REMINISCENCES OF MY YOUTH.

NO. II.

Admonitu locorum.-CICERO.

It is the seventh day of my revisiting! The burst of almost painful affection which came over me as I first trod upon the scene of brighter hours, and the glow of heart and brow, which seemed like a resuscitation of feelings and passions that have long lain dormant in forgetfulness-these have gradually died away: but there has succeeded, dearest spot, a mellowed fondness for you, which, were I to live an eternity with you, would remain through that eternity, unperishable. I now am delighted to muse upon the sweetness of those recollections, whose overpowering throb I at first could hardly endure; and love to call up before me those imaginings, which at first rushed upon me with the overwhelming force of a cataract. I look around me! a spirit seems to be sitting on every house-top, lingering in every grove; incidents in themselves the most humble, objects in themselves the most mean-like insects preserved in amber-derive nobility and beauty from the colours which memory has thrown around them!

There are associations in the names and the aspects of places, which it is impossible for us to restrain or subdue. Who shall gaze upon the Capitol, and not think upon the Cæsars? the Cæsars? Who shall roam round Stonehenge, and not shudder at the knife of the Druids? Who shall be a sojourner in Eastcheap, and not enjoy sweet visions of Shakspeare? My Native Village! less celebrated are the worthies whose images you recall to my imagination, but they are recalled in colours as constant and as vivid. How can I look upon your sports, without

thinking of those who were my companions when I joined in them? How can I listen to the voice of your merriment, without thinking of those from whom in other days it sprung?

Before me is the Tavern! the lapse of years has hardly bored an additional excavation in its dusky window-curtain, or borrowed a single shade from the boards of its faded sign. But its inmates have vanished; their laughter is no longer heard in their place; and the red brick wall of the Ship stands before me like the cemetery of their mirth, their wit, and their good-humour. In my youth I was wild,-blame me you that have never been so,—and I loved to mingle in this scene of rustic joviality, to listen to the remarks of untutored simplicity, to envy those who had grown gray, untainted by the corruptions of "this great Babel," and to feel how truly it was said,

" where ignorance is bliss,

"Tis folly to be wise."

Many years ago I looked upon these boyish pursuits with an eye very different from that which is now cast back towards them. Many years ago, I thought nothing disgraceful which was not incompatible with innocence in myself and charity towards my fellow-creatures;—what would you have?-I have grown more prudent, and I am not so happy.

The great room of this humble building was the Curia of the village. In it the patriarchs of the place held their nightly sittings, and discussed ale and politics with unremitting assiduity. There was no inebriety, no tumult, no ill-mannered brutality in their sessions; every thing was conducted with the greatest order and tranquillity; the old men assembled with all the gravity, with all the earnestness, perhaps with much of the wisdom, of great statesmen. Alas! ye profane ones, ye smile; ye look with contempt upon my rustic Curia, and my weather-beaten statesmen. And what are the great ones

of this earth? Shall not the beings of a more exalted sphere contemplate with equal scorn the wranglings of more honoured senates? You turn with disgust from the eloquence of a Huggins or a Muggins! Look ye then to the oratory of a Cicero, to the patriotism of a Brutus, if you will, to the commanding energies of a Pitt and a Fox! Years roll on, and-what are they?

or,

However, call it a Curia, or a Club, or what ye will, custom had established in this mansion a meeting of all the wise heads and all the choice spirits of the hamlet. At first the members of it were very independent of all party considerations, and each was too conscious of his own individual merits, to become a hanger-on of any more important potentate; whatever subject was tabled, whether it were the Holy Alliance or the Holy Churchthe taste of the new tap, or the conduct of the new member,-every one said what he thought, and had no idea of bowing to the opinion of his neighbour. In process of time, however, this laudable spirit of liberty and equality began, as in other places, to decline. Some of the members became idle and complaisant, others waxed mighty and overbearing; until at last the Parliament of became subservient to the will and wishes of a single ruler; and Jeremiah Snaggs took his place in my memorandum-book as the first Dictator.

He had lived many years in the place, so that he was well known to most of its inhabitants,-to some too well. He had long enjoyed the office of collector of the taxes in and its neighbourhood, and had contrived to grow rich, as some whispered not by the most creditable methods. However that might be, he was rich, and as the patriarchal simplicity of the spot declined, many began to look with ill-concealed covetings upon the possessions of Jeremiah Snaggs. He had built to himself a mansion by the road-side, with a small garden in front; and there was a very extraordinary appendage to it, which excited much speculation among his unsophisticated contemporaries, and which he denominated a

Veranda. For some time he remained shut up in his citadel, and seemed to contemn the courtesies, and repel the approaches, of the inferior beings who moved around him. Afterwards, however, he found the solitude of his home (for he was a bachelor) insupportable; and he emerged gradually from his retirement, and condescended to join in the social assemblies of his neighbours. He joined them not as a fellow-citizen, but as a sovereign; he came among them, not to brighten their festivity, but to chill their good-humour; his presence was not an assistance, but a restraint. Nevertheless, he was the great man of the place, and in a short time his word was law among its inhabitants. Whether the ascendancy was owing rather to the talents which he occasionally displayed, or to the dinners which he occasionally gave, I cannot say. Thomas the boat-builder, who till now had the credit of being a staunch Whig, and the boldness to avow it, drew in his horns; his patriotism, his oratory, his zeal, shrank into nothing before the fiat of the Tory Bashaw. He made indeed a violent opposition when Jeremiah proposed the introduction of port wine, in lieu of the malt which had hitherto been the inspiration of their counsels; and he was somewhat refractory, when the Dictator insisted upon turning out the seats of the last generation, and introducing modern chairs. But upon both points the boat-builder was outvoted; and in obedience to Mr. Snaggs, the senators dozed upon nauseous port, and fidgeted upon cane bottoms, for the space of six years. Look now!-you smile at the disputes of a Thomas and a Snaggs!-yet why? what is there of greater moment in those of a Londonderry and a Brougham?

A period, however, was soon put to this terrible system of misrule: an old favourite of the Hundred returned from fighting his country's battles, in which occupation he had been perseveringly engaged for the last fourteen years. Sergeant Kerrick was disgusted with the innovations of the day, and set vigorously to

work to drive them before him, as he expressed himself, at the point of the bayonet. The Sergeant was always a fine man, but he was now a cripple into the bargain; he had always, majestic black eyes, but he had now the additional advantage of having a cut over both; he had always the two legs of Hercules, but now— glorious destiny!--he had only one to stand upon. He was irresistible! The Veranda, the roast mutton, the will-all, all was forgotten. In a short time Snaggs was beat by unheard-of majorities ;-a week,-and the tide of Whitbread's best was turned into its proper channel; another, and the cane-bottoms were kicked ignominiously from the Parliament. Thomas the boat-builder, who had seceded in disappointment, was brought back in triumph; the Dictator in vain attempted to check the progress of the revolution; baffled, defeated, insulted on all sides, he retired from the field in dismay, and died within a week afterwards from the falling of his Veranda. His death produced no sensation; for it was evident that the man of war had been already installed in his place.

The Sergeant bore his faculties right meekly, and promoted the restoration of l'ancien regime to the utmost of his abilities. During his administration people began to talk with some little degree of freedom, although at first they were much awed by the laurels and the scars of their President. They had a wondrous idea of the wisdom he had attained upon his travels. How could they talk of politics in his presence? Why, gracious! he had held the Emperor o' Russia's stirrup at Petersburgh, and taken off his hat to the Pope o' Rome,-ay! and caught a glimpse o' Boney to boot. Then, as to religious matters! why the Vicar was nothing to him: he had seen some nations that pray crosslegged, and some that pray in the open air, and some that don't pray at all; and he had been to St. Peter's, and a place they call the Pantheon, and all among the convents and nunneries, where they shut up young folk to make clergymen of them. It is not surprising that all this condensation of know