There to a rose-bud's silken shrine Their trembling captive soon disclose, EARL BRISTOL'S FAREWELL. GREBVE not, dear love, although we often parte, To brooke that day when we must part for ever. For Nature, doubting we should be surprized By that sad day, whose dread doth chiefly feare us, Lest that the fright thereof should overbeare us. Y. POSTERITY. I DINED the other day with a friend who lives at Hampstead, and returned to town in the evening (for my friend has the good sense to dine at four o'clock) by the pathway that leads across the fields to the Regent's Park. As I walked along, congratulating myself upon residing in a quarter of London to which so rural a scene is contiguous, I observed a board announcing that the adjoining ground was to be let on a building lease. This notice reminded me of what I had lately heard with much regret, that there was some intention of converting the whole of the beautiful prospect between the New Road and the hills into a mass of brickwork. The slightest impulse will send the mind on a long journey. From reflections thus casually suggested upon a change that I might yet live to witness, I soon passed on to speculate upon the many stranger revolutions that may be expected to occur, as well in the surface of the soil, as in the moral and political condition of the inhabitants, when I, and all that belongs to me, shall be " among forgotten things." Without stopping to inquire what forms the surrounding scene may assume to my children and their children, I at once pushed on to a remoter point, and asked, What will London be three or four centuries hence? What will England be?-what her power, and virtues, and opinions? Will the men of that day look back upon us their ancestors with pride, or with, contempt? or will they disgrace us by their degeneracy? Will they still be for ever waging war upon the French, and taxes upon themselves? Will such things as Holy Alliances be known or tolerated? America too, what will she have become? Are there yet in store a couple of dozen protracted wars, and some hundred sea-fights, to settle the rival claims of her and England? Will the predictions of the philanthropist be realized in Africa? Will New South Wales, after passing through successive generations of pick-pockets, colonists, rebels, and republicans-will she at last, starting up in the spirit of ambitious insubordination, and girding her loins with her federal compact, become the seat of empire and renown, the seeds of which now lie ready for exportation in our gaols and transport-hulks? These, and similar meditations, occupied me during the remainder of my walk; and before I reached my own door, I had more than once heaved a wish, with the Macedonian conqueror, that, choosing my own time, I might be allowed to take just one interesting peep from my grave, in order to ascertain, not what the then world would say of me, but what I should think of it. The last Number of the New Monthly lay upon my table-I took it up, and having read the continuation of " Jonathan Kentucky's Journal," retired to rest. My brain was still busy with the thoughts of the evening-I was no sooner asleep than I became, instanter, the Editor of "The New Monthly Magazine." In that capacity I fancied myself to be in the act of inspecting some papers offered for insertion, when a person of a strange and indescribable appearance, whom I had not observed entering the room, touched my elbow, and presented a letter, which, he said, he had particular instructions to deliver into my own hands. Having broken the seal, I turned round to ask if an immediate answer was required; but the messenger had vanished. The following were the contents of this mysterious communication: To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine. Futurity-Hall, Aug. 3, 2200. MR. EDITOR,-I am not in the habit of intruding myself on the public; I am, on the contrary, by nature, of a proverbially retiring disposition-yet it is well known, that if flattery could have made me vain, I ought to entertain no mean opinion of myself; for not only did Shakspeare, Milton, Bacon, and the few other British writers with whom I am acquainted, compose their works professedly rather for me than for their contemporaries, but I am credibly informed, that myriads of authors besides, of every age and country, but whose names have never reached me, have had the kindness to express themselves as peculiarly ambitious of my ap ! probation-and in all the controversies upon their respective merits, have invariably referred the question to me as sole and final arbitrator. I have no doubt that several of your literary friends, both poets and others, entertain the same favourable opinion of my taste and judgment, and are generously devoting their time and talents for my instruction and amusement. Pray present my compliments to them (I wish I knew their names), and say from me, that I am fully sensible of their liberality, though I may never feel the benefits of it. However, as a small mark of my gratitude, I have determined, for once, to depart from my usual habits of silence and reserve; and as you and my other ancestors must doubtless be curious to get a glimpse of Old England in the 23d century, and to have an authentic specimen, however trifling, of the literary and social opinions of us moderns, I beg leave to enclose for your and their perusal, a few extracts from the last number of one of our monthly magazines-the "Old Hampstead." It is considered as one of the best-conducted of our periodical publications, and far superior to its inveterate rival, the "Highgate Critic." In this judgment I am impartial, for I occasionally throw off an article for both; but the "Old Hampstead" has really more talent, and, besides, it is venerable to my imagination from its antiquity. It was established as far back as the year 2050, when the Hampstead side of the metropolis was first becoming, what it now unquestionably is, the centre of fashion and intellect. The first editor was Mr. Stapleton Scott-a very worthy and intellectual person by all accounts-and who claimed to be lineally descended from a Sir Walter of the same name, who flourished in literature (as Stapleton used often to boast) between two and three hundred years before. This Sir Walter, by the by, wrote some pleasing poems, as far as I can judge from one or two extracts preserved in the latelypublished "Specimens of the ancient Schools of English Poetry." His descendant also asserted that the old Baronet had amassed a large fortune, and acquired great reputation in his day (the latter of which alone devolved upon Stapleton,) by a series of novels and romances; but hearing that they all were written in the Scotch dialect of the time, and dealt too much in dialogues between hags and marauders, I never felt inclined to read them. I hope that what I write is perfectly intelligible to you. In fact, I have taken some pains to hit upon the exact degree of antiquation that may accord with the style of your age-a task for which, I flatter myself, I am not entirely unfit, as I often take up a volume of old Fielding, Goldsmith, Junius, and that venerable dame of blessed memory to the lovers of the marvellous, Anne Radcliffe. I have done the same with the following extracts-expunging modernisms, and substituting the ancient phraseology wherever I considered the alteration requisite. But, on the whole, our sturdy language wears well, and has been less affected by the shocks of time than many of your day predicted. With compliments to the 19th century, I am, POSTERITY. "From the Old Hampstead Magazine for August 2200. "MISCELLANEOUS. "When I reside in the country, I am seldom thrown into trains of melancholy reflection upon the evanescence of human hopes and concerns or (what is but an extension of the same sentiment) upor the general tendency to decay in all the visible productions of nature. The reason, I take it, is, that in the case of vegetable mortality, the season of reproduction so regularly and rapidly succeeds-or, to adopt the expression of a celebrated living poet," the death of the year" is so quickly followed by a glorious resurrection, that it were an idle and fastidious sorrow to mourn over what is less a loss than a temporary separation. It were as rational to pass every night of our lives in bewailing the decease of the sun. It is only where the spectator himself is on the eve of a final removal, either to another world, or to some distant land whence he may never return, that such a feeling should be indulged; and then, I allow, it is both natural and relieving, as we look for the last time upon the homeliest of the familiar objects around us, to heave a farewell sigh, and shed a parting tear. But I never pass many days in a large city, more especially in this gigantic metropolis, where every street and edifice reminds me of past ages, and is itself, as it were, the monument of some dead generation, without being forcibly reminded of the lapse of time, and the vicissitudes it brings upon the affairs of men. Considered in this view, a stately capital, with its grand spires, and palaces, and squares, all in the most complete repair, becomes as strong and affecting an evidence of mortality, as if, with old Babylon, it lay in ruins and desolation, with nothing save a huge mound, like an ancient giant's grave, to mark the spot where all its glory was buried. In either case, the imagination will equally ask-Where are the builders? Where are the old joys, and hopes, and projects, that once revelled within these walls? Where the now-forgotten poet, that strutted in the prophetic assurance of immortal renown-or the young enthusiast, with his burning vows of eternal constancy and love-or the founders of the many races of extinct opinions, which they fondly imagined had been immovably fixed upon a time-proof basis?-Alas, even their epitaphs are gone! and the sole remnants of their former existence, could we discover where they lay, would be a few handfuls of nameless dust! Such were the reflections that passed through my mind in rapid but mournful procession, as I looked down the other day from the steeple of Primrose church upon the circumjacent wilderness of buildings. (This noble structure, if I recollect right, was com menced in the last year of the reign of Stephen the Third, of glorious memory, A. D. 2096, and completed in the following year by his illustrious successor, Henry the Twelfth, the wisest and most accomplished prince, excepting his present gracious Majesty, that ever adorned the British Throne.) I had ascended to this eminence in company with a friend, his wife, and their young family, who had lately arrived from Devonshire, and being suddenly recalled, were anxious to be enabled to say, on their return home, that they had seen the whole of London. We were accompanied by my ingenious neighbour, the author of "Isaac's Letters to his Great-Grandchildren," a writer who, in addition to his being a profound antiquarian, possesses the happy talent of enlivening every topic that he touches, by that style of genuine humour, in which we are confessedly so superior to any preceding age. "The view was a glorious one; yet my constitutional melancholy began to break out, and I could not refrain from moralizing upon it. I have a painting (said I, turning to my Devonshire friend,) of the scene beneath us, as ancient as the beginning of the nineteenth century-the good old days of Wellington and Nelson. It was then a rural scene. The mound over which we stand was, as the name imports, covered with primroses. Hither, on Sundays and holidays, the citizens of London, or, to adopt the simple phraseology of the time"numerous well-dressed persons of both sexes," delighted to resort. Happy and innocent times! Methinks I still can see the cheerful groups moving along in tranquil procession, to enjoy their homely recreation, their little children trotting by their side, or sporting in the new-made hay upon the plain, or gaily clambering up the yellow mount, and returning, each with a glorious bunch of primroses in his hand. Alas! they little imagined what a change a few generations of bricklayers were destined to work upon this spot. The site of yonder murky brewhouse was then a delicious tea-garden. In the adjacent lane, then a shady sequestered avenue, in which the grasshopper chirped a welcome to the strolling lovers, the lazy wagon now growls along. For the lowing herd we have now the bawling watchmen-to shrubberies and hedgerows have succeeded files of hackney-coaches-and the very spot, perhaps, upon which the coy maiden of those days blushed her acceptance of the plighted vow, is now usurped by anti-pastoral barrels of pickled beef for exportation, or "all articles in the hardware line, for ready money only." These changes make me sad. enormous corpulency of our metropolis is, doubtless, a proud test of our opulence and power; still I can never recur to its effects upon our rural habits, without envying those simpler times, when the humblest and most central citizen could sally forth once a week to refresh his senses, and ventilate himself and his little ones, in a country excursion; but now interminable streets and squares fence him in on every point, and nature and fresh air have become a day's journey from Cheapside.' The "And yet (returned my antiquarian friend, taking up the conversation) I have never repined at being condemned to live in the present age. I know something of the "good old times" of which you speak. Let not a sounding phrase impose upon us. Our ancestors of the nineteenth century may have had a few wise and virtuous men among them; but as a generation, they were barbarous and perverse. With what contempt do the philosophers of our days refer to their maxims of state and legislation-their eternal wars-their senseless restrictions upon commerce-their criminal code their laws for killing men and preserving pheasants-their taxation, the child of glory and the parent of grumbling-their sine |
