood of common life did not color, with its death-like pallor,
sealed lips, enormous eyes enlarged with black lines, the lids no
more lowered than those of the sacred hawk, inspired by its very
immobility a feeling of respectful fear. One might have thought
that these fixed eyes were searching for eternity and the Infinite;
they never seemed to rest on surrounding objects. The satiety
of pleasures, the surfeit of wishes satisfied as soon as expressed,
the isolation of a demigod who has no equal among mortals, the
disgust for perpetual adoration, and as it were the weariness of
continual triumph, had forever frozen this face, implacably gentle
and of granite serenity. Osiris judging the souls could not have
had a more majestic and calm expression.
A large tame lion, lying by his side, stretched out its enor-
mous paws like a sphinx on its pedestal, and blinked its yellow
eyes.
A rope, attached to the litter, bound the war chariots of the
vanquished chiefs to the Pharaoh. He dragged them behind him
like animals in leash. These men, with fierce despairing faces,
their elbows drawn together by a strap and forming an ungrace-
ful angle, tottered awkwardly at every motion of the chariots,
driven by Egyptians.


## p. 6231 (#201) ###########################################

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6231
Next came the chariots of the young princes royal, drawn by
thoroughbred horses, elegantly and nobly formed, with slender
legs, sinewy houghs, their manes cut short like a brush, har-
nessed by twos, tossing their red-plumed heads, with metal-bossed
headstalls and frontlets. A curved pole, upheld on their withers,
covered with scarlet panels, two collars surmounted by balls of
polished brass, bound together by a light yoke bent like a bow
with upturned ends; a bellyband and breastband elaborately
stitched and embroidered, and rich housings with red or blue
stripes and fringed with tassels, completed this strong, graceful,
and light harness.
The body of the chariot, painted red and white, ornamented
with bronze plaques and half-spheres, something like the umbo
of the shields, was flanked with two large quivers placed diago-
nally opposite each other, one filled with arrows and the other
with javelins. On the front of each, a carved, gilded lion, with
set paws, and muzzle wrinkled into a frightful grin, seemed
ready to spring with a roar upon the enemy.
The young princes had their hair bound with a narrow band,
in which the royal viper was twisted; their only garment was a
tunic gaudily embroidered at the neck and sleeves, and held in
at the waist by a belt of black leather, clasped with a metal
plate engraved with hieroglyphics. In this belt was a long dag-
ger, with triangular brass blade, the handle channeled crosswise,
terminated by a hawk's head.
In the chariot, by the side of each prince, stood the chariot-
eer, who drove it in battle, and the groom, whose business it
was to ward off with the shield the blows aimed at the combat-
ant, while the latter discharged the arrows or threw the javelins
which he took from the quivers on either side of the car.
In the wake of the princes followed the chariots, the Egyp-
tian cavalry, twenty thousand in number, each drawn by two
horses and holding three men. They advanced ten in a line, the
axletrees perilously near together, but never coming in contact
with each other, so great was the address of the drivers.
Several lighter chariots, used for skirmishing and reconnoi-
tring, marched at the head and carried one warrior only, who in
order to leave his hands free for fighting wound the reins around
his body: by bending to the right or the left, or backwards, he
guided or stopped his horses; and it was really wonderful to see
the noble animals, apparently left to themselves, but governed


## p. 6232 (#202) ###########################################

6232
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
by imperceptible movements, keep up an undisturbedly regular
pace.
The stamping of the horses, held in with difficulty, the thunder-
ing of the bronze-covered wheels, the metallic clash of weapons,
gave to this line something formidable and imposing enough to
raise terror in the most intrepid bosoms. The helmets, plumes,
and breastplates dotted with red, green, and yellow, the gilded
bows and brass swords, glittered and blazed terribly in the light
of the sun, open in the sky, above the Libyan chain, like a great
Osirian eye; and it was felt that the onslaught of such an army
must sweep away the nations like a whirlwind which drives a
light straw before it.
Beneath these innumerable wheels the earth resounded and
trembled, as if it had been moved by some convulsion of nature.
To the chariots succeeded the battalions of infantry, marching
in order, their shields on the left arm; in the right hand the
lance, curved club, bow, sling, or axe, according as they were
armed; the heads of these soldiers were covered with helmets,
adorned with two horsehair tails, their bodies girded with a cui-
rass belt of crocodile-skin. Their impassible look, the perfect reg
ularity of their movements, their reddish copper complexions,
deepened by a recent expedition to the burning regions of Upper
Ethiopia, their clothing powdered with the desert sand, they
awoke admiration by their discipline and courage. With soldiers
like these, Egypt could conquer the world. After them came the
allied troops, recognizable from the outlandish form of their
head-pieces, which looked like truncated mitres, or were sur-
mounted by crescents spitted on sharp points. Their wide-bladed
swords and jagged axes must have produced wounds which could
not be healed.
Slaves carried on their shoulders or on barrows the spoils enu-
merated by the herald, and wild-beast tamers dragged behind
them leashed panthers, cheetahs, crouching down as if trying to
hide themselves, ostriches fluttering their wings, giraffes which
overtopped the crowd by the entire length of their necks, and
even brown bears,-taken, they said, in the Mountains of the
Moon.
The procession was still passing, long after the King had en-
tered his palace.


## p. 6233 (#203) ###########################################

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6233
FROM THE MARSH
T IS a pond, whose sleepy water
Lies stagnant, covered with a mantle
Of lily pads and rushes.
Under the creeping duck-weed
The wild ducks dip
Their sapphire necks glazed with gold;
At dawn the teal is seen bathing,
And when twilight reigns,
It settles between two rushes and sleeps.
FROM THE DRAGON-FLY›
PON the heather sprinkled
With morning dew;
Upon the wild-rose bush;
UPON
Upon the shady trees;
Upon the hedges
Growing along the path;
Upon the modest and dainty
Daisy,
That droops its dreamy brow;
Upon the rye, like a green billow
Unrolled
By the winged caprice of the wind,
The dragon-fly gently rocks.
THE DOVES
ON
IN THE hill-side, yonder where are the graves,
A fine palm-tree, like a green plume,
Stands with head erect; in the evening the doves
Come to nestle under its cover.
But in the morning they leave the branches;
Like a spreading necklace, they may be seen
Scattering in the blue air, perfectly white,
And settling farther upon some roof.
My soul is the tree where every eve, as they,
White swarms of mad visions
Fall from heaven, with fluttering wings,
To fly away with the first rays.


## p. 6234 (#204) ###########################################

6234
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
THE POT OF FLOWERS
OMETIMES a child finds a small seed,
And at once, delighted with its bright colors,
To plant it he takes a porcelain jar
Adorned with blue dragons and strange flowers.
S°
He goes away.
The root, snake-like, stretches,
Breaks through the earth, blooms, becomes a shrub;
Each day, farther down, it sinks its fibrous foot,
Until it bursts the sides of the vessel.
The child returns: surprised, he sees the rich plant
Over the vase's débris brandishing its green spikes;
He wants to pull it out, but the stem is stubborn.
The child persists, and tears his fingers with the pointed
arrows.
Thus grew love in my simple heart;
I believed I sowed but a spring flower;
'Tis a large aloe, whose root breaks
The porcelain vase with the brilliant figures.
PRAYER
Α
SA guardian angel, take me under your wing;
Deign to stoop and put out, smiling,
Your maternal hand to my little hand
To support my steps and keep me from falling!
For Jesus the sweet Master, with celestial love,
Suffered little children to come to him;
As an indulgent parent, he submitted to their caresses
And played with them without showing weariness.
O you who resemble those church pictures
Where one sees, on a gold background, august Charity
Preserving from hunger, preserving from cold,
A fair and smiling group sheltered in her folds;
Like the nursling of the Divine mother,
For pity's sake, lift me to your lap;
Protect me, poor young girl, alone, an orphan,
Whose only hope is in God, whose only hope is in you!


## p. 6235 (#205) ###########################################

THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6235
THE POET AND THE CROWD
NE day the plain said to the idle mountain:—
ON Nothing ever grows upon thy wind-beaten brow!
To the poet, bending thoughtful over his lyre,
The crowd also said:- Dreamer, of what use art thou?
Full of wrath, the mountain answered the plain:
:-
It is I who make the harvests grow upon thy soil;
I temper the breath of the noon sun,
I stop in the skies the clouds as they fly by.
With my fingers I knead the snow into avalanches,
In my crucible I dissolve the crystals of glaciers,
And I pour out, from the tip of my white breasts,
In long silver threads, the nourishing streams.
The poet, in his turn, answered the crowd:
Allow my pale brow to rest upon my hand.
Have I not from my side, from which runs out my soul,
Made a spring gush to slake men's thirst?
THE FIRST SMILE OF SPRING
HILE to their perverse work
Men run panting,
March that laughs, in spite of showers,
Quietly gets Spring ready.
WH
For the little daisies,
Slyly, when all sleep,
He irons little collars
And chisels gold studs.
Through the orchard and the vineyard,
He goes, cunning hair-dresser,
With a swan-puff,
And powders snow-white the almond-tree.
Nature rests in her bed;
He goes down to the garden
And laces the rosebuds
In their green velvet corsets.


## p. 6236 (#206) ###########################################

6236
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
While composing solfeggios
That he sings in a low tone to the blackbirds,
He strews the meadows with snowdrops
And the woods with violets.
By the side of the cress in the brook
Where drinks the stag, with listening ear,
With his concealed hand he scatters
The silver bells of the lilies of the valley.
Then, when his work is done
And his reign about to end,
On the threshold of April, turning his head,
He says, Spring, you may come!
TH
THE VETERANS
From The Old Guard›
HE thing is worth considering;
Three ghosts of old veterans
In the uniform of the Old Guard,
With two shadows of hussars!
Since the supreme battle
One has grown thin, the other stout;
The coat once made to fit them
Is either too loose or too tight.
Don't laugh, comrade;
But rather bow low
To these Achilles of an Iliad
That Homer would not have invented.
Their faces with the swarthy skin
Speak of Egypt with the burning sun,
And the snows of Russia
Still powder their white hair.
If their joints are stiff, it is because on the
battle-field
Flags were their only blankets;
And if their sleeves don't fit,
It is because a cannon-ball took off their arm.


## p. 6237 (#207) ###########################################

6237
JOHN GAY
(1685-1732)
N THE great society of the wits," said Thackeray, "John Gay
deserves to be a favorite, and to have a good place. " The
wits loved him. Prior was his faithful ally; Pope wrote
him frequent letters of affectionate good advice; Swift grew genial in
his merry company; and when the jester lapsed into gloom, as jest-
ers will, all his friends hurried to coddle and comfort him. His verse
is not of the first order, but the list of "English classics" contains
far poorer; it is entertaining enough to be a pleasure even to bright
children of this generation, and each suc-
ceeding one reads it with an inherited fond-
ness not by any means without help from
its own merits. And the man who invented
comic opera, one of the most enduring molds
in which English humor has been cast, de-
serves the credit of all important literary
pioneers.

JOHN GAY
Kind, lazy, clever John Gay came of a
good, impoverished Devonshire family, which
seems to have done its best for the bright
lad of twelve when it apprenticed him to a
London silk mercer. The boy hated this
employment, grew ill under its fret and con-
finement, went back to the country, studied,
possibly wrote poor verses, and presently drifted back to London.
The cleverest men of the time frequented the crowded taverns and
coffee-houses, and the talk that he heard at Will's and Button's may
have determined his profession. Thither came Pope and Addison,
Swift and Steele, Congreve, St. John, Prior, Arbuthnot, Cibber, Ho-
garth, Walpole, and many a powerful patron who loved good com-
pany.
Perhaps through some kind acquaintance made in this informal
circle, Gay obtained a private secretaryship, and began the flirtation.
with the Muse which became serious only after some years of cold-
ness on that humorous lady's part. His first poem, 'Wine,' published
when he was twenty-three, is not included in his collected works:
perhaps because it is written in blank verse; perhaps because his
maturer taste condemned it. Three years later, in 1711, when the
success of the Spectator was yet new, and Pope had just completed


## p. 6238 (#208) ###########################################

6238
JOHN GAY
his brilliant Art of Criticism,' and Swift was editing the Examiner
and working on that defense of a French peace, The Conduct of the
Allies,' which was to make him the talk of London,-Gay sent forth
his second venture; a curious, unimportant pamphlet, The Present
State of Wit. ' Late in 1713 he is contributing to Dicky Steele's
Guardian, and sending elegies to his 'Poetical Miscellanies'; and a
little later, having become a favorite with the powerful Mr. Pope, he
is made to bring up new reinforcements to the battle of that irasci-
ble gentleman with his ancient enemy Ambrose Phillips. This he
does in The Shepherd's Week,' a sham pastoral, which is full of
wit and easy versification, and shows very considerable talents as a
parodist. This skit the luckless satirist dedicated to Bolingbroke,
whose brilliant star was just passing into eclipse. Swift thought this
harmless courtesy the real cause of the indifference of the Brunswick
princes to the merits of the poet; and in an age when every spark of
literary genius was so carefully nursed and utilized to sustain the
weak dynasty, most likely he was right.
(
For this reason or another, indifferent they were; and in a time
when court favor counted enormously, poor indolent luxury-loving Gay
had to earn his loaf by hard work, or go without it. He produced a
tragi-comi-pastoral farce called 'What D'ye Call It? ' which was the
lineal ancestor of Pinafore and the Pirates of Penzance' in its
method of treating farcical incidents in a grave manner. But the
town did not see the fun of this expedient, and the play failed, though
it contained, among other famous songs, 'Twas When the Seas Were
Roaring. In 1716 Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of
London,' put some money into the poet's empty pocket, thanks to
Pope's good offices. A year later a second comedy of his. Three
Hours after Marriage,' met with well-deserved failure. And now, as
always, when his spirits sank, his good friends showered kindnesses
upon him. Mr. Secretary Pulteney carried him off to Aix. Lord
Bathurst and Lord Burlington were his to command. Many fine gen-
tlemen, and particularly many fine ladies, pressed him to make
indefinite country visits. In 1720 his friends managed the publication
of his poems in two quarto volumes, subscribing for ten, twenty, and
even fifty copies apiece, some of them, and securing to the poet, it
is said, £1,000. The younger Craggs, the bookseller, gave him some
South-Sea stock which rose rapidly, and at one time the improvident
little gentleman found himself in possession of £20,000. All his
friends besought him to sell, but Alnaschar Gay had visions of a
splendid ease and opulence. The bubble burst, and poor Alnaschar
had not wherewithal to pay his broker.
The Duchess of Queensborough (Prior's "Kitty, beautiful and
young") had already annexed the charmer, and now carried him off


## p. 6239 (#209) ###########################################

JOHN GAY
6239
to Petersham.
"I wish you had a little villakin in Mr. Pope's neigh-
borhood," scolds Swift to him; "but you are yet too volatile, and any
lady with a coach and six horses might carry you to Japan;" and
again:-"I know your arts of patching up a journey between stage-
coaches and friend's coaches- for you are as arrant a cockney as
any hosier in Cheapside. I have often had it in my head to put it
into yours, that you ought to have some great work in scheme which
may take up seven years to finish, besides two or three under ones
that may add another thousand pounds to your stock; and then I
shall be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but
you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without considering that the
interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but half a crown a
day. " Gay went to Bath with the Queensberrys, and to Oxford.
Swift complained to Pope:- "I suppose Mr. Gay will return from Bath
with twenty pounds more flesh, and two hundred pounds less money.
Providence never designed him to be above two-and-twenty, by his
thoughtlessness and gullibility. He has as little foresight of age,
sickness, poverty, or loss of admirers as a girl of fifteen. " And his
dear Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk, took him affectionately
to task:- "Your head is your best friend: it would clothe, lodge,
and feed you; but you neglect it, and follow that false friend your
heart, which is such a foolish, tender thing that it makes others
despise your head, that have not half so good a one on their own
shoulders. In short, John, you may be a snail, or a silkworm; but
by my consent you shall never be a hare again. "
He lived under other great roofs, if not contentedly, at least grace-
fully and agreeably. If his dependent state irked him, his hosts
did not perceive it. To Swift he wrote, indeed, "They wonder at
each other for not providing for me, and I wonder at them all. "
Yet, for the nine years from 1722 to 1731 he had a small official
salary, on which a thriftier or more industrious mortal would have
managed to live respectably even in that expensive age; and for at
least a part of the time he had official lodgings at Whitehall.
In 1725 was published the first edition of his famous 'Fables,'
which had been written for the moral behoof of Prince William,
afterward Duke of Cumberland, of unblessed memory. The book did
not make his fortune with the court, as he had hoped, and in 1723
he produced his best known work, The Beggar's Opera. ' Nobody
had much faith in this "Newgate Pastoral," least of all Swift, who
had first suggested it. But it took the town by storm, running for
sixty-three consecutive nights. As the heroine, Polly Peachum, the
lovely Lavinia Fenton captured a duchess's coronet. The songs were
heard alike in West End drawing-rooms and East End slums. Swift
praised it for its morality, and the Archbishop of Canterbury scored


## p. 6240 (#210) ###########################################

6240
JOHN GAY
it for its condonation of vice. The breath of praise and blame filled
equally its prosperous sails, blew it all over the kingdom wherever a
theatre could be found, and finally wafted it to Minorca. So well did
the opera pay him that Gay wrote a sequel called 'Polly,' which,
being prohibited through some notion of Walpole's, sold enormously
by subscription and earned Gay £1,200.
After this the hospitable Queensberrys seem to have adopted him.
He produced a musical drama, 'Acis and Galatea,' written long be-
fore and set to Handel's music; a few more 'Fables'; a thin opera
called 'Achilles'; and then his work was done. He died in London
of a swift fever, in December 1732, before his kind Kitty and her
husband could reach him, or his other great friend, the Countess of
Suffolk. Arbuthnot watched over him; Pope was with him to the
last; Swift indorsed on the letter that brought him the tidings, “On
my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; received on December 15th, but not
read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune. "
So
faithfully did the "giants," as Thackeray calls them, cherish this
gentle, friendly, affectionate, humorous comrade. He seems indeed
to have been almost the only companion with whom Swift did not at
some time fall out, and of his steadfastness the gloomy great man in
his 'Verses on my Own Death' could write:-
"Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day. "
The Trivia and the Shepherd's Week,' the 'Acis and Galatea'
and even the 'Beggar's Opera,' gradually faded into the realm of
"old, forgotten, far-off things"; while the 'Fables' passed through
many editions, found their place in school reading-books, were com-
mitted to memory by three generations of admiring pupils, and in-
Icluded in the most orthodox libraries. Yet criticism now reverts to
the earlier standard; approves the songs, and the minute observation,
the nice phrasing, and the humorous swing of the pastorals and
operas, and finds the fables dull, commonplace, and monotonous.
Pope said in his affectionate epitaph that the poet had been laid in
Westminster Abbey, not for ambition, but-
>
"That the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms, 'Here lies Gay,› »
If to-day the worthy and the good do not know even where he lies,
not the less is he to be gratefully remembered whom the best and
greatest of his own time so much admired, and of whom Pope
and Johnson and Thackeray and Dobson have written with the
warmth of friendship.


## p. 6241 (#211) ###########################################

JOHN GAY
6241
IX-
391
THE HARE AND MANY FRIENDS
From the Fables'
F
RIENDSHIP, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
The child whom many fathers share
Hath seldom known a father's care.