1829.] The Man of Ill-Omen. 291 



folly ever made — is to be lifted beyond the chances of kingly caprice 

 or popular ill-fortune. Twenty years to come are a life 1" 



The minstrel paused, and received my congratulations on his pane- 

 gyric, accompanied Avith a slight donation. 



" But what is to be said for twenty years past?" I observed. — He 

 retuned his strings ; and, throwing himself instinctively into an attitude 

 that reminded me of some of the lyric statues in the Vatican, dashed off 

 a few shewy chords, and began : — 



" What are twenty years past ? A dream, an echo, an hour. We 

 look on them as we look on a play, when time and distance are com- 

 pressed into a scene ; or like the gazers on a map, where the eye glances 

 from continent to continent, and a turn of the compasses measures an 

 ocean. Yet what rich, strange, and fearful materials have the last 

 twenty years had for the thought of the poet and the philosopher ! — 

 Kingdoms overwhelmed, and kingdoms raised ; proud dynasties dragged 

 at the conqueror's chariot- wheel — that conqueror himself more a wonder 

 than all the rest, yet himself, in turn, dragged at the wheel ; Europe 

 restored ; France stripped of the sword and shield together ; new repub- 

 lics starting into life in the west ; old empires struggling in the east ; 

 colonies rising into the strength and stature of empires ; ruin, triumph, 

 war, revolution, freedom, all the great elements of human hazard and 

 renovation, let loose in full conflict ! And yet of this grand disturbance, 

 what remains upon the eye ? — what more than remains on a field of 

 battle, when the day is done j or in a theatre, when the heroes and 

 heroines, kings and queens, have laid by their trappings, and the curtain 

 has fallen, and the lights are extinguished? Or are human affairs, after 

 all, but like Pulicinello's wooden company — very busy things before the 

 spectators; but, when their hour is over, flung together into a box, there to 

 lie as quiet, and wooden as ever ? Then comes some master-hand again : 

 the puppets are put in motion — the show is begun — the heroes and 

 heroines flourish — the spectators applaud, and are fleeced for the spec- 

 tacle — and, finally, the puppets are flung into their box once more." — 

 He finished with a flourish that was to take my patriotism by storm : 



" ' Then let the stricken deer go weep^ 

 The hart ungalled go play ; 

 For some must watch, while some must sleep — 

 Thus runs the world away !' " 



The quotation, recited with a tolerable attempt at the English' 

 accent, was evidently meant as a peculiar civility by one who probably 

 scorned Shakspeare in his inmost soul as a northern barbarian ; and the 

 compliment was acknowledged in the most congenial way, by a few pauls 

 more than customary. The improvisatore bowed to the ground ; and, 

 carelessly tossing the pauls into a purse capacious enough for the national 

 treasury, told me, laughing, that "he was rejoiced to have found a noble 

 signor so generous, for he had observed that all those who treated him 

 with neglect, were sure to have ill-luck." I laughed in turn. He felt 

 his honour implicated ; and drawing out a bottle of brandy, which he 

 begged me to fiste, and which I candidly acknowledged to be superior to 

 any tiling that I had touclied soutii of the Apennines, he seated liimself 

 oa tlic ground, and proceeded to demonstration. 



" Twenty years ago," said he, " exactly on the day of tlic last erup- 

 tion " 



2 P 2 



