an Marinus in his Life of
Proclus, or many other biographers and autobiographers of fair
reputation. This pleasure, I have said, was to be had only on a Saturday
night. What, then, was Saturday night to me more than any other night? I
had no labours that I rested from, no wages to receive; what needed I to
care for Saturday night, more than as it was a summons to hear Grassini?
True, most logical reader; what you say is unanswerable. And yet so it
was and is, that whereas different men throw their feelings into
different channels, and most are apt to show their interest in the
concerns of the poor chiefly by sympathy, expressed in some shape or
other, with their distresses and sorrows, I at that time was disposed to
express my interest by sympathising with their pleasures. The pains of
poverty I had lately seen too much of, more than I wished to remember;
but the pleasures of the poor, their consolations of spirit, and their
reposes from bodily toil, can never become oppressive to contemplate. Now
Saturday night is the season for the chief, regular, and periodic return
of rest of the poor; in this point the most hostile sects unite, and
acknowledge a common link of brotherhood; almost all Christendom rests
from its labours. It is a rest introductory to another rest, and divided
by a whole day and two nights from the renewal of toil. On this account
I feel always, on a Saturday night, as though I also were released from
some yoke of labour, had some wages to receive, and some luxury of repose
to enjoy. For the sake, therefore, of witnessing, upon as large a scale
as possible, a spectacle with which my sympathy was so entire, I used
often on Saturday nights, after I had taken opium, to wander forth,
without much regarding the direction or the distance, to all the markets
and other parts of London to which the poor resort of a Saturday night,
for laying out their wages. Many a family party, consisting of a man,
his wife, and sometimes one or two of his children, have I listened to,
as they stood consulting on their ways and means, or the strength of
their exchequer, or the price of household articles. Gradually I became
familiar with their wishes, their difficulties, and their opinions.
Sometimes there might be heard murmurs of discontent, but far oftener
expressions on the countenance, or uttered in words, of patience, hope,
and tranquillity. And taken generally, I must say that, in this point at
least, the poor