ページの画像
PDF
ePub

exhausted, and that they may be taught to consider it more consonant to their majesty to demand justice with the sword in their hand and the banner unfurled, than on the bended knee and with the suppliant tongue. We would say to her in the eloquent language of the patriotic and learned Earl of Shrewsbury-"Nothing can be finer than the present disposition of the whole Irish people. Mankind never exhibited a more noble instance of zeal tempered with discretion; and of suffering sanctified by patience. God grant that such dispositions may last as long as the occasion which produces them! But their own history, and the history of the whole world tells us, and warns us while it tells us, that there are circumstances beyond which patience will not endure, and tyranny will goad on to desperation. May Heaven avert so dreadful a calamity!"* Sincerely uniting in the prayer, and as solicitously pointing out the consequence, I take leave of the subject, and allow my reader and the government to ponder what I have written, and what I have quoted."

case,

THE MAID SERVANT.

BY LEIGH HUNT, ESQ.

The maid servant must be considered as young, or else she has married the butcher, the butler, or her cousin, or has otherwise settled into a character distinct from her original one, so as to become what is properly called the domestic. The maid servant, in her apparel, is either slovenly and fine by turns, and dirty always; or else she is at all times snug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the latter her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and a neck handkerchief, pinned corner-wise behind. If you want a pin, she just feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays and holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockings for white, puts on a gown of a better texture and finer pattern, sets her cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck handkerchief for a high body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There is something very warm and latent in the handkerchief -something easy, vital, and genial. A woman, in a high bodied gown, made to fit her like a case, is by no means more * Reasons for not taking the Test, &c. &c. p. 31.

modest, and is much less tempting: she looks like a figure at the head of a ship: we could almost see her chucked out of doors into a cart with as little remorse as a couple of sugarloaves. The tucker is much better, as well as the handkerchief; and is to the other, what the young lady is to the servant the one always reminds us of the Sparkler, in Sir Richard Steele; the other, of Fanny, in Joseph Andrews.

But to return.-The general furniture of her ordinary room, the kitchen, is not so much her own as her master's and mistress's, and need not be described, but in a drawer of the dresser or the table, in company with a duster, and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of her property, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissars, a thread-case, a piece of wax candle much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of Pamela, and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as George Barnwell, or Mrs. Behn's Oroonoka. There is a piece of looking-glass also in the window. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where you may find a good looking-glass on the table; and in the window a bible, a comb, and a piece of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, the mighty mystery,the box,-containing, among other things, her clothes, two or three song books, consisting of nineteen for a penny; sundry tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet, the whole nature of dreams laid open, together with the fortune-teller, and the account of the ghost of Mrs. Veal; the story of the beautiful Zoa, who was cast away on a desert island, showing how, &c.; some half crowns in a purse, including pieces of country money, with the good Countess of Coventry on one of them, riding naked on the horse; a silver penny wrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before she came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten, or been forgotten by her, she is not sure which ;-two little enamel boxes, with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other "a trifle from Margate;" and, lastly, various letters, square and ragged, and directed in all sorts of spellings, chiefly with little letters for capitals: one of them, written by a girl who went to a day-school, is directed-"miss."

In manners, the maid servant sometimes imitates her young mistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, and occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character and condition overcome all sophistications of this sort; her shape, fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make

its way and exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her temper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger is saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, or when some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty shoes, or when she is called away from dinner; neither does she like to be seen scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning; and sometimes she catches herself saying "Drat that butcher," but immediately adds"God forgive me." The tradesmen, indeed, with their compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. The milkman bespeaks her good humour for the day with "Come, pretty maids."-Then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, &c. all with their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes to the shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from its roller with more than ordinary whirl, and tosses, as it were, the parcel into a tie ; for her the cheesemonger weighs his butter with half a glance, cherishes it round about with his pattles, and dabs the little piece on it to make up, with a graceful jerk.

Thus pass the mornings, between working, and singing, and giggling, and grumbling, and being flattered. If she takes any pleasure unconnected with her office before the afternoon, it is when she runs up the area-steps or to the door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a troop of soldiers go by; or, when she happens to thrust her head out of a chamber window at the same time with a servant at the next house, when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by the imaginary obstacle between. If the maid-servant is wise, the best part of her work is done by dinner-time; and nothing else is necessary to give perfect zest to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when she calls it "bit o'dinner.' There is the same sort of eloquence in her other phrase, a cup o' tea;" but the old ones, and the washerwomen, beat her at that. After tea in great houses, she goes with the other servants to hot-cockles, or What are my thoughts like? and tells Mr. John to have done then;" or if there is a ball given that night, they throw open all the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by. In smaller houses she receives the visits of her aforesaid cousin ; and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid-servant, to work; talks of her young master or mistress, and Mr. Ivins (Evans)

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

or else she calls to mind her own friends in the country, where she thinks the cows, and "all that," beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she snuffs the candle with her scissars; or if she has eaten more heartily than usual, she sighs double the usual number of times, and thinks that tender hearts were born to be unhappy.

ment.

Such being the maid-servant's life in-doors, she scorns, when abroad, to be any thing but a creature of sheer enjoyThe maid-servant, the sailor, and the school-boy, are the three beings that enjoy a holiday beyond all the rest of the world;-and all for the same reason,-because their inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit of being with persons of circumstances or thoughts above them, give them all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active money-getter is a vegetable compared with them. The maidservant, when she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is all pleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the play, or the music, or the waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching of apples and gingerbread nuts, which she and her party commence almost as soon as they have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to comedy, because it is grander, and less like what she meets in general; and because she thinks it more in earnest also, especially in love-scenes. Her favorite play is "Alexander the Great, or the Rival Queens."

66

Another great delight is in going a shopping. She loves to look at the patterns in the windows, and the fine things labled with those corpulent numerals only 7s."-" only 6s. 6d." She has also, unless born and bred in London, been to see my Lord Mayor, and the fine people coming out of Court, and the "beasties" in the Tower: and, at all events, she has been to Astley's, from which she comes away equally smitten with the rider, and sore with laughing at the clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure she enjoys most. One of the completest of all is the fair, where she walks through an endless round of noise, and toys, and gallant apprentices, and wonders. Here she is invited in by courteous well-dressed people, just as if she were the mistress. Here, also is the conjuror's booth, where the operator himself, a most stately and genteel person all in white, calls her Ma'am ; and says to John by her side, in spite of his

laced hat, "Be good enough, sir, to hand the card to the lady."

Ah! may her" cousin" turn out as true as he says he is: or may she get home soon enough, and smiling enough, to be as happy again next time.

THE SLEEPWALKER.

BY DR. JACOBUS SYLVIUS.

Going into the country, I became acquainted with an Italian gentleman whose name was Augustino Fosari, who was one of the people called SOMNAMBULI, who perform in their sleep the ordinary actions which others transaet waking. He appeared to be not above thirty, of a lean withered habit, black hair, and a very melancholy disposition, slow of understanding, yet solid at the same time, and capable of scrutinizing into all the intricacies of the most abstruse science. The paroxysms of this disorder generally attacked him once a month, with the new moon, and always with more violence during autumn and winter, than during the spring and summer. I conceived a strange curiosity to see if what was told me were true, and I prevailed with his valet de chambre, who told me very strange things with regard to his master, to assure me of the time when he should be taken with the ordinary sleep. One evening, about the end of October, after supper, we played cards for some time. Signior Augustino played as well as the rest, and after some time retired, and went to rest. About eleven the valet de chambre came to inform us, that his master would walk in his sleep that very night, and that we might come and observe him.

Upon entering his bed-chamber, I regarded him for some time with the candle in my hand. He lay upon his back, and slept with his eyes open; but they were however fixed, and without the least motion, which was the pathognomic symptom of what was to ensue. I felt his hands, which were extremely cold, and his pulse so slow that his blood seemed to be scarcely in motion.

The company played at chess in the room, expecting the time in which he should begin.

« 前へ次へ »