him a bright sun. The same contrast seemed every where to exist between them. Thus, far from thinking the indulgence of the banquet too sensual for a man of mind, he hailed it as one of the comforts and rights of age, and the promoter of that good-fellowship which age was meant and entitled to enjoy; besides which, especially if partaken with old companions, it revived past pleasures in bringing them back to remembrance. Hence, as his fortune permitted it, he did not suffer either the number or the recherché of his dinners to stagnate, and his repasts included among those that partook of them the most celebrated characters of the time, for present or former conse quence in fashion, literature, or political reputation. In these meetings, too, his age, for the most part, did not prevent his shining in conversation with the advantage which his cheerfulness and recollections of the eminent people he had lived with always gave him. Hence, as may be supposed, he by no means concurred with SOMBROSO in partaking of Sir William Temple's melancholy feeling. On the contrary, one of the traits that most struck me in him was the vivid pleasure, while paying the full tribute of sorrow for their loss, with which he remembered all the high merits of his former male friends, and all the elegance and beauty which made so many females attractive. They had smoothed and enlivened his path, he said, through the society he loved, and he beheld them all still in his mind's eye. He, indeed, did justice to their virtues and attractions, with almost the same admiration and the same warmth as when alive. This extended itself not merely to friends and companions, but to those who by their talents had rendered the fine arts instructive as well as amusing. He talked warmly of the Kembles and other leaders of the stage, as well as of the most distinguished in the elegant sciences, but particularly music, whether performers or composers. With respect to these last, his enthusiasm was the more remarkable, because it must have been kept up by a most brilliant memory. For the chief and almost only infirmity of HILARIO's age was deafness, as his most deep-felt passion had formerly been music. Yet, though long utterly cut off from enjoying its reality, remembrance of it alone gave him, as will be presently seen, the most exquisite pleasure. The account of this, together with other interests of his youth, he gave me in the visit I am commemorating in language I shall not soon forget. For when I told him of SOMBROSO's incredulousness of his gratification in remembering past pleasures, if only for the intensity in which he (SOMBROSO) knew he had enjoyed them, he replied with a kind of solemnity which made what he said more impressive. "My old friend says but true, that memory, whether waking or sleeping (for my dreams are full of them), tells me how much I once enjoyed the pleasurable elegancies of life. But he is not correct in supposing that, on account of former enjoyment, I am unhappy at their loss; a loss which memory, instead of aggravating, alleviates. For I have still pleasure in fancying I see and hear those sights and sounds which used to fill me with delight in the days of youth. The ornaments of the age in which I lived, and the scenes in which I moved; and all those sounds, whether of voice or instrument, which brought me, as it were, to heaven, have never quitted their hold of my senses. I fasten upon them still in many a reverie. I think over those accomplished friends of another time, who once had such power to delight me; and I still think I listen to those conversations of the eminent in rank, power, and sense, who then presided in the world, and gave so much elevation to those whom they distinguished by their acquaintance. Nor, strange as it may seem in one who has lost all power of hearing, does memory refuse still to melt to those sounds which once had the power of exciting every tumultuous passion and every softer feeling; the thunder of Handel, the vortices of Haydn, the awfulness of Jomelli, the sensibility of Mozart, and the dreamy enchantment of Glück. No! however tottering or mechanical you now see me, none of these wonders, or their effects, are forgotten, but all are remembered with a keenness not exceeded in my youth. Old too, as I am, the impressions of female beauty and gracefulness still seem to lighten upon my charmed sight, and make imagination buoyant; and yet the loss of their reality does not make me unhappy, much less the vapid deadened creature I am supposed to be by some of those my fellows formerly in the feelings I have described, but now miserable because they can feel no longer. For if their youth is remembered, it seems it is only so to increase the misery of having lost it. Your picture of my friend SOMBROSO, who is younger than myself, shocks me; and not the less because it is only his own fault to be consumed by such unavailing regrets, and so lost to the hope which comes to all (if they please, and are unstained with crime) — the hope of heaven." With this he pressed my hand, and we parted; I, all the better for the visit, which left me in a state of mind of which I have ever since felt the benefit, and hope never to lose.* * In winding up this subject, can I do better, though in a note, than transcribe Pope's imitation of Martial's epigram on Antonius Primus, which the venerable and cultivated Sir William Trumbull (to whom it might with equal justice be applied) applies with so much unction to a friend on his birthday? "At length my friend, while Time with still career THE END. LONDON: SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW, |