to fetch images proper for “a fine day.” We, on the contrary, paint from the life. Chaucer luxuriates, in his opening lines of the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ on the blessings and virtues of “April shoures.” Our modern novelists are always very diffuse meteorologists. In lands where the seasons are unhappily uniform, the natives are debarred from this unfailing topic of conversation. Hajji Baba, in Mr. Morier’s pleasant tale, is amazed at being told at Ispahan, by the surgeon of the English Embassy, that “it was a fine day.” On the banks of the South American rivers, mosquitoes afford a useful substitute for meteorological remarks. – “How did you sleep last night?” “Sleep! not a wink. I was hitting at the mosquitoes all night, and am, you see, bitten like a roach notwithstanding.”
4
The historian might have added to this description of Roman carriages an allusion to the sumptuousness of Roman harness. Apuleius informs us that “necklaces of gold and silver thread embroidered with pearls encircled the necks of the horses; that the head-bands glittered with gems; and the saddles, traces, and reins were cased in bright ribbons.”
5
Not always, on horseback: for while the knight, as his Latin designation eques implied, was always mounted on a charger, his lady sometimes rode beside him on an ass: —
“A loyely ladie rode him faire beside,Upon a lowly asse, more white than snow;Yet she much whiter; but the same did hideUnder a vele, that wimpled was full low;And over all a black stole did she throw:As one that inly mourned so was she sad,And heavie sate upon her palfrey slow.” 