text:
My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 8

I went back to London, and resumed my preparations. Penniless, I tried to get money from my mother, but could not. I tried to feel our ugly housemaid, who threatened to tell. Just then a friend lent me Fanny Hill, how well I recollect that day, it was a sunshiny afternoon, I devoured the book and its luscious pictures, and although I never contemplated masturbation, lost all command of myself, frigged, and spent over a picture as it lay before me. I did not know how to clean the book and the table-cover.

Fascinated although annoyed with myself, I repeated the act till not a drop of sperm would come; and the skin of my prick was sore. The next day I had a splitting headache but read at intervals, and again frigged; and did this for a week, till my eyes were all but dropping into my head. In a fever and worn out; the doctor said I was growing too fast, and ordered strong nourishment; but I used to take the infernal book with me to bed, and lay reading it, twiddling my prick, and fearing to consummate, knowing the state I was in. It was indeed almost impossible to do it, and when emission came, it was accompanied by a fearful aching in my testicles.

My friend had his book back, my erotic excitement ceased, I grew stronger, felt ashamed of myself, and soon found a new excitement.

I had a friend who like me was intended for the Army, his father was a gun manufacturer. The eldest son died, and the old man saying that five thousand a year should not be lost to the family, made his other son—my friend—go into the business. He resisted, but had no alternative but to consent. Their dwelling-house was just by ours, but the old man now insisted on his son residing largely at the manufactory where he invited me to stay at times with him, which I did.

Several houses adjoining belonged to the old man, at the East-End of London, where the manufactory was. Some faced an important thoroughfare, the rest faced two other streets, and at the back, a place with out a thoroughfare, on one side of which was the manufactory and workmen's entrance; on the other side stables. The whole property formed a large block.

The house faced the better street, the family had for forty years lived in it before they became rich, and it was replete with comfort. The old man had since lived there principally, for his love was in his business, and he had made all arrangements for his convenience. He had a private staircase leading from a sitting-room into the manufactory, and could go into the warehouse, or the back street, or out of the front door of the house unnoticed. The people employed, never knew when to expect him. He was a regular Tartar, but for all that a kind-hearted man.

There now lived in the house an old servant with her sister, who had been many years in the family. One was married to a foreman in whom his master had much confidence; these three were in fact in charge of the premises, although nominally the keyes were given up to my friend whom we will call Henry. The old man wished his son to be happy, allowed friends to visit him, there was good wine, put out by the old man in small quantities from time to time, good food, good attendance, and all to make things comfortable; but the old man resolutely forbade his son to be out later than eleven o'clock, and kept him as my mother kept me, almost without money. I expect that the old servants were told to keep an eye on the doings of Henry.

The basement was used as store-room for muskets, put into wooden boxes which stood in long rows upon each other like coffins. It was a large place and originally only went under the factory, but the old gentleman gradually as he acquired the adjacent houses, let them, but retained most of the basements, so that his stores ran not only under the premises he occupied, but largely under half a dozen other houses of which he only let the shops and upper portions. On four sides this large basement had glimpses of light let into it, by gratings in the footways of the streets.

At one end and on the principal street was a row of windows, beneath what was then a first class linen-draper's shop—first class I mean for the East-End—a large place for those days, and always full. Women used to stand by dozens at a time, looking into the shop windows which were of large plate-glass—a great novelty in those days—people waiting for omnibusses used also to stand up against the shop.

Henry and I were old school friends, I had seen and felt his cock, he mine; I had not been with him an hour before he said, "When the workmen go to dinner, I will show you more legs than your ever saw in your life." "Girls?" said I. "Yes, I saw up above the garters of a couple of dozen yesterday in an hour." "Could you see their cunts?" "I did not quite, but nearly of one," said he. I thought he was bragging, and was glad when twelve o'clock came.

At that hour down we went, through the basement stored with muskets; it seemed dark as we entered, but soon we saw streams of light coming through the windows at the end; they had not been cleaned for years. We rubbed the glass and looked up. Above us was a flock of women's legs of all sizes and shapes flashing before us, thick and thin in wonderful variety. We could see them by looking up, it being bright above; but dark and dusty below, they could not by looking down see us, through the half cleaned windows; or notice round clean spots on the glass, through which two pairs of young eyes almost devoured the limbs of those who stood over them.

As our only way lay through the work-shop and we did not wish it known that we were there (there was no business done there, unless arms were being stored or taken out), we went back before the workmen returned from their meals; but for several days did we go into the place, gloating over such of the women's charms as we could discern; legs we saw by the hundreds, garters and parts of the thighs we saw by scores: quite enough to make young blood randy to madness, but the shadowy mass between the thighs we could not get a glimpse of.

"There are vaults," said I, "if there, we could see right up, and be at the back of the women." We tried unused keys to find one to open the door, and at length to our intense delight it unclosed. We stepped across the little open space under the gratings into the empty vaults, and there arranging to take our turns of looking up at the most likely spots, we put out our heads and took our fill at gazing. We were right under the women, who as they looked into the shop windows, jutting out their bums in stooping, tilted their petticoats exactly over our heads. If there was no carriage passing, we could at times hear what they said, but that was rarely the case.

In those days even ladies wore no drawers. Their dresses rarely came below their ankles, they wore bustles, and standing over a grating, anyone below them, saw much more, and more easily, than they can in these days of draggling dresses, and cunt swabbing breeches, which the commonest girl wears round her rump. For all that, so close to the thighs, do chemise and petticoats cling, that it was difficult to see the hairy slits, which it was our great desire to look at. Garters and thighs well above the knees, we saw by scores. Every now and then either by reason of scanty clothing, or short dresses, or by a woman's stooping and opening her legs to look more easily low down at the window, we had a glimpse of the cunt; and great was our randiness and delight when we did. On the whole we were well rewarded. Many as the legs and thighs are, that I have since seen, I doubt whether I have seen so many pairs of legs half-way up the thighs, and all but to the split, as I saw in the times we stood under that big linendraper's shop window. Old and young, thin and fat, dirty and clean, ragged and neat, there was every possible variety and number of legs and their coverings.

There were two states of the weather which favoured us: if muddy, women lifted their clothes up high. Having no modern squeamishness, all they cared about was to prevent them getting muddy; and then with the common classes, we got many a glimpse of the split. But a brilliant day was the best. Then the reflected light being strong, we could see higher up if the lady was in a favourable position. We could see if they had clouts round their cunts, and had some strange sights of which I will only tell one or two. One day, quite at the end of the gratings, two women,

neat, clean, plump, and of the poorer classes (for we could soon tell the poorer classes from their legs and under-clothings), stood close together. It was my five minutes. Henry was at my back. They had been standing talking, close together, not seeming to be looking at the shop, in fact they were at the spot where the shop window finished. One put her leg up against a ledge, keeping the other on the grating; it was a bright day, and I saw the dark hair of her cunt as plainly as if she were standing to show it me. The next minute she gathered up her clothes a little high, and squatted down on her heels as if to piddle, her bum came down within four or five inches of the grating, and I saw through the bars, her cunt open just as a woman does when she pisses. I thought she was going to do so, when a plantive cry explained it all; she had a baby, and all the movements were to enable her to do something to it conveniently. At the same time her companion dropped on one knee, pulling her clothes a little up, and arranging them so as to prevent soiling them, she put the other leg out in front, and sat back on the heel of the kneeling leg. Then was another split, younger and lighter-haired, partly visible from below, but not so plainly as the dark-haired one; and they did something in that position for five minutes to the squalling child.

I lost all prudence, whispered to Henry; and together we stood looking, till they moved away. "My prick will burst," said I. "So will mine," said he. The next instant both our pricks were out, and looking up at the legs, stood we two young men, frigging till two jets of spunk spurted across the area. It would have been a fine sight for the women had they looked down, but women rarely did. They stood over the gratings usually with the greatest unconcern, looking at the shop windows, or only glanced below for an instant, at the dark, uninhabitated looking area.

This was the beginning of a new state of things. We got reckless; Henry had business to attend to, I none, I ceased to think about what might be said of our being so much in the store-house; and used to go by myself, and stay there two or three hours at a time. Then I gave way to erotic excesses. My prick would stand as I went down the stairs. I used to wait prick in hand, playing with it, looking up and longing for a poke until I saw a pair of thighs plainly, then able to stand it no longer, frigged; hating myself even whilst I did it, and longing to put my spunk in the right place. I used to catch it in one hand, whilst I frigged with the other, then fling the spunk up towards the girls' legs. It was madness; for although the feet of the women were not three feet above my head, yet the smallness of the quantity thrown (after what stuck to my fingers), and the iron bars above, seemed to make it impossible that any of it should reach its intended destination; but I think it did one day. A youngish female was stooping, and showing part of her thighs. I flung up what I had just discharged; suddenly her legs closed, she stepped quickly aside, looked down and went away. I am still under the impression that a drop of my sperm, must have hit her naked legs.

We both also grew more lascivious, having frigged before each other, we took to frigging each other. I went to my home, on going back, found he had taken other young men to see the legs. One night five of us had dinner, we smoked and drank, our talk grew baudier; we had mostly been schoolfellows, and dare say we had all seen each other's doodles, but I cannot assert that positively. We finished by showing them to each other now, betting on their length and size, and finished up by a frigging sweep-stakes for him who spent first.

At a signal, five young men (none I am sure nineteen years old) seated on chairs in the middle of the room began frigging themselves, amidst noise and laughter. The noise soon subsided, the voices grew quiet, then ceased, and was succeeded by convulsive breathing sighs and long-drawn breaths, the legs of some writhed, and stretched out, their backsides wriggled on the chairs, one suddenly stood up. Five hands were frigging as fast as they could, the prick-knobs standing out of a bright vermillion tint looking as if they must burst away from the hands which held them. Suddenly one cried "f-fi-fir-first," as some drops of gruelly fluid flew across the room, and the frigger sunk back in the chair. At the same instant almost the other jets spurted, and all five men were directly sitting down, some with eyes closed, others with eyes wide open, all quiet and palpitating, gently frigging, squeezing, and tittillating their pricks until pleasure had ceased.

Afterwards we were quiet, then came more grog, more allusion to the legs of women, their cunts and pleasures, more baudiness, more showing of pricks and ballocks, another sweep-stakes, another frigging match, and then we separated.

I do not think that excepting to Henry, that baudy evening ever was referred to by me.

I got up I recollect next day ashamed of myself, and felt worse, when he remarked, "What beasts we made ourselves last night." What changes since then. Two of the five found graves in the Crimea, the third is dead also; Henry and I alone alive. He with a big family, with sons nearly as old as he was at the time of the frigging matches. I wonder if he ever thinks of them, wonder if he ever has told his wife.

I spent much time now in this leg inspection and frigging myself, till I could scarcely get semen out of me. I hated myself for it, yet went on doing it, when luckily I lost the exciting sights. Some women happened to look down and saw us. A man without a hat came several times and looked down the gratings. Henry's father came to the manufactory, as he often did, went into the stores, asked who had opened the area-door, locked it up, had a new lock put on, and forbad anyone to go into the stores excepting to get out the guns, and so we lost our game. We never asked a question, nor made a remark on the matter; and came to the conclusion, that some one had complained to the linendraper that persons were looking up the women's legs, and that he had written to Henry's father on the matter.

I went home used up, and in a state of indescribable disgust with myself, entirely ceased masturbation, and in a month went again to visit my friend,—he had found out another grating.

The back of the manufactory as said was in a cul-de-sac. There were but the manufactory and stables in it. The workmen entered that side. There were gratings, and coal-vaults beneath the street similar to those beneath the linendraper's shop. Workmen's wives bringing their husbands' dinners, used to stand and sometimes sit down over the gratings, but their legs when seen were rarely worth the seeing; it was usually but a sight of dingy petticoats, and dirty stockings. We were however content to look up at them, for they belonged to women, but soon tired of doing so.

One night (we had never been there at night before), for some reason or the other which I don't recollect we went down and found two women pissing down the grating, then a man and woman together, and discovered it to be the pissing-place of the gay women, in the main thoroughfare; and where if the nights were dark, couples used to come for a grope, a frig, or even for a fuck at times. The pissing often took place over a grating, we could hear, and feel, but not see.

Then we got a common dark lantern, had the top shade taken of, and a funnel, or short chimney put with a slide, so that when we pushed the slide off, the light shot up through the chimney, and throw a strong light on a circle about one foot across. With this we went down waiting till we heard some one above, then opened the light and saw what was to be seen. Sometimes we waited for hours without seeing anything, but it is astonishing what cute-loving, baudy young men will go through for the sake of seeing a woman's privates. At other times we saw a good deal. If it were a light night, we saw nothing. No one knew we went down at those hours, the workmen had gone, and the private staircase from the dwelling house at any time let us into the factory; from the factory we could go anywhere on the premises.

When we heard feet, or a rustle of petticoats over the grating, taking up the light we sometimes saw a white hum, a split gaping like a dog with its throat cut, and a stream of water splashing from it. We never used to move, but sooner than not see it all and as well as possible, let the stream come over us. Sometimes two women came together; sometimes we could hear to our mortification that they were pissing on the pavement close by, without coming over the grating. We could often hear their conversation. Now and then a woman shit down the grating, we used to watch the turds squeeze out with a fart or two, with great amusement. Once a man did the same, we saw prick, balls, and turd, all hanging down together, we could not help laughing, and off he shuffled as if he had been shot. He must have heard us.

There was one woman whose face we never saw, but who came and pissed over a grating so regularly every evening, and sometimes twice; that we knew her arse perfectly. We lost sight of her and used to wonder if she had found us out, for she finished one night with such a loud fart, that we laughed out,—and she must have heard us.

One night half a dozen ladies came, we knew they were ladies by their manner and conversation, which we could hear perfectly, there being no carriage traffic in the street. "Can anyone see?" said one. "No," said another, "make haste." We heard the usual leafy rustle, and immediately a tremendous stream was heard; then two more sat down close together. I turned on the light at all risks, there were two pretty white little bums above us, with the gaping cunts, they were of quite young girls, without a hair on them; the women then were scared I suppose, for they moved. One said, "Make haste, don't be foolish, nobody is coming." A rustle again, off went the slide, up went the light; what a big round bum, what a great black-haired open cunt did we see, and a stream of water as if from a fire-engine. "Oh! there is a light down there," said one. Up went the bum, piss still straining down, down went the clothes, and all were off like lightening.

Another night we heard two pairs of feet above us, one was the heavy footstep of a man. "Don't be foolish, he won't know," said a man in a very low tone. "Oh I no,—no, I dare not," said a female voice, and the feet with a little rustling moved to another grating. Henry and I moved on also. "You shall, no one comes here, no one can see us," said the man in a still lower tone. "Oh! I am so frightened," said the female. A little gentle scuffling now took place, and then all seemed quiet but a slight movement of the feet. "Are they there?" whispered Henry from the vault. I nudged him to quiet, and putting the light as high up as I could, pushed aside the slide a little only.

We were well rewarded. Just above our heads were two pairs of feet, one pair wide apart; and hanging only partly at her back the garments of a female; in front the trousers of a man with the knees projecting slightly forward between the female's legs, and higher up a bag of balls were hanging down hiding nearly the belly and channel, which the prick was taking. The distended legs between which the balls moved, enabled us however to get a glimpse of the arse-hole and of a cunt. The movement of the ballocks showed the vigor with which the man was fucking, but there must have been some inequality in height; and either he was very tall, or she very short; for his knees and feet moved out at times into different positions. He then ceased for an instant his shoving, as if to arrange himself in a fresh and more convenient posture, and then the lunges recommenced. He must have had his hands on her naked rump, from the way her clothes hung, showing her legs up to her belly, or to where his breeches hid it, or where the clothes fell down which were over his arm.

Once I imagine, the lady's clothes were in his way, for there was a pause, his prick came quite out, her feet moved, her legs opened wider. He did not need his fingers to find his mark again, his long, stiff, red-tipped article had slidden in the direction of her bum-hole; but no sooner had they readjusted their legs, then it moved backwards, and again it was hidden from sight in her cunt. The balls wagged more vigorously than ever, quicker, quicker; the lady's legs seemed to shake, we heard a sort of mixed cry, like a short groan and cry together, and a female voice say, "Oh! don't make such a noise," then a quiver and a shiver of the legs, and all seemed quiet.

When I first had removed the slide, I did so in a small degree, fearing they might look below and see it; but if the sun had shone from below, I believe now they must have been in that state of excitement, that they would not have noticed it. To see better I opened the slide more, and gradually held the lantern higher and higher, until the chimney through which the light issued was near to the grating. I was holding it by the bottom at arms length; and naturally, so as to best see myself. Henry could not see as well, although standing close to me, and our heads nearly touching. "Hold it more this way," said he in an excited whisper. I did not. Just then the lady said, "Oh! make haste now, I am so frightened." Out slipped the prick,—I saw it. At that very instant, Henry pulled my hand, to get the lantern placed so as to enable him to see better. I was holding it between the very tips of my fingers, just below the feet of the copulating couple. His jerk pulled it over, and down it went with a smash, just as the lady said, "Make haste, I am so frightened." A huge prick as it seemed to me drew out, and flopped down, a hand grasped it, the petticoats were falling round the legs, when the crash of the lantern came. With a loud shriek from the lady, off the couple moved, and I dare say it was many a day before she had her privates moistened up against a wall again, and over a grating.

Henry and I laughing picked up the lantern and got back to the house; I went to my bed-room in a state of indescribable randiness. I had for some time broken myself of frigging, and now resisted the desire, tried to read but could not, undressed and went to bed. My prick would stand. If it went down for a minute and my thoughts were diverted, the very instant my mind recurred to those balls wagging above my head, up it went again. I tried to piss, the piss would not run. At that time when my prick was stiff, I used to pull the prepuce back, so as to loosen it. I laid down on the bed, prick stiff. If it could have spoken, it would have said, "Frig or fuck, you shall, before I give you rest." So I pulled the prepuce slowly back,—only once,—and as the knob came handsomely into view, out shot my spunk all over the bed-clothes.

Getting up to wipe and make things clean, I saw something on the brim of my cap which I had worn; the cap was on the table. I took it up and found a large spot of sperm which had come from the happy couple, it must have followed the withdrawal of the prick; and had my head been a little more turned up, it must have tumbled on my face. I did not mind wiping up my own sperm, but doing so to their's seemed beastly. Yet what was the difference?

We heard one night some one squat down, and turned up the light; there were petticoats, legs and an arse, but instead of the usual slit, we saw to our astonishment a prick and balls hanging down between the legs, it was a man in woman's clothes, and he was shitting. The sight alarmed us, we talked over it for many a day afterwards, for we did not then know that some men are fond of amusing themselves with other men.

I never saw but that one couple fucking, but we could hear groping and frigging going on close by. We heard women say, "Oh! don't!" Gay women, we heard say, "Here is a good place," but they did not often select the gratings, why? I cannot tell, for they were partly in recesses in the wall which enabled people to get more hidden. The bars were wide apart, and I suppose the regulars did not like that, yet they often used the gratings for pissing down.

These sights did no occur all at once, I went home, stopped, returned, and so on; in the meanwhile not having women, I then frigged, left off, then took to it again, and so time went on. Fewer women came at last up the street, we imagined that with all our care, they had found out that people were beneath the gratings, and avoided them. The favorite place was the recess at the workmen's door to the factory at which were two steps; we could hear but not see when a couple was there, we used then to go up into the factory and listen at the door. Generally, feeling and frigging was only going on, bargaining for money first. "Give me another shilling. Oh! your nails hurt. What a lot of hair you have. What a big one! Oh! I am coming! Don't spend over my clothes," and so on, we heard at times.

Meanwhile there was either no servant at my home worthy of a stiff one, or those who would not take one; and I had no alternative but to frig. Money my mother again kept from me. What I got, I sent to the poor girl Martha, who then had not got rid of her big belly; gay women I had fear of; devoured by desire to get into a woman again, I even looked longingly at the wife of the foreman who took charge of the house in which Henry lived, although she was fifty. I recollect seeing her making my bed one morning, and getting a cock-stand at the sight of the woman so near a place to lay down on.

title: My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 8


text:
My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 9

Henry had now much business to attend to, I had none. I used to wander into the back street just as the men's wives brought them their dinners, so as to look at them. They were not allowed inside, but if the men chose to eat inside they could do so, their wives waiting outside. Six or eight men had their dinners brought, the rest went away. The women most frequently sat on a door-step, or loitered over the gratings up which we used to look at night; or squatted down against the wall. I had once or twice looked up their clothes, but found little inviting, with the exception of a plump little pair of legs which belonged to a Mrs. Smith. She looked about twenty-six years of age, her husband twenty years older, a good workman but a brutal fellow. He bore a bad character among his fellows, and was thought a brute to his wife. Some said his wife drank; there was often a row in the street between them at dinner-time, he used to sit on the door-step and eat his dinner outside, she standing near him, and her legs came at times over a grating. I used to dodge downstairs at times at the workmen's dinner-hour, and have a look up, and that is how I saw, and began to think of the legs of Mrs. Smith.

I took a sort of fancy to her, or rather her legs, so plump and clean. I saw she had a nice clean face with bright brown eyes, and then had a desire to fuck her. I again had desisted from frigging, had sworn to myself not to do so again, and now getting strength wanted a woman badly. Our eyes had often met, I had even got out of her way when passing her, a courtesy not often then shown by gentlemen to workpeople. I used to stare at her so, that she began to look confused when I did. The husband never seemed to notice anything but his dinner, at which he usually swore. Sometimes I spoke to him about gun-making. I wanted to poke Mrs. Smith, but there did not seem to be the remotest chance, nor had I any intention of attempting it, but used to look at her with my cock standing, and wondering what sort of cunt she had. I had been brought up religiously, and the idea of having a married woman seemed shocking. I was shocked when I found that Mary was married. At length I nodded, smiled, and established a sort of intimacy in that way without speaking, managing to meet her as it were, quite casually when going to, or leaving the workshop.

One day the man dined on the step, his wife standing by his side; down I went to peep up her clothes and heard him rowing. "Why the hell had she not got him beef instead of mutton; God damn her, why were there no potatoes!" That was his style. Angry words passed, the voices grew louder, I heard a loud smack and a strong oath, he had hit his wife and gone back into the work-shop.

There was a great gabbling of female voices over the grating round Mrs. Smith. "I would not stand it," said one. "It is a shame," said another. "He ought to be proud of such a wife, an old beast," said another. The husband came out again. "I have done my best," said she, "you are not a man anyhow, or anywhere, for two pins I would run away from you." A loud oath, and another smack followed.

I heard Mrs. Smith sobbing. "I have had a little drink," said she, "I told him so. He makes me so unhappy, I must; but I spend scarce a trifle and it's what I earns myself. Ain't I clean? don't I bring him good meals?" "You do, you do," said they. "It's a shame," she went on, "he is not a man, not in bed, not anywhere, not anyhow, I don't aggravate him, I put up with everything, it's full six months since he's been a husband to me, although we sleeps in the same bed," she added in a significant way, "yes, six months full." "Lor," said half a dozen voices together, then said one, "Don't he do anything to you then?" Things quieted, off went Mrs. Smith with some of the women, two remained waiting for their husbands' platters, they squatted down on the step.

"They're a miserable couple," said one. "Yes, and likely, he is never at home, no wonder she do take a drop of comfort." "No, it ain't." "She is a nice little woman, and no man gets his meals nicer." "No, that they don't." "He's too old for her, but he ain't jealous." "No, in course not." "Why he ain't done it to her for six months," said one. They both chuckled then. "Why, my old man don't forget me like that, and he is ten years older than Smith," said the other. "Ah!" said the first, "he's a bad 'up altogether, men be a bad lot, the best on 'em." The time-bell rang, their husbands brought out their dinner-cans, and off the women went.

I can scarcely tell what followed exactly or how it came about, for even now to me it seems astonishing. I was but between eighteen and nineteen, and had not had the remotest idea of getting Mrs. Smith, though I longed for her lewedly when my cock stood. I was timid with women until I knew them well, I could never begin with our own servants until they had been in the house a few days; yet directly I heard this conversation, a chance seemed in my way, and without meaning it I followed it up.

With but little idea of married life or habits, I saw that not only were they a wretched couple, but that for months Smith had never touched his wife. I imagined then that married people were always doing it, that women were randier than men,—a common belief of young people. I thought: how she must want a poke! how she would enjoy it! Out I went to see if Mrs. Smith was about, and saw her walking off with a group of sympathizers, who dropped off gradually, until she was left with one, with whom she went into a public-house. In a few minutes they came out and parted. On she went alone, and went into another public-house, and then wiping her eyes as she came out, went her way alone; I after her, lewed and thinking to myself, "she has not had it for six months," and so on. She went into a public-house now by herself. I waited till she came out, and saw she had been taking to many drops of comfort.

Without any definite intention as far as I can remember, but simply for lewed gratification, I went up to, and addressed her. She recognized me and stood stock still. She had a small bottle of what I found afterwards to be gin in her hand, which she put into her husband's dinner can. I told her I was sorry for her, having heard the row and all she had said. The reference to her wrongs roused her, and she said vehemently, "He is not a man anyhow or anywhere," and then was silent. I did not know what to say more, and walked on by her side. After a time she said, "Why are you walking with me sir?" The only reply I made was that I liked it, and was sorry she had such a bad husband. She said she would rather be alone, but I walked on with her she carrying the little tin can with a cover. I not knowing what to do, offered to carry it for her, but she would not let me.

Then she remarked, "You are very good, but don't come any further, it won't look well for a poor woman to be walking with a gentleman; neighbors make mischief, and God knows, I have enough to bear already." My boldness having quite left me, I shook hands with her, which seemed to astonish her, and off she went. I followed her at a distance, to her house, which was one of a row of small cottages fronting a ditch, and a field, on which carpets were beaten, and boys played, a scrubby poor place as you may be sure.

I turned back hesitating. One moment wondering at my boldness, and wickedness in thinking of a married woman; the next, thinking I was a fool for not having asked her to let me; when I saw in the path, the top of the tin can she had been carrying. Here was a chance. I walked about for half an hour before I mustered up courage to go to the house. She opened her eyes wide when she saw me. "What do you want?" "Here is the top of the dinner-can," said I innocently. "Oh!" said she, "I am so glad, he would have hit me if I had lost it." As she took it I entered and closed the door.

She had finished the gin, for the empty bottle was on the table. She may have been more than fuddled, I cannot say; for I was so excited that I recollect only the most prominent circumstances. I was in a funk, but my cock was stiff, and that overcame all scruples. The house had but two rooms: a kitchen I was standing in, the street-door opened on to it. An open door showed a neat bed in a clean white-washed bed-room. How I began I know not, but recollect telling what I had heard, and that for months he had not been a husband to her. That set her off talking wildly, and she said it all over again. She was sure he was spending his money on some dolly, hoped she might catch her, then cried, wiped her eyes and said, "Well, that is no business of yours, I am a fool for talking to a young gentleman like you, I don't know what you are doing here."

"Let me do it to you," said I, "I have seen up your clothes, let me,—you are so nice, and I want you so badly; why should you not, he is no husband to you, and you such a nice woman." That was my artless beginning, or something like it. Fright at my impudence was struggling against my cock-stand. For a second she seemed speechless, then replied, "Well sir, you ought to be ashamed,—a married woman like me." "He is no husband to you, he never does it to you, you know,—I heard you tell the women so; they laughed, and said he had some hussy whom he did it to." "That's no business of yours, but he is a bad one," and she began crying again. "Now go sir go,—if he came home, he would murder me, if he found you here."

I don't know how the next came off, but I know I was kissing her, that I got my hand up her clothes, on to her cunt, that I pulled out my prick, that the struggling ceased, that I edged her to the bed-room, and that up against the bed she made a stand. "Oh! my God sir, I am a married woman, pray don't." Paying no heed, I got her clothes up and as she stood, was bending and trying to get my cock up her; but she was little, and I could not; it shoved up against her navel, and motte. That I suppose stirring her lust, overcame her, for she got on the bed, I got on her, and up her in a second.

I was in a bursting state of randiness, and she must have been the same. I was ready to spend, she readier; for I had no sooner entered her than her breath shortened, she clasped me tight, quivered and wriggled, and we both spent. I lay up her, cock ready for further work. Up to that time I had not properly felt her, nor seen her body. I began fumbling about, put my hand down feeling cautiously round the stem of my cock and my ballocks. All was wet, I slid my finger below her cunt (feeling even near to an arse-hole was then beyond me), there it felt wetter; that stimulated me, and on I went grinding. She lay with her eyes closed without speaking. Soon we both went again, I had fucked her twice without uncunting.

The quiet dreamy enjoyment had barely began, when she pushed me off and sat up saying, "What have I done? what have I done? I am a married woman!" Then comes tears, then a kiss from me, then talk, then tears, and at intervals she told me a story of a bad, brutal, morose husband, who had not fucked her for months. Half frightened, half hysterical, it seemed as much pleasure to her to tell me her misery, as it had been to have me doing her husband's work. We moved off the bed. "Oh! my God," said she, "look at the bed." I saw one wet patch as large as a tea-cup, and another as large as a crown at the spot where her bum had laid on the counterpaine. "What shall I do?" "Wash it." "But I have no other." It was a bore no doubt. I left without being able to get permission to see her again, but only tears, and an expression of her conviction that she was a wicked woman.

Although she had not asked me not to tell anyone, which women so often do who commit these little slips, I did not mention it to Henry. For three or four days afterwards she did not come to the factory. I went to her cottage. She was out. At length at the dinner-hour I met her face to face by the factory. She looked ready to drop. An hour afterwards seeing her burly husband at work, off to her house I went, and gave a single knock. She opened the door, nearly fell back with surprise, and before she could recover herself I was indoors. I had an altercation, a refusal, almost a fight, but I conquered. Again she was fucked on the bed, and now for the first time I had a look at her charms, her cunt unwashed.

She was a plump little woman, dark-haired on head and tail, her quim was neither large or small, her thighs round and white, she was an ordinary person, neither handsome nor plain, and my curiosity was soon satisfied. She kept exclaiming, "Oh! if he should come home!" I fell to work again with vigor, and soon again spent. As I got off I observed under her bum again a large wet place, but now on her chemise. "What a lot of spending you have done," said I. "I can't help it," said she. My experience was small, but I knew that from no other woman whom I had stroked, had such an effusion taken place. Before I had spent I had felt her wetness on my fingers. I had her on another occasion, and the same thing occurred. I notice this because I only recollect meeting one other such case since; Mrs. Smith, like the other to whom I refer, used after a few pushes up her to squeeze her cunt, shiver, and discharge quite copiously, to be followed with a second pleasure and discharge when I spent. I only reflected on Mrs. Smith's peculiarity some years afterwards.

In about a week I had her again at her cottage. Then she said if I came any more she would have trouble, for neighbors had already remarked a gentlemen at the house. I disregarded this, went and knocked. She opened the door cautiously with the chain up, and seeing me, shut it in my face. I was then about going to my own home, and feared I should not have her again, but found out that the husband spent his evenings at a tavern (I had a strange pleasure in looking at him after I had had his wife), that he was to be at some workman's carousal, watched him to the public-house, then ran to his cottage, gave a single loud knock at the door, which was this time opened unsuspiciously, and in I pushed before she could scarcely see who it was.

I had difficulty in persuading her to let me, she was more timid than ever, but promised that I would never come again.

Then she got on to the bed. The crisis was just over when we heard a knock. With a shriek she pushed me off and got up. "He will murder me, he will murder me," said she. I stood blank with bewilderment, relieved by another knock and a voice crying "beer." She fell on the floor fainting, and so alarmed me, that I nearly called in the neighbours. I put a pillow under her head. I don't know what induced me, for not three minutes before I was frightened out of my life, but as she laid there close by the fire (at the knock we had rushed into the kitchen), I pulled up her clothes. The flickering of the fire showed her thighs and cunt in a strange light to me. As I pulled her legs asunder, I felt ashamed, but lust was strong. I looked at the cunt, the novelty of an insensible woman on the floor excited me, the next instant in spite of her, for she recovered just as I laid on her, my prick was up her, and my knuckles on the hard bit of dingy carpet, and as I grasped her bum, it seemed that my poke was most delicious. So much for novelty and imagination. I left immediately afterwards.

Then I went home to my mother. In about three weeks, went to see Henry, again as I said, but really to get to Mrs. Smith, and found her husband had been discharged. I went off to the cottage, it was empty. They had gone no one knew where, and he had half murdered his wife. I wondered if it had been about me. Then my conscience upbraided me with having committed adultery. I took to going to church more regularly, and repeated the commandments emphatically.

I was now approaching nineteen years, was at home doing nothing but study, and with scarcely a farthing of money. I tried to get into one of our servant's unsuccessfully, she was a plain lass, but had a cunt, which was all I wanted. I began to kiss and fondle her, which she submitted to demurely. Then by surprise one day got my hand up her clothes, and between her cunt-lips. She loudly screamed, which luckily was unheard, for my mother was out. Her cunt felt wet, and I found from my fingers afterwards that she was poorly built. She rushed downstairs crying violently, the next day gave warning and left, much to my relief. She never I am sure told my mother, but I was in a fright until she had left.

I restrained myself from frigging, although sorely tempted to do so, and luckily found cheaper and better relief. Having had but one gay woman, and having a dread of them, neverthless, my mind involuntarily turned to them, especially as I now defied my mother, stopped out of nights latish, and consequently saw more of them. But I had no money.

Between London and our suburb, there were some lengths of road bounded by fields, and only lighted by oil-lamps. At places small houses were being built in side-roads, which were altogether without light. Gay women of a poor class, were then of an evening about the darkest parts, or they used to walk where the roads were lighter. They were of that class who go with labouring men, and were not attractive, although cleaner and better-looking than the same class now is.

One evening I worried an aunt out of two pounds, which I had with a solitary shilling besides; and was returning, when a woman accosted me. She walked by my side and talked, but I could not afford a soverign, which was a much larger sum then than it now is, and a shilling seemed to me a ridiculous sum, so I determined to run, for fear I should be fool enough to let her have a soverign. "I can't," said, "good night, I only have a shilling." "Make it two," said she. "I have not got more." "Give it me then." I stopped in astonishment at the idea of her taking such a trifle. "She is going to take it and go off," thought I, for I had known such a thing, but I gave her the shilling and then stood still. "Well, are you not going to have it?" said she, "make haste." It was a dark night, but I saw from a white gleam that her clothes were up, felt where the nick was, and in much agitation thrust my tool up it.

Having a woman in the open up against a field fence, and without seeing her cunt, or even her face, was a novelty to me. For a long time I had been bottling up my sperm. All fear left me, and it seemed the most delicious fuck I ever had had. In a few pushes I spent, and kept my belly up against hers in silent delight, till I felt sperm trickling down over my balls. Telling me to take care of my shirt she drew her bum back. Scarcely recovered from my pleasure and still wondering how I had such pleasure with so poor a woman, I suppose I must have said something of the sort, for she remarked, "Why not? we are all made the same way, and if some of us had more cheek, we might have as good clothes as the best, but there are plenty of real gents glad enough to have us," and so we talked for a minute. I had not felt her and now longed to do so, but was too timid to ask her. She turned away. I had been wiping my cock with a silk pocket-handkerchief, to prevent any sperm getting on to my shirt. A happy idea came. "Let me feel you, and do it again and I will give you this silk handkerchief, for I have no more money." Laughing and saying, "I suppose it is silk," she accepted it. I think now of the exquisite delight, with which I felt the thighs and bum of that poor woman, who might for all I could see, have had the great, or the small pox, or have been as ugly as the devil; but I stroked her belly, twiddled her wet cunt-hair (she had pissed), plunged my fingers into her wet cunt, and at length spent again in it, with more delight, than I have had with some of the most dashing women since that time.

After funking about pox and clap, for a few days, out I sped one evening to try to get her again, delighted at the economical rate at which I found it now possible to have women. But I always was liberal, and gave her three or four shillings. Several times I had had her afterwards and never saw her face. At length I insisted on going when I could see her. She refused until tempted by an offer, then agreed to meet me at a place which she named; saying, "And I will put on a clean chemise and stockings." I met her, and found her to be about thirty-five years old, and one of the ugliest women I ever saw.

She was so plain that all desire left me. I looked her all over, to which she made no objection, remarking as she pulled up her clothes, "Ah, you may look, I am as clean as any woman although I am what I am." I went on looking at, and fiddling her about, but no erection came. She gave an uneasy motion with her bum and said, "Oh! you are tickling me so, why don't you get on?" I said I did not want it yet, which so astonished her, that she sat upright, and looked at me and at my tool. Then she made me lay down on the poor bed, and mutual feeling soon brought me to a proper state. "Don't you be quick or you will spoil me," said she. Her manner was quite different from what it had been on the high road, it was amorous. I forgot her ugliness, and fucking with all my heart, spent when her hard breathing, tightening cunt, and clasping arms, told me she enjoyed it also.

Then the miserable room, and her ugliness revolted me. I moved to get off, but she retained me, asking me to talk. Somewhat against my inclination I did. She laid hold of my prick, pinching it. The gentle pleasure returned, and it ended in my doing her again, as much to her delight as mine. She said so. Instead of feeling pleased, it made her seem to me ugly. I went away, and although I argued with myself, especially when I only had a shilling or two, yet I never could bring myself to have her again. When I saw her on the road, I went the other side of the way, and soon lost sight of her.

Finding that I had not suffered by my indiscretion, I got bolder, took the run of the road, and must have had a dozen girls at a shilling a tail. One night as I fumbled a girl, she frigged me vigorously. "I will do it this way," said she, "you will like it so." But I refused. "I will give you such pleasure," said she again, "all the gents say I do it better than any girl." But again I refused. "I am afraid my monthlies are just coming on," said she. But up I put it, and went home satisfied. Two or three mornings afterwards I felt a slight itching at the tip of my prick, but took no notice of it; the next morning piddling, to my horror I saw a little yellowish fluid oozing, and sat down in consternation. I had got a clap.

This laid me up for weeks, I went to a strange doctor and managed to keep it from my mother, but was in anxiety as to how I was to pay the doctor. Fortune and misfortune often follow each other. My long promised appointment came from the W... Office just as I was getting well. With overwhelming joy I saw some chance of a little money, beyond what I got by begging from relatives; and then also my mother, at the advice of an uncle, who pointed out that in a year and a half I could not be kept out of my property, allowed me a fair monthly stipend.

I now found out that women of a superior class, were to be had much cheaper, than my great friends used to talk of; but at the time I write of, a sovereign would get any woman, and ten shillings as nice a one as you needed. Two good furnished rooms near the Clubs, could be had by women for from fifteen to twenty shillings per week, a handsome silk dress for five or ten pounds, and other things in proportion. So cunt was a more reasonable article than it now is, and I got quite nice girls at from five to ten shillings a poke, and had several in their own rooms, but sometimes paying half-a-crown extra for a room elsewhere.

When with but little money, I used to take out my best silk handkerchiefs, and give them with money, and once or twice I gave nothing else. One night to a nice-looking girl I said I could give her nothing but a handkerchief. "All right," said she without a murmur. When I had fucked her, she laid still on the bed and before she washed her cunt examined the handkerchief very carefully. "It's a rare good new one, it will pop for half-a-crown where I am known, where did you prig it?" looking at me as she spoke, and then added, "Yet you look like a gentleman too." I recollect it as well as if it were yesterday. I at that time used to take pleasure in laying as long as I could after I had spent, then getting up and kneeling between the girl's legs opening her cunt and watching the spunk at the mouth, or the big drops rolling down between the cheeks of her bum. I was kneeling so then, and was not a little shocked at her remark. That girl was young, handsome, well made, and in the Hay-market would now get anything from one to five pounds, yet I had her several times for three and four shillings a time.

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title: My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 9


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Harden, Maximilian

HARDEN, Maximilian (Felix Ernst), German publicist: b. Berlin, 20 Oct. 1861. He was the son of a Jewish merchant named Witkowski, and was educated at the French Gymnasium, at Berlin. He first attracted attention by essays of a literary character, published in the periodicals Die Nation, Gegenwart, Frankfurter Zeitung, and still more by those of a political and social character, written for the Gegenwart under the pseudonym of “Apostata.” In October 1892, Harden founded Die Zukunft, a weekly periodical, which was successful from the beginning. Harden succeeds in assuming, on most public questions, an attitude of isolation, intensified by a lack of consideration for other persons, and strengthened by a wide and aptly-applied erudition, together with unusual powers of formulation. The latter are sometimes handicapped by more or less obscure allusions, particularly to persons and incidents in those portions of the Old Testament that are less widely read. Harden has frequently taken positions that were unpopular; he undertook to champion Bismarck after the latter's dismissal by William II; he criticised Caprivi severely when he was Chancellor, and his attacks on the social evils of Berlin were charged as muck-raking. In 1890 he was sentenced to six months'

captivity in a fortress for lèse majesté. He acquired a universal reputation by his attacks, in 1907, on Prince Philip von Eulenburg and other friends of Emperor William II, all of whom he accused of abnormal and perverse teadencies, and of the perpetration of immoral acts. Chiefly, however, he objected to their forming a sort of camarilla around the emperor and isolating him from the nation. He maintained that they prevented the emperor, in 1905 and 1906, from assuming a more vigorous policy in the dispute then in progress between his country and France and England over the Morocco question, and that they influenced him to make concessions to France that were injurious to the national dignity and the vital interests of the German Empire. The scandal Harden thus called forth resulted in the exposure of certain immoral practices by several persons of the imperial court, and in the disgrace of a number of intimate personal friends of the emperor. One of the latter, Aide-de-Camp General Count Kuno von Moltke look legal action against Harden. After a sensational trial, the latter was acquitted by a lower court at Berlin. But the incident had aroused so much interest through its revelations, that the Socialists began to use it as material for their attacks on the government of William II. Accordingly, the imperial prosecutor for Berlin himself inaugurated proceedings against Harden before the Court of Correction, and, after a trial conducted chiefly behind closed doors, obtained a sentence against Harden of four months' imprisonment for defamation of character. Most of the witnesses who had inculpated von Moltke in the first trial withdrew or altered their testimony in the second, in order to obviate a scandal, in accordance with an understanding with the authorities. It was later maintained that Harden had simply been the tool of ../Holstein/ (q.v.) and other members of the anti-French party in the Moroccan affair.

After the outbreak of the European War, Harden and his weekly Die Zukunft continued to assume a consistently critical character, repeatedly championing the actions of Germany's opponents to the detriment of the German government. Especially after the entrance of the United States into the war, Harden often called attention to the idealistic motives of the American government and people, designating the American nation as a “great storehouse of idealism,” and assuring German bureaucracy, that it was guilty of a serious error in underestimating the naval and military powers of the new enemy. Frequently his expressions in this connection caused a suppression of the offending numbers of the Zukunft; thus, the number of 24 Aug. 1918 was suppressed because it contained an article by Harden on the expulsion of Count Lichnowsky (q.v.) from the Prussian upper house, for having written the so-called “Lichnowsky Memoir.” In general, Harden wrote, in these attacks on the Prussian government and on German imperialism, from the standpoint of the Liberal Democrat, who wished to see, a businesslike, efficient, but not monarchic or bureaucratic, régime established in Germany. To this extent he may be considered a national reformer, but not a revolutionist. His attitude toward the Russian Revolution, after the November 1917 coup d'état, was that of bitter

hostility. His published works are ‘Apostata’ (2 vols, of essays, Berlin 1892); ‘Theater und Literatur’ (essays, Berlin 1896); ‘Kampfgenosse Sudermann’ (Berlin 1903); ‘Kopfe’ (2 vols. of character studies, including one on Rockefeller, Berlin 1910-11; 2d ed., 1912); ‘Prozesse’ (“Famous Trials,” essays, Berlin 1913). Consult autobiographical sketch in Zukunft (10 Oct. 1903); Bahr, Hermann, ‘Maximilian Harden’ (in Neues Wiener Tageblatt, 13 Nov. 1904).


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 Cornell University Library

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henry W. Sage

1891

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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Harden, William

HARDEN, William, American historian: b. Savannah, Ga., 11 Nov. 1844. He left his studies in the schools of Savannah to join the Confederate army, serving throughout the Civil War in the 54th Georgia infantry and in the signal corps. After the war he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1873. He was assistant librarian of the Georgia Historical Society from 1866 to 1869, when on 5 August he was appointed librarian, a position he still occupies. He has been librarian of the Savannah public library from its beginning in 1903. He has been a member of the board of managers of Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1882, and custodian since 1894; organizer and secretary of the Georgia Society of the Sons of the Revolution since 1891; and was a Democratic member of the Georgia house of representatives from 1900-04. Has written much on historical subjects in magazines and journals and has published ‘A History of Savannah and South Georgia’ (1913).


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Harden-Hickey, James Aloysius

HARDEN-HICKEY, James Aloysius, American writer and adventurer: b. San Francisco, 1854; d. El Paso, Tex., 10 Feb. 1898. According to some accounts he was born in France and descended from an old Catholic Royalist family of Irish origin, whose ancestors had emigrated to France with the Stuarts. He received his education at the Jesuit College of Namur, Belgium, the French Military Academy of Saint Cyr, and at Leipzig. In Paris (1878) he founded Le Triboulet, a satirical journal that frequently brought him into collision with prominent people and the authorities owing to his violent attacks against the Republican government. After passing through a number of libel actions — for which he had to pay dearly — and fighting a series of duels, Harden-Hickey was expelled from France in 1880 by decree of the Minister of the Interior. He had adopted or inherited — it is not clear which — the title of “baron,” and was celebrated as a skilful fencer. About 1889, while making a trip round the world in a sailing vessel, he touched at the island of Trinidad, a desolate, uninhabited little rock in the South Atlantic, 700 miles from Rio de Janeiro. Returning to the United States, he married a daughter of John H. Flagler, the Standard Oil magnate, in 1891. In 1894 he set into operation a scheme to found a principality on Trinidad, and adopted the title of “James I, Prince of Trinidad.” In January 1895, however, a British warship called at the island and reannexed it to the British Empire, to which it had once belonged. Protestations raised by the Brazilian government led to the island being

handed over to Brazil in 1896. Harden-Hickey met his death by an overdose of a drug with — it is supposed — suicidal intention. He was an accomplished linguist and wrote most of his works in French, among them being ‘Sampiers’; ‘Mémoires d'un gommeux’; ‘Près du gouffre’; ‘Un Amour Vendéen’; ‘Aventures merveilleuses de Nabuchodonosor Nosebreaker’; ‘Bernard de Ventador’; and ‘Euthanasia,’ an essay on suicide. See, or.


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 The Tudor Facsimile Texts

The Bloody Banquet

By T. D.

Date of only known original edition .... 1620 (?) no. 1639

(B.M. 643. c. 4.)

Reproduced in Facsimile ......... 1914

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 The Tudor Facsimile Texts

Under the Supervision and Editorship of

JOHN S. FARMER

The Bloody Banquet

By T. D.

1620 (?)

Issued for Subscribers by the Editor of

THE TUDOR FACSIMILE TEXTS

MCMXIV

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 The Bloody Banquet

By T. D.

1620 (?)

The British Museum original of this facsimile is catalogued as "643. c. 4, 1620 (?)." The reason for the query will be seen on reference to the title-page, the lower margin being cropped so as to render it uncertain whether the date reads "1620" or "1630." The balance of probability appears to be in favor of the first-named date.

''The "T. D." of authorship is another crux. The play has been assigned to " T. Barker", which, says Hazlitt, is "doubtful". R. Davenport and T. Drue have also been credited with the authorship; to both, says Bullen, "without evidence". Other corresponding initials of possible claimants of the period are those of Thomas Deloney (for whose claim much might be said: see "D.N.B."), and Thomas Dekker, neither of whom, so far as I know, have been suggested as author. Nor do I now suggest either. I restrict myself to pointing out that, as regards Thomas Dekker, the printer of "The Bloody Banquet" — Thomas Cotes — also printed others of his plays and pamphlets. Also in the second place that Dekker was fond of tacking on to many of his titles pieces of Latinity — mottoes, as it were, descriptive, or otherwise pertinent. For exatnples, see the title-pages of "Satiro-Mastix", "The Double P.P.", "The Bellman of London", "The Gul's Hornbook", "Work for Armourers", "Four Birds", Ec., "A Strange Horse-Race","Wars, Wars, Wars", Ec., Ec. This practice was seemingly not common until a somewhat later period. But other evidence is needed — internal, external, of any kind.''

The work of reproduction has been well done: photographer and printer — both — have well sustained their long-attained all-round excellence of workmanship, oftentimes in difficult circumstances.

JOHN S. FARMER.

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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hardenberg, Friedrich Leopold, Freiherr von

HARDENBERG, Friedrich Leopold, , better known as ‘’ (Latin, new land, from the name of a family estate), German author and hymnologist: b. Oberwiederstedt, Prussian Saxony, 2 May 1772; d. Weissenfels, 25 March 1801. With the Schlegels and Tieck, he was one of the founders of the German Romantic School, of which his hymns and fragmentary novels are characteristic products. Idealistic, and based on distinctive views of philosophy, mathematics, art and the sciences they contain a singular mixture of imagination, sensibility, religion and mysticism, tinged by gentle and amiable enthusiasm. But due to his early death from consumption, they do not form a compact philosphy of life. The best of his hymns ‘Though all to Thee were faithless,’ ‘If only He is mine’ and ‘Hymn to Night’ are beautiful, breathing a feeling of isolation and melancholy as to the ultimate attainment of actual good in the world, which was caused, doubtless, by the death of his betrothed, Sophie von Kühn in 1797, and his state of health which prevented the consummation of a second engagement in marriage. This is perhaps best exemplified in ‘Die Lehrlinge zu Sais’ in which immortalizing as the “Meister” Werner, his instructor in ecology at Freiburg, he theorizes the secret of life as “the fulfilled longing of a loving heart.” The best of his prose writings which Carlyle recommended for “perusal and reperusal” is the unfinished novel ‘Heinrich von Ofterdingen’ in which the quest of the “blue flower,” the symbol of Romanticism, is a poetical allegory marked by excellent narrative, interspersed with beautiful verse. Hardenberg's parents were Moravians, which probably accounted for his mystic religious tendencies. At Jena, Leipzig, Wittenberg and Tennstadt he was thoroughly grounded in mathematics, natural science, philosophy and law, and became distinguished for his poetical talents. Becoming auditor of the government salt-works in Weissenfels of which his father was director, he later studied geology at the mining academy of Freiberg, Saxony. He was appointed “Amtshauptmann” magistrate in Thuringia in 1800, but death the following year ended a career full of high promise. His works, collected by the Schlegels, were issued in two volumes, and several times re-edited, appeared with a third volume in 1846. Recent editions are Meisner, C, and Wille, B., (1898); Heilbron, E., (3 vols., 1901); Minor, J., (3 vols., Jena 1907); Boelsche (4 vols., Leiprig 1908); Schmidt, J., 'Heinrich von Ofterdingen' (published separately 1876); Raich, J. M., ‘Novalis' Correspondence’ (1880). Consult Carlyle, T., ‘Novalis’ (in ‘Critical and Miscellaneous Essays,’ Edinburgh ed., New York 1903); Maeterlinck, M., ‘Novalis’ (in ‘On Emerson and Other Essays,’ New York 1912); Haym, R.,

‘Friedrich von Hardenberg’ (2d ed., Gotha 1883); Busse, C., ‘Novalis' Lyrik’ (1898); Bing, J., ‘Friedrich von Hardenberg’ (Berlin 1901); Heilbron, E., ‘Novalis der Romantiker’ (Berlin 1901); Huch, R., ‘Die Romantik’ (4th ed.. Leipzig 1911).


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The Histories (Paton translation)/Book XXXIX

I. Affairs of Greece.

1
Aulus Postumius was a man deserving of mention for the following reason. He was a member of one of the first families, but naturally wordy, loquacious, and vainglorious to excess. From childhood he had set his heart on acquiring Greek culture and the Greek tongue, and in both he was too much of an adept, so much so that it was partly his fault that the admiration for Greece became offensive in the eyes of the older and more distinguished Romans. He even went so far as to attempt to write in Greek a poem and a serious history, in the preface to which he begs his readers to excuse him, if, as a Roman, he has not a complete mastery of the Greek language and their method of treating the subject. Marcus Porcius Cato answered him, as I think, very properly on the subject. For he said he wondered what reason he had for making this apology. Had he indeed been ordered by the Amphictyonic Council to write a history, possibly he would have been justified in speaking thus and offering excuses; but to undertake of his own accord and under no compulsion to write a history, and then to beg to be pardoned for his barbarisms, was obviously ludicrous, and served just as little purpose, as if a man who had entered his name at the games for the boxing-contest or the pancration, upon appearing in the stadium, when the time came for the fight, were to beg the spectators to pardon him if he could not support the labour of the tussle or the blows.


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hardenberg, Karl August, Prince

HARDENBERG, här'dĕn-bėrk, Karl August,, Prussian diplomat and Chancellor: b. Essenrode, Hanover, 31 May 1750; d. Genoa, Italy, 26 Nov. 1822. To his efforts with those of Baron Stein, Prussia owes her wide-spread plan of social and political reorganization, the reform of the military system, the overthrow of so-called feudalistic rights, the uplift of the peasantry, the spread of education and the opening of the civil service to all classes. He had studied at Leipzig and Göttingen, acquired early knowledge of political government at Regensburg, Vienna and Berlin, and traveled in France, Holland and England. He married the Countess Reventlow; in 1778 became privy councillor; and went to England, where his wife's intrigue with the Prince of Wales marred his career, and caused his resignation from the Hanoverian service. From 1782-87 he served the Duke of Brunswick, becoming president of the council of state; in 1790 was appointed to administer the margravate of Ansbach and Bayreuth, and the following year when it was incorporated with Prussia, King Frederick II made him Minister of State and Cabinet member. During the Napoleonic wars he was prominent in the management of public affairs; in 1804 became first Prussian Minister, and incurred the displeasure of Napoleon who insisted on his dismissal in the Treaty of Tilsit. In 1810, however, after the resignation of Stein, he was appointed Prussian Chancellor, and began that series of reforms with which his name is inseparably linked in Prussian history by the War of Liberation. He was a signatory to the first peace of Paris, 30 May 1814, and received the title of prince, 3 June 1814. He visited England with the allied sovereigns and was the chief representative of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna 1814-15, where, however, he was not equal to the diplomacy of Metternich and, weakening to reactionary measures, sank in public favor. In 1822 he went to Italy to attend the Congress of Verona and shortly after its close died suddenly at Genoa. Withheld for half a century, his ‘Memoirs, 1801-07’ were edited by Ranke and published with a biographical introduction. Consult Ranke, L. von, ‘Denwürdigkeiten des Fürsten von Hardenberg’ (5 vols., Leipzig 1877); Klose, ‘Leben Karl Augusts, Fürsten von Hardenberg’ (Halle 1807); Meier, E., ‘Die Reform der Verwaltungsorganisation unter Stein und Hardenberg’ (Leipzig 1881); Meyer, C., ‘Hardenberg und seine Verwaltung der Fürstentümer Ansbach und Bayreuth’ (Breslau 1892); Koser, ‘Die Neuordnung des preussischen archivwesens durch die Staatskanzler Fürsten v. Hardenberg’ (Leipzig 1904); Seeley, J. R., ‘Life and Times of Stein’ (London 1879).


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User:Beao

Beao at: Wikimedia Commons · English Wikipedia

title: User:Beao


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Washington as a Camp

Contents

 * Our Barracks at the Capitol
 * The Following Is the Oath
 * Camp Cameron
 * Journal of a Day at Camp Cameron, by Private W., Company I
 * Our Advance into Virginia
 * Across the Long Bridge
 * Arlington Heights
 * “Partant pour la Syrie”
 * Farewell to the Seventh

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Washington as a Camp/Our Barracks at the Capitol

We marched up the hill, and when the dust opened there was our Big Tent ready pitched.
 * Our Barracks at the Capitol.

It was an enormous tent, — the Sibley pattern modified. A simple soul in our ranks looked up and said, — “Tent! canvas! I don’t see it: that’s marble!” Whereupon a simpler soul informed us, — “Boys, that’s the Capitol.”

And so it was the Capitol, — as glad to see the New York Seventh Regiment as they to see it. The Capitol was to be our quarters, and I was pleased to notice that the top of the dome had been left off for ventilation.

The Seventh had had a wearisome and anxious progress from New York, as I have chronicled in the June “Atlantic.” We had marched from Annapolis, while “rumors to right of us, rumors to left of us, volleyed and thundered.” We had not expected that the attack upon us would be merely verbal. The truculent citizens of Maryland notified us that we were to find every barn a Concord and every hedge a Lexington. Our Southern brethren at present repudiate their debts; but we fancied they would keep their warlike promises. At least, everybody thought, “They will fire over our heads, or bang blank cartridges at us.” Every nose was sniffing for the smell of powder. Vapor instead of valor nobody looked for. So the march had been on the qui vive. We were happy enough that it was over, and successful.

Successful, because Mumbo Jumbo was not installed in the White House. It is safe to call Jeff Davis Mumbo Jumbo now. But there is no doubt that the luckless man had visions of himself receiving guests, repudiating debts, and distributing embassies in Washington, May 1, 1861. And as to La’ Davis, there seems to be documentary evidence that she meant to be “At Home” in the capital, bringing the first strawberries with her from Montgomery for her May-day soirée. Bah! one does not like to sneer at people who have their necks in the halter; but one happy result of this disturbance is that the disturbers have sent themselves to Coventry. The Lincoln party may be wanting in finish. Finish comes with use. A little roughness of manner, the genuine simplicity of a true soul like Lincoln, is attractive. But what man of breeding could ever stand the type Southern Senator? But let him rest in such peace as he can find! He and his peers will not soon be seen where we of the New York Seventh were now entering.

They gave us the Representatives Chamber for quarters. Without running the gantlet of caucus primary and election, every one of us attained that sacred shrine.

In we marched, tramp, tramp. Bayonets took the place of buncombe. The frowzy creatures in ill-made dress-coats, shimmering satin waistcoats, and hats of the tile model, who lounge, spit, and vociferate there, and name themselves M. C., were off. Our neat uniforms and bright barrels showed to great advantage, compared with the usual costumes of the usual dramatis personæ of the scene.

It was dramatic business, our entrance there. The new Chamber is gorgeous, but ineffective. Its ceiling is flat, and panelled with transparencies. Each panel is the coat-of-arms of a State, painted on glass. I could not see that the impartial sunbeams, tempered by this skylight, had burned away the insignia of the malecontent States. Nor had any rampant Secessionist thought to punch any of the seven lost Pleiads out from that firmament with a long pole. Crimson and gold are the prevailing hues of the decorations. There is no unity and breadth of coloring. The desks of the members radiate in double files from a white marble tribune at the centre of the semicircle.

In came the new actors on this scene. Our presence here was the inevitable sequel of past events. We appeared with bayonets and bullets because of the bosh uttered on this floor; because of the bills — with treasonable stump-speeches in their bellies — passed here; because of the cowardice of the poltroons, the imbecility of the dodgers, and the arrogance of the bullies, who had here co-operated to blind and corrupt the minds of the people. Talk had made a miserable mess of it. The ultima ratio was now appealed to.

Some of our companies were marched up-stairs into the galleries. The sofas were to be their beds. With their white cross-belts and bright breast-plates, they made a very picturesque body of spectators for whatever happened in the Hall, and never failed to applaud in the right or the wrong place at will.

Most of us were bestowed in the amphitheatre. Each desk received its man. He was to scribble on it by day, and sleep under it by night. When the desks were all taken, the companies overflowed into the corners and into the lobbies. The staff took committee-rooms. The Colonel reigned in the Speaker’s parlor.

Once in, firstly, we washed.

Such a wash merits a special paragraph. I compliment the M. C.s, our hosts, upon their water-privileges. How we welcomed this chief luxury after our march! And thenceforth how we prized it! For the clean face is an institution which requires perpetual renovation at Washington. “Constant vigilance is the price” of neatness. When the sky here is not travelling earthward in rain, earth is mounting skyward in dust. So much dirt must have an immoral effect.

After the wash we showed ourselves to the eyes of Washington, marching by companies, each to a different hotel, to dinner. This became one of the ceremonies of our barrack-life. We liked it. The Washingtonians were amused and encouraged by it. Three times a day, with marked punctuality, our lines formed and tramped down the hill to scuffle with awkward squads of waiters for fare more or less tolerable. In these little marches we encountered by and by the other regiments, and, most soldierly of all, the Rhode Island men, in blue flannel blouses and bersaglière hats. But of them hereafter.

It was a most attractive post of ours at the Capitol. Spring was at its freshest and fairest. Every day was more exquisite than its fore-runner. We drilled morning, noon, and evening, almost hourly, in the pretty square east of the building. Old soldiers found that they rattled through the manual twice as alert as ever before. Recruits became old soldiers in a trice. And as to awkward squads, men that would have been the veriest louts and lubbers in the piping times of peace now learned to toe the mark, to whisk their eyes right and their eyes left, to drop the buts of their muskets without crushing their corns, and all the mysteries of flank and file, — and so became full-fledged heroes before they knew it.

In the rests between our drills we lay under the young shade on the sweet young grass, with the odors of snowballs and horse-chestnut blooms drifting to us with every whiff of breeze, and amused ourselves with watching the evolutions of our friends of the Massachusetts Eighth, and other less experienced soldiers, as they appeared upon the field. They too, like ourselves, were going through the transformations. These sturdy fellows were then in a rough enough chrysalis of uniform. That shed, they would look worthy of themselves.

But the best of the entertainment was within the Capitol. Some three thousand or more of us were now quartered there. The Massachusetts Eighth were under the dome. No fear of want of air for them. The Massachusetts Sixth were eloquent for their State in the Senate Chamber. It was singularly fitting, among the many coincidences in the history of this regiment, that they should be there, tacitly avenging the assault upon Sumner and the attempts to bully the impregnable Wilson.

In the recesses, caves, and crypts of the Capitol what other legions were bestowed I do not know. I daily lost myself, and sometimes when out of my reckoning was put on the way by sentries of strange corps, a Reading Light Infantry man, or some other. We all fraternized. There was a fine enthusiasm among us: not the soldierly rivalry in discipline that may grow up in future between men of different States acting together, but the brotherhood of ardent fellows first in the field and earnest in the cause.

All our life in the Capitol was most dramatic and sensational.

Before it was fairly light in the dim interior of the Representatives’ Chamber, the réveilles of the different regiments come rattling through the corridors. Every snorer’s trumpet suddenly paused. The impressive sound of the hushed breathing of a thousand sleepers, marking off the fleet moments of the night, gave way to a most vociferous uproar. The boy element is large in the Seventh Regiment. Its slang dictionary is peculiar and unabridged. As soon as we woke, the pit began to chaff the galleries, and the galleries the pit. We were allowed noise nearly ad libitum. Our riotous tendencies, if they existed, escaped by the safety-valve of the larynx. We joked, we shouted, we sang, we mounted the Speaker’s desk and made speeches, — always to the point; for if any but a wit ventured to give tongue, he was coughed down without ceremony. Let the M. C.s adopt this plan and silence their dunces.

With all our jollity we preserved very tolerable decorum. The regiment is assez bien composé. Many of its privates are distinctly gentlemen of breeding and character. The tone is mainly good, and the esprit de corps high. If the Colonel should say, “Up, boys, and at ’em!” I know that the Seventh would do brilliantly in the field. I speak now of its behavior in-doors. This certainly did it credit. Our thousand did the Capitol little harm that a corporal’s guard of Biddies with mops and tubs could not repair in a forenoon’s campaign.

Perhaps we should have served our country better by a little Vandalism. The decorations of the Capitol have a slight flavor of the Southwestern steamboat saloon. The pictures (now, by the way, carefully covered) would most of them be the better, if the figures were bayoneted and the backgrounds sabred out. Both — pictures and decorations — belong to that bygone epoch of our country when men shaved the moustache, dressed like parsons, said “Sir,” and chewed tobacco, — a transition epoch, now become an historic blank.

The home-correspondence of our legion of young heroes was illimitable. Every one had his little tale of active service to relate. A decimation of the regiment, more or less, had profited by the tender moment of departure to pop the question and to receive the dulcet “Yes.” These lucky fellows were of course writing to Dulcinea regularly, three meals of love a day. Mr. Van Wyck, M. C, and a brace of colleagues, were kept hard at work all day giving franks and saving three-pennies to the ardent scribes. Uncle Sam lost certainly three thousand cents a day in this manner.

What crypts and dens, caves and cellars, there are under that great structure! And barrels of flour in every one of them this month of May, 1861. Do civilians eat in this proportion? Or does long standing in the “Position of a Soldier” (vide “Tactics” for a view of that graceful pose) increase a man’s capacity for bread and beef so enormously?

It was infinitely picturesque in these dim vaults by night. Sentries were posted at every turn. Their guns gleamed in the gaslight. Sleepers were lying in their blankets wherever the stones were softest. Then in the guard-room the guard were waiting their turn. We have not had much of this scenery in America, and the physiognomy of volunteer military life is quite distinct from anything one sees in European service. The People have never had occasion until now to occupy their Palace with armed men.


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Washington as a Camp/The Following Is the Oath

We were to be sworn into the service of the United States the afternoon of April 26th. All the Seventh, raw men and ripe men, marched out into the sweet spring sunshine. Every fellow had whitened his belts, burnished his arms, curled his moustache, and was scowling his manliest for Uncle Sam’s approval.
 * The Following Is the Oath.

We were drawn up by companies in the Capitol Square for mustering in.

Presently before us appeared a gorgeous officer, in full fig. “Major McDowell!” somebody whispered, as we presented arms. He is a General, or perhaps a Field Marshal, now. Promotions come with a hop, skip, and jump, in these times, when demerit resigns and merit stands ready to step to the front.

Major-Colonel-General McDowell, in a soldierly voice, now called the roll, and we all answered, “Here!” in voices more or less soldierly. He entertained himself with this ceremony for an hour. The roll over, we were marched and formed in three sides of a square along the turf. Again the handsome officer stepped forward, and recited to us the conditions of our service. “In accordance with a special arrangement, made with the Governor of New York,” says the Major, “you are now mustered into the service of the United States, to serve for thirty days, unless sooner discharged”; and continues he, “the oath will now be read to you by the magistrate.”

Hereupon a gentleman en mufti, but wearing a military cap with an oil-skin cover, was revealed. Until now he had seemed an impassive supernumerary. But he was biding his time, and — with due respect be it said — saving his wind, and now in a Stentorian voice he ejaculated, —

“The following is the oath!”

Per se this remark was not comic. But there was something in the dignitary’s manner which tickled the regiment. As one man the thousand smiled, and immediately adopted this new epigram among its private countersigns.

But the good-natured smile passed away as we listened to the impressive oath, following its title.

We raised our right hands, and, clause by clause, repeated the solemn obligation, in the name of God, to be faithful soldiers of our country. It was not quite so comprehensive as the beautiful knightly pledge administered by King Arthur to his comrades, and transmitted to our time by Major-General Tennyson of the Parnassus Division. We did not swear, as they did of yore, to be true lovers as well as loyal soldiers. Ça va sans dire in 1861, — particularly when you were engaged to your Amanda the evening before you started, as was the case with many a stalwart brave and many a mighty man of a corporal or sergeant in our ranks.

We were thrilled and solemnized by the stately ceremony of the oath. This again was most dramatic. A grand public recognition of a duty. A reavowal of the fundamental belief that our system was worthy of the support, and our Government of the confidence, of all loyal men. And there was danger in the middle distance of our view into the future, — danger of attack, or dangerous duty of advance, just enough to keep any trifler from feeling that his pledge was mere holiday business.

So, under the cloudless blue sky, we echoed in unison the sentences of the oath. A little low murmur of rattling arms, shaken with the hearty utterance, made itself heard in the pauses. Then the band crashed in magnificently.

We were now miserable mercenaries, serving for low pay and rough rations. Read the Southern papers and you will see us described. “Mudsills,” — that, I believe, is the technical word. By repeating a form of words after a gentleman in a glazed cap and black raiment, we had suffered change into base assassins, the offscouring of society, starving for want of employment, and willing to “imbrue our coarse fists in fraternal blood” for the sum of eleven dollars a month, besides hard-tack, salt junk, and the hope of a Confederate States bond apiece for bounty, or free loot in the treasuries of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, after the war. How carefully from that day we watched the rise and fall of United States stocks! If they should go low among the nineties, we felt that our eleven dollars per mensem would be imperilled.

We stayed in our palace for a week or so after April 26th, the day of the oath. That was the most original part of our duty thus far. New York never had so unanimous a deputation on the floor of the Representatives Chamber before, and never a more patriotic one. Take care. Gentlemen Members of Congress! look to your words and your acts honestly and wisely in future! don’t palter with Liberty again! it is not well that soldiers should get into the habit of thinking they are always to unravel the snarls and cut the knots twisted and tied by clumsy or crafty fingers. The traitor States already need the main de fer, — yes, and without the gant de velours. Let us beware, and keep ourselves worthy of the boon of self-government, man by man! I do not wish to hear, “Order arms!” and “Charge bayonets!” in the Capitol. But this present defence of Free Speech and Free Thought ends, let us hope, that danger forever.

When we had been ten days in our showy barracks we began to quarrel with luxury. What had private soldiers to do with the desks of lawgivers? Why should we be allowed to revel longer in the dining-rooms of Washington hotels, partaking the admirable dainties there?

The May sunshine, the birds, and the breezes of May, invited us to Camp, — the genuine thing, under canvas. Besides, Uncles Sam and Abe wanted our room for other company. Washington was filling up fast with uniforms. It seemed as if all the able-bodied men in the country were moving, on the first of May, with all their property on their backs, to agreeable, but dusty, lodgings on the Potomac.

We also made our May move. One afternoon, my company, the Ninth, and the Engineers, the Tenth, were detailed to follow Captain Vielé, and lay out a camp on Meridian Hill.


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 captive foe to death in the hope of extorting money. When besieging a Saracen city he treated all fugitives with horrible barbarity. Irrespective of age or sex, they were burnt alive, worried by dogs, or torn to pieces with pincers, while those who were believed to be wealthy were tortured in full view of the city walls, until their kinsmen offered rich ransoms for their release. In warfare with the infidel the Cid did not disdain to employ the ugly weapon of treachery. Fair words and empty promises often gained time, and well he knew that the priest would "shrive him clean" from the sin of a broken truce. We cannot wonder that the rude conquerors of Mexico scorned to keep faith with their heathen foes.

To his own men the Cid ever behaved "full courteously," and like a "gentle knight." Etiquette, still so prized by the Spaniard, was strictly observed by his company. "The Cid's wont was to eat by himself apart at a higher table, seated on his settle, and the other famous knights ate elsewhere at high tables with much honour. And no knight made bold to sit down with them unless he were such as to deserve to be there. The other knights who were not so well approved in arms used to eat each one at a table, presided over by a senior. Such was the ordinance of the household of the Cid, and each one knew the place where he should sit him down to eat. And one and all strove with all their might to gain sufficient fame to sit down to eat at the table of the famous knights."

Thus did this state of constant warfare foster in the Spaniard an inordinate love of renown, which 10

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world beyond the ocean! All Europe thrilled with wonder and wild surmise. "Is it indeed," men asked, "as Columbus believes, the other side of Asia? Or perhaps some great and unknown continent? How strange may be the denizens of that far country! How marvellous the products! Will there be gold, silver, gems for each and all who sail across the sea?" None could answer, yet the wildest stories flew from lip to lip. The New World was a fairy-land of treasure guarded by monstrous dragons and men of weird and hideous shape. Yet even such dread perils could not deter the throng of bold Spaniards who, resolved to "fish for gold," sailed westwards with Columbus on his second voyage.

Well-equipped was this fleet sent forth by the monarchs of Spain, for even the cold calculations of Ferdinand, the wary and suspicious, melted before the glory of the great discovery. He hastened to secure for Spain a legal title to the possession of this new world unveiled by the humble Genoese adventurer. Did not all the lands of the earth 14

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THE OPEN GATE belong to Jesus Christ, and therefore to his Holiness the Pope, Christ's Vicar and representative? To the Pope Alexander VI. he therefore turned to sue for the right of dominion over the wide alluring West. A man of scheming brain and evil life, the Pope was guided in all his deeds by self-interest alone. To secure the protection of Spain he graciously consented, "out of his pure liberality, infallible knowledge, and plenitude of apostolic power," to grant in full right to Ferdinand and Isabella all the countries inhabited by infidels, which they had discovered or should hereafter discover.

To prevent this princely grant from interfering with one formerly made to the king of Portugal, his Holiness decreed that an imaginary line drawn from pole to pole, a hundred leagues to the westward of the Azores, should serve as the limit between the dominions of the rival kingdoms. All lands to the east of this line he bestowed on Portugal, to the west, on Spain, with the pious wish that the Christian faith might thus spread far and wide to perishing heather peoples.

The ardent soul of Isabella had ever in view the service of God, and her missionary zeal needed no prompting from the Pope. Several hooded friars were sent with Columbus and his motley band of "fishermen for gold." Alas for the glittering hopes of the eager adventurers! Little gold did they find in those islands which Columbus, still firm in his mistaken belief, had named the Indies. The soil, it is true, was fertile, the natives gentle, timid, and easily subdued, but "Gold! Gold!" was the cry of

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xxiv of his reading. Most writers have more words than ideas, and the reader wastes much pains with them, and gets little information or amusement. Butler, on the contrary, has more ideas than words; his wit and learning crowd so fast upon him, that he cannot find room or time to arrange them: hence his periods become sometimes embarrassed and obscure, and his dialogues too long. Our poet has been charged with obscenity, evil-speaking, and profaneness; but satirists will take liberties. Juvenal, and that elegant poet Horace, must plead his cause, so far as the accusation is well founded.

In the preceding memoir, Dr Nash, the latest and most authentic of Butler's biographers, has been our principal guide; the reader who is desirous of a more critical and elaborate, though sometimes unjustly severe, view of the poem and the poet, will turn without disappointment to the eloquent pages of Dr Johnson.