how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking-vessel. An ox is your true toper. CVIII. A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. PART SECOND. 1. BUT I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the remainder of my discourse. Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect of modesty, if I insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious E1 merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you think of me, the better men and women will you find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing-days., Far be it from me also to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. EI 2. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells"1 make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the Town Pump, and found me always at my post, firm amid the confusion, and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma, as the physician whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore which has found men sick, or left them so, since the days of Hip-poc'ra-tēs. Let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on mankind. ΕΙ EI 3. No; these are trifles compared with the merits which wise men concede to me, if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class, of being the grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast portion of its crime and anguish which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still.E1 In this mighty enterprise, the cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and water! The Town Pump and the Cow! Such is the glorious cōpartnership that shall tear down the distilleries and brew-houses, uproot the vineyards, shatter the cider-presses, ruin the tea and coffee trade, and finally monop'olize the whole business of quenching thirst. Bless'ed consummation! Then Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched where her squalid form may shelter itself. 4. Then Disease, for lack of other victims, shall 30 gnaw its own A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. 235 heart and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength. Until now the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the human blood, transmitted from sire to son, and rekindled, in every generation, by fresh draughts 52 of liquid flame. When that inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow cool; and war—the drunkenness of nations—perhaps will cease. At least, there will be no war of households. The husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy, a calm bliss of temperate affections, shall pass hand in hand through life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at its protracted close. To them the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their dead faces shall express what their spirits were, and are to be, by a lingering smile of memory and hope. ΕΙ 5. Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; especially to an unpractised orator. I never conceived, till now, what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter they shall have the business to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir! My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated through my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquorcasks into one great pile, and make a bonfire in honor of the Town Pump. And when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon the spot. Such monuments should be erected every where, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. Now listen; for something very important is to come next. 6. There are two or three honest friends of mine-and true friends I know they are- who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, and take up the honorable cause of the Town Pump in the style of a toper fighting for his brandybottle? Or can the excellent qualities of cold water be no otherwise exemplified than by plunging, slap-dash, into hot-water, and wofully scalding yourselves and other people? ΕΙ 7. Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are to wage, and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives, — you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulent and mănifold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep, calm well of purity, which may be called my soul. And when ΕΙ ever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains. 8. One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty 29 young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband, while drawing water, as Rachel did of old. Hold out your vessel," my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink, "SUCCESS TO THE TOWN PUMP." HAWTHORNE. 1. THAT, in the formation of language, men have been much influenced by a regard to the nature of the things and actions meant to be represented, is a fact of which every known speech gives proof. In our own language, for instance, who does not perceive in the sound of the words thunder, boundless, terrible, a something appropriate to the sublime ideas intended to be conveyed? In the word crash we hear the very action implied. Imp, elf, how descriptive of the miniature beings to which we apply them! Fairy, - how light and tripping, just like the fairy herself!the word, no more than the thing, seems fit to bend the grass-blade, or shake the tear from the blue-eyed flower. 2. Pea is another of those words expressive of light, diminutive objects; any man born without sight and touch, if such ever are, could tell what kind of thing a pea was from the sound of the word alone. Of picturesque words, sylvan and crystal are among our greatest favorites. Sylvan !-what visions of beautiful old sunlit forests, with huntsmen and bugle-horns, arise at the sound! Crystal! does it not glitter like the very thing it stands for? Yet crystal is not so beautiful as its own adjective. Crystalline! - why, the whole mind is lightened up with its shine. And this superiority is as it should be; for crystal can only be one comparatively small object, while crystalline may refer to a mass- to a world of crystals. 3. It will be found that natural objects have a larger proportion of expressive names amongst them than any other things. The eagle,-what appropriate daring and sublimity! the dove,what softness! the linnet, -what fluttering gentleness! "That which men call a rose" would not by any other name, or at least by many other names, smell as sweet. Lily,-what tall, cool, SOUND AND SENSE. 237 pale, lady-like beauty have we here! Violet, jessamine, hyacinth, a-nem'o-ne, gera'nium !-beauties, all of them, to the ear as well as the eye. 4. The names of the precious stones have also a beauty and magnificence above most common things. Diamond, sapph'ire, amethyst, beryl, ruby, ag'ate, pearl, jasper, to'paz, garnet, em'erald, what a casket of sparkling sounds! Diadem and coronet glitter with gold and precious stones, like the objects they represent. It is almost unnecessary to bring forward instances of the fine things which are represented in English by fine words. Let us take any sublime passage of our poëtry, and we shall hardly find a word which is inappropriate in sound. For example: The " The cloud-capt towers, and gorgeous palaces, EI gorgeous palaces," "the solemn temples,"-how admirably do these lofty sounds harmonize with the objects! 5. The relation between the sound and sense of certain words is to be ascribed to more than one cause. Many are evidently imitative representations of the things, movements, and acts, which are meant to be expressed. Others, in which we only find a general relation, as between a beautiful thing and a beautiful word, a ridiculous thing and a ridiculous word, or a sublime idea and a sublime word, must be attributed to those faculties, native to every mind, which enable us to perceive and enjoy the beautiful, the ridiculous, and the sublime. ΕΙ 6. Doctor Wallis, who wrote upon English grammar in the reign of Charles II., represented it as a peculiar excellence of our language, that, beyond all others, it expressed the nature of the objects which it names, by employing sounds sharper, softer, weaker, stronger, more obscure, or more strid'ulous, according as the idea which is to be suggested requires. He gives various examples. Thus, words formed upon st always denote firmness and strength, analogous to the Latin sto; as, stand, stay, staff, stop, stout, steady, stake, stamp, &c. 7. Words beginning with str intimate violent force and energy; as, strive, strength, stress, stripe, &c. Thr implies forcible motion; as, throw, throb, thrust, threaten, thraldom, thrill. Gl, smoothness, or silent motion; as, glib, glide. Wr, obliquity or distortion; as, wry, wrest, wrestle, wring, wrong, wrangle, wrath, &c. Sw, silent agitation, or lateral motion; as, sway, swing, swerve, sweep, swim. Sl, a gentle fall or less observable motion, as, slide, slip, sly, slit, slow, slack, sling. Sp, dissipation, or expansion; as, spread, sprout, sprinkle, split, spill, spring. 8. Terminations in ash indicate something acting nimbly and sharply; as, crash, dash, rash, flash, lash, slash. Terminations in rush, something acting more obtusely and dully; as, crush, brush, hush, gush, blush. The learned author produces a great many more examples of the same kind, which seem to leave no doubt that the analogies of sound have had some influence on the formation of words. At the same time, in all speculations of this kind, there is so much room for fancy to operate, that they ought to be adopted with much caution in forming any general theory. CHAMBERS. CX. WHEN I AM OLD. 1. WHEN I am old (and, O! how soon Will seem my life, when I am old), — 165 |