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MONKEYANA.*

MONKEYS are certainly, there is no denying it, very like men; and, what is worse, men are still more like Monkeys. Many worthy people, who have a high respect for what they choose to call the Dignity of Human Nature, are much distressed by this similitude, approaching in many cases to absolute identity; and some of them have written books of considerable erudition and ingenuity, to prove that a man is not a monkey, nay, not so much as even an ape; but truth compels us to confess, that their speculations have been far from carrying conviction to our minds. All such inquirers, from Aristotle to Smellie, principally insist on two great leading distinctions-speech and reason. But it is obvious to the meanest capacity, that monkeys have both speech and reason. They have a language of their own, which, though not so capacious as the Greek, is much more so than the Hottentottish; and as for reason, no man of a truly philosophical genius ever saw a monkey crack a nut, without perceiving that the creature possesses that endowment, or faculty, in no small perfection. Their speech, indeed, is said not to be articulate; but it is audibly more so than the Gaelic. The words unquestionably do run into each other, in a way that, to our ears, renders it rather unintelligible; but it is contrary to all the rules of sound philosophizing, to confuse the obtuseness of our own senses with the want of any faculty in others; and they have just as good a right to maintain, and to complain of, our inarticulate mode of speaking, as we have of theirs-indeed much more-for monkeys speak the same, or nearly the same, language all over the habit able globe, whereas men, ever since the Tower of Babel, have kept chattering, muttering, humming and hawing, in divers ways and sundry manners, so that one nation is unable to comprehend what another would be at, and the earth groans in vain with vocabularies and dictionaries. That monkeys and men are one and the same animal, we shall not take upon

ourselves absolutely to assert, for the truth is, we, for one or two, know nothing whatever about the matter; all we mean to say is, that nobody has yet proved that they are not, and farther, that whatever may be the case with men, monkeys have reason and speech. More than this it might be rash to hold; and with the caution, therefore, which distinguishes all our Philosophy from that of the heedless and headlong age in which we flourish, here we place our foot on ground impregnable alike to assault or explosion.

It is flattering to see how all created things, animate and inanimate, imitate humanity-some of them, it must be admitted, most abominably, but, on the whole, with commendable assiduity and success. What can possibly be more like the face of a man than the face of a horse? except, indeed, that of a lion, a tiger, or a sheep. Look attentively at the first team you meet, and either in leader or wheeler you will not fail to recognise a characteristic likeness of some original friend. The long face-the wall eye

the upper or lower lip-the flat cheek-the lantern jaw-the very colt's tooth-the same! Away flies his Majesty's most gracious mail-coach, with a gentleman all in red standing on the stern, as straight as ODoherty, tooting a tin-horn six feet long; and one of the worthiest fellows you know, with a wife and six children, disappears through the turnpike gate, without paying toll, in the shape of a Houyhnhynm at full gallop, and beautifully caparisoned in brass-harness, all spick and span new, on the king's birth-day. Or mount the steps, up and down, into a collection of wild beasts, Pidcock or Wombwell, and turning on the saw-dust to the left, look-pray-at that Lion. Saw ye ever, in all your born days, such a striking likeness-such a noble full-length living portraitnone of your kit-kats, but from tip of the nose to the tip of the tail-of Christopher North? The same calm, grave, thoughtful eyes, that inspire an immediate awe-the same chops,

Monkeyana, or Men in Miniature, designed and etched by Thomas Landseer. Moon, Boys, and Graves. London.

which it is needless to characterize to any one who has seen either North or Nero-the same posture of the paws, fit alike to pat or fell-see, see the same long, red tongue-the yawn discovering a double shiver-de freeze of spike-tusks the same-and hark-hark-Lord preserve us-in with both your hands into your ears -the Roar-the Roar! Or, face about to the right, and there is the self-same Editor of Blackwood's Magazine in a royal Bengal Tiger. You imagine you see him leaping along Lisson-Grove, with poor Leigh Hunt in his mouth, as if the Cockney King were no bigger than a mouse. Finally, eyes forward, and what think you of that Persian sheep, with face so pensive, meek and mild, so demure and melancholy, the very image of David Lester Richard son, in the act of perusing that Century of Inventions, each an unpaid-for panegyric on his own genius, which, like a small prolific Bantam, lays an egg a-day during the sonnet-season, and then-cackle-cackle-cackle!

The imitation of humanity is equally apparent in inanimate nature. Look on that pretty, little, white-rinded, airy, yet weeping birch-tree, still in her teens, so murmuring, and so balmy in budding spring, that breathes of summer too, and say if ever you saw a sweeter symbol-nay, it is her very self-of L. E. L., in her virgin elegance and loveliness, charming all eyes, while, as if a breeze came by, her tresses are all a-dance over her forehead, and with poetic lustre irradiate the day. That Sycamore, so bright above, so dark below, with head that loves the sunshine, and stem round which, like living things, the shadows conglomerate a tent-like tree, beneath whose umbrage might Beauty lie dissolved in delicious tears over some divine lyrical ballad-haply the tale of Ruth,woo'd-won-wedded -deserted in time that, as "through dream and vision did she sink," seemed to be all but one dear, dim, delightful day, or Wisdom meditate, in the half-glimmer half-gloom, on the immortality brought to light, not only in Holy Writ, but in the inspirations too of the great poets-that Sycamore, so fair and so august, so beautiful and so magnificent-remindeth it not of the Genius of Wordsworth, the very man himself personified before you in

the shape of a Sylvan, conspicuous to those who can penetrate its haunts among all the trees of the forest?-If ever departed spirits revisit the earth they loved, that Mountain-Ash, call it by its own Scottish name, that Rowantree-with stem straight, smooth, and strong, yet in its abated brightness speaking of the blast-with leaves de licate indeed to look at, and soft to the touch, but imbued with preservative beauty as boldly they rustle to the winds-crowned with a thousand diadems, all blended into one glory visi◄ ble from afar,-gaze here, gaze here, Caledonia, and, with the voice of all thy streams, bid hail the Image of thy own Burns illumining the banks and braes o' bonny Doon, while all the linnets break out into delighted lilting among the broom, and the blackbird, on the top of his own tree, sends up his song in chorus to the lark, thick, fast, and wild-warbling beneath the rosy cloud!-Whence comes that fragrant breath upon the woody wilder◄ ness-is it from the sweet unseen ground-flowers, or from a tree in blossom somewhere hidden in the shade? Lo! yonder stands the old Hawthorn, white as the very snow-yet, as you approach, 'tis mixed with glorious green, even as the summer sea-wave heaves in foam. Therein the cheerful shilfa builds her nest most beautiful-or therein-hark the crashing and then the flapping wing-as the cushat, ne'er disturbed before, is startled from her shallow couch. Lonely as is the place, yet see on the old rough bark, now hard to read among moss as some ancient inscription on the stone that shades in its cell some solitary spring-the names of lovers fond and faithful of yore, now and long ago sleeping in the mools by each other's side! The roamer thinks of the rural poets that have tuned their pipes to rural loves-and some sweet wild strain touches his ear from the Queen's Wake, or from "Bonny Kilmeny, as she gaed up the glen," or from the rich yet simple melodies which" honest Allan" yet lives to breathe, inspired by the songs of auld Scotland-on whose darkness and dimness, his genius, strong in love, has streamed light like sunbeams, regardless of the more flaunting flowers, and seeking out the primrose and violet in nooks of the untrodden woods!

Nay, there is a white Currant Bush, trained up on trellice against the loun sunny walls, and thickly clustering with berries, in their lucid roundness almost as large as grapes,-put out your hand and pull a few, and to the taste they are as sweet and luscious too, as from Lorraine or Provencethat white currant-bush, with innocent thorns tipped with silk and velvet, so that you may pluck ungloved, we declare, is liker than even the amiable poet himself, to William Procter Barry Cornwall, the delight of the suburban fruit-gardens, and furnishing to tender virgins an exquisite dessert-or when distilled by household matron, a wine that never intoxicates, and worthy a gold medal from Mr Loudon, the ingenious editor of the Gardener's Magazine.-Out of the sun altogether, stuck in among the gravel, and sorely stunted because of no manure, that dwindled, dwarfed, diminutive of the small black red hairy gooseberry, no leaves, few berries, and nearly all jag, is a most fearful picture indeed of a Cockney, whose name is needless-while that other, the bramble yonder, tufted chiefly with tags of dirty wool and hair, which a singing bird rather than peck at, would go without a nest, is a staring and ragged likeness of an unmentionable sonnetteer in the last stage of a consumption,-sick and sorry, weak and worthless, and, ere another month go by, to be pronged up by the little decayed root, flung over the hedge amongst nettles, and there left to rot in the general rubbish.

Hactenus of plants. Now look at that Castle, a noble ruin. Yet not a ruin either, though old, and belonging to the olden time. On its head a crown of battlements-for hair, wall flowers-granite for its body," cased in the unfeeling armour of old time" -and "seated on a heaven-kissing hill." Cliffs guard it on the rightbelow which " goes a river large," sweeping round a loch-behind a morass, in which "armies whole might sink," in front the everlasting mountains. See how like the figure of a man! What a trenched forehead, yet how bold! That" coign of vantage" is the nose! That rent makes a mouth, from which the wind plays like a warlike harper. A grim upper lip-and a chin that defies the ele ments. A giant to fear and to vene

rate! And what has become of your
imagination, if in that castle, with its
banner still outhung, which
The evening air has scarce the power
To wave upon the Donjon tower,
you see not a glorious statue of—Sir
Walter Scott?

So with clouds and mountains, they are all in various moods and manners like great men. But we have not time now to trace their outlines-therefore, revenons à nos moutons"—that islet us return to our monkeys.

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The Monkey has not had justice done him, we repeat and insist upon it; for what right have you to judge of a whole people, from a few isolated individuals,—and from a few isolated individuals, too, running up poles with a chain round their waist, twenty times the length of their own tail, or grinning in ones or twos through the bars of a cage in a menagerie? His eyes are red with perpetual weepingand his smile is sardonic in captivity. His fur is mouldy and mangy, and he is manifestly ashamed of his tail, prehensile no more-and of his paws, "very hands, as you may say," miserable matches to his miserable feet. To know him as he is, you must go to Senegal; or if that be too far off for a trip during the summer vacation, to the Rock of Gebir, now called Gibraltar, and see him at his gambols among the cliffs. Sailor nor slater would have a chance with him there, standing on his head on a ledge of six inches, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, without ever so much as once tumbling down; or hanging at the same height from a bush by the tail, to dry, or air, or sun himself, as if he were flower or fruit. There he is, a Monkey indeed; but you catch him young, clap a pair of breeches on him, and an old red jacket, and oblige him to dance a saraband on the stones of a street, or perch upon the shoul der of Bruin, equally out of his natural element, which is a cave among the woods. Here he is but the Ape of a Monkey. Now if we were to catch you young, good subscriber or contributor, yourself, and put you into a cage to crack nuts and pull ugly faces, although you might, from continued practice, do both to perfection, at a shilling a-head for grown-up ladies and gentlemen, and sixpence for children and servants, and even at a lower rate after the collection had been some

weeks in town, would you not think it exceedingly hard to be judged of in that one of your predicaments, not only individually, but nationally-that is, not only as Ben Hoppus, your own name, but as John Bull, the name of the people of which you are an incarcerated specimen? You would keep incessantly crying out against this with angry vociferation, as a most unwarrantable and unjust Test and Corporation Act. And, no doubt, were an Ourang-outang to see you in such a situation, he would not only form a most mean opinion of you as an individual, but go away with a most false impression of the whole human race.

It is therefore highly gratifying to us to see the Monkey in the hands of a man of genius like Thomas Landseer. Indeed, the Landseers are a family of geniuses-father and sons. Like Goldsmith, they touch nothing which they do not adorn; and Thomas has here touched the Monkey, who, unlike the lovely young Lavinia when unadorned adorned the most, looks like a man as he is, when dressed and acting like a man on the stage of the Theatre of Human Life.

Several other artists, we know, have moralized the Monkey; and of their philosophical works it will give us pleasure to speak in a future Number; but we suspect our present painter is the best of them all; and on the principle of "meliores priores," we begin with the Monkeyana of Thomas Landseer. Even an entire family of prigs is a pleasant and impressive sight not a single one,-father, mother, brother, or sister, with the least spark of common sense or feeling to disturb the harmony-to break the effect of the "tottle of the whole." But a family of geniuses is still better, perhaps because so much rarer; and, therefore, we prefer the Landseers and the Roscoes, very much indeed, to the Hunts and the Hazlitts.

What vivid-minded fellows great painters must be! Poets are nothing to them in distinctness of conception. Poets, it is true, "give to airy nothings a local habitation and a name." But still they are airy nothings-for they are made of words, and words are air. But painters give you form, shape, colour-we had almost said substance. We ourselves, who are a poet, could give you a very tolerable Monkey in words, either a prose or a verse Mon

key; but what a poor, paltry, di, and indistinct Monkey would he be, in comparison with the drawn, etched, engraved, large-paper-proof Monkey, of a Thomas Landseer, playing the Pedagogue, the Pupil, or the Pugilist?

First of all, here is a Monkey in the character of Paul Pry. We doubt not that it is excellent; but, would you believe it, we have never seen Liston in that farce? Nor do we care a drachm though we never see him-for we are sick of Liston's buffoonery. London is a great goose. She will keep gabbling for years about the most nauseous nonsense, as if it were mirth, humour, and wit. Mr Poole, we believe, is the author of Paul Pry, and Mr Poole is a man of true genius. But Paul Pry, though we never saw him, is, we fear, not a little of a bore-at least so is every noodle who comes in upon you at supper from the theatre, and enacts you a bit of Liston or Murray in that character. The cockneys have spoiled Liston, who might have been an excellent, perhaps a great comic actor, but for their childish and infantile fancy for his face; and that is a great deal for us to say, after having seen and heard him murder Dominie Sampson, on a stage by lamp and chandelier light, before upwards of a thousand people, not one of whom, however, we are happy to say, coule move a muscle at the spectacle, except those of disgust and contempt. Mr Liston, who is a gentleman and a man of originality, ought not to suffer himself to make himself ridiculous and entertaining in the eyes of fools and idiots. We excuse Mr Landseer and Mr Poole for giving in to the folly of, "I hope I don't intrude," for there is no great harm in sacrificing one's own taste in a trifle, to that of the bairnly public of Cockaigne. They who "live to please, must please to live ;" and, just as might have been expected, the Cockney critics have all exclaimed, on viewing this Paul Pry,

-" inimitable—inimitable. Yet even Landseer cannot give us Liston's face

that face which"-and then off they go with their impotent attempts at imaginative exaggeration-as impotent as would be the attempts of a precocious little master, who had been put into shorts and a long-tailed coat at five, to describe, to his quondamwet, nunc-dry nurse, the pantomime of Punchinello.

Satyr. In that he shewed himself an ass. Thomas Landseer meant to etch a compliment to the Leading Journal of Europe, by shewing how a monkey of those political principles could de scend in his zeal from the altitude of the Times to the lowest level of the Examiner. In his paw the extremes meet; nor do we doubt, that under the foot hidden in shade, (the other is stiffened in the foreground from hairy leg crossed over hairy knee,) are, a number of Maga with a Noctes, the Standard of the Evening, the Courier, and the Morning Post, by far the ablest daily papers now produced from the right side of the press.

What a different thing is his Politician! There you have nature, universal and particular, and no sooner does the eye fall upon the Monkey, with spectacle on nose, than you have him at once, and know, as it were, the very paragraph of which he is endeavouring to comprehend some small inkling of the meaning; no easy matter, you will allow, in daily, morning or evening, weekly or monthly periodical writings; this Magazine by no means excluded. He is hard at work, on the head of a column of what Cobbett calls, "The Bloody Old Times." Not the leader-no-no-not the leader-our Monkey won't try to crack that nut, for no monkey's teeth can stand that; and he remembers, that when, by dint of excessive grin, he had once on a time contrived to crush the casket, it instantly filled his mouth, his maw, and his pouch, with one puff of that inexplicable sort of dust that fills what men and monkeys call in boyhood, the devil's snuff-box. But he is at a side column. Probably a letter from Lisbon-about the Constitution. Don Miguel puzzles his "villainous low"-browed pate, nor less that old hag his mother, and the Black Cook. He is a Whig-a Radical. Ay, now he is attempting a tirade against tithes, and grinning at a blow at the Bishops. He is a pure Patriot, for no stake in the country has he, except a very tough and lean one, on every third Sunday. A Liberal! see how he hugs a rancid Examiner to his liver, pressing it down too with his elbow on that of his chair, in case some other march-of-mind monkey should come in upon his political privacy, his learned leisure, and carry off the filthy falsehood. He had really much better lay down the Leading Journal of Europe upon that fractured globe; for confound him if he understands its politics! Why, we verily believe he is at an article on the repeal of the Test Act, and now that it is repealed, why, he and other highminded monkeys like him can, without any violation of conscience or religion, accept office; "on the faith of a Christian," they can, and without saying "I am a Protestant," for the good of the church, the country, and the king.

A scribe in the Times, we have been somewhere told, could not endure this Monkey, calling him a poor

Better and better still, "The SchoolMaster is abroad." The Monkey, here, is a terrible Incarnation of Dr Busby and Mr Brougham. His birch reminds us, in size and shape, of the Broom with which that Old Black, now gone to the Nigritia of Hades, used some twenty years ago, perhaps less, to sweep that crossing in which Cheapside loses itself in St Paul's church-yard. Many are the pairs of juvenile breeches which he has unbut toned and let down, and he hopes to live to unbutton and let down many more. The visible cries of the pupil in the paw of the pedagogue are enough to rive a heart of stone. Lord have mercy on the puerile world, when the march-of-intellect men are safely seated in their sway! All feeling, all religion, they have begun with flinging aside, as so many loathsome weeds. They will soon shew what is the full meaning, perfect import of the word Tyrant, and of the word Slave. Mrs Brownrigg, who" whipt three female prentices to death, and hid them in the coal-hole," will be like Mercy with the hand of moonlight and the dewy eyne, in comparison with the viragoes that will then rule the roast over the lower extremities of the female children of this unhappy land—the unsparing servants of Lycurgus, who whipped the little Spartans till their bottoms were as black as their broth, will be Moravians and Quakers by the side of the dreadful dominies that will then provide raw material for our male boarding-schools, academies, and colleges. All the past and present flogging of the population of this country, in tender years, will shrink up into absolute insignificance, in the future. Twenty obsolete birch-rods of the last,

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