MISS HEBE HOGGINS'S ACCOUNT OF A LITERARY SOCIETY

IN HOUNDSDITCH.

LETTER I.

SIR,-You will please to consider the red ink in which the commencement of this letter is indited, as emblematic of my blushes when I make the confession that my father is a cooper in Houndsditch; and not that there is any thing degrading in the profession, for we have poets who have started into celebrity from the inferior stations of cowherds, ploughmen, and shoemakers,-but, alas! my poor father is not likely to achieve greatness, still less to have it thrust upon him, for he understands nothing whatever but his business. Determined that his own defect of education should not be entailed upon his daughter, he sent me to a genteel boarding-school at Kensington, where my associates, in the petulancy of youthful pride, presently assailed me with every species of ridicule on account of my parent's vulgar occupation. One christened him Diogenes, and with an air of mock-gravity enquired after his tub; another told me I resembled him, inasmuch as I carried a hogs-head upon my shoulders, (which was a gross libel upon my physiognomy); a third, quoting Addison, exclaimed

was then

while a fourth, whenever I ventured to sing, observed that I in my proper element, as I was favouring them with a few staves. Nothing reconciled me to this spiteful persecution but the superior success with which I prosecuted my studies. Mortified vanity stimulated me to aspire to a higher rank of intellect as some atonement for inferiority of station; and my object was so far attained that I was enabled to retaliate upon fashionable dunces the sneer's and taunts which they levelled against city minxes and upstart vulgarians. Among my schoolfellows there were several who feared me, and many who refrained from open quizzing; but they all held themselves aloof from any intimacy, and I found the pride of surpassing some in their studies and of inflicting pain upon the feelings of others whenever my own were attacked, but a poor compensation for the unsociableness to which I was condemned by their open or suppressed contempt.

Even this miserable comfort was denied me when I left school and was taken home to Houndsditch, for my own acquirements only served to render more striking, and infinitely more galling, the wretched illiterateness of my parents. Conceive, my dear Mr. Editor, the horror of hearing my father, who had yielded to my mother's wishes in the selection of a polite seminary for my studies, enquire whether had larnt to darn stockings and make a pudding! But even this Vandalism was less grating to my soul than the letter which my mother wrote a few days after my return, to the parent of one of my schoolfellows, enquiring the character of a cock, which she thus commenced: "Mrs. Hoggins presents her compliments to the Honourable Mrs. Hartopp, as I understand Betty Butter lived in your family as cook, Mrs. Hbegs Mrs. H-will inform her whether she understands her business, and I hope Mrs. H— will be particular in stating to Mrs. H-," &c. -and thus she continued for a whole page confounding first, second,

and third persons, and bepuzzling Mrs. H-'s in a most astounding commutation of initials and individualities.-At my earnest solicitation this letter was condemned, and a second composed, which started with this inauspicious exordium :--" Betty Butter, whom, according to her own account, lived two years with you as cook,"--and proceeded in a similar strain of verbs without nominatives, and relatives without antecedents. This also she consented to cancel, not without sundry peevish exclamations against the newfangled English and nonsensical pedantry taught at the schools nowadays, none of which were heard of in her time, although the world went on quite as well then as it did now. Having tartly reprimanded me for my saucy offer of inditing a proper note, she took out a new crow-pen, reflected for some minutes upon the best method of arranging her ideas, and finally recommenced thus:-"Madam, Understanding Betty Butter lived with you as cook, has induced me to write you these few lines," &c.: and this horrific epistle, terminating as awfully as it began, was actually despatched !-O Sir! imagine the abomination to all my grammatical nerves and philological sympathies !

From such gothic society I found it absolutely necessary to emancipate myself, and I have the pleasure to inform you, that after innumerable difficulties and delays, from the ignorance of some and the ridicule of others, I have succeeded in establishing a Blue-stocking Society in Houndsditch, which, if I am not much mistaken, will eventually rival the most celebrated literary associations that have been formed from the days of Pericles down to those of Lorenzo de' Medici and Dr. Johnson. Considering the soul to be of no sex, I have admitted males of undoubted genius into our club, and we can already boast of several names that only want the means and opportunity to become immortal. The hitherto Boeotian realm of Houndsditch begins to be fertile in classical and Attic associations. The Sugar-baker's upon Tower Hill we have consecrated to Grecian reminiscences as the Acropolis, and the Smokingroom upon its roof is hallowed to our eyes as the Parthenon; the Tower is our Piræus, and the houses on each side of the Minories are the long walls; Aldgate Pump is the Grotto of Pan; Whitechapel Church is the Ceramicus; the East India Company's Warehouses in Leadenhallstreet are the Temple of Theseus; the extremities of Fenchurch-street are the Propylæa; and the Synagogue in Duke's Place the Odeum. Thus, you see, Sir, we are upon classic ground in whatever direction we move; while, to complete the illusion, we have named the great kennel leading to Tower Hill the Ilyssus, and I am credibly assured it is quite as large as the original. Our Academus, a room which we have hired in Houndsditch, is planted with pots of geranium and myrtle, to imitate the celebrated garden of the original; and one of our members who is a stationer, having made us a present of a thick new commercial ledger, that odious endorsement has been expunged, and the word ALBUM substituted in large letters of gold. From this sacred volume, destined to preserve the contributions of our associates, I propose occasionally to select such articles as may stamp a value upon your Miscellany, and at the same time awaken the public to a due sense of the transcendant talents which have been coalesced, principally by the writer of this article, in the composition of the Houndsditch Literary Society.

Young as our establishment is, it is so opulent in articles, that the very fertility renders selection impossible, and I must, after all, open the volume at random, and trust to the Sortes Hounditchianæ. It expands at a sonnet by Mr. Mc Quill, a lawyer's clerk, possessing, as you will observe, a perfect knowledge of Latin; and though the subject be not very dignified, it is redeemed, by his delicacy of handling and felicity of diction, from that common-place homeliness with which a less gifted bard would have been apt to invest it. He catches ideas from his subject by letting it go, and in a vein at once facetious and pathetic-but I will detain you no longer from his beautiful

SONNET

To a Flea, on suffering it to escape.

THOU lightly-leaping, flitting Flea! who knows if
Thou art descended from that sire who fell
Into the boiling water when Sir Joseph

Banks maintain'd it had a lobster's shell ?—

Here, Jemmy Jumps, thou mak'st no stay; so fly;
Shouldst thou re-bite-thy grandsire's ghost may rise,

Peep through the blanket of the dark, and cry

"Hold, hold,” in vain :-thou fall'st a sacrifice!— The bard will weep; yes, fle-bit, he will weep, Backbiter as thou art, to make thy sleep

Eternal, thou who skippest now so gaily;

But thou 'rt already old if the amount

Of thine intercalary days we count,

For every year with thee is Leap-year.—Vale!

The next unfolding of our richly-stored repertory developes the most important communication we have hitherto received, being a seriocomic poem by Mr. Schweitzkoffer, (son of the great sugar-baker who owns the Acropolis,) entitled "The Apotheosis of Snip." Its hero is a tailor, (there's an original idea!)-its unity is preserved by dividing it into nine cantos, the supernatural machinery is conducted by Atropos, who holds the fatal shears, and Vertumnus, the god of cabbage; and the victim of Michaelmas-day, instead of the bird of Minerva, is invoked to shed a quill from its pinion, and inspire the imagination of the poet. Mr. Schweitzkoffer appears to me destined to assume a rank superior to Rabelais, and at least equal to Butler; but, as I propose to make copious selections from his facetious epic, I leave your readers to decide what niche he ought to occupy in the temple of Immortality. In the following description of morning in London, he appears to have had Marmion in his eye; but without any servile imitation, he has contrived to unite an equally graphic fidelity of delineation, with a more sustained illustration and impressive sentimentality than are to be found in the admired original :

DAY rose o'er Norton Falgate high,
Aud Sol, like Tom of Coventry,
On many a nude was peeding;-
The chimneys smokeless and erect,
And garret windows patch'd and check'd,
The prentice-rousing ray reflect,

While those, within them sleeping

Reflect that they must stretch their legs,
And bundle out, and stir their pegs,
Or else, as sure as eggs are eggs,

Their masters strict and wary
With rattling bells will overhaul 'em,
Or, may be, rise themselves to call 'em
Up with a sesserary!—

Pendent on dyer's pole afloat,
Loose pantaloon and petticoat

Seem on each other's charms to doat,
Like lovers fond and bland:
Now swelling as the breezes rise,
They flout each other in the skies,
As if conjoin'd by marriage ties
They fought for th' upper hand.-
Beneath with dirty face and fell,
Timing his footsteps to a bell,

The dustman saunter'd slowly,
Bawling "Dust-O!" with might and main,
Or humming in a lower strain,
"Hi-ho, says Rowley!"—

Now at shop-windows near and far
The prentice boys alert

Fold gently back the jointed bar,
Then sink the shutter with a jar
Upon the ground unhurt;
While some from perforated tin
Sprinkle the pavement with a grin
Of indolent delight,

As poising on extended toe,

Their circling arm around they throw,
And on the stony page below

Their frolic fancies write.

What poems praised and puff'd, have just
Like these kick'd up a mighty dust,
But wanting the impressive power
To stamp a name beyond the hour,
Have soon become forgotten, mute,
Effaced, and trodden under foot!-

In future communications I shall send you some more tid-bits from our feast of intellect; but, as we have a meeting this evening to ballot for the admission of Miss Caustic the apothecary's daughter, (whom I mean to blackball,) I have only time to add that I have discarded my baptismal name of Harriet, as inappropriate and unclassical, and shall henceforth acknowledge no other appellation than that of Hebe Hoggins.

H.

NOUVELLES MESSÉNIENNES, PAR M. CASIMIR DELAVIGNE.

NOTWITHSTANDING the violence of party spirit in France, which on every question of domestic policy, causes ruinous and paralyzing divisions among the people, the Greeks have found in that country an almost unanimous feeling of sympathy for their sufferings, and admiration of their courage. A miserable faction, who, themselves slaves by nature, would willingly see their whole species consigned to slavery, may raise its intolerant and pestilent breath against the noble struggle; -but such petty opposition is overpowered in the invocations uprising from every generous heart, for death to the Infidel, and liberty to

Greece.

The Muses of several European countries have already saluted, with their songs of hope and joy, the devotion and the success of a regenerated people. France has not been silent during this enthusiastic chorus; and a young poet, already distinguished in various branches of his art, now joins his strain to those which echo at this moment through the civilized world. M. Delavigne, known to our readers as the author of two successful tragedies, "Les Vêpres Siciliennes" and "Le Paria," had already produced some short poems of considerable originality, and highly popular, as well from their merit as from their subject, which was the recent misfortunes of France. Those pieces were named by their author Messéniennes, the title of the songs of grief poured forth over the sufferings of his country by a Messenian in the "Voyage d'Anacharsis." We shall not stop here to debate the propriety or good taste of the title thus chosen by M. Delavigne for his patriotic effusions. It is something so refreshing to see novelty and vigour of thought connecting themselves, in any shape, with the monotony of French verse, that we hail their appearance with delight even in the title of a new production and we are therefore inclined to pardon a little bizarrerie, even should it make itself evident in the more consequential pages which follow. To relieve himself from the solemnity of his theatral triumphs, M. Delavigne has composed these new Messéniennes, to which title the best two have rather a better claim than their predecessors, being inspired by the ills of Modern Greece. The other is connected with a subject of no less interest-the debasement and servitude of Italy.

M. Delavigne possesses talents at once flexible and fertile; but notwithstanding their unquestioned developement in his two tragedies, his merit is probably more incontestable as a lyric writer. It is when poetic feeling, gracefully imagined, must be expressed with energywhen the effervescence of genius claims immediate and vigorous,utterance that the success of this author is most certain. The management of a sustained and complicated work seems a labour to him, which he surmounts indeed, but evidently with pain:-an ode or an elegy flows from his pen without effort-we might almost say without fault. Lyric poetry loves to create-originality seems its necessary impulse-and it is of that above all others that we may say, what Burke applies to poetry and eloquence in general," their business is to affect rather by sympathy than imitation, to display rather the effects of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things themselves." The Messéniennes of M. Delavigne