JONATHAN SWIFT which was intended to follow "The Wonder,” and in which Bannister was to play his popular part of Tom Tug, could not take place. And so-accompanied by the uncontrolled sobbings of Mrs. Garrick in her box-the curtain came down upon the excited plaudits and farewells of one of the most brilliant and enthusiastic audiences which had ever filled that historic house. (Eighteenth Century Vignettes. Third Series.) JONATHAN SWIFT AND THE JOURNAL TO STELLA A DIM light was burning in the back room of a firstfloor in Bury Street, St. James's. The apartment it irradiated was not an extensive one; and the furniture, sufficient rather than sumptuous, had that indefinable lack of physiognomy which only lodginghouse furniture seems to possess. There was no fireplace; but in the adjoining parlour, partly visible through the open door, the last embers were dying in a grate from which the larger pieces of coal had been carefully lifted out and ranged in order on the hobs. Across the heavy high-backed chairs in the bedroom lay various neatly-folded garments, one of which was the black gown with pudding sleeves commonly worn in public by the eighteenth-century divine, while at the bottom of the bed hung a clerical-looking periwig. In the bed itself, and leaning toward a tall wax candle at his side (which, from a faint smell of singed woollen JONATHAN SWIFT still lingering about the chamber, must recently have come into contact with the now tucked-back bedcurtain), was a gentleman of forty or thereabouts, writing in a very small hand upon a very large sheet of paper, folded, for greater convenience, into one long horizontal slip. He had dark, fierce-looking eyebrows, an aquiline nose, full-lidded and rather prominent clear blue eyes, a firmly-cut handsome mouth, and a wide, massive forehead, the extent of which was, for the moment, abnormally exaggerated by the fact that, in the energy of composition, the fur-lined cap he had substituted for his wig had been slightly tilted backward. As his task proceeded, his expression altered from time to time; now growing grave and stern, now inexpressibly soft and tender. Occasionally the look almost passed into a kind of grimace, resembling nothing so much as the imitative motion of the lips which one makes in speaking to a pet bird. He continued writing until, in the distance, the step of the watchman-first pausing deliberately, then moving slowly forward for a few paces-was heard in the street below. "Past twelve o'clock ! " came a wheezy cry at the window. "Paaaaast twelvvve o'clock!" followed the writer, dragging out his letters so as to reproduce the speaker's drawl. After this, he rapidly set down a string of words in what looked like some unknown tongue, ending off with a trail of seeming hieroglyphics: Nite, nown deelest sollahs. Nite dee litt MD, Pdfr's MD. Rove Pdfr, poo Pdfr, MD MD MD FW FW FW Lele Lele Lele Lele michar MD." 1 Then, tucking his paper under his pillow, he popped 44 Sirrahs. Swift. FW = Farewell. MD = Stella or My Dear. Pdfr = A SONG OF THE FOUR SEASONS out the guttering candle, and, turning round upon his side with a smile of exceeding sweetness, settled himself to sleep. The personage thus depicted was Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Divinity, vicar of Laracor by Trim, in the diocese of Meath in the kingdom of Ireland, and Prebendary of Dunlavin in St. Patrick's Cathedral. (Eighteenth Century Vignettes. Second Series.) A SONG OF THE FOUR SEASONS WHEN Spring comes laughing By vale and hill, And daffodil, Sing stars of morning, Sing morning skies, When comes the Summer, And gay birds gossip The orchard long,- CONCERNING HENRY FIELDING When Autumn scatters And piled sheaves bury The broad-wheeled wain, Sing flutes of harvest Where men rejoice; Sing rounds of reapers,- But when comes Winter And red fire roaring And ingle warm,— Sing first sad going Of friends that part; CONCERNING HENRY FIELDING THAT other picture of his [Fielding's] character, traced and retraced (often with much exaggeration of outline), is so familiar in English literature, that it cannot now be materially altered or amended. Yet it is impossible not to wish that it were derived from some less prejudiced or more trustworthy witnesses than those who have spoken-say, for example, from Lyttelton or Allen. There are always signs that Walpole's malice, and Smollett's animosity, and the rancour of Richardson, have had too much to do with the representation; and even Murphy and CONCERNING HENRY FIELDING too Lady Mary are scarcely persons whom one would select as ideal biographers. The latter is probably right in comparing her cousin to Sir Richard Steele. Both were generous, kindly, brave, and sensitive; both were improvident; both loved women and little children; both sinned often, and had their moments of sincere repentance; to both was given that irrepressible hopefulness and full delight of being which forgets to-morrow in to-day. That Henry Fielding was wild and reckless in his youth it would be idle to contest; indeed it is an intelligible, if not a necessary, consequence of his physique and his temperament. But it is not fair to speak of him as if his youth lasted for ever. "Critics and biographers," says Mr. Leslie Stephen, "have dwelt far exclusively upon the uglier side of his Bohemian life"; and Fielding himself, in the Jacobite's Journal, complains sadly that his enemies have traced his impeachment even to his boyish years." That he who was prodigal as a lad was prodigal as a man, may be conceded; that he who was sanguine at twenty would be sanguine at forty (although this is less defensible) may also be allowed. But, if we press for "better assurance than Bardolph," there is absolutely no good evidence that Fielding's career after his marriage materially differed from that of other men struggling for a livelihood hampered with ill-health, and exposed to all the shifts and humiliations of necessity. . . . If any portrait of him is to be handed down to posterity, let it be the last rather than the first; not the Fielding of the green-room and the tavern - of Covent Garden frolics and "modern conversations"; but the energetic magis 44 -- |