Her hand on both their heads, and yearned, and said, At midnight,-when the Bear went down, and broad There came, careering through the opening halls, Serpents; who Juno, threatening as she drove, And now they have arrived, and think to fall And held, like iron, in it's little fists. Buckled and bound he held them, struggling wild; Tired out at length, they trail their spires, and gasp, Alcmena heard the noise, and "Wake," she cried, There's something dreadful in the house; there is Was always hanging at the cedar-bed: The hilt he grasped in one hand, and the sheath All in an instant, like a stroke of doom, Returning midnight smote upon the room. Amphitryon called; and woke from heavy sleep His household, who lay breathing hard and deep. "Bring lights here from the hearth; lights, lights; and guard The doorways, Rise, ye ready labourers hard!" He said; and lights came pouring in; and all Kept beating them together, plaything-wise, Then did Alcmena to her bosom take Her feebler boy,* who could not cease to shake. Soon as the cock, with his thrice-echoing chear, Tiresias; and she told him all this thing, And bade him say what she might think and do: So spoke the queen. Then he, with glad old tone;- With his broad heart to win his way to heaven; And brutal things o'erthrow, brute men the worst; Purge his mortalities away with fire; And he shall mount amid the stars, and be Acknowledged kin to those who envied thee, And sent these den-born shapes to crush his destiny." * Literally, the extremely bilious Iphiclus,-angaxoλov IQixλna. The ancients are accused of being too bodily and superficial in their philosophy. It was one of the advantages however of their attention to these exoterical matters, that they never lost sight of the connexion between mind and body, and their mutual healthiness, beauty, and power;-a part of wisdom which our modern psychosophists are so apt to forget. TO CORRESPONDENTS. In removing a quantity of papers, we have unfortunately mislaid some letters from correspondents. We hope to recover them; but should we still be disappointed, the writers will perhaps have the goodness to oblige us with other copies. We have not forgotten the substance however of some of them; and least of all, what was so good-naturedly said upon the article on the Heathen Mythology. Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, THE INDICATOR. There he arriving round about doth flie, No. XXIII.-WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15th, 1820. LADY'S MAID*-SEAMEN ON SHORE. THE sole business of a seaman on shore, who has to go to sea again, is to take as much pleasure as he can. The moment he sets his foot on dry-ground, he turns his back on all salt-beef and other salt-water restrictions. His long absence, and the impossibility of getting land pleasures at sea, put him upon a sort of desperate appetite. He lands, like a conqueror taking possession. He has been debarred so long, that he is resolved to have that matter out with the inhabitants. They must render an account to him of their treasures, their women, victualling-stores, their entertainments, their every thing; and in return he will behave like a gentleman, and scatter his gold. their And first of the Common Sailor. The moment the Common Sailor lands, he goes to see the watchmaker, or the old boy at the Ship. READER. What, Sir? Before his mistress? INDICATOR. Excuse me, Madam. His mistress, christened Elizabeth Monson, but more familiarly known by the appellation of Bet Monson, has been with him already. You remember the ballad When black-eyed Susan came on board. LADY'S MAID. I hope, Sir, you are not going to be vulgar in your remarks. INDIC. Good God, Mrs. Jane, why should you think so! I am sure your lady does not expect it, or I should have had none but men for Ïisteners on this subject. LADY'S M. Oh, Sir, if my lady does not think it vulgar, I'm sure I shan't; for there isn't a more delicater nor more genteeler person than my lady in all England, though I say it to her face who shouldn't. But you mentioned something about alehouses, or inns, or something; and you know they are rather vulgar. INDIC. I'm sure, Mrs. Jane, I didn't think so, three years back, when you handed me that frothed glass of porter, with your pretty fingers, on a hot summer's day, under the great elm-tree there, at the door of the Jolly Miller. *The great changes produced in people's fortunes by the nature of the times, have unfortunately rendered this title but too common to a great variety of females; many of whom will not at all come under our present description. The Lady's Maid in the text is heiress to the Honours and Mrs. Slipslops of the last century. 2nd Edition. LADY'S M. Laird in heaven, Mr. Hindergaiter, why I vow you're a witch! Who'd have thought you'd have ever known that I kept my ́father-in-law's house for him, while my poor mother was laid up with the rheumatiz, all along of that vixen (God forgive me!) my own great aunt, who wouldn't let her come home one night in the shay, because she had married Tom Butts after being the wife of a Serjeant of Dragoons. And yet I must say for Mr. Butts, that for a landlord, and a man in a vulgarish situation, he was as well-behaved a man though a bold one, and might hold up his head as high, and was as kind and good-natured, and was as free from pride, and said as civil things to a body. LADY. In short, Jane, he was not vulgar, and your dear old vixen of a great aunt was. There is no vulgarity, child, but impertinence and common cant; or being gross and ignorant, and proud of both; or having a feeling for all, and being ashamed of it. Remember the ragged sailor whom you kissed. LADY'S M. Lord, Ma'am, and did you see me kiss my poor brother William? For it was my own brother, Ma'am, who you've heard me speak of-in the navy; and he was so ragged then, because he had to cross the whole country to his home, and had spent all his money at Portsmouth; and so I gave him my box of half-crowns, and he's now captain's clerk's man, and it was he as sent me that live tortoise that made me scream so, and the cocoa-cup, and the shawl, and the purse made of grass, and the Hoty-hity feathers; and I do think, if he was here, I could kiss him again, if he was as ragged as a rag-or-amuffin, before all the world, ay, even before Sally Jones. INDIC. Good. Now there you come round, Mrs. Jane, to the true point of politeness. I thought you better bred than you supposed, since I recollected how good-natured you looked at the Jolly Miller. LADY'S M. Oh, Mr. Intricater, you're such another man! INDIC. Nay, I assure you I do not think you even more genteel than you were then. LADY'S M. Nay, now, Mr. Hingy-grater, I'm sure you flatter. INDIC. But pray, Mrs. Jane, who is the awful presence of Sally Jones? LADY'S M. Presents, Sir? She never gives no presents, lawful or unlawful, not she; nor for that matter never gets none, as I know of; except mayhap a brass-thimble at Christmas, or a two-penny songbook, or a Trifle, as they very properly calls it, from Margate, with a piece of looking-glass in the inside, to see her proud, affected, niminypiminy face in. INDIC. But why should she object to your kissing your brother William? LADY'S M. Oh, forsooth, it's vulgar, Sir! So she said, when I kissed him before her once; as if one's brother wasn't one's brother; and as for that, she'd kiss her cousin fast enough before twenty people, if he'd make any thing like an advantage. She is but a maid at boardingschool, where I was; and never writes Miss on my letters; and yet whenever she goes home to her father's, who is nothing but a little petty green-grocer in an alley, she insists, forsooth, on my Missing and Missing her, or she wont send me any news of the private theatre; and she knows that vexes me, because I really have a taste for the stage, and once played second part at school to Miss Gollogher. She was the Fair Penitent, Sir; a tall brown girl, HORN-BONE PINE, as the French say; and a great fortune, though her father did keep a dogshop. But she called it a Managearee. So, Sir, MISS SARAH Jones never condescends to write Miss to me, though she daredn't wear her hair without a cap at boarding-school, to save her head; and my lady always permits me to wear my hair in a comb, to distinguish me from common helpers and such like. And besides that, though I have worn a cap, I never wore black worsted stockings as she does; nor never set mop upon floor. As to sailors, she cannot abide 'en. INDIC. But you, Mrs. Jane, can: and let me tell you, that that is not the least advantage which you have over Miss Sarah Jones. So we will go on with our picture. The first object of the seaman on landing is to spend his money: but his first sensation is the strange firmness of the earth, which he goes treading in a sort of heavy light way, half waggoner and half dancingmaster, his shoulders rolling, and his feet touching and going; the same way, in short, in which he keeps himself prepared for all the rolling chances of the vessel, when on deck. There is always, to us, this appearance of lightness of foot and heavy strength of upper works, in a sailor. And he feels it himself. He lets his jacket fly open, and his shoulders slouch, and his hair grow long to be gathered into a heavy pigtail; but when full dressed, he prides himself on a certain gentility of toe; on a white stocking and a natty shoe, issuing lightly out of the flowing blue trowser. His arms are neutral, hanging and swinging in a curve aloof; his hands, half open, look as if they had just been handling ropes, and had no object in life but to handle them again. He is proud of appearing in a new hat and slops, with a Belcher handkerchief flowing loosely round his neck, and the corner of another out of his pocket. Thus equipped, with pinchbeck buckles in his shoes (which he bought for gold) he puts some tobacco in his mouth, not as if he were going to use it directly, but as if he stuffed it in a pouch on one side, as a pelican does fish, to employ it hereafter: and so, with Bet Monson at his side, and perhaps a cane or whanghee twisted under his other arm, sallies forth to take possession of all Lubberland. He buys every thing that he comes athwart,-nuts, gingerbread, apples, shoe-strings, beer, brandy, gin, buckles, knives, a watch, (two, if he has money enough,) gowns and handkerchiefs for Bet, and his mother and sisters, dozens of "Superfine Best Men's Cotton Stockings,' dozens of "Superfine Best Women's Cotton Ditto," best good Check for Shirts (though he has too much already), infinite needles and thread (to sew his trowsers with some day), a footman's laced hat, Bear's Grease to make his hair grow (by way of joke,) several sticks, all sorts of Jew articles, a flute (which he can't play, and never intends), a leg of mutton which he carries somewhere to roast, and for a piece of which the landlord of the Ship makes him pay twice what he gave for the whole;-in short, all that money can be spent upon, which is every thing but medicine gratis; and this he would insist on paying |