CHARLES WATERTON 205- 



Vesuvius ceased the moment St. Januarius's blood came 

 in sight of the mountains." In Rome, again, he observes 

 that the " scandalous deportment " of the Protestants 

 in the churches is no doubt due to the legend that " the 

 kindest and best of pontiffs is really the man of sin r 

 who gets drunk on the blood of nations." " Indeed, 

 when I reflect on the horrible wickedness of England's 

 Coronation Oath ..." 



" The devil, the Pope and the Pretender have been drummed into 

 their ears (the Protestants) from childhood. Only the Pope i& 

 left, for the Pretender is dead, and the devil, if we may judge by 

 the frightful increase of magistrates and prisons in England, has 

 no spare time to be in Rome." 



Coming home he was shipwrecked, because the captain, 

 " this dastardly sansculotte," was " snoring in breech- 

 less state." 



Thus we travel this literary land of milk and honey,, 

 through page after page of charmed and elfish narrative,, 

 more witty than sage, more shrewd than witty, and 

 again more comical than shrewd, as Euphues might 

 put it. The autobiography ends with an appropriate 

 moral reflection : " Although life's index points at 

 sixty-two, I am a stranger to all sexagenarian dis- 

 abilities, and can mount to the top of a tree with my 

 wonted steadiness and pleasure." Our learned and 

 versatile squire, naturalist, poet, explorer, teetotaller, 

 devout, taxidermist, recommender of Macintosh's life 

 preserver, phlebotomist (he " tapped his own claret " 

 eighty times), athlete, humanitarian, sculler, handler of 

 rattlesnakes, and man of 'letters, leaves us, as is only 

 fitting, in a poetic nimbus. " My time has been a mere 

 sunbeam on a winter's day, a passing cloud in a tem- 

 pestuous sky, sure monitors to put us in mind ' that 

 we are here now and gone in a moment '." 



Ah ! rest assured, honest, playful and learned squire, 

 that the account of your adventures has not " disedified 

 the teacher, nor caused a frown upon his face ! " His 

 only regret is that he cannot quote that wondrous, that 

 super-Shandyesque story of yours, so decorous in its 

 indecorum, about the ass and the two carriage horses^ 



