assailant who attacks the enemy in his trenches is always victorious." Yet, upon the whole, our clergy might employ themselves more to the benefit of society, by declining all controversy, than by exhibiting even the profoundest skill in polemic disputes. Their contests with each other often turn on speculative trifles; and their disputes with the deists are almost at an end, since they can have no more than victory; and that they are already possessed of, as their antagonists have been driven into a confession of the necessity of revelation, or an open avowal of atheism. To continue the dispute longer would only endanger it: the sceptic is ever expert at puzzling a debate which he finds himself unable to continue;" and, like an Olympic boxer, generally fights best when undermost." ESSAY V. A REVERIE AT THE BOAR'S-HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. THE improvements we make in mental acquirements only render us each day more sensible of the defects of our constitution with this in view, therefore, let us often recur to the amusements of youth, endeavour to forget age and wisdom, and, as far as innocence goes, be as much a boy as the best of them. Let idle declaimers mourn over the degeneracy of the age; but, in my opinion, every age is the same. This I am sure of, that man in every season is a poor fretful being, with no other means to escape the calamities of the times but by endeavouring to forget them; for if he attempts to resist, he is certainly undone. If I feel poverty and pain, I am not so hardy as to quarrel with the executioner, even while under correction: I find myself no way disposed to make fine speeches while I am making wry faces. In a word, let me drink when the fit is on, to make me insensible; and drink when it is over, for joy that I feel pain no longer. The character of old Falstaff, even with all his faults, gives me more consolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom: I here behold an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and shewing me the way to be young at sixty-five. Sure I am well able to be as merry, though not so comical as he. Is it not in my power to have, though not so much wit, at least as much vivacity?- Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone-I give you to the winds! Let's have t' other bottle here's to the memory of Shakespeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap! Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I sat at the Boar's-Head Tavern, still kept at Eastcheap. Here, by a pleasant fire, in the very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the very chair which was sometimes honoured by Prince Henry, and sometimes polluted by his immoral merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the follies of youth; wished to be young again, but was resolved to make the best of life while it lasted; and now and then compared past and present times together. I considered myself as the only living representative of the old knight, and transported my imagination back to the times when the Prince and he gave life to the revel, and made even debauchery not disgusting. The room also conspired to throw my reflections back into antiquity: the oak floor, the Gothic windows, and the ponderous chimney piece, had long withstood the tooth of time; the watchman had gone twelve; my companions had all stolen off; and none now remained with me but the landlord. From him I could have wished to know the history of a tavern, that had such a long succession of customers; I could not help thinking that an account of this kind would be a pleasing contrast of the manners of different ages: but my landlord could give me no information. He continued to doze and sot, and tell a tedious story, as most other landlords usually do, and though he said nothing, yet was never silent; one good joke followed another good joke; and the best joke of all was generally begun towards the end of a bottle. I found at last, however, his wine and his conversation operate by degrees: he insensibly began to alter his appearance; his cravat seemed quilled into a ruff, and his breeches swelled out into a fardingale. I now fancied him changing sexes; and as my eyes began to close in slumber, I imagined my fat landlord actually converted into as fat a landlady. However, sleep made but few changes in my situation the tavern, the apartment, and the table, con tinued as before: nothing suffered mutation but my host, : who was fairly altered into a gentlewoman, whom I knew to be Dame Quickly, mistress of this tavern in the days of Sir John; and the liquor we were drinking, which seemed converted into sack and sugar. 66 My dear Mrs Quickly," cried I, (for I knew her perfectly well at first sight,) « I am heartily glad to see you. How have you left Falstaff, Pistol, and the rest of our friends below stairs? Brave and hearty, I hope ?". ." In good sooth," replied she, "he did deserve to live for ever; but he maketh foul work on 't where he hath flitted. Queen Proserpine and he have quarreled for his attempting a rape upon her divinity; and were it not that she still had bowels of compassion, it more than seems probable he might have been now sprawling in Tartarus." I now found that spirits still preserve the frailties of the flesh; and that, according to the laws of criticism and dreaming, ghosts have been known to be guilty of even more than platonic affection: wherefore, as I found her too much moved on such a topic to proceed, I was resolved to change the subject, and desiring she would pledge me in a bumper, observed with a sigh, that our sack was nothing now to what it was in former days: " Ah, Mrs Quickly, those were merry times when you drew sack for Prince Henry men were twice as strong, and twice as wise, and much braver, and ten thousand times more charitable, than now. Those were the times! The battle of Agincourt was a victory indeed! Ever since that we have only been degenerating; and I have lived to see the day when drinking is no longer fashionable, when men wear clean shirts, and women shew their necks and arms. All are degenerated, Mrs Quickly; and we shall probably, in another century, be frittered away into beaux or monkeys. Had you been on earth to see what I have seen, it would congeal all the blood in your body—your soul, I mean. Why, our very nobility now have the intolerable arrogance, in spite of what is every day remonstrated from the press. our very nobility, I say, have the assurance to frequent assemblies, and presume to be as merry as the vulgar. See, my very friends have scarcely manhood enough to sit to it till eleven; and I only am left to make a night on't. Prithee do me the favour to console me a little for their absence by the story of your own adventures, or the history of the tavern where we are : now sitting I fancy the narrative may have something singular." Observe this apartment," interrupted my companion; "of neat device, and excellent workmanship: in this room I have lived, child, woman, and ghost, more than three nundred years: I am ordered by Pluto to keep an annual register of every transaction that passeth here; and I have whilome compiled three hundred tomes, which eftsoons may be submitted to thy regards."- "None of your whilomes or eftsoons, Mrs Quickly, if you please," I replied: I know you can talk every whit as well as I can; for, as you have lived here so long, it is but natural to suppose you should learn the conversation of the company. Believe me, dame, at best you have neither too much sense, nor too much language to spare; so give me both as well as you can but first, my service to you; old women should water their clay a little now and then; and now to your story." "The story of my own adventures," replied the vision, "is but short and unsatisfactory; for, believe me, Mr Rigmarole, believe me a woman with a butt of sack at her elbow, is never long-lived. Sir John's death afflicted me to such a degree, that I sincerely believe, to drown sorrow, I drank more liquor myself than I drew for my customers: my grief was sincere, and the sack was excellent. The prior of a neighbouring convent, (for our priors then had as much power as a Middlesex Justice now,) he, I say, it was who gave me a licence for keeping a disorderly house, upon condition that I should never make hard bargains with the clergy, that he should have a bottle of sack every morning, and the liberty of confessing which of my girls he thought proper in private every night. I had continued for several years to pay this tribute; and he, it must be confessed, continued as rigorously to exact it. I grew old insensibly; my customers continued, however, to compliment my looks while I was by, but I could hear them say I was wearing when my back was turned. The prior, however, still was constant, and so were half his convent; but one fatal morning he missed the usual beverage, for I had incautiously drunk over-night the last bottle myself. What will you have on't? The very next day Doll Tearsheet and I were sent to the house of correction, and accused of keeping a low bawdyhouse. In short, we were so well purified there with stripes, mortification, and penance, that we were afterwards utterly unfit for worldly conversation: though sack would have killed me, had I stuck to it, yet I soon died for want of a drop of something comfortable, and fairly left my body to the care of the beadle. "Such is my own history; but that of the tavern, where I have ever since been stationed, affords greater variety. In the history of this, which is one of the oldest in London, you may view the different manners, pleasures, and follies of men at different periods. You will find mankind neither better nor worse now than formerly; the vices of an uncivilized people are generally more detestable, though not so frequent as those in polite society. It is the same luxury, which formerly stuffed your alderman with plum-porridge, and now crams him with turtle: it is the same low ambition, that formerly induced a courtier to give up his religion to please his king, and now persuades him to give up his conscience to please his minister: it is the same vanity, that formerly stained our ladies' cheeks and necks with woad, and now paints them with carmine. Your ancient Briton formerly powdered his hair with red earth like brickdust, in order to appear frightful: your modern Briton cuts his hair on the crown, and plasters it with hog's lard and flour; and this to make him look killing. It is the same vanity, the same folly, and the same vice, only appearing different, as viewed through the glass of fashion. In a word, all mankind are a "Sure the woman is dreaming," interrupted I. "None of your reflections, Mrs Quickly, if you love me; they only give me the spleen. Tell me your history at once. stories, but hate reasoning." I love If you please, then, sir," returned my companion," I'll read you an abstract, which I made of the three hundred volumes I mentioned just now. My body was no sooner laid in the dust, than the prior and several of his convent came to purify the tavern from the pollutions with which they said I had filled it. Masses were said in every room, relics were exposed upon every piece of furniture, and the whole house washed with a deluge of holy water. My habitation was soon converted into a monastery: instead of customers now applying for sack and sugar, my rooms were crowded with images, relics, saints, whores, and friars instead of being a scene of occasional : |