[ 280 ] [MARCH, 



THE LETTER-BELL, BY THE LATE WILLIAM HAZLITT. 



COMPLAINTS are frequently made of the vanity and shortness of human 

 life, when, if we examine its smallest details, they present a world by 

 themselves. The most trifling objects, retraced with the eye of memory, 

 assume the vividness, the delicacy, and importance of insects seen 

 through a magnifying glass. There is no end of the brilliancy or the 

 variety. The habitual feeling of the love of life may be compared to 

 " one entire and perfect chrysolite," which, if analyzed, breaks into a 

 thousand shining fragments. Ask the sum-total of the value of human 

 life, and we are puzzled with the length of the account, and the multi- 

 plicity of items in it : take any one of them apart, and it is wonderful 

 what matter for reflection will be found in it ! As I write this, the 

 latter-Bell passes : it has a lively, pleasant sound with it, and not only 

 fills the street with its importunate clamour, but rings clear through the 

 length of many half-forgotten years. It strikes upon the ear, it vibrates 

 to the brain, it wakes me from the dream of time, it flings me back upon 

 my first entrance into life, the period of my first coming up to town, 

 when all around was strange, uncertain, adverse a hubbub of confused 

 noises, a chaos of shifting objects and when this sound alone, startling 

 me with the recollection of a letter I had to send to the friends I had 

 lately left, brought me as it were to myself, made me feel that I had 

 links still connecting me with the universe, and gave me hope and 

 patience to persevere. At that loud-tinkling, interrupted sound (now 

 and then), the long line of blue hills near the place where I was brought 

 up waves in the horizon, a golden sunset hovers over them, the dwarf- 

 oaks rustle their red leaves in the evening-breeze, and the road from 



, to , by which I first set out on my journey through life, stares 



me in the face as plain, but from time and change not less visionary and 

 mysterious, than the pictures in the Pilgrim's Progress. I should notice, 

 that at this time the light of the French Revolution circled my head 

 like a glory, though dabbled with drops of crimson gore : I walked con- 

 fident and cheerful by its side 



" And by the vision splendid 

 Was on my way attended." 



It rose then in the east : it has again risen in the west. Two suns in one 

 day, two triumphs of liberty in one age, is a miracle which I hope the 

 Laureate will hail in appropriate verse. Or may not Mr. Wordsworth 

 give a different turn to the fine passage, beginning 



" What, though the radiance which was once so bright, 

 Be now for ever vanished from my sight ; 

 Though nothing can bring back the hour 

 Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower ?" 



For is it not brought back, " like morn risen on mid-night ;" and may 

 he not yet greet the yellow light shining on the evening bank with eyes 

 of youth, of genius, and freedom, as of yore ? No, never ! But what 

 would not these persons give for the unbroken integrity of their early 

 opinions for one unshackled, uncontaminated strain one lo pa?an to 

 Liberty one burst of indignation against tyrants and sycophants, who 

 subject other countries to slavery by force, and prepare their own for it 

 by servile sophistry, as we see the huge serpent lick over its trembling, 

 helpless victim with its slime and poison, before it devours it ! On every 

 stanza so penned would be written the word RECREANT ! Every taunt, 

 every reproach, every note of exultation at restored light and freedom, 

 would recal to them how their hearts failed them in the Valley of the 



