418 
fresh knowledge, the same spirit dis- 
plays itself in the complaints of those 
who “ cry shame upon these evil times.”’ 
In the praises lavished on the “‘ wisdom 
of our ancestors,” we think we perceive 
the same love of retrospective exag- 
‘geration, which could create heroes out 
of ordinary men; form distinct sounds 
from the obscure murmuring of water- 
brooks, and attribute the works of na- 
ture to the hands of her creatures. 
This spirit of dissatisfaction is now the 
same as it was two hundred years ago, 
and was just the same then as a cen- 
tury further back. The ballad-monger, 
in “ the good times of old Queen Bess,” 
could complain— 
“* When this old cap was new, 
Since ’tis two hundred year, 
No malice then we knew, 
And all things plenty were.” 
Sir Walter Raleigh sighed out in verses 
scarcely less sad than sweet— 
** Tf.all the world and love were young, 
And truth dwelt on each shepherd's tongue, 
Then these delights my mind might moye, 
To live with thee, and be thy love.” 
And whether he or Edwards wrote the 
* Soul’s Farewell,” it remains alike a 
proof of a melancholy and diseased view 
of things, very similar to that which 
disappointment forces us to take, even 
now :— 
“* Tell—Faith, she’s fled the city, 
Tell how the country erreth, 
Tell— Manhood shakes off pity ; 
Tell—Virtue least preferreth. 
And if they do reply, 
Spare not to give the lie.”’ 
Latimer, preaching before King Ed- 
ward, chaunts forth the same tale— 
““ When (says he) was so much swear- 
ing, wenching, dicing and drinking as 
now? When was the word of God so 
little regarded? Time was, when virtue 
was esteemed, and now she is but a sport ; 
landlords, fitter to be called step-lords, now 
make no conscience of turning out tenants 
to beggary and want; adulteries are now so 
common, that, in a manner, among some, 
it is counted no sin at all, but rather a pas- 
time, a dalliance, not rebuked, but winked 
at—not punished, but laughed at.” 
Who is he, from Mile-End Church to 
Apsley-house, who has not heard the 
groaning of some elderly maiden over 
the sad extravagance of the age? Who 
has escaped without some such com- 
plaint being, as it were, syringed into 
his ears? Who knows not that ser- 
vant girls go finer than their mis- 
tresses? and that footmen, out of 
livery, dress in superfine black, and 
look as genteel as their masters? _Who 
is ignorant that “ Esquire,” is now “a 
Fallacies — No. I. 
[June I, 
word. much used amongst the lower 
orders ?”? And who is not informed, 
that with Sunday Schools, Bible So- 
cieties, and Education Bills, the poor 
do not know “ whether they stand on 
their head or their heels 2?” It cannot 
be helped; so it was in Bishop Proc- 
ter’s day: “ when were there so many 
gentlemen, and when so little gentle- 
ness ?” says he. What old maid can 
complain more pathetically of the lower 
orders and their “ demoralization,” than 
he does? Our “ Arcadian” Hunt can 
not more grieve over the disuse of the 
manly sports of Queen Elizabeth’s days, 
than does Latimer over the loss of that 
excellence “ our fathers always had’ 
in archery. He tells us how his father 
taught him; what pains was taken with 
him; how he used first a little bow, 
and, as he grew older, a bigger one; 
and, at length, how he became ‘‘ none 
of the worst at a peeled wand.” “ Other 
nations,” said he, “ draw their bows by 
strength of arm, we by strength of body 
properly thrown forward; and it is a 
shame to the land that magistrates 
neglect the proper means for preserving 
this healthful exercise.’ The writer 
of * Take thy old cloak about thee,” a 
ballad of that reign, says of the clowns, 
“* ‘They are clad in black, green, yellow, or 
gray, 
So far above their own degree.” 
But “ mechanical men,” surely, sur- 
passed modern extravagance, if then 
sf Each mechanical man : 
Has a cupboard of plate for a shew ; 
Which was a rare thing then, 
When this old cap was new.” 
And let those who doubt whether the 
“ commonalty” are growing too wise 
upon us, take the authority of the phi- 
losophical Hamlet — 
““ By the lord, Horatio, these three 
years I have taken note of it, the age is 
grown so picked, the toe of the peasant 
comes so near the heel of the courtier, he 
galls his kybe.” 
Thus has it always been, and so it is 
likely to continue; the mind of man 
must be changed before this vicious 
mode of thought is eradicated ; we shall 
always be ready rather to laud the re- 
trospect as more beautiful than the 
view before us, even should that view 
be taken after the new manner of Owen 
the oculist. Should it be even oyer the 
happy plains of New Lanark, or from 
the mundane elysium of the good man’s 
rectangles. ‘ Man never is, but always 
to be blest.” So it was, and so it will 
be, whilst the world turns upon its axis. 
5. W.S. 
