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THE WISHING-CAP.

9

"At Maiano I wrote the articles which appeared in the Examiner, under the title of the Wishing-Cap. Probably the reader knows nothing about them; but they contained some germs of a book he may not be unacquainted with, called The Town, as well as some articles since approved of in the volume entitled Men, Women, and Books.

"The title was very genuine. When I put on my cap, and pitched myself in imagination into the thick of Covent Garden, the pleasure I received was so vivid - I turned the corner of a street so much in the ordinary course of things, and was so tangibly present to the pavement, the shop windows, the people, and a thousand agreeable recollections which looked me naturally in the face, that sometimes when I walk there now, the impression seems hardly more real. I used to feel as if I actually pitched my soul there, and that spiritual eyes might have seen it shot over from Tuscany, into York Street, like a rocket. It is much pleasanter, however, on waking up, to find soul and body together in one's native land: yes, even than among thy olives and vines, Boccaccio ! " — The Autobiography of LEIGH HUNT.

[Of course none of the Wishing-Caps which the author collected and published in Men, Women, and Books, are included in this volume. We have, however, inserted the articles on different parts of London. It is true, most of the persons and places mentioned in these graceful and characteristic little papers are more fully described in The Town. But "the first sprightly runnings" are in the earlier sketches, which have also more gusto, and are richer in personal reminiscences than the chapters on the same localities in that book. - ED.]

ΤΟ

THE WISHING-CAP.

No. I.

INTRODUCTION.

I have cut through the air like a falcon. I would have it seem strange to you. But 'tis true. I would not have you believe it neither. But 'tis miraculous and true. Desire to see you brought me. - DECKER'S Old Fortunatus.

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S when a traveller, long expected, and yet but half expected from abroad, suddenly enters a room full of his old friends, instantly all the room is in motion towards him, mouths are opened, hands are stretched forward, card tables deserted, and old ladies left in a state of inveteracy: he, with all his feelings on tiptoe, and happy to be torn in pieces, grasps as many hands as he can at once, turns to this friend, makes half an answer to that, cuts short the questions of soft lips, and revels in all the rewards of the meritoriousness of absence; thus, I trust, my old friends of the Examiner will feel with me, when they see the hand at the bottom of this paper.

* Leigh Hunt's well-known signature

*

ED.

II

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After a thousand questions are asked on both sides, delightful memories brought up, and others that will not bear touching upon spared, I hear the most goodnatured person in the company exclaim, " Bless me! you are not at all changed." I do bless thee, thou handsomest of thy sex. Between you and me, I should not care how dilapidated I looked with some persons in a private meeting, and for a short time. I could make a merit of the silver hairs that come amongst my black ones, and expect a double tenderness of look for my sunken cheeks. But after all, one does not like to grow old. Man is in no haste to be venerable. The fact is, I am not old, nor do I wish anybody to believe that I am. But at forty there is a pleasure in affecting age on purpose to be disbelieved. (I say forty, because I am only nine and thirty.) We talk of "declining into the vale of years," that people may say, "You decline into the vale of years!" and that we may be complimented on the youthfulness of our appearance. The provocation lies in saying we are middle-aged. It is a malignant benediction of the poets,

"God bless your middle-ageish face!"

I believe there are many persons abroad who regret the not having returned to their native country in time, but who would rather be shut up for life in a German fortress, than appear again in a public place in England. Thirty and forty years ago they were Adonises, and cannot, for the life of them, take to being reverend. Being at a distance from home, and not having contemporary faces to compare with, they try to think that everybody grows old but themselves.

They would fancy that the shore moves, and not they. I own to this weakness, though I never was an Adonis, nor ever shall be, which is more.

But I can conceive no circumstances but one, that at any time of life would conquer in me the desire to be among my old scenes and friends. I used to think that with all my love of particular places, I should not care where I went, provided I could take my friends with me. But I find it otherwise. The fine buildings in Genoa made me long to take a walk down a London alley. The vineyards and olives of Tuscany gave me a calenture for my old green fields. Walking about under the galleries and government offices of Florence, I yearned infinitely to be at the Examiner office in Covent Garden; and so here I

am.

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But it will be asked whether I am really here; whether I am arrived in propria persona, - come home, seated visibly in the Examiner office. Doubtless I am. I have just poked the fire, and am toasting a foot upon each hob, with the Morning Chronicle in my hand. Yesterday I was in all parts of the town. If my presence is doubted, and the gentleman I run against yesterday in Fleet Street has any manliness in him, he will come forward and state that I nearly knocked the breath out of his body in turning the corner of Shoe Lane.

I am as surely here in London as I shall be in Madrid, in Athens, in North or South America, when I inform the reader to that effect: perhaps I shall be in one of these places to-morrow. Incredulous readers may smile, especially when I inform them, that

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