RICHARD SH STEELE. BY W. M. THACKERY. HORTLY before the Boyne was fought, and young Swift had begun to make acquaintance with English court manners and English servitude, in Sir William Temple's family, another Irish youth was brought to learn his humanities at the old school of Charterhouse, near Smithfield; to which foundation he had been appointed by James, Duke of Ormond, a governor of the House, and a patron of the lad's family. The boy was an orphan, and described, twenty years after, with a sweet pathos and simplicity, some of the earliest recollections of a life which was destined to be chequered by a strange variety of good and evil fortune. I am afraid no good report could be given by his masters and ushers of that thick-set, quare-faced, black-eyed, softhearted little Irish boy. He was very idle. He was whipped deservedly a great number of times. Though he had very good parts of his own, he got other boys to do his lessons for him, and only took just as much trouble as should enable him to scuffle through his exercises, and by good fortune escape the flogging block. One hundred and fifty years after, I have myself inspected, but only as an amateur, that instrument of righteous torture still existing, and in occasional use, in a secluded private apartment of the old Charterhouse School; and have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if not the ancient and interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick Steele submitted himself to the tormentors. Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy went invariably into debt with the tartwoman; ran out of bounds, and entered into pecuniary, or rather promissory engagements with the neighboring lollipop-venders and piemen-exhibited an early fondness and capacity for drinking mum and sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had money to lend. I have no sort of authority for the statements here made of Steele's early life; but if the child is father of the man, the father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford without taking a degree and entered the Life Guards the father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his company through the patronage of my Lord Cutts-the father of Mr. Steele the Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of the "Gazette," the "Tatler," and "Spectator," the expelled member of Parliament, and the author of the "Tender Husband" and the "Conscious Lovers;" if man and boy resembled each other, Dick Steele the schoolboy must have been one of the most generous, good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures that ever conjugated the verb tupto I beat, tuptomai I am hushed, and every little boy listens. He writes off whipped, in any school in Great Britain.* copies of Latin verses as melodiously as Virgil. He Almost every gentleman who does me the honor to is good-natured, and, his own master-piece achieved, hear me will remember that the very greatest character pours out other copies of verses for other boys with an which he has seen in the course of his life, and the astonishing ease and fluency; the idle ones only tremperson to whom he has looked up with the greatest bling lest they should be discovered on giving in their wonder and reverence, was the head boy at his school. exercises, and whipped because their poems were too The school-master himself hardly inspires such an good. I have seen great men in my time, but never STEELE'S COUNTRY HOUSE AT HAMPTON. Engraved expressly for the New York Journal awe. The head boy construes as well as the schoolmaster himself. When he begins to speak the hall is such a great one as that head boy of my childhood: we all thought he must be Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting him in after life to find he was no more than six feet high. Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an admiration in the years of his childhood, and retained it faithfully through his life. Through the school and through the world, whithersoever his strange fortune led this erring, wayward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison was always his head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his best themes. He ran on Addison's messages: fagged for him and blacked his shoes; to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest pleasure; and he took a sermon or a caning from his monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, and affection. by the advice of a friend, the humble fellow burned there; and some verses which I dare say are as sublime as other gentlemen's compositions at that * Sir Richard Steele was born at Dublin, March 12, 1670. age; but being smitten with a sudden love for military His family was respectable and of English extraction. He was glory, he threw up the cap and gown for the saddle and the first of the class of writers called the British Essayists. bridle, and rode privately in the Horse Guards, in the His writings are numerous, of which the following list is Duke of Ormond's troop-the second-and, probably, tolerably full: "The Christian Hero ;""The Tender Husband," a comedy acted in 1703; The Lying Lover," in 1704. In 1709 with the rest of the gentlemen of bis troop, "all he began "The Tatler," the first number of which was pub-mounted on black horses, with white feathers in their greatly advanced his reputation. Upon resigning from "The William, in Hyde Park, in November, 1699, and a lished 12th April, and the last 2d June, 1711. This paper hats, and scarlet coats richly laced;" marched by King Tatler," he began, in conjunction with Addison, "The Specta tor," which began to be published 1st March, 1711; after that great show of the nobility, besides twenty thousand "The Guards "The Guardian," the first paper of which came out 12th March, people, and above a thousand coaches. 1713; and then "The Englishman," the first number of which had just got their new clothes," the "London Post" appeared 6th October, in the same year. Besides these works, said: "they are extraordinary grand, and thought to he published several political pieces, which were afterwards published under the title of "Political Pieces," in 1715. In be the finest body of horse in the world." But Steele 1713, having resigned his office of Commissioner of the Stamp could hardly have seen any actual service. He who Office, he was elected member for the borough of Stockbridge, wrote about himself, his mother, his wife, his loves, ing "The Englishman." being the close of a paper of that name, have told us of his battles if he had seen any. His in Hampshire. He was, however, speedily ejected, from writ- his debts, his friends, and the wine he drank, would and "The Crisis." old patron, Ormond, probably got him his cornetcy in Others of Steele's political writings drew upon him the severity of the Government, and he was deprived of place, and had no payable appointment until the accession of George I. During this time he wrote the "Romish Ecclesiastical History Boroughbrigg, in Yorkshire, and appointed one of the commisof late years," and other works. Soon after the accession of George I. he was appointed Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, and Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, and was put into the Commission of the Peace for Middlesex, and, April 1715, was knighted, upon the presenting an address to his Majesty from the Lieutenancy. He was afterwards chosen Member for sioners of the forfeited estates in Scotland. Amongst the other works of Sir Richard Steele may be mentioned, "An Account of the State of the Roman Catholic Religion throughout the World," "A Letter against the South-Sea Scheme," a paper under the name of Sir John Edgar, called "The Theatre," &c. the Guards, from which he was promoted to be a Steele married twice; and outlived his places, his schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost everything but his kind heart. That ceased to trouble him in 1729, when he died, worn out and almost forgotten by his contemporaries in Wales, where he had the remnant of a property. Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their marriage, “the third door from Germain street, left hand of Bury street," and the next year he presented his wife with a country house at Hampton.* It appears she had a chariot and pair, and sometimes four horses: he himself enjoyed a little horse for his own riding. He paid, or promised to pay, his barber fifty pounds a year, and always went abroad in a laced coat and a large black-buckled periwig, that must have cost somebody fifty guineas. He was rather a wellto-do gentleman, Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as writer of the "Gazette," and his office as the characters were made to do in the chivalry romances and the high-flown dramas just going out of vogue, but Steele admires women's virtue, acknowledges their sense, and adores their purity and beauty, with an ardor and strength which should win the good will of all women to their hearty and respectful champion. It is this ardor, this respect, this manliness, which makes his comedies so pleasant and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finest compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. Of one woman, whom Congreve had also admired and celebrated, Steele says, that "to have loved her was a liberal education." "How often," he says, dedicating a volume to his wife, "how often has your tenderness of gentleman waiter to his Royal Highness Prince removed pain from my sick head, how often anguish George. His scond wife brought him a fortune too. from my afflicted heart! If there are such beings as But it is melancholy to relate that with these houses guardian angels, they are thus employed. I cannot and chariots and horses and income, the Captain was believe one of them to be more good in inclination, or constantly in want of money, for which his beloved more charming in form than my wife." His breast bride was asking as constantly. In the course of a seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets few pages we begin to find the shoemaker calling for with a good and beautiful woman, and it is with his money, and some directions from the Captain, who has heart as well as with his hat that he salutes her. not thirty pounds to spare. He sends his wife, "the About children, and all that relates to home, he is not beautifullest object in the world," as he calls her, and less tender, and more than once speaks in apology of evidently in reply to applications of her own, which what he calls his softness. He would have been have gone the way of all waste paper, and lighted nothing without that delightful weakness. It is that Dick's pipes, which were smoked a hundred and forty which gives his works their worth and his style its years ago-he sends his wife now a guinea, then a charm. It, like his life, is full of faults and careless half-guinea, then a couple of guineas, then half a blunders; and redeemed, like that, by his sweet and pound of tea; and again no money and no tea at all, compassionate nature. but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some in We possess of poor Steele's wild and chequered life a day or two; or a request, perhaps, that she will send some of the most curious memoranda that ever were over his night-gown and shaving-plate to the temleft of a man's biography. Most men's letters, from porary lodging where the nomadic captain is lying, Cicero down to Walpole, or down to the great men of hidden from the bailiffs. Oh that a Christian hero and our own time, if you will, are doctored compositions, late captain in Lucas's should be afraid of a dirty and written with an eye suspicious towards posterity. sheriff's officer! That the pink and pride of chivalry That dedication of Steele's to his wife is an artificial should turn pale before a writ! It stands to record in performance, possibly; at least, it is written with that poor Dick's own handwriting; the queer collection is Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature; degree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a preserved at the British Museum to this present day; all women especially are bound to be grateful to statement for the House, or a poet employs in prepar- that the rent of the nuptial house in Jermyn street, Steele, as he was the first of our writers who really ing a sentiment in verse or for the stage. But there sacred to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three seemed to admire and respect them. Congreve the are some 400 letters of Dick Steele's to his wife, doors from Bury street, was not paid until after the Great, who alludes to the low estimation in which which that thrifty woman preserved accurately, and landlord had put in an execution on Captain Steele's women were held in Elizabeth's time, as a reason why which could have been written but for her and her furniture. Addison sold the house and furniture at the women of Shakspeare make so small a figure in alone. They contain details of the business, pleasures, Hampton, and, after deducting the sum which his the poet's dialogues, though he can himself pay quarrels, reconciliations of the pair; they have all the incorrigible friend was indebted to him, handed over splendid compliments to women, yet looks on them as genuineness of conversation; they are as artless as a the residue of the proceeds of the sale to poor Dick, mere instruments of gallantry, and destined, like the child's prattle, and as confidential as a curtain-lecture. who was not in the least angry at Addison a summary most consummate fortifications, to fall, after a certain Some are written from the printing-office, where he is proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale time, before the arts and bravery of the besieger, man. waiting for the proof sheets of his "Gazette," or his or execution, the result of which was to give him a There is a letter of Swift's, entitled "Advice to a very Tatler;" some are written from the tavern, whence little ready money. Having a small house in Jermyn Young Married Lady," which shows the Dean's he promises to come to his wife "within a pint of street for which he could not pay, and a country opinion of the female society of his day, and that if he wine," and where he has given a rendezvous to a house at Hampton on which he had borrowed money, despised man he utterly scorned women too. No lady friend, or a money-lender: some are composed in a nothing must content Captain Dick but the taking, in of our time could be treated by any man, were he ever high state of vinous excitement, when his head is 1712, a much finer, larger, and grander house, in so much a wit or dean, in such a tone of insolent flustered with Burgundy, and his heart abounds with Bloomsbury square; where his unhappy landlord got patronage and vulgar protection. In this performance, amorous warmth for his darling Prue: some are under no better satisfaction than his friend in St. James's, Swift hardly takes pains to hide his opinion that a the influence of the dismal headache and repentance and where it is recorded that Dick, giving a grand woman is a fool: tells her to read books, as if reading next morning: some, alas, are from the lock-up house, entertainment, had a half-dozen queer-looking fellows was a novel accomplishment; and informs her that where the lawyers have impounded him, and where he in livery to wait upon his noble guests, and confessed "not one gentleman's daughter in a thousand has is waiting for bail. You trace many years of the poor that his servants were bailiffs to a man. "I fared been brought to read or understand her own natural fellow's career in these letters. In September, 1707, like a distressed prince," the kindly prodigal writes, tongue." Addison laughs at women equally; but, from which day she began to save the letters, he generously complimenting Addison for his assistance with the gentleness and politeness of his nature, married the beautiful Mistress Scurlock. You have in the "Tatler,”—“I fared like a distressed prince, smiles at them and watches them, as if they were his passionate protestations to the lady; his respectful who calls in a powerful neighbor to his aid. I was harmless, half-witted, amusing, pretty creatures, only proposals to her mamma; his private prayer to Heaven undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him made to be men's playthings. It was Steele who first when the union so ardently desired was completed; in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." began to pay a manly homage to their goodness and his fond professions of contrition and promises of Poor, needy Prince of Bloomsbury! think of him in understanding, as well as to their tenderness and amendment, when, immediately after his marriage, his palace, with his allies from Chancery lane omibeauty. In his comedies, the heroes do not rant and there began to be just cause for the one and need for nously guarding him. rave about the divine beauties of Gloriana or Statira, the other. The house shown in the engraving. All sorts of stories are told indicative of his recklessness and his good humour. One, narrated by Dr. Hoadley is exceedingly characteristic; it shows the life of the time: and our poor friend very weak, but very kind both in and out of his cups. "My father," (says Dr. John Hoadley, the Bishop's son)" when Bishop of Bangor, was, by invitation, present at one of the Whig meetings, held at the Trumpet, in Shoc lane, when Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, having the double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the immortal memory of King William, it being the 4th November, as to drink his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, whose phlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society by that time. Steele was not fit for it. Two remarkable circumstances happened. John Sly, the hatter of facetious memory, was in the house; and John, pretty mellow, took it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with a tankard of ale in his hand to drink off to the immortal memory, and to return in the same manner. Steele sitting next my father, whispered him--Do laugh. It is humanity to laugh. Sir Richard, in the evening, being too much in the same condition, was put into a chair, and sent home. Nothing would serve him but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as it was. However, the chairmen carried him home, and got him up stairs, when his great complaisance would wait on them down stairs, which he did, and then was got quietly to bed." calling you to share his delight and good humor. His and out again, and sinned and repented; and loved and If Steele is not our friend he is nothing. He is by no means the most brilliant of wits nor the deepest of thinkers: but he is our friend: we love him as children love their love with an A. because he is amiable. Who likes a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisest of mankind; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks French; or plays the piano better than the rest of her sex? I own to liking Dick Steele the man, and Dick Steele the author, much better than much better men and much better authors. Dick Steele set about almost all the undertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he took and furnished a house with the most generous intentions towards his friends, the most tender gallantry towards his wife, and with this only drawback, that he had not wherewithal to pay the rent when Quarter-day came, -so, in his life he proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes of virtue, forbearance, public and There is another amusing story which I believe that private good, and the advancement of his own and the renowned collector, Mr. Joseph Miller, or his succes-national religion; but when he had to pay for these sors, have incorporated into their work. Sir Richard Steele, at a time when he was much occupied with theatrical affairs, built himself a pretty private theatre, and, before it was opened to his friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was well adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself in the most remote part of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to speak up from the stage. The man at first said that he was unaccustomed to public speaking, and did not know what to say to his honor; but the good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever was uppermost; and after a moment the carpenter began, in a voice perfectly audible: 66 'Sir Richard Steele," he said, "for three months past me and my men has been a working in this theatre, and we've never seen the color of your honor's money; we will be very much obliged if you'll pay it directly, for until you do we won't drive in another nail." Sir Richard said that his friend's elocution was perfect, but that he didn't like his subject much. THE EARLY SORROW. THE FATE OF A DEAD BIRD. LINES UPON THE STATUE OF A YOUNG GIRL MOURNING FOR As the great griefs maturer hearts that wring That from her cup the honied dew would sip; And peck the mimic cherry on her lip. Her voice arrest, howe'er inclined to roam, His 'Twas The genial warmth of old she used to love; The ark of comfort welds the lifeless dove! but a bird; but when life's years are few, How slight a thing may make our sun of bliss Trifles oft from the joys that most we miss. Will yield an impress to the gentlest touch. Slight ills are sorrows still, if felt as such. That sorrow's name she scarce hath known till now; But the full burst of keener anguish o'er, The bitter tears that would not be repressed The deep, wild sobs that lately stirred her breast Are dried like dew-drops on the sun-touched leaf; At length have yielded to a tenderer grief. A tranquil sadness breathes from her sweet face, As though her mind, with soothing memories filled, Had nothing left of sorrow, but its grace! The sculptor marked the change with earnest eyes ; He knew the phase whence fame might best be won; There let it live, till Love and Hope decay, The type of sorrow unallied to sin; "One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin !" MAN. articles-so difficult to purchase and so costly to maintain-poor Dick's money was not forthcoming: and when Virtue called with her little bill, Dick made a shuffling excuse that he could not see her that inorning, having a headache from being tipsy over night; or when stern Duty rapped at the door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready to pay. He was shirking at the tavern; or had some particular She weeps no more; her very sighs are stilled: business (of somebody's else) at the ordinary; or he was in hiding, or worse than in hiding, in the lock-up house. What a situation for a man!-for a philanthropist for a lover of right and truth-for a magnificent designer and schemer! Not to dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored and which he had offended: to have to shirk down back lanes and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who had trusted him—to have the house which he had intended for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for her ladyship's company which he wished to entertain splendidly, in the possession of a bailiff's man, with a crowd of little creditors,-grocers, The great charm of Steele's writing is its natural-butchers, and small-coal men, lingering round the door ness. He wrote so quickly and carelessly, that he with their bills and jeering at him. Alas! for poor was forced to make the reader his confidant, and had Dick Steele! For nobody else of course. There is not the time to deceive him. He had a small share of no man or woman in our time who makes fine projects book-learning, but a vast acquaintance with the world. and gives them up from idleness or want of means. He had known men and taverns. He had lived with When Duty calls upon us, we no doubt are always at gownsmen, with troopers, with gentlemen ushers of home and ready to pay that grim tax-gatherer. When the Court, with men and women of fashion; with we are stricken with remorse and promise reform, we authors and wits, with the inmates of the spunging- keep our promise, and are never angry, or idle, or houses, and with the frequenters of all the clubs and extravagant any more. There are no chambers in our coffee houses in the town. He was liked in all com- hearts, destined for family friends and affections, and pany because he liked it; and you like to see his now occupied by some Sin's emissary and bailiff in enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a box full of possession. There are no little sins, shabby peccachildren at the pantomime. He was not one of those dillocs, importunate remembrances, or disappointed lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them holders of our promises to reform, hovering at our We to be solitary; on the contrary, he admired, I think, steps, or knocking at our door! Of course not. more than any man who ever wrote; and full of are living in the nineteenth century, and Poor Dick hearty applause and sympathy, wins upon you by Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into jail AFFLICTION One day as she hark'd to the roar Of a stormy and struggling billow, A creature so glorious in mind and in frame, He is mine, says Affliction, I gave him his birth, The materials were furnish'd by me, answer'd Earth; After death-give his body to Earth whence it rose, MURILLO. In BARTOLOMEO-ESTEVAN MURILLO, the greatest of all the Spanish painters, was born at Seville on the 1st of January, 1613. He received his first instructions in the art from his relation, Juan del Castillo: but the latter having gone to settle at Cadiz, Murillo was obliged, for the means of subsistence, to have recourse to painting banners and small pictures for exportation to America. that line he obtained full employment, and began to distinguish himself as an able colorist. He was still very young, when he happened to see some works of Pedro de Moya, who was passing through Seville, on his way to Cadiz, which being painted in the style of Vandyke, inspired him with the desire of imitating that great artist, under whom De Moya had studied shortly before his decease. The time he was able to avail himself of Moya's instructions was very short, and he resolved afterwards to re pair to Italy for improvement. But his means were totally inadequate to meet the expenses of such a journey. Collecting, however, all his resources, he bought a quantity of canvass, divided it into a number of squares, upon which he painted subjects of devotion and. flowers, and, with the produce of the sale of these, set out upon his journey, unknown to his relations and friends man, On his arrival at Madrid, he waited upon Velasquez, his countryand communicated his plans to him. Struck with the zeal and talents of the young artist, Velasquez treated him with the greatest kindness, and diverted him from his project of the journey to Rome, by assisting him in a more effectual way, procuring him full employment at the Escurial, and in the different palaces of Madrid. to Vandyke, and in the second, a rival to Velasquez. They obtained him a multitude of commissions, which were not long in procuring him an independent fortune. His success, however, never led him to be careless of his reputation; he gradually perfected his manner, by giving more boldness to his pencil, and without abandoning that sweetness in his coloring which distinguished him from all his rivals, increasing its [PORTRAIT OF MURILLO.] strength, and giving greater freedom to his touch. It is impossible within our limits to mention all the Murillo returned to Seville in 1645, after an absence works with which he enriched the churches and conof three years: the following year he finished painting vents of Seville, and other cities of Spain. There was the little cloister of St. Francis; and the manner in not a community of Franciscans, Capuchins, or which he executed it, produced sentiments of the Augustins that was not desirous of securing a portrait greatest astonishment among his countrymen. His of their patron saint from the hand of Murillo. There picture of the death of Santa Clara, and that of St. was scarcely a Cathedral that was not enriched by one James distributing Arms, served to crown his repu- of his productions; and upon almost every altar was tation. In the first he showed himself a colorist equal reserved a place for one of his " Conceptions." The number of pictures he painted for the churches and convents of Seville alone would seem to be the labor of a lifetime, but they were but a small portion of his works. Most of his early works that hung upon the walls of the Franciscan convents were borne off by Napoleon's generals, and now enrich many of the Parisian galleries. But in the Cathedral of Seville the traveller is shown a numerous collection. At the back of the high altar hangs a "Nativity of Our Lady," remarkable for its quiet and sweet tone In one of the chapels is a "Repose in Egypt," and in the grand sacristy are the celebrated pictures of St. Leander and St. Isidore But, finally, to raise the admiration of the visitor to enthusiasm, the "St. Anthony of Padua" is unfolded to - the gaze, "and on contemplating this matchless and unapproachable masterpiece, the stranger, as yet but little familiarised with the beauties of Spanish painting, remains in rapt ecstasy like the Cenobite in the picture. In a gloomy cell the infant Jesus suddenly appears to Saint Anthony, in the midst of a dazzling glory; and the pious hermit, on his knees, enlightened by the apparition, throws up his arms in an indescribable transport of love for the Deity resplendent with light and beauty, towards whom he stretches out his arms as for a loving embrace. Never was the force of passionate expression carried beyond this point by any painter, nor ever was there produced, with brush and colors, skies more transparent or features of more seraphic sweetness. The management of the chiaro-oscuro is no less astonishing here than the faith of the visionary monk. It is inconceivable how the painter has been able, by the mere power of light and shade, to obtain so luminous an effect, and by what infinite gradation of treatment he has been able to pass from the intensity of the sun's rays to the peaceful obscurity of the hermit's cell." The style of Murillo may be said to hold a middle rank between the simple nature of the Flemish, and the graceful and refined taste of the Italian masters. Never having left his country to study in other schools, to this may attributed the originality of his genius. Murillo is always a faithful imitator of nature. There is always a genuine purity and grace in his conceptions; while the dazzling richness, freshness, and harmony of his coloring have given imperishable fascination to his works. We present our readers with an admirably executed portrait of Murillo as painted by himself, and a copy of the Madonna, from one of his loveliest pictures, now in the Dulwich Gallery near London. Murillo is not generally known by this class of pictures to the English public. His vivid and exquisite pictures of beggar-boys are the subjects from his pencil mostly familiar to them. And it was a wonderful quality of his genius to be enabled to touch every branch of his art with an equal ability. He could paint landscapes, flowers, seapieces, portraits, and I was quietly at work at Capri one day last August, in my study, laboring to breathe as well as the great heat would let me, when a wildlooking youth rushed in to me from Anacapri, with news that the The locusts were come. disease of the vines had already caused great loss, and now there were the locusts eating up the harvest. A great part of Anacapri, said the youth, is as bare as if a fire had swept across it. The invaders had already got over the brow of the mountain, and were in the woods below. Would I go out and see them? Certainly I would. As we approached their advanced guard under cover of a low wood, we could hear the incessant click-click of the enemy, and every now and then we were fallen upon by locust scouts, that dashed against our faces or clung to our pantaloons. As we proceeded we found they were all to walk with their hair loose about their shoulders, and the priests in front carrying the image of the saint. Before the procession was over, a strong east wind came and blew all the locusts into the sea, just over the Blue Grotto. Ah, Signor, Saint Antonio is very powerful!" Report having been formally made to the Syndic, his excellency, in true official style, ordered a bag of the devastators to be collected and sent off to the sub-intendant, who resides at Castellamare, in order that he might ascertain whether indeed they were really locusts. Until that point was officially decided, the Syndic could disburse none of the public money to arrest the plague; which was of course spreading meantime with the steadiness of a prairiefire over the woods and fields. The grain was being bitten off under the ear as cleanly as though cut by scissors; fig-trees were stripped and barked. Our messenger reached Castellamare after business hours. The deputy was enjoying his evening leisure, and could speak with nobody. On the next day, however, the Syndic of Anacapri, having obtained the requisite permission, attached a placard to the walls of his house, offering a reward for the capture of locusts at the rate of about a penny for a pound. All the idle population of the district instantly became busy, and went out locust-hunting in parties of five or six, with sacks and sheets A sheet held by a man at each corner being lifted up like a wall across the path of the invaders, one or two people with brooms beat the bushes and swept the earth, causing the disturbed locusts to fly on until the sheet was black with them. Then it was quickly doubled up, the insects were scraped from it into a sack, and preparations were made for the taking, in the same way, of another batch. The reward for captured locusts is not paid until they are dead and buried. Dead and unburied they soon putrify under a hot sun, and breed pestilence. There is a point in the island called Monte Solario, whither the locusts are taken, after they have been killed with boiling water, and buried in a deep pit. |