familiar friendly intercourse with what is most common in the social scale, he had the tastes and the tone of your old nobility; and whenever it was a question of saving money, he felt not so much an instinctive aversion for what is vulgar, as an unconscious necessity for having regard to what his own position required in keeping aloof from it. Now these are examples that, however trifling they may appear in themselves, teach much. Men might catch from them in this respect a trait even of genius; for genius, like such youth, loves without lowering itself to gossip with the common people. And if men are too proud to mix with them at times, even "within some gentle ostelrie," like Chaucer and his pilgrims, though they may possess the learning of an antiquary, they will never be able to relish the ancient poetry of England; and it is paying somewhat dear for pride, methinks, to lose that pleasure. A little romance, besides, in which youth is seldom wanting, can raise every thing. Where the boy, in an old play, says that it will show ill-favouredly to have a grocer's 'prentice seen at court, the citizen replies, "Will it so, sir? You are well read in histories! I pray you, what was Sir Dagonet? Was not he 'prentice to a grocer in London? Read the play of the Four 'Prentices of London, where they toss their pikes so." But children, like the common people, will find a way of escape, without even the aid of such associations, to spots and companies that yield a pleasure of their own. Our street pump is, indeed, a poor substitute for the fountain; but still there are nooks and corners, or steps or open spaces where they congregate, with all blue or white aproned sleeves-turn'd-up juveniles, and all merry combatants with hand-baskets, all flatcapped 'prentices, fustianed-jacket and blouse-belted dandies, with all the swarming generation of whistling Harrys and silvertoned singing Bills; while that kind of happy pause takes place every now and then in the labour of the day, which might remind one of the meeting at the fountain, when the pitcher is rested on the edge of it, and the breath of the bearer is drawn deeply, and the hair swept from the forehead, and the uprightness of the form declined against the marble ledge, and the sound of the kind word or light laugh mixes with the trickle of the falling water, heard shriller and shriller as the pitcher 168 fills. 66 THE CHILDREN'S BOWER; [сн. "What pause is so sweet as that," exclaims Ruskin, so full of the depth of ancient days, so softened with the calm of pastoral solitude!" It is pleasant to trace the tastes of the Children's Bower in this respect in former times, and in different kinds of characters. We find them not alone at the court of Louis XIV., but even with Pepys. Thus in his Diary we read, “All the afternoon among my workmen, and did give them drink, and very merry with them, it being my luck to meet with a sort of drolling workmen on all occasions;" and elsewhere we find him playing Mayhew's part, saying, “Homewards, and took up a boy that had a lanthorne, that was picking up of rags, and had great discourse with him how he could get sometimes three or four bushells of rags in a day, and got threepence a bushell for them; and many other discourses, what, and how many ways there are for poor children to get their livings honestly*." Fuller, when collecting materials for his historical works, would listen for hours together to the common people's accounts of local traditions; and many good old English words, lost but for him, are found accordingly in his writings. These reports and sayings of the common people are to students of that kind as dear as was the wc Xeyova to the Father of history. Such familiarity is, in general, a trait of superior minds and true-hearted characters. "The higher a man stands," says Ruskin, "the more the word 'vulgar' becomes unintelligible to him." It is, we are told, even in regard to the spiritual life, an index of perfection; as when we read that St. Margaret, of the order of St. Dominick, heard these words in answer to her prayer to be shown the road of the ancient fathers, "La perfection des pères anciens a esté, aymer Dieu, se m'espriser soymesme, ne despriser et ne juger personne t." It is St. Chrysostom who remarks, that children never feel shame at the destitution of their parents, and that not for an instant would they exchange them if they could for the richest. John Cavette, when a student at St. Acheul, used to tell his fellow-scholars all about his family, how they used to live at home on alms, and how he owed the very clothes he * Diary of Sam. Pepys, i. 202. † Oultreman, Le Pedagogue Chrestien. 4 wore to the charity of Christians. In general, others might learn from the spirit of early life to esteem qualities above rank, a way of thinking which in the world would pass for insanity; for where its spirit predominates, as in certain circles, you may wait long enough to find proof that any one will be thought more of for not being seen, as Tacitus tells us was once the case in Rome. In an old ballad, Biondinetta, the Venetian water-girl, walks down the Piazzetta. Whom will she accept? Titian has promised to paint her. The Doge proposed to crown her in the Bucentaur; Mocenigo offered to build her a palace of looking-glass; but she prefers Tonin the gondolier, and passes on laughing. We have already glanced at the evils produced in the world by what may be termed the genius of expense ministering to pride. In the Children's Bower, even men piλOKTEAVάTATOL Távτшv might learn to adopt a different spirit from observing the felicity and the charm that exist without it; for the truth is, that it is a genius which has no attractions even to form a temptation for the humble, and consequently none for the young. Again I must cite little John "The courtier's pride he laughed at, And look'd upon things precious, as they were Partly, no doubt, because he never wished for such a thing, but also partly, perhaps, through a certain indistinct dread almost amounting to superstition in those who loved him, which made them think that they might preserve his life by keeping him aloof from any thing like the luxury of the rich, he never had an expensive toy, a costly book, or anything but what you might have thought belonged to some poor boy. His prayerbooks even were little cheap old-thumbed things. With his 66 own money' " he bought for fourpence a small black cross, at his little sister's shop on the head of the stairs, for the SainteEnfance, and that was the cross which was buried with him, placed upon his breast. He had no wish to have fine things. If he heard that any object, however trifling, was to be bought for him, he would say, "Oh, pa! I don't want it; now pray don't;" and then for the smallest present he would say, "Oh! 170 THE CHILDREN'S BOWER; [CH. I thank you very much." Children have not what St. Augustin calls the love of Babylon. "Look," he says, "at the house of a great man. What riches does it contain! how it abounds in everything! What furniture, what plate, what a number of servants, how many horses and other animals; how much to charm the eyes in marbles, columns, and vast apartments! One loves such houses, but this love is still a love of Babylon *" Only let him have a home of any sort, and a child will never sigh at wanting any of these things. Young people, moreover, have especial reasons of their own for not overmuch liking that kind of house, in which the fear of breaking fragile magnificence, "glittering need-nots to human happiness," tends to a sort of pagan worship of Penates and Lares. Those precautions of the rich which are necessary to prevent hourly catastrophes, extending from the pantry and the chimney-corner to the furniture in general, will every day involve a lively boy in sufficient trouble and restraint to make him desire to be "paterni laris inops," or to be born, as the pagans used to say, with a small sideboard-" parvo sub lare.' He cares not a rush for Majolica dishes, Venetian glasses, or tables of Sevres porcelain. The young will often talk like the woodland fellow in Shakspeare, who shows no anxiety to be with the courtiers of him who keeps the great fire. Almost naturally each of them will say like him, "I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter; those that humble themselves may, but others will be for going round to the broad gate." "Yet who would change their soft but solid joys, For empty shows and senseless noise; And all which rank ambition breeds, Which seem such beauteous flowers, and are such poisonous weeds †?" Children, who are essentially sociable in their nature, have most frequently certain predilections even respecting the site of a dwelling, which might convey a useful lesson to those who, disregarding the natural tendency of the Christian civilization, which is to draw men into society, as Cardinal Palæotus * In Ps. lxiv. † Cowley. shows*, affect solitude through pride, desire to be isolated and far removed from the rest of the world, intrenched, as an old French writer says, in some "gentilhommière,” in the midst of hares and partridges, 66 avec des gens rustres et brutaux;" or, as we might say, "with those rough things who never knew manners nor smooth humanity." "He moste needes walke in woode that may not walke in towne." But it is a proud and inhuman disposition to which there seems to be a reference in the sacred words, "numquid habitabitis vos soli in medio terræ?" At all events, formerly in preferring such a locality, pride had, it must be confessed, rather a grim escort of qualities with her, combining to prompt the choice. It is a trite subject. One instance may suffice. In a wild and desert part of Hungary is seated the ancient castle of Hrisco, an old giant of stone, which frowns from the top of a precipitous rock. Before the gate the statue of a monk raises his hand, as if against the castle, with a menacing gesture. These dark walls, says the legend, were witnesses of many crimes. Its dungeons used to contain victims without number; and under the oaken ceilings of its vast halls resounded the horrible orgies of insensate revellers. A monk from a convent of the same country endeavoured more than once to touch the proud heart of the wicked castelain. While there he was listened to and obeyed; but no sooner had he left the castle by one door, than every thing horrible came in at another. At last, one day on departing, he said aloud, “If it is my presence that you want to teach you humility, you shall have it for ever." Then on the threshold stopping, and turning about to face the castle, he raised his hand to threaten it. His threat became instantly fixed in stone a statue. The monk had vanished; the awful image was what remained. The guardian, who now shows the place, affirms that in the dark autumnal evenings the soul of that monk passes through the long corridors, sighing and lamenting. The castle is deserted, and spirits only, it is said, haunt the old walls which once were the abode of pride, with all the crimes that served it. * De Bonon. Eccl. Admin. P. i. |