so he proves it by being taken in on the spot. When he brings the shawls home, he says to his sister with an air of triumph, "There, Poll, there's something for you; only cost me twelve, and is worth twenty, if it's worth a dollar." She turns pale-"Twenty what, my dear George? Why, you haven't given twelve dollars for it, I hope?" "Not. I, by the Lord."-" That's lucky; because you see, my dear George, that all together is not worth more than fourteen or fifteen shillings." "Fourteen or fifteen what! Why, it's real India, en't it? Why the fellow told me so; or I'm sure I'd as soon"-(here he tries to hide his blushes with a bluster) "I'd as soon have given him twelve douses on the chaps as twelve guineas.' "Twelve GUINEAS!" exclaims the sister; and then drawling forth "Why-my-DEARGeorge," is proceeding to shew him what the articles would have cost at Condell's, when he interrupts her by requesting her to go and chuse for herself a tea-table service. He then makes his escape to some messmates at a coffee-house, and drowns his recollection of the shawls in the best wine, and a discussion on the comparative merits of the English and West Indian beauties and tables. At the theatre afterwards, where he has never been before, he takes a lady at the back of one of the boxes for a woman of quality; and when, after returning his long respectful gaze with a smile, she turns aside and puts her handkerchief to her mouth, he thinks it is in derision, till his friend undeceives him. He is introduced to the lady; and ever afterwards, at first sight of a woman of quality (without any disparagement either to those charming personages), expects her to give him a smile. He thinks the other ladies much better creatures than they are taken for; and for their parts, they tell him, that if all men were like himself, they would trust the sex again:-which, for aught we know, is the truth. He has, indeed, what he thinks a very liberal opinion of ladies in general; judging them all, in a manner, with the eye of a seaman's experience. Yet he will believe nevertheless in the "truelove" of any given damsel whom he seeks in the way of marriage, let him roam as much, or remain as long at a distance, as he pleases. It is not that he wants feeling; but that he has read of it, time out of mind, in songs; and he looks upon constancy as a sort of exploit, answering to those which he performs at sea. He is nice in his watches and linen. He makes you presents of cornelians, antique seals, cocoa-nuts set in silver, and other valuables. When he shakes hands with you, it is like being caught in a windlass. He would not swagger about the streets in his uniform, for the world. He is generally modest in company, though liable to be irritated by what he thinks ungentlemanly behaviour. He is also liable to be rendered irritable by sickness; partly because he has been used to command others, and to be served with all possible deference and alacrity; and partly, because the idea of suffering pain, without any honour or profit to get by it, is unprofessional, and he is not accustomed to it. He treats talents unlike his own with great respect. He often perceives his own so little felt that it teaches him this feeling for that of others. Besides, he admires the quantity of information which people can get, without travelling like himself; especially when he sees how interesting

his own becomes, to them as well as to every body else. When he tells a story, particularly if full of wonders, he takes care to maintain his character for truth and simplicity, by qualifying it with all possible reservations, concessions, and anticipations of objection; such as "in case, at such times as, so to speak, as it were, at least, at any rate." He seldom uses sea-terms but when jocosely provoked by something contrary to his habits of life; as for instance, if he is always meeting you on horseback, he asks if you never mean to walk the deck again; or if he finds you studying day after day, he says you are always overhauling your log-book. He makes more new acquaintances, and forgets his old ones less, than any other man in the busy world; for he is so compelled to make his home every where, remembers his native one as such a place of enjoyment, has all his friendly recollections so fixed upon his mind at sea, and has so much to tell and to hear when he returns, that change and separation lose with him the most heartless part of their nature. He also sees such a variety of customs and manners, that he becomes charitable in his opinions altogether; and charity, while it diffuses the affections, cannot let the old ones go. Half the secret of human intercourse is to make allowance for each other.

When the Officer is superannuated or retires, he becomes, if intelligent and enquiring, one of the most agreeable old men in the world, equally welcome to the silent for his card-playing, and to the conversational for his recollections. He is fond of astronomy and books of voyages, and is immortal with all who know him for having been round the world, or seen the Transit of Venus, or had one of his fingers carried off by a New Zealand hatchet, or a present of feathers from an Otaheitean beauty. If not elevated by his acquirements above some of his humbler tastes, he delights in a corner-cupboard holding his Cocoa-nuts and punchbowl; has his summer-house castellated and planted with wooden cannon; and sets up the figure of his old ship, the Britannia or the Lovely Nancy, for a statue in the garden; where it stares eternally with red cheeks and round black eyes, as if in astonishment at it's situation.

Chaucer, who wrote his Canterbury Tales about four hundred and thirty years ago, has among his other characters in that work a SHipMAN, who is exactly of the same cast as the modern sailor,-the same robustness, courage, and rough drawn virtue, doing it's duty, without being very nice in helping itself to it's recreations. There is the very dirk, the complexion, the jollity, the experience, and the bad horsemanship. The plain unaffected ending of the description has the air of a sailor's own speech; while the line about the beard is exceedingly picturesque, poetical, and comprehensive. In copying it out, we shall merely alter the old spelling, where the words are still

modern.

A Shipman was there, wonned far by west;
For aught I wot, he was of Dartëmouth.
He rode upon a rouncie, as he couth,*
All in a gown of falding to the knee.
A dagger hanging by a lace had he,

He rode upon a hack-horse, as well as he could.

About his neck, under his arm adown.
The hot summer had made his hew all brown.
And certainly he was a good felaw.

Full many a draught of wine he hadde draw

From Bourdeaux ward, while that the chapman slep.
Of nice conscience took he no keep.

If that he fought and had the higher hand,
By water he sent 'em home to every land.
But of his craft, to reckon well his tides,
His streamës and his strandës him besides,

His harborough, his moon, and his lode manage,
There was not such from Hull unto Carthage.
Hardy he was, and wise, I undertake;

With many a tempest had his beard been shake.
He knew well all the havens, as they were,
From Gothland to the Cape de Finisterre,
And every creek in Briton and in Spain.
His barge ycleped was the Magdelain.

When about to tell his Tale, he tells his fellow-travellers that he shall chink them so merry a bell,

That it shall waken all this company:

But it shall not be of philosophy.

Nor of physick, nor of terms quaint of law;
There is but little Latin in my maw.

The story he tells is a well-known one in the Italian novels, of a monk who made love to a merchant's wife, and borrowed a hundred francs of the husband to give her. She accordingly admits his addresses during the absence of her good man on a journey. When the latter returns, he applies to the cunning monk for repayment, and is referred to the lady; who thus finds her mercenary behaviour outwitted.

TRANSLATION OF

TASSO'S CELEBRATED ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE,

Beginning," O bella eta dell' oro."

[We should not have ended our present number with this translation, had not the previous matter turned out shorter in the printing than we expected. The transition from a modern seaman to the Golden Age seems no very harmonious piece of contrast; yet we might quote precedent even for this abruptness, in the arrival of Vasco de Gama's Sailors at the Island of Love in Camoens. One of the stanzas has already appeared in this work. A translation of the whole of the Aminta by the Editor is now going through the press.]

O lovely age of Gold;

Not that the rivers rolled

With milk, or that the woods dropped honey dew;
Not that the ready ground

Produced without a wound,

Or the mild serpent had no tooth that slew;

Not that a cloudless blue

For ever was in sight,

Or that the heaven which burns,

And now is cold by turns,

Looked out in glad and everlasting light;

No, nor that ev'n the insolent ships from far

Brought war to new lands, nor riches worse than war,

But solely that that vain

And breath-invented pain,

That idol of mistake, that worshipped cheat,
That Honour,-since so called

By vulgar minds appalled,

Played not the tyrant with our nature yet.

It had not come to fret

The sweet and happy fold

Of gentle human-kind;

Nor did its hard law bind

Souls nursed in freedom; but that law of gold,

That glad and golden law, all free, all fitted,

Which Nature's own hand wrote,-What pleases, is permitted.

Then among streams and flowers

The little winged Powers

Went singing carols without torch or bow;

The nymphs and shepherds sat

Mingling with innocent chat

Sports and low whispers; and with whispers low

Kisses that would not go.

The maiden, budding o'er,

Kept not her bloom uneyed,

Which now a veil must hide,

Nor the crisp apples which her bosom bore;

And oftentimes, in river or in lake,

The lover and his love their merry bath would take.

"Twas thou, thou, Honour, first

That didst deny our thirst

Its drink, and on the fount thy covering set;

Thou bad'st kind eyes withdraw

Into contrained awe,

And keep the secret for their tears to wet ;

Thou gathered'st in a net

The tresses from the air,

And mad'st the sports and plays

Turn all to sullen ways,

And put'st on speech a rein, in steps a care.

Thy work it is,-thou shade that wilt not move,

That was once the gift, is now the theft of Love.

Our sorrows and our pains,

These are thy noble gains;

But oh, thou Love's and Nature's masterer,

Thou conq'ror of the crowned,

What dost thou on this ground,

Too small a circle for thy mighty sphere?

Go and make slumber dear

To the renowned and high;

We here, a lowly race,

Can live without thy grace,

After the use of mild antiquity.

Go; let us love; since years

No truce allow, and life soon disappears.

Go; let us love; the daylight dies, is born;

But unto us the light

Dies once for all; and sleep brings on eternal night.

Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, JOSEPH APPLEYARD, No. 19, Catharine-street, Strand.-Price 2d.

Printed by C. H. REYNELL, No. 45, Broad-street, Golden-square, London.

THE INDICATOR.

There he arriving round about doth flie,
And takes survey with busie, curious eye:
Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly.

SPENSER.

No. XXIV.-WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22nd, 1820.

us.

ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION.

THERE is not a more unthinking way of talking, than to say such and such pains and pleasures are only imaginary, and therefore to be got rid of or undervalued accordingly. There is nothing imaginary, in the common acceptation of the word. The logic of Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield is good argument here: -"Whatever is, is." Whatever touches us, whatever moves us, does touch and does move We recognise the reality of it, as we do that of a hand in the dark. We might as well say that a sight which makes us laugh, or a blow which brings tears into our eyes, is imaginary, as that any thing else is imaginary which makes us laugh or weep. We can only judge of things by their effects. Our perception constantly deceives us, in things with which we suppose ourselves perfectly conversant; but our reception of their effect is a different matter. Whether we are 'materialists or immaterialists, whether things be about us or within us, whether we think the sun is a substance, or only the image of a divine thought, an idea, a thing imaginary, we are equally agreed as to the notion of it's warmth. But on the other hand, as this warmth is felt differently by different temperaments, so what we call imaginary things affect different minds. What we have to do is not to deny their effect, because we do not feel in the same proportion, or whether we even feel it at all; but to see whether our neighbours may not be moved. If they are, there is, to all intents and purposes, a moving cause. But we do not see it? No;-neither perhaps do they. They only feel it; they are only sentient,-a word which implies the sight given to the imagination by the feelings. But what do you mean, we may ask in return, by seeing? Some rays of light come in contact with the eye; they bring a sensation to it; in a word, they touch it; and the impression left by this touch we call sight. How far does this differ in effect from the impression left by any other touch, however mysterious? An ox knocked down by a butcher, and a man

2nd Edition.