"Tell fortune of her blindness, And if they dare reply, "So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee done blabbing, Although to give the lie Deserves no less than stabbing, Yet stab at these who will, No stab the soul can kill." We believe that we have now reached the point at which, for the present, we should pause. The extracts we have given exhaust, according to the objects of our plan, the period previous to 1590, the most important era in the history of English poetry. In that year appeared the "Fairy Queen," the brightest effulgence of moral poetry that ever rose on the world, and at whose light the meaner beauties of the sky must have paled their ineffectual fires. The "Fairy Queen" will be for ever felt and admired by all who can feel or admire poetical truth and beauty; but the genius of its author cannot be fully appreciated except by comparing his work with those of his predecessors, and ascertaining its immeasurable superiority over every thing that his country had yet produced. The only type of Spencer's spirit is to be found in "Sackville's Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates;" but highly as we must estimate that composition, it yet detracts little from the infinite praise of Spencer's varied and sustained powers. Whether as a repository of the richest poetical language, or as a monument of the noblest faculties of intellect and imagination, the Fairy Queen equally demands our wonder and our love, in a degree which can only be surpassed by our reverence for the solemn and sublime purposes which were to its author as the muse of his inspiration. Let us be forgiven, however, if we intercede for the poets who preceded Spencer to obtain a milder judgment than if Spencer had already written; and let us not be thought too bold in behalf of the humbler class of whom we have now been treating, if we claim for them the praise of being the harbingers of the great moral poet, to announce his possible approach, and to prepare for him in the breasts of his countrymen a wider and a warmer welcome. We can scarcely regard it here as an indifferent consideration, that for nearly half a century the popular poetry of England had shown a character so earnest and serious, and so faithful to the laws of our spiritual nature. We shall not ask whether, in any circumstances Spencer could have descended to the levities of Ariosto; but we may be allowed to doubt whether he would have been encouraged to string his pure and virtuous lyre at all, except in a country where the hearts of men were already attuned to better strains than those of luxury or love. The importance of popular poetry in connection with political feeling has often been noticed its influence in fostering and diffusing poetical compositions of a higher class than itself is at least equally conspicuous. The floating songs and simple stanzas that are in the mouths of children and uneducated persons, are as the elements of poetical thought and feeling that lead them gradually on to higher attainments than they could otherwise reach. They are often the seeds from which the poetical faculty itself springs up, in lonely and neglected minds, with as much luxuriance, and nearly as much beauty, as in those which have been visited by regular cultivation. The remarks we have now made apply with the same force to the appearance of Shakspeare's poetry as to that of Spencer's. He too perhaps needed the assurance of being extensively loved and understood before he could be excited to pour forth with such boundless profusion those maxims and sentiments of moral wisdom and beauty which exalt his dramas above even the sublime oracles of the Greek Chorus. The appearance of Spencer and Shakspeare within a year or two of each other bears the strongest testimony to the advance that had been made in the materials of literary taste, and to the solid character, and lofty spirit of that country which produced them with such powers, and inspired them to use those powers with so true a reference to the duties and destinies of mankind. We shall take another opportunity of following out the subject of this essay, by collecting some of the most pleasing compositions of the minor moralists who appeared subsequently to the era with which we have now concluded. 1838.] Funerals. 469 FUNERALS. "Hic niger est-hunc tu Romane caveto."-HOR. "UPON my honour, sir, my father does not get more than 40 per cent!" This conscientious and genteel speech haunted me not very long since, during a painful and dangerous illness. It came certainly very mal a-propos; but having come, would not depart, like an imp of evil, as it was-for some one has observed, or if not, some one might have observed, that words once embodied in sense or sentence have a living existence, the good or bad spirits taking conception in the mind, and birth from the mouth, never to return again, but invisible agents in the world, that do a world of mischief in it, and often standing in a court of justice against their parents in the flesh-such an imp of evil, I assert, was that sentence to me, for having taken possession of the best room in the house of my brains, it kicked its heels there, and called about it lustily, and innumerable were the train of thought-imps that came at its call. "Upon my honour, sir, my father does not get more than 40 per cent." Who gave it existence? It was the son of an undertaker, my dear Eusebius. The occasion this:-I was present when the said very genteel youth presented the bill for a funeral, a few weeks after my acquaintance had buried his father. I am sure the old gentleman never would have slept with his fathers, could he have read over the items of his last journey, and would have again died over the sumtotal. The bill was indeed startling. It was upon a slight remonstrance that this nicely-dressed mincing son of his father, in about the nineteenth year of his age, and full promise of his trade of hat-bands and scarfs, laid his hand upon the left side of his waistcoat, and unhesitatingly swore like any Peer of Parliament "Upon my honour, sir, my father does not get above 40 per cent!!" Years have passed away since I heard this sentence, nor have I thought of it in the interim; but that it should just then, above all times, when I lay in a feverish state, and when it appeared by no means improbable that an inquest of "40 per cents" might be called to sit upon my body, was a remarkable proof of 40* a fiendish existence of words that, like ; Then the discussions upon the relative merits of stone and marble, letter the the cost of cutting per clergyman's fee, the clerk's, the sexton's-if all were to have silk hatbands? the charges for pumping the grave dry. But the worst was when I felt that I was in my coffin, and yet knew all that was going on in the room about me, just the same as if I had been purposely gifted with the faculUnder ties of mesmerim-only I was conscious of sense of suffocation. this new magnetism I saw them carry me out of the room, the ever polite son of an undertaker pointing the way. I felt the shock as they knocked against a bureau, of which, by the by, I told them to take care, in which I had many treasures-alas! thought Ifarewell! never to see them again. I very distinctly saw a near relative, to whom I had left, for me and for him too, a handsome legacy, smile with more hilarity than was becoming the peculiar situation, and I believed he inwardly thought he should rummage my bureau. I would call to them to stop-I wished to alter my willbut no utterance came to my wishes. "This then," says I, "is being dead in law."-"I am infant-oh! the rogues!--they will ransack all-I sible of the first slow motion-then shall have nothing."- "You shall that I was quite dead-in fact, I fell have the bill," looked the son of an fast asleep; and when I awoke they undertaker, and "upon my honour, told me I was better-and the good my father does not get more than 40 surgeon was feeling my pulse, and did per cent." Extortion! miscreant? look jocund, and I forgave him. But "Lift the poor gentleman cautiously it was some time before I could re over the banisters, and don't hurt the concile myself to the sight of my rewall for the next comer,' muttered latives, who had put on a hilarious an oily-faced fellow in damp black, look as they struck against my bureau. the smell of which was awfully suffo- Though I knew perfectly that I was cating. I saw and smelt through the then alive, I had at first a confused boards that covered me. Bang they notion as if I were two persons, one went against the staircase wall, and dead and one alive; then that I the they staggered under me. "Well living and I the dead were at issue done, "Old Scratch," cried another. I and had a lawsuit, and that I the liv was horrified-was he one of my ing had a decision of the Court of bearers? We passed the door of the Chancery in my favour-that my dead room where my "mourning friends" self was outlawed for contempt of were assembled. It was open. Who Court, and that the Court below had would believe it? they were in jo- issued an "habeas corpus" against cund conversation. My surgeon, whom him. He was condemned in costs. I had considered the tenderest and The surgeon was plainly metamor most humane of beings, was facetious phosed before my face into lawyer with the parson; how they, too, were Codicil. I insisted upon discharging "true" sportsmen-always in at the his bill; he told his clerk to make it death! There was some confusion in out; and then behind him, with his the hall. The great door was open. pen in his hand, I saw the aforesaid I saw the two mutes, the horses of son of an undertaker, who asked him a part of the body of the hearse, if he should tack on more than "1 forty and heard the wheels of mourning per cent." coaches behind. "Go on,' 99 "We can't," 66 says another. Codicil isn't come yet," said another. "I sent him hatband and gloves," said the son of an undertaker," and a coach at his door."-"Coach is returned," said another; "he can't come, he says, but will be here after the funeral to read the will." "Oh, he will, will he," thought I; but I couldn't jump out of the coffin, though I tried. "He will take the will for the deed," said I; "I never will employ Lawyer Codicil again."-There are no lawyers where you are a going, a something suggested to me; and do you forget you are dead? you are going to be buried."Go on," said the son of an undertaker. Out came the procession in cloaks, and he was ranging them in order, two and two. I saw the paraphernalia, hatbands, &c. blown by the wind as we got out of doors, but I couldn't feel a breath of says one. I will not attempt to run through Lawyer an hundredth part of the detail of the wanderings of those two miserable days and nights, scenes various in character, but in all of which, in one shape or another, this forty per centage was my persecutor. But, while I am on the subject of this mental delusion during illness, I will just mention two dreams, the effects of laudanum, which I do not recollect that I had ever taken before. it. I have no breath in my boay, thought I, and therefore the air will have no sympathy with me; I shall never feel it again. Then all the men about me looked the most solid substances I ever beheld; they had been all the morning real beef-eaters. They shoved me into the hearse. I was sen It is utterly inconceivable to one awake and as he trusts in his senses, how such an idea could even enter into a sick brain. I thought my head was a forest; that there was a battue in it; there were plenty of birds and of sportsmen; shots were fired, and a brace of partridges fell right through my eyes to my feet. The shots were suggested only by the slamming of a door. The other dream was more painful. To understand which it must be told that I had suffered under acute inflammation, and it had been found neces sary to apply a mustard plaster. And here I cannot but remember my own simplicity, for when my medical friend, good creature-and he was really my friend, and I ought to be thankful to یں him that I am able to write thisI when I say he told me that I might keep on the said mustard-plaster, if I pleased, till I saw him next day, I who had enjoyed such good health that I never had had such a thing in my life, and knew not what a mustardplaster was, said in the innocence of my heart, that to oblige him, I would keep it on for a week if he wished it. But, oh! tortures, all that ever were or will be, are centered in that thing called a mustard-plaster! One hour was torture beyond description. Whether it was that it was upon the tender and afflicted part, or that my constitution has a particular antipathy to such "ticklers," as my worthy friend called them, I know not; but never did I ever feel such torment as that gave me-for a day and a half at least after it was off. Now, after this pleasant little episode of the mustard conflagration, the scenes, the remembrance of which makes the horrors of Milton and Dante tame, let us pass on to my second dream. I thought I was lying on a sofa. A servant entered, and announced that a woman wished to see me. I desired her to be shown up, supposing it to be some parochial affair. With this idea, the furniture of my room was gone, all but the sofa, and I was in an up-stair room of the miserable old parish poor-house. arose to receive the woman, whose steps I heard upon the stairs. She entered, and we met in the middle of the room. She was dressed in an old black bonnet and red cloak, a gaunt haggard creature whom I had never seen before. She instantly caught hold of me, and wrestled with me, and, as I was very weak, threw me on the floor. Then I beheld such a change come over her. She threw off her cloak and her bonnet, and was instantly no longer the woman-but my friend 0- my amiable friend O, and how altered! His features assumed the most terrific aspect of rage, and his hair stood on end with fury, and his gesture was violent in the extreme. Now my worthy friend has a wooden leg. He gave a violent turn with his whole body, and jumped upon me, prostrate as I was on the floor, and with the end of his wooden leg pegged upon the very spot where I had had the mustardplaster; he gave a wonderful pirouette upon me, laughing and grinning; and continued the action, with repeated jumps, which put me in agony; he spun like a top. Such torture could I him a portion of his former industry -when he wants it all, and more. You in fact accost him pretty much as the thief did the unfortunate man who was quite out of breath, and could not move a step further, having pursued another man who had run away with his hat-"What," said the new come thief, "can't you stir a step further?" "Not a step," said the robbed. "Not one?" said the other," then, hang it, I'll have your wig." The law in this respect is in fact a real Fury, with a power of ubiquity and self-multiplication, and is up to every man's bedside at his appointed hour, if he have any thing worth having; and because he can run his course no longer, boldly breaks open his strong-box, takes Fury's portion, and meeting the undertaker on the stairs, bids him walk up and help himself. Law has a strong arm-if the strong and vigorous can scarcely resist it, how shall the weak so we put up with the evil, and that we may be used to it, and like the eels, the better bear the skinning, we cannot have an almanac to tell us the weather, but it shall contain tables to refresh our memories, and tell us that we are mortal, and what is the cost of mortality. But, my dear Eusebius, why may we not make a strong fight against the undertakers? Let any and all men get their bread by an honest calling. Live and let live should be every man's motto; but it is not theirs. They are therefore out of the pale of humanity. They won't let live, but live upon our dying. They do not comfort the "widows and afflicted," but vastly swell the amount of their sorrow. They come into the house like commissioners of Death's Parliament, and with their retinue eat up and drink up all in it, before they that should have a share of it have been dead a week. And then the damaged and rotten goods they distribute to the mourners at the highest prices, knowing very well the matter will never be noticed, and in many instances their taking even these back again at less than a quarter the cost, so that a hatband or gloves may be sold at full cost twenty times, and taken back for a trifle as many!! Really, when we come to consider the matter fairly, if my friend Forty per cent." spoke truth, he had a conscience, for very many get five hundred per cent. Then their humility and look of considera 66 tion before the bereaved so disarms suspicion; they acquire a look of such universal and particular sympathy that their official duties have an air of benevolence in the doing, Their accounts are sure to be sent in in a decent time; that is, when it would be a pain to look into them, when the feelings are too tender to discuss or dispute any of the itemsfor in grief we think of nothing but grief, and are generous or carelessand who would bear the shame and reproach of being supposed niggard, and repentant of the cost bestowed on affection, and hopes buried in the grave? And do you know, Eusebius, that in cities and populous towns there is too often an under traffic between them and the parochial clergy, so that the items charged are never sent; a regular cash account being kept between them, to the profit, and as you will think to the shame of both, the undertaker keeping to his own share a third, or even a half!! Though this is all very well understood, it is connivance notwithstanding; oh, Eusebius, were you one of the parochial ministers of a large city, what a nest of hornets would you have about your ears! You would pull the nose of the first that offered you the copartnership in the black business, and publish by advertisement the iniquity, and acquaint all widows, widowers, orphans, &c., that you had a stock of mourning items for general use, and would not trouble them. I confess I never see a town clergyman step out of his mourning chariot, in his many, many a time worn wo-trappings, for the wear of which the price of new is charged to the afflicted relative of the deceased, without feeling that he is lowered in my estimation, and that he is lending his name and profession to a petty fraud. But your conscientious undertakers are not satisfied with dressing up the relatives and friends-they must have attendants and mourners of their own, all to be tricked out at a similar cost. An acquaintance of mine of very moderate means told me not long ago, that he had in the last year two funerals in his familyand that though he wished to be as moderate as might be, and yet avoid the talk and notoriety of flying in the face of a custom, miscalled decency, and though the distance to the place of burial did not exceed a mile, yet |