[57]. We shall here give one passage as an example, which has always appeared to us the very perfection of this kind of personal and local description. It is that where he gives an account of his being one of the choristers at the Cathedral at Chambery: ‘On jugera bien que la vie de la maîtrise toujours chantante et gaie, avec les Musiciens et les Enfans de chœur, me plaisoit plus que celle du Séminaire avec les Peres de S. Lazare. Cependant, cette vie, pour être plus libre, n’en étoit pas moins égale et réglée. J’étois fait pour aimer l’indépendance et pour n’en abuser jamais. Durant six mois entiers, je ne sortis pas une seule fois, que pour aller chez Maman ou à l’Église, et je n’en fus pas même tenté. Cette intervalle est un de ceux où j’ai vécu dans le plus grand calme, et que je me suis rappelé avec le plus de plaisir. Dans les situations diverses où je me suis trouvé, quelques uns out été marqués par un tel sentiment de bien-être, qu’en les remémorant j’en suis affecté comme si j’y étois encore. Non seulement je me rappelle les tems, les lieux, les personnes, mais tous les objets environnans, la température de l’air, son odeur, sa couleur, une certaine impression locale qui ne s’est fait sentir que là, et dont le souvenir vif m’y transporte de nouveau. Par exemple, tout ce qu’on répétait a la maîtrise, tout ce qu’on chantoit au chœur, tout ce qu’on y faisoit, le bel et noble habit des Chanoines, les hasubles des Prêtres, les mitres des Chantres, la figure des Musiciens, un vieux Charpentier boiteux qui jouoit de la contrebasse, un petit Abbé biondin qui jouoit du violon, le lambeau de soutane qu’après avoir posé son épée, M. le Maître endossoit par-dessus son habit laïque, et le beau surplis fin dont il en couvrait les loques pour aller au chœur; l’orgueil avec lequel j’allois, tenant ma petite flûte à bec, m’établir dans l’orchestre, à la tribune, pour un petit bout de récit que M. le Maître avoit fait exprès pour moi: le bon diner qui nous attendoit ensuite, le bon appétit qu’on y portoit:—ce concours d’objets vivement retracé m’a cent fois charmé dans ma mémoire, autant et plus que dans la realité. J’ai gardé toujours une affection tendre pour un certain air du Conditor alme syderum qui marche par iambes; parce qu’un Dimanche de l’Avent j’entendis de mon lit chanter cette hymne, avant le jour, sur le perron de la Cathédrale, selon un rite de cette eglise là. Mlle. Merceret, femme de chambre de Maman, savoit un peu de musique; je n’oublierai jamais un petit motet afferte, que M. le Maître me fit chanter avec elle, et que sa maîtresse écoutait avec tant de plaisir. Enfin tout, jusqu’à la bonne servante Perrine, qui étoit si bonne fille, et que les enfans de chœur faisoient tant endêver—tout dans les souvenirs de ces tems de bonheur et d’innocence revient souvent me ravir et m’attrister.’—Confessions, LIV. iii. p. 283.
[58]. Burns, when about to sail for America after the first publication of his poems, consoled himself with ‘the delicious thought of being regarded as a clever fellow, though on the other side of the Atlantic.’
[59]. This man (Burke) who was a half poet and a half philosopher, has done more mischief than perhaps any other person in the world. His understanding was not competent to the discovery of any truth, but it was sufficient to palliate a falsehood; his reasons, of little weight in themselves, thrown into the scale of power, were dreadful. Without genius to adorn the beautiful, he had the art to throw a dazzling veil over the deformed and disgusting; and to strew the flowers of imagination over the rotten carcass of corruption, not to prevent, but to communicate the infection. His jealousy of Rousseau was one chief cause of his opposition to the French Revolution. The writings of the one had changed the institutions of a kingdom; while the speeches of the other, with the intrigues of his whole party, had changed nothing but the turnspit of the King’s kitchen. He would have blotted out the broad pure light of Heaven, because it did not first shine in at the little Gothic windows of St. Stephen’s Chapel. The genius of Rousseau had levelled the towers of the Bastile with the dust; our zealous reformist, who would rather be doing mischief than nothing, tried, therefore, to patch them up again, by calling that loathsome dungeon the King’s castle, and by fulsome adulation of the virtues of a Court strumpet. This man,—but enough of him here.
[60]. This word is not English.
[61]. Written in 1806.
[62]. Plato’s cave, in which he supposes a man to be shut up all his life with his back to the light, and to see nothing of the figures of men, or other objects that pass by, but their shadows on the opposite wall of his cell, so that when he is let out and sees the real figures, he is only dazzled and confounded by them, seems an ingenious satire on the life of a book-worm.
[63]. The following lively description of this actress is given by Cibber in his Apology:—
‘What found most employment for her whole various excellence at once, was the part of Melantha, in Marriage-à-la-mode. Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion, manners, soul, and body, are in a continual hurry to be something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I doubt it will be a vain labour to offer you a just likeness of Mrs. Montfort’s action, yet the fantastic impression is still so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something, though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that break from her are upon a gallant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her good graces as an honourable lover. Here now, one would think she might naturally shew a little of the sex’s decent reserve, though never so slightly covered! No, sir; not a tittle of it; modesty is the virtue of a poor-soul’d country gentlewoman: she is too much a court-lady, to be under so vulgar a confusion: she reads the letter, therefore, with a careless, dropping lip, and an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were impatient to outgo her father’s commands, by making a complete conquest of him at once: and that the letter might not embarrass her attack, crack! she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion; down goes her dainty, diving body to the ground, as if she were sinking under the conscious load of her own attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water; and, to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to praise it: Silent assenting bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is admitted to, which at last he is relieved from, by her engagement to half a score visits, which she swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a twinkling.’—The Life of Colley Cibber, p. 138.
[64]. A few alterations and corrections have been inserted in the present edition.
[Note by W. H. to Second Edition.]