Miscellaneous Essays Part 7

The moments were numbered. In the twinkling of an eye our flying horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle; at right angles we wheeled into our former direction; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for ever.

DREAM-FUGUE.

ON THE ABOVE THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH.

"Whence the sound Of instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ; and who mov'd Their stops and chords, was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue."

_Par. Lost, B. XL_

_Tumultuosissimamente_.

Pa.s.sion of Sudden Death! that once in youth I read and interpreted by the shadows of thy averted[1] signs;--Rapture of panic taking the shape which amongst tombs in churches I have seen, of woman bursting her sepulchral bonds--of woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her grave with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped adoring hands--waiting, watching, trembling, praying, for the trumpet's call to rise from dust for ever!--Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of abysses! vision that didst start back--that didst reel away--like a shrivelling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing on the wings of the wind! Epilepsy so brief of horror--wherefore is it that thou canst not die?

Pa.s.sing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams? Fragment of music too stern, heard once and heard no more, what aileth thee that thy deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and after thirty years have lost no element of horror?

[Footnote 1: "_Averted signs_."--I read the course and changes of the lady's agony in the succession of her involuntary gestures; but let it be remembered that I read all this from the rear, never once catching the lady's full face, and even her profile imperfectly.]

1.

Lo, it is summer, almighty summer! The everlasting gates of life and summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savanna, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating: she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker. But both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness within the domain of our common country--within that ancient watery park--within that pathless chase where England takes her pleasure as a huntress through winter and summer, and which stretches from the rising to the setting sun. Ah! what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was suddenly revealed, upon the tropic islands, through which the pinnace moved. And upon her deck what a bevy of human flowers--young women how lovely, young men how n.o.ble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting towards _us_ amidst music and incense, amidst blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural caroling and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. Slowly the pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us, and slowly she disappears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows. But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music and the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter--all are hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaken her? Did ruin to our friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer; and, behold! the pinnace was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more; the glory of the vintage was dust; and the forest was left without a witness to its beauty upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to our own crew--"Where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and cl.u.s.tering corymbi? Whither have fled the n.o.ble young men that danced with _them_?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the mast-head, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out--"Sail on the weather beam! Down she comes upon us: in seventy seconds she will founder!"

2.

I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed. The sea was rocking, and shaken with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sate mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a cross-bow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. "Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed from our deck. "Are they blind? Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or sudden vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps opened ahead in malice to receive her, towering surges of foam ran after her, the billows were fierce to catch her. But far away she was borne into desert s.p.a.ces of the sea: whilst still by sight I followed her, as she ran before the howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and by maddening billows; still I saw her, as at the moment when she ran past us, amongst the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tackling--rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying--there for leagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm; until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden for ever in driving showers; and afterwards, but when I know not, and how I know not.

3.

Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar sh.o.r.e. The morning twilight even then was breaking; and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl adorned with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the solitary strand with extremity of haste. Her running was the running of panic; and often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. But when I leaped ash.o.r.e, and followed on her steps to warn her of a peril in front, alas! from me she fled as from another peril; and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran; round a promontory of rocks she wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head.

Already her person was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem of white roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of all, was visible one marble arm. I saw by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness--saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faultering, rising, clutching as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds--saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm,--these all had sunk; at last over these also the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn.

I sate, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our mother. But the tears and funeral bells were hushed suddenly by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's artillery advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by its echoes among the mountains. "Hus.h.!.+" I said, as I bent my ear earthwards to listen--"hus.h.!.+--this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else"--and then I listened more profoundly, and said as I raised my head--"or else, oh heavens! it is _victory_ that swallows up all strife."

4.

Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and sea to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, amongst companions crowned with laurel. The darkness of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, hid from us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about our carriage as a centre--we heard them, but we saw them not. Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against centuries; too full of pathos they were, too full of joy that acknowledged no fountain but G.o.d, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restles anthems, by reverberations rising from every choir, of the _Gloria in excelsis_. These tidings we that sate upon the laurelled car had it for our privilege to publish amongst all nations. And already, by signs audible through the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, that knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Wherefore _was_ it that we delayed? We waited for a secret word, that should bear witness to the hope of nations, as now accomplished for ever. At midnight the secret word arrived; which word was--Waterloo and Recovered Christendom!

The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us it went; high above our leaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we traversed. Every city, at the presence of the secret word, threw open its gates to receive us. The rivers were silent as we crossed. All the infinite forests, as we ran along their margins, s.h.i.+vered in homage to the secret word. And the darkness comprehended it.

Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster. Its gates, which rose to the clouds, were closed. But when the dreadful word, that rode before us, reached them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon their hinges; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle of the cathedral. Headlong was our pace; and at every altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sickening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flying past. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet no strength of morning light had reached us, when we saw before us the aerial galleries of the organ and the choir. Every pinnacle of the fretwork, every station of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested by white-robed choristers, that sang deliverance; that wept no more tears, as once their fathers had wept; but at intervals that sang together to the generations, saying--

"Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue,"

and receiving answers from afar,

--"such as once in heaven and earth were sung."

And of their chaunting was no end; of our headlong pace was neither pause nor remission.

Thus, as we ran like torrents--thus, as we swept with bridal rapture over the Campo Santo[1] of the cathedral graves--suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon--a city of sepulchres, built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested from their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis; yet, in the first minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon--so mighty was the distance. In the second minute it trembled through many changes, growing into terraces and towers of wondrous alt.i.tude, so mighty was the pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, we were entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and turrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, strode forward with haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answering recesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs--bas-reliefs of battles--bas-reliefs of battle-fields; of battles from forgotten ages--of battles from yesterday--of battle-fields that, long since, nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers--of battle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the terraces ran, there did _we_ run; where the towers curved, there did _we_ curve. With the flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood, wheeling round headlands; like hurricanes that side into the secrets of forests; faster than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying equipage carried earthly pa.s.sions--kindled warrior instincts--amongst the dust that lay around us; dust oftentimes of our n.o.ble fathers that had slept in G.o.d from Creci to Trafalgar. And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we recovered the arrow-like flight of the illimitable central aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld a female infant that rode in a carriage as frail as flowers. The mists, which went before her, hid the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the sh.e.l.ls and tropic flowers with which she played--but could not hide the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her from the topmast shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger there were none. "Oh, baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee?" In horror I rose at the thought; but then also, in horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured on the bas-relief--a dying trumpeter.

Solemnly from the field of battle he rose to his feet; and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips--sounding once, and yet once again; proclamation that, in _thy_ ears, oh baby! must have spoken from the battlements of death. Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased to sing. The hoofs of our horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into life. By horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, were frozen to a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded; the seals were taken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into their channels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from the m.u.f.fling of storms and darkness; again the thunderings of our horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips as the clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us--"Whither has the infant fled?--is the young child caught up to G.o.d?" Lo! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the clouds: and on a level with their summits, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. Whence came _that_? Was it from the reddening dawn that now streamed _through_ the windows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs that were painted _on_ the windows? Was it from the b.l.o.o.d.y bas-reliefs of earth? Whencesoever it were--there, within that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a female head, and then a female figure. It was the child--now grown up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, there she stood--sinking, rising, trembling, fainting--raving, despairing; and behind the volume of incense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen the fiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dreadful being that should baptize her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded for _her_; that prayed when _she_ could _not_; that fought with heaven by tears for _her_ deliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that he had won at last.

[Footnote 1: _Campo Santo_.--It is probable that most of my readers will be acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo at Pisa--composed of earth brought from Jerusalem for a bed of sanct.i.ty, as the highest prize which the n.o.ble piety of crusaders could ask or imagine. There is another Campo Santo at Naples, formed, however, (I presume,) on the example given by Pisa. Possibly the idea may have been more extensively copied. To readers who are unacquainted with England, or who (being English) are yet unacquainted with the cathedral cities of England, it may be right to mention that the graves within-side the cathedrals often form a flat pavement over which carriages and horses might roll; and perhaps a boyish remembrance of one particular cathedral, across which I had seen pa.s.sengers walk and burdens carried, may have a.s.sisted my dream.]

5.

Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite cathedral, to its agony; then was completed the pa.s.sion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ, which as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals--gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense--threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and anti-choir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter!--with thy love that was victorious, and thy anguish that was finis.h.i.+ng, didst enter the tumult: trumpet and echo--farewell love, and farewell anguish--rang through the dreadful _sanctus_. We, that spread flight before us, heard the tumult, as of flight, mustering behind us. In fear we looked round for the unknown steps that, in flight or in pursuit, were gathering upon our own. Who were these that followed? The faces, which no man could count--whence were _they_? "Oh, darkness of the grave!" I exclaimed, "that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert visited with secret light--that wert searched by the effulgence in the angel's eye--were these indeed thy children? Pomps of life, that, from the burials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect joy, could it be _ye_ that had wrapped me in the reflux of panic?" What ailed me, that I should fear when the triumphs of earth were advancing? Ah! Pariah heart within me, that couldst never hear the sound of joy without sullen whispers of treachery in ambush; that, from six years old, didst never hear the promise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars fingers as of a man's hand, writing the secret legend--"_Ashes to ashes, dust to dust_!"--wherefore shouldst _thou_ not fear, though all men should rejoice?

Lo! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, and saw the quick and the dead that sang together to G.o.d, together that sang to the generations of man--ah! raving, as of torrents that opened on every side: trepidation, as of female and infant steps that fled--ah! rus.h.i.+ng, as of wings that chase! But I heard a voice from heaven, which said--"Let there be no reflux of panic--let there be no more fear, and no more sudden death! Cover them with joy as the tides cover the sh.o.r.e!" _That_ heard the children of the choir, _that_ heard the children of the grave. All the hosts of jubilation made ready to move. Like armies that ride in pursuit, they moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were pa.s.sing from the cathedral through its eastern gates, they overtook, and, as with a garment, they wrapped us round with thunders that overpowered our own.

As brothers we moved together; to the skies we rose--to the dawn that advanced--to the stars that fled; rendering thanks to G.o.d in the highest--that, having hid his face through one generation behind thick clouds of War, once again was ascending--was ascending from Waterloo--in the visions of Peace; rendering thanks for thee, young girl! whom having overshadowed with his ineffable pa.s.sion of death--suddenly did G.o.d relent; suffered thy angel to turn aside his arm; and even in thee, sister unknown!

shown to me for a moment only to be hidden for ever, found an occasion to glorify his goodness. A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, has he shown thee to me, standing before the golden dawn, and ready to enter its gates--with the dreadful word going before thee--with the armies of the grave behind thee; shown thee to me, sinking, rising, fluttering, fainting, but then suddenly reconciled, adoring: a thousand times has he followed thee in the worlds of sleep--through storms; through desert seas; through the darkness of quicksands; through fugues and the persecution of fugues; through dreams, and the dreadful resurrections that are in dreams--only that at the last, with one motion of his victorious arm, he might record and emblazon the endless resurrections of his love!

DINNER, REAL AND REPUTED.

Great misconceptions have always prevailed about the Roman _dinner_.

Dinner [_coena_] was the only meal which the Romans as a nation took. It was no accident, but arose out of their whole social economy. This we shall show by running through the history of a Roman day. _Ridentem dicere, verum quid vetat_? And the course of this review will expose one or two important truths in ancient political economy, which have been wholly overlooked.

With the lark it was that the Roman rose. Not that the earliest lark rises so early in Latium as the earliest lark in England; that is, during summer: but then, on the other hand, neither does it ever rise so late. The Roman citizen was stirring with the dawn--which, allowing for the shorter longest-day and longer shortest-day of Rome, you may call about four in summer--about seven in winter. Why did he do this? Because he went to bed at a very early hour. But why did he do that? By backing in this way, we shall surely back into the very well of truth: always, if it is possible, let us have the _pourquoi_ of the _pourquoi_. The Roman went to bed early for two special reasons. 1st, Because in Rome, which had been built for a martial destiny, every habit of life had reference to the usages of war.

Every citizen, if he were not a mere proletarian animal kept at the public cost, held himself a sort of soldier-elect: the more n.o.ble he was, the more was his liability to military service: in short, all Rome, and at all times, was consciously "in procinct."[1] Now it was a principle of ancient warfare, that every hour of daylight had a triple worth, if valued against hours of darkness. That was one reason--a reason suggested by the understanding. But there was a second reason, far more remarkable; and this was a reason dictated by a blind necessity. It is an important fact, that this planet on which we live, this little industrious earth of ours, has developed her wealth by slow stages of increase. She was far from being the rich little globe in Caesar's days that she is at present. The earth in our days is incalculably richer, as a whole, than in the time of Charlemagne: at that time she was richer, by many a million of acres, than in the era of Augustus. In that Augustan era we descry a clear belt of cultivation, averaging about six hundred miles in depth, running in a ring-fence about the Mediterranean. This belt, _and no more_, was in decent cultivation.

Beyond that belt, there was only a wild Indian cultivation. At present what a difference! We have that very belt, but much richer, all things considered _aequatis aequandis_, than in the Roman era. The reader must not look to single cases, as that of Egypt or other parts of Africa, but take the whole collectively. On that scheme of valuation, we have the old Roman belt, the Mediterranean riband not much tarnished, and we have all the rest of Europe to boot--or, speaking in scholar's language, as a _lucro ponamus_. We say nothing of remoter gains. Such being the case, our mother, the earth, being (as a whole) so incomparably poorer, could not in the Pagan era support the expense of maintaining great empires in cold lat.i.tudes. Her purse would not reach that cost. Wherever she undertook in those early ages to rear man in great abundance, it must be where nature would consent to work in partners.h.i.+p with herself; where _warmth_ was to be had for nothing; where _clothes_ were not so entirely indispensable but that a ragged fellow might still keep himself warm; where slight _shelter_ might serve; and where the _soil_, if not absolutely richer in reversionary wealth, was more easily cultured. Nature must come forward liberally, and take a number of shares in every new joint-stock concern before it could move. Man, therefore, went to bed early in those ages, simply because his worthy mother earth could not afford him candles. She, good old lady, (or good young lady, for geologists know not[2] whether she is in that stage of her progress which corresponds to gray hairs, or to infancy, or to "a _certain_ age,")--she, good lady, would certainly have shuddered to hear any of her nations asking for candles. "Candles!" She would have said, "Who ever heard of such a thing? and with so much excellent daylight running to waste, as I have provided _gratis_! What will the wretches want next?"

The daylight, furnished _gratis_, was certainly "neat," and "undeniable"

in its quality, and quite sufficient for all purposes that were honest.

Seneca, even in his own luxurious period, called those men "_lucifugae_,"

and by other ugly names, who lived chiefly by candle-light. None but rich and luxurious men, nay, even amongst these, none but idlers _did_ live much by candle-light. An immense majority of men in Rome never lighted a candle, unless sometimes in the early dawn. And this custom of Rome was the custom also of all nations that lived round the great pond of the Mediterranean.

In Athens, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, everywhere, the ancients went to bed, like good boys, from seven to nine o'clock.[3] The Turks and other people, who have succeeded to the stations and the habits of the ancients, do so at this day.

The Roman, therefore, who saw no joke in sitting round a table in the dark, went off to bed as the darkness began. Everybody did so. Old Numa Pompilius himself, was obliged to trundle off in the dusk. Tarquinius might be a very superb fellow; but we doubt whether he ever saw a farthing rushlight. And, though it may be thought that plots and conspiracies would flourish in such a city of darkness, it is to be considered, that the conspirators themselves had no more candles than honest men: both parties were in the dark.

Being up then, and stirring not long after the lark, what mischief did the Roman go about first? Now-a-days, he would have taken a pipe or a cigar.

But, alas for the ignorance of the poor heathen creatures! they had neither one nor the other. In this point, we must tax our mother earth with being really _too_ stingy. In the case of the candles, we approve of her parsimony. Much mischief is brewed by candle-light. But, it was coming it too strong to allow no tobacco. Many a wild fellow in Rome, your Gracchi, Syllas, Catilines, would not have played "h---- and Tommy" in the way they did, if they could have soothed their angry stomachs with a cigar--a pipe has intercepted many an evil scheme. But the thing is past helping now. At Rome, you must do as "they does" at Rome. So, after shaving, (supposing the age of the _Barbati_ to be pa.s.sed), what is the first business that our Roman will undertake? Forty to one he is a poor man, born to look upwards to his fellow-men--and not to look down upon anybody but slaves. He goes, therefore, to the palace of some grandee, some top-sawyer of the Senatorian order. This great man, for all his greatness, has turned out even sooner than himself. For he also has had no candles and no cigars; and he well knows, that before the sun looks into his portals, all his halls will be overflowing and buzzing with the matin susurrus of courtiers--the "mane salutantes."[4] it is as much as his popularity is worth to absent himself, or to keep people waiting. But surely, the reader may think, this poor man he might keep waiting. No, he might not; for, though poor, being a citizen, he is a gentleman. That was the consequence of keeping slaves. Wherever there is a cla.s.s of slaves, he that enjoys the _jus suffragii_ (no matter how poor) is a gentleman. The true Latin word for a gentleman is _ingentius_--a freeman and the son of a freeman.

Yet even here there _were_ distinctions. Under the Emperors, the courtiers were divided into two cla.s.ses: with respect to the superior cla.s.s, it was said of the sovereign--that he _saw_ them, (_videbat_;) with respect to the other--that he _was seen_, ("_videbatur_.") Even Plutarch mentions it as a common boast in his times, [Greek: aemas eiden ho basileus]--_Caesar is in the habit of seeing me_; or, as a common plea for evading a suit, [Greek: ora mallon]--_I am sorry to say he is more inclined to look upon others_. And this usage derived itself (mark that well!) from the _republican_ era. The aulic spirit was propagated by the Empire, but from a republican root.

Having paid his court, you will suppose that our friend comes home to breakfast. Not at all: no such discovery as "breakfast" had then been made: breakfast was not invented for many centuries after that. We have always admired, and always shall admire, as the very best of all human stories, Charles Lamb's account of the origin of _roast pig_ in China. Ching Ping, it seems, had suffered his father's house to be burned down; the outhouses were burned along with the house; and in one of these the pigs, by accident, were roasted to a turn. Memorable were the results for all future China and future civilization. Ping, who (like all China beside) had hitherto eaten his pig raw, now for the first time tasted it in a state of torrefaction. Of course he made his peace with his father by a part (tradition says a leg) of the new dish. The father was so astounded with the discovery, that he burned his house down once a year for the sake of coming at an annual banquet of roast pig. A curious prying sort of fellow, one Chang Pang, got to know of this. He also burned down a house with a pig in it, and had his eyes opened. The secret was ill kept--the discovery spread--many great conversions were made--houses were blazing in every part of the Celestial Empire. The insurance offices took the matter up.

One Chong Pong, detected in the very act of shutting up a pig in his drawing-room, and then firing a train, was indicted on a charge of arson.

The chief justice of Pekin, on that occasion, requested an officer of the court to hand him a piece of the roast pig, the _corpus delicti_, for pure curiosity led him to taste; but within two days after it was observed that his lords.h.i.+p's town-house was burned down. In short, all China apostatized to the new faith; and it was not until some centuries had pa.s.sed, that a great genius arose, who established the second era in the history of roast pig, by showing that it could be had without burning down a house.

No such genius had yet arisen in Rome. Breakfast was not suspected. No prophecy, no type of breakfast had been published. In fact, it took as much time and research to arrive at that great discovery as at the Copernican system. True it is, reader, that you have heard of such a word as _jentaculum_; and your dictionary translates that old heathen word by the Christian word _breakfast_. But dictionaries, one and all, are dull deceivers. Between _jentaculum_ and _breakfast_ the differences are as wide as between a horse-chestnut and chestnut horse; differences in the _time when_, in the _place where_, in the _manner how_, but preeminently in the _thing which_.

Galen is a good authority upon such a subject, since, if (like other pagans) he ate no breakfast himself, in some sense he may be called the cause of breakfast to other men, by treating of those things which could safely be taken upon an empty stomach. As to the time, he (like many other authors) says, [peri tritaen, ae (to makroteron) peri tetartaen,]

about the third, or at farthest about the fourth hour: and so exact is he, that he a.s.sumes the day to lie exactly between six and six o'clock, and to be divided into thirteen equal portions. So the time will be a few minutes before nine, or a few minutes before ten, in the forenoon. That seems fair enough. But it is not time in respect to its location that we are so much concerned with, as time in respect to its duration. Now, heaps of authorities take it for granted, that you are not to sit down--you are to stand; and, as to the place, that any place will do--"any corner of the forum," says Galen, "any corner that you fancy;" which is like referring a man for his _salle a manger_ to Westminster Hall or Fleet Street. Augustus, in a letter still surviving, tells us that he _jentabat_, or took his _jentaculum_ in his carriage; now in a wheel carriage, (_in essedo_,) now in a litter or palanquin (_in lectica_.) This careless and disorderly way as to time and place, and other circ.u.mstances of haste, sufficiently indicate the quality of the meal you are to expect. Already you are "sagacious of your quarry from so far." Not that we would presume, excellent reader, to liken you to Death, or to insinuate that you are "a grim feature." But would it not make a saint "grim," to hear of such preparations for the morning meal? And then to hear of such consummations as _panis siccus_, dry bread; or, (if the learned reader thinks it will taste better in Greek,) [Greek: artos xaeros!] And what may this word _dry_ happen to mean? "Does it mean stale bread?" says Salmasius. "Shall we suppose," says he, in querulous words, "_molli et recenti opponi_," and from that ant.i.thesis conclude it to be, "_durum et non recens coctum, eoque sicciorem_?" Hard and stale, and for that reason the more arid! Not quite so bad as that, we hope. Or again--"_sicc.u.m pro biscocto, ut hodie vocamus, sumemus_?"[5] By _hodie_ Salmasius means, amongst his countrymen of France, where _biscoctus_ is verbatim reproduced in the word _bis_ (twice) _cuit_, (baked;) whence our own _biscuit_. Biscuit might do very well, could we be sure that it was cabin biscuit: but Salmasius argues--that in this case he takes it to mean "_buccellatum, qui est panis nauticus_;" that is, the s.h.i.+p company's biscuit, broken with a sledge-hammer. In Greek, for the benefit again of the learned reader, it is termed [Greek: dipuros], indicating that it has pa.s.sed twice under the action of fire.