THE DAY-DREAMER;

OR, A SERIES OF PAPERS ON MEN, MANNERS, AND THINGS,

"Why do you publish? There are no rewards

Of fame or profit when the world grows weary.

I ask, in turn, Why do you play at cards?

Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary. It occupies me to turn back regards

On what I've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery ;

And what I write I cast upon the stream,

To swim or sink;-I've had, at least, my dream."

Don Juan, xiv. 11.

"I have chosen those subjects wherein I take human life to be most concerned, and which are of most common use, or most necessary knowledge; and wherein, though I may not be able to inform men more than they know, yet I may, perhaps, give them the occasion to consider more than they do."-SIR WM. TEMPLE: Of Health and Long Life.

I was always a day-dreamer. Some of my friends dignify me with the designation of a Contemplative Man; but I never realised that character. I never, like the cherub in Milton,

"Soar'd on golden wing, Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne."

Yet, from my earliest youth, (by which, I mean, my absolute boyhood,) I could, and can still, doze away the minutes at my window, with no other occupation than watching the clouds. Nay, when it is not damp, (for, as my man John says, I be mortal subject to the rheumatizes,) I am still fond of basking in the sun on the grass. I did so as a child, and was often found, as was said of Orlando, "like a dropt acorn under an oak."

It has been held, I know not with what truth, that to love solitude and a reverie, is a mark of genius. If so, I am, and was from my early days, one of the greatest geniuses in the world. For I was frequently discovered, lost in thought (though to have told what the thought was would have been difficult), on a tombstone in the churchyard, or riding across the boughs of a yew tree which overhung it. There I was, always alone; for though boys are fond of climbing, they do not like it, as I did, for the sake of a daydream without interruption. This dreaming, however, sometimes cost me a flogging; for my first school was on the borders of a forest, and its concealments were so inviting to my humour, that I not unfrequently played truant in order to enjoy the meditation they prompted. Here, though I could hardly construe him, I was delighted to think myself Horace :

"Sicut meus est mos,

Nescio quid meditans nugarum, et totus in illis."*

* According to my custom, meditating, wholly absorbed, on I know not what trifles.

Much of this might arise from a love of liberty, and aversion to constraint, whether of mind or body; for in this respect (I trust in few others) I resembled Rousseau. "Je me plairois à mes leçons quand j'y étois; mais je n'aimois d'être obligé de m'y rendre, ni que l'heure me commandât. En toute chose la gêne et l'assujettissement me sont insupportables; ils me faisoient prendre en haine le plaisir même."

Well! and what did all this indulgence of fancy do for you ?

Not much. It certainly did not lead either to fame or fortune. In fact, it made me no better than what I have called myself—an idle observer; and as, unfortunately, I had a comfortable fortune, I gave myself up to a sort of indolent study of men and things, of which I grew so fond that I renounced all desire (to use a vulgar phrase) of bettering myself, and resolved to walk the world content "with my virtue and a good surtout."

I once, indeed, had ambition enough to think of the Church, because I fell into the very foolish error, (which, had it not been an error, would have suited me well enough,) of thinking that a minister of religion had nothing to do but to eat, drink, and sleep, like Boileau's prelate, who

“Muni d'un déjeûner,

Dormant d'un léger somme, attendoit le dîner."

But in this I was wrong; for a very little observation of the pains taken by divines to qualify themselves for very arduous functions, and the manner in which most of them fulfil their duties, convinced me that no

one was more truly a labourer than he of the sacred vineyard. The Church was given up.

I returned, therefore, to the world, that is, to observe its manners, without mixing in its business; and this would have occupied and pleased me had my condition been lower than it was. But I had been at college, and had connections that gave me opportu nities which many of my brother dreamers want. I criticised women as well as men; mingled in all ranks, and examined nature, animate and inanimate; and, when I had laid in a store for thought, my happiness was to think it over again, that is, to dream of it, though any thing but asleep.

Thus no man went beyond me in

I have compared myself to Horace, as an idler who loved a reverie, but I was not without resemblance to Johnson also, at least in watching mankind.

In many other matters I am not so presumptuous. But I did not, like him, devote almost all my best days to scanning human nature in a populous city. On the contrary, my happiness was to create an ever varying scene, and I was the happiest of the happy when, to relieve a glut of town observation, I flew to the country to breathe among the pleasant villages and farms.

Many, therefore, have been my country tours, as well as town speculations. As to the last, I am no stranger to political clubs; and as I value the elegancies of polished life, as well as the simplicities of nature, I am

not without self-complacency when I say that I have not been excluded from the drawingrooms of beauty. And how did you escape

?

Not unscathed, perhaps; but that is neither here nor there. Suffice it that I know something of the sex, which may be possibly discovered in the course of these lucubrations. Indeed, there have not been wanting persons who (whether meaning to compliment, or the reverse, I know not,) have not scrupled to hold me up to the world as a woman's man.

My readers, from all this, may be anxious to discover what I am in person and phiz; whether I am still young, or how near I approach to an old beau in his grand climacteric. Indeed they will think I ought to be the latter, to give lessons of experience and describe life. But I shall say no more than that any body, to look at me, would not guess there was much in me worth knowing; for I am eminently "cheto fuor," though "commoto dentro." And as to my phiz, I can only confess (for I know little of it myself) that in once rummaging a lumber closet, I found an old torn school-book with my face scrawled in the first page, and underneath it the nickname of "Big Head." Notwithstanding this, I hope I have said enough, so far, to bespeak favour to my intended pages, that the world may venture to examine them.

The title of "a series of papers (in other words, essays) on men, manners, and things," is, I own, dry and stiff, and in this tale-loving age it had perhaps better have been "a series of tales." I might then have stood a better chance of pleasing the ladies, and