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Cast<var></var>ing a preparatla the bottom of this article -- as the wary oisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads, seems as though it read not,) never fails to sult the quis sculpsit in the er, before he pronounces some rare piece to be a Vivares, or a Woollet -- methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, Who is Elia?Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half-fotten humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long since goo decay, doubtless you have already set me down in your mind as one of the self-same college -- a votary of the desk -- a notched and cropt scrivener -- ohat sucks his sustenance, as certain sick people are said to do, through a quill.
Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I fess that it is my humour, my fancy -- in the forest of the day, when the mind of your man of letters requires some relaxation -- (and ter than such as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved studies) -- to while away some good hours of my time in the plation of indigos, cottons, raw silk, piece-goods, flowered or otherwise. In the first place * * * * * * and then it sends you home with sucreased appetite to your books * * * * * not to say, that your outside she>?99ｌib?</a>ets, and waste ers of foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and naturally, the impression of sos, epigrams, essays -- so that the very parings of a ting-house are, in some sort, the settings up of an author. The enfranchised quill, that has plodded all the m among the cart-rucks of figures and cyphers, frisks and curvets so at its ease over the flowery carpet-ground of a midnight dissertation. -- It feels its promotion. * * * * * * * So that you see, upon the whole, the literary dignity of Elia is very little, if at all, promised in the dession.
Not that, in my anxious detail of the many odities ial to the life of a public office, I would be thought blind to certain flaws, which a ing carper might be able to pi this Josephs vest. And here I must have leave, in the fulness of my soul, tret the abolition, and doing-away-with altogether, of those solatory iices, and sprinklings of freedom, through the four seasons, -- the red-letter days, now bee, to all is and purposes, dead-letter days. There aul, and Stephen, and Barnabas -
"Andrew and John, men famous in old times "
we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back as I was at school at Christs. I remember their effigies, by the same token, in the old Baskett Prayer Book. There huer in his uneasy posture -- holy Bartlemy iroublesome act of flaying, after the famous Marsyas by Spagi. I hohem all, and could almost have wept the defalcation of Iscariot -- so much did we love to keep holy memories sacred -- only methought I a little grudged at the coalition of the better Jude with Simon -- clubbing (as it were) their sanctities together, to make up one paudy-day between them -- as an ey unworthy of the dispensation.
These were bright visitations in a scholars and a clerks life -- "far off their ing shone." -- I was as good as an almana those days. I could have told you such a saints-day falls out week, or the week after. Peradvehe Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity would, on six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better than one of the profane. Let me not be thought tn the wisdom of my civil superiors, who have judged the further observation of these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. Only in a of such long standing, methinks, if their Holihe Bishops had, in decy, been first sounded -- but I am wading out of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and ecclesiastical authority -- I am plain Elia -- no Selden, nor Archbishop Usher -- though at present ihick of their books, here in the heart of learning, uhe shadow of the mighty Bodley.
I here play the gentlema the student. To such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of academistitution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the Uies. Their vacation, too, at this time of the year, falls in so pat with ours. Here I take my walks ued, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please. I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humility I be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman oner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am mulike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers iacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend quadrangle, I be tent to pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor.
The walks at these times are so mues own -- the tall trees of Christs, the groves of Magdalen! The halls deserted, and with open doors, inviting oo slip in unperceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or royal Beress (that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman, and to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of antique hospitality: the immense caves of kits, kit fire-places, cordial recesses; ovens whose first pies were baked four turies ago; and spits which have cooked for Chaucer! Not the mea minister among the dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Manciple.
Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that, being nothing, art every thing! When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity -- then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veion; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses * are we, that ot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being every thing! the past is every thing, being nothing!
[Footnote] * Januses of one face. -- Sir Thomas Browne.
What were thy dark ages? Surely the sun rose a<tt></tt>s brightly then as now, and man got him to his work in the m. Why is it that we ever hear mention of them without an apanying feeling, as though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our aors wao and fro groping!
Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves -
What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to hao profahe leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-sted cs is fragrant as the first bloom of those stial apples which grew amid the happy orchard.
Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of MSS. Those variae lees, so tempting to the more erudite palates, do but disturb and ule my faith. I am no Herean raker. The credit of the three witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G. D. -- whom, by the way, I found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long p, he is grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of the old shelves. I loo new-coat him in Russia, and assign him his place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula.
D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No insiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, is ed in journeys between them and Cliffords-inn -- where, like a dove on the asps , he has long taken up his unscious abode, amid an ingruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys clerks, apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm and sinless peace." The fangs of the law pierce him not -- the winds of litigation blow over his humble chambers -- the hard sheriffs officer moves his hat as he passes -- legal nor illegal discourtesy touches him -- hinks of violence or injusti you would as soon "strike an abstract idea."
D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, in an iigation into all atter ected with the two Uies; and has lately lit upon a MS. colle of charters, relative to C--, by which he hopes to settle some disputed point --particularly that long troversy between them as to priority of foundation. The ardor with which he engages in these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the encement it deserved, either here, or at C--. Your caputs, and heads of colleges, care less than any body else about these questions. -- teo suck the milky fountains of their Alma Maters, without inquiring into the venerable gentlewomens years, they rather hold such curiosities to be imperti -- unreverend. they have their good glebe lands in manu, and care not much to rake into the title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is not a man to plain.
D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. A priori it was not very probable that we should have met in Oriel. But D. would have dohe same, had I accosted him on the sudden in his own walks in Cliffords-inn, or iemple. In addition to a provoking short-sightedness (the effect of late studies and watgs at the midnight oil) D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other m at our friend M.s in Bedford-square; and, finding nobody at home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in the book -- which ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of the untimely or unfortunate visitor -- and takes his leave with many ceremonies, and professions ret. Some two or three hours after, his walkiinies returned him into the same neighbourhood again, and again the quiet image of the fire-side circle at M.s -- Mrs. M. presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty A. S. at her side -- striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call (fetting that they were "certainly not to return from the try before that day week") and disappointed a sed time, inquires for pen and paper as before: again the book is brought, and in the line just above that in which he is about to print his sed name (his re-script) his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly enter his own duplicate ! -- The effect may be ceived. D. made many a good resolution against any such lapses in future. I hope he will not keep them torously For with G. D. -- to be absent from the body, is sometimes (not to speak it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, personally entering thee, he passes on with no reco<bdo>藏书网</bdo>gnition or, being stopped, starts like a thing surprised -- at that moment, reader, he is on Mount Tabor -- or Parnassus -- or co-sphered with Plato -- or, with Harrington, framing "immortal ohs" -- devising some plan of amelioration to thy try, or thy species -- peradventure meditating some individual kindness or courtesy, to be doo thee thyself, the returning sciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at thy obtruded personal presence.
D. is delightful any where, but he is at the best in such places as these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, at Scarbh, or Harrowgate. The Cam and the Isis are to him "better than all the waters of Damascus. -- On the Muses hill he is happy, and good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains; and when he goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, you think you have with you the Interpreter at the House Beautiful.
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