Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 580, Supplemental Number», страница 2
"Do you mark yonder black marble slab, which is spread as over a tomb? It covers the most silvery fountain that ever mirrored the golden light of noon, or caught the fall of the evening dew, in an element bright as themselves. The radiant likeness of a spirit rests on those waters. I bade him give duration to the shadow he flung upon the wave, that I might gaze on it during his absence. The first act of my immortality was to shut it from my sight. There must that black marble rest for ever."
[By the way, the ancients are excellent judges of beauty. Socrates calls beauty (we dare not use the contemptible it,) a short-lived tyranny: Xenophon says "Fire burns only when we are near it; but a beautiful face burns and inflames, though at a distance: Plato calls beauty a privilege of nature: Theophrastus (arch fellow,) a silent cheat: Theocritus, (cunning elf,) a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom, (which he doubtless would keep to himself): Domitian says that nothing is more grateful, (not even killing flies); Aristotle affirms that beauty is better than all the letters of recommendation in the world: Homer, that it is a glorious gift of nature; and Ovid calls beauty a favour bestowed by the gods, which this same Ovid shows the gods to have been jealous of among mortals." Certainly the moderns do not wage war for a beautiful woman, as did the ancients: we fear they would rather fight for an old castle.
To conclude, if, as Steele tells us, "to make happy is the true empire of beauty;" why, buy the Book of Beauty, to be sure.]
THE COMIC OFFERING
[MISS SHERIDAN presents us with her third volume of ladye mirth, as heretofore, over-flowing with fun and patter, and sprinkled with some sixty or seventy Cuts—many of them, to use a critical term, of "spirited design." Probably, the most humorous tale among the fifty is—]
THE FLYBEKINS, OR THE FIRE-ESCAPE
The Flybekins were distant connexions of the great Lord B., living "genteelly" in the west of England: and Mr. and Mrs. Flybekin were the only adult members of the family at the period of the incident which gave rise to this anecdote. It happened once that these "country cousins" were possessed with an uncontrollable desire to enter within the hitherto unapproached circle of London fashion and gaiety in which their noble relatives moved with such distinction. Every thing was propitious in furtherance of the meditated scheme: the spring was approaching, London filling, the country emptying, and the children could all go to school. A few weeks "in Town, just to see what was going on," would be fully worth the journey, especially as it would afford an opportunity for them to commence an acquaintance with their magnificent relation. And as the boys were growing up, it might be serviceable to their interests to tighten the bonds of connexion a little, which had, from lapse of time, and want of intercourse, become somewhat loosened. There is an old saying—"where there is a will, there is always a way."—In a short time Mr. and Mrs. Flybekin, being bent on the measure, argued themselves into a belief of the projected visit being nothing short of an imperative moral duty.
When matters had gone thus far, a hint was dropped in the drawing-room, which immediately reached the "domestic department," and very soon spread through the village,—as the smallest stone falling into water creates successive circles around the spot where it fell, each increasing in circumference. Accordingly, the Flybekins were the centre of attraction on the following Sunday, after morning service. Hearty congratulations, and ardent wishes for a pleasant trip, with various commissions, pressed upon them. The newest fashions were promised to be brought down, and the village milliner looked forward to a glorious triumph over all her rivals in the trade about the country. The happy pair were on the pinnacle of provincial glory; he was expected to return with the true state of foreign affairs, and the nation, from the intercourse he would enjoy with the peer; she was expected to import news of operas, plays, music, novels, writers, balls, routs, drawing-rooms and dresses, from her intercourse with the peeress.
In all the pleasure to which they looked forward there was but one draw-back, viz. a most extraordinary dread of London fires at night: and this originated in the frequent occurrence in their county paper of paragraphs headed "Another alarming conflagration: many lives lost!"—put in either to aid the Insurance office, or fill the paper. As our rustic pair had never visited the metropolis, they did not know but Leadenhall Street and Hyde Park, Lambeth and Portland Place, might all be close neighbours; therefore, however distant the different fires might be, they fancied they all occurred nearly in the same place; and from the time Mr. and Mrs. Flybekins resolved to visit Town, scarcely a night passed in which they did not start in terror from their dreams, screaming "Fire, Fire!"
All was hurry and preparation at "the Lodge," until the anticipated arrival of the "Barnstaple Sociable," one morning at the door, summoned the ambitious pair, and on the fourth day of their departure from Devonshire, they were duly set down at the White Horse Cellar, for road-making had not then received the magic touch of Macadam. The next day was occupied in searching for, and entering, suitable lodgings; and the following day, having hired a carriage, which their unpractised eyes considered most elegant in style and equipment, they sallied forth, armed with a card-case, and a long list of commissions, the practised horses going at the full rate of six miles an hour.
A friendly and familiar visit over, to some Devonshire friends in Devonshire Place, they essayed next to discharge the now almost dreaded call of state; for that which, contemplated at a distance, imparted joy and hope, when at hand possessed something of awe mingled with these feelings. Arrived in Grosvenor-square, after sidling along the gutter close by the foot pavement, the distance of two or three houses, and with a little preliminary tug of the reins, the coachman drew up opposite the door of No. –. Two powdered lackeys in rich livery were peering through the long narrow windows on each side of the door, and anticipated the intention of the diminutive, bandy footman, of knocking, (that is, if he could have reached the knocker.) To the question of "Lord and Lady B. at home?" a negative answer was delivered; they were gone to the country, but were expected back to dinner. A card was then handed in, inscribed in the neatest, spider-pattern handwriting of Mrs. Flybekin: and they drove off to pursue the agreeable pastime of shopping and going through part of the list of commissions, vivenda and agenda, with which they were provided.
As the Flybekins drove along the streets, the words "PATENT FIRE-ESCAPES," in large letters, upon the front of a tall house, attracted their attention, and roused all their latent fears of London fires, with accounts of which the newspapers so frequently teemed. A fire-escape would impart security to sleep, and might be taken down into the country. Accordingly the check string was pulled, the manufactory entered, the machines inspected, an economical one selected by each: and in an hour after their arrival at home to dinner, the fire-escapes were duly mounted in one of the front bed-room windows.
Their evening meal being finished at the barbarous hour of nine, the Flybekins began to yawn over the events of the past day, and the prospective engagements of the morrow. The excitements of the morning in the crowded London streets, had completely tired the rustic couple, who being susceptible of no farther excitement, sought repose at this early hour, and were both soon wrapt in deep sleep. Leaving them to enjoy their repose, we return to Grosvenor-square. The noble pair returned to a family dinner, and on entering the house, read, with strained eyeballs, the card deposited that morning by the Flybekins, and with some such an expression of countenance as one may be supposed to assume in discovering something in a drawer more than was anticipated. "Umph!" said the peer, "the Flybekins in town! what could have brought them up so far from the country?" "Something that will not detain them long, I hope;" dryly answered Lady B. "Yet, we must take some notice of these country cousins," said the peer: "Let us invite them to a family dinner." "Well, if we must,"—said the Countess shrugging her shoulders—and with that the subject dropped for the time.
Now it is quite clear that however brilliant might have been the prospects of the Flybekins, the peer and his lady wished them any where but in London; and, rather than invite them to Grosvenor-square to dinner, the former would have been glad to be let off with a writership for one of the sons in India.
Their carriage was ordered at ten, to convey them to the Duchess of R.'s party, and Lord B. proposed to make a friendly call upon their relations before waiting on Her Grace. Accordingly thither they drove, accompanied by two footmen bearing flaming flambeaux, the custom of the great in those days, when the town was not so well lighted as in the present age. The signs of this custom are indeed still to be seen in the extinguishers attached to the railings in front of many houses, which served for the footmen to extinguish their lights.
Meantime the Flybekins slept on, not dreaming of the honour intended them, and were as sound asleep as Duncan in Macbeth's castle, when a long thundering rap at the door startled them amid their slumbers. The diminutive, bandy footman had gone home with the coachman and horses, the landlady and her family had followed the example of the lodgers; and before any one could rise to unbar and open the door, to ascertain the cause of such an unusual alarm, a second louder and longer rap had been made upon it, and which awoke the sleepers to an instinctive idea that the house was on fire; a notion confirmed by the strong glare of red light reflected against their windows, and illuminating the apartment, as the footmen impatiently shook thousands of sparks from the flambeaux.
As Bonaparte observed upon another occasion, "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but one step." So it was with the Flybekins. From the most sublime repose they hurried into the ridiculous fire-escapes, in the full conviction that the lower part of the house was on fire; and without waiting to dress, or inquire into the real state of affairs, they gave the signal-word "Now!" and both descended in all the freshness of their fears to the pavement before the door!
The wondering lord and lady, and still more wondering footmen, glared upon the apparition before them with the most inexplicable amazement, totally at a loss to conceive the cause of such a novel reception. The terrified pair were, like Othello, "perplexed in the extreme," when they found themselves, instead of being in the confusion of a fire, deposited beneath the windows of a magnificent carriage, attended by footmen with white torches, and a full dressed lady and gentleman inquiring after them, and the meaning of the extraordinary descent. A few minutes served to explain the mal à propos mistake; the detected pair sought refuge in the hall of the house, with some such feeling as our first parents experienced when they had tasted the fatal apple in the garden of Eden. The carriage rolled away with the tittering coachman and footmen, and the ill-suppressed mirth of their master and mistress, who quickly disseminated the story throughout the fashionable throng of the party whither they were bent, and which remained for the rest of the season a standing joke wherever Lord and Lady B. appeared.
Humbled and confused, the unhappy Flybekins could not retrieve the blunder they had committed, and prudently resigned all their ambitious schemes. So they returned to Devonshire with the unlucky fire-escapes, sincerely regretting they had ever been tempted to purchase them. But, although the disaster had got wind, and with various versions had reached even into Devonshire, they were much consoled by the following narration of it which appeared in the county paper, in a light most favourable to their interests and reputation, although totally devoid of truth in almost every particular.
The flaming paragraph ran thus:—"We understand that Mr. and. Mrs. Flybekin of – in this county, while upon a visit to their noble relatives, Lord and Lady B. in London, narrowly escaped being burnt to death. The devouring element almost destroyed the lower part of the family mansion in Grosvenor-square, over which the lady and gentleman slept, who had retired early to bed, and who by the accidental return of Lord and Lady B. from a party, were awakened only just in time to effect their retreat by means of a fire-escape, fortunately attached to their bed-room window. We are informed that the fire occurred in consequence of the footmen, appointed to sit up for their master and mistress, having fallen asleep, leaving a lighted candle in the room. Mr. and Mrs. Flybekin escaped, with the loss of all their clothes but what they hurried on in the confusion, and were conveyed to a neighbouring hotel by their noble relatives, where they received succour for the night."
But unhappily for the Flybekins, the naked truth at length forced its way into Devonshire, and the true statement of the matter was circulated as above related, and now handed down to their posterity.
Thus, the best version of their story only placed them, "out of the fire into the frying pan," and the unlucky fire-escapes merely saved them from the fear of being badly burnt, in order that they might all the rest of their lives be well roasted!
There is considerable humour and ingenuity in the following lines, introducing the names of London booksellers, and their nominal fitness for publishing certain books:—
