第26章

DE JUVENTUTE.

Our last paper of this veracious and roundabout series related to a period which can only be historical to a great number of readers of this Magazine.Four I saw at the station to-day with orange-covered books in their hands, who can but have known George IV.by books, and statues, and pictures.Elderly gentlemen were in their prime, old men in their middle age, when he reigned over us.His image remains on coins; on a picture or two hanging here and there in a Club or old-fashioned dining-room; on horseback, as at Trafalgar Square, for example, where I defy any monarch to look more uncomfortable.He turns up in sundry memoirs and histories which have been published of late days; in Mr.Massey's "History; " in the "Buckingham and Grenville Correspondence;" and gentlemen who have accused a certain writer of disloyalty are referred to those volumes to see whether the picture drawn of George is overcharged.Charon has paddled him off; he has mingled with the crowded republic of the dead.His effigy smiles from a canvas or two.Breechless he bestrides his steed in Trafalgar Square.I believe he still wears his robes at Madame Tussaud's (Madame herself having quitted Baker Street and life, and found him she modelled t'other side the Stygian stream).On the head of a five-shilling piece we still occasionally come upon him, with St.George, the dragon-slayer, on the other side of the coin.Ah me! did this George slay many dragons? Was he a brave, heroic champion, and rescuer of virgins? Well! well! have you and I overcome all the dragons that assail US? come alive and victorious out of all the caverns which we have entered in life, and succored, at risk of life and limb, all poor distressed persons in whose naked limbs the dragon Poverty is about to fasten his fangs, whom the dragon Crime is poisoning with his horrible breath, and about to crunch up and devour? O my royal liege! O my gracious prince and warrior! YOU a champion to fight that monster? Your feeble spear ever pierce that slimy paunch or plated back? See how the flames come gurgling out of his red-hot brazen throat! What a roar! Nearer and nearer he trails, with eyes flaming like the lamps of a railroad engine.How he squeals, rushing out through the darkness of his tunnel! Now he is near.Now he is HERE.And now--what?--lance, shield, knight, feathers, horse and all? O horror, horror! Next day, round the monster's cave, there lie a few bones more.You, who wish to keep yours in your skins, be thankful that you are not called upon to go out and fight dragons.Be grateful that they don't sally out and swallow you.Keep a wise distance from their caves, lest you pay too dearly for approaching them.

Remember that years passed, and whole districts were ravaged, before the warrior came who was able to cope with the devouring monster.

When that knight DOES make his appearance, with all my heart let us go out and welcome him with our best songs, huzzas, and laurel wreaths, and eagerly recognize his valor and victory.But he comes only seldom.Countless knights were slain before St.George won the battle.In the battle of life are we all going to try for the honors of championship? If we can do our duty, if we can keep our place pretty honorably through the combat, let us say, Laus Deo! at the end of it, as the firing ceases, and the night falls over the field.

The old were middle-aged, the elderly were in their prime, then, thirty years since, when yon royal George was still fighting the dragon.As for you, my pretty lass, with your saucy hat and golden tresses tumbled in your net, and you, my spruce young gentleman in your mandarin's cap (the young folks at the country-place where I am staying are so attired), your parents were unknown to each other, and wore short frocks and short jackets, at the date of this five-shilling piece.Only to-day I met a dog-cart crammed with children--children with moustaches and mandarin caps--children with saucy hats and hair-nets--children in short frocks and knickerbockers (surely the prettiest boy's dress that has appeared these hundred years)--children from twenty years of age to six; and father, with mother by his side, driving in front--and on father's countenance Isaw that very laugh which I remember perfectly in the time when this crown-piece was coined--in HIS time, in King George's time, when we were school-boys seated on the same form.The smile was just as broad, as bright, as jolly, as I remember it in the past--unforgotten, though not seen or thought of, for how many decades of years, and quite and instantly familiar, though so long out of sight.

Any contemporary of that coin who takes it up and reads the inscription round the laurelled head, "Georgius IV.Britanniarum Rex.Fid.Def.1823," if he will but look steadily enough at the round, and utter the proper incantation, I dare say may conjure back his life there.Look well, my elderly friend, and tell me what you see? First, I see a Sultan, with hair, beautiful hair, and a crown of laurels round his head, and his name is Georgius Rex.Fid.Def., and so on.Now the Sultan has disappeared; and what is that I see?

A boy,--a boy in a jacket.He is at a desk; he has great books before him, Latin and Greek books and dictionaries.Yes, but behind the great books, which he pretends to read, is a little one, with pictures, which he is really reading.It is--yes, I can read now--it is the "Heart of Mid Lothian," by the author of "Waverley"--or, no, it is "Life in London, or the Adventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, and their friend Bob Logic," by Pierce Egan; and it has pictures--oh! such funny pictures! As he reads, there comes behind the boy, a man, a dervish, in a black gown, like a woman, and a black square cap, and he has a book in each hand, and he seizes the boy who is reading the picture-book, and lays his head upon one of his books, and smacks it with the other.The boy makes faces, and so that picture disappears.