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ornithologist knows so much of the nightingale as a poet? We would have
an inscription put on the spot--'Here the nightingale sings, contrary to
what has been affirmed by White and others.' This is the Scotland of
books, and a beautiful place it is. I will venture to affirm, Sir, even
to yourself, that it is a more beautiful place than the other Scotland,
always excepting to an exile or a lover.
_England._
Book-England, on the map, would shine as the Albion of the old Giants;
as the 'Logres' of the Knights of the Round Table; as the scene of
Amadis of Gaul, with its _island_ of Windsor; as the abode of fairies,
of the Druids, of the divine Countess of Coventry, of Guy, Earl of
Warwick, of 'Alfred' (whose reality was a romance), of the Fair
Rosamond, of the _Arcades_ and _Comus_, of Chaucer and Spenser, of the
poets of the Globe and the Mermaid, the wits of Twickenham and Hampton
Court. Fleet Street would be Johnson's Fleet Street; the Tower would
belong to Julius Caesar; and Blackfriars to Suckling, Vandyke, and the
_Dunciad_. Chronology and the mixture of truth and fiction, that is to
say, of one sort of truth and another, would come to nothing in a work
of this kind; for, as it has been before observed, things are real in
proportion as they are impressive. And who has not as 'gross, open, and
palpable' an idea of 'Falstaff' in Eastcheap, as of 'Captain Grose'
himself, beating up his quarters? A map of fictitious, literary, and
historical London, would, of itself, constitute a great curiosity.
_Ireland._
Swift speaks of maps, in which they
Place elephants for want of towns.
Here would be towns and elephants too, the popular and the prodigious.
How much would not Swift do for Ireland, in this geography of wit and
talent! What a figure would not St. Patrick's Cathedral make! The other
day, mention was made of a 'Dean of St. Patrick's' _now living_; as if
there was, or ever could be, more than one Dean of St. Patrick's! In the
Irish maps we should have the Saint himself driving out all venomous
creatures (what a pity that the most venomous retain a property as
absentees!); and there would be the old Irish kings, and O'Donoghue with
his White Horse, and the lady of the 'gold wand' who made the miraculous
virgin pilgrimage, and all the other marvels of lakes and ladies, and
the Round Towers still remaining to perplex the antiquary, and
Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village', and Goldsmith himself, and the
birthplaces of Steele and Sterne, and the brief hour of poor Lord Edward
Fitzgerald, and Carolan with his harp, and the schools of the poor Latin
boys under the hedges, and Castle Rackrent, and Edgeworth's-town, and
the Giant's Causeway, and Ginleas and other classical poverties, and
Spenser's castle on the river Mulla, with the wood-gods whom his pipe
drew round him.--J. H. LEIGH HUNT. _The World of Books._
ON 'CORYAT'S CRUDITES'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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