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Oh! that my spirit could

Cast off its mould of clay,

And with the wise and good

Make wings unto itself and flee away;

That with thy bright array

We might look down upon this world of woe,

Even as the God of day

Looks on the restless ocean-flow,

And eyes the fighting waves that pant and foam below.

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Like the dull pools in stagnant marshes bred,

Where waving weeds are rank, and noxious tendrils spread

PHILOSOPHY ON THE ROAD.-THE YACHT CLUB.

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THE Comparison of life to a voyage is a mere common-place; but if it has not the advantage of novelty, it cannot be refused the merit of truth. There is, in fact, no simile that runs more upon all-fours. Shakspeare has told us, that "all the world's a stage ;" but if he had said that the world was a stage-coach, he would have been nearer his mark. For not to insist upon the fact that each day of our "journey through life" is a post towards death (a verity perhaps too trite to mention), what can be more like the passive condition of a traveller on a journey, than the way in which we are hurried through existence, each in his own tourbillon of circumstance and condition as in a carriage, with the passions for coachmen, which drive us at the rate and in the direction they please: and in this last particular, the simile is the more perfect, inasmuch as we change the driver at almost every stage, and never part with him till we have paid a good smart buona mano for his whipmanship. A prosperous life may be compared to a journey on the Bath-road, while a struggling existence is all "up-hill work.' The humbler classes are the outside passengers, exposed to all the pitiless pelting of life's storms, and all the perils of the road, while the happier few resemble the "insides," warm, snug, safe, and at their ease. A more extended view of the conditions of society shews some men as travellers in a post-chaise, some in their own coronetted travelling-chariots, and but too many, God help them! trudging through the mire on foot, bespattered by the wheels of their more fortunate fellow-citizens, and happy to escape being trodden under their horses' feet, and a coroner's inquest. Some few have the luck to pass free from all the more serious accidents of the journey, while others are upset on the road, and are sent into the next world with a broken neck, or a concussion of the brain. Some go the whole journey, and some are only "booked" for a certain place on the road, where they are set down to make room for other passengers.

But if life be like a journey, it is not surprising that a journey should be the very image of life; and so indeed it is. We begin both with the same 66 pleased alacrity and cheer of mind," looking forward to every fresh post as a difficulty surmounted, a source of new sensations, or at worst as a step towards our object; and we finish both with the same sense of lassitude, if not of disgust, with this only difference, that very few can make up their minds to the anticipation of being "put to bed with a shovel," with the same pleasure that they look forward to a warming-pan, and a smart chambermaid to tuck them up for the night, at the "Three Crowns," or the "Bird and Baby." In life and on a journey we are equally not masters to choose our own company, being in both cases alike compelled to associate with those who are booked for the same coach. In both cases, likewise, we are equally under the necessity of making the best of the lot which chance has given us; and nothing can more strongly resemble the manner in which shyness ripens into acquaintance, and acquaintance into intimacy through the jolting of the leathern conveniency, than the friendships of the world. in general.

In friendship, as in all the rest, we are the dupes of our own amour

propre; and flatter ourselves that society hinges on our sympathetic tendencies, our kindness, tenderness, and forbearance. On the contrary, society is the pure creature of necessity and self-interest; and, if these did not operate to bring mankind together, they would never come sufficiently within the sphere of each other's activity, to bring the finer feelings at all into play. Let him who doubts this truism turn his eyes upon the world, and see who and who are together; let him look at that little knot of parsons congregated within the walls of a cathedral-close, or at the "Mrs. Generals" and " Mrs. Majors of ours," who are so intimate in a garrison-town. In what do such friendships difier from the casual acquaintanceship of a stage-coach?

Another point of resemblance between life and a journey is the little intercourse which takes place between the inside passengers and the outsides of the same vehicle. In real life, it happens every day that two persons are brought to touch, or nearly to touch, in one or two peints, and run parallel to each other, or approach, as if it were for the mere purpose of exercising a mutual repulsion, like two corks floating in a glass of water. Mrs. Mary Jones and Mrs. Dinah Bohea have long inhabited the same house. They meet every day upon the stairs without more acquaintance than a courtesy, because the one lodges on the first floor, and the other lives up two pair of stairs backwards." In the same spirit, the inhabitants of the little villages round London regulate their intimacies with their neighbours in the row, those who keep their own carriages not condescending to associate with those who go to 'Change at sixpence a-time in the stage. The great and little greenrooms of a theatre are as immeasurably separated, as the commissioned and non-commissioned officers of a British regiment, or the in and outdoor servants of a nobleman's family. In country towns, likewise, to keep a shop is fatal to all association with those whose business is conducted independently of such an arrangement; or at least, if the families may occasionally dine together in private, they cannot publicly meet in the great room over the market-place, where aristocracy and entrechats centre in a master of the ceremonies, and dulness and muttonfats combine to spread gloom and ennui over the company. We all know the rigid laws of the Bar against "hugging." Woe to the barrister who on circuit shakes hands with his own brother, if that brother happens to be an attorney!

There is nothing about a stage-coach that has excited more frequent remark, than that little vanity which finds its account in a thousand artful innuendoes, such as, "A stage-coach is vastly inconvenient for them as is used to their own carriage," or, "I travels usually in a chay, but the post-boys are grown so extortionate." Travellers under the influence of this passion have always personal anecdotes of the owners of the great seats on the road, inferring considerable intimacy with the narrator: and they never fail to let drop, by pure accident, some little trait or other, proving their own consequence and elevated position in life, in which truth seldom so wholly presides, as utterly to exclude exaggeration. Now, though this seems mighty ridiculous, because, being committed by vulgar persons, it is done awkwardly, without measure, and à propos des bottes, yet it differs very little from the systematic impositions of higher life-from the swelling port which every one affects, when observed-from the dazzling a neighbour's eyes with Birmingham plate and Irish diamonds, or taking away his appetite by a

disproportionately sumptuous dinner :-in short, from all those nameless details of occasional splendour and habitual meanness, discomfort, and parsimony, which make up the sum of existence, in a numerous assemblage of all classes in society.

Were all the parallels of this most apt and comprehensive metaphor duly set down and chronicled, the New Monthly would not be large enough to hold them. It is not, therefore, very surprising, that the present generation should have given birth to two sects of philosophers, whose systems are bottomed upon the resemblance of life to a journey; to say nothing of the modern peripatetics, who place the summum bonum in walking, and whose life is one perpetual "match against time."-The Four-in-hand Club, which is now somewhat on the decline, and the Yacht Club, which is usurping its place among the enlightened and reflecting, may be considered as the two most remarkable schools of morality, which the progress of civilization has produced. Of the former, the leading virtue was humility: to look like a coachman, talk like a coachman, and spit through a vacancy between two teeth like a coachman,* being the criterion of the sect. The rigour of their morality was evinced in the frequent question, "Is all right?" with its immediate answer "All right," without which no step in life could be taken. Their firmness to their party was manifested in their anxiety "to keep their own side," not less conspicuous in the House of Commons than on the road. That they were uncompromising in their principles, was proved by the strictness with which they excluded from their society, all who were not perfectly "bang up to the mark,” while their punctilious attention to the smallest trifles in their "turn out," was not inferior to the stoical maxim of nil actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum. Sobriety, industry, and a patient endurance of the hardships of our inclement seasons, were absolutely necessary to a philosopher of this sect; and so closely must he watch his passions, as never to let the reins out of his hands. His greatest triumph was over the vices of those he guided, and all his care went to prevent their deviating, either to the right or left, from the prescribed curse. Their magnanimity and contempt for death were daily exhibited, not only in the rapidity of their own fiery course, and the sangfroid with which they drove "like hell," but in the cool indifference with which they overthrow and run over whatever crossed their path— pigs, poultry, old women, or children. Nor was their sense of glory less conspicuous in the carelessness with which they passed a companion upset in a ditch, or worsted in a trial of strength between his axletree and a turnpike-gate. It is in schools like these that our senators could best acquire the passion for driving, which so advantageously surperseded that twaddling habit, in which our ancestors indulged, of leading the people. There, too, the contempt for "the populace," "the mob," was practically illustrated, and the usage of dispersing assemblies collected on their lawful avocations vi et armis, and at the small expense of a life or two, familiarly taught. Another advantage of this school of philosophy lay in the expertness it engendered in money matters; in which respect there were few of its scholars who

* One youth of high spirit and life actually had a tooth drawn, though one of the best in his mouth, for the express purpose of attaining to perfection in this elegant Horace's dust-collecting curricle drivers were mere chickens to lads like these,

art.

1

might not have officiated as chancellor of the exchequer, borrowing as carelessly, and spending as profusely, as if they had all the paper-mills of the kingdom at their command.

Every thing however, has its day; and notwithstanding the moral and political utility of the Four-in-hand Club, it has met with its Vingt de Mars and given place to the usurping Yacht Club, which may be considered as reigning the most fashionable and popular school of the day, and dividing with the Musical academy, and the new Literary institution, the cares and the favours of the great fountain of all honour and distinction. At the present moment, in which all true patriots lament the decline of our naval power and consideration, this revival of nautical tastes and habits cannot but be most gratifying; but it is as a school of odoeporic philosophers that they are interesting to the present discussion. The Argonautic expedition was, doubtless, a philosophic enterprise of a similar description, and the golden fleece a mere type of that great object of philosophic research, the To Tv.

Nor could a better theatre be well chosen than a ship, for the study of all the virtues which most dignify our nature. How refreshing to the mind, to pass at once from the slavish and fawning habits of a court, to the frank, manly freedom of the Ward-room!* How invigorating both to the senses and to the feelings, to exchange the luxury and the dissipation of the saloon and the supper chamber, for the fresh breezes, salt junk, and hard biscuit, on board the "Lively Kitty."-On the contrary, how heartily sick of all the vanities of the world must the pupil be while rolling in his cot in a gale of wind! The benevolence of tars and their sympathy for human suffering is notorious; and their love of liberty has been manifested too frequently in the course of English story to admit of denial. Who knows what Blakes may rise from the bosom of the Yacht Club, to assert the rights of the people in the two Houses of Legislature? and who shall presume to say, that all the professors of that club will not return from a cruise with kinder feelings concerning the distresses of the people, and with more national notions, than Britons of late years have imbibed by their too close contact with Continental despots, and slavish ministers, in Royal congresses and imperial progresses?—How, indeed, is it possible for mortal man to tread the quarter-deck of a British vessel, and breathe the free air that blows over the ocean, without swelling into all the dignity of manhood, and burning to assert that liberty which was the foundation of England's maritime and commercial grandeur? How mean, how paltry, how contemptible is the theatrical splendour of courts, to the proud pomp of a royal navy! how poor the utmost wealth of despotism, in all its "barbaric pearl and gold," to the displays of prosperous commerce in the crowded ports of Liverpool or London! Yes, this is indeed a school for kings to study in, and for British senators to form themselves to the independence, the gravity, and the courage, their place in society demands. Who, with his hand made hard by honest labour, and his mind steeled by the dangers and hardships of a nautical life, will dare hold out the one

*"Is not the sea

Made for the free,

Land for courts and chains alone?

Here are we slaves,

But on the waves

Love and liberty's all our own."
Moore.

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