Books.
—————————————— Give me
Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does
Contain my books, the best companions, is
To me a glorious court, where hourly I
Converse with the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account; and in my fancy,
Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then
Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace
Uncertain vanities? No: be it your care
To augment a heap of wealth: it shall be mine
To increase in knowledge.
Fletcher.
Imagination.
Imagination enriches every thing. A great library contains not only books, but “the assembled souls of all that men held wise.” The moon is Homer’s and Shakspeare’s moon, as well as the one we look at. The sun comes out of his chamber in the east, with a sparkling eye, “rejoicing like a bridegroom.” The commonest thing becomes like Aaron’s rod, that budded. Pope called up the spirits of the Cabala to wait upon a lock of hair, and justly gave it the honours of a constellation; for he has hung it, sparkling for ever, in the eyes of posterity. A common meadow is a sorry thing to a ditcher or a coxcomb; but by the help of its dues from imagination and the love of nature, the grass brightens for us, the air soothes us, we feel as we did in the daisied hours of childhood. Its verdures, its sheep, its hedge-row elms,—all these, and all else which sight, and sound, and association can give it, are made to furnish a treasure of pleasant thoughts. Even brick and mortar are vivified, as of old at the harp of Orpheus. A metropolis becomes no longer a mere collection of houses or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur of its history, and its literature; its towers, and rivers; its art, and jewellery, and foreign wealth; its multitude of human beings all intent upon excitement, wise or yet to learn; the huge and sullen dignity of its canopy of smoke by day; the wide gleam upwards of its lighted lustre at night-time; and the noise of its many chariots, heard, at the same hour, when the wind sets gently towards some quiet suburb.—Leigh Hunt.
Actors.
Madame Rollan, who died in 1785, in the seventy-fifth year of her age, was a principal dancer on Covent-garden stage in 1731, and followed her profession, by private teaching, to the last year of her life. She had so much celebrity in her day, that having one evening sprained her ancle, no less an actor than Quin was ordered by the manager to make an apology to the audience for her not appearing in the dance. Quin, who looked upon all dancers as “the mere garnish of the stage,” at first demurred; but being threatened with a forfeiture, he growlingly came forward, and in his coarse way thus addressed the audience:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,