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Presented  to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 
LIBRARY 

by  the 

ONTARIO  LEGISLATIVE 
LIBRARY 

1980 


THE   CARSWELL   COMPANY    LIMITED 


fcttrfcttrgft 


MAGAZINE. 


VOL.  LXVI. 


JULY— DECEMBER,  1849. 


WILLIAM  BLACKWOOD  &  SONS,  EDINBURGH ; 

AND 

37,  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON. 


1849. 


No.  CCCCV.  JULY,  1849.  VOL.  LXVI. 


No.  II. 
CHRISTOPHER  UNDER  CANVASS. 


ENCAMPMENT  AT  CLADICH.    TIME — Eleven,  A.M. 

SCENE — The  Portal  of  the  Pavilion. 

NORTH — B  ULLER — SE  WARD. 


BULLER. 
I  KNOW  there  is  nothing  you  dislike  so  much  as  personal  observations 

NORTH. 

On  myself  to  myself— not  at  all  on  others. 

BULLER. 

Yet  I  cannot  help  telling  you  to  your  face,  sir,  that  you  are  one  of  the 

finesf-looking  old  men 

NORTH. 
Elderly  gentlemen,  if  you  please,  sir. 

BULLER. 

In  Britain,  in  Europe,  in  the  World.    I  am  perfectly  serious,  sir. '  You  are. 

NORTH. 

You  needed  not  to  say  you  were  perfectly  serious  ;  for  I  suffer  no  man  to 
be  ironical  on  Me,  Mr  Buller.  I  am. 

BULLER. 

Such  a  change  since  we  came  to  Cladich !  Seward  was  equally  shocked, 
with  myself,  at  your  looks  on  board  the  Steamer.  So  lean — so  bent — so 
sallow — so  haggard — in  a  word — so  aged ! 

NORTH. 

Were  you  shocked,  Seward? 

SEWARD. 

Buller  has  such  a  blunt  way  with  him  that  he  often  makes  me  blush.  I 
was  not  shocked,  my  dear  sir,  but  I  was  affected. 

BULLER. 

Turning  to  me,  he  said  in  a  whisper,  "  What  a  wreck ! " 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCV.  A 


2  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [July, 

NORTH. 

I  saw  little  alteration  on  yon,  Mr  Seward;  but  as  to  Buller,  it  was  with 
the  utmost  difficulty  I  could  be  brought,  by  his  reiterated  asseverations,  into 
a  sort  of  quasi-belief  in  his  personal  identity ;  and  even  now,  it  is  far  from 
amounting  to  anything  like  a  settled  conviction.  Why,  his  face  is  twice  the 
breadth  -iUused  to  be — and  so  red!  It  used  to  be  narrow  and  pale.  Then, 
what  a  bushy  head — now,  cocker  it  as  he  will,  bald.  In  figure  was  he  not 
slim?  Now,  stout's  the  word.  Stout — stout — yes,  Buller,  you  have  grown 
stout,  and  will  grow  stouter — your  doom  is  to  be  fat — I  prophesy  paunch — 

BULLER. 

Spare  me — spare  me,  sir.  Seward  should  not  have  interrupted  me — 'twas 
but  the  first  impression — and  soon  wore  off1 — those  Edinboro'  people  have 
much  to  answer  for — unmercifully  wearing  you  out  at  their  ceaseless  soirees — 
but  since  you  came  to  Cladich,  sir,  CHRISTOPHER'S  HIMSELF  AGAIN — pardon 
my  familiarity — nor  can  I  now,  after  the  minutest  inspection,  and  severest  scru- 
tiny, detect  one  single  additional  wrinkle  on  face  or  forehead — nay,  not  a 
wrinkle  at  all — not  one — so  fresh  of  colour,  too,  sir,  that  the  irradiation  is  at 
times  ruddy — and  without  losing  an  atom  of  expression,  the  countenance 
absolutely — plump.  Yes,  sir,  plump's  the  word — plump,  plump,  plump. 

NORTH. 
Now  you  speak  sensibly,  and  like  yourself,  my  dear  Buller.    I  wear  well. 

BULLER. 
Your  enemies  circulated  a  report — 

NORTH. 
I  did  not  think  I  had  an  enemy  in  the  world. 

BULLER. 
Your  friends,  sir,  had  heard  a  rumour — that  you  had  mounted  a  wig. 

NORTH. 

And  was  there,  among  them  all,  one  so  weak-minded  as  to  believe  it  ?  But, 
to  be  sure,  there  are  no  bounds  to  the  credulity  of  mankind. 

BULLER. 

That  you  had  lost  your  hair — and  that,  like  Sampson — 

NORTH. 
And  by  what  Delilah  had  jtny  locks  been  shorn  ? 

SEWARD. 

It  all  originated,  I  verily  believe,  sir,  in  the  moved  imagination  of  the  Pen- 
sive Public : 

"  Res  est  soliciti  plena  timoris  Amor." 

NORTH. 

Buller,  I  see  little,  if  any — no  change  whatever — on  you,  since  the  days  of 
Deeside — nor  on  you,  Seward.  Yes,  I  do.  Not  now,  when  by  yourselves  ;  but 
when  your-  boys  are  in  Tent,  ah  !  then  I  do  indeed — a  pleasant,  a  happy,  a 
blessed  change !  Bright  boys  they  are — delightful  lads — noble  youths — and 
so  are  my  Two — emphasis  on  my — 

SEWARD  AND  BULLER. 

Yes,  all  emphasis,  and  may  the  Four  be  friends  for  life. 

NORTH. 

In  presence  of  us  old  folks,  composed  and  respectful — in  manly  modesty 
attentive  to  every  word  we  say — at  times  no  doubt  wearisome  enough !  Yet 
each  ready,  at  a  look  or  pause,  to  join  in  when  we  are  at  our  gravest — and 
the  solemn  may  be  getting  dull — enlivening  the  sleepy  flow  of  our  conversa- 
tion as  with  rivulets  issuing  from  pure  sources  in  the  hills  of  the  morning — 

SEWARD. 

Ay — ay ;  heaven  bless  them  all ! 

NORTH. 

Why,  there  is  more  than  sense — more  than  talent — there  is  genius  among 
them — in  their  eyes  and  on  their  tongues — though  they  have  no  suspicion  of  it — 
and  that  is  the  charm.  Then  how  they  rally  one  another !  Witty  fellows  all 
Four.  And  the  right  sort  of  raillery.  Gentlemen  by  birth  and  breeding,  to 
whom  in  their  wildest  sallies  vulgarity  is  impossible— to  whom,  on  the  giddy 


1849.3  Christopher  under  Canvass.  3 

brink — the  perilous  edge — still  adheres  a  native  Decorum  superior  to  that  of 
all  the  Schools. 

SEWARD. 
They  have  their  faults,  sir— 

NORTH. 

So  have  we.  And  'tis  well  for  us.  Without  faults  we  should  be  unlove- 
able. 

SEWARD. 

In  affection  I  spake.  • 

NORTH. 

I  know  you  did.  There  is  no  such  hateful  sight  on  earth  as  a  perfect  cha- 
racter. He  is  one  mass  of  corruption — for  he  is  a  hypocrite — intus  etin  cute — 
by  the  necessity  of  nature.  The  moment  a  perfect  character  enters  a  room — I 
leave  it. 

SEWARD. 

What  if  you  happened  to  live  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  nuisance  ? 

NORTH. 

Emigrate.  Or  remain  here — encamped  for  life — with  imperfect  characters — 
till  the  order  should  issue — Strike  Tent. 

BTJLLER. 

My  Boy  has  a  temper  of  his  own. 

NORTH. 

Original — or  acquired  ? 

BTJLLER. 

Naturally  sweet-blooded— -assuredly  by  the  mother's  side — but  in  her  good- 
ness she  did  all  she  could  to  spoil  him.  Some  excuse — We  have  but 
Manny. 

NORTH. 

And  his  father,  naturally  not  quite  so  sweet-blooded,  does  all  he  can  to  pre- 
serve him  ?  Between  the  two,  a  pretty  Pickle  he  is.  Has  thine  a  temper  of 
his  own,  too,  Seward  ? 

SEWARD. 

Hot. 

NORTH. 

Hereditary. 

SEWARD. 

No — North.  A  milder,  meeker,  Christian  Lady  than  his  mother  is  not 
in  England. 

NORTH. 

I  confess  I  was  at  the  moment  not  thinking  of  his  mother.  But  somewhat 
too  much  of  this.  I  hereby  authorise  the  Boys  of  this  Empire  to  have  what 
tempers  they  choose — with  one  sole  exception — THE  SULKY. 

BULLER. 

The  Edict  is  promulged. 

NORTH. 

Once,  and  once  only,  during  one  of  the  longest  and  best-spent  lives  on  record, 
was  I  in  the  mood  proscribed — and  it  endured  most  part  of  a  whole  day. 
The  Anniversary  of  that  day  I  observe,  in  severest  solitude,  with  a  salutary 
horror.  And  it  is  my  Birthday.  Ask  me  not,  my  friends,  to  reveal  the 
Cause.  Aloof  from  confession  before  man — we  must  keep  to  ourselves — as 
John  Foster  says — a  corner  of  our  own  souls.  A  black  corner  it  is — and  enter 
it  with  or  without  a  light — you  see,  here  and  there,  something  dismal — 
hideous — shapeless — nameless — each  lying  in  its  own  place  on  the  floor. 
There  lies  the  CAUSE.  It  was  the  morning  of  my  Ninth  Year.  As  I  kept  sit- 
ting high  upstairs  by  myself—one  familiar  face  after  another  kept  ever  and 
anon  looking  in  upon  me — all  with  one  expression !  And  one  familiar  voice 
after  another — all  with  one  tone — kept  muttering  at  me — "fTe's  still  in  the 
Sulks!"  How  I  hated  them  with  an  intenser  hatred — and  chief  them  I  before 
had  loved  best — at  each  opening  and  each  shutting  of  that  door !  How  I  hated 
myself,  as  my  blubbered  face  felt  hotter  and  hotter— and  I  knew  how  ugly 


4  Christopher  under  Canvass.  t«^ubTi 

I  must  be,  -with  my  fixed  fiery  eyes.  It  was  painful  to  sit  on  such  a  chair  for 
hours  in  one  posture,  and  to  have  so  chained  a  child  would  have  been  great 
cruelty — but  I  was  resolved  to  die,  rather  than  change  it ;  and  had  I  been 
told  by  any  one  tinder  an  angel  to  get  up  and  go  to  play,  I  would  have  spat  in 
his  face.  It  was  a  lonesome  attic,  and  I  had  the  fear  of  ghosts.  But  not 
then — my  superstitious  fancy  was  quelled  by  my  troubled  heart.  Had  I  not 
deserved  to  be  allowed  to  go  ?  Did  they  not  all  know  that  all  my  happiness  in 
this  life  depended  on  my  being  allowed  to  go  ?  Could  any  one  of  them  give  a 
reason  for  not  allowing  me  to  go  ?  What  right  had  they  to  say  that  if  I  did 
go,  I  should  never  be  able  to  find  my  way,  by  myself,  back  ?  What  right  had 
they  to  say  that  Ronndy  was  a  blackguard,  and  that  he  would  lead  me  to  the 
gallows?  Never  before,  in  all  the  world,  had  a  good  boy  been  used  so  on  his 
birthday.  They  pretend  to  be  sorry  when  I  am  sick — and  when  I  say  my 
prayers,  they  say  theirs  too ;  but  I  am  sicker  noAv — and  they  are  not  sorry,  but 
angry — there's  no  use  in  prayers — and  I  won't  read  one  verse  in  the  Bible 
this  night,  should  my  aunt  go  down  on  her  knees.  And  in  the  midst  of  such 
unworded  soliloquies  did  the  young  blasphemer  fall  asleep. 

BULLER. 

Young  Christopher  North  !    Incredible. 

NORTH. 

I  know  not  how  long  I  slept ;  but  on  awaking,  I  saw  an  angel  with  a  most 
beautiful  face  and  most  beautiful  hair — a  little  young  angel— about  the  same 
size  as  myself — sitting  on  a  stool  by  my  feet.  "  Are  you  quite  well  now, 
Christopher?  Let  us  go  to  the  meadows  and  gather  flowers."  Shame,  sor- 
row, remorse,  contrition,  came  to  me  with  those  innocent  words — we  wept  to- 
gether, and  I  was  comforted.  "  I  have  been  sinful" — "  but  you  are  forgiven." 
Down  all  the  stairs  hand  in  hand  we  glided ;  and  there  was  no  longer  anger 
in  any  eyes — the  whole  house  was  happy.  All  voices  were  kinder — if  that 
were  possible — than  they  had  been  when  I  rose  in  the  morning — a  Boy  in  his 
Ninth  Year.  Parental  hands  smoothed  my  hair — parental  lips  kissed  it — and 
parental  greetings,  only  a  little  more  cheerful  than  prayers,  restored  me  to 
the  Love  I  had  never  lost,  and  which  I  felt  now  had  animated  that  brief  and 
just  displeasure.  I  had  never  heard  then  of  Elysian  fields;  but  I  had  often 
heard,  and  often  had  dreamt  happy,  happy  dreams  of  fields  of  light  in  heaven. 
And  such  looked  the  fields  to  be,"  where  fairest  Mary  Gordon  and  I  gathered 
flowers,  and  spoke  to  the  birds,  and  to  one  another,  all  day  long — and  again, 
when  the  day  was  gone,  and  the  evening  going,  on  till  moontime,  below  and 
among  the  soft-burning  stars. 

BULLER. 

And  never  has  Christopher  been  in  the  Sulks  since  that  day. 

NORTH. 

Under  heaven  I  owe  it  all  to  that  child's  eyes.  Still  I  sternly  keep  the 
Anniversary — for,  beyond  doubt,  I  was  that  day  possessed  with  a  Devil — 
and  an  angel  it  was,  though  human,  that  drove  him  out. 

SEWARD. 

Your  first  Love  ? 

NORTH. 

In  a  week  she  was  in  heaven.  My  friends— in  childhood — our  whole  future 
life  would  sometimes  seem  to  be  al  the  mercy  of  such  small  events  as  these. 
Small  call  them  not — for  they  are  great  for  good  or  for  evil — because  of  the 
unfathomable  mysteries  that  lie  shrouded  in  the  growth,  on  earth,  of  an  im- 
mortal soul. 

SEWARD. 

May  I  dare  to  ask  you,  sir — it  is  indeed  a  delicate — a  more  than  delicate 
question — if  the  Anniversary — has  been  brought  round  with  the  revolving 
year  since  we  encamped  ? 

NORTH. 

It  has. 

SEWARD. 

Ah !  Buller !  we  know  now  the  reason  of  his  absence  that  day  from  the 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  5 

Pavilion  and  Deeside — of  his  utter  seclusion — he  was  doing  penance  in  the 
Swiss  Giantess — a  severe  sojourn. 

NORTH. 

A  Good  Temper,  friends — not  a  good  Conscience — is  the  Blessing  of  Life. 

BULLER. 

Shocked  to  hear  you  say  so,  sir.  Unsay  it,  my  dear  sir — unsay  it — per- 
nicious-doctrine. It  may  get  abroad. 

NORTH. 

THE  SULKS  ! — the  CELESTIALS.  The  Sulks  are  hell,  sirs — the  Celestials, 
by  the  very  name,  heaven.  I  take  temper  in  its  all-embracing  sense  of 
Physical,  Mental,  and  Moral  Atmosphere.  Pure  and  serene — then  we  respire 
God's  gifts,  and  are  happier  than  we  desire !  Is  not  that  divine  ?  Foul  and 
disturbed — then  we  are  stifled  by  God's  gifts — and  are  wickeder  than  we 
fear !  Is  not  that  devilish  ?  A  good  Conscience  and  a  bad  Temper !  Talk 
not  to  me,  Young  Men,  of  pernicious  doctrine — it  is  a  soul-saving  doctrine — 
"  millions  of  spiritual  creatures  wadk  unseen"  teaching  it — men's  Thoughts, 
communing  with  heaven,  have  been  teaching  it — surely  not  all  in  vain — since 
Cain  slew  Abel. 

SEAVARD. 

The  Sage ! 

BULLER. 

Socrates. 

NORTH. 

Morose !  Think  for  five  minutes  on  what  that  word  means — and  on  what 
that  word  contains — and  you  see  the  Man  must  be  an  Atheist.  Sitting  in 
the  House  of  God  morosely!  Bright,  bold,  beautiful  boys  of  ours,  ye  are  not 
morose — heaven's  air  has  free  access  through  your  open  souls — a  clear  con- 
science carries  the  Friends  in  their  pastimes  up  the  Mountains. 

SEAVARD. 
And  their  fathers  before  them. 

NORTH. 

And  their  great-grandfather — I  mean  their  spiritual  great-grandfather — 
myself — Christopher  North.  They  are  gathering  up — even  as  we  gathered  up — 
images  that  will  never  die.  Evanescent !  Clouds — lights — shadows — glooms 
— the  falling  sound — the  running  murmur — and  the  swinging  roar — as  cataract, 
stream,  and  forest  all  alike  seem  wheeling  by — these  are  not  evanescent — for 
they  will  all  keep  coming  and  going — before  their  Imagination — all  life-long  at 
the  bidding  of  the  Will — or  obedient  to  a  Wish  !  Or  by  benign  Law,  whose 
might  is  a  mystery,  coming  back  from  the  far  profound — remembered  apparitions ! 

SEWARD. 
Dear  sir. 

NORTH. 

Even  my  Image  will  sometimes  reappear — and  the  Tents  of  Cladich — the 
Camp  on  Lochawe-side. 

BULLER. 

My  dear  sir — it  will  not  be  evanescent 

NORTH. 

And  withal  such  Devils !     But  I  have  given  them  carte  blanche. 

SEWARD. 
Nor  will  they  abuse  it. 

NORTH. 

I  wonder  when  they  sleep.  Each  has  his  own  dormitory — the  cluster 
forming  the  left  wing  of  the  Camp — but  Deeside  is  not  seldom  broad  awake 
till  midnight ;  and  though  I  am  always  up  and  out  by  six  at  the  latest, 
never  once  have  I  caught  a  man  of  them  napping,  but  either  there  they  are 
each  more  blooming  than  the  other,  getting  ready  their  gear  for  a  start; — or,  on 
sweeping  the  Loch  with  my  glass,  I  see  their  heads,  like  wild-ducks — swim- 
ming— round  Rabbit  Island — as  some  wretch  has  baptised  Inishail — or  away 
to  luistrynish — or,  for  anything  I  know,  to  Port-Sonachan — swimming  for  a 
Medal  given  by  the  Club !  Or  there  goes  G'utta  Percha  by  the  Pass  of  Brandir, 


6  Christopher  under  Canvass, 

or  shooting  away  into  the  woods  near  Kilchurn.  Twice  have  they  been  oil 
the  top  of  Cruachan — once  for  a  clear  hour,  and  once  for  a  dark  day — the  very 
next  morning,  Marmaduke  said,  they  would  have  "  some  more  mountain,"  and 
the  Four  Cloud-compellers  swept  the  whole  range  of  Ben-Bhuridh  and  Bein- 
Lurachan  as  far  as  the  head  of  Glensrea.  Though  they  said  nothing  about  it, 
I  heard  of  their  having  been  over  the  hills  behind  us,  t'other  night,  at  Cairn- 
dow,  at  a  wedding.  -Why,  only  think,  sirs,  yesterday  they  were  off  by  day- 
light to  try  their  luck  in  Loch  Dochart,  and  again  I  heard  their  merriment 
soon  after  we  had  retired.  They  must  have  footed  it  above  forty  miles. 
That  Cornwall  Clipper  will  be  their  death.  And  off  again  this  morning — all 
on  foot — to  the  Black  Mount. 

BULLER. 

For  what  ? 

NORTH. 

By  permission  of  the  Marquis,  to  shoot  an  Eagle.  She  is  said  to  be  again 
on  egg — and  to  cliff-climbers  her  eyrie  is  within  rifle-range.  But  let  us 
forget  the  Boys — as  they  have  forgot  us. 

SEWARD. 

The  Loch  is  calmer  to-day,  sir,  than  we  have  yet  seen  it ;  but  the  calm  is 
of  a  different  character  from  yesterday's — that  was  serene,  this  is  solemn — I 
had  almost  said  austere.  Yesterday  there  were  few  clouds ;  and  such  was 
the  prevailing  power  of  all  those  lovely  woods  on  the  islands,  and  along  the 
mainland  shores — that  the  whole  reflexion  seemed  sylvan.  When  gazing  on 
such  a  sight,  does  not  our  feeling  of  the  unrealities — the  shadows — attach  to 
the  realities — the  substances  ?  So  that  the  living  trees — earth-rooted,  and 
growing  upwards — become  almost  as  visionaiy  as  their  inverted  semblances 
in  that  commingling  clime  ?  Or  is  it  that  the  life  of  the  trees  gives  life  to  the 
images,  and  imagination  believes  that  the  whole,  in  its  beauty,  must  belong, 
by  the  same  law,  to  the  same  world  ? 

NORTH. 

Let  us  understand,  without  seeking  to  destroy,  our  delusions — for  has  not 
this  life  of  ours  been  wisely  called  the  dream  of  a  shadow ! 

SEWARD. 

To-day  there  are  many  clouds,  and  aloft  they  are  beautiful ;  nor  is  the 
light  of  the  sun  not  most  gracious ;  but  the  repose  of  all  that  downward 
world  affects  me — I  know  not  why — with  sadness — it  is  beginning  to  look 
almost  gloomy — and  I  seem  to  see  the  hush  not  of  sleep,  but  of  death.  There 
is  not  the  unboundaried  expanse  of  yesterday — the  loch  looks  narrower — and 
Cruachan  closer  to  us,  with  all  his  heights. 

BULLER. 

I  felt  a  drop  of  rain  on  the  back  of  my  hand. 

SEWARD. 

It  must  have  been,  then,  from  your  nose.  There  will  be  no  rain  this  week. 
But  a  breath  of  air  there  is  somewhere — for  the  mirror  is  dimmed,  and  the 
vision  gone. 

NORTH. 

The  drop  was  not  from  his  nose,  Seward,  for  here  are  three — and  clear,  pure 
drops  too — on  my  Milton.  I  should  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  we  were  to  have 
a  little  rain. 

SEWARD. 
Odd  enough.    I  cannot  conjecture  where  it  conies  from.    It  must  be  dew. 

BULLER. 

Who  ever  heard  of  dew  dropping  in  large  fat  globules  at  meridian  on  a  sum- 
mer's day?  It  is  getting  very  close  and  sultry.  The  interior  must  be,  as 
Wordsworth  says,  "  Like  a  Lion's  den."  Did  you  whisper,  sir? 

NORTH. 

No.    But  something  did.    Look  at  the  quicksilver,  Buller. 

BULLER. 

Thermometer  85.  Barometer  I  can  say  nothing  about — but  that  it  is  very 
low  indeed.  A  long  way  below  Stormy. 


4849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  7 

NORTH. 

What  colour  would  you  call  that  Glare  about  the  Crown  of  Cruachan  ? 
Yellow? 

SEWARD. 

You  may  just  as  well  call  it  yellow  as  not.  I  never  saw  such  a  colour  be- 
fore— and  don't  care  though  I  never  see  such  again — for  it  is  horrid.  That  is 
a — Glare. 

,  NORTH. 

Cowper  says  grandly, 

"  A  terrible  sagacity  informs 
The  Poet's  heart:  he  looks  to  distant  storms; 
He  hears  the  thunder  ere  the  tempest  lowers." 

He  is  speaking  of  tempests  in  the  moral  world.  You  know  the  passage — 
it  is  a  fine  one — so  indeed  is  the  whole  Epistle — Table-Talk.  I  am  a  bit  of  a 
Poet  myself  in  smelling  thunder.  Early  this  morning  I  set  it  down  for  mid- 
day— and  it  is  mid-day  now. 

DULLER. 
Likcr  Evening. 

NORTH. 

Dimmish  and  darkish,  certainly — but  unlike  Evening.  I  pray  you  look  at 
,the  Sun. 

BULLER. 

What  about  him  ? 

NORTH. 

Though  unclouded — he  seems  shrouded  in  his  own  solemn  light — expecting 
thunder. 

BULLER. 

There  is  not  much  motion  among  the  clouds. 

NORTH. 

Not  yet.  Merely  what  in  Scotland  we  call  a  carry — yet  that  great 
central  mass  is  double  the  size  it  was  ten  minutes  ago — the  City  Churches 
are  crowding  round  the  Cathedral — and  the  whole  assemblage  lies  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Citadel — with  battlements  and  colonnades  at  once  Fort  and 
Temple. 

BULLER. 

Still  some  blue  sky.    Not  very  much.    But  some. 

NORTH. 

Cruachan !  you  are  changing  colour. 

BULLER. 

Grim — very. 

NORTH. 

The  Loch's  like  ink.    I  could  dip  my  pen  in  it. 

SEWARD. 
We  are  about  to  have  thunder. 

NORTH. 

Weather-wise  wizard — we  are.  That  mutter  was  thunder.  In  five  seconds 
you  will  hear  some  more.  One — two — three — four — there ;  that  was  a  growl. 
I  call  that  good  growling — sulky,  sullen,  savage  growling,  that  makes  the 
heart  of  Silence  quake. 

SEWARD. 
And  mine. 

NORTH. 

What?  Dying  away !  Some  incomprehensible  cause  is  turning  the  thun- 
derous masses  round  towards  Appin. 

SEWARD. 

And  I  wish  them  a  safe  journey. 

NORTH. 

All  right.  They  are  coming  this  way— all  at  once — the  whole  Thunder- 
storm. Flash — roar. 


8  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Julys 

"  Be  thou  as  lightning  in  the  eyes  of  France; 
For  ere  thou  canst  report  I  will  be  there, 
The  thunder  of  my  cannon  shall  be  heard." 
Who  but  Willy  could  have  said  that  ? 

SEWARD. 
Who  said  what? 

NORTH. 

How  ghastly  all  the  trees ! 

SEWARD. 

I  see  no  trees — nor  anything  else. 

NORTH. 

How  can  you,  with  that  Flying  Dutchman  over  your  eyes  ? 

BCLLER. 

I  gave  him  my  handkerchief — for  at  this  moment  I  know  his  head  is  like 
to  rend.  I  wish  I  had  kept  it  to  myself;  but  no  use — the  lightning  is  seen 
through  lids  and  hands,  and  would  be  through  stone  walls. 

NORTH. 

Each  flash  has,  of  course,  a  thunder-clap  of  its  own — if  we  knew  where  to 
look  for  it ;  but,  to  our  senses,  all  connexion  between  cause  and  effect  is  lost 
— such  incessant  flashings — and  such  multitudinous  outbreaks — and  such  a 
continuous  roll  of  outrageous  echoes ! 

BULLER. 

Coruscation — explosion — are  but  feeble  words. 

NORTH. 
The  Cathedral's  on  Fire. 

BULLER. 

I  don't  mind  so  much  those  wide  flarings  among  the  piled  clouds,  as  these 

gleams oh ! 

NORTH. 

Where  art  thou,  Cruachan!  Ay — methinks  I  see  thee — methinks  I  do 
not — thy  Three  Peaks  may  not  pierce  the  masses  that  now  oppress  thee — 
but  behind  the  broken  midway  clouds,  those  black  purple  breadths  of  solid 
earth  are  thine — thine  those  unmistakeable  Cliffs — thine  the  assured  beauty 
of  that  fearless  Forest — and  may  the  lightning  scathe  not  one  single  tree ! 

BULLER. 

Nor  man. 

NORTH. 

This  is  your  true  total  Eclipse  of  the  Sun.  Day,  not  night,  is  the  time 
for  thunder  and  lightning.  Night  can  be  dark  of  itself — nay,  cannot  help  it ; 
but  when  Day  grows  black,  then  is  the  blackness  of  darkness  in  the  Bright 
One  terrible ; — and  terror — Burke  said  well — is  at  the  heart  of  the  sublime. 
The  Light,  such  as  it  is,  sets  off  the  power  of  the  lightning — it  pales  to  that 
flashing — and  is  forgotten  in  Fire.  It  smells  of  hell. 

SEWARD. 

It  is  constitutional  in  the  Sewards.    North,  I  am  sick. 

NORTH. 

Give  way  to  gasping — and  lie  down — nothing  can  be  done  for  you.  The 
danger  is  not — 

SEWARD. 
I  am  not  afraid— I  am  faint. 

NORTH. 

You  must  speak  louder,  if  you  expect  to  be  heard  by  ears  of  clay.  Peals  is 
not  the  word.  "  Peals  on  peals  redoubled"  is  worse.  There  never  was — and 
never  will  be  a  word  in  any  language — for  all  that. 

BULLER. 
Unreasonable  to  expect  it.    Try  twenty — in  twenty  languages. 

NORTH. 

Buller,  you  may  count'ten  individual  deluges — besides  the  descent  of  three 
at  hand — conspicuous  in  the  general  Rain,  which  without  them  would  be  Rain 
sufficient  for  a  Flood.  Now  the  Camp  has  it — and  let  us  enter  the  Pavilions. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  9 

I  don't  think  there  is  much  wind  here — yet  far  down  the  black  Loch  is  silently 
whitening  witli  waves  like  breakers  ;  for  here  the  Rain  alone  rules,  and 
its  rushing  deadens  the  retiring  thunder.  The  ebbing  thunder !  Still  louder 
than  any  sea  on  any  shore — but  a  diminishing  loudness,  though  really  vast, 
seems  quelled ;  and,  losing  its  power  over  the  present,  imagination  follows  it 
not  into  the  distant  region  where  it.  may  be  raging  as  bad  as  ever.  Buller? 

BULLEK. 

What? 

NORTH. 

How's  Seward  ? 

SEWARD. 

Much  better.  It  was  very,  very  kind  of  you,  my  dear  sir,  to  carry  me  in 
your  arms,  and  place  me  in  your  own  Swing- chair.  The  change  of  atmosphere 
has  revived  me — but  the  Boys ! 

NORTH. 

The  Boys — why,  they  went  to  the  Black  Mount  to  shoot  an  eagle,  and  sec 
a  thunder-storm,  and  long  before  this  they  have  had  their  heart's  desire. 
There  are  caves,  Seward,  in  Buachail-Mor;  and  one  recess  I  know — not  a 
cave — but  grander  far  than  any  cave — near  the  Fall  of  Eas-a-Bhrogich — far 
down  below  the  bottom  of  the  Fall,  which  in  its  long  descent  whitens  the 
sable  cliffs.  Thither  leads  a  winding  access  no  storm  can  shake.  In  that 
recess  you  sit  rock- surrounded — but  with  elbow-room  for  five  hundred  men — 
and  all  the  light  you  have — and  you  would  not  wish  for  more — comes  down 
upon  you  from  a  cupola  far  nearer  heaven  than  that  hung  by  Michael 
Angelo. 

SEWARD. 

The  Boys  are  safe. 

NORTH. 

Or  the  lone  House  of  Dalness  has  received  them — hospitable  now  as  of  yore — 
or  the  Huntsman's  hut — or  the  Shepherd's  shieling — that  word  I  love,  and  shall 
use  it  now — though  shieling  it  is  not,  but  a  comfortable  cottage — and  the 
dwellers  there  fear  not  the  thunder  and  the  lightning — for  they  know  they  are 
in  His  hands — and  talk  cheerfully  in  the  storm. 

SEWARD. 

Over  and  gone.    How  breathable  the  atmosphere ! 

NORTH. 

In  the  Forests  of  the  Marquis  and  of  Monzie,  the  horns  of  the  Red-deer  are 
again  in  motion.  In  my  mind's  eye —  Harry — I  see  one — an  enormous  fellow — 
bigger  than  the  big  stag  of  Benmore  himself— and  not  to  be  so  easily  brought 
to  peiform,  by  particular  desire,  the  part  of  Moriens — giving  himself  a  shake  of 
liis  whole  huge  bulk,  and  a  caive  of  his  whole  wide  antlery — and  then  leading 
down  from  the  Corrie,  with  Platonic  affection,  a  herd  of  Hinds  to  the  gre"en- 
sward  islanded  among  brackens  and  heather — a  spot  equally  adapted  for 
feed,  play,  rumination,  and  sleep.  And  the  Roes  are  glinting  through  the 
glades — and  the  Fleece  are  nibbling  on  the  mountains'  glittering  breast — and 
the  Cattle  are  grazing,  and  galloping,  and  lowing  on  the  hills — and  the  furred 
folk,  who  are  always  dry,  come  out  from  crevices  for  a  mouthful  of  the  fresh 
air ;  and  the  whole  four-footed  creation  are  jocund — are  happy ! 

BULLER. 

What  a  picture ! 

NORTH. 

And  the  Fowls  of  the  Air — think  ye  not  the  Eagle,  storm-driven  not  un- 
alarmed  along  that  league-long  face  of  cliff,  is  now  glad  at  heart,  pruning  the 
wing  that  shall  carry  him  again,  like  a  meteor,  into  the  subsided  skies? 

BULLER. 

What  it  is  to  have  an  imagination  !    Worth  all  my  Estate. 

NORTH. 

Let  us  exchange. 

BULLER. 

Not  possible.    Strictly  entailed. 


10  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

NORTH. 
Dock. 

BULLER. 

Mno. 

NORTH. 

And  the  little  wren  flits  out  from  the.  back  door  of  her  nest — too  happy 
she  to  sing — and  in  a  minute  is  back  again,  with  a  worm  in  her  mouth,  to 
her  half-score  gaping  babies — the  sole  family  in  all  the  dell.  And  the  sea- 
mews,  sore  against  their  will  driven  seawards,  are  returning  by  ones  and 
twos,  and  thirties,  and  thousands,  up  Loch-Etive,  and,  dallying  with  what 
wind  is  still  alive  above  the  green  transparency,  drop  down  in  successive  par- 
ties of  pleasure  on  the  silver  sands  of  Ardmatty,  or  lured  onwards  into 
the  still  leas  of  Glenliver,  or  the  profounder  quietude  of  the  low  mounds  of 
Dalness. 

SEWARD. 

My  fancy  is  contented  to  feed  on  what  is  before  my  eyes. 

BULLER. 

Doff,  then,  the  Flying  Dutchman. 

NORTH. 

And  thousands  of  Rills,  on  the  first  day  of  their  apparent  existence,  are 
all  happy  too,  and  make  me  happy  to  look  on  them  leaping  and  dancing  down 
the  rocks — and  the  River  Etive  rejoicing  in  his  strength,  from  far  Kingshouse 
all  along  to  the  end  of  his  journey,  is  happiest  of  them  all ;  for  the  storm  that 
has  swollen  has  not  discoloured  him,  and  with  a  pomp  of  clouds  on  his  breast, 
he  is  flowing  in  his  expanded  beauty  into  his  own  desired  Loch. 

SEWARD. 

Gaze  with  me,  my  dear  sir,  on  what  lies  before  our  eyes. 

NORTH. 

The  Rainbow ! 

BULLER. 

Four  miles  wide,  and  half  a  mile  broad. 

NORTH. 
Thy  own  Rainbow,  Cruachan — from  end  to  end. 

SEWARD. 

Is  it  fading — or  is  it  brightening  ? — no,  it  is  not  fading — and  to  brighten 
is  impossible.  It  is  the  beautiful  at  perfection — it  is  dissolving — it  is  gone. 

BULLER. 

I  asked  you,  sir,  have  the  Poets  well  handled  Thunder  ? 

NORTH. 

I  was  waiting  for  the  Rainbow.  Many  eyes  besides  ours  are  now  regard- 
ing it — many  hearts  gladdened — but  have  you  not  often  felt,  Seward,  as  if 
such  Apparitions  came  at  a  silent  call  in  our  souls—that  we  might  behold 
them — and  that  the  hour — or  the  moment — was  given  to  us  alone!  So 
have  I  felt  when  walking  alone  among  the  great  solitudes  of  Nature. 

SEWARD. 

Lochawe  is  the  name  now  for  a  dozen  little  lovely  lakes !  For,  lo !  as  the 
vapours  are  rising,  they  disclose,  here  a  bay  that  does  not  seem  to  be  a  bay, 
but  complete  in  its  own  encircled  stillness, — there  a  bare  grass  island — yes,  it  is 
Inishail — with  a  shore  of  mists, — and  there,  with  its  Pines  and  Castle,  Freoch, 
as  if  it  were  Loch  Freoch,  and  not  itself  an  Isle.  Beautiful  bewilderment ! 
but  of  our  own  creating ! — for  thus  Fancy  is  fain  to  dally  with  what  we  love — 
and  would  seek  to  estrange  the  familiar — as  if  Lochawe  in  its  own  simple 
grandeur  were  not  all-sufficient  for  our  gaze. 

BULLER. 

Let  me  try  my  hand.  No — no — no — I  can  see  and  feel,  have  an  eye  and 
a  heart  for  Scenery,  as  it  is  called,  but  am  no  hand  at  a  description.  My 
dear,  sweet,  soft-breasted,  fair-fronted,  bright-headed,  delightful  Cruachan — 
thy  very  name,  how  liquid  with  open  vowels — not  a  consonant  among  them 
-all — no  Man-Mountain  Thou — Thou  art  the  LADY  OF  THE  LAKE.  I  am  in 
love  with  Thee— Thou  must  not  think  of  retiring  from  the  earth— Thou 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  11 

must  not  take  the  veil — off  with  it — off  with  it  from  those  glorious  shoulders 
— and  come,  in  all  Thy  loveliness,  to  my  long— my  longing  arms ! 

SEWARD. 
Is  that  the  singing  of  larks  ? 

NORTH. 

No  larks  live  here.  The  laverock  is  a  Lowland  bird,  and  loves  our  brairded 
fields  and  our  pastoral  braes ;  but  the  Highland  mountains  are  not  for  him — 
he  knows  by  instinct  that  they  are  haunted— though  he  never  saw  the  shadow 
nor  heard  the  sugh  of  the  eagle's  wing. 

SEWARD. 

The  singing  from  the  woods  seems  to  reach  the  sky.  They  have  utterly 
forgotten  their  fear ;  or  think  you,  sir,  that  birds  know  that  what  frightened 
them  is  gone,  and  that  they  sing  with  intenser  joy  because  of  the  fear  that  kept 
them  mute  ? 

NORTH. 

The  lambs  are  frisking — and  the  sheep  staling  placidly  at  the  Tents.  I 
hear  the  hum  of  bees — returned — and  returning  from  their  straw-built  Cita- 
dels. In  the  primal  hour  of  his  winged  life,  that  wavering  butterfly  goes  by  in 
search  of  the  sunshine  that  meets  him ;  and  happy  for  this  generation  of 
ephemerals  that  they  first  took  wing  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  of  the  Great 
Storm. 

BUIXER. 

How  have  the  Poets,  sir,  handled  thunder  and  lightning? 

NORTH. 

Saepe  ego,  cum  flayis  messprem  induceret  arvis 
Agricola,  et  fragili  jam  stringeret  hordea  culmo, 
Omnia  ventorum  concurrere  praelia  vidi, 
Quae  gravidam  late  segetem  ab  radicibus  imis 
Sublime  expulsam  eruerent:  ita  turbine  nigro 
Ferret  hyems  culmumque  levem,  stipulasque  volantes. 
Saepe  etiam  immensum  coelo  venit  agmen  aquarum, 
Et  foedam  glomerant  tempestatem  imbribus  atris 
Collectae  ex  alto  nubes :  ruit  arduus  aether, 
Et  pluvia  ingenti  sata  laeta,  boumque  labores 
Diluit :  implentur  fossae,  et  cava  flumina  crescunt 
Cum  sonitu,  fervetque  fretis  spirantibus  aequor. 
Ipse  Pater,  media  nimborum  in  nocte,  corusca 
Fulmina  molitur  dextra :  quo  maxima  motu 
Terra  tremit :  fugere  ferap,  et  mortalia  corda 
Per  gentes  humilis  stravit  pavor :  ille  flagrant! 
Aut  Atho,  aut  Rhodopen,  aut  alta  Ceraunia  telo 
Dejicit :  ingeminant  Austri,  et  densissimus  imber : 
Nunc  nemora  ingenti  vento,  nunc  littora  plangunt. 

BULLER. 

You  recite  well,  sir,  and  Latin  better  than  English— not  so  sing-songy — 
and  as  sonorous :  then  Virgil,  to  be  sure,  is  fitter  for  recitation  than  any 

Laker  of  you  all 

NORTH. 
I  am  not  a  Laker — I  am  a  Locher. 

BULLER. 
Tweedledum — tweedledee. 

NORTH. 

That  means  the  Tweed  and  the  Dee?  Content.  One  might  have  thought, 
Buller,  that  our  Scottish  Critics  would  have  been  puzzled  to  find  a  fault  in 

that  strain 

BULLER. 

It  is  faultless  ;  but  not  a  Scotch  critic  worth  a  curse  but  yourself 

NORTH. 

I  cannot  accept  a  compliment  at  the  expense  of  all  the  rest  of  my  country- 
men. I  cannot  indeed. 


12  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [July, 

BULLER. 

Yes,  you  can. 

NORTH. 

There  was  Lord  Kames — a  man  of  great  talents — a  most  ingenious  man — 
and  with  an  insight 

BULLER. 

I  never  heard  of  him — was  he  a  Scotch  Peer  ? 

NORTH. 

One  of  the  Fifteen.  A  strained  elevation — says  his  Lordship — I  am  sure 
of  the  words,  though  I  have  not  seen  his  Elements  of  Criticism  for  fifty 
years 

BULLER. 

You  are  a  creature  of  a  wonderful  memory. 

NORTH. 

"A  strained  elevation  is  attended  with  another  inconvenience,  that  the  author 
is  apt  to  fall  suddenly,  as  well  as  the  reader ;  because  it  is  not  a  little  difficult 
to  descend  sweetly  and  easily  from  such  elevation  to  the  ordinary  tone  of  the 
subject.  The  following  is  a  good  illustration  of  that  observation" — and  then 
his  Lordship  quotes  the  passage  I  recited — stopping  with  the  words,  "  dcn- 
sissimus  imber"  which  are  thus  made  to  conclude  the  description ! 

BULLER. 

Oh !  oh !  oh  !    That's  murder. 

NORTH. 

In  the  description  of  a  storm — continues  his  Lordship — "  to  figure  Jupiter 
throwing  down  huge  mountains  with  his  thunderbolts,  is  hyperbolically  sub- 
lime, if  I  may  use  the  expression :  the  tone  of  mind  produced  by  that  image 
is  so  distinct  from  the  tone  produced  by  a  thick  shower  of  rain,  that  the 
sudden  transition  must  be  very  unpleasant." 

BULLER. 

Suggestive  of  a  great-coat.  That's  the  way  to  deal  with  a  great  Poet.  Clap 
your  hand  on  the  Poet's  mouth  in  its  fervour — shut  up  the  words  in  mid- 
volley — and  then  tell  him  that  he  does  not  know  how  to  descend  sweetly  and 
easily  from  strained  elevation  ! 

NORTH. 

Nor  do  I  agree  with  his  Lordship  that  "  to  figure  Jupiter  throwing  down 
huge  mountains  with  his  thunderbolts  is  hyperbolically  sublime."  As  a  part 
for  a  whole  is  a  figure  of  speech,  so  is  a  whole  for  a  part.  Virgil  says, 
"  dejicit ;"  but  he  did  not  mean  to  say  that  Jupiter  "  tumbled  down"  Athos 
or  Rhodope  or  the  Acroceraunian  range.  He  knew — for  he  saw  them — that 
there  they  were  in  all  their  altitude  after  the  storm — little  if  at  all  the  worse. 
But  Jupiter  had  struck — smitten — splintered — rent — trees  and  rocks — midway 
or  on  the  summits — and  the  sight  was  terrific — and  "  dejicit "  brings  it  before 
our  imagination  which  not  for  a  moment  pictures  the  whole  mountain 
tumbling  down.  But  great  Poets  know  the  power  of  words,  and  on  great 
occasions  how  to  use  them — in  this  case — one — and  small  critics  will  not  suffer 
their  own  senses  to  instruct  them  in  Poetry — and  hence  the  Elements  of 
Criticism  are  not  the  Elements  of  Nature,  and  assist  us  not  in  comprehending 
the  grandeur  of  reported  storms. 

BULLER. 

Lay  it  into  them,  sir. 

NORTH. 

Good  Dr  Hugh  Blair  again,  who  in  his  day  had  a  high  character  for  taste 
and  judgment,  agreed  with  Henry  Home  that  "  the  transition  is  made  too 
hastily — I  am  afraid — from  the  preceding  sublime  images,  to  a  thick  shower 
and  the  blowing  of  the  south  wind,  and  shows  how  difficult  it  frequently  ia 
to  descend  with  grace,  without  seeming  to  fall."  Nay,  even  Mr  Alison 
himself — one  of  the  finest  spirits  that  ever  breathed  on  earth,  says — "I 
acknowledge,  indeed,  that  the  '  pluvia  ingenti  sata  laeta,  boumque  labores 
•diluit'  is  defensible  from  the  connexion  of  the  imagery  with  the  subject  of  the 
poem  ;  but  the  '  implentur  fossae'  is  both  an  unnecessary  and  a  degrading  cir- 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  IS 

cumstance  when  compared  with  the  magnificent  effects  that  are  described  in 
the  rest  of  the  passage."  In  his  quotation,  too,  the  final  grand  line  is  inad- 
vertently omitted — 

"  Nunc  neiuora  iiigenti  vento,  nunc  litora  plangunt." 
BULLER. 

I  never  read  Hugh  Blair — but  I  have  read — often,  and  always  with  in- 
creased delight — Mr  Alison's  exquisite  Essays  on  the  Nature  and  Principles 
of  Taste,  and  Lord  Jeffrey's  admirable  exposition  of  the  Theory — in  state- 
ment so  clear,  and  in  illustration  so  rich — worth  all  the  ^Esthetics  of  the  Ger- 
mans— Schiller  excepted — in  one  Volume  of  Mist. 

NORTH. 

Mr  Alison  had  an  original  as  well  as  a  fine  mind ;  and  here  he  seems  to 
have  been  momentarily  beguiled  into  mistake  by  unconscious  deference  to  the 
judgment  of  men — in  his  province  far  inferior  to  himself — whom  in  his 
modesty  he  admired.  Mark.  Virgil's  main  purpose  is  to  describe  the  dangers — 
the  losses  to  which  the  agriculturist  is  at  all  seasons  exposed  from  wind  and 
weather.  And  he  sets  them  before  us  in  plain  and  perspicuous  language,  not 
rising  above  the  proper  level  of  the  didactic.  Yet  being  a  Poet  he  puts  poetry 
into  his  description  from  the  first  and  throughout.  To  say  that  the  line 
"  Et  pluvia,"  &c.  is  "  defensible  from  the  connexion  of  the  imagery  with  the 
subject  of  the  Poem"  is  not  enough.  It  is  necessitated.  Strike  it  out  and 
you  abolish  the  subject.  And  just  so  with  "  implentur  fossas."  The  "  fossa}" 
we  know  in  that  country  were  numerous  and  wide,  and,  when  swollen,  dan- 
gerous— and  the  "  cava  flumina"  well  follow  instantly — for  the  "  fossa}"  were 
their  feeders— and  we  hear  as  well  as  see  the  rivers  rushing  to  the  sea — and 
we  hear  too,  as  well  as  see,  the  sea  itself.  There  the  description  ends.  Vir- 
gil has  done  his  work.  But  his  imagination  is  moved,  and  there  arises  a  new 
strain  altogether.  He  is  done  with  the  agriculturists.  And  now  he  deals  with 
man  at  large — with  the  whole  human  race.  He  is  now  a  Boanerges — a  son 
of  thunder — and  he  begins  with  Jove.  ;*  The  sublimity  comes  in  a  moment. 
"  Ipse  Pater,  media  nimborum  in  nocte" — and  is  sustained  to  the  close — the 
last  line  being  great  as  the  first — and  all  between  accordant,  and  all  true  to 
nature.  Without  rain  and  wind,  what  would  be  a  thunder-storm  ?  The 
"densissimus  imber"  obeys  the  laws — and  so  do  the  ingeminanting  Austri — 
and  the  shaken  woods  and  the  stricken  shores. 

BULLER. 

Well  done,  Virgil — well  done,  North. 

NORTH. 

I  cannot  rest,  Buller — I  can  have  no  peace  of  mind  but  in  a  successful 
defence  of  these  Ditches.  Why  is  a  Ditch  to  be  despised  ?  Because  it  is 
dug?  So  is  a  grave.  Is  the  Ditch — wet  or  dry— that  must  be  passed  by  the 
Volunteers  of  the  Fighting  Division  before  the  Fort  can  be  stormed,  too 
low  a  word  for  a  Poet  to  use  ?  Alas !  on  such  an  occasion  well  might  he  say, 
as  he  looked  after  the  assault  and  saw  the  floating  tartans — implentur  fossae — 
the  Ditch  is  filled ! 

BULLER. 

Ay,  Mr  North,  in  that  case  the  word  Ditch — and  the  thing — would  be 

dignified  by  danger,  daring,  and  death.    But  here 

NORTH. 

The  case  is  the  same — with  a  difference,  for  there  is  all  the  Danger — all  the 
Daring — all  the  Death — that  the  incident  or  event  admits  of— and  they  are 
not  small.  Think  for  a  moment.  The  Rain  falls  over  the  whole  broad  heart 
of  the  tilled  earth — from  the  face  of  the  fields  it  runs  into  the  Ditches — the 
first  unavoidable  receptacles — these  pour  into  the  rivers — the  rivers  into  the 
river  mouths'— and  then  you  are  in  the  Sea. 

BULLER. 

Go  on,  sir,  go  on. 

NORTH. 

I  am  amazed— I  am  indignant,  Buller.    Rm't  arduus  tether.    The  steep  or 


14  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [July, 

high  ether  rashes  down !  as  we  saw  it  rush  down  a  few  minutes  ago.  What 
happens  ? 

"  Et  pluvia  ingenti  sata  Iseta,  boumque  labores 
Diluit!" 

Alas !  for  the  hopeful — hopeless  husbandman  now.  What  a  multiplied  and 
magnified  expression  have  we  here  for  the  arable  lands.  All  the  glad  seed- 
time vain — vain 'all  industry  of  man  and  oxen — there  you  have  the  true  agri- 
cultural pathos— washed  away — set  in  a  swim — deluged !  Well  has  the  Poet 
— in  one  great  line — spoke  the  greatness  of  a  great  matter.  Sudden  afflic- 
tion—visible desolation— imagined  dearth. 

BULLER. 

Don't  stop,  sir,  you  speak  to  the  President  of  our  Agricultural  Society— go 
on,  sir,  go  on. 

NORTH. 

Now  drop  in — in  its  veriest  place,  and  in  two  words,  the  necessitated  Im- 
plentur  fossce.  No  pretence — no  display— no  phraseology— the  nakedest,  but 
quite  effectual  statement  of  the  fact— which  the  farmer — I  love  that  word 
farmer — has  witnessed  as  often  as  he  has  ever  seen  the  Coming — the  Ditches 
that  were  dry  ran  full  to  the  brim.  The  homely  rustic  fact,  strong  and  im- 
pressive to  the  husbandman,  cannot  be  dealt  with  by  poetry  otherwise  than 
by  setting  it  down  in  its  bald  simplicity.  Seek  to  raise — to  dress — to  disguise 
— and  you  make  it  ridiculous.  The  Mantuan  knew  better— he  says  what 
must  be  said — and  goes  on— 

BULLER. 

He  goes  on — so  do  you,  sir — you  both  get  on. 

NORTH. 

And  now  again  begins  Magnification, 

"  Et  cava  flumina  crescunt 
Cam  sonitu." 

The  "  hollow-bedded  rivers"  grow,  swell,  visibly  wax  mighty  and  turbulent. 
You  imagine  that  you  stand  on  the  bank  and  see  the  river  that  had  shrunk 
into  a  thread  getting  broad  enough  to  fill  the  capacity  of  its  whole  hollow  bed. 
The  rushing  of  arduous  ether  would  not  of  itself  have  proved  sufficient. 
Therefore  glory  to  the  Italian  Ditches  and  glory  to  the  Dumfriesshire  Drains, 
which  I  have  seen,  in  an  hour,  change  the  white  murmuring  Esk  into  a  red 
rolling  river,  with  as  sweeping  sway  as  ever  attended  the  Arno  on  its  way  to 
inundate  Florence. 

BULLER. 

Glory  to  the  Ditches  of  the  Vale  of  Arno— glory  to  the  Drains  of  Dumfries- 
shire. Draw  breath,  sir.  Now  go  on,  sir. 

NORTH. 

"  Cum  sonitu."  Not  as  Father  Thames  rises — silently — till  the  flow  lapse 
over  lateral  meadow-grounds  for  a  mile  on  either  side.  But  "  cum  sonitu," 
with  a  voice — with  a  roar — a  mischievous  roar — a  roar  of — ten  thousand 
Ditches. 

BULLER. 

And  then  the  "  flumina" — "  cava"  no  more — will  be  as  clear  as  mud. 

NORTH. 

You  have  hit  it.  They  will  be — for  the  Arno  in  flood  is  like  liquid  mud — 
by  no  means  enamouring,  perhaps  not  even  sublime— but  showing  you  that 
it  comes  off  the  fields  and  along  the  Ditches— that  you  see  swillings  of  the 
"  sata  laeta  boumque  labores." 

BULLER. 

Agricultural  Produce ! 

NORTH. 

For  a  moment— a  single  moment— leave  out  the  Ditches,  and  say  merely, 
"  The  rain  falls  over  the  fields— the  rivers  swell  roaring."  No  picture  at  all. 
You  must  have  the  fall  over  the  surface — the  gathering  in  the  narrower  artifi- 


1849.]  Christopher  tinder  Canvass.  15 

cial— the  delivery  into  the  wider  natural  channels — the  fight  of  spate  and  surge 
at  river  mouth — 

K  Pervetque  fretis  spirantibus  sequor." 
The  Ditches  are  indispensable  in  nature  and  in  Virgil. 

BULLER. 

Put  this  glass  of  water  to  your  lips,  sir— not  that  I  would  recommend  water 
to  a  man  in  a  fit  of  eloquence — but  I  know  you  are  abstinent — infatuated  in 
your  abjuration  of  wine.  Go  on — half-minute  time. 

NORTH. 

I  swear  to  defend — at  the  pen's  point — against  all  Comers — this  position — 
that  the  line 

"Dilnit:  implentur  fossa1,  cava  flumina  crescunt 
Cum  sonitu — " 

is,  where  it  stands — and  looking  before  and  after — a  perfect  line ;  and  that  to 
strike  out  "implentur  fossae"  would  be  an  outrage  on  it— just  equal,  Buller, 
to  my  knocking  out,  without  hesitation,  your  brains — for  your  brains  do  not 
contribute  more  to  the  flow  of  our  conversation— than  do  the  Ditches  to  that 
other  Spate. 

BULLER. 

That  will  do — you  may  stop. 

NORTH. 

I  ask  no  man's  permission — I  obey  no  man's  mandate — to  stop.  Now  Vir- 
gil takes  wing — now  he  blazes  and  soars.  Now  comes  the  power  and  spirit 
of  the  Storm  gathered  in  the  Person  of  the  Sire — of  him  who  wields  the  thun- 
derbolt into  which  the  Cyclops  have  forged  storms  of  all  sorts — wind  and 
rain  together — ' '  Tres  Imbri  torti  radios ! "  &c.  You  remember  the  magnificent 
mixture.  And  there  we  have  VIRGILIUS  versus  HOMERUM. 

BULLER. 

You  may  sit  down,  sir. 

NORTH. 

I  did  not  know  I  had  stood  up.    Beg  pardon. 

BULLER. 

I  am  putting  Swing  to  rights  for  you,  Sir. 

NORTH. 

Methinks  Jupiter  is  twice  apparent — the  first  time,  as  the  President  of 
the  Storm,  which  is  agreeable  to  the  dictates  of  reason  and  necessity ; — the 
second — to  my  fancy — as  delighting  himself  in  the  conscious  exertion  of 
power.  What  is  he  splintering  Athos,  or  Rhodope,  or  the  Acroceraunians  for  ? 
The  divine  use  of  the  Fulmen  is  to  quell  Titans,  and  to  kill  that  mad  fellow 
who  was  running  up  the  ladder  at  Thebes,  Capaneus.  Let  the  Great  Gods  find 
out  their  enemies  now — find  out  and  finish  them — and  enemies  they  must  have 
not  a  few  among  those  prostrate  crowds — "  per  gentes  humilis  stravit  pavor." 
But  shattering  and  shivering  the  mountain  tops — which,  as  I  take  it,  is  here 
the  prominent  affair — and,  as  I  said,  the  true  meaning  of  "  dejicit" — is 
mere  pastime — as  if  Jupiter  Tonans  were  disporting  himself  on  a  holiday. 

BULLER. 

Oh!  sir,  you  have  exhausted  the  subject — if  not  yourself — and  us; — I  be- 
seech you  sit  down ; — see,  Swing  solicits  you — and  oh  !  sir,  you — we— all  of 
us  will  find  in  a  few  minutes'  silence  a  great  relief  after  all  that  thunder. 

NORTH. 

You  remember  Lucretius  ? 

BULLER. 

No,  I  don't.  To  you  I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  I  read  him  with 
some  difficulty.  With  ease,  sir,  do  you  ? 

NORTH. 

I  never  knew  a  man  who  did  but  Bobus  Smith ;  and  so  thoroughly  was  he 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  great  Epicurean,  that  Landor — himself  the  best 
Latinist  living — equals  him  with  Lucretius.  The  famous  Thunder  passage  is 


16  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

very  fine,  but  I  cannot  recollect  every  word ;  and  the  man  who,  in  recitation, 
haggles  and  boggles  at  a  great  strain  of  a  great  poet  deserves  death  without 
benefit  of  clergy.  I  do  remember,  however,  that  he  does  not  descend  from 
his  elevation  with  such  ease  and  grace  as  would  have  satisfied  Henry  Home 
and  Hugh  Blair — for  he  has  so  little  notion  of  true  dignity  as  to  mention 
rain,  as  Virgil  afterwards  did,  in  immediate  connexion  with  thunder. 

"  Quo  de  concussu  sequitur  grams  imber  et  uber, 
Omnis  utei  videatur  in  imbrem  vortier  aether, 
Atque  ita  prsecipitans  ad  diluviem  revocare." 

BULLER. 

What  think  yon  of  the  thunder  in  Thomson's  Seasons  ? 

NORTH. 

What  all  the  world  thinks — that  it  is  our  very  best  British  Thunder.  He 
gives  the  Gathering,  the  General  engagement,  and  the  Retreat.  In  the  Gather- 
ing there  are  touches  and  strokes  that  make  all  mankind  shudder— the  fore- 
boding— the  ominous !  And  the  terror,  when  it  comes,  aggrandises  the  premo- 
nitory symptoms.  "  Follows  the  loosened  aggravated  roar"  is  a  line  of  power 
to  bring  the  voice  of  thunder  upon  your  soul  on  the  most  peaceable  day. 
He,  too — prevailing  poet — feels  the  grandeur  of  the  Rain.  For  instant  on 
the  words  "  convulsing  heaven  and  earth,"  ensue, 

"  Down  comes  a  deluge  of  sonorous  hail, 
Or  prone-descending  rain." 

Thomson  had  been  in  the  heart  of  thunder-storms  many  a  time  before  he  left 
Scotland ;  and  what  always  impresses  me  is  the  want  of  method — the  con- 
fusion, I  might  almost  say — in  his  description.  Nothing  contradictory  in 
the  proceedings  of  the  storm  ;  they  all  go  on  obediently  to  what  we  know  of 
Nature's  laws.  But  the  effects  of  their  agency  on  man  and  nature  are  given — 
not  according  to  any  scheme — but  as  they  happen  to  come  before  the  Poet's 
imagination,  as  they  happened  in  reality.  The  pine  is  struck  first — then  the 
cattle  and  the  sheep  below — and  then  the  castled  cliff — and  then  the 

"  Gloomy  woods 

Start  at  the  flash,  and  from  their  deep  recess 
Wide-flaming  out,  their  trembling  inmates  shake." 

No  regular  ascending — or  descending  scale  here ;  but  wherever  the  light- 
ning chooses  to  go,  there  it  goes — the  blind  agent  of  indiscriminating  destruc- 
tion. 

BULLER. 

Capricious  Zig-zag. 

NORTH. 

Jemmy  was  overmuch  given  to  mouthing  in  the  Seasons ;  and  in  this  de- 
scription— matchless  though  it  be — he  sometimes  out-mouths  the  big-mouthed 
thunder  at  his  own  bombast.  Perhaps  that  is  inevitable — you  must,  in 
confabulating  with  that  Meteor,  either  imitate  him,  to  keep  him  and  yourself 
in  countenance,  or  be,  if  not  mute  as  a  mouse,  as  thin-piped  as  a  fly.  In 
youth  I  used  to  go  sounding  to  myself  among  the  mountains  the  concluding 
lines  of  the  Retreat. 

"  Amid  Carnarvon's  mountains  rages  loud 
The  repercussive  roar  ;  with  mighty  crush, 
Into  the  flashing  deep,  from  the  rude  rocks 
Of  Penmanmaur  heap'd  hideous  to  the  sky, 
Tumble  the  smitten  cliffs,  and  Snpwdon's  peak, 
Dissolving,  instant  yields  his  wintry  load  : 
Far  seen,  the  heights  of  heathy  Cheviot  blaze, 
And  Thule  bellows  through  her  utmost  isles." 

Are  they  good— or  are  they  bad  ?  I  fear— not  good.  But  I  am  dubious.  The 
previous  picture  has  been  of  one  locality — a  wide  one— but  within  the  visible 
horizon — enlarged  somewhat  by  the  imagination,  which,  as  the  schoolmen  said, 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  17 

inflows  into  every  act  of  the  senses — and  powerfully,  no  doubt,  into  the  senses 
engaged  in  witnessing  a  thunder-storm.  Many  of  the  effects  so  faithfully,  and 
some  of  them  so  tenderly  painted,  interest  us  by  their  picturesque  par- 
ticularity. 

K  Here  the  soft  flocks,  with  that  same  harmless  look 
They  wore  alive,  and  ruminating  still 
In  fancy's  eye  ;  and  there  the  frowning  bull. 
And  ox  half-raised." 

We  are  here  in  a  confined  world — close  to  us  and  near ;  and  our  sympathies 
with  its  inhabitants— human  or  brute— comprehend  the  very  attitudes  or  pos- 
tures in  which  the  lightning  found  and  left  them ;  but  the  final  verses  waft  us 
away  from  all  that  terror  and  pity— the  geographical  takes  place  of  the 
pathetic — a  visionary  panorama  of  material  objects  supersedes  the  heart- 
throbbing  region  of  the  spiritual— for  a  mournful  song  instinct  with  the 
humanities,  an  ambitious  bravura  displaying  the  power  and  pride  of  the 
musician,  now  thinking  not  at  all  of  us,  and  following  the  thunder  only  as 
affording  him  an  opportunity  for  the  display  of  his  own  art. 

BULLER. 

Are  they  good— or  are  they  bad  ?    I  am  dubious. 

NORTH. 

Thunder-storms  travel  fast  and  far — but  here  they  seem  simultaneous; 
Thule  is  more  vociferous  than  the  whole  of  Wales  together — yet  perhaps  the 
sound  itself  of  the  verses  is  the  loudest  of  all — and  we  cease  to  hear  the  thunder 
in  the  din  that  describes  it. 

BULLER. 

Severe— but  just. 

NORTH. 

Ha !  Thou  comest  in  such  a  questionable  shape — 

ENTRANT. 

That  I  will  speak  to  thee.  How  do  you  do,  my  dear  sir?  God  bless  youT 
how  do  you  do  ? 

NORTH. 
Art  thou  a  spirit  of  health  or  goblin  damned  ? 

ENTRANT. 

A  spirit  of  health. 

NORTH. 

It  is — it  is  the  voice  of  TALBOYS.  Don't  move  an  inch.  Stand  still  for  ten- 
seconds — on  the  very  same  site,  that  I  may  have  one  steady  look  at  you,  to 
make  assurance  doubly  sure — and  then  let  us  meet  each  other  half-way  in  a 
Cornish  hug. 

TALBOYS. 

Are  we  going  to  wrestle  already,  Mr  North  ? 

NORTH. 

Stand  still  ten  seconds  more.  He  is  He — You  are  You — gentlemen — H.  G. 
Talboys — Seward,  my  crutch— Boiler,  your  arm— 

TALBOYS. 

Wonderful  feat  of  agility !    Feet  up  to  the  ceiling — 

NORTH. 

Don't  say  ceiling — 

TALBOYS. 

Why  not  ?  ceiling — ccelum.    Feet  up  to  heaven. 

NORTH. 

An  involuntary  feat— the  fault  of  Swing— sole  fault— but  I  always  forget  it 
when  agitated— 

BULLER. 

Some  time  or  other,  sir,  you  will  fly  backwards  and  fracture  your  skull. 

NORTH. 

There,  we  have  recovered  our  equilibrium — now  we  are  in  grips,  don't  fear  a 
fall— I  hope  you  are  not  displeased  with  your  reception. 

VOL.  LXVI.      NO.  CCCCV.  B 


18  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [July, 

TALBOYS. 

I  wrote  last  night,  sir,  to  say  I  was  coming — but  there  being  no  speedier 
conveyance — I  put  the  letter  in  my  pocket,  and  there  it  is — 

NORTH. 

(On  reading  "  Dies  Boreales. — No.  1.") 
A  friend  returned !  spring  bursting  forth  again ! 
The  song  of  other  years !  which,  when  we  roam, 
Brings  up  all  sweet  and  common  things  of  home, 
And  sinks  into  the  thirsty  heart  like  rain ! 
Such  the  strong  influence  of  the  thrilling  strain 
By  human  love  made  sad  and  musical, 
Yet  full  of  high  philosophy  withal, 
Poured  from  thy  wizard  harp  o'er  land  and  main ! 

A  thousand  hearts  will  waken  at  its  call, 
And  breathe  the  prayer  they  breathed  in  earlier  youth, — 

May  o'er  thy  brow  no  envious  shadow  fall! 
"Blaze  in  thine  eye  the  eloquence  of  truth ! 

Thy  righteous  wrath  the  soul  of  guilt  appal, 
As  lion's  streaming  hair  or  dragon's  fiery  tooth ! 

TALBOYS. 
I  blush  to  think  I  have  given  you  the  wrong  paper. 

NORTH. 

It  is  the  right  one.    But  may  I  ask  what  you  have  on  your  head  ? 

TALBOYS. 

A  hat.    At  least  it  was  so  an  hour  ago. 

NORTH. 
It  never  will  be  a  hat  again. 

TALBOYS. 

A  patent  hat — a  waterproof  hat — it  was  swimming,  when  I  purchased  it 
yesterday,  in  a  pail — warranted  against  Lammas  floods — 

NORTH. 

And  in  an  hour  it  has  come  to  this !  Why,  it  has  no  more  shape  than  a 
coal-heaver's. 

TALBOYS. 

Oh!  then  it  can  be  little  the  worse.  For  that  is  its  natural  artificial 
shape.  It  is  constructed  on  that  principle — and  the  patentee  prides  himself 
on  its  affording  equal  protection  to  head,  shoulders,  and  back — helmet  at  once 
and  shield. 

NORTH. 
But  you  must  immediately  put  on  dry  clothes — 

TALBOYS. 

The  clothes  I  have  on  are  as  dry  as  if  they  had  been  taking  horse-exercise 
all  morning  before  a  laundry-fire.  I  am  waterproof  all  over — and  I  had 
need  to  be  so— for  between  Inverary  and  Cladich  there  was  much  moisture  in 
the  atmosphere. 

NORTH. 

Do — do— go  and  put  on  dry  clothes.  Why  the  spot  you  stand  on  is  abso- 
lutely swimming — 

TALBOYS. 

My  Sporting-jacket,  sir,  is  a  new  invention — an  invention  of  my  own — to 
the  sight  silk — to  the  feel  feathers — and  of  feathers  is  the  texture — but  that  is 
a  secret,  don't  blab  it — and  to  rain  I  am  impervious  as  a  plover. 

NORTH. 
Do — do— go  and  put  on  dry  clothes. 

TALBOYS. 

Intended  to  have  been  here  last  night — left  Glasgow  yesterday  morning — 
and  had  a  most  delightful  forenoon  of  it  in  the  Steamer  to  Tarbert.  Loch 
Lomond  fairly  outshone  herself— never  before  had  I  felt  the  full  force  of  the 
words— "'Fortunate  Isles."  The  Bens  were  magnificent.  At  Tarbert— just 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  19 

as  I  was  disembarking — who  should  be  embarking  but  our  friends  Outram, 

M'Culloch,  Macnee 

NORTH. 
And  why  are  they  not  here  ? 

TALBOYS. 

And  I  was  induced — I  could  not  resist  them — to  take  a  trip  on  to  Inverarnan. 
We  returned  to  Tarbert  and  had  a  glorious  afternoon  till  two  this  morning — 
thought  I  might  lie  down  for  an  hour  or  two — but,  after  undressing,  it  occurred 
to  me  that  it  was  advisable  to  redress — and  be  off  instanter — so,  wheeling 
round  the  head  of  Loch  Long — never  beheld  the  bay  so  lovely — I  glided  up  the 
gentle  slope  of  Glencroe  and  sat  down  on  "  Rest  and  be  thankful" — to  hold  a 
minute's  colloquy  with  a  hawk — or  some  sort  of  eagle  or  another,  who  seemed 
to  think  nobody  at  that  hour  had  a  right  to  be  there  but  himself— covered  him 
to  a  nicety  with  my  rod — and  had  it  been  a  gun,  he  was  a  dead  bird.  Down 
the  other — that  is,  this  side  of  the  glen,  which,  so  far  from  being  precipitous,  is 
known  to  be  a  descent  but  by  the  pretty  little  cataractettes  playing  at  leap-frog 
— from  your  description  I  knew  that  must  be  Loch  Fine — and  that  St  Cathe- 
rine's. Shall  I  drop  down  and  signalise  the  Inverary  Steamer?  I  have  not 
time — so  through  the  woods  of  Ardkinglass — surely  the  most  beautiful  in  this 
world — to  Cairndow.  Looked  at  my  watch — had  forgot  to  wind  her  up — 
set  her  by  the  sun — and  on  nearing  the  inn  door  an  unaccountable  impulse 
landed  me  in  the  parlour  to  the  right.  Breakfast  on  the  table  for  somebody 
up  stairs — whom  nobody — so  the  girl  said — could  awaken — ate  it — and  the  ten 
miles  were  but  one  to  that  celebrated  Circuit  Town.  Saluted  Dun-nu-quech 
for  your  sake — and  the  Castle  for  the  Duke's — and  could  have  lingered  all  June 
among  those  gorgeous  groves. 

NORTH. 

Do — do — go  and  put  on  dry  clothes. 

TALBOYS. 

Hitherto  it  had  been  cool— shady— breezy — the  very  day  for  such  a  saunter 
— when  all  at  once  it  was  an  oven.  I  had  occasion  to  note  that  fine  line  of  the 
Poet's—"  Where  not  a  lime-leaf  moves,"  as  I  passed  under  a  tree  of  that 
species,  with  an  umbrage  some  hundred  feet  in  circumference,  and  a  presenti- 
ment of  what  was  coming  whispered  "  Stop  here" — but  the  Fates  tempted  me 
on — and  if  I  am  rather  wet,  sir,  there  is  some  excuse  for  it — for  there  was 
thunder  and  lightning,  and  a  great  tempest. 

NORTH. 

Not  to-day?    Here  all  has  been  hush. 

TALBOYS. 

It  came  at  once  from  all  points  of  the  compass — and  they  all  met — all  the 
storms — every  mother's  son  of  them — at  a  central  point — where  I  happened 
to  be.  Of  course,  no  house.  Look  for  a  house  on  an  emergency,  and  if 
once  in  a  million  times  you  see  one — the  door  is  locked,  and  the  people  gone 
to  Australia. 

NORTH. 

I  insist  on  you  putting  on  dry  clothes.    Don't  try  my  temper. 

TALBOYS. 

By-and-by  I  began  to  have  my  suspicions  that  I  had  been  distracted  from 
the  road — and  was  in  the  Channel  of  the  Airey.  But  on  looking  down  I  saw 
the  Airey  in  his  own  channel — almost  as  drumly  as  the  mire-burn— vulgarly 
called  road — I  was  plashing  up.  Altogether  the  scene  was  most  animating — 
and  in  a  moment  of  intense  exhilaration — not  to  weather-fend,  but  in  defi- 
ance—I unfurled  my  Umbrella. 

NORTH. 

What,  a  Plover  with  a  Parapluie? 

TALBOY8. 

I  use  it,  sir,  but  as  a  Parasol.  Never  but  on  this  one  occasion  had  it 
affronted  rain. 

NORTH. 
The  same  we  sat  under,  that  dog-day,  at  Dunoon  ? 


20  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

TALBOYS. 

The  same.  Whew !  Up  into  the  sky  like  the  incarnation  of  a  whirlwind  T 
No  turning  outside  in — too  strong-ribbed  for  inversion — before  the  wind  he 
flew — like  a  creature  of  the  element — and  gracefully  accomplished  the  descent 
on  an  eminence  about  a  mile  off. 

NORTH. 

Near  Orain-imali-chauan-mala-chuilish  ? 

TALBOYS. 

I  eyed  him  where  he  lay — not  without  anger.  It  had  manifestly  been  a 
•wilful  act — he  had  torn  himself  from  my  grasp — and  now  he  kept  looking  at 
me — at  safe  distance  as  he  thought — like  a  wild  animal  suddenly  undomesti- 
cated — and  escaped  into  his  native  liberty.  If  he  had  sailed  before  the 
wind — why  might  not  I?  No  need  to  stalk  him — so  I  went  at  him  right  in 
front — but  such  another  flounder !  Then,  sir,  I  first  knew  fatigue. 

NORTH. 

"  So  eagerly  THE  FIEND 

O'er  bog,  or  steep,  through  strait,  rough,  dense,  or  rare, 
With  head,  hands,  wings,  or  feet  pursues  his  way, 
And  swims,  or  sinks,  or  wades,  or  creeps,  or  flies." 

TALBOYS. 

Finally  I  reached  him — closed  on  him — when  Eolus,  or  Eurus,  or  Notus,  or 
Favonius — for  all  the  heathen  wind-gods  were  abroad — inflated  him,  and  away 
he  flew — rustling  like  a  dragon-fly — and  zig-zagging  all  fiery-green  in  the 
gloom — sat  down — as  composedly  as  you  would  yourself,  sir — on  a  knoll,  in 
another  region — engirdled  with  young  birch-groves — as  beautiful  a  resting- 
place,  I  must  acknowledge  as,  after  a  lyrical  flight,  could  have  been  selected 
for  repose  by  Mr  Wordsworth. 

NORTH. 

I  know  it — Arash-alaba-chalin-ora-begota-la-chona-hurie.  Archy  will  go 
for  it  in  the  evening — all  safe.  But  do  go  and  put  on  dry  clothes.  What 
now,  Billy? 

BILLY  BALMER. 

Here  are  Mr  Talboy  trunk,  sir. 

NORTH. 
Who  brought  it? 

BILLY. 

Nea,  Maister — I  dan't  kna' — I  'spose  Gamer.  I  ken't  reet  weell — ance 
at  Windermere-watter. 

NORTH. 
Swiss  Giantess— Billy. 

BILLY. 

Ay — ay— sir. 

NORTH. 

You  will  find  the  Swiss  Giantess  as  complete  a  dormitory  as  man  can  desire, 
Talboys.  I  reserve  it  for  myself,  in  event  of  rheumatism.  Though  lined  with 
velvet,  it  is  always  cool — ventilated  on  a  new  principle — of  which  I  took 
merely  a  hint  from  the  Punka.  My  cot  hangs  in  what  used  to  be  the  Exhibi- 
tion-room— and  her  Eetreat  is  now  a  commodious  Dressing-room.  Billy,  show 
Mr  Talboys  to  the  Swiss  Giantess. 

BILLY. 

Ay — ay,  sir.    This  way,  Mr  Talboy — this  way,  sir. 

TALBOYS. 

What  is  your  dinner-hour,  Mr  North  ? 

NORTH. 

Sharp  seven— seven  sharp. 

TALBOYS. 

And  now  'tis  but  half-past  two.  Four  hours  for  work.  The  Cladich— or 
•whatever  you  call  him — is  rumbling  disorderly  in  the  wood ;  and  I  noted,  as  I 
crossed  the  bridge,  that  he  was  proud  as  a  piper  of  being  in  Spate — but  he 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  21 

looks  more  rational  down  in  yonder  meadows — and HEAVEN  HAVE  MERCY 

ON  ME  !  THERE'S  LOCH  AWE  ! ! 

NORTH. 

I  thought  it  queer  that  you  never  looked  at  it. 

TALBOYS. 

Looked  at  it  ?  How  could  I  look  at  it  ?  I  don't  believe  it  was  there.  If 
it  was— from  the  hill-top  I  had  eyes  but  for  the  Camp — the  Tents  and  the  Trees 
— and  "  Thee  the  spirit  of  them  all !"  Let  me  have  another  eye-full — another 
soul-full  of  the  Loch.  But  'twill  never  do  to  be  losing  time  in  this  way. 
Where's  my  creel — where's  my  creel  ? 

NORTH. 

On  your  shoulders — 

TALBOYS. 

And  my  Book?  Lost— lost — lost!  Not  in  any  one  of  all  my  pockets.  I 
shall  go  mad. 

NORTH. 
Not  far  to  go.    Why  your  Book's  in  your  hand. 

TALBOYS. 

At  eight? 

NORTH. 

Seven.  Archy,  follow  him — In  that  state  of  excitement  he  will  be  walking 
with  his  spectacles  on  over  some  precipice.  Keep  your  eye  on  him,  Archy — 

ARCHY. 

I  can  pretend  to  be  carrying  the  landing-net,  sir. 

NORTH. 

There's  a  specimen  of  a  Scottish  Lawyer,  gentlemen.  What  do  you  think 
of  him? 

BTJLLER. 

That  he  is  without  exception  the  most  agreeable  fellow,  at  first  sight,  I  ever 
met  in  my  life. 

NORTH. 

And  so  you  would  continue  to  think  him,  were  you  to  see  him  twice  a-week 
for  twenty  years.  But  he  is  far  more  than  that — though,  as  the  world  goes, 
that  is  much :  his  mind  is  steel  to  the  back-bone — his  heart  is  sound  as  his 
lungs — his  talents  great — in  literature,  had  he  liked  it,  he  might  have  excelled ; 
t»ut  he  has  wisely  chosen  a  better  Profession — and  his  character  now  stands 
high  as  a  Lawyer  and  a  Judge.  Yonder  he  goes !  As  fresh  as  a  kitten  after 
a  score  and  three  quarter  miles  at  the  least. 

BULLER. 

Seward — let's  after  him.    Billy — the  minnows. 

BILLY. 

Here's  the  Can,  sirs. 

Scene  closes. 


SCENE  II. 

Interior  of  Deeside. — TIME — Seven  P.M. 
NORTH — TALBOYS — BULLER — SEWARD. 

NORTH. 

Seward,  face  Buller.  Talboys,  face  North.  Fall  too,  gentlemen;  to-day  we 
dispense  with  regular  service.  Each  man  has  his  own  distinct  dinner  before 
him,  or  in  the  immediate  vicinity — soup,  fish,  flesh,  fowl — and  with  all  neces- 
sary accompaniments  and  sequences.  How  do  you  like  the  arrangement  of 
the  table,  Talboys  ? 


22  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [July, 

TALBOYS. 

The  principle  shows  a  profound  knowledge  of  human  nature,  sir.  In  theory,, 
self-love  and  social  are  the  same — but  in  practice,  self-love  looks  to  your  own 
plate — social  to  your  neighbours.  By  this  felicitous  multiplication  of  dinners 
— this  One  in  Four — this  Four  in  One — the  harmony  of  the  moral  system  is 
preserved — and  all  works  together  for  the  general  good.  Looked  at  artisti- 
cally, we  have  here  what  the  Germans  and  others  say  is  essential  to  the  beau- 
tiful and  the  sublime — Unity. 

NORTH. 

I  believe  the  Four  Dinners — if  weighed  separately — would  be  found  not  to 
differ  by  a  pound.  This  man's  fish  might  prove  in  the  scale  a  few  ounces 
heavier  than  that  man's — but  in  such  case,  his  fowl  would  be  found  just  so 
many  ounces  lighter.  And  so  on.  The  Puddings  are  cast  in  the  same  mould 
— and  things  equal  to  the  same  thing,  are  equal  to  one  another. 

TALBOYS. 

The  weight  of  each  repast  ? 

NORTH. 

Calculated  at  twenty-five  pounds. 

TALBOYS. 

Grand  total,  one  hundred.    The  golden  mean. 

NORTH. 

From  these  general  views,  to  descend  to  particulars.  Soup  (turtle)  twa 
pounds — Hotch,  ditto — Fish  (Trout)  two  pounds — Flesh,  (Jigot — black  face 
five-year-old,)  six  pounds — Fowl  (Howtowdie  boiled)  five  pounds — Duck 
(wild)  three  pounds — Tart  (gooseberry)  one  pound — Pud  (Variorum  Edition) 
two  pounds. 

BULLER. 

That  is  but  twenty-three,  sir !    I  have  taken  down  the  gentleman's  words^ 

NORTH. 

Polite — and  grateful.  But  you  have  omitted  sauces  and  creams,  breads 
and  cheeses.  Did  you  ever  know  me  incorrect  in  my  figures,  in  any  affirma- 
tion or  denial,  private  or  public  ? 

BULLER. 

Never.    Beg  pardon. 

NORTH. 

Now  that  the  soups  and  fishes  seem  disposed  of,  I  boldly  ask  you,  one  and 
all,  gentlemen,  if  you  ever  beheld  Four  more  tempting  Jigots  ? 

TALBOYS. 

I  am  still  at  my  Fish.  No  fish  so  sweet  as  of  one's  own  catching — so  I 
have  the  advantage  of  you  all.  This  one  here — the  one  I  am  eating  at  this 
blessed  moment — I  killed  in  what  the  man  with  the  Landing-net  called  the 
Birk  Pool.  I  know  him  by  his  peculiar  physiognomy — an  odd  cast  in  his  eye 
— which  has  not  left  him  on  the  gridiron.  That  Trout  of  my  killing  on  your 
plate,  Mr  Seward,  made  the  fatal  plunge  at  the  tail  of  the  stream  so  overhung 
with  Alders  that  you  can  take  it  successfully  only  by  the  tail — and  I  know  him 
by  his  colour,  almost  as  silvery  as  a  whitliug.  Yours,  Mr  Buller,  was  the 
third  I  killed — -just  where  the  river — for  a  river  he  is  to-day,  whatever  he  may 
be  to-morrow — goes  whirling  into  the  Loch — and  I  can  swear  to  him  from  his 
leopard  spots.  Illustrious  sir,  of  him  whom  you  have  now  disposed  of — the 
finest  of  the  Four — I  remember  sayiug  inwardly,  as  with  difficulty  I  encreeled 
him — for  his  shoulders  were  like  a  hog's — this  for  the  King. 

NORTH. 

Your  perfect  Pounder,  Talboys,  is  the  beau-ideal  of  a  Scottish  Trout.  How 
he  cuts  up !  If  much  heavier — you  are  frustrated  in  your  attempts  to  eat  him 
thoroughly — have  to  search — probably  in  vain — for  what  in  a  perfect  Pounder 
lies  patent  to  the  day — he  is  to  back-bone  comeatable — from  gill  to  fork. 
Seward,  you  are  an  artist.  Good  creel  ? 

SEWARD. 

I  gave  Mr  Talboys  the  first  of  the  water,  and  followed  him — a  mere  caprice 
— with  the  Archimedean  Minnow.  I  had  a  run — but  just  as  the  monster 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  23 

opened  his  jaws  to  absorb— he  suddenly  eschewed  the  scentless  phenomenon, 
and  with  a  sullen  plunge,  sunk  into  the  deep. 

BULLEK. 

I  tried  the  natural  minnow  after  Seward — but  I  wished  Archimedes  at  Sy- 
racuse— for  the  Screw  had  spread  a  panic — and  in  a  panic  the  scaly  people 
lose  all  power  of  discrimination,  and  fear  to  touch  a  minnow,  lest  it  turn  up  a 
bit  of  tin  or  some  other  precious  metal. 

NORTH. 

I  have  often  been  lost  in  conjecturing  how  you  always  manage  to  fill  your 
creel,  Talboys ;  for  the  truth  is — and  it  must  be  spoken — you  are  no  angler. 

TALBOYS. 

I  can  afford  to  smile !  I  was  no  angler,  sir,  ten  years  ago — now  I  am. 
But  how  did  I  become  one?  By  attending  you,  sir — for  seven  seasons — along 
the  Tweed  and  the  Yarrow,  the  Clyde  and  the  Daer,  the  Tay  and  the  Tum- 
mel,  the  Don  and  the  Dee — and  treasuring  up  lessons  from  the  Great  Master 
of  the  Art. 

NORTH. 

You  surprise  me !  Why,  you  never  put  a  single  question  to  me  about  the 
art — always  declined  taking  rod  in  hand — seemed  reading  some  book  or 
other,  held  close  to  your  eyes — or  lying  on  banks  a-dose  or  poetising — or 
facetious  with  the  Old  Man — or  with  the  Old  Man  serious — and  sometimes 
more  than  serious,  as,  sauntering  along  our  winding  way,  we  conversed  of 
man,  of  nature,  and  of  human  life. 

TALBOYS. 

I  never  lost  a  single  word  you  said,  sir,  during  those  days,  breathing  in  every 
sense  "  vernal  delight  and  joy,"  yet  all  the  while  I  was  taking  lessons  in  the 
art.  The  flexure  of  your  shoulder — the  sweep  of  your  arm — the  twist  of  your 
wrist — your  Delivery,  and  your  Recover — that  union  of  grace  and  power — the 
utmost  delicacy,  with  the  most  perfect  precision — All  these  qualities  of  a 
heaven-born  Angler,  by  which  you  might  be  known  from  all  other  men  on  the 

banks  of  the  Whittadder  on  a  Fast-day 

NORTH. 

I  never  angled  on  a  Fast- day. 

TALBOYS. 

A  lapsus  lingua — From  a  hundred  anglers  on  the  Daer,  on  the  Queen's 

Birth-day 

NORTH. 
My  dear  Friend,  you  ex 

TALBOYS. 

All  those  qualities  of  a  heaven-born  Angler  I  learned  first  to  admire — then 
to  understand — and  then  to  imitate.  For  three  years  I  practised  on  the  car- 
pet— for  three  I  essayed  on  a  pond — for  three  I  strove  by  the  running  waters 
— and  still  the  Image  of  Christopher  North  was  before  me — till  emboldened 
by  conscious  acquisition  and  constant  success,  I  came  forth  and  took  my  place 
among  the  Anglers  of  my  country. 

BULLER. 

To-day  I  saw  you  fast  in  a  tree. 

TALBOYS. 

You  mean  my  Fly. 

BULLER. 

First  your  Fly,  and  then,  I  think,  yourself. 

TALBOYS. 

I  have  seen  //  Maestro  himself  in  Timber,  and  in  brushwood  too.  From 
him  I  learned  to  disentangle  knots,  intricate  and  perplexed  far  beyond  the 
Gordian — "  with  frizzled  hair  implicit" — round  twig,  branch,  or  bole.  Not  more 
than  half-a-dozen  times  of  the  forty  that  I  may  have  been  fast  aloft — I  speak 
mainly  of  my  noviciate — have  I  had  to  effect  liberation  by  sacrifice. 

SEWARD. 

Pardon  me,  Mr  Talboys,  for  hinting  that  you  smacked  off  your  tail-fly 
to-day — I  knew  it  by  the  sound. 


24  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

TALBOYS. 

The  sound !  No  trusting  to  an  uncertain  sound,  Mr  Seward.  Oh !  I  did  so 
once — but  intentionally — the  hook  had  lost  the  barb — not  a  fish  would  it  hold 
— so  I  whipped  it  off,  and  on  with  a  Professor. 

BULLER. 

You  lost  one  good  fish  in  rather  an  awkward  manner,  Mr  Talboys. 

TALBOYS. 

I  did — that  metal  minnow  of  yours  came  with  a  splash  within  an  inch  of 
his  nose — and  no  wonder  he  broke  me — nay,  I  believe  it  was  the  minnow 
that  broke  me — and  yet  you  can  speak  of  my  losing  a  good  fish  in  rather  an 
awkward  manner ! 

NORTH. 

It  is  melancholy  to  think  that  I  have  taught  Young  Scotland  to  excel 
myself  in  all  the  Arts  that  adorn  and  dignify  life.  Till  I  rose,  Scotland  was 
a  barbarous  country — 

TALBOYS. 
Do  say,  my  dear  sir,  semi-civilised. 

NORTH. 

Now  it  heads  the  Nations — and  I  may  set. 

TALBOYS. 

And  why  should  that  be  a  melancholy  thought,  sir  ? 

NORTH. 

Oh,  Talboys — National  Ingratitude!  They  are  fast  forgetting  the  man 
who  made  them  what  they  are — in  a  few  fleeting  centuries  the  name  of 
Christopher  North  will  be  in  oblivion !  Would  you  believe  it  possible, 
gentlemen,  that  even  now,  there  are  Scotsmen  who  never  heard  of  the  Fly 
that  bears  the  name  of  me,  its  Inventor — Killing  Kit ! 

BULLER. 

In  Cornwall  it  is  a  household  word. 

SEWARD. 
And  in  all  the  Devons. 

BULLER. 

Men  in  Scotland  who  never  heard  the  name  of  North ! 

NORTH. 

Christopher  North — who  is  he  ?  Who  do  you  mean  by  the  Man  of  the 
Crutch  ? — The  Knight  of  the  Knout  ?  Better  never  to  have  been  bora  than 
thus  to  be  virtually  dead. 

SEWARD. 

Sir,  be  comforted — you  are  under  a  delusion — Britain  is  ringing  with  your 
name. 

NORTH. 
Not  that  I  care  for  noisy  fame — but  I  do  dearly  love  the  still. 

TALBOYS. 

And  you  have  it,  sir — enjoy  it  and  be  thankful. 

NORTH. 
But  it  may  be  too  still. 

TALBOYS. 
My  dear  sir,  what  would  you  have  ? 

NORTH. 

I  taught  you,  Talboys,  to  play  Chess — and  now  you  trumpet  Staunton. 

TALBOYS. 

Chess — where's  the  board?    Let  us  have  a  game. 

NORTH. 
Drafts — and  you  quote  Anderson  and  the  Shepherd  Laddie. 

TALBOYS. 
Mr  North,  why  so  querulous? 

NORTH. 

Where  was  the  Art  of  Criticism  ?  Where  Prose  ?  Young  Scotland  owes  all 
her  Composition  to  me — buries  me  in  the  earth — and  then  claims  inspiration 
from  heaven.  "  How  sharper  than  a  Serpent's  tooth  it  is  to  have  a  thankless 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  •    25 

Child! "    Peter— Peterkin — Pym — Stretch — where  are  your  lazinesses — clear 
decks. 

"  Away  with  Melancholy — 
Nor  doleful  changes  ring 
On  Life  and  human  Folly, 
But  merrily,  merrily  sing — fal  la !" 
BULLER. 

What  a  sweet  pipe !    A  single  snatch  of  an  old  song  from  you,  sir — 

NORTH. 

Why  are  you  glowering  at  me,  Talboys? 

TALBOYS. 

It  has  come  into  my  head,  I  know  not  how,  to  ask  you  a  question. 

NORTH. 
Let  it  be  an  easy  one — for  I  am  languid. 

TALBOYS. 

Pray,  sir,  what  is  the  precise  signification  of  the  word  "  Classical?" 

NORTH. 

My  dear  Talboys,  you  seem  to  think  that  I  have  the  power  of  answering, 
off-hand,  any  and  every  question  a  first-rate  fellow  chooses  to  ask  me.  Clas- 
sical— classical !  Why,  I  should  say,  in  the  first  place — One  and  one  other 
Mighty  People— Those,  the  Kings  of  Thought — These,  the  Kings  of  the 
Earth. 

TALBOYS. 

The  Greeks— and  Komans. 

NORTH. 

In  the  second  place — 

TALBOYS. 

Attend — do  attend,  gentlemen.  And  I  hope  I  am  not  too  much  presuming 
on  our  not  ancient  friendship — for  I  feel  that  a  few  hours  on  Lochawe-side 
give  the  privilege  of  years — in  suggesting  that  you  will  have  the  goodness  to 
use  the  metal  nut-crackers ;  they  are  more  euphonious  than  ivory  with  walnuts. 

NORTH. 

In  the  second  place — let  me  consider — Mr  Talboys — I  should  say — in  the 
second  place— yes,  I  have  it— a  Character  of  Art  expressing  itself  by  words : 
a  mode — a  mode  of  Poetry  and  Eloquence — FITNESS  AND  BEAUTY. 

TALBOYS. 

Thank  you,  sir.    Fitness  and  Beauty.    Anything  more  ? 

NORTH. 

Much  more.  We  think  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  sir,  as  those  in  whom 
the  Human  Mind  reached  Superhuman  Power. 

TALBOYS. 
Superhuman  ? 

NORTH. 

We  think  so — comparing  ourselves  with  them,  we  cannot  help  it.  In  the 
Hellenic  Wit,  we  suppose  Genius  and  Taste  met  at  their  height — the  Inspira- 
tion Omnipotent — the  Instinct  unerring !  The  creations  of  Greek  Poetry ! — 
Howis — a  Making!  There  the  soul  seems  to  be  free  from  its  chains — happily 
self-lawed.  "  The  Earth  we  pace  "  is  there  peopled  with  divine  Forms.  Sculp- 
ture was  the  human  Form  glorified — deified.  And  as  in  Marble,  so  in  Song. 
Something  common— terrestrial — adheres  to  our  being,  and  weighs  MS  down. 
They — the  Hellenes — appear  to  us  to  have  really  walked — as  we  walk  in  our 
visions  of  exaltation — as  if  the  Graces  and  the  Muses  held  sway  over  daily 
and  hourly  existence,  and  not  alone  over  work  of  Art  and  solemn  occasion. 
No  moral  stain  or  imperfection  can  hinder  them  from  appearing  to  us  as  the 
Light  of  human  kind.  Singular,  that  in  Greece  we  reconcile  ourselves  to 
Heathenism. 

TALBOYS. 

It  may  be  that  we  are  all  Heathens  at  heart. 

NORTH. 

The  enthusiast  adores  Greece — not  knowing  that.  Greece  monarchises  over 


26  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [July, 

him,  only  because  it  is  a  miraculous  mirror  that  resplendently  and  more  beau- 
tifully reflects — himself — 

"  Divisque  videbit 
Permixtos  Heroas,  et  IPSE  videbitur  illis." 

SEWARD. 

Very  fine. 

NORTH. 

0  life  of  old,  and  long,  long  ago !    In  the  meek,  solemn,  soul-stilling  hush  of 
Academic  Bowers ! 

SEWARD. 

The  Isis ! 

NORTH. 

My  youth  returns.  Come,  spirits  of  the  world  that  has  been !  Throw  open 
the  valvules  of  these  your  shrines,  in  which  you  stand  around  me,  niched  side 
by  side,  in  visible  presence,  in  this  cathedral- like  Library  !  I  read  Historian, 
Poet,  Orator,  Voyager — a  life  that  slid  silently  away  in  shades,  or  that 
bounded  like  a  bark  over  the  billows.  I  lift  up  the  curtain  of  all  ages — I  stand 
under  all  skies — on  the  Capitol — on  the  Acropolis.  Like  that  magician  whose 
spirit,  with  a  magical  word,  could  leave  his  own  Bosom  to  inhabit  another,  I 
take  upon  myself  every  mode  of  existence.  I  read  Thucydides,  and  I  would 
be  a  Historian — Demosthenes,  and  I  would  be  an  Orator — Homer,  and  I  dread 
to  believe  myself  called  to  be,  in  some  shape  or  other,  a  servant  of  the  Muse. 
Heroes  and  Hermits  of  Thought — Seers  of  the  Invisible — Prophets  of  the 
Ineffable — Hierophants  of  profitable  mysteries — Oracles  of  the  Nations — 
Luminaries  of  that  spiritual  Heaven !  I  bid  ye  hail  1 

BUIXER. 

The  fit  is  on  him — he  has  not  the  slightest  idea  that  he  is  in%Deeside. 

NORTH. 

Ay — from  the  beginning  a  part  of  the  race  have  separated  themselves  from 
the  dusty,  and  the  dust-devoured,  turmoil  of  Action  to  Contemplation.  Have 
thought — known — worshipped  !  And  such  knowledge  Books  keep.  Books 
now  crumbling  like  Towers  and  Pyramids — now  outlasting  them !  Books  that, 
from  age  to  age,  and  all  the  sections  of  mankind  helping,  build  up  the  pile  of 
Knowledge — a  trophied  Citadel.  He  who  can  read  Books  as  they  should  be 
read,  peruses  the  operation  of  the  Creator  in  his  conscious,  and  in  his  uncon- 
scious Works,  which  yet  we  call  upon  to  join,  as  if  conscious,  in  our  worship. 
Yet  why — oh !  why  all  this  pains  to  attain  that,  through  the  labour  of  ages, 
which  in  the  dewy,  sunny  prime  of  morn,  one  thrill  of  transport  gives  to  me 
and  to  the  Lark  alike,  summoning,  lifting  both  heavenwards  ?  Ah  !  perchance 
because  the  dewy,  sunny  prime  does  not  last  through  the  day !  Because  light 
poured  into  the  eyes,  and  sweet  breath  inhaled,  are  not  the  whole  of  man's  life 
here  below — and  because  there  is  an  Hereafter ! 

SEWARD. 

1  know  where  he  is,  Bnller.    He  called  it  well  a  Cathedral-like  Library. 

NORTH. 

The  breath  of  departed  years  floats  here  for  my  respiration.  The  pure  air 
of  heaven  flows  round  about,  but  enters  not.  The  sunbeams  glide  in,  be- 
dimmed  as  if  in  some  haunt  half-separated  from  Life,  yet  on  our  side  of  Death. 
Recess,  hardly  accessible — profound — of  which  I,  the  sole  inmate,  held  under 
an  uncomprehended  restraint,  breathe,  move,  and  follow  my  own  way  and 
wise,  apart  from  human  mortals  !  Ye !  tall,  thick  Volumes,  that  are  each  a 
treasure-house  of  austere  or  blazing  thoughts,  which  of  yon  shall  I  touch  with 
sensitive  fingers,  of  which  violate  the  calmly  austere  repose?  I  dread  what  I 
desire.  Yon  may  disturb — yon  may  destroy  me !  Knowledge  pulsates  in  me, 
as  I  receive  it,  communing  with  myself  on  my  unquiet  or  tearful  pillow — or  as 
it  visits  me,  brought  on  the  streaming  moonlight,  or  from  the  fields  afire  with 
noon- splendour,  or  looking  at  me  from  human  eyes,  and  stirring  round  and 
around  me  in  the  tumult  of  men — Your  knowledge  comes  in  a  holy  stillness  and 
dullness,  as  if  spelt  off  tombstones. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  27 

SEWARD. 

Magdalen  College  Library,  I  do  believe.  Mr  North — Mr  North — awake — 
awake — here  we  are  all  in  Deeside. 

NORTH. 

Ay — ay — you  say  well,  Seward.  "  Look  at  the  studies  of  the  Great 
Scholar,  and  see  from  how  many  quarters  of  the  mind  impulses  may  mingle 
to  compose  the  motives  that  bear  him  on  with  indefatigable  strength  in  his 
laborious  career." 

SEWARD. 
These  were  not  my  very  words,  sir — 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Seward,  you  say  well.  From  how  many  indeed  1  First  among  the 
prime,  that  peculiar  aptitude  and  faculty,  which  may  be  called — a  Taste  and 
Genius  for — Words. 

BULLER. 

I  rather  failed  there  in  the  Schools. 

NORTH. 

Yet  you  were  in  the  First  Class.  There  is  implied  in  it,  Seward,  a  readi- 
ness of  logical  discrimination  in  the  Understanding,  which  apprehends  the 
propriety  of  Words. 

BULLER. 

I  got  up  my  Logic  passably  and  a  little  more. 

NORTH. 

For,  Seward,  the  Thoughts,  the  Notions  themselves — must  be  distinctly 
dissevered  in  the  mind,  which  shall  exactly  apply  to  each  Thought — Notion — 
its  appropriate  sign,  its  own  Word. 

BULLER. 

You  might  as  well  have  said  "  Buller  " — for  I  beat  Seward  in  my  Logic. 

NORTH. 

But  even  to  this  task,  Seward,  of  rightly  distinguishing  the  meaning  of 
Words,  more  than  a  mere  precision  of  thinking — more  than  a  clearness  and 
strictness  of  the  intellectual  action  is  requisite. 

BULLER. 

And  in  Classics  we  were  equal. 

NORTH. 

You  will  be  convinced  of  this,  Buller,  if  you  recollect  what  Words  express. 
The  mind  itself.  For  all  its  affections  and  sensibilities,  Talboys,  furnish 
a  whole  host  of  meanings,  which  must  have  names  in  Language.  For 
mankind  do  not  rest  from  enriching  and  refining  their  languages,  until  they 
have  made  them  capable  of  giving  the  representation  of  their  whole  Spirit. 

TALBOYS. 

The  pupil  of  language,  therefore,  sir — pardon  my  presumption — before  he 
can  recognise  the  appropriation  of  the  Sign,  must  recognise  the  Thing  signified? 

NORTH. 

And  if  the  Thing  signified,  Talboys,  by  the  Word,  be  some  profound,  solemn, 
and  moral  affection — or  if  it  be  some  wild,  fanciful  impression — or  if  it  be 
some  delicate  shade  or  tinge  of  a  tender  sensibility — can  anything  be  more 
evident  than  that  the  Scholar  must  have  experienced  in  himself  the  solemn, 
or  the  wild,  or  the  tenderly  delicate  feeling  before  he  is  in  the  condition  of 
affixing  the  right  and  true  sense  to  the  Word  that  expresses  it? 

TALBOYS. 

I  should  think  so,  sir. 

SEWARD. 

The  Words  of  Man  paint  the  spirit  of  Man.  The  Words  of  a  People 
depicture  the  Spirit  of  a  People. 

NORTH. 

Well  said,  Seward.  And,  therefore,  the  Understanding  that  is  to  possess 
the  Words  of  a  language,  in  the  Spirit  in  which  they  were  or  are  spoken  and 
written,  must,  by  self-experience  and  sympathy,  be  able  to  converse,  and 
have  conversed,  with  the  Spirit  of  the  People,  now  and  of  old. 


28  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

BULLER. 

And  yet  what  coarse  fellows  hold  up  their  dunderheads  as  Scholars,  forsooth, 
in  these  our  days ! 

NORTH. 

Hence  it  is  an  impossibility  that  a  low  and  hard  moral  nature  should  fur- 
nish a  high  and  fine  Scholar.  The  intellectual  endowments  must  be  supported 
and  made  available  by  the  concurrence  of  the  sensitive  nature — of  the  moral 
and  the  imaginative  sensibilities. 

BULLER. 

What  moral  and  imaginative  sensibilities  have  they — the  blear-eyed — the 
purblind — the  pompons  and  the  pedantic !  But  we  have  some  true  scholars 

— for  example 

NORTH. 

No  names,  Buller.  Yes,  Seward,  the  knowledge  of  Words  is  the  Gate  of 
Scholarship.  Therefore  I  lay  down  upon  the  threshold  of  the  Scholar's 
Studies  this  first  condition  of  his  high  and  worthy  success,  that  he  will  not 
pluck  the  loftiest  palm  by  means  of  acute,  quick,  clear,  penetrating,  sagacious, 
intellectual  faculties  alone — let  him  not  hope  it:  that  he  requires  to  the 
highest  renown  also  a  capacious,  profound,  and  tender  soul. 

SEWARD. 

Ay,  sir,  and  I  say  so  in  all  humility,  this  at  the  gateway,  and  upon  the 
threshold.  How  much  more  when  he  reads. 

NORTH. 
Ay,  Seward,  you  laid  the  emphasis  well  there — reads. 

SEWARD. 

When  the  written  Volumes  of  Mind  from  different  and  distant  ages  of  the 
world,  from  its  different  and  distant  climates,  are  successively  unrolled  before 
his  insatiable  sight  and  his  insatiable  soul ! 

BULLER. 
Take  all  things  in  moderation. 

NORTH. 

No  —not  the  sacred  hunger  and  thirst  of  the  soul. 

BULLER. 

Greed — give — give. 

NORTH. 

From  what  unknown  recesses,  from  what  unlocked  fountains  in  the  depth 
of  his  own  being,  shall  he  bring  into  the  light  of  day  the  thoughts  by  means 
of  which  he  shall  understand  Homer,  Pindar,  JEschylus,  Demosthenes,  Plato, 
Aristotle — DISCOURSING!  Shall  understand  them,  as  the  younger  did  the 
elder — the  contemporaries  did  the  contemporaries — as  each  sublime  spirit 
understood — himself  ? 

BULLER. 

Did  each  sublime  spirit  always  understand  himself? 

TALBOYS. 

Urge  that,  Mr  Buller. 

NORTH. 
So— and  so  only — to  read,  is  to  be  a  Scholar. 

BULLER. 

Then  I  am  none. 

NORTH. 

I  did  not  say  you  were. 

BULLER. 

Thank  you.  What  do  you  think  of  that,  Mr  Talboys  ?  Address  Seward, 
•sir. 

NORTH. 

I  address  you  all  three.  Is  the  student  smitten  with  the  sacred  love  of 
Song?  Is  he  sensible  to  the  profound  allurement  of  philosophic  truth  ?  Does 
he  yearn  to  acquaint  himself  with  the  fates  and  fortunes  of  his  kind  ?  All 
.these  several  desires  are  so  many  several  inducements  of  learned  study. 

BULLER. 

I  understand  that. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  20 

TALBOYS. 

DHto. 

NORTH. 

And  another  inducement  to  such  study  is — an  ear  sensible  to  the  Beauty  of 
the  Music  of  Words — and  the  metaphysical  faculty  of  unravelling  the  causal 
process  which  the  human  mind  followed  in  imparting  to  a  Word,  originally 
the  sign  of  one  Thought  only,  the  power  to  signify  a  cognate  second  Thought, 
which  shall  displace  the  first  possessor  and  exponent,  usurp  the  throne,  and 
rule  for  ever  over  an  extended  empire  in  the  minds,  or  the  hearts,  or  the 
souls  of  men. 

BULLER. 

Let  him  have  his  swing,  Mr  Talboys. 

TALBOYS. 

He  has  it  in  that  chair. 

NORTH. 

A  Taste  and  a  Genius  for  Words !  An  ear  for  the  beautiful  music  of  Words ! 
A  happy  justness  in  the  perception  of  their  strict  proprieties !  A  fine  skill  in 
apprehending  the  secret  relations  of  Thought  with  Thought — relations  along 
which  the  mind  moves  with  creative  power,  to  find  out  for  its  own  use,  and 
for  the  use  of  all  minds  to  come,  some  hitherto  uncreated  expression  of  an 
idea — an  image — a  sentiment — a  passion!  These  dispositions,  and  these 
faculties  of  the  Scholar  in  another  Mind  falling  in  with  other  faculties  of 
genius,  produce  a  student  of  a  different  name — THE  POET. 

BULLER. 

Oh  !  my  dear  dear  sir,  of  Poetry  we  surely  had  enough — I  don't  say  more 
than  enough — a  few  days  ago,  sir. 

NORTH. 
Who  is  the  Poet  ? 

BULLER. 

I  beseech  you  let  the  Poet  alone  for  this  evening. 

NORTH. 

Well — I  will.  I  remember  the  time,  Seward,  when  there  was  a  great  cla- 
mour for  a  Standard  of  Taste.  A  definite  measure  of  the  indefinite ! 

TALBOYS. 

Which  is  impossible. 

NORTH. 

And  there  is  a  great  clamour  for  a  Standard  of  Morals.  A  definite  measure 
of  the  indefinite ! 

TALBOYS. 
Which  is  impossible. 

NORTH. 

Why,  gentlemen,  the  Faculty  of  Beauty  lives ;  and  in  finite  beings,  which 
we  are,  Life  changes  incessantly.  The  Faculty  of  Moral  Perception  lives — 
and  thereby  it  too  changes  for  better  and  for  worse.  This  is  the  Divine  Law 
— at  once  encouraging  and  fearful — that  Obedience  brightens  the  moral  eye- 
sight— Sin  darkens.  Let  all  men  know  this,  and  keep  it  in  mind  always — that 
a  single  narrowest,  simplest  Duty,  steadily  practised  day  after  day,  does  more 
to  support,  and  may  do  more  to  enlighten  the  soul  of  the  Doer,  than  a  course  of 
Moral  Philosophy  taught  by  a  tongue  which  a  soul  compounded  of  Bacon, 
Spenser,  Shakspeare,  Homer,  Demosthenes,  and  Burke — to  say  nothing  of 
Socrates,  and  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  should  inspire. 

BULLER. 

You  put  it  strongly,  sir. 

TALBOYS. 

Undeniable  doctrine. 

NORTH. 

Gentlemen,  you  will  often  find  this  question — "  Is  there  a  Standard  of 
Taste?  "  inextricably  confused  with  the  question ."  Is  there  a  true  and  a  false 
Taste  ?"  He  who  denies  the  one  seems  to  deny  the  other.  In  like  manner, 
"  Is  there  a  Right  and  Wrong  ?  "  And  "  is  there  accessible  to  us  an  infallible 


30  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [July, 

measure  of  Right  and  Wrong  "  are  two  questions  entirely  distinct,  but  often 
confused — for  Logic  fled  the  earth  with  Astraea. 

TALBOYS. 
She  did. 

NORTH. 

Talboys,  you  understand  well  enough  the  sense  and  culture  of  the  Beautiful? 

TALBOYS. 
Something  of  it  perhaps  I  do. 

NORTH. 

To  feel — to  love — to  be  swallowed  up  in  the  spirit  and  works  of  the  Beautiful 
— in  verse  and  in  the  visible  Universe !  That  is  a  life — an  enthusiasm — a 
worship.  You  find  those  who  would  if  they  could,  and  who  pretend  they  can, 
attain  the  same  end  at  less  cost.  They  have  taken  lessons,  and  they  will 
have  their  formalities  go  valid  against  the  intuitions  of  the  dedicated  soul. 

TALBOYS. 

But  the  lessons  perish — the  dedicated  soul  is  a  Power  in  all  emergencies  and 
extremities. 

NORTH. 

There  are  Pharisees  of  Beauty — and  Pharisees  of  Morality. 

SEWARD. 

At  this  day  spiritual  Christians  lament  that  nine-tenths  of  Christians 
Judaise. 

NORTH. 

Nor  without  good  reason.  The  Gospel  is  the  Standard  of  Christian 
Morality.  That  is  unquestionable.  It  is  an  authority  without  appeal,  and 
under  which  undoubtedly  all  matters,  uncertain  before,  will  fall.  But  pray 
mark  this — it  is  not  a  positive  standard,  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  that  word 
— it  is  not  one  of  which  our  common  human  understanding  has  only  to  require 
and  to  obtain  the  indications — which  it  has  only  to  apply  and  observe. 

SEWARD. 

I  see  your  meaning,  sir.  The  Gospel  refers  all  moral  intelligence  to  the 
Light  of  Love  within  pur  hearts.  Therefore,  the  very  reading  of  the  canons, 
of  every  prescriptive  line  in  it,  must  be  by  this  light. 

NORTH. 

That  is  my  meaning — but  not  my  whole  meaning,  dear  Seward.  For  take 
it,  as  it  unequivocally  declares  itself  to  be,  a  Revelation — not  simply  of  in- 
struction, committed  now  and  for  ever  to  men  in  written  human  words,  and 
so  left — but  accompanied  with  a  perpetual  agency  to  enable  Will  and  Under- 
standing to  receive  it ;  and  then  it  will  follow,  I  believe,  that  it  is  at  every 
moment  intelligible  and  applicable  in  its  full  sense,  only  by  a  direct  and  pre- 
sent inspiration — is  it  too  much  to  say — anew  revealing  itself?  "  They  shall 
be  taught  of  God." 

SEWARD. 

So  far,  then,  from  the  Christian  Morality  being  one  of  which  the  Standard 
is  applicable  by  every  Understanding,  with  like  result  in  given  cases,  it  is  one 
that  is  different  to  every  Christian  in  proportion  to  his  obedience  ? 

NORTH. 

Even  so.  I  suppose  that  none  have  ever  reached  the  full  understanding  of 
it.  It  is  an  evergrowing  illumination — a  light  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect 
day — which  day  I  suppose  cannot  be  of  the  same  life,  in  which  we  see  as 
through  a  glass  darkly. 

TALBOYS. 

May  I  offer  an  illustration  ?  The  land  shall  descend  to  the  eldest  son — you 
shall  love  your  neighbour  as  yourself.  In  the  two  codes  these  are  founda- 
tion-stones. But  see  how  they  differ  !  There  is  the  land— here  is  the  eldest 
son — the  right  is  clear  and  fast — and  the  case  done  with.  But — do  to  thy 
neighbour !  Do  what  ?  and  to  whom  ? 

NORTH. 

All  human  actions,  all  human  affections,  all  human  thoughts  are  then  contained 
in  the  one  Law — as  the  subject  of  which  it  defines  the  disposal.  All  mankind, 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  31 

but  distributed  into  communities,  and  individuals  all  differently  related  to  me 
are  contained  in  it,  as  the  parties  in  respect  of  whom  it  defines  the  disposal ! 

SEWARD. 
And  what  is  the  Form  ?    Do  as  thou  wouldst  it  be  done  to  thee  ! 

NORTH. 

Ay — my  dear  friend — The  form  resolves  into  a  feeling.  Love  thy  neighbour. 
That  is  all.  Is  a  measure  given  ?  As  thyself. 

SEWARD. 

And  is  there  no  limitation  ? 

NORTH. 

By  the  whole  apposition,  thy  love  to  thyself  and  thy  neighbour  are  both 
to  be  put  together  in  subordination  to,  and  limitation  and  regulation  by — thy 
Love  to  God.  Love  Him  utterly — infinitely — with  all  thy  mind,  all  thy  heart, 
all  thy  strength.  This  is  the  entire  book  or  canon — THE  STANDARD.  How 
wholly  indefinite  and  formless  to  the  Understanding !  How  full  of  light 
and  form  to  the  believing  and  loving  Heart ! 

SEWARD. 

The  Moon  is  up — how  calm  the  night  after  all  that  tempest — and  how 
steady  the  Stars !  Images  of  enduring  peace  in  the  heart  of  nature — and  of 
man.  They,  too,  are  a  Revelation. 

NORTH. 

They,  too,  are  the  legible  Book  of  God.  Try  to  conceive  how  different  the 
World  must  be  to  its  rational  inhabitant — with  or  without  a  Maker !  Think 
of  it  as  a  soulless — will-less  World.  In  one  sense,  it  abounds  as  much  with 
good  to  enjoy.  But  there  is  no  good-giver.  The  banquet  spread,  but  the 
Lord  of  the  Mansion  away.  The  feast — and  neither  grace  nor  welcome.  The 
heaped  enjoyment,  without  the  gratitude. 

SEWARD. 

Yet  there  have  been  Philosophers  who  so  misbelieved  I 

NORTH. 

Alas !  there  have  been — and  alas !  there  are.  And  what  low  souls  must  be 
theirs !  The  tone  and  temper  of  our  feelings  are  determined  by  the  objects  with 
which  we  habitually  converse.  If  we  see  beautiful  scenes,  they  impart  sere- 
nity— if  sublime  scenes,  they  elevate  us.  Will  no  serenity,  no  elevation  come 
from  contemplating  Him,  of  whose  Thought  the  Beautiful  and  the  Sublime  are 
but  shadows  I 

SEWARD. 

No  sincere  or  elevating  influence  be  lost  out  of  a  World  out  of  which  He 
is  lost? 

NORTH. 

Now  we  look  upon  Planets  and  Suns,  and  see  Intelligence  ruling  them — on 
Seasons  that  succeed  each  other,  and  we  apprehend  Design — on  plant  and 
animal  fitted  to  its  place  in  the  world,  and  furnished  with  its  due  means  of 
existence,  and  repeated  for  ever  in  its  kind — and  we  admire  Wisdom.  Oh ! 
Atheist  or  Sceptic — what  a  difference  to  Us  if  the  marvellous  Laws  are  here 
without  a  Lawgiver — If  Design  be  here  without  a  Designer — all  the  Order 
that  wisdom  could  mean  and  effect,  and  not  the  Wisdom — if  Chance,  or 
Necessity,  or  Fate  reigns  here,  and  not  Mind — if  this  Universe  is  matter  of 
Astonishment  merely,  and  not  of  adoration ! 

SEWARD. 

We  are  made  better,  nobler,  sir,  by  the  society  of  the  good  and  the  noble. 
Perhaps  of  ourselves  unable  to  think  high  thoughts,  and  without  the  bold 
warmth  that  dares  generously,  we  catch  by  degrees  something  of  the  mounting 
spirit,  and  of  the  ardour  proper  to  the  stronger  souls  with  whom  we  live  fami- 
liarly, and  become  sharers  and  imitators  of  virtues  to  which  we  could  not 
have  given  birth.  The  devoted  courage  of  a  leader  turns  his  followers  into 
heroes — the  patient  death  of  one  martyr  inflames  in  a  thousand  slumbering 
bosoms  a  zeal  answerable  to  his  own.  And  shall  Perfect  Goodness  contem- 
plated move  no  goodness  in  us  ?  Shall  His  Holiness  and  Purity  raise  in  us  no 
desire  to  be  holy  and  pure  ? — His  infinite  Love  towards  His  creatures  kindle 
no  spark  of  love  in  us  towards  our  fellow- creatures  1 


82  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

NORTH. 

God  bless  you,  ray  clear  Seward — but  you  speak  well.  Our  fellow- creatures  1 
The  name,  the  binding  title,  dissolves  in  air,  if  He  be  not  our  common  Creator. 
Take  away  that  bond  of  relationship  among  men,  and  according  to  circum- 
stances they  confront  one  another  as  friends  or  foes — but  Brothers  no  longer — 
if  not  children  of  one  celestial  Father. 

TALBOYS. 

And  if  they  no  longer  have  immortal  souls ! 

NORTH. 

Oh  !  my  friends — if  this  winged  and  swift  life  be  all  our  life,  what  a  mourn- 
ful taste  have  we  had  of  possible  happiness  ?  We  have,  as  it  were,  from  some 
dark  and  cold  edge  of  a  bright  world,  just  looked  in  and  been  plucked  away 
again !  Have  we  come  to  experience  pleasure  by  fits  and  glimpses ;  but  inter- 
twined with  pain,  burdensome  labour,  with  weariness,  and  with  indifference  ? 
Have  we  come  to  try  the  solace  and  joy  of  a  warm,  fearless,  and  confiding 
affection,  to  be  then  chilled  or  blighted  by  bitterness,  by  separation,  by  change 
of  heart,  or  by  the  dread  sunderer  of  loves — Death  ?  Have  we  found  the 
gladness  and  the  strength  of  knowledge,  when  some  rays  of  truth  have 
flashed  in  upon  our  souls,  in  the  midst  of  error  and  uncertainty,  or  amidst  con- 
tinuous, necessitated,  uninstructive  avocations  of  the  Understanding — and  is 
that  all?  Have  we  felt  in  fortunate  hour  the  charm  of  the  Beautiful,  that 
invests,  as  with  a  mantle,  this  visible  Creation,  or  have  we  found  ourselves 
lifted  above  the  earth  by  sudden  apprehension  of  sublimity  ?  Have  we  had 
the  consciousness  of  such  feelings,  which  have  seemed  to  us  as  if  they  might 
themselves  makeup  a  life — almost  an  angel's  life — and  were  they  "instant 
come  and  instant  gone  ?  "  Have  we  known  the  consolation  of  DOING  EIGHT, 
in  the  midst  of  much  that  we  have  done  wrong?  and  was  that  also  a  corrus- 
cation  of  a  transient  sunshine  ?  Have  we  lifted  up  our  thoughts  to  see  Him 
who  is  Love,  and  Light,  and  Truth,  and  Bliss,  to  be  in  the  next  instant 
plunged  into  the  darkness  of  annihilation  ?  Have  all  these  things  been  but 
flowers  that  we  have  pulled  by  the  side  of  a  hard  and  tedious  way,  and  that, 
after  gladdening  us  for  a  brief  season  with  hue  and  odour,  wither  in  our 
hands,  and  are  like  ourselves — nothing  ? 

BULLER. 

I  love  you,  sir,  better  and  better  every  day. 

NORTH. 

We  step  the  earth— we  look  abroad  over  it,  and  it  seems  immense — so  does 
the  sea.  What  ages  had  men  lived — and  knew  but  a  small  portion.  They  cir- 
cumnavigate it  now  with  a  speed  under  which  its  vast  bulk  shrinks.  But  let  the 
astronomer  lift  up  his  glass  and  he  learns  to  believe  in  a  total  mass  of  matter, 
compared  with  which  this  great  globe  itself  becomes  an  imponderable  grain 
of  dust.  And  so  to  each  of  us  walking  along  the  road  of  life,  a  year,  a  day, 
or  an  hour  shall  seem  long.  As  we  grow  older,  the  time  shortens ;  but  when 
we  lift  up  our  eyes  to  look  beyond  this  earth,  our  seventy  years,  and  the  few 
thousands  of  years  which  have  rolled  over  the  human  race,  vanish  into  a  point ; 
for  then  we  are  measuring  Time  against  Eternity. 

TALBOYS. 

And  if  we  can  find  ground  for  believing  that  this  quickly -measured  span  of 
Lifers  but  the  beginning — the  dim  daybreak  of  a  Life  immeasurable,  never 
attaining  to  its  night — what  weight  shall  we  any  longer  allow  to  the  cares, 
fears,  toils,  troubles,  afflictions — which  here  have  sometimes  bowed  down  our 
strength  to  the  ground— a  burden  more  than  we  could  bear? 

NORTH. 

They  then  all  acquire  a  new  character.  That  they  are  then  felt  as  transi- 
tory must  do  something  towards  lightening  their  load.  But  more  is  disclosed 
in  them;  for  they  then  appear  as  having  an  unsuspected  worth  and  use.  If 
this  life  be  but  the  beginning  of  another,  then  it  may  be  believed  that  the 
accidents  and  passages  thereof  have  some  bearing  upon  the  conditions  of  that 
other,  and  we  learn  to  look  on  this  as  a  state  of  Probation.  Let  us  out,  and 
look  at  the  sky. 


1849.] 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


33 


THE  ISLAND  OF  SARDINIA. 


THE  opinion  of  Nelson  with  regard 
to  the  importance  of  Sardinia, — that 
it  is  "  worth  a  hundred  Maltas," 
is  well  known ;  and  that  he  strongly 
recommended  its  purchase  to  our  gov- 
ernment, thinking  it  might  be  obtain- 
ed for  £500,000.  We  can  scarcely 
believe  that  Nelson  failed  to  make  an 
impression  on  the  government,  and  con- 
jecture rather  that  it  was  with  the  King 
of  Sardinia  the  precious  inheritance 
of  a  Naboth's  vineyard.  We  do  not 
remember  to  have  met  with  a  Sardi- 
nian tourist.  Travellers  as  we  are, 
with  our  ready  "  Hand-Books"  for 
the  remote  corners  of  the  earth,  we 
seem,  by  a  general  consent,  to  have 
cut  Sardinia  from  the  map  of  observ- 
able countries.  "Nos nutnerus  sumus " 
— we  plead  guilty  to  this  ignorance 
and  neglect,  and  should  have  remain- 
ed unconcerned  about  Sardinia  still, 
had  we  not,  in  the  work  of  MrTyndale, 
dipped  into  a  few  extracts  from  Lord 
Nelson's  letters.  Extending  our  read- 
ing, we  find  in  these  three  volumes 
so  much  research,  learning,  historical 
speculation,  and  interesting  matter, 
interspersed  with  amusing  narrative, 
that  we  think  a  notice  in  Maga  of  this 
valuable  and  agreeable  work  may  be 
not  unacceptable. 

The  very  circumstance  that  Sar- 
dinia is  little  known,  renders  it  an 
agreeable  speculation.  The  ignotum 
makes  the  charm.  Our  pleasure  is  in 
the  fabulous,  the  dubious,  the  unex- 
plained. In  the  ecstacy  of  ignorance 
the  reader  stands  by  the  side  of  Mr 
Layard,  watching  the  exhumation  of 
the  unknown  gods  or  demons  of  Nine- 
veh. "  Ignorance  is  bliss," — for  the 
subject-matter  of  ignorance  is  fact — 
fact  isolated — or  the  broken  links  in 
time's  long  chain.  The  mind  longs 
to  fabricate,  and  connect.  Were  it  pos- 
sible that  other  sibylline  books  should 
be  offered  for  sale,  it  would  be  pre- 
ferable that  Mr  Murray  should  act  the 
part  of  Tarquin  than  publish  them  as 
"  Hand-Books. "  In  truth,  curiosity, 
that  happy  ingredient  in  the  clay  of 
the  human  mind,  if  so  material  an  ex- 
pression be  allowed,  is  fed  by  igno- 


rance, but  dies  under  a  surfeit  of 
knowledge.  Now,  to  apply  this  to 
our  subject — Sardinia.  The  island  is 
full  of  monuments,  as  mysterious  to 
us  as  the  Pyramids.  There  is  suffi- 
cient obscurity  to  make  a  "  sublime." 
It  is  happy  for  the  reader,  who  has 
not  lost  his  natural  propensity  to  won- 
der, that  there  is  so  little  known  re- 
specting them,  and  yet  such  grounds 
for  conjecture ;  for  he  may  be  sure 
that,  if  any  documents  existed  any- 
where, Mr  Tyndale  would  have  dis- 
covered them,  for  he  is  the  most 
indefatigable  of  authors  in  exploring 
in  all  the  mines  of  literature.  But  he 
has  to  treat  of  things  that  were  be- 
fore literature  was.  The  traveller 
who  should  first  discover  a  Stone- 
henge — one  who,  walking  on  a  hither- 
to untrodden  plain,  should  come  sud- 
denly upon  two  such  great  sedate 
sitting  images  in  stone  as  look  over 
Egyptian  sands — is  he  not  greatly  to  be 
envied?  We,  who  peer  about  our  cities 
and  villages,  raking  out  decayed  stone 
and  mortar  for  broken  pieces  of  antique 
art  or  memorial,  as  we  facetiously 
term  the  remnants  of  a  few  hundred 
years,  and  of  whose  "  whereabouts," 
from  the  beginning,  we  can  receive 
some  tolerable  assurance,  have  but  a 
slight  glimpse  of  the  delight  experi- 
enced by  the  first  finder  of  a  monument 
of  the  Pelasgi,  or  even  Cyclopean 
walls.  But  to  make  conjecture  upon 
monuments  beyond  centuries  —  to 
count  by  thousands  of  years,  and 
make  out  of  them  a  dream  that  shall, 
like  an  Arabian  magician,  take  the 
dreamer  back  to  the  Flood  —  is  a 
happiness  enjoyed  by  few.  We 
never  envied  traveller  more  than 
we  once  did  that  lady  who.  came 
suddenly  upon  the  Etrurian  monu- 
ment, in  which  there  was  just  aperture 
enough  to  see  for  a  moment  only  a 
sitting  figure,  with  its  look  and  drapery 
of  more  than  thousands  of  years ;  who 
just  saw  it  for  a  few  seconds,  pre- 
served only  in  the  stillness  of  antiquity, 
and  falling  to  dust  at  her  very  breath- 
ing. Not  so  ancient  the  monu- 
ment, but  of  like  character  the  dis- 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 
VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCV. 


By  JOHN  WARRE  TYNDALE. 


3  vols.,  post  8vo. 
c 


34 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


[•My, 


covery  of  him   who,  digging  within 
the  walls  of  his  own  house  at  Portici, 
came  upon  marble  steps  that  led  him 
down  and  down,  till  he  found  before 
him,  in  the  obscure,  a  white  marble 
equestrian  statue  the  size  of  life.    If 
one  could  be  made  a  poet,  these  two 
incidents  were  enough.    The  interior 
of  Sardinia  has  been  hitherto  a  kind  of 
"  terra  incognita."   Mr  Tyndale  must 
therefore  have  ascended  and  descended 
its  craggy  or  wooded  mountains,  and 
threaded  its  ravines,  and  crossed  its 
fertile  or  desolate  plains,  with  no  com- 
mon feeling  of  expectation  ;  and  though 
the  frequent  "Noraghe"  and  "Sepol- 
ture  de  is  Gigantes,"  and  their  accom- 
panying strange  conical  stones,  were 
not  of  a  character  to  fill  him  with  that 
amazement  produced  by  the  above- 
mentioned  incidents,  they  were  suffi- 
ciently mysterious,  and  the  attempt 
to  reach  them  in  some  instances  suffi- 
ciently adventurous — to  keep  alive  the 
mind,  and  stir  the  imagination  to  the 
working  out  visions,  and  conjuring  up 
the  seeming-probable  existences  of  the 
past,  or  wilder  dreams,  in  such  variety 
as  reason  deduced  or  fancy  willed. 
On  one  occasion  he  descended  an  aper- 
ture, in  a  domed  chamber  of  aNoraghe, 
groped  his  way  through  a  subterranean 
passage,  and  came  upon  some  finely- 
pulverised   matter,    "  about    fifteen 
inches  deep,  which  at  first  appeared 
to  be  earth,  but  on  scraping  into  it 
were  several  human  bones,  some  broken 
and  others  mouldering  away  on  being 
touched."    But  here  the  reader  unac- 
quainted with  Sardinia,  as  it  may  be 
presumed  very  many  are,  may  ask 
something  about  these  Noraghe,  with 
their  domed  chambers,  and  the  Sepol- 
ture.     There  may  be  a  preliminary 
inquiry  into  the  origin  of  the  inhabi- 
tants.   Various  are  the  statements  of 
diiferent  authors :  without  following 
chronological  order,  we  may  readily 
concur  in  their  conclusions,  that  the 
island  was  peopled  by  Phoenician,  Li- 
byan, Tyrrhenian,  Greek,  Trojan,  and 
other  colonies — unless  the  disquisi- 
tions of  some  historians  of  our  day 
would  compel  us  to  reject  the  Trojans, 
in  the  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of 
Troy  itself.    But  many  of  these  may 
have   been  only  partial,  temporary 
immigrations,  which  found  a  people  in 
prior  possession.    The  argument  is 
strongly  in  favour  of  the  supposition 


that  the  Sarde  nation  are  of  Phoenician 
origin,  and  that  its  antiquities  are 
Phoenician,  or  of  a  still  earlier  epoch. 
In  descending  to  more  historic  times, 
we  find  the  Carthaginians  exercis- 
ing influence  there  as  early  as  700 
B.C.,  and  that  the  island  suffered 
severely  from  the  alternate  sway  of  the 
rival  powers  of  Rome  and  Carthage. 
And  here  we  are  disposed  to  rest, 
utterly  disinclined  to  follow  the  laby- 
rinth of  cruelties  which  the  history  of 
every  people,  nation,  and  language 
under  the  sun  presents. 

If,  at  least  for  the  present  moment, 
a  disgust  of  history  is  a  disqualifi- 
cation for  the  notice  of  such  a  work 
as  this  before  us,  the  reader  must  be 
referred  to  the  book  itself  at  once; 
but  there  are  in  it  so  many  subjects  of 
interest,  both  as  to  customs,  manners, 
and  some  characters  that  shine  out 
from  the  dark  pages  of  history  here 
and  there,  that  we  venture  on,  not 
careful  of  the  thread,  but  with  a  pur- 
pose of  taking  it  up,  wherever  there 
may  be  a  promise  of  amusement. 
There  is  little  pleasure  in  recording 
how  many  hundreds  of  thousands  were 
put  to  the  sword  by  Carthaginians, 
Romans,  and,  subsequently,  Vandals 
and  Goths ;  nor  the  various  tyrannies 
arising  out  of  contests  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  island,  which  have  been 
continually  inflicted  upon  the  people 
by  the  European  powers  of  Christian 
times.  Mankind  never  did,  and  it 
may  be  supposed  never  will,  let  each 
other  alone.  We  are  willing  to  be- 
lieve that  peace  and  security,  for 
any  continuance,  is  not  for  man  on 
earth,  and  that  his  nature  requires 
this  universal  stirring  activity  of  ag- 
gression and  defence,  for  the  develop- 
ment of  his  powers — and  that  out  of 
this  evil  comes  good.  Where  would 
be  virtue  withoiit  suffering  ?  Yet  we 
are  not  always  in  the  humour  to  sit 
out  the  tragedy  of  human  life.  There 
are  moments  when  the  present  and 
real  troubles  of  our  own  times  press 
too  heavily  on  the  spirits,  and  we 
shrink  from  the  scrutiny  of  past  re- 
sults, through  a  dread  of  a  similar 
future,  and  gladly  seek  relief  from 
bitter  truths  in  lighter  speculations. 
In  such  a  humour  we  confess  a  dislike 
to  biography,  in  which  kind  of  reading 
the  future  does  cast  its  dark  shadow 
before,  and  we  are  constantly  haunted 


1849.] 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


35 


by  the  ghost  of  the  last  pages,  amid 
the  earnest  pursuits  and  perhaps 
gaieties  of  the  first.  But  what  that 
last  page  of  biography  is,  we  find 
nearly  every  page  of  history  to  be, 
only  far  sadder,  and  far  more  cruel. 
The  man's  tale  may  tell  us  that  at  least 
he  died  in  his  bed ;  but  history  draws 
up  the  curtain  at  every  act,  presenting 
to  the  unquiet  sight,  scenes  of  whole- 
sale tortures,  poisonings,  slaughters, 
and  fields  of  unburied  and  mutilated 
carcases. 

It  is  time  to  say  something  of  these 
monuments  of  great  antiquity,  the 
Noraghe,  and  what  they  are,  before 
speculating  upon  who  built  them.  We 
extract  the  following  account,  unable 
to  make  it  more  concise : — 

"  All  are  built  on  natural  or  artificial 
mounds,  whether  in  valleys,  plains,  or  on 
mountains,  and  some  are  partially  enclosed 
at  a  slight  distance,  by  a  low  wall  of  a 
similar  construction  to  the  building. 
Their  essential  architectural  feature  is  a 
truncated  cone  or  tower,  averaging  from 
thirty  to  sixty  feet  in  height,  and  from 
one  hundred  to  three  hundred  in  circum- 
ference at  the  base.  The  majority  have 
no  basement,  but  the  rest  are  raised  on 
one  extending  either  in  corresponding  or 
in  irregular  shape,  and  of  which  the  peri- 
meter varies  from  three  hundred  to  six 
hundred  and  fifty-three  feet,  the  largest 
yet  measured.  The  inward  inclination 
of  the  exterior  wall  of  the  principal  tower, 
which  almost  always  is  the  centre  of  the 
building,  is  so  well  executed  as  to  pre- 
sent, in  its  elevation,  a  perfect  and  con- 
tinuously symmetrical  line  ;  but  some- 
times a  small  portion  of  the  external  face 
of  the  outerworks  of  the  basements, 
which  are  not  regular,  is  straight  and 
perpendicular  :  such  instances  are,  how- 
ever, very  rare.  There  is  every  reason 
to  believe,  though  without  positive  proof 
— for  none  of  the  Noraghe  are  quite  per- 
fect— that  the  cone  was  originally  trun- 
cated, and  formed  thereby  a  platform  on 
its  summit.  The  material  of  which  they 
are  built  being  always  the  natural  stone 
of  the  locality,  we  accordingly  find  them 
of  granite,  limestone,  basalt,  trachitic  por- 
phyry, lava,  and  tufa;  the  blocks  varying 
in  shape  and  size  from  three  to  nine  cubic 
feet,  while  those  forming  the  architraves 
of  the  passages  are  sometimes  twelve  feet 
long,  five  feet  wide,  and  the  same  in 
depth.  The  surfaces  present  that  slight 
irregularity  which  proves  the  blocks  to 
have  been  rudely  worked  by  the  hammer, 
but  with  sufficient  exactness  to  form  re- 
gular horizontal  layers.  With  few  excep- 


tions, the  stones  are  not  polygonal,  but, 
when  so,  are  without  that  regularity  of 
form  which  would  indicate  the  use  of  the 
rule ;  nor  is  their  construction  of  the  Cy- 
clopean and  Pelasgic  styles;  neither  have 
they  any  sculpture,  ornamental  work,  or 
cement.  The  external  entrance,  invari- 
ably between  the  E.S.E.  and  S.  by  W., 
but  generally  to  the  east  of  south,  seldom 
exceeds  five  feet  high  and  two  feet  wide, 
and  is  often  so  small  as  to  necessitate 
crawling  on  all  fours.  The  architrave,  as 
previously  mentioned,  is  very  large ;  but 
having  once  passed  it,  a  passage  varying 
from  three  to  six  feet  high,  and  two  to 
four  wide,  leads  to  the  principal  domed 
chamber,  the  entrance  to  which  is  some- 
times by  another  low  aperture  as  small  as 
the  first.  The  interior  of  the  cone  con- 
sists of  one,  two,  or  three  domed  cham- 
bers, placed  one  above  the  other,  and  di- 
minishing in  size  in  proportion  to  the  ex- 
ternal inclination ;  the  lowest  averaging 
from  fifteen  to  twenty  feet  in  diameter, 
and  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  in  height. 
The  base  of  each  is  always  circular,  but, 
when  otherwise,  elliptical ;  the  edges  of 
the  stones,  where  the  tiers  overlay  each 
other,  are  worked  off,  so  that  the  exterior 
assumes  a  semiovoidal  form,  or  that  of 
which  the  section  would  be  a  parabola, 
the  apex  being  crowned  with  a  large  flat 
stone,  resting  on  the  last  circular  layer, 
which  is  reduced  to  a  small  diameter." 
"  In  the  interior  of  the  lowest  chamber, 
and  on  a  level  with  the  floor,  are  fre- 
quently from  two  to  four  cells  or  niches, 
formed  in  the  thickness  of  the  masonry 
without  external  communication,  varying 
from  three  to  six  feet  long,  two  to  four 
wide,  and  two  to  five  high,  and  only  ac- 
cessible by  very  small  entrances.  The 
access  to  the  second  and  third  chambers, 
as  well  as  to  the  platform  on  the  top  of 
those  Noraghe  which  have  only  one 
chamber,  is  by  a  spiral  corridor  made  in 
the  building,  either  as  a  simple  ramp, 
with  a  gradual  ascent,  or  with  rough 
irregular  steps  made  in  the  stones.  The 
corridor  varies  from  three  to  six  feet  in 
height,  and  from  two  to  four  in  width, 
and  the  outer  side  either  inclines  accord- 
ing to  the  external  wall  of  the  cone,  and 
the  inner  side  according  to  the  domed 
chamber,  or  resembles  in  the  section  a 
segment  of  a  circle.  The  entrance  to 
this  spiral  corridor  is  generally  in  the 
horizontal  passage  which  leads  from  the 
external  entrance  to  the  first-floor  cham- 
ber of  the  cone ;  though  sometimes  it  is 
by  a  small  aperture  in  the  chamber,  about 
six  or  eight  feet  from  the  base,  and  very 
difficult  of  entry.  The  upper  chambers 
are  entered  by  a  small  passage  at  right 
angles  to  this  corridor;  and  opposite  to 


this  passage,  is  often  a  small  aperture  in 
the  outer  wall,  having  apparently  no  re- 
gular position,  though  frequently  over  the 
external  entrance  to  the  ground  floor  ; 
while,  in  some  instances,  there  are  several 
apertures  so  made  that  only  the  sky,  or 
most  distant  objects  in  the  horizon,  are 
visible." 

Such  is  the  description   of  these 
singular    structures  —  when  and  by 
whom  built  ?  Their  number  must  have 
been  very  great  indeed  ;  for  although 
there  have  ever  been  decay  and  ab- 
straction of  the  materials  for  common 
purposes  going  on,  there  are  now  up- 
wards of  three  thousand  in  existence ; 
yet,  not  one  has  been  built  during  the 
last   2500  years.      Not  only  is  the 
inquiry,   by  whom,  and  when  were 
they  erected,  but  for  what  purpose  ? 
On  all  these  points,  various  opinions 
have  been  given.     Mr  Tyndale,  who 
lias  well  weighed  all  that  has  been 
written  on  the  subject,  is  of  opinion 
that  they  were  built  by  the  very  early 
Canaanites,  when,  expelled  from  their 
country,  they  migrated  to  Sardinia. 
There  are  visible  indications  of  other 
migrations  of  the  Canaanites,  but  no- 
where  are  exactly,  or  even  nearly 
similar  buildings  found.     We  know, 
upon  the  authority  of  Procopius,  that 
in  Mauritania  were  two  columns,  on 
which  were  inscribed  in  Phoenician  cha- 
racters, "  We  are  those  who  fled  from 
the  face  of  Joshua,  the  robber,  the  son 
of  Nane."  There  is  certainly  a  kind  of 
similarity  between  these  buildings  and 
the  round  towers  of  Ireland— a  sub- 
ject examined  by  our  author ;    but 
there  is  also  a  striking  dissimilarity  in 
dimensions,  they  not  being  more  than 
from  eight  to  fifteen  feet  in  diameter. 
But  there  is  a  tumulus  on  the  banks 
of  the  Boyne,  between  Drogheda  and 
Slane,  which  in  its  passages,  domed 
chambers,    and  general    dimensions, 
may  find  some  affinity  Avith  the  Sarde 
Noraghe.    It  certainly  is  curious  that 
an  opinion  has  been  formed,  not  with- 
out show  of  reason  for  the  conjecture, 
that  these  people,  whether  as  Canaan- 
ites, Phoenicians,   or  Carthaginians, 
reached  Ireland  ;  and  it  is  well  known 
that  the  single  specimen  of  the  Car- 
thaginian language,  in  a  passage  in 
Plautus,    is  very    intelligible    Irish. 
It  has  been  observed  that  when  Cato, 
in  the  Roman  senate,  uttered  those 
celebrated     and     significant    words, 


The  Island  of  Sardinia.  [J"1y> 

"  Delenda  est  Carthago,"  he  was  un- 
consciously fulfilling  a  decree  against 
that  denounced  people.  We  should 
be  unwilling  to  trace  the  denunciation 
further.  There  are,  however,  few  things 
more  astonishing  in  history,  than 
that  so  powerful  a  people  as  the  Car- 
thaginians were— the  great  rivals  of 
the  masters  of  the  world,  should  have 
been  apparently  so  utterly  swept  from 
the  face  of  the  world,  and  nothing 
left,  even  of  their  language,  but  those 
few  unintelligible  (unless  they  be 
Irish)  words  in  Plautus. 

The  "  Sepolture  de  is  Gigantes" 
should  also  be  here  noticed. 

"  They  may  be  described  as  a  series  of 
large  stones  placed  together  without  any 
cement,  enclosing  a  foss  or  vacuum,  from 
fifteen  to  thirty-six  feet  long,  from  three 
to  six  wide,  the  same  in  depth,  with 
immense  flat  stones  resting  on  them  as 
a  covering ;  but  though  the  latter  are  not 
always  found,  it  is  evident,  by  a  compari- 
son with  the  more  perfect  sepulture,  that 
they  once  existed,  and  have  been  destroyed 
or  removed.  The  foss  runs  invariably 
from  north-west  to  south-east ;  and  at  the 
latter  point  is  a  large  upright  headstone, 
averaging  from  ten  to  fifteen  feet  high, 
varying  in  its  form  from  the  square,  ellip- 
tical, and  conical,  to  that  of  three  quar- 
ters of  an  egg,  and  having  in  many  in- 
stances an  aperture  about  eighteen  inches 
square  at  its  base.  On  either  side  of  this 
still  commences  a  series  of  separate  stones, 
irregular  in  size  and  shape,  but  forming 
an  arc,  the  chord  of  which  varies  from 
twenty  to  forty  feet,  so  that  the  whole 
figure  somewhat  resembles  the  bow  and 
shank  of  a  spear." 

Their  number  must  have  been  very 
great.  They  are  called  sepulchres  of 
giants  by  the  Sardes,  who  believe  that 
giants  were  buried  within  them.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  these  Sepolture  and 
Noraghe  were  works  of  one  and  the 
same  people.  Mr  Tyndale  thinks,  if 
the  one  kind  of  structure  were  tombs, 
so  were  the  other  :  we  should  draw  a 
different  conclusion  from  their  general 
contiguity  to  each  other.  It  should 
be  mentioned,  that  in  the  Noraghc 
have  been  found  several  earthenware 
figures,  which  are  described  in  La 
Marmora's  work  as  Phoenician  idols. 
There  is  another  very  remarkable  ob- 
ject of  antiquity—"  a  row  of  six  coni- 
cal stones  near  the  Sepoltura,  standing 
in  a  straight  line,  a  few  paces  apart 
from  each  other,  with  the  exception 


1849.] 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


37 


of  one,  which  has  been  upset,  and  lies 
on  the  ground,  but  in  the  sketch  is 
represented  as  standing.  They  are 
about  four  feet  eight  inches  high,  of 
two  kinds,  aud  have  been  designated 
male  and  female,  from  three  of  them 
having  two  globular  projections  from 
the  surface  of  the  stone,  resembling 
the  breasts  of  a  woman."  He  meets 
elsewhere  with  five  others,  there  evi- 
dently having  been  a  sixth,  but  with- 
out the  above  remarkable  significance. 
We  know,  from  Herodotus,  that  co- 
lumns were  set  up  with  female  em- 
blems, denoting  the  conquest  over  an 
effeminate  people,  but  can  scarcely  at- 
tribute to  these  such  a  meaning,  for 
they  are  together  of  both  kinds.  For  a 
curious  and  learned  dissertation  upon 
the  subject  of  these  antiquities,  we 
confidently  refer  the  reader  toMrTyn- 
dale's  book. 

After  the  mention  of  these  singular 
monuments,  perhaps  of  three  thousand 
years  ago,  it  may  be  scarcely  worth 
while  to  notice  the  antiquities  of,  com- 
paratively speaking,  a  modern  date, 
Roman  or  other.  Nor  do  we  intend 
to  speak  of  the  history  of  the  people 
under  the  Romans  or  Carthaginians, 
and  but  shortly  notice  that  kind  of 
government  under  "  Giudici,"  as 
princes  presiding  over  the  several 
provinces  some  centuries  before  the 
Pisan,  Genoese,  and  Aragon  posses- 
sion of  the  island.  The  origin  of  this 
government  is  involved  in  much  ob- 
scurity ;  there  are,  however,  docu- 
ments of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries,  which  speak  of  preceding 
Giudici,  and  their  acts.  It  would  be 
idle  to  inquire  why  they  were  called 
Giudici :  it  may  suffice,  that  the 
"judges"  were  the  actual  rulers. 

"  It  is  supposed,"  says  our  author, 
"  that  the  whole  island  was  originally 
comprehended  in  one  Giudicato,  of 
which  Cagliari  was  the  capital ;  but, 
in  the  course  of  time,  the  local  inter- 
ests of  each  grew  sufficiently  self- 
important  to  cause  a  subdivision  and 
establishment  of  separate  Giudicati." 
The  minor  ones  were  in  time  swal- 
lowed up  by  the  others,  and  only  four 
remained,  of  which  there  is  a  precise 
history,  Cagliari,  Arborea,  Gallura, 
and  Logudoro. 

To  us,  the  government  of  Giudicati 
is  interesting  from  its  similarity  to  the 
condition  of  England  under  the  Hep- 


tarchy. This  similarity  is  traced 
through  its  detail  by  Mr  Tyndale. 
The  Giudici  are  mentioned  as  early  as 
598,  though  there  is  no  account  of  any 
direct  succession  till  about  900.  "  In 
both  countries  the  ecclesiastics  took  a 
leading  part  in  the  administration  of 
public  affairs ;  and  the  hierarchy  of 
Sardinia  was  as  sacred  and  honoured 
as  that  of  England,  where,  by  the  laws 
of  some  of  the  provinces  of  the  Hep- 
tarchy, the  price  of  the  archbishop's 
head  was  even  higher  than  that  of  the 
king's.  It  is  unnecessary,  though  it 
would  be  easy,  to  give  further  proofs 
of  similarity  in  the  institutions  of  the 
two  countries ;  but  those  above  are 
sufficient  to  show  their  analogy,  with- 
out the  appearance  of  there  having 
been  the  slightest  connexion  or  com- 
munication with  each  other,  or  derived 
from  the  same  origin."  Perhaps 
something  may  be  attributed  to  the 
long  possession  of  both  countries  by 
the  Romans.  We  have  not  certainly 
lost  all  trace  of  them  in  our  OAvn. 

The  government  of  the  Giudici  was 
not  characterised  by  feudalism,  before 
the  Pisan,  Genoese,  and  Aragon  in- 
fluence. It  did,  however,  become 
established  in  all  its  usual  forms. 
Feudalism  has,  however,  been  abo- 
lished by  the  present  reigning  family ; 
and  we  trust,  notwithstanding  our 
author's  evident  doubts  and  suspicions, 
that  the  change  Avill  ultimately,  if  not 
immediately,  be  for  the  happiness  of 
the  Sardes.  It  requires  a  very  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  a  people,  of  their 
habits,  their  modes  of  thinking,  their 
character  as  a  race,  as  well  as  their 
character  from  custom,  to  say  that 
this  or  that  form  of  government  is  best 
suited  to  them. 

The  constitution-mongering  fancy 
is  a  very  mischievous  one,  and  is 
generally  that  of  a  very  self-conceited 
mind.  There  are  some  among  ns,  in 
high  places,  who  have  dabbled  very 
unsuccessfully  that  way ;  and  there  is 
now  enough  going  on  in  the  state  of 
Europe  to  read  them  a  good  lesson. 
Carlo  Alberto  is  no  great  favourite 
with  Mr  Tyndale;  yet  we  are  not 
sure  that  he  has  not  done  more  wisely 
for  Sardinia  than  if  the  barons  had  set 
aside  their  "  pride  and  ignorance," 
and  made  such  "  spontaneous  conces- 
sions" as  we  find  elsewhere  have  not 
had  very  happy  terminations.  Wo 


38 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


[July, 


conclude  the  following  was  written 
prior  to  events  which  throw  rather  a 
new  light  on  the  nature  of  constitu- 
tional reforms,  as  they  are  called : 
"  In  Hungary  and  Sicily  the  nobles, 
with  generous  patriotism,  voluntarily 
conceded,  not  only  privileges,  but 
pecuniary  advantages,  and  the  people 
have  reaped  the  benefit.  In  Sardinia, 
the  empty  pride  and  ignorance  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  feudal  barons 
always  prevented  such  a  spontaneous 
concession."  We  beg  Mr  Tyndale  to 
reflect  upon  the  peculiar  benefits  those 
two  happy  people  are  now  reaping. 
A  man  cannot  tell  his  own  growth  of 
mind  and  character,  how  he  comes  to 
be  what  he  is ;  but  he  must  have  little 
reflection  indeed  not  to  know,  that, 
under  other  circumstances  than  those 
in  which  he  has  been  placed,  he  must 
have  been  a  very  different  man,  and 
have  required  a  very  different  kind  of 
self,  or  other  government,  to  regulate 
his  own  happiness.  So  institutions 
grow — and  so  governments.  Paper 
changes  are  very  pretty  pieces  for 
declamation ;  but  for  sudden  applica- 
cation,  and  that  to  all,  whatever  their 
condition  in  morals  and  knowledge, 
they  are  but  "  or\\ta.Ta.  Xvypa,"  and  in- 
dicate bloodshed. 

To  return,  however.  We  will  not 
dismiss  the  subject  of  the  Giudici 
without  the  mention  of  two  persons 
whose  romantic  histories  are  inti- 
mately connected  with  Sardinian  af- 
fairs. The  celebrated  Enzio,  illegiti- 
mates on  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II. 
and  the  Giudicessa  Eleonora.  More 
than  a  century  elapsed  between  these 
two  extraordinary  characters ;  the 
benefits  conferred  on  Sardinia  by  the 
latter  may  be  said  to-  still  live  in 
some  of  the  excellent  laws  which  she 
established. 

Enzio,  not  a  Sarde  by  birth,  by  his 
marriage  with  Adelasia,  a  widow, 
Giudicessa  of  Torres,  and  Gallura,  and 
a  part  of  Cagliari,  came  into  posses- 
sion of  those  .provinces,  and  soon,  by 
treaty  and  force  of  arms,  became 
powerful  over  the  whole  island.  The 
favourite  son  of  Frederick  II.,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  he  obtained  the 
enmity  of  Gregory  IX.,  who  had,  by 
this  marriage,  been  foiled  in  his 
schemes  upon  Sardinia,  through  a 
marriage  he  contemplated  between 
Adelasia  and  one  of  his  own  relatives. 


Enzio  bore  an  illustrious  part  in  the 
warfare  of  those  times,  between  the 
Pope  and  the  Emperor ;  and  such  was 
his  success,  that,  after  his  celebrated 
engagement  of  the  fleets  near  Leg- 
horn, and  the  capture  of  the  prelates 
who  had  been  summoned  from  the 
Empire  to  the  Pope — to  prevent  whose 
arrival  this  armament  was  undertaken 
— Pope  Gregory  died  in  his  hundredth 
year,  his  disease  having  been  greatly 
aggravated  by  this  disastrous  event. 
The  quarrel  was,  however,  continued 
by  his  successor,  Innocent  IV.,  and 
the  fortune  of  events  turned  against 
the  Emperor.  Enzio  was  taken  pri- 
soner in  an  unsuccessful  battle  near 
Modena,  by  the  Bolognese,  and  was, 
though  handsomely  treated,  detained 
captive  twenty  years,  during  which  all 
the  members  of  his  family  quitted  this 
life.  He  consoled  the  hours  of  his 
captivity  by  music  and  poetry,  in 
which  he  excelled,  so  as  to  have  ob- 
tained eminence  as  a  poet  amongst 
the  poets  of  Italy.  But  he  enjoyed  a 
still  sweeter  solace.  When  he  had 
been  led  in  triumph  as  prisoner  into 
Bologna,  in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  so 
early  had  he  distinguished  himself  as 
a  warrior,  the  beauty  of  his  person, 
and  the  elegance  of  his  deportment, 
awakened  in  all  the  tenderest  sym- 
pathies. An  accomplished  maiden  of 
Bologna,  Lucia  Viadagoli,  besides  the 
pity  and  admiration  which  all  felt,  en- 
tertained for  him  the  most  ardent 
passion  ;  an  intimacy  ensued,  and  the 
passion  was  as  mutual  as  it  was  ar- 
dent. From  this  connexion,  as  it  is 
said,  arose  the  founder  of  the  family 
of  Bentivoglio,  who  were,  in  after  years, 
the  avengers  of  his  sufferings,  and 
lords  over  the  proud  republic.  He 
had  likewise  obtained  the  devoted  at- 
tachment of  a  youth,  Pietro  Asinelli ; 
through  this  faithful  friend,  a  plan  was 
laid  down  for  his  escape,  which  was 
veiy  nearly  successful.  He  was  car- 
ried out  in  a  tun,  in  which  some  ex- 
cellent wine  for  the  king  Enzio's  use 
had  been  brought.  His  friends  Asin- 
elli and  Raineriode'  Gonfalioneri  were 
waiting  near,  with  horses  for  his  es- 
cape, when  a  lock  of  beautiful  hair, 
protruding  from  the  barrel,  was  dis- 
covered, either  by  a  soldier,  or,  as 
some  say,  a  maid,  or  an  old  mad 
woman,  for  accounts  vary.  Alarm  was 
given,  and  the  prisoner  resecured  in. 


1849.] 


The,  Island  of  Sardinia. 


39 


his  place  of  confinement.  Goufalioneri 
was  arrested  and  executed ;  his  friend 
Asinelli  escaped,  but  was  banished 
for  life.  Enzio  died  in  this  captivity 
in  the  47th  year  of  his  age,  15th 
March  1272,  on  the  anniversary  of 
his  father  the  Emperor's  death,  and 
the  saints'  day  of  his  beloved  Lucia. 
He  was  buried  magnificently  at  the 
expense  of  the  republic.  It  might 
have  been  recorded  of  him,  that  he 
possessed  every  virtue,  had  not  his 
conduct  to  his  wife  left  a  stain  on  his 
name.  His  early  and  ill-assorted  mar- 
riage may  offer  some  excuse  for  one 
who  showed  himself  so  amiable  on  all 
other  occasions.  He  had  won  and 
governed  Sardinia,  and  "  conquered  a 
great  part  of  Italy,  at  an  age  when  the 
vast  majority  of  youths,  even  under  the 
most  favourable  circumstances,  are 
but  beginning  to  aspire  to  glory  and 
active  life ;  while,  equally  fitted  for  the 
duties  of  a  peaceful  statesman,  he  was, 
at  the  same  early  age,  intrusted  with 
a  highly  important  charge,  and  op- 
posed to  the  most  subtle  politicians." 
Should  any  future  Hesiod  meditate 
another  poem  on  illustrious  women, 
Eleonora  of  Sardinia  will  have  a  con- 
spicuous place  among  the  "Hotot." 
This  Giudicessa  was  born  about  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
Her  father  was  Mariano  IV.,  Giudice 
of  Arborea.  She  was  married  to 
Brancaleone  Doria,  a  man  altogether 
inferior  to  his  wife.  On  the  death  of 
her  brother  Ugone  IV.,  a  man  worthy 
of  note,  she  assumed  the  government, 
styling  herself  Giudicessa  of  Arborea, 
in  the  name  of  her  infant  son ;  in  this 
she  displayed  a  talent  and  vigour 
superior  even  to  her  father. 

"  The  first  occasion  on  which  her  cour- 
age and  political  sagacity  were  tried,  was 
on  the  murder  of  her  brother  Ugone,  and 
his  daughter  Benedetta,  when  the  insur- 
gents sought  to  destroy  the  whole  reign- 
ing family,  and  to  form  themselves  into  a 
republic.  Perceiving  the  danger  which 
threatened  the  lives  and  rights  of  her 
sons,  and  undismayed  by  the  pusillani- 
mous conduct  of  her  husband,  who  fled 
for  succour  to  the  court  of  Aragon,  she 
promptly  took  the  command  in  the  state, 
and  placing  herself  in  arms,  at  the  head 
of  such  troops  as  remained  faithful, 
speedily  and  entirely  discomfited  the 
rebels.  She  lost  no  time  in  taking  pos- 
session of  the  territories  and  castles  be- 
longing to  the  Giudici  of  Arborea,  causing 


all  people  to  do  homage,  and  swear  fealty 
to  the  young  prince,  her  son ;  and  wrote 
to  obtain  assistance  from  the  King  of 
Aragon,  in  restoring  order  in  her  Giudi- 
cato.  Brancalione,  encouraged  by  his 
wife's  intrepidity  and  success,  asked  per- 
mission from  the  King  of  Aragon  to  return 
to  Sardinia  with  the  promised  auxiliaries; 
but  the  king,  alarmed  at  the  high  spirit 
of  the  Giudicessa,  prevented  his  departure, 
and  kept  him  in  stricter  confinement, 
under  pretence  of  conferring  greater 
honours  on  him.  He  was,  however,  at 
last  allowed  to  depart,  under  certain 
heavy  conditions,  one  of  them  being  the 
surrender  of  Frederic,  his  son,  as  a  host- 
age for  the  performance  of  a  treaty  then 
commenced.  On  his  arrival  at  Cagliari 
in  1384,  with  the  Aragonese  army,  he 
repeatedly  besought  his  wife  to  submit  to 
the  king,  in  pursuance  of  the  treaties.  It 
was  in  vain.  Despising  alike  the  pusillani- 
mous recommendation  of  her  husband, 
and  the  threats  of  the  Aragonese  general, 
she  for  two  years  kept  up  a  courageous 
and  successful  warfare  against  the  latter, 
till  having,  by  her  exertions,  acquired  an 
advantageous  position,  she  commenced  a 
treaty  with  her  enemy  respecting  the 
sovereignty  in  dispute,  and  for  the  de- 
liverance of  her  husband,  who,  during  the 
whole  of  the  time,  was  kept  in  close  con- 
finement at  Cagliari." 

Finally,  these  terms  of  peace,  so 
honourable  to  her,  were  signed  by 
Don  Juan  I.,  who  succeeded  his 
brother  Pedro,  who  died  in  1387. 

"  The  peace  was  but  ill  kept,  for  Bran- 
caleone, when  at  liberty,  and  once  more 
under  the  influence  of  his  high-minded 
wife,  regained  his  courage,  and  in  1390, 
renewing  the  war  more  fiercely  than  ever, 
he  continued  it  for  many  years,  without 
the  Kings  of  Aragon  ever  reducing  Eleo- 
nora to  submission,  cr  obtaining  posses- 
sion of  her  dominions.  She  formed  alli- 
ances with  Genoa,  and,  with  the  aid  of 
their  fleet,  took  such  vigorous  measures 
that  nearly  the  whole  of  Logoduro  was  in 
a  short  time  subdued  ;  while  Brancaleone, 
inspired  by  her  example,  reconquered- Sas- 
sari,  the  castle  of  Osilo,  and  besieged  the 
royal  fortresses  of  Alghero  and  Chivia." 

After  this,  Don  Martino,  who  suc- 
ceeded his  brother  Don  Juan  I.  of 
Aragon,  made  peace,  which  secured 
the  prosperity  and  honour  of  Arborea 
during  the  life  of  Eleonora.  But  this 
extraordinary  woman  not  only,  in  a 
remarkable  degree,  exhibited  the  ta- 
lents of  a  great  general,  and' the  genius 
of  a  consummate  politician,  but,  for 
that  age,  a  wonderful  forethought, 


40 


Tlte  Island  of  Sardinia. 


[July, 


sagacity,  and  humanity,  in  the  fabri- 
cation of  a  code  of  laws  for  her  people. 
As  Debora  judged  Israel,  and  the 
people  came  to  her  for  judgment,  so 
might  it  be  said  of  Eleonora. 

"  The  Carta  di  Logu,  so  called  from  its 
being  the  code  of  laws  in  her  own  do- 
minions, had  been  commenced  by  her 
father,  Mariano  IV.,  but  being  compiled, 
finished,  and  promulgated  by  Eleonora,  to 
her  is  chiefly  due  the  merit  of  the  under- 
taking, and  the  worthy  title  of  enlightened 
legislatrix.  It  was  first  published  on 
llth  April  1395,  and  by  its  provisions, 
the  forms  of  legal  proceedings  and  of 
criminal  law  are  established,  the  civil  and 
customary  laws  defined,  those  for  the  pro- 
tection of  agriculture  enjoined,  the  rights 
and  duties  of  every  subject  explained, 
the  punishments  for  offences  regulated  ; 
and,  in  these  last  provisions,  when  com- 
pared with  the  cruelty  of  the  jurispru- 
dence of  that  age,  we  are  struck  with  the 
humanity  of  the  Carta  de  Logu,  and  its 
superiority  to  the  other  institutions  of 
that  period.  The  framing  of  a  body  of 
laws  so  far  in  advance  of  those  of  other 
countries,  where  greater  civilisation  ex- 
isted, must  ever  be  the  highest  ornament 
in  the  diadem  of  the  Giudicessa.  Its  merits 
were  so  generally  felt,  that,  though  intend- 
ed only  for  the  use  of  the  dominions  sub- 
ject to  her  own  sceptre,  it  was  some  years 
after  her  death  adopted  throughout  the 
island,  at  a  parliament  held  under  Don 
Alfonzo  V.,  in  1421.  This  great  princess 
died  of  the  plague  in  1403  or  1404,  re- 
gretted by  all  her  subjects." 

Of  the  natural  curiosities,  the  Antro 
de  Nettuno,  a  stalactitic  grotto,  about 
twelve  miles  from  Alghero,  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting.  It  was  seen  by 
Mr  Tyndale  under  very  favourable 
circumstances,  he  having  been  invited 
by  the  civic  authorities  to  visit 
it  in  the  suite  of  the  King  of  Sar- 
dinia. The  Antro  de  Nettuno  is 
under  the  stupendous  cliffs  of  Capo 
Caccia,  close  to  the  little  island  of 
Foradala.  "  In  parts  of  the  grotto 
were  corridors  and  galleries  some  300 
or  400  feet  long,  reminding  one,  if  the 
comparison  is  allowable,  of  the  Moor- 
ish architecture  of  the  Alhambra.  One 
of  them  terminates  abruptly  in  a  deep 
cavern,  into  which  Ave  were  pi-evented 
descending."  "  Some  of  the  columns, 
in  different  parts  of  the  grotto,  are 
from  seventy  to  eighty  feet  in  circum- 
ference, and  the  masses  of  drapery, 
drooping  in  exquisite  elegance,  are  of 
equally  grand  proportions." 


The  coast  of  Alghero  is  noted  for 
the  Pinna  marina,  of  the  mussel  tribe, 
whose  bivalved  shell  frequently  ex- 
ceeds two  feet  in  length.  As  the 
shark  is  accompanied  by  its  pilot  fish, 
so  is  this  huge  mussel  by  a  diminutive 
shrimp,  supposed  to  be  appointed  by 
nature  as  a  watchman,  but  in  fact  the 
prey  of  the  Pinna.  The  Pinna  is  fas- 
tened by  its  hinges  to  the  rock,  and  is 
itself  a  prey  to  a  most  wily  creature, 
the  Polypus  octopedia.  This  crafty 
creature  may  be  seen,  in  fine  weather, 
approaching  its  victim  with  a  pebble  in 
its  claws,  which  it  adroitly  darts  into 
the  aperture  of  the  yawning  shells,  so 
that  the  Pinna  can  neither  shut  itself 
close,  to  pinch  off  the  feelers  of  the 
polypus,  nor  save  itself  from  being 
devoured.  The  tunny  fishery  is  of 
some  importance  to  the  Sardes.  Mr 
Tyndale  was  present  at  one  of  then- 
great  days  of  operation,  the  Tonnara. 
A  large  inclosure  is  artificially  made, 
into  which  the  fish  pass,  when  the 
"  portcullis"  is  let  down,  and  a  great 
slaughter  commences. 

"  Fears  now  began  to  be  expressed 
lest  the  wind,  which  had  increased,  should 
make  it  too  rough  for  the  Mattanza,  but, 
while  discussing  it,  a  loud  cry  broke  upon 
us  of  Guarda  sotto' — '  look  beneath.'  The 
ever  watchful  Rais,  (commander,)  whose 
eye  had  never  been  off  its  victims,  in  a 
moment  had  perceived  by  their  move- 
ments that  they  were  making  for  the 
Foratico,  and,  obeying  his  warning  voice, 
we  all  were  immediately  on  our  knees, 
bending  over  the  sides  of  the  barges,  to 
watch  the  irruption,  and,  from  the  dead 
silence  and  our  position,  it  appeared  as  if 
we  were  all  at  prayers.  In  less  than  two 
minutes  the  shoal  of  nearly  500  had  pass- 
ed through.  The  well-known  voice  shouted 
out'  Ammorsella' — 'letdown  the  portcul- 
lis,'— down  it  went  amid  the  general  and 
hearty  cheers  of  all  present ;  and  the 
fatal  Foratico,  into  which  '  Lasciate  ogni 
speranza  voi  che  entrate,'  was  for  ever 
closed  on  them." 

Whatever  foundation  there  may  be 
for  conjecture  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
races,  and  extent  of  Phoenician  migra- 
tions, we  are  continually  struck  with 
the  resemblance  between  the  Sardes 
and  the  native  Irish.  There  is  the 
same  indolence,  the  same  recklessness, 
superstition,  and  Vendetta — that  dis- 
regard of  shedding  human  blood,  and 
the  same  screening  of  the  murderers, 


1849.] 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


who,  we  are  told,  though  well  known, 
visit  the  the  towns  on  "  festa  "  days, 
fearlessly  and  with  impunity.  But 
the  Vendetta  of  the  Sardes  is  not  only 
more  excusable,  from  a  habitual  de- 
nial or  perversion  of  justice,  but  it  has 
its  own  honourable  and  humane  laws, 
not  under  any  circumstances  to  be  in- 
fringed, which  place  it  in  conspicuous 
contrast  with  the  too  common  bar- 
barities and  cruelties  of  our  unfortu- 
nate sister  island. 

The  Sardinian  "  fuorusciti "  are 
not  the  Italian  banditti.  The  term 
includes,  with  the  robber,  those  who 
escape  from  the  arm  of  the  law,  and 
the  avenger  of  injuries.  These  take  to 
the  mountains.  The  common  robbers 
are  few,  and  their  attacks  on  passen- 
gers are  for  necessary  subsistence,  and 
more  commonly  for  gunpowder  with 
which  they  may  obtain  it.  Those 
who  escape  from  the  consequences  of 
crime  for  vengeance — Vendetta — are 
many  ;  but  these,  as  we  related,  have 
their  humane  code,  we  might  almost 
say  their  romantic — for  the  presence 
of  a  woman  is  a  perfect  security.  It  is 
their  law  that  no  atrocity,  no  Ven- 
detta, is  allowable  when  a  woman  is 
in  the  company.  A  foe  travelling 
with  wife  or  child  is  safe.  A  melan- 
choly instance  of  a  breach  of  this  law 
is  thus  given : — 

"  A  brigand  was  conducting  his  wife 
on  horseback  through  the  mountains 
when  he  suddenly  met  his  adversary,  who, 
regardless  of  the  conventional  and  living 
flag  of ,  truce,  attacked  and  slew  him,  to- 
gether with  his  pregnant  wife.  The  re- 
lations and  friends  of  the  deceased  were 
not  the  only  outraged  parties  ;  a  general 
feeling  of  indignation  and  vengeance  was 
kindled  throughout  the  whole  province. 
Every  bandit  felt  it  to  be  a  breach  of 
their  laws  of  honour;  and  even  the  mur- 
derer's partisans  not  only  denounced  the 
act,  but  '  refused  him  the  kiss  of  peace.' 
The  mangled  corpses  were  conveyed  home, 
and  the  friends  of  the  deceased  having 
.sworn,  on  the  body  of  the  unfortunate 
Teodora,  a  perpetual  Vendetta  against 
the  family  of  the  assassin,  a  system  of 
revenge  and  bloodshed  was  framed  and 
carried  out  to  such  an  extent,  that  hun- 
dreds of  victims,  perfectly  innocent  of 
even  indirect  participation  in  this  single 
act  of  dishonour,  fell  in  all  parts  of 
Gallura." 

Another  .characteristic  story  is  told. 
A  party  of  six  females  were  sojourn- 


41 

ing  at  a  church,  performing  a  "  No- 
vena."  Some  banditti,  knowing  this, 
descended  from  their  mountains  to 
visit  them,  and  proposed  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  mountains.  The  women 
assented,  and  accompanied  the  ban- 
dits, who  treated  them  with  respect, 
and  they  closed  their  evenings  with 
songs  and  dancing.  The  banditti  kept 
watch  the  whole  night  guarding  their 
fair  guests :  one  of  the  bandits  had 
been  the  rejected  lover  of  one  of  the 
party,  whose  husband  and  other 
friends,  hearing  of  this  departure  to 
the  mountains,  in  fear  and  for  ven- 
geance, collected  in  force  to  rescue  the 
women.  The  bandits,  in  their  descent, 
to  conduct  back  their  guests,  met  the 
other  party  ascending.  The  pre- 
sence of  women  prohibited  Vendetta ; 
a  truce  was  therefore  demanded,  when 
the  bridegroom  and  the  rejected  lover 
met,  with  feelings  of  past  injuries, 
and  fears  of  more  recent  on  one  side. 
Each  had  his  gun  cocked  ;  they  felt 
them,  and  gazed  at  each  other.  Their 
lives  were  at  instant  peril,  when  the 
bride  rushed  into  the  arms  of  her  hus- 
band, seized  his  gun,  and  discharged 
it ;  then,  placing  herself  in  front  to  pro- 
tect him,  she  led  him  up  to  the  bandit, 
and  demanded  from  him  his  gun.  He 
yielded  it,  and  she  discharged  it  also. 
The  rest  of  the  party  pressed  on,  an 
explanation  was  given  of  the  nature 
of  the  visit,  and  both  parties  joined  in 
a  feast,  and  mutual  explanations  of 
former  differences  were  given  and  re- 
ceived, their  Vendetta  terminated,  and 
a  general  and  lasting  reconciliation 
took  place.  Such  quarrels  are,  how- 
ever, sometimes  settled  otherwise  than 
by  Vendetta.  -  The  "  Pad"  are  recon- 
ciliations through  means  of  the  priest. 
The  parties  meet  in  the  open  air  near 
some  chapel,  and  such  settlements  are 
perpetual.  But  another  mode  is  pre- 
ferred, by  "  Ragionatori "  or  um- 
pires ;  but  appeals  may  be  made  from 
these  to  a  greater  number,  whose  de- 
cision is  final-  An  interesting  anecdote 
showing  their  power  is  thus  told  : — 

"  It  was  the  case  of  a  young  shepherd 
who  had  been  too  ardent  in  his  advances 
to  a  young  maiden.  On  the  youth  de- 
murring to  the  decision  as  too  severe,  the 
Ragionatori,  indignant  at  his  presumption, 
arose  from  under  the  shady  wild  olive, 
and  saying  to  the  surprised  spectators, 
'we  have  spoken,and  done  justice,'  salute i 


Tlie  Island  of  Sardinia. 


42 

them  and  turned  towards  their  homes. 
But  one  of  his  nearest  relations,  who  was 
leaning  against  the  knotted  trunk  of  an 
oak,  with  his  bearded  chin  resting  on  the 
back  of  his  hand  on  the  muzzle  of  his 
gun,  raised  his  head,  and,  with  a  fierce 
look,  extended  his  right  hand  to  the 
Ragionatori : '  Stop, friends ! '  he  exclaimed, 
*  the  thing  must  be  finished  at  this  mo- 
ment.' Then  turning  to  his  nephew,  with 
a  determined  and  resolute  countenance, 
and  placing  his  right  hand  upon  his  chest, 
he  said  to  him, '  Come,  instantly  ! — either 

obey  the  verdict  of  the  Ragionatori,or ' 

The  offender,  at  this  deadly  threat,  no 
longer  hesitated,  but  approached  the 
offended  party  and  sued  for  pardon.  The 
uncle,  thus  satisfied,  advanced,  and  de- 
manded for  him  the  hand  of  the  maiden  ; 
the  betrothal  took  place,  and  things  being 
thus  happily  terminated,  they  betook 
themselves  to  prepare  the  feast." 

We  could  wish  that  we  had  space 
to  describe  an  interview  our  author 
had  with  one  of  the  Fuorusciti,  and  of 
his  rescue  of  his  guide  from  the  Ven- 
detta. But  we  must  refer  to  the  book 
for  this,  and  many  other  well- told  in- 
cidents respecting  these  strange  peo- 
ple ;  and  particularly  a  romantic  tale 
of  "  II  Rosario  e  La  Palla,"  which,  if 
not  in  all  its  parts  to  be  credited,  is 
no  bad  invention — "  Se  non  e  vero  e 
ben1  trovato." 

We  would  make  some  inquiry  into 
the  habits  and  manners  of  the  Sardes. 
We  have  before  observed  their  re- 
semblance to  the  Irish.  A  descrip- 
tion of  the  houses,  or  rather  huts  or 
hovels  in  the  country,  will  remind  the 
reader  of  the  Irish  cabin,  where  a 
hole  in  the  roof  serves  for  chimney, 
and  the  pig  and  the  family  associate 
on  terms  of  mutual  right.  Like  Ita- 
lians in  general,  they  are  under  a 
nervous  hydrophobia,  and  prefer  dirt 
to  cleanliness,  and,  in  common  with 
really  savage  nations,  lard  their  hair 
with  an  inordinate  quantity  of  grease. 
Washing  is  very  superfluous,  as  if 
they  considered  the  removal  of  dirt 
as  the  taking  off  a  natural  clothing. 
Upon  one  occasion  Mr  Tyndale,  arriv- 
ing at  a  friend's  house,  and  retiring 
to  his  room,  sent  his  servant  to  re- 
quest some  jugs  of  water,  for  ablution 
after  a  hot  ride.  This  unusual  demand 
put  the  whole  habitation  into  commo- 
tion, and  brought  the  host  and  seve- 
ral visitors  in  his  rear,  into  the  room, 
while  Mr  Tyndale  was  in  a  state  of 


[July, 

nudity,  to  ascertain  the  use  of  so 
much  water.  They  had  no  idea  of 
this  being  an  indelicate  intrusion. 
Finding  that  the  water  was  for  a  kind 
of  cold  bath,  they  were  astonished — 
"  What,  wash  in  cold  water?  what  is 
the  good  of  it  ?  do  all  your  country- 
men do  such  things?  are  they  very 
dirty  in  England?  we  do  not  wash 
in  that  way — why  do  you?"  Such 
were  the  questions,  on  the  spot,  which 
he  was  required  to  answer.  But  they 
were  reiterated  by  the  ladies  below 
stairs,  who  expressed  amazement  at 
the  eccentricities  of  the  English. 

Hospitality  is  the  common  virtue 
of  the  Sardes.  "  In  most  houses 
admitting  of  an  extra  room,  one  is 
set  apart  for  the  guests — the  hospitale 
cubiculum  of  the  Romans — ready 
and  open  to  all  strangers."  It  would 
be  the  highest  offence  to  offer  the 
smallest  gratuity  to  the  host,  however 
humble,  though  a  trifle  may  be  given 
to  a  servant.  "La  mia  casa  e  piccola, 
ma  il  cuore  e  grande,"  (my  house  is 
small,  but  my  heart  is  large,)  was  the 
apology  on  one  occasion  of  his  Caval- 
lante,  on  his  arrival  in  Tempio,  where, 
owing  to  the  presence  of  the  King, 
not  a  bed  was  to  be  had,  and  the 
Cavallante  earnestly  entreated  the  use 
of  his  hospitality,  which,  indeed, 
seemed  in  the  proof  to  bear  no  pro- 
portion to  his  means  of  exercising  it. 
Even  the  family  bed  was  emptied  of 
four  children  and  a  wife's  sister,  in 
spite  of  fall  remonstrance,  for  his 
accommodation. 

Where  hospitality  is  a  custom 
stronger  than  law,  inns  offer  few  com- 
forts and  fewer  luxuries — the  traveller 
is  supposed  to  bring,  not  only  his 
own  provisions,  but  his  own  furniture. 
Our  traveller  arriving  at  Ozieri,  a 
town  with  more  than  eight  thousand 
inhabitants,  "mine  host"  was  asto- 
nished at  the  unreasonable  demand  of 
a  bed.  Finding  how  things  were,  Mr 
Tyndale  stood  in  the  court-yard, 
contemplating  the  alternative  of  pre- 
senting some  of  his  letters  to  parties 
in  the  town,  when  he  was  attracted 
to  a  window  on  the  other  side  of  the 
court,  from  whence  this  invitation 
issued :  "  Sir,  it  is  impossible  for  you 
to  go  to  the  Osteria  ;  there  is  no  ac- 
commodation fit  for  you.  Apparently 
you  are  a  stranger,  and  if  you  have 
no  friends  here,  pray  accept  what 


1849.] 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


little  we  can  do  for  you."  He  ascend- 
ed the  stairs  to  thank  his  hostess, 
who  sent  for  her  husband,  holding  a 
high  government  appointment  in  the 
town,  who  received  and  entertained 
him  as  if  they  had  been  his  intimate 
friends.  On  another  occasion,  in 
search  of  the  Perdas  Lungas  stones, 
antiquarian  curiosities,  he  met  a 
stranger,  who,  though  going  to  Nuovo 
in  a  great  hurry,  and  anxious  to  re- 
turn for  the  Festa,  on  finding  he  was  a 
foreigner,  insisted  on  accompanying 
him,  as  he  was  acquainted  with  the 
way — "one  of  the  many  instances," 
says  Mr  Tyndale,  "  of  Sarde  civility 
And  kindness."  And  such  hospitable 
kindness  he  invariably  received, 
whether  in  towns  or  among  the 
poorest  in  the  mountain  villages,  or 
more  lonely  places.  It  has  been 
•cynically  observed,  that  hospitality  is 
the  virtue  of  uncivilised  nations. 
However  selfishly  gratifying  the  exer- 
cise of  it  may  Jiave  been  to  that 
wealthy  Scotch  laird,  who  said  that 
his  nearest  neighbour,  as  a  gentleman, 
was  the  King  of  Denmark,  among 
such  a  people  as  the  Sardes,  it  surely 
may  be  an  indication  of  natural  kind- 
ness, and,  in  some  degree,  of  honesty, 
for  our  civilised  roguery  is  a  sore 
destroyer  of  open-housed  hospitality. 
A  royal  return  for  hospitable  care 
is,  however,  not  to  be  altogether  re- 
jected. When  the  King  of  Sardinia 
visited  the  island,  a  shepherd  of  the 
little  island  of  Talovara,  the  ancient 
Hermea,  near  the  port  of  Terranova, 
of  simple  manners  and  notions,  sent 
his  majesty  some  sheep  and  wild 
goats,  judging  that  the  royal  larder 
might  not  be  over-richly  stored.  His 
majesty  properly,  in  turn,  requested  to 
know  if  he  could  grant  him  anything. 
The  shepherd  consulted  his  family 
upon  all  their  real  and  imaginary  wants, 
and  finally  decided  against  luxuries, 
but  "  would  not  mind  if  the  king  gave 
him  a  pound  of  gunpowder."  "  On 
the  royal  messenger,  therefore,  sug- 
gesting that  he  should  ask  for  some- 
thing else,  the  dilemma  was  greater 
than  ever ;  but,  after  strolling  about, 
and  torturing  his  imagination  for 
several  minutes,  he  suddenly  broke 
out—"  Oh,  tell  the  King  of  Terra- 
firma  that  I  should  like  to  be  the  king 
of  Tavolara ;  and  that  if  any  people 
come  to  live  in  the  island,  that  they 


48 

must  obey  me,  as  the  people  obey 
him  in  Terra-firma."  What  compro- 
mise his  majesty  made  between  the 
regal  crown  and  the  pound  of  gun- 
powder, we  are  not  told.  Though  we 
would  by  no  means  vouch  for  this 
shepherd's  story,  which  is  neverthe- 
less very  probable,  we  can  vouch  for 
one  not  very  dissimilar. 

Not  very  long  since,  a  small  farmer 
in  a  little  village  in  Somersetshire, 
who  prided  himself  on  his  cheeses,  in 
a  fit  of  unwonted  generosity — for  he 
was  a  penurious  man — sent  to  her 
majesty  Queen  Victoria  a  prime 
cheese.  A  person  given  to  practical 
jokes  knowing  this,  bought  an  eigh- 
teenpeuny  gilt  chain,  and  sent  it  in  a 
letter,  purporting  to  be  from  her 
majesty,  appointing  him  her  "  well 
beloved  "  mayor  of  the  village,  in  the 
document  exalted  into  a  corporate 
town,  but  whereof  he,  the  said  mayor, 
formed  the  sole  body  and  whole 
authority.  The  ignorant  poor  man 
swallowed  the  bait,  and  called  the 
village  together;  gave  an  ox  to  be 
roasted  whole,  and  walked  at  the  head 
of  the  invited  procession,  wearing  his 
chain  of  office ;  and  for  several  weeks 
exhibited  the  insignia  of  royal  favour, 
the  chain  and  royal  autograph,  at 
church  and  at  markets.  It  is  a  doubt 
if  he  be  yet  undeceived,  and  lowered 
from  his  imaginary  brief  authority. 
We  know  not  what  our  farmer  would 
say  to  the  use  to  which  the  Sardes 
apply  their  cheeses,  or  what  may  be 
expected  from  a  free  trade  with  them 
in  this  article  ;  but  we  learn  that  so 
plentiful  was  cheese  in  the  Donori 
district,  in  1842,  that  some  of  it  was 
used  for  manuring  the  ground,  which 
practice  would  amount  to  throwing  it 
away,  for  they  are  not  given  to  any 
industrial  means  of  agriculture.  So 
fertile  was  Sardinia  under  the  Roman's, 
that,  in  the  last  years  of  the  second 
Punic  war,  corn  was  so  abundant  that 
it  was  sold  for  the  mere  price  of  the 
freight.  Should  the  reader  be  curious 
to  know  the  result  of  this  cheapness, 
he  may  see  it  in  the  present  condition, 
of  Sardinia  compared  with  its  former, 
a  population  diminished  from  about 
two  millions  to  about  five  hundred 
and  twenty-four  thousand,  and  full 
three  quarters  of  the  land  uncultivated. 

The  "  Attitu,"  or  custom  of  mourn- 
ing around  the  body  of  the  dead,  will 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


[July, 


bring  to  miiid,  to  those  who  have  wit- 
nessed snch  a  ceremony,  the  Irish 
hovel.      The  "  Conduct! "  are  ever 
more  vehement  than  the  vere  ploran- 
tibtis.    The  word  Attitu  is  supposed  to 
be  derived  from  theatat  of  the  Romans, 
but   it    was   not    an   original    word 
of  their  language,  nor  may  it  have 
been  so  with  the  Greeks,  from  whom 
they  took  it.     The  Sarde  Attitadores 
are  thus  described,  and  the  description 
perfectly  answers  to  exhibitions  we 
have  witnessed  in  some  remote  parts 
of  Ireland.     "  They  wear  black  stuff 
gowns,    with   a    species  of  Capucin 
hood,  and,  maintaining  a  perfect  si- 
lence, assume  the  air  of  total  ignorance 
as  to  there  having  been  a  death  in  the 
family,  till,  suddenly  and  accidentally 
seeing  the  dead  body,  they  simulta- 
neously commence  a  weeping,  wail- 
ing, and  gnashing  of  teeth,  accom- 
panied with  groans  and  ejaculations, 
— tearing  their  hair,  throwing  them- 
selves on  the  ground,  raising  their 
clenched  fists  maniacally  to  heaven, 
and  carrying  on  the  attitudes  and  ex- 
pressions of  real  anguish."    It  is  cu- 
rious that  the  "  ailiuon"  of  the  Greeks 
is  traced  to  the  Phoenicians,  and,  on 
the  authority  of  Athenaius,   "  Linus 
was  a  mythological  personage,  who 
gave  his  name  to  a  song  of  a  mourn- 
ful character."     It  is  said  that  the 
Phoanician  "Lin"  signifies  complaint. 
It  would  be  well  if  writers,  especi- 
ally travellers,  would  exercise  a  little 
more  forbearance  in  speaking  of  the 
superstitions  of  the  people  amongst 
whom  they  are  thrown.      It  is  too 
prevalent  a  custom  to  attribute  every 
superstition  to  the  priesthood,  where- 
as the  mere  traveller  can  scarcely  be 
able  to  distinguish  what  belongs  wholly 
and  hereditarily  to  the  people,  and 
what  the  priests  enjoin.     We  suspect 
in  most  instances  the  foundation  is  in 
the  people,  and  that  the  priests  could 
not,  though  in  many  cases  it  may  be 
admitted  they  would  not,  put  a  stop 
to  them.    They  would  too  often  lose 
their  influence  in  the   attempt,  and 
find  themselves  compelled  to  acquiesce 
in  practices  and  ceremonies  of  which 
they  do  not  approve.      Those  who 
treat  with  contempt  and  ridicule  the 
superstitions  of  other  countries  do  not 
scrutinise  those  of  their  own.   It  is  true 
ours  are  wearing  out,  and  before  their 
expiration  become  very  innocent:  at- 


tempts  to  suppress  them  by  authority 
would  only  tend  to  perpetuate  them. 
It  would  be  very  silly,  for  instance,  to 
issue  a  proclamation  against  "  May 
day,"  or  to  remind  the  innocents  who 
crown  the  Maypole  that  they  are  fol- 
lowing a  pagan  and  not  very  decent 
worship  and  ceremony.    Superstitions 
are  the  natural  tares  of  the  mind,  and 
spring  up  spontaneously,  and  among 
the  wheat,  too,  it  should  be  observed  j 
and  we  should  remember  the  warning 
not  to  be  over  eager  to  uproot  the 
tares,  lest  we  uproot  the  wheat  also. 
It  is  the  object  of  travel  to  gratify 
curiosity,  and  the  nature  of  travel  to 
increase  the  appetite  for  it.     It  is, 
therefore,  like  wholesome  food,  which 
by  giving  health  promotes  a  fresh  re- 
lish ;  but  there  arises  from  this  tra- 
veller's habit  a  less  nice  distinction  as 
to  quality,  and  at  length  a  practised 
voracity  is  not  dismayed  by  quantity. 
The  inquirer  is  on  the  look-out,  and 
overlooks  but  little  ;  and  in  all  Roman 
Catholic  countries  there  is  no  lack  of 
infidels,  happy  to  have  their  tongues 
loosened  in  the  presence  of  question- 
ing Englishmen,  and  to  pour  into  their 
listening  ears  multitudes  of  tales,  fab- 
ricated or  true,  as  it  may  chance,  with 
a  feeling  of  hatred  for  the  religion  of 
their  country — for  the  superstition  cf 
unbelief  is  inventive  and  persecuting. 
We  are  not  for  a  moment  meditating 
a  defence  of  Romish  superstitions,  but 
we  think  they  are  too  widespread, 
and  too  mixed  up  with  the  entire  habit 
of  thought  of  the  general  population, 
to  render  a  sudden  removal  possible, 
or  every  attempt  safe.     The  reforma- 
tion will  not  commence  with  the  un- 
learned.   In  the  meanwhile,  there  is  a 
demand  on  the  traveller's  candour  and 
benevolence  for  the  exercise  of  for- 
bearance ;  for  we  doubt  if  a  foreign 
traveller  in  our  own  country  would 
not,  were  he  bent  upon  the  search, 
pick  up,  amongst  both  our  rural  and 
town  population,  a  tolerably  large  col- 
lection of  the  "  Admiranda"  of  super- 
stition, and  sectarian  and  other  saints, 
with  surprising  lives  and  anecdotes, 
to  rival  the  Romish  calendar  and  the 
"  Aurea  Leggenda."    We  offer  these 
few  remarks,  because  we  think  our 
author  in  his  anti-popish   zeal,   and 
abhorrence    of    "  ignorance,"   is  too 
much  inclined  to  see  all  the  wrong, 
and  overlook  the  good  in — shall  we  say 


1849.] 


Tlie  Island  of  Sardinia. 


45 


the  superstitions  he  meets  with,  and 
to  conclude  that  the  clergy  encourage, 
where,  and  possibly  wisely,  they 
only  tolerate.  It  may  not  be  amiss 
here  to  refer  to  a  fact  narrated  by  our 
author,  that  a  Capucin  convent  at 
Ozieri  is  at  present  indebted  for  the 
severity  with  which  its  laws  are 
iuforced,  to  the  interference  of  the 
bishop,  not  to  establish  but  to  put 
down  a  pretended  miracle.  A  nun 
had  announced  that  she  had  received 
the  "  stigmata;"  pilgrims  flocked,  and 
offerings  were  made.  The  bishop 
suspected,  perhaps  more  than  sus- 
pected, fraud,  caused  a  strict  inquiry, 
and  the  miraculous  Stigmata  disap- 
peared. But  let  ns  come  to  an  in- 
stance where  the  clergy  encouraged, 
or,  to  be  candid,  assuming  the  perfect 
truth  of  the  narration,  originated  a 
superstitious  fear.  It  is  one  that  had 
so  much  reverence  of  a  right  kind  in 
it,  and  so  much  of  truth  at  least  in  the 
feeling,  if  not  in  the  fact,  as  may  well 
pass  for  a  kind  of  belief  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  propagated  it. 

When  the  King  of  Sardinia  visited 
the  island,  he  caused  some  excavations 
to  be  made  at  Tcrranova.  Tombs 
were  broken  into,  and  the  dead  de- 
spoiled of  their  rings,  buckles,  and 
other  ornaments ;  upon  which,  Mr 
Tyndale  says,  "  a  heavy  gale  of  wind 
and  storm,  having  done  some  damage 
to  the  town,  during  the  progress  of 
digging  up  the  graves,  the  priests 
assured  the  people,  and  the  people 
reitemted  the  assurance,  that  the 
calamity  arose  from,  and  was  a  pun- 
ishment for  having  disturbed  and  dug 
up  the  tombs  of  the  holy  saints  and 
martyrs  of  Terranova !" 

Is  the  mark  of  admiration  one  of 
approbation  or  the  re  verse?  We  cannot 
believe  it  to  be  one  of  contempt,  and 
are  sure  our  author  would  not  wish  to 
see  the  feeling — to  the  credit  of  human 
nature,  a  common  one — eradicated. 
When  the  Scythians  were  taunted 
with  flying  before  their  invaders,  they 
simply  replied,  "  We  will  stay  and  fight 
at  the  burial  places  of  our  fathers." 
They  considered  no  possession  so  well 
worth  preserving  intact. 

When  Mr  Tyndale  was  receiving 
hospitality  in  a  shepherd's  hut  among 
the  mountains,  a  Ronuts  arrived  with 
a  box  of  relics.  The  household  within 
doors,  a  mother  and  daughters,  placed 


themselves  on  their  knees  before  it. 
They  embraced  the  box,   and  three 
times    affectionately    kissed    it,   and 
expressed  dismay  in  their  looks  that 
their  guest  did  not  do  likewise.     He 
admits  they  looked  upon  him  as  an 
infidel,  but  they  did  not  treat  him,  on 
that  account,  as  Franklin's  apologue 
feigned    that    Abraham    treated  his 
unbelieving  aged  stranger  guest,  but 
bore  with  him,  as  the  warning  and 
reproving  voice  told  Abraham  to  do. 
The  poor  hostess,  in  her  ignorance, 
knew  not  even  whose  relics  she  had 
reverenced,  for  hers  was  the  common 
answer,  when  inquired  of  as  to  this 
particular — "  Senzadubbio  la  reliquia 
d'una  Santa  del  Paese,  ben  conosciuta 
dapertutto."      But  this  poor  family 
superstition  did  not  harden  the  heart ; 
the  shepherd's  wife  believed  at  least 
in  the  sanctity  of  some  saint,  and  that 
veneration  for  a  life  passed  in  holiness, 
by  whomsoever,  demanded  of  her  good- 
will to  all,  and  kindly  hospitality,  and 
such    as  should  overcome  even  the 
prejudice  of  an  ignorant  shepherd's 
wife  ;  and  therefore  we  must  quote 
Mr  Tyndale's  confession  to  this  virtue 
of  her  faith.     "  If  the  ignorance  and 
superstitious  credulity  of  my  present 
hostess  were  great,   her   hospitality 
and  generosity  were    no  less.    She 
soon  recovered  from  her  momentary 
horror  of  my  heretical  irreverence, 
and,  though  not  the  bearer  of  a  holy 
relic,  it  was  with  some  difficulty  I 
could  get  away  without  having  several 
cheeses  put  into  my  saddle-bags  ;  and 
when  my  repeated  assurances  that  I 
was  not  partial   to  them  at  length 
induced  her  to  desist,  she  wanted  to 
send  her  husband  to  bring  me  home  a 
kid  or  a  lamb.    She  would  have  con- 
sidered   it  an  insult  to    have  been 
offered  any  payment  for  her  gifts,  had 
they  been  even  accepted ;  and  after 
repeated  expressions  of  her  wish  to 
supply  me  from  her  humble  store,  we 
parted  with  a  shower  of  mutual  bene- 
dictions."       We    have    brought    to 
our  remembrance  patriarchal  times, 
when  kids  and  lambs  were  readily  set 
before  wayfaring  strangers.      There 
have  been,  and  are,  worse  people  in 
the  world  than  those  poor  ignorant 
superstitious  Sardcs. 

Not  far  from  San  Martino  our  tra- 
veller halted,  to  inquire  his  way  at 
an  "  ovile,"  the  shepherd's  hut.  It 


46 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


[July, 


may  not  be  unsatisfactory  to  describe 
the  dwellings  whose  inhabitants  are 
thus  hospitable.    The  hut  here  spoken 
of  was  rude  enough — a  mass  of  stones 
in  a  circle  of  about  twelve  feet  dia- 
meter,  and  eight  feet  high,  with  a 
conical  roof  made  of  sticks  and  reeds. 
The  whole  family  had  but  one  bed ;  a 
few  ashes  were  burning  in  a  hole  in 
the  groiind ;  a  bundle  of  clothes,  some 
flat  loaves  of  bread,  and  three  or  four 
pans,  made  up  the  inventory  of  goods. 
The  shepherd  was  preparing  to  kill  a 
lamb  for  his  family,  yet  he  offered  to 
accompany  the   stranger,  which  he 
did,  and  went  with  him  a  distance  of 
three  miles.     "  After  showing  me  the 
spot,   and  sharing   a  light  meal,  I 
offered  him  a  trifle  for  his  trouble ; 
but  he  indignantly  refused  it,  and,  on 
leaving  to  return  home,  gave  me  an 
adieu  with  a  fervent  but  courteous 
demeanour,  which  would  have  shamed 
many  a  mitred  and  coroneted  head." 
We  are  not,  however,  to  conclude 
that  all  the  shepherd  districts,  how- 
ever they  may  bear  no  reproach  on 
the  score  of  hospitality,  are  regions  of 
innocence  and  virtue.    We  are  told, 
on  the  authority  of  a  Padre  Angius, 
that  the  people  of  Bonorva  are  quar- 
relsome and  vindictive  ;  and  a  stoiy 
is  told  of  their  envious  character.    A 
certain  Don  Pietrino  Prunas  was  the 
owner  of  much  cattle,  and  ninety- 
nine  flocks  of  sheep ;  he  was  assassi- 
nated on  the  very  day  he  had  brought 
the  number  to  a  hundred,  for  no  other 
reason  than  out  of  envy  of  his  happi- 
ness.   And  here  Mr  Tyndale  rem  arks, 
in  a  aote,  a  French  translator's  care- 
lessness.      "  Valery,   in  mentioning 
the  circumstance,  says  that  he  was 
murdered  '  le  jour  mSme  oil  il  atteign- 
ait  sa  centieme  annee.' "     The  words 
professed     to     be    translated    are, 
"  Padrone  di   99   greggi  di  pecori, 
trucidato  nel  giorno  istesso  che   ei 
doneva  formarsi  la  centessima." 

The  reader  will  not  expect  to  find 
accounts  of  many  treasures  of  the 
fine  arts  in  Sardinia.  Convents  and 
churches  are,  however,  not  without 
statues  and  pictures.  Nor  do  the 
clergy  or  inmates  of  convents  possess 
much  knowledge  on  the  subject.  If 
a  picture  is  pronounced  a  Michael 
Angelo,  without  doubt  the  possessors, 
with  a  charming  simplicity,  would 
inquire  u  who  Michael  Angelo  was." 


We  quote  the  following  as  worthy 
the  notice  of  the  Arnndel  Society, 
particularly  as  it  is  out  of  the  general 
tourings  of  connoisseurs. 

"  The  screen  of  the  high  altar  (the 
church  at  Ardara)  is  covered  with  por- 
traits of  apostles,  saints,  and  martyrs, 
apparently  a  work  of  the  thirteenth  or 
early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century  ; 
and,  notwithstanding  the  neglect  and 
damp,  the  colours  and  gildings  are  still 
bright  and  untarnished.  Many  of  them 
are  exquisitely  finished,  with  all  the 
fineness  of  an  Albert  Durer  and  Holbein, 
and  will  vie  with  the  best  specimens  of 
the  early  masters  in  the  gallery  of  Dres- 
den, or  the  Pinakotheke  at  Munich." 

Valery,  the  mis  translator  just  men- 
tioned, is  in  ecstacy  in  his  notice  of 
these  works.  He  considers  them 
worthy  the  perpetuity  which  the 
graver  alone  can  give  them,  and  con- 
siders how  great  their  reputation 
would  be  had  they  found  a  Lanzi,  a 
d'Agincour,  or  a  Cicognara. 

We  have  now  travelled  with  our 
agreeable,  well-informed  author  over 
much  country — wild,  and  partially  cul- 
tivated ;  have  speculated  with  him 
upon  all  things  that  attracted  atten- 
tion by  the  way;  and,  though  the 
roads  have  been  somewhat  rough,  we 
have  kept  our  tempers  pretty  well — 
no  light  accomplishment  for  fellow- 
travellers  ;  and  our  disputes  have 
been  rather  amusing  than  serious. 
We  now  enter  with  him  the  capital 
of  Sardinia — Cagliari.  We  shall  not 
follow  him,  however,  through  the  mo- 
dem town,  though  there  can  be  no 
better  cicerone ;  nor  look  in  at  the 
museum,  fearful  of  long  detention ; 
not  even  to  examine  the  Phoenician 
curiosities,  or  discuss  the  identity  in 
character,  with  them,  of  some  seals 
found  in  the  bogs  of  Ireland ;  or  to 
speculate  with  Sir  George  Staunton 
as  to  their  Chinese  origin,  and  how 
they  unaccountably  found  themselves, 
some  in  an  Irish  bog  and  some  in 
excavated  earth  in  Sardinia,  and  from 
thence  into  the  museum  at  Cagliari. 
We  are  content  to  visit  some  Roman 
antiquities,  and  read  inscriptions  prob- 
ably of  the  age  of  the  Antonines,  or 
of  an  earlier  period.  The  monuments 
are  sepulchral :  one  is  of  a  very  in- 
teresting character.  It  is  of  some  ar- 
chitectural pretensions — in  honour  of 
an  exemplary  wife,  who,  like  Alces- 


1849.] 


The  Island  of  Sardinia. 


tis,  is  said  to  have  died  for  her  hus- 
band. The  prose  tale,  were  it  in  ex- 
istence, might  have  told,  perhaps,  how 
Pomptilla — for  that  is  her  name — at- 
tended her  husband  in  a  sickness, 
caught  his  fever,  and  died,  while  he 
recovered.  The  inscriptions  are  many. 
Some  have  been  made  out  tolerably 
well :  they  are  in  Latin  and  Greek. 
One,  in  Greek,  has  so  much  tender- 
ness, that,  deeming  it  quite  worthy  the 
melancholy  cadence  of  verse,  we  have 
been  tempted  to  substitute  our  own 
translation  for  that  of  Mr  Tyndale  in 
prose,  with  which  we  are  not  quite 
satisfied. 

Pomptilla,  from  tby  dew-embalmed  earth, 
Which  mournful  homage  of  our  love  receives, 

May  fairest  lilies  rise, 
Pale  flow'rets  of  a  sad  funereal  birth — 
And  roses  opening  their  scarce-blushing  leaves, 

Of  tenderest  dyes, 
And  violets,  that  from  their  languid  eyes, 

Shed  perfumed  shower — 
And  blessed  amaranth  that  never  dies  . 

O  !  be  thyself  a  flower, 
Th'  unsullied  snow-drop—being  and  witness 

true 

Of  thy  pure  self,  e'en  to  perpetual  years — 
As  erst  a  flow'ret  fair  Narcissus  grew — 
And  Hyacinthus  all  bedew'd  with  tears. 

For  when,  now  in  the  tremulous  hour  of 

death, 

Her  spouse  Philippus  near  to  Lethe  drew 
His  unresisting  lips  and  fainting  breath, 

A  woman's  duteous  vow  she  vow'd — • 
And  gently  put  aside  his  drooping  head, 
And  her  firm  presence  to  the  waters  bow'd, 

And  drank  the  fatal  stream  instead. 

Such  perfect  union  did  stern  Death  divide, 
Th'  unwilling  husband  and  the  willing  wife — 
Willing  to  die,  while  he,  now  loathing  life, 
Through  the  dear  love  of  his  devoted  bride — 
Still  lives,  and  weeps,  and  prays  that  he  may 

die — 

That  his  released  spirit  to  hers  may  fly, 
And  mingled  evermore  with  hers  abide. 

In  taking  leave  of  our  author,  we 
confidently  recommend  the  three 
volumes  on  Sardinia  to  the  general 


47 

reader — we  say  general  reader,  for, 
whatever  be  his  taste  or  pursuit,  he 
will  find  amusement  and  information. 
The  work  is  a  full  work.  If  the 
reader  be  an  antiquary,  he  will  be 
gratified  with  deep  research  and  his- 
toric lore ;  if  an  economist,  he  will 
have  tabular  detail  and  close  statis- 
tics; an  agriculturist,  and  would  he 
emigrate  from  his  own  persecuted 
lands,  he  will  learn  the  nature  of  soils, 
their  capabilities,  and  how  fair  a  field 
is  offered  for  that  importable  and  ex- 
portable commodity,  his  industry,  so 
much  wanted  in  Sardinia,  and  so  little 
encouraged  at  home ;  if  a  sportsman, 
besides  the  use  of  the  gun,  which  he 
knows  already,  he  will  be  initiated 
into  the  mystery  of  tunny  fishing, 
and,  would  he  turn  it  to  his  profit, 
have  license  to  dispose  of  his  game. 
Nay,  even  the  wide-awake  shop- 
keeper may  learn  how  to  set  up  his 
"  store "  in  Sassari  or  Cagliari,  and 
what  stock  he  had  best  take  out.  If 
he  be  a  neer-do-weel  just  returned 
from  California,  and  surprised  into 
the  possession  of  a  sackful  of  gold,  Mr 
Tyndale  will  conduct  him  to  the 
Barathra  into  which  he  may  throw  it, 
whether  they  be  sea-fisheries  or  land- 
marshes  ;  or  into  whose  pockets  he 
may  deposit  the  wealth,  whose  burthen 
he  is  of  course  wearied  in  bearing,  for 
the  excitement  of  generosity  in  be- 
coming a  benefactor,  or  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  corrupting. 

The  work  is  indeed  a  "  guide  book," 
as  well  as  much  more,  for  it  tells  every 
one  what  he  may  do  profitably  or  un- 
profitably  in  Sardinia — whether  as 
traveller  and  private  speculator,  mind- 
ing his  own  concerns ;  or  as  an  enthu- 
siastic disperser  of  ignorance,  and 
renovator  of  the  customs,  manners, 
religion,  and  political  condition  of  a 
people  as  unlike  his  own  race  and 
kindred  as  possible. 


48 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


July, 


THE  CAXTONS. — PAKT  XIV. 


CHAPTER  LXXX. 


THERE  would  have  been  nothing  in 
what  had  chanced  to  justify  the  sus- 
picions that  tortured  me,  but  for  my 
impressions  as  to  the  character  of 
Vivian. 

Reader,  hast  thou  not,  in  the  easy, 
careless  sociability  of  youth,  formed  ac- 
quaintance with  some  one,  in  whose 
more  engagingor  brilliant  qualities  thou 
hast — not  lost  that  dislike  to  defects 
or  vices  which  is  natural  to  an  age  when, 
even  while  we  err,  we  adore  what  is 
good,  and  glow  with  enthusiasm  for 
the  ennobling  sentiment  and  the  vir- 
tuous deed — no,  happily,  not  lost  dis- 
like to  what  is  bad,  nor  thy  quick 
sense  of  it, — but  conceived  a  keen  in- 
terest in  the  straggle  between  the  bad 
that  revolted,  and  the  good  that  at- 
tracted thee,  in  thy  companion?  Then, 
perhaps,  thou  hast  lost  sight  of  him 
for  a  time  —  suddenly  thou'  hearest 
that  he  has  done  something  out  of  the 
way  of  ordinary  good  or  common- 
place evil :  And,  in  either — the  good 
or  the  evil — thy  mind  runs  rapidly 
back  over  its  old  reminiscences,  and 
of  either  thou  sayest,  "  How  natural ! 
— only  So-and-so  could  have  done  this 
thing!" 

Thus  I  felt  respecting  Vivian.  The 
most  remarkable  qualities  in  his  cha- 
racter were  his  keen  power  of  calcula- 
tion, and  his  unhesitating  audacity — 
qualities  that  lead  to  fame  or  to  in- 
famy, according  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  moral  sense  and  the  direction  of 
the  passions.  Had  I  recognised  those 
qualities  in  some  agency  apparently 
of  good— and  it  seemed  yet  doubtful  if 
Vivian  were  the  agent — I  should  have 
cried,  "  It  is  he !  and  the  better  angel 
has  triumphed!"  With  the  same  (alas  ! 
with  a  yet  more  impulsive)  quickness, 
when  the  agency  was  of  evil,  and 
the  agent  equally  dubious,  I  felt  that 
the  qualities  revealed  the  man,  and 
that  the  demon  had  prevailed. 

Mile  after  mile,  stage  after  stage, 
were  passed,  on  the  dreary,  intermin- 
able, high  north  road.  I  narrated  to 
my  companion,  more  intelligibly  than 
I  had  yet  done,  my  causes  for  appre- 
hension. The  Captain  at  first  listened 


eagerly,  then  checked  me  on  the  sud- 
den. "  There  may  be  nothing  in  all 
this!"  he  cried.  "Sir,  we  must  be  men 
here — have  our  heads  cool,  our  reason 
clear :  stop !"  And,  leaning  back  in 
the  chaise,  Roland  refused  further  con- 
versation, and,  as  the  night  advanced, 
seemed  to  sleep.  I  took  pity  on  his 
fatigue,  and  devoured  my  heart  in 
silence.  At  each  stage  we  heard  of 
the  party  of  which  we  were  in  pursuit. 
At  the  first  stage  or  two  we  were  less 
than  an  hour  behind ;  gradually,  as  we 
advanced,  we  lost  ground,  despite  the 
most  lavish  liberality  to  the  postboys. 
I  supposed,  at  length,  that  the  mere 
circumstance  of  changing,  at  each  re- 
lay, the  chaise  as  well  as  the  horses, 
was  the  cause  of  our  comparative 
slowness ;  and,  on  saying  this  to  Ro- 
land, as  we  were  changing  horses, 
somewhere  about  midnight,  he  at  once 
called  up  the  master  of  the  inn,  and 
gave  him  his  own  price  for  permission 
to  retain  the  chaise  till  the  journey's 
end.  This  was  so  unlike  Roland's  ordi- 
nary thrift,  whether  dealing  with  my 
money  ^  or  his  own — so  unjustified  by 
the  fortune  of  either — that  I  could 
not  help  muttering  something  in  apo- 
logy- 

"  Can  you  guess  why  I  was  a 
miser  ?  "  said  Roland,  calmly. 

"Amiser! — anythingbutthat!  Only 
prudent — military  men  often  are  so." 

"  I  was  a  miser,"  repeated  the  Cap- 
tain, with  emphasis.  "  I  began  the 
habit  first  when  my  son  was  but  a 
child.  I  thought  him  high-spirited,  and 
with  a  taste  for  extravagance.  '  Well,' 
said  I  to  myself,  '  I  will  save  for  him  ; 
boys  will  be  boys.'  Then,  afterwards, 
when  he  was  no  more  a  child,  (at  least 
he  began  to  have  the  vices  of  a  man !)  I 
said  to  myself,  'Patience,  he  may  re- 
form still ;  if  not,  I  will  save  money 
that  I  may  have  power  over  his  self- 
interest,  since  I  have  none  over  his 
heart.  I  will  bribe  him  into  honour !' 
And  then — and  then — God  saw  that 
I  was  very  proud,  and  I  was  punished. 
Tell  them  to  drive  faster — faster — 
why,  this  is  a  snail's  pace!" 

All  that  night,  all  the  next  clay,  till 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


towards  the  evening,  we  pursued  our 
journey,  without  pause,  or  other  food 
than  a  crust  of  bread  and  a  glass  of 
wine.  But  we  now  picked  up  the 
ground  we  had  lost,  and  gained  upon 
the  carriage.  The  night  had  closed 
in  when  we  arrived  at  the  stage  at 

which  the  route  to  Lord  N 's 

branched  from  the  direct  north  road. 
And  here,  making  our  usual  inquiry, 
my  worst  suspicions  were  confirmed. 
The  carriage  we  pursued  had  changed 
horses  an  hour  before,  but  had  not 

taken  the  way  to  Lord  N 's ; — con- 

tinning  the  direct  road  into  Scotland. 
The  people  of  the  inn  had  not  seen 
the  lady  in  the  carriage,  for  it  was 
already  dark,  but  the  man-servant, 
(whose  livery  they  described)  had 
ordered  the  horses. 

The  last  hope  that,  in  spite  of  ap- 
pearances, no  treachery  had  been  de- 
signed, here  vanished.  The  Captain, 
at  first,  seemed  more  dismayed  than 
myself,  but  he  recovered  more  quickly. 
"  We  will  continue  the'  journey  on 
horseback,"  he  said  ;  and  hurried  to 
the  stables.  All  objections  vanished 
at  the  sight  of  his  gold.  In  five 
minutes  we  were  in  the  saddle,  with 
a  postilion,  also  mounted,  to  accom- 
pany us.  We  did  the  next  stage  in 
little  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  time 
which  we  should  have  occupied  in 
our  former  mode  of  travel — indeed,  I 
found  it  hard  to  keep  pace  with  Ro- 
land. We  remounted ;  we  were  only 
twenty-five  minutes  behind  the  car- 
riage. We  felt  confident  that  we 
should  overtake  it  before  it  could 
reach  the  next  town — the  moon  was 
up — we  could  see  far  before  us — we 
rode  at  full  speed.  Milestone  after 
milestone  glided  by,  the  carriage  was 
not  visible.  We  arrived  at  the  post- 
town,  or  rather  village  ;  it  contained 
but  one  ppating-house.  We  were  long 
in  knocking  up  the  ostlers — no  car- 
riage had  arrived  just  before  us ;  no 
carriage  had  passed  the  place  since 
noon. 

What  mystery  was  this  ? 

"Back,  back,  boy!"  said  Roland, 
with  a  soldier's  quick  wit,  and  spurring 
his  j aded  horse  from  the  yard.  "  They 
will  have  taken  a  cross-road  or  by- 
lane.  We  shall  track  them  by  the 
hoofs  of  the  horses  or  the  print  of  the 
wheels." 

Our  postilion  grumbled,  and  pointed 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCV. 


to  the  panting  sides  of  our  horses. 
For  answer,  Roland  opened  his 
hand — full  of  gold.  Away  we  went 
back  through  the  dull  sleeping  vil- 
lage, back  into  the  broad  moonlit 
thoroughfare.  We  came  to  a  cross- 
road to  the  right,  but  the  track  we 
pursued  still  led  us  s  traight  on .  We  had 
measured  back  nearly  half  the  way  to 
the  post-town  at  which  we  had  last 
changed,  when,  lo !  there  emerged 
from  a  by-lane  two  postilions  and 
their  horses. 

At  that  sight  our  companion,  shout- 
ing loud,  pushed  on  before  us  and 
hailed  his  fellows.  A  few  words  gave 
us  the  information  we  sought.  A 
wheel  had  come  off  the  carriage  just 
by  the  turn  of  the  road,  and  the  young 
lady  and  her  servants  had  taken  refuge 
in  a  small  inn  not  many  yards  down 
the  lane.  The  man-servant  had  dis- 
missed the  post-boys  after  they  had 
baited  their  horses,  saying  they  were 
to  come  again  in  the  morning,  and 
bring  a  blacksmith  to  repair  the  wheel. 

"  How  came  the  wheel  off?"  asked 
Roland  sternly. 

"  Why,  sir,  the  linch-pin  was  all 
rotted  away,  I  suppose,  and  came 
out." 

"  Did  the  servant  get  off  the  dickey 
after  you  set  out,  and  before  the  acci- 
dent happened  ?" 

"  Why,  yes.  He  said  the  wheels 
were  catching  fire,  that  they  had  not 
the  patent  axles,  and  he  had  forgot  to 
have  them  oiled." 

"  And  he  looked  at  the  wheels,  and 
shortly  afterwards  the  linch-pinch 
came  out?— Eh?" 

"Anon,  sir!"  said  the  postboy » 
staring ;  "  why,  and  indeed  so  it  was !" 

"  Come  on,  Pisistratus,  we  are  in 
time;  but  pray  God — pray  God — 
that — "  the  Captain  dashed  his  spur 
into  the  horse's  sides,  and  the  rest  of 
his  words  was  lost  to  me. 

A  few  yards  back  from  the  cause- 
way, a  broad  patch  of  green  before  it, 
stood  the  inn— a  sullen,  old-fashioned 
building  of  cold  gray  stone,  looking 
livid  in  the  moonlight,  with  black  firs 
at  one  side,  throwing  over  half  of  it  a 
dismal  shadow.  So  solitary!  not  a 
house,  not  a  hut  near  it.  If  they  who 
kept  the  inn  were  such  that  villany 
might  reckon  on  their  connivance,  and 
innocence  despair  of  their  aid — there 
was  no  neighbourhood  to  alarm — no 


50 


TJie  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


[July, 


refuge  at  hand.    The  spot  was  well 
chosen. 

The  doors  of  the  inn  were  closed  ; 
there  was  a  light  in  the  room  below ; 
but  the  outside  shutters  were  drawn 
over  the  windows  on  the  first  floor.  My 
uncle  paused  a  moment,  and  said  to 
the  postilion— 

"  Do  you  know  the  back  way  to 
the  premises  ?" 

"  No,  sir ;  I  does'nt  often  come 
by  this  way,  and  they  be  new  folks 
that  have  taken  the  house — and  I 
hear  it  don't  prosper  over-much." 

"  Knock  at  the  door — we  will  stand 
a  little  aside  while  you  do  so.  If  any 
one  ask  what  you  want — merely 
say  you  would  speak  to  the  servant — 
that  you  have  found  a  purse  ; — here, 
hold  up  mine." 

Eoland  and  I  had  dismounted,  and 
my  uncle  drew  me  close  to  the  wall 
by  the  door.  Observing  that  my  im- 
patience ill  submitted  to  what  seemed 
to  me  idle  preliminaries, 

"  Hist !"  whispered  he ;  "  if  there  be 
anything  to  conceal  within,  they  will 
not  answer  the  door  till  some  one  has 
reconnoitred :  were  they  to  see  us, 
they  would  refuse  to  open.  But  see- 
ing only  the  postboy,  whom  they  will 
suppose  at  first  to  be  one  of  those  who 
brought  the  carriage — they  will  have 
no  suspicion.  Be  ready  to  rush  in  the 
moment  the  door  is  unbarred. 

My  uncle's  veteran  experience  did 
not  deceive  him.  There  was  a  long 
silence  before  any  reply  was  made  to  the 
postboy's  summons ;  the  light  passed 
to  and  fro  rapidly  across  the  window, 
as  if  persons  were  moving  within. 
Eoland  made  sign  to  the  postboy  to 
knock  again ;  he  did  so  twice — thrice 
— and  at  last,  from  an  attic- window 
in  the  roof,  a  head  obtruded,  and  a 
voice  cried,  "  Who  are  you  ? — what  do 
you  want?" 

"  I'm  the  postboy  at  the  Red  Lion; 
I  want  to  see  the  servant  with  the 
brown  carriage;  I  have  found  this 
purse  1" 

"  Oh,  that's  all— wait  a  bit." 

The  head  disappeared;  we  crept 
along  under  the  projecting  eaves  of 
the  house;  we  heard  the  bar  lifted 
from  the  door ;  the  door  itself  cau- 
tiously opened ;  one  spring  and  I 
stood  within,  and  set  my  back  to  the 
door  to  admit  Roland. 

"Ho,  help!— thieves  .'—help!"  cried 


a  loud  voice,  and  I  felt  a  hand  gripe 
at  my  throat.  I  struck  at  random  in 
the  dark,  and  with  effect,  for  my 
blow  was  followed  by  a  groan  and  a 
curse. 

Roland,  meanwhile,  had  detected 
a  ray  through  the  chinks  of  a  door  in 
the  hall,  and,  guided  by  it,  found  his 
way  into  the  room  at  the  window  of 
which  we  had  seen  the  light  pass  and 
go,  while  without.  As  he  threw  the 
door  open,  I  bounded  after  him  ;  and 
saw  in  a  kind  of  parlour,  two  females — 
the  one  a  stranger,  no  doubt  the  hostess, 
the  other  the  treacherous  abigail. 
Their  faces  evinced  their  terror. 

"  Woman,"  I  said,  seizing  the  last, 
"where  is  Miss  Trevanion?"  In- 
stead of  replying,  the  woman  set  up 
a  loud  shriek.  Another  light  now 
gleamed  from  the  staircase,  which 
immediately  faced  the  door,  and  I 
heard  a  voice  that  I  recognised  as 
Peacock's,  cry  out,  "  Who's  there  ? — 
what's  the  matter?" 

I  made  a  rush  at  the  stairs.  A  bur- 
ley  form  (that  of  the  landlord,  who 
had  recovered  from  my  blow)  ob- 
structed my  way  for  a  moment,  to 
measure  its  length  on  the  floor  at  the 
next.  I  was  at  the  top  of  the  stairs, 
Peacock  recognised  me ;  recoiled,  and 
extinguished  the  light.  Oaths,  cries, 
and  shrieks,  now  resounded  through 
the  dark.  Amidst  them  all,  I  sud- 
denly heard  a  voice  exclaim,  "  Here, 
here! — help!"  It  was  the  voice  of 
Fanny.  I  made  my  way  to  the  right, 
whence  the  voice  came,  and  received  a 
violent  blow.  Fortunately,  it  fell  on 
the  arm  which  I  extended,  as  men  do 
who  feel  their  way  through  the  dark. 
It  was  not  the  right  arm,  and  I  seized 
and  closed  on  my  assailant.  Roland 
now  came  up,  a  candle  in  his  hand ; 
and  at  that  sight  my  antagonist,  who 
was  no  other  than  Peacock,  slipped 
from  me,  and  made  a  rush  at  the 
stairs.  But  the  Captain  caught  him 
with  his  grasp  of  iron.  Fearing  nothing 
for  Roland  in  a  contest  with  any  single 
foe,  and  all  my  thoughts  bent  on  the 
rescue  of  her  whose  voice  again  broke 
on  my  ear,  I  had  already  (before  the 
light  of  the  candle  which  Roland  held 
went  out  in  the  struggle  between  him- 
self and  Peacock)  caught  sight  of  a  door 
at  the  end  of  the  passage,  and  thrown 
myself  against  it :  it  was  locked,  but 
it  shook  and  groaned  to  my  pressure. 


1849.] 

"Hold  back,  whoever  you  are!" 
cried  a  voice  from  the  room  within, 
far  different  from  that  wail  of  distress 
which  had  guided  my  steps.  "  Hold 
back,  at  the  peril  of  your  life !" 

The  voice,  the  threat,  redoubled  my 
strength ;  the  door  flew  from  its  fast- 
enings. I  stood  in  the  room.  I  saw 
Fanny  at  my  feet,  clasping  my  hands ; 
then,  raising  herself,  she  hung  on  my 
shoulder  and  murmured,  "  Saved !" 
Opposite  to  me,  his  face  deformed  by 
passion,  his  eyes  literally  blazing 
with  savage  fire,  his  nostrils  dis- 
tended, his  lips  apart,  stood  the  man 
I  have  called  Francis  Vivian. 

"  Fanny — Miss  Treyanion — what 
outrage — what  villany  is  this  ?  You 
have  not  met  this  man  at  your  free 
choice, — oh  speak!"  Vivian  sprang 
forward. 

"  Question  no  one  but  me.  Un- 
hand that  lady, — she  is  my  betrothed 
— shall  be  my  wife." 

"  No,  no,  no, — don't  believe  him," 
cried  Fanny;  "  I  have  been  betrayed 
by  my  own  servants  —  brought  here, 
I  know  not  how !  I  heard  my  father 
was  ill ;  I  was  on  my  way  to  him : 
that  man  met  me  here,  and  dared 
to"— 

"  Miss  Trevanion — yes,  I  dared  to 
say  I  loved  you." 

""  Protect  me  from  him! — you  will 
protect  me  from  him !  " 

"  No,  madam ! "  said  a  voice  behind 
me,  in  a  deep  tone,  "it  is  I  who 
claim  the  right  to  protect  you  from 
that  man;  it  is  I  who  now  draw 
around  you  the  arm  of  one  sacred, 
even  to  him ;  it  is  I  who,  from  this 
spot,  launch  upon  his  head — a  father's 
curse.  Violator  of  the  hearth !  Baffled 
ravisher ! — go  thy  way  to  the  doom 
which  thou  hast  chosen  for  thyself. 
God  will  be  merciful  to  me  yet,  and 
give  me  a  grave  before  thy  course  find 
its  close  in  the  hulks  —  or  at  the  gal- 
lows ! " 

A  sickness  came  over  me — a  terror 
froze  my  veins  —  I  reeled  back,  and 
leant  for  support  against  the  wall. 
Roland  had  passed  his  arm  round 
Fanny,  and  she,  frail  and  trembling, 
clung  to  his  broad  heart,  looking 
fearfully  up  to  his  face.  And  never 
in  that  face,  ploughed  by  deep  emo- 
tions, and  dark  with  unutterable  sor- 
rows, had  I  seen  an  expression  so 
grand  in  its  wrath,  so  sublime  in  its 


The  Ccutons.—Part  XIV. 


51 


despair.  Following  the  direction  of 
his  eye,  stern  and  fixed  as  the  look  of 
one  who  prophesies  a  destiny,  and  de- 
nounces a  doom,  I  shivered  as  I 
gazed  upon  the  son.  His  whole 
frame  seemed  collapsed  and  shrink- 
ing, as  if  already  withered  by  the 
curse  :  a  ghastly  whiteness  overspread 
the  cheek,  usually  glowing  with  the 
dark  bloom  of  Oriental  youth;  the 
knees  knocked  together;  and,  at  last, 
with  a  faint  exclamation  of  pain,  like 
the  cry  of  one  who  receives  a  death- 
blow, he  bowed  his  face  over  his 
clasped  hands,  and  so  remained — 
still,  but  cowering. 

Instinctively  I  advanced  and  placed 
myself  between  the  father  and  the 
son,  murmuring,  "  Spare  him;  see, 
his  own  heart  crushes  him  down." 
Then  stealing  towards  the  son,  I  whis- 
pered, "  Go,  go;  the  crime  was  not 
committed,  the  curse  can  be  recalled." 
But  my  words  touched  a  wrong  chord 
in  that  dark  and  rebellious  nature. 
The  young  man  withdrew  his  hands 
hastily  from  his  face,  and  reared  his 
front  in  passionate  defiance. 

Waving  me  aside,  he  cried, 
"  Away !  I  acknowledge  no  authority 
over  my  actions  and  my  fate ;  I  al- 
low no  mediator  between  this  lady 
and  myself.  Sir,"  he  continued,  gaz- 
ing gloomily  on  his  father — "  sir,  you 
forget  our  compact.  Our  ties  were 
severed,  your  power  over  me  an- 
nulled ;  I  resigned  the  name  you  bear ; 
to  you  I  was,  and  am  still,  as  the  dead. 
I  deny  your  right  to  step  between  me 
and  the  object  dearer  to  me  than  life. 

"  Oh ! "  (and  here  he  stretched  forth 
his  hands  towards  Fanny) — "  oh !  Miss 
Trevanion,  do  not  refuse  me  one 
prayer,  however  you  condemn  me. 
Let  me  see  you  alone  but  for  one 
moment;  let  me  but  prove  to  you 
that,  guilty  as  I  may  have  been,  it  was 
not  from  the  base  motives  you  will 
hear  imputed  to  me — that  it  was  not 
the  heiress  I  sought  to  decoy,  it  was 
the  woman  I  sought  to  win ;  oh  I 
hear  me" — 

"  No,  no,"  murmured  Fanny,  cling- 
ing closer  to  Eoland,  "  do  not  leave 
me.  If,  as  it  seems,  he  is  your  son,  I 
forgive  him ;  but  let  him  go — I  shud- 
der at  his  very  voice ! " 

"  Would  you  have  me,  indeed,  an- 
nihilate the  very  memory  of  the  bond 
between  us  ?  "  said  Koland,  in  a  hollow 


52 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


[July,. 


voice;  "would  you  have  me  see  in 
you  only  the  vile  thief,  the  lawless 
felon, — deliver  you  up  to  justice,  or 
strike  you  to  my  feet.  Let  the  me- 
mory still  save  you,  and  begone!" 

Again  I  caught  hold  of  the  guilty  son, 
and  again  he  broke  from  my  grasp. 

"  It  is,"  he  said,  folding  his  arms  de- 
liberately on  his  breast,  "  it  is  for  me  to 
command  in  this  house :  all  who  are 
within  it  must  submit  to  my  orders. 
Yon,  sir,  who  hold  reputation,  name, 
and  honour  at  so  high  a  price,  how  can 
you  fail  to  see  that  you  would  rob  them 
from  the  lady  whom  you  would  protect 
from  the  insult  of  my  affection  ?  How 
would  the  world  receive  the  tale  of  your 
rescue  of  Miss  Trevanion?  how  believe 
that — Oh  pardon  me,  madam, — Miss 
Trevanion — Fanny — pardon  me — I 
am  mad ;  only  hear  me — alone — alone 
— and  then  if  you  too  say  '  Begone,'  I 
submit  without  a  murmur;  I  allow 
no  arbiter  but  you." 

But  Fanny  still  clung  closer,  and 
closer  still,  to  Roland.  At  that  mo- 
ment I  heard  voices  and  the  trampling 
of  feet  below,  and  supposing  that 
the  accomplices  in  this  villany  were 
mustering  courage,  perhaps,  to  mount 
to  the  assistance  of  their  employer,  I 
lost  all  the  compassion  that  had 
hitherto  softened  my  horror  of  the 
young  man's  crime,  and  all  the  awe 
with  which  that  confession  had  been 
attended.  I  therefore,  this  time, 
seized  the  false  Vivian  with  a  gripe 
that  he  could  no  longer  shake  off,  and 
said  sternly — 

"  Beware  how  you  aggravate  your 
offence.  If  strife  ensues,  it  will  not  be 
between  father  and  son,  and — " 

Fanny  sprang  forward.  "Do  not 
provoke  this  bad,  dangerous  man.  I 
fear  him  not.  Sir,  I  will  hear  you, 
and  alone." 

"Never!"  cried  I  and  Roland  sim- 
ultaneously. 

Vivian  turned  his  look  fiercely  to 
me,  and  with  a  sullen  bitterness  to 
his  father,  and  then,  as  if  resigning 
his  former  prayer,  he  said—"  Well 
then,  be  it  so  ;  even  in  the  presence 
of  those  who  judge  me  so  severely,  I 
will  speak  at  least."  He  paused,  and, 
throwing  into  his  voice  a  passion 
that,  had  the  repugnance  at  his  guilt 
been  less,  would  not  have  been  with- 
out pathos,  he  continued  to  address 
Fanny:  "I  own  that,  when  I  first 


saw  you,  I  might  have  thought  of  love, 
as  the  poor  and  ambitious  think  of 
the  way  to  wealth  and  power.  Those 
thoughts  vanished,  and  nothing  re- 
mained in  my  heart  but  love  and  mad- 
ness. I  was  as  a  man  in  a  delirium 
when  I  planned  this  snare.  I  knew 
but  one  object — saw  but  one  heavenly 
vision.  Oh,  mine — mine  at  least  in 
that  vision — are  you  indeed  lost  to 
me  for  ever ! " 

There  was  that  in  this  man's  tone 
and  manner  which,  whether  arising 
from  accomplished  hypocrisy  or  actual 
if  perverted  feeling,  would,  I  thought, 
find  its  way  at  once  to  the  heart  of  a. 
woman  who,  however  wronged,  had 
once  loved  him ;  and,  with  a  cold 
misgiving,  I  fixed  my  eyes  on  Miss 
Trevanion.  Her  look,  as  she  turned 
with  a  visible  tremor,  suddenly  met 
mine,  and  I  believe  that  she  dis- 
cerned my  doubt ;  for  after  suffering 
her  eyes  to  rest  on  my  own,  with 
something  of  mournful  reproach,  her 
lips  curved  as  with  the  pride  of  her 
mother,  and  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life  I  saw  anger  on  her  brow. 

"  It  is  well,  sir,  that  JTOU  have  thus 
spoken  to  me  in  the  presence  of  others, 
for  in  their  presence  I  call  upon  you 
to  say,  by  that  honour  which  the  son 
of  this  gentleman  may  for  a  while  for- 
get, but  cannot  wholly  forfeit, — I  call 
upon  you  to  say,  whether  by  deed, 
word,  or  sign,  I,  Frances  Trevanion, 
ever  gave  you  cause  to  believe  that  I 
returned  the  feeling  you  say  you 
entertained  for  me,  or  encouraged  you 
to  dare  this  attempt  to  place  me  in 
your  power." 

"No!"  cried  Vivian  readily,  but 
with  a  writhing  lip — "no;  but  where 
I  loved  so  deeply,  periled  all  my  for- 
tune for  one  fair  and  free  occasion  to 
tell  you  so  alone,  I  would  not  think 
that  such  love  could  meet  only  loath- 
ing and  disdain.  What ! — has  nature 
shaped  me  so  unkindly,  that  where  I 
love  no  love  can  reply  ?  What! — has 
the  accident  of  birth  shut  me  out  from 
the  right  to  woo  and  mate  with  the 
highborn?  For  the  last,  at  least, 
that  gentleman  in  justice  should  tell 
you,  since  it  has  been  his  care  to 
instil  the  haughty  lesson  into  me,  that 
my  lineage  is  one  that  befits  lofty 
hopes,  and  warrants  fearless  ambi- 
tion. My  hopes,  my  ambition — they 
were  you!  Oh,  Miss  Trevanion,  it 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


53 


is  true  that  to  win  you  I  would 
have  braved  the  world's  laws,  defied 
every  foe,  save  him  who  now  rises 
before  me.  Yet,  believe  me,  believe 
me,  had  I  won  what  I  dared  to  aspire 
to,  you  would  not  have  been  dis- 
graced by  your  choice ;  and  the  name, 
for  which  I  thank  not  my  father, 
should  not  have  been  despised  by  the 
woman  who  pardoned  my  presumption, 
— nor  by  the  man  who  now  tramples 
on  my  anguish,  and  curses  me  in  my 
desolation." 

Not  by  a  word  had  Roland  sought 
to  interrupt  his  son — nay,  by  a  feverish 
excitement,  which  my  heart  understood 
in  its  secret  sympathy,  he  had  seemed 
eagerly  to  court  every  syllable  that 
could  extenuate  the  darkness  of  the 
offence,  or  eyen  imply  some  less  sordid 
motive  for  the  baseness  of  the  means. 
But  as  the  son  now  closed  with  the 
words  of  nujust  reproach,  and  the 
accents  of  fierce  despair; — closed  a 
defence  that  showed  in  its  false  pride, 
and  its  perverted  eloquence,  so  utter 
a  blindness  to  every  principle  of  that 
honour  which  had  been  the  father's  idol, 
Roland  placed  his  hand  before  the  eyes 
that  he  had  previously,  as  if  spell- 
bound, fixed  on  the  hardened  offender, 
and  once  more  drawing  Fanny  towards 
him,  said — 

"His  breath  pollutes  the  air  that 
innocence  and  honesty  should  breath. 
He  says  '  All  in  this  house  are  at  his 
command,' — why  do  we  stay? — let  us 
go."  He  turned  towards  the  door, 
and  Fanny  with  him. 

Meanwhile  the  louder  sounds  below 
had  been  silenced  for  some  moments, 
but  I  heard  a  step  in  the  hall. 
Vivian  started,  and  placed  himself 
before  us. 

"  No,  no,  you  cannot  leave  me  thus, 
Miss  Trevanion.  I  resign  you — be  it 
so;  I  do  not  even  ask  for  pardon. 
But  to  leave  this  house  thus,  without 
carriage,  without  attendants,  without 
explanation ! — the  blame  falls  on  me — 
it  shall  do  so.  But  at  least  vouchsafe 
me  the  right  to  repair  what  I  yet  can 
repair  of  the  wrong,  to  protect  all  that 
is  left  to  me — your  name." 

As  he  spoke,  he  did  not  perceive  (for 
he  was  facing  us,  and  with  his  back 
•to  the  door,)  that  a  new  actor  had 
noiselessly  entered  on  the  scene,  and, 
pausing  by  the  threshold,  heard  his 
last  words. 


"The  name  of  Miss  Trevanion,  sir — 
and  from  what?  "  asked  the  new  comer, 
as  he  advanced  and  surveyed  Vivian. 
Avith  a  look  that,  but  for  its  quiet, 
would  have  seemed  disdain,  i 

"  Lord  Castleton ! "  exclaimed 
Fanny,  lifting  up  the  face  she  had 
buried  in  her  hands. 

Vivian  recoiled  in  dismay,  and 
gnashed  his  teeth. 

"Sir,"  said  the  marquis,  "I  await 
your  reply ;  for  not  even  you,  in  my 
presence,  shall  imply  that  one  re- 
proach can  be  attached  to  the  name 
of  that  lady." 

"  Oh,  moderate  your  tone  to  me,  my 
Lord  C  astleton ! "  cried  Vivian :  "  in  y  ou 
at  least  there  is  one  man  I  am  not  for- 
bidden to  brave  and  defy.  It  was  to 
save  that  lady  from  the  cold  ambition 
of  her  parents — it  was  to  prevent  the 
sacrifice  of  her  youth  and  beauty,  to 
one  whose  sole  merits  are  his  wealth 
and  his  titles — it  was  this  that  im- 
pelled me  to  the  crime  I  have  com- 
mitted, this  that  hurried  me  on  to  risk 
all  for  one  hour,  when  youth  at  least 
could  plead  its  cause  to  youth;  and 
this  gives  me  now  the  power  to  say 
that  it  does  rest  with  me  to  protect 
the  name  of  the  lady,  whom  your 
very  servility  to  that  world  which  you 
have  made  your  idol  forbids  you  to 
claim  from  the  heartless  ambition  that 
would  sacrifice  the  daughter  to  the 
vanity  of  the  parents.  Ha !  the  future 
Marchioness  of  Castleton  on  her  way 
to  Scotland  with  a  pennyless  adven- 
turer !  Ha!  if  my  lips  are  sealed, 
who  but  I  can  seal  the  lips  of  those 
below  in  my  secret  ?  The  secret  shall 
be  kept,  but  on  this  condition — you 
shall  not  triumph  where  I  have  failed; 
I  may  lose  what  I  adored,  but  I  do 
not  resign  it  to  another.  Ha !  have  I 
foiled  you,  my  Lord  Castleton? — ha, 
ha!" 

"  No,  sir ;  and  I  almost  forgive 
you  the  villany  you  have  not  effected, 
for  informing  me,  for  the  first  time, 
that,  had  I  presumed  to  address 
Miss  Trevanion,  her  parents  at  least 
would  have  pardoned  the  presump- 
tion. Trouble  not  yourself  as  to 
what  your  accomplices  may  say. 
They  have  already  confessed  their 
infamy  and  your  own.  Out  of  my 
path,  sir ! " 

Then,  with  the  benign  look  of  a 
father,  and  the  lofty  grace  of  a  prince, 


54 


The  Cantons.— Part  XIV. 


[July, 


Lord  Castleton  advanced  to  Fanny. 
Looking  round  with  a  shudder,  she 
hastily  placed  her  hand  in  his,  and,  by 
so  doing,  perhaps  prevented  some  vio- 
lence on  the  part  of  Vivian,  whose 
heaving  breast,  and  eye  bloodshot, 
and  still  unquailing,  showed  how  little 
even  shame  had  subdued  his  fiercer 
passions.  But  he  made  no  offer  to 
detain  them,  and  his  tongue  seemed 
to  cleave  to  his  lips.  Now,  as  Fanny 
moved  to  the  door,  she  passed  Roland, 
who  stood  motionless  and  with  vacant 
looks,  like  an  image  of  stone;  and  with 
a  beautiful  tenderness,  for  which 
(even  at  this  distant  date,  recalling 
it)  I  say,  "  God  requite  thee,  Fanny," 
she  laid  her  other  hand  on  Roland's  arm , 
and  said,  "  Come  too  ;  your  arm  still !" 

But  Roland's  limbs  trembled,  and 
refused  to  stir  ;  his  head,  relaxing, 
drooped  on  his  breast,  his  eyes  closed. 
Even  Lord  Castleton  was  so  struck 
(though  unable  to  guess  the  true  and 
terrible  cause  of  his  dejection)  that 
he  forgot  his  desire  to  hasten  from  the 
spot,  and  cried  with  all  his  kindliness 
of  heart,  "  You  are  ill — you  faint ; 
give  him  your  arm,  Pisistratus." 

"It  is  nothing,"  said  Roland  feebly, 
as  he  leant  heavily  on  my  arm, 
while  I  turned  back  my  head  with  all 
the  bitterness  of  that  reproach  which 
filled  my  heart,  speaking  in  the  eyes 
that  sought  him  whose  place  should  have 
been  where  mine  now  was.  And,  oh ! — 
thank  heaven,  thank  heaven! — the  look 
was  not  in  vain.  In  the  same  moment 
the  son  was  at  the  father's  knees. 

"  Oh,  pardon — pardon!  Wretch, 
lost  wretch  though  I  be,  I  bow  my  head 
to  the  curse.  Let  it  fall — but  on  me,  and 
onme  only — not  on  your  own  heart  too." 

Fanny  burst  into  tears,  sobbing  out, 
"  Forgive  him,  as  I  do." 

Roland  did  not  heed  her. 

"  He  thinks  that  the  heart  was  not 
shattered  before  the  curse  could  come," 
he  said,  in  a  voice  so  weak  as  to  be 
scarcely  audible.  Then,  raising  his 
eyes  to  heaven,  his  lips  moved  as  if  he 
prayed  inly.  Pausing,  he  stretched 
his  hands  over  his  son's  head,  and 
averting  his  face,  said,  "  I  revoke  the 


curse.  Pray  to  thy  God  for  par- 
don." 

Perhaps  not  daring  to  trust  himself 
further,  he  then  made  a  violent  effort, 
and  hurried  from  the  room. 

We  followed  silently.  When  we 
gained  the  end  of  the  passage,  the 
door  of  the  room  we  had  left,  closed 
with  a  sullen  jar. 

As  the  sound  smote  on  my  ear, 
with  it  came  so  terrible  a  sense  of  the 
solitude  upon  which  that  door  had 
closed — so  keen  and  quick  an  appre- 
hension of  some  fearful  impulse,  sug- 
gested by  passions  so  fierce,  to  a  con- 
dition so  forlorn — that  instinctively 
I  stopped,  and  then  hurried  back 
to  the  chamber.  The  lock  of  the 
door  having  been  previously  forced, 
there  was  no  barrier  to  oppose  my 
entrance.  I  advanced,  and  beheld  a 
spectacle  of  such  agony,  as  can  only 
be  conceived  by  those  who  have  looked 
on  the  grief  which  takes  no  fortitude 
from  reason,  no  consolation  from  con- 
science— the  grief  which  tells  us  what 
would  be  the  earth  were  man  aban- 
doned to  his  passions,  and  the  CHAXCE 
of  the  atheist  reigned  alone  in  the 
merciless  heavens.  Pride  humbled  to 
the  dust ;  ambition  shivered  into  frag- 
ments ;  love  (or  the  passion  mistaken 
for  it)  blasted  into  ashes ;  life,  at  the 
first  onset,  bereaved  of  its  holiest  ties, 
forsaken  by  its  truest  guide;  shame 
that  writhed  for  revenge,  and  re- 
morse that  knew  not  prayer — all,  all 
blended,  yet  distinct,  were  in  that 
aAvful  spectacle  of  the  guilty  son. 

And  I  had  told  but  twenty  years, 
and  my  heart  had  been  mellowed  in 
the  tender  sunshine  of  a  happy  home, 
and  I  had  loved  this  boy  as  a  stranger, 
and,  lo — he  was  Roland's  son  !  1  tor- 
got  all  else,  looking  upon  that  anguish ; 
and  I  threw  myself  on  the  ground  by 
the  form  that  writhed  there,  and,  fold- 
ing my  arms  round  the  breast  which  in 
vain  repelled  me,  I  whispered,  "Com- 
fort— comfort — life  is  long.  You  shall 
redeem  the  past,  you  shall  efface 
the  stain,  and  your  father  shall  bless 
yon  yet !" 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


55 


CHAPTER  LXXXI. 


I  could  not  stay  long  with  my  un- 
happy cousin,  but  still  I  staid  long 
enough  to  make  me  think  it  probable 
that  Lord  Castleton's  carriage  would 
have  left  the  inn :  and  when,  as  I 
passed  the  hall,  I  saw  it  standing  before 
the  open  door,  I  was  seized  with  fear 
for  Roland  ;  his  emotions  might  have 
ended  in  some  physical  attack.  Nor 
were  those  fears  without  foundation. 
I  found  Fanny  kneeling  beside  the 
old  soldier  in  the  parlour  where  we 
had  seen  the  two  women,  and  bathing 
his  temples,  while  Lord  Castleton 
was  binding  his  arm ;  and  the  mar- 
quis's favourite  valet,  who,  amongst 
his  other  gifts,  was  something  of  a 
surgeon,  was  wiping  the  blade  of  the 
penknife  that  had  served  instead  of  a 
lancet.  Lord  Castleton  nodded  to  me, 
"Don't  be  uneasy — a  little  fainting  fit 
— we  have  bled  him.  He  is  safe  now 
— see,  he  is  recovering." 
Roland's  eyes,  as  they  opened,  turn- 
ed to  me  with  an  anxious,  inquiring 
look.  I  smiled  upon  him  as  I  kissed 
his  forehead,  and  could,  with  a  safe 
conscience,  whisper  words  which 
neither  father  nor  Christian  could  re- 
fuse to  receive  as  comfort. 

In  a  few  minutes  more  we  had  left 
the  house.  As  Lord  Castleton's  car- 
riage only  held  two,  the  marquis, 
having  assisted  Miss  Trevanion  and 
Roland  to  enter,  quietly  mounted  the 
seai  behind,  and  made  a  sign  to  me 
to  come  by  his  side,  for  there  was 
room  for  both.  (His  servant  had 
taken  one  of  the  horses  that  had 
brought  thither  Roland  and  myself, 
and  already  gone  on  before.)  No 
conversation  took  place  between  us 
then.  Lord  Castleton  seemed  pro- 
foundly aifected,  and  I  had  no  words 
at  my  command. 

When  we  reached  the  inn  at  which 
Lord  Castleton  had  changed  horses, 
about  six  miles  distant,  the  marquis 
insisted  on  Fanny's  taking  some  rest 
for  a  few  hours,  for  indeed  she  was 
thoroughly  worn  out. 

I  attended  my  uncle  to  his  room, 
but  he  only  answered  my  assurances 
of  his  son's  repentance  with  a  pressure 
of  the  hand,  and  then,  gliding  from  me, 
went  into  the  furthest  recess  of  the 
room,  and  there  knelt  down.  When 


he  rose,  he  was  passive  and  tractable 
as  a  child.  He  suffered  me  to  assist 
him  to  undress ;  and  when  he  had  lain 
down  on  the  bed,  he  turned  his  face 
quietly  from  the  light,  and,  after  a 
few  heavy  sighs,  sleep  seemed  merci- 
fully to  steal  upon  him.  I  listened  to 
his  breathing  till  it  grew  low  and 
regular,  and  then  descended  to  the 
sitting-room  in  which  I  had  left  Lord 
Castleton,  for  he  had  asked  me  in  a 
whisper  to  seek  him  there. 

I  found  the  marquis  seated  by  the 
fire,  in  a  thoughtful  and  dejected  atti- 
tude. 

"  I  am  glad  you  are  come,"  said  he, 
making  room  for  me  on  the  hearth, 
"  for  I  assure  you  I  have  not  felt  so 
mournful  for  many  years ;  we  have 
much  to  explain  to  each  other.  Will 
you  begin  ?  they  say  the  sound  of  the 
bell  dissipates  the  thunder-  cloud.  And 
there  is  nothing  like  the  voice  of  a 
frank,  honest  nature  to  dispel  all  the 
clouds  that  come  upon  us  when  we 
think  of  our  own  faults  and  the  villany 
of  others.  But,  I  beg  you  a  thousand 
pardons — that  young  man,  your  rela- 
tion ! — your  brave  uncle's  son !  Is  it 
possible ! " 

My  explanations  to  Lord  Cas- 
tleton were  necessarily  brief  and 
imperfect.  The  separation  between 
Roland  and  his  son,  my  ignorance  ot 
its  cause,  my  belief  in  the  death  of  the 
latter,  my  chance  acquaintance  with 
the  supposed  Vivian  ;  the  interest  I 
took  in  him ;  the  relief  it  was  to 
the  fears  for  his  fate  with  which  he 
inspired  me,  to  think  he  had  returned 
to  the  home  I  ascribed  to  him ;  and  the 
circumstances  which  had  induced  my 
suspicions,  justified  by  the  result?— all 
this  was  soon  hurried  over. 

"  But,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the 
marquis,  interrupting  me,  "  did  you,  in 
your  friendship  for  one  so  unlike  you, 
even  by  your  own  partial  account, 
never  suspect  that  you  had  stumbled 
upon  your  lost  cousin  ?  " 

"  Such  an  idea  never  could  have 
crossed  me." 

And  here  I  must  observe,  that 
though  the  reader,  at  the  first  intro- 
duction of  Vivian,  would  divine  the 
secret,:— the  penetration  of  a  reader 
is  wholly  different  from  that  of  the 


The.  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


[July, 


actor  in  events.  That  I  had  chanced 
on  one  of  those  curious  coincidences 
in  the  romance  of  real  life,  which  a 
reader  looks  out  for  and  expects  in 
following  the  course  of  narrative,  was 
a  supposition  forbidden  to  me  by  a 
variety  of  causes.  There  was  not 
the  least  family  resemblance  between 
Vivian  and  any  of  his  relations  ;  and, 
somehow  or  other,  in  Roland's  son 
I  had  pictured  to  myself  a  form  and 
a  character  wholly  different  from 
Vivian's.  To  me  it  would  have 
seemed  impossible  that  my  cousin 
could  have  been  so  little  curious 
to  hear  any  of  our  joint  family  affairs ; 
been  so  unheedful,  or  even  weary,  if 
I  spoke  of  Roland — never,  by  a  word 
or  tone,  have  betrayed  a  sympathy 
with  his  kindred.  And  my  other  con- 
jecture was  so  probable ! — son  of  the 
Colonel  Vivian  whose  name  he  bore. 
And  that  letter,  with  the  post-mark 
of '  Godalming! '  and  my  belief,  too,  in 
my  cousin's  death  ;  even  now  I  am 
aot  surprised  that  the  idea  never 
occurred  to  me. 

I  paused  from  enumerating  these 
excuses  for  my  dulness,  angry  with 
myself,  for  I  noticed  that  Lord  Castle- 
ton's  fair  brow  darkened ; — and  he  ex- 
claimed, "  What  deceit  he  must  have 
gone  through  before  he  could  become 
such  a  master  in  the  art !" 

"  That  is  true,  and  I  cannot  deny 
it,"  said  I.  "  But  his  punishment  now 
is  awful ;  let  us  hope  that  repentance 
may  follow  the  chastisement.  And, 
though  certainly  it  must  have  been  his 
own  fault  that  drove  him  from  his 
father's  home  and  guidance,  yet,  so 
driven,  let  us  make  some  allowance 
for  the  influence  of  evil  companionship 
on  one  so  young — for  the  suspicions 
that  the  knowledge  of  evil  produces, 
and  turns  into  a  kind  of  false  know- 
ledge of  the  world.  And  in  this  last 
and  worst  of  all  his  actions  " — 

"Ah,  how  justify  that!" 

"  Justify  it! — good  heavens !  justify 
it ! — no.  I  only  say  this,  strange 
as  it  may  seem,  that  I  believe  his 
affection  for  Miss  Trevanion  was  for 
herself :  so  he  says,  from  the  depth  of 
an  anguish  in  which  the  most  insincere 
of  men  would  cease  to  feign.  But  no 
more  of  this, — she  is  saved,  thank 
Heaven !" 

"And  you  believe,"  said  Lord 
Castleton  musingly,  "that  he  spoke 


the  truth,  when  he  thought  that  I — 
The  marquis  stopped,  coloured  sligh  tly, 
and  then  went  on.  "  But  no  ;  Lady 
Ellinor  and  Trevanion,  whatever 
might  have  been  in  their  thoughts, 
would  never  have  so  forgot  their  dig- 
nity as  to  take  him,  a  youth — almost  a 
stranger— nay,  take  any  one  into  their 
confidence  on  such  a  subject." 

"  It  was  but  by  broken  gasps,  inco- 
herent, disconnected  words,  that  Vi- 
vian,— I  mean  my  cousin, — gave  me 
any  explanation  of  this.  But  Lady 
N ,  at  whose  house  he  was  stay- 
ing, appears  to  have  entertained  such 
a  notion,  or  at  least  led  my  cousin  to 
think  so." 

"  Ah  !  that  is  possible,"  said  Lord 
Castleton,  with  a  look  of  relief.  "Lady 

N and  I  were  boy  and  girl 

together  ;   we  correspond  ;    she  has 

written  to  me  suggesting  that . 

Ah!  I  see,  —  an  indiscreet  woman. 
Hum  !  this  comes  of  lady  correspon- 
dents !" 

Lord  Castleton  had  recourse  to  the 
Beaudesert  mixture  ;  and  then,  as  if 
eager  to  change  the  subject,  began  his 
own  explanation.  On  receiving  my 
letter,  he  saw  even  more  cause  to 
suspect  a  snare  than  I  had  done,  for 
he  had  that  morning  received  a  letter 
from  Trevanion,  not  mentioning  a 
word  about  his  illness  ;  and  on  turning 
to  the  newspaper,  and  seeing  a  para- 
graph headed,  "  Sudden  and  alarming 
illness  of  Mr  Trevanion,'  the  marquis 
had  suspected  some  party  manoeuvre 
or  unfeeling  hoax,  since  the  mail  that 
had  brought  the  letter  would  have 
travelled  as  quickly  as  any  messenger 
who  had  given  the  information  to  the 
newspaper.  He  had,  however,  im- 
mediately sent  down  to  the  office  of 
the  journal  to  inquire  on  what  autho- 
rity the  paragraph  had  been  inserted, 
while  he  despatched  another  messen- 
ger to  St  James's  Square.  The 
reply  from  the  office  was,  that  the 
message  had  been  brought  by  a  servant 
in  Mr  Trevanion's  livery,  but  was  not 
admitted  as  news  until  it  had  been 
ascertained  by  inquiries  at  the  minis- 
ter's house  that  Lady  Ellinor  had  re- 
ceived the  same  intelligence,  and 
actually  left  town  in  consequence. 

"  I  was  extremely  sorry  for  poor 
Lady  Ellinor's  uneasiness,"  said  Lord 
Castleton,  "  and  extremely  puzzled, 
but  I  still  thought  there  could  be  no 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


67 


real  ground  for  alarm  when  your  letter 
reached  me.  And  when  you  there 
stated  your  conviction  that  Mr  Gower 
was  mixed  up  in  this  fable,  and  that 
it  concealed  some  snare  upon  Fanny, 
I  saw  the  thing  at  a  glance.  The 

road  to  Lord  N 's,  till  within  the 

last  stage  or  two,  would  be  the  road 
to  Scotland.  And  a  hardy  and  un- 
scrupulous adventurer,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  Miss  Trevanion's  servants, 
might  thus  entrap  her  to  Scotland 
itself,  and  there  work  on  her  fears ; 
or,  if  he  had  hope  in  her  affections, 
win  her  consent  to  a  Scotch  marriage. 
You  may  be  sure,  therefore,  that  I 
was  on  the  road  as  soon  as  possible. 
But  as  your  messenger  came  all  the 
way  from  the  city,  and  not  so  quick 
perhaps  as  he  might  have  come ;  and 
then  as  there  was  the  carriage  to  see 
to,  and  the  horses  to  send  for,  I  found 
myself  more  than  an  hour  and  a  half 
behind  you.  Fortunately,  however, 
I  made  good  ground,  and  should  pro- 
bably have  overtaken  you  half-way, 
but  that,  on  passing  between  a  ditch 
and  waggon,  the  carriage  was  upset, 
and  that  somewhat  delayed  me.  On 
arriving  at  the  town  where  the  road 

branched  off  to  Lord.N 's,  I  was 

rejoiced  to  learn  you  had  taken  what  I 
was  sure  would  prove  the  right  direc- 
tion, and  finally  I  gained  the  clue  to 
that  villanous  inn  by  the  report  of 
the  postboys  who  had  taken  Miss 
Trevanion's  carriage  there,  and  met 
you  on  the  road.  On  reaching  the  inn, 
I  found  two  fellows  conferring  outside 
the  door.  They  sprang  in  as  we  drove 
up, but  not  before  myservantSummers 
— a  quick  fellow,  you  know,  who  has 
travelled  with  me  from  Norway  to 
Nubia — had  quitted  his  seat,  and  got 
into  the  house,  into  which  I  followed 
him  with  a  step,  you  dog,  as  active  as 
your  own !  Egad !  I  was  twenty- one 
then !  Two  fellows  had  already  knock- 
ed down  poor  Summers,  and  showed 
plenty  of  fight.  Do  you  know,"  said 
the  marquis,  interrupting  himself  with 
an  air  of  serio-comic  humiliation — "do 
you  know  that  I  actually — no,  you 
never  will  believe  it — mind  'tis  a  secret 
— actually  broke  my  cane  over  one  fel- 
low's shoulders  ? — look  i "  (and  the 
marquis  held  up  the  fragment  of  the 
lamented  weapon.)  "And  I  half  sus- 
pect, but  I  can't  say  positively,  that  I 
had  even  the  necessity  to  demean  my- 


self by  a  blow  with  the  naked  hand — 
clenched  too  ! — quite  Eton  again — 
upon  my  honour  it  was.  Ha,  ha !" 

And  the  marquis,  whose  magnificent 
proportions,  in  the  full  vigour  of  man's 
strongest,  if  not  his  most  combative, 
age,  would  have  made  him  a  formi- 
dable antagonist,  even  to  a  couple  of 
prize-fighters,  supposing  he  had  re- 
tained a  little  of  Eton  skill  in  euch 
encounters  —  laughed  with  the  glee 
of  a  school-boy,  whether  at  the  thought 
of  his  prowess,  or  his  sense  of  the 
contrast  between  so  rude  a  recourse 
to  primitive  warfare,  and  his  own  in- 
dolent habits,  and  almost  feminine 
good  temper.  Composing  himself, 
however,  with  the  quick  recollection 
how  little  I  could  share  his  hilarity,  he 
resumed  gravely,  "It  tookus sometime 
— I  don't  say  to  defeat  our  foes,  but  to 
bind  them,  whichlthought  a  necessary 
precaution; — one  fellow,  Trevanion's 
servant,  all  the  while  stunning  me 
with  quotations  from  Shakspeare.  I 
then  gently  laid  hold  of  a  gown,  the 
bearer  of  which  had  been  long  trying  to 
scratch  me ;  but  being  luckily  a  small 
woman,  had  not  succeeded  in  reaching 
to  my  eyes.  But  the  gown  escaped, 
and  fluttered  off  to  the  kitchen.  I 
followed,  and  there  I  found  Miss  Tre- 
vanion's Jezebel  of  a  maid.  She  was 
terribly  frightened,  and  affected  to  be 
extremely  penitent.  I  own  to  you 
that  I  don't  care  what  a  man  says  in 
the  way  of  slander,  but  a  woman's 
tongue  against  another  woman — 
especially  if  that  tongue  be  in  the 
mouth  of  a  lady's  lady — I  think  it 
always  worth  silencing ;  I  therefore 
consented  to  pardon  this  woman  on 
condition  she  would  find  her  way  here 
before  morning.  No  scandal  shall 
come  from  her.  Thus  you  see  some 
minutes  elapsed  before  I  joined  you  ; 
but  I  minded  that  the  less,  as  I  heard 
you  and  the  Captain  were  already  in 
the  room  with  Miss  Trevanion  ;  and 
not,  alas  !  dreaming  of  your  connexion 
with  the  culprit,  I  was  wondering 
what  could  have  delayed  you  so  long, 
— afraid,  I  own  it,  to  find  that  Miss 
Trevanion's  heart  might  have  been 
seduced  by  that — hem — hem ! — hand- 
some— young — hem — hem  ! — There's 
no  fear  of  that '?"  added  Lord  Castle- 
ton,  anxiously,  as  he  bent  his  bright 
eyes  upon  mine. 

I  felt  myself  colour  as  I  answered 


58 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


[July, 


firmly,  "  It  is  just  to  Miss  Trevanion 
to  add  that  the  unhappy  man  owned, 
in  her  presence  and  in  mine,  that  he 
had  never  had  the  slightest  encourage- 
ment for  his  attempt — never  one  cause 
to  believe  that  she  approved  the  af- 
fection, which  I  try  to  think  blinded 
and  maddened  himself." 

"  I  believe  you ;  for  I  think" — Lord 
Castleton  paused  uneasily,  again 
looked  at  me,  rose,  and  walked  about 
the  room  with  evident  agitation ; 
then,  as  if  he  had  come  to  some  reso- 
lution, he  returned  to  the  hearth  and 
stood  facing  me. 

"  My  dear  young  friend,"  said  he, 
with  his  irresistible  kindly  frank- 
ness, "  this  is  an  occasion  that  ex- 
cuses all  things  between  us,  even  my 
impertinence.  Your  conduct  from 
first  to  last  has  been  such,  that  I  wish, 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  that  I 
had  a  daughter  to  offer  you,  and  that 
you  felt  for  her  as  I  believe  you  feel 
for  Miss  Trevanion.  These  are  not 
mere  words ;  do  not  look  down  as  if 
ashamed.  All  the  marquisates  in  the 
world  would  never  give  me  the  pride 
I  should  feel,  if  I  could  see  in  my  life 
one  steady  self-sacrifice  to  duty  and 
honour,  equal  to  that  which  I  have 
witnessed  in  you." 

"  Oh,  my  lord  !   my  lord ! " 

"  Hear  me  out.  That  you  love 
Fanny  Trevanion,  I  know ;  that  she 
may  have  innocently,  timidly,  half 
unconsciously,  returned  that  affection, 
I  think  probable.  But — " 

"  I  know  what  you  would  say ; 
spare  me — I  know  it  all." 

"  No  !  it  is  a  thing  impossible  ;  and, 
if  Lady  Ellinor  could  consent,  there 
would  be  such  a  life-long  regret  on 
her  part,  such  a  weight  of  obligation 
on  yours,  that — no,  I  repeat,  it  is 
impossible !  But  let  us  both  think 
of  this  poor  girl.  I  know  her  better 
than  you  can — have  known  her  from 
a  child  :  know  all  her  virtues — 
they  are  charming;  all  her  faults — 
they  expose  her  to  danger.  These 
parents  of  hers — with  their  genius,  and 
ambition — may  do  very  well  to  rule 
England,  and  influence  the  world ; 
but  to  guide  the  fate  of  that  child — 
no !"  Lord  Castleton  stopped,  for  he 
was  affected.  I  felt  my  old  jealousy 
return,  but  it  was  no  longer  bitter. 

"I  say  nothing,"  continued  the 
marquis,  "  of  this  position,  in  which, 


without  fault  of  hers,  Miss  Trevanion 
is  placed  :  Lady  Ellinor's  knowledge 
of  the  world,  and  woman's  wit,  will 
see  how  all  that  can  be  best  put  right. 
Still  it  is  awkward,  and  demands 
much  consideration.  But,  putting  this 
aside  altogether,  if  you  do  firmly  believe 
that  Miss  Trevanion  is  lost  to  you, 
can  you  bear  to  think  that  she  is  to 
be  flung  as  a  mere  cipher  into  the 
account  of  the  worldly  greatness  of  an 
aspiring  politician — married  to  some 
minister,  too  busy  to  watch  over 
her ;  or  some  duke,  who  looks  to  pay 
off  his  mortgages  with  her  fortune 
— minister  or  duke  only  regarded 
as  a  prop  to  Trevanion's  power 
against  a  counter  cabal,  or  as  giving 
his  section  a  preponderance  in  the 
Cabinet?  Be  assured  such  is  her 
most  likely  destiny,  or  rather  the  be- 
ginning of  a  destiny  yet  more  mournful. 
Now,  I  tell  you  this,  that  he  who 
marries  Fanny  Trevanion  should 
have  little  other  object,  for  the  first 
few  years  of  marriage,  than  to  correct 
her  failings  and  develop  her  virtues. 
Believe  one  who,  alas !  has  too  dearly 
bought  his  knowledge  of  women — hers 
is  a  character  to  be  formed.  Well, 
then,  if  this  prize  be  lost  to  you, would 
it  be  an  irreparable  grief  to  your 
generous  affection  to  think  that  it 
has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  one  who  at 
least  knows  his  responsibilities,  and 
who  will  redeem  his  own  life,  hitherto 
wasted,  by  the  steadfast  endeavour 
to  fulfil  them?  Can  you  take  this 
hand  still,  and  press  it,  even  though 
it  be  a  rival's  ?" 

"My  lord!  This  from  yon  to  me, 
is  an  honour  that — " 

"  You  will  not  take  my  hand  ?  Then 
believe  me,  it  is  not  I  that  will  give 
that  grief  to  your  heart." 

Touched,  penetrated,  melted  by  this 
generosity  in  a  man  of  such  lofty 
claims,  to  one  of  my  age  and  fortunes, 
I  pressed  that  noble  hand,  half  raising 
it  to  my  lips — an  action  of  respect 
that  would  have  misbecome  neither ; 
but  he  gently  withdrew  the  hand,  in 
the  instinct  of  his  natural  modesty. 
I  had  then  no  heart  to  speak  further 
on  such  a  subject,  but,  faltering  out 
that  Iwould  go  and  seemyuncle,  Jtook 
up  the  light,  and  ascended  the  stairs. 
I  crept  noiselessly  into  Roland's  room, 
and  shading  the  light,  saw  that,  though 
he  slept,  his  face  was  very  troubled. 


1849.] 

And  then  I  thought,  "  What  are  my 
young  griefs  to  his?"    and — sitting 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


beside  the  bed,  communed  with  my 
own  heart  and  was  still ! 


CHAPTER  LXXXII. 


At  sunrise,  I  went  down  into  the 
sitting-room,  having  resolved  to  write 
to  my  father  to  join  us ;  for  I  felt 
how  much  Roland  needed  his  comfort 
and  his  counsel,  and  it  was  no  great 
distance  from  the  old  Tower.  I  was 
surprised  to  find  Lord  Castleton  still 
seated  by  the  fire  ;  he  had  evidently 
not  gone  to  bed. 

"  That's  right,"  said  he  ;  "  we  must 
encourage  each  other  to  recruit 
nature,"  and  he  pointed  to  the  break- 
fast things  on  the  table. 

I  had  scarcely  tasted  food  for  many 
hours,  but  I  was  only  aware  of  my 
own  hunger  by  a  sensation  of  faint- 
ness.  I  eat  unconsciously,  and  was 
almost  ashamed  to  feel  how  much  the 
food  restored  me. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  I,  "  that  you  will 
soon  set  off  to  Lord  N 's  ?" 

"  Nay,  did  I  not  tell  you,  that  I 
have  sent  Summers  express,  with  a 
note  to  Lady  Ellinor,  begging  her  to 
come  here  ?  I  did  not  see,  on  reflec- 
tion, how  I  could  decorously  accom- 
pany Miss  Trevanion  alone,  without 
even  a  female  servant,  to  a  house  full 
of  gossiping  guests.  And  even  had 
your  uncle  been  well  enough  to  go 
with  us,  his  presence  would  but  have 
created  an  additional  cause  for  wonder ; 
so  as  soon  as  we  arrived,  and  while 
yon  went  up  with  the  Captain,  I  wrote 
my  letter  and  despatched  my  man. 
I  expect  Lady  Ellinor  will  be  here 
before  nine  o'clock.  Meanwhile,  I 
have  already  seen  that  infamous  wait- 
ing-woman, and  taken  care  to  prevent 
any  danger  from  her  garrulity.  And 
you  will  be  pleased  to  hear  that 
I  have  hit  upon  a  mode  of  satisfying 
the  curiosity  of  our  friend  Mrs 
Grnndy— that  is,  'The  World'— with- 
out injury  to  any  one.  We  must 
suppose  that  that  footman  of  Treva- 
nion's  was  out  of  his  mind — it  is  but  a 
charitable,  and  your  good  father  would 
say,  a  philosophical  supposition.  All 
great  knavery  is  madness  !  The  world 
could  not  get  on  if  truth  and  good- 
ness were  not  the  natural  tenden- 


cies of  sane  minds.    Do  you  under- 
stand?" 

"Not  quite." 

"  Why,  the  footman,  being  out  of 
his  mind,  invented  this  mad  story  of 
Trevanion's  illness,  frightened  Lady 
Ellinor  and  Miss  Trevanion  out  of 
their  wits  with  his  own  chimera,  and 
hurried  them  both  off,  one  after  the 
other.  I  having  heard  from  Tre- 
vanion, and  knowing  he  could  not 
have  been  ill  when  the  servant  left 
him,  set  off,  as  was  natural  in  so  old 
a  friend  of  the  family,  saved  her  from 
the  freaks  of  a  maniac,  who,  getting 
more  and  more  flighty,  was  beginning 
to  play  the  Jack  o'  Lantern,  and  lead- 
ingher,  Heaven  knows  where!  over  the 
country; — and  then  wrote  to  Lady 
Ellinor  to  come  to  her.  It  is  but  a 
hearty  laugh  at  our  expense,  and 
Mrs  Grundy  is  content.  If  you  don't 
want  her  to  pity,  or  backbite,  let  her 
laugh.  She  is  a  she- Cerberus — she 
wants  to  eat  you :  well — stop  her 
mouth  with  a  cake." 

"Yes,"  continued  this  better  sort 
of  Aristippus,  so  wise  under  all  his 
seeming  levities  ;  "  the  cue  thus 
given,  everything  favours  it.  If  that 
rogue  of  a  lackey  quoted  Shakspeare 
as  much  in  the  servant's  hall  as  he 
did  while  I  was  binding  him  neck  and 
heels  in  the  kitchen,  that's  enough  for 
all  the  household  to  declare  he  was 
moon-stricken;  and  if  we  find  it  neces- 
sary to  do  anything  more,  why,  we 
must  get  him  to  go  into  Bedlam  Vor 
a  month  or  two.  The  disappearance 
of  the  waiting- woman  is  natural; 
either  I  or  Lady  Ellinor  send  her 
about  her  business  for  her  folly  in 
being  so  gulled  by  the  lunatic.  If 
that's  unjust,  why,  injustice  to  ser- 
vants is  common  enough — public  and 
private.  Neither  minister  nor  lackey 
can  be  forgiven,  if  he  help  us  into  a 
scrape.  One  must  vent  one's  passion 
on  something.  Witness  my  poor 
cane ;  though,  indeed,  a  better  illus- 
tration would  be  the  cane  that  Louis 
XIV.  broke  on  a  footman,  because 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


his  majesty  was  out  of  humour  with 
a  prince  whose  shoulders  were  too 
sacred  for  royal  indignation. 

"  So  you  see,"  concluded  Lord 
Castleton,  lowering  his  voice,  "  that 
your  uncle,  amongst  all  his  other 
causes  of  sorrow,  may  think  at  least 
that  his  name  is  spared  in  his  son's. 
And  the  young  man  himself  may  find 
reform  easier,  when  freed  from  that 
despair  of  the  possibility  of  redemp- 
tion, which  Mrs  Grundy  inflicts  upon 
those  who — Courage,  then  ;  life  is 
long!" 

"  My  very  words ! "  I  cried ;  "  and 
so  repeated  by  you,  Lord  Castleton, 
they  seem  prophetic." 

"Take  my  advice,  and  don't  lose 
sight  of  your  cousin,  while  his  pride 
is  yet  humbled,  and  his  heart  perhaps 


softened.  I  don't  say  this  only  for 
his  sake.  No,  it  is  your  poor  uncle  I 
think  of:  noble  old  fellow.  And  now, 
I  think  it  right  to  pay  Lady  Elli- 
nor  the  respect  of  repairing,  as  well 
as  I  can,  the  havoc  three  sleepless 
nights  have  made  on  the  exterior  of 
a  gentleman  who  is  on  the  shady  side 
of  remorseless  forty." 

Lord  Castleton  here  left  me,  and  I 
wrote  to  my  father,  begging  him  to 
meet  us  at  the  next  stage,  (which  was 
the  nearest  point  from  the  high  road 
to  the  Tower, )  and  I  sent  off  the  letter 
by  a  messenger  on  horseback.  That 
task  done,  I  leant  my  head  upon  my 
hand,  and  a  profound  sadness  settled 
upon  me,  despite  all  my  efforts  to  face 
the  future,  and  think  only  of  the  duties 
of  life — not  its  sorrows. 


CHAPTER  LXXXIII. 


Before  nine  o'clock,  Lady  Ellinor 
arrived,  and  went  straight  into  Miss 
Trevanion's  room.  I  took  refuge  in 
my  uncle's.  Eoland  was  awake  and 
<:alm,  but  so  feeble  that  he  made  no 
effort  to  rise ;  and  it  was  bis  calm, 
indeed,  that  alarmed  me  the  most — it 
was  like  the  calm  of  nature  thoroughly 
exhausted.  He  obeyed  me  mechani- 
cally, as  a  patient  takes  from  your 
hand  the  draught,  of  which  he  is  al- 
most unconscious,  when  I  pressed 
him  to  take  food.  He  smiled  on  me 
faintly  when  I  spoke  to  him ;  but 
made  me  a  sign  that  seemed  to  im- 
plore silence.  Then  he  turned  his  face 
from  me,  and  buried  it  in  the  pillow  ; 
and  I  thought  that  he  slept  again, 
when,  raising  himself  a  little,  and 
feeling  for  my  hand,  he  said  in  a 
scarcely  audible  voice, — 

"Where  is  he?" 

"Would  you  see  him,  sir?" 

"  No,  no  ;  that  would  kill  me — and 
then — what  would  become  of  him  ?" 

"He  has  promised  me  an  inter- 
view, and  in  that  interview  I  feel 
assured  he  will  obey  your  wishes, 
whatever  they  are." 

Roland  made  no  answer. 

"  Lord  Castleton  has  arranged  all, 
«o  that  his  name  and  madness  (thus 
let  us  call  it)  will  never  be  known." 

"  Pride,  pride  !  pride  still !" — mur- 
mured the  old  soldier.  "  The  name, 


the  name — well,  that  is  much ;  but 
the  living  soul ! — I  wish  Austin  were 
here." 

"  I  have  sent  for  him,  sir." 

Koland  pressed  my  hand,  and  was 
again  silent.  Then  he  began  to 
mutter,  as  I  thought,  incoherently, 
about  "  the  Peninsula  and  obeying 
orders;  and  how  some  officer  woke 
Lord  Wellesley  at  night,  and  said 
that  something  or  other  (I  could 
not  catch  what — the  phrase  was 
technical  and  military)  was  impos- 
sible ;  and  how  Lord  Wellesley  asked 
'  Where's  the  order-book  ? '  and  look- 
ing into  the  order-book,  said,  '  Not 
at  all  impossible,  for  it  is  in  the 
order-book;'  and  so  Lord  Wellesley 
turned  round  and  went  to  sleep  again." 
Then  suddenly  Roland  half  rose,  and 
said  in  a  voice  clear  and  firm,  "But 
Lord  Wellesley,  though  a  great  cap- 
tain, was  a  fallible  man,  sir,  and  the 
order-book  was  his  own  mortal 
handiwork. — Get  me  the  Bible ! " 

Oh  Roland,  Roland !  and  I  had 
feared  that  thy  mind  was  wandering ! 

So  I  went  down  and  borrowed  a 
Bible  in  large  characters,  and  placed 
it  on  the  bed  before  him,  opening  the 
shutters,  and  letting  in  God's  day 
upon  God's  word. 

I  had  just  done  this,  when  there 
was  a  slight  knock  at  the  door.  I 
opened  it,  and  Lord  Castleton  stood 


1849.] 


TJie  Caxtons.— Part  XIV. 


61 


without.  He  asked  me,  in  a  whisper, 
if  he  might  see  my  uncle.  I  drew 
him  in  gently,  and  pointed  to  the  sol- 
dier of  life  "  learning  what  was  not 
impossible"  from  the  unerring  Order- 
Book. 

Lord  Castleton  gazed  with  a  chang- 
ing countenance,  and,  without  disturb- 
ing my  uncle,  stole  back.  I  followed 
him,  and  gently  closed  the  door. 

"  You  must  save  his  son,"  he  said  in 
a  faltering  voice — "  you  must ;  and 
tell  me  how  to  help  you.  That  sight ! 
— no  sermon  ever  touched  me  more. 
Now  come  down,  and  receive  Lady 
Ellinor's  thanks.  We  are  going. 
She  wants  me  to  tell  my  own  tale  to 
my  old  friend,  Mrs  Grundy  :  so  I  go 
with  them.  Come." 

On  entering  the  sitting-room,  Lady 
Ellinor  came  up  and  fairly  embraced 
me.  I  need  not  repeat  her  thanks, 
still  less  the  praises,  which  fell  cold 
and  hollow  on  my  ear.  My  gaze 
rested  on  Fanny  where  she  stood  apart 
— her  eyes,  heavy  with  fresh  tears,  bent 
on  the  ground.  And  the  sense  of  all 
her  charms — the  memory  of  the  ten- 
der, exquisite  kindness  she  had  shown 
to  the  stricken  father ;  the  generous 
pardon  she  had  extended  to  the  cri- 
minal sou ;  the  looks  she  had  bent 
upon  me  on  that  memorable  night — 
looks  that  had  spoken  such  trust  in 
my.  presence — the  moment  in  which 
she  had  clung  to  me  for  protection, 
and  her  breath  been  warm  upon  my 
cheek, — all  these  rushed  over  me ; 
and  I  felt  that  the  struggle  of  months 
was  undone — that  I  had  never  loved 
her  as  I  loved  her  then — when  I  saw 
her  but  to  lose  her  evermore !  And 
then  there  came  for  the  first,  and,  I 
now  rejoice  to  think,  for  the  only 
time,  a  bitter,  ungrateful  accusation 
against  the  cruelty  of  fortune  and  the 
disparities  of  life.  What  was  it  that 
set  our  two  hearts  eternally  apart, 
and  made  hope  impossible?  Not 
nature,  but  the  fortune  that  gives  a 
second  nature  to  the  world.  Ah, 
could  I  then  think  that  it  is  in  that 
second  nature  that  the  soul  is  ordained 
to  seek  its  trials,  and  that  the  ele- 
ments of  human  virtue  find  their 
harmonious  place!  What  I  answered 
I  know  not.  Neither  know  I  how 
long  I  stood  there  listening  to  sounds 
which  seemed  to  have  no  meaning, 
till  there  came  other  sounds  which 


indeed  woke  my  sense,  and  made  my 
blood  run  cold  to  hear, — the  tramp 
of  the  horses,  the  grating  of  the 
wheels,  the  voice  at  the  door  that 
said  "  All  was  ready." 

Then  Fanny  lifted  her  eyes,  and 
they  met  mine;  and  then  involuutarily 
and  hastily  she  moved  a  few  steps 
towards  me,  and  I  clasped  my  right 
hand  to  my  heart,  as  if  to  still  its 
beating,  and  remained  still.  Lord 
Castleton  had  watched  us  both.  I 
felt  that  watch  was  upon  us,  though 
I  had  till  then  shunned  his  looks : 
now,  as  I  turned  my  eyes  from 
Fanny's,  that  look  came  full  upon  me- 
—  soft,  compassionate,  benignant. 
Suddenly,  and  with  an  unutterable 
expression  of  nobleness,  the  marquis 
turned  to  Lady  Ellinor,  and  said — 
"  Pardon  me  for  telling  you  an  old 
story.  A  friend  of  mine — a  man  of 
my  own  years — had  the  temerity 
to  hope  that  he  might  one  day  or  other 
win  the  affections  of  a  lady  young 
enough  to  be  his  daughter,  and  whom 
circumstances  and  his  own  heart  led- 
him  to  prefer  from  all  her  sex.  My 
friend  had  many  rivals  ;  and  you  will 
not  wonder — for  you  have  seen  the  lady. 
Among  them  was  a  young  gentleman, 
who  for  months  had  been  an  inmate 
of  the  same  house— (Hush,  Lady 
Ellinor !  you  will  hear  me  out ;  the- 
interest  of  my  story  is  to  come) — who 
respected  the  sanctity  of  the  house  he 
had  entered,  and  left  it  when  he  felt 
he  loved — for  he  was  poor,  and  the 
lady  rich.  Some  time  after,  this  gen- 
tleman saved  the  lady  from  a  great 
danger,  and  was  then  on  the  eve  of 
leaving  England  —  (Hush  !  again — 
hush  !)  My  friend  was  present  when 
these  two  young  persons  met,  before- 
the  probable  absence  of  many  years, 
and  so  was  the  mother  of  the  lady 'to 
whose  hand  he  still  hoped  one  day  to 
aspire.  He  saw  that  his  young  rival 
wished  to  say,  '  Farewell !'  and  with- 
out a  witness :  that  farewell  was  all 
that  his  honour  and  his  reason  could 
suffer  him  to  say.  My  friend  saw  that 
the  lady  felt  the  natural  gratitude  for 
a  great  service,  and  the  natural  pity 
for  a  generous  and  unfortunate  affec- 
tion ;  for  so,  Lady  Ellinor,  he  only  in- 
terpreted the  sob  that  reached  his 
ear !  What  think  you  my  friend  did? 
Your  high  mind  at  once  conjectures. 
He  said  to  himself — 'If  I  am  ever 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XIV. 


[July, 


to  be  blest  with  the  heart  which,  in 
spite  of  disparity  of  years,  I  yet  hope 
to  win,  let  me  show  how  entire  is  the 
trust  that  I  place  in  its  integrity  and 
innocence:  let  the  romance  of  first 
youth  be  closed — the  farewell  of  pure 
hearts  be  spoken — unimbittered  by  the 
idle  jealousies  of  one  mean  suspicion.' 
With  that  thought,  which  you,  Lady 
Ellinor,  will  never  stoop  to  blame, 
he  placed  his  hand  on  that  of  the 
noble  mother,  drew  her  gently 
towards  the  door,  and,  calmly  confi- 
dent of  the  result,  left  these  two 
young  natures  to  the  unwitnessed 
impulse  of  maiden  honour  and  manly 
duty." 

All  this  was  said  and  done  with  a 
grace  and  earnestness  that  thrilled 
the  listeners :  word  and  action  suited 
each  to  each  with  so  inimitable  a  har- 
mony, that  the  spell  was  not  broken 
till  the  voice  ceased  and  the  door 
closed. 

That  mournful  bliss  for  which  I  had 
so  pined  was  vouchsafed :  I  was  alone 
with  her  to  whom,  indeed,  honour  and 
reason  forbade  me  to  say  more  than 
the  last  farewell. 

It  was  some  time  before  we  recovered 
— before  we /eft  that  we  were  alone. 

O  ye  moments'.!  [that  I  can  now  re- 
call with  so  little  sadness  in  the  mel- 
low and  sweet  remembrance,  rest 
ever  holy  and  undisclosed  in  the 
solemn  recesses  of  the  heart.  Yes ! — 
whatever  confession  of  weakness  was 
interchanged,  we  were  not  unworthy 
of  the  trust  that  permitted  the  mourn- 
ful consolation  of  the  parting.  No 
trite  love-tale — with  vows  not  to  be 
fulfilled,  and  hopes  that  the  future 
must  belie — mocked  the  realities  of 
the  life  that  lay  before  us.  Yet  on  the 
confines  of  the  dream,  we  saw  the 
day  rising  cold  upon  the  world :  and 
if— children  as  we  wellnigh  were—- 
we shrunk  somewhat  from  the  light, 
we  did  not  blaspheme  the  sun,  and 
cry  "  There  is  darkness  in  the  dawn!" 


All  that  we  attempted  was  to  com- 
fort and  strengthen  each  other  for 
that  which  must  be :  not  seeking  to 
conceal  the  grief  we  felt,  but  pro- 
mising, with  simple  faith,  to  struggle 
against  the  grief.  If  vow  were  pledged 
between  us) —  that  was  the  vow  — 
each  for  the  other's  sake  would  strive 
to  enjoy  the  blessings  Heaven  left 
us  still.  Well  may  I  say  that  we 
were  children !  I  know  not,  in  the 
broken  words  that  passed  between  us, 
in  the  sorrowful  hearts  which  those 
words  revealed — I  know  not  if  there 
were  that  which  they  who  own,  in 
human  passion,  but  the  storm  and 
the  whirlwind,  would  call  the  love  of 
maturer  years — the  love  that  gives 
fire  to  the  song,  and  tragedy  to  the 
stage ;  but  I  know  that  there  was 
neither  a  word  nor  a  thought  which 
made  the  sorrow  of  the  children  a 
rebellion  to  the  heavenly  Father. 

And  again  the  door  unclosed,  and 
Fanny  walked  with  a  firm  step  to  her 
mother's  side,  and,  pausing  there, 
extended  her  hand  to  me,  and  said, 
as  I  bent  over  it,  "Heaven  WILL  be 
with  you !" 

A  word  from  Lady  Ellinor ;  a  frank 
smile  from  him — the  rival ;  one  last, 
last  glance  from  the  soft  eyes  of 
Fanny,  and  then  Solitude  rushed  upon 
me — rushed,  as  something  visible, 
palpable,  overpowering.  I  felt  it  in 
the  glare  of  the  sunbeam — I  heard  it 
in  the  breath  of  the  air :  like  a  ghost 
it  rose  there — where  she  had  filled  the 
space  with  her  presence  but  a  moment 
before?  A  something  seemed  gone 
from  the  universe  for  ever ;  a  change 
like  that  of  death  passed  through  my 
being ;  and  when  I  woke  to  feel  that 
my  being  lived  again,  I  knew  that  it 
was  my  youth  and  its  poet-land  that 
were  no  more,  and  that  I  had  passed 
with  an  unconscious  step,  which  never 
could  retrace  its  way,  into  the  hard 
world  of  laborious  man ! 


1849.] 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


63 


THE  GAME  LAWS  IN  SCOTLAND. 


THOSE  who  have  been  .accustomed 
to  watch  the  tactics  of  the  Manchester 
party  cannot  have  overlooked  or  for- 
gotten the  significant  coincidence,  in 
point  of  time,  between  Mr  Bright's 
attack  on  the  Game  Laws,  and  the  last 
grand  assault  upon  the  barrier  which 
formerly  protected  British  agriculture. 
That  wily  lover  of  peace  among  all 
orders  of  men  saw  how  much  it  would 
assist  the  ultimate  designs  of  his 
party  to  excite  distrust  and  enmity 
between  the  two  great  divisions  of 
the  protectionist  garrison — the  own- 
ers and  the  cultivators  of  land  ;  and 
the  anti- game-law  demonstration  was 
planned  for  that  purpose.  The  ma- 
noeuvre was  rendered  useless  by  the 
sudden  and  unconditional  surrender 
of  the  fortress  by  that  leader,  whose 
system  of  defence  has  ever  been,  as 
Capefigue  says  —  "  ce"der  incessam- 
ment."  It  is  impossible,  however,  to 
disguise  the  true  source  of  the  sudden 
sympathy  for  the  farmers'  grievances, 
which  in  1845  and  1846  yearned  in 
the  compassionate  bowels  of  the 
agrarian  leaders,  and  led  to  the 
lengthened  inquiries  of  Mr  Bright's 
committee. 

But  it  seems  we  are  not  yet  done 
with  the  game- law  agitation.  It  is 
true  the  last  rampart  of  protection  is 
levelled  to  the  ground :  but  the  sub- 
jugation of  the  country  interest  to  the 
potentates  of  the  factory  is  not  yet 
accomplished.  The  owners  of  the 
soil  have  not  yet  bowed  low  enough 
to  the  Baal  of  free  trade ;  their  influ- 
ence is  not  altogether  obliterated,  nor 
their  privileges  sufficiently  curtailed ; 
and  therefore  Mr  Bright  and  the 
Anti-Game-Law  Association  have 
buckled  on  their  armour  once  more, 
and  the  tenantry  are  again  invited  to 
join  in  the  crusade  against  those  who, 
they  are  assured,  have  always  been 
their  inveterate  oppressors ;  and,  to 
cut  off  as  much  as  possible  the  re- 
motest chance  of  an  amicable  settle- 
ment, it  is  proclaimed  that  no  con- 
cession will  be  accepted — no  proposal 
of  adjustment  listened  to — short  of  the 
total  and  immediate  abolition  of  every 
statute  on  the  subject  of  game. 

The  truth  is,  that  this  branch  of 


the  agitation  trade  is  too  valuable  to 
be  lost  sight  of  by  those  who  earn 
their  bread  or  their  popularity  in  that 
line  of  business.  Hundreds  of  honest 
peasants,  rotting  in  unwholesome 
gaols,  their  wives  and  children  herded 
in  thousands  to  the  workhouse — hard- 
working tenants  sequestrated  by  a 
grasping  and  selfish  aristocracy — these 
are  all  too  fertile  topics  for  the 
platform  philanthropist  to  be  risked 
by  leaving  open  any  door  for  concilia- 
tion ;  and  therefore  the  terms  de- 
manded are  such  as  it  is  well  known 
cannot  be  accepted. 

Our  attention  has  been  attracted  to 
the  doings  of  an  association  which 
has  for  its  professed  object  the  aboli- 
tion of  all  game  laws,  and  which  has 
recently  opened  a  new  campaign  in 
Scotland,  under  the  leadership  of  the 
chief  magistrate  of  Edinburgh,  and 
one  of  the  representatives  of  the  city. 
Of  course  the  construction  of  such 
societies  is  no  longer  a  mystery  to  any 
one ;  and  that  under  our  notice  ap- 
pears to  be  got  up  on  the  most  ap- 
proved pattern,  and  with  all  the 
newest  improvements.  A  staff  of 
active  officials  directs  its  movements, 
and  collects  funds — lecturers,  pam- 
phleteers, newspaper  editors  are  paid 
or  propitiated.  From  the  raw  ma- 
terial of  Mr  Bright's  blue-books  the 
most  exaggerated  statements  and 
calculations  of  the  most  zealous  wit- 
nesses are  carefully  picked  out,  and 
worked  up  into  a  picture,  which  is 
held  up  to  a  horrified  public  as  a 
true  representation  of  the  condition 
of  the  rural  districts ;  and  the  game 
laws  become,  in  the  hands  of  such 
artists,  a  monster  pestilence,  enough 
to  have  made  the  hair  of  Pharaoh 
himself  to  stand  on  end.  It  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at  if  some,  who  have 
not  had  the  opportunity  of  investigat- 
ing for  themselves  the  effects  of  these 
laws,  have  been  misled  by  the  bold 
ingenuity  of  the  professed  fabricators 
of  grievances ;  but  it  is  a  fact  which 
•we  shall  again  have  occasion  to 
notice,  that  they  have  made  but  little 
impression  on  the  tenant  farmers.  Of 
the  few  members  of  that  class  who 
have  taken  an  active  share  in  the 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


agitation,  we  doubt  if  there  is  one 
who  could  prove  a  loss  from  game  on 
any  year's  crop  to  the  value  of  a  five- 
pound  note.*  The  fact  is,  that  while 
no  one  will  deny  the  existence  of  in- 
dividual cases  of  hardship  from  the 
operation  of  the  game  laws,  you  will 
hear  comparatively  little  about  them 
among  those  who  are  represented  as 
groaning  under  their  intolerable  bur- 
den. If  you  would  learn  the  weight 
of  the  grievance,  you  must  go  to  the 
burghs  and  town-councils ;  and  there 
— among  small  grocers  and  dissenting 
clergymen,  who  would  be  puzzled  to 
distinguish  a  pheasant  from  a  bird-of- 
paradise — yon  will  be  made  acquaint- 
ed with  the  extent  of  the  desolation 
of  these  "fearful  wildfowl:"  from 
them  you  will  learn  the  true  shape 
and  dimensions  of  "  the  game-law 
incubus,"  which,  as  one  orator  of  the 
tribe  tells  us,  "  is  gradually  changing 
the  surface  of  this  once  fertile  land 
into  a  desert." 

But  while  we  are  willing  to  allow 
for  a  certain  leaven  of  misled  sin- 
cerity among  the  supporters  of  this 
association,  it  is  evident  that,  among 
its  most  active  and  influential  leaders, 
the  relief  of  the  farmer  or  the  relaxa- 
tion of  penal  laws  is  not  the  real 
object.  We  shall  show  from  their 
own  writings  and  speeches  the  most 
convincing  proof  that  they  contem- 
plate far  more  extensive  and  funda- 
mental changes  than  the  mere  abo- 
lition of  the  game  laws.  There  is 
not,  indeed,  much  congruity  or  sys- 
tem in  the  opinions  which  we  shall 
have  to  quote;  but  in  one  point  it 
will  be  seen  that  they  all  concur — a 
vindictive  hostility  to  the  possessors 
of  land,  and  an  eager  desire  to  abridge 
or  destroy  the  advantages  attached, 
or  supposed  to  be  attached,  to  that 
description  of  property.  Thus  the 
system  of  entails — the  freedom  of  real 
property  from  legacy  and  probate 
duty — the  landlord's  preferable  lien 
for  the  rent  of  his  land,  figure  in  the 
debates  of  the  abolitionist  orators, 
along  with  other  topics  equally  rele- 
vant to  the  game  laws,  as  oppressive 
bardens  on  the  industry  of  the  coun- 


try. The  system  of  the  tenure  of 
land,  also,  is  pronounced  to  be  a  cry- 
ing injustice ;  and  one  gentleman 
modestly  insists  on  the  necessity  of  a 
law  for  compelling  the  landlord  to 
make  payment  to  his  tenant  at  the 
expiry  of  every  lease  for  any  increase 
in  the  value  of  the  farm  during  his 
occupation.  The  author  of  an  "  Essay 
on  the  Evils  of  Game-Laws,"  which 
the  association  rewarded  with  their 
highest  premium,  and  which,  there- 
fore, we  are  fairly  entitled  to  take  as 
an  authorised  exposition  of  their  senti- 
ments, thus  enlarges  on  "  the  wither- 
ing and  ruinous  thraldom"  to  which 
the  farmers  are  subjected  by  a  system 
of  partial  legislation. 

"  No  individual,"  he  complains,  "  of 
this  trade  has  ever  risen  to  import- 
ance and  dignity  in  the  state.  While 
merchants  of  every  other  class,  law- 
yers, and  professional  men  of  every 
other  class,  have  often  reached  the 
highest  honours  which  the  crown  has 
to  bestow,  no  farmer  has  ever  yet 
attained  even  to  a  seat  in  the  legisla- 
ture, or  to  any  civic  title  of  distinc- 
tion ;  uncertain  as  the  trade  is  natu- 
rally, and  harassed  and  weighed 
down  by  those  sad  enactments  the 
game  laws,  to  be  enrolled  among  the 
class  of  farmers  is  now  tantamount  to 
saying,  that  you  belong  to  a  caste 
which  is  for  ever  excluded  from  the 
rewards  of  fair  and  honourable  ambi- 
tion."— (Mr  Cheine  Shepherd's  Essay. 
Edinburgh,  1847.) 

The  association  of  the  game  laws 
with  the  scorns  which  "  patient  merit 
of  the  unworthy  takes,"  is  at  least  in- 
genious. We  confess,  with  Mr  Cheine 
Shepherd,  that  the  aspect  of  the  times 
is  wofully  discouraging  to  any  hope 
that  a  coronet,  "or  even  the  lowest 
order  of  knighthood,"  will  in  our  days 
become  the  usual  reward  for  skill 

"  In  small-boned  lambs,  the  horse-hoe,  or 
the  drill." 

We  cannot  flatter  him  with  the  pros- 
pect of  becoming  a  Cincinnatus ;  or 
that  we  shall  live  to  see  the  time  when 
muck  shall  make  marquisates  as  well 
as  money ;  and  perhaps  the  best  ad- 


*  "The  game  agitators  are  individuals  who  suffer  a  little,  and  see  their  brethren 
suffering  more,  and  who  have  their  feelings  annoyed;  and  those  who  are  not  hurt  at 
all  by  game,  but  will  strike  at  any  public  wrong." — Speech  of  Mr  Munro,  one  of  the 
Council  of  the  Association. 


1849.] 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


65 


vice,  under  the  circumstances,  we 
can  tender  him,  is  that  which  the  old 
oracle  gave  to  certain  unhappy  shep- 
herds in  Virgil's  time — 

"  Pascite,  ut  ante,  boves,  pueri — submit- 
tite  tauros." 

Absurd,  however,  as  the  complaint 
of  this  ambitious  Damon  appears,  it 
indicates  at  least  the  extent  of  change 
which  he  and  his  patrons  of  the  asso- 
ciation think  they  may  justly  demand. 
It  is  not,  then,  redress  of  game-law 
grievances  they  aim  at,  but  an  inde- 
finite change  in  the  social  and  political 
system  of  the  country.  If  any  one 
doubts  this,  let  him  read  the  following 
extract  from  the  address  of  Mr  Wilson 
of  Glassmount : — 

"  Much  organic  change  must,  how- 
ever, precede  the  reforms  for  which 
they  were  now  agitating.  The  suf- 
frage must  be  extended. — (applause) — 
and,  above  all,  the  voters  must  be 
protected  in  the  exercise  of  their  func- 
tions by  the  ballot;  for,  in  a  country 
where  so  great  a  disparity  existed  be- 
tween the  social  condition  of  the  elec- 
toral body,  parliamentary  election, 
as  now  conducted  under  a  system  of 
open  voting,  was  only  a  delusion  and 
a  mockery." — (Caledonian  Mercury, 
Feb.  12,  1849.) 

From  such  an  authority  we  cannot 
expect  much  amity  towards  the  aris- 
tocracy, who,  he  says,  "  it  is  notorious, 
are,  in  point  of  political,  scientific,  and 
general  knowledge,  far  behind  those 
employed  in  commerce  and  manufac- 
tures."* He  compares  the  present 
etate  of  Britain  with  "  the  condition 
of  France  anterior  to  her  first  revolu- 
tion, when  the  ancient  noblesse  pos- 
sessed the  same  exclusive  privileges 
which  are  still  enjoyed  by  the  aristo- 
cracy of  this  country — and,  among  the 
rest,  a  game  law,  which  was  adminis- 
tered with  so  much  severity,  that  it  is 
admitted  on  all  hands  to  have  been 
the  chief  cause  of  that  convulsion 
which  shook  Europe  to  its  centre."f 

France  and  its  institutions  form  a 
subject  of  constant  eulogy  to  this 
gentleman,  whose  speeches  show  him 
to  be  by  far  the  ablest,  and,  at  the 


same  time,  the  most  straightforward 
of  the  League  lecturers.  He  admon- 
ishes our  landed  proprietors  to  visit 
that  country.  "In  the  social  condi- 
tion of  that  country  they  would  see 
the  results  of  the  abolition  of  those 
class  privileges  and  distinctions  which 
their  order  are  still  permitted  to  enjoy 
in  England ;  and  they  would  there 
find  a  widespread  comfort  in  all  the  ru- 
ral districts,  which  has  been  produced 
by  the  subdivision  of  property,  and 
which  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in  this 
country,  where  game  laws,  and  laws 
of  entail  and  primogeniture,  are  main- 
tained for  the  exclusive  amusement 
and  aggrandisement,"  &c4 

We  are  willing  to  believe  that  Mr 
Wilson  of  Glassmount  has  never  him- 
self visited  the  country  whose  condi- 
tion he  longs  to  see  resembled  here ; 
and  that  it  is  simply  from  ignorance 
that  he  eulogises  the  agricultural  pros- 
perity of  a  land  where  five  bushels  of 
wheat  is  the  average  yield  of  an  impe- 
rial acre — where,  in  two  generations, 
the  lauded  system  of  the  Code  Napo- 
leon has  produced  five  and  a-half 
millions  of  proprietors,  the  half  of 
whom  have  revenues  not  exceeding 
£2  a-year,  and  whom  the  greatest 
statist  of  France  describes  as  "pro- 
prietaires  republicains  et  qffames." 
Our  object,  however,  is  not  to  reason 
with  adversaries  of  this  stamp,  but 
simply  to  show,  from  their  own  words, 
the  nature  of  the  reforms  they  con- 
template, under  cover  of  a  design  to 
ameliorate  the  game  laws.  It  may 
be  said,  indeed,  that  such  indiscreet 
avowals  of  the  more  zealous  members 
of  the  Anti-Game-Law  Association 
cannot  be  fairly  ascribed  to  its  leaders. 
But  though  their  language  is,  *of 
course,  more  wary,  it  were  easy  to 
select  from  their  orations  even  equally 
strong  proofs  of  that  bitter  hostility 
to  the  landed  interest,  which  prompts 
Mr  Bright  himself  to  cheer  on  his  fol- 
lowers with  the  announcement  that  the 
people  are  ready  to  throw  off  "  the 
burdens  imposed  on  them  by  an  aris- 
tocracy who  oppress,  grind  them  down, 
and  scourge  them;"  and  "that  the 
time  is  now  come  to  teach  the  pro- 


*  Lecture  on  the  Game  Laws,  by  R.  Wilson,  &c.,  March  22,  1848. 

t  Ibid.  $  Ibid. 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCV.  E 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


[July, 


prietors  of  the  soil  the  limits  of  their 
rights."  * 

A  reference  to  the  proceedings  of 
the  anti-game-law  leaders  will  show 
that  the  specimens  we  have  given  are 
only  fair  samples  of  the  factions  spirit 
— the  querulous,  yet  bullying  and 
vindictive  tone,  in  which  they  have 
conducted  this  controversy.  No  one 
can  seriously  believe  that  a  hostility, 
directed  not  against  these  laws  in 
particular,  but  against  the  whole  social 
and  political  system  of  our 'country, 
can  be  founded  on  a  wise  and  deliber- 
ate review  of  the  effects  of  the  statutes 
in  question.  Discontent  with  things 
in  general  is  a  disease  which  admits 
of  no  remedy,  and  which  any  ordinary 
treatment,  by  argument  or  concession, 
would  only  aggravate. 

There  are  many,  however,  of  more 
moderate  views,  who  are  interested 
in  knowing  to  what  extent  the  com- 
plaints they  have  heard  are  founded 
on  reason,  and  are  capable  of  redress. 
We  purpose,  for  the  present,  to  limit 
our  remarks  principally  to  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Scotch  law  upon  game, 
both  because  agitation  on  this  subject 
has  recently  been  most  active  on  this 
side  of  the  Tweed,  and  because  we 
think  the  important  differences  in  the 
game-laws  of  England  and  Scotland 
have  not  been  sufficiently  attended 
to,  and  have  given  rise  to  much  popular 
misapprehension. 

All  the  abolition  orators  begin  by 
telling  us  that  game  laws  are  a  rem- 
nant of  the  feudal  system — that  they 
originated  in  the  tyranny  and  oppres- 
sion of  the  middle  ages,  and  are, 
therefore,  wholly  unsuited  to  our  im- 
proved state  of  society.  Such  an 
origin,  of  course,  condemns  them  at 
once ;  for,  in  the  popular  mind,  feudal 
law  is  somehow  synonymous  with 
slavery,  rape,  robbery,  and  all  that  is 
damnable.  The  truth  is,  however, 
that  the  game  law  of  Scotland  has 
no  more  connexion  with  the  feudal 
law  than  with  the  code  of  Lycurgus. 
Even  as  regards  England,  there  is 
good  ground  for  questioning  Black- 
stone's  doctrine  that  the  right  to  pur- 
sue and  kill  game  is,  in  all  cases,  trace- 


able to,  and  derived  from,  the  crown. 
But  in  Scotland,  at  all  events,  there 
never  existed  any  such  exclusive 
system  of  forest  laws  as  that  which 
grew  up  under  the  Norman  kings, 
and  which  King  John  was  finally  com- 
pelled to  renounce.  The  broad  and 
liberal  principle  out  of  which  the 
Scotch  game  law  has  grown,  is  the 
maxim  of  the  civil  law — quod  nullius 
est  occupanti  conceditur — that  any  one 
may  lawfully  appropriate  and  enjoy 
whatever  belongs  to  no  one  else — a 
maxim  which  must  necessarily  form 
the  fountainhead  of  all  property.  All 
wild  animals,  therefore,  may  be  seized 
by  any  one,  and  the  law  will  defend 
his  possession  of  them.  But  out  of 
this  very  principle  itself  there  natu- 
rally springs  a  most  important  restric- 
tion of  the  common  privilege  of  pur- 
suing game ;  for  the  possessor  of 
Ian d,  as  well  as  the  possessor  of  game, 
must  be  protected  in  the  exclusive  en- 
joyment of  what  (though  originally 
res  nullius)  he  has  made  his  own  by 
occupation  or  otherwise.  It  is  evi- 
dent, then,  that  the  contingent  right 
of  the  hunter  to  the  animals  he  may 
succeed  in  seizing,  can  be  exercised  to 
its  full  extent  only  in  an  unoccupied 
and  uncultivated  countiy ;  and  must 
give  way,  wherever  the  soil  has  be- 
come the  subject  of  property,  to  the 
prior  and  perfect  right  of  the  land- 
owner. Accordingly,  we  find  that  in 
the  Roman  law  the  affirmation  of  the 
common  right  to  hunt  wild  animals 
is  coupled  with  this  important  restric- 
tion, under  the  very  same  title — "  Qui 
alienum  fundum  ingreditur,  venandi 
aut  aucupandi  gratia,  potest  a  domino 
prohiberi  ne  ingrediatur;"  and,  not- 
withstanding the  perplexed  and  ano- 
malous nature  of  the  tenure  of  land 
among  the  Romans,  we  find  every- 
where traces  of  a  strict  law  of  trespass, 
from  the  Twelve  Tables  down  to  Jus- 
tinian. And  in  this  the  civil  law  was 
followed  by  that  of  Scotland.  Subject 
to  this  inevitable  restriction,  and  to  a 
few  regulative  enactments  of  less  im- 
portance, the  privilege  continued  open 
to  all,  without  distinction,  up  to  the 
year  1621. f  About  this  time  the  tenor 


*  Address  in  Mr  Welford's  Influences  of  the  Game  Laws. 

f  The  statute  of  1600,  prohibiting  hunting  and  hawking  to  those  who  had  not 
"  the  revenues  requisit  in  sik  pastimes,"  is  plainly  one  of  a  sumptuary  tenor,  and  not 
properly  a  game  law. 


1849.] 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


67 


of  the  statutes  shows  that  game  of  all 
kinds  had  become  exceedingly  scarce ; 
and  it  was  probably  with  a  view  of 
preventing  its  extirpation,  as  well  as 
of  discouraging  trespass,  which,  from 
the  increase  of  the  population,  had 
increased  in  frequency,  that,  in  the 
above-mentioned  year,  an  act  was  in- 
troduced which  was,  without  doubt,  a 
decided  violation  of  the  principle  on 
which  the  system  was  originally 
founded.  The  act  1621  prohibited 
every  one  from  hunting  or  hawking 
who  had  not  "  a  plough  of  land  in 
heritage;"  and  subsequent  statutes  ex- 
tended this  prohibition  to  the  sale  and 
purchase,  and  even  to  the  possession 
of  game,  by  persons  not  thus  qualified. 
This,  we  repeat,  was  a  direct  depar- 
ture from  the  leading  maxim  of  the 
law,  as  it  stood  previously ;  and  we 
can  see  no  reason  whatever  for  now 
retaining  it  on  the  statute-book.  It 
is  notorious,  however,  that,  practi- 
cally, these  statutes  have  now  fallen 
into  desuetude,  and  that  the  mere 
want  of  the  heritable  qualification 
has  not,  for  a  long  period,  been  made 
a  ground  for  prosecution.  In  fact, 
the  privilege  is  open  to  any  one  pro- 
vided with  the  landlord's  permission, 
and  who  has  paid  the  tax  demanded 
by  the  Exchequer,  though  he  may  not 
possess  a  foot  of  land.  When,  then, 
we  find  the  orators  of  Edinburgh  com- 
plaining of  the  harsh  and  intolerable 
operation  of  the  qualification  statutes, 
it  affords  the  most  complete  evidence 
either  of  their  utter  ignorance  of  the 
actual  state  of  the  law,  or  of  the 
weakness  of  a  cause  that  needs  such 
disingenuous  advocacy. 

The  fiscal  license,  which  was  first 
required  by  the  act  24th  Geo.  ni.  c. 
43,  cannot  be  justly  regarded  in  the 
light  of  an  infraction  of  the  general 
principle  of  the  Scotch  law.  Its 
direct  object  is  not  the  limitation  of 
the  right  of  hunting,  but  the  main- 
tenance of  the  public  revenue ;  and  it 
will  be  readily  admitted  by  all  rea- 
sonable men  that,  on  the  one  hand, 
there  cannot  be  a  less  objectionable 
source  of  taxation  than  the  privilege 
in  question,  and,  on  the  other,  that 
the  duty  is  not  excessive,  when  we 
find  above  60,000  persons  in  Great 
Britain  voluntarily  subjecting  them- 
selves to  it  every  year. 

The  two  other  principal  enactments 


regarding  the  pursuit  of  game  in  Scot- 
land, commonly  known  as  the  Night 
and  the  Day  Trespass  Acts,  9  Geo. 
IV.  c.  69,  and  2  and  3  Will.  IV.  c. 
68,  cannot  here  be  criticised  in  de- 
tail. Their  provisions  contain  one  or 
two  anomalies  which  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  notice  below,  in  sug- 
gesting some  practicable  amend- 
ments on  the  present  law.  But  as  to 
their  general  spirit,  we  venture  to 
affirm  that  they  are  most  legitimate 
developments  of  the  general  prin- 
ciple above  stated.  In  every  class 
of  injuries  to  the  rights  of  others, 
there  are  some  species  of  the  offence 
which,  from  their  frequency,  or  from 
their  being  difficult  to  detect,  must 
necessarily  be  prevented  by  more 
stringent  prohibitions  than  those  at- 
tached to  the  genus  in  general ;  and 
in  the  same  way  that  orchards  for 
example,  timber,  salmon  fisheries, 
and  many  other  subjects  are  protected 
by  special  penalties,  so  has  it  been 
found  requisite  to  amplify  the  com- 
mon law  of  trespass,  in  its  application 
to  that  particular  manner  of  trespass 
which  is  confessedly  the  most  frequent 
and  annoying.  If  the  penalties  are 
unnecessarily  stringent,  let  them  by 
all  means  be  modified ;  but  their  se- 
verity, in  comparison  with  the  pun- 
ishment of  ordinary  trespass,  is  not 
inconsistent  with  justice,  or  the  prin- 
ciples of  wise  legislation. 

We  have  adverted,  in  this  hasty 
sketch,  only  to  the  prominent  fea- 
tures and  growth  of  the  law  of  Scot- 
land ;  but  a  more  detailed  comparison 
with  that  of  England  and  other 
countries  of  Europe,  especially  when 
recent  statutes  and  decisions  are 
taken  into  view,  will  fully  justify  the 
opinion  of  Hutcheson  and  other  well 
qualified  judges,  that  it  is  "the  most 
liberal  and  enlightened  of  all  laws 
as  to  game."  It  recognises,  of  course, 
no  such  thing  as  property  in  game 
more  than  in  any  other  animals  of  a 
wild  nature.  The  proprietorof  a  manor 
has  no  right  to  the  pheasant  he  has 
fed  until  he  shall  have  actually 
brought  it  to  bag,  or  at  least  disabled 
it  from  escaping ;  and  the  right  which 
he  then  first  acquires  is  quite  inde- 
pendent of  his  ownership  of  the  land. 

To  many  the  distinction  thus 
created,  by  considering  all  game  as 
wild  animals,  appears  too  theoretical ; 


68 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


[July, 


and  no  doubt  it  is  a  question  for 
zoologists  rather  than  for  lawyers  to 
decide,  whether  there  really  be  in  ani- 
mals any  such  permanent  and  inva- 
riable character  as  to  justify  such  a 
universal  distinction.  There  is  the 
strongest  presumption  that  all  our 
domesticated  animals  were  at  one 
time  ferae  ;  and  it  is  rather  a  difficult 
task  to  show  reason  for  considering 
some  classes  as  "  indornitabiles"  when 
we  see  the  reindeer,  of  a  tribe  natu- 
rally the  most  shy  of  man,  living  in  the 
hut  of  his  Lapland  master — and  when 
we  recollect  that  among  birds,  the  duck, 
turkey,  and  peacock,  with  us  the  most 
civilised  and  familiar  of  poultry,  are 
elsewhere  most  indubitable  ferae  at 
this  very  moment.  It  has  been  argued 
that  the  commoner  kinds  of  game, 
under  the  system  of  rearing  and  feed- 
ing now  so  general,  are  scarcely  more 
shy  or  migratory  in  their  habits  than 
those  animals  which  the  law  contrasts 
with  them  as  mansuefactce,  and  there- 
fore regards  as  property:  that  even 
when  straying  in  the  fields,  we  may 
as  reasonably  impute  to  them  the 
animus  revertendi — the  instinct  of  re- 
turning to  their  haunts  and  coverts, 
as  to  pigeons  and  bees  which  the  law 
for  this  reason  retains  under  its  pro- 
tection, though  abroad  from  their 
cots  or  hives ;  that  the  common 
objection  as  to  the  difficulty  of  iden- 
tifying game,  is  one  which  applies  as 
strongly  to  many  other  subjects  re- 
cognised as  vested  in  an  owner ;  and 
finally,  that,  being  now  in  reality 
valuable  articles  of  commerce,  these 
classes  of  animals  should  cease  to  be 
viewed  as  incapable  of  becoming 
property.  It  is  difficult  to  gainsay 
the  premises  on  which  this  proposal 
is  built :  and  if  we  look  to  analogy,  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  the  invariable 
tendency  of  civilisation  is  towards 
the  restriction  of  the  category  of  res 
nullius,  and  by  art  and  culture  to 
subject  all  products  of  the  earth  to 
the  use,  and  consequently  to  the  pos- 
session of  man.  But,  apart  from  this 
speculative  view  of  the  subject — it 
seems  to  us  that,  while  common 
opinion  is  unprepared  for  so  funda- 
mental a  change  in  the  law  of  Scot- 
land, the  alteration  proposed  would 
not  in  practice  improve  the  position 
of  any  of  those  classes  who  are  affect- 
ed by  the  operation  of  the  present 


game  laws,  nor  materially  obviate 
any  of  the  bad  effects  usually  ascribed 
to  them. 

But  it  is  time  now  to  turn  to  those 
alleged  evils,  and  to  form  some  judg- 
ment as  to  whether  they  are  in  reality 
so  weighty  and  numerous,  that  no- 
thing short  of  the  total  abolition  of 
the  game  laws  can  effectually  check 
them.  The  abrogation  of  a  law  is 
no  doubt  an  easy  way  of  overcoming 
the  difficulty  of  amending  it— in  the 
same  way  that  the  expedient  of  wear- 
ing no  breeches  will  unquestionably 
save  you  the  cost  of  patching  them  ; 
and  as  a  device  for  diminishing  game- 
law  offences,  the  total  repeal  of  all 
game  laws  is  perhaps  as  simple  and 
efficacious  a  recipe  as  could  well  be 
conceived.  But  let  us  first  inquire 
into  the  existence  of  the  disease,  be- 
fore we  resort  to  so  summary  a  re- 
medy. 

There  are  three  distinct  parties  who 
are  said  to  be  injured  by  the  operation 
of  these  laws — The  community  at  large 
suffer  chiefly  by  being  deprived,  it  is 
alleged,  of  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  produce  of  the  soil,  which,  if  not 
consumed  by  game,  would  go  to  in- 
crease the  stock  of  human  food — The 
poacher  has  to  bear  the  double  injus- 
tice of  a  law  which  first  makes  the 
temptation,  and  then  punishes  the 
transgression — The  farmer  finds,  in  the 
protection  given  to  game,  a  source  of 
constant  annoyance,  loss,  and  disap- 
pointment. We  shall  take  these  com- 
plainants in  their  order. 

The  public,  (we  are  told  by  the  en- 
lightened commercial  gentleman  who 
represents  the  metropolis  of  Scotland,) 
the  public  have  a  right  to  see  that 
none  of  the  means  for  maintaining 
human  life  are  wasted — a  great  popu- 
lar principle  popularly  and  broadly 
stated.  It  is  possible,  however,  that 
Mr  Cowan  may  not  have  contem- 
plated all  the  admirable  results  of  his 
principle.  He  may,  perchance,  not 
have  seen  that  it  sweeps  away,  not 
only  every  hare  and  pheasant,  but 
every  animal  whatever  that  cannot  be 
eaten  or  turned  to  profit  in  the  ledger. 
His  carnage  horses  eat  as  much  as 
would  maintain  six  poor  paper-makers 
and  their  families;  the  keep  of  his 
children's  poney  would  board  and 
educate  four  orphans  at  the  Ragged 
Schools.  But  we  are  not  yet  done 


1849.] 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


69 


with  him  ;  for  he  cannot  stick  his  fork 
into  that  tempting  fowl  before  him 
until  he  can  satisfy  us,  the  public, 
that  the  grain  it  has  consumed  would 
not  have  been  more  profitably  applied 
in  fattening  sheep  or  cattle.  And  what, 
pray,  is  that  array  of  plate  on  the 
buffet  behind  him  but  so  much  capi- 
tal held  back  from  the  creation  of 
employment  and  food  for  that  starv- 
ing population,  which  he  assures  us 
(though  every  one  but  himself  knows 
it  is  nonsense)  is  increasing  at  the 
rate  of  1000  per  diem !  Political 
economy  of  this  quality  may  do  very 
well  for  the  Edinburgh  Cb amber  of 
Commerce;  but  we  really  hope,  for 
the  credit  of  the  city  he  represents, 
that  he  will  not  expose  himself  on  any 
other  stage,  nor  consider  it  a  necessary 
part  of  his  duties  as  a  legislator,  to 
prescribe  the  precise  manner  in  which 
corn  shall  or  shall  not  be  used. 

The  supposed  amount  of  destruc- 
tion by  game  of  cereal  and  other  pro- 
duce, has  afforded  a  fine  field  for  the 
more  erudite  of  the  game  law  op- 
ponents. Mr  Gayford's  celebrated 
calculation,  that  three  hares  eat  as 
much  as  a  full-grown  sheep,  is  gene- 
rally assumed  as  the  infallible  basis  of 
their  estimates,  and  the  most  astound- 
ing results  are  evolved  from  it.*  Mr 
Charles  Stevenson  thinks  the  destruc- 
tion cannot  be  less  than  two  bushels 
per  acre  over  the  whole  kingdom,  re- 
presenting a  total  of  two  hundred 
thousand  quarters.  "Ifit  be  the  case," 
says  Mr  Chiene  Shepherd,  with  a 
modest  hesitation — "if  it  be  the  case, 
that  throughout  this  empire  the 
farmers,  in  general,  suffer  more  loss 
from  game  than  they  pay  in  the  form 
of  poor's  tax  (and  I  suppose  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  they  do  so — that  in 
most  parts  they  suffer  more  than  double 
the  amount  of  their  poor-rates,)  then 
it  follows,  of  course,  that  there  is  more 
destruction  from  game  than  would 


make  up  the  sum  collected  from  poor- 
rates  from  the  whole  lands  of  the 
empire."  f  Double  the  amount  of 
poor-rates  paid  by  land  may  be  taken 
roughly  at  some  £9,000,000.  But 
there  are  others  who  think  even  this 
too  low  an  estimate,  and  throw  into 
the  scale  (a  million  out  or  in  is  of  no 
importance)  the  county  rate,  high- 
way rate,  and  all  the  other  direct 
burdens  on  land  put  together!  Let 
us  carry  on  the  line  of  calculation  a 
step  further :  if  game  animals  alone 
consume  all  this,  and  if  we  allow  a 
fair  proportion  of  voracity  to  the 
minor,  but  more  numerous  ferce — rats, 
mice,  rooks,  wood-pigeons,  &c. — it  is 
clear  as  daylight  that  it  is  a  mere  de- 
lusion to  think  that  a  single  quarter  of 
wheat  can,  by  any  possibility,  escape 
the  universal  devastation.  There  is 
no  lunatic  so  incurable  as  your  ram- 
pant arithmetician ;  and  the  only  de- 
lusion that  could  stand  a  comparison 
with  the  above  would  be  the  attempt 
to  reason  such  men  out  of  their  ab- 
surdities. 

But  the  actual  waste  of  grain  is 
not,  it  seems,  the  only  way  in  which 
the  public  suffers.  The  annual  cost 
to  the  community  of  prosecutions  un- 
der the  game  acts  is  an  enormous  and 
annually  increasing  burden.  This  is 
proved,  of  course,  by  the  same  sys- 
tem of  statistics  run  mad  as  that  of 
which  we  have  just  given  some  speci- 
mens. The  game  convictions  in  the 
county  of  Bedford,  it  is  discovered, 
were,  in  the  year  1843,  36  per  cent  of 
the  total  male  summary  convictions ; 
and  the  lovers  of  the  marvellous,  who 
listen  to  such  statements,  are  quietly 
left  to  infer,  not  only  that  this  is 
usually  the  case  in  Bedfordshire,  but 
that  a  similar  state  of  things  prevails 
throughout  England  and  Scotland 
also.  They  are  sagacious  enough,  how- 
ever, never  to  refer  to  general  results. 
They  carefully  avoid  any  mention  of 


*  It  is  right  to  mention,  that  there  is  some  discrepancy  in  the  estimates  of  Mr 
Bright's  authorities  on  this  point,  of  whom  Mr  Gayford  is  comparatively  moderate  ; 
for  we  have  others  who,  (upon,  no  doubt,  equally  sound  data,)  think  two  hares  is  the 
proper  equivalent ;  and  Mr  Back  of  Norfolk  is  convinced  that  one  hare  is  worse  than 
a  sheep  ;  in  other  words,  that  one  hare  will  eat  up  a  statute  acre.  On  the  other 
hand,  Mr  Berkeley  weighed  the  full  stomachs  of  a  large  hare,  and  an  average  South- 
down sheep,  and  found  them  as  one  to  fifty-five.  So  that,  if  the  accounts  of  Mr 
Gayford  and  his  confreres  are  right,  we  have  arrived  at  a  law  in  physiological  science 
equally  new  and  surprising — that  the  digestive  powers  of  animals  increase  in  a  com- 
pound inverse  ratio  to  the  capacity  of  the  digestive  organs  ! 

f  Scotsman,  February  12,  1848. 


70 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


[July, 


the  fact,  (which,  however,  any  one 
may  learn  for  himself,  by  referring  to 
Mr  Phillipps'  tables,)  that  the  average 
of  the  game  convictions  during  the 
five  years  these  tables  include,  was, 
for  all  England,  not  36,  but  a  frac- 
tion over  6  per  cent  of  the  whole. 
Now,  let  us  see  how  the  case  stands 
in  Scotland.  We  have  observed  that 
our  northern  orators  always  draw  their 
illustrations  from  the  south  of  the 
Tweed;  and  we  have,  therefore,  look- 
ed with  some  curiosity  into  the  re- 
cords of  our  Scotch  county  courts, 
as  affording  some  test  of  the  real 
extent  of  the  grievance  in  this  part  of 
the  empire.  Unfortunately  these  re- 
cords are  not  preserved  in  a  tabular 
form  by  all  the  counties;  but  we 
have  been  favoured  with  returns  from 
five  of  the  most  important  on  the  east 
coast,  which  we  selected  as  being  those 
in  which  the  preservation  of  game  is 
notoriously  earned  to  the  greatest 
extent.  An  abstract  of  these  returns 
will  be  found  below,*  and  will  suffice 
to  show  how  false,  in  regard  to  Scot- 
land, is  the  assertion  that  game  pro- 
secutions are  alarmingly  numerous; 
while  every  one  knows  that  the  ex- 
pense is  borne,  not  by  the  public,  but 
by  the  private  party,  except  in  very 


rare  and  aggravated  cases.  From 
these  it  appears  that  the  whole  num- 
ber of  game  cases  tried,  or  reported  to 
the  authorities,  in  these  five  counties, 
during  the  years  1846  and  1847,  was 
one  hundred  and  forty- four,  being 
about  2.5  per  cent  of  the  whole.  Fife- 
shire  (which  was  selected  to  be  shown 
up  before  Mr  Bright's  committee  as 
an  abyss  of  game-law  abuses)  had,  in 
1848,  out  of  eight  hundred  and  thirty 
offences,  only  three  under  the  game 
acts.  As  to  the  alleged  progressive 
increase  of  such  cases,  the  subjoined 
table  of  the  numbers  for  the  five  years 
preceding  1848  f  proves  that,  whether 
it  be  true  or  not  as  respects  isolated 
districts  of  England,  that  the  num- 
ber of  game-law  trials  is  every  year 
becoming  a  heavier  burden  on  the 
public,  it  certainly  is  not  true  in  four 
of  the  largest  and  most  game-keeping 
counties  of  Scotland. 

We  have  now  to  make  a  remark  or 
two  on  the  plea  set  up  on  behalf  of 
the  poacher  against  the  present  game 
laws.  What  is  it  that  makes  a  man 
become  a  poacher?  "Temptation," 
says  Mr  Bright,  "  and  temptation  only. 
How  can  you  expect  that  the  poor  but 
honest  labourer,  who,  on  his  way  home 
from  his  daily  toil,  sees  hares  and 


1846. 

1847. 

Per  cent. 

Total 

Game 

Total 

Game 

(both  years.) 

cases. 

cases. 

cases. 

cases. 

Aberdeen, 

683 

2 

800 

5 

0.4 

Berwick, 

317 

10 

342 

16 

3.9 

Edinburgh, 

336 

12 

475 

14 

3.2 

Haddington, 

456 

33 

572 

33 

6.4 

Fife, 

862 

13 

819 

6 

1.1 

Total, 

2654 

70 

3008 

74 

2.5 

Compare  these  facts  with,  the  preposterous  statements  which  the  latest  orator  of 
the  league,  Mr  M.  Crichton,  has  been  repeating  to  listening  zanies  at  Greenock,  Glas- 
gow, and  Edinburgh,  that  "  the  commitments  arising  from  game  laws  amount  to  ONE- 
FOURTH  of  the  whole  crime  of  the  country." 

t  Return  of  game-law  offences  during  the  years  1843-7 


Counties. 

1843. 

1844. 

1845. 

1846. 

1847. 

Berwick, 

14 

8 

14 

10 

16 

Edinburgh, 

41 

48 

21 

12 

14 

Haddington, 

35 

55 

23 

33 

33 

Fife, 

30 

25 

19 

13 

6 

Total, 

120 

136 

77 

68 

69 

1849.] 

pheasaiits  swarming  round  his  path, 
should  abstain  from  eking  out  his 
scanty  meal  with  one  of  those  wild 
animals,  which,  though  on  your  land, 
are  no  more  yours  than  his  ?  The  idea 
would  never  have  occurred  to  him  if 
he  had  not  seen  the  pheasants ;  and  If 
there  had  been  no  game  laws,  he  would 
have  remained  an  upright  and  useful 
member  of  society. "  Such,  we  believe, 
is  the  beau-ideal  of  the  poacher,  as  we 
find  it  in  abolitionist  speeches,  and  in 
popular  afterpieces  at  the  theatre. 
He  is,  of  course,  always  poor,  but 
virtuous, — 

*'  A  friendless  man,  at  whose  dejected  eye 
Th'  unfeeling  proud  one  looks,  and  passes  by." 

We  shall  not  quarrel,  however,  with 
the  fidelity  of  this  fancy  sketch ;  but 
we  may  be  allowed  to  doubt  whether 
any  large  proportion  of  those  who 
incur  penalties  for  game  trespass  have 
been  led  into  temptation  by  the  mere 
abundance  of  game  in  large  preserves. 
Men  of  plain  sense  will  think  it  just 
as  fair  to  ascribe  the  frequency  of 
larceny  to  the  abundance  of  bandanas 
which  old  gentlemen  will  keep  dangling 
from  their  pockets  while  pursuing  their 
studies  at  print-shop  windows.  The 
evidence  taken  by  the  committee  seems 
rather  to  show  that  the  poacher's  trade 
thrives  best  where  there  is  what  is 
called  "  a  fair  sprinkling "  of  ill- 
watched  game,  than  where  he  has  to 
encounter  a  staff  of  vigilant  and  well- 
trained  keepers.  But  what  though 
the  case  were  otherwise?  Suppose 
the  existence  of  the  temptation  to  be 
admitted,  is  it  to  be  seriously  argued 
that  the  province  of  legislation  is  not 
to  prohibit  offence,  but  to  remove  all 
temptation  from  the  offenders?  not  to 
protect  men  in  the  enjoyment  of  their 
rights,  but  to  abridge  or  annihilate 
those  rights,  that  they  may  not  be 
invaded  by  others  ?  This,  we  affirm, 
is  the  principle  when  reduced  to  simple 
terms ;  and  startling  enough  it  is  to 
those  who  have  been  accustomed  to 
think  that  the  proper  tendency  of  laws 
and  civilisation  is  in  precisely  the 
opposite  direction.  What  although  a 
breach  of  these  laws  may  sometimes 
be  the  commencement  of  a  course  of 
crime,  are  there  no  other  temptations 
which  open  the  road  to  the  hulks  or 
the  penitentiary  ?  If  the  magistrates 
of  our  towns,  who  so  vehemently 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


71 


denounce  the  danger  of  the  game  laws, 
are  sincere  in  their  search  after  the 
sources  of  crime,  and  in  their  efforts 
to  repress  them,  we  can  help  their  in- 
quiries— we  can  show  them  at  their 
own  doors,  and  swarming  in  every 
street,  temptations  to  debauchery, 
which  have  made  a  hundred  crimes 
for  every  one  that  can  be  traced  to 
game  laws, — and  yet  we  cannot 
perceive  that  the  zeal  of  our  civic 
reformers  has  been  very  strenu- 
ously directed  to  discourage  or  to 
diminish  the  numbers  of  these  dens  of 
dissipation.  We  can  refer  them  to 
the  reports  of  our  gaol  chaplains  for 
proof  that  three  out  of  every  four 
prisoners  are  ignorant  of  the  simplest 
rudiments  of  education;  and  yet  a 
praiseworthy  attempt  lately  made  in 
our  metropolis  to  promote  instruction 
by  means  of  apprentice  schools,  was 
not  favoured  with  the  countenance  of 
our  chief  magistrate,  because  he  hap- 
pened to  be  engaged  hi  the  more  phi- 
lanthropic duty  of  presiding  at  a  meet- 
ing for  condemning  the  game  laws ! 

If  we  are  called  upon  to  assign  a 
reason  for  the  frequency  of  poaching, 
we  should  attribute  it  neither  to  the 
mere  superabundance  of  game  by 
itself,  nor  yet  to  the  pressure  of  po- 
verty, but  very  much  to  the  same  sort 
of  temptation  that  encourages  the 
common  thief  to  filch  a  watch  or  a 
handkerchief— namely,  the  facility  of 
disposing  of  his  spoil.  Well-stocked 
covers  may  present  opportunities  to 
the  poacher  for  turning  his  craft  to 
account,  but  it  is  plain  the  practice 
would  be  comparatively  rare  if  he  did 
not  know  that  at  the  bar  of  the  next 
alehouse  he  can  barter  his  sackful  of 
booty  either  for  beer  or  ready  coin,  and 
no  questions  asked.  Every  village  of 
1000  or  1500  inhabitants  offers  a 
market  for  his  wares,  and  any  surplus 
in  the  hands  of  the  country  dealer  can 
be  transferred  in  eighteen  hours  to  the 
London  poulterer's  window.  There 
cannot  be  a  doubt  that  the  consump- 
tion of  game  has  increased  enormously 
since  the  beginning  of  this  century. 
It  was  formerly  unknown  at  the  tables 
of  men  of  moderate  means,  except 
when  haply  it  came  as  an  occasional 
remembrance  from  some  country  re- 
lation, or  grateful  M.P.  Now-a-days 
the  spouse  of  any  third-rate  attorney 
or  thriving  tradesman  would  consider 


72 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


[July, 


her  housekeeping  disgraced  for  ever, 
if  she  failed  to  present  the  expected 
pheasant  or  brace  of  moorfowl  "  when 
the  goodman  feasts  his  friends."  And 
even  if  we  descend  to  the  artisans  and 
operatives  of  our  large  towns,  it  will 
be  found  that  hares  and  rabbits  form 
a  wholesome  and  by  no  means  unusual 
variation  of  their  daily  fare.  We  have 
the  evidence  of  one  of  the  great  Lead- 
enhall  game  dealers,  that  in  the  month 
of  November  hares  are  sent  up  to 
London  in  such  quantities,  that  they 
are  often  enabled  to  sell  them  at  9d., 
and  even  at  6d.  each.  The  average 
weight  of  a  hare  may  be  taken  at 
about  8  Ib. ;  and  if  we  deduct  one- 
half  for  the  skin,  &c.,  there  will  re- 
main 4  Ib.  of  nutritious  food,  which,  . 
even  at  2s.,  is  cheaper  than  beef  or 
mutton  ;  while  the  occasional  change 
cannot  but  be  both  agreeable  and 
beneficial  to  those  who  have  so  limited 
a  choice  of  food  within  reach  of  their 
means.  Some  idea  may  be  formed  of 
the  vast  quantity  of  game  brought 
into  London,  from  the  statements  of 
Mr  Brooke,  who  buys  £10,000  worth 
of  game  during  the  course  of  the  win- 
ter; and  there  are  ten  other  great 
salesmen  in  Leadenhall  market  alone. 
If  we  make  allowance  for  the  supplies 
sent  directly  to  the  smaller  poulterers, 
for  the  consumption  in  the  other  great 
towns  throughout  the  kingdom,  and 
for  the  probably  still  larger  quan- 
tity that  never  comes  into  market  at 
all,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  game 
has  now  become  an  important  part  of 
the  food  of  the  people,  and  that,  as  an 
article  of  commerce,  it  deserves  the 
attention  of  the  legislature.  Any 
attempt  to  check  the  production  and 
sale  of  a  commodity  for  which  there 
is  so  general  a  demand,  must  prove 
both  useless  and  mischievous.  It  is 
in  vain  to  proscribe  it  as  an  expensive 
luxury,  and  insist  on  the  substitution 
of  less  costly  fare.  It  may  be  true, 
for  anything  we  know,  that  the  grain 
or  provender  consumed  by  the  164,000 
head  of  game,  which  Mr  Brooke  dis- 
posed of  in  six  months,  might  have 
produced  a  greater  weight  of  bullocks 
or  Leicester  wedders,  (though  this  is 
extremely  unlikely,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  grain,  grass,  and  green 
crops  form  only  a  part  of  the  food  of 


any  of  the  game  species) ;  but,  whether 
true  or  not,  it  is  useless  to  prevent  the 
rearing  of  game  by  any  sort  of  sump- 
tuary enactment,  direct  or  indirect. 
The  proper  course  of  legislation  is  very 
plain.  While  compensation  should  be 
made  exigible  for  all  damage  from 
excess  of  game,  and  new  statutory 
provision  made  for  this  purpose,  if  the 
present  law  is  insufficient — fair  en- 
couragement should  at  the  same  time 
be  given  for  the  production,  in  a  legi- 
timate way,  of  what  is  required  for  the 
use  of  the  public.  Facilities  should  be 
afforded  to  the  honest  dealer  for  con- 
ducting his  trade  without  risk  or 
disguise,  and  the  useless  remnant  of 
the  qualification  law  in  Scotland 
should  be  abolished.  Measures  of  this 
nature,  by  turning  the  constant  de- 
mand for  game  into  proper  channels, 
will  prove  the  most  effectual  dis- 
couragement to  the  occupation  of  the 
poacher,  and  to  the  reckless  and  irre- 
gular habits  of  life  which  it  generally 
induces. 

A  very  opposite  result,  we  are  per- 
suaded, would  follow  from  the  adop- 
tion of  Mr  Bright's  quack  recipe  for 
putting  an  end  to  the  practice  of 
poaching.  By  what  indirect  influence 
is  the  abolition  of  the  game  laws  ex- 
pected to  produce  this  effect  ?  IfT 
indeed,  along  with  the  game,  laws, 
you  sweep  away  also  the  law  of  com- 
mon trespass — if  you  proclaim,  in  the 
nineteenth  centuiy,  a  return  to  the 
habits  of  the  golden  age,  when,  as 
Tibullns  tells  us — 

"  Nullus  erat  custos,  nulla  exclusura  volentes 
Janua;" 

and  if  you  authorise  the  populace  at 
large  to  traverse  every  park  and  en- 
closure, at  all  hoiirs  and  seasons,  and 
in  any  numbers  and  any  manner  they 
please,  then  we  can  understand  that  a 
few  months  probably  of  rustic  riot  and 
license  may  settle  the  question  by  the 
extermination  of  the  whole  game 
species.  But  we  have  not  yet  met 
any  game-law  reformer  so  rabid  as  to 
propose  putting  an  end  to  the  penal- 
ties on  ordinary  trespass  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, we  find  most  of  them,  (Sir 
Hairy  Verney  and  Mr  Pusey  among 
the  number,)*  anticipating  the  neces- 
sity of  arming  the  law  with  much 


Evidence,  Part  i.  1414;  ii.  7647,  7651. 


1849.] 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


73 


stronger  powers  for  preventing  com- 
mon trespasses.  And  even  without  such 
additional  powers,  will  not  the  tres- 
pass law  as  it  stands  be  employed  by 
proprietors  to  prevent  interference  with 
their  sports  ?  Is  it  supposed  that  the 
abolition  of  the  game  statutes  will  at 
once  prevent  the  owners  of  great 
manors  from  rearing  pheasants  in  their 
own  covers?  It  may  indeed  drive 
them  to  do  so  at  a  greater  expense, 
and  to  enlist  additional  watchers ;  but 
it  is  not  likely  that  keen  game  pre- 
servers will  not  avail  themselves  of 
such  defences  as  the  common  law  may 
still  leave  them.  Game  then,  we  con- 
tend, may  be  thinned  by  this  plan, 
but  it  will  not  be  exterminated.  The 
consequence  will  be  that  its  price 
will  be  enhanced;  but  as  the  de- 
mand will  still  continue,  the  trade  of 
the  poachers  will  remain  as  thriving 
as  ever.  He  may  have  to  work 
harder  and  to  trudge  farther  before 
he  can  fill  his  wallet ;  but  this  will  be 
compensated  by  the  additional  price ; 
and  if  the  present  quantity  of  game  is 
diminished  by  one-half,  the  conse- 
quence will  be  that  his  agents  will  be 
able  to  pay  him  five  shillings  a-head 
for  his  pheasants  instead  of  five  shil- 
lings a-brace.  In  short,  we  should 
anticipate,  as  the  effects  of  abolishing 
the  present  statutes,  that,  while  many 
of  the  less  wealthy  owners  of  land 
•would  be  deterred  by  the  expense 
from  protecting  game,  and  while  the 
amusement  (such  as  it  is)  would  be- 
come greatly  more  exclusive  than  it 
is  now,  such  a  measure  would  not 
only  fail  to  remove  any  of  the  induce- 
ments which  tempt  the  idle  peasant 
to  take  to  the  predatory  life  of  a 
poacher,  but  would,  in  the  outset  at 
least,  induce  many  to  try  it  who  never 
thought  of  it  before. 

We  must  now  pass  on  to  the  con- 
siderations we  have  to  offer  on  the 
situation  of  the  tenant-farmer  as  to 
game;  and  the  first  question  that 
suggests  itself  as  to  his  case  is  this, — 
Whether  the  injury  suffered  by  ten- 
ants be  really  so  serious  and  extensive 
as  is  represented? 

"  There  is  no  denying,"  says  Mi- 
Shepherd,  in  his  Essay,  (p.  12,)  "  the 
notoriety  of  the  fact  that,  in  a  great 
majority  of  instances,  this  excessive 
power  of  infringement  on  the  pro- 
perty of  the  tenant  through  these 


laws  has  been  abused.  It  has  been 
almost  universally  abused"  Is  this 
true  as  regards  either  England  or 
Scotland?  or  is  it  merely  one  of  those 
vague  and  reckless  affirmations  which 
a  man  writing  for  a  purpose,  and  not 
for  truth,  is  so  apt  to  hazard,  in  dis- 
regard or  defiance  of  the  facts  before 
him?  One  thing  we  do  find  to  be 
notorious — that  the  committee's  evi- 
dence of  game  abuses  in  Scotland  was 
limited  to  one  solitary  case,  that  of 
the  estate  of  Wemyss.  And  although 
we  may  very  readily  conceive  that, 
with  more  time  and  exertion,  the 
agents  of  the  league  might  have  fer- 
reted out  other  instances,  we  may, 
nevertheless,  be  allowed  to  express 
our  astonishment  that,  on  the  slender 
foundation  of  this  single  case,  Mr 
Bright  should  have  ventured  to  ask 
his  committee  to  find  the  general 
fact  proved,  that  the  prosperity  of 
agriculture  "  in  many  parts  of  Scot- 
land as  well  as  England,  is  greatly 
impaired  by  the  preservation  of 
game."  We  learn  at  least  to  esti- 
mate the  value  of  the  honourable 
gentleman's  judgment,  and  the  amount 
of  proof  which  an  abolitionist  regards 
as  demonstration.  But  the  truth  is, 
that  the  case  of  Scotland  was  not 
examined  at  all ;  and  the  rejected 
report  of  Mr  Bright  and  his  associates 
bears  on  its  face  the  most  satisfactory 
evidence  of  their  utter  ignorance  that 
the  law  on  this  side  the  Tweed  is  a 
perfectly  different  system  from  that 
of  England. 

Will  any  believe  that  if  our  Scotch- 
farmers,  "  in  a  great  majority  of  in- 
stances," found  their  property  sacri- 
ficed, they  would  not  have  universally 
joined  in  demanding  the  interference 
of  the  legislature?  But  what  is 'the 
fact  ?  An  examination  of  the  reports 
on  petitions  during  the  last  two  ses- 
sions shows  that  there  certainly  have 
been  petitions  against  the  game  laws, 
but  that  for  every  one  emanating  from 
an  agricultural  body  there  have  been 
ten  from  town-councils.  We  have 
better  evidence,  however,  than  mere 
inference,  for  the  general  distrust  with 
which  the  farmers  have  regarded  this 
agitation;  for  we  find  the  Leaguers 
themselves,  one  and  all  of  them,  la- 
menting that  their  disinterested  exer- 
tions on  behalf  of  the  tenantry  have 
been  viewed  by  that  body  with  the 


74 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


[July, 


most  callous  and  ungrateful  indiffer- 
ence. It  is  impossible  to  read  without 
a  smile  Mr  Bright's  Address  to  the 
Tenant-farmers  (prefixed  to  Mr  Wei- 
ford's  Summary  of  the  Evidence)  ;  and 
to  mark  the  patient  earnestness  with 
which  he  entreats  them  to  believe  that 
they  are  groaning  under  manifold  op- 
pressions— and  insists  on  "  rousing 
them  to  a  sense  of  what  is  due  to  them- 
selves." But  your  tiller  of  the  soil  is 
ever  hard  to  move.  It  is  surprising 
that  the  obstinate  fellow  cannot  be 
made  to  comprehend  that  he  is  the 
victim  of  a  malady  he  has  never  felt 
— that  he  will  persist  in  believing  that 
if  game  were  all  he  had  to  complain 
of,  he  might  snap  his  fingers  at  Doctor 
Bright  and  his  whole  fraternity.  The 
essayist  of  the  Association  can  find  no 
better  reason  to  assign  for  what  he 
calls  "  the  wondrous  and  apparently 
patient  silence  of  the  tenantry  under 
so  exasperating  an  evil," — than,  for- 
sooth, that  they  are  too  servile  to  speak 
out  their  true  opinions.  Such  an  ex- 
planation, at  the  expense  of  the  body 
whom  he  pretends  to  represent,  can 
only  insure  for  him  the  merited  scorn 
of  all  who  have  opportunities  of  know- 
ing the  general  character  of  the 
spirited,  educated,  and  upright  men 
whom  he  ventures  thus  to  calumniate. 
The  most  obvious  way  of  accounting 
for  their  wondrous  silence  under  op- 
pression is  also  the  true  one — namely, 
that,  as  a  general  fact,  the  oppression 
is  unknown.  When  an  intelligent 
farmer  looks  round  among  his  neigh- 
bours, and  finds  that  for  every  acre 
damaged  by  game  there  are  thou- 
sands untouched  by  it, — when  he 
knows  that  there  are  not  only  whole 
parishes,  but  almost  whole  counties, 
in  which  he  could  not  detect  in  the  crops 
the  slightest  indication  of  game,— and 
further,  that,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out 
of  a  hundred  in  which  a  tenant  really 
suffers  injury,  he  is  sure  of  prompt 
and  ample  compensation — it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  he  looks  upon  the  Associa- 
tion with  suspicion,  and  refuses  to  sup- 
port, by  his  name  or  his  money,  their 
system  of  stupendous  exaggeration. 
If  any  one  wishes  to  convince  himself  of 
the  actual  truth,  we  venture  to  suggest 
to  him  a  simple  test.  Damage  from 
game,  to  be  appreciable  at  all,  cannot 
well  be  less  than  a  shilling  an  acre. 
Now,  let  any  farmer  survey  in  his 


mind  the  district  with  which  he  is 
best  acquainted,  and  estimate  on  how 
much  of  it  the  tenants  would  give 
this  additional  rent,  on  condition  of 
the  game  laws  being  abolished.  An 
average-sized  farm,  in  our  best  culti- 
vated counties,  may  be  taken  at  two 
hundred  acres — how  many  of  his  bro- 
ther farmers  can  he  reckon  up,  who 
would  consent  to  pay  £10  a-year  ad- 
ditional on  these  terms  ?  A  similar 
test,  it  may  be  mentioned,  was  offered 
to  one  of  Mr  Bright's  witnesses,  (Evi- 
dence, i.  4938,)  who  had  set  down 
his  annual  damages  from  game  at  from 
£180  to  £200,  and  who,  after  suc- 
cessively declining  to  give  £200,  £100, 
and  £75  a-year  additional  rent  for 
leave  to  extirpate  the  game,  thought, 
at  last,  he  might  give  £50  a-year  for 
that  bargain. 

But  the  question  immediately  be- 
fore us  is  this :  what  remedy  does  the 
existing  law  of  Scotland  give  a  tenant 
in  cases  of  real  hardship  from  the  pre- 
servation of  game  ?  In  regard  to  this 
question,  it  is  impossible  to  overlook 
the  broad  distinction  between  the 
cases  of  those  who  have  expressly  un- 
dertaken the  burden  of  the  game,  and 
those  whose  leases  contain  no  such 
covenant.  The  quasi-right  of  pro- 
perty in  game  recognised  by  the  Eng- 
lish law  is,  by  Lord  Althorpe's  sta- 
tute of  1832,  vested  in  the  occupier  of 
land,  when  there  is  no  express  stipu- 
lation to  the  contrary.  The  reverse 
is  virtually  the  case  in  Scotland — the 
landlord  retains  his  right  to  kill  game, 
unless  he  shall  have  agreed  to  surren- 
der it  to  his  tenant.  In  most  cases, 
however,  the  landlord's  right  does  not 
rest  merely  on  the  common  law,  but 
is  expressly  reserved  to  him  in  the 
lease.  Now,  when  a  tenant  has  deli- 
berately become  a  party  to  such  an 
express  stipulation,  and  when  the 
quantity  of  game  (whether  it  be  small 
or  great)  does  not  exceed,  during  the 
currency  of  the  lease,  what  it  was  at 
his  entry,  on  what  conceivable  plea  of 
reason  or  justice  can  he  ask  the  inter- 
ference either  of  a  court  of  law  or  of 
the  legislature?  To  say,  with  Mr 
Bright  and  his  coadjutors,  that  he  sel- 
dom attends  much  to  such  minor  articles 
in  a  lease — that  he  does  not  under- 
stand their  effect — that  in  the  compe- 
tition for  land  he  is  glad  to  secure  a 
farm  on  any  conditions — all  this  is  the 


1849.] 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland, 


75 


most  childish  trifling,  and  unworthy 
of  a  moment's  serious  notice.  There  is 
not  a  single  sentence  in  any  lease  that 
may  not  be  set  aside  on  the  very  same 
grounds;  and  if  agreements  of  this  na- 
ture are  to  be  cancelled  on  pretences 
so  frivolous,  there  is  an  end  to  all 
faith  and  meaning  in  contracts  be- 
tween man  and  man. 

But  the  tenant's  case  assumes  a  very 
different  aspect  when,  by  artificial 
means  expressly  contrived  for  the 
purpose,  the  game  has  been  increased 
subsequent  to  his  entry.  Then,  it  is 
obvious,  the  burden  is  no  longer  the 
same  which  the  tenant  undertook.  It 
is  a  state  of  things  which  he  could  not 
anticipate  from  the  terms  of  his  con- 
tract; and  if  the  authority  of  the 
courts  of  law  were  unable  to  reach 
such  a  case,  and  to  protect  the  tenant 
from  what  is  in  fact  an  infringement, 
on  the  part  of  the  landlord,  of  their 
mutual  agreement,  it  is  difficult  to 
imagine  stronger  grounds  for  insisting 
that  the  defect  should  be  supplied  by 
positive  enactment.  No  such  inter- 
ference, however,  is  requisite.  Our 
law  courts  not  only  possess  the  power 
of  enforcing  compensation  for  such  in- 
juries, but  in  the  recent  decision,  in 
the  case  of  Wemyss  and  Others  v. 
Wilson,  the  supreme  court  has  as- 
serted and  exercised  that  power  in 
the  most  distinct  and  unqualified  man- 
ner. "There  is  no  instance,"  says 
Mr  Chiene  Shepherd,  writing  before 
the  date  of  the  above-mentioned  judg- 
ment, "  in  which  our  head  court  in 
Scotland — the  Court  of  Session — has 
ever  given  a  decision  entitling  a 
tenant  to  damages  from  a  landlord  for 
destruction  of  his  crops  by  game." 
Now,  supposing  the  fact  as  here 
stated,  to  be  strictly  correct,  what 
inference,  we  ask,  can  common  can- 
dour draw  from  it  ?  Are  we  to  con- 
clude that  the  law  of  Scotland,  or  the 
bench  that  administers  it,  are  so  cor- 
rupt as  to  countenance  such  an  insult 
to  justice  ?  No  such  express  decision 
had  then  been  given,  simply  because 
no  such  claim  had  ever  been  tried  ; 
and  surely  this  very  fact  is  in  itself 
the  strongest  possible  presumption 
against  the  alleged  universal  abuse  of 
the  power  of  preserving  game — a  pre- 
sumption that  a  hardship  which,  up 


to  1847,  had  never  been  made  the 
ground  of  a  formal  appeal  to  the  law 
tribunals,  cannot  be  either  very  fre- 
quent or  very  severe.  The  statement, 
however,  is  not  strictly  correct ;  for, 
though  no  actual  decree  had  been 
given  on  the  special  amount  of  da- 
mages before  1847,  a  very  distinct, 
though  incidental,  opinion  as  to  the 
liability  of  landlords  in  such  cases  was 
given  in  a  case  which  occurred  fifteen 
years  ago — Drysdale  v.  Jameson. 
The  principle  of  the  law  could  not  be 
more  lucidly  stated  than  in  the  words 
of  the  learned  judge  (Fullerton)  on 
that  occasion. 

"  A  tenant,  in  taking  a  farm,  must 
be  considered  as  taking  it  under  the 
burden  of  supporting  the  game,  and 
may  be  presumed  to  have  satisfied 
himself  of  the  extent  of  that  burden, 
as  he  is  understood  to  do  of  any  other 
unfavourable  circumstance  impairing 
the  productiveness  of  the  farm.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  would  seem  con- 
trary to  principle  that  the  landlord, 
who  is  bound  to  warrant  the  beneficial 
possession  to  the  tenant,  should  be 
allowed,  by  his  own  act,  to  aggravate 
the  burden  in  any  great  degree.  A 
tenant,  in  order  to  support  such  a 
claim,  must  prove  not  only  a  certain 
visible  damage  arising  from  game,  but 
a  certain  visible  increase  of  the  game, 
and  a  consequent  alteration  of  the  cir- 
cumstances contemplated  in  the  con- 
tract^ imputable  to  the  landlord.  The 
true  ground  of  damage  seems  to  be,  not 
that  the  game  is  abundant,  but  that 
its  abundance  has  been  materially  in- 
creased since  the  date  of  the  lease."* 

Surely  so  clear  an  opinion,  coming 
from  such  a  quarter,  was  a  pretty  plain 
indication  of  the  protection  which  the 
law  would  extend  to  a  tenant  in  these 
circumstances  ;  and,  accordingly,  it 
has  been  completely  confirmed  on 
every  point  by  the  more  recent  and 
comprehensive  decision  on  Captain 
Wemyss'  case.  Any  new  steps  on  the 
part  of  a  landlord  for  stimulating  the 
natural  supply  of  game,  whether 
by  feeding  them,  breeding  them  arti- 
ficially, or  by  a  systematic  destruction 
of  the  vermin  which  naturally  prey 
on  them,  will  be  held  as  indicating  an 
intention  on  his  part  to  depart  from 
the  terms  of  the  contract,  and  as 


*  Shaw,  ii.  147, 


76 


The  Game  Laws  in  Scotland. 


[July, 


therefore  opening  a  valid  claim  for 
any  damage  the  tenant  may  experience 
in  consequence  of  the  change.  And 
it  is  not  only  such  direct  and  active 
measures  for  augmenting  the  stipulated 
burden  that  will  be  thus  interpreted 
against  thelandlord  ;  but  even  his  doing 
so  negatively — that  is,  his  failing  to 
exercise  the  power  he  retains  in  his  own 
hands,  and  to  keep  down  the  burden 
to  the  same  amount  at  which  the  ten- 
ant found  it  on  his  entry,  will  be  held 
as  equivalent  to  his  positive  act. 

If,  then,  there  ever  was  any  ground 
for  alleging  that  the  state  of  the  law 
was  indefinite,  the  objection  is  now 
removed.  No  one  can  pretend  to 
doubt  that  a  tenant  of  land  in  Scot- 
land has  as  ample  a  protection 
against  injury  from  game  as  the  law 
can  give  him.  To  prevent  the  injury 
beforehand  is  beyond  the  power  of 
any  law.  All  that  it  can  do  is  to 
afford  him  as  prompt  and  effectual 
means  of  redress  as  it  furnishes  against 
any  other  species  of  injury.  In  short, 
when  its  principle  is  weighed  fairly, 
and  when  we  take  into  consideration 
the  relief  from  the  fiscal  qualification 
which  Mr  Mackenzie's  act  of  last  ses- 
sion conferred  on  the  farmers,  we  shall 
be  able  to  estimate  how  far  it  is  true 
that,  "  both  in  parliament  and  out  of 
parliament,  the  interests  and  industry 
of  tenants  are  systematically  sacrificed 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  odious  pri- 
vileges of  more  favoured  classes." 

We  have  followed  out  and  exposed, 
perhaps  at  greater  length  than  was 
necessary,  the  stock  sophisms  and 
more  flagrant  exaggerations  by  which 
the  total  abolition  of  game  laws  is 
usually  supported.  Some  points  are 
yet  untouched  ;  but  we  prefer  employ- 
ing the  rest  of  our  paper  in  briefly 
stating  a  few  suggestions  for  the  re- 
moval of  some  of  those  difficulties  and 
anomalies  in  the  Scotch  law,  which 
we  set  out  with  acknowledging.  In 
judging  of  any  such  alterations,  it  is 
necessary  never  to  lose  sight  of  the 
leading  principle  on  which  the  whole 
Scotch  system  is  founded — namely, 
the  original  and  common  right  to  seize 
and  appropriate  the  animals  of  chase, 
qualified  and  determined  by  the  pre- 
vious right  of  the  landowner  to  the 
exclusive  use  of  the  soil. 

1st.  Keeping  this  in  view,  our  first 
change  would  be  the  abolition  of  the 


land-qualification  introduced  by  the 
Act  1621  ;  and  this  for  the  double 
reason  that  it  was  originally  an  un- 
warrantable departure  from  the  gene- 
ral principle  just  mentioned,  and  that 
it  is  inexpedient  to  cumber  the  sys- 
tem with  a  law  which  is  practically 
in  desuetude. 

2d.  The  effect  of  this  alteration 
would  be  to  remove  also  the  useless 
and  improper  restriction  on  the  sale  of 
game.  There  can  be  no  good  reason 
for  throwing  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
the  game-dealer's  trade.  As  a  check 
to  poaching,  we  have  abundant  proof 
that  the  present  restriction  is  inopera- 
tive ;  or,  if  it  has  any  effect,  it  is 
directly  the  reverse  of  that  intended, 
by  throwing  the  trade  very  much  into 
the  hands  of  a  low  class  of  retailers. 
Instead  of  requiring  a  qualification  or 
permission,  which  is  constantly  evaded, 
we  would  substitute  a  game-dealer's 
license,  as  in  England. 

3d.  The  fifth  section  of  the  Day 
Trespass  Act  empowers  the  person 
having  the  right  to  kill  game  on  any 
lands,  or  any  person  authorised  by 
him,  to  seize  game  in  the  possession  of 
a  trespasser.  This  provision  has 
sometimes  given  occasion  to  danger- 
ous conflicts  between  the  parties,  and 
is,  moreover,  quite  at  variance  with 
the  principle  of  the  law  above  noted. 

4th.  The  next  particular  we  shall 
mention  is  of  more  importance.  The 
evidence  of  Mr  Bright's  committee 
has,  we  think,  fully  disproved  the 
charge  against  the  county  magistracy 
of  England,  of  partiality  and  excessive 
severity  in  game  cases.  Exceptions  no 
doubt  were  brought  forward,  but  their 
paucity  shows  the  contrary  to  be  the 
rule.  In  Scotland  there  is  still  less 
ground  for  such  an  accusation.  With 
us,  such  an  occurrence  as  a  justice 
adjudicating  in  his  own  case  is  un- 
known ;  and  we  find  even  the  most 
violent  of  the  abolition  lecturers  ad- 
mitting that  proceedings  before  the 
sessions  under  the  game  statutes  are 
conducted  with  equity  and  leniency. 
But  this  is  not  enough.  The  parties 
who  have  to  administer  the  law  should 
be  above  all  suspicion  of  bias  or  in- 
terest, even  of  the  most  indirect  kind  ; 
and  we  should  greatly  prefer  that 
game  prosecutions  were  removed  al- 
together, into  the  court  of  the  judge- 
ordinary.  Such  an  alteration,  were  a 


1849.] 


Dominique. 


77 


sure,  would  be  regarded  generally  by 
the  benches  of  county  magistrates  as 
a  most  desirable  relief  from  one  of 
the  most  invidious  and  embarrassing 
duties  they  have  to  execute.  But,  as 
the  law  stands,  they  have  no  option — 
for  offences  under  the  Day  Trespass 
Act  are  cognisable  by  them  only.  If, 
then,  there  be  any  valid  reason  against 
transferring  the  trial  of  all  game  of- 
fences to  the  sheriff  court,  (and  at 
present  we  can  see  none)  it  is  at  all 
events  most  advisable  that  his  juris- 
diction should  be  extended  to  day  as 
well  as  to  night  trespasses. 


5th.  Any  revisal  of  the  law  should 
embrace  provisions  against  the  accu- 
mulation of  penalties  ;  for  although 
these  are  very  rarely  insisted  on  in 
Scotland,  the  power  of  enforcing  them 
affords  a  pretext  for  declamations 
against  the  severity  of  the  game  law, 
which  its  opponents  know  well  how  to 
employ. 

Besides  these  modifications  of  the 
statutes,  it  seems  most  desirable 
that  in  all  leases  the  disposal  of  game 
should  be  regulated  by  special  clauses, 
which  should  include  a  reference  to 
arbitration  in  case  of  dispute. 


DOMINIQUE. 
A  SKETCH  FROM  LIFE. 


TWO   STUDENTS. 


AT  the  lower  extremity  of  that  an- 
cient street  long  recognised  as  the 
head  and  centre  of  the  Pays  Latin  or 
scholastic  quarter  of  Paris,  and  which, 
for  six  centuries,  has  borne  the  name 
of  the  Rue  de  la  Harpe,  within  a  few 
doors  of  the  bridge  of  St  Michel,  and 
in  a  room  upon  the  fifth  floor,  two  young 
men  were  seated,  on  a  spring  morn- 
ing of  the  year  182-.  Even  had  the 
modest  apartment  been  situated  else- 
where than  in  the  focus  of  the  students' 
district,  its  appearance  would  have 
prevented  the  possibility  of  mistake 
as  to  the  character  of  its  inmates. 
Scanty  furniture,  considerably  bat- 
tered, caricatures  of  student  life,  par- 
tially veiling  the  dirty  damp-stained 
paper  that  blistered  upon  the  walls, 
which  were  also  adorned  by  a  pair  of 
foils,  a  cracked  guitar,  and  a  set  of 
castanets ;  a  row  of  pegs  supporting 
pipes,  empty  bottles  in  one  corner, 
ponderous  octavos  thickly  coated  with 
dust  in  another,  told  a  tale  confirmed 
by  the  exterior  of  the  occupants  of  the 
apartment.  One  of  these,  a  young 
man  of  two-and- twenty,  was  evidently 
at  home,  for  his  feet  were  thrust  into 
slippers,  once  embroidered,  a  Greek 
cap  covered  his  head,  and  a  tattered 
dressing-gown  of  pristine  magnificence 
enveloped  his  slender  and  active  figure. 
His  features  were  regular  and  intelli- 


gent, and  he  had  the  dark  fiery  eyes, 
clustering  black  hair,  and  precociously 
abundant  beard  of  a  native  of  southern 
France.  His  companion,  a  young 
Norman,  had  nothing  particularly 
noticeable  in  his  countenance,  save  a 
broad  open  brow  and  a  character  of 
much  shrewdness  and  perspicacity — 
qualities  possessed  in  a  high  degree 
by  a  majority  of  his  fellow  provincials. 
His  dress  was  one  of  those  nondescript 
eccentric  coats  and  conical  broad- 
leafed  hats  at  all  times  particularly 
affected  by  French  studiosi. 

The  two  young  men  were  seated  at 
either  extremity  of  the  low  sill  of  a 
tall  French  window,  thrown  wide  open 
to  admit  the  pleasant  spring  sunshine, 
into  which  they  puffed,  from  capacious 
pipes,  wreaths  of  thin  blue  smoke. 
Their  conversation  turned  upon  a  crime 
— or  rather  a  series  of  crimes — which 
occasioned,  at  that  particular  moment, 
much  excitement  in  Paris,  and  which 
will  still  be  remembered  by  those  per- 
sons upon  the  tablets  of  whose  me- 
mory the  lapse  of  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury does  not  act  as  a  spunge.  About 
three  years  previously,  a  young  man 
named  Gilbert  Gaudry,  of  respectable 
family,  liberal  education,  and  good 
reputation,  had  been  tried  and  con- 
victed for  the  murder  of  an  uncle,  by 
whose  death  he  largely  inherited.  The 


78 


Dominique, 


[July, 


accused  man  was  in  debt,  and  his  em- 
barrassed circum stances  prevented  his 
marrying  a  woman  to  whom  he  was 
passionately  attached ;  his  uncle  had 
recently  refused  him  pecuniary  assis- 
tance, upon  which  occason  Gaudry 
was  heard  to  express  himself  harshly 
and  angrily.  Many  other  circum- 
stances concurred  to  throw  upon  him 
the  odium  of  the  crime;  and,  alto- 
gether, the  evidence,  although  entirely 
circumstantial,  was  so  strong  against 
him,  that,  in  spite  of  his  powerful  ap- 
peal and  solemn  denial,  the  judge  con- 
demned him  to  death.  The  sentence 
had  been  commuted  to  the  galleys  for 
life.  Three  years  passed,  and  the  real 
murderer  was  discovered  —  a  dis- 
charged servant  of  the  murdered  man, 
who,  at  the  trial,  had  given  important 
evidence  against  Gaudry.  The  guil- 
lotine did  its  work  on  the  right  offen- 
der, and  Gaudry's  sentence  was  re- 
versed. But  three  years  of  slavery 
and  opprobrium,  of  shame,  horror, 
and  gnawing  sense  of  injustice,  had 
wrought  terribly  upon  the  misjudged 
man,  inspiring  him  with  a  blind  and 
burning  thirst  of  revenge.  Almost 
his  first  act,  on  finding  himself  at 
liberty,  was  to  stab,  in  broad  day- 
light, and  in  the  open  street,  the  judge 
who  had  condemned  him.  This  time 
there  could  be  no  question  of  his  guilt, 
and  he  would  inevitably  have  been  con- 
demned to  death ;  but,  before  his  trial, 
he  found  means  of  hanging  himself  in 
his  cell.  This  last  tragical  and  shock- 
ing incident  had  occurred  but  two 
days  previously,  and  now  furnished 
the  embryo  jurists  with  a  theme  for 
animated  discussion.  Without  vindi- 
cating the  wretched  murderer  and 
suicide,  the  young  Norman  was  dis- 
posed to  find  an  extenuating  cir- 
cumstance in  the  unjust  punishment 
he  had  endured.  But  his  friend  scout- 
ed such  leniency,  and,  taking  up  high 
ground,  maintained  that  no  criminal 
was  baser  than  he  who,  the  victim  of 
judicial  error,  revenged  himself  upon 
the  magistrate  who  had  decided  ac- 
cording to  the  best  of  his  judgment  and 
conscience,  but  who,  sharing  the  lia- 
bility to  err  of  every  human  judge,  was 
misled  by  deceitful  appearances  or 
perjured  witnesses. 

"  Argue  it  as  you  will,"  cried  Domi- 
nique Lafon  ;  "  be  plausible  and  elo- 
quent, bring  batteries  of  sophisms  to 


the  attack,  you  cannot  breach  my 
solid  position.  Excuse  and  extenua- 
tion are  alike  in  vain.  I  repeat  and 
maintain,  that  to  make  a  magistrate 
personally  responsible  for  his  judg- 
ments, be  they  just  or  unjust,  so  long 
as  he  has  kept  within  the  line  of  his 
duty,  and  acted  according  to  his  con- 
science, is  revenge  of  the  basest  and 
most  criminal  description." 

"  Bear  in  mind,"  replied  Henry  la 
Chapelle,  "that  I  attempt  not  to 
justify  the  unhappy  Gaudry.  All  I 
assert  is,  that  injustice  excites  in  the 
breast  of  every  man,  even  of  the 
gentlest,  hatred  against  him  by  whom 
the  injustice  is  done.  And  its  frequent 
repetition,  or  the  long  continuance  of 
the  suffering  it  occasions,  will  ulti- 
mately provoke,  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  an  outbreak  of  revengeful  fury. 
The  heart  becomes  embittered,  the 
judgment  blinded,  the  mild  and  beau- 
tiful injunctions  of  Scripture  are  for- 
gotten or  disregarded,  in  the  gust  of 
passion  and  vindictive  rage.  To  offer 
the  left  cheek  when  the  right  has  been 
buffeted,  is,  of  all  divine  precepts,  the 
most  difficult  to  follow.  A  man 
ruined,  tortured,  or  disgraced  by  in- 
justice, looks  to  the  sentence,  not  to 
the  intention,  of  his  judge ;  taxes  him 
with  precipitation,  prejudice,  or  over- 
severity,  and  views  revenge  as  a  right 
rather  than  a  crime.  Doubtless  there 
are  exceptions — men  whose  Christian 
endurance  would  abide  by  them  even 
unto  death ;  but,  believe  me,  they  are 
few,  very  few.  The  virtues  of  Job  are 
rare ;  and  rancour,  the  vile  weed, 
chokes,  in  our  corrupt  age,  the  meek 
flower,  resignation." 

"  A  man  to  whom  injustice  is  really 
done,"  said  Dominique,  "  may  console 
himself  with  the  consciousness  of  his 
innocence,  which  an  act  of  rancorous 
revenge  would  induce  many  to  doubt. 
The  suffering  victim  finds  sympathy ; 
the  fierce  avenger  excites  horror  and 
reprobation." 

"Mere  words,  my  dear  fellow," 
replied  la  Chapelle.  "  Fine  phrases, 
and  nothing  else.  You  are  a  theorist, 
pleading  against  human  nature.  What 
logic  is  this  ?  Undeserved  punishment 
is  far  more  difficult  to  endure  than 
merited  castigation ;  and  an  act  of 
revenge  should  rather  plead  in  favour 
of  the  innocence  of  him  who  commits 
it.  In  a  criminal,  the  consciousness 


1849.] 


Dominique. 


that  he  merited  his  punishment  would 
leave  less  room  for  hatred  than  for 
shame ;  it  would  excite  vexation  at 
his  ill  luck,  rather  than  enduring 
anger  against  his  judge.  There  would 
be  exceptions  and  variations,  of 
course,  according  to  the  moral  idiosyn- 
cracy  of  the  individual.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  establish  a  mathematical  scale 
for  the  workings  of  human  passions. 
I  repeat  that  I  do  not  justify  such  re- 
venge, but  I  still  maintain  that  to  seek 
it  is  natural  to  man,  and  that  many 
men,  even  with  less  aggravation  than 
was  given  to  Gaudry,  might  not  have 
sufficient  resolution  and  virtue  to  resist 
the  impulse." 

"  You  have  but  a  paltry  opinion  of 
your  fellow-creatures,"  said  Domi- 
nique. "  I  am  glad  to  think  better  of 
them.  And  I  hold  him  a  weak  slave 
to  the  corruption  of  our  nature,  who 
has  not  strength  to  repress  the  im- 
pulse to  a  deed  his  conscience  cannot 
justify." 

"  Admirable  in  principle,"  said  la 
Chapelle,  smiling,  "but  difficult  in 
practice.  You  yourself,  my  dear 
Dominique,  who  now  take  so  lofty  a 
tone,  and  who  feel,  I  am  quite  sure, 
exactly  as  you  speak — you  yourself, 
if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken  in  your 
character,  would  be  the  last  man  to 
sit  down  quietly  under  injustice. 
Your  natural  ardour  and  impetuosity 
would  soon  upset  your  moral  code." 

"Never!"  vehemently  exclaimed 
Dominique.  "  La  Chapelle,  never 
will  I  suffer  my  passions  thus  to  sub- 
due my  reason !  What  gratification 


of  revenge  can  ever  compensate  the 
loss  of  that  greatest  of  blessings,  a 
pure  and  tranquil  conscience  ?  What 
peace  of  mind  could  I  hope  for,  after 
permitting  such  discord  between  my 
principles  and  my  actions  ?  La  Cha- 
pelle, you  wrong  me  by  the  thought." 

"Well,  well,"  replied  his  friend, 
"  I  may  be  wrong,  and  at  any  rate  I 
reason  in  the  abstract  rather  than  per- 
sonally to  you.  I  heartily  wish  you 
never  may  suffer  wrong,  or  be  tempted 
to  revenge.  But  remember,  my  friend, 
safety  is  not  in  over-confidence.  The 
severest  assaults  are  for  the  strongest 
towers." 

A  knock  at  the  room-door  inter- 
rupted the  conversation.  It  was  the 
porter  of  the  lodging-house,  bringing 
a  letter  that  had  just  arrived  for 
Dominique.  On  recognising  the  hand- 
writing of  the  address,  and  the  post- 
mark of  Montauban,  the  young  man 
uttered  a  cry  of  pleasure.  It  was  from 
home,  from  his  mother.  He  hastily 
tore  it  open.  But  as  he  read,  the 
smile  of  joy  and  gratified  affection 
faded  from  his  features,  and  was  re- 
placed by  an  expression  of  astonish- 
ment, indignation,  grief.  Scarcely 
finishing  the  letter,  he  crumpled  it  in 
his  hand  with  a  passionate  gesture,  and 
stripping  off  his  dressing-gown  began 
hastily  to  dress.  With  friendly  soli- 
citude la  Chapelle  observed  his  vary- 
ing countenance. 

"No  bad  news,  I  hope?"  he 
inquired. 

For  sole  reply,  Dominique  threw 
him  the  letter. 


MOTHER  AND  SON. 


Dominique  Lafon  was  the  son  of  a 
man  noted  for  his  democratic  prin- 
ciples, who,  after  holding  high  provin- 
cial office  under  the  Republic  and  the 
Consulate,  resigned  his  functions  in 
displeasure,  when  Napoleon  grasped 
an  emperor's  sceptre,  and  retired  to 
his  native  town  of  Montauban,  where 
he  since  had  lived  upon  a  modest 
patrimony.  Under  Napoleon,  Pascal 
Lafon  had  been  unmolested;  but 
when  the  Bourbons  returned,  his  name, 
prominent  during  the  last  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  rendered  him  the 
object  of  a  certain  surveillance  on  the 
part  of  the  police  of  the  Restoration. 


On  the  occasion  of  more  than  one  re- 
publican conspiracy,  real  or  imagin- 
ary, spies  had  been  set  upon  him,  and 
endeavours  made  to  prove  him  impli- 
cated. Once  he  had  even  been  con- 
ducted before  a  tribunal,  and  had 
xuidergone  a  short  examination.  No- 
thing, however,  had  been  elicited 
that  in  any  way  compromised  him; 
and  in  a  few  hoxirs  he  was  again  at 
liberty,  before  his  family  knew  of  his 
brief  arrest.  In  reality,  Lafon,  al- 
though still  an  ardent  republican,  was 
entirely  guiltless  of  plotting  against 
the  monarchy,  which  he  deemed  too 
firmly  consolidated  to  be  as  yet 


80 


Dominique. 


[July, 


shaken.  France,  lie  felt,  had  need  of 
repose  before  again  entering  the  revo- 
lutionary arena.  His  firm  faith  still 
was,  that  a  time  would  come  when 
she  would  dismiss  her  kings  for  ever, 
and  when  pure  democracy  would 
govern  the  land.  But  before  that  time 
arrived,  his  eyes,  he  believed,  would 
be  closed  in  death.  He  was  no  con- 
spirator, but  he  did  not  shun  the 
society  of  those  who  were ;  and,  more- 
over, he  was  not  sufficiently  guarded 
in  the  expression  of  his  republican 
opinions  and  Utopian  theories.  Hence 
it  came  that,  like  the  Whig  in  Claver- 
house's  memoranda,  he  had  a  triple 
red  cross  against  his  name  in  the 
note-book  of  the  Bourbon  police,  who, 
at  the  time  now  referred  to,  had  been 
put  upon  the  alert  by  the  recent  assas- 
sination of  the  Duke  of  Berri.  Al- 
though the  circumstances  of  that  crime, 
and  the  evidence  upon  Louvel's  trial, 
combined  to  stamp  the  atrocious  deed 
as  the  unaided  act  of  a  fanatic,  with- 
out accomplices  or  ulterior  designs,  the 
event  had  provoked  much  rigid  inves- 
tigation of  the  schemes  of  political 
malcontents  throughout  France ;  and 
in  several  districts  and  towns,  magis- 
trates and  heads  of  police  had  been 
replaced,  as  lax  and  lukewarm,  by 
men  of  sterner  character.  Amongst 
other  changes,  the  Judge  of  Instruc- 
tion at  Montauban  had  had  a  succes- 
sor given  him.  The  new  magistrate 
was  preceded  by  a  reputation  of  great 
vigilance  and  severity — a  reputation 
he  lost  no  time  in  justifying.  By  the 
aid  of  a  couple  of  keen  Parisian  police 
agents  of  the  Procureur  du  Roi,  whom 
he  stimulated  to  increased  activity, 
he  soon  got  upon  the  scent  of  a  repub- 
lican conspiracy,  of  which  Montauban 
was  said  to  be  a  principal  focus. 
Various  reports  were  abroad  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  Monsieur  Noell,  the 
new  judge,  had  obtained  his  informa- 
tion. Some  said,  the  plotters  had  been 
betrayed  by  the  mistress  of  one  of 
them,  in  a  fit  of  jealous  fury  at  a  fan- 
cied infidelity  of  her  lover;  others 
declared,  that  hope  of  reward  had 
quickened  the  invention  of  a  police 
spy,  who,  despairing  of  discovering  a 
conspiracy,  had  applied  himself  to 
fabricate  one.  Be  that  as  it  might,  a 
number  of  arrests  took  place,  and, 
amongst  others,  that  of  Dominique's 
father.  The  intelligence  of  this  event 


was  conveyed  to  the  young  student  in 
a  few  despairing  lines  from  his  mother, 
whose  health,  already  very  precarious, 
had  suddenly  given  way  under  the 
shock  of  her  husband's  imprisonment. 
She  wrote  from  a  sick-bed,  imploring 
her  son  to  lose  no  time  in  returning 
to  Montauban. 

Gloomy  were  the  forebodings  of 
Dominique  as  the  mail  rattled  him 
over  the  weary  leagues  of  road  be- 
tween Paris  and  Montauban.  Yet, 
when  he  reached  home,  he  half  hoped 
to  be  greeted  by  his  father's  friendly 
voice,  for,  himself  convinced  of  his 
innocence,  he  could  not  believe  the 
authorities  would  be  long  in  recognis- 
ing it.  He  was  disappointed.  The 
sorrowful  mien  of  the  domestic  who 
opened  the  door  told  a  tale  of  mis- 
fortune. 

"  Oh,  Monsieur  Dominique  !"  said 
the  man,  an  old  servant,  who  had 
known  the  student  from  his  cradle, 
"  the  house  is  not  wont  to  be  so  sad 
when  you  return." 

"My  mother!  where  is  my  mo- 
ther ? "  cried  Dominique.  The  next 
instant  he  was  at  her  bed-side,  clasp- 
ing her  poor  thin  fingers,  and  gazing 
in  agony  on  her  emaciated  features. 
A  few  days  of  intense  alarm  and 
anxiety,  acting  on  an  exquisitely  sus- 
ceptible organisation,  had  done  the 
work  of  months  of  malady.  A  slow 
fever  was  in  her  veins,  undermining 
her  existence.  Dominique  shuddered 
at  sight  of  her  sunken  temples,  and  of 
the  deep  dark  furrows  below  her  eyes. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  angel  of  death  had 
already  put  his  stamp  upon  that  be- 
loved countenance.  But  he  concealed 
his  mental  anguish,  and  spoke  cheer- 
ingly  to  the  invalid.  She  told  him 
the  particulars  of  his  father's  arrest. 
She  had  already  written  to  some 
friends,  sent  for  others,  and  had  done 
all  in  her  power  to  ascertain  exactly 
the  offences  of  which  Lafou  was  ac- 
cused ;  but  the  persons  who  had  made 
the  inquiries  had  been  put  off  with 
generalities,  and  none  had  obtained 
access  to  the  prisoner,  who  was  in 
solitary  confinement. 

Dominique  Lafon  was  tenderly  at- 
tached to  both  his  parents.  Upon  him, 
their  only  child,  their  entire  affection 
was  concentrated  and  lavished.  They 
had  made  him  their  companion  even 
from  his  earliest  years,  had  tended 


1849.] 


Dominique. 


81 


him  with  unwearying  solicitude 
through  his  delicate  infancy,  had  de- 
voted themselves  to  his  education 
when  he  grew  older,  and  had  con- 
sented with  difficulty  and  regret  to 
part  from  him,  when  his  arrival  at 
man's  estate  rendered  it  desirable  he 
should  visit  the  capital  for  the  con- 
clusion of  his  studies.  Dominique 
repaid  their  care  with  devoted  love. 
His  father's  consistency  and  strength 
of  character  inspired  him  with  re- 
spect ;  he  listened  to  his  precepts  with 
veneration  and  gratitude ;  but  he 
idolised  his  mother,  whose  feminine 
graces  and  tender  care  were  inter- 
twined with  the  sweetest  reminiscences 
of  childhood's  happy  days.  He  now 
strove  to  repay  some  portion  of  his 
debt  of  filial  love  by  the  most  un- 
wearying attendance  at  the  invalid's 
pillow.  His  arrival  brought  a  gleam 
of  joy  and  hope  to  the  sick  woman's 
brow,  but  the  ray  was  transient,  and 
quickly  faded.  The  vital  flame  had 
sunk  too  low  to  revive  again  per- 
manently. She  grew  weaker  and 
weaker,  and  felt  that  her  hour  ap- 
proached. But  her  spirit,  so  soon  to 
appear  before  her  Maker,  yet  clung 
to  an  earthly  love.  Whilst  striving 
to  fix  her  thoughts  on  things  heavenly, 
they  still  dwelt  upon  him  by  whose 
side  she  had  made  life's  checkered 
pilgrimage.  She  wrung  her  hands  in 
agony  at  the  thought  that  she  must 
leave  the  world  without  bidding  him 
a  last  farewell.  She  asked  but  a  mo- 
ment to  embrace  him  who,  for  five- 
and-twenty  years,  had  been  her  guar- 
dian and  protector,  her  tenderest 
friend  and  companion.  Dominique 
could  not  endure  the  spectacle  of  her 
grief.  He  left  the  house  to  use  every 
endeavour  to  obtain  for  her  the  in- 
dulgence she  so  ardently  desired. 

The  first  person  to  whom  he  ap- 
plied was  the  Judge  of  Instruction, 
Monsieur  Noell.  Provided  with  a 
medical  certificate  of  his  mother's 
dying  state,  he  obtained  admission  to 
that  magistrate's  cabinet.  He  found 
a  tall  thin  man,  with  harsh  strongly 
marked  features,  and  a  forbidding 
expression  of  countenance.  The  glazed 
stare  of  his  cold  gray  eyes,  and  the 
cruel  lines  about  his  mouth,  chilled 
Dominique's  hopes,  and  almost  made 
him  despair  of  success.  The  youth 
preferred  his  request,  however,  with 

VOL.  LXVI.— NO.  CCCCV. 


passionate  earnestness,  imploring  that 
his  father  might  be  allowed  to  leave 
his  prison  for  a  single  hour,  under 
good  guard,  to  visit  the  bedside  of 
his  expiring  wife,  in  presence  of  such 
witnesses  as  the  authorities  would 
think  proper  to  name.  The  reply  to 
this  prayer  was  a  formal  and  decided 
negative.  Until  the  prisoner  Lafon 
had  undergone  a  second  examination, 
no  one  could  be  admitted  to  see  him 
under  any  pretext  whatever.  That 
examination  was  not  to  take  place 
for  at  least  a  week.  Dominique 
was  very  sure,  from  what  the  phy- 
sicians had  told  him,  that  his  mo- 
ther could  not  survive  for  a  third 
of  that  time. 

The  frigid  manner  and  unsym- 
pathising  tone  of  the  magistrate,  and 
the  uncourteous  brevity  of  his  refusal, 
grated  so  unpleasantly  upon  the  irri- 
tated feelings  of  the  student,  that  he 
had  difficulty  in  restraining  a  momen- 
tary anger.  In  less  imminent  circum- 
stances, his  pride  would  have  pre- 
vented his  persisting  in  a  petition 
thus  unkindly  rejected,  but  the  thought 
of  his  dying  mother  brought  patience 
and  humility  to  his  aid.  Warmly, 
but  respectfully,  he  reiterated  his 
suit.  The  magistrate  was  a  widower, 
but  he  had  children,  to  whom  report 
said  he  was  devotedly  attached. 
Harsh  and  rigid  in  his  official  duties, 
in  his  domestic  circle  he  was  said  to 
be  the  tenderest  of  fathers.  Domi- 
nique had  heard  this,  and  availed  of 
it  in  pleading  his  suit. 

"  You  have  children,  sir !"  he  said; 
"  you  can  picture  to  yourself  the  grief 
you  would  feel  were  your  deathbed 
unblessed  by  their  presence.  How 
doubly  painful  must  be  the  parting 
agony,  when  the  ear  is  unsoothed  by 
the  voice  of  those  best  beloved,  when 
no  cherished  hand  is  there  to  prop  the 
sinking  head,  and  close  the  eyes  for 
ever  on  this  world  and  its  sufferings  ! 
Refuse  not  my  father  the  consolation 
of  a  last  interview  with  his  dying 
wife  !  Have  compassion  on  my  poor 
mother's  agony !  Suffer  her  to  breathe 
her  last  between  the  two  beings  who 
share  all  her  affection !  So  may  your 
own  deathbed  be  soothed  by  the  pre- 
sence of  those  you  most  dearly  love  !" 

Doubtless  Monsieur  Noell's  ear  was 
well  used  to  such  pleadings,  and  his 
heart  was  hardened  by  a  long  course 


82 


Dominique. 


[July, 


of  judicial  severity.  His  glance  lost 
nothing  of  its  habitual'cold  indiffer- 
ence, as  he  replied  to  Dominique's 
passionate  entreaties  with  a  decided 
negative. 

"  I  must  repeat  my  former  answer," 
he  said  ;  "  I  neither  can  nor  will  grant 
the  indulgence  you  require.  And 
now  I  will  detain  you  no  longer,  as 
you  may  perhaps  make  use  of  your 
time  to  greater  advantage  in  other 
quarters." 

He  rose  from  his  chair,  and  re- 
mained standing  till  Dominique  left 
the  room.  The  tone  of  his  last  words 
had  wellnigh  crushed  hope  in  the 
young  man's  bosom.  But  as  long  as 
a  possibility  remained,  the  student 
pursued  it.  He  betook  himself  to  the 
Procureur  du  Roi,  whose  office  consti- 
tuted him'public  prosecutor  in  cases  of 
this  kind.  That  functionary  declared 
himself  incompetent,  until  the  pri- 
soner should  have  undergone  another 
examination.  Until  then,  the  only 
•appeal  from  the  judge  was  to  the 
minister  of  justice.  Dominique  in- 
stantly drew  up  and  forwarded  a 
petition ;  but  before  it  reached  Paris, 
his  mother  breathed  her  last.  She 
met  her  death,  preceded  and  attended 
by  acute  sufferings,  with  the  resigna- 
tion of  a  martyr.  But  even  after  the 
last  sacrament  of  her  religion  had 
been  administered,  and  when  she 
earnestly  strove  to  fix  her  mind  on 
eternity,  to  the  exclusion  of  things 
temporal,  the  thought  of  her  husband, 
so  long  and  tenderly  beloved,  and 
absent  at  this  supreme  hour,  intruded 
itself  upon  her  pious  meditations, 
brought  tears  to  her  eyes,  and  drew 
heartrending  sobs  from  her  bosom  ; 
her  last  sigh  was  for  him,  her  latest 
breath  uttered  his  name.  This  fer- 
vent desire,  so  cruelly  thwarted, 
those  tears  of  deferred  hope  and  final 
profound  disappointment,  were  inex- 
pressibly painful  to  contemplate. 
Upon  Dominique,  whose  love  for  his 
mother  was  so  deep  and  holy,  they 
made  a  violent  impression.  Bitter 
were  his  feelings  as  he  sat  beside  her 
couch  when  the  spirit  had  fled,  and 
gazed  upon  her  clay-cold  features, 
whereon  there  yet  lingered  a  grieved 
and  suffering  expression.  And  later, 
when  the  earth  had  received  her  into 
its  bosom,  that  pallid  and  sorrowful 
countenance  was  ever  before  his  eyes. 


In  his  dreams  he  heard  his  mother's 
well-known  voice,  mournfully  pro- 
nouncing the  name  of  her  beloved 
husband,  and  praying,  as  she  had 
done  in  the  last  hours  of  her  life,  that 
she  might  again  behold  him  before 
she  departed.  Nor  were  these  visions 
dissipated  by  daylight.  They  recur- 
red to  his  excited  imagination,  and 
kindled  emotions  of  fierce  hatred 
towards  the  man  who  had  had  it  in  his 
power  to  smooth  his  mother's  passage 
from  life  to  death,  and  who  had  wan- 
tonly refused  the  alleviation.  Nay 
more  ;  convinced  of  his  father's  inno- 
cence, Dominique  considered  the 
judge  who  had  thrown  him  into  prison 
as  in  some  sort  his  .mother's  murderer. 
He  had  accelerated  her  decease,  and 
thrown  gall  into  the  cup  it  is  the  lot 
of  every  mortal  to  drain.  The  physi- 
cians had  declared  anxiety  of  mind 
to  be  the  immediate  cause  of  her 
death.  Dominique  brooded  over  this 
declaration,  and  over  the  misfortunes 
that  had  so  suddenly  overtaken  him, 
until  he  came  to  consider  M.  Noell 
as  much  an  assassin  as  if  he  had 
struck  a  dagger  into  his  mother's 
heart.  "  What  matter,"  he  thought, 
"  whether  the  wound  be  dealt  to  body 
or  to  soul,  so  long  as  it  slays  ?"  He 
had  nothing  to  distract  his  thoughts 
from  dwelling  upon  and  magnifying 
the  wrongs  that  had  deprived  him  of 
both  parents,  one  by  death,  the  other 
by  an  imprisonment  whose  termina- 
tion he  could  not  foresee.  At  times 
his  melancholy  was  broken  by  bursts 
of  fury  against  him  he  deemed  the 
cause  of  his  misfortunes. 

"  Could  I  but  see  him  die !"  he 
would  exclaim,  "  the  cold-blooded 
heartless  tyrant — die  alone,  childless, 
accursed,  without  a  friendly  hand  to 
wipe  the  death-sweat  from  his  face ! 
Then,  methinks,  I  could  again  be 
happy,  when  his  innocent  victim  was 
thus  revenged.  Alas,  my  mother ! — 
my  poor,  meek,  long-suffering  mother, 
— must  your  death  go  unrequited  ?  For 
what  offence  was  your  life  taken  as 
atonement  ?  By  what  vile  distortion 
of  justice  did  this  base  inquisitor 
visit  upon  your  innocent  head  a  trans- 
gression that  never  was  committed?" 

Meanwhile  the  captivity  of  the 
elder  Lafon  was  prolonged.  A  second 
examination  relaxed  nothing  of  his 
jailor's  severity,  and  his  son's  applica- 


1849.] 


Dominique. 


83 


tions  to  see  him  were  all  rejected. 
Dominique  wrote  to  his  father,  but 
he  received  no  answer ;  and  he  after- 
wards learned  that  his  letter  had  not 
been  delivered  when  sent,  but  had 
been  detained  by  Noell,  who,  finding 
nothing  criminatory  in  its  contents, 
had  subjected  it,  with  characteristic 
suspicion,  to  chemical  processes,  in 
hopes  to  detect  writing  with  sym- 
pathetic ink,  and  had  finally  made  it 
accessory  to  an  attempt  to  extort  a 
confession  from  the  prisoner.  This 
information,  obtained  from  an  under- 
strapper of  the  prison  by  means  of  a 
large  bribe,  raised  Dominique's  exas- 
peration to  the  highest  pitch. 

"  Gracious  Heaven !"  he  exclaimed, 
"are  such  things  to  be  endured  in 
silence  and  submission  ?  Has  human 
justice  iron  scourges  for  nominal  of- 
fences,— honours  and  rewards  for  real 
crimes?  On  a  false  accusation  my 
father  pines  in  a  dungeon,  whilst  my 
mother's  murderer  walks  scatheless 
Snd  exalted  amongst  his  fellows ;  but 
if  the  laws  of  man  are  impotent  to 
avenge  her  death,  who  shall  blame 
her  son  for  remembering  her  dying 
agony,  and  requiting  it  on  those  who 
aggravated  her  sufferings  ?" 

And  he  walked  forth,  pondering 
vengeance.  Unconsciously  his  steps 
took  the  direction  of  the  prison.  Long 
he  stood,  with  folded  arms  and  lower- 


ing brow,  gazing  at  the  small  grated 
aperture  that  gave  light  and  air  to  his 
father's  cell,  and  hoping  to  see  his 
beloved  parent  look  out  and  recognise 
him.  He  gazed  in  vain  :  twilight 
came,  night  followed,  no  one  appeared 
at  the  window.  Dominique  knew  not 
that  it  was  high  above  the  prisoner's 
reach.  He  returned  home,  fancying 
his  father  ill,  nourishing  a  thousand 
bitter  thoughts,  and  heaping  up  fresh 
hatred  against  the  author  of  so  much 
misery.  That  night  Michel,  the  old 
servant,  came  twice  to  his  room  door, 
to  see  what  ailed  him,  since,  instead 
of  retiring  to  rest,  he  unceasingly 
paced  the  apartment.  Dominique 
dismissed  the  faithful  fellow  to  his  bed, 
and  resumed  his  melancholy  walk. 
But  in  the  morning  he  was  so  pale 
and  haggard  that  Michel  slipped  out 
to  ask  the  family  physician  to  call  in 
by  accident.  When  he  returned, 
Dominique  had  left  the  house.  In 
great  alarm — for  his  young  master's 
gloomy  despondency  at  once  suggested 
fear  of  suicide — Michel  tracked  his 
steps.  His  fears  proved  unfounded. 
With  some  trouble  he  ascertained  that 
Dominique  had  quitted  the  town  on 
the  top  of  a  passing  diligence,  with  a 
valise  for  sole  baggage,  and  without 
informing  any  one  of  the  object  of  his 
journey. 


THE  DOUBLE  DUEL. 


Antony  Noell,  the  judge,  had  three 
children,  and  report  lied  not  when  it 
said  that  he  was  tenderly  attached  to 
them.  A  harsh  and  unfeeling  man  in 
his  official  capacity,  and  in  the  ordi- 
nary affairs  of  life,  all  the  softer  part 
of  his  nature  seemed  to  have  resolved 
itself  into  paternal  affection.  His  two 
sons  were  students  at  the  university 
of  Toulouse ;  his  youngest  child,  a 
blooming  maiden  of  twelve,  still 
brightened  his  home  and  made  his 
heart  joyful,  although  she  soon  was 
to  leave  him  to  finish  her  education 
in  a  convent.  The  two  students  were 
gay  handsome  lads,  but  somewhat 
dissipated  ;  fonder  of  the  bottle  and 
the  billiard-room  than  of  grave  lec- 
tures and  dry  studies.  They  were  iu 
small  favour  with  their  pedagogues, 
but  in  high  repute  with  their  fellow 


collegians  ;  whilst  peaceable  citizens 
and  demure  young  ladies  regarded 
them  with  mingled  aversion,  interest, 
and  curiosity,  on  account  of  certain 
mad  pranks,  by  which,  during  their 
first  half-year's  residence,  they  had 
gained  a  certain  notoriety  in  the  quiet 
city  of  Toulouse. 

It  happened  one  night,  as  the  bro- 
thers came  both  flushed  with  play  and 
wine  from  their  accustomed  coffee- 
house on  the  Place  du  Capitole,  that 
Vincent,  the  elder  of  the  two,  stumbled 
over  the  feet  of  a  man  who  sat  upon 
one  of  the  benches  placed  outside  the 
establishment.  The  passage  through, 
the  benches  and  tables  was  narrow^ ; 
and  the  stranger,  having  thrust  his 
legs  nearly  across  it,  had  little  reason 
to  complain  of  the  trifling  offence  of- 
fered him.  Nevertheless  he  jumped  to 


Dominique. 


[July, 


his  feet  and  fiercely  taxed  young  Noell 
with  an  intentional  insult.  Noell, 
full  of  good  humour  and  indifferent 
wine,  and  taking  his  interlocutor  for 
a  fellow  student,  made  a  jesting  re- 
ply, and  seizing  one  of  the  stranger's 
arms,  whilst  his  brother  Martial 
grasped  the  other,  dragged  him  into 
the  lamp-light  to  see  who  he  was.  But 
the  face  they  beheld  was  unknown  to 
them ;  and  scarcely  had  they  obtained 
a  glimpse  at  it  when  its  owner  shook 
them  off,  applying  to  them  at  the  same 
time  a  most  injurious  epithet.  The 
students  would  have  struck  him,  but 
he  made  a  pace  backwards,  and,  seiz- 
ing a  heavy  chair  which  he  whirled 
over  his  head  as  though  it  had  been  a 
feather,  he  swore  he  would  dash  out 
the  brains  of  the  first  who  laid  a  finger 
on  him. 

"  I  do  not  fight  like  a  water-car- 
rier," he  said,  "  with  fists  and  feet ; 
but  if  you  are  as  ready  with  your 
swords  as  you  are  with  your  insolence, 
you  shall  not  long  await  satisfac- 
tion." 

And  offering  a  card,  which  was  at 
once  accepted,  he  received  two  in  re- 
turn. The  disputants  then  separated  ; 
and  as  soon  as  the  Noells  turned  out 
of  the  square,  they  paused  beneath  a 
lamp  to  examine  the  card  they  had 
received.  Inscribed  upon  it  was  the 
name  of  Dominique  Lafon. 

It  was  too  late,  when  this  quarrel 
occurred,  for  further  steps  to  be  taken 
that  night ;  but  early  on  the  following 
morning  Dominique's  second,  a  young 
lawyer  whom  he  had  known  during 
his  studies  at  Paris,  had  an  interview 
with  the  friends  appointed  by  the 
Noells  to  act  on  their  behalf.  The 
latter  anticipated  a  duet  with  swords, 
and  were  surprised  to  find  that  Domi- 
nique, entitled,  as  the  insulted  party, 
to  fix  the  weapon,  selected  the  more 
dangerous  and  less  usual  one  of  pistols. 
They  could  not  object,  however,  and 
the  meeting  was  fixed  for  the  next 
day;  the  arrangement  being  that  both 
brothers  should  come  upon  the  ground, 
and  that,  if  Dominique  was  unhurt  in 
the  first  encounter,  the  second  duel 
should  immediately  succeed  it. 

In  a  secluded  field,  to  the  right  of 
the  pleasant  road  from  Toulouse  to 
Albi,  and  at  no  great  distance  from 
the  tumulus  on  whose  summit  a  stone 
pillar  commemorates  Soult's  gallant 


resistance  to  Wellington's  conquering 
forces,  the  combatants  met  at  the  ap- 
pointed hour,  and  sainted  each  other 
Avith  cold  courtesy.  Dominique  was 
pale,  but  his  hand  and  eye  were  steady, 
and  his  pulse  beat  calmly.  The  two 
Noells  were  cheerful  and  indifferent, 
and  bore  themselves  like  men  to  whom 
encounters  of  this  kind  were  no  novelty. 
The  elder  brother  took  the  first  turn. 
The  seconds  asked  once  more  if  the  af- 
fair could  not  be  peaceably  arranged  ; 
but,  receiving  no  answer,  they  made 
the  final  arrangements.  Two  peeled 
willow  rods  were  laid  upon  the  ground, 
six  yards  apart.  At  ten  yards  from 
either  of  these  the  duellists  were  placed, 
making  the  entire  distance  between 
them  six  and  twenty  yards ;  and  it  was 
at  their  option,  when  the  seconds  gave 
the  word,  either  to  advance  to  the 
barrier  before  firing,  or  to  fire  at  once, 
or  from  any  intervening  point. 

The  word  was  given,  and  the  anta- 
gonists stepped  out.  Vincent  Noell 
took  but  two  paces,  halted  and  fired. 
He  had  missed.  Dominique  continued 
steadily  to  advance.  When  he  had 
taken  five  paces,  the  seconds  looked 
at  each  other,  and  then  at  him,  as  if 
expecting  him  to  stop.  He  took  no 
notice,  and  moved  on.  It  was  a 
minute  of  breathless  suspense.  In  the 
dead  silence,  his  firm  tread  upon  the 
grass  was  distinctly  audible.  He 
paused  only  when  his  foot  touched  the 
willow  wand.  Then  he  slowly  raised 
his  arm,  and  fired. 

The  whirling  smoke  prevented  him 
for  an  instant  from  discerning  the  effect 
of  his  shot,  but  the  hasty  advance  of 
the  seconds  and  of  two  surgeons  who 
had  accompanied  them  to  the  field, 
left  him  little  doubt  that  it  had  told. 
It  had  indeed  done  so,  and  with  fatal 
effect.  The  unhappy  Vincent  was 
bathed  in  his  blood.  The  surgeons 
hastened  to  apply  a  first  dressing,  but 
their  countenances  gave  little  hope  of 
a  favourable  result. 

Pale  and  horror-stricken,  not  with 
personal  fear,  but  with  grief  at  his 
brother's  fate,  Martial  Noell  whispered 
his  second,  who  proposed  postponing 
the  second  duel  till  another  day. 
Dominique,  who,  whilst  all  his  com- 
panions had  been  busy  with  the 
wounded  man,  had  remained  leaning 
against  a  tree,  his  discharged  pistol  in 
his  hand,  collected  and  unsympathis- 


3849.] 


Dominique. 


85 


ing,  stepped  forward  on  bearing  this 
proposition. 

"  Another  day  ?  "  said  he  with  a 
cruel  sneer.  "Before  another  day 
arrives,  I  shall  doubtless  be  in  prison 
for  this  morning's  work.  But  no 
matter ;  if  the  gentleman  is  less  ready 
to  fight  than  he  was  to  insult  me,  let 
him  leave  the  field." 

The  scornful  tone  and  insinuation 
brought  a  flush  of  shame  and  anger 
to  the  brow  of  the  younger  Noell.  He 
detested  himself  for  the  momentary 
weakness  he  had  shown,  and  a  fierce 
flame  of  revenge  kindled  in  his  heart. 

"  Murderer !  "  he  exclaimed,  ''  my 
brother's  blood  calls  aloud  for  ven- 
geance. May  Providence  make  me 
its  instrument ! " 

Dominique  replied  not.  Under  the 
same  conditions  as  before,  the  two 
young  men  took  their  stations.  But 
the  chances  were  not  equal.  Domi- 
nique retained  all  his  coolness;  his 
opponent's  whole  frame  quivered  with 
passionate  emotion.  This  time,  neither 
was  in  haste  to  fire.  Advancing 
slowly,  their  eyes  fixed  on  each  other, 
they  reached  at  the  same  moment  the 
limits  of  their  walk.  Then  their 
pistols  were  gradually  raised,  and,  as 


if  by  word  of  command,  simultaneously 
discharged.  This  time  both  balls  took 
effect.  The  one  that  struck  Domi- 
nique went  through  his  arm,  without 
breaking  the  bone,  and  lodged  in  his 
back,  inflicting  a  severe  but  not  a 
dangerous  wound.  But  Martial  Noell 
was  shot  through  the  head. 

The  news  of  this  bloody  business 
soon  got  wind,  and  the  very  same  day 
it  was  the  talk  of  all  Toulouse.  Mar- 
tial Noell  had  died  upon  the  spot ;  his 
brother  expired  within  forty- eight 
hours.  The  seconds  got  out  of  the 
way,  till  they  should  see  how  the 
thing  was  likely  to  go.  Dominique's 
wound  prevented  his  folloAving  their 
example,  if  he  were  so  disposed ;  and 
when  it  no  longer  impeded  bis  move- 
ments, he  was  already  in  the  hands 
of  justice.  Frantic  with  grief  on 
learning  the  fate  of  his  beloved  sons, 
Anthony  Noell  hurried  to  Toulouse, 
and  vigorously  pushed  a  prosecution. 
He  hoped  for  a  very  severe  sentence, 
and  was  bitterly  disappointed  when 
Dominique  escaped,  in  consideration 
of  his  wounds  and  of  his  having  been 
the  insulted  party,  with  the  lenient 
doom  Of  five  years'  imprisonment. 


FIVE  YEARS  LATER. 


Five  years  of  absence  from  home 
may  glide  rapidly  enough  away,  when 
passed  in  pursuit  of  pleasure  or  profit ; 
dragged  out  between  prison  walls, 
they  appear  an  eternity,  a  chasm 
between  the  captive  and  the  world. 
So  thought  Dominique  as  he  re- 
entered  Montauban,  at  the  expiration 
of  his  sentence.  During  the  whole 
time,  not  a  word  of  intelligence  had 
reached  him  from  his  home,  no  friend- 
ly voice  bad  greeted  his  ear,  no  line 
of  familiar  handwriting  had  gladdened 
his  tearless  eyes.  Arrived  in  his 
native  town,  his  first  inquiry  was  for 
his  father.  Pascal  Lafon  was  dead. 
The  fate  of  his  wife  and  son  had 
preyed  upon  his  health  ;  the  prison 
air  had  poisoned  the  springs  of  life  in 
the  strong,  free-hearted  man.  The 
physician  declared  drugs  useless  in 
his  case,  for  that  the  atmosphere  of 
liberty  alone  could  save  him  ;  and  he 
recommended,  if  unconditional  release 
were  impossible,  that  the  prisoner 


should  be  guarded  in  his  own  house. 
The  recommendation  was  forwarded 
to  Paris,  but  the  same  post  took  a 
letter  from  Anthony  Noell,  and  a  few 
days  brought  the  physician's  dismis- 
sal and  an  order  for  the  close  confine- 
ment of  Lafon.  Examinations  fol- 
lowed each  other  in  rapid  succession, 
but  they  served  only  to  torment*  the 
prisoner,  without  procuring  his  re- 
lease ;  and  after  some  months  he 
died,  his  innocence  unrecognised. 
The  cause  of  his  death,  and  the  cir- 
cumstances attending  it,  were  loudly 
proclaimed  by  the  indignant  physi- 
cian ;  and  Dominique,  on  his  return 
to  Montauban,  had  no  difficulty  in 
obtaining  all  the  details,  aggravated 
probably  by  the  unpopularity  of  the 
judge.  He  heard  them  with  unchang- 
ing countenance  ;  none  could  detect  a 
sign  of  emotion  on  that  cheek  of 
marble  paleness,  or  in  that  cold  and 
steadfast  eye.  He  then  made  inquiries 
concerning  Anthony  Noell.  That 


86 


[July, 


magistrate,  he  learned,  had  been  pro- 
moted, two  years  previously,  and  now 
resided  in  his  native  town  of  Mar- 
seilles. At  that  moment,  however, 
he  happened  to  be  at  an  hotel  in 
Montauban.  He  had  never  recovered 
the  loss  of  his  sons,  which  had  aged 
him  twenty  years  in  appearance,  and 
had  greatly  augmented  the  harshness 
and  soar  severity  of  his  character. 
He  seemed  to  find  his  sole  consolation 
in  the  society  of  his  daughter,  now  a 
beautiful  girl  of  seventeen,  and  in 
intense  application  to  his  professional 
duties.  A  tour  of  inspection,  con- 
nected with  his  judicial  functions,  had 
now  brought  him  to  Montauban. 
Daring  his  compulsory  absences  from 
home,  which  were  of  annual  occur- 
rence and  of  some  duration,  his 
daughter  remained  in  the  care  of  an 
old  female  relation,  her  habitual  com- 
panion, whose  chief  faults  were  her 
absurd  vanity,  and  her  too  great  indul- 
gence of  the  caprices  of  her  darling 
niece. 

Dominique  showed  singular  anxiety 
to  learn  every  particular  concerning 
Anthony  Noell's  household,  informing 
himself  of  the  minutest  details,  and 
especially  of  the  character  of  his 
daughter,  who  was  represented  to  him 
as  warmhearted  and  naturally  ami- 
able, but  frivolous  and  spoiled  by 
over-indulgence.  On  the  death  of 
his  sons,  Noell  renounced  his  project 
of  sending  her  from  home,  and  the 
consequence  was,  that  her  education 
had  been  greatly  neglected.  Madame 
Verle\  the  old  aunt  already  men- 
tioned, was  a  well-meaning,  but  very 
weak  widow,  who,  childless  herself, 
had  no  experience  in  bringing  up 
young  women.  In  her  own  youth 
she  had  been  a  great  coquette,  and 
frivolity  was  still  a  conspicuous  fea- 
ture in  her  character.  As  M.  Noell, 
since  his  sons'  death,  had  shown  a 
sort  of  aversion  for  society,  the'  house 
was  dull  enough,  and  Madame  Verle's 
chief  resource  was  the  circulating 
library,  whence  she  obtained  a  con- 
stant supply  of  novels.  Far  from 
prohibiting  to  her  niece  the  perusal  of 
this  trash,  she  made  her  the  com- 
panion of  her  unwholesome  studies. 
The  false  ideas  and  highflown  romance 
with  which  these  books  teemed,  might 
have  made  little  impression  on  a 
character  fortified  by  sound  principles 


and  a  good  education,  but  they  sank 
deep  into  the  ardent  and  uncultivated 
imagination  of  Florinda  Noell,  to 
whose  father,  engrossed  by  his  sor- 
rows and  by  his  professional  labours, 
it  never  once  occurred  to  check  the 
current  of  corruption  thus  permitted 
to  flow  into  his  daughter's  artless 
mind.  He  saw  her  gay,  happy,  and 
amused,  and  he  inquired  no  further  ; 
well  pleased  to  find  her  support  so 
cheerfully  the  want  of  society  to 
which  his  morose  regrets  and  gloomy 
eccentricity  condemned  her. 

One  of  Dominique's  first  cares,  on 
his  return  to  Montauban,  was  to  visit 
his  parents'  grave.  Although  his 
father  died  in  prison,  and  his  memory 
had  never  been  cleared  from  the  slur 
of  accusation,  his  friends  had  obtained 
permission,  with  some  difficulty,  to 
inter  his  corpse  beside  that  of  his  wife. 
The  day  was  fading  into  twilight 
when  Dominique  entered  the  cemetery, 
and  it  took  him  some  time  to  find  the 
grave  he  sought.  The  sexton  would 
have  saved  him  the  trouble,  but  the 
idea  seemed  a  profanation  ;  in  silence 
and  in  solitude  he  approached  the 
tomb  of  his  affections  and  happiness. 
Long  he  sat  upon  the  mound,  plunged 
in  reverie,  but  with  dry  eyes,  for  the 
source  of  tears  appeared  exhausted  in 
his  heart.  Night  came ;  the  white 
tombstones  looked  ghastly  pale  in  the 
moonlight,  and  cast  long  black  shadows 
upon  the  turf.  Dominique  aroser 
plucked  a  wild -flower  from  his  mother's 
grave,  and  left  the  place.  He  had 
taken  but  three  steps  when  he  became 
aware  he  was  not  alone  in  the  church- 
yard. A  tall  figure  rose  suddenly 
from  an  adjacent  grave.  Although 
separated  but  by  one  lofty  tombstone, 
the  two  mourners  had  been  too  ab- 
sorbed and  silent  in  their  grief  to 
notice  each  other's  presence.  Now 
they  gazed  at  one  another.  The 
moon,  fora  moment  obscured,  emer- 
ged from  behind  a  cloud,  and  shone 
upon  their  features.  The  recognition 
was  mutual  and  instantaneous.  Both 
started  back.  Between  the  graves  of 
their  respective  victims,  Anthony 
Noell  and  Dominique  Lafon  con- 
fronted each  other. 

A  dusky  fire  gleamed  in  the  eyes  of 
Dominique,  and  his  features,  worn 
and  emaciated  from  captivity,  were 
distorted  with  the  grimace  of  intense 


1849.] 


Dominique. 


87 


hatred.  His  heart  throbbed  as  though 
it  would  have  burst  from  his  bosom. 

"  May  your  dying  hour  be  deso- 
late !"  he  shrieked.  "  May  your  end 
be  in  misery  and  despair ! " 

The  magistrate  gazed  at  his  invete- 
rate foe  with  a  fixed  stare  of  horror, 
as  though  a  phantom  had  suddenly 
risen  before  him.  Then,  slowly  rais- 
ing his  hand,  till  it  pointed  to  the 
grave  of  his  sons,  his  eye  still  fixed, 
as  if  by  fascination,  upon  that  of  Do- 
minique, a  single  word,  uttered  in  a 
hollow  tone,  burst  from  his  quivering 
lips. 

"  Murderer ! "  he  exclaimed. 

Dominique  laughed.  It  was  a 
hideous  sound,  a  laugh  of  unquench- 
able hatred  and  savage  exultation. 
He  approached  Noell  till  their  faces 
were  but  a  few  inches  apart,  and 
spoke  in  a  voice  of  suppressed  fierce- 
ness. 

"  My  father  and  my  mother,"  he 
said,  "  expired  in  grief,  and  shame, 
and  misery.  By  your  causeless  hate 
and  relentless  persecution,  I  was  made 
an  orphan.  The  debt  is  but  half  paid. 


You  have  still  a  child.  You  still  find 
happiness  on  earth.  But  you  yet  shall 
lose  all — all!  Yet  shall  you  know 
despair  and  utter  solitude,  and  your 
death  shall  be  desolate,  even  as  my 
father's  was.  Remember  !  We  shall 
meet  again." 

And  passing  swiftly  before  the  ma- 
gistrate, with  a  gesture  of  solemn 
menace,  Dominique  left  the  cemetery. 
Noell  sank,  pale  and  trembling,  upon 
his  children's  grave.  His  enemy  had 
found  him,  and  security  had  fled. 
Dominique's  last  words,  "We  shall 
meet  again !"  rang  in  his  ears,  as  if 
tittered  by  the  threatening  voice  of 
hostile  and  irresistible  destiny.  Slow- 
ly, and  in  great  uneasiness,  he  returned 
into  the  town,  which  he  left  early  the 
next  day  for  Marseilles.  To  his  terri- 
fied fancy,  his  daughter  was  safe  only 
when  he  watched  over  her.  So  great 
was  his  alarm,  that  he  would  have 
resigned  his  lucrative  and  honourable 
office  sooner  than  have  remained 
longer  absent  from  the  tender  flower 
whom  tfce  ruthless  spoiler  threatened 
to  trample  and  destroy. 


THE  HORSE-RIDERS. 


Months  passed  away,  and  spring 
returned.  On  a  bright  morning  of 
May — in  parched  Provence  the  plea- 
santest  season  of  the  year — a  motley 
cavalcade  approached  Marseilles  by 
the  Nice  road.  It  consisted  of  two 
large  waggons,  a  score  of  horses,  and 
about  the  same  number  of  men  and 
women.  The  horses  were  chiefly 
white,  cream-coloured,  or  piebald,  and 
some  of  them  bore  saddles  of  peculiar 
make  and  fantastical  colours,  velvet- 
covered  and  decorated  with  gilding. 
One  was  caparisoned  with  a  tiger- 
skin,  and  from  his  headstall  floated 
streamers  of  divers-coloured  horse- 
hair. The  women  wore  riding-habits, 
some  of  gaudy  tints,  boddices  of  purple 
or  crimson  velvet,  with  long  flaunting 
robes  of  green  or  blue.  They  were 
sunburned,  boldfaced  damsels,  with 
marked  features  and  of  dissipated 
aspect,  and  they  sat  firmly  on  their 
saddles,  jesting  as  they  rode  along. 
Their  male  companions  were  of  corre- 
sponding Appearance ;  lithe  vigorous 
fellows,  from  fifteen  to  forty,  attired 
in  various  hussar  and  jockey  costumes, 


with  beards  and  mustaches  fantasti- 
cally trimmed,  limbs  well  developed, 
and  long  curling  hair.  Various  na- 
tions went  to  the  composition  of  the 
band.  French,  Germans,  Italians, 
and  Gipsies  made  up  the  equestrian 
troop  of  Luigi  Bartolo,  which,  after 
passing  the  winter  in  southern  Italy, 
had  wandered  north  on  the  approach 
of  spring,  and  now  was  on  its  way  to 
give  a  series  of  representations  at  Mar- 
seilles. % 

A  little  behind  his  comrades,  upon 
a  fine  gray  horse,  rode  a  young  Flo- 
rentine named  Vicenzo,  the  most  skil- 
ful rider  of  the  troop.  Although  but 
five-and-twenty  years  old,  he  had 
gone  through  many  vicissitudes  and 
occupations.  Of  respectable  family, 
he  had  studied  at  Pisa,  had  been  ex- 
pelled for  misconduct,  had  then  en- 
listed in  an  Austrian  regiment, 
whence  his  friends  had  procured  his 
discharge,  but  only  to  cast  him  off"  for 
his  dissolute  habits.  Alternately  a 
professional  gambler,  a  stage  player, 
and  a  smuggler  on  the  Italian  fron- 
tier, he  had  now  followed,  for  up- 


Dominique. 


[July, 


wards  of  a  year,  the  vagabond  life  of  a 
horse-rider.  Of  handsome  person  and 
much  natural  intelligence,  he  covered 
his  profligacy  and  taste  for  low  asso- 
ciations with  a  certain  varnish  of 
good  breeding.  This  had  procured 
him  in  the  troop  the  nickname  of  the 
Marchese,  and  had  made  him  a  great 
favourite  with  the  female  portion  of 
the  strollers,  amongst  whom  more 
than  one  fierce  quarrel  had  arisen  for 
the  good  graces  of  the  fascinating  Vi- 
cenzo. 

The  Florentine  was  accompanied  by 
a  stranger,  who  had  fallen  in  with 
the  troop  at  Nice,  and  had  won  their 
hearts  by  his  liberality.  He  had 
given  them  a  magnificent  supper  at 
their  albergo,  had  made  them  presents 
of  wine  and  trinkets — all  apparently 
out  of  pure  generosity  and  love  of  their 
society.  He  it  was  who  had  chiefly 
determined  them  to  visit  Marseilles, 
instead  of  proceeding  north,  as  they 
had  originally  intended,  by  Avignon 
to  Lyons.  He  marched  with  the 
troop,  on  horseback,  wrapped  in  a 
long  loose  coat,  and  with  a  broad  hat 
slouched  over  his  brow,  and  bestowed 
his  companionship  chieflj*  on  Vicenzo, 
to  whom  he  appeared  to  have  taken  a 
great  affection.  The  strollers  thought 
him  a  strange  eccentric  fellow,  half 
cracked,  to  say  the  least ;  but  they 
cared  little  whether  he  were  sane  or 
mad,  so  long  as  his  society  proved 
profitable,  his  purse  well  filled,  and 
-ever  in  his  hand. 

The  wanderers  were  within  three 
miles  of  Marseilles  when  they  came 
to  one  of  the  bastides,  or  country- 
houses,  so  thickly  scattered  around  that 
city.  It  was  of  unusual  elegance,  al- 
most concealed  amongst  a  thick  plan- 
tation of  trees,  and  having  a  terrace, 
in  the  Italian  style,  overlooking  the 
road.  Upon  this  terrace,  in  the  cool 
shade  of  an  arbour,  two  ladies  were 
seated,  enjoying  the  sweet  breath  of 
the  lovely  spring  morning.  Books 
and  embroidery  were  on  a  table  be- 
fore them,  which  they  left  on  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  horse-riders,  and,  lean- 
ing upon  the  stone  parapet,  looked 
down  on  the  unusual  spectacle.  The 
elder  of  the  two  had  nothing  remark- 
able, except  the  gaudy  ribbons  that 
contrasted  with  her  antiquated  phy- 
siognomy. The  younger,  in  full  flush 
of  youth,  and  seen  amongst  the  bright 


blossoms  of  the  plants  that  grew  in 
pots  upon  the  parapet,  might  have 
passed  for  the  goddess  of  spring  in  her 
most  sportive  mood.  Her  hair  hung 
in  rich  clusters  over  her  alabaster 
neck;  her  blue  eyes  danced  in  humid 
lustre ;  her  coral  lips,  a  little  parted, 
disclosed  a  range  of  sparkling  pearls. 
The  sole  fault  to  be  found  with  her 
beauty  was  its  character,  which  was 
sensual  rather  than  intellectual.  One 
beheld  the  beautiful  and  frivolous 
child  of  clay,  but  the  ray  of  the  spirit 
that  elevates  and  purifies  was  want- 
ing. It  was  the  beauty  of  a  Bacchante 
rather  than  of  a  Vestal- Aurora  dis- 
porting herself  on  the  flower  banks, 
and  awaiting,  in  frolic  mood,  the  ad- 
vent of  Cupid. 

The  motley  cavalcade  moved  on, 
the  men  assuming  their  smartish  seat 
in  the  saddle  as  they  passed  under  the 
inspection  of  the  bella  biondina.  When 
Vicenzo  approached  the  park  wall,  his 
companion  leaned  towards  him  and 
spoke  something  in  his  car.  At  the 
same  moment,  as  if  stung  by  a  gadfly, 
the  spirited  gray  upon  which  the  Flo- 
rentine was  mounted,  sprang  with  all 
four  feet  from  the  ground,  and  com- 
menced a  series  of  leaps  and  curvets 
that  would  have  unseated  a  less  ex- 
pert rider.  They  only  served  to  dis- 
play to  the  greatest  advantage  Vi- 
cenzo's  excellent  horsemanship  and 
slender  graceful  figure.  Disdaining 
the  gaudy  equipments  of  his  comrades, 
the  young  man  was  tastefully  attired 
in  a  dark  closely-fitting  jacket.  Hes- 
sian boots  and  pantaloons  exhibited 
the  Antinous-like  proportions  of  his 
comely  limbs.  He  rode  like  a  centaur, 
he  and  his  steed  seemingly  forming 
but  one  body.  As  he  reached,  grace- 
fully caracoling,  the  terrace  on  whose 
summit  the  ladies  were  stationed,  he 
looked  up  with  a  winning  smile,  and 
removing  his  cap,  bowed  to  his  horse's 
mane.  The  old  lady  bridled  and 
smiled ;  the  young  one  blushed  as 
the  Florentine's  ardent  gaze  met  hers, 
and  in  her  confusion  she  let  fall  a 
branch  of  roses  she  held  in  her  hand. 
With  magical  suddenness  Vicenzo's 
fiery  horse  stood  still,  as  if  carved  of 
marble.  With  one  bound  the  rider 
was  on  foot,  and  had  snatched  up  the 
flowers ;  then  placing  a  hand  upon 
the  shoulder  of  his  steed,  who  at 
once  started  in  a  canter,  he  lightly, 


1849.] 


Dominique. 


89 


and  without  apparent  effort,  vaulted 
into  the  saddle.  With  another  bow 
and  smile  he  rode  off  with  his  com- 
panion. 

"  'Twas  well  done,  Yicenzo,"  said 
the  latter. 

"What  an  elegant  cavalier!"  ex- 
claimed Florinda  Noell  pensively,  fol- 
lowing with  her  eyes  the  accomplished 
equestrian. 

"And  so  distinguished  in  his  ap- 
pearance !"  chimed  in  her  silly  aunt. 
"  And  how  he  looked  up  at  us !  One 
might  fancy  him  a  nobleman  in  dis- 
guise, bent  on  adventures,  or  seeking 
intelligence  of  a  lost  lady-love." 

Florinda  smiled,  but  the  stale  pla- 
titude, borrowed  from  the  absurd  ro- 
mances that  crammed  Madame  Verio's 
brain,  abode  in  her  memory.  Whilst 
the  handsome  horse-rider  remained 
in  sight,  she  continued  upon  the  para- 
pet and  gazed  after  him.  On  his  part, 
Vicenzo  several  times  looked  back, 
and  more  than  once  he  pressed  to  his 
lips  the  fragrant  flowers  of  which  ac- 
cident had  made  him  the  possessor. 

A  small  theatre,  which  happened 
then  to  be  unoccupied,  was  hired  by 
the  equestrians  for  their  performances, 
the  announcement  of  which  was  soon 
placarded  from  one  end  to  the  other  of 
Marseilles.  At  the  first  representa- 
tion, Floriuda  and  her  aunt  were 
amongst  the  audience.  They  had  no 
one  to  check  their  inclinations,  for  Mr 
Noell,  after  passing  many  months 
with  his  daughter  without  molestation 
from  Dominique,  who  had  disappeared 
from  Montauban  the  day  after  their 
meeting  in  the  churchyard,  had  for- 
gotten his  apprehensions,  and  had  de- 
parted on  his  annual  tour  of  profes- 
sional duty.  At  the  circus,  the  honours 
of  the  night  were  for  Vicenzo.  His 
graceful  figure,  handsome  face,  skilful 
performance,  and  distinguished  air, 
were  the  theme  of  universal  admira- 
tion. Floriuda  could  not  detach  her 
gaze  from  him  as  he  flew  round  the 
circle,  standing  with  easy  negligence 
upon  his  horse's  back ;  and  she  could 
scarcely  restrain  a  cry  of  horror  and 
alarm  at  the  boldness  of  some  of  his 
feats.  Vicenzo  had  early  detected 
her  presence  in  the  theatre ;  and  the 
expression  of  his  eyes,  when  he  passed 
before  her  box,  made  her  conscious 
that  he  had  done  so. 

Several  days  elapsed,  during  which 


Floriuda  and  her  aunt  had  more  than 
once  again  visited  the  theatre.  Vi- 
cenzo had  become  a  subject  of  con- 
stant conversation  between  the  super- 
annuated coquette  and  her  niece,  the 
old  lady  indulging  the  most  extrava- 
gant conjectures  as  to  who  he  could 
be,  for  she  had  made  up  her  mind  he 
was  now  in  an  assumed  character. 
Florinda  spoke  of  him  less,  but  thought 
of  him  more.  Nor  were  her  visits  to 
the  theatre  her  only  opportunities  of 
seeing  him.  Vicenzo,  soon  after  his 
arrival  at  Marseilles,  had  excited  his 
comrades'  wonder  and  envy  by  ap- 
pearing iii  the  elegant  costume  of  a 
private  gentleman,  and  by  taking 
frequent  rides  out  of  the  town,  at  first 
accompanied  by  Fontaine,  the  stran- 
ger before  mentioned,  but  afterwards 
more  frequently  alone.  These  rides 
were  taken  early  in  the  morning,  or 
by  moonlight,  on  evenings  when  there 
was  no  performance.  ,The  horse- 
riders  laughed  at  the  airs  the  Mar- 
chese  gave  himself,  attributed  his 
extravagance  to  the  generosity  of 
Fontaine,  and  twitted  him  with  some 
secret  intrigue,  which  he,  however, 
did  not  admit,  and  they  took  little 
pains  to  penetrate.  Had  they  fol- 
lowed his  horse's  hoof- track,  they 
would  have  found  that  it  led,  some- 
times by  one  road,  sometimes  by 
another,  to  the  bastide  of  Anthony 
Noell  the  magistrate.  And  after  a 
few  days  they  would  have  seen 
Vicenzo,  his  bridle  over  his  arm, 
conversing  earnestly,  at  a  small  pos- 
tern-gate of  the  garden,  with  the 
charming  biondma,  whose  bright 
countenance  had  greeted,  like  a  good 
augury,  their  first  approach  to  Mar- 
seilles. » 

At  last  a  night  came  when  this 
stolen  conversation  lasted  longer  than 
usual.  Vicenzo  was  pressing,  Flo- 
rinda irresolute.  Fontaine  had  ac- 
companied his  friend,  and  held  his 
horse  in  an  adjacent  lane,  whilst  the 
lovers  (for  such  they  now  were  to  be 
considered)  sauntered  in  a  shrubbery 
walk  within  the  park. 

"  But  why  this  secrecy?"  said  the 
young  girl,  leaning  tenderly  upon  the 
arm  of  the  handsome  stroller.  "  Why 
not  at  once  inform  your  friends  you 
accede  to  their  wishes,  in  renouncing 
your  present  derogatory  pursuit? 
Why  not  present  yourself  to  my 


90 


Dominique. 


[July, 


father  under  your  real  name  and  title  ? 
He  loves  his  daughter  too  tenderly  to 
refuse  his  consent  to  a  union  on  which 
her  happiness  depends." 

"Dearest  Florinda!"  replied  Vi- 
cenzo,  "  how  could  my  ardent  love 
abide  the  delays  this  course  would 
entail  ?  How  can  you  so  cruelly  urge 
me  thus  to  postpone  my  happiness  ? 
See  you  not  how  many  obstacles  to 
our  union  the  step  you  advise  would 
raise  up  ?  Your  father,  unwilling  to 
part  with  his  only  daughter,  (and 
such  a  daughter !)  would  assuredly 
object  to  our  immediate  marriage- 
would  make  your  youth,  my  roving 
disposition,  fifty  other  circumstances, 
pretexts  for  putting  it  off.  And  did 
we  succeed  in  overruling  these,  there 
still  would  be  a  thousand  tedious  for- 
malities to  encounter,  correspondence 
between  your  father  and  my  family, 
who  are  proud  as  Lucifer  of  their 
ancient  name  and  title,  and  would 
be  wearisomely  punctilious.  By  my 
plan,  we  would  avoid  all  long-winded 
negotiations.  Before  daylight  we  are 
across  the  frontier;  and  before  that 
excellent  Madame  Verle  has  adjusted 
her  smart  cap,  and  buttered  her  first 
roll,  my  adored  Florinda  is  Marchion- 
ess of  Monteleane.  A  letter  to  papa 
explains  all ;  then  away  to  Florence, 
and  in  a  month  back  to  Marseilles, 
where  you  shall  duly  present  me  to 
my  respected  father-in-law,  and  I,  as 
in  humility  bound,  will  drop  upon  my 
knees  and  crave  pardon  for  running 
off  with  his  treasure.  Papa  gives  his 
benediction,  and  curtain  drops,  leav- 
ing all  parties  happy." 

How  often,  with  the  feeble  and 
irresolute,  does  a  sorry  jest  pass  for  a 
good  argument !  As  Vicenzo  rattled 
on,  his  victim  looked  up  in  his  face, 
and  smiled  at  his  soft  and  insidious 
words.  Fascinated  by  silvery  tones 
and  gaudy  scales,  the  woman,  as  of 
old,  gave  ear  to  the  serpent. 

"  'Tis  done,"  said  the  stroller,  with 
a  heartless  smile,  as  he  rode  off  with 
Fontaine,  half  an  hour  later — "done. 
A  postchaise  at  midnight.  She  brings 
her  jewels — all  the  fortune  she  will 
ever  bring  me,  I  suppose.  No  chance 
of  drawing  anything  from  the  old 
gentleman  ?  " 


"  Not  much,"  replied  Fontaine 
drily. 

"  Well,  I  must  have  another  thou- 
sand from  you,  besides  expenses. 
And  little  enough  too.  Fifty  yellow- 
boys  for  abandoning  my  place  in  the 
troop.  I  was  never  in  better  cue  for 
the  ring.  They  are  going  to  Paris, 
and  I  should  have  joined  Franconi." 

"  Oh  ! "  said  Fontaine,  with  a  slight 
sneer,  "a  man  of  your  abilities  will 
never  lack  employment.  But  we 
have  no  time  to  lose,  if  you  are  to  be 
back  at  midnight." 

The  two  men  spurred  their  horsesr 
and  galloped  back  to  Marseilles. 

A  few  minutes  before  twelve  o'clock, 
a  light  posting-carriage  was  drawn  up 
by  the  road-side,  about  a  hundred 
yards  beyond  Anthony  Noell's  gar- 
den. Vicenzo  tapped  thrice  with  his 
knuckles  at  the  postern  door,  which 
opened  gently,  and  a  trembling  female 
form  emerged  from  the  gloom  of  the 
shrubbery  into  the  broad  moonlight 
without.  Through  the  veil  covering 
her  head  and  face,  a  tear  might  be 
seen  glisten  ing  upon.her  cheek.  She  fal- 
tered, hesitated;  her  good  genius 
whispered  her  to  pause.  But  an  evil 
spirit  was  at  hand,  luring  her  to  de- 
struction. Taking  in  one  hand  a  cas- 
ket, the  real  object  of  his  base  desires, 
and  with  the  other  arm  encircling  her 
waist,  the  seducer,  murmuring  soft 
flatteries  in  her  ear,  hurried  Florinda 
down  the  slope  leading  to  the  road. 
Confused  and  fascinated,  the  poor 
weak  girl  had  no  power  to  resist. 
She  reached  the  carriage,  cast  one 
look  back  at  her  father's  house, 
whose  white  walls  shone  amidst  the 
dark  masses  of  foliage :  the  Floren- 
tine lifted  her  in,  spoke  a  word  to  the 
postilion,  and  the  vehicle  dashed 
away  in  the  direction  of  the  Italian 
frontier. 

So  long  as  the  carriage  was  in 
sight,  Fontaine,  who  had  accompanied 
Vicenzo,  sat  motionless  upon  his 
saddle,  watching  its  career  as  it  sped, 
like  a  large  black  insect,  along  the 
moonlit  road.  Then,  when  distance 
hid  it  from  his  view,  he  turned  his 
horse's  head  and  rode  rapidly  into 
Marseilles. 


1849.] 


Dominique. 


91 


FOES  AND  FRIENDS. 


UPON  the  second  day  after  Flo- 
rinda's  elopement  with  her  worthless 
suitor,  the  large  coffee-room  of  the 
Hotel  de  France,  at  Montauban,  was 
deserted,  save  by  two  guests,  One 
of  these  was  a  man  of  about  fifty-five, 
but  older  in  appearance,  whose  thin 
gray  hair  and  stooping  figure,  as  well 
as  the  deep,  anxious  wrinkles  and 
mournful  expression  of  his  counte- 
nance, told  a  tale  of  cares  and  trou- 
bles, borne  with  a  rebellious  rather 
than  with  a  resigned  spirit.  The  other 
occupant  of  the  apartment,  who  sat 
at  its  opposite  extremity,  and  was 
concealed,  except  upon  near  approach, 
by  a  sort  of  high  projecting  counter, 
was  much  younger,  for  his  age  could 
hardly  exceed  thirty  years.  A  certain 
sober  reserved  expression,  (hardly 
amounting  to  austerity,)  frequently 
observable  in  Koman  Catholic  priests, 
and  which  sat  becomingly  enough 
npon  his  open  intelligent  countenance, 
betrayed  his  profession  as  surely  as 
some  slight  clerical  peculiarities  of 
costume. 

Suddenly  a  waiter  entered  the  room, 
and  approaching  the  old  man  with  an 
air  of  great  respect,  informed  him 
that  a  gentleman,  seemingly  just  come 
off  a  journey,  desired  particularly  to 
speak  with  him.  The  person  address- 
ed raised  his  eyes,  whose  melancholy 
expression  corresponded  with  the 
furrows  of  his  cheek,  from  the  Paris 
newspaper  he  was  reading,  and,  in  a 
voice  at  once  harsh  and  feeble,  desired 
the  stranger  should  be  shown  in.  The 
order  was  obeyed  ;  and  a  person  en- 
tered, wrapped  in  a  cloak,  whose  col- 
lar was  turned  up,  concealing  great 
part  of  his  face.  His  countenance 
was  further  obscured  by  the  vizard  of 
a  travelling-cap,  from  beneath  which 
his  long  hair  hung  in  disorder. 
Splashed  and  unshaven,  he  had  all 
the  appearance  of  having  travelled  far 
and  fast.  The  gentleman  whom  he 
had  asked  to  see  rose  from  his  seat 
on  his  approach,  and  looked  at  him 
keenly,  even  uneasily,  but  evidently 
without  recognition.  The  waiter  left 
the  room.  The  stranger  advanced  to 
within  three  paces  of  him  he  sought, 
and  stood  still  and  silent,  his  features 
still  masked  by  his  cloak  collar. 


"  Your  business  with  me,  sir  ?  'r 
said  the  old  man  quickly.  "  Whom 
lm-e  I  the  honour  to  address  ?  " 

"I  am  an  old  acquaintance,  Mr 
Anthony  Noell,"  said  the  traveller,  in 
a  sharp  ironical  tone,  as  he  turned 
down  his  collar  and  displayed  a  pale 
countenance,  distorted  by  a  malignant 
smile.  "  An  old  debtor  come  to  dis- 
charge the  balance  due.  My  errand 
to-day  is  to  tell  you  that  you  are 
childless.  Your  daughter  Florinda, 
your  last  remaining  darling,  has  fled 
to  Italy  with  a  nameless  vagabond 
and  stroller." 

At  the  very  first  word  uttered  by 
that  voice,  Noell  had  started  and 
shuddered,  as  at  the  sudden  pang  of 
exquisite  torture.  Then  his  glassy 
eyes  were  horribly  distended,  his 
mouth  opened,  his  whole  face  was 
convulsed,  and  with  a  yell  like  that  of 
some  savage  denizen  of  the  forest 
suddenly  despoiled  of  its  young,  he 
sprang  upon  his  enemy  and  seized 
him  by  the  throat. 

"Murderer!"  he  cried.  "Helpt 
help ! " 

The  waiters  rushed  into  the  room, 
and  with  difficulty  freed  the  stranger 
from  the  vice-like  grasp  of  the  old 
man,  to  whose  feeble  hands  frenzy 
gave  strength.  When  at  last  they 
were  separated,  Noell  uttered  one 
shriek  of  impotent  fury  and  despair, 
and  fell  back  senseless  in  the  servants' 
arms.  The  stranger,  who  himself 
seemed  weak  and  ailing,  and  who 
had  sunk  upon  a  chair,  looked  curi- 
ously into  his  antagonist's  face. 

"  He  is  mad,"  said  he,  with  hor- 
rible composure  and  complacency  ~r 
"  quite  mad.  Take  him  to  his  bed." 

The  waiters  lifted  up  the  insensible 
body,  and  carried  it  away.  The 
stranger  leaned  his  elbows  upon  a. 
table,  and,  covering  his  face  with  his 
hands,  remained  for  some  minutes  ab- 
sorbed in  thought.  A  slight  noise 
made  him  look  up.  The  priest  stood 
opposite  to  him,  and  uttered  his  name. 

"Dominique  Lafon,"  he  said, 
calmly  but  severely,  "  what  is  this 
thing  you  have  done?  But  you  need 
not  tell  me.  I  know  much,  and  can 
conjecture  the  rest.  Wretched  man, 
know  you  not  the  word  of  God,  to 


92 


Dominique, 


[July, 


Avhom   is   all   vengeance,    and  who 
repayeth  in  his  own  good  time  ?  " 

Dominique  seemed  surprised  at 
hearing  his  name  pronounced  by  a 
stranger.  He  looked  hard  at  the 
priest.  And  presently  a  name  con- 
nected with  days  of  happiness  and 
innocence  broke  from  the  lips  of  the 
vindictive  and  pitiless  man. 

"  Henry  la  Chapelle !  " 

It  was  indeed  his  former  fellow- 
student,  whom  circumstances  and  dis- 
position had  induced  to  abandon  the 
study  of  the  law  and  enter  the  church. 
They  had  not  met  since  Dominique 
departed  from  Paris  to  receive  the  last 
sigh  of  his  dying  mother. 

Who  shall  trace  the  secret  springs 
whence  flow  the  fountains  of  the 
heart?  For  seven  years  Dominique 
Lafon  had  not  wept.  His  captivity 
and  many  sufferings,  his  father's  death, 
all  had  been  borne  with  a  bitter  heart, 
but  with  dry  eyes.  But  now,  at  sight 
of  the  comrade  of  his  youth,  some 
hidden  chord,  long  entombed,  sud- 
denly vibrated.  A  sob  burst  from  his 
bosom,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  gush 
of  tears. 

Henry  la  Chapelle  looked  sadly 
and  kindly  at  his  boyhood's  friend. 

"  He  who  trusteth  in  himself,"  he 
said  in  low  and  gentle  tones,  "  let 
him  take  heed,  lest  his  feet  fall  into 
the  snares  they  despise.  Alas  !  Do- 
minique, that  you  so  soon  forgot  our 
last  conversation  !  Alas  !  that  you 
have  laid  this  sin  to  your  soul !  But 
those  tears  give  me  hope :  they  are 
the  early  dew  of  penitence.  Come, 
my  friend,  and  seek  comfort  where 
alone  it  may  be  found.  Verily  there 
is  joy  in  heaven  over  one  repentant 
sinner,  more  than  over  manyjustmen." 


And  the  good  priest  drew  his  friend's 
arm  through  his,  and  led  him  from  the 
room. 

Dominique's  exclamation  was  pro- 
phetic. When  Anthony  Noell  rose 
from  the  bed  of  sickness  to  which  grief 
consigned  him,  his  intellects  were 
gone.  He  never  recovered  them,  but 
passed  the  rest  of  his  life  in  helpless 
idiocy  at  his  country-house,  near 
Marseilles.  There  he  was  sedulously 
and  tenderly  watched  by  the  unhappy 
Florinda,  who,  after  a  few  miserable 
months  passed  with  her  reprobate 
seducer,  was  released  from  further  ill- 
usage  by  the  death  of  Vicenzo;  stabbed 
in  Italy  in  a  gambling  brawl. 

Not  long  after  1830,  there  died  in  a 
Sardinian  convent,  noted  for  its  ascetic 
observances  and  for  the  piety  of  its 
inmates,  a  French  monk,  who  went 
by  the  name  of  brother  Ambrose.  His 
death  was  considered  to  be  accelerated 
by  the  strictness  with  which  he  fol- 
lowed the  rigid  rules  of  the  order, 
from  some  of  which  his  failing  health 
would  have  justified  deviation,  and 
by  the  frequency  and  severity  of  his 
self-imposed  penances.  His  body, 
feeble  when  first  he  entered  the  con- 
vent, was  no  match  for  his  courageous 
spirit.  In  accordance  with  his  dying 
request,  his  beads  and  breviary  were 
sent  to  a  vicar  named  la  Chapelle, 
then  resident  at  Lyons.  When  that 
excellent  priest  opened  the  book,  he 
found  the  following  words  inscribed 
upon  a  blank  page  : — 

"  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  for  in  Him 
have  I  peace  and  hope ! " 

And  Hemy  la  Chapelle  kneeled 
down,  and  breathed  a  prayer  for  the 
soul  of  his  departed  friend,  Dominique 
Lafon. 


1849.] 


Pestalozziana. 


93 


TESTALOZZIAXA. 


"  Etiam  illud  adjungo,  sacpius  ad  laudem  atque  virtutem  naturam  sine  doctrina, 
quam  sine  natura  valuisse  doctrinam." — CICERO,  pro.  Arch.,  7. 

"  Que  vous  ai-je  done  fait,  0  mes  jeunes  annees  ! 
Pour  m'avoir  fui  si  vite,  me  croyant  satisfait  ?" 

VICTOR  HUGO,  Odes. 


Foil  the  abnormal,  and,  we  must 
think,  somewhat  faulty  education  of 
our  later  boyhood — a  few  random  re- 
collections of  which  we  here  purpose 
to  lay  before  the  reader — our  obliga- 
tions, quantulcecitnquce  sint,  are  cer- 
tainly due  to  prejudices  which,  though 
they  have  now  become  antiquated  and 
obsolete,  were  in  full  force  some  thirty 
years  ago,  against  the  existing  mode 
of  education  in  England.  Not  that 
the  public— qua  public — were  ever  very 
far  misled  by  the  noisy  declamations 
of  the  Whigs  on  this  their  favourite 
theme  :  people  for  the  most  part  paid 
very  little  attention  to  the  inuendoes 
of  the  peripatetic  schoolmaster,  so 
carefully  primed  and  sent  "  abroad  " 
to  disabuse  them ;  while  not  a  few 
smiled  to  recognise  under  that  impos- 
ing misnomer  a  small  self-opinionated 
clique — free  traders  in  everything  else, 
but  absolute  monopolists  here — who 
sought  by  its  aid  to  palm  off  on  society 
thejocosa  imago  of  their  own  crotchets, 
as  though  in  sympathetic  response  to 
a  sentiment  wholly  proceeding  from 
itself.  When  much  inflammatory 
"  stuff"  had  been  discharged  against 
the  walls  of  our  venerable  institutions, 
not  only  without  setting  Isis  or  Cam 
on  fire,  but  plainly  with  some  discom- 
fitures to  the  belligerents  engaged,  from 
the  opposite  party,  who  returned  the 
salute,  John  Bull  began  to  open  his 
eyes  a  little,  and,  as  he  opened  them, 
to  doubt  whether,  after  all,  the  pro- 
mises and  programmes  he  had  been 
reading  of  a  spic-and-span  new  order 
of  everything,  particularly  of  educa- 
tion, might  not  turn  out  a  flam ;  and 
the  authors  of  them,  who  certainly 
showed  off  to  most  advantage  on 
Edinburgh  Review  days,  prove  any- 
thing but  the  best  qualified  persons  to 
make  good  their  own  vaticinations,  or 
to  bring  in  the  new  golden  age  they 
had  announced.  Still,  the  crusade 
against  English  public  seminaries, 
though  abortive  in  its  principal  design 
— that  of  exciting  a  general  defection 


from  these  institutions— was  not  quite 
barren  of  results.  It  was  so  far  suc- 
cessful, at  least,  as  completely  to  un- 
settle for  a  time  the  minds  of  not  a 
few  over-anxious  parents,  who,  taught 
to  regard  with  suspicion  the  creden- 
tials of  every  schoolmaster  "  at  home," 
were  beginning  to  make  diligent  in- 
quiries for  his  successor  among  their 
neighbours  "  abroad."  To  all  who 
were  in  this  frame  of  mind,  the  first 
couleur  de  rose  announcements  of  Pes- 
talozzi's  establishment  at  Yverdun 
were  news  indeed!  offering  as  they 
did — or  at  least  seeming  to  offer — the 
complete  solution  of  a  problem  which 
could  scarcely  have  been  entertained 
without  much  painful  solicitude  and 
anxiety.  "  Here,  then,"  for  so  ran 
the  accounts  of  several  trustworthy 
eyewitnesses,  educational  amateurs, 
who  had  devoted  a  whole  morning  to 
a  most  prying  and  probing  dissection 
of  the  system  within  the  walls  of  the 
chateau  itself,  and  putting  down  all 
the  results  of  their  carefully  conducted 
autopsy,  "here  was  a  school  composed 
of  boys  gathered  from  all  parts  of  the 
habitable  globe,  where  each,  by  simply 
carrying  over  a  little  of  his  mother 
tongue,  might,  in  a  short  time,  become 
a  youthful  Mezzofante,  and  take  his 
choice  of  many  in  return ;  a  school  which, 
wisely  eschewing  the  routine  service 
of  books,  suffered  neither  dictionary, 
gradus,  grammar,  nor  spelling-book  to 
be  even  seen  &  the  premises  ;  a  school 
for  morals,  where,  in  educating  the 
head,  the  right  training  of  the  heart 
was  never  for  a  moment  neglected ;  a 
school  for  the  progress  of  the  miud, 
where  muchcliscernmen^blending  itself 
with  kindness,  fostered  the  first  dawn- 
ings  of  the  intellect,  and  carefully  pro- 
tected the  feeble  powers  of  memory 
from  being  overtaxed — where  delight- 
ed Alma,  in  the  progress  of  her  de- 
velopment, might  securely  enjoy  many 
privileges  and  immunities  wholly 
denied  to  her  at  home — where  even 
philosophy,  stooping  to  conquer,  had 


Pestalozziana. 


[July, 


become  sportive  the  better  to  persuade; 
where  the  poet's  vow  was  actually 
realised — the  bodily  health  being  as 
diligently  looked  after  as  that  of  the 
mind  or  the  affections ;  lastly,  where 
they  found  no  fighting  nor  bullying,  as 
at  home,  but  agriculture  and  gymnas- 
tics instituted  in  their  stead.''  To  such 
encomiums  on  the  school  were  added, 
and  with  more  justice  and  truth,  a 
commendation  on  old  Pestalozzi  him- 
self, the  real  liberality  of  whose  senti- 
ments, and  the  overflowings  of  whose 
paternal  love,  could  not,  it  was  argued, 
and  did  not,  fail  to  prove  beneficial  to 
all  within  the  sphere  of  their  influence. 
The  weight  of  such  supposed  advan- 
tages turned  the  scale  for  not  a  fewjust 
entering  into  the  pupillary  state,  and 
settled  their  future  destination.  Our 
own  training,  hitherto  auspiciously 
enough  carried  on  under  the  birchen 
discipline  of  Westminster,  was  sud- 
denly stopt ;  the  last  silver  prize-penny 
had  crossed  our  palm  ;  the  last  quar- 
terly half-crown  tax  for  birch  had  been 
paid  into  the  treasury  of  the  school ; 
we  were  called  on  to  say  an  abrupt 
good-by  to  our  friends,  and  to  take  a 
formal  leave  of  Dr  P .  That  cere- 
mony was  not  a  pleasing  one ;  and  had 
the  choice  of  a  visit  to  Polyphemus  in 

his  cave,  or  to  Dr  P in  his  study, 

been  offered  to  us,  the  first  would  cer- 
tainly have  had  the  preference ;  but 
as  the  case  admitted  neither  evasion 
nor  compromise,  necessity  gave  us 
courage  to  bolt  into  the  august  pre- 
sence of  the  formidable  head-master, 
after  lessons ;  and  finding  presently 
that  we  had  somehow  managed  to 
emerge  again  safe  from  the  dreaded 
interview,  we  invited  several  class- 
fellows  to  celebrate  so  remarkable  a 
day  at  a  tuck-shop  Jn  the  vicinity 
of  Dean's  Yard.  "flRre,  in  unre- 
stricted indulgence,  did  the  party  get 
through,  there  was  no  telling  how 
many  "  lady's-fingers,"  tarts,  and 
cheese-cakes,  and  drank — there  was 
no  counting  the  corks  of  empty  ginger- 
beer  bottles.  When  these  delicacies 
had  lost  their  relish — KOI  e£  epov  «Wo — 
the  time  was  come  for  making  a  dis- 
tribution of  our  personal  effects.  First 
went  our  bag  of  "  taws"  and  "alleys," 
pro  bonopublico,  in  a  general  scramble, 
and  then  a  Jew's-harp  for  whoever 
could  twang  it ;  and  out  oi'one  pocket 
came  a  cricket-ball  for  A," and  out  of 


another  a  peg-top  for  B ;  and  then 
there  was  a  hocky-stick  for  M,  and  a 
red  leathern  satchel,  with  book-strap, 
for  N,  and  three  books  a-piece  to  two 
class-chums,  who  ended  with  a  toss-up 
for  Virgil.  And  now,  being  fairly 
cleaned  out,  after  reiterated  good-bys 
and  shakes  of  the  hand  given  and  taken 
at  the  shop  door,  we  parted,  (many  of 
us  never  to  meet  again,)  they  to  enjoy 
the  remainder  of  a  half- holiday  in  the 
hocky-court,  while  we  walked  home 
through  the  park,  stopping  in  the  midst 
of  its  ruminating  cows,  ourself  to  rumi- 
nate a  little  upon  the  future,  and  to 
wonder,  unheard,  what  sort  of  a  place 
Switzerland  might  be,  and  what  sort 
of  a  man  Pestalozzi ! 

These  adieus  to  old  Westminster 
took  place  on  a  Saturday;  and  the 
following  Monday  found  us  already 
en  route  with  our  excellent  father  for 
the  new  settlement  at  Yverdun.  The 
school  to  which  we  were  then  tra- 
velling, and  the  venerable  man  who 
presided  over  it,  have  both  been  long 
since  defunct  —  de  morluis  nil  nisi 
bonum;  and  gratitude  itself  forbids 
that  we  should  speak  either  of  one  or 
of  the  other  with  harshness  or  dis- 
respect ;  of  a  place  where  we  certainly 
spent  some  very  happy,  if  not  the 
happiest,  days  of  life  ;  of  him  who — 
rightly  named  the  father  of  the  estab- 
lishment— ever  treated  us,  and  all 
with  whom  he  had  to  do,  with  a  uni- 
form gentleness  and  impartiality.  To 
tell  ill-natured  tales  out  of  school — of 
such  a  school,  and  after  so  long  a 
period  too — would  indeed  argue  ill  for 
any  one's  charity,  and  accordingly  we 
do  not  intend  to  try  it.  But  though 
the  feeling  of  the  alumnus  may  not 
permit  us  to  think  unfavourably  of  the 
Pensionat  Pestalozzi,  we  shall  not,  on 
that  account,  suppress  the  mention  of 
some  occasional  hardships  and  incon- 
veniences experienced  there,  much 
less  allow  a  word  of  reproach  to  escape 
our  pen.  The  reader,  with  no  such 
sympathies  to  restrain  his  curiosity, 
will  no  doubt  expect,  if  not  a  de- 
tailed account,  some  outline  or  general 
ground-plan  of  the  system,  which, 
alas !  we  cannot  give  him ;  our  endea- 
vour to  comprehend  it  as  a  digested 
whole — proceeding  on  certain  data, 
aiming  at  certain  ends,  and  pursuing 
them  by  certain  means — has  been  en- 
tirely unsuccessful ;  and  therefore,  if 


1849.] 


Pestalozziana. 


95 


pressed  for  more  than  we  can  tell, 
our  answer  must  be,  in  the  words  of 
Cicero,  Deprecor  ne  me  tanquam  phi- 
losophum  putet  scholam  sibi  istam  ex- 
plicaturum.*  But  though  unable  to 
make  out — if,  indeed,  there  were  any 
spirit  of  unity  to  be  made  out — in 
Pestalozzi's  scheme,  there  were  cer- 
tain manifest  imperfections  in  the 
composition  of  his  plan  of  education 
— improprieties  to  which  the  longest 
familiarity  could  scarcely  reconcile, 
nor  the  warmest  partiality  blind  even 
the  most  determined  partisan.  In.the 
first  place — to  state  them  at  once,  and 
have  done  with  the  nnpleasing  office 
of  finding  fault — it  always  struck  us 
as  a  capital  error,  in  a  school  where 
books  were  not  allowed,  to  suffer 
almost  the  whole  teaching  of  the 
classes  to  devolve  upon  some  leading 
member  of  each;  for  what,  in  fact, 
could  self-taught  lads  be  expected  to 
teach,  unless  it  were  to  make  a  ring 
or  a  row — to  fish,  to  whistle,  or  to 
skate  ?  Of  course,  any  graver  kind 
of  information,  conveyed  by  an  infant 
prodigy  to  his  gaping  pupils,  must 
have  lacked  the  necessary  precision 
to  make  it  available  to  them :  first, 
because  he  would  very  seldom  be 
sufficiently  possessed  of  it  himself; 
and  secondly,  because  a  boy's  imper- 
fect vocabulary  and  inexperience  ren- 
der him  at  all  times  a  decidedly  bad 
interpreter  even  of  what  he  may  really 
know.  In  place  of  proving  real  lights, 
these  little  Jack-o'-Lanterns  of  ours 
tended  rather  to  perplex  the  path  of 
the  inquiring,  and  to  impede  their 
progress ;  and  when  an  appeal  was 
made  to  the  master,  as  was  sometimes 
<lone,  the  master — brought  up  in  the 
same  vague,  bookless  manner,  and 
knowing  nothing  more  accurately, 
though  he  might  know  more  than  his 
puzzle-pated  pupils — was  very  seldom 
able  to  give  them  a  lift  out  of  the 
quagmire,  where  they  accordingly 
would  stick,  and  flounder  away  till 
the  end  of  the  lesson.  It  was  amusing 
to  see  how  a  boy,  so  soon  as  he  got 
but  a  glimpse  of  a  subject  before  the 
class,  and  could  give  but  the  ghost  of 
a  reason  for  what  he  was  eager  to 
prelect  upon,  became  incontinent  of 
the  bright  discovery,  till  all  his  com- 


panions had  had  the  full  benefit  of  it, 
with  much  that  was  irrelevant  besides. 
The  mischiefs  which,  it  would  occur 
to  any  one's  mind,  were  likely  to 
result  in  after  life  from  such  desultory 
habits  of  application  in  boyhood,  ac- 
tually did  result  to  many  of  us  a  few 
years  later  at  college.  It  was  at  once 
painful  and  difficult  to  indoctrinate 
indocile  minds  like  ours  into  the  accu- 
rate and  severe  habits  of  university 
discipline.  On  entering  the  lists  for 
honours  with  other  young  aspirants, 
educated  in  the  usual  way  at  home, 
we  were  as  a  herd  of  unbroken  colts 
pitted  against  well-trained  racers : 
neither  had  yet  run  for  the  prize — in 
that  single  particular  the  cases  were 
the  same ;  but  when  degree  and  race 
day  came,  on  whose  side  lay  the  odds  ? 
On  theirs  who  had  been  left  to  try  an 
untutored  strength  in  scampering  over 
a  wild  common,  at  will,  for  years,  or 
with  those  who,  by  daily  exercise  in 
the  manege  of  a  public  school,  had 
been  trained  to  bear  harness,  and 
were,  besides,  well  acquainted  with 
the  ground  ?  Another  unquestionable 
error  in  the  system  was  the  absence 
of  emulation,  which,  from  some  strange 
misconception  and  worse  application 
of  a  text  in  St  Paul,  was  proscribed 
as  an  unchristian  principle ;  in  lien  of 
which,  we  were  to  be  brought — though 
we  never  were  brought,  but  that  was 
the  object  aimed  at — to  love  learning 
for  its  own  sake,  and  to  prove  our- 
selves anxious  of  excelling  without  a 
motive,  or  to  be  good  for  nothing,  as 
Hood  has  somewhere  phrased  it. 

"  Nunquam  praeponens  se  aliis,  ITA  facillime 
Sine  invidia  invenias  laudem," 

says  Terence,  and  it  will  be  so  where 
envy  and  conceit  have  supplanted  emu- 
lation :  yet  are  the  feelings  perfectly 
distinct ;  and  we  think  it  behoves  all 
those  who  contend  that  every  striving 
for  the  mastery  is  prohibited  by  the 
gospel,  to  show  how  communism  in 
inferiority,  or  socialism  in  dulness, 
are  likely  to  improve  morals  or  mend 
society.  Take  from  a  schoolboy  the 
motive  of  rewards  and  punishments, 
and  you  deprive  him  of  that  incentive 
by  which  your  own  conduct  through 
life  is  regulated,  and  that  by  which 


*  CICERO,  De  Fin.,  ii.  1. 


Pestalozziana.  ' 


[July, 


God  lias  thought  fit,  in  the  moral 
government  of  his  rational  creatures, 
to  promote  the  practice  of  good  works, 
and  to  discourage  and  dissuade  from 
evil.  Nor  did  that  which  sounds  thus 
ominously  in  theory  succeed  in  its 
application  better  than  it  sounded. 
In  fact,  nothing  more  unfortunate 
could  have  been  devised  for  all  par- 
ties, but  especially  for  such  as  were 
by  nature  of  a  studious  turn  or  of 
quicker  parts  than  the  rest ;  who, 
finding  the  ordinary  stimulus  to  exer- 
tion thus  removed,  and  none  other  to 
replace  it,  no  longer  cared  to  do  well, 
(why  should  they,  when  they  knew 
that  their  feeblest  efforts  would  tran- 
scend their  slow-paced  comrades'  best  ?) 
but,  gradually  abandoning  themselves 
to  the  vis  inertia  of  sloth,  incompe- 
tence, and  bad  example,  did  no  more 
than  they  could  help  ;  repressing  the 
spirit  of  rivalry  and  emulation,  which 
had  no  issue  in  the  school,  to  show 
it  in  some  of  those  feats  of  agility  or 
address,  which  the  rigorous  enact- 
ment of  gymnastic  exercises  imposed 
on  all  alike,  and  in  the  performance 
of  which  we  certainly  did  pride  our- 
selves, and  eagerly  sought  to  eclipse 
each  other  in  exhibiting  any  natural 
or  acquired  superiority  we  might  pos- 
sess. The  absence  of  all  elementary 
books  of  instruction  throughout  the 
school,  presented  another  barrier  in 
the  way  of  improvement  still  more 
formidable  than  even  the  betise  of 
boy  pedagogues,  the  want  of  sufficient 
stimulus  to  exertion,  or  the  absurd 
respect  paid  sometimes  to  natural  in- 
capacity, and  sometimes  even  to  idle- 
ness. Those  who  had  no  rules  to 
learn  had  of  course  none  to  apply 
when  they  wanted  them  ;  no  masters 
could  have  adequately  supplied  this 
deficiency,  and  those  of  the  chateau 
•were  certainly  not  the  men  to  remedy 
the  evil.  As  might  therefore  have 
been  anticipated,  the  young  Pesta- 
lozzian's  ideas,  whether  innate  or  ac- 
quired, and  on  every  subject,  became 
sadly  vague  and  confused,  and  his 
grammar  of  a  piece  with  his  know- 
ledge. We  would  have  been  conspi- 
cuous, even  amongst  other  boys,  for 
what  seemed  almost  a  studied  impro- 
priety of  language;  but  itzros,  in  fact, 
nothing  more  than  the  unavoidable 
result  of  natural  indolence  and  in- 
attention, uncoerced  by  proper  dis- 


cipline. The  old  man's  slouching  gait 
and  ungraceful  attire  afforded  but  too 
apt  an  illustration  of  the  intellectual 
nonchalance  of  his  pupils.  As  to  the 
modern  languages,  of  which  so  much 
has  been  said  by  those  who  knew  so 
little  of  the  matter,  they  were  in  par- 
lance, to  be  sure — but  how  spoken? 
Alas  !  besides  an  open  violation  of  all 
the  concords,  and  a  general  disregard 
of  syntax,  they  failed  where  one 
would  have  thought  them  least  likely 
to  fail,  in  correctness  of  idiom  and 
accent.  The  French — this  was  the 
language  of  the  school — abounded  in 
conventional  phrases,  woven  into  its 
texture  from  various  foreign  sources, 
German,  English,  or  Italian,  and  in 
scores  of  barbarous  words — not  to  be 
fonndmihe  Dictionnaire  de  F  Academic, 
certainly,  but  quite  current  in  the 
many-tongned  vernacular  of  the 
chateau.  Our  pronunciation  remained 
unequivocally  John  Bullish  to  the  end 
— not  one  of  us  ever  caught  or  thought 
of  catching  the  right  intonation  ;  and, 
whether  the  fault  originated  merely 
in  want  of  ear,  or  that  we  could  not 
make  the  right  use  of  our  noses,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  all  of  us  had  either 
no  accent  or  a  wrong  one.  The  Ger- 
man was  as  bad  as  the  French:  it  was 
a  Swiss,  not  a  German  German, 
abounding  in  patois  phrases  and  pro- 
vincialisms— in  short,  a  most  hybrid 
affair,  to  say  nothing  of  its  being  as 
much  over-guttural  as  the  last  was 
sub- nasal.  With  regard  to  Spanish 
and  Italian,  as  the  English  did  not 
consort  with  either  of  these  nations, 
all  they  ever  acquired  of  their  lan- 
guages were  such  oaths  and  mauvais 
mots  as  parrots  pick  up  from  sailors 
aboard  ship,  which  they  repeated 
with  all  the  innocence  of  parrots. 
Thus,  then,  the  opportunities  offered 
for  the  acquisition  of  modern  languages 
were  plainly  defective;  and  when  it  is 
further  considered  that  the  dead  lan- 
guages remained  untaught — nay,  were 
literally  unknown,  except  to  a  small 
section  of  the  school,  for  whom  a  kind 
Providence  had  sent  a  valued  friend 

and  preceptor  in  Dr  M ,  (whose 

neat  Greek  characters  were  stared  at 
as  cabalistical  by  the  other  masters  of 
the  Pensionat,} — and  finally,  that  our 
very  English  became  at  last  defiled 
and  corrupted,  by  the  introduction  of 
a  variety  of  foreign  idioms,  it  will  be 


1849.] 


Pestalozziana. 


97 


seen  that  for  any  advantage  likely  to 
accrue  from  the  polyglot  character  of 
the  institution,  the  Tower  of  Babel 
would,  in  fact,  have  furnished  every 
whit  as  good  a  school  for  languages 
as  did  our  turreted  chateau.  And 
now,  if  candour  has  compelled  this 
notice  of  some,  it  must  be  admitted, 
serious  blemishes  in  the  system  of 
old  Pestalozzi,  where  is  the  academy 
without  them  V 

"  Whoever  hopes  a  faultless  school  to  see, 
Hopes  what  ne'er  was.  nor  is,  nor  is  to 
be." 

Meanwhile  the  Swiss  Pension  was 
not  without  solid  advantages,  and 
might  justly  lay  claim  to  some  regard, 
if  not  as  a  school  for  learning,  at  least 
as  a  moral  school ;  its  inmates  for  the 
most  part  spoke  truth,  respected 
property,  eschewed  mischief,  were 
neither  puppies,  nor  bullies,  nor  tale- 
bearers. There  were,  of  course,  excep- 
tions to  all  this,  but  then  they  were 
exceptions;  nor  was  the  number  at  any 
time  sufficient  to  invalidate  the  gene- 
ral rule,  or  to  corrupt  the  better  prin- 
ciple. Perhaps  a  ten  hours'  daily  at- 
tendance in  class,  coarse  spare  diet, 
hardy  and  somewhat  severe  training, 
may  be  considered  by  the  reader  as 
offering  some  explanation  of  our  ge- 
neral propriety  of  behaviour.  It  may 
be  so;  but  we  are  by  no  means  willing 
to  admit,  that  the  really  high  moral 
tone  of  the  school  depended  either  upon 
gymnastic  exercises  or  short  commons, 
nor  yet  arose  from  the  want  of  faci- 
lities for  getting  into  scrapes,  for  here, 
as  elsewhere,  where  there  is  the  will, 
there  is  ever  a  way.  We  believe  it  to 
have  originated  from  another  source — 
in  .a  word,  from  the  encouragement 
held  out  to  the  study  of  natural 
history,  and  the  eagerness  with  which 
that  study  was  taken  up  and  pursued 
by  the  school  in  consequence.  Though 
Pestalozzi  might  not  succeed  in  mak- 
ing his  disciples  scholars,  he  certainly 
succeeded  in  making  many  among 
them  naturalists ;  and  of  the  two 
—  let  us  ask  it  without  offence  — 
whether  is  he  the  happier  lad  (to 
say  nothing  of  the  future  man)  who 
can  fabricate  faultless  pentameters 
and  immaculate  iambics  to  order ;  or 
he  who,  already  absorbed  in  scanning 
the  wonders  of  creation,  seeks  with 
unflagging  diligence  and  zeal  to  know 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCV. 


more  and  more  of  the  visible  works 
of  the  great  Poet  of  Nature  ?  ' '  Saspius 
sane  ad  laudem  atque  virtutem  na- 
turam  sine  doctrinti,  quam  sine  natura 
valuisse  doctrinam ; "  which  words 
being  Cicero's,  deny  them,  sir,  if  you 
please. 

The  Pension,  during  the  period  of 
our  sojourn  at  Yverdun,  contained 
about  a  hundred  and  eighty  eleves, 
natives  of  every  European  and  of  some 
Oriental  states,  whose  primitive  mode 
of  distribution  into  classes,  according 
to  age  and  acquirements,  during  school 
hours,  was  completely  changed  in 
playtime,  when  the  boys,  finding  it 
easier  to  speak  their  own  tongue  than 
to  acquire  a  new  one,  divided  them- 
selves into  separate  groups  accord- 
ing to  their  respective  nations.  The 
English  would  occasionally  admit  a 
German  or  a  Prussian  to  their 
coterie ;  but  that  was  a  favour  seldom 
conferred  upon  any  other  foreigner:  for 
the  Spaniards,  who  were  certainly  the 
least  well-conducted  of  the  whole 
community,  did  not  deserve  it :  among 
them  were  to  be  found  the  litigious, 
the  mischief-makers,  the  quarrellers, 
and — for,  as  has  been  hinted,  we  were 
not  all  honest — the  exceptional  thieves. 
The  Italians  we  could  never  make 
out,  nor  they  us :  we  had  no  sympathy 
with  Pole  or  Greek ;  the  Swiss  we 
positively  did  not  like,  and  the  French 
just  as  positively  did  not  like  us  ;  so 
how  could  it  be  otherwise?  The 
ushers,  for  the  most  part  trained  up 
in  the  school,  were  an  obliging  set  of 
men,  with  little  refinement,  less  pre- 
tension, and  wholly  without  learning. 
A  distich  from  Crabbe  describes  them 
perfectly — 

"  Men  who,  'mid  noise  and  dirt,  and  play 

and  prate, 

Could  calmly  mend  the  pen,  and  wash 
the  slate." 

Punishments  were  rare ;  indeed,  flog- 
ging was  absolutely  prohibited  ;  and 
the  setting  an  imposition  would  have 
been  equally  against  the  genius  loci, 
had  lesson-books  existed  out  of  which 
to  hear  Lt  afterwards.  A  short  impri- 
sonment in  an  unfurnished  room — a  not 
very  formidable  black-hole — with  the 
loss  of  a  goutte,  now  and  then,  and  at 
very  long  intervals,  formed  the  mild 
summary  of  the  penal  "  code  Pesta- 
lozzi." 


98 


Pestalozziana. 


[July, 


It  was  Saturday,  and  a  half  holiday, 
when  we  arrived  at  Yverdun,  and  oh 
the  confusion  of  tongues  which  there 
prevailed !   All  Bedlam  and  Parnassus 
let  loose  to  rave  together,  could  not 
have  come  up  to  that  diapason  of  dis- 
cords with  which  the  high  corridors 
were  ringing,  as,  passing  through  the 
throng,    we   were   conducted   to  the 
venerable  head  of  the  establishment 
in  his    private    apartments   beyond. 
In   this   gallery  of   mixed    portraits 
might    be    seen   long-haired,    high- 
born,  and  high  -  cheek  -  boned   Ger- 
mans ;    a  scantling   of    French    ga- 
mins   much    better    dressed  ;    some 
dark-eyed  Italians ;  Greeks  in  most 
foreigneering   attire ;  here  and  there 
a  fair  ingenuous  Russian  face;  several 
swart  sinister-looking  Spaniards,  mo- 
dels only  for  their  own  Carravagio  ; 
some  dirty  specimens  of  the  universal 
Pole  ;    one    or    two    unmistakeable 
English,  ready  to  shake  hands  with 
a     compatriot  ;     and     Swiss    from 
every  canton   of  the  Helvetic  con- 
federacy.    To  this  promiscuous  mul- 
titude we  were  shortly  introduced,  the 
kind  old  man  himself  taking  us  by  the 
hand,  and   acting   as  master  of  the 
ceremonies.    When  the  whole  school 
had  crowded  round  to  stare  at  the 
new  importation,    "  Here,"  said  he, 
"  are  four  English  boys  come  from 
their    distant    home,    to    be    natu- 
ralised   in    this    establishment,    and 
made  members  of  our  family.     Boys, 
receive  them  kindly,  and  remember 
they  are  henceforth  your  brothers." 
A  shout  from  the  crowd  proclaiming 
its  ready  assent  and  cordial  partici- 
pation in  the  adoption,  nothing   re- 
mained but  to  shake  hands  a  VAnglaise, 
and  to  fraternise  without  loss  of  time. 
The  next    day   being   Sunday,    our 
skulls  were  craniologically  studied  by 
Herr  Schmidt,  the  head  usher;  and 
whatever  various  bumps  or  depres- 
sions phrenology  might  have  disco- 
vered thereon  were  all  duly  registered 
in  a  large  book.     After  this  examina- 
tion was  concluded,  a  week's  furlough 
was    allowed,    in    order    that   Herr 
Schmidt  might  have  an  opportunity 
afforded  him  of  seeing  how  far  our 
real    character    squared  with  phre- 
nological observation  and   measure- 
ment, entering  this  also  into  the  same 
ledger  as  a  note.     What  a  contrast 
were  we  unavoidably  drawing  all  this 


time  between  Yverdun  and  Westmin- 
ster, and  how  enjoyable  was  the 
change  to  us !  The  reader  will  please 
to  imagine  as  well  as  he  can,  the  sen- 
sations of  a  lately  pent  up  chrysalis, 
on  first  finding  himself  a  butterfly,  or 
the  not  less  agreeable  surprise  of  some 
newly  metamorphosed  tadpole,  when, 
leaving  his  associates  in  the  mud  and 
green  slime,  he  floats  at  liberty  on  the 
surface  of  the  pool,  endowed  with 
lungs  and  a  voice, — if  he  would  at  all 
enter  into  the  exultation  of  our  feel- 
ings on  changing  the  penitential  air 
of  Millbank  for  the  fresh  mountain 
breezes  of  the  Pays  de  Vand.  It 
seemed  as  if  we  had — nay,  we  had 
actually  entered  upon  a  new  existence, 
so  thoroughly  had  all  the  elements 
of  the  old  been  altered  and  improved. 
If  we  looked  back,  and  compared  past 
and  present  experiences,  there,  at  the 
wrong  end  of  the  mental  telescope, 
stood  that  small  dingy  house,  in 
that  little  mis-yclept  Great  Smith 
Street,  with  its  tiny  cocoon  of  a  bed- 
room, whilom  our  close  and  airless 
prison ;  here,  at  the  other  end,  and 
in  immediate  contact  with  the  eye,  a 
noble  chateau,  full  of  roomy  rooms, 
enough  and  to  spare.  Another  retro- 
spective peep,  and  there  was  Tothill 
Fields,  and  its  seedy  cricket-  ground ; 
and  here,  again,  a  level  equally  perfect, 
but  carpeted  with  fine  turf,  and  ex- 
tending to  the  margin  of  a  broad  liv- 
ing lake,  instead  of  terminating  in  a 
nauseous  duck-pond ;  while  the  cold 
clammy  cloisters  adjoining  Dean's 
Yard  were  not  less  favourably  replaced 
by  a  large  open  airy  play-ground, 
intersected  by  two  clear  trout-streams 
— and  a  sky  as  unlike  that  above  Bird- 
Cage  Walk  as  the  interposed  atmo- 
sphere was  different ;  whilst,  in  place 
of  the  startling,  discordant  Keleusmata 
of  bargees,  joined  to  the  creaking, 
stunning  noise  of  commerce  in  a  great 
city,  few  out-of-door  sounds  to  meet 
our  ear,  and  these  few,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  our  own,  all  quiet,  pastoral, 
and  soothing,  such  as,  later  in  life, 
make 

"  Silence  in  the  heart 
For  thought  to  do  her  part," 

and  which  are  not  without  their  charm 
even  to  him  "  who  whistles  as  he  goes 
for  want  of  thought."  No  wonder, 
then,  if  Yverdun  seemed  Paradisaical 
in  its  landscapes.  Nor  was  this  all. 


1849.] 


Pestalozziana. 


99 


If  the  views  outside  were  charm- 
ing, onr  domestic  and  social  relations 
within  doors  were  not  less  pleasing. 
At  first,  the  unwelcome  vision  of  the 
late  head- master  would  sometimes 
haunt  us,  clad  in  his  flowing  black 
D.D.  robes — "  tristis  severitas  in 
vultu,  atque  in  verbis  fides,"  looking 
as  if  he  intended  to  flog,  and  his  words 
never  belying  his  looks.  That  terrible 
Olympian  arm,  raised  and  ready  to 
strike,  was  again  shadowed  forth  to 
view ;  while  we  could  almost  fancy 
ourselves  once  more  at  that  judicial 


table,  one  of  twenty  boys  who  were 
to  draw  lots  for  a  "  hander."  How 
soothingly,  then,  came  the  pleasingcon- 
sciousness,  breaking  our  reverie,  that  a 
very  different  person  was  now  onr 
headmaster — a  most  indulgent  old 
man  whom  we  should  meet  ere  long, 
with  hands  uplifted,  indeed,  but  only 
for  the  purpose  of  clutching  us  tight 
while  he  inflicted  a  salute  on  both 
cheeks,  and  pronounced  his  affection- 
ate guten  morgen,  liebes  kind,  as  he  has- 
tened on  to  bestow  the  like  fatherly 
greeting  upon  every  pupil  in  turn. 


THE  DORMITORY. 


The  sleeping  apartments  at  the  cha- 
teau occupied  three  of  the  four  sides 
of  its  inner  quadrangle,  and  consisted 
of  as  many  long  rooms,  each  with  a 
double  row  of  windows  ;  whereof  one 
looked  into  the  aforesaid  quadrangle, 
while  the  opposite  rows  commanded, 
severally,  views  of  the  garden,  the 
open  country,  and  the  Grande  Place 
of  the  town.  They  were  accommo- 
dated with  sixty  uncurtained  stump 
bedsteads,  fifty-nine  of  which  afforded 
gite  to  a  like  number  of  boys;  and 
one,  in  no  respect  superior  to  the  rest, 
was  destined  to  receive  the  athletic 
form  of  Herr  Gottlieb,  son-in-law  to 
Vater  Pestalozzi,  to  whose  particular 
charge  we  were  consigned  during  the 
hours  of  the  night.  These  bedrooms, 
being  as  lofty  as  they  were  long, 
broad,  and  over-furnished  with  win- 
dows, were  always  ventilated ;  but 
the  in- draught  of  air,  which  was  suf- 
ficient to  keep  them  cool  during  the 
hottest  day  in  summer,  rendered  them 
cold,  and  sometimes  very  cold,  in  the 
winter.  In  that  season,  accordingly, 
especially  when  the  bise  blew,  and 
hail  and  sleet  were  pattering  against 
the  casements,  the  compulsory  rising 
to  class  by  candlelight  was  an  unge- 
nial  and  unwelcome  process ;  for 
which,  however,  there  being  no  re- 
medy, the  next  best  thing  was  to  take 
it  as  coolly,  we  were  going  to  say — 
that  of  course — but,  as  patiently  as 
might  be.  The  disagreeable  anticipa- 
tion of  the  reveil  was  frequently 
enough  to  scare  away  sleep  from  our 
eyes  a  full  hour  before  the  command 
to  jump  out  of  bed  was  actually 


issued.  On  such  occasions  we  would 
lie  awake,  and,  as  the  time  approached, 
begin  to  draw  in  our  own  breath,  fur- 
tively listening,  not  without  trepida- 
tion, to  the  loud  nose  of  a  distant 
comrade,  lest  its  fitful  stertor  should 
startle  another  pair  of  nostrils,  on 
whose  repose  that  of  the  whole  dor- 
mitory depended.  Let  ^Eolus  and  his 
crew  make  what  tumult  they  liked 
inside  or  outside  the  castle — they  dis- 
turbed nobody's  dreams — they  never 
murdered  sleep.  Let  them  pipe  and 
whistle  through  every  keyhole  and  cre- 
vice of  the  vast  enceinte  of  the  building 
— sigh  and  moan  as  they  would  in  their 
various  imprisonments  of  attic  or  cor- 
ridor ;  howl  wildly  round  the  great 
tower,  or  even  threaten  a  forcible  entry 
at  the  windows,  nobody's  ears  were 
scared  into  unwelcome  consciousness 
by  sounds  so  familiar  to  them  all.  It 
was  the  expectation  of  a  blast  louder 
even  than  theirs  that  would  keep  our 
eyes  open — a  blast  about  to  issue  from 
the  bed  of  Herr  Gottlieb,  and  thun- 
dering enough,  when  it  issued,  to 
startle  the  very  god  of  winds  himself! 
Often,  as  the  dreaded  six  A.M.  drew 
nigh,  when  the  third  quarter  past  five 
had,  ten  minutes  since,  come  with  a 
sough  and  a  rattle  against  the  case- 
ments, and  still  Gottlieb  slept  on,  we 
would  take  courage,  and  begin  to 
dream  with  our  eyes  open,  that  his 
slumbers  might  be  prolonged  a  little  ; 
his  face,  turned  upwards,  looked  so 
calm,  the  eyes  so  resolutely  closed — 
every  feature  so  perfectly  at  rest.  It 
could  not  be  more  than  five  minutes 
to  six — might  not  he  who  had  slept 


100 


Pestalozziana. 


[July, 


so  long,  for  once  orersleep  himself? 
NEVER  !  However  placid  those  slum- 
bers might  be,  they  invariably  for- 
sook our  "  unwearied  one"  just  as  the 
clock  was  on  the  point  of  striking  six. 
To  judge  by  the  rapid  twitchings — 
they  almost  seemed  galvanic — first  of 
the  muscles  round  the  mouth,  then  of 
the  nose  and  eyes,  it  appeared  as 
though  some  ill-omened  dream,  at 
that  very  nick  of  time,  was  sent 
periodically,  on  purpose  to  awaken 
him ;  and,  if  so,  it  certainly  never  re- 
turned cmpaKTos.  Gottlieb  would  in- 
stantly set  to  rubbing  his  eyes,  and 
as  the  hour  struck,  spring  up  wide 
awake  in  his  shirt  sleeves — thus  de- 
stroying every  lingering,  and,  as  it 
always  turned  out,  ill-founded  hope 
of  a  longer  snooze.  Presently  we  be- 
held him  jump  into  his  small-clothes, 
and,  when  sufficiently  attired  to  be 
seen,  tmlimber  his  tongue,  and  pour 
forth  a  rattling  broadside — Auf,  kin- 
der! schwind! — with  such  precision 
of  delivery,  too,  that  few  sleepers 
could  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  it.  But,  lest 
any  one  should  still  lurk  under  his 
warm  coverlet  out  of  earshot,  at  the 
further  end  of  the  room,  another  and 
a  shriller  summons  to  the  same  effect 
once  more  shakes  the  walls  and  win- 
dows of  the  dormitory.  Then  every 
boy  knew  right  well  that  the  last 
moment  for  repose  was  past,  and  that 
he  must  at  once  turn  out  shivering 
from  his  bed,  and  dress  as  fast  as  pos- 
sible ;  and  it  was  really  surprising  to 
witness  how  rapidly  all  could  huddle 
on  their  clothes  under  certain  condi- 
tions of  the  atmosphere! 

In  less  than  five  minutes  the  whole 
school  was  dressed,  and  Gottlieb,  in 
his  sounding  shoes,  having  urged 
the  dilatory  with  another  admonitory 
schwind,  schwind!  has  departed,  key 
and  candle  in  hand,  to  arouse  the 
remaining  sleepers,  by  ringing  the 
"  Great  Tom"  of  the  chateau.  So  cold 
and  cheerless  was  this  matutinal  sum- 
mons, that  occasional  attempts  were 
made  to  evade  it  by  simulated  head- 
ach,  or,  without  being  quite  so  specific, 
on  the  plea  of  general  indisposition, 
though  it  was  well  known  beforehand 
what  the  result  would  be.  Herr 
Gottlieb,  in  such  a  case,  would  pre- 
sently appear  at  the  bedside  of  the 
delinquent  patient,  with  very  little 
compassion  in  his  countenance,  and, 


in  a  business  tone,  proceed  to  inquire 
from  him,  Why  not  lip? — and  on 
receiving  for  reply,  in  a  melancholy 
voice,  that  the  would-be  invalid 
was  sehr  hrank,  would  instantly  pass- 
the  word  for  the  doctor  to  be  sum- 
moned. That  doctor — we  knew  him 
well,  and  every  truant  knew — was  a 
quondam  French  army  surgeon  —  a- 
sworn  disciple  of  the  Broussais  school, 
whose  heroic  remedies  at  the  chateau 
resolved  themselves  into  one  of  two — 
i.  e.,  a  starve  or  a  vomit,  alternately 
administered,  according  as  the  idio- 
syucracy  of  the  patient,  or  as  this  or 
that  symptom  turned  the  scale,  now 
in  favour  of  storming  the  stomach, 
now  of  starving  it  into  capitulation. 
Just  as  the  welcome  hot  mess  of 
bread  and  milk  was  about  to  be  served 
to  the  rest,  this  dapper  little  Sangrado- 
would  make  his  appearance,  feel  the 
pulse,  inspect  the  tongue,  ask  a  few 
questions,  and  finding,  generally,  in- 
dications of  what  he  would  term  une 
legere  gastrite,  recommend  dtete  ab- 
solve; then  prescribing  a  mawkish. 
tisane,  composed  of  any  garden 
herbs  at  hand,  and  pocketing  lancets 
and  stethoscope,  would  leave  the  pa- 
tient to  recover  sans  calomel — a  mode 
of  treatment  to  which,  he  would  tell 
us,  ice  should  certainly  have  been  sub- 
jected in  our  own  country.  Mean- 
while, the  superiority  of  his  plan  of 
treatment  was  unquestionable.  On 
the  very  next  morning,  when  he  called 
to  visit  his  cher  petit  malade,  an 
empty  bed  said  quite  plainly,  "  Very 
well,  I  thank  you,  sir,  and  in  class." 
But  these  feigniugs  were  compara- 
tively of  rare  occurrence  ;  in  general, 
all  rose,  dressed,  and  descended  to- 
gether, just  as  the  alarum-bell  had 
ceased  to  sound  ;  and  in  less  than  two 
minutes  more  all  were  assembled  in. 
their  respective  class-rooms.  The  rats 
and  mice,  which  had  had  the  run  of 
these  during  the  night,  would  be  still 
in  occupation  when  we  entered ;  and 
such  was  the  audacity  of  these  ver- 
min that  none  cared  alone  to  be  the 
first  to  plant  a  candle  on  his  desk. 
But,  by  entering  en  masse,  we  easily 
routed  the  Eodentia,  whose  forces 
were  driven  to  seek  shelter  behind  the 
wainscot,  where  they  would  scuffle, 
and  gnaw,  and  scratch,  before  they 
finally  withdrew,  and  left  us  with  blue 
fingers  and  chattering  teeth  to  study 


1849.] 


Pestalozziana. 


101 


to  make  the  best  of  it.  Uncomfort- 
able enough  was  the  effort  for  the  first 
ten  minutes  of  the  session ;  but  by  de- 
grees the  hopes  of  a  possible  warming 
of  hands  upon  the  surface  of  the  Dutch 
stoves  after  class,  if  they  should  have 
been  lighted  in  time,  and  at  any  rate 
the  certainty  of  a  hot  breakfast,  were 
entertained,  and  brought  their  conso- 
lation ;  besides  which,  the  being  up  in 
time  to  welcome  in  the  dawn  of  the 
dullest  day,  while  health  and  liberty 
are  ours,  is  a  pleasure  in  itself.  There 
was  no  exception  to  it  here  ;  for  when 
the  darkness,  becoming  every  moment 
less  and  less  dark,  had  at  length  given 
way,  and  melted  into  a  gray  gloaming, 
we  would  rejoice,  even  before  it  ap- 
peared, at  the  approach  of  a  new  day. 
That  approach  was  soon  further 
heralded  by  the  fitful  notes  of  small 
day-birds  chirping  under  the  leaves, 
and  anon  by  their  sudden  dashings 
against  the  windows,  in  the  direction 
of  the  lights  not  yet  extinguished  in 
the  class-rooms.  Presently  the  pigs 
were  heard  rejoicing  and  contending 
over  their  fresh  wash ;  then  the  old 
horse  and  the  shaggy  little  donkey  in 
the  stable  adjoining  the  styes,  knowing 
by  this  stir  that  their  feed  was  coming, 
snorted  and  brayed  at  the  pleasant 
prospect.  The  cocks  had  by  this  time 
roused  their  sleepy  sultanas,  who  came 
creeping  from  under  the  barn-door  to 
meet  their  lords  on  the  dunghill.  Our 
peacock,  to  satisfy  himself  that  he  had 
not  taken  cold  during  the  night,  would 
scream  to  the  utmost  pitch  of  a  most 
discordant  voice ;  then  the  prescient 


goats  would  bleat  from  the  cabins, 
and  plaintively  remind  us  that,  till 
their  door  is  unpadlocked,  they  can 
get  no  prog ;  then  the  punctual  mag- 
pie, and  his  friend  the  jay,  having 
hopped  all  down  the  corridor,  would 
be  heard  screaming  for  broken  vic- 
tuals at  the  school-room  door,  till 
our  dismissal  bell,  finding  so  many 
other  tongues  loosened,  at  length 
wags  its  own,  and  then  for  the  next 
hour  and  a  half  all  are  free  to  fol- 
low their  own  devices.  Breakfast 
shortly  follows;  but,  alas!  another 
cold  ceremony  mast  be  undergone 
first.  A  preliminary  visit  to  pump 
court,  and  a  thorough  ablution  of 
face  and  hands,  is  indispensable  to 
those  who  would  become  successful 
candidates  for  that  long-anticipated 
meal.  This  bleaching  process,  at  an 
icy  temperature,  was  never  agreeable  ; 
but  when  the  pipes  happened  to  be 
frozen — a  contingency  by  no  means 
unfrequent— and  the  snow  in  the  yard 
must  be  substituted  for  the  water 
which  was  not  in  the  pump,  it  proved 
a  difficult  and  sometimes  a  painful 
business ;  especially  as  there  was 
always  some  uncertainty  afterwards, 
whether  the  chilblained  paws  would 
pass  muster  before  the  inspector-gene- 
ral commissioned  to  examine  them — 
who,  utterly  reckless  as  to  how  the 
boys  might  "  be  off  for  soap,"  and 
incredulous  of  what  they  would  fain 
attribute  to  the  adust  complexion  of 
their  skin,  would  require  to  have  that 
assertion  tested  by  a  further  experi- 
ment at  the  "pump  head." 


THE  REFECTORY. 


«  Forbear  to  scoff  at  woes  you  cannot  feel, 
Nor  mock  the  misery  of  a  stinted  meal." — CRABBE. 


The  dietary  tables  at  the  chateau, 
conspicuous  alike  for  the  paucity  and 
simplicity  of  the  articles  registered 
therein,  are  easily  recalled  to  mind. 
The  fare  they  exhibited  was  certainly 
coarse — though,  by  a  euphemism,  it 
might  have  been  termed  merely  plain 
— and  spare  withal.  The  breakfast 
would  consist  of  milk  and  water — the 
first  aqueous  enough  without  dilution, 
being  the  produce  of  certain  ill-favour- 
ed, and,  as  we  afterwards  tasted  their 
flesh,  we  may  add  ill-flavoured  kine, 


whose  impoverished  lacteals  could  fur- 
nish out  of  their  sorry  fodder  no  better 
supplies.  It  was  London  sky-blue,  in 
short,  but  not  of  the  Alderney  dairy, 
which  was  made  to  serve  our  turn  at 
Yverduu.  This  milk,  at  seven  in  sum- 
mer, and  at  half-past  seven  in  winter, 
was  transferred  boiling,  and  as  yet 
unadulterated,  into  earthenware  mix- 
ers, which  had  been  previously  half- 
filled  with  hot  water  from  a  neigh- 
bouring kettle.  In  this  half-and- 
half  state  it  was  baled  out  for  the 


Pestalozziana. 


[Jnly, 


assembled  school  into  a  series  of  pew- 
ter platters,  ranged  along  the  sides  of 
three  bare  deal  boards,  some  thirty 
feet  long  by  two  wide,  and  mounted 
on  tressels,  which  served  us  for  tables. 
The    ministering  damsels   were   two 
great  German  Fraus,  rejoicing  seve- 
rally in  the  pleasing  names  of  Gret- 
chen  and  Bessie.     When  Frau  Gret- 
chen,  standing  behind  each  boy,  had 
dropt  her  allowance  of  milk  over  his 
right  shoulder— during  which  process 
there  was  generally  a  mighty  clatter 
for  full   measure  and  fair  play — the 
other  Frau  was  slicing  off  her  slices  of 
bread  from  a  brown  loaf  a  yard  long, 
which  she  carried  under  her  arm,  and 
slashed  clean  through  with  wonder- 
ful precision  and  address.     It  was  now 
for  all  those  who  had  saved  pocket- 
money  for  menus -plaisirs  to  produce 
their  cornets  of  cinnamon  or  sugar, 
sprinkle  a  little  into   the  milk,   and 
then  fall  to  sipping  and  munching  with 
increased  zest  and  satisfaction.     So 
dry  and  chaffy  was  our  pain  de  menage 
that  none  ventured  to  soak  it  entire, 
or  at  once,  but  would  cut  it  into//-«s- 
trums,   and  retain  liquid   enough  to 
wash  down   the   boluses   separately. 
In  a  few  minutes  every   plate   was 
completely  cleaned  out  and  polished  ; 
and  the  cats,  that  generally  entered  the 
room  as  we  left  it,  seldom  found  a 
drop  with  which  they  might  moisten 
their  tongues,  or  remove  from  cheeks 
and  whiskers  the  red  stains  of  mur- 
dered mice  on  which  they  had  been 
breaking  their  fast  in  the  great  tower. 
So  much  for  the  earliest  meal  of  the 
day,  which  was  to  carry  us  through 
five  hours,  if  not  of  laborious  mental 
study,  at  least  of  the  incarceration  of 
our  bodies  in  class,  which  was  equally 
irksome  to  them  as  if  our  minds  had 
been  hard  at  work.     These  five  hours 
terminated,  slates  were  once  more  in- 
salivated and  put  by  clean,  and  the 
hungry  garrison  began  to  look  for- 
ward to  the  pleasures  of  the  noon-day 
repast.     The  same  bell  that  had  been 
calling  so  often  to  class  would  now 
give  premonitory  notice  of  dinner,  but 
in  a  greatly  changed  tone.  In  place  of 
the  shrill  snappi>h  key  in  which  it  had 
all  the  morning  jt-rked  out  each  short 
unwelcome  summons  from  lesson  to 
lesson,  as  if  fearful  of  ringing  one  note 
beyond  the  prescribed  minute,  it  now 
would  take  time,  vibrate  far  and  wide 


in  its  cage,  give  full  scope  to  its 
tongue,  and  appear,  from  the  loud  in- 
creasing swell  of  its  prolonged  oyez, 
to  announce  the  message  of  good 
cheer  like  a  herald  conscious  and  proud 
of  his  commission.  Ding-dong  ! — come 
along  !  Dinner's  dishing! — ding-dong  ! 
Da  capo  and  encore !  Then,  starting 
up  from  every  school-room  form 
throughout  the  chateau,  the  noisy 
boys  rushed  pell-mell,  opened  all 
the  doors,  and,  like  emergent  bees 
in  quest  of  honey,  began  coursing  up 
and  down  right  busily  between  the 
salle-a-manger  and  the  kitchen — 
snuffing  the  various  aromas  as  they 
escaped  from  the  latter  into  the  pas- 
sage, and  inferring  from  the  amount 
of  exhaled  fragrance  the  actual  pro- 
gress of  the  preparations  for  eating. 
Occasionally  some  "  sly  Tom  "  would 
peep  into  the  kitchen,  while  the 
Fraus  were  too  busy  to  notice  him, 
and  watch  the  great  cauldron  that 
had  been  milked  dry  of  its  stores  in 
the  morning,  now  discharging  its 
aqueous  contents  of  a  much-attenuated 
bouillon — the  surface  covered  with 
lumps  of  swimming  bread,  thickened 
throughout  with  a  hydrate  of  pota- 
toes, and  coloured  with  coarse  insipid 
carrots,  which  certainly  gave  it  a 
savoury  appearance.  It  was  not  good 
broth — far  from  it,  for  it  was  both 
sub-  greasy  and  super-  salted  ;  but  then 
it  was  hot,  it  was  thick,  and  there 
was  an  abundant  supply.  It  used  to 
gush,  as  we  have  said,  from  the  great 
stop- cock  of  the  cauldron,  steaming 
and  sputtering,  into  eight  enormous 
tureens.  The  shreds  of  beef,  together 
with  whatever  other  solids  remained 
behind  after  the  fluid  had  been  drawn 
off,  were  next  fished  up  from  the 
abyss  with  long  ladles,  and  plumped 
into  the  decanted  liquor.  The  young 
gastronome  who  might  have  beheld 
these  proceedings  would  wait  till  the 
lid  was  taken  off  the  saw- kraut ; 
and  then,  the  odour  becoming  over- 
poweringly  appetising,  he  would  run, 
as  by  irresistible  instinct,  into  the 
dining-room,  where  most  of  the  boys 
were  already  assembled,  each  with  a 
ration  of  brown  bread  in  his  hand, 
and  ready  for  the  Fraus,  who  were 
speedily  about  to  enter.  The  dinner 
was  noisy  and  ungenteel  in  the  ex- 
treme—  how  could  it  be  otherwise? 
ventre  affame  n'a  point  (Toreillcs* 


1849.]  Pestalozziana.  103 

Hardly  was  the  German  grace  con-     in  the  class-room.     At  half-past  four 
removed, 


eluded,  and  the  covers 
when  that  bone  of  contention,  the 
marrow  bone,  was  caught  up  by  some 
big  boy  near  the  top  of  the  table,  and 
became  the  signal  for  a  general  row. 
All  in  his  neighbourhood  would  call 
out  second,  third,  fourth,  fifth,  &c., 
for  said  bone ;  and  thus  it  would  travel 
from  plate  to  plate,  yielding  its 
contents  freely  to  the  two  or  three 
first  applicants,  but  wholly  inade- 
quate— unless  it  could  have  resolved 
itself  altogether  into  marrow — to  meet 
all  the  demands  made  upon  its  stores. 
Then  arose  angry  words  of  contention, 
which  waxed  hot  as  the  marrow 
waxed  cold,  every  candidate  being 
equally  vociferous  in  maintaining  the 
priority  of  his  particular  claim.  Ear- 
nest appeals  in  German,  French, 
Spanish,  English,  &c.,  were  bandied 
from  one  to  the  other  in  consequence, 
as  to  who  had  really  said  apres  toi 
first !  At  last  the  "  dry  bone"  was 
found  undeserving  of  further  conten- 
tion ;  and,  ceasing  to  drop  any  more 
fatness  upon  any  boy's  bread,  the 
competition  for  it  was  dropt  too. 
When  now  we  had  half- filled  our 
stomachs  with  a  soup  which  few 
physicians  would  have  withheld  from 
their  fever  patients  on  the  score  of  its 
strength,  we  threw  in  a  sufficiency 
of  bread  and  saur-kraut  to  absorb 
it ;  and,  after  the  post-prandial  Ger- 
man grace  had  been  pronounced,  the 
.  boys  left  the  table,  generally  with  a 
saved  crust  in  their  pockets,  to  repair 
to  the  garden  and  filch — if  it  was 
filching — an  alliaceous  dessert  from 
the  beds,  which  they  washed  in  the 
clear  stream,  and  added,  without  fear 
of  indigestion,  to  the  meal  just  con- 
cluded within  the  chateau.  Most  of 
us  throve  upon  this  Spartan  diet ;  but 
some  delicate  boys,  unendowed  with 
the  ostrich  power  of  assimilation  usual 
at  that  period — for  boys,  like  ostriches, 
can  digest  almost  anything — became 
deranged  in  their  chylopoietics,  and 
continued  to  feel  its  ill  effects  in 
mesenteric  and  other  chronic  ail- 
ments for  years  afterwards.  An  hour 
was  given  for  stomachs  to  do  their 
work,  before  we  re-assembled  to  ours 


precisely,  a  goute  was  served  out, 
which  consisted  of  a  whacking  slice  of 
bread,  and  either  a  repetition  of  the 
morning's  milk  and  water,  or  cafe  au 
lait,  (without  sugar  "  bien  entendu,") 
or  twenty-five  walnuts,  or  a  couple 
of  ounces  of  strong- tasted  gruyere, 
or  a  plateful  of  sclmitz  (cuttings  of 
dried  apples,  pears,  and  plums.)  We 
might  choose  any  one  of  these  several 
dainties  we  liked,  but  not  more. 
Some  dangerous  characters — not  to 
be  imitated — would  occasionally,  while 
young  Fran  Schmidt  stood  doling 
out  the  supplies  from  her  cup- 
board among  the  assembled  throng, 
make  the  disingenuous  attempt  to 
obtain  cheese  with  one  hand  and 
schnitz  with  the  other.  But  the 
artifice,  we  are  happy  to  say,  seldom 
succeeded  ;  for  that  vigilant  lady, 
quick-eyed  and  active,  and  who,  of 
all  things,  hated  to  be  imposed  upon, 
would  turn  round  upon  the  false 
claimant,  and  bid  him  hold  up  both 
his  hands  at  once — which  he,  ambi- 
dexter as  he  was,  durst  not  do,  and 
thus  he  was  exposed  to  the  laughter 
and  jeers  of  the  rest.  At  nine,  the 
bell  sounded  a  feeble  call  to  a  soi- 
disant  supper ;  but  few  of  us  cared  for 
a  basin  of  tisane  under  the  name 
of  lentil  soup — or  a  pappy  potato, 
salted  in  the  boiling — and  soon  after 
we  all  repaired  to  our  bed-rooms — 
made  a  noise  for  a  short  time,  then 
undressed,  and  were  speedily  asleep 
under  our  duvets,  and  as  sound,  if 
not  as  musical,  as  tops. 

Our  common  fare,  as  the  reader  has 
now  seen,  was  sorry  enough  ;  but  we 
had  our  Carnival  and  gala  days  as 
well  as  our  Lent.  Vater  Pestalo«zi's 
birthday,  in  summer,  and  the  first 
day  of  the  new  year,  were  the  most 
conspicuous.  On  each  of  these  occa- 
sions we  enjoyed  a  whole  week's  holi- 
day ;  and  as  these  were  also  the 
periods  for  slaughtering  the  pigs,  we 
fed  (twice  a -year  for  a  whole  weekH 
upon  black  puddings  and  pork  a, 
discretion,  qualified  with  a  sauce  of 
beetroot  and  vinegar,  and  washed 
down  with  a  fluid  really  like  small- 
beer. 


104 


Pestalozziana. 


[July, 


The  school-rooms,  which  lay  im- 
mediately under  the  dormitories  on 
the  ground-floor,  consisted  of  a  num- 
ber of  detached  chambers,  each  of 
which  issued  upon  a  corridor.  They 
were  airy — there  was  plenty  of  air  at 
Yverdun — and  lofty  as  became  so 
venerable  a  building ;  but  they  were 
unswept,  uuscrubbed,  peeled  of  their 
paint,  and,  owing  to  the  little  light 
that  could  find  its  way  through  two 
very  small  windows  punched  out  of 
the  fortress  walls,  presented,  save  at 
mid-day,  or  as  the  declining  sun  illu- 
mined momentarily  the  dark  recess, 
as  comfortless  a  set  of  interiors  as  you 
could  well  see.  It  required,  indeed, 
all  the  elasticity  of  youth  to  bear 
many  hours'  daily  incarceration  in 
such  black-holes,  without  participat- 
ing in  the  pervading  gloom.  Such 
dismal  domiciles  were  only  fit  resorts 
for  the  myoptic  bat,  who  would  occa- 
sionally visit  them  from  the  old  tower; 
for  the  twilight  horde  of  cockroaches, 
which  swarmed  along  the  floor,  or  the 
eight- eyed  spiders  who  colonised  the 
ceiling.  The  tender  sight,  too,  of  a 
patient  just  recovering  from  ophthal- 
mia would  here  have  required  no 
factitious  or  deeper  shade — but  merits 
like  these  only  rendered  them  as  un- 
genial  as  possible  to  the  physiology 
and  feelings  of  their  youthful  occu- 
pants. If  these  apartments  looked 
gloomy  in  their  dilapidations  and  want 
of  sun,  the  sombre  effect  was  much 
heightened  by  the  absence  of  the  or- 
dinary tables  and  chairs,  and  what- 
ever else  is  necessary  to  give  a  room 
a  habitable  appearance.  Had  an  ap- 
pi'aiser  been  commissioned  to  make 
out  a  complete  list  of  the  furniture  and 
the  fixtures  together,  a  mere  glance 
had  sufficed  for  the  inventory.  In 
vain  would  his  practised  eye  have  wan- 
dered in  quest  of  themes  for  golden 
sentences,  printed  in  such  uncial  char- 
acters that  all  who  run  may  read ;  in 
vain  for  the  high-hung  well-backed 
chart,  or  for  any  pleasing  pictorial 
souvenirs  of  vEsop  or  the  Ark — 
neither  these  nor  the  long  "  coloured 
Stream  of  Time,"  nor  formal  but  use- 
ful views  in  perspective,  adorned  our 
sorry  walls.  No  old  mahogany  case 
clicked  in  a  corner,  beating  time  for 


the  class,  and  the  hour  upstriking 
loud  that  it  should  not  be  defrauded  of 
its  dues.  No  glazed  globe,  gliding 
round  on  easy  axis,  spun  under  its 
brassy  equator  to  the  antipodes  on  its 
sides  being  touched.  No  bright  zodiac 
was  there  to  exhibit  its  cabalistic 
figures  in  pleasing  arabesques.  In 
place  of  these  and  other  well-known 
objects,  here  stood  a  line  of  dirt}", 
much-inked  desks,  with  an  equally 
dirty  row  of  attendant  forms  subjacent 
alongside.  There  was  a  scantling — it 
seldom  exceeded  a  leash — of  ricketty 
rush-bottom  chairs  distributed  at  long 
intervals  along  the  walls  ;  a  coal-black 
slate,  pegged  high  on  its  wooden  horse ; 
a  keyless  cupboard,  containing  the 
various  implements  of  learning,  a 
dirty  duster,  a  pewter  plate  with 
cretaceous  deposits,  a  slop-basin  and 
a  ragged  sponge ; — and  then,  unless  he 
had  included  the  cobwebs  of  the  ceil- 
ing, (not  usually  reckoned  up  in  the 
furniture  of  a  room,)  no  other 
movables  remained.  One  conspicu- 
ous fixture,  however,  there  was,  a 
gigantic  Dutch  stove.  This  lumber- 
ing parallelogram,  faggot-fed  from 
the  corridor  behind,  projected  several 
feet  into  the  room,  and  shone  bright 
in  the  glaze  of  earthenware  em- 
blazonments. Around  it  we  would 
sometimes  congregate  in  the  intervals  of 
class  :  in  winter  to  toast  our  hands  and 
hind  quarters,  as  we  pressed  against  the 
heated  tiles,  with  more  or  less  vigour 
according  to  the  fervency  of  the  cen- 
tral fire ;  and  in  summer  either  to  tell 
stories,  or  to  con  over  the  pictorial 
History  of  the  Bible,  which  adorned 
its  frontispiece  and  sides.  We  can- 
not say  that  every  square  exactly 
squared  with  even  our  schoolboy 
notions  of  propriety  in  its  mode  of 
teaching  religious  subjects ;  there  was 
a  Dutch  quaintness  in  the  illustrations, 
which  would  sometimes  force  a  smile 
from  its  simplicity,  at  others  shock, 
from  its  apparent  want  of  decorum 
and  reverence.  Pre-eminent  of  course 
among  the  gems  from  Genesis,  Adam 
and  Eve,  safe  in  innocency  and  "naked 
truth,"  here  walked  unscathed  amidst 
a  menagerie  of  wild  beasts — there, 
dressed  in  the  costume  of  their  fall, 
they  quitted  Eden,  and  left  it  in  pos- 


1849.]  Pestdlozziana. 

session  of  tigers,  bears,  and  crocodiles. 
Hard  by  on  a  smaller  tile,  that  brawny 
"  knave  of  clubs,"  Cain,  battered 
down  his  brother  at  the  altar ;  then 
followed  a  long  picture-gallery  of  the 
acts  of  the  patriarchs,  and  another 
equally  long  of  the  acts  of  the  apostles. 
But,  queer  as  many  of  these  miscon- 
ceptions might  seem,  they  were  no- 
thing to  the  strange  attempts  made  at 
dramatising  the  parables  of  the  New 
Testament — e.  g.  a  stout  man,  stag- 
gering under  the  weight  of  an  enor- 
mous beam  which  grows  out  of  one  eye, 
employs  his  fingers,  assisted  by  the 
other,  to  pick  out  a  black  speck  from 
the  cornea  of  his  neighbour.  Here,  an 
unclean  spirit,  as  black  as  any  sweep, 
issues  from  the  mouth  of  his  victim, 
with  wings  and  a  tail !  Here  again,  the 
good  Samaritan,  turbaned  like  a  Turk, 
is  bent  over  the  waylaid  traveller,  and 
pours  wine  and  oil  into  his  wounds 
from  the  mouths  of  two  Florence  flasks; 
there,  the  grain  of  mustard-seed,  be- 
come a  tree,  sheltering  already  a  large 
aviary  in  its  boughs ;  the  woman, 
dancing  a  hornpipe  with  the  Dutch 
broom,  has  swept  her  house,  and  lo  ! 
the  piece  of  silver  that  was  lost  in 
her  hand  ;  a  servant,  who  is  digging  a 
hole  in  order  to  hide  his  lord's  talent 
under  a  tree,  is  overlooked  by  a  mag- 
pie and  two  crows,  who  are  attentive 
witnesses  of  the  deposit : — and  many 
others  too  numerous  to  mention.  So 
much  for  the  empty  school-room,  but 
what's  a  hive  without  bees,  or  a  school- 
room without  boys?  The  reader 
who  has  peeped  into  it  untenanted, 
shall  now,  if  he  pleases,  be  intro- 
duced, dum  fervet  opus  full  and  alive. 
Should  he  not  be  able  to  trace  out 
very  clearly  the  system  at  work,  he 
will  at  least  be  no  worse  off  than  the 
bee-fancier,  who  hears  indeed  the 
buzzing,  and  sees  a  flux  and  reflux 
current  of  his  winged  confectioners 
entering  in  and  passing  out,  but  can- 
not investigate  the  detail  of  their  la- 
bours any  farther.  In  the  Yverdun, 
as  in  the  hymenopterus  apiary,  we 
swarmed,  we  buzzed,  dispersed,  re- 
assembled at  the  sound  of  the  bell, 
flocked  in  and  flocked  out,  all  the 
day  long  ;  exhibited  much  restlessness 
and  activity,  evincing  that  something 
was  going  on,  but  what,  it  would  have 
been  hard  to  determine.  Here  the 
comparison  must  drop.  Bees  buzz  to 


105 


some  purpose  ;  they  know  what  they 
are  about ;  they  help  one  another ; 
they  work  orderly  and  to  one  end, — 

"  How  skilfully  they  build  the  cell, 
How  neat  they  spread  the  wax, 

And  labour  hard  to  store  it  well 
With  the  sweet  food,"  &c.  &c. 

In  none  of  these  particulars  did  we 
resemble  the  "  busy  bee."  This  being 
admitted,  our  object  in  offering  a  few 
words  upon  the  course  of  study  pur- 
sued at  the  chateau  is  not  with  any 
idea  of  enlightening  the  reader  as  to 
anything  really  acquired  during  the 
long  ten  hours'  session  of  each  day  ; 
but  rather  to  show  how  ten  hours' 
imprisonment  may  be  inflicted  upon 
the  body  for  the  supposed  advantage 
of  the  mind,  and  yet  be  consumed  in 
"profitless  labour,  and  diligence 
which  maketh  not  rich  ;"  to  prove,  by 
an  exhibition  of  their  opposites,  that 
method  and  discipline  are  indispen- 
sable in  tuition,  and  (if  he  will  accept 
our  "  pathemata "  for  his  "  mathe- 
mata  "  and  guides  in  the  bringing  up 
of  bis  sons)  to  convince  him  that  edu- 
cation, like  scripture,  admits  not  of 
private  interpretation.  Those  who 
refuse  to  adopt  the  Catholic  views  of 
the  age,  and  the  general  sense  of  the 
society  in  which  they  live,  must  blame 
themselves  if  they  find  the  experi- 
ment of  foreign  schools  a  failure,  and 
that  they  have  sent  their  children 
"  farther  to  fare  worse." 

And  now  to  proceed  to  the  geography 
class,  which  was  the  first  after  break- 
fast, and  began  at  half-past  eight. 
As  the  summons-bell  sounded,  the 
boys  came  rushing  and  tumbling  in, 
and  ere  a  minute  had  elapsed  were 
swarming  over,  and  settling  upon,  the 
high  reading-desks  :  the  master, 
already  at  his  work,  was  chalking 
out  the  business  of  the  hour ;  and  as 
this  took  some  little  time  to  accom- 
plish, the  youngsters,  not  to  sit  un- 
employed, would  be  assiduously  en- 
gaged in  impressing  sundry  animal 
forms — among  which  the  donkey  was 
a  favourite— cut  out  in  cloth,  and  well 
powdered,  upon  one  another's  backs. 

When  Herr  G had  finished  his 

chalkings,  and  was  gone  to  the  comer 
of  the  room  for  his  show-perch,  a 
skeleton  map  of  Europe  might  be  seen, 
by  those  who  chose  to  look  that  way, 
covering  the  slate :  this,  however,  was 
what  the  majority  of  the  assembly 


106 


Pestalozziana. 


never  dreamt  of,  or  only  dreamt  they 
were  doing.  The  class  generally — 
though  ready  when  called  upon  to 
give  the  efficient  support  of  their 
tongues — kept  their  eyes  to  gape  else- 
where, and,  like  Solomon's  fool,  had 
them  where  they  had  no  business  to 
be.  The  map,  too  often  repeated  to 
attract  from  its  novelty,  had  uo  claim 
to  respect  on  other  grounds.  It  was 
one  of  a  class  accurately  designated  by 
that  careful  geographer,  old  Homer, 
as  "  fia^  ov  Kara  Ko<r/noi>."  Coarse 
and  clumsy,  however,  as  it  necessarily 
would  be,  it  might  still  have  proved 
of  service  had  the  boys  been  the 
draughtsmen.  As  it  was,  the  follow- 
ing mechanically  Herr  G 's  wand  * 

to  join  in  the  general  chorus  of  the 
last  census  of  a  city,  the  perpendicular 
altitude  of  a  mountain,  or  the  length 
and  breadth  of  a  lake,  could  obviously 
convey  no  useful  instruction  to  any 
one.  But,  useful  or  otherwise,  such 
was  our  regime, — to  set  one  of  from 
fifty  to  sixty  lads,  day  after  day, 
week  after  week,  repeating  facts  and 
figures  notorious  to  every  little  reader 
of  penny  guides  to  science,  till  all 
had  the  last  statistical  returns  at 
their  tongue's  tip ;  and  knew,  when 
all  was  done,  as  much  of  what  geo- 
graphy really  meant  as  on  the  day 
of  their  first  matriculation.  Small 
wonder,  then,  if  some  should  later  have 
foresworn  this  study,  and  been  re- 
volted at  the  bare  sight  of  a  map! 
All  our  recollections  of  map,  unlike 
those  of  personal  travel,  are  suffi- 
ciently distasteful.  Often  have  we 
yawned  wearily  over  them  at  Yver- 
dun,  when  our  eyes  were  demanded  to 

follow  the  titubations  of  Herr  G 's 

magic  wand,  which,  in  its  uncer- 
tain route,  would  skip  from  Europe 
to  Africa  and  back  again — qui  modo 
Thebas  modo  me  ponit  Atltenis ;  and 
our  dislike  to  them  since  has  increased 
amazingly.  Does  the  reader  care  to 
be  told  the  reason  of  this  ?  Let  him 
— in  order  to  obtain  the  pragmatic 
sanction  of  some  stiff-necked  examiner  . 
— have  to  "  get  up  "  all  the  anasto- 
mosing routes  of  St  Paul's  several 
journeyings;  have  to  follow  those 
rebellious  Israelites  in  all  their  wan- 
derings through  the  desert ;  to  draw 
the  line  round  them  when  in  Pales- 
tine ;  going  from  Dan  to  Beersheba, 
and  u  meting  out  the  valley  of  Suc- 


coth  ;"  or,  finally,  have  to  cover  a 
large  sheet  of  foolscap  with  a  pro- 
gressive survey  of  the  spread  of 
Christianity  during  the  three  first 
centuries — and  he  will  easily  enter 
into  our  feelings.  To  return  to  the 
class-room  :  The  geographical  lesson, 
though  of  daily  infliction,  was  accu- 
rately circumscribed  in  its  duration. 
Old  Time  kept  a  sharp  look-out  over 
his  blooming  daughters,  and  never 
suffered  one  hour  to  tread  upon  the 
heels  or  trench  upon  the  province  of 
a  sister  hour.  Sixty  minutes  to  all, 
and  not  an  extra  minute  to  any,  was 
the  old  gentleman's  impartial  rule ; 
and  he  took  care  to  see  it  was  strictly 
adhered  to.  As  the  clock  struck  ten, 
geography  was  shoved  aside  by  the 
muse  of  mathematics.  A  sea  of  dirty 
water  had  washed  out  in  a  twinkling 
all  traces  of  the  continent  of  Europe, 
and  the  palimpsest  slate  presented  a 
clean  face  for  whatever  figures  might 
next  be  traced  upon  it. 

The  hour  for  Euclidising  was  ar- 
rived, and  anon  the  black  parallelo- 
gram was  intersected  with  numerous 
triangles  of  the  Isosceles  and  Scalene 
pattern  ;  but,  notwithstanding  this 
promising  debut,  we  did  not  make 
much  quicker  progress  here  than  in 
the  previous  lesson.  How  should 
we,  who  had  not  only  the  difficulties 
inseparable  from  the  subject  to  cope 
with,  but  a  much  more  formidable 
difficulty — viz.  the  obstruction  which 
we  opposed  to  each  other's  advance, 
by  the  plan,  so  unwisely  adopted,  of 
making  all  the  class  do  the  same 
thing,  that  they  might  keep  pace  to- 
gether. It  is  a  polite  piece  of  folly 
enough  for  a  whole  party  to  be  kept 
waiting  dinner  by  a  lounging  guest, 
who  chooses  to  ride  in  the  park  when 
he  ought  to  be  at  his  toilet ;  but  we 
were  the  victims  of  a  much  greater 
absurdity,  who  lost  what  might  have 
proved  an  hour  of  profitable  work, 
out  of  tenderness  to  some  incorrigibly 
idle  or  Boeotian  boy.  who  could  not 
get  over  the  Pons  Asinornm,  (every 
proposition  was  a  pans  to  some  asinus 
or  other,)  and  so  made  those  who 
were  over  stand  still,  or  come  back 
to  help  him  across.  Neither  was 
this,  though  a  very  considerable 
drawback,  our  only  hindrance — the 
guides  were  not  always  safe.  Some- 
times he  who  acted  in  that  capacity 


1849.] 


Pestcdozziana. 


107 


would  shont  "Eureka"  too  soon; 
and  having  undertaken  to  lead  the 
van,  lead  it  astray  till  just  about,  as 
lie  supposed,  to  come  down  upon  the 
proof  itself,  and  to  come  down  with  a 
Q.  E.  D. :  the  master  would  stop  him 
short,  and  bid  him — as  Coleridge  told 
the  ingenious  author  of  Guesses  at 
Truth — "  to  guess  again."  But  sup- 
pose the  "guess"  fortunate,  or  that  a 
boy  had  even  succeeded,  by  his  own 
industry  or  reflection,  in  mastering  a 
proposition,  did  it  follow  that  he 
would  be  a  clear  expositor  of  what  he 
knew?  It  was  far  otherwise.  Oar 
young  Archimedes  —  unacquainted 
with  the  terms  of  the  science,  aud 
being  also  (as  we  have  hinted)  la- 
mentably defective  in  his  knowledge 
of  the  power  of  words — would  mix  up 
such  a  u  farrago  "  of  irrelevaucies  and 
repetitions  with  the  proof,  as,  in  fact, 
to  render  it  to  the  majority  no  proof 
at  all.  Euclid  should  be  taught  in 
his  own  words, — just  enough  and 
none  to  spare :  the  employment  of 
less  must  engender  obscurity ;  and  of 
more,  a  want  of  neatness  and  perspi- 
cacity. The  best  geometrician  amongst 
us  would  have  cut  but  a  bad  figure 
by  the  side  of  a  lad  of  very  average 
ability  brought  up  to  know  Euclid 
by  book. 

Another  twitch  of  the  bell  an- 
nounced that  the  hour  for  playing  at 
triangles  had  expired.  In  five  mi- 
nutes the  slate  was  covered  with  bars 
of  minims  and  crotchets,  aud  the 
music  lesson  begun.  This,  in  the 
general  tone  of  its  delivery,  bore  a 
striking  resemblance  to  the  geographi- 
cal one  of  two  hours  before  ;  the  only 
difference  being  that  "  ut,  re,  me " 
had  succeeded  to  names  of  certain 
cities,  and  "fa,  so,  la"  to  the  num- 
ber of  their  inhabitants.  It  would  be 
as  vain  an  attempt  to  describe  all  the 
noise  we  made  as  to  show  its  ra- 
tionale or  motive.  It  was  loud 
enough  to  have  cowed  a  lion,  stopped 
a  donkey  in  mid-bray — to  have  ex- 
cited the  envy  of  the  vocal  Lablache, 
or  to  have  sent  any  prima  donna  into 
hysterics.  When  this  third  hour  had 
been  bellowed  away,  and  the  bell  had 
rung  unheard  the  advent  of  a  fourth — 


presto — in  came  Mons.  D ,  to  re- 
lieve the  meek  man  who  had  acted  as 
coryphaeus  to  the  music  class ;  and 
after  a  little  tugging,  had  soon  pro- 
duced from  his  pocket  that  without 
which  you  never  catch  a  Frenchmen 
— a  theme.  The  theme  being  an- 
nounced, we  proceeded  (not  quite 
tant  bien  que  mal)  to  scribble  it  down 
at  his  dictation,  and  to  amend  its 
orthography  afterwards  from  a  cor- 
rected copy  on  the  slate.  Once  more 
the  indefatigable  bell  obtruded  its 
tinkle,  to  proclaim  that  Herr  Roth  was 
coming  with  a  Fable  of  Gellert,  or  a 
chapter  from  Vater  Pestalozzi's  seri- 
ous novel,  Gwnal  und  Lina,  to  readr 
and  expound,  and  catechise  upon. 
This  last  lesson  before  dinner  was 
always  accompanied  by  frequent 
yawns  and  other  unrepressed  symp- 
toms of  fatigue ;  and  at  its  conclusion 
we  all  rose  with  a  shout,  and  rushed 
into  the  corridors. 

On  resuming  work  in  the  afternoon, 
there  was  even  less  attention  and 
method  observed  than  before.  The 
classes  were  then  broken  up,  and 
private  lessons  were  given  in  accom- 
plishments, or  in  some  of  the  useful 
arts.  Drawing  dogs  and  cows,  with 
a  master  to  look  after  the  trees  and 
the  hedges ;  whistling  aud  spitting 
through  a  flute ;  playing  on  the  pa- 
tience of  a  violin  ;  turning  at  a  lathe  ; 
or  fencing  with  a  powerful  maitre 
d'  armes ;  —  such  were  the  general 
occupations.  It  was  then,  however, 
that  we  English  withdrew  to  our 
Greek  and  Latin  ;  and,  under  a  kind 

master,   Dr  M ,   acquired  (with 

the  exception  of  a  love  for  natural 
history,  and  a  very  unambitious  turn 
of  mind)  all  that  really  could  deserve 
the  name  of  education. 

We  have  now  described  the  seden- 
tary life  at  the  chateau.  In  the  next 
paper  the  reader  shall  be  carried  to 
the  gymnasium;  the  drill  ground 
behind  the  lake ;  to  our  small  mena- 
geries of  kids,  guinea  pigs,  and  rab- 
bits ;  be  present  at  our  annual  ball 
and  skat  ng  bouts  in  winter,  and  at 
our  bathings,  fishings,  frog-spearings, 
and  rambles  over  the  Jura  in 
summer. 


108          The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       [July, 


THE  CROWNING  OF  THE  COLUMN,  AND  CRUSHING  OF  THE  PEDESTAL. 


IT  was  said  in  the  debate  on  the 
Navigation  Laws,  in  the  best  speech 
made  on  the  Liberal  side,  by  one  of  the 
ablest  of  the  Liberal  party,  that  the 
repeal  of  the  Navigation  Laws  was 
the  crowning  of  the  column  of  free 
trade.  There  is  no  doubt  it  was  so  ; 
but  it  was  something  more.  It  was 
not  only  the  carrying  out  of  a  prin- 
ciple, but  the  overthrow  of  a  system  ; 
it  was  not  merely  the  crowning  of 
the  column,  but  the  crushing  of  the 
pedestal. 

And  what  was  the  system  which 
was  thus  completely  overthrown,  for 
the  time  at  least,  by  this  great  triumph 
of  Liberal  doctrines  ?  It  was  the  sys- 
tem under  which  England  had  become 
free,  and  great,  and  powerful ;  under 
which,  in  her  alone  of  all  modern 
states,  liberty  had  been  found  to  coexist 
with  law,  and  progress  with  order ; 
under  which  wealth  had  increased 
without  producing  divisions,  and  power 
grown  up  without  inducing  corruption ; 
the  system  which  had  withstood  the 
shocks  of  two  centuries,  and  created  an 
-empire  unsurpassed  since  the  beginning 
of  the  world  in  extent  and  magnificence. 
It  was  a  system  which  had  been  fol- 
lowed out  with  persevering  energy  by 
the  greatest  men,  and  the  most  com- 
manding intellects,  which  modern 
Europe  had  ever  produced ;  which 
was  begun  by  the  republican  patriot- 
ism of  Cromwell,  and  consummated 
by  the  conservative  wisdom  of  Pitt ; 
which  had  been  embraced  alike  by 
Somers  and  Bolingbroke,  by  Walpole 
and  Chatham,  by  Fox  and  Castlereagh; 
which,  during  two  centuries,  had  pro- 
duced an  unbroken  growth  of  national 
strength,  a  ceaseless  extension  of  na- 
tional power,  and  at  length  reared  up 
a  dominion  which  embraced  the  earth 
in  its  grasp,  and  exceeded  anything 
ever  achieved  by  the  legions  of  Caesar, 
or  the  phalanx  of  Alexander.  No 
vicissitudes  of  time,  no  shock  of  ad- 
verse fortune,  had  been  able  perma- 
nently to  arrest  its  progress.  It  had 
risen  superior  alike  to  the  ambition  of 
Louis  XIV.  and  the  genius  of  Napo- 
leon ;  the  rude  severance  of  the  North 
American  colonies  had  thrown  only  a 
passing  shade  over  its  fortunes;  the 


power  of  Hindostan  had  been  sub- 
dued by  its  force,  the  sceptre  of  the 
ocean  won  by  its  prowess.  It  had 
planted  its  colonies  in  every  quarter 
of  the  globe,  and  at  once  peopled  with 
its  descendants  a  new  hemisphere, 
and,  for  the  first  time  since  the  crea- 
tion, rolled  back  to  the  old  the  tide 
of  civilisation.  Perish  when  it  may, 
the  old  English  system  has  achieved 
mighty  things ;  it  has  indelibly  affixed 
its  impress  on  the  tablets  of  history. 
The  children  of  its  creation,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  will  fill  alike  the  solitudes 
of  the  Far  West,  and  the  isles  of  the 
East ;  they  will  be  found  equally  on 
the  shores  of  the  Missouri,  and  on  the 
savannahs  of  Australia;  and  the  period 
can  already  be  anticipated,  even  by 
the  least  imaginative,  when  their 
descendants  will  people  half  the  globe. 
It  was  not  only  the  column  of  free 
trade  which  has  been  crowned  in  this 
memorable  year.  Another  column, 
more  firm  in  its  structure,  more  last- 
ing in  its  duration,  more  conspicuous 
amidst  the  wonders  of  creation,  has, 
in  the  same  season,  been  crowned  by 
British  hands.  While  the  sacrilegious 
efforts  of  those  whom  it  had  sheltered 
were  tearing  down  the  temple  of  pro- 
tection in  the  West,  the  last  stone  was 
put  to  the  august  structure  which  it 
h  ad  reared  in  th  e  E  ast.  Th  e  victory  of 
Goojerat  on  the  Indus  was  contempo-' 
rary  with  the  repeal  of  the  Navigation 
Laws  on  the  Thames.  The  comple- 
tion of  the  conquest  of  India  occurred 
exactly  at  the  moment  when  the  sys- 
tem which  had  created  that  empire 
was  repudiated.  Protection  placed  the 
sceptre  of  India  in  our  hands,  when  free 
trade  was  surrendering  the  trident  of 
the  ocean  in  the  heart  of  our  power. 
With  truth  did  Lord  Gough  say,  in 
his  noble  proclamation  to  the  army  of 
the  Puujaub  on  the  termination  of 
hostilities,  that  "what  Alexander  had 
attempted  they  had  done."  Supported 
by  the  energy  of  England,  guided  by 
the  principles  of  protection,  restrained 
by  the  dictates  of  justice,  backed  by 
the  navy  which  the  Navigation 
Laws  had  created,  the  British  arms 
had  achieved  the  most  wonderful 
triumph  recorded  in  the  annals  of 


1849.]       The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       '  109 


mankind.  They  had  subjugated  a 
hundred  and  forty  millions  of  men  in 
the  Continent  of  Hindostan,  at  the 
distance  of  ten  thousand  miles  from 
the  parent  state ;  they  had  made 
themselves  felt  alike,  and  at  the  same 
moment,  at  Nankin,  the  ancient  capi- 
tal of  the  Celestial  Empire,  and  at 
Cabool,  the  cradle  of  Mahommedan 
power.  Conquering  all  who  resisted, 
blessing  all  who  submitted,  securing 
the  allegiance  of  the  subjects  by  the 
justice  and  experienced  advantages  of 
their  government,  they  had  realised 
the  boasted  maxim  of  Roman  admin- 
istration— 

"  Parcere  subjectis  et  debellare  superbos," 

and  steadily  advanced  through  a 
hundred  years  of  effort  and  glory,  not 
unmixed  with  disaster,  from  the  banks 
of  the  Hoogley  to  the  shores  of  the 
Indus — from  the  black  hole  of  Cal- 
cutta to  the  throne  of  Aurengzebe. 

"  Nulla  magna  civitas,"  said  Han- 
nibal, "  diu  quiescere  potest — si  foris 
hostem  non  habet,  domi  invenit:  ut 
praevalida  corpora  ab  externis  causis 
tuta  videntur,  suis  ipsis  viribus  confi- 
ciuntur."*  When  the  Carthaginian 
hero  made  this  mournful  reflection  on 
the  infatuated  spirit  which  had  seized 
his  own  countrymen,  and  threatened  to 
destroy  their  once  powerful  dominion, 
he  little  thought  what  a  marvellous 
confirmation  of  it  a  future  empire  of 
far  greater  extent  and  celebrity  was  to 
afford.  That  the  system  of  free  trade 
— that  is,  the  universal  preference  of 
foreigners,  for  the  sake  of  the  small- 
est reduction  of  price,  to  your  own 
subjects — must,  if  persisted  in,  lead  to 
the  dismemberment  and  overthrow  of 
the  British  empire,  cannot  admit  of  a 
moment's  doubt,  and  will  be  amply 
proved  to  eveiy  unbiassed  reader  in 
the  sequel  of  this  paper.  Yet  the 
moment  chosen  for  carrying  this  prin- 
ciple into  effect  was  precisely  that,  when 
the  good  effects  of  the  opposite  system 
had  been  most  decisively  demon- 
strated, and  an  empire  unprecedented 
in  magnitude  and  magnificence  had 
reached  its  acme  under  its  shadow. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  explain  so 


strange  an  anomaly,  if  we  did  not 
recollect  how  wayward  and  irrecon- 
cilable are  the  changes  of  the  human 
mind  :  that  action  and  reaction  is  the 
law  not  less  of  the  moral  than  of  the 
material  world  ;  that  nations  become 
tired  of  hearing  a  policy  called  wise, 
not  less  than  an  individual  called  the 
just ;  and  that  if  a  magnanimous  and 
truly  national  course  of  government 
has  been  pursued  by  one  party  long 
in  possession  of  power,  this  is  quite 
sufficient  to  make  its  opponents 
embrace  the  opposite  set  of  tenets, 
and  exert  all  their  influence  to  carry 
them  into  effect  when  they  succeed 
to  the  direction  of  affairs,  without  the 
slightest  regard  to  the  ruin  they  may 
bring  on  the  national  fortunes. 

The  secret  of  the  long  duration  and 
unexampled  success  of  the  British 
national  policy  is  to  be  found  in 
the  protection  which  it  afforded  to  all 
the  national  interests.  But  for  this,  it 
must  long  since  have  been  overthrown, 
and  with  it  the  empire  which  was 
growing  up  under  its  shadow.  No 
institutions  or  frames  of  government 
can  long  exist  which  are  not  held  to- 
gether by  that  firmest  of  bonds,  ex- 
perienced benefits.  What  made  the 
Roman  power  steadily  advance  during 
seven  centuries,  and  endure  in  all  a 
thousand  years?  The  protection 
which  the  arms  of  the  legions  afforded 
to  the  industry  of  mankind,  the  inter- 
national wars  which  they  prevented, 
the  general  peace  they  secured,  the 
magnanimous  policy  which  admitted 
the  conquered  states  to  the  privileges 
of  Roman  citizens,  and  caused  the 
Imperial  government  to  be  felt  through 
the  wide  circuit  of  its  power,  only  by 
the  vast  market  it  opened  to  the  in- 
dustry of  its  multifarious  subjects, 
and  the  munificence  with  which  local 
undertakings  were  everywhere  aided 
by  the  Imperial  treasuiy.  Free  trade 
in  grain  at  length  ruined  it :  the  har- 
vests of  Lybia  and  Egypt  came  to 
supersede  those  of  Greece  and  Italy, 
—and  thence  its  fall.  To  the  same 
cause  which  occasioned  the  rise  of 
Rome,  is  to  be  ascribed  the  similar 
unbroken  progress  of  the  Russian  ter- 


"  No  great  state,  can  long  remain  quiet;  if  it  has  not  an  enemy  abroad,  it  finds  one 
at  home,  as  powerful  bodies  resist  all  external  attacks,  but  are  destroyed  by  their 
internal  strength." — LIVT. 


110  The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       [July, 


ritorial  dominion,  and  that  of  the 
British  colonial  empire  in  modern 
times.  What,  on  the  other  hand, 
caused  the  conquests  of  Timonr  and 
Charlemagne,  Alexander  the  Great 
and  Napoleon,  to  be  so  speedily 
obliterated,  and  their  vast  empires 
to  fall  to  pieces  the  moment  the 
powerful  hand  which  had  created 
them  was  laid  in  the  dust?  The 
want  of  protection  to  general  interests, 
the  absence  of  the  strong  bond  of 
experienced  benefits ;  the  oppressive 
nature  of  the  conquering  government; 
the  sacrifice  of  the  general  interests 
to  the  selfish  ambition  or  rapacious 
passions  of  a  section  of  the  community, 
whether  civil  or  military,  which  had 
got  possession  of  power.  It  is  the 
selfishness  of  the  ruling  power  which 
invariably  terminates  its  existence : 
men  will  bear  anything  but  an  in- 
terference with  their  patrimonial 
interests.  The  burning  of  50,000 
Protestants  by  the  Duke  of  Alva  was 
quietly  borne  by  the  Flemish  pro- 
vinces :  but  the  imposition  of  a  small 
direct  tax  at  once  caused  a  flame  to 
burst  forth,  which  carried  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  United  Provinces.  At- 
tend sedulously  to  the  interests  of 
men,  give  ear  to  their  complaints, 
anticipate  their  wishes,  and  you  may 
calculate  with  tolerable  certainty  on 
acquiring  in  the  long  ran  the  mastery 
of  their  passions.  Thwart  their  in- 
terests, disregard  their  complaints, 
make  game  of  their  sufferings,  and 
you  may  already  read  the  handwrit- 
ing on  the  wall  which  announces  your 
doom. 

That  the  old  policy  of  England, 
foreign,  colonial,  and  domestic,  was 
thoroughly  protective,  and  attended, 
on  the  whole,  with  a  due  care  of  the 
interests  of  its  subjects  in  every  part 
of  the  world,  may  be  inferred  with 
absolute  certainty  from  the  constant 
growth,  unexampled  success,  and  long 
existence  of  her  empire.  But  the 
matter  is  not  left  to  inference :  deci- 
sive proof  of  it  is  to  be  found  in 
the  enactments  of  our  statute-book, 
the  treaties  we  concluded,  or  the 
wars  we  waged  with  foreign  powers. 
Protection  to  native  industry,  at 
home  or  in  the  colonies,  security  to 
vested  interests,  a  sacred  regard  to 
the  rights  and  interests  of  our 
subjects,  in  whatever  part  of  the 


world,  were  the  principles  invariably 
acted  upon.  Long  and  bloody  wars 
were  undertaken  to  secure  their  pre- 
dominance, when  threatened  by  foreign 
powers.  This  protective  system  of 
necessity  implied  some  restrictions 
upon  the  industry,  or  restraints  upon 
the  liberty  of  action  in  the  colonial 
dependencies,  as  well  as  the  mother 
country — but  what  then  ?  They  were 
not  complained  of  on  either  side,  be- 
cause they  were  accompanied  with 
corresponding  and  greater  benefits, 
as  the  consideration  paid  by  the 
mother  country,  and  received  by  her 
distant  offspring.  Reciprocity  in  those 
days  was  not  entirely  one-sided ; 
there  was  a  quid  pro  quo  on  both 
sides.  The  American  colonies  were 
subjected  to  the  Navigation  Laws, 
and,  in  consequence,  paid  somewhat 
higher  for  their  freights  than  if  they 
had  been  permitted  to  export  and 
import  their  produce  in  the  cheaper 
vessels  of  foreign  powers ;  but  this 
burden  was  never  complained  of,  be- 
cause it  was  felt  to  be  the  price  paid 
for  the  immense  advantages  of  the 
monopoly  of  the  English  market,  and 
the  protection  of  the  English  navy. 
The  colonies  of  France  and  Spain  de- 
sired nothing  so  much,  during  the  late 
war,  as  to  be  conquered  by  the  armies 
of  England,  because  it  at  once  opened 
the  closed  markets  for  their  produce, 
and  restored  the  lost  protection  of  a 
powerful  navy.  The  English  felt  that 
their  colonial  empire  was  in  some  re- 
spects a  burden,  and  entailed  heavy 
expenses  both  in  peace  and  war ;  but 
they  were  not  complained  of,  because 
the  manufacturingindustry  of  England 
found  a  vast  and  increasing  market  for 
its  produce  in  the  growth  of  its  off- 
spring in  every  part  of  the  world,  and 
its  commercial  navy  grew  with  unex- 
ampled rapidity  from  the  exclusive 
enjoyment  of  their  trade. 

Such  was  the  amount  of  protection 
afforded  in  our  statute-book  to  com- 
mercial industry,  that  we  might 
imagine,  if  there  was  nothing  else  in 
it,  that  the  empire  had  been  governed 
exclusively  by  a  manufacturing  aris- 
tocracy. Such  was  the  care  with 
which  the  interests  of  the  colonies 
were  attended  to,  that  it  seemed  as  if 
they  must  have  had  representatives 
who  possessed  a  majority  in  the  legis- 
lature. To  one  who  looked  to  the 


184  9.  ]       TJie  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.          Ill 


welfare  of  land,  and  the  protection  of 
its  produce,  the  chapel  of  St  Stephens 
seemed  to  have  been  entirely  composed 
of  the  representatives  of  squires.  The 
shipping  interest  was  sedulously  fos- 
tered, as  appeared  in  the  unex- 
ampled growth  and  vast  amount  of 
our  mercantile  tonnage.  The  interests 
of  labour,  the  welfare  of  the  poor, 
were  not  overlooked,  as  was  demon- 
strated in  the  most  decisive  way  by 
the  numerous  enactments  for  the  relief 
of  the  indigent  and  unfortunate,  and 
the  immense  burden  which  the  legisla- 
ture voluntarily  imposed  on  itself  and 
the  nation  for  the  relief  of  the  desti- 
tute. Thus  all  interests  were  attended 
to  ;  and  that  worst  of  tyrannies,  the 
tyranny  of  one  class  over  another 
class,  was  effectually  prevented.  It  is 
in  this  sedulous  attention  to  all  the  in- 
terests of  the  empire  that  its  long 
duration  and  unparalleled  extension  is 
to  be  ascribed.  Had  any  one  class  or 
interest  been  predominant,  and  com- 
menced the  system  of  pursuing  its 
separate  objects  and  advantages,  to 
the  subversion  or  injury  of  the  other 
classes  in  the  state,  such  a  storm  of 
discontent  must  have  arisen  as  would 
speedily  have  proved  fatal  to  the 
unanimity,  and  with  it  to  the  growth 
and  prosperity  of  the  empire. 

Two  causes  mainly  contributed  to 
produce  this  system  of  catholic  pro- 
tection by  the  British  government 
to  native  industry ;  and  to  their 
united  operation,  the  greatness  of 
England  is  chiefly  to  be  ascribed. 
The  first  of  these  was  the  peculiar 
constitution  which  time  had  worked 
out  for  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
the  manner  in  which  all  the  interests 
of  the  state  had  come  silently,  and 
without  being  observed,  to  be  in- 
directly but  most  effectually  repre- 
sented in  parliament.  That  body, 
anterior  to  the  Reform  Bill,  possessed 
one  invaluable  quality — its  franchise 
was  multiform  and  various.  In 
many  burghs  the  landed  interest  in 
theirneighbourhood  was  predominant ; 
in  most  counties  it  returned  members 
in  the  interests  of  agriculture.  In 
other  towns,  mercantile  or  commercial 
wealth  acquired  by  purchase  an 
introduction,  or  won  it  from  the 
influence  of  some  great  family. 
Colonial  opulence  found  a  ready  inlet 
in  the  close  boroughs  :  Old  Sarum  or 


Gatton  nominally  represented  a  house 
or  a  green  mound — really,  the  one 
might  furnish  a  seat  to  a  representa- 
tive of  Hindostan,  the  other  of  the 
splendid  West  Indian  settlements. 
The  members  who  thus  got  in  by 
purchase  had  one  invaluable  quality, 
like  the  officers  who  get  their  com- 
missions in  the  army  in  the  same 
way — they  were  independent.  They 
were  not  liable  to  be  overruled  or 
coerced  by  a  numerous,  ignorant,  and 
conceited  constituency.  Hence  they 
looked  only  to  the  interests  of  the 
class  to  which  they  belonged,  amidst 
which  their  fortunes  had  been  made, 
and  with  the  prosperity  of  which 
their  individual  success  was  entirely 
wound  up.  With  what  energy  these 
various  interests  were  attended  to, 
with  what  perseverance  the  system  of 
protecting  them  was  followed  up,  is 
sufficiently  evident  from  the  simul- 
taneous growth  and  unbroken  pros- 
perity of  all  the  great  branches  of 
industry  during  the  long  period  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  Talent, 
alike  on  the  Whig  and  the  Tory  side, 
found  a  ready  entrance  by  means  of 
the  nomination  burghs.  It  is  well 
known  that  all  the  great  men  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  since  the  Revolu- 
tion, obtained  entrance  to  parliament 
in  the  first  instance  through  these 
narrow  inlets.  Rank  looked  anxiously 
for  talent,  because  it  added  to  its 
influence.  Genius  did  not  disdain 
the  entrance,  because  it  was  not  ob- 
structed by  numbers,  or  galled  by 
conceit.  No  human  wisdom  could 
have  devised  such  a  system  ;  it  rose 
gradually,  and  without  being  observed, 
from  the  influence  of  a  vast  body  of 
great  and  prosperous  interests,  feeling 
the  necessity  of  obtaining  a  voice  in 
the  legislature,  and  enjoying  the 
means  of  doing  so  by  the  variety  of 
election  privileges  which  time  had 
established  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  reality  of  this  representation  of 
interests  is  matter  of  history.  The 
landed  interest,  the  West  India 
interest,  the  commercial  interest,  the 
shipping  interest,  the  East  Indian 
interest,  could  all  command  their  res- 
pective phalanxes  in  parliament,  who 
would  not  permit  any  violation  of  the 
rights,  or  infringement  on  the  wel- 
fare, of  their  constituents  to  take 
place.  The  combined  effect  of  the 


112  The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       [July, 


whole  was  the  great  and  glorious 
British  empire,  teeming  with  energy, 
overflowing  with  patriotism,  spread- 
ing out  into  every  quarter  of  the 
globe,  and  yet  held  together  in  all  its 
parts  by  the  firm  bond  of  experienced 
benefits  and  protected  industry. 

The  second  cause  was,  that  no 
speculative  or  theoretical  opinions 
had  then  been  broached,  or  become 
popular,  which  proclaimed  that  the 
real  interest  of  any  one  class  was  to  be 
found  in  the  spoliation  or  depression 
of  any  other  class.  No  gigantic 
system  of  beggar  my  neighbour  had 
then  come  to  be  considered  as  a 
shorthand  mode  of  gaining  wealth. 
The  nation  had  not  then  embraced 
the  doctrine,  that  to  buy  cheap  and 
sell  dear  constituted  the  sum  total  of 
political  science.  On  the  contrary,  pro- 
tection to  industry  in  all  its  branches 
was  considered  as  the  great  princi- 
ple of  policy,  the  undisputed  dictate 
of  wisdom,  the  obvious  rule  of  justice. 
It  was  acknowledged  alike  by  specu- 
lative writers  and  practical  states- 
men. The  interests  of  the  producers 
were  the  main  object  of  legislative 
fostering  and  philosophic  thought — 
and  for  this  plain  reason,  that  they 
constitute  the  great  body  of  society, 
and  their  interests  chiefly  were  thought 
of.  Realised  wealth,  was  then,  in 
comparison  to  what  it  now  is,  in  a 
state  of  infancy  ;  the  class  of  traders 
and  shopkeepers,  who  grow  up  with 
the  expenditure  of  accumulated  opu- 
lence, was  limited  in  numbers  and 
inconsiderable  in  influence.  It  would 
have  been  as  impossible  then  to  get 
up  a  party  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
or  a  cry  in  the  country,  in  favour  of 
the  consumers  or  against  the  pro- 
ducers, as  it  would  be  now  to  do  the 
same  among  the  corn  producers  in  the 
basin  of  the  Mississippi,  or  among  the 
cotton  growers  of  New  Orleans. 

It  is  in  the  profound  wisdom  of 
Hannibal's  saying — that  great  states, 
impregnable  to  the  shock  of  external 
violence,  are  consumed  and  wasted 
away  by  their  own  internal  strength — 
that  the  real  cause  of  the  subsequent 
and  extraordinary  change,  first  in  the 
opinions  of  men,  and  then  in  the  mea- 
sures of  government,  is  to  be  found. 
Such  was  the  wealth  produced  by  the 
energy  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  shel- 
tered and  invigorated  by  the  protec- 


tion-policy of  government  in  every 
quarter  of  the  globe,  that  in  the  end 
it  gave  birth  to  a  new  class,  which 
rapidly  grew  in  numbers  and  influence, 
and  was  at  length  able  to  bid  defiance 
to  all  the  other  interests  in  the  state 
put  together.  This  was  the  moneyed 
interest — the  class  of  men  whose  for- 
tunes were  made,  whose  position  was 
secure,  and  who  saw,  in  a  general 
cheapening  of  the  price  of  commodities 
and  reduction  of  prices,  the  means  of 
making  their  wealth  go  much  farther 
than  it  otherwise  would.  This  class 
had  its  origin  from  the  long-continued 
prosperity  and  accumulated  savings  of 
the  whole  producing  classes  in  the 
state  ;  like  a  huge  lake,  it  was  fed  by 
all  the  streams  and  rills  which  de- 
scended into  it  from  the  high  grounds 
by  which  it  was  surrounded ;  and  the 
rise  of  its  waters  indicated,  as  a  regis- 
ter thermometer,  the  amount  of  addi- 
tions which  it  was  receiving  from  the 
swelling  of  the  feeders  by  which  it 
was  formed.  But  when  men  once 
get  out  of  the  class  of  producers,  and 
into  that  of  moneyed  consumers,  they 
rapidly  perceive  an  immediate  benefit 
to  themselves  in  the  reduction  of 
the  price  of  articles  of  consump- 
tion, because  it  adds  proportionally 
to  the  value  of  their  money.  If  prices 
can  be  forced  down  fifty  per  cent  by 
legislative  measures,  every  thousand 
pounds  in  eifect  becomes  fifteen  hun- 
dred. It  thus  not  unfrequently  and 
naturally  happened,  that  the  son  who 
enjoyed  the  fortune  made  by  protec- 
tion came  to  join  the  ranks  of  the  free 
traders,  because  it  promised  a  great 
addition  to  the  value  of  his  inheritance. 
The  transition  from  Sir  Robert  Peel 
the  father,  and  staunch  supporter  of 
protection,  who  made  the  fortune,  to 
Sir  Robert  Peel  the  son,  who  inherited 
it,  and  introduced  free- trade  principles, 
was  natural  and  easy.  Each  acted  in 
conformity  with  the  interests  of  hi& 
respective  position  in  society.  It  is 
impossible  to  suppose  in  such  men  a 
selfish  or  sordid  regard  to  their  own 
interests,  and  we  solemnly  disclaim 
the  intention  of  imputing  such.  But 
every  one  knows  how  the  ablest  and 
most  elevated  minds  are  insensibly 
moulded  by  the  influence  of  the  atmo- 
sphere with  which  they  are  surround- 
ed ;  and,  at  all  events,  they  were  a 
typeof  the  corresponding  change  going 


1849.]         The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.          113 


on  in  successive  generations  of  others 
of  a  less  elevated  class  of  minds,  in 
whom  the  influence  of  interested  mo- 
tives was  direct  and  immediate. 

Adam  Smith's  work,  now  styled  the 
principia  of  economical  science  by  the 
free-traders,  first  gave  token  of  the 
important  and  decisive  change  then 
going  forward  in  society.  It  was  an 
ominous  and  characteristic  title  :  The 
Nature  and  Cause  of  the  WEALTH  of 
Nations.  It  was  not  said  of  their 
wisdom,  virtue,  or  happiness.  The 
direction  of  such  a  mind  as  Adam 
Smith's  to  the  exclusive  consideration 
of  the  riches  of  nations,  indicated 
the  advent  of  a  period  when  the  fruits 
of  industry  in  this  vast  empire,  shel- 
tered by  protection,  had  become  so 
great  that  they  had  formed  a  power- 
ful class  in  society,  which  was  begin- 
ning to  look  to  its  separate  interests, 
and  saw  them  in  the  beating  down  the 
price  of  articles— thatis,dimiuishing  the 
remuneration  of  other  men's  industry. 
It  showed  that  the  Plutocracy  was  be- 
coming powerful.  The  constant  ar- 
guments that  able  work  contained,  in 
favour  of  competition  and  against 
monopoly, — its  impassioned  pleadings 
in  favour  of  freedom  of  commerce, 
and  the  removal  of  all  restrictions  on 
importation,  were  so  many  indications 
that  a  new  era  was  opening  in  society ; 
that  the  interests  of  realised  wealth 
were  beginning  to  come  into  collision 
with  those  of  creating  industry,  and  that 
the  time  was  not  far  distant  when  a 
fierce  legislative  contest  might  be  an- 
ticipated between  them.  It  is  well 
known  that  Adam  Smith  advocated 
the  Navigation  Laws,  upon  the  ground 
that  national  independence  was  of 
more  importance  than  national  wealth. 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
was  a  deviation  from  his  principles, 
and  that,  if  they  were  established  in 
other  particulars,  it  would  be  difficult, 
if  not  impossible,  to  succeed  in  main- 
taining an  exception  in  favour  of  the 
shipping  interests,  because  that  was 
retaining  a  burden  on  the  colonies, 
when  the  corresponding  benefit  had 
been  voted  away. 

Although,  however,  the  doctrines 
of  Adam  Smith,  from  their  novelty, 
simplicity,  and  alliance  with  demo- 
cratic liberty,  spread  rapidly  in  the 
rising  generation — ever  ready  to  re- 
pudiate the  doctrines  and  throw  off 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCV. 


the  restraints  of  their  fathers — yet,  so 
strongly  were  the  producing  interests 
intrenched  in  the  legislature,  that  a 
very  long  period  would  probably  have 
elapsed  before  they  caine  to  be  prac- 
tically applied  in  the  measures  of 
government,  had  it  not  been  that, 
at  the  very  period  when,  from  the 
triumph  of  protection-principles  dur- 
ing the  war,  and  the  vast  wealth  they 
had  realised  in  the  state,  the  moneyed 
interest  had  become  most  powerful,  a 
great  revolution  in  the  state  gave  that 
interest  the  command  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  By  the  Reform  Bill 
two-thirds  of  the  seats  in  that  house 
were  given  to  boroughs,  and  two- 
thirds  of  the  voters  in  boroughs,  in 
the  new  constituency,  were  shop- 
keepers or  those  in  their  interest. 
Thus  a  decisive  majority  in  the  house, 
which,  from  having  the  command  of 
the  public  purse,  practically  became 
possessed  of  supreme  power,  was  vest- 
ed in  those  who  made  their  living  by 
buying  and  selling — with  whom  cheap 
prices  was  all  in  all.  The  producing 
classes  were  virtually,  and  to  all 
practical  purposes,  cast  out  of  the 
scale.  The  landed  interest,  on  all 
questions  vital  to  its  welfare,  would 
evidently  soon  be  in  a  minority. 
Schedules  A  and  B  at  one  blow  dis- 
franchised the  whole  colonial  empire 
of  Great  Britain,  because  it  closed 
the  avenue  by  which  colonial  wealth 
had  hitherto  found  an  entrance  to  the 
House  of  Commons.  Seats  could  no 
longer  be  bought :  the  virtual  repre- 
sentation of  unrepresented  places  was 
at  an  end.  The  greatest  fortunes 
made  in  the  colonies  could  now  get 
into  the  house  only  through  some 
populous  place ;  and  the  majority  of 
voters  in  most  populous  places  were 
in  favour  of  the  consumers  and  against 
the  producers,  because  the  consumers 
bought  their  goods,  and  they  bought 
those  of  the  producers.  Thus  no  colo- 
nial member  could  get  in  but  by  for- 
swearing his  principles  and  abandon- 
ing the  interests  of  his  order.  The 
shipping  interest  was  more  strongly 
intrenched,  because  many  shipping 
towns  had  direct  representatives  in 
parliament,  and  it  accordingly  was 
the  last  to  be  overthrown.  But  when, 
the  colonies  were  disfranchised,  and 
protection  was  withdrawn  from  their 
industry  to  cheapen  prices  at  home,  it 


114 


The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.        [July, 


became  next  to  impossible  to  keep  up 
the  shipping  interest — not  only  be- 
cause the  injustice  of  doing  so,  and 
so  enhancing  freights,  when  protection 
to  colonial  produce  was  withdrawn, 
was  evident,  but  because  it  was  well 
understood,  by  certain  unequivocal 
symptoms,  that  such  a  course  of  po- 
licy would  at  once  lead  to  colonial 
revolt,  and  the  dismemberment  of 
the  empire. 

The  authors  of  the  Reform  Bill  were 
well  aware  that  under  it  two-thirds  of 
the  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons 
were  for  boroughs :  but  they  clung  to 
the  idea  that  a  large  proportion  of 
these  seats  would  fall  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  landed  proprietors  in 
their  vicinity,  and  thus  be  brought 
round  to  the  support  of  the  agricultu- 
ral interest.  It  was  on  that  belief  that 
Earl  Grey  said  in  private,  amidst  all 
his  public  democratic  declamations, 
that  the  Reform  Bill  was  "  the  most 
aristocratic  measure  which  had  ever 
passed  the  House  of  Commons."  But 
in  this  anticipation,  which  was  doubt- 
less formed  in  good  faith  by  many  of 
the  ablest  supporters  of  that  revolu- 
tion, they  showed  themselves  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  effect  of  the  great 
monetary  change  of  1819,  which  at 
that  very  period  was  undermining  the 
influence  of  the  owners  of  landed 
estates  as  much  as  it  was  augmenting 
the  power  of  the  holders  of  bonds  over 
their  properties.  As  that  bill  changed 
the  prices  of  agricultural  produce,  at 
least  to  the  extent  of  forty  per  cent,  it 
of  course  crippled  the  means  and 
weakened  the  influence  of  the  land- 
owners as  much  as  it  added  to  the 
powers  of  the  moneyed  interest 
which  held  securities  over  their  estates. 
This  soon  became  a  matter  of  para- 
mount importance.  After  a  few  severe 
struggles,  the  landowners  in  most 
places  saw  that  they  were  overmatch- 
ed, and  that  their  burdened  estates  and 
declining  rent-rolls  were  not  equal  to 
an  encounter  with  the  ready  money 
of  the  capitalists,  which  that  very 
change  had  so  much  enhanced  in  value 
and  augmented  in  power.  One  by  one 
the  rural  boroughs  slipped  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  landed,  and  fell  under  the 
influence  of  the  moneyed  interest.  At 
the  same  time  one  great  colonial  inte- 
rest, that  of  the  West  Indies,  was  so 
entirely  prostrated  by  the  ruinous  mea- 


sure of  the  emancipation  of  the  negroes, 
that  its  influence  in  parliament  was 
practically  rendered  extinct.  Thus 
two  of  the  great  producing  interests 
in  the  state — those  of  corn  and  sugar — 
were  materially  weakened  or  nullified, 
at  the  very  time  when  the  power  of 
their  opponents,  the  moneyed  aris- 
tocracy, was  most  augmented. 

Experience,  however,  proved,  on 
one  important  and  decisive  occasion, 
that  even  after  the  Reform  Bill  had 
become  the  law  of  the  land,  it  was 
still  possible,  by  a  coalition  of  all  the 
producing  interests,  to  defeat  the  ut- 
most efforts  of  the  moneyed  party,  even 
when  aided  by  the  whole  influence  of 
government.  On  occasion  of  the  me- 
morable Whig  budget  of  1841,  such  a 
coalition  took  place,  and  the  efforts  of 
the  free-traders  were  overthrown.  A 
change  of  ministry  was  the  conse- 
quence ;  but  it  soon  appeared  that 
nothing  was  gained  by  an  alteration 
of  rulers,  when  the  elements  in  which 
political  power  resided,  under  the 
new  constitution,  remain ed  unchanged . 

Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  the  leaders  of 
the  party  which  now  succeeded  to 
power,  appear  to  have  been  guided 
by  those  views  in  the  free-trade  mea- 
sures which  they  subsequently  intro- 
duced. They  regarded,  and  with 
justice,  the  Reform  Bill  as,  in  the 
language  of  the  Times,  "  a  great 
fact" — the  settlement  of  the  constitu- 
tion upon  a  new  basis — on  foundations 
non  tangenda  non  movenda,  if  we  would 
shun  the  peril  of  repeated  shocks  to 
our  institutions,  and  ultimately  of 
a  bloody  revolution.  Looking  on 
the  matter  in  this  light,  the  next 
object  was  to  scan  the  composition  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  see  in 
what  party  and  interest  in  the  state 
a  preponderance  of  power  was  now 
vested.  They  were  not  slow  in  dis- 
cerning the  fatal  truth,  that  the  Re- 
form Bill  had  given  a  decided  majority 
to  the  representatives  of  boroughs, 
and  that  a  clear  majority  in  these 
boroughs  was,  from  the  embarrass- 
ments which  monetary  change  had 
produced  on  the  landed  proprietors, 
and  the  preponderance  of  votes 
which  that  bill  had  given  to  shop- 
keepers, vested  in  the  moneyed  or  con- 
suming interest.  Such  a  state  of 
things  might  be  regretted,  but  still  it 
existed;  and  it  was  the  business  of 


1849.]       The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal          115 


practical  statesmen  to  deal  with 
things  as  they  were,  not  to  indulge  in 
vain  regrets  on  what  they  once  were 
or  might  have  been.  It  seemed  im- 
possible to  carry  on  the  government 
on  any  other  footing  than  that  of 
concession  to  the  wishes  and  atten- 
tion to  the  interests  of  the  moneyed 
and  mercantile  classes,  in  whose 
hands  supreme  power,  under  the  new 
constitution,  was  now  practically 
vested.  Whether  any  such  views,  sup- 
posing them  well  founded,  could  jus- 
tify a  statesman  and  a  party,  who  had 
received  office  on  a  solemn  appeal  to 
the  country,  under  the  most  solemn 
engagement  to  support  the  principles 
of  protection,  to  repudiate  those  prin- 
ciples, and  introduce  the  measures 
they  were  pledged  to  oppose,  is  a 
question  on  which,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
see,  but  one  opinion  will  be  formed  by 
future  times. 

Still,  even  when  free-trade  mea- 
sures were  resolved  on  by  Sir  R. 
Peel's  government,  it  was  a  very 
doubtful  matter,  in  the  first  instance, 
how  to  secure  their  entire  success.  The 
great  coalition  of  the  chief  producing 
interests,  which  had  proved  fatal  to 
the  Whig  administration  by  the  elec- 
tion of  1841,  might  again  be  reorgan- 
ised, and  overthrow  any  government 
which  attempted  to  renew  the  same 
projects.  Ministers  had  been  placed 
in  office  on  the  principles  of  protec- 
tion— they  were  the  watches,  planted 
to  descry  the  first  approaches  of  the 
enemy,  and  repel  his  attacks.  But 
the  old  Roman  maxim,  "  Divide  et 
impera,"  was  then  put  in  practice 
with  .fatal  effect  on  the  producing 
interests,  and,  in  the  end,  on  the 
general  fortunes  of  the  empire.  The 
assault  was  in  the  first  instance 
directed  against  the  agricultural  inte- 
rest :  the  cry  of  "  Cheap  bread,"  ever 
all-powerful  with  the  multitude,  was 
raised  to  drown  that  of  "  Protection 
to  ^  native  industry."  The  whole 
weight  of  government,  which  at  once 
abandoned  all  its  principles,  was  di- 
rected to  support  the  free-trade  as- 
sault, and  beat  down  the  protectionist 
opposition.  The  whole  population  in 
the  towns — that  is,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  places  which,  under  the  Reform 
Bill,  returned  two-thirds  of  the  House 
of  Commons — was  roused  almost  to 
madness  by  the  prospect  of  a  great 


reduction  in  the  price  of  provisions. 
The  master  -  manufacturers  almost 
unanimously  supported  the  same 
views,  in  the  hope  that  the  wages  of 
labour  and  the  cost  of  production 
would  be  in  a  similar  way  reduced, 
and  that  thus  the  foreign  market  for 
their  produce  would  be  extended. 
The  West  India  interest,  the  colonial 
interest,  the  shipping  interest,  stood 
aloof,  or  gave  only  a  lukewarm  sup- 
port to  the  protectionists,  conceiving 
that  it  was  merely  an  agricultural 
question,  and  that  the  time  was  far 
distant  when  there  was  any  chance 
of  their  interests  being  brought  into 
jeopardy.  "  Cetera  quis  nescitf"  The 
corn-laws  were  repealed,  agricultural 
protection  was  swept  away,  and  Eng- 
land, where  wheat  cannot  be  raised 
at  a  profit  when  prices  are  below 
50s.,  or,  at  the  lowest,  45s.  a  quarter, 
was  exposed  to  the  direct  competition 
of  states  possessing  the  means  of 
raising  it  to  an  indefinite  extent, 
where  it  can  be  produced  and  im- 
ported at  a  profit  for  in  all  32s. 

What  subsequent  events  have  abun- 
dantly verified,  was  at  the  time  fore- 
seen and  foretold  by  the  protection- 
ists,— that  when  agricultural  protec- 
tion at  home  was  withdrawn,  it  could 
not  be  maintained  in  the  colonies, 
and  that  cheap  prices  must  be  ren- 
dered universal,  as  they  had  been 
established  in  the  great  article  of 
human  subsistence.  This  necessity 
was  soon  experienced.  The  West 
Indies  were  the  first  to  be  assailed. 
Undeterred  by  the  evident  ruin  which 
a  free  competition  with  the  slave- 
growing  states  could  not  fail  to  bring 
on  British  planters  forced  to  work 
with  free  labourers — undismayed-  by 
the  frightful  injustice  of  first  estab- 
lishing slavery  by  law  in  the  English 
colonies,  and  giving  the  utmost  en- 
couragement to  negro  importation, 
then  forcibly  emancipating  the  slaves 
on  a  compensation  not  on  an  average 
a  fourth  part  of  their  value,  and  then 
sweeping  away  all  fiscal  protection, 
and  exposing  the  English  planters, 
who  could  not  with  their  free  labour- 
ers raise  sugar  below  £10  a  ton,  to 
competition  with  slave  states  who 
could  raise  it  for  £4  a  ton — that 
great  work  of  fiscal  iniquity  and  free- 
trade  spoliation  was  perpetrated.  The 
English  landed  interest  resisted  the 


116          The  Crowning  of  the  Column, 

unjust  measure;  but  it  could  hardly 
be  expected  that  they  were  to  be  very 
enthusiastic  in  the  cause.  They  had  not 
forgotten  their  desertion  in  the  hour 
of  need  by  the  West  India  planters, 
and  the  deferred  punishment,  as  they 
conceived,  dealt  out  to  them  in  return, 
was  not  altogether  displeasing.  The 
shipping  interest  did  little  or  nothing 
when  either  contest  was  going  on ; 
nay,  they  in  general,  and  with  fatal 
effect,  supported  free-trade  principles 
thus  far :  they  were  delighted  that  the 
tempest  had  not  as  yet  reached  their 
doors,  and  flattered  themselves  none 
would  be  insane  enough  to  attack  the 
wooden  walls  of  Old  England,  and 
hand  us  over,  bereft  of  our  ocean  bul- 
warks, to  the  malice  and  jealousy  of 
our  enemies.  They  little  knew  the  ex- 
tent and  infatuation  of  political  fanati- 
cism. They  were  only  reserved,  like 
Ulysses  in  the  cave  of  Polyphemus,  for 
the  melancholy  privilege  of  being  last 
devoured.  Each  session  of  Parlia- 
ment, since  free  trade  was  introduced, 
has  been  marked  by  the  sacrifice  of 
a  fresh  interest.  The  year  1846  wit- 
nessed the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws ; 
the  year  1847  the  equalisation,  by  a 
rapidly  sliding  scale,  of  the  duties  on 
English  free-grown  and  foreign  slave- 
raised  sugar ;  and  1849  was  immor- 
talised by  the  destruction  of  the 


and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       [July, 

Navigation  Laws.  The  British  ship- 
owner, who  pays  £10  for  wages  on 
ships,  is  exposed  to  the  direct  compe- 
tition of  the  foreign  shipowner,  who 
navigates  his  vessel  for  £6.  "  Perish 
the  colonies,"  said  Robespierre,  "  ra- 
ther than  one  principle  be  abandoned." 
Fanaticism  is  the  same  in  all  ages 
and  countries.  The  triumph  of  free 
trade  is  complete.  A  ruinous  and 
suicidal  principle  has  been  carried 
out,  in  defiance  alike  of  bitter  ex- 
perience and  national  safety.  Each 
interest  in  the  state  has,  since  the 
great  conservative  party  was  bro- 
ken up  by  Sir  R.  Peel's  free-trade 
measures,  looked  on  with  indifference 
when  its  neighbour  was  destroyed; 
and  to  them  may  be  applied  with 
truth  what  the  ancient  annalist  said 
of  the  enemies  of  Rome,  "  Dum  sin- 
gulipugnant,  universi  vincuntur ." '* 

We  say  advisedly,  each  interest  has 
looked  on  with  indifference  when  its 
neighbour  was  destroyed.  That  this 
strong  phrase  is  not  misapplied  to  the 
effect  of  these  measures  in  the  West 
Indies,  is  too  well  known  to  require  any 
illustration.  Ruin,  widespread  and 
universal,  has,  we  know  by  sad  experi- 
ence, overtaken,  and  is  rapidly  de- 
stroying these  once  splendid  colonies. 
While  we  write  these  lines,  a  decisive 
proof f  has  been  judicially  afforded  of 


"  While  each  separately  fights,  all  are  conquered." — TACITUS. 


t  Slavery  value. 

After  Abolition. 

After  Abolition 
of 
Apprenticeship. 

Since  passing 
Sugar  Bill  of 
1846. 

Name  of  the  Estate. 

£ 
120,000 
65,000 
55,000 
80,000 
70,000 
45,000 

£ 
60,000 
32,000 
27,500 
30,000 
25,000 
20,000 

£ 
45,000 
26,000 
23,000 
20,000 
17,000 
15,000 

£ 
5,000 
5,000 
3,500 
6,000 
3,000 
5,000 

Windsor  Forest. 
La  Grange. 
Belle  Piaine. 
Rabacca. 
Sir  W.  South. 
Richmond  Hill. 

.    435,000 

194,500 

146,000 

27,500 

Slavery  value,           ..... 
Estimated  present  value,      .... 

Depreciation, 
Or  equal  to  93£  per  cent  on  original  value. 

£435,000 
27,500 

£407,500 

— IN  RE  CRUIKSHANKS,  IN  CHANCERY,  Times,  June  6th,  1849. 


1849.]        The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.         117 


the  frightful  depreciation  of  property 
which  has  there  taken  place,  from 
the  acts  of  successive  administrations 
acting  on  liberal  principles,  and  yield- 
ing to  popular  outcries  :  the  fall 
has  amounted  to  ninety-three  per  cent. 
Beyond  all  doubt,  since  the  new  sys- 
tem began  to  be  applied  to  the  West 
Indies,  property  to  the  amount  of  a 
hundred  and  twenty  millions  has  perish- 
ed under  its  strokes.  The  French 
Convention  never  did  anything  more 
complete.  Free- trade  fanaticism  may 
well  glory  in  its  triumphs ;  it  is  doubt- 
ful if  they  have  any  parallel  in  the 
annals  of  mankind. 

We  do  not  propose  to  resume  the 
debate  on  the  Navigation  Laws,  of 
which  the  public  have  heard  so  much 
in  this  session  of  parliament.  We 
are  aware  that  their  doom  is  sealed ; 
and  we  accept  the  extinction  of  ship- 
ping protection  as  un  fait  accompli, 
from  which  we  must  set  out  in  all 
future  discussions  on  the  national 
prospects  and  fortunes.  But,  in  order 
to  show  how  enormously  perilous  is 
the  change  thus  made,  and  what 
strength  of  argument  and  arrays  of 
facts  free-trade  fanaticism  has  had 
the  merit  of  triumphing  over,  we 
cannot  resist  the  temptation  of  tran- 
scribing into  our  pages  the  admirable 
letter  of  Mr  Young,  the  able  and 
unflinching  advocate  of  the  shipping 
interest,  to  the  Marquis  of  Lans- 
downe,  after  the  late  interesting  de- 
bate on  the  subject  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  We  do  so  not  merely  from 
sincere  respect  for  that  gentleman's 
patriotic  spirit  and  services,  but  be- 
cause we  do  not  know  any  document 
which,  in  so  short  a  space,  contains 
so  interesting  a  statement  of  that 
leading  fact  on  which  the  whole  ques- 
tion hinges — viz.  the  progressive  and 
rapid  decline  of  British,  and  growth  of 
foreign  tonnage,  with  those  countries 
with  whom  we  have  concluded  reci- 
procity treaties :  affording  thus  a 
foretaste  of  what  we  may  expect  now 
that  we  have  established  a  reciprocity 
treaty,  by  the  repeal  of  the  Navigation 
Laws,  with  the  whole  world : 

"  My  Lord, — In  the  debate  last  night 
on  the  Navigation  Laws,  your  Lordship 
said, — 

'  The  noble  and  learned  Lord  opposite 
has  spoken  contemptuously  of  statistics. 


Let  me  remind  that  noble  and  learned 
Lord  that  if  any  statement  founded 
on  statistics  remains  unshaken,  it  is 
the  statement  that  under  reciprocity 
treaties  now  existing,  by  which  this 
country  enjoys  no  protection,  she,  never- 
theless, monopolises  the  greater  part  of 
the  commerce  of  the  north  of  Europe.' 

As  an  impartial  statist,  as  well  as  a 
statesman,  your  Lordship  will  perhaps 
permit  me  to  invite  your  attention  to  the 
following  abstract  from  Parliamentary 
returns,  respectfully  trusting  that,  if  the 
facts  it  discloses  should  be  found  irre- 
concilable with  the  opinions  you  have 
expressed,  a  sense  of  justice  will  induce 
your  Lordship  to  correct  the  error  : — 

The  reciprocity  treaty  with  the  United 
States  was  concluded  in  1815. 

The  British  inward  entries  from  that 
country  were — 

Tons. 

In  1816 45,140 

In  1824,  reciprocity  having  been 

eight  years  in  operation         ...   44,994 


146 


British  tonnage   having  in 
that  period  decreased  ... 

The  inward  entries  of  American  ton- 
nage were — 

Tons. 

In  1816  91,914 

In  1824 153,475 


American  tonnage  having  in  )   ci  sgi 
that  period  increased   ...  \       >    ' 
During  that  period  no  reciprocity  ex- 
isted with  the  Baltic  Powers  ;  and 

In  1815  the  British  entries  from 

Prussia,  Sweden,   Denmark,       Tons. 
and  Norway  were     78,533 

In  1824 129,895 


British  tonnage  having  in-  )    ...  oro 

_i  f     0 1  *OO*rf 

creased J 

In  1815  those  Baltic  entries  were  319,181 
In  1824 350,624 

Baltic  tonnage  having  in-)    al  ..« 
creased \   dl>44< 

Thus,  from  the  peace  in  1815  to  1824, 
when  the  "  Reciprocity  of  Duties  Act" 
passed,  in  the  trade  of  the  only  country 
in  the  world  with  which  great  Britain 
was  in  reciprocity,  her  tonnage  declined 
146  tons,  and  that  of  the  foreign  nation 
advanced  61,561  tons  ;  while  in  the  trade 
with  the  Baltic  powers,  with  which  no 
reciprocity  existed,  British  tonnage  ad- 
vanced on  its  competitors  in  the  propor- 
tion of  51,362  to  31,443  tons. 

From  1824  the  reciprocity  principle 
was  applied  to  the  Baltic  powers  ;  and — 


118          The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       [July, 


Tons. 

In  1824,  the  British  entries  being  129,895 
In  1846  they  had  declined  to  ...     88,894 

Having  diminished  during  )    41  QQ^ 

the  period          ...       -  ...  ) 
While  the  Baltic  tonnage,  which 

in  1824  was 350,624 

Had  advanced  in  1846  to        ...  571,161 

Showing  an  increase  of  no  )  220  537 

less  than  ) 

And  during  this  same  period,  the  pro- 
portion of  tonnage  of  the  United  States 
continued,jinder  the  operation  of  the  same 
principle,  steadily  to  advance,  the  British 

entries  thence  being — 

Tons. 

In  1846 205,123 

And  the  American        435,399 

Showing     an     excess     ofl 

American  over   British  >  230,276 
of          ) 

I  have  (I  hope  not  unfairly)  introduced 
into  this  statement  American  tonnage, 
because  it  shows  that  while,  in  the  period 
antecedent  to  general  reciprocity,  the 
adoption  of  the  principle  in  the  trade 
with  that  nation  produced  an  actual  de- 
cline of  British  navigation,  while  in  the 
trade  with  the  Baltic  powers,  which  was 
free  from  that  scourge,  British  navigation 
outstripped  its  competitor,  it  exhibits  in 
a  remarkable  manner  the  reverse  result, 
from  the  moment  the  principle  was  ap- 
plied to  the  Baltic  trade  ;  while,  above 
all,  it  completely  negatives  the  statement 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  commerce  of 
the  north  of  Europe  being  monopolised 
by  British  ships,  showing  that  in  that 
commerce,  in  1846,  of  an  aggregate  of 
660,055  tons,  British  shipping  had  only 
88,894  tons,  while  no  less  than  571,161 
tons  were  monopolised  by  Baltic  ships  !" 

It  is  evident,  from  this  summary, 
that  the  decline  of  British  and  growth 
of  foreign  shipping  will  be  so  rapid,  un- 
der the  system  of  Free  Trade  in  Ship- 
ping, that  the  time  is  not  far  distant 
when  the  foreign  tonnage  employed 
in  conducting  our  trade  will  be  supe- 
rior in  amount  to  the  British.  In  all 
probability,  in  six  or  seven  years  that 
desirable  consummation  will  be  ef- 
fected ;  and  we  shall  enjoy  the  satis- 
faction of  having  purchased  freights 
a  farthing  a  pound  cheaper,  by  the 
surrender  of  our  national  safety. 
It  need  hardly  be  said  that,  from  the 
moment  that  the  foreign  tonnage 
employed  in  conducting  our  trade 


exceeds  the  British,  our  independence 
as  a  nation  is  gone  ;  because  we  have 
reared  up,  in  favour  of  states  who  may 
any  day  become  our  enemies,  a  nursery 
of  seamen  superior  to  that  which  we 
possess  ourselves.  And  every  year, 
which  increases  the  one  and  diminishes 
the  other,  brings  us  nearer  the  period 
when  our  ability  to  contend  on  our 
own  element  with  other  powers  is  to 
be  at  end,  and  England  is  to  undergo 
the  fate  of  Athens  after  the  catastrophe 
of  Aigos-potarnos — that  of  being  block- 
aded in  our  own  harbours  by  the 
fleets  of  our  enemies,  and  obliged  to 
surrender  at  discretion  on  any  terms 
they  might  think  n't  to  impose. 

But  in  truth,  the  operations  of  the 
free-traders  will,  to  all  appearance, 
terminate  our  independence,  and  com- 
pel us  to  sink  into  the  ignoble  neutral- 
ity which  characterised  the  policy  of 
Venice  for  the  last  two  centuries  of  its 
independent  existence,  before  the  fo- 
reign seamen  we  have  hatched  in  our 
bosom  have  time  to  be  arrayed  in 
a  Leipsic  of  the  deep  against  us.  So 
rapid,  so  fearfully  rapid,  has  been  the 
increase  in  the  importation  of  foreign 
grain  since  the  repeal  of  the  corn 
laws  took  place,  and  so  large  a  por- 
tion of  our  national  sustenance  has  al- 
ready come  to  be  derived  from  foreign 
countries,  that  it  is  evident,  on  the  first 
rupture  with  the  countries  furnishing 
them,  we  should  at  once  be  starved 
into  submission.  The  free-traders 
always  told  us,  that  a  considerable  im- 
portation of  foreign  grain  would  only 
take  place  when  prices  rose  high ;  that 
it  was  a  resource  against  seasons  of 
scarcity  only  ;  and  that,  when  prices 
in  England  were  low,  it  would  cease 
or  become  trifling.  Attend  to  the 
facts.  Free  trade  in  grain  has  been  in 
operation  just  three  years.  We  pass 
over  the  great  importation  of  the  year 
1847,  when,  under  the  influence  of  the 
panic,  and  high  prices  arising  from  the 
Irish  famine,  no  less  than  12,000,000 
quarters  of  grain  were  imported  in 
fifteen  months,  at  a  cost  of  £3 1 ,000,000, 
nearly  the  whole  of  which  was  paid  in 
specie.  Beyond  all  doubt,  it  was  the 
great  drain  thus  made  to  act  upon  our 
metallic  resources — at  the  very  time 
when  the  free-traders  had,  with  con- 
summate wisdom,  established  a  slid' 
ing  paper  circulation,  under  which  the 
bank-notes  were  to  be  withdrawn  from 


1849.]       Tlie  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.          119 


the  public  in  proportion  as  the  sove- 
reigns were  exported — which  was  the 
main  cause  of  the  dreadful  commercial 
catastrophe  which  ensued,  and  from 
the  effects  of  which,  after  two  years 
of  unexampled  suffering,  the  nation 
has  scarcely  yet  begun  to  recover. 
But  what  we  wish  to  draw  the  public 
attention  to  is  this.  The  greatest  im- 
portation of  foreign  grain  ever  known, 
into  the  British  islands,  before  the 
corn  laws  were  repealed,  was  in  the 
year  1839,  when,  in  consequence  of 
three  bad  harvests  in  succession, 
4,000,000  quarters  in  round  numbers 
were  imported.  The  average  impor- 
tation had  been  steadily  diminishing 
before  that  time,  since  the  commence- 
ment of  the  century :  in  the  five  years 
ending  with  1835,  it  was  only  381,000 
quarters.  But  since  the  duties  have 
become  nominal,  since  the  1st  Febru- 
ary in  this  year,  the  importation  has 
become  so  prodigious  that  it  is  going 
on  at  the  rate  of  FIFTEEN  MILLIONS 
of  quarters  a-year,  or  a  full  fourth  of 
the  national  consumption,  which  is 
somewhat  under  sixty  millions.  This 


is  in  the  face  of  prices  fallen  to 
44s.  9d.  for  the  quarter  of  wheat,  and 
18s.  the  quarter  of  oats !  We  recom- 
mend the  Table  below,  taken  from 
the  columns  of  that  able  free-trade 
journal,  the  Times — showing  the 
amount  of  importation  for  the  month 
ending  April  5, 1849,  when  wheat  was 
at  45s.  a-quarter — to  the  consideration 
of  those  well-informed  persons  who 
expect  that  low  prices  will  check, 
and  at  last  stop  importation.  It 
shows  decisively  that  even  a  very 
great  reduction  of  prices  has  not  that 
tendency  in  the  slightest  degree.  The 
importation  of  grain  and  flour  is  going 
on  steadily,  under  the  present  low 
prices,  at  the  rate  of  about  15,000,000 
quarters  a-year.* 

The  reasons  of  this  continued  and 
increasing  importation,  notwithstand- 
ing the  lowness  of  prices,  is  evident, 
and  was  fully  explained  by  the  pro- 
tectionists before  the  repeal  of  the 
corn  laws  took  place,  though  the  free- 
traders, with  their  usual  disregard  of 
facts  when  subversive  of  a  favourite 
theory,  obstinately  refused  to  credit 


*  QUANTITIES  imported  into  the  United  King- 
dom in  the  month  ending  April  5,  1849  :  — 

QUANTITIES  charged  with  duty  for  Home  Con- 
sumption in  the  United  Kingdom  in  the  month 

ended  April  5,  1849  :— 

Species  of 
Corn,  Grain, 
Meal,  and 
Flour. 

Imported 
from  foreign 
countries. 

£  fi  •  a 

|!li 

Total. 

Species  of 
Corn,  Grain, 
Meal,  and 
Flour. 

Imported 
from  foreign 
countries. 

Jill 

Total. 

*l&° 

Sa  ° 

Qrs.    Bush. 

Qrs.  Bis. 

Qrs.    Bush. 

Qrs.    Bush. 

Qn.  Bis 

Qn.    Bush. 

Wheat 

535,015     2 

535,015    2 

Wheat     .  . 

559,602    2 

559,602    2 

Barley 

150,177    5 

150,177    5 

Barley      .  . 

170,343    5 

170,343    5 

Oats  .. 

146,149    6 

'i  e 

146,151    4 

Oats  ..     .. 

149,784    5 

149,786    3 

Rye   .. 

20,768    4 

20,768    4 

Rye   ..     .. 

22,432    1 

'i  6 

22,432    1 

Pease 

12,313    6 

12,313    6 

Pease 

17,782    0 

17,782    0 

Beans 

60,294    5 

60,294    5 

Beans 

59,546    5 

59,546    5 

Maize  or  In-  \ 
dian  corn  / 

184,772    4 

184,772    4 

Maize  or  In-  \ 
dian  corn  / 

183,604    6 

183,«04    6 

Buck-  wheat 

12    3 

12    3 

Buck-wheat 

12    3 

12    3 

Bere  or  bigg 

800    0 

800    0 

Bere  or  bigg 

800    0 

800    0 

Total  of  corn  \ 
and  grain  / 

1,110,304    3 

1     6 

1,110,306    1 

Total  of  corn  \ 
and  grain  / 

1,163,908  .  3 

1     6 

1,163,910    1 

Cwt.     qr».  lb. 

Cwt.q.  lb. 

Cwt.  qrs.  lb. 

Cwt.  qrs.  lb. 

Cwt.  q.lb. 

Cwt.  qrs.  lb. 

Wheat  meal  \ 
or  flour     / 

307,617  0    7 

753  3  11 

308,370  3  18 

Wheat  meal  > 
or  flour     / 

353,799  1    3 

2509  0  1 

356,308  1    4 

Barley  meal 

Barley  meal 

Oat  meal  .  . 

24  2    0 

24  2    0 

3at  meal  .  . 

26  2    8 

26  2    8 

Rye  meal.  . 

1,571  1    9 

1,571  1    9 

[lye  meal  .  . 

825  3    6 

825  3    6 

Pea  meal  .  . 

10  0    0 

10  0    01  Pea  meal  .  . 

10  0    0 

10  0    0 

Indian  meal 

10,707  1  10 

10,707  1  10  Indian  meal 

10,671  1    7 

10,671  1    7 

Buck-  wheat  \ 
meal     .  .   / 

80  0    0 

80  0    0 

Buck-  wheat  \ 
meal          (" 

80  0    0 

80  0    0 

Totalof  meal  \ 
and  flour  / 

320,010  0  26 

753  3  11 

320,764  0    9 

Totalofmeal  > 
and  flour   / 

365,412  3  24 

2509  0  1 

367,921  3  25 

—London  Gazette,  20th  April,  1849, 


120          TJie  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       [July, 


it.  It  is  this.  The  price  of  wheat  and 
other  kinds  of  grain,  in  the  grain- 
growing  countries,  especially  Poland 
and  America,  is  entirely  regulated  by 
its  price  in  the  British  islands.  They 
can  raise  grain  in  such  quantities,  and 
at  such  low  rates,  that  everything 
depends  on  the  price  which  it  will 
fetch  in  the  great  market  for  that 
species  of  produce — the  British  empire. 
In  Poland,  the  best  wheat  can  be 
raised  for  16s.  a-quarter,  and  landed 
at  any  harbour  in  England  at  25s. 
The  Americans,  out  of  the  250,000,000 
quarters  of  bread  stuffs  which  they 
raise  annually,  and  which,  if  not  ex- 
ported, is  in  great  part  not  worth 
above  10s.  a-quarter,  can  afford,  with 
a  handsome  profit  to  the  exporting 
merchant,  to  send  grain  to  England, 
however  small  its  price  may  be  in  the 
British  islands.  However  low  it  may 
be,  it  is  much  higher  than  with  them 
— and  therefore  it  is  always  worth 
their  while  to  export  it  to  the  British 
market.  If  the  price  here  is  40s.,  it 
will  there  be  28s.  or  30s. ;  if  30s. 
here,  it  will  not  be  more  than  15s.  or 
20s.  there.  Thus  the  profit  to  be 
made  by  importation  retains  its  pro- 
portion, whatever  prices  are  in  this 
country,  and  the  motives  to  it  are  the 
same  whatever  the  price  is.  It  is  as 
great  when  wheat  is  low  as  when  it  is 
high,  except  to  the  fortunate  ship- 
pers, before  the  rise  in  the  British 
islands  was  known  on  the  banks  of  the 
Vistula  or  the  shores  of  the  Mississippi. 
Now  that  the  duty  on  wheat  is  reduc- 
ed to  Is.  a-quarter,  we  may  look  for  an 
annual  importation  of  from  15,000,000 
to  20,000,000  quarters— that  is,  from 
a  fourth  to  a  third  of  the  annual  sub- 
sistence, constantly,  alike  in  seasons 
of  plenty  and  of  scarcity. 

That  the  importation  is  steadily 
going  on,  appears  by  the  following 
returns  for  the  port  of  London  alone, 
down  to  May,  taken  from  the  Morn- 
ing Post  of  May  7  : — 

Entered  for  home  consumption  during 
the  month  ending — 

Wheat. 

qrs. 

February  5,  .  .  442,389 
March  5,  ...  405,685 
April  5,  ...  559,602 
May  5,  ....  383,395 


Flour, 
cwt. 

478,815 
355,462 
356,308 
243,154 


Makingatotal )  ,  7gi  Q7 
in  four  months,    )  M»MWi       1,433,739 


— equal,  if  we  take  3£  cwt.  of  flour  to 
the  qr.  of  wheat,  to  2,200,700  qrs.  of  the 
latter.  The  importations  of  the  first  four 
months  of  the  year  are,  therefore,  nearly 
as  great  as  they  were  during  the  whole  of 
the  preceding  twelve  months,  the  quanti- 
ties duty  paid  in  1848  being,  of  wheat, 
2,477,366  qrs.,  and  of  flour,  1,731,974 
cwt. 

The  reason  why  young  states,  espe- 
cially if  they  possess  land  eminently 
fitted  for  agricultural  production,  such 
as  Poland  and  America,  can  thus 
permanently  undersell  older  and  longer 
established  empires  in  the  production 
of  food,  is  simple,  permanent,  and  of 
universal  application,  but  nevertheless 
it  is  not  generally  understood  or  ap- 
preciated. It  is  commonly  said  that 
the  cause  is  to  be  found  in  the  superior 
weight  of  debts,  public  and  private,  in 
the  old  state.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  this  cause  has  a  considerable 
influence  in  producing  the  effect,  but 
it  is  by  no  means  the  only  or  the 
principal  one.  The  main  cause  is  to 
be  found  in  the  superior  riches  of  the 
old  state,  when  compared  with  the 
young  one,  which  makes  money  of  less 
value,  because  it  is  more  plentiful. 
The  wants  and  necessities  of  an  ex- 
tended commerce,  the  accumulated 
savings  of  centuries  of  industry,  at 
once  require  an  extended  circulation, 
and  produce  the  wealth  necessary  to 
purchase  it.  The  precious  metals,  and 
wealth  of  every  sort,  flow  into  the  rich 
old  state  from  the  poor  young  one,  for 
the  same  reason  that  corn,  and  wine, 
and  oil,  follow  the  same  direction  in 
obedience  to  the  same  impulse.  That 
it  is  the  superior  riches,  and  not  the 
debts  or  taxes,  of  England  which  ren- 
der prices  so  high,  comparatively 
speaking,  in  these  islands,  is  decisively 
proved  by  the  immense  difference 
between  the  value  of  money,  and  the 
cost  of  living  at  the  same  time,  in 
different  parts  of  the  same  empire, 
subject  to  the  same  public  and  private 
burdens, — in  London,  for  exampleT 
compared  with  Edinburgh,  Aberdeen, 
and  Lerwick.  Every  one  knows  that 
£1500  a- year  will  not  go  farther  in 
the  English  metropolis  than  £1000  in 
the  Scotch,  or  £750  in  the  ancient 
city  of  Aberdeen,  or  £500  in  the 
capital  of  the  Orkney  islands.  Whence 
this  great  difference  in  the  same 
country,  and  at  the  same  time? 


1849.]     The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal. 


Simply,  because  money  is  over  plen- 
tiful in  London,  less  so  in  Edinburgh, 
and  much  less  so  in  Aberdeen  or 
Lenvick.  The  same  cause  explains 
the  different  cost  of  agricultural  pro- 
duction in  England,  Poland,  the 
Ukraine,  and  America.  It  is  the 
comparative  poverty,  the  scarcity  of 
money,  in  the  latter  countries  which  is 
the  cause  of  the  difference.  Machinery, 
and  the  division  of  labour,  almost  om- 
nipotent in  reducingthe  cost  of  the  pro- 
duction of  manufactured  articles,  are 
comparatively  impotent  in  affecting  the 
cost  of  articles  of  rude  or  agricultural 
produce.  England,  under  a  real  system 
of  free  trade,  would  undersell  all  the 
world  in  its  manufactures,  but  be 
undersold  by  all  the  world  in  its 
agricultural  productions.  If  the  na- 
tional debt  was  swept  away,  and  the 
whole  taxes  of  Great  Britain  removed, 
the  cost  of  agricultural  production 
would  not  be  materially  different  from 
what  it  now  is.  We  shall  be  able  to 
raise  grain  as  cheap  as  the  serfs  of 
Poland,  or  the  peasants  of  the  Ukraine, 
when  we  become  as  poor  as  they  are, 
but  not  till  then.  Under  the  free-trade 
system,  however,  the  period  may 
arrive  sooner  than  is  generally  sus- 
pected, and  the  importation  of  foreign 
grain  be  checked  by  the  universal 
pauperism  and  grinding  misery  of  the 
country. 

Assuming  it,  then,  as  certain  that, 
under  the  free-trade  system,  the  im- 
portation of  grain  is  to  be  constantly 
from  a  third  to  a  fourth  of  the  annual 
consumption,  the  two  points  to  be 
considered  are,  How  is  the  national 
independence  to  be  maintained,  or  in- 
cessant commercial  crises  averted,  under 
the  new  system  ?  These  are  questions 
on  which  it  will  become  every  inha- 


121 

bitant  of  the  British  islands  to  ponder; 
for  on  them,  not  only  the  indepen- 
dence of  his  country,  but  the  private 
fortune  of  himself  and  his  children,  is 
entirely  dependent.  If  so  large  a 
portion  as  a  third  or  a  fourth  of  the 
annual  subsistence  is  imported  almost 
entirely  from  three  countries,  Russia, 
Prussia,  and  America,  how  are  we  to 
withstand  the  hostility  of  these  states  ? 
Prussia,  in  the  long  run,  is  under  the 
influence  of  Russia,  and  follows  its 
system  of  policy.  The  nations  on 
whom  we  depend  for  so  large  a  part 
of  our  food  are  thus  practically  re- 
duced to  two,  viz.,  Russia  and  Ame- 
rica—  what  is  to  hinder  them  from 
coalescing  to  effect  our  ruin,  as  they 
practically  did  in  1800  and  1811, 
against  the  independence  of  England  ? 
Not  a  shot  would  require  to  be  fired, 
not  a  loan  contracted.  The  simple 
threat  of  closing  their  harbours  would 
at  once  drive  us  to  submission.  Im- 
porting a  third  of  our  food  from  these 
two  states,  to  what  famine-price 
would  the  closing  of  their  harbours 
speedily  raise  its  cost !  The  failure 
of  £15,000,000  worth  of  potatoes  in 
1847 — scarce  a  twentieth  part  of  the 
annual  agricultural  produce  of  these 
islands,  which  is  about  £300,000,000, 
— raised  the  price  of  wheat,  in  1848, 
from  60s.  to  110s. — what  would  the 
sudden  stoppage  of  a  third  do  ?  Why, 
it  would  raise  wheat  to  150s.  or  200s. 
a-quarter — in  other  words,  to  famine- 
prices — and  inevitably  induce  general 
rebellion,  and  compel  national  sub- 
mission. After  the  lapse  of  fifteen 
centuries,  we  should  again  realise, 
after  similar  Eastern  triumphs,  the 
mournful  picture  of  the  famine  in 
Rome,  in  the  lines  of  the  poet  Clau- 
dian,*  from  the  stoppage  of  the 


"  Advenio  supplex,  non  ut  proculcet  Araxen 
Consul  ovans,  nostraeve  premant  pharetrata  secures 
Susa,  nee  ut  rubris  Aquilas  figamus  arenis. 
Hsec  nobis,  haec  ante  dabas.     Nunc  pabula  tantum 
Roma  precor.     Miserere  tuse  pater  optime  gentis, 
Extremam  defenda  famam — Satiavimus  Irani, 
Si  qua  fuit.     Lugenda  Getis  et  flenda  Sue'vis 
Hausimus  :  ipsa  meos  exhorrel  Parthia  casus. 
********* 

Armato  quondam  populo,  Patrumque  vigebam 
Consiliis.     Domui  terras,  urbesque  revinxi 
Legibus  :  ad  solem  victrix  utrumque  cucurri, 

Nunc  inhonorus  egens  perfert  miserabile  pacis 
Supplicium,  nulloque  palam  circumdatus  hoste, 


122  The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.      [July, 


wonted  supplies  of  grain  from  the  two 
granaries  of  the  empire,  Egypt  and 
Lybia,  by  the  effect  of  the  Gildonic 
war.  But  the  knowledge  of  so  ter- 
rible a  catastrophe  impending  over 
the  nation  would  probably  prevent 
the  collision.  England  would  capitu- 
late while  yet  it  had  some  food  left, 
on  the  first  summons  from  its  impe- 
rious grain-producing  masters. 

But  supposing  such  a  decisive  catas- 
trophe were  not  to  arise,  at  least  for 
a  considerable  period,  how  are  com- 
mercial crises  to  be  prevented  from 
continually  recurring  under  the  new 
policy?  How  is  the  commercial  in- 
terest to  be  preserved  from  ruin — from 
the  operation  of  the  system  which  itself 
has  established  ?  This  is  a  point  of 
paramount  interest,  as  it  directly  affects 
every  fortune  in  the  kingdom,  the 
commercial  in  the  first  instance,  but 
also  the  realised  and  landed  in  the 
last :  but,  nevertheless,  it  seems  im- 
possible to  rouse  the  nation  to  a  sense 
of  its  overwhelming  importance  and 
terrible  consequences.  Experience  has 
now  decisively  proved  that  the  corn- 
growing  states,  upon  whom  we  most 
depend  for  our  subsistence,  will  not 
take  our  manufactures  to  any  extent, 
though  they  will  gladly  take  our  so- 
vereigns or  bullion  to  any  imaginable 
amount.  The  reason  is,  they  are 
poor  states,  who  are  neither  rich 
enough  to  buy,  nor  civilised  enough 
to  have  acquired  a  taste  for  our  manu- 
factured articles,  but  who  have  an 
insatiable  thirst  for  our  metallic  riches, 
the  last  farthing  of  which  they  will 
drain  away,  in  exchange  for  their 
rude  produce.  The  dreadful  mone- 
taiy  crises  of  1839  and  1848,  it  is 
well  known,  were  owing  to  the  drain 
upon  our  metallic  resources,  produced 
by  the  great  grain  importations  of 
those  years,  in  the  latter  of  which 
above  £30,000,000  of  gold,  probably 
a  half  of  the  metallic  circulation,  was 
at  once  sent  headlong  out  of  the  coun- 
try. Now,  if  an  importation  of  grain 
to  a  similar  amount  is  to  become  per- 
manent, and  an  export  of  the  precious 
metals  to  a  corresponding  degree  to  go 
on  year  after  year,  how,  in  the  name 


of  wonder,  is  a  perpetual  repetition  of 
similar  disasters  to  be  prevented? 

We  could  conceive,  indeed,  a  system 
of  paper  currency  which  might  in  a 
great  degree,  if  not  altogether,  prevent 
these  terrible  disasters.  If  the  nation 
possessed  a  circulation  of  bank-notes 
capable  of  being  extended  in  proportion 
as  the  metallic  circulation  was  with- 
drawn by  the  exchanges  of  the  com- 
merce in  grain,  as  was  the  law  during 
the  war,  the  industry  of  the  country 
might  be  vivified  and  sustained  dur- 
ing the  absence  of  the  precious  metals, 
and  their  want  be  very  little,  if  at  all, 
experienced.  But  it  is  well  known 
that  not  only  is  there  no  provision 
made  by  law,  or  the  policy  of  gov- 
ernment, for  an  extension  of  the  paper 
circulation  when  the  metallic  currency 
is  withdrawn,  but  the  very  reverse  is 
done.  There  is  a  provision,  and  a 
most  stringent  and  effectual  one,  made 
for  the  contraction  of  the  currency  at 
the  very  moment  when  its  expansion 
is  most  required,  and  when  the  na- 
tional industry  is  threatened  with 
starvation  in  consequence  of  the  vast 
and  ceaseless  abstraction  of  the  pre- 
cious metals  which  free  trade  in  grain 
necessarily  establishes.  When  free 
trade  is  sending  gold  headlong  out  of 
the  country,  to  buy  food,  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  law  sends  the  bank-notes,  pub- 
lic and  private,  back  into  the  banker's 
coffers,  and  leaves  the  industry  of  the 
country  without  either  of  its  necessary 
supports !  Beyond  all  question,  it  is 
the  double  operation  of  free  trade  in 
sending  the  sovereigns  in  enormous 
quantities  out  of  the  country,  and  of 
the  monetary  laws,  in  contracting  the 
circulation  of  paper  in  a  similar  degree, 
and  at  the  same  time,  which  has  done 
all  the  mischief,  and  produced  that 
widespread  ruin  which  has  now  over- 
taken nearly  all  the  interests — but 
most  of  all  the  commercial  interests — 
in  the  state.  That  ruin  is  easily  ex- 
plained, when  it  is  recollected  what 
government  has  done  by  legislative 
enactment,  on  free-trade  principles, 
during  the  last  five  years. 

1.  They  first,  by  the  Acts  of  1844 
and  1845,  restricted  the  paper  circu- 


Obsessi  discrimen  habet — per  singula  letum 
Impendit  momenta  mihi,  dubitandaque  pauci 
Prescribant  alimenta  Dies." 

— CLAUDIAN,  De  Betto.  Gildonico,  35—100. 


1849.] 


The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal 


lation  of  the  whole  empire,  including 
Ireland,  to  £32,000,000  in  round 
numbers.  For  every  note  issued,  either 
by  the  Bank  of  England  or  private 
banks,  above  that  sum,  they  required 
these  establishments  to  have  sove- 
reigns in  their  coffers. 

2.  Having  thus  restricted  the  cur- 
rency, by  which  the  industry  of  the 
country  was  to  be  paid  and  supplied, 
to  an  amount  barely  sufficient  for  its 
ordinary  wants,  they  next  proceeded 
to  encourage  to  the  greatest  degree 
railway  speculation,   and  pass    bills 
through  parliament   requiring  an  ex- 
traordinary expenditure,  in  the  next 
four  years,  of  £333,000,000  sterling. 

3.  Having  thus  contracted  the  cur- 
rency of  the  nation,  and  doubled  its 
work,  they  next  proceeded  to  intro- 
duce, in  1846  and  the  two  following 
years,  the  free-trade  system,  under  the 
operation  of  which  our  specie  was 
sent  out  of  the  country  in  enormous 
quantities,  in  exchange  for  food,  and 
by  the  operation  of  the  law  the  paper 
proportionally  contracted.* 

4.  When  this  extraordinary  system 
of  augmenting  the  work  of  the  people, 
at  the  time  the  currency  which  was  to 
sustain  it  was  withdrawn,  had  pro- 
duced its  natural  and    unavoidable 
effects,  and  landed  the  nation,  in  Octo- 
ber 1847,  in  such  a  state  of  embarrass- 
ment as  rendered  a  suspension  of  the 
law  unavoidable,  and  induced  a  com- 
mercial crisis  of  unexampled  severity 
and    duration,    the   authors    of  the 
monetary  measures  still  clung  to  them 
as  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  state,  and 
still  upheld  them,  although  it  is  as 
certain  as  any  proposition  in  Euclid, 
that,  combined  with  a  free  trade  in 
grain,  they  must  produce  a  constant 
succession    of   similar    catastrophes, 
until  the  nation,  like  a  patient  ex- 
hausted by  repeated  shocks  of  apo- 
plexy, perishes  under  their  effects. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
annals  of  the  world  can  produce 
another  example  of  insane  and  suicidal 
policy  on  so  great  a  scale  as  has  been 
exhibited  by  the  government  of  Eng- 
land of  late  years,  in  its  West  India 
measures,  and  the  simultaneous  eslab- 


123 

lishment  of  free  trade  and  fettered  cur- 
rency, and  a  railway  mania,  in  the 
heart  of  the  empire. 

The  effect  of  these  measures  upon 
the  internal  state  of  the  empire  has 
been  beyond  all  measure  dreadful, 
and  has  far  exceeded  the  worst  predic- 
tions of  the  protectionists  upon  their 
inevitable  effect.  Proofs  on  this  sub- 
ject crowd  in  on  every  side,  and  all 
entirely  corroborative  of  the  prophecies 
of  the  protectionists,  and  subversive 
of  all  the  prognostics  of  the  free- 
traders. It  was  confidently  asserted 
by  them  that  their  system  would  im- 
mensely increase  our  foreign  trade, 
because  it  would  enrich  the  foreign, 
agriculturists  from  whom  we  purchased 
grain,  and  who  would  take  our  manu- 
factures in  exchange ;  and  what  has 
been  the  result,  after  free-trade  prin- 
ciples have  been  in  full  operation  for 
three  years  ?  Why,  they  have  stood 
thus : — 


Imports, 
Market  Value. 

1845,  £84,034,272 
1846,      89,281,433 
1847,   117,047,229 
1848,     92,660,699 

Exports, 
Declared  Value. 
British  and  Irish  pro- 
duce. 

£60,111,081 
57,786,875 
58,971,166 
53,099,01  If 

Thus,  while  there  has  been  an  enor- 
mous increase  going  on  during  the 
last  three  years  in  our  imports,  there 
has  been  nothing  but  a  diminution  at 
the  same  time  taking  place  in  our 
exports.  The  foreigners  who  sent  us, 
in  such  prodigious  quantities,  their 
rude  produce,  would  not  take  our 
manufactures  in  return.  They  would 
only  take  our  gold.  Hence  our  me- 
tallic treasures  were  hourly  disap- 
pearing in  exchange  for  the  provisions 
which  showered  in  upon  us ;  and  this 
was  the  precise  time  which  the  free- 
traders took  to  establish  the  monetary 
system  which  compelled  the  contrac- 
tion of  the  paper  circulation  in  direct 
proportion  to  that  very  disappearance. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  our  commercial 
interests  were  thrown  into  unparalleled 
embarrassments  from  such  an  absurd 
and  monstrous  system  of  legislation. 

Observe,  if  the  arguments  and  ex- 


*  In  1845,  the  Bank  of  England  notes  out  with  the  public  were  about  £23,000,000. 
Since  the  free  trade  began  they  have  seldom  been  above  £18,000,000,  and  at  times 
as  low  as  £16,800,000,  and  that  at  the  very  time  when  all  the  railways  were  going  on. 

f  Newdegate's  Letter  to  Mr  Labouchere,  p.  12-13. 


The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.      [July, 


124 

pectations  of  the  free-traders  had  been 
well  founded,  the  immense  importa- 
tion of  provisions  which  took  place  in 
1847  and  1848,  in  consequence  of  the 
failure  of  the  potato  crop  in  Ireland 
and  the  west  of  Scotland,  should  im- 
mediately have  produced  a  vast  rise 
in  pur  exports.  Was  this  the  case  ? 
Quite  the  reverse ;  it  was  attended 
with  a  decline  in  them.  The  value  of 
corn,  meal,  and  flour  imported  in  the 
following  years  stood  thus : — 


1845, 
1846, 
1847, 
1848, 


£3,594,299 
8,870,202 
29,694,112 
12,457,857* 


Now,  in  the  year  1847,  though  we 
imported  nearly  thirty  millions'  worth 
of  grain,  our  exports  were  £1,200,000 
less  than  in  1845,  when  we  only  re- 
ceived three  millions  and  a  half  of 
subsistence  from  foreign  states.  Can 
there  be  a  more  decisive  proof  that 
the  greatest  possible  addition  to  our 
importation  of  grain  is  not  likely  to 
be  attended  with  any  increase  to 
our  export  of  manufactures? 

But  if  the  great  importation  of  grain 
which  free- trade  induces  into  the 
British  empire  is  not  attended  with 
any  increase  of  our  exports,  in  the 
name  of  heaven,  what  good  does  it 
do  ?  Feed  the  people  cheap.  But 
what  do  they  gain  by  that,  if  their 
wages,  and  the  profits  of  their  em- 
ployers, fall  in  the  same  or  a  greater 
proportion  ?  That  effect  has  already 
taken  place,  and  to  a  most  distressing 
extent.  Wages  of  skilled  operatives, 
such  as  colliers,  iron-moulders,  cotton- 
spinners,  calico-printers,  and  the  like, 
are  now  not  more  than  half  of  what 
they  were  when  the  corn-laws  were 
in  operation.  They  are  now  receiving 


2s.  6d.  a-day  where,  before  the  change, 
they  received  5s.  Wheat  has  been 
forced  down  from  56s.  to  44s. :  that  is 
somewhat  above  a  fifth,  but  wages 
have  fallen  a  half.  The  last  state  of 
those  men  is  worse  than  the  first. 
The  unjust  change  for  which  they 
clamoured  has  proved  ruinous  to 
themselves. 

The  way  in  which  this  disastrous 
eifect  has  taken  place  is  this  :  In  the 
first  place,  the  balance  of  trade  has 
turned  so  ruinously  against  us,  from 
the  effect  of  the  free-trade  measures, 
that  the  credit  of  the  commercial 
classes  has,  under  the  operation  of 
our  monetary  laws,  been  most  seri- 
ously confused.  It  appears,  from  the 
accurate  and  laborious  researches  of 
Mr  Newdegate,  that  the  balance  of 
trade  against  Great  Britain,  during 
the  last  three  years  of  free  trade,  has 
been  no  less  than  £54,000,000  ster- 
ling.f  Now,  woful  experience  has 
taught  the  English  people  that  the 
turning  of  the  balance  of  trade  is 
a  most  formidable  thing  against  a 
commercial  nation,  and  that  the  prac- 
tical experience  of  mankind,  which 
has  always  regarded  it  as  one  of  the 
greatest  of  calamities,  is  more  to  be 
regarded  than  the  theory  of  Adam 
Smith,  that  it  was  a  matter  of  no  sort 
of  consequence.  When  coupled  with 
a  sliding  currency  scale,  which  con- 
tracts the  circulation  of  bank-notes  in 
•proportion  as  the  specie  is  withdrawn, 
it  is  one  of  the  most  terrible  calami- 
ties which  can  befall  a  commercial  and 
manufacturing  state.  It  is  under  this 
evil  that  the  nation  is  now  labour- 
ing :  and  it  will  continue  to  do  so,  till 
folly  of  conduct  and  error  of  opinion 
have  been  expiated  or  eradicated  by 
suffering. 


Newdegate's  Letter  to  Mr  Labouchere,  p.  17. 


t  Total  Imports. 

Total  Exports. 
Home  and  Colonial. 

Balance  of  Freight 
carried  by 
British  Ships. 

Balance  of  Trade  against  Britain. 

Exports  and  Imports. 

Deducting  Freights. 

1845 
1846 
1847 
1848 

£84,054,272 
89,281,433 
117,047,229 
92,660,699 

£70,236,726 
66,283,270 
70,329,671 
61,557,191 

£12,979,089 
13,581,165 
18,817,742 
14,699,491 

£13,817,446 
22,998,163 
46,717,558 
31,103,508 

£838,357 
9,416,998 
27,899,816 
16,404,017 

£383,043,633 

£268,406,878 

£60,077,487 

£114,636,675 

£54,559,188 

— NEWDEGATE,  12-13. 


1849.]      The  Crowning  of  the  Column, 

In  the  next  place,  the  purchase  of 
80  very  large  a  portion  as  a  fourth  of 
the  annual  subsistence — not  from  our 
own  cultivators,  who  consume  at  an 
average  five  or  six  pounds  a-head  of 
our  manufactures,  but  from  foreign 
growers,  who  consume  Httle  or  no- 
thing—has had  a  most  serious  effect 
upon  the  home  trade.  The  introduc- 
tion of  12,000,000  or  13,000,000  quar- 
ters of  grain  a-year  into  our  markets, 
from  countries  whose  importation  of 
our  manufactures  is  almost  equal  to 
nothing,  is  a  most  dreadfully  depress- 
ing circumstance  to  pur  manufac- 
turers. It  is  destroying  one  set  of 
customers,  and  that  the  very  best  we 
have — the  home  growers — without 
rearing  up  another  to  supply  their 
place.  It  is  exchanging  the  pur- 
chases by  substantial  yeomen,  our 
own  countrymen  and  neighbours,  of 
our  fabrics,  for  the  abstraction  by 
aliens  and  enemies  of  our  money.  It 
is  the  same  thing  as  converting  a  cus- 
tomer into  a  pauper,  dependent  on 
our  support.  It  was  distinctly  fore- 
told by  the  protectionists,  during  the 
whole  time  the  debate  on  the  repeal 
of  the  corn  laws  was  going  forward, 
that  this  effect  would  take  place : 
that  the  peasants  of  the  Ukraine  and 
the  Vistula  did  not  consume  a 
hundredth  part  as  much,  per  head,  as 
those  of  East  Lothian  or  Essex  ;  and 
that  to  substitute  the  one  for  the 
other  was  to  be  penny  wise  and  pound 
foolish.  These  predictions,  however, 
were  wholly  disregarded;  the  thing 
was  done ;  and  now  it  is  found  that 
the  result  has  been  much  worse  than 
was  anticipated — for  not  only  has  it 
gratuitously  and  unnecessarily  crip- 
pled the  means  of  a  large  part  of  the 
home  consumers  of  our  manufactures, 
but  it  has  universally  shaken  and  con- 
tracted credit,  especially  in  the  com- 
mercial districts,  by  the  drain  it  has 
induced  upon  the  precious  metals. 
These  evils,  from  the  earliest  times, 
have  been  felt  by  mercantile  nations  ; 
but  they  were  the  result,  in  previous 
cases,  of  adverse  circumstances  or 
necessity.  It  was  reserved  for  this 
age  to  introduce  them  voluntarily, 
and  regard  them  as  the  last  result  of 
political  wisdom. 

In  the  third  place,  the  reduction 
of  prices,  and  diminution  in  the  re- 
muneration of  industry,  which  has 


and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.          125 

taken  place  from  the  introduction  of 
free  trade,  and  the  general  admis- 
sion of  foreign  produce  and  manufac- 
tures, raised  in  countries  where  pro- 
duction is  cheap,  because  money  is 
scarce  and  taxes  light,  to  compete 
with  one  where  production  is  dear, 
because  money  is  plentiful  and  taxes 
heavy,  cannot  of  course  fail  to  be  at- 
tended— and  that  from  the  very  out- 
set— with  the  most  disastrous  effects 
upon  the  general  interests  of  the  em- 
pire, and  especially  such  of  them  as 
are  engaged  in  trade  and  manufac- 
tures. Suppose  that,  anterior  to  the 
monetary  and  free- trade  changes  in- 
tended to  force  down  prices,  the  annual 
value  of  the  industry  of  the  country 
stood  thus,  which  we  believe  to  be 
very  near  the  truth : — 

Lands  and  minerals,     .         £300,000,000 
Manufactures  and  commerce 
of  all  sorts,    .  .  200,000,000 


Deduct  taxes  and 

local  burdens,  £80,000,000 
Interest  of  mort- 

.    50,000,000 


130,000,000 


Clear  to  national  industry,     £370,000,000 

But  if  prices  are  forced  down  a  half, 
which,  at  the  very  least,  may  be  anti- 
cipated, and  in  fact  has  already  taken 
place,  from  the  combined  effect  of 
free  trade  and  a  restricted  currency, 
estimating  each  at  a  fourth  only,  the 
account  will  stand  thus, — 


Land  and  minerals, 
Manufactures, 

Total,    . 

Deduct  taxes  and 

rates,  .  £80,000,000 

Interest  of  mort- 
gages, .  50,000,000 


£150,000,000 
100,000,000 


£250,000,000 


130,000,000 
Clear  to  national  industry,     £120,000,000 

Thus,  by  the  operation  of  these 
changes,  in  money  and  commerce, 
which  lower  prices  a  half,  the  whole 
national  income  is  reduced  from 
£370,000,000  to  £120,000,000,  or 
less  than  a  third.  Such  is  the  inevit- 
able effect  of  a  great  reduction  of 
prices,  in  a  community  of  which  the 
major  and  more  important  part  is 
still  engaged  in  the  work  of  produc- 
tion ;  and  such  the  illustration  of  the 


126  The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.      [July, 


truth  of  the  Marquis  of  Granby's  ob- 
servation, that,  under  such  a  reduction, 
the  whole  producing  classes  must  lose 
more  than  they  can  by  possibility 
gain,  because  their  loss  is  upon  their 
whole  income,  their  gain  only  upon 
that  portion  of  their  means — seldom 
more  than  a  half — which  is  spent  on 
the  purchase  of  articles,  the  cost  of 
which  is  affected  by  the  fall  of  prices. 
The  most  decisive  proof  of  the 
universality  and  general  sense  of  this 
reduction  of  income  and  general  dis- 
tress, is  to  be  found  in  the  efforts 
which  Mr  Cobden  and  the  free-trade 
party  are  now  making  to  effect  a  great 
reduction  in  the  public  expenditure. 
During  the  discussion  on  corn- law 
repeal,  they  told  us  that  the  change 
they  advocated  could  make  no  sort  of 
difference  on  the  income  of  the  pro- 
ducing and  agricultural  classes,  and 
that  it  would  produce  an  addition  to 
the  income  of  the  trading  classes  of 
£100,000,000  a-year.  Of  course,  the 
national  and  public  resources  were  to 
be  greatly  benefited  by  the  change  ; 
and  it  was  under  this  belief  adopted. 
Now,  however,  that  the  change  has 
taken  place,  and  its  result  has  been 
found  to  be  a  universal  embarrass- 
ment to  all  classes  and  interests, 
but  especially  to  the  commercial, 
they  turn  round  and  tell  us  that  this 
effect  is  inevitable  from  the  change  of 
prices — that  the  halcyon  days  of  high 
rents  and  profits  are  at  an  end,  and 
that  all  that  remains  is  for  all  classes 
to  accommodate  themselves  the  best 
way  they  can  to  the  inevitable  change. 
They  propose  to  begin  with  Queen 
Victoria  and  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  from  whom  they  propose 
to  cut  off  £11,000,000  a-year  of  in- 
come. But  they  consider  this  per- 
fectly safe,  because,  as  the  aspect  of 
things,  both  abroad  and  in  our  colonial 
empire,  is  so  singularly  pacific,  and 
peace  and  goodwill  are  so  soon  to 
prevail  among  men,  they  think  it  will 
be  soon  possible  to  disband  our  troops, 
sell  our  ships  of  war,  and  trust  the 
stilling  the  passions  and  settling  the 
disputes  of  nations  and  races  to  the 
great  principles  of  justice  and  equity, 
which  invariably  regulate  the  pro- 
ceedings of  all  popular  and  democratic 
communities.  We  say  nothing  of  the 
probability  of  such  a  millennium  soon 
arriving,  or  of  the  prognostics  of  its 


approach,  which  passing  and  recent 
events  in  India,  Canada,  France,  Ger- 
many, Hungary,  Italy,  Sicily,  and 
Ireland,  have  afforded,  or  are  afford- 
ing. We  refer  to  them  only  as  giving 
the  most  decisive  proof  that  the  free- 
traders have  now  themselves  become 
sensible  that  their  measures  have  pro- 
duced a  general  impoverishment  of  all 
classes,  from  the  head  of  the  state 
downwards,  and  that  a  great  reduc- 
tion of  expenditure  is  unavoidable,  if 
a  general  public  and  private  bank- 
ruptcy would  be  averted. 

In  truth,  the  proofs  of  this  general 
impoverishment  are  now  so  numerous 
and  decisive,  that  they  have  brought 
conviction  home  to  the  minds  of  the 
most  obdurate,  and,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  free-trade  leaders  or  agi- 
tators— whose  fanaticism  is,  of  course, 
fixed  and  incurable — have  produced  a 
general  distrust  of  the  new  principles. 
A  few  facts  will  place  them  in  the 
most  striking  light.  The  greatest 
number  of  emigrants  who  had  previ- 
ously sailed  from  the  British  shores 
was  in  1839,  when  they  reached 
129,000.  But  in  the  year  1847,  the 
sacred  year  of  free  trade  and  a  fettered 
currency,  they  rose  at  once  to  258,270. 
In  1848  they  were  248,000.  The 
number  this  year  is  understood  to 
be  still  greater,  and  composed  al- 
most entirely,  not  of  paupers — who,  of 
course,  cannot  get  away — but  of  the 
better  sort  of  mechanics,  tradesmen, 
and  small  farmers,  who,  under  the  new 
system,  find  their  means  of  subsistence 
dried  up.  The  poor-rate  in  England 
hasnowrisento  £7,000,000  annually — 
as  much  in  nominal  amount  as  it  was 
in  1834,  when  the  new  poor-law  was 
introduced  by  the  Whig  government, 
and,  if  the  change  in  the  value  of 
money  is  taken  into  account,  half  as 
much  more.  A  seventh  of  the  British 
empire  are  now  supported  in  the  two 
islands  by  the  parish  rates,  and  yet 
the  demands  on  private  charity  are 
hourly  increasing.  Crime  is  univer- 
sally and  rapidly  on  the  increase  :  in 
Ireland,  where  the  commitments  never 
before  exceeded  21,000,  they  rose  in 
1848  to  39,000.  In  England,  in  the 
same  year,  they  were  30,000 ;  in 
Scotland,  4908;  all  a  great  increase 
over  previous  years.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing crime  was  so  prolific  in  a  country 
where,  in  the  preceding  year,  at  least 


1849.]       The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.  127 


250,000  persons  died  of  famine,  in 
spite  of  the  noble  grant  of  £1 0,000,000 
from  the  British  treasury  for  their 
support.  We  extract  from  the  Stan- 
dard of  Freedom  the  following  sum- 
mary of  some  of  the  social  results 
which  have  followed  the  adoption  of 
liberal  principles : — 

"  STATE  OF  ENGLAND. — One  man  in  every 
ten,  according  to  Sir  J.  Graham,  a  short 
time  ago  was  in  receipt  of  parish  relief 
in  this  country ;  but  now,  it  appears, 
from  a  return  np  to  June  last,  it  is  not  10 
per  cent,  but  1 1  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion who  receive  parochial  relief;  for  the 
persons  so  relieved  amount  to  1,700,000 
out  of  15,000,000.  £7,000,000  was  raised 
annually  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  in 
England,  and  £500,000  in  Scotland;  and, 
taking  the  amount  collected  for  and  raised 
in  Ireland  at  £1,860,957,  it  makes  a  total 
of  £9,460,957,  as  the  sum  levied  annually 
in  the  British  empire  for  the  relief  of  the 
poor,  or  three  times  the  cost  of  the  civil 
government,  independently  of  the  cost  of 
the  army  and  navy.  Besides  the  regular . 
standing  force,  there  is  the  casual  poor,  a 
kind  of  disposable  force,  moving  about 
and  exhausting  every  parish  they  go 
through.  In  1815,  there  were  1,791  va- 
grants in  one  part  of  the  metropolis,  and, 
in  1828,  in  the  same  district  in  London, 
they  had  increased  to  16,086.  In  1832, 
the  number  was  35,600,  which  had  in- 
creased, in  1847,  to  41,743.  Moreover, 
there  is  a  certain  district  south  of  the 
Thames,  in  which,  for  the  six  months  end- 
ing September  1846,  the  number  was 
18,533,  and  which  had  increased,  during 
the  same  six  months  in  1847,  to  44,937. 
And,  in  the  county  of  York,  in  one  of  the 
first  unions  in  the  West  Biding,  in  1836, 
one  vagrant  was  relieved,  and,  in  1847, 
1,161.  This  affords  a  pretty  strong,  dark, 
and  gloomy  picture  of  the  state  of  des- 
titution prevailing  in  this  country." — 
Standard  of  Freedom. 

General  as  the  distress  is  which, 
under  the  combined  operations  of  free 
trade  and  a  fettered  currency,  has 
been  brought  upon  the  country,  there 
is  one  circumstance  of  peculiar  impor- 


tance which  has  not  hitherto,  from  the 
efforts  of  the  free-traders  to  conceal 
it,  met  with  the  attention  it  deserves. 
This  is  the  far  greater  amount  of  ruin 
and  misery  theyhave  brought  upon  the 
commercial  classes,  who  supported, 
than  the  agriculturists,  who  opposed 
them.  The  landed  interest  is  only 
beginning  to  experience,  in  the  pre- 
sent low  prices,  the  depressing  effects 
of  free  trade.  The  Irish  famine  has 
hitherto  concealed  or  postponed  them. 
London  is  suffering,  but  not  so  much 
as  the  provincial  towns,  from  its  being 
the  great  place  where  the  realised 
wealth  of  the  country  is  spent.  But 
the  whole  commercial  classes  in  the 
manufacturing  towns  have  felt  them 
for  nearly  two  years  in  the  utmost  in- 
tensity. It  is  well  known  that,  dur- 
ing that  short  period,  one-half  of  the 
wealth  realised,  and  in  course  of  reali- 
sation, in  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Bir- 
mingham, and  Glasgow,  has  perished. 
There  is  no  man  practically  acquainted 
with  these  cities  who  will  dispute  that 
fact.  The  poor-rates  of  Glasgow, 
which,  five  years  ago,  did  not  exceed 
£30,000  a-year  for  the  parliamentary 
city,  have  now  reached  £200,000;  viz. 
Glasgow  parish,  .  £90,000 
Barony,  .  .  .  70,000 
Gorbals,  .  -.  .  40,000 

£200,000 

The  sales  by  shop-keepers  in  these 
towns  have  not,  during  three  years, 
been  a  third  of  their  average  amount. 
All  the  witnesses  examined  before  the 
Lords'  committee  on  the  public  dis- 
tress, describe  this  panic  of  autumn 
1847  as  infinitely  exceedingin  duration 
and  severity  anything  previously  expe- 
rienced ;  arid  the  state  of  matters,  and 
the  intensity  of  the  shock  given  to 
public  credit,  may  be  judged  of  by  the 
following  entries  as  to  the  state  of  the 
Bank  of  England  in  June  1845  and 
October  1847,  when  the  law  was  sus- 
pended : — 


JUNE  1845. 


Date. 

ISSUE  DEPARTMENT. 

BANKING  DEPARTMENT. 

Notes  Issued. 

Gold  and  Silver 
Bullion. 

Notes  in  Reserve. 

Gold  and  Silver 
Coin. 

June  7 
—  14 
—  21 
—  28 

£29,732,000 
29,917,000 
30,051,000 
30,047,000 

£15,732,000 
15,917,000 
16,051,000 
16,047,000 

£9,382,000 
9,854,000 
9,837,000 
9,717,000 

£779,000 
696,000 
587,000 
554,000 

128          The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.      [July, 

OCTOBER  1847. 


Date. 

ISSUE  DEPARTMENT. 

BANKING  DEPARTMENT. 

Notes  Issued. 

Gold  and  Silver 
Bullion. 

Notes  in  Reserve. 

Gold  and  Silver 
Coin. 

Oct.     2 

g 

—     16 
—     21 
—     30 

£22,121,000 
21,961,000 
21,989,000 
21,865,000 
22,009,000 

£8,121,000 
7,961,000 
7,989,000 
7,865,000 
8,009,000 

£3,409,000 
3,321,000 
2,630,000 
1,547,000 
1,176,000 

£443,000 
447,000 
441,000 
447,000 
429,000 

Thus,  such  was  the  severity  of  the 
panic,  and  the  contraction  of  the  cur- 
rency, consequent  on  the  monetary 
laws  and  the  operation  of  free  trade 
in  grain,  that  the  nation  was  all  but 
rendered  bankrupt,  and  half  its  traders 
unquestionably  were  so,  when  there 
were  still  eight  millions  of  sovereigns 
in  the  issue  department  of  the  bank 
which  could  not  be  touched,  while 
the  reserve  of  notes  in  the  banking 
department  had  sunk  from  nearly 
£10,000,000,  in  1845,  to  £1,100,000! 

So  portentous  a  state  of  things, 
fraught  as  it  necessarily  was  with 
utter  ruin  to  a  great  part  of  the  best 
interests  in  the  empire,  was  certainly 
not  contemplated  by  the  commercial 
classes,  when  they  embarked  iu  the 
crusade  of  free  trade  against  the  pro- 
ductive interests.  It  might  have  been 
long  of  coming  on,  and  certainly  would 
never  have  set  in  with  half  the  seve- 
rity which  actually  occurred,  had  it 
not  been  that,  not  content  with  the 
project  of  forcing  down  prices  by 
means  of  the  unrestricted  admission 
of  foreign  produce,  they  at  the  same 
time  sought  to  augment  their  own 
fortunes  by  restricting  the  currency. 
It  was  the  double  project,  beyond  all 
question,  which  proved  their  ruin. 
They  began  and  flattered  themselves 
they  would  play  out  successfully  the 
game  of  "  beggar  my  neighbour,"  but 
by  pushing  their  measures  too  far,  it 
turned  into  one  of  "  beggar  ourselves." 
It  was  the  double  strain  of  free  trade 
and  a  fettered  currency  which  brought 
such  embarrassment  on  the  commer- 
cial classes,  as  it  was  the  double  strain 
of  the  Spanish  and  Kussian  wars 
which  proved  the  destruction  of  Napo- 
leon. It  would  appear  to  be  a  general 
law  of  nature,  that  great  measures  of 
injustice  cannot  be  earned  into  execu- 
tion, either  by  communities  or  single 


Commercial  Crisis,  2d  edition,  132-133. 

men,  without  vindicating  the  justice 
of  the  Divine  administration,  by 
bringing  down  upon  themselves  the 
very  ruin  which  they  have  designed 
for  others. 

The  free-traders  say  that  there  is 
no  general  reaction  against  their  prin- 
ciples, and  that  the  formation  of  a 
government  on  protectionist  prin- 
ciples is  at  present  impossible.  We 
shall  not  inquire,  and  have  not  the 
means  of  knowing,  whether  or  not 
this  statement  is  well  founded.  We 
are  willing  to  accept  the  statement  as 
true,  and  we  perceive  a  great  social 
revolution,  accompanied  with  infinite 
present  suffering,  but  most  important 
ultimate  results,  growing  from  their 
obstinate  adherence  to  their  principles 
in  defiance  of  the  lessons  of  experience. 
The  free-traders  are  with  their  own 
hands  destroying  the  commercial  classes, 
which  had  acquired  an  undue  prepon- 
derance in  the  state.  They  must  work 
out  their  own  punishment  before  they 
abjure  their  principles.  Every  day  a 
free-trading  merchant  or  shopkeeper 
is  swept  into  the  Gazette,  and  his 
family  cast  down  to  the  humblest 
ranks  in  society.  They  go  down  like 
the  Fifth  Monarchy  men  when  ex- 
pelled the  House  of  Commons  by  the 
bayonets  of  Cromwell,  or  the  Giron- 
dists when  led  to  the  scaffold  by  the 
Jacobins,  chanting  hymns  in  honour 
of  their  principles  when  perishing  from 
their  effects : — 

"  They  are  true  to  the  last  of  their  blood  and 

their  breath, 
And,  like  reapers,  descend  to  the  harvest  of 

death." 

But  this  constancy  of  individuals 
when  suffering  under  the  measures 
they  themselves  have  introduced, 
however  curious  and  respectable  as  a 
specimen  of  the  unvarying  effect  of 
fanaticism,  whether  religious  or  social, 


1849.]       The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.  129 


on  the  human  mind,  cannot  perma- 
nently arrest  the  march  of  events  ;  it 
cannot  stop  the  effect  of  their  own 
measures,  any  more  than  the  courage 
of  the  Highlanders  in  1745  could  pre- 
vent the  final  extinction  of  the  Jacobite 
cause.  Let  them  adhere  to  free  trade 
and  a  fettered  currency  as  they  like, 
the  advocates  of  the  new  measures  are 
daily  and  hourly  losing  their  influence. 
Money  constitutes  the  sinews  of  war 
not  less  in  social  than  in  national 
contests.  No  cause  can  be  long  vic- 
torious which  is  linked  to  that  worst 
of  allies,  INSOLVENCY.  In  two  years 
the  mercantile  classes  have  destroyed 
one-half  of  their  own  wealth ;  in  two 
years  more,  one-half  of  what  remains 
will  be  gone.  Crippled,  discredited, 
ruined,  beat  down  by  foreign  compe- 
tition, exhausted  by  the  failure  of 
domestic  supplies,  the  once  powerful 
mercantile  body  of  England  will  be 
prostrate  in  the  dust.  All  other  classes, 
of  course,  will  be  suffering  from  their 
fall,  but  none  in  the  same  degree  as 
themselves.  It  is  not  improbable  that 
the  land  may  regain  its  appropriate 
influence  in  the  state,  by  the  ruin  which 
their  own  insane  measures  havebrought 
upon  its  oppressors.  No  one  will 
regret  the  lamentable  consequences  of 
such  a  change,  already  far  advanced 
in  its  progress,  more  than  ourselves, 
who  have  uniformly  foretold  its  ad- 
vent, and  strenuously  resisted  the  com- 
mercial and  monetary  changes  which, 
amidst  shouts  of  triumph  from  the 
whole  Liberal  party,  were  silently 
but  certainly  inducing  these  results. 

Confounded  at  such  a  series  of 
events,  so  widely  different  from  what 
they  anticipated  and  had  predicted 
from  their  measures,  the  free-traders 
have  no  resource  but  to  lay  them  all 
on  two  external  causes,  for  which  they 
are  not,  as  they  conceive,  responsible : 
these  causes  are,  the  French  and  Ger- 
man revolutions,  and  the  potato  famine 
in  Ireland. 

That  the  revolutions  on  the  conti- 
nent of  Europe  have  materially  affect- 
ed the  market  for  the  produce  of 
British  industry,  in  the  countries  where 
they  have  occurred,  is  indeed  certain  ; 
but  are  the  Liberals  entitled  to  shake 
themselves  free  from  the  consequences 
of  these  convulsions  ?  Have  we  not, 
for  the  last  thirty  years,  been  labour- 
ing incessantly  to  encourage  and  ex- 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCV. 


tend  revolution  in  all  the  adjoining 
states?  Did  we  not  insidiously  and 
basely  support  the  revolutions  in 
South  America,  and  call  a  new  world 
into  existence  to  redress  the  balance 
of  the  old?  Was  not  the  result  of 
that  monstrous  and  iniquitous  inter- 
ference in  support  of  the  rebels  in  an 
allied  state,  to  induce  the  dreadful 
monetary  catastrophe  of  December 
1825,  the  severest,  till  that  of  1847, 
ever  experienced  in  modem  Europe  ? 
Did  we  not,  not  merely  instantly  re- 
cognise the  French  revolutions  of  1830 
and  1848,  but  lend  our  powerful  aid  and 
countenance  to  extend  the  laudable 
example  to  the  adjoining  states  ?  Did 
we  not  join  with  France  to  prevent 
the  King  of  the  Netherlands  from  re- 
gaining the  command  of  Flanders  in 
1832,  and  blockade  the  Scheldt  while 
Marshal  Gerard  bombarded  Antwerp? 
Did  we  not  conclude  the  Quadruple 
Alliance  to  effect  the  revolutionising 
of  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  bathe  both 
countries  for  four  years  with  blood,  to 
establish  revolutionary  queens  on  both 
the  thrones  in  the  Peninsula?  Have 
we  not  intercepted  the  armament  of 
the  King  of  Naples  against  Sicily,  by 
Admiral  Parker's  fleet,  and  aided  the 
insurgents  in  that  island  with  arms 
from  the  Tower?  Did  we  not  inter- 
fere to  arrest  the  victorious  columns 
of  Radetsky  at  Turin,  but  never  move 
a  step  to  check  Charles  Albert 
on  the  Mincio  ?  Did  we  not  side 
with  revolutionary  Prussia  against  the 
Danes,  and  aid  in  launching  Pio  Nono 
into  that  frantic  career  which  has 
spread  such  ruin  through  the  Italian 
peninsula?  Have  we  not  all  but  lost 
the  confidence  of  our  old  ally,  Austria, 
from  our  notorious  intrigues  to  en- 
courage the  furious  divisions  which 
have  torn  that  noble  empire?  Nay, 
have  we  not  been  so  enamoured  of 
revolution,  that  we  could  not  avoid 
showinga  partiality  for  it  in  our  own  do- 
minions— rewarding  and  encouraging 
O'Connell,  and  allowingmonster  meet- 
ings, till  by  the  neglect  of  Irish  in- 
dustry we  landed  them  in  famine,  and 
by  thefanning  of  Irish  passions  brought 
them  up  to  rebellion  ; — and  establish- 
ing a  constitution  in  Canada  which 
gave  a  decided  majority  in  parliament 
to  an  alien  and  rebel  race,  and,  as  a  ne- 
cessary consequence,  giving  the  colo- 
nial administration  to  the  very  party 


130  The  Crowning  of  the  Column, 

whom,  ten  years  ago,  the  loyalists  put 
down  with  true  British  spirit  at  the 
pointof  the  bayonet?  Allthiswe  have 
done,  and  have  long  been  doing,  with 
impunity;  andnowthattheconsequen- 
ces  of  such  multifarious  sins  have  fallen 
upon  us,  in  the  suffering  which  revo- 
lution has  at  last  brought  upon  the 
British  empire,  the  Liberals  turn  round 
and  seek  to  avoid  the  responsibility  of 
the  disasters  produced  by  their  inter- 
nal policy,  by  throwing  it  on  the  ex- 
ternal events  which  they  themselves 
have  induced. 

Then  as  to  the  Irish  famine  of  1846, 
it  is  rather  too  much,  after  the  lapse  of 
three  years,  to  go  on  ascribing  the 
general  distress  of  the  empire  to  a 
partial  failure  of  a  particular  crop, 
which,  after  all,  did  not  exceed  the 
loss  of  a  twentieth  part  of  the  annual 
agricultural  produce  of  the  British 
Islands.  But  if  the  free-traders'  prin- 
ciples had  been  well  founded,  this 
failure  in  Ireland  should  have  been  the 
greatest  possible  blessing  to  their  party 
in  the  state,  because  it  immediately  ef- 
fected that  transference  of  the  purchase 
of  a  part  of  the  national  food  from 
home  to  foreign  cultivators,  which  is 
the  very  thing  they  hold  out  as  such  an 
advantage,  and  likely  in  an  especial 
manner  to  enlarge  the  foreign  market 
for  our  manufactures.  It  induced  the 
importation  of  £30,000,000  worth  of 
foreign  grain  in  three  months :  that, 
on  the  principles  of  the  free-traders, 
should  have  put  all  our  manufacturers 
in  activity,  and  placed  the  nation  in 
the  third  heaven.  Disguise  it  as  you 
will,  the  Irish  potato-rot  was  but  an 
anticipation,  somewhat  more  sudden 
than  they  expected,  of  the  free-trade 
rot,  which  was  held  out  as  a  certain 
panacea  for  all  the  national  evils.  And 
now,  when  free  trade  and  a  restricted 
currency  have  not  proved  quite  so 
great  a  blessing  as  they  anticipated, 
the  free-traders  turn  round  and  lay 
it  all  on  the  substitution  of  foreign 
importation  for  domestic  production 
in  Ireland,  when  that  very  substitu- 
tion is  the  thing  they  have,  by  abolish- 
ing the  corn  laws,  laboured  to  effect 
over  the  whole  empire. 

Then  as  to  the  state  of  Ireland,  which 
has  at  length  reached  the  present 
unparalleled  crisis  of  difficulty  and 
suffering,  the  conduct  of  the  Liberals 
has  been,  if  possible,  still  more  incon- 


and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.       [July, 

sistent  and  self-condemnatory.     For 
half  a  century  past,  they  have  been 
incessantly  declaiming  on  the  mild, 
inoffensive,  and  industrious  character 
of  the  Irish  race;  upon  their  inherent 
loyalty  to  the  throne  ;  and  upon  the 
enormous    iniquity  of   British  rule, 
which  had  brought  the  whole  misfor- 
tunes under  which  they  were  labour- 
ing on  that  virtuous  people.     Nothing 
but  equal  privileges,  Catholic  emanci- 
pation, parliamentary  reform,  burgh 
reform,  and  influence  at  Dublin  Castle, 
we  were  told,  were  required  to  set 
everything  right,  and  render  Ireland 
as  peaceable  and  prosperous  as  any 
part  of  the  British  dominions.     The 
conduct  of  James  I.  and  Cromwell, 
in   planting  Saxon   and    Protestant 
colonies  in  Ulster,  was  in  an  essential 
manner    held     up     to    detestation, 
as   one  of   the  chief  causes    of  the 
social  and   religious  divisions  which 
had  ever  since  distracted  the  country. 
Well,    the  Liberals    have  given  all 
these    things    to    the    Irish.      For 
twenty   years,  the   island  has  been 
governed    entirely    on   these    prin- 
ciples.     They   have     got    Catholic 
emancipation,  a  reduction  of  the  Pro- 
testant church,    national   education, 
corporate  reform,   parliamentary  re- 
form,   monster    meetings,    ceaseless 
agitation,  and,  in  fact,  all  the  objects 
for  which,  in  common  with  the  Liberal 
party  in  Great  Britain,  they  have  so 
long  contended.     And  what  has  been 
the  result  ?    Is  it  that  pauperism  has 
disappeared,  industry  flourished,  divi- 
sions died  away,  prosperity  become 
general?     So    far  from  it,  divisions 
never  have  been  so  bitter,  dissension 
never  so  general,  misery  so  grinding, 
suffering  so  universal,  since  the  British 
standards,   under   Henry  II.,    seven 
centuries   ago,  first  approached  their 
shores.     A  rebellion  has  broken  out ; 
anarchy  and  agitation,  by  turning  the 
people  aside  from  industry,  have  termi- 
nated in  famine  ;  and  even  the  stream 
of  English  charity  seems  dried  up,  from 
the  immensity  of  the  suffering  to  be  re- 
lieved, and  the  ingratitude  with  which 
it  has  heretofore  been  received.     And 
what  do  the  Liberals  now  do  ?    Why, 
they  put  it  all  down  to  the  score  of  the 
incurable  indolence  and  heedlessness 
of  the  Celtic  race,  which  nothing  can 
eradicate,   and  cordially  support  Sir 
11.  Peel's  proposal  to  plant  English 


1849.]       The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal.          131 


colonies  in  Connaught,  exactly  similar 
to  Cromwell's  in  Ulster,  so  long  the 
object  of  Liberal  hatred  and  declama- 
tion !  They  tell  us  now  that  the  na- 
tive Irish  are  irreclaimable  helots, 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water, 
and  incapable  of  improvement  till 
directed  by  Saxon  heads  and  support- 
ed by  the  produce  of  Saxon  hands. 
They  forget  that  it  is  these  very  helots 
whom  they  represented  as  such  im- 
maculate and  valuable  subjects,  the 
victims  of  Saxon  injustice  and  Ulster 


misrule.  They  forget  that  English  ca- 
pitalists and  farmers  would  long  since 
have  migrated  to  Ireland,  and  induced 
corn  cultivation  in  its  western  and 
southern  provinces,  were  it  not  that 
Liberal  agitation  kept  the  people  in  a 
state  of  menacing  violence,  and  Libe- 
ral legislation  took  away  all  prospect 
of  remunerating  prices  for  their  grain 
produce.  And  thus  much  for  the 
Crowning  of  the  Column  of  Free 
Trade,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal 
of  the  Nation. 


POSTSCRIPT. 


The  discussion  on  the  Canadian 
question,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  has 
had  one  good  effect.  It  has  elicited 
from  Lord  Lyndhurst  a  most  powerful 
and  able  speech,  in  the  best  style  of 
that  great  judge  and  distinguished 
statesman's  oratory;  and  it  has  caused 
Lord  Campbell  to  make  an  exhibition 
of  spleen,  ill-humour,  and  bad  taste, 
which  his  warmest  friends  must  have 
beheld  with  regret,  and  which  was 
alone  wanting  to  show  the  cogent 
effect  which  Lord  Lyndhurst's  speech 
had  made  on  the  house.  Of  the 
nature  of  Lord  Campbell's  attack  on 
that  able  and  venerable  judge,  second 
to  none  who  ever  sat  in  West- 
minster Hall  for  judicial  power  and 
forensic  eloquence,  some  idea  may  be 
formed  from  the  observations  in  reply 
of  Lord  Stanley : — 

"  I  must  say  for  myself,  and  I  think  I 
may  say  for  the  rest  of  the  house,  and  not 
with  the  exception  of  noble  lords  on  the 
opposite  sidp  of  it,  that  they  listened  to 
that  able,  lucid,  and  powerful  speech 
(Lord  Lyndhurst's)  with  a  feeling  of 
anything  but  pain — a  feeling  of  admira- 
tion at  the  power  of  language,  the  undi- 
minished  clearness  of  intellect — (cheers) 
— the  conciseness  and  force  with  which 
my  noble  and  learned  friend  grappled 
with  the  arguments  before  him,  and 
which, while  on  the  one  hand  they  showed 
that  age  had  in  no  degree  impaired  the 
vigour  of  that  power,  on  the  other  added 
to  the  regret  at  the  announcement  he 
made  of  his  intention  so  seldom  to  occupy 
the  attention  of  the  house.  (Hear,  hear.) 
But  I  should  have  thought  that  if  there 
were  one  feeling  it  was  impossible  for  any 
man  to  entertain  after  hearing  that 
speech,  it  would  be  a  feeling  in  any  way 
akin  to  that  which  led  the  noble  and 


learned  lord  to  hare  introduced  his  answer 
to  that  speech  by  any  unworthy  taunts. 
(Loud  cheers.)  His  noble  and  learned 
friend's  high  position  and  great  experi- 
ence, his  high  character  and  eminent 
ability,  might  have  secured  him  in  the 
honoured  decline  of  his  course  from  any 
such  unworthy  taunts — (great  cheering) 
— as  the  noble  and  learned  lord  has  not 
thought  it  beneath  him  on  such  an  occa- 
sion to  address  to  such  a  man.  (Renewed 
cheering.)  If  the  noble  and  learned  lord 
listened  with  pain  to  the  able  statement 
of  my  noble  and  learned  friend,  sure  am  I 
that  there  is  no  friend  of  the  noble  and 
learned  lord  who  must  not  have  listened 
with  deeper  pain  to  what  fell  from  him 
on  this  occasion." — Times,  20th  June 
1849. 

And  of  the  feeling  of  the  country, 
on  this  uncalled-for  and  unprovoked 
attack,  an  estimate  may  be  formed 
from  the  following  passage  of  the 
Times  on  the  subject: — "This  debate 
has  also  recalled  to  the  scene  of  his 
former  triumphs  the  undiminished 
energy  and  vigorous  eloquence  of 
Lord  Lyndhurst.  That  it  supplied 
Lord  Campbell  with  the  opportunity 
of  making  a  series  of  remarks  in  the 
worst  possible  taste  on  that  aged  and 
distinguished  peer  is,  we  suspect,  a 
matter  on  which  neither  the  learned 
lord  nor  any  of  his  colleagues  will  be 
disposed  to  look  back  with  satisfac- 
tion."— Times,  22d  June  1849. 

What  Lord  Campbell  says  of  Lord 
Lyndhurst  is,  that  he  was  once  a  Li- 
beral and  he  has  now  become  a  Con- 
servative :  that  the  time  was  when  he 
would  have  supported  such  a  bill  as 
that  which  the  Canadian  parliament 
tendered  to  Lord  Elgin,  and  that  now 
he  opposes  it.  There  is  no  doubt  of 


132     The  Crowning  of  the  Column,  and  Crushing  of  the  Pedestal    [July,  1849. 


the  fact :  experience  has  taught  him 
the  errors  of  his  early  ways ;  he  has 
not  stood  all  day  gazing  at  the  east 
because  the  sun  rose  there  in  the 
morning — he  has  looked  around  him, 
and  •  seen  the  consequences  of  those 
delusive  visions  in  which,  in  common 
with  most  men  of  an  ardent  tempera- 
ment, he  early  indulged.  In  doing 
so,  he  has  made  the  same  change 
as  Pitt  and  Chatham,  as  Burke 
and  Mackintosh,  as  Windham  and 
Brougham,  as  Wordsworth,  Coleridge, 
and  Southey.  There  are  men  of  a 
different  stamp — men  whom  no  expe- 
rience can  teach,  and  no  facts  wean 
from  error — who  retain  in  advanced 
life  the  prejudices  and  passions  of 
their  youth,  and  signalise  declining 
years  by  increased  personal  ambition 
and  augmented  party  spleen.  What- 
ever Lord  Lyndhurst  maybe,  he  is 
not  one  of  them.  He  has  not  won  his 
retiring  allowance  by  a  week's  service 
in  the  Court  of  Chancery.  He  can 
look  back  on  a  life  actively  spent  in 
the  public  service,  and  enjoy  in  his 
declining  years  the  pleasing  reflection, 
that  the  honours  and  fortune  he  has 
won  are  but  the  just  meed  of  a  nation's 
gratitude,  for  important  public  services 
long  and  admirably  performed. 

The  Canadian  question,  itself,  on 
which  ministers  so  narrowly  escaped 
shipwreck  in  the  House  of  Peers  (by 
a  majority  of  THREE)  appears  to  us 
to  lie  within  a  very  small  compass. 
Cordially  disapproving  as  we  do  of 
the  bill  for  indemnifying  the  rebels 
which  the  Canadian  ministry  intro- 
duced and  the  Canadian  parliament 


passed,  we  yet  cannot  see  that  any 
blame  attaches  to  Lord  Elgin  per- 
sonally for  giving  the  consent  of 
government  to  the  bill.  Be  the  bill 
good  or  bad,  just  or  unjust,  it  had 
passed  the  legislature  by  a  large  majo- 
rity, and  Lord  Elgin  would  not  have 
been  justified  in  withholding  his  con- 
sent, any  more  than  Queen  Victoria 
would  have  been  in  refusing  to  pass 
the  Navigation  Laws  Bill.  The  pass- 
ing of  disagreeable  and  often  unjust 
laws,  by  an  adverse  majority,  is  a  great 
evil,  no  doubt ;  but  it  is  an  evil  in- 
herent in  popular  and  responsible 
government,  for  which  the  Canadian 
loyalists  equally  with  the  Canadian 
rebels  contended.  Let  our  noble 
brethren  in  Canada  reflect  on  this. 
The  Conservatives  of  England  have 
for  long  seen  a  series  of  measures 
pass  the  legislature,  which  they 
deem  destructive  to  the  best  interests 
of  their  country  ;  but  they  never 
talked  of  separating  from  their  Liberal 
fellow-citizens  on  that  account,  or 
blamed  the  Queen  because  she  affixed 
the  royal  assent  to  their  bills.  They 
are  content  to  let  time  develop  the 
consequences  of  these  acts;  and  mean- 
while they  direct  all  their  efforts  to 
enlighten  their  countrymen  on  the 
subject,  and,  if  possible,  regain  a  pre- 
ponderance in  the  legislature  for  their 
own  party.  The  Canadian  loyalists, 
second  to  none  in  the  British  empire 
in  courage,  energy,  and  public  spirit, 
will  doubtless  see,  when  the  heat  of 
the  contest  is  over,  that  it  is  by  such 
conduct  that  they  will  best  discharge 
their  duty  to  their  country. 


Printed  by  William  Blacku-ood  and  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH    MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCVI. 


AUGUST,  1849. 


VOL.  LXVI. 


CHARLES   LAMB. 


To  Charles  Lamb  shall  be  allotted 
— general  assent  has  already  assigned 
it  to  him,  and  we  have  no  wish  to 
dispute  his  claim  —  a  quiet,  quaint 
niche,  apart  to  himself,  in  some  odd 
nook  or  corner  in  the  great  temple  of 
English  literature.  It  shall  be  carved 
from  the  solid  oak,  and  decorated  with 
Gothic  tracery ;  but  where  Madonnas 
and  angels  ordinarily  appear,  there 
shall  be  all  manner  of  laughing  cherubs 
— one  amongst  them  disguised  as  a 
chimney-  sweep  —  with  abundance  of 
sly  and  humorous  devices.  Some  such 
niches  or  stalls  may  occasionally  be 
seen  in  old  cathedrals,  sharing  the 
etemity  of  the  structure,  and  drawing 
the  peculiar  regard  of  the  curious  and 
loitering  visitor.  You  are  startled  to 
find  a  merry  device,  and  a  wit  by  no 
means  too  reverential,  side  by  side 
with  the  ideal  forms  of  Catholic  piety. 
You  approach  to  examine  the  solemn- 
looking  carving,  and  find,  perhaps,  a 
fox  clothed  in  priestly  raiment — teach- 
ing, in  his  own  way,  divers  lessons  of 
morality  to  the  bears  and  geese.  Such 
venerable  and  Gothic  drollery  sus- 
pends for  a  moment,  but  hardly  mars, 
the  serious  and  sedate  feelings  which 
the  rest  of  the  structure,  and  the  other 
sculptured  figures  of  the  place,  are 
designed  to  excite. 

Some  such  peculiar  place  amongst 
our  literary  worthies  seems,  as  we 
have  said,  to  be  assigned  by  general 


consent  to  Charles  Lamb,  nor  are  we 
about  to  gainsay  his  right  to  this 
position.  He  has  all  the  genius  that 
could  comport  with  oddity,  and  all 
the  oddity  that  could  amalgamate  with 
genius.  With  a  range  of  thought 
most  singularly  contracted,  consider- 
ing the  times  in  which  he  lived,  and 
the  men  by  whom  he  was  surrounded, 
he  has  contrived,  by  a  charming 
subtlety  of  observation,  and  a  most 
felicitous  humour,  to  make  us  in  love 
even  with  that  contractedness  itself, 
which  in  another  would  be  despised, 
as  evidencing  a  sluggishness  and  ob- 
tuseness  of  mind.  Perhaps  there  are 
few  writers  who  could  be  named,  of 
these  later  days,  on  whose  peculiar 
merits  there  is  so  little  difference  of 
opinion.  As  a  poet,  he  was,  at  all 
events,  inoffensive,  and  his  mediocrity 
has  been  pardoned  him  in  favour  of 
that  genius  he  displayed  as  the  hu- 
morous and  critical  essayist.  -The 
publication  of  his  letters,  too,  has 
materially  added  to  his  reputation, 
and  confirmed  him  as  a  favourite  with 
all  to  whom  his  lambent  and  playful 
wit  had  already  made  him  known  and 
esteemed.  We  are  not  aware,  there- 
fore, that  we  have  anything  to  dispute, 
or  essentially  to  modify,  in  the  ver- 
dict passed  by  popular  opinion  on  this 
writer.  Yet  something  may  remain 
to  be  said  to  assist  in  appreciating  and 
discriminating  his  peculiar  merits  as 


The  Works  of  Charles  Lamb. 
Final  Memorials  of  Charles  Lamb. 
VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVI. 


By  THOMAS  NOON  TALFOURD. 


134 


a  humorist— something  to  point  out 
where  praise  is  due,  and  something  to 
draw  the  limits  of  that  praise.  More- 
over, his  biography,  as  presented  to 
us  by  Mr  Talfourd,  claims  some  no- 
tice ;  disclosing,  as  it  does,  one  of  the 
saddest  tragedies,  and  one  of  the 
noblest  acts  of  heroism,  which  ever 
afflicted  and  dignified  the  life  of  a  man 
of  letters.  This  biography  is  also 
written  by  one  who  is  himself  distin- 
guished in  the  literary  world,  who 
was  an  intimate  friend  of  Lamb,  and 
personally  acquainted  with  those  lite- 
rary characters  by  whom  Lamb  had 
surrounded  himself,  and  who  are  here 
grouped  around  him.  Upon  the  whole, 
therefore,  the  Life  and  Writings  of 
Elia,  though  a  subject  which  no  longer 
wears  the  gloss  of  novelty,  still  invites 
and  may  repay  attention. 

We  hardly  know  whether  to  regret 
it  as  a  disadvantage  to  us,  on  the 
present  occasion,  that  we  never  en- 
joyed the  slightest  acquaintance  with 
Charles  Lamb,  or  indeed  with  any  of 
those  literary  friends  amongst  whom 
he  lived.  We  never  saw  this  bland 
humorist ;  we  never  heard  that  half- 
provoking,  half-pleasing  stutter,  which 
awakened  anticipation  whilst  it  de- 
layed enjoyment,  and  added  zest  to 
the  witticism  which  it  threatened  to 
mar,  and  which  it  had  held  back,  for 
a  moment,  only  to  project  with  the 
happier  impetus.  We  never  had  be- 
fore us,  in  bodily  presence,  that  slight, 
black-coated  figure,  and  those  antique 
and  curiously-gaitered  legs,  which,  we 
have  also  been  assured,  contributed 
their  part  to  the  irresistible  effect  of 
his  kindly  humour.  We  never  even 
knew  those  who  had  seen  and  talked 
with  him.  To  us  he  is  a  purely  his- 
toric figure.  So,  too,  of  his  biographer 
— which  argues  ourselves  to  be  sadly 
unknown — we  have  no  other  know- 
ledge than  what  runs  about  bruited  in 
the  world ;  even  his  displays  of  elo- 
quence, forensic  or  parliamentary,  we 
have  never  had  an  opportunity  of 
hearing ;  we  know  him  only  by  his 
writings,  and  by  that  title  we  have 
often  heard  bestowed  on  him,  the 
amiable  author  of  Ion;  —  to  which 
amiability  we  refer,  because  to  this 
we  must  attribute,  we  suppose,  a  large 
portion  of  that  too  laudatory  criticism 
which,  in  these  volumes,  he  bestows 
so  lavishly  and  diffusely.  We  cannot, 


Charles  Lamb.  [Aug. 

therefore,  bring  to  our  subject  any  of 
those  vivid  reminiscences,  anecdotes, 
or  details  which  personal  acquaintance 
supplies.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
have  no  bias  whatever  to  contend 
against,  whether  of  a  friendly  or  hos- 
tile description,  in  respect  of  any  of 
the  literary  characters  whom  we  may 
have  occasion  to  speak  of.  Had  they 
all  lived  in  the  reign  of  good  Queen 
Anne,  they  could  not  have  been  more 
remote  from  our  personal  sympathies 
or  antipathies. 

It  is  probably  known  to  most  of 
our  readers  that  when,  shortly  after 
the  decease  of  Charles  Lamb,  his 
letters  were  given  to  the  world  with 
some  biographical  notices,  there  were 
circumstances  which  imposed  silence 
on  certain  passages  of  his  life,  and 
which  obliged  the  editor  to  withhold 
a  certain  portion  of  the  letters.  That 
sister,  in  fact,  was  still  alive  whose 
lamentable  history  was  so  intimately 
blended  with  the  career  of  Lamb,  and 
an  allusion  to  her  unfortunate  tragedy 
would  have  been  cruel  in  any  one,  and 
in  an  intimate  friend  utterly  impos- 
sible. Serjeant  Talfourd  had  no  other 
course  than  to  leave  the  gap  or  hiatus 
in  the  biography,  and  cover  it  up  and 
conceal  it  as  well  as  might  be,  from 
the  eyes  of  such  readers  as  were  not 
better  informed  from  other  sources. 
Upon  the  decease  of  that  sister,  there 
no  longer  existed  any  motive  for  this 
silence;  and,  indeed,  shortly  after 
this  event,  the  whole  narrative  was 
revealed  by  a  writer  in  the  British 
Quarterly  Review,  who  had  himself 
waited  till  then  before  he  permitted 
himself  to  disclose  it,  and  by  its  dis- 
closure do  an  act  of  justice  to  the 
moral  character  of  Lamb.  Mr  Tal- 
fourd was,  therefore,  called  upon  to 
complete  his  biographical  notice,  and 
also  the  publication  of  the  letters. 
This  he  did  in  the  two  volumes  en- 
titled Final  Memorials,  &c. 

As  a  separate  and  subsidiary  publi- 
cation became  inevitable,  and  as  pro- 
bably the  exigencies  of  the  trade  re- 
quired that  it  should  be  of  a  certain 
bulk  and  substance,  we  suppose  we 
must  rather  commiserate  Mr  Tal- 
fourd than  cast  any  blame  upon  him 
for  the  manifest  difficulty  he  has  had 
to  fill  these  two  volumes  of  Final 
Memorials.  One  of  them  would  have 
been  sufficient  for  all  that  he  had  to 


1849.]  Charles  Lamb. 

communicate,  or  that  it  was  wise  to 
add.  Many  of  the  letters  of  Lamb 
here  printed  are  such  as  he  had  very 
properly  laid  aside,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, not  because  they  trenched  upon 
too  delicate  ground,  but  because  they 
were  wholly  uninteresting.  He  had 
very  correctly  said,  in  what,  for  dis- 
tinction's sake,  we  will  call  The  Life — 
"I  have  thought  it  better  to  omit 
much  of  this  verbal  criticism,  which, 
not  very  interesting  in  itself,  is  un- 
intelligible without  a  contemporary 
reference  to  the  poems  which  are  its 
subject." — (P.  12.)  Now  we  cannot, 
of  course,  undertake  to  say  that  the 
letters  given  us  here  are  precisely 
those  which  he  speaks  of  as  being 
wisely  rejected  on  the  former  occa- 
sion, but  we  know  that  there  was  the 
same  good  reason  for  this  rejection, 
for  they  are  occupied  with  a  verbal 
criticism  utterly  uninteresting.  Surely 
what  neither  illustrates  a  man's  life, 
nor  adds  a  tittle  to  his  literary  repu- 
tation, ought  not  to  be  allowed  to 
encumber  for  ever,  as  with  a  dead 
weight,  the  collected  works  of  an 
author.  The  mischief  is,  that,  if  mate- 
rials of  this  kind  are  once  published, 
every  succeeding  editor  finds  it  in- 
cumbent on  him  to  reprint  them,  lest 
his  edition  should  be  thought  less 
perfect  than  others,  and  thus  there  is 
no  getting  rid  of  the  useless  and  bur- 
densome increment.  It  is  otherwise 
with  another  portion  of  these  two 
volumes,  the  sketches  of  the  contem- 
poraries and  friends  of  Lamb,  which 
Mr  Serjeant  Talfourd,  or  any  future 
editor,  can  either  retrench,  omit,  or 
enlarge,  at  his  option. 

In  the  next  edition  that  is  published 
of  the  works  of  Lamb,  we  hope  the 
editor  may  be  persuaded  altogether 
to  recast  his  materials.  The  bio- 
graphy should  be  kept  apart,  and  not 
interspersed  piecemeal  amongst  the 
letters.  This  is  an  arrangement,  the 
most  provoking  and  irritating  to  the 
reader  that  could  have  been  devised. 
Let  us  have  all  the  biography  at  once, 
and  then  sit  down  and  enjoy  the 
letters  of  Lamb.  Why  be  incessantly 
bandied  from  the  one  to  the  other? 
Few  of  the  letters  need  any  explana- 
tion ;  if  they  do,  the  briefest  note  at 
the  head  or  at  the  foot  would  be  suffi- 
cient. Not  to  add,  that,  if  it  is  wished 
to  refer  to  any  event  in  the  biography, 


135 

one  does  not  know  where  to  look  for 
it.  And,  apropos  of  this  matter  of 
reference,  it  may  be  just  worth  men- 
tioning that  the  present  volume  is  so 
divided  into  Porte,  and  the  parts  so 
paged,  that  any  reference  to  a  passage 
by  the  number  of  the  page  is  almost 
useless.  The  numbers  recommence 
some  half-dozen  times  in  the  course 
of  the  volume ;  so  that  if  you  are 
referred  to  page  50,  you  may  find  five 
of  them — you  may  find  page  50  five 
times  over  before  you  come  to  the 
right  one.  For  which  reason  we  shall 
dispense  ourselves,  in  respect  to  this 
volume,  with  our  usual  punctuality  of 
reference,  for  the  reference  must  be 
laboriously  minute,  and  even  then 
will  impose  a  troublesome  search.  In 
the  mere  and  humble  task  of  editing, 
the  Serjeant  has  been  by  no  means 
fortunate. 

Lying  about  in  such  confusion  as 
the  fractions  of  the  biography  do  at 
present,  we  shall  perhaps  be  rendering 
a  slight  service  if  we  bring  together 
from  the  two  different  publications 
the  leading  events  of  the  life  of  Lamb. 

"  Charles  Lamb,"  says  the  'first 
publication,  "  was  born  on  the  18th 
February  1775,  in  Crown-office  Row, 
in  the  Inner  Temple,  where  he  spent 
the  first  seven  years  of  his  life."  At 
the  age  of  seven  he  was  presented  to 
the  school  of  Christ's  Hospital,  and 
there  remained  till  his  fifteenth  year. 
His  sweetness  of  disposition  rendered 
him  a  general  favourite.  From  one 
of  his  schoolfellows  we  have  the  fol- 
lowing account  of  him : — "  Lamb," 
says  Mr  Le  Grice,  "  was  an  amiable, 
gentle  boy,  very  sensible,  and  keenly 
observing,  indulged  by  his  school- 
fellows and  by  his  master,  on  account 
of  his  infirmity  of  speech.  His  coun- 
tenance was  mild;  his  complexion 
clear  brown,  with  an  expression  which 
might  lead  yon  to  think  that  he  was  of 
Jewish  descent.  His  eyes  were  not 
each  of  the  same  colour — one  was 
hazel,  the  other  had  specks  of  gray 
in  the  iris,  mingled  as  we  see  red 
spots  in  the  bloodstone.  His  step  was 
plantigrade,  (Mr  Le  Grice  must  be  a 
zoologist — Lamb  would  have  smiled 
to  hear  himself  so  scientifically  de- 
scribed,) which  made  his  walk  slow 
and  peculiar,  adding  to  the  staid  ap- 
pearance of  his  figure.  I  never  heard 
his  name  mentioned  without  the 


136 


Charles  Lamb. 


[Aug. 


addition  of  Charles,  although,  as  there 
was  no  other  boy  of  the  name  of 
Lamb,  the  addition  was  unnecessary ; 
but  there  was  an  implied  kindness  in 
it,  and  it  was  a  proof  that  his  gentle 
manner  excited  that  kindness."  Mr 
Le  Grice  adds  that,  in  the  sketch  Lamb 
gave  in  his  Recollections  of  Chrisfs 
Hospital,  he  drew  a  faithful  portrait  of 
himself.  "  While  others  were  all  fire 
and  play,  he  stole  along  with  all  the 
self- concentration  of  a  young  monk." 
He  had,  in  fact,  only  passed  from 
cloister  to  cloister,  and,  during  the 
holidays,  it  was  in  the  Temple  that  he 
found  his  home  and  his  only  place  of 
recreation.  This  cloistering-in  of  his 
mind  was  the  early  and  constant 
peculiarity  of  his  life.  He  would  have 
made  an  excellent  monk ;  in  those 
good  old  times,  be  it  understood,  when 
it  was  thought  no  great  scandal  if 
there  was  a  well-supplied  cellarage 
underneath  the  cloister. 

After  quitting  Christ's  Hospital,  he 
was  employed  for  some  time  in  the 
South  Sea  House,  but  on  the  5th  April 
1792  obtained  that  appointment  in  the 
accountant's  office  in  the  East  India 
Company  which  was  his  stay  and 
support,  in  more  senses  than  one, 
through  life. 

A  little  anecdote  is  here  introduced, 
which  strikes  us  as  very  characteristic. 
It  reveals  the  humorist,  ready  to 
appreciate  and  promote  a  jest  even  at 
his  own  expense,  and  at  the  easy 
sacrifice  of  his  own  dignity  or  self- 
respect  :  but  it  reveals  something 
more  and  sadder ;  it  seems  to  betray  a 
broken,  melancholy  spirit,  that  was  no 
longer  disposed  to  contend  for  its  claim 
to  respect  from  others.  "  In  the  first 
year  of  his  clerkship,"  says  Mr  Le 
Grice,  "  Lamb  spent  the  evening  of 
the  5th  November  with  some  of  his 
former  schoolfellows,  who,  being 
amused  with  the  particularly  large  and 
flapping  brim  of  his  round  hat,  pinned 
it  up  on  the  sides  in  the  form  of  a 
cocked  hat.  Lamb  made  no  alteration 
in  it,  but  walked  home  in  his  usual 
sauntering  gait  towards  the  Temple. 
As  he  was  going  down  Ludgate  Hill, 
some  gay  young  men,  who  seemed 
not  to  have  passed  the  London  Tavern 
without  resting,  exclaimed,  '  The 
veritable  Guy! — no  man  of  straw!' 
and  with  this  exclamation  they  took 
him  up,  making  a  chair  with  their 


arms,  carried  him,  seated  him  on  a 
post  in  St  Paul's  Churchyard,  and 
there  left  him.  This  story  Lamb  told 
so  seriously,  that  the  truth  of  it  was 
never  doubted.  He  wore  his  three- 
cornered  hat  many  evenings,  and  re- 
tained the  name  of  Guy  ever  after. 
Like  Nym,  he  quietly  sympathised  in 
the  fun,  and  seemed  to  say  '  that  was 
the  humour  of  it.' "  Some  one  may 
suggest  that  probably  Lamb  was  him- 
self in  the  same  condition,  on  this  5th 
of  November,  as  the  young  men  "  who 
had  not  passed  the  London  Tavern 
without  resting,"  and  that  therefore  all 
peculiar  significance  of  the  anecdote, 
as  it  bears  upon  his  character  and  dis- 
position, is  entirely  lost.  But  Lamb 
relates  the  story  himself,  and  after- 
wards, and  when  there  is  no;  question 
of  sobriety,  quietly  acquiesces  and 
participates  in  the  absurd  joke  played 
upon  himself. 

At  this  time  his  most  constant  com- 
panion was  one  Jem  White,  who  wrote 
some  imaginary  "  Letters  of  John 
Falstaff."  These  letters  Lamb  went 
about  all  his  life  praising,  and  causing 
others  to  praise,  but  seems  never  to 
have  found  any  one  to  share  his 
admiration.  As  even  Mr  Talfourd 
has  not  a  good  word  to  throw  away 
upon  the  literary  merits  of  Jem  White, 
we  may  safely  conclude  that  Lamb's 
friendship  had  in  this  instance  quite 
overruled  his  critical  judgment. 

But  the  associate  and  friend  who 
really  exercised  a  permanent  and 
formative  influence  upon  his  mind, 
was  a  man  of  a  very  different  stamp 
— Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge.  They 
had  been  schoolfellows  at  Christ's 
Hospital,  and,  though  no  particular 
intimacy  existed  at  that  time,  the 
circumstance  formed  a  foundation  for 
a  future  friendship.  "  While  Cole- 
ridge," writes  Mr  Talfourd,  "remain- 
ed at  the  university,  they  met  occa- 
sionally on  his  visits  to  London ;  and 
when  he  quitted  it  and  came  to  town, 
full  of  mantling  hopes  and  glorious 
schemes,  Lamb  became  his  admiring 
disciple.  The  scene  of  these  happy 
meetings  was  a  little  public-house, 
called  the  Salutation  and  Cat,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Smithfield,  where 
they  used  to  sup,  and  remain  long 
after  they  had  '  heard  the  chimes  at 
midnight.' " 

These  suppers  at  the  Salutation  and 


1849.] 


Charles  Lamb. 


137 


Cat,  in  Smithfield,  seein  to  cany  back 
the  imagination  far  beyond  the  period 
here  alluded  to ;  they  seem  to  trans- 
port us  to  the  times  of  Oliver  Gold- 
smith, or  to  take  us  across  the  water 
into  Germany,  where  poetry  and 
philosophy  may  still  occasionally  find 
refuge  in  the  beer-shop.  They  were 
always  remembered  by  Lamb  as  the 
brightest  spots  of  his  life.  "  I  think 
I  hear  you  again,"  he  says,  writing  to 
Coleridge.  "  I  imagine  to  myself  the 
little  smoky  room  at  the  Salutation 
and  Cat,  where  we  sat  together  through 
the  winter  nights,  beguiling  the  cares 
of  life  with  poetry."  And  in  another 
place  he  alludes  to  "  those  old  suppers 
at  our  old  inn — when  life  was  fresh 
and  topics  exhaustless — and  you  first 
kindled  in  me,  if  not  the  power,  yet 
the  love  of  poetry,  and  beauty,  and 
kindliness."  It  was  in  these  inter- 
views that  the  project  was  started,  we 
believe,  of  publishing  a  volume  of 
poems,  the  joint  production  of  the  two 
friends. 

But  this  pleasing  project,  and  all 
the  poetry  of  life,  was  for  a  time  to 
give  place,  in  the  history  of  Lamb,  to 
a  domestic  tragedy  of  the  most  afflict- 
ing nature.  It  is  here  that  the  Final 
Memorials  take  up  the  thread  of  the 
biography.  It  was  on  the  22d 
September  1796,  that  the  terrible 
event  took  place  which  cast  so  per- 
petual a  shade,  and  reflected  also  so 
constant  an  honour,  on  the  life  of 
Lamb.  He  was  living  at  this  time 
with  his  father,  mother,  and  sister, 
in  lodgings  in  Little  Queen  Street, 
Holborn.  After  being  engaged  in  his 
taskwork  at  the  India  House,  he 
returned  in  the  evening  to  amuse  his 
father  by  playing  cribbage.  The  old 
man  had  sunk  into  dotage  and  the 
miserable  selfishness  that  so  often 
attends  on  old  age.  If  his  son  wished 
to  discontinue  for  a  time  the  game  at 
cribbage,  and  turn  to  some  other 
avocation,  or  the  writing  of  a  letter, 
he  would  pettishly  exclaim, — "If  you 
don't  play  cribbage,  I  don't  see  the  use 
of  your  coming  home  at  all."  The 
mother  also  was  an  invalid,  and  Miss 
Lamb,  we  are  told,  was  worn  down 
to  a  state  of  extreme  nervous  misery, 
by  attention  to  needlework  by  day, 
and  to  her  mother  by  night,  until  the 
insanity  which  had  been  manifested 
more  than  once  broke  out  into  frenzy. 


"  It  appeared,"  says  the  account  ex- 
tracted from  the  Times,  (an  account 
of  the  inquest,  in  which  the  names  of 
the  parties  are  suppressed,)  "  that 
while  the  family  were  preparing  for 
dinner,  the  young  lady  seized  a  case- 
knife  lying  on  the  table,  and  in  a 
menacing  manner  pursued  a  little  girl, 
her  apprentice,  round  the  room.  On 
the  calls  of  her  infirm  mother  to  for- 
bear, she  renounced  her  first  object, 
and  with  loud  shrieks  approached  her 
parent.  The  child  by  her  cries  quickly 
brought  up  the  landlord  of  the  house, 
but  too  late.  The  dreadful  scene  pre- 
sented to  him  the  mother  lifeless, 
pierced  to  the  heart,  on  a  chair,  her 
daughter  yet  wildly  standing  over  her 
with  the  fatal  knife,  and  the  old  man, 
her  father,  weeping  by  her  side,  him- 
self bleeding  at  the  forehead  from  the 
effects  of  a  severe  -blow  he  received 
from  one  of  the  forks  she  had  been 
madly  hurling  about  the  room." 

The  following  is  the  letter  which 
Lamb  wrote  to  Coleridge  shortly  after 
the  event.  From  this  it  appears  that 
it  was  he,  and  not  the  landlord,  who 
took  the  knife  from  the  hand  Of  the 
lunatic. 

"  MY  DEAREST  FRIEND, — White, 
or  some  of  my  friends,  or  the  public 
papers,  by  this  time  may  have  in- 
formed you  of  the  terrible  calamities 
that  have  fallen  on  our  family.  I 
will  only  give  you  the  outlines.  My 
poor,  dear,  dearest  sister,  in  a  fit  of 
insanity,  has  been  the  death  of  her 
own  mother.  I  was  at  hand  only 
time  enough  to  snatch  the  knife  out 
of  her  grasp.  She  is  at  present  in  a 
madhouse,  from  whence  I  fear  she 
must  be  removed  to  an  hospital.  God 
has  preserved  to  me  my  senses.  I 
eat,  and  drink,  and  sleep,  and  have 
my  judgment,  I  believe,  very  sound. 
My  poor  father  was  slightly  wounded, 
and  I  am  left  to  take  care  of  him  and 
my  aunt.  Mr  Norris  of  the  Blue- coat 
School  has  been  very  kind  to  us,  and 
we  have  no  other  friend ;  but,  thank 
God,  I  am  veiy  calm  and  composed, 
and  able  to  do  the  best  that  remains  to 
do.  Write  as  religious  a  letter  as 
possible,  but  no  mention  of  what  is 
gone  and  done  with.  With  me  '  the 
former  things  are  passed  away,'  and  I 
have  something  more  to  do  than  to  feel. 

u  God  Almighty  have  us  all  in  his 
keeping! — C.  LAMB. 


138 


Charles  Lamb. 


[Aug. 


"  Mention  nothing  of  poetry ;  I  have 
destroyed  every  vestige  of  past  vani- 
ties of  that  kind.  Do  as  you  please ; 
but  if  you  publish,  publish  mine  (I 
give  free  leave)  without  name  or 
initial,  and  never  send  me  a  book,  I 
charge  you. 

"  Your  own  judgment  will  convince 
you  not  to  take  any  notice  of  this  yet 
to  your  dear  wife.  You  look  after 
your  family — I  have  my  reason  and 
strength  left  to  take  care  of  mine.  I 
charge  you,  don't  think  of  coming  to 
see  me — write.  I  will  not  see  you  if 
you  come.  God  Almighty  love  you, 
and  all  of  us." — C.  LAMB." 

Miss  Lamb  was  of  course  placed  in 
an  asylum,  where,  however,  she  was 
in  a  short  time  restored  to  reason. 
And  now  occurred  the  act  of  life-long 
heroism  on  the  part  of  the  brother. 
As  soon  as  she  was  recovered,  he 
petitioned  the  authorities  to  resign 
her  to  his  care ;  he  pledged  himself  to 
be  her  guardian,  her  provider,  her 
keeper,  for  all  her  dajrs  to  come.  He 
was  at  that  time  paying  his  addresses 
to  a  young  lady,  with  what  hopes,  or 
with  what  degree  of  ardour,  we  are 
not  informed.  But  marriage  with 
her,  or  with  any  other,  was  now  to 
be  entirely  renounced.  He  devoted 
his  life,  and  all  his  love,  to  his  un- 
happy sister,  and  to  the  last  he  ful- 
filled the  obligation  he  had  taken  upon 
himself  without  a  murmur,  and  with- 
out the  least  diminution  of  affection 
towards  the  object  of  it. 

We  have  called  it  an  act  of  heroism ; 
we  applaud  it,  and  rejoice  that  it 
stands  upon  record  a  complete  and 
accomplished  act.  There  it  stands, 
not  only  to  relieve  the  character  of 
Lamb  from  such  littleness  as  it  may 
have  contracted  from  certain  habits  of 
intemperance,  (of  which  perhaps  more 
has  been  said  than  was  necessary;) 
but  it  remains  there  as  an  enduring 
memorial,  prompting,  to  all  time,  to 
the  like  acts  of  self- denying  kindness, 
and  unshaken  generosity  of  purpose. 
But,  admiring  the  act  as  we  do,  we 
must  still  be  permitted  to  observe, 
that  there  was  a  degree  of  impru- 
dence in  it  which  fully  justified  other 
members  of  the  family  in  their  endea- 
vours to  dissuade  Lamb  from  his  reso- 
lution, and  which  would  have  justified 


the  authorities  (whoever  they  were — 
and  about  this  matter  there  seems  a 
singular  obscurity,  and  a  suspicion  is 
created  that  even  in  proceedings  of 
this  nature  much  is  done  carelessly, 
informally,  uncertainly)  in  refusing  to 
accede  to  his  request.  Miss  Lamb 
had  several  relapses  into  temporary 
derangement ;  and,  although  she  never 
committed,  as  far  as  we  are  informed, 
any  acts  of  violence,  this  calmness  of 
behaviour,  in  her  seasons  of  mental 
aberration,  could  not  have  been  cal- 
culated on.  We  confess  we  should 
have  shrunk  from  the  responsibility 
of  advising  the  generous  but  perilous 
course  which  was  adopted  with  so 
fortunate  a  result. 

How  sad  and  fearful  a  charge 
Lamb  had  entailed  upon  himself,  let 
the  following  extract  suffice  to  show. 
The  subject  is  too  painful  to  be  longer 
dwelt  upon  than  is  necessary.  "  The 
constant  impendency  of  this  great 
sorrow  saddened  to  '  the  Lambs'  even 
their  holidays,  as  the  journey  which 
they  both  regarded  as  the  relief  and 
charm  of  the  year  was  frequently  fol- 
lowed by  a  seizure;  and,  when  they 
ventured  to  take  it,  a  strait-waistcoat, 
carefully  packed  up  by  Miss  Lamb  her- 
self, was  their  constant  companion. 
Sad  experience  at  last  induced  the 
abandonment  of  the  annual  excur- 
sion, and  Lamb  was  contented  with 
walks  in  and  near  London  during  the 
interval  of  labour.  Miss  Lamb  expe- 
rienced, and  full  well  understood,  pre- 
monitory symptoms  of  the  attack,  in, 
restlessness,  low  fever,  and  the  inabi- 
lity to  sleep ;  and,  as  gently  as  pos- 
sible, prepared  her  brother  for  the 
duty  he  must  soon  perform ;  and  thus, 
unless  he  could  stave  off  the  terrible 
separation  till  Sunday,  obliged  him  to 
ask  leave  of  absence  from  the  office  as 
if  for  a  day's  pleasure — a  bitter 
mockery !  On  one  occasion  Mr 
Charles  Lloyd  met  them  slowly 
pacing  together  a  little  footpath  in. 
Haxton  Fields,  both  weeping  bitterly, 
and  found,  on  joining  them,  that  they 
were  taking  their  solemn  way  to  the 
accustomed  asylum!"* 

It  seems  that  a  tendency  to  lunacy 
was  hereditary  in  the  family,  and 
Charles  Lamb  himself  had  been  for  a 
short  period  deprived  of  his  reason. 


*  Final  Memorials,  vol.  ii.,  p.  212. 


1849.] 


Charles  Lamb. 


On  this  subject  Mr  Talfourd  makes 
the  following  excellent  remark : — 
"  The  wonder  is,  that,  amidst  all  the 
difficulties,  the  sorrows,  and  the  ex- 
citements of  his  succeeding  forty 
years,  the  malady  never  recurred. 
Perhaps  the  true  cause  of  this  remark- 
able exemption — an  exemption  the 
more  remarkable  when  his  afflictions 
are  considered  in  association  with  one 
single  frailty — will  be  found  in  the 
sudden  claim  made  on  his  moral  and 
intellectual  nature  by  a  terrible  exi- 
gency, and  by  his  generous  answer  to 
that  claim  ;  so  that  a  life  of  self-sacri- 
fice was  rewarded  by  the  preservation 
of  unclouded  reason." 

We  will  not  weaken  so  admirable  a 
remark  by  repeating  it  in  a  worse 
phraseology  of  our  own.  We  wish 
the  Serjeant  always  wrote  in  the 
same  clear,  forcible,  and  unaffected 
manner.  With  respect  to  this  seizure 
which  Lamb,  in  an  early  part  of  his 
life,  had  experienced,  there  is  a  refe- 
rence in  one  of  his  letters  too  cu- 
rious to  pass  unnoticed.  Writing  to 
Coleridge,  he  says — "  At  some  future 
time  I  will  amuse  you  with  an  ac- 
count, as  full  as  my  memory  will  per- 
mit, of  the  strange  turns  my  frenzy 
took.  I  look  back  upon  it  at  times 
with  a  gloomy  kind  of  envy,  for, 
while  it  lasted,  I  had  many,  many  hours 
of  pure  happiness.  Dream  not,  Cole- 
ridge, of  having  tasted  all  the  gran- 
deur and  wildness  of  fancy  till  you 
have  gone  mad!  All  now  seems  to 
me  vapid,  or  comparatively  so." 

The  residue  of  Lamb's  life  is  un- 
eventful. The  publication  of  a  book 
— a  journey  into  Cumberland — his 
final  liberation  from  office,  are  the 
chief  incidents.  These  it  is  not  ne- 
cessary to  arrange  in  chronological 
order :  they  can  be  alluded  to  as  occa- 
sion requires.  But  we  will  pursue  a 
little  further  our  notice  of  Mr  Tal- 
fourd's  biographical  labours,  that  we 
may  clear  our  way  as  we  proceed. 

We  have  seen  that  Lamb,  in  the 
first  agony  of  his  grief,  rudely  threw 
aside  his  poetry,  and  his  scheme  of 
publishing  conjointly  with  Coleridge. 
Poetry  and  schemes  of  publication 
are  not,  however,  so  easily  dismissed. 
As  his  mind  subsided  into  a  calmer 
state,  they  were  .naturally  resumed. 
The  literary  partnership  was  ex- 
tended, and  Lloyd  was  admitted  to 


associate  his  labours  in  the  forthcom- 
ing volume.  "  At  length,"  says  Mr 
Talfourd,  "  the  small  volume  con- 
taining the  poems  of  Coleridge,  Lloyd, 
and  Lamb,  was  published  by  Mr 
Cottle  at  Bristol.  It  excited  little 
attention."  We  do  not  wonder  at 
this,  if  the  lucubrations  of  Mr  Lloyd 
had  any  conspicuous  place  in  the  vo- 
lume. How  the  other  two  poets — how 
Coleridge  especially,  could  have  con- 
sented to  this  literary  partnership,  with 
so  singularly  inept  and  absurd  a  writer, 
would  be  past  explaining,  if  it  were 
not  for  some  hint  that  we  receive  that 
Charles  Lloyd  was  the  son  of  a  wealthy 
banker,  and  might,  therefore,  be  the 
fittest  person  to  transact  that  part  of 
the  business  which  occurs  between  the 
author  and  the  publisher.  Here  we 
have  a  striking  instance  of  Mr  Tal- 
fourd's.  misplaced  amiability  of  criti- 
cism. "  Lloyd,"  he  says,  "  wrote 
pleasing  verses,  and  with  great  facility 
— a  facility  fatal  to  excellence;  but 
his  mind  was  chiefly  remarkable  for 
the  fine  power  of  analysis  which  dis- 
tinguishes his  '  London,'  and  other  of 
his  later  compositions.  In  this  power 
of  discriminating  and  distinguishing — 
carried  to  a  pitch  almost  of  pain- 
fulness  —  Lloyd  has  scarcely  been 
equalled ;  and  his  poems,  though  rug- 
ged in  point  of  versification,  will  be 
found,  by  those  who  will  read  them 
with  the  calm  attention  they  require, 
replete  with  critical  and  moral  sugges- 
tions of  the  highest  value."  Very 
grateful  to  Mr  Serjeant  Talfourd  will 
any  reader  feel  who  shall  be  induced, 
by  his  recommendation,  to  peruse,  or 
attempt  to  peruse,  Mi-  Lloyd's  poem 
of  "London!"  We  were.  "Fine 
power  of  analysis !"  Why,  it  is  one 
stream  of  mud — of  theologic  mud. 
"  Rugged  in  point  of  versification!" 
There  is  no  trace  of  verse,  and  the 
style  is  an  outlandish  garb,  such  as 
no  man  has  ever  seen  elsewhere, 
either  in  prose  or  verse.  Poor  Lloyd 
was  a  lunatic  patient ! — on  him  no  one 
would  be  severe  ;  but  why  should  an 
intelligent  Serjeant,  unless  prompted 
by  a  sly  malice  against  all  mankind, 
persuade  us  to  read  his  execrable 
stuff?  The  following  is  a  fair  speci- 
men of  the  drug,  and  is,  indeed,  taken 
as  the  book  opened.  We  add  the  two 
last  lines  of  the  preceding  stanza,  to 
give  all  possible  help  to  the  elucida- 


140 


Charles  Lamb. 


[Aug. 


tion  of  the  one  we  quote.    The  italics 
are  all  Mr  Lloyd's  : — 

"  If  you  affirm  (/race  irresistible, 
You  must  deny  all  liberty  of  will. 

142. 

"  But  you  reply,  grace  irresistible 

Our  creed  admits  not.    I  am  sorry  for't. 

Enough,  or  not  enough,  to  bind  the  free  will, 
Grace  must  be.     Not  enough  ?     The  dose 
falls  short. 

This  is  of  cause  the  prime  condition  still 
That  it  be  operative.     Yet  divines  exhort 

Us  to  deem  grace  sole  source  of  all  salvation, 

And  if  we're  damned,  blame  but  its  applica- 
tion." 

But  divinity  of  this  kind,  it  may  be 
said,  though  well  calculated  to  display 
''  the  power  of  discriminating  and  dis- 
tinguishing, carried  to  a  pitch  almost 
of  painfulness,"  is  not  exactly  favour- 
able to  flowing  verse.  Here  is  a  spe- 
cimen where  a  lady  is  the  subject, 
and  the  verse  should  be  smooth  then, 
if  ever. 

"  I  well  remember  her  years,  five-and-twenty, 
(Ah  !  now  my  muse  is  got  into  a  gallop,) 

Longer  perhaps  !    But  time  sufficient,  plenty 
Of  treasured  offices  of  love  to  call  up. 

She  was  then,  as  I  recollect,  quite  dainty, 
And  delicate,  and  seemed  a  fair  envelope 

Of  virgin  sweetness  and  angelic  goodness  ; 

That  fate  should  treat  her  with  such  reckless 
rudeness  !  " 

The  poor  man  seems  to  have  had 
not  the  least  appreciation  of  the 
power  of  language,  so  as  to  distin- 
guish between  the  ludicrous  and  the 
pathetic.  He  must  have  read  "  Hu- 
dibras "  with  tears,  not  of  laughter, 
in  his  eyes,  and  hence  drawn  his 
notion  of  tenderness  of  diction  as  well 
as  harmony  of  verse.  The  most  sur- 
prising thing  about  Lloyd  is,  that 
such  a  man  should  have  chosen  for 
his  literary  task  to  translate — Alfieri ! 
And  although  he  has  performed  the 
task  very  far  from  well,  he  has  accom- 
plished it  in  a  manner  that  could  not 
have  been  anticipated  from  his  origi- 
nal compositions. 

After  this  specimen  of  Mr  Talfourd's 
laudatory  criticism,  we  need  not  be 
astonished  at  any  amount  of  eulogy 
he  bestows  on  such  names  as  Hazlitt 
and  others,  which  really  have  a  cer- 
tain claim  on  the  respect  of  all  men. 
And  yet,  even  after  this,  we  felt 
some  slight  surprise  at  hearing  Mr 
Talfourd  speak  of  "  the  splendid  repu- 
tation "  of  Mr  Harrison  Ainsworth  ! 


Would  Mr  Talfourd  have  such  a  reputa- 
tion, if  it  were  offered  him?  Would  he 
not  rather  have  remained  in  complete 
obscurity  than  be  distinguished  by  such 
"splendours"  as  the  authorship  of 
Jack  Sheppard  would  have  invested 
him  with  ?  Why  should  he  throw  about 
this  indiscriminate  praise,  and  make 
his  good  word  of  no  possible  value  ? 
Splendid  reputation  !  Can  trash  be 
anything  but  trash,  because  a  multi- 
tude of -the  idle  and  the  ignorantr 
whom  it  exactly  suits,  read  and  ad- 
mire ?  By-and-by  they  grow  ashamed 
of  their  idol,  when  they  find  they  have 
him  all  to  themselves,  and  that  sens- 
ible people  are  smiling  at  their  enthu- 
siasm ;  they  then  discard  him  for 
some  new,  untried,  and  unconvicted 
favourite.  Such  is  the  natural  history 
of  these  splendid  reputations. 

The  second  volume  of  the  "  Final 
Memorials "  is  in  great  part  occu- 
pied with  sketches  of  the  literary 
friends  and  companions  of  Lamb, 
These  Mr  Talfourd  introduces  by  a 
somewhat  bold  parallel  between  the 
banquets  at  the  lordly  halls  of  Holland 
House  and  the  suppers  in  the  dark  and 
elevated  chambers  in  the  Inner  Tem- 
ple, whither  Lamb  had  removed. 
We  are  by  no  means  scandalised  at 
such  a  comparison.  Wit  may  flow, 
and  wisdom  too,  as  freely  in  the  gar- 
ret as  in  the  saloon.  To  cat  off  plate, 
to  be  served  assiduously  by  liveried 
attendants,  may  not  give  any  more 
real  zest  to  colloquial  pleasure,  to 
good  hearty  talking,  than  to  attack 
without  ceremony  "  the  cold  beef 
flanked  with  heaps  of  smoking  pota- 
toes, which  Becky  has  just  brought 
in."  Nor  do  we  know  that  claret  in 
the  flagon  of  beautifully  cut  glass, 
may  be  a  more  potent  inspiration  of 
wit  than  "  the  foaming  pots  of  porter 
from  the  best  tap  in  Fleet  Street." 
We  are  not  at  all  astonished  that  such 
a  parallel  should  be  drawn ;  what  sur- 
prises us  is,  that,  being  in  the  humour 
to  draw  such  comparisons,  the  Ser- 
geant could  find  only  one  place  in  all 
London  which  could  be  brought  into 
this  species  of  contrast,  and  of  rivalry, 
with  Holland  House.  "  Two  circles 
of  rare  social  enjoyment,  differing  as 
widely  as  possible  in  all  external  cir- 
cumstances— but  each  superior  in  its, 
kind  to  all  others,  were  at  the  same  time 
generously  opened  to  men  of  lettersJ' 


1849.] 


Charles  Lamb. 


141 


We,  whohave been  admitted  toneither, 
have  perhaps  no  right  to  an  opinion  ; 
but,  judging  by  the  bill  of  fare  pre- 
sented to  tis,  we  shrewdly  suspect 
there  were  very  many  circles  where 
we  should  have  preferred  the  intellec- 
tual repast  to  that  set  out  in  Inner 
Temple  Lane.  We  doubt  not  the 
Serjeant  himself  has  assembled  round 
his  own  table  a  society  that  we  should 
greatly  more  have  coveted  the  plea- 
sure of  joining.  We  have  the  name 
of  Godwin,  it  is  true,  but  Godwin 
never  opened  his  mouth; — played  whist 
all  the  evening.  Had  he  not  written 
his  book  ?  why  should  he  talk  ?  We 
have  Hazlitt, — but  by  all  accounts  he 
•was  rarely  in  a  tolerable  humour, 
perpetually  raving,  with  admirable 
consistency,  in  praise  of  republics  and 
Buonaparte.  Coleridge  was  too  rarely 
a  visitor  to  be  counted  in  the  list ;  and 
certain  we  are  that  we  should  have  no 
delight  in  hearing  Charles  Lloyd 
"  reason  of  fate,  free-will,  foreknow- 
ledge absolute,"  to  Leigh  Hunt. 
Some  actors  are  named,  of  whose 
conversational  powers  we  know  no- 
thing, and  presume  nothing  very  ex- 
traordinary. Lamb's  "  burly  jovial 
brother,  the  Ajax  Telamon  of  clerks," 
and  a  Captain  Burney,  of  whom  we 
are  elsewhere  told  that  he  liked 
Shakspeare  "because  he  was  so 
much  of  a  gentleman,"  promise  little 
on  the  score  of  intellectual  conversa- 
tion ;  neither  should  we  be  particu- 
larly anxious  to  sit  opposite  a  certain 
M.  B.,  of  whom  Lamb  said,  "  M.,  if 
dirt  were  trumps,  what  hands  you 
would  hold ! " 

After  this  singular  parallel,  we  are 
shown  round  a  gallery  of  portraits. 
First  we  have  George  Dyer,  who  ap- 
pears to  be  the  counterpart  of  our  old 
friend  Dominie  Sampson.  But,  in- 
deed, we  hold  George  Dyer  to  be  a 
sort  of  myth,  a  fabulous  person,  the 
creation  of  Charles  Lamb's  imagina- 
tion, and  imposed  as  a  reality  on  his 
friends.  Such  an  absurdity  as  he  is 
here  represented  to  be  could  not  have 
been  bred,  could  not  have  existed,  in 
these  times,  and  in  London.  If  we 
are  to  credit  the  stories  told  of  him, 
his  walking  in  broad  day  into  the 
canal  at  Islington  was  one  of  the 
wisest  things  he  did,  or  could  possibly 
have  done.  Lamb  tells  him,  in  the 
strictest  confidence,  that  the  "  Wa- 


verley  Novels"  are  the  works  of 
Lord  Castlereagh,  just  returned  from 
the  Congress  of  Sovereigns  at  Vienna ! 
Off  he  runs,  nor  stops  till  he  reaches 
Maida  Hill,  where  he  deposits  his 
news  in  the  ears  of  Leigh  Hunt,  who, 
"  as  a  public  man,"  he  thinks  ought 
to  be  possessed  of  the  great  fact.  At 
another  time  Lamb  gravely  inquires 
of  him,  "  Whether  it  was  true,  as  was 
commonly  reported,  that  he  Avas  to  be 
made  a  lord  ?"  "  Oh  dear,  no  !  Mi- 
Lamb,"  he  responds  with  great  ear- 
nestness, "  I  could  not  think  of  such  a 
thing :  it  is  not  true,  I  assure  you." 
"  I  thought  not,"  replies  the  wit, 
"  and  I  contradict  it  wherever  I  go  ; 
but  the  government  will  not  ask  your 
consent — they  may  raise  you  to  the 
peerage  without  your  even  knowing 
it."  "  I  hope  not,  Mr  Lamb  ;  indeed, 
indeed,  I  hope  not ;  it  would  not  suit 
me  at  all,"  repeats  our  modern  Do- 
minie, and  goes  away  musing  on  the 
possibility  of  strange  honours  descend- 
ing, whether  he  will  or  not,  upon  his 
brow.  It  goes  to  our  heart  to  disturb 
a  good  story,  but  such  a  man  as  the 
George  Dyer  here  represented  never 
could  have  existed. 

We  have  rather  a  long  account  of 
Godwin,  with  some  remarks  not  very 
satisfactory  upon  his  intellectual  char- 
acter. That  Mr  Godwin  was  taciturn, 
that  he  conversed,  when  he  did  talk, 
upon  trivial  subjects,  and  in  a  small 
precise  manner,  and  that  he  was  espe- 
cially fond  of  sleeping  after  dinner — 
all  this  we  can  easily  understand.  Mi- 
Godwin's  mental  activity  was  absorbed 
in  his  authorship,  and  he  was  a  very 
voluminous  author.  But  we  cannot 
so  easily  understand  Mr  Talfourd's 
explanations,  nor  why  these  habits 
should  have  any  peculiar  connexion 
with  the  intellectual  qualities  of  the 
author  of  Caleb  Williams,  and  a  host 
of  novels,  as  well  as  of  the  Political 
Justice,  of  the  Life  of  Chaucer,  and  the 
History  of  the  Commonwealth.  Sucli 
habits  are  rather  the  result  of  a  man's 
temperament,  and  the  manner  of  life 
which  circumstances  have  thrown  him 
into,  than  of  his  intellectual  powers. 
Profound  metaphysicians  have  been 
very  vivacious  talkers,  and  light  and 
humorous  writers  very  taciturn  men. 
Mr  Talfourd  finds  that  Godwin  had 
no  imagination,  was  all  abstract 
reason,  and  thus  accounts  for  his 


142 


Charles  Lamb. 


[Aug. 


having  no  desire  to  address  Ms  fellow- 
men  but  through  the  press.  The  pas- 
sage is  too  long  to  quote,  and  would 
be  very  tedious.  We  must  leave  him 
in  quiet  possession  of  his  own  theory 
of  the  matter. 

It  was  new  to  us,  and  may  be  to 
our  readers,  to  hear  that  Godwin 
supported  himself  "by  a  shop  in 
Skinner  Street,  where,  under  the 
auspices  of  '  Mr  J.  Godwin  &  Co.,' 
the  prettiest  and  wisest  books  for 
children  issued,  which  old-fashioned 
parents  presented  to  their  children, 
without  suspecting  that  the  graceful 
lessons  of  piety  and  goodness  which 
charmed  away  the  selfishness  of 
infancy,  were  published,  and  some- 
times revised,  and  now  and  then 
written,  by  a  philosopher  whom  they 
would  scarcely  venture  to  name ! " 
We  admire  the  good  sense  which 
induced  him  to  adhere  to  so  humble 
an  occupation,  if  he  found  it  needful 
for  his  support.  But  what  follows  is 
not  quite  so  admirable.  He  was  a 
great  borrower ;  or,  in  the  phrase  of 
Mr  Talfourd,  "  he  met  the  exigencies 
of  business  with  the  trusting  simplicity 
which  marked  his  course ;  he  asked 
his  friends  for  aid  without  scruple, 
considering  that  their  means  were 
justly  the  due  of  one  who  toiled  in 
thought  for  their  inward  life,  and  had 
little  time  to  provide  for  his  own  out- 
ward existence,  and  took  their  ex- 
cuses when  offered  without  doubt  or 
offence."  And  then  the  Serjeant  pro- 
ceeds to  relate,  in  a  tone  of  the  most 
touching  simplicity,  his  own  personal 
experience  upon  this  matter.  "  The 
very  next  day  after  I  had  been 
honoured  and  delighted  by  an  intro- 
duction to  him  at  Lamb's  chambers,  I 
was  made  still  more  proud  and  happy 
by  his  appearance  at  my  own  on  such 
an  errand,  which  my  poverty,  not  my 
will,  rendered  abortive.  After  some 
pleasant  chat  on  indifferent  matters, 
he  carelessly  observed  that  he  had  a 
little  bill  for  £150  falling  due  on  the 
morrow,  which  he  had  forgotten  till 
that  morning,  and  desired  the  loan  of 
the  necessary  amount  for  a  few  weeks. 
At  first,  in  eager  hopes  of  being  able 
thus  to  oblige  one  whom  I  regarded 
with  admiration  akin  to  awe,  I  began 
to  consider  whether  it  was  possible 
for  me  to  raise  such  a  sum  ;  but,  alas ! 
a  moment's  reflection  sufficed  to  con- 


vince me  that  the  hope  was  vain,  and 
I  was  obliged,  with  much  confusion, 
to  assure  my  distinguished  visitor 
how  glad  I  should  have  been  to  serve 
him,  but  that  I  was  only  just  starting 
as  a  special  pleader,  was  obliged  to 
write  for .  magazines  to  help  me  on, 
and  had  not  such  a  sum  in  the  world. 
'Oh  dear!'  said  the  philosopher,  'I 
thought  you  were  a  young  gentleman, 
of  fortune — don't  mention  it,  don't 
mention  it — I  shall  do  very  well  else- 
where ! '  And  then,  in  the  most  gra- 
cious manner,  reverted  to  our  former 
topics,  and  sat  in  my  small  room  for 
half-an-hour,  as  if  to  convince  me 
that  my  want  of  fortune  made  no  dif- 
ference in  his  esteem."  How  very 
gracious !  The  most  shameless  bor- 
rower coming  to  raise  money  from  a 
young  gentleman  of  fortune,  to  meet 
"  a  little  bill  which  he  had  forgotten, 
till  that  morning,"  would  hardly,  on 
finding  his  mistake,  have  made  an 
abrupt  departure.  He  would  have 
coolly  beat  a  retreat,  as  the  philosopher 
did.  We  never  hear,  by  the  way, 
that  he  returned  "  to  my  small  room" 
at  any  other  time,  for  half- an- hour's 
chat.  But  how  very  interesting  it  is 
to  see  the  learned  Serjeant,  whose 
briefs  have  made  him  acquainted  with 
every  trick  and  turn  of  commercial 
craft,  retaining  this  sweet  and  pristine 
simplicity ! 

The  Serjeant,  however,  has  a  style 
of  narrative  which,  though  on  the  sur- 
face it  displays  the  most  good-natured 
simplicity,  slyly  insinuates  to  the  more 
intelligent  reader  that  he  sees  quite  as 
far  as  another,  and  is  by  no  means 
the  dupe  of  his  own  amiability.  Thus, 
in  his  description  of  Coleridge,  (which 
would  be  too  long  a  subject  to  enter 
into  minutely,)  he  has  the  following 
passage,  (perhaps  the  best  in  the  de- 
scription,) which,  while  it  seems  to 
echo  to  the  full  the  unstinted  applause 
so  common  with  the  admirers  of  that 
singular  man,  gives  a  quiet  intimation, 
to  the  reader  that  he  was  not  alto- 
gether so  blind  as  some  of  those  ad- 
mirers. "If  his  entranced  hearers 
often  were  unable  to  perceive  the 
bearings  of  his  argument — too  mighty 
for  any  grasp  but  his  own — and  some- 
times reaching  beyond  his  own — they 
understood  '  a  beauty  in  the  words,  if 
not  the  words  ;'  and  a  wisdom  and  a 
piety  in  the  illustrations,  even  when 


1849.] 


Charles  Lamb. 


143 


unable  to  connect  them  with  the  idea 
which  he  desired  to  illustrate."  Mr 
Talfourd  reveals  here,  we  suspect,  the 
true  secret  of  the  charm  which 
Coleridge  exercised  in  conversation. 
His  hearers  never  seemed  to  have  car- 
ried away  anything  distinct  or  ser- 
viceable from  his  long  discourses. 
They  understood  "a  beauty  in  the 
words,  if  not  the  words  ;"  they  felt  a 
charm  like  that  of  listening  to  music, 
and,  when  the  voice  ceased,  there  was 
perhaps  as  little  distinct  impression 
left,  as  if  it  had  really  been  a  beautiful 
symphony  they  had  heard. 

There  is  only  one  more  in  this  gal- 
lery of  portraits  before  which  we  shall 
pause,  and  that  only  for  a  moment, 
to  present  a  last  specimen  of  the  cri- 
tical manner  of  Mr  Taifourd.  We 
are  sorry  the  last  should  not  be 
the  best ;  and  yet,  as  this  sketch  is  a 
reprint,  in  an  abridged  form,  of  an 
essay  affixed  to  the  Literary  Remains 
of  Hazlitt,  it  may  be  considered  as 
having  received  a  more  than  usual 
share  of  the  author's  attention.  It  is 
thus  that  he  analyses  the  mental  con- 
stitution of  one  whom  he  appears  to 
have  studied  and  greatly  admired — 
William  Hazlitt.  "  He  had  as  un- 
quenchable a  desire  for  truth  as  others 
have  for  wealth,  or  power,  or  fame : 
he  pursued  it  with  sturdy  singleness 
of  purpose,  and  enunciated  it  without 
favour  or  fear.  But  besides  that  love 
of  truth,  that  sincerity  in  pursuing  it, 
and  that  boldness  in  telling  it,  he  had 
also  a  fervent  aspiration  after  the  beau- 
tiful, a  vivid  sense  of  pleasure,  and  an 
intense  consciousness  of  his  own  indivi- 
dual being,  which  sometimes  produced 
obstacles  to  the  current  of  speculation, 
by  which  it  was  broken  into  dazzling 
eddies,  or  urged  into  devious  wind- 
ings. Acute,  fervid,  vigorous  as  his 
mind  was,  it  wanted  the  one  great 
Central  power  of  imagination,  which 
brings  all  the  other  faculties  into  har- 
monious action,  multiplies  them  into 
each  other,  makes  truth  visible  in  the 
forms  of  beauty,  and  substitutes  intel- 
lectual vision  for  proof.  Thus  in  him 
truth  and  beauty  held  divided  empire. 
In  him  the  spirit  was  willing  but  the 
flesh  was  strong,  and  when  these  con- 
tend it  is  not  difficult  to  anticipate 
the  result ;  '  for  the  power  of  beauty 


shall  sooner  transform  honesty  from 
what  it  is  into  a  bawd,  than  the  per- 
son of  honesty  shall  transform  beauty 
into  its  likeness.'  This  '  sometime 
paradox'  was  vividly  exemplified  in 
Hazlitt's  personal  history,  his  conver- 
sation, and  his  writings."* 

Are  we  to  gather  from  this  most 
singular  combination  of  words,  that 
Hazlitt  had  a  grain  too  much  of  sen- 
suality in  his  composition,  which  di- 
verted him  from  the  search  after 
truth  ?  The  expression,  "  the  flesh 
was  strong,"  and  the  quotation  so  cu- 
riously introduced  from  Shakspeare, 
seem  to  point  this  way.  And  then, 
again,  are  we  to  understand  that  this 
too  much  of  sensuality  was  owing  to 
a  want  of  imagination  ? — that  central 
power  of  imagination  which  is  here 
described  in  a  manner  that  no  system 
of  metaphysics  we  have  studied  enables 
us  in  the  least  to  comprehend.  We 
know  something  of  Schelling's  "  in- 
tellectual intuition"  transcending  the. 
ordinary  scope  of  reason.  Is  this 
"  intellectual  vision,  which  the  imagi- 
nation substitutes  for  proof,"  of  the 
same  family  ?  But  indeed  it  would 
be  idle  insincerity  to  ask  such  ques- 
tions. Sergeant  Talfourd  knows  no 
more  than  we  do  what  it  means. 
The  simple  truth  is,  that  here,  as  too 
frequently  elsewhere,  he  aims  at  a 
certain  subtlety  of  thought,  and  falls 
unfortunately  upon  no  thought  what- 
ever— upon  mere  confusion  of  thought, 
which  he  attempts  to  hide  by  a  quan- 
tity of  somewhat  faded  phrase  and 
rhetorical  diction. 

If  we  refer  to  the  original  essay  it- 
self, we  shall  not  be  aiding  ourselves 
or  Mr  Talfourd.  The  statement  is 
fuller,  and  the  confusion  greater.  In 
one  point  it  relieves  us — it  relieves 
us  entirely  from  the  necessity  of  too 
deeply  pondering  the  philosophic  im- 
port of  any  phraseology  our  critic 
may  adopt,  for  the  phrase  is  changed 
merely  to  please  the  ear ;  and  what  at 
first  has  the  air  of  definition  proves  to 
be  merely  a  poetic  colouring.  He 
thus  commences  his  essay  :  "  As  an 
author,  Mr  Hazlitt  may  be  contem- 
plated principally  in  three  aspects — 
as  a  moral  and  political  reasoner,  as 
an  observer  of  character  and  manners, 
and  as  a  critic  in  literature  and  paint- 


Vol.  ii.,  p.  157. 


144 


Charles  Lamb. 


[Aug-. 


ing.  It  is  in  the  first  character  only 
that  he  should  be  followed  with  cau- 
tion." In  the  two  others  he  is,  of 
course,  to  be  followed  implicitly.  Why 
he  was  not  equally  perfect  as  a  moral 
and  political  reasoner,  Mr  Talfourd 
proceeds  to  explain.  Mr  Hazlitt  had 
"  a  passionate  desire  for  truth,"  and 
also  "earnest  aspirations  for  the  beau- 
tiful." Now,  continues  our  critic, 
"  the  vivid  sense  of  beauty  may,  in- 
deed, have  fit  home  in  the  breast  of 
the  searcher  after  trtfth,  but  then  he 
must  also  be  endowed  with  the  highest 
of  all  human  faculties — the  great  me- 
diatory and  interfusing  power  of  ima- 
gination, which  presides  supreme  over 
the  mind,  brings  all  its  powers  and 
impulses  into  harmonious  action,  and 
becomes  itself  the  single  organ  of  all. 
At  its  touch,  truth  becomes  visible  in 
the  shape  of  beauty;  the  fairest  of  ma- 
terial things  become  the  living  sym- 
bols of  airy  thought,  and  the  mind  ap- 
prehends the  finest  affinities  of  the 
world  of  sense  and  spirit  lin  clear 
dream  and  solemn  vision.'1 "  This  last 
expression  conveys,  we  presume,  all 
the  meaning,  or  no- meaning,  of  the 
phrase  afterwards  adopted — the  "  in- 
tellectual vision  which  it  substitutes 
for  truth."  Both  are  mere  jingle. 
The  rest  of  the  passage  is  much  the 
same  as  it  stands  in  the  Final  Memo- 
rials. Somehow  or  other  Mr  Hazlitt 
is  proved  to  have  been  defective  as  a 
reasoner,  because  he  wanted  imagi- 
nation ! — and  imagination  was  wanted, 
not  to  enlarge  his  experience  of  men- 
tal phenomena,  but  to  step  between 
his  love  of  truth  and  his  sense  of 
beauty.  Did  he  ever  divulge  this  dis- 
covery to  his  friend  Hazlitt? — and  how 
did  the  metaphysician  receive  it  ? 

To  one  so  generous'towards  others, 
it  would  be  ungracious  to  use  hard 
words.  Indeed,  to  leave  before  an 
intelligent  reader  these  specimens  of 
"  fine  analysis,"  and  "powers  of  discri- 
minating and  distinguishing,"  is  quite 
severe  enough  punishment.  We  wish 
we  could  expunge  them,  with  a  host  of 
similar  ones,  not  only  from  our  record, 
but  from  the  works  of  the  author  him- 
self.* 

It  is  time  that  we  turn  from  the 
biography  to  the  writings  of  Charles 


Lamb — to  Elia,  the  gentle  humorist. 
Not  that  Charles  Lamb  is  exclusively 
the  humorist :  far  from  it.  His  verse 
is,  at  all  events,  sufficient  to  demon- 
strate a  poetic  sensibility,  and  his 
prose  writings  display  a  subtlety  of 
analysis  and  a  delicacy  of  perception 
which  were  not  always  enlisted  in  the 
service  of  mirth,  but  which  were  often 
displayed  in  some  refined  criticism,  or 
keen  observation  upon  men  and  man- 
ners. Still  it  is  as  a  humorist  that  he 
has  chiefly  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  reading  public,  and  obtained  his 
popularity  and  literary  status.  But 
the  coarser  lineaments  of  the  humor- 
ist are  not  to  be  found  in  him.  His 
is  a  gentle,  refined,  and  refining 
humour,  which  never  trespasses  upon 
delicacy ;  which  does  not  excite  that 
common  and  almost  brutal  laughter 
so  easily  raised  at  what  are  called  the 
comic  miseries  of  life — often  no  comedy 
to  those  who  have  to  endure  them.  It 
is  a  humour  which  generally  attains 
its  end  by  investing  what  is  lowly 
with  an  unexpected  interest,  not  by 
degrading  what  is  noble  by  allying  it 
with  mean  and  grotesque  circum- 
stance, (the  miserable  art  of  parody ;} 
it  is  a  humour,  in  short,  which  excites 
our  laughter,  not  by  stifling  all  reflec- 
tion, but  by  awakening  the  mind  to 
new  trains  of  thought,  and  prompting 
to  odd  but  kindly  sympathies.  It  is  a 
humour  which  a  poet  might  indulge  in, 
which  a  very  nun  might  smile  at, 
which  a  Fenelon  would  at  times  pre- 
pare himself  mildly  to  admonish,  but, 
on  seeing  from  how  clear  a  spirit  it 
emanated,  would,  relaxing  his  brows 
again,  let  pass  unreproved. 

There  is  a  great  rage  at  present 
for  the  comic ;  and,  to  do  justice  to 
our  own  times,  we  think  it  may  be 
said  that  wit  was  never  more  abun- 
dant— and  certainly  the  pencil  was 
never  used  with  more  genuine  humour, 
But  we  cannot  sympathise  with, 
or  much  admire,  that  class  of  writers 
who  seem  to  make  the  comic  their 
exclusive  study,  who  peer  into  every- 
thing merely  to  find  matter  of  jest  in 
it.  Everything  is  no  more  comic  than 
everything  is  solemn,  in  this  mingled 
world  of  ours.  These  men,  reversing 
the  puritanical  extravagance,  would 


The  author  of  Ion  ought  not  to  be  held  in  remembrance  for  apy  of  these  prosaic- 
blunders  he  may  have  committed. 


1849.] 


diaries  Lamb. 


145 


improve  every  incident  into  the  occa- 
sion of  a  laugh.  At  length  one  ex- 
treme becomes  as  tedious  as  the  other.. 
We  have,  if  we  may  trust  to  adver- 
tisements, for  we  never  saw  the  pro- 
duction itself,  a  Comic  History  of 
England!  and,  amongst  other  editions 
of  the  learned  commentator,  A  Comic 
Blackstone!  We  shall  be  threatened 
some  day  with  a  Comic  Encyclopae- 
dia; or  we  shall  have  these  comic 
gentry  following  the  track  round  the 
whole  world  which  Mrs  Sommer- 
ville  has  lately  taken,  in  her  charming 
book  on  Physical  Geography.  They 
will  go  hopping  and  grinning  after 
her,  peeping  down  volcanoes,  and 
punning  upon  coral  reefs,  and  finding 
laughter  in  all  things  in  this  circum- 
navigable  globe.  Well,  let  them  go 
grinning  from  pole  to  pole,  and  all 
along  the  tropics.  We  can  wish  them 
no  worse  punishment. 

This  exclusive  cultivation  of  the 
comic  must  sadly  depress  the  organ 
of  veneration,  and  not  at  all  foster 
any  refined  feelings  of  humanity.  To 
him  who  is  habitually  in  the  mocking 
vein,  it  matters  little  what  the  sub- 
ject, or  who  the  sufferer,  so  that  he 
has  his  jest.  It  is  marvellous  the 
utter  recklessness  to  human  feeling 
these  light  laughers  attain  to.  Their 
seemingly  sportive  weapon,  the  "  sa- 
tiric thong"  they  so  gaily  use,  is  in 
harder  hands  than  could  be  found 
anywhere  else  out  of  Smithfield.  Nor 
is  it  quite  idle  to  notice  in  what  a 
direct  barefaced  manner  these  jesters 
appeal  to  the  coarse  untutored  malice 
of  our  nature.  If  we  were  to  ana- 
lyse the  jest,  we  should  sometimes  find 
that  we  had  been  laughing  just  as 
wisely  as  the  little  untaught  urchin, 
who  cannot  hold  his  sides  for  "  fun," 
if  some  infirm  old  woman,  slipping 
upon  the  slide  he  has  made,  falls  down 
upon  the  pavement.  The  jest  only 
lasts  while  reflection  is  laid  asleep. 

In  this,  as  we  have  already  inti- 
mated, lies  the  difference  between  the 
crowd  of  jesters  and  Charles  Lamb. 
We  quit  their  uproarious  laughter  for 
his  more  quiet  and  pensive  humour 
with  somewhat  the  same  feeling  that 
we  leave  the  noisy,  though  amusing, 
highway,  for  the  cool  landscape  and 
the  soft  greensward.  We  reflect  as 
we  smile ;  the  malice  of  our  nature  is 
rather  laid  to  rest  than  called  forth  ;  a 


kindly  and  forgiving  temper  is  excited. 
We  rise  from  his  works,  if  not  with 
any  general  truth  more  vividly  im- 
pressed, yet  prepared,  by  gentle  and 
almost  imperceptible  touches,  to  be 
more  social  in  our  companionships, 
and  warmer  in  our  friendships. 

Whether  from  mental  indolence,  or 
from  that  strong  partiality  he  con- 
tracted towards  familiar  things,  he 
lived,  for  a  man  of  education  and  in- 
telligence, in  a  singularly  limited 
circle  of  thought.  In  the  stirring 
times  of  the  first  French  Revolution, 
we  find  him  abstracting  himself  from 
the  great  drama  before  him,  to  bury 
himself  in  the  gossip  of  Burnefs  His- 
tory. He  writes  to  Manning — "  I  am 
reading  Burnefs  own  Times.  Quite 
the  prattle  of  age,  and  outlived  im- 
portance. .  .  .  Burnefs  good  old 
prattle  I  can  bring  present  to  my 
mind;  I  can  make  the  Revolution 
present  to  rne — the  French  Revolu- 
tion, by  a  converse  perversity  in  my 
nature,  I  fling  as  far  from  me." 
Science  appears  never  to  have  inter- 
ested him,  and  such  topics  as  political 
economy  may  well  be  supposed  to  have 
been  quite  foreign  to  his  nature.  But 
even  as  a  reader  of  poetry,  his  taste,  or 
his  partialities  in  his  range  of  thought, 
limited  him  within  a  narrow  circuit.  He 
could  make  nothing  of  Goethe's  Faust  ; 
Shelley  was  an  unknown  region  to 
him,  and  the  best  of  his  productions 
never  excited  his  attention.  To  Byron 
he  was  almost  equally  indifferent. 
From  these  he  could  turn  to  study 
George  Withers !  and  find  matter  for 
applause  in  lines  which  needed,  in- 
deed, the  recommendation  of  age  to 
give  them  the  least  interest.  His  per- 
sonal friendship  for  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge  led  him  here  out  of  that 
circle  of  old  writers  he  delighted  to 
dwell  amongst ;  otherwise,  we  verily 
believe,  he  would  have  deserted  them 
for  Daniell  and  Quarles.  But  perhaps, 
to  one  of  his  mental  constitution,  it 
required  a  certain  concentration  to 
bring  his  powers  into  play ;  and  we 
may  owe  to  this  exclusiveness  of  taste 
the  admirable  fragments  of  criticism 
he  has  given  us  on  Shakspeare  and 
the  elder  dramatists. 

In  forming  our  opinion,  however,  of 
the  tastes  and  acquirements  of  Lamb, 
we  must  not  forget  that  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a  humorist,  and  that  his  tcs- 


146 


timony  against  himself 
always  taken  literally.  On  some 
occasions  we  shall  find  that  he  amused 
himself  and  his  friends  by  a  merry 
vein  of  self-disparagement ;  he  wonld 
delight  to  exaggerate  some  deficiency, 
or  perhaps  some  Cockney  taste,  in 
which,  perhaps,  he  differed  from  others 
only  in  his  boldness  of  avowal.  He 
had  not,  by  all  acconnts,  what  is  called 
an  ear  for  music ;  but  we  are  not  to 
put  faith  in  certain  witty  descriptions 
he  has  given  of  his  own  obtuseness  to 
all  melodious  sounds.  We  find  him, 
in  some  of  his  letters,  speaking  of 
Braham  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
young  haunter  of  operas.  "  I  follow 
him  about,"  he  says,  "  like  a  dog." 
Nothing  has  given  more  scandal  to 
some  of  the  gentle  admirers  of  Lamb, 
than  to  find  him  boldly  avowing  his 
preference  of  Fleet  Street  to  the 
mountains  of  Cumberland.  He  claimed 
no  love  for  the  picturesque.  Shops, 
and  the  throng  of  men,  were  not  to  be 
deserted  for  lakes  and  waterfalls.  It 
was  his  to  live  in  London,  and, 
as  a  place  to  live  in,  there  was  no 
peculiarity  of  taste  in  preferring  it  to 
Cumberland ;  but  when  he  really  paid 
his  visit  to  Coleridge  at  Keswick,  he 
felt  the  charm  fully  as  much  as  tour- 
ists who  are  accustomed  to  dwell, 
rather  too  loudly,  upon  their  raptures. 
The  letters  he  wrote,  after  this  visit, 
from  some  of  which  we  will  quote,  if 
our  space  permits  us,  describe  very 
naturally,  unaffectedly,  and  vividly, 
the  impressions  which  are  produced 
on  a  first  acquaintance  with  moun- 
tainous scenery. 

Indeed  we  may  remark,  that  no 
man  can  properly  enter  into  the  cha- 
racter or  the  writings  of  a  humorist, 
who  is  not  prepared  both  to  permit 
and  to  understand  certain  little  depar- 
tures from  truth.  We  mean,  that 
playing  with  the  subject  where  our 
convictions  are  not  intended  to  be 
seriously  affected.  Those  who  must 
see  everything  as  true  or  false,  and 
immediately  approve  or  reject  accord- 
ingly, who  know  nothing  of  that 
punctum  indifferens  on  which  the  hu- 
morist, for  a  moment,  takes  his  stand, 
had  better  leave  him  and  his  writings 
entirely  alone.  "  I  like  a  smuggler," 
says  Charles  Lamb,  in  one  of  his 
ossays.  Do  you,  thereupon,  gravely 
object  that  a  smuggler,  living  in 


Charles  Lamb. 
cannot    be     constant  violation    of  the 


[Aug. 

laws    of 

the  land,  ought  by  no  means  to 
be  an  object  of  partiality  with  any 
respectable  order- loving  gentleman? 
Or  do  you  nod  assent  and  acquiesce  in 
this  approbation  of  the  smuggler? 
You  do  neither  one  nor  the  other. 
You  smile  and  read  on.  You  know 
very  well  that  Lamb  has  no  de- 
sign upon  your  serious  convictions, 
has  no  wish  whatever  that  you  should 
like  a  smuggler ;  he  merely  gives  ex- 
pression to  a  partiality  of  his  own, 
unreasonable  if  you  will,  but  arising 
from  certain  elements  in  the  smuggler's 
character,  which  just  then  are  upper- 
most in  his  mind.  A  great  deal  of 
the  art  and  tact  of  the  humorist  lies 
in  bringing  out  little  truths,  and 
making  them  stand  in  the  foreground, 
where  greater  truths  usually  take  up 
their  position.  Thus,  in  one  of  Lamb's 
papers,  he  would  prove  that  a  con- 
valescent was  in  a  less  enviable  con- 
dition than  a  man  downright  ill.  This 
is  done  by  heightening  the  effect  of 
a  subordinate  set  of  circumstances, 
and  losing  sight  of  facts  of  greater 
importance.  No  error  of  judgment 
can  really  be  introduced  by  this  spor- 
tive ratiocination,  this  mock  logic, 
while  it  perhaps  may  be  the  means  of 
disclosing  many  ingenious  and  subtle 
observations,  to  which,  afterwards, 
you  may,  if  you  will,  assign  their  just 
relative  importance. 

It  would  be  a  work  of  supereroga- 
tion, even  if  space  allowed  us,  to  go 
critically  over  the  whole  writings  of 
Lamb — his  poems,  his  essays,  and  his 
letters.  It  is  the  last  alone  that 
we  shall  venture  to  pause  upon,  or 
from  which  we  may  hope  to  make  any 
extract  not  already  familiar  to  the 
reader.  His  poetry,  indeed,  cannot 
claim  much  critical  attention.  It  is  pos- 
sible, here  and  there,  to  find  an  elegant 
verse,  or  a  beautiful  expression;  there 
is  a  gentle,  amiable,  pleasing  tone 
throughout  it ;  but,  upon  the  whole,  it  is 
without  force,  has  nothing  to  recom- 
mend it  of  deep  thought  or  strong  pas- 
sion .  His  tragedy  of  John  Woodville  is 
a  tame  imitation  of  the  manner  of  the 
old  dramatists — of  their  manner  when 
engaged  in  their  subordinate  and  pre- 
paratory scenes.  For  there  is  no 
attempt  at  tragic  passion.  We  read 
the  piece  asking  ourselves  when  the 
play  is  to  begin,  and  while  still  asking 


1849.] 


Charles  Lamb. 


147 


the  question,  find  ourselves  brought  to 
its  conclusion.  If  the  poems  are  read 
by  few,  the  Essays  of  Elia  have 
been  perused  by  all.  Who  is  not 
familiar  with  what  is  now  a  historic 
fact — the  discovery  of  roast  pig  in 
China  ?  This,  and  many  other  touches 
of  humour,  it  would  be  useless  here  to 
repeat.  His  letters,  as  being  latest 
published,  seem  alone  to  call  for  any 
especial  observations,  and  from  these 
we  shall  cull  a  few  extracts  to  enliven 
our  own  critical  labours. 

What  first  strikes  a  reader,  on  the 
perusal  of  the  letters,  is  their  remark- 
able similarity  in  style  to  the  essays. 
Some  of  them,  indeed,  were  after- 
wards converted  into  essays,  and  that 
more  by  adding  to  them  than  altering 
their  structure.  That  style,  which  at 
first  seems  extremely  artificial,  was, 
in  fact,  natural  in  Lamb.  He  had 
formed  for  himself  a  manner,  chiefly 
by  the  study  of  our  classical  essayists, 
and  of  still  older  writers,  from  which 
it  would  have  been  an  effort  in  him  to 
depart.  With  whatever  ease,  there- 
fore, or  rapidity,  he  may  have  written 
his  letters,  it  was  impossible  that  they 
should  bear  the  impress  of  freedom. 
His  style  was  essentially  a  lettered 
style,  partaking  little  of  the  conversa- 
tional tone  of  his  own  day.  They 
could  obtain  the  ease  of  finished  com- 
positions, not  of  genuine  letters.  For 
this,  if  for  no  other  reason,  they  can 
never  be  brought  into  comparison  with 
those  charming  spontaneous  effusions 
of  humour  which  flowed  from  Cowper, 
in  his  letters  to  his  old  friend  Hill,  and 
his  cousin,  Lady  Hesketh.  They  are 
charming  productions,  however,  and 
the  best  of  his  letters  will  take  rank, 
we  think,  with  the  best  of  his  essays, 
in  the  public  estimation. 

We  must  first  quote  from  a  letter  to 
Manning,  after  his  visits  to  the  lakes, 
to  rescue  his  character  in  the  eyes  of 
the  lovers  of  the  picturesque  from  the 
imputation  of  being  utterly  indifferent 
to  the  higher  beauties  of  nature. 

"Coleridge  received  us  with  all  the 
hospitality  in  the  world.  He  dwells 
upon  a  small  hill  by  the  side  of  Keswick, 
in  a  comfortable  house,  quite  enveloped  on 
all  sides  by  a  net  of  mountains  :  great 
floundering  bears  and  monsters  they 
seemed,  all  couchant  and  asleep.  We 
got  in  in  the  evening,  travelling  in  a  post- 
chaise  from  Penrith,  in  the  midst  of  a 


gorgeous  sunshine,  which  transmuted  all 
the  mountains  into  colours,  purple,  &c., 
&c.  We  thought  we  had  got  into  fairy- 
land. But  that  went  off  (and  it  never 
came  again ;  while  we  stayed  we  had  no 
more  fine  sunsets),  and  we  entered  Cole- 
ridge's comfortable  study  just  in  the 
dusk,  when  the  mountains  were -all  dark 
with  clouds  on  their  heads.  Such  an  im- 
pression I  never  received  from  objects  of 
sight  before,  nor  do  I  suppose  that  I  can 
ever  again.  Glorious  creatures,  fine  old 
fellows — Skiddaw,  &c. — I  never  shall  for- 
get ye,  how  ye  lay  about  that  night  like 
an  entrenchment  —  gone  to  bed,  as  it 
seemed  for  the  night,  but  promising  that 

ye  were  to  be  seen  in  the  morning 

We  have  clambered  up  to  the  top  of 
Skiddaw ;  and  I  have  waded  up  the  bed 
of  Lodore.  In  fine,  I  have  satisfied  my- 
self that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  tourists 
call  romantic,  which  I  very  much  sus- 
pected before  ;  they  make  such  a  sput- 
tering about  it Oh!  its  fine  black 

head,  and  the  bleak  air  atop  of  it,  with 
the  prospects  of  mountains  about  and 
about,  making  you  giddy.  It  was  a  day 
that  will  stand  out  like  a  mountain,  I  am 
sure,  in  my  life." 

Of  Mr  Manning  we  are  told  little 
or  nothing,  though  he  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  the  very  dearest  friends 
of  Lamb.  His  best  letters  are  written 
to  Manning — the  drollest,  and  some 
of  the  most  affecting.  The  following 
was  written  to  dissuade  him  from 
some  scheme  of  oriental  travel.  Man- 
ning was,  at  the  time,  at  Paris : — 

"Feb.  19,  1803. 

"  MY  DEAR  MANNING,  —  The  general 
scope  of  your  letter  afforded  no  indications 
of  insanity ;  but  some  particular  points 
raised  a  scruple.  For  God's  sake,  don't 
think  any  more  of '  Independent  Tartary.' 
What  are  you  to  do  among  such  Ethio- 
pians? Read  Sir  John  Mandeville's 
travels  to  cure  you,  or  come  over  to 
England.  There  is  a  Tartar-man  now 
exhibiting  at  Exeter  Change.  Come  and 
talk  with  him,  and  hear  what  he  says 
first.  Indeed,  he  is  no  favourable  speci- 
men of  his  countrymen  !  Some  say  they 
are  cannibals  ;  and  then  conceive  a  Tar- 
tar fellow  eating  my  friend,  and  adding 
the  cool  malignity  of  mustard  and  vine- 
gar !  I  am  afraid  'tis  the  reading  of 
Chaucer  has  misled  you  ;  his  foolish 
stories  about  Cambuscau,  and  the  ring  and 
the  horse  of  brass.  Believe  me,  there  are 
no  such  things.  These  are  all  tales — a 
horse  of  brass  never  flew,  and  a  king's 
daughter  never  talked  with  birds.  The 
Tartars  really  are  a  cold,  insipid, 


118 


diaries  Lamb. 


smoutchy  set.  You'll  be  sadly  moped 
(if  you  are  not  eaten)  amongst  them. 
Pray  try  and  cure  yourself.  Shave  your- 
self oftener.  Eat  no  saffron ;  for  saffron 
eaters  contract  a  terrible  Tartar-like 
yellow.  Shave  the  upper  lip.  Go  about 
like  a  European.  Read  no  books  of 
voyages,  (they  are  nothing  but  lies;)  only 
now  and  then  a  romance,  to  keep  the 
fancy  under.  Above  all,  don't  go  to  any 
sights  of  wild  beasts.  That  has  been  your 
ruin." 

And  when  Manning  really  departed 
on  his  voyage  to  China,  he  writes  to 
him  in  the  following  mingled  strains 
of  humour  and  of  feeling.  Being 
obliged  to  omit  a  great  deal,  it  would 
only  be  unsightly  to  mark  every  in- 
stance where  a  sentence  has  been 
dropt.  The  italics,  we  must  remark, 
are  not  ours.  If  Lamb's,  they  show 
how  naturally,  even  in  writing  to  his 
most  intimate  friend,  he  fell  into  the 
feelings  of  the  author: — 

"May  10,  180C. 

" Be  sure,  if  you  see  any  of 

those  people  whose  heads  do  grow  be- 
neath their  shoulders,  that  you  make  a 
draught  of  them.  It  will  be  very  curious. 
Oh  !  Manning,  I  am  serious  to  sinking 
almost,  when  I  think  that  all  those 
evenings  which  you  have  made  so  pleasant 
are  gone,  perhaps  for  ever.  Four  years, 
you  talk  of,  may  be  ten — and  you  may 
come  back  and  find  such  alterations ! 
Some  circumstance  may  grow  up  to  you 
or  to  me,  that  may  be  a  bar  to  the  return 
of  any  such  intimacy.  I  dare  say  all  this 
is  hum  !  and  that  all  will  come  back  ; 
but,  indeed,  we  die  many  deaths  before 
we  die,  and  I  am  almost  sick  to  think 
that  such  a  hold  I  had  of  you  is  gone." 

"Dec.  5,1806. 

"  Manning,  your  letter  dated  Hotten- 
tots, August  the — what  was  it  ?  came  to 
hand.  I  can  scarce  hope  that  mine  will 
have  the  same  luck.  China — Canton — 
bless  us!  how  it  strains  the  imagination, 
and  makes  it  ache.  It  will  be  a  point  of 
conscience  to  send  you  none  but  bran- 
new  news  (the  latest  edition),  which  will 
but  grow  the  better,  like  oranges,  for 
a  sea  voyage.  Oh  that  you  should  be  so 
many  hemispheres  off— if  I  speak  incor- 
rectly you  can  correct  me — why,  the  sim- 
plest death  or  marriage  that  takes  place 
here  must  be  important  to  you  as  news  in 
the  old  Bastile." 

He  then  tells  him  of  the  acceptance 
of  his  farce— Mr  H. ;  which  farce,  by 
the  way,  was  produced,  and  failed, 


Lamb  turning  against  his  own  pro- 
duction, and  joining  the  audience  in 
hissing  it  off  the  stage.  It  certainly 
deserved  its  fate. 

"  Now,  you'd  like  to  know  the  subject. 
The  title  is,  '  Mr  H.'  No  more  ;  how 
simple,  how  taking  !  A  great  H  sprawl- 
ing over  the  play-bill,  and  attracting  eyes 
at  every  corner.  The  story  is,  a  coxcomb 
appearing  at  Bath,  vastly  rich — all  the 
ladies  dying  for  him  —  all  bursting  to 
know  who  he  is  ;  but  he  goes  by  no  other 
name  than  Mr  H. — a  curiosity  like  that 
of  the  dames  of  Strasburg  about  the  man 
with  the  great  nose.  But  I  won't  tell 
you  any  more  about  it.  Yes,  I  will ;  but 
I  can't  give  you  any  idea  how  I  have 
done  it.  I'll  just  tell  you  that,  after 
much  vehement  admiration,  when  his  true 
name  comes  out,  'Hogsflesh,'  all  the 
women  shun  him,  avoid  him,  and  not  one 
can  be  found  to  change  her  name  for  him ; 
that's  the  idea — how  flat  it  is  here — but 
how  whimsical  in  the  farce !  And  only 
think  how  hard  upon  me  it  is,  that  the 
ship  is  despatched  to-morrow,  and  my 
triumph  cannot  be  ascertained  till  the 
Wednesday  after.  But  all  China  will 
ring  of  it  by-and-by.  Do  you  find,  in  all 
this  stuff  I  have  written,  anything  like 
those  feelings  which  one  should  send  my 
old  adventuring  friend  that  is  gone  to 
wander  among  Tartars,  and  may  never 
come  again  ?  I  don't ;  but  your  going 
away,  and  all  about  you,  is  a  threadbare 
topic.  I  have  worn  it  out  with  thinking. 
It  has  come  to  me  when  I  have  been  dull 
with  anything,  till  my  sadness  has  seemed 
more  to  have  come  from  it  than  to  have 
introduced  it.  I  want  you,  you  don't 
know  how  much  ;  but  if  I  had  you  here, 
in  my  European  garret,  we  should  but 
talk  over  such  stuff  as  I  have  written. 

"  Good  Heavens  !  what  a  bit  only  I've 
got  left !  How  shall  I  squeeze  all  I  know 
into  this  morsel !  Coleridge  is  come  home, 
and  is  going  to  turn  lecturer  on  taste  at 
the  Royal  Institution.  How  the  paper 
grows  less  and  less  !  In  less  than  two 
minutes  I  shall  cease  to  talk  to  you,  and 
you  may  rave  to  the  great  Wall  of  China. 
— N.B.  Is  there  such  a  wall  ?  Is  it  as  big 
as  Old  London  Wall  by  Bediam  ?  Have 
you  met  with  a  friend  of  mine,  named 
Ball,  at  Canton  ?  If  you  are  acquainted, 
remember  me  kindly  to  him." 

But  we  should  be  driven  into  as 
hard  straits  as  Lamb,  at  the  close  of 
his  epistle,  if  we  should  attempt,  in 
the  small  space  that  remains  to  us,  to 
give  any  fair  idea  of  the  various 
"humours"  and  interests,  of  many 
kinds,  of  these  letters.  We  pass  at 


1849.] 


Charles  Lamb, 


149 


once  to  those  that  illustrate  the  last 
important  incident  of  his  life,  his  re- 
tirement from  office.  It  is  thus  he 
describes  his  manumission,  and  the 
sort  of  troubled  delight  it  brought 
with  it,  to  Wordsworth : — 

"  6th  April,  1825. 

"  Here  am  I  then,  after  thirty-three 
years'  slavery,  sitting  in  my  own  room,  at 
eleven  o'clock  this  finest  of  all  April  morn- 
ings, a  freed  man,  with  £441  a-year  for 
the  remainder  of  my  life,  live  I  as  long 
as  John  Dennis,  who  outlived  his  annuity 
and  starved  at  ninety. 

"  I  came  home  FOR  EVER  on  Tuesday 
of  last  week.  The  incomprehensibleness 
of  my  condition  overwhelmed  me.  It  was 
like  passing  from  life  into  eternity.  Every 
year  to  be  as  long  as  three  ;  i.  e.ftb  have 
three  times  as  much  real  time — time  that 
is  my  own  in  it !  I  wandered  about  think- 
ing I  was  happy,  but  feeling  I  was  not. 
But  that  tumultuousness  is  passing  off, 
and  I  begin  to  understand  the  nature  of 
the  gift." 

And  to  Bernard  Barton  he  writes : 

"  My  spirits  are  so  tumultuary  with 
the  novelty  of  my  recent  emancipation, 
that  1  have  scarce  steadiness  of  hand, 
much  more  of  mind,  to  compose  a  letter. 
I  am  free,  Bernard  Barton — free  as  air  ! 

'  The  little  bird,  that  wings  the  sky, 
Knows  no  such  liberty.' 

I  was  set  free  on  Tuesday  in  last  week  at 
four  o'clock.  I  came  home  for  ever  ! 

"  I  have  been  describing  my  feelings, 
as  well  as  I  can,  to  Wordsworth,  and 
care  not  to  repeat.  Take  it  briefly,  that 
for  a  few  days  I  was  painfully  oppressed 
by  so  mighty  a  change,  but  it  is  becoming 
daily  more  natural  to  me.  I  went  and 
sat  among  them  all,  at  my  old  thirty- 
three  years'  desk  yester  morning;  and 
deuce  take  me,  if  I  had  not  yearnings  at 
leaving  all  my  old  pen-and-ink  fellows, 
merry  sociable  lads,  at  leaving  them  in 
the  lurch — fag,  fag,  fag  !  The  comparison 
of  my  own  superior  felicity  gave  me  any- 
thing but  pleasure. 

"  B.  B.,  I  would  not  serve  another 
seven  years  for  seven  hundred  thousand 
pounds  !  I  have  got  £440  net  for  life, 
with  a  provision  for  Mary  if  she  survives 
me.  I  will  live  another  fifty  years." 

But  to  live  without  any  steady 
compulsory  occupation  requires  an 
apprenticeship  as  much  as  any  other 
mode  of  life.  An  idle  man  ought  to 
be  bora  and  bred  to  the  profession. 
With  Lamb,  literature  could  be  no- 
thing but  an  amusement,  and  for  a 

VOL.  LXVI.— SO.  CCCCVI. 


mere  amusement  literature  is  far  too 
laborious.  It  cannot,  indeed,  serve 
long  as  an  amusement  except  when  it 
is  adopted  also  as  a  labour.  He  was 
destined,  therefore,  to  make  the  hu- 
miliating discovery,  which  so  many 
have  made  before  him,  that  one  may 
have  too  much  time,  as  well  as  too 
little,  at  one's  own  disposal.  Writing 
to  the  same  Bernard  Barton,  a  year 
or  two  afterwards,  he  says : — 

"  What  I  can  do,  and  over-do,  is  to 
walk  ;  but  deadly  long  are  the  days, 
these  summer  all-day  days,  with  but  a 
half-hour's  candle-light  and  no  fire-light. 
I  do  not  write,  tell  your  kind  inquisitive 
Eliza,  and  can  hardly  read.  'Tis  cold 
work  authorship,  without  something  to 
puff  one  into  fashion.  ...  I  assure 
you  no  work  is  worse  than  over-work.  The 
mind  preys  on  itself,  the  most  unwhole- 
some food.  I  bragged,  formerly,  that  I 
could  not  have  too  much  time.  I  have  a 
surfeit  ;  with  few  years  to  come,  the  days 
are  wearisome.  But  weariness  is  not 
eternal.  Something  will  shine  out  to 
take  the  load  off  that  crushes  me,  which 
is  at  present  intolerable.  I  have  killed 
an  hour  or  two  in  this  poor  scrawl.  Well ; 
I  shall  write  merrier  anon.  'Tis  the  pre- 
sent copy  of  my  countenance  I  send,  and 
to  complain  is  a  little  to  alleviate." 

He  had  taken  a  house  at  Enfield, 
but  the  cares  of  housekeeping  were 
found  to  be  burdensome  to  Miss  Lamb, 
and  they  took  up  their  abode  as 
boarders  in  the  house  of  a  neighbour. 
To  this  circumstance  he  alludes  in  the 
following  extract  from  a  letter  to 
Wordsworth,  which  is  the  last  we 
shall  make,  and  with  which  we  shall 
bid  farewell  to  our  subject.  It  will 
be  found  to  be  not  the  least  remark- 
able amongst  the  letters  of  Lamb,  and 
contains  one  passage,  we  think, -the 
boldest  piece  of  extravagance  that 
ever  humorist  ventured  upon  with  suc- 
cess. It  just  escapes ! — and,  indeed,  it 
rather  takes  away  our  breath  at  its 
boldness  than  prompts  to  merriment. 

"  January  2, 1831. 

"  And  is  it  a  year  since  we  parted  from 
you  at  the  steps  of  Edmonton  stage  ? 
There  are  not  now  the  years  that  there 
used  to  be.  The  tale  of  the  dwindled 
age  of  men,  reported  of  successional  man- 
kind, is  true  of  the  same  man  only.  We 
do  not  live  a  year  in  a  year  now.  'Tis  a 
punctum  stans.  The  seasons  pass  with 
indifference.  Spring  cheers  not,  nor  win- 
ter heightens  our  gloom  ;  autumn  hath 


150 


diaries  Lamb. 


[Aug. 


foregone  its  moralities.  Let  the  sullen 
nothing  pass.  Suffice  it,  that  after  sad 
spirits,  prolonged  through  many  of  its 
months,  we  have  cast  our  skins  ;  have 
taken  a  farewell  of  the  pompous, trouble- 
some trifle,  called  housekeeping,  and  are 
settled  down  into  poor  boarders  and  lodg- 
ers at  next  door,  the  Baucis  and  Baucida 
of  dull  Enfield.  Here  we  have  nothing 
to  do  with  our  victuals  but  to  eat  them  ; 
with  the  garden  but  to  see  it  grow  ;  with 
the  tax-gatherer  but  to  hear  him  knock  ; 
with  the  maid  but  to  hear  her  scolded. 
Scot  and  lot,  butcher,  baker,  are  things 
unknown  to  us,  save  as  spectators  of  the 
pageant.  We  are  fed  we  know  not  how  ; 
quieted — confiding  ravens.  Yet  in  the 
self-condemned  obliviousness,  in  the  stag- 
nation, some  molesting  yearnings  of  life, 
not  quite  killed,  rise,  prompting  me  that 
there  was  a  London,  and  that  I  was  of 
that  old  Jerusalem.  In  dreams  I  am  in 
Fleet  Market,  but  I  wake  and  cry  to 
sleep  again.  I  die  hard,  a  stubborn 
Eloisa  in  this  detestable  Paraclete.  What 
have  I  gained  by  health  ?  Intolerable 
dulness.  What  by  early  hours  and  mo- 
derate meals  ?  A  total  blank.  Oh  !  let 
no  native  Londoner  imagine  that  health, 
and  rest,  and  innocent  occupation,  inter- 
change of  converse  sweet,  and  recreative 
study,  can  make  the  country  anything 
bettet  than  altogether  odious  and  detest- 


able. A  garden  was  the  primitive  prison, 
till  man,  with  Promethean  felicity  and 
boldness,  luckily  sinned  himself  out  of 
it." 

Any  further  summary  than  what 
•we  have  already  given,  of  the  literary 
character  of  Lamb,  would  be  only 
tedious.  He  is  one  who  will  be 
generally  liked,  who  with  a  smaller 
class  will  be  greatly  admired,  and 
who  will  never  excite  hostile  criti- 
cism, unless  his  injudicious  friends 
shall  elevate  him  to  a  higher  pedestal 
than  is  due  to  him,  or  than  he  is 
manifestly  fit  to  occupy.  Such  is  the 
cold  and  calm  verdict  with  which  cri- 
ticism must  dismiss  him.  But  those 
who  4iave  thoroughly  enjoyed  the 
essays  of  Elia  and  the  letters  of  Lamb, 
will  feel  a  warmer,  a  more  partial 
affection  than  Criticism  knows  well 
how  to  express:  she  becomes  some- 
what impatient  of  her  own  enforced 
gravity;  she  would  willingly  throw 
away  those  scales  with  which,  like 
Justice,  we  suppose,  she  is  symboli- 
cally supplied,  and,  embracing  the 
man  as  he  is,  laugh  and  be  pleased 
with  the  rest  of  the  world,  without 
further  thought  of  the  matter. 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  A'F. 


151 


THE  CAXTONS. — PART  XV. 


CHAPTER  LXXXIV. 


"  PLEASE,  sir,  be  this  note  for  you?" 
asked  the  waiter. 

"  For  me — yes ;  it  is  my  name." 

I  did  not  recognise  the  handwriting, 
and  yet  the  note  was  from  one  whose 
writing  I  had  often  seen.  But  for- 
merly the  writing  was  cramped,  stiff, 
perpendicular,  (a  feigned  hand,  though 
I  guessed  not  it  was  feigned ;)  now 
it  was  hasty,  irregular,  impatient — 
scarce  a  letter  formed,  scarce  a  word 
that  seemed  finished — and  yet  strange- 
ly legible  withal,  as  the  handwriting 
of  a  bold  man  almost  always  is.  I 
opened  the  note  listlessly,  and 
read — 

"  I  have  watched  for  you  all  the 
morning.  I  saw  her  go.  Well ! — I 
did  not  throw  myself  under  the  hoofs 
of  the  horses.  I  write  this  in  a  pub- 
lic-house, not  far.  Will  you  follow, 
the  bearer,  and  see  once  again  the 
outcast  whom  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
will  shun  ?" 

Though  I  did  not  recognise  the 
hand,  there  could  be  no  doubt  who 
was  the  writer. 

"  The  boy  wants  to  know  if  there's 
an  answer,"  said  the  waiter. 

I  nodded,  took  up  my  hat,  and  left 
the  room.  A  ragged  boy  was  stand- 
ing in  the  yard,  and  scarcely  six  words 
passed  between  us,  before  I  was  fol- 
lowing him  through  a  narrow  lane 
that  faced  the  inn,  and  terminated  in 
a  turnstile.  Here  the  boy  paused, 
and,  making  me  a  sign  to  go  on,  went 
back  his  way  whistling.  I  passed  the 
turnstile,  and  found  myself  in  a  green 
field,  with  a  row  of  stunted  willows 
hanging  over  a  narrow  rill.  I  looked 
round,  and  saw  Vivian  (as  I  intend 
still  to  call  him)  half  kneeling,  and 
seemingly  intent  upon  some  object  in 
the  grass. 

My  eye  followed  his  mechanically. 
A  young  unfledged  bird,  that  had  left 
the  nest  too  soon,  stood,  all  still  and 
alone,  on  the  bare  short  sward — its 
beak  open  as  for  food,  its  gaze  fixed 
on  us  with  a  wistful  stare.  Methought 
there  was  something  in  the  forlorn 
bird  that  softened  me  more  to  the  for- 


lorner  youth,  of  whom  it  seemed  a 
type. 

"  Now,"  said  Vivian,  speaking  half 
to  himself,  half  to  me,  "  did  the  bird 
fall  from  the  nest,  or  leave  the  nest  at 
its  own  wild  whim  ?  The  parent  does 
not  protect  it.  Mind,  I  say  not  it  is 
the  parent's  fault — perhaps  the  fault 
is  all  with  the  wanderer.  But,  look 
you,  though  the  parent  is  not  here, 
the  foe  is  ! — yonder,  see  !" 

And  the  young  man  pointed  to  a 
large  brindled  cat,  that,  kept  back 
from  its  prey  by  our  unwelcome  neigh- 
bourhood, still  remained  watchful,  a 
few  paces  off,  stirring  its  tail  gently 
backwards  and  forwards,  and  with 
that  stealthy  look  in  its  round  eyes, 
dulled  by  the  sun — half  fierce,  half 
frightened — which  belongs  to  its  tribe, 
when  man  conies  between  the  de- 
vourer  and  the  victim. 

"  I  do  see,"  said  I,  "  but  a  passing 
footstep  has  saved  the  bird,!" 

"Stop!"  said  Vivian,  laying  my 
hand  on  his  own,  and  with  his  old 
bitter  smile  on  his  lip — "  stop !  do 
you  think  it  mercy  to  save  the  bird  ? 
What  from  ?  and  what  for?  From  a 
natural  enemy — from  a  short  pang 
and  a  quick  death  ?  Fie ! — is  not  that 
better  than  slow  starvation?  or,  if 
you  take  more  heed  of  it,  than  the 
prison- bars  of  a  cage?  You  cannot 
restore  the  nest,  you  cannot  recall 
the  parent.  Be  wiser  in  your  mercy : 
leave  the  bird  to  its  gentlest  fate-!" 

I  looked  hard  on  Vivian;  the  lip 
had  lost  the  bitter  smile.  He  rose 
and  turned  away.  I  sought  to, take 
up  the  poor  bird,  but  it  did  not  know 
its  friends,  and  ran  from  me,  chirping 
piteously — ran  towards  the  very  jaws 
of  the  grim  enemy.  I  was  only  just 
in  time  to  scare  away  the  beast,  which 
sprang  up  a  tree,  and  glared  down 
through  the  hanging  boughs.  Then  I 
followed  the  bird,  and,  as  I  followed, 
I  heard,  not  knowing  at  first  whence 
the  sound  came,  a  short,  quick,  tremu- 
lous note.  Was  it  near  ?  was  it  far  ? 
— from  the  earth  ?  in  the  sky  ?  Poor 
parent-bird  !  —  like  parent-love,  it 


152 


seemed  now  far  and  now  near ;  now 
on  earth,  now  in  sky ! 

And  at  last,  quick  and  sudden,  as  if 
born  of  the  space,  lo !  the  little  wings 
hovered  over  me ! 


The  Cfutons.— Part  XV.  [Aug. 

The  young  bird  halted,  and  I  also- 
"  Come,"  said  I,  "ye  have  found  each 
other  at  last — settle  it  between  you'.'" 

I  went  back  to  the  outcast. 


CHAPTER  LXXXV. 


PISISTRATUS. — How  came  yon  to 
know  we  had  stayed  in  the  town  ? 

VIVIAN. — Do  you  think  I  could  re- 
main where  you  left  me  ?  I  wandered 
out — wandered  hither.  Passing  at 
dawn  through  yon  streets,  I  saw  the 
ostlers  loitering  by  the  gates  of  the 
yard,  overheard  them  talk,  and  so 
knew  you  were  all  at  the  inn — all ! 
(He  sighed  heavily.) 

PISISTRATUS. — Your  poor  father  is 
very  ill !  O  cousin,  how  could  you 
fling  from  yoit  so  much  love ! 

VIVIAN. — Love !  —  his !  — my  fa- 
ther's ! 

PISISTRATUS. — Do  you  really  not 
believe,  then,  that  your  father  loved 
yon? 

VIVIAN. — If  I  had  believed  it,  I  had 
never  left  him !  All  the  gold  of  the 
Indies  had  never  bribed  me  to  leave 
my  mother ! 

PISISTRATUS. — This  is  indeed  a 
strange  misconception  of  yours.  If 


we  can  remove  it,  all  may  be  well  yet. 
Need  there  now  be  any  secrets  be- 
tween us  ?  (persuasively.)  Sit  down, 
and  tell  me  all,  cousin. 

After  some  hesitation,  Vivian  com- 
plied; and  by  the  clearing  of  his  brow, 
and  the  very  tone  of  his  voice,  I  felt 
sure  that  he  was  no  longer  seeking  to 
disguise  the  truth.  But,  as  I  after- 
wards learned  the  father's  tale  as  well 
as  now  the  son's,  so,  instead  of  re- 
peating Vivian's  words,  which — not 
by  design,  but  by  the  twist  of  a  mind 
habitually  wrong — distorted  the  facts, 
I  will  state  what  appears  to  me  the 
real  case,  as  between  the  parties  so 
unhappily  opposed.  Reader,  pardon 
me  if  the  recital  be  tedious.  And  if 
thou  thinkest  that  I  bear  not  hard 
enough  on  the  erring  hero  of  the 
story,  remember  that  he  who  recites 
judges  as  Austin's  son  must  judge  of 
Roland's. 


CHAPTER  LXXXVI. 


VIVIAN. 


AT  THE  ENTRANCE  OF  LIFE  SITS — THE  MOTHER. 


It  was  during  the  war  in  Spain  that 
a  severe  wound,  and  the  fever  which 
ensued,  detained  Roland  at  the  house 
of  a  Spanish  widow.  His  hostess  had 
once  been  rich ;  but  her  fortune  had 
been  ruined  in  the  general  calamities 
of  the  country.  She  had  an  only 
daughter,  who  assisted  to  nurse  and 
tend  the  wounded  Englishman ;  and 
when  the  time  approached  for  Ro- 
land's departure,  the  frank  grief  of 
the  young  Ramouna  betrayed  the 
impression  that  the  guest  had  made 
upon  her  affections.  Much  of  grati- 
tude, and  something,  it  might  be,  of  an 
exquisite  sense  of  honour,  aided,  in 
Holand's  breast,  the  charm  naturally 
produced  by  the  beauty  of  his  young 
nurse,  and  the  knightly  compassion  he 


felt  for  her  rained  fortunes  and  deso- 
late condition. 

In  one  of  those  hasty  impulses 
common  to  a  generous  nature — and 
which  too  often  fatally  vindicate  the 
rank  of  Prudence  amidst  the  tutelary 
Powers  of  Life — Roland  committed 
the  error  of  marriage  with  a  girl  of 
whose  connexions  he  knew  nothing, 
and  of  whose  nature  little  more  than 
its  warm  spontaneous  susceptibility. 
In  a  few  days  subsequent  to  these 
rash  nuptials,  Roland  rejoined  the 
march  of  the  army ;  nor  was  he  able 
to  return  to  Spain  till  after  the  crown- 
ing victory  of  Waterloo. 

Maimed  by  the  loss  of  a  limb,  and 
with  the  scars  of  many  a  noble  wound 
still  fresh,  Roland  then  hastened  to  a 


1849.J 


The  Caxtons.—Patt  XV. 


153 


home  the  dreams  of  which  had  soothed 
the  bed  of  pain,  and  now  replaced  the 
earlier  visions  of  renown.  During 
his  absence  a  son  had  been  born  to 
him — a  son  whom  he  might  rear  to 
take  the  place  he  had  left  in  his  coun- 
try's service ;  to  renew,  in  some  fu- 
ture fields,  a  career  that  had  failed 
the  romance  of  his  own  antique  and 
chivalrous  ambition.  As  soon  as  that 
news  had  reached  him,  his  care  had 
been  to  provide  an  English  nurse  for 
the  infant — so  that,  with  the  first 
sounds  of  the  mother's  endearments, 
the  child  might  yet  hear  a  voice  from 
the  father's  land.  A  female  relation 
of  Bolt's  had  settled  in  Spain,  and 
was  induced  to  undertake  this  duty.  Na- 
tural as  this  appointment  was1  to  a  man 
so  devotedly  English,  it  displeased  his 
wild  and  passionate  Eamouna.  She 
had  that  mother's  jealousy,  strongest 
in  minds  uneducated ;  she  had  also 
that  peculiar  pride  which  belongs  to 
her  country-people,  of  every  rank 
and  condition  ;  the  jealousy  and  the 
pride  were  both  wounded  by  the  sight 
of  the  English  nurse  at  the  child's 
cradle. 

That  Roland,  on  regaining  his  Spa- 
nish hearth,  should  be  disappointed  in 
his  expectations  of  the  happiness 
awaiting  him  there,  was  the  inevi- 
table condition  of  such  a  marriage  ; 
since,  not  the  less  for  his  military 
bluntness,  Roland  had  that  refinement 
of  feeling,  perhaps  over-fastidious, 
which  belongs  to  all  natures  essen- 
tially poetic ;  and  as  the  first  illusions 
of  love  died  away,  there  could  have 
been  little  indeed  congenial  to  his 
stately  temper  in  one  divided  from 
him  by  an  utter  absence  of  education, 
and  by  the  strong  but  nameless  dis- 
tinctions of  national  views  and  man- 
ners. The  disappointment  probably, 
however,  went  deeper  than  that 
which  usually  attends  an  ill-assorted 
union;  for,  instead  of  bringing  his 
wife  to  his  old  tower,  (an  expatria- 
tion which  she  would  doubtless  have 
resisted  to  the  utmost,)  he  accepted, 
maimed  as  he  was,  not  very  long  after 
his  return  to  Spain,  the  offer  of  a 
military  post  under  Ferdinand.  The 
Cavalier  doctrines  and  intense  loyalty 
of  Roland  attached  him,  without  reflec- 


tion, to  the  service  of  a  throne  which 
the  English  arras  had  contributed  to 
establish ;  while  the  extreme  unpopu- 
larity of  the  Constitutional  Party  in 
Spain,  and  the  stigma  of  irreligion 
fixed  to  it  by  the  priests,  aided  to 
foster  Roland's  belief  that  he  was  sup- 
porting a  beloved  king  against  the 
professors  of  those  revolutionary  and 
Jacobinical  doctrines,  which  to  him 
were  the  very  atheism  of  politics. 
The  experience  of  a  few  years  in  the 
service  of  a  bigot  so  contemptible  as 
Ferdinand,  whose  highest  object  of 
patriotism  was  the  restoration  of  the 
Inquisition,  added  another  disappoint- 
ment to  those  which  had  already  em- 
bittered the  life  of  a  man  who  had 
seen  in  the  grand  hero  of  Cervantes 
no  follies  to  satirise,  but  high  virtues 
to  imitate.  Poor  Quixote  himself — 
he  came  mournfully  back  to  his  La 
Mancha,  with  no  other  reward  for  his 
knight-errantry  than  a  decoration 
which  he  disdained  to  place  beside  his 
simple  Waterloo  medal,  and  a  grade 
for  which  he  would  have  blushed  to 
resign  his  more  modest,  but  more 
honourable  English  dignity. 

But,  still  weaving  hopes,  the  san- 
guine man  returned  to  his  Penates. 
His  child  now  had  grown  from  in- 
fancy into  boyhood— the  child  would 
pass  naturally  into  his  care.  Delight- 
ful occupation !  —  At  the  thought, 
Home  smiled  again. 

Now,  behold  the  most  pernicious 
circumstance  in  this  ill-omened  con- 
nexion. 

The  father  of  Ramouna  had  been 
one  of  that  strange  and  mysterious 
race  which  presents  in  Spain  so  many 
features  distinct  from  the  characteris- 
tics of  its  kindred  tribes  in  more  civi- 
lised lands.  The  Gitano,  or  gipsy  of 
Spain,  is  not  the  mere  vagrant  we  see 
on  our  commons  and  roadsides.  Re- 
taining, indeed,  much  of  his  lawless 
principles  and  predatory  inclinations, 
he  lives  often  in  towns,  exercises 
various  callings,  and  not  unfrequently 
becomes  rich.  A  wealthy  Gitano 
had  married  a  Spanish  woman;* 
Roland's  wife  had  been  the  offspring 
of  this  marriage.  The  Gitano  had 
died  while  Ramouna  was  yet  ex- 
tremely young,  and  her  childhood  had 


*  A  Spaniard  very  rarely  indeed  marries  a  Gitdna  or  female  gipsy.     But  occa- 
sionally (observes  Mr  Borrow)  a  wealthy  Gitano  marries  a  Spanish  female. 


154 


The  Cantons.— Part  XV. 


[Aug. 


been  free  from  the  influences  of  her 
paternal  kindred.  But,  though  her 
mother,  retaining  her  own  religion, 
had  brought  up  Ramouna  in  the  same 
-faith,  pure  from  the  godless  creed  of 
the  Gitano — and,  at  her  husband's 
death,  had  separated  herself  wholly 
from  his  tribe — still  she  had  lost  caste 
with  her  own  kin  and  people.  "And 
while  struggling  to  regain  it,  the  for- 
tune, which  made  her  sole  chance  of 
success  in  that  attempt,  was  swept 
away,  so  that  she  had  remained  apart 
and  solitary,  and  could  bring  no 
friends  to  cheer  the  solitude  of  Ra- 
mouna  during  Roland's  absence.  But, 
while  my  uncle  was  still  in  the  service 
of  Ferdinand,  the  widow  died;  and 
then  the  only  relatives  who  came 
round  Ramouna  were  her  father's 
kindred.  They  had  not  ventured  to 
claim  affinity  while  her  mother  lived  ; 
and  they  did  so  now,  by  attentions 
and  caresses  to  her  son.  This  opened 
to  them  at  once  Ramouna's  heart  and 
doors.  Meanwhile,  the  English  nurse 
— who,  in  spite  of  all  that  could  ren- 
der her  abode  odious  to  her,  had, 
from  strong  love  to  her  charge,  stoutly 
maintained  her  post — died,  a  few 
weeks  after  Ramouna's  mother,  and 
no  healthful  influence  remained  to 
counteract  those  baneful  ones  to  which 
the  heir  of  the  honest  old  Caxtons 
was  subjected.  But  Roland  returned 
home  in  a  humour  to  be  pleased  with 
all  things.  Joyously  he  clasped  his 
wife  to  his  breast,  and  thought,  with 
self-reproach,  that  he  had  forborne 
too  little,  and  exacted  too  much — he 
would  be  wiser  now.  Delightedly  he 
acknowledged  the  beauty,  the  intelli- 
gence, and  manly  bearing  of  the  boy, 
who  played  with  his  sword-knot,  and 
ran  off  with  his  pistols  as  a  prize. 

The  news  of  the  Englishman's 
arrival  at  first  kept  the  lawless  kins- 
folk from  the  house ;  but  they  were 
fond  of  the  boy,  and  the  boy  of  them, 
and  interviews  between  him  and  these 
wild  comrades,  if  stolen,  were  not  less 
frequent.  Gradually  Roland's  eyes 
became  opened.  As,  in  habitual  in- 
tercourse, the  boy  abandoned  the  re- 
serve which  awe  and  cunning  at  first 
imposed,  Roland  was  inexpressibly 
shocked  at  the  bold  principles  his  son 
affected,  and  at  his  utter  incapacity 
even  to  comprehend  that  plain  honesty 
and  that  frank  honour  which,  to  the 


English  soldier,  seemed  ideas  innate 
and  heaven-planted.  Soon  after- 
wards, Roland  found  that  a  system  of 
plunder  was  earned  on  in  his  house- 
hold, and  tracked  it  to  the  connivance 
of  the  wife  and  the  agency  of  the  son, 
for  the  benefit  of  lazy  bravos  and  dis- 
solute vagrants.  A  more  patient  man 
than  Roland  might  well  have  been 
exasperated — a  more  wary  man  con- 
founded, by  this  discovery.  He  took 
the  natural  step — perhaps  insisting  on 
it  too  summarily — perhaps  not  allow- 
ing enough  for  the  uncultured  mind 
and  lively  passions  of  his  wife :  he 
ordered  her  instantly  to  prepare  to 
accompany  him  from  the  place,  and 
to  give  up  all  communication  with  her 
kindred. 

A  vehement  refusal  ensued ;  but 
Roland  was  not  a  man  to  give  up 
such  a  point,  and  at  length  a  false 
submission,  and  a  feigned  repentance 
soothed  his  resentment  and  obtained 
his  pardon.  They  moved  several 
miles  from  the  place ;  but  where  they 
moved,  there,  some  at  least,  and 
those  the  worst,  of  the  baleful  brood, 
stealthily  followed.  Whatever  Ra- 
mouna's earlier  love  for  Roland  had 
been,  it  had  evidently  long  ceased  in 
the  thorough  want  of  sympathy  be- 
tween them,  and  in  that  absence 
which,  if  it  renews  a  strong  affection, 
destroys  an  affection  already  weak- 
ened. But  the  mother  and  son  adored 
each  other  with  all  the  strength  of 
their  strong,  wild  natures.  Even  un- 
der ordinary  circumstances,  thefather's 
influence  over  a  boy  yet  in  childhood 
is  exerted  in  vain,  if  the  mother  lend 
herself  to  baffle  it.  And  in  this  miser- 
able position,  what  chance  had  the 
blunt,  stern,  honest  Roland  (separated 
from  his  son  during  the  most  ductile 
years  of  infancy)  against  the  ascend- 
ency of  a  mother  who  humoured  all 
the  faults,  and  gratified  all  the  wishes, 
of  her  darling  ? 

In  his  despair,  Roland  let  fall  the 
threat  that,  if  thus  thwarted,  it  would 
become  his  duty  to  withdraw  his  son 
from  the  mother.  This  threat  in- 
stantly hardened  both  hearts  against 
him.  The  wife  represented  Roland 
to  the  boy  as  a  tyrant,  as  an  enemy 
— as  one  who  had  destroyed  all  the 
happiness  they  had  before  enjoyed  in 
each  other — as  one  whose  severity 
showed  that  he  hated  his  own  child  : 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Patt  XV. 


155 


aud  the  boy  believed  her.  In  his  own 
.house  a  firm  union  was  formed  against 
Roland,  and  protected  by  the  cunning 
which  is  the  force  of  the  weak  against 
the  strong. 

In  spite  of  all,  Roland  could  never 
forget  the  tenderness  with  which  the 
young  nurse  had  watched  over  the 
wounded  man,  nor  the  love — genuine 
for  the  hour,  though  not  drawn  from 
the  feelings  which  withstand  the  wear 
and  tear  of  life — that  lips  so  beautiful 
had  pledged  him  in  the  bygone  days. 
These  thoughts  must  have  come  per- 
petually between  his  feelings  and  his 
judgment,  to  embitter  still  more  his 
position  —  to  harass  still  more  his 
heart.  And  if,  by  the  strength  of 
that  sense  of  duty  which  made  the 
force  of  his  character,  he  could  have 
strung  himself  to  the  fulfilment  of  the 
threat,  humanity,  at  all  events,  com- 
pelled him  to  delay  it — his  wife  pro- 
mised to  be  again  a  mother.  Blanche 
was  bora.  How  could  he  take  the 
infant  from  the  mother's  breast,  or 
abandon  the  daughter  to  the  fatal 
influences  from  which  only,  by  so 
violent  an  effort,  he  could  free  the  son  ? 


No  wonder,  poor  Roland !  that  those 
deep  furrows  contracted  thy  bold 
front,  and  thy  hair  greAv  gray  before 
its  time ! 

Fortunately,  perhaps,  for  all  par- 
ties, Roland's  wife  died  while  Blanche 
was  still  an  infant.  She  was  taken 
ill  of  a  fever — she  died  delirious, 
clasping  her  boy  to  her  breast,  and 
praying  the  saints  to  protect  him  from 
his  cruel  father.  How  often  that 
deathbed  haunted  the  son,  and  justi- 
fied his  belief  that  there  was  no  pa- 
rent's love  in  the  heart  which  was 
now  his  sole  shelter  from  the  world, 
and  the  "  pelting  of  its  pitiless  rain." 
Again  I  say,  poor  Roland ! — for  J  know 
that,  in  that  harsh,  unloving  disrup- 
ture  of  such  solemn  ties,  thy  large 
generous  heart  forgot  its  wrongs; 
again  didst  thou  see  tender  eyes  bend- 
ing over  the  wounded  stranger — again 
hear  low  murmurs  breathe  the  warm 
weakness  which  the  women  of  the 
south  deem  it  no  shame  to  own.  And 
now  did  it  all  end  in  those  ravings  of 
hate,  and  in  that  glazing  gaze,  of 
terror ! 


CHAPTER  LXXXVII. 


THE   PRECEPTOR. 


Roland  removed  to  France,  and 
fixed  his  abode  in  the  environs  of 
Paris.  He  placed  Blanche  at  a  con- 
vent in  the  immediate  neighbourhood, 
going  to  see  her  daily,  and  gave  him- 
self up  to  the  education  of  his  son. 
The  boy  was  apt  to  learn ;  but  to  un- 
learn was  here  the  arduous  task — and 
for  that  task  it  would  have  needed 
either  the  passionless  experience,  the 
exquisite  forbearance  of  a  practised 
teacher,  or  the  love,  and  confidence, 
and  yielding  heart  of  a  believing 
pupil.  Roland  felt  that  he  was  not 
the  man  to  be  the  teacher,  and  that 
his  son's  heart  remained  obstinately 
closed  to  him.  He  looked  round,  and 
found  at  the  other  side  of  Paris  what 
seemed  a  suitable  preceptor — a  young 
Frenchman  of  some  distinction  in 
letters,  more  especially  in  science, 
with  all  a  Frenchman's  eloquence  of 
talk,  full  of  high-sounding  sentiments, 
that  pleased  the  romantic  enthusiasm 
of  the  Captain ;  so  Roland,  with  san- 


guine hopes,  confided  his  son  to  this 
man's  care.  The  boy's  natural  quick- 
ness mastered  readily  all  that  pleased 
his  taste ;  he  learned  to  speak  and 
write  French  with  rare  felicity  and 
precision.  His  tenacious  memory, 
and  those  flexile  organs  in  which  the 
talent  for  languages  is  placed,  served, 
with  the  help  of  an  English  master, 
to  revive  his  earlier  knowledge  of  his 
father's  tongue,  and  to  enable  him  to 
speak  it  with  fluent  correctness  — 
though  there  was  always  in  his  accent 
something  which  had  struck  me  as 
strange ;  but,  not  suspecting  it  to  be 
foreign,  I  had  thought  it  a  theatrical 
affectation.  He  did  not  go  far  into 
science — little  farther,  perhaps,  'than 
a  smattering  of  French  mathematics  ; 
but  he  acquired  a  remarkable  facility 
and  promptitude  in  calculation.  He 
devoured  eagerly  the  light  reading 
thrown  in  his  way,  and  picked  up 
thence  that  kind  of  knowledge  which 
novels  and  plays  afford,  for  good  or 


156 


The  Oaxtons.—Part  XV. 


[Aug. 


evil,  according  as  the  novel  or  the 
play  elevates  the  understanding  and 
ennobles  the  passions,  or  merely  cor- 
rupts the  fancy,  and  lowers  the  stan- 
dard of  human  nature.  But  of  all 
that  Roland  desired  him  to  be  taught, 
the  son  remained  as  ignorant  as  be- 
fore. Among  the  other  misfortunes 
of  this  ominous  marriage,  Roland's 
wife  had  possessed  all  the  supersti- 
tions of  a  Roman  Catholic  Spaniard, 
and  with  these  the  boy  had  uncon- 
sciously intermingled  doctrines  far 
more  dreary,  imbibed  from  the  dark 
paganism  of  the  Gitanos. 

Roland  had  sought  a  Protestant  for 
his  son's  tutor.  The  preceptor  was 
nominally  a  Protestant  —  a  biting 
derider  of  all  superstitions  indeed ! 
He  was  such  a  Protestant  as  some 
defender  of  Voltaire's  religion  says 
the  Great  Wit  would  have  been  had 
he  lived  in  a  Protestant  country.  The 
Frenchman  laughed  the  boy  out  of 
his  superstitions,  to  leave  behind  them 
the  sneering  scepticism  of  the  Ency- 
clopedic, without  those  redeeming 
ethics  on  which  all  sects  of  philosophy 
are  agreed,  but  which,  unhappily,  it 
requires  a  philosopher  to  comprehend. 

This  preceptor  was  doubtless  not 
aware  of  the  mischief  he  was  doing ; 
and  for  the  rest,  he  taught  his  pupil 
after  his  own  system — a  mild  and 
plausible  one,  very  much  like  the 
system  we  at  home  are  recommended 
to  adopt — "  Teach  the  understanding, 
all  else  will  follow ;"  "  Learn  to  read 
something,  and  it  will  all  come  right;" 
"  Follow  the  bias  of  the  pupil's  mind ; 
thus  you  develop  genius,  not  thwart 
it."  Mind,  Understanding,  Genius — 
fine  things !  But,  to  educate  the  whole 
man,  you  must  educate  something 
more  than  these.  Not  for  want  of 
mind,  understanding,  genius,  have 
Borgias  and  Neros  left  their  names 
as  monuments  of  horror  to  mankind. 
Where,  in  all  this  teaching,  was  one 
lesson  to  warm  the  heart  and  guide 
the  soul  ? 

O  mother  mine !  that  the  boy  had 
etood  by  thy  knee,  and  heard  from  thy 
lips,  why  life  was  given  us,  in  what 
life  shall  end,  and  how  heaven  stands 
open  to  us  night  and  day !  O  father 
mine!  that  thou  hadst  been  his  pre- 
ceptor, not  in  book-learning,  but  the 
heart's  simple  wisdom  !  Oh  !  that  he 
had  learned  from  thee,  in  parables 


closed  with  practice,  the  happiness  of 
self-sacrifice,  and  how  "good  deeds, 
should  repair  the  bad  !" 

It  was  the  misfortune  of  this  boy, 
with  his  daring  and  his  beauty,  that 
there  was  in  his  exterior  and  his 
manner  that  which  attracted  indulgent 
interest,  and  a  sort  of  compassionate 
admiration.  The  Frenchman  liked 
him — believed  his  story — thought  him 
ill-treated  by  that  hard-visaged  Eng- 
lish soldier.  All  English  people  were 
so  disagreeable,  particularly  English 
soldiers ;  and  the  Captain  once  mor- 
tally offended  the  Frenchman,  by  call- 
ing Vilainton  un  grand  homme,  and 
denying,  with  brutal  indignation,  that 
the  English  had  poisoned  Napoleon  ! 
So,  instead  of  teaching  the  son  to  love 
and  revere  his  father,  the  Frenchman 
shrugged  his  shoulders  when  the  boy 
broke  into  some  unfilial  complaint, 
and  at  most  said,  "  Mais,  clier  enfant, 
ton  pere  est  Anglais — c'est  tout  dire." 
Meanwhile,  as  the  child  sprang  rapidly 
into  precocious  youth,  he  was  per- 
mitted a  liberty  in  his  hours  of  leisure, 
of  which  he  availed  himself  with  all 
the  zest  of  his  early  habits  and  adven- 
turous temper.  He  formed  acquaint- 
ances among  the  loose  young  haunters 
of  cafes,  and  spendthrifts  of  that 
capital  —  the  wits  !  He  became  an 
excellent  swordsman  and  pistol-shot 
— adroit  in  all  games  in  -which  skill 
helps  fortune.  He  learned  betimes  to 
furnish  himself  with  money,  by  the 
cards  and  the  billiard-balls. 

But,  delighted  with  the  easy  home 
he  had  obtained,  he  took  care  to 
school  his  features,  and  smooth  his 
manner,  in  his  father's  visits  —  to 
make  the  most  of  what  he  had  learned 
of  less  ignoble  knowledge,  and,  with 
his  characteristic  imitativeness,  to 
cite  the  finest  sentiments  he  had  found 
in  his  plays  and  novels.  What  father 
is  not  credulous?  Roland  believed, 
and  wept  tears  of  joy.  And  now  he 
thought  the  time  was  come  to  take 
back  the  boy — to  return  with  a  worthy 
heir  to  the  old  Tower.  He  thanked 
and  blest  the  tutor — he  took  the  son. 
But,  under  pretence  that  he  had  yet 
some  things  to  master,  whether  in 
book  knowledge  or  manly  accom- 
plishments, the  youth  begged  his 
father,  at  all  events,  not  yet  to  return 
to  England — to  let  him  attend  his 
tutor  daily  for  some  months.  Roland 


1-849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


157 


consented,  moved  from  his  old  quar- 
ters, and  took  a  lodging  for  both  in 
the  same  suburb  as  that  in  which  the 
teacher  resided.  But  soon,  when 
they  were  under  one  roof,  the  boy's 
habitual  tastes,  and  his  repugnance 
to  all  paternal  authority,  were  be- 
trayed. To  do  my  unhappy  cousin 
justice,  (such  as  that  justice  is,) 
though  he  had  the  cunning  for  a  short 
disguise,  he  had  not  the  hypocrisy  to 
maintain  systematic  deceit.  He  could 
play  a  part  for  a  while,  from  an 
exulting  joy  in  his.  own  address  ;  but 
he  could  not  wear  a  mask  with  the 
patience  of  cold-blooded  dissimula- 
tion. Why  enter  into  painful  details, 
so  easily  divined  by  the  intelligent 
reader  ?  The  faults  of  the  son  were 
precisely  those  to  which  Roland  would 
be  least  indulgent.  To  the  ordinary 
scrapes  of  high-spirited  boyhood,  no 
father,  I  am  sure,  would  have  been 
more  lenient ;  but  to  anything  that 


seemed  low,  petty — that  grated  on 
him  as  gentleman  and  soldier — there, 
not  for  worlds  would  I  have  braved 
the  darkness  of  his  frown,  and  the 
woe  that  spoke  like  scorn  in  his  voice. 
And  when,  after  all  warning  and  pro- 
hibition were  in  vain,  Roland  found 
his  son,  in  the.middle  of  the  night,  in 
a  resort  of  gamblers  and  sharpers, 
carrying  all  before  him  with  his  cue, 
in  the  full  flush  of  triumph,  and  a 
great  heap  of  five-franc  pieces  before 
him — you  may  conceive  with  what 
wrath  the  proud,  hasty,  passionate 
man,  drove  out,  cane  in  hand,  the 
obscene  associates,  flinging  after  them 
the  son's  ill-gotten  gains ;  and  with 
what  resentful  humiliation  the  son 
was  compelled  to  follow  the  father 
home.  Then  Roland  took  the  boy  to 
England,  but  not  _to  the  old  Tower ; 
that  hearth  of  his  ancestors  was  still 
too  sacred  for  the  footsteps  of  the 
vagrant  heir ! 


CHAPTER  LXXXVIII. 


THE  HEARTH  WITHOUT  TRUST,  AND  THE  WORLD  WITHOUT  A  GUIDE. 


And  then,  vainly  grasping  at  every 
argument  his  blunt  sense  could  sug- 
gest— then  talked  Roland  much  and 
grandly  of  the  duties  men  owed  — 
even  if  they  threw  off  all  love  to  their 
father — still  to  their  father's  name ; 
and  then  his  pride,  always  so  lively, 
grew  irritable  and  harsh,  and  seemed, 
no  doubt,  to  the  perverted  ears  of  the 
son,  unlovely  and  unloving.  And 
that  pride,  without  serving  one  pur- 
pose of  good,  did  yet  more  mischief; 
for  the  youth  caught  the  disease,  but 
in  a  wrong  way.  And  he  said  to 
himself, — 

"  Ho !  then  my  father  is  a  great 
man,  with  all  these  ancestors  and  big 
words !  And  he  has  lands  and  a 
castle — and  yet  how  miserably  we 
live,  and  how  he  stints  me!  But  if 
he  has  cause  for  pride  in  all  these 
dead  men,  why,  so  have  I.  And  are 
these  lodgings,  these  appurtenances, 
fit  for  the  '  gentleman  '  he  says  I 
am?" 

Even  in  England,  the  gipsy  blood 
broke  out  as  before ;  and  the  youth 
found  vagrant  associates,  heaven 
knows  how  or  where ;  and  straBge- 
tooking  forms,  gaudily  shabby,  and 


disreputably  smart,  were  seen  lurking 
in  the  corner  of  the  street,  or  peering 
in  at  the  window,  slinking  off  if  they 
saw  Roland — and  Roland  could  not 
stoop  to  be  a  spy.  And  the  son's 
heart  grew  harder  and  harder  against 
his  father,  and  his  father's  face  now 
never  smiled  on  him.  Then  bills 
came  in,  and  duns  knocked  at  the 
door.  Bills  and  duns  to  a  man  who 
shrunk  from  the  thought  of  a  debt,  as 
an  ermine  from  a  spot  on  its  hide ! 
And  the  son's  short  answer  to  remon- 
strance was, — "  Am  I  not  a  gentlte- 
man? — these  are  the  things  gentle- 
men require."  Then  perhaps  Roland 
remembered  the  experiment  of  his 
French  friend,  and  left  his  bureau 
unlocked,  and  said,  "  Ruin  me  if  you 
will,  but  no  debts.  There  is  money 
in  those  drawers — they  are  unlocked." 
That  trust  would  for  ever  have  cured 
of  extravagance  a  youth  with  a  high 
and  delicate  sense  of  honour:  the 
pupil  of  the  Gitanos  did  not  under- 
stand the  trust :  he  thought  it  con- 
veyed a  natural  though  ungracious 
permission  to  take  out  what  he 
wanted— and  he  took  !  To  Roland 
this  seemed  a  theft,  and  a  theft  of  the 


158 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


[Aug. 


coarsest  kind :  but  when  he  so  said, 
the  son  started  indignant,  and  saw  in 
that  which  had  been  so  touching  an 
appeal  to  his  honour,  but  a  trap  to 
decoy  him  into  disgrace.  In  short, 
neither  could  understand  the  other. 
Roland  forbade  his  son  to  stir  from 
the  house ;  and  the  young  man  the 
same. night  let  himself  out,  and  stole 
forth  into  the  wide  world,  to  enjoy  jor 
defy  it  in  his  own  wild  way. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  follow  him 
through  his  various  adventures  and 
experiments  on  fortune,  (even  if  I 
knew  them  all,  which  I  do  not.)  And 
now,  putting  altogether  aside  his  right 
name,  which  he  had  voluntarily  aban- 
doned, and  not  embarrassing  the 
reader  with  the  earlier  aliases  as- 
sumed, I  shall  give  to  my  unfortu- 
nate kinsman  the  name  by  which  I 
first  knew  him,  and  continue  to  do  so, 
until — heaven  grant  the  time  may 
come! — having  first  redeemed,  he  may 
reclaim,  his  own.  It  was  in  joining  a 
set  of  strolling  players  that  Vivian 
became  acquainted  with  Peacock; 
and  that  worthy,  who  had  many 
strings  to  his  bow,  soon  grew  aware 
of  Vivian's  extraordinary  skill  with 
the  cue,  and  saw  therein  a  better 
mode  of  making  their  joint  fortunes 
than  the  boards  of  an  itinerant  Thespts 
furnished  to  either.  Vivian  listened 
to  him,  and  it  was  while  their  inti- 
macy was  most  fresh  that  I  met  them 
on  the  highroad.  That  chance  meet- 
ing produced  (if  I  may  be  allowed  to 
believe  his  assurance)  a  strong,  and, 
for  the  moment,  a  salutary  effect  iipon 
Vivian.  The  comparative  innocence 
and  freshness  of  a  boy's  mind  were 
new  to  him  ;  the  elastic  healthful 
spirits  with  which  those  gifts  were 
accompanied  startled  him,  by  the 
contrast  to  his  own  forced  gaiety  and 
secret  gloom.  And  this  boy  was  his 
own  cousin ! 

Coming  afterwards  to  London,  he 
adventured  inquiry  at  the  hotel  in  the 
Strand  at  which  I  had  given  my 
address  ;  learned  where  we  were  ; 
and,  passing  one  night  in  the  street, 
saw  my  uncle  at  the  window  —  to 
recognise  and  to  fly  from  him.  Hav- 
ing then  some  money  at  his  disposal, 
he  broke  off  abruptly  from  the  set  into 
which  he  had  been  thrown.  He  re- 
solved to  return  to  France — he  would 
try  for  a  more  respectable  mode  of 


existence.  He  had  not  found  happi- 
ness in  that  liberty  he  had  won,  nor 
room  for  the  ambition  that  began  to 
gnaw  him,  in  those  pursuits  from 
which  his  father  had  vainly  warned 
him.  His  most  reputable  friend 
was  his  old  tutor ;  he  would  go  to 
him.  He  went ;  but  the  tutor  was 
now  married,  and  was  himself  a 
father,  and  that  made  a  wonderful 
alteration  in  his  practical  ethics.  It 
was  no  longer  moral  to  aid  the  son 
in  rebellion  to  his  father.  Vivian 
evinced  his  usual  sarcastic  haughti- 
ness at  the  reception  he  met,  and  was 
requested  civilly  to  leave  the  house. 
Then  again  he  flung  himself  on  his 
wits  at  Paris.  But  there  were  plenty 
of  wits  there  sharper  than  his  own. 
He  got  into  some  quarrel  with  the 
police — not  indeed  for  any  dishonest 
practices  of  his  own,  but  from  an 
unwary  acquaintance  with  others  less 
scrupulous,  and  deemed  it  prudent  to 
quit  France.  Tans  had  I  met  him 
again,  forlorn  and  ragged,  in  the 
streets  of  London. 

Meanwhile  Roland,  after  the  first 
vain  search,  had  yielded  to  the  indig- 
nation and  disgust  that  had  longrankled 
within  him.  His  son  had  thrown  off 
his  authority,  because  it  preserved 
him  from  dishonour.  His  ideas  of 
discipline  were  stern,  and  patience 
had  been  wellnigh  crushed  out  of  his 
heart.  He  thought  he  could  bear  to 
resign  his  son  to  his  fate — to  disown 
him,  and  to  say,  "  I  have  no  more  a 
son."  It  was  in  this  mood  that  he  had 
first  visited  our  house.  But  when,  on 
that  memorable  night  in  which  he  had 
narrated  to  his  thrilling  listeners  the 
dark  ta]o  of  a  fellow- sufferer's  woe  and 
crime — betraying  in  the  tale,  to  my 
father's  quick  sympathy,  his  own  sor- 
row and  passion — it  did  not  need  much 
of  his  gentler  brother's  subtle  art  to 
learn  or  guess  the  whole,  nor  much 
of  Austin's  mild  persuasion  to  con- 
vince Roland  that  he  had  not  yet 
exhausted  all  efforts  to  track  the  wan- 
derer and  reclaim  the  en-ing  child. 
Then  he  had  gone  to  London — then  he 
had  sought  every  spot  which  the  out- 
cast would  probably  haunt — then  had 
he  saved  and  pinched  from  his  own 
necessities,  to  have  wherewithal  to 
.enter  theatres  and  gaming-houses,  and 
fee  the  agencies  of  police ;  then  had 
he  seen  the  form  for  which  he  had 


1849.] 


Tlie  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


159 


watched  and  pined,  in  the  street  below 
his  window,  and  cried  in  a  joyous  de- 
lusion, "  He  repents !"  One  day  a  let- 
ter reached  my  uncle,  through  his 
banker's,  from  the  French  tutor,  (who 
knew  of  no  other  means  of  tracing  Ro- 
land but  through  the  house  by  which 
his  salary  had  been  paid,)  informing 
him  of  his  son's  visit.  Roland  started 
instantly  for  Paris.  Arriving  there,  he 
could  only  learn  of  his  son  through 
the  police,  and  from  them  only  learn 
that  he  had  been  seen  in  the  company 
of  accomplished  swindlers,  who  were 
already  in  the  hands  of  justice ;  but 
that  the  youth  himself,  whom  there 


was  nothing  to  criminate,  had  been 
suffered  to  quit  Paris,  and  had  taken, 
it  was  supposed,  the  road  to  England. 
Then  at  last  the  poor  Captain's  stout 
heart  gave  way.  His  son  the  com- 
panion of  swindlers ! — could  he  be  sure 
that  he  was  not  their  accomplice  ?  If 
not  yet,  how  small  the  step  between 
companionship  and  participation !  He 
took  the  child  left  him  still  from  the 
convent,  returned  to  England,  and 
arrived  there  to  be  seized  with  fever 
and  delirium — apparently  on  the  same 
clay  (or  a  day  before  that  on  which) 
•the  son  had  dropped  shelterless  and 
penniless  on  the  stones  of  London. 


CHAPTER  T.TXTTT. 
THE  ATTEMPT  TO  BUILD  A  TEMPLE  TO  FORTUNE  OUT  OF  THE  RUINS  OF  HOME. 


"  But,"  said  Vivian,  pursuing  his 
tale,  "  but  when  you  came  to  my  aid, 
not  knowing  me — when  you  relieved 
me — when  from  your  own  lips,  for  the 
first  time,  I  heard  words  that  praised 
me,  and  for  qualities  that  implied  I 
might  yet  be  '  worth  much.'— Ah  !  (he 
added  mournfully,)  I  remember  the 
very  words — a  new  light  broke  upon 
me — struggling  and  dim,  but  light 
still.  The  ambition  with  which  I  had 
sought  the  truckling  Frenchman  re- 
vived, and  took  worthier  and  more 
definite  form.  I  would  lift  myself 
above  the  mire,  make  a  name,  rise  in 
life!" 

Vivian's  head  drooped,  but  he  raised 
it  quickly,  and  laughed — his  low  mock- 
ing laugh.  What  follows  of  his  tale 
may  be  told  succinctly.  Retaining 
his  bitter  feelings  towards  his  father, 
he  resolved  to  continue  his  incognito 
— he  gave  himself  a  name  likely  to 
mislead  conjecture,  if  I  conversed  of 
him  to  my  family,  since  he  knew  that 
Roland  was  aware  that  a  Colonel 
Vivian  had  been  afflicted  by  a  runaway 
son — and,  indeed,  the  talk  upon  that 
subject  had  first  put  the  notion  of 
flight  into  his  own  head.  He  caught  at 
the  idea  of  becoming  known  to  Tre- 
vanion  ;  but  he  saw  reasons  to  forbid 
his  being  indebted  to  me  for  the  intro- 
duction— to  forbid  my  knowing  where 
lie  was :  sooner  or  later,  that  know- 
ledge could  scarcely  fail  to  end  in  the 
discovery  of  his  real  name.  Fortu- 
nately, as  he  deemed,  for  the  plans  he 


began  to  meditate,  we  were  all  leaving 
London — he  should  have  the  stage  to 
himself.  And  then  boldly  he  resolved 
upon  what  he  regarded  as  the  master 
scheme  of  life — viz.,  to  obtain  a  small 
pecuniary  independence,  and  to  eman- 
cipate himself  formally  and  entirely 
from  his  father's  control.  Aware  of 
poor  Roland's  chivalrous  reverence 
for  his  name,  firmly  persuaded  that 
Roland  had  no  love  for  the  son,  but 
only  the  dread  that  the  son  might 
disgrace  him,  he  determined  to  avail 
himself  of  his  father's  prejudices  in 
order  to  effect  his  purpose. 

He  wrote  a  short  letter  to  Roland, 
(that  letter  which  had  given  the  poor 
man  so  sanguine  a  joy — that  letter 
after  reading  which  he  had  said  to 
Blanche,  "  Pray  for  me.")  stating 
simply,  that  he  wished  to  see  his  fa- 
ther ;  and  naming  a  tavern  in  the  city 
for  the  meeting. 

The  interview  took  place.  And 
when  Roland,  love  and  forgiveness  in 
his  heart — but  (who  shall  blame  him?) 
dignity  on  his  brow,  and  rebuke  in  his 
eye — approached,  ready  at  a  word  to 
fling  himself  on  the  boy's  breast,  Vi- 
vian, seeing  only  the  outer  signs,  and 
interpreting  them  by  his  own  senti- 
ments— recoiled ;  folded  his  arms  on 
his  bosom,  and  said  coldly,  "  Spare 
me  reproach,  sir — it  is  unavailing.  I 
seek  you  only  to  propose  that  you 
shall  save  your  name,  and  resign  your 
son." 

Then,  intent  perhaps  but  to  gain 


160 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


[Aug. 


his  object,  the  unhappy  youth  de- 
clared his  fixed  determination  never 
to  live  with  his  father,  never  to  acqui- 
esce in  his  authority,  resolutely  to 
pursue  his  own  career,  whatever  that 
career  might  be,  explaining  none  of 
the  circumstances  that  appeared  most 
in  his  disfavour  —  rather,  perhaps, 
thinking  that,  the  worse  his  father 
judged  of  him,  the  more  chance  he 
had  to  achieve  his  purpose.  "  All  I 
ask  of  you,"  he  said,  "  is  this :  Give 
me  the  least  you  can  afford  to  pre- 
serve me  from  the  temptation  to  rob, 
or  the  necessity  to  starve  ;  and  I,  in 
my  turn,  promise  never  to  molest  you 
in  life — never  to  degrade  you  in  my 
death ;  whatever  my  misdeeds,  they 
will  never  reflect  on  yourself,  for  you 
«hall  never  recognise  the  misdoer! 
The  name  you  prize  so  highly  shall 
be  spared."  Sickened  and  revolted, 
Roland  attempted  no  argument — there 
was  that  in  the  son's  cold  manner 
which  shut  out  hope,  and  against 
which  his  pride  rose  indignant.  A 
meeker  man  might  have  remonstrated, 
implored,  and  wept — that  was  not  in 
Roland's  nature.  He  had  but  the 
choice  of  three  evils,  to  say  to  his 
son  :  "  Fool,  I  command  thee  to  fol- 
low me ;"  or  say,  "  Wretch,  since 
thou  wouldst  cast  me  off  as  a  stranger, 
as  a  stranger  I  say  to  thee — Go, 
starve  or  rob,  as  thou  wilt !"  or  last- 
ly, to  bow  his  proud  head,  stunned 
by  the  blow,  and  say,  "  Thou  refusest 
me  the  obedience  of  the  son,  thou  de- 
mandest  to  be  as  the  dead  to  me.  I 
can  control  thee  not  from  vice,  I  can 
guide  thee  not  to  virtue.  Thou  wouldst 
sell  me  the  name  I  have  inherited 
stainless,  and  have  as  stainless  borne. 
Be  it  so ! — Name  thy  price !" 

And  something  like  this  last  was 
the  father's  choice. 

He  listened,  and  was  long  silent ; 
and  then  he  said  slowly,  "  Pause  be- 
fore you  decide." 

"  I  have  paused  long — my  decision 
is  made!  this  is  the  last  time  we 


meet.  I  see  before  me  now  the  way 
to  fortune,  fairly,  honourably ;  you  can 
aid  me  in  it  only  in  the  way  I  have 
said.  Reject  me  now,  and  the  option 
may  never  come  again  to  either !" 

And  then  Roland  said  to  himself, 
"  I  have  spared  and  saved  for  this 
son ;  what  care  I  for  aught  else  than 
enough  to  live  without  debt,  creep 
into  a  corner,  and  await  the  grave ! 
And  the  more  I  can  give,  why  the 
better  chance  that  he  will  abj  ure  the  vile 
associate  and  the  desperate  course." 
And  so,  out  of  that  small  income, 
Roland  surrendered  to  the  rebel  child 
more  than  the  half. 

Vivian  was  not  aware  of  his  father's 
fortune — he  did  not  suppose  the  sum 
of  two  hundred  pounds  a-year  was  an 
allowance  so  disproportioned  to  Ro- 
land's means — yet  when  it  was  named, 
even  he  was  struck  by  the  generosity 
of  one  to  whom  he  himself  had  given 
the  right  to  say,  "  I  take  thee  at  thy 
word  ;  'just  enough  not  to  starve!'  " 

But  then  that  hateful  cynicism 
which,  caught  from  bad  men  and  evil 
books,  he  called  "knowledge  of  the 
world,"  made  him  think,  "  it  is  not  for 
me,  it  is  only  for  his  name ;"  and  he 
said  aloud,  "I  accept  these  terms, 
sir ;  here  is  the  address  of  a  solicitor 
with  whom  yours  can  settle  them. 
Farewell  for  ever." 

At  those  last  words  Roland  started, 
and  stretched  out  his  arms  vaguely 
like  a  blind  man.  But  Vivian  had 
already  thrown  open  the  window, 
(the  room  was  on  the  ground  floor) 
and  sprang  upon  the  sill.  "  Fare- 
well," he  repeated  :  "  tell  the  world  I 
am  dead." 

He  leapt  into  the  street,  and  the 
father  drew  in  the  outstretched  arms, 
smote  his  heart,  and  said — "Well, 
then,  my  task  in  the  world  of  man  is 
over !  I  will  back  to  the  old  ruin — 
the  wreck  to  the  wrecks  —  and  the 
sight  of  tombs  I  have  at  least  rescued 
from  dishonour  shall  comfort  me  for 
all!" 


CHAPTER  XC. 

THE   RESULTS — PERVERTED    AMBITION — SELFISH    PASSION — THE    INTELLECT    DISTORTED 
BY  THE  CROOKEDNESS  OF  THE  HEART. 

Vivian's  schemes  thus  prospered,  gentleman — an  independence  modest 
He  had  an  income  that  permitted  indeed,  but  independence  still.  We 
him  the  outward  appearances  of  a  were  all  gone  from  London.  One 


1849.] 

letter  to  me,  with  the  postmark  of 
the  town  near  which  Colonel  Vivian 
lived,  sufficed  to  confirm  my  belief  in 
his  parentage,  and  in  his  return  to  his 
friends.  He  then  presented  himself 
to  Trevanion  as  the  young  man  whose 
pen  I  had  employed  in  the  member's 
service ;  and  knowing  that  I  had 
never  mentioned  his  name  to  Treya- 
nion — for  without  Vivian's  permission 
I  should  not,  considering  his  apparent 
trust  in  me,  have  deemed  myself 
authorised  to  do  so — he  took  that  of 
Gower,  which  he  selected  haphazard 
from  an  old  Court  Guide,  as  having 
the  advantage  in  common  with  most 
names  borne  by  the  higher  nobility  of 
England,  viz.,  of  not  being  confined, 
as  the  ancient  names  of  iintitled  gen- 
tlemen usually  are,  to  the  members  of 
a  single  family.  And  when,  with  his 
usual  adaptability  and  suppleness,  he 
had  contrived  to  lay  aside,  or  smooth 
over,  whatever  in  his  manners  would 
be  calculated  to  displease  Trevanion, 
and  had  succeeded  in  exciting  the 
interest  which  that  generous  states- 
man always  conceived  for  ability,  he 
owned  candidly,  one  day,  in  the  pre- 
sence of  Lady  Ellinor — for  his  experi- 
ence had  taught  him  the  comparative 
ease  with  which  the  sympathy  of 
woman  is  enlisted  in  anything  that 
appeals  to  the  imagination,  or  seems 
out  of  the  ordinary  beat  of  life — that 
lie  had  reasons  for  concealing  his 
connexions  for  the  present — that  he 
had  cause  to  believe  I  suspected  what 
they  were,  and,  from  mistaken  regard 
for  his  welfare,  might  acquaint  his 
relations  with  his  whereabout.  He 
therefore  begged  Trevanion,  if  the 
latter  had  occasion  to  write  to  me, 
not  to  mention  him.  This  promise 
Trevanion  gave,  though  reluctantly ; 
for  the  confidence  volunteered  to  him 
seemed  to  exact  the  promise  ;  but  as 
he  detested  mystery  of  all  kinds,  the 
avowal  might  have  been  fatal  to  any 
farther  acquaintance ;  and  under  aus- 
pices so  doubtful,  there  would  have 
been  no  chance  of  his  obtaining  that 
intimacy  in  Trevanion's  house  which 
he  desired  to  establish,  but  for  an 
accident  which  at  once  opened  that 
house  to  him  almost  as  a  home. 

Vivian  had  always  treasured  a  lock 
of  his  mother's  hair,  cut  off  on  her 
deathbed ;  and  when  he  was  at  his 
French  tutor's,  his  first  pocket-money 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


1G1 


had  been  devoted  to  the  purchase  of 
a  locket,  on  which  he  had  caused  to 
be  inscribed  his  own  name  and  his 
mother's.  Through  all  his  wander- 
ings he  had  worn  this  relic ;  and  in 
the  direst  pangs  of  want,  no  hunger 
had  been  keen  enough  to  induce  him 
to  part  with  it.  Now,  one  morning 
the  ribbon  that  suspended  the  locket 
gave  way,  and  his  eye  resting  on  the 
names  inscribed  on  the  gold,he  thought, 
in  his  own  vague  sense  of  right,  im- 
perfect as  it  was,  that  his  compact 
with  his  father  obliged  him  to  have 
the  names  erased.  He  took  it  to  a 
jeweller  in  Piccadilly  for  that  purpose, 
and  gave  the  requisite  order,  not 
taking  notice  of  a  lady  in  the  further 
part  of  the  shop.  The  locket  was 
still  on  the  counter  after  Vivian  had 
left,  when  the  lady  coming  forward 
observed  it,  and  saw  the  names  on 
the  surface.  She  had  been  struck  by 
the  peculiar  tone  of  the  voice,  which 
she  had  heard  before ;  and  that  very 
day  Mr  Gower  received  a  note  from 
Lady  Ellinor  Trevanion,  requesting 
to  see  him.  Much  wondering,  he 
went.  Presenting  him  with  the 
locket,  she  said  smiling,  "There  is 
only  one  gentleman  in  the  world  who 
calls  himself  De  Caxton,  unless  it  be 
his  son.  Ah!  I  see  now  why  you 
wished  to  conceal  yourself  from  my 
friend  Pisistratus.  But  how  is  this  ? 
can  you  have  any  difference  with 
your  father  ?  Confide  in  me,  or  it  is 
my  duty  to  write  to  him." 

Even  Vivian's  powers  of  dissimula- 
tion abandoned  him,  thus  taken  by 
surprise.  He  saw  no  alternative  but 
to  trust  Lady  Ellinor  with  his  secret, 
and  implore  her  to  respect  it.  And 
then  he  spoke  bitterly  of  his  father's 
dislike  to  him,  and  his  own  resolution 
to  prove  the  injustice  of  that  dislike 
by  the  position  he  would  himself 
establish  in  the  world.  At  present, 
his  father  believed  him  dead,  and 
perhaps  was  not  ill- pleased  to  think 
so.  He  would  not  dispel  that  belief 
till  he  could  redeem  any  boyish  errors, 
and  force  his  family  to  be  proud  to 
acknowledge  him. 

Though  Lady  Ellinorwas  slow  to  be- 
lieve that  Roland  could  dislike  his  son, 
she  could  yet  readily  believe  that  he 
was  harsh  and  chpleric,with  a  soldier's 
high  notions  of  discipline ;  the  young 
man's  story  moved  her,  his  determina- 


162 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


tion  pleased  her  own  high  spirit ; — 
always  with  a  touch  of  romance  in 
her,  and  always  sympathising  with 
each  desire  of  ambition — she  entered 
into  Vivian's  aspirations  with  an 
alacrity  that  surprised  himself.  She 
was  charmed  with  the  idea  of  mini- 
stering to  the  son's  fortunes,  and 
ultimately  reconciling  him  to  the 
father, — through  her  own  agency  ; — 
it  would  atone  for  any  fault  of  which 
Roland  could  accuse  herself  in  the 
old  time. 

She  undertook  to  impart  the  secret 
to  Trevanion,  for  she  would  have  no 
secrets  from  him,  and  to  secure  his 
acquiescenece  in  its  concealment  from 
all  others. 

And  here  I  must  a  little  digress  from 
the  chronological  course  of  my  expla- 
natory narrative,  to  inform  the  reader 
that,  when  Lady  Ellinor  had  her  in- 
terview with  Roland,  she  had  been 
repelled  by  the  sternness  of  his  manner 
from  divulging  Vivian's  secret.  But 
on  her  first  attempt  to  sound  or  conci- 
liate him,  she  had  begun  with  some 
eulogies  on  Trevanion's  new  friend 
and  assistant,  Mr  Gower,  and  had 
awakened  _  Roland's  suspicions  of 
that  person's  identity  with  his  son 
— suspicions  which  had  given  him  a 
terrible  interest  in  our  joint  deliver- 
ance of  Miss  Trevanion.  But  so 
heroically  had  the  poor  soldier  sought 
to  resist  his  own  fears,  that  on  the  way 
he  shrank  to  put  to  me  the  questions 
that  might  paralyse  the  energies  which, 
whatever  the  answer,  were  then  so 
much  needed.  "  For,"  said  he  to  my 
father,  "  I  felt  the  blood  surging  to  my 
temples ;  and  if  I  had  said  to  Pisis- 
tratus,  '  Describe  this  man,'  and  by 
his  description  I  had  recognised  my 
sou,  and  dreaded  lest  I  might  be  too 
late  to  arrest  him  from  so  treacherous 
a  crime,  my  brain  would  have  given 
way ; — and  so  I  did  not  dare !" 

I  return  to  the  thread  of  my  story. 
From  the  time  that  Vivian  confided  in 
Lady  Ellinor,  the  way  was  cleared  to 
his  most  ambitious  hopes  ;  and  though 
his  acquisitions  were  not  sufficiently 
scholastic  and  various  to  permit  Tre- 
vanion to  select  him  as  a  secretary, 
yet,  short  of  sleeping  at  the  house,  he 
was  little  less  intimate  there  than  I 
had  been. 

Among  Vivian's  schemes  of  ad- 
vancement, that  of  winning  the  hand 


and  heart  of  the  great  heiress  had  not 
been  one  of  the  least  sanguine.  This 
hope  was  annulled  when,  not  long 
after  his  intimacy  at  her  father's 
house,  she  became  engaged  to  young 
Lord  Castleton.  But  he  could  not 
see  Miss  Trevanion  with  impunity — 
(alas !  who,  with  a  heart  yet  free, 
could  be  insensible  to  attractions  so 
winning?)  He  permitted  the  love — 
such  love  as  his  wild,  half-educated, 
half-savage  nature  acknowledged — 
to  creep  into  his  soul — to  master  it ; 
but  he  felt  no  hope,  cherished  no 
scheme  while  the  young  lord  lived. 
With  the  death  of  her  betrothed, 
Fanny  was  free ;  then  he  began  to 
hope — not  yet  to  scheme,  Acciden- 
tally he  encountered  Peacock.  Partly 
from  the  levity  that  accompanied  a 
false  good-nature  that  was  constitu- 
tional with  him,  partly  from  a  vague 
idea  that  the  man  might  be  useful, 
Vivian  established  his  quondam  asso- 
ciate in  the  service  of  Trevanion. 
Peacock  soon  gained  the  secret  of 
Vivian's  love  for  Fanny,  and,  dazzled 
by  the  advantages  that  a  marriage 
with  Miss  Trevanion  would  confer  on 
his  patron,  and  might  reflect  on  him- 
self, and  delighted  at  an  occasion  to 
exercise  his  dramatic  accomplishments 
on  the  stage  of  real  life,  he  soon  prac- 
tised the  lesson  that  the  theatres  had 
taught  him — viz:  to  make  a  sub- 
intrigue  between  maid  and  valet  serve 
the  schemes  and  insure  the  success  of 
the  lover.  If  Vivian  had  some  op- 
portunities to  imply  his  admiration, 
Miss  Trevanion  gave  him  none  to 
plead  his  cause.  But  the  softness  of 
her  nature,  and  that  graceful  kindness 
which  surrounded  her  like  an  atmo- 
sphere, emanating  unconsciously  from 
a  girl's  harmless  desire  to  please, 
tended  to  deceive  him.  His  own  per- 
sonal gifts  were  so  rare,  and,  in  his 
wandering  life,  the  effect  they  had 
produced  had  so  increased  his  reliance 
on  them,  that  he  thought  he  wanted 
but  the  fair  opportunity  to  woo  in 
order  to  win.  In  this  state  of  mental 
intoxication,  Trevanion,  having  pro- 
vided for  his  Scotch  secretary,  took 

him  to  Lord  N 's.     His  hostess 

was  one  of  those  middle-aged  ladies 
of  fashion,  who  like  to  patronise  and 
bring  forward  young  men,  accepting 
gratitude  for  condescension,  as  a  ho- 
mage to  beauty.  She  was  struck  by 


1849.] 


TJie  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


ICO 


Vivian's  exterior,  and  that  'pictu- 
resque' in  look  and  in  manner  which 
belonged  to  him.  Naturally  garrulous 
and  indiscreet,  she  was  unreserved  to 
a  pupil  whom  she  conceived  the  whim 
to  make  '  au  fait  to  society.'  Thus 
she  talked  to  him,  among  other  topics 
iii  fashion,  of  Miss  Trevanion,  and 
expressed  her  belief  that  the  present 
Lord  Castletoii  had  always  admired 
her ;  but  it  was  only  on  his  accession 
to  the  marquisate  that  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  marry,  or,  from  his 
knowledge  of  Lady  Ellinor's  ambi- 
tion, thought  that  the  Marquis  of 
Castleton  might  achieve  the  prize 
which  would  have  been  refused  to  Sir 
Sedley  Beaudesert.  Then,  to  corro- 
borate the  predictions  she  hazarded, 
she  repeated,  perhaps  with  exaggera- 
tion, some  passages  from  Lord  Castle- 
ton's  replies  to  her  own  suggestions 
on  the  subject.  Vivian's  alarm  be- 
came fatally  excited  ;  unregulated 
passions  easily  obscured  a  reason  so 
long  perverted,  and  a  conscience  so 
habitually  dulled.  There  is  an  in- 
stinct in  all  intense  affection,  (whether 
it  be  corrupt  or  pure,)  that  usually 
makes  its  jealousy  prophetic.  Thus, 
from  the  first,  out  of  all  the  brilliant 
idlers  round  Fanny  Trevanion,  my 
jealousy  had  pre-eminently  fastened 
on  Sir  Sedley  Beaudesert,  though,  to 
all  seeming,  without  a  cause.  From 
the  same  instinct,  Vivian  had  con- 
ceived the  same  vague  jealousy — a 
jealousy,  in  his  instance,  coupled  with 
a  deep  dislike  to  his  supposed  rival, 
who  had  wounded  his  self-love.  For 
the  marquis,  though  to  be  haughty  or 
ill-bred  was  impossible  to  the  bland- 
ness  of  his  nature,  had  never  shown 
to  Vivian  the  genial  courtesies  he  had 
lavished  upon  me,  and  kept  politely 
aloof  from  his  acquaintance — while 
Vivian's  personal  vanity  had  been 
wounded  by  that  drawing-room  effect, 
which  the  proverbial  winner  of  all 
hearts  produced  without  au  effort — an 
effect  that  threw  into  the  shade  the 
youth,  and  the  beauty  (more  striking, 
but  infinitely  less  prepossessing)  of  the 
adventurous  rival.  Thus  animosity 
to  Lord  Castleton  conspired  with 
Vivian's  passion  for  Fanny,  to  rouse 
all  that  was  worst  by  nature  and  by 
rearing,  in  this  audacious  and  turbu- 
lent spirit. 
His  confidant,  Peacock,  suggested 


from  his  stage  experience  the  out- 
lines of  a  plot,  to  which  Vivian's 
astuter  intellect  instantly  gave  tangi- 
bility and  colouring.  Peacock  had 
already  found  Miss  Trevanion's  wait- 
ing-woman ripe  for  any  measure  that 
might  secure  himself  as  her  husband, 
and  a  provision  for  life  as  a  reward. 
Two  or  three  letters  between  them 
settled  the  preliminary  engagements. 
A  friend  of  the  ex-comedian's  had 
lately  taken  an  inn  on  the  North  road, 
and  might  be  relied  upon.  At  that 
inn  it  was  settled  that  Vivian  should 
meet  Miss  Trevanion,  whom  Peacock, 
by  the  aid  of  the  abigail,  engaged  to 
lure  there.  The  sole  difficulty  that 
then  remained  would,  to  most  men, 
have  seemed  the  greatest — viz.,  the 
consent  of  Miss  Trevanion  to  a  Scotch 
marriage.  But  Vivian  hoped  all 
things  from  his  own  eloquence,  art, 
and  passion ;  and  by  an  inconsis- 
tency, however  strange,  still  not  un- 
natural in  the  twists  of  so  crooked  an 
intellect,  he  thought  that,  by  insisting 
on  the  intention  of  her  parents  to 
sacrifice  her  youth  to  the  very  man  of 
whose  attractions  he  was  most  jealous 
— by  the  picture  of  disparity  of  years, 
by  the  caricature  of  his  rival's  foibles 
and  frivolities,  by  the  commonplaces 
of  "  beauty  bartered  for  ambition," 
&c.,  he  might  enlist  her  fears  of  the 
alternative  on  the  side  of  the  choice 
urged  upon  her.  The  plan  proceeded, 
the  time  came :  Peacock  pretended 
the  excuse  of  a  sick  relation  to  leave 
Trevanion ;  and  Vivian,  a  day  before, 
on  pretence  of  visiting  the  picturesque 
scenes  in  the  neighbourhood,  obtained 
leave  of  absence.  Thus  the  plot  went 
on  to  its  catastrophe. 

"  And  I  need  not  ask,"  said  I,  tryr 
ing  in  vain  to  conceal  my  indignation, 
"  how  Miss  Trevanion  received  your 
monstrous  proposition  I" 

Vivian's  pale  cheek  grew  paler,  but 
he  made  no  reply. 

"And  if  we  had  not  arrived,  what 
would  you  have  done  ?  Oh,  dare  you 
look  into  the  gulf  of  infamy  you  have 
escaped  I" 

"  I  cannot,  and  I  will  not  bear 
this!"  exclaimed  Vivian,  starting  up. 
"I  have  laid  my  heart  bare  before 
3'ou,  and  it  is  ungenerous  and  unman- 
ly thus  to  press  upon  its  wounds. 
You  can  moralise,  you  can  speak 
coldly— but  I— I  loved !" 


164 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


[Aug, 


"  And  do  you  think,"  I  burst  forth 
— u  do  you  think  that  I  did  not  love 
too ! — love  longer  than  you  have  done ; 
better  than  you  have  done ;  gone 
through  sharper  struggles,  darker 
days,  more  sleepless  nights  than  you, 
— and  yet — " 

Vivian  caught  hold  of  me. 

"Hush!"  he  cried;  "is  this  in- 
deed true  !  I  thought  you  might  have 
had  some  faint  and  fleeting  fancy  for 
Miss  Trevanion,  but  that  you  curbed 
and  conquered  it  at  once.  Oh  no ; 
it  was  impossible  to  have  loved  really, 
and  to  have  surrendered  all  chance  as 
you  did ! — have  left  the  house,  have 
fled  from  her  presence!  No — no, 
that  was  not  love ! " 

"  It  was  love !  and  I  pray  Heaven 
to  grant  that,  one  day,  you  may  know 
how  little  your  affection  sprang  from 
those  feelings  which  make  true  love 
sublime  as  honour,  and  meek  as  is 
religion !  Oh  cousin,  cousin ! — with 
those  rare  gifts,  what  you  might  have 
been !  what,  if  you  will  pass  through 
repentance,  and  cling  to  atonement — 
what,  I  dare  hope,  you  may  yet  be ! 
Talk  not  now  of  your  love;  I  talk 
not  of  mine !  Love  is  a  thing  gone 
from  the  lives  of  both.  Go  back  to 


earlier  thoughts,  to  heavier  wrongs  f 
— your  father — that  noble  heart  which 
you  have  so  wantonly  lacerated,  that 
much- enduring  love  which  you  have 
so  little  comprehended ! " 

Then  with  all  the  warmth  of  emo- 
tion I  hurried  on — showed  him  the 
true  nature  of  honour  and  of  Roland 
(for  the  names  were  one!) — showed 
him  the  watch,  the  hope,  the  manly 
anguish  I  had  witnessed,  and  wept — 
I,  not  his  son — to  see ;  showed  him 
the  poverty  and  privation  to  which 
the  father,  even  at  the  last,  had  con- 
demned himself,  so  that  the  son  might 
have  no  excuse  for  the  sins  that  Want 
whispers  to  the  weak.  This,  and 
much  more,  and  I  suppose  with  the 
pathos  that  belongs  to  all  earnestness, 
I  enforced,  sentence  after  sentence — 
yielding  to  no  interruption,  over-mas- 
tering all  dissent ;  driving  in  the 
truth,  nail  after  nail,  as  it  were,  into 
the  obdurate  heart,  that  I  constrained 
and  grappled  to.  And  at  last,  the 
dark,  bitter,  cynical  nature  gave  way, 
and  the  young  man  fell  sobbing  at  my 
feet,  and  cried  aloud,  "Spare  me, 
spare  me ! — I  see  it  all  now  !  Wretch 
that  I  have  been  ! " 


CHAPTER  XCI. 


On  leaving  Vivian,  I  did  not  pre- 
sume to  promise  him  Eoland's  imme- 
diate pardon.  I  did  not  urge  him  to 
attempt  to  see  his  father.  I  felt  the 
time  was  not  come  for  either  pardon 
or  interview.  I  contented  myself 
with  the  victory  I  had  already  gained. 
I  judged  it  right  that  thought,  soli- 
tude, and  suffering  should  imprint 
more  deeply  the  lesson,  and  prepare 
the  way  to  the  steadfast  resolution  of 
reform.  I  left  him  seated  by  the 
stream,  and  with  the  promise  to  inform 
him  at  the  small  hostelry,  where  he 
took  up  his  lodging,  how  Roland 
struggled  through  his  illness. 

On  returning  to  the  inn,  I  was 
uneasy  to  see  how  long  a  time  had 
elapsed  since  I  had  left  my  uncle. 
But  on  coming  into  his  room,  to  my 
surprise  and  relief  I  found  him  up  and 
dressed,  and  with  a  serene  though 
fatigued  expression  of  countenance. 
He  asked  me  no  questions  where  I 
had  been — perhaps  from  sympathy 


with  my  feelings  in  parting  with  Miss 
Trevanion — perhaps  from  conjecture 
that  the  indulgence  of  those  feelings 
had  not  wholly  engrossed  my  time. 

But  he  said  simply,  "I  think  I 
understood  from  yon  that  you  had 
sent  for  Austin — is  it  so?  " 

"  Yes,  sir ;  but  I  named  *****,  as 
the  nearest  point  to  the  Tower,  for 
the  place  of  meeting." 

"Then  let  us  go  hence  forthwith — 
nay,  I  shall  be  better  for  the  change. 
And  here,  there  must  be  curiosity, 
conjecture — torture  !"  said  he,  locking 
his  hands  tightly  together.  "  Order 
the  horses  at  once ! " 

I  left  the  room,  accordingly;  and 
while  they  were  getting  ready  the 
horses,  I  ran  to  the  place  where  I  had 
left  Vivian.  He  was  still  there,  in 
the  same  attitude,  covering  his  face 
with  his  hands,  as  if  to  shut  out  the 
sun.  I  told  him  hastily  of  Roland's 
improvement,  of  our  approaching  de- 
parture, and  asked  him  an  address  in 


1849.]  The  Caxtons.— Part  XV. 

London  at  which  I  could  find  him.     where  I  am  to  be  found. 
He  gave  me  as  his  direction  the  same 
lodging  at  which  I  had  so  often  visited 
him.     "  If  there  be  no  vacancy  there 
for  me,"  said  he,  "  I  shall  leave  word 


165 

But  I  would 

gladly  be  where  I  was,  before — "  He 
did  not  finish  the  sentence.  I  pressed 
his  hand  and  left  him. 


CHAPTER  XCII. 


Some  days  have  elapsed ;  we  are  in 
London,  my  father  with  us ;  and 
Roland  has  permitted  Austin  to  tell 
me  his  tale,  and  received  through 
Austin  all  that  Vivian's  narrative  to 
me  suggested,  whether  in  extenuation 
of  the  past,  or  in  hope  of  redemption 
in  the  future.  And  Austin  has  inex- 
pressibly soothed  his  brother.  And 
Roland's  ordinary  roughness  has  gone, 
and  his  looks  are  meek,  and  his  voice 
low.  But  he  talks  little,  and  smiles 
never.  He  asks  me  no  questions; 
does  not  to  me  name  his  son,  nor 
recur  to  the  voyage  to  Australia,  nor 
ask  '  why  it  is  put  off,'  nor  interest 
himself  as  before  in  preparations  for 
it — he  has  no  heart  for  anything. 

The  voyage  is  put  off  till  the  next 
vessel  sails,  and  I  have  seen  Vivian 
twice  or  thrice,  and  the  result  of  the 
interviews  has  disappointed  and  de- 
pressed me.  It  seems  to  me  that 
much  of  the  previous  effect  I  had  pro- 
duced is  already  obliterated.  At  the 
very  sight  of  the  great  Babel — the 
evidence  of  the  ease,  the  luxury,  the 
wealth,  the  pomp,  the  strife,  the 
penury,  the  famine,  and  the  rags, 
which  the  focus  of  civilisation,  in  the 
disparities  of  old  societies,  inevitably 
gathers  together — the  fierce  combative 
disposition  seemed  to  awaken  again  ; 
the  perverted  ambition,  the  hostility 
to  the  world ;  the  wrath,  the  scorn ; 
the  war  with  man,  and  the  rebellious 
murmur  against  Heaven.  There  was 
still  the  one  redeeming  point  of  repen- 
tance for  his  wrongs  to  his  father — his 
heart  was  still  softened  there;  and, 
attendant  on  that  softness,  I  hailed  a 
principle  more  like  that  of  honour  than 
I  had  yet  recognised  in  Vivian.  He 
cancelled  the  agreement  which  had 
assured  him  of  a  provision  at  the  cost 
of  his  father's  comforts.  "  At  least, 
there,"  he  said,  u  I  will  injure  him  no 
more ! " 

But  while,  on  this  point,  repentance 
seemed  genuine,  it  was  not  so  with 
regard  to  his  conduct  towards  Miss 

VOL.  LXVI. — >-o.  ccccvi. 


Trevanion.  His  gipsy  nurture,  his 
loose  associates,  his  extravagant 
French  romances,  his  theatrical  mode 
of  looking  upon  love  intrigues  and 
stage  plots,  seemed  all  to  rise  between 
his  intelligence  and  the  due  sense  of 
the  fraud  and  treachery  he  had  prac- 
tised. Pie  seemed  to  feel  more  shame 
at  the  exposure  than  at  the  guilt; 
more  despair  at  the  failure  of  success 
than  gratitude  at  escape  from  crime. 
In  a  word,  the  nature  of  a  whole  life 
was  not  to  be  remodelled  at  once — at 
least  by  an  artificer  so  unskilled  as  I. 

After  one  of  these  interviews,  I  stole 
into  the  room  where  Austin  sat  with 
Roland,  and,  watching  a  seasonable 
moment  when  Roland,  shaking  off  a 
reverie,  opened  his  Bible,  and  sat 
down  to  it,  with  each  muscle  in  his 
face  set,  as  I  had  seen  it  before,  into 
iron  resolution,  I  beckoned  my  father 
from  the  room. 

PISISTRATUS. — I  have  again  seen 
iny  cousin.  I  cannot  make  the  way  I 
Wish.  My  dear  father,  you  must  see 
him. 

MR  CAXTON. — I !— yes,  assuredly, 
if  I  can  be  of  any  service.  But  will 
he  listen  to  me  ? 

PISISTRATUS. — I  think  so.  A  young 
man  will  often  respect  in  his  elder, 
what  he  will  resent  as  a  presumption 
in  his  contemporary. 

MR  CAXTON. — It  may  be  so :  (then, 
more  thoughtfully,}  but  you  describe 
this  strange  boy's  mind  as  a  wreck ! — 
in  what  part  of  the  mouldering  timbers 
can  I  fix  the  grappling-hook  V  Here, 
it  seems  that  most  of  the  supports  on 
which  we  can  best  rely,  when  we  would 
save  another,  fail  us.  Religion,  ho- 
nour, the  associations  of  childhood, 
the  bonds  of  home,  filial  obedience — 
even  the  intelligence  of  self-interest, 
in  the  philosophical  sense  of  the  word. 
And  I,  too ! — a  mere  book-man !  My 
dear  son ! — I  despair ! 

PISISTRATUS. — No,  you  do  not  de- 
spair— no,  you  must  succeed ;  for,  if 
you  do  not,  what  is  to  become  of 


166 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


[Aug. 


Uncle  Roland?  Do  you  not  see  his 
heart  is  fast  breaking? 

MR  CAXTON. — Get  me  niy  hat ;  I 
will  go.  I  will  save  this  Ishmael 
— I  will  not  leave  him  till  he  is 
saved ! 

PISISTRATUS  (some  minutes  after, 
as  they  are  walking  towards  Vivian's 
lodgings.) — You  ask  me  what  support 
you  are  to  cling  to !  A  strong  and  a 
good  one,  sir, 

MR  CAXTON. — Ay,  what  is  that  ? 

PISISTRATUS. — Affection !  There  is 
a  nature  capable  of  strong  affection  at 
the  core  of  this  wild  heart !  He  could 
love  his  mother;  tears  gush  to  his 
eyes  at  her  name — he  would  have 
starved  rather  than  part  with  the 
memorial  of  that  love.  It  was  his  be- 
lief in  his  father's  indifference  or  dis- 
like that  hardened  and  embruted  him 
— it  is  only  when  he  hears  how  that 
father  loved  him,  that  I  now  melt  his 
pride  and  curb  his  passions.  You 
have  affection  to  deal  with ! — do  you 
despair  now? 

My  father  turned  on  me  those  eyes 
so  inexpressibly  benign  and  mild,  and 
replied  softly,  "No!" 

We  reached  the  house ;  and  my 
father  said,  as  we  knocked  at  the 
door,  "If  he  is  at  home,  leave  me. 
This  is  a  hard  study  to  which  you 
have  set  me  ;  I  must  work  at  it 
alone."  Vivian  was  at  home,  and  the 
door  closed  on  his  visitor.  My  father 
stayed  some  hours. 

On  returning  home,  to  my  great 
surprise  I  found  Trevanion  with  my 
uncle.  He  had  found  us  out — no  easy 
matter,  I  should  think.  But  a  good 
impulse  in  Trevanion  was  not  of  that 
feeble  kind  which  turns  home  at  the 
sight  of  a  difficulty.  He  had  come  to 
London  on  purpose  to  see  and  to 
thank  us. 

I  did  not  think  there  had  been  so 
much  of  delicacy — of  what  I  may  call 
the  "  beauty  of  kindness" — in  a  man 
whom  incessant  business  had  rendered 
ordinarily  blunt  and  abrupt.  I  hardly 
recognised  the  impatient  Trevanion 
in  the  soothing,  tender,  subtle  respect 
that  rather  implied  than  spoke  grati- 
tude, and  sought  to  insinuate  what  he 
owed  to  the  unhappy  father,  without 
touching  on  his  wrongs  from  the  son. 
But  of  this  kindness — which  showed 
how  Trevanion's  high  nature  of  gen- 
tleman raised  him  aloof  from  that 


coarseness  of  thought  which  those 
absorbed  wholly  in  practical  affairs 
often  contract — of  this  kindness,  so 
noble  and  so  touching,  Roland  seemed 
scarcely  aware.  He  sat  by  the  em- 
bers of  the  neglected  fire,  his  hands 
grasping  the  arms  of  his  elbow-chair, 
his  head  drooping  on  his  bosom ;  and 
only  by  a  deep  hectic  flush  on  his 
dark  cheek  could  you  have  seen  that 
he  distinguished  between  an  ordinary 
visitor  and  the  man  whose  child  he 
had  helped  to  save.  This  minister  of 
state — this  high  member  of  the  elect, 
at  whose  gift  are  places,  peerages, 
gold  sticks,  and  ribbons — has  nothing 
at  his  command  for  the  bruised  spirit 
of  the  half-pay  soldier.  Before  that 
poverty,  that  grief,  and  that  pride,  the 
King's  Counsellor  was  powerless. 
Only  when  Trevanion  rose  to  depart, 
something  like  a  sense  of  the  soothing 
intention  which  the  visit  implied 
seemed  to  rouse  the  repose  of  the  old 
man,  and  to  break  the  ice  at  its  sur- 
face ;  for  he  followed  Trevaniou  to  the 
door,  took  both  his  hands,  pressed 
them,  then  turned  away,  and  resumed 
his  seat.  Trevanion  beckoned  to  me, 
and  I  followed  him  down  stairs,  and 
into  a  little  parlour  which  was  unoc- 
cupied. 

After  some  remarks  upon  Roland, 
full  of  deep  and  considerate  feeling, 
and  one  quick,  hurried  reference  to 
the  son — to  the  effect  that  his  guilty 
attempt  would  never  be  known  by  the 
world — Trevanion  then  addressed  him- 
self to  me  with  a  warmth  and  urgency 
that  took  me  by  surprise.  "After 
what  has  passed,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I 
cannot  suffer  you  to  leave  England 
thus.  Let  me  not  feel  with  you,  as 
with  your  uncle,  that  there  is  nothing 
by  which  I  can  repay — no,  I  will  not 
so  put  it.  Stay  and  serve  your  country 
at  home :  it  is  my  prayer — it  is  Elli- 
nor's.  Out  of  all  at  my  disposal,  it 
will  go  hard  but  what  I  shall  find 
something  to  suit  you."  And  then, 
hurrying  on,  Trevanion  spoke  flatter- 
ingly of  my  pretensions,  in  right  of 
birth  and  capabilities,  to  honourable 
employment,  and  placed  before  me  a 
picture  of  public  life — its  prizes  and 
distinctions — which,  for  the  moment 
at  least,  made  my  heart  beat  loud  and 
my  breath  come  quick.  But  still, 
even  then,  I  felt  (was  it  an  unreason- 
able pride  ?)  that  there  was  something 


1849.]  The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 

that  jarred,  something  that  humbled, 
in  the  thought  of  holding  all  my  for- 
tunes as  a  dependency  on  the  father 
of  the  woman  I  loved,  but  might  not 
aspire  to; — something  even  of  per- 
sonal degradation  in  the  mere  feeling 
that  I  was  thus  to  be  repaid  for  a 
service,  and  recompensed  for  a  loss. 
But  these  were  not  reasons  I  could 
advance ;  and,  indeed,  so  for  the  time 
did  Trevanion's  generosity  and  elo- 
quence overpower  me,  that  I  could 
only  falter  out  my  thanks,  and  my  pro- 


167 


mise  that  I  would  consider  and  let  him 
know. 

With  that  promise  he  was  forced  to 
content  himself;  he  told  me  to  direct 
to  him  at  his  favourite  country-seat, 
whither  he  was  going  that  day,  and 
so  left  me.  I  looked  round  the  hum- 
ble parlour  of  the  mean  lodging-house, 
and  Trevanion's  words  came  again 
before  me  like  a  flash  of  golden  light. 
I  stole  into  the  open  air,  and  wan- 
dered through  the  crowded  streets, 
agitated  and  disturbed. 


CHAPTER  XCm. 


Several  days  elapsed — and  of  each 
day  my  father  spent  a  considerable 
part  at  Vivian's  lodgings.  But  he 
maintained  a  reserve  as  to  his  success, 
begged  me  not  to  question  him,  and 
to  refrain  also  for  the  present  from 
visiting  my  cousin.  My  uncle  guessed 
or  knew  his  brother's  mission ;  for  I 
observed  that,  whenever  Austin  went 
noiseless  away,  his  eye  brightened, 
and  the  colour  rose  in  a  hectic  flush 
to  his  cheek.  At  last  my  father  came 
to  me  one  morning,  his  carpet-bag  in 
his  hand,  and  said,  "  I  am  going 
away  for  a  week  or  two.  Keep  Ro- 
land company  till  I  return." 

"Going  with  him?" 

"  With  him." 

"  That  is  a  good  sign." 

"  I  hope  so ;  that  is  all  I  can  say 
now." 

The  week  had  not  quite  passed 
when  I  received  from  my  father  the 
letter  I  am  about  to  place  before  the 
reader ;  andxyou  may  judge  how  ear- 
nestly his  soul  must  have  been  in  the 
task  it  had  volunteered,  if  you  observe 
how  little,  comparatively  speaking,  the 
letter  contains  of  the  subtleties  and 
pedantries  (may  the  last  word  be  par- 
doned, for  it  is  scarcely  a  just  one) 
which  ordinarily  left  my  father  a 
scholar  even  in  the  midst  of  his  emo- 
tions. He  seemed  here  to  have  aban- 
doned his  books,  to  have  put  the 
human  heart  before  the  eyes  of  his 
pupil,  and  said,  "Read,  and  un- 
learn!" 

To  PISISTRATUS  CAXTON. 

"  MY  DEAR  SON, — It  were  needless 
to  tell  you  all  the  earlier  difficulties 


I  have  had  to  encounter  with  my 
charge,  nor  to  repeat  all  the  means 
which,  acting  on  your  suggestion,  (a 
correct  one,)  I  have  employed  to 
arouse  feelings  long  dormant  and  con- 
fused, and  allay  others,  long  prema- 
turely active,  and  terribly  distinct. 
The  evil  was  simply  this :  here  was 
the  intelligence  of  a  man  in  all  that 
is  evil — and  the  ignorance  of  an  in- 
fant in  all  that  is  good.  In  matters 
merely  worldly,  what  wonderful  acu- 
men !  in  the  plain  principles  of  right 
and  wrong,  what  gross  and  stolid 
obtuseness !  At  one  time,  I  am  strain- 
ing all  my  poor  wit  to  grapple  in  an 
encounter  on  the  knottiest  mysteries 
of  social  life  ;  at  another,  I  am  guid- 
ing reluctant  fingers  over  the  horn- 
book of  the  most  obvious  morals. 
Here  hieroglyphics,  and  there  pot- 
hooks !  But  as  long  as  there  is  affec- 
tion in  a  man,  why,  there  is  Nature 
to  begin  with !  To  get  rid  of  all  the 
rubbish  laid  upon  her,  clear  back  the 
way  to  that  Nature,  and  start  afresh 
— that  is  one's  only  chance. 

"  Well,  by  degrees  I  won  my  way, 
waiting  patiently  till  the  bosom, 
pleased  with  the  relief,  disgorged  itself 
of  all  '  its  perilous  stuff,' — not  chiding 
— not  even  remonstrating,  seeming 
almost  to  sympathise,  till  I  got  him  So- 
cratically  to  disprove  himself.  When 
I  saw  that  he  no  longer  feared  me— 
that  my  company  had  become  a  relief 
to  him — I  proposed  an  excursion,  and 
did  not  tell  him  whither. 

"  Avoiding  as  much  as  possible  the 
main  north  road,  (for  I  did  not  wish, 
as  you  may  suppose,  to  set  fire  to  a 
train  of  associations  that  might  blow 


1G8 


The  Caxtons.— Part  XV. 


[Aug. 


us  up  to  the  dog-star,)  and,  where  that 
avoidance  was  not  possible,  travelling 
by  night,  I  got  him  into  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  old  Tower.  I  would 
not  admit  him  under  its  roof.  But 
you  know  the  little  inn,  three  miles 
off  the  trout  stream  ? — we  made  our 
abode  there. 

"  Well,  I  have  taken  him  into  the 
village,  preserving  his  incognito.  I 
have  entered  with  him  into  cottages, 
and  turned  the  talk  upon  Roland. 
You  know  how  your  uncle  is  adored  ; 
you  know  what  anecdotes  of  his  bold, 
warm-hearted  youth  once,  and  now 
of  his  kind  and  charitable  age,  would 
spring  up  from  the  garrulous  lips  of 
gratitude !  I  made  him  see  with  his 
own  eyes,  hear  with  his  own  ears, 
how  all  who  knew  Roland  loved  and 
honoured  him — except  his  son.  Then 
I  took  him  round  the  ruins — (still  not 
suffering  him  to  enter  the  house,)  for 
those  ruins  are  the  key  to  Roland's 
character — seeing  them,  one  sees  the 
pathos  in  his  poor  foible  of  family 
pride.  There,  you  distinguish  it  from 
the  insolent  boasts  of  the  prosperous, 
and  feel  that  it  is  little  more  than  the 
pious  reverence  to  the  dead — '  the 
tender  culture  of  the  tomb.'  We  sat 
down  on  heaps  of  mouldering  stone, 
and  it  was  there  that  I  explained  to 
him  what  Roland  was  in  youth,  and 
what  he  had  dreamed  that  a  son 
would  be  to  him.  I  showed  him  the 
graves  of  his  ancestors,  and  explained 
to  him  why  they  were  sacred  in  Ro- 
land's eyes !  I  had  gained  a  great 
way,  when  he  longed  to  enter  the 
home  that  should  have  been  his ;  and 
I  could  make  him  pause  of  his  own 
accord,  and  say,  '  No,  I  must  first  be 
worthy  of  it.'  Then  yon  would  have 
smiled — sly  satirist  that  you  are — to 
have  heard  me  impressing  upon  this 
acute,  sharp-witted  youth,  all  that  we 
plain  folk  understand  by  the  name  of 
HOME — its  perfect  trust  and  trufli,  its 
simple  holiness,  its  exquisite  happi- 
ness— being  to  the  world  what  con- 
science is  to  the  human  mind.  And 
after  that,  I  brought  in  his  sister, 
whom  till  then  he  had  scarcely  named 
— for  whom  he  scarcely  seemed  to 
care  —  brought  her  in  to  aid  the 
father,  and  endear  the  home.  '  And 
you  know,'  said  I,  '  that  if  Roland 
were  to  die,  it  would  be  a  brother's 
duty  to  supply  his  place ;  to  shield  her 


innocence — to  protect  her  name !  A 
good  name  is  something,  then.  Your 
father  was  not  so  wrong  to  prize  it. 
You  would  like  yours  to  be  that  which 
your  sister  would  be  proud  to  own  !' 

"  While  we  were  talking,  Blanche 
suddenly  came  to  the  spot,  and  rushed 
to  my  arms.  She  looked  on  him  as  a 
stranger ;  but  I  saw  his  knees  trem- 
ble. And  then  she  was  about  to  put 
her  hand  in  his — but  I  drew  her  back. 
Was  I  cruel  ?  He  thought  so.  But 
when  I  dismissed  her,  I  replied  to  his 
reproach,  '  Your  sister  is  a  part  of 
Home.  If  you  think  yourself  worthy 
of  either,  go  and  claim  both ;  I  will 
not  object.' — '  She  has  my  mother's 
eyes,'  said  he,  and  walked  away.  I 
left  him  to  muse  amidst  the  ruins, 
while  I  went  in  to  see  your  poor 
mother,  and  relieve  her  fears  about 
Roland,  and  make  her  understand 
why  I  could  not  yet  return  home. 

"  This  brief  sight  of  his  sister  has 
sunk  deep  into  him.  But  I  now  ap- 
proach what  seems  to  me  the  great 
difficulty  of  the  whole.  He  is  fulty 
anxious  to  redeem  his  name — to  re- 
gain his  home.  So  far  so  well.  But 
he  cannot  yet  see  ambition,  except 
with  hard,  worldly  eyes.  He  still 
fancies  that  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  get 
money  and -power,  and  some  of  those 
empty  prizes  in  the  Great  Lottery, 
which  we  often  win  more  easily  by 
our  sins  than  our  virtues.  (Here 
follows  a  long  passage  from  Seneca, 
omitted  as  superfluous.)  He  does  not 
yet  even  understandme — or,  if  he  does, 
he  fancies  me  a  mere  bookworm  in- 
deed, when  I  imply  that  he  might  be 
poor,  and  obscure,  at  the  bottom  of 
fortune's  wheel,  and  yet  be  one  we 
should  be  proud  of!  He  supposes 
that,  to  redeem  his  name,  he  has  only 
got  to  lacker  it.  Don't  think  me 
merely  the  fond  father,  when  I  add 
my  hope  that  I  shall  use  you  to  ad- 
vantage here.  I  mean  to  talk  to  him 
to-morrow,  as  we  return  to  London, 
of  you,  and  of  your  ambition :  you 
shall  hear  the  result. 

"  At  this  moment,  (it  is  past  mid- 
night,) I  hear  his  step  in  the  room 
above  me.  The  window-sash  aloft 
opens  —  for  the  third  time ;  would 
to  Heaven  he  could  read  the  true 
astrology  of  the  stars!  There  they 
are  —  bright,  luminous,  benignant. 
And  I  seeking  to  chain  this  wander- 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


169 


ing  comet  into  the  harmonies  of  hea- 
ven !  Better  task  than  that  of  astro- 
logers, and  astronomers  to  boot !  Who 
among  them  can  '  loosen  the  band  of 
Orion?' — but  who  amongst  us  may 
not  be  permitted  by  God  to  have  sway 
over  the  action  and  orbit  of  the 
human  soul? 

"  Your  ever  affectionate  father, 
A.  C." 

Two  days  after  the  receipt  of  this 
letter,  came  the  following;  and  though 
I  would  fain  suppress  those  references 
to  myself  which  must  be  ascribed  to  a 
father's  partiality,  yet  it  is  so  needful 
to  retain  them  in  connexion  with 
Vivian,  that  I  have  no  choice  but  to 
leave  the  tender  flatteries  to  the  in- 
dulgence of  the  kind. 

"  MY  DEAR  SON, — I  was  not  too 
sanguine  as  to  the  effect  that  your 
simple  story  would  produce  upon  your 
cousin.  Without  implying  any  con- 
trast to  his  own  conduct,  I  described 
that  scene  in  which  you  threw  your- 
self upon  our  sympathy,  in  the  struggle 
between  love  and  duty,  and  asked  for 
our  counsel  and  support;  when  Ro- 
land gave  you  his  blunt  advice  to  tell 
all  to  Trevanion ;  and  when,  amidst 
such  sorrow  as  the  heart  in  youth 
seems  scarcely  large  enough  to  hold, 
you  caught  at  truth  impulsively,  and 
the  truth  bore  you  safe  from  the  ship- 
wreck. I  recounted  your  silent  and 
manly  struggles — your  resolution  not 
to  suffer  the  egotism  of  passion  to 
unfit  you  for  the  aims  and  ends  of 
that  spiritual  probation  which  we  call 
LIFE.  I  showed  you  as  you  were, 
still  thoughtful  for  us,  interested  in 
our  interests — smiling  on  us,  that  we 
might  not  guess  that  you  wept  in 
secret !  Oh,  my  son — my  son !  do 
not  think  that,  in  those  times,  I  did 
not  feel  and  pray  for  you !  And  while 
he  was  melted  by  my  own  emotion, 
I  turned  from  your  love  to  your  am- 
bition. I  made  him  see  that  you, 
too,  had  known  the  restlessness  which 
belongs  to  young  ardent  natures;  that 
you,  too,  had  your  dreams  of  fortune, 
and  aspirations  for  success.  But  I 
painted  that  ambition  in  its  true 
colours :  it  was  not  the  desire  of  a  sel- 
fish intellect,  to  be  in  yourself  a  some- 
body— a  something — raised  a  step  or 
two  in  the  social  ladder,  for  the  pleasure 


of  looking  down  on  those  at  the  foot, 
but  the  warmer  yearning  of  a  gener- 
ous heart;  your  ambition  was  to  repair 
your  father's  losses — minister  to  your 
father's  very  foible,  in  his  idle  desire 
of  fame — supply  to  your  uncle  what 
he  had  lost  in  his  natural  heir — link 
your  success  to  useful  objects,  your 
interests  to  those  of  your  kind,  your 
reward  to  the  proud  and  grateful 
smiles  of  those  you  loved.  That  was 
thine  ambition,  O  my  tender  Ana- 
chronism !  And  when,  as  I  closed  the 
sketch,  I  said,  '  Pardon  me  :  you 
know  not  what  delight  a  father  feels, 
when,  while  sending  a  son  away  from 
him  into  the  world,  he  can  speak  and 
think  thus  of  him!  But  this,  you 
see,  is  not  your  kind  of  ambition. 
Let  us  talk  of  making  money,  and 
driving  a  coach-and-four  through  this 
villanous  world,' — your  cousin  sank 
into  a  profound  reverie,  and  when  he 
woke  from  it,  it  was  like  the  waking  of 
the  earth  after  a  night  in  spring — the 
bare  trees  had  put  forth  buds  ! 

"  And,  some  time  after,  he  startled 
me  by  a  prayer  that  I  would  permit 
him,  with  his  father's  consent,  to 
accompany  you  to  Australia.  The 
only  answer  I  have  given  him  as 
yet,  has  been  in  the  form  of  a  ques- 
tion :  '  Ask  yourself  if  I  ought  ?  I 
cannot  wish  Pisistratus  to  be  other 
than  he  is ;  and  unless  you  agree  with 
him  in  all  his  principles  and  objects, 
ought  I  to  incur  the  risk  that  you 
should  give  him  your  knowledge  of  the 
world,  and  inoculate  him  with  your 
ambition  ? '  He  was  struck,  and  had 
the  candour  to  attempt  no  reply. 

"Now,  Pisistratus,  the  doubt  I 
expressed  to  him  is  the  doubt  I  feel. 
For,  indeed,  it  is  only  by  home-truths, 
not  refining  arguments,  that  I  can 
deal  with  this  unscholastic  Scythian, 
who,  fresh  from  the  Steppes,  comes  to 
puzzle  me  in  the  Portico. 

"  On  the  one  hand,  what  is  to  be- 
come of  him  in  the  Old  World  ?  At 
his  age,  and  with  his  energies,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  cage  him  with 
us  in  the  Cumberland  ruins ;  weari- 
ness and  discontent  would  undo  all 
we  could  do.  He  has  no  resource  in 
books — and  I  fear  never  will  have ! 
But  to  send  him  forth  into  one  of  the 
overcrowded  professions  —  to  place 
him  amidst  all  those  '  disparities  of 
social  life,'  on  the  rough  stones  of 


170 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


[Aug. 


which  he  is  perpetually  grinding  his 
lier.rt — turn  him  adrift  amongst  all 
the  temptations  to  which  he  is  most 
prone — this  is  a  trial  which,  I  fear, 
will  be  too  sharp  for  a  conversion  so 
incomplete?  In  the  New  World,  no 
doubt,  his  energies  would  find  a  safer 
field ;  and  even  the  adventurous  and 
desultory  habits  of  his  childhood  might 
there  be  put  to  healthful  account. 
Those  complaints  of  the  disparities  of 
the  civilised  world,  find,  I  suspect,  an 
easier  if  a  bluffer  reply  from  the  poli- 
tical economist  than  the  Stoic  philoso- 
pher. '  You  don't  like  them,  you 
find  it  hard  to  submit  to  them,'  says 
the  political  economist ;  '  but  they 
are  the  laws  of  a  civilised  state,  and 
you  can't  alter  them.  Wiser  men 
than  you  have  tried  to  alter  them, 
and  never  succeeded,  though  they 
turned  the  earth  topsy-turvy  !  Very 
well ;  but  the  world  is  wide — go  into 
a  state  that  is  not  so  civilised.  The 
disparities  of  the  Old  World  vanish 
amidst  the  New  !  Emigration  is  the 
reply  of  Nature  to  the  rebellious  cry 
against  Art.'  Thus  would  say  the 
political  economist :  and,  alas,  even 
in  your  case,  my  son,  I  found  no  reply 
to  the  reasonings !  I  acknowledge, 
then,  that  Australia  might  open  the 
best  safety-valve  to  your  cousin's 
discontent  and  desires  ;  but  I  acknow- 
ledge also  a  counter-truth,  which  is 
this — 'It  is  not  permitted  to  an  honest 
man  to  corrupt  himself  for  the  sake 
of  others.'  That  is  almost  the  only 
maxim  of  Jean  Jacques  to  which  I 
can  cheerfully  subscribe !  Do  you 
feel  quite  strong  enough  to  resist 
all  the  influences  which  a  com- 
panionship of  this  kind  may  subject 
you  to — strong  enough  to  bear  his 
burthen  as  well  as  your  own — strong 
enough,  also — ay,  and  alert  and  vigi- 
lant enough — to  prevent  those  influ- 
ences harming  the  others,  whom  you 
have  undertaken  to  guide,  and  whose 
lots  are  confided  to  you  ?  Pause  well, 
and  consider  maturely,  for  this  must 
not  depend  upon  a  generous  impulse. 
I  think  that  your  cousin  would  now 
pass  under  your  charge,  with  a  sin- 
cere desire  for  reform ;  but  between 
sincere  desire  and  steadfast  perform- 
ance there  is  a  long  and  dreary  inter- 
val—even to  the  best  of  us.  Were  it 
not  for  Roland,  arid  had  I  one  grain 
less  confidence  in  you,  I  could  not 


entertain  the  thought  of  laying  on 
your  young  shoulders  so  great  a 
responsibility.  But  every  new  re- 
sponsibility to  an  earnest  nature  is  a 
new  prop  to  virtue  ; — and  all  I  now 
ask  of  you  is — to  remember  that  it  is 
a  solemn  and  serious  charge,  not  to  be 
undertaken  without  the  most  delibe- 
rate gauge  and  measure  of  the  strength, 
with  which  it  is  to  be  borne. 

"In  two  days  we  shall  be  in 
London. — Yours,  my  Anachronism, 
anxiously  and  fondly, 

A.  C." 

I  was  in  my  own  room  while  I 
read  this  letter,  and  I  had  just  finished 
it  when,  as  I  looked  up,  I  saw  Roland 
standing  opposite  to  me.  "  It  is  from 
Austin,"  said  he ;  then  he  paused  a 
moment,  and  added  in  a  tone  that 
seemed  quite  humble,  "May  I  see  it? 
— and  dare  I  ?  "  I  placed  the  letter 
in  his  hands,  and  retired  a  few  paces, 
that  he  might  not  think  I  watched  his 
countenance  while  he  read  it.  And  I 
was  only  aware  that  he  had  come  to 
the  end  by  a  heavy,  anxious,  but  not 
despondent  sigh.  Then  I  turned, 
and  our  eyes  met,  and  there  was 
something  in  Roland's  look,  inquiring 
— and  as  it  were  imploring.  I  inter- 
preted it  at  once. 

"Oh,  yes,  uncle,"  I  said,  smiling; 
"  I  have  reflected,  and  I  have  no  fear 
of  the  result.  Before  my  father 
wrote,  what  he  now  suggests  had 
become  my  secret  wish.  As  for  our 
other  companions,  their  simple  na- 
tures would  defy  all  such  sophistries 
as — but  he  is  already  half  cured  of 
those.  Let  him  come  with  me,  and 
when  he  returns  he  shall  be  worthy 
of  a  place  in  your  heart,  beside  his 
sister  Blanche.  I  feel,  I  promise  it — 
do  not  fear  for  me  !  Such  a  change 
will  be  a  talisman  to  myself.  I  will 
shun  every  error  that  I  might  other- 
wise commit,  so  that  he  may  have  no 
example  to  entice  him  to  err." 

I  know  that  in  youth,  and  the  super- 
stition of  first  love,  we  are  credulously 
inclined  to  believe  that  love,  and  the 
possession  of  the  beloved,  are  the 
only  happiness.  But  when  my  uncle 
folded  me  in  his  arms,  and  called  me 
the  hope  of  his  age,  and  stay  of  his 
house — the  music  of  my  father's 
praise  still  ringing  on  my  heart — I  do 
affirm  that  I  knew  a  greater  and  a 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XV. 


171 


prouder  bliss  than  if  Trevauion  had 
placed  Fanny's  hand  in  mine,  and 
said,  "  She  is  yours." 

And  now  the  die  was  cast — the 
decision  made.  It  was  with  no  regret 
that  I  wrote  to  Trevanion  to  decline 
his  offers.  Nor  was  the  sacrifice  so 
great — even  putting  aside  the  natural 
pride  which  had  before  inclined  to  it 
— as  it  may  seem  to  some  ;  for,  rest- 
less though  I  was,  I  had  laboured  to 
constrain  myself  to  other  views  of 
life  than  those  which  close  the  vistas 
of  ambitipn  with  images  of  the  terres- 
trial deities — Power  and  Rank.  Had 
I  not  been  behind  the  scenes,  noted 
all  of  joy  and  of  peace  that  the  pur- 
suit of  power  had  cost  Trevanion, 
and  seen  how  little  of  happiness  rank 
gave  even  to  one  of  the  polished 
habits  and  graceful  attributes  of  Lord 
Castleton  ?  Yet  each  nature  seemed 
fitted  so  well — the  first  for  power,  the 
last  for  rank  !  It  is  marvellous  with 
what  liberality  Providence  atones  for 
the  partial  dispensations  of  Fortune. 
Independence,  or  the  vigorous  pursuit 
of  it ;  affection,  with  its  hopes  and  its 
rewards  ;  a  life  only  rendered  by  art 


more  susceptible  to  nature— in  which 
the  physical  enjoyments  are  pure  and 
healthful — in  which  the  moral  facul- 
ties expand  harmoniously  with  the 
intellectual— and  the  heart  is  at  peace 
with  the  mind  :  is  this  a  mean  lot  for 
ambition  to  desire— and  is  it  so  far 
out  of  human  reach  ?  "  Know  thy- 
self," said  the  old  philosophy.  "Im- 
prove thyself,"  saith  the  new.  The 
great  object  of  the  Sojourner  in  Time 
is  not  to  waste  all  his  passions  and 
gifts  on  the  things  external  that  he 
must  leave  behind — that  which  he 
cultivates  within  is  all  that  he  can. 
carry  into  the  Eternal  Progress.  Wo 
are  here  but  as  schoolboys,  whose  life 
begins  where  school  ends ;  and  the 
battles  we  fought  with  our  rivals,  and 
the  toys  that  we  shared  with  our 
playmates,  and  the  names  that  we 
carved,  high  or  low,  on  the  wall, 
above  our  desks — will  they  so  much 
bestead  us  hereafter?  As  new  facts 
crowd  upon  us,  can  they  more  than 
pass  through  the  memory  with  a  smile 
or  a  sigh  ?  Look  back  to  thy  school 
days,  and  answer. 


CHAPTER  XCIV. 


Two  weeks,  since  the  date  of  the 
preceding  chapter,  have  passed ;  we 
have  slept  our  last,  for  long  years  to 
come,  on  the  English  soil.  It  is 
night ;  and  Vivian  has  been  admitted 
to  an  interview  with  his  father.  They 
have  been  together  alone  an  hour  and 
more,  and  I  and  my  father  will  not 
disturb  them.  But  the  clock  strikes 
— the  hour  is  late — the  ship  sails 
to-night — we  should  be  on  board. 
And  as  we  two  stand  below,  the  door 
opens  in  the  room  above,  and  a  heavy 
step  descends  the  stairs ;  the  father 
is  leaning  on  the  son's  arm.  You 
should  see  how  timidly  the  son  guides 
the  halting  step.  And  now,  as  the 
light  gleams  on  their  faces,  there  are 
tears  on  Vivian's  cheek ;  but  the  face 
of  Roland  seems  calm  and  happy. 
Happy !  when  about  to  be  separated, 
perhaps  for  ever,  from  his  son  ?  Yes, 
happy !  because  he  has  found  a  son 
for  the  first  time  ;  and  is  not  thinking 
of  years  and  absence,  and  the  chance 
of  death — but  thankful  for  the  Divine 
mercy,  and  cherishing  celestial  hope. 
If  ye  wonder  why  Roland  is  happy  in 


such  an  hour,  how  vainly  have  I 
sought  to  make  him  breathe,  and 
live,  and  move  before  you ! 


We  are  on  board  ;  our  luggage  all 
went  first.  I  had  had  time,  with  the 
help  of  a  carpenter,  to  knock  up 
cabins  for  Vivian,  Guy  Bolding,  and 
myself  in  the  hold.  For,  thinking  we 
could  not  too  soon  lay  aside  the  pre- 
tensions of  Europe — "  cfe-fine-gentle- 
manise"  ourselves,  as  Trevanion  re- 
commended— we  had  engaged  steerage 
passage,  to  the  great  humouring  of 
our  finances.  We  had,  too,  tho 
luxury  to  be  by  ourselves,  and  our 
own  Cumberland  folks  were  round 
us,  as  our  friends  and  servants  both. 

We  are  on  board,  and  have  looked 
our  last  on  those  we  are  to  leave,  and 
we  stand  on  deck  leaning  on  each 
other.  We  are  on  board,  and  the 
lights,  near  and  far,  shine  from  the 
vast  city  ;  and  the  stars  are  on  high, 
bright  and  clear,  as  for  the  first  mari- 
ners of  old.  Strange  noises,  rough 
voices,  and  crackling  cords,  and  here 


172 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


[Augv 


and  there  the  sobs  of  women,  ming- 
ling with  the  oaths  of  men.  Now 
the  swing  and  heave  of  the  vessel — 
the  dreary  sense  of  exile  that  comes 
when  the  ship  fairly  moves  over  the 
waters.  And  still  we  stood,  and 
looked,  and  listened ;  silent,  and  lean- 
ing on  each  other. 

Night  deepened,  the  city  vanished — 
not  a  gleam  from  its  myriad  lights ! 
The  river  widened  and  widened.  How 
cold  comes  the  wind ! — is  that  a  gale 


from  the  sea  ?  The  stars  grow  faint — 
the  moon  has  sunk.  And  now,  how 
desolate  look  the  waters  in  the  com- 
fortless gray  of  dawn !  Then  we 
shivered  and  looked  at  each  other, 
and  muttered  something  that  was  not 
the  thought  deepest  at  our  hearts, 
and  crept  into  our  berths — feeling 
sure  it  was  not  for  sleep.  And  sleep 
came  onus  soft  and  kind.  The  ocean 
lulled  the  exiles  as  on  a  mother's 
breast. 


JONATHAN  IN  AFRICA. 


A  NEW  school  of  novelists  is  evi- 
dently springing  up  on  the  western 
shores  of  the  Atlantic.  The  pioneers 
are  already  in  the  field — and  the  main 
body,  we  suppose,  will  shortly  follow. 
The  style  of  these  innovators  seems  a 
compound  imitation  of  Gulliver,  Mun- 
chausen,  The  Arabian  Nights,  and  Ro- 
binson Crusoe;  the  ingredients  being 
mixed  in  capricious  proportions,  well 
stirred,  seasoned  with  Yankee  bulls 
and  scraps  of  sea- slang,  and  served 
hot — sometimes  plain,  at  others  with 
a  hors  cCceuvre  of  puffs.  We  know  not 
how  such  queer  ragouts  affect  the 
public  palate ;  but  we  are  inclined  to 
prefer  dishes  of  an  older  fashion.  Mi- 
Herman  Melville,  of  New  York  and 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  common  sailor,  first 
introduced  the  new  -fangled  kickshaw. 
This  young  gentleman  has  most  com- 
pletely disappointed  us.  Two  or  three 
years  ago,  he  published  two  small 
volumes  of  sea- faring  adventure  and 
island-rambles,  of  which  we  thought 
more  highly  than  of  any  first  appear- 
ance of  the  kind  we  for  a  long  time 
had  witnessed.  In  the  pages  of  Maga, 
where  praise  is  never  lightly  or  lavishly 
bestowed,  we  said  as  much ;  and  were 
glad  to  hope  that  Typee  and  Omoo 
were  but  an  earnest  of  even  better 
things.  And,  therefore,  sadly  were  we 
disgusted  on  perusal  of  a  rubbishing 
rhapsody,  entitled  Mardt,  andaVoyage 
Thither.  We  sat  down  to  it  with  glee 
and  self-gratulation,  and  through 
about  half  a  volume  we  got  on  plea- 


santly enough.  The  author  was  afloat  T 
and  although  we  found  little  that 
would  bear  comparison  with  the  fine 
vein  of  nautical  fun  and  characteristic 
•  delineation  which  we  had  enjoyed  on 
board  the  Little  Jule,  and  after- 
wards at  Tahiti,  yet  there  was  inter- 
est— strong  interest  at  times;  and  a 
scene  on  board  a  deserted  vessel  was 
particularly  exciting, — replete  with 
power  of  a  peculiar  and  uncommon 
kind.  But  this  proved  a  mere  flash 
in  the  pan — the  ascent  of  the  rocket 
which  was  soon  to  fall  as  a  stick.  An 
outlandish  j*oung  female,  one  Miss 
Yillah,  makes  her  first  appearance: 
Taji,  the  hero  and  narrator  of  the 
yarn,  reaches  a  cluster  of  fabulous 
islands,  where  the  jealous  queen  Hau- 
tia  opens  a  floral  correspondence  with 
him :  where  the  plumed  and  turbaned 
Yoomy  sings  indifferent  doggerel ;  and 
Philosopher  Babbalauja  unceasingly 
doth  prose ;  and  the  Begum  of  Pim- 
minee  holds  drawing-rooms,  which  are 
attended  by  the  Fanfuras,  and  the 
Diddledees,  and  the  Fiddlefies,  and  a 
host  of  other  insular  magnates,  with 
names  equally  elegant,  euphonious, 
and  significant.  Why,  what  trash  is 
all  this ! — mingled,  too,  with  attempts 
at  a  Rabelaisian  vein,  and  with  strain- 
ings at  smartness — the  style  of  the 
whole  being  affected,  pedantic,  and 
wearisome  exceedingly.  We  are  re- 
minded, by  certain  parts  of  Mardt,  of 
Foote's  nonsense  about  the  nameless 
lady  who  "  went  iuto  the  garden  to 


Kaloolah,  or  Journeyings  to  the  Djebel  Kumri :  an  Autobiography  of  Jonathan 
Romer.    Edited  by  W.  S.  MAYO,  M.D.    London:  1849. 


1849.] 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


cut  a  cabbage-leaf  to  make  an  apple- 
pie  ;"  and  at  whose  wedding  the  Job- 
lilies,  and  the  Picninnies,  and  the 
Great  Panjandrum,  danced  till  the 
gunpowder  ran  out  at  their  boot-heels. 
Foote  wrote  his  absurd  paragraph,  we 
believe,  to  try  a  friend's  memory ;  Mi- 
Melville  has  evidently  written  his  un- 
intelligible novel  to  try  the  public's 
patience.  Of  three  things  we  are  cer- 
tain, namely,  that  the  Panjandrum 
story  is  quite  as  easy  to  understand  as 
Mardi;  that  it  is  much  more  divert- 
ing ;  and,  the  chief  advantage  of  all, 
an  infinite  deal  shorter. 

Mardi,  which  we  dismissed  from 
our  mind  when  we  closed  it  with  a 
yawn  a  day  or  two  after  its  publica- 
tion, has  been  recalled  to  our  memory 
by  another  book,  also  proceeding  from 
America,  although  published  in  Lon- 
don; and  which,  like  Mr  Melville's 
romance,  blends  the  real  and  the  pos- 
sible with  the  ideal  and  the  fantastic. 
Kaloolah  (Heaven  help  these  Yankee 
nomenclators)  professes  to  be  the 
autobiography  of  Jonathan  Romer,  a 
young  Nantucket  sailor,  to  whose 
narrative,  during  his  absence  in  the 
interior  of  Africa,  one  of  his  country- 
men, Dr  W.  S.  Mayo,  obligingly  acts 
as  editor.  Most  readers  will  probably 
be  of  opinion  that  the  American  M.D. 
might  claim  a  nearer  interest  in  the 
literary  bantling— the  first-born,  we 
apprehend,  of  his  own  pen  and  ima- 
gination. But  our  business  is  with 
the  book,  and  not  with  the  author, 
•whose  name,  whether  Romer  or  Mayo, 
is  as  yet  unknown  to  fame,  but  who 
need  not  despair  of  achieving  reputa- 
tion. Kaloolah  combines  with  certain 
faults,  which  may  presently  be  indi- 
cated, some  very  excellent  qualities, 
and  has  several  chapters,  whereof  any 
one  contains  more  real  good  stuff,  and 
ingenuity,  and  amusement,  than  the 
whole  of  the  second  and  third  volumes 
of  Mardi,  reduced  to  a  concentrated 
essence.  Besides,  it  is  manifest  that 
the  two  books  must  be  viewed  and 
judged  differently — one  as  a  first,  and 
by  no  means  unpromising  attempt ; 
the  other,  as  the  backsliding  perform- 
ance of  a  man  who  has  proved  himself 
capable  of  far  better  things. 

Before  commencing  his  own  story, 
young  Jonathan  Romer  introduces  us 
to  his  ancestors,  and  asserts  his  right 
to  a  life  of  adventure.  "  Descended 


on  both  sides  of  the  house  from  some 
of  the  earliest  settlers  of  Nantucket, 
and  more  or  less  intimately  related  to 
the  Coffins,  the  Folgers,  the  Macys, 
and  the  Starbucks  of  that  adventurous 
population,  it  would  seem  that  I  had 
a  natural  right  to  a  roving  disposition, 
and  to  a  life  of  peril,  privation,  and 
vicissitude.  Nearly  all  the  male  mem- 
bers of  my  family,  for  several  gene- 
rations, have  been  followers  of  the 
sea :  some  of  them  in  the  calm  and 
peaceful  employment  of  the  merchant- 
service  ;  others,  and  by  far  the  greater 
number,  in  the  more  dangerous  pur- 
suit of  the  ocean  monster."  After  re- 
lating some  of  the  feats  of  his  family, 
and  glancing  at  his  own  childhood, 
which  gave  early  indications  of  the 
bold  and  restless  spirit  that  animated 
him  at  a  mature  period,  Jonathan 
presents  himself  to  his  readers  at  the 
age  of  eighteen — a  stalwart  stripling 
and  idle  student ;  the  best  rider,  shot, 
swimmer,  and  leaper  for  many  miles 
around,  with  little  taste  for  books,  and 
a  very  decided  one  for  rambling  in  the 
woods  with  rifle  and  rod.  At  this 
time  the  academy,  of  which  he  had 
for  four  years  been  an  inmate,  is  nearly 
broken  up  by  what  is  called  "  a  re- 
vival of  religion  ;"  in  other  words,  a 
violent  fit  of  fanatical  enthusiasm, 
provoked  and  fed  by  Baptist  and  Me- 
thodist preachers.  Pupils  and  teachers 
alike  go  mad  with  fervent  zeal,  classes 
are  at  an  end,  unceasing  prayer  is  sub- 
stituted for  study,  and  Jonathan,  who 
is  one  of  the  few  unregenerated,  walks 
into  the  forest,  and  knocks  the  head 
off  a  partridge  with  a  rifle-ball.  The 
bird  is  picked  up,  and  the  excellence 
of  the  aim  applauded  by  an  old  trapper 
and  hunter,  JoeDowns  byname,  well 
known  along  the  shores  of  the  Rackett 
and  Grass  rivers,  in  the  northern  and 
uninhabited  part  of  the  state  of  New 
York.  Joe  is  not  the  wild,  serai-In- 
dian trapper  of  the  south  and  west, 
whom  Sealsfield  and  Ruxton  have  so 
graphically  sketched ;  there  is  as  much 
difference  between  the  two  characters 
as  between  a  sailor  in  the  coasting 
trade  and  a  Pacific  Ocean  beach- 
comber. There  is  nothing  of  the  half- 
horse,  half- alligator  style  about  Joe, 
whose  manner  is  so  mild,  and  his  coat 
so  decent,  that  he  has  been  taken  for 
a  country  parson.  He  despises  the 
Redskins,  sets  no  value  on  their  scalps, 


174  Jonathan  in  Africa. 

and  would  not  shed  their  blood,  ex- 
cept in  self-defence.  How  he  had 
once  been  thus  compelled  to  do  so, 
he  relates  to  Jonathan  in  the  course 
of  their  first  conversation. 

"  It  was  the  way  towards  T  upper's 
lake.  There  had  been  a  light  fall  of  snow, 
and  I  was  scouting  round,  when  I  hap- 
pened to  make  a  circumbendibus,  and 
came  across  my  own  track,  and  there  I 
saw  the  marks  of  an  Indian's  foot  right 
on  my  trail.  Thinks  I,  that  is  kind  of 
queer;  the  fellow  must  have  been  follow- 
ing me;  howsomever  I'll  try  him,  and 
make  sure ;  so  I  made  another  large 
circle,  and  again  struck  my  own  track, 
and  there  was  the  tarnal  Indian's  foot 
again.  Says  I,  this  won't  do ;  I  must  find 
out  what  this  customer  wants,  and  how 
he'll  have  it.  So  I  stopped  short,  and  soon 


[Aug. 

bounded  right  at  me.  When  he  was  jusfc 
about  three  or  four  feet  from  the  muzzle, 
I  fired.  You  never  see  a  fellow  jump  so. 
He  kicked  his  heels  up  in  the  air,  and 
came  down  plump  on  his  head,  dead  as 
Julius  Caesar.  He  never  winked;  the 
ramrod — a  good,  hard,  tough  piece  of  hic- 
kory— had  gone  clean  through  him,  and 
stuck  out  about  two  feet  from  his  back. 
Sarvedhim  right;  did'nt  it?" 

The  old  trapper  urges  Jonathan  to 
accompany  him  on  an  expedition  into 
the  woods,  promising,  as  an  induce- 
ment, to  put  him  "  right  alongside  the 
biggest  catamount  he  has  ever  seen," 
and  to  let  him  fight  it  out,  with  rifle, 
hatchet,  and  knife,  without  making 
or  meddling  in  the  contest.  He  also 
pledges  himself  to  show  him  a  fish- 
pond, "  where  the  youngest  infants, 


got  sight  of  him;  he  knew  that  I  saw  him,     of  a  genteel  pickerelto  family,   weigh 
so  he  came  along  up,  in  the  most  friendly     at  least  three  pounds."     Such  induce- 


manner  you  can  think.  But  I  didn't  like 
his  looks;  he  was  altogether  too  darned 
glad  to  see  me.  He  had  no  gun,  but  he 
had  an  almighty  long-handled  tomahawk, 
and  a  lot  of  stins  and  real  traps.  Thinks 
I,  may  be,  old  fellow,  your  gun  has  burst, 
or  you've  pawned  it  for  rum,  and  you 
can't  raise  skins  enough  to  redeem  it, 
and  you  want  mine,  and  perhaps  you'll 
get  it. 

"At  last  I  grew  kind  of  nervous;  1 
knew  the  fellow  would  hatchet  me  if  I 
gave  him  a  chance,  and  yet  I  didn't  want 
to  shoot  him  right  down  just  on  suspicion. 
But  I  thought,  if  I  let  him  cut  my  throat 
first,  it  would  be.  too  late  to  shoot  him 
afterwards.  So  I  concluded  that  the  best 
way  would  be  to  give  him  a  chance  to 
play  his  hand;  and  if  so  be  he'd  lead  the 
wrong  card,  why  I  should  have  a  right  to 
take  the  trick.  Just  then,  at  the  right 
time,  a  partridge  flew  into  a  clump  that 
stood  five  or  six  rods  off.  So  I  kind  of 
'noeuvred  round  a  little.  I  drew  out  my 
ramrod,  as  if  to  feel  whether  the  ball  in 
my  rifle  was  well  down;  but  instead  of 
returning  it  again,  I  kept  it  in  my  hand, 
and,  without  letting  the  vagabond  see  me, 
I  got  out  a  handful  of  powder.  I  then 
sauntered  off  to  the  bush,  shot  the  par- 
tridge, and  in  an  instant  passed  my  hand 
over  the  muzzle  of  my  rifle,  and  dropped 
the  powder  in.  I  picked  up  the  bird,  and 
then  just  took  and  run  my  ramrod  right 
down  upon  the  powder.  Now,  he  thought, 
was  his  chance  before  I  loaded  my  gun 
again.  He  came  towards  me  with  his 
hatchet  in  his  hand.  I  saw  that  he  was 
determined  to  act  wicked,  and  began  to 
back  off;  he  still  came  on.  I  lowered  my 
rifle,  and  told  him  to  keep  away.  He 
raised  his  tomahawk,  gave  one  yell,  and 


mentsare  irresistible.  Jonathan  packs 
up  a  brace  of  blankets  and  his  shoot- 
ing and  fishing  fixings,  and  goes  off 
in  the  canoe  with  Joe  Downs  on  a 
pleasant  up-stream  cruise,  enlivened 
by  a  succession  of  beautiful  scenery, 
and  by  the  varied  and  original  con- 
versation of  his  companion.  On  their 
way  they  fell  in  with  a  party  of  In- 
dians, amongst  them  one  Blacksnake, 
a  brother  of  the  gentleman  whom 
Joe  had  spitted  on  his  ramrod.  He 
suspects  Joe  of  having  shot  his  kins- 
man, and  Joe  strongly  suspects  him 
of  havingalready  attempted  to  revenge 
his  death. 

" '  I  was  leaning  out  of  the  second  story 
doorway  of  Jones's  shop  one  day,'  said 
Joe,  '  looking  across  the  river,  when, 
whizz,  a  rifle  bullet  came  and  buried  it- 
self in  the  doorpost.  I  hain't  the  least 
doubt  that  that  very  identical  Blacksnake 
sent  it.  Thank  God,  his  aim  was  not  a3 
his  will  !  He's  a  bad  chap.  Why,  I 
really  believe  it  was  he  who  murdered 
my  old  friend  Dan  White  the  trapper. 
If  I  only  knew  it  was  the  fact,  I  wish  I 
may  be  stuck,  forked  end  uppermost,  in  & 
coon  hole,  if  I  wouldn't  send  a  ball 
through  his  painted  old  braincase,  this  'ere 
very  identical  minute.  Darn  your  skin  !' 
energetically  growled  Joe,  shaking  his 
fist  at  the  distant  canoe." 

It  would  have  saved  Mr  Downs 
some  trouble  and  suffering  if  he  had 
yielded  to  the  impulse,  and  expended 
half-an-ounce  of  lead  upon  Black- 
snake,  who,  about  a  week  later, 
sneaks  up,  with  two  companions,  to 


1849.] 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


175 


the  trapper's  pine-log  fire,  and  shoots 
the  unfortunate  Joe,  but  is  shot  down 
himself,  the  very  next  moment,  by 
Jonathan  Homer,  whose  double-barrel 
settles  two  of  the  murderers,  and  then 
descends  with  crushing  force  upon  the 
cranium  of  the  third.  Joe  not  being 
dead,  although  very  badly  wounded, 
his  young  companion  conveys  him  to 
a  cave,  whose  hidden  entrance  the 
trapper  had  revealed  to  him  the  pre- 
vious day,  and  there  tends  him  till  he 
is  able  to  bear  removal.  With  his 
committal  to  the  hands  of  a  village 
surgeon,  Mr  Romer's  backwoods  ad- 
ventures terminate,  a  source  of  regret 
to  the  reader,  since  they  are  more 
lively  and  attractive  than  some  sub- 
sequent portions  of  the  book,  evidently 
deemed  by  the  author  more  interest- 
ing and  important,  and  therefore 
dwelt  upon  at  greater  length.  Indeed 
it  is  our  opinion  that  the  author  of 
KaloolaJi  is  mistaken,  as  young  au- 
thors constantly  are,  in  the  real  scope 
and  nature  of  his  own  abilities,  and 
that  he  would  shine  much  more  in  a 
novel  of  backwoods  life,  or  nautical 
adventure,  than  in  the  mixed  style  he 
lias  selected  for  his  first  attempt, 
which  is  a  sort  of  mosaic,  distinguished 
rather  for  variety  and  vividness  of 
colour  than  for  harmony  and  regularity 
of  design. 

Jonathan  reaches  home  in  time  to 
receive  the  last  adieu  of  his  mother,  a 
worthy  but  eccentric  old  lady,  who 
had  fitted  ont  her  son,  on  his  depar- 
ture for  school,  with  a  winding-sheet, 
amongst  other  necessaries,  that  he 
might  be  buried  decently  should  he 
die  far  from  his  friends,  and  that  he 
might  be  reminded  of  his  mortality  as 
often  as  he  emptied  his  trunk.  It  was 
a  curious  conceit,  but,  as  Jonathan 
observes,  she  was  from  Nantucket, 
and  they  are  all  queer  people  there, 
and  filial  affection  induced  him  long 
to  preserve  the  shroud.  Mrs  Romer 
dead,  her  son  applies  to  the  study  of 
surgery,  gets  himself  into  trouble  by 
a  body- snatching  exploit,  has  to 
levant  to  New  York,  and  there,  find- 
ing he  is  still  in  danger  from  the 
friends  of  the  disinterred  corpse,  who 
have  set  the  police  upon  his  track, 
ships  himself  on  board  the  fine  fore- 
topsail  schooner,  "  Lively  Anne," 
bound  for  the  Western  Islands,  and 
commanded  by  Captain  Coffin,  an  old 


shipmate  of  his  father's.  In  this 
smart  little  craft,  he  sees  some  coun- 
try and  more  water,  until,  upon  the 
voyage  from  the  A/ores  to  Malaga,  a 
white  squall  or  a  waterspout — which, 
of  the  two  he  could  never  ascertain — 
capsizes  the  schooner  and  dashes  him 
senseless  down  the  hatchway,  whence 
he  was  just  emerging,  in  alarm  at  the 
sudden  uproar  on  deck.  On  recover- 
ing himself,  he  finds  the  vessel  dis- 
masted, the  deck  swept  of  all  its  fix- 
tures, and  the  captain  and  crew 
missing.  Doubtless  they  had  been 
hurled  into  the  waves  by  the  same 
terrible  force  that  had  shattered  the 
bulwarks  and  carried  away  boats, 
casks,  and  galley.  The  horizon  was 
now  clear,  not  a  sail  was  in  sight,  and 
Jonathan  Romer  was  alone  on  a 
helpless  wreck  in  the  middle  of  the 
wide  ocean.  But  he  was  a  man  of 
resource  and  mettle,  whom  it  was 
hard  to  discourage  or  intimidate ;  and 
finding  the  schooner  made  no  water, 
he  righted  her  as  well  as  he  could,  and 
resigned  himself  to  float  at  the  will  of 
the  wind  until  he  should  meet  a  rescu- 
ing sail.  This  did  not  occur  for  some 
weeks,  during  which  he  floated  pasfc 
Teneriffe  in  the  night,  within  hail  of 
fishermen,  who  would  not  approach 
him  for  fear  of  the  quarantine  laws. 
At  last,  sitting  over  his  solitary  din- 
ner, he  perceived  a  ship  heading  up 
for  the  schooner. 

"  As  she  came  on,  I  had  full  time  to 
note  all  her  beautiful  proportions.  She 
was  small,  apparently  not  above  300 
tons,  and  had  a  peculiarly  trim  and 
clipper-like  look.  Her  bright  copper, 
flashing  occasionally  in  the  sunlight, 
showed  that  she  was  in  light  sailing 
trim  ;  whilst  from  the  cut  of  her  sails, 
the  symmetrical  arrangement  of  her  spars 
and  rigging,  and  her  quarter-boats,  I 
concluded  she  must  be  a  man-of-war. 
Passing  me  about  half  a  mile  astern,  she 
stood  on  for  a  little  distance,  then,  hoist- 
ing the  bilious-looking  flag  of  Spain,  she 
tacked  and  ran  for  me,  backing  her 
main-topsail  within  twenty  yards  of  my 
larboard  beam.  Her  quarter-boat  was 
immediately  lowered,  and  half-a-dozeii 
fellows,  in  red  caps  and  flannel  shirts, 
jumped  into  it,  followed  by  an  officer  in 
a  blue  velvet  jacket,  with  a  strip  of  gold 
lace  upon  his  shoulders,  and  a  broad- 
brimmed  straw  hat  upon  his  head.  I  ran 
below,  stuffed  all  the  money  that  I  had 
in  gold — about  a  thousand  dollars — into 


176 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


[Aug. 


my  pockets,  and  got  upon  deck  again  just 
as  the  boat  touched  the  side." 

The  precaution  was  a  good  one : 
the  saucy  Bonito,  Pedro  Garbez 
master,  was  bound  from  Cuba  to  the 
coast  of  Africa,  with  a  cut-throat 
crew  and  an  empty  slave -deck. 
Owing  to  an  accident,  she  had  sailed 
without  a  surgeon,  and  Homer  was 
well  received  and  treated  so  soon  as 
his  profession  was  known.  When  he 
discovered  the  ship's  character,  he 
would  gladly  have  left  her,  but  means 
were  wanting,  for  the  Bonito  loved 
not  intercourse  with  passing  craft, 
and  touched  nowhere  until  she  reached 
her  destination — Cabenda  Bay,  en 
the  western  coast  of  Africa.  There 
being  no  slaves  at  Cabenda^  it  was 
resolved  to  run  a  few  miles  up  the 
Congo  river. 

"  We  at  length  reached  Loonbee,  and 
anchored  off  the  town,  which  is  the  chief 
market  or  slave-depot  for  Embomma.  It 
consists  of  about  a  hundred  huts  of  palm- 
leaves,  with  two  or  three  block-houses, 
where  the  slaves  are  confined.  About 
two  hundred  slaves  were  already  col- 
lected, and  more  were  on  their  way  down 
the  river,  and  from  different  towns  in  the 
interior.  After  presents  for  the  King  of 
Embomma,  and  for  the  Mafooka  (a  sort 
of  chief  of  the  board  of  slave-trade,)  and 
other  officials,  had  been  made,  and  a  deal 
of  brandy  drunk,  we  landed,  and  in  com- 
pany with  several  Fukas,  or  native  mer- 
chants, and  two  or  three  Portuguese, 
went  to  take  a  look  at  the  slaves.  Each 
dealer  paraded  his  gang  for  inspection, 
and  loudly  dilated  upon  their  respective 
qualities.  They  were  all  entirely  naked, 
and  of  all  ages,  sexes,  and  conditions,  and 
all  had  an  air  of  stolid  indifference,  va- 
ried only  in  some  of  them  by  an  expres- 
sion of  surprise  and  fear  at  sight  of  the 
white  men." 

In  one  of  these  unfortunate  groups 
of  dingy  humanity,  Homer  was  struck 
by  the  appearance  of  a  young  girl, 
whose  features  widely  differed  from 
the  usual  African  stamp,  and  whose 
complexion,  amongst  a  white  popu- 
lation, would  not  have  been  deemed 
too  dark  for  a  brunette.  Her  grace- 
fully curling  hair  contrasted  with  the 
woolly  polls  of  her  companions  ;  her 
eyes  were  large  and  expressive,  and 
her  form  elegant,  but  then  emaciated 
by  fatigue  and  ill-treatment.  This  is 
Kaloolah.  On  inquiry  of  the  slave- 
dealer,  a  great  burly  negro,  wielding 


a  long  thong  of  plaited  buffalo  hide, 
Homer  learned  that  she  is  of  a  far 
distant  nation,  called  the  Gerboo 
Blanda,  who  dwell  in  stone  houses  on 
an  extensive  plain.  The  slave-dealer 
knows  them  only  by  report,  and  Ka- 
loolah and  her  brother,  who  is  near  at 
hand,  are  the  first  specimens  he  has 
seen  of  this  remote  tribe.  He  had 
bought  her  two  months'  journey  off, 
and  then  she  had  already  come  a  long 
distance.  And  now  that  he  had  got 
them  to  the  coast,  he  esteems  them 
of  small  value  compared  to  the  full- 
blooded  blacks  ;  for  Kaloolah  has  pined 
herself  away  to  a  shadow,  and  her  bro- 
ther, Enphadde,  is  bent  upon  suicide, 
and  cannot  be  trusted  with  unfettered 
hands ;  so  that  for  thirty  dollars 
Rom er  buys  them  both.  The  Bonito 
having  been  driven  out  to  sea  by  the 
approach  of  a  British  cruiser,  he 
passes  some  days  on  shore  with 
his  new  purchases ;  during  which 
time,  with  a  rapidity  bordering  on 
the  miraculous,  he  acquires  sufficient 
of  their  language,  and  they  of  his,  to 
carry  on  a  sort  of  piebald  conversa- 
tion, to  learn  the  history  of  these  pale 
Africans,  and  some  particulars  of  their 
mysterious  country. 

"  The  Gerboo  Blanda,  I  found,  was 
a  name  given  to  their  country  by  the 
Jagas,  that  its  true  name  was  Frama- 
zugda,  and  that  the  people  were  called 
Framazugs.  That  it  was  situated  at  a 
great  distance  in  the  interior,  in  a  direc- 
tion west  by  north,  and  that  it  was  sur- 
rounded by  negro  and  savage  nations, 
through  whom  a  trade  was  carried  on 
with  people  at  the  north-west  and  east, 
none  of  whom,  however,  were  ever  seen 
at  Framazugda,  as  the  trade  had  to  pass 
through  a  number  of  hands.  Enphadde 
represented  the  country  to  be  of  consi- 
derable extent,  consisting  mostly  of  a 
lofty  plateau  or  elevated  plain,  and  ex- 
ceedingly populous,  containing  numerous 
large  cities,  surrounded  by  high  walls, 
and  filled  with  houses  of  stone.  Several 
large  streams  and  lakes  watered  the  soil, 
which,  according  to  his  account,  was  closely 
cultivated,  and  produced  in  abundance  the 
greatest  variety  of  trees,  fruits,  flowers,, 
and  grain.  Over  this  country  ruled  Selha. 
Shounse,  the  father  of  Enphadde  and  Ka- 
loolah, as  king.  It  was  in  going  from  the 
capital  to  one  of  the  royal  gardens  that 
their  escort  was  attacked  by  a  party  of 
blacks  from  the  lowlands,  the  attendants 
killed  or  dispersed,  and  the  young  princa- 
and  princess  carried  off." 


1849.] 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


177 


Thirty  dollars  could  hardly  be 
•deemed  a  heavy  price  for  the  son  and 
daughter  of  the  great  Shounse",  and 
Jonathan  was  well  pleased  with  his 
bargain,  although  it  was  not  yet  clear 
how  he  should  realise  a  profit ;  but 
meanwhile  it  was  something  to  be  the 
proprietor  of  their  royal  highnesses  of 
Framazugda  ;  something  too  to  gaze 
into  Kaloolah's  bright  black  eyes,  and 
listen  to  her  dulcet  tones,  as  she 
warbled  one  of  her  country's  ditties 
about  the  Fultul,  a  sweet-scented 
lily  flourishing  beside  the  rivulets  of 
her  native  mountains.  The  verses, 
by  the  bye,  are  not  to  be  commended 
in  Mr  Homer's  version;  they  perhaps 
sounded  better  in  the  original  Frama- 
zug,  and  when  issuing  from  the  sweet 
lips  of  Kaloolah. 

Instead  of  a  week,  the  Bonito  was 
a  month  absent,  having  been  caught 
in  a  calm.  Captain  Pedro  Garbez 
promised  the  Virgin  Mary  the  value 
of  a  young  negro  in  wax-lights  for  a 
capful  of  wind,  but  in  vain ;  and  he 
was  fain  to  tear  the  hair  from  his 
head  with  impatience.  Meanwhile 
Jonathan  had  caught  a  fever  in  the 
swamps  of  Congo,  and  Kaloolah  had 
made  his  chicken-broth,  and  tended 
him  tenderly,  and  restored  him  to 
health,  although  he  was  still  so 
altered  in  appearance  that  Garbez 
knew  him  not  when  he  mounted  the 
side  of  the  slaver.  All  speed  was 
now  made  to  buy  and  ship  a  cargo. 
The  account  of  the  latter  process  is 
interesting,  and,  we  have  no  doubt, 
perfectly  authentic ;  for  although  the 
author  of  Kaloolah  has  chosen  to  in- 
terlard, and  perhaps  deteriorate  his 
book  by  strange  stories  of  imaginary 
countries,  animals,  flowers,  &c.,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  distinguish  between 
his  fact  and  his  fiction,  and  to  recog- 
nise the  internal  evidence  of  veracity 
and  personal  observation.  A  short 
extract  may  here  with  propriety  be 
made,  for  the  benefit  of  anti-slavery 
philanthropists. 

"  The  first  slaves  that  came  on  board 
were  taken  below  the  berth-deck,  and 
arranged  upon  a  temporary  slave-deck 
placed  over  the  water-casks,  and  at  a 
distance  of  not  more  than  three  feet  and 
a  half  from  the  deck  overhead.  .  .  . 
The  slaves  were  arranged  in  four  ranks. 
When  lying  down,  the  heads  of  the  two 
outer  ranks  touched  the  sides  of  the  ship, 


their  feet  pointing  inboard  or  athwart 
the  vessel.  They,  of  course,  occupied  a 
space  fore  and  aft  the  ship,  of  about  six 
feet  on  either  side,  or  twelve  feet  of  the 
whole  breadth.  At  the  feet  of  the  out- 
side rank  came  the  heads  of  the  inner 
row.  They  took  up  a  space  of  six  feet 
more  on  either  side,  or  together  twelve 
feet.  There  was  still  left  a  space  running 
up  and  down  the  centre  of  the  deck,  two 
or  three  feet  in  breadth;  along  this  were 
stretched  single  slaves,  between  the  feet  of 
the  two  inner  rows,  so  that,  when  all  were 
lying  down,  almost  every  square  foot  of 
the  deck  was  covered  with  a  mass  of  hu- 
man flesh.  Not  the  slightest  space  was 
allowed  between  the  individuals  of  the 
ranks,  but  the  whole  were  packed  as 
closely  as  they  could  be,  each  slave  hav- 
ing just  room  enough  to  stretch  himself 
out  flat  upon  his  back,  and  no  more.  la 
this  way  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  were 
crowded  upon  the  slave-deck,  and  as 
many  more  upon  the  berth-deck.  Hor- 
rible as  this  may  seem,  it  was  nothing 
compared  to  the  '  packing'  generally 
practised  by  slavers.  Captain  Garbez 
boasted  that  he  had  tried  both  systems, 
tight  packing  and  loose  packing,  tho- 
roughly, and  found  the  latter  the  best. 

" '  If  you  call  this  loose  packing,'  I 
replied,  '  have  the  goodness  to  explain 
what  you  mean  by  tight  packing  1' 

" '  Why,  tight  packing  consists  in  mak- 
ing a  row  sit  with  their  legs  stretched 
apart,  and  then  another  row  is  placed 
between  their  legs,  and  so  on,  until  the 
whole  deck  is  filled.  In  the  one  case 
each  slave  has  as  much  room  as  he  can 
cover  lying  ;  in  the  other  only  as  much 
room  as  he  can  occupy  sitting.  With 
tight  packing  this  craft  ought  to  stow 
fifteen  hundred.' " 

The  Bonito  was  not  above  three 
hundred  tons.  Such  are  the  blessings 
for  which  the  negroes  are  indebted  to 
the  tender-mercied  emancipators  who 
have  ruined  our  West  Indian  colonies. 

"'When  it  comes  to  closing  the 
hatches,'  (in  the  event  of  a  gale)  said 
Captain  Pedro,  '  it  is  all  up  with  the 
voyage.  You  can  hardly  save  enough  to 
pay  expenses.  They  die  like  leeches  iu 
a  thunderstorm.  I  was  once  in  a  little 
schooner  with  three  hundred  on  board, 
and  we  were  compelled  to  lie-to  for  three 
days.  It  was  the  worst  sea  I  ever  saw, 
and  came  near  swamping  us  several  times. 
We  lost  two  hundred  and  fifty  slaves  in 
that  gale.  We  couldn't  get  at  the  dead 
ones  to  throw  them  overboard  very 
handily,  and  so  those  that  didn't  die  from 
want  of  air  were  killed  by  the  rolling 
and  tumbling  about  of  the  corpses.  Of 


178 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


[Aug, 


the  living  ones  some  had  their'  limbs 
broken,  and  every  one  had  the  flesh  of 
his  leg  worn  to  the  bone,  by  the  shackle 
irons.' 

"'Good  God  !  and  you  still  pursue  the 
horrible  trade  !' 

" '  Certainly ;  why  not  ?  Despite  of 
accidents  the  trade  is  profitable,  and,  for 
the  cruelty  of  it,  no  one  is  to  blame 
except  the  English.  Were  it  not  for 
them,  large  and  roomy  vessels  would  be 
employed,  and  it  would  be  an  object  to 
bring  the  slaves  over  with  every  comfort, 
and  in  as  good  condition  as  possible. 
Now,  every  consideration  must  be  sacri- 
ficed to  the  one  great  object — escape  from 
capture  by  the  British  cruisers.' 

"  I  had  no  wish  to  reply  to  the  cap- 
tain's argument.  One  might  as  well  re- 
ply to  a  defence  of  blasphemy  or  murder. 
Giddy,  faint,  and  sick,  I  turned  with 
loathing  from  the  fiends  in  human  guise, 
and  sought  the  more  genial  companion- 
ship of  the  inmates  of  my  state-room." 

These  were  Kaloolah  and  Enphad- 
de.  To  conceal  the  beauty  of  the 
former,  perilous  amidst  the  lawless 
crew  of  the  slaver,  Jonathan  had 
marked  her  face  with  caustic,  pro- 
ducing black  spots  which  had  the 
appearance  of  disease.  This  tempo- 
rary disfigurement  secured  her  from 
licentious  outrage,  but  not  from  harsh 
treatment.  Monte,  second  captain  of 
the  Bonito,  was  an  ex-pirate,  whose 
vessel  had  been  destroyed  by  Yankee 
cruisers.  To  spite  Romer,  whom  he 
detested  as  an  American,  he  threat- 
ened to  send  Kaloolah  and  her  brother 
amongst  the  slaves,  and  took  every 
opportunity  of  abusing  them.  Chap- 
ter xxi.  passes  wholly  on  board 
the  slaver,  and  is  excellent  of  its 
kind.  The  Bonito  is  chased  by  a 
man-of-war,  but  escapes.  At  day- 
break, whilst  lying  in  his  berth, 
Homer  hears  a  bustle  on  deck,  fol- 
lowed by  shrill  cries  and  plunges  in 
the  water.  The  following  is  good : — 

"  I  jumped  from  my  berth  and  stepped 
out  upon  deck.  A  dense  fog  brooded 
npon  the  surface  of  the  ocean,  and  closely 
enveloped  the  ship  —  standing  up  on 
either  side,  like  huge  perpendicular  walls 
of  granite,  and  leaving  a  comparatively 
clear  space — the  area  of  the  deck  and 
the  height  of  the  maintopmast  crosstrees. 
Inboard,  the  sight  ranged  nearly  free 
fore-and-aft  the  ship,  but  seaward  no 
eye  could  penetrate,  more  than  a  yard  or 
two,  the  solid-looking  barrier  of  vapour. 
A  man  standing  on  the  taffrail  might  have 


seen  the  catheads  the  whole  length  of  the 
deck,  whilst  at  the  same  time,  behind  him, 
the  end  of  the  spanker  boom,  projecting 
over  the  water,  was  lost  in  the  mist.  I 
looked  up  at  the  perpendicular  walls  and 
the  lofty  arch  overhead  with  feelings  of 
awe,  and,  I  may  add,  fear.  Cursed,  indeed, 
must  be  our  craft,  when  the  genius  of 
the  mist  so  carefully  avoided  the  pollu- 
tion of  actual  contact.  His  rolling  legions 
were  close  around  us,  but  vapoury  horse 
and  misty  foot  shrank  back  affrighted 
from  the  horrors  of  our  blood-stained 
decks." 

The  phenomenon  was  doubtless 
attributable  to  the  hot  air  generated 
in  the  crowded  'tween-decks.  The 
cries  and  plashings  that  had  startled 
Jonathan  were  soon  explained.  Viru- 
lent opthalmia  raged  on  board,  and 
Monte  was  drowning  the  blind,  whose 
value  of  course  departed  with  their 
eyesight.  A  blind  slave  was  "  an 
encumbrance,  an  unsaleable  article,  a 
useless  expense.  Pitch  him  over- 
board !  Twenty-five  to-day,  and  a 
dozen  more  to-morrow !"  But  retri- 
bution was  at  hand,  threatened,  at 
least,  by  a  British  brig-of-war,  which 
appeared  when  the  fog  cleared,  at 
about  a  mile  and  a  half  to  windward. 
During  the  chase,  Monte,  casually 
jostled  by  Kaloolah,  struck  her  to  the 
deck,  and  a  furious  scuffle  ensued 
between  him  and  Jonathan,  who  at 
last,  seeing  some  of  the  crew  ap- 
proaching, knife  in  hand,  leaped  over- 
board, dragging  his  antagonist  with 
him,  and  followed  by  Enphadde  and 
Kaloolah.  After  a  deep  dive,  dur- 
ing which  Monte's  tenacious  grasp 
was  at  last  relaxed,  the  intrepid 
Jonathan  regained  the  surface,  where 
he  and  his  friends  and  enemy  easily 
supported  themselves  till  picked  up  by 
the  brig.  The  swift  slaver  escaped. 
Monte  was  put  in  irons,  Romer  and 
his  Framazugdan  friends  were  made 
much  of  by  Captain  Halsey  and  the 
officers  of  her  Majesty's  brig  Flyaway, 
and  landed  in  the  picturesque  bat  pes- 
tilent shores  of  Sierra  Leone.  Then 
Kaloolah  and  her  brother  propose  to 
seek  their  way  homewards,  and 
Jonathan  takes  ship  for  Liverpool. 
Previously  to  his  departure,  there  are 
some  love  passages  between  the  Yan- 
kee and  the  Princess  of  Framazugda. 
These  are  not  particularly  successful. 
Sentiment  is  not  Dr  Mayo's/orte;  he 
is  much  happier  in  scenes  of  bustle 


1849.] 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


179 


and  adventure  —  when  urging  his 
weary  dromedary  across  boundless 
tracts  of  sand,  or  waging  deadly  com- 
bat with  the  fierce  inmates  of  African 
jungles.  His  book  will  delight  Mi- 
Van  Amburgh.  There  is  a  duel  be- 
tween a  lion  and  a  boa  that  we  make 
no  doubt  of  seeing  dramatised  at 
Astley's,  as  soon  as  a  serpent  can  be 
tamed  sufficiently  for  the  perform- 
ance. That  Dr  Mayo's  lions  are  of 
the  veiy  first  magnitude,  the  follow- 
ing description  shows : — "  His  body 
was  hardly  less  in  size  than  that  of  a 
dray-horse ;  his  paw  as  large  as  the 
foot  of  an  elephant ;  while  his  head ! 
— what  can  be  said  of  such  a  head  ? 
Concentrate  the  fury,  the  power,  the 
capacity,  and  the  disposition  for  evil  of 
a -dozen  thunderstorms  into  a  round 
globe  about  two  feet  in  diameter,  and 
one  would  then  be  able  to  get  an  idea 
of  the  terrible  expression  of  that  head 
and  face,  enveloped  and  set  off  as  it 
was  by  the  dark  framework  of  brist- 
ling mane  I "  This  pleasing  quad- 
ruped, disturbed  in  its  forest  solitude 
by  the  advent  of  Jonathan  and  the 
fair  Kaloolah,  who  have  wandered, 
lover-like,  to  some  distance  from  their 
bivouac,  at  once  prepares  to  break- 
fast upon  them.  Jonathan  had  im- 
prudently laid  down  his  gun  to  pluck 
wild  honeysuckles  for  his  mistress, 
when  the  lion,  stepping  in,  cuts  him 
off  from  his  weapon.  Suddenly  "  the 
light  figure  of  Kaloolah  rushed  past 
me  :  '  Fly,  fly,  Jon' than !'  she  wildly 
exclaimed,  as  she  dashed  forward 
directly  towards  the  lion.  Quick  as 
thought,  I  divined  her  purpose,  and 
sprang  after  her,  grasping  her  dress, 
and  pulling  her  forcibly  back,  almost 
from  within  those  formidable  jaws. 
The  astonished  animal  gave  several 
jumps  sideways  and  backwards,  and 
stopped,  crouching  to  the  ground,  and 
growling  and  lashing  his  sides  with 
renewed  fury.  It  was  clearly  taken 
aback  by  our  unexpected  charge  upon 
him,  but  yet  was  not  to  be  frightened 
into  abandoning  his  prey.  His  mouth 
was  made  up  for  us,  and  there  could 
be  no  doubt,  if  his  motions  were  a 
a  little  slow,  that  he  considered  us  as 
good  as  gorged."  Pulling  back  Ka- 
loolah, and  drawing  his  knife,  Romer 
awaits,  with  desperate  determination, 
the  monster's  terrible  onslaught,  Avhen 
an  unexpected  ally  arrives  to  the 


rescue.  "  It  seemed  as  if  one  of  the 
gigantic  creepers  I  have  mentioned 
had  suddenly  quitted  the  canopy 
above,  and,  endowed  with  life  and  a 
huge  pair  of  widely  distended  jaws, 
had  darted  with  the  rapidity  of  light- 
ning upon  the  crouching  beast.  There 
was  a  tremendous  shaking  of  the  tree- 
tops,  and  a  confused  wrestling  and 
jumping  and  whirling  over  and  about, 
amid  a  cloud  of  upturned  roots  and 
earth  and  leaves,  accompanied  with 
the  most  terrific  roars  and  groans. 
As  I  looked  again,  vision  grew  more 
distinct.  An  immense  body,  gleaming 
with  purple,  green,  and  gold,  appear- 
ed convoluted  around  the  majestic 
branches  overhead,  and,  stretching 
down,  was  turned  two  or  three  times 
around  the  struggling  lion,  whose  head 
and  neck  were  almost  concealed  from 
sight  within  the  cavity  of  a  pair  of  jaws 
still  more  capacious  than  his  own." 
A  full-grown  boa,  whose  length  is 
estimated  by  MrRomerat  about  a  hun- 
dred feet,  ('much  less  than  many  he  sub- 
sequently saw,  but  still  "  a  very  re- 
spectable-sized snake,")  had  dropped 
a  few  fathoms  of  coil  from  the  gigantic 
tree  around  which  he  was  twined,  and 
enveloped  the  lion,  who  soon  was 
crushed  to  death  in  the  scaly  embrace. 
Jonathan  makes  no  doubt  that  the 
serpent  was  about  to  swallow  his  vic- 
tim whole,  according  to  the  custom  of 
his  kind ;  and  it  is  certainly  to  be  re- 
gretted that  the  entreaties  of  Kaloo- 
lah, combined  with  the  "  strong  sickly 
odour"  diffused  by  the  boa,  prevented 
his  remaining  to  witness  a  process  of 
deglutition  which,  considering  the  di- 
mensions of  the  morsel  to  be  swal- 
lowed, could  not  have  been  otherwise 
than  curious. 

Wrecked  a  second  time,  Romer 
again  reaches  the  coast  of  Africa,  in 
company  with  an  old  sailor  named 
Jack  Thompson.  They  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  Bedouins,  and  suffer 
much  ill  treatment,  an  account  of 
which,  and  of  various  adventures  and 
escapes,  occupy  many  chapters,  and 
would  have  borne  a  little  curtailment. 
Romer  is  wandering  about  with  a 
tribe,  upon  whom  he  has  passed  him- 
self off  as  an  Arab  from  a  distant 
region,  when  he  is  compelled  to  join 
in  an  attack  on  a  caravan.  Kaloolah 
is  amongst  the  prisoners.  She  has 
been  captured  by  a  party  of  slave- 


180 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


[Aug. 


hunters,  and  is  on  her  way  to  Mo- 
rocco, where  her  master  hopes  her 
beauty  will  fetch  a  good  price  from 
the  Emperor  Muley  Abderrahman. 
In  the  partition  of  the  spoil,  she  falls 
to  the  share  of  an  old  Arab,  who  is 
ill  satisfied  with  the  acquisition. 
"  He  was  extremely  chagrined  at  the 
turn  of  fortune  which  threatened  to 
throw  into  the  wrangling  elements  of 
his  domestic  felicity  a  feminine  super- 
fluity— or,  as  he  expressed  it, '  another 
tongue  in  his  tent.' 

"  '  Bismillah !'  he  exclaimed;  '  God 
is  great,  but  this  is  a  small  thing! 
She  is  not  a  man ;  she  is  not  a  black 
— she  cannot  work ;  but  won't  she  eat 
and  talk !  They  all  eat  and  talk.  I 
take  a  club  sometimes,  and  knock 
them  down  ;  beat  them  ;  break  their 
bones ;  but  they  still  eat  and  talk ! 
God's  will  be  done !  but  it  is  too  much 
to  put  such  a  thing  upon  me  for  my 
share!  She  is  good  for  nothing:  I 
cannot  sell  her.'" 

The  grumbling  old  Bedouin  did  sell 
her,  however,  to  Jonathan,  for  three 
or  four  cotton  shirts.  Flight  now 
becomes  necessary,  for  Hassan,  son 
of  the  chief  of  the  tribe,  seeks  Jona- 
than's life,  and  Mrs  Ali,  the  chief's 
wife,  persecutes  him  with  her  mis- 
placed affection,  and  is  spiteful  to 
Kaloolah,  Avhom  she  looks  upon  as  the 
chief  obstacle  to  its  requital.  Upon 
this  head  our  Yankee  is  rather  good  : 
"  Respect  for  the  sex,"  he  says,  "  and 
a  sentiment  of  gentlemanly  delicacy, 
which  the  reader  will  appreciate,  pre- 
vents me  from  dwelling  upon  the 
story  at  length.  It  was  wrong,  un- 
doubtedly, in  Seffora  to  love  any 
other  than  her  old,  rugose-faced, 
white-bearded  husband ;  but  it  is  not 
for  me  to  blame  her.  One  thing, 
however,  in  her  conduct  can  hardly  be 
excused.  True,  I  might  have  treated 
her  affection  with  more  tenderness ;  I 
might  have  nursed  the  gentle  flowers 
of  passion,  instead  of  turning  away 
from  their  fragrance  ;  I  might  have  re- 
sponded to  that  '  yearning  of  the  soul 
for  sympathy' — have  relieved,  with 
the  food  of  love,  '  the  mighty  hunger 
of  the  heart ;'  but  all  this,  and  more 
that  I  might  have  done,  but  did  not 
do,  gave  her  no  right  to  throw  stones 
at  Kaloolah."  To  avoid  the  pelting 
and  other  'disagreeables,  the  lovers 
take  themselves  off  in  the  night-time, 


mounted  on  heiries — camels  of  a  pecu- 
liar breed  and  excellence,  famed  in 
the  desert  for  endurance  and  speed. 
On  their  road  they  pick  up,  in  a 
Moorish  village,  an  Irish  renegade ; 
at  some  salt-works,  they  find  Jack 
Thompson  working  as  a  slave ;  and 
soon  afterwards  their  party  is  in- 
creased to  five  persons,  by  the  addition 
of  Hassan,  a  runaway  negro.  With 
this  motley  tail,  Mr  Romer  pushes  on 
in  the  direction  of  Framazugda.  Here 
the  editor  very  judiciously  epitomises 
six  long  chapters  in  as  many  pages  ; 
and,  immediately  after  this  compressed 
portion,  there  begins  what  may  be 
strictly  termed  the  fabulous,  or  almost 
the  supernatural  part  of  the  book. 
Previously  to  this  there  have  been  not 
a  few  rather  startling  incidents,  but 
now  the  author  throws  the  rein  on  the 
neck  of  his  imagination,  and  scours 
away  into  the  realms  of  the  extrava- 
gant ;  still  striving,  however,  by  cir- 
cumstantial detail,  to  give  an  appear- 
ance of  probability  to  his  astounding 
and  ingenious  inventions.  Some  of 
the  descriptions  of  scenery  and  savage 
life  in  the  wilderness  are  vivid  and 
striking,  and  show  power  which  might 
be  better  applied.  Of  the  fabulous 
animals,  the  following  account  of  an 
amiable  reptile,  peculiar  to  central 
Africa,  will  serve  as  a  sufficient  speci- 
men of  Yankee  natural  history : — 

"  It  is  aii  amphibious  polypus.  If  the 
reader  will  conceive  a  large  cart-wheel, 
the  hub  will  represent  the  body  of  the 
animal,  and  the  spokes  the  long  arms, 
about  the  size  and  shape  of  a  full-grown 
kangaroo's  tail,  and  twenty  in  number, 
that  project  from  it.  When  the  animal 
moves  upon  land,  it  stiffens  these  radii, 
and  rolls  over  upon  the  points  like  a 
wheel  without  a  felloe.  These  arms  have 
also  the  capability  of  a  lateral  prehensile 
contraction  in  curves, perpendicular  toils 
plane  of  revolution,  and  enable  the  animal 
to  grasp  its  prey,  and  draw  it  into  its 
voracious  mouth.  It  attacks  the  largest 
animals,  and  even  man  itself ;  but,  if  dan- 
gerous upon  land,  it  is  still  more  formid- 
able in  the  water,  where  it  has  been  known 
to  attack  and  kill  an  alligator.  This 
horrible  monster  is  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Sempersough  or '  snake-star,'  and  ia 
more  dreaded  than  any  other  animal  of 
Framazugda,  inasmuch  as  the  natives 
have  no  way  of  destroying  it,  except  by 
catching  it  when  young,  in  cane  traps 
sunk  in  the  water,  and  baited  with  hip- 
popotamus cubs  (!)  Fortunately  it  is  not 


1819.] 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


yery  prolific ;  and  its  increase  is  further 
prevented  by  the  furious  contests  that 
these  animals  have  among  themselves. 
Sometimes  twenty  or  thirty  will  grasp 
each  other  with  their  long  arms,  and 
twist  themselves  up  into  a  hard  and  in- 
tricate knot.  In  this  situation  they  re- 
main, hugging  and  gnawing  each  other  to 
death  ;  and  never  relaxing  their  grasp 
until  their  arms  are  so  firmly  intertwined 
that,  when  life  is  extinct,  and  the  huge 
mass  floats,  they  cannot  be  separated. 
The  natives  now  draw  the  ball  ashore, 
cut  it  up  with  axes,  and  make  it  into  a 
compost  for  their  land."  (! !  ) 

Is  Dr  Mayo  addicted  to  heavy  sup- 
pers? We  can  just  fancy  an  unfor- 
tunate individual,  after  a  midnight 
meal  on  a  shield  of  brawn  and  a  Brob- 
diguagian  crab,  which  he  has  omitted 
to  qualify  by  a  subsequent  series  of 
stiff  tumblers,  sinking  into  an  uneasy 
slumber,  and  being  rolled  over  by  such 
au  incubus  as  this  vivacious  waggon- 
wheel.  Doubtless  there  is  a  possibi- 
lity of  a  man  dieting  himself  into  this 
style  of  writing,  whereof  a  short  spe- 
cimen may  excite  a  smile,  but  whose 
frequent  recurrence  is  necessarily 
wearisome,  and  which  obviously  es- 
capes criticism.  But  the  author  of 
Kaloolah  is  not  contented  with  brute 
monstrosities.  He  chronicles  reports 
that  reach  his  hero's  ears,  of  nations 
of  human  monsters,  with  teeth  filed 
to  a  sharp  point  (no  uncommon  prac- 
tice amongst  certain  negro  tribes,) 
with  tusks  projecting  like  those  of  a 
wild  boar,  and  with  pendant  lips  that 
continually  drop  blood.  AH  this  is 
childish  enough  ;  but  Jack  Thompson, 
who  is  a  dry  dog,  caps  these  astound- 
ing fictions  with  a  cannibal  yarn  from 
the  Southern  Hemisphere. 

" '  I've  been  among  the  New  Zea- 
landers,'  quoth  Jack,  '  and  there  they  use 
each  other  for  fresh  grub,  as  regular  as 
boiled  duff  in  a  man-of-war's  mess.  They 
used  to  eat  their  fathers  and  mothers, 
when  they  got  too  old  to  take  care  of 
themselves ;  but  now  they've  got  to  be 
more  civilised,  and  so  they  only  eat 
ricketty  children,  and  slaves,  and  enemies 
taken  in  battle.' 

w '  A  decided  instance  of  the  progress 
of  improvement,  and  march  of  mind,' 
said  I. 

"'Well,  I  believe  that  is  what  the 
missionaries  call  it,'  replied  Jack ;  but 
it's  a  bad  thing  for  the  old  folks.  They 
don't  take  to  the  new  fashion — they  are 
in  favour  of  the  good  old  custom.  I  never 

VOL.  LXVI.— NO.  CCCCVI. 


181 

see'd  the  thing  myself ;  but  Bill  Brown, 
a  messmate  of  mine  once,  told  me  that, 
when  he  was  at  the  Bay  of  Islands,  he 
see'd  a  great  many  poor  old  souls  going 
about  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  trying  to 
get  somebody  to  eat  them.  One  of  them 
came  off  to  the  ship,  and  told  them  that 
he  couldn't  find  rest  in  the  stomachs  of 
any  of  his  kindred,  and  wanted  to  know 
if  the  crew  wouldn't  take  him  in.  The 
skipper  told  him  he  was  on  monstrous 
short  allowance,  but  he  couldn't  accom- 
modate him.  The  poor  old  fellow,  Bill 
said,  looked  as  though  his  heart  would 
break.  There  were  plenty  of  sharks 
round  the  ship,  and  the  skipper  advised 
him  to  jump  overboard  ;  but  he  couldn't 
bear  the  idea  of  being  eaten  raw.' " 

The  great  audacity  of  Dr  Mayo's 
fictions  preclude  surprise  at  the  bold- 
ness of  his  tropes  and  similes.  The 
tails  of  his  lions  lash  the  ground 
"  with  a  sound  like  the  falling  of 
clods  upon  a  coffin ;"  their  roar  is  like 
the  boom  of  a  thirty-two  pounder, 
shaking  the  trees,  and  rattling  the 
boulders  in  the  bed  of  the  river.  Of 
course,  allowance  must  be  made  for 
the  vein  of  humorous  rhodomontade 
peculiar  to  certain  American  writers, 
and  into  which  Dr  Mayo  sometimes 
unconsciously  glides,  and,  at  others,  vo- 
luntarily indulges.  His  description  of 
the  conjuring  tricks  of  the  Framazug- 
dan  jugglers  comes  under  the  latter 
head. 

"  Some  of  them  were  truly  wonderful, 
as,  for  instance,  turning  a  man  into  a  tree 
bearing  fruit,  and  with  monkeys  skipping 
about  in  the  branches;  and  another  case, 
where  the  chief  juggler  apparently  swal- 
lowed five  men,  ten  boys,  and  a  jackass, 
threw  them  all  up  again,  turned  himself 
inside  out,  blewhimself  up  like  a  balloon, 
and,  exploding  with  a  loud  report,  disap- 
peared in  a  puff  of  luminous  vapour.  I 
could  not  but  admire  the  skill  with  which 
the  tricks  were  performed,  although  I  was 
too  much  of  a  Yankee  to  be  raucli  aston- 
ished at  anything  in  the  Hey, Presto! 
line." 

A  countryman  of  Mr  Jefferson  Davis 
is  not  expected  to  feel  surprise  at 
anything  in  the  way  of  sleight  of 
hand,  or  "  double  shuffle  ;"  and  there 
was  probably  nothing  more  startling 
to  the  senses  in  the  evaporation  of 
King  Shounse's  conjuror,  than  in  the 
natural  self- extinction  of  the  Mississi- 
pian  debt.  It  is  only  a  pity  that 
Jonathan  Homer  did  not  carry  his 


182 


Jonathan  in  Africa. 


[Aug. 


smart  fellow-citizen  to  the  country  of 
the  Pholdefoos,  a  class  of  enthusiasts 
who  devote  their  lives  to  a  search  for 
the  germs  of  moral,  religious,  and 
political  truth.  Mr  Davis  would  have 
felt  rather  out  of  his  element  at  first, 
but  could  not  have  failed  ultimately 
to  have  benefited  by  his  sojourn 
amongst  these  singular  savages. 

On  coming  in  sight  of  her  father's 
capital,  Kaloolah  is  overcome  with 
emotion,  and  sinks  weeping  into  her 
brother's  arms.  "  I  felt,"  says  Jona- 
than, "  that  this  was  a  situation  in 
which  even  the  most  sympathising 
lover  would  be  de  trop.  There  were 
thronging  associations  which  I  could 
not  share,  vibrating  memories  to  which 
my  voice  was  mot  attuned,  bonds  of 
affection  which  all-powerful  love  might 
transcend,  and  even  disrupt,  but 
whose  precise  nature  it  could  not  as- 
sume. There  are  some  lovers  who 
are  jealous  of  such  things — fellows 
who  like  to  wholly  monopolise  a 
woman,  and  who  are  constantly  on 
the  watch,  seizing  and  appropriating 
her  every  look,  thought,  and  feeling, 
with  somewhat  of  the  same  notion  of 
an  exclusive  right,  as  that  with  which 
they  pocket  a  tooth-pick.  I  am  not 
of  that  turn.  The  female  heart  is  as 
curiously  and  as  variously  stocked  as 
a  country  dry-goods  store.  A  man 
may  be  perhaps  allowed  to  select  out, 
for  his  own  exclusive  use,  some  of  the 
heavier  articles,  such  as  sheetings, 
shirtings,  flannels,  trace- chains,  hob- 
by-horses, and  goose-yokes ;  but  that 
is  no  reason  why  the  neighbours  should 
be  at  once  cut  off  from  their  accus- 
tomed supply  of  smallwares." 

We  venture  to  calculate  that  it 
takes  a  full-blooded  Yankee  to  write 
in  this  strain,  which  reminds  us,  re- 
motely, it  is  true,  of  some  of  Mr 
Samuel  Slick's  eccentric  fancies.  Dr 
Mayo  has  considerable  versatility  of 
pen ;  he  dashes  at  everything,  from 
the  ultra- grotesque  to  the  hyper-sen- 
timental, from  the  wildest  fable  to  the 
most  substantial  matter-of-fact ;  and 
if  not  particularly  successful  in  some 
styles,  in  others  he  really  makes  what 
schoolboys  call  "  a  very  good  offer." 


But  the  taste  of  the  day  is  by  no 
means  for  extravaganza  travels,  after 
the  fashion  of  Gulliver,  but  without 
the  brilliant  and  searching  satire  that 
lurks  in  Lilliput  and  Laputa.  Mr 
Herman  Melville  might  have  known 
that  much ;  although  we  have  heard 
say  that  certain  keen  critics  have 
caught  glimpses  in  his  Mardi  of  a 
hidden  meaning — one,  however,  which 
the  most  penetrating  have  hitherto 
been  unable  to  unravel.  We  advise 
Dr  Mayo  to  start  afresh,  with  a  better 
scheme.  Instead  of  torturing  his  in- 
ventive faculties  to  produce  rotatory 
dragons,  wingless  birds,  (propelled 
through  the  air  by  valves  in  their 
heads,)  and  countries  where  courtiers, 
like  Auriol  in  the  ring  at  Franconi's, 
do  public  homage  by  standing  on  their 
hands  ;  let  him  seek  his  inspiration  in. 
real  life,  as  it  exists  in  the  wilder  re- 
gions of  the  vast  continent  of  which 
he  is  a  native.  A  man  who  has 
strayed  so  far,  and  seen  so  much,  can 
hardly  be  at  a  loss.  The  slaver's 
surgeon,  the  inmate  of  the  Bedouin's 
tent,  the  bold  explorer  of  the  deadly 
swamps  of  Congo,  had  surely  rambled 
nearer  home  before  a  restless  fancy 
lured  him  to  such  distant  and  danger- 
ous latitudes.  Or  are  we  too  bold  in 
assuming  that  the  wilds  and  forests  of 
Western  America  have  echoed  to  the 
crack  of  his  rifle,  and  that  the  West 
Indian  seas  have  borne  the  furrow  of 
his  vessel's  prow?  It  is  in  such  scenes 
we  would  gladly  find  him,  when  next 
he  risks  himself  in  print :  beneath  the 
shade  of  the  live  oak  or  on  the  rolling 
prairie,  or  where  the  black  flag,  with 
the  skeleton  emblem,  floats  from  the 
masthead.  He  has  worked  out  his 
crotchet  of  an  imaginary  white  nation 
in  the  heart  of  Africa,  carrying  it 
through  with  laborious  minuteness, 
and  with  results  hardly  equal  to  the 
pains  bestowed:  let  him  now  turn 
from  the  ideal  to  the  real,  and  may 
our  next  meeting  be  on  the  Spanish 
main  under  rover's  bunting,  or  west 
of  the  clearings,  where  the  bison 
roams  and  the  Redskin  prowls,  and  the 
stragglers  from  civilisation  have  but 
begun  to  show  themselves. 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.— Part  III. 


183 


THE  GREEN  HAND.* 


SHORT       YAEN. — PART  III. 


THE  evening  after  that  in  which 
the  commander  of  the  Gloucester 
Indiaman  introduced  his  adventures, 
nearly  the  same  party  met  on  the  poop 
to  hear  them  continued. 

"  Well  then,"  began  Captain  Col- 
lins, leaning  back  against  a  stanchion 
of  the  quarter-rail,  with  folded  arms, 
legs  crossed,  and  his  eyes  fixed  on  the 
weather-leech  of  the  mizen-topsail  to 
collect  his  thoughts;  —  "well  then, 
try  to  fancy  the  Seringapatam  in 
chase  of  the  Gloucester ;  and  if  I  do 
use  a  few  extra  sea-terms,  I  consider 
the  ladies  good  enough  sailors  for  them 
already.  At  any  rate,  just  throw  a 
glance  aloft  now  and  then,  and  our 
good  old  lady  will  explain  herself ;  to 
her  own  sex,  she's  as  good  as  a  dic- 
tionary without  words ! 

The  second  day  out  we  had  the  wind 
more  from  seaward,  which  broke  up 
the  haze  into  bales  of  cloud,  and 
away  they  went  rolling  in  for  the  Bay 
of  Biscay ;  with  a  longer  wave  and 
darker  water,  and  the  big  old  India- 
man surged  over  it  as  easily  as  might 
be,  the  blue  breeze  gushing  right  into 
her  main-tack  through  the  heave  of 
the  following  seas,  and  the  tail  of 
the  trade -wind  flying  high  above 
her  trucks  in  shreds  and  patches. 
Things  got  more  ship-shape  dn  deck ; 
anchor- flukes  brought  in-board  on 
the  head-rail,  and  cables  stowed 
away — the  very  best  sign  you  can 
have  of  being  clear  of  the  land. 
The  first  officer,  as  they  called  him, 
was  a  good-lookingfellow,  that  thought 
no  small-beer  of  himself,  with  his 
glossy  blue  jacket  and  Company's  but- 
tons, white  trowsers,  dnd  a  gold  thread 
round  his  cap  :  he  had  it  stuck  askew 
to  show  how  his  hair  was  brushed, 
and  changed  his  boots  every  time  he 
came  on  deck.  Still  he  looked  like  a 
sailor,  if  but  for  the  East  India  brown 
on  his  face,  and  there  was  no  mistake 
about  his  knowing  how  to  set  a  sail, 
trim  yards,  or  put  the  ship  about ; 
so  that  the  stiff  old  skipper  left  a  great 
deal  to  him,  besides  trusting  in  him 


for  a  first-rate  navigator  that  had 
learned  headwork  at  a  naval  school. 
The  crew  were  to  be  seen  all  muster- 
ing before  tea-time  in  the  dog-watch, 
with  their  feet  just  seen  under  the 
foot  mat  of  the  fore-course,  like  actors 
behind  a  playhouse  curtain  :  men  that 
I  warrant  you  had  seen  every  country 
under  heaven  amongst  them,  as  pri- 
vate as  possible,  and  ready  to  enjoy 
their  pots  of  tea  upon  the  forecastle, 
as  well  as  their 'talk. 

The  old  judge  evidently  fought  shy  of 
company,  and  perhaps;  meant  to  have 
his  own  mess-table  under  the  poop 
as  long  as  the  voyage  lasted :  scarcely 
any  of  the  ladies  had  apparently  got 
their  sea-qualms  over  yet,  and,  for 
all  I  knew,  she  might  not  be  on  board 
at  all ;  or,  if  she  were,  her  father 
seemed  quite  Turk  enough  to  keep 
her  boxed  up  with  jalousie-blinds, 
Calcutta  fashion,  and  give  her  a 
walk  in  the  middle  watch,  with  the 
poop  tabooed  till  morning !  The 
jolly,  red-faced  indigo -planter  was 
the  only  one  that  tried  to  get  up  any- 
thing like  spirit  at  the  table ;  indeed, 
he  would  have  scraped  acquaintance 
with  me  if  I  had  been  in  a  mood  for 
it:  all  I  did  was  to  say  'Yes'  and 
'No,'  and  to  take  wine  with  him. 
"Poor  fellow!"  said  he,  turning  to 
three  or  four  of  the  cadets,  that  stuck 
by  him  like  pilot-fish  to  an  old  shark, 
"  he's  thinking  of  his  mother  at  home, 
I  daresay."  The  fools  thought  this 
was  meant  as  a  joke,  and  began  to 
laugh.  "  Why,  you  unfledged  grif- 
fins you,"  said  the  planter,  "  what 
d'ye  see  to  nicker  at,  like  so  many 
jackals  in  a  trap  ?  D'ye  suppose  one 
thinks  the  less  of  a  man  for  having  a 
heart  to  be  sick  in,  as  well  as  a  sto- 
mach— eh  ?  "  "  Oh,  don't  speak  of  it, 
Mr  Bollock ! "  said  one.  "  Come, 
come,  old  boy ! "  said  another,  with  a 
white  mustache  on  his  lip,  "  'twon't 
do  for  you  to  go  the  sentimental,  you 
know ! "  "  Capsize  my  main-spanker, 
'tis  too  funny,  though ! "  put  in  a  fel- 
low who  wore  a  glazed  hat  on  deck, 


*  See  No.  CCCCL,  March  1849. 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


and  put  down  all  the  ropes  with  num- 
bers on  paper,  as  soon  as  he  had  done 
being  sick.  The  planter  leant  back 
in  his  chair,  looked  at  them  coolly, 
and  burst  out  a-laughing.  "  Catch  me 
ever  'going  home'  again!"  said  he. 
"  Of  all  the  absurd  occasions  for  im- 
pudence with  the  egg-shell  on  its  head 
coming  out,  hang  me  if  these  fifteen 
thousand  miles  of  infernal  sea-water 
ain't  the  worst!  India  for  ever! — 
that's  the  place  to  try  a  man !  He's 
cither  sobered  or  gets  room  to  work 
there ;  and  just  wait,  my  fine  fellows, 
till  I  see  you  on  the  Custom-house 
Bunda  at  Bombay,  or  setting  off  up 
country — you're  all  of  you  the  very 
food  for  sircars  and  coolies!  That 
quiet  lad  there,  now,  soft  as  he  looks, 
— I  can  tell  by  his  eye  he  won't  be 
long  a  griff — He'll  do  something !  I 
tell  you  what,  as  soon  as  he's  tasted 
a  mango-fish,  he'll  understand  the 
country !  Why,  sir ! "  said  he  again, 
smacking  his  lips,  "  'tis  worth  the 
voyage  of  itself — you  begin  a  new 
existence,  so  to  speak !  I'll  be  bound 
all  this  lot  o'  water  don't  contain  one 
single  mango-fish !  Remember,  boys, 
I  promised  you  all  a  regular  blow-out 
of  mango-fish,  &nd.jlorican  with  bread- 
sauce,  whenever  you  can  get  across  to 
Chuckbully  Factory ! "  "  Blow  good 
breeze,  then ;  blow  away  the  main 
jib!"  said  the  nautical  young  gentle- 
man ;  "I'll  join  you,  old  fellow!" 
"Not  the  best  way  to  bring  it  about, 
though ! "  said  the  indigo-planter, 
good-naturedly,  not  knowing  but  there 
was  such  a  sail  on  the  ship. 

The  yellow  setting  sun  was  striking 
over  the  starboard  quarter-boat,  and 
the  Bay  of  Biscay  lay  broad  down 
to  leeward  for  a  view — a  conple  of 
large  craft,  with  all  studding-sails 
set  before  the  wind,  making  for  land, 
far  enough  off  to  bring  their  can- 
vass in  a  piece,  and  begin  to  look 
blue  with  the  air — one  like  a  milk- 
woman  with  pitchers  and  a  hoop; 
the  other  like  a  girl  carrying  a  big 
bucketful  of  water,  and  leaning  the 
opposite  way  to  steady  herself.  There 
was  one  far  to  north-east,  too,  no  more 
than  a  white  speck  in  the  gray  sky ; 
i\nd  the  land-cloud  went  up  over  it 
into  so  many  sea- lions'  heads,  all  look- 
ing out  of  their  manes.  The  children 
clapped  their  hands  and  laughed;  and 
the  ladies  talked  about  the  vessels, 


and  thought  they  saw  land — Spain  or 
the  Pyrenees,  perhaps.  However,  it 
wasn't  long  before  my  American  friend 
Snout  caught  sight  of  me  in  the  midst  of 
his  meditations,  as  he  turned  bolt  round 
on  his  toes  to  hurry  aft  again. 
"The  fact  is,  mister,"  said  he, 
"7Vt  riled  a  little  at  the  'tarnation 
pride  of  you  Britishers.  There  now," 
said  he,  pointing  at  the  blaze  of  the 
sun  to  westward,  with  his  chin, 
"there's  a  consolation!  I  calculate 
the  sun's  just  over  Noo-York,  which 
I  expect  to  give  you  old  country  folks 
considerable  pain !" 

"No  doubt!"  said  I,  with  a  sigh, 
"  one  can't  help  thinking  of  a  banker 
run  off  with  ever  so  much  English 
gold!"  "You're  a  sensible  chap, 
you  are.  It's  a  right-down  asylum 
for  oppressed  Europains,  that  can't 
be  denied."  "  And  Africans  too," 
I  put  in.  •  "  Indy,  now,"  said  he, 
"  I  reckon  there's  a  sight  of 
dollars  made  in  that  country — you 
don't  s'pose  I'm  goin'  out  there  for 
nothing?  We'll  just  take  it  out  o' 
your  hands  yet,  mister.  I  don't  ought 
to  let  you  into  the  scheme  till  I  know 
you  better,  you  see ;  but  I  expect  to 
want  a  sort  o'  company  got  up  before 
we  land.  There's  one  of  your  nabobs, 
now,  came  into  the  ship  at  Possmouth 
with  a  whole  tail  of  niggers-dressed- 

up ."     "  And  a  lady  with  him,  I 

think?"  said  I,  as  coolly  as  I  could. 
— "  I'll  somehow  open  on  that  chap 
about  British  tyranny,  I  guess,  after 
gettin'  a  little  knowledge  out  of 
him.  We'd  just  rise  the  niggurs, 
if  they  had  not  such  a  right-down 
cur'ous  wry-thullogy — but  I  tell  you 
now,  mister,  that's  one  of  the  very 
p'ints  I  expect  to  meet.  Mss'naries 
won't  do  it  so  slick  off  in  two  thou- 
sand years,  I  kinder  think,  as  this 
indentical  specoolation  will  in  ten, — 
besides  payin'  like  Peruvain  mines, 
which  the  miss'nary  line  don't.  I'm 
a  regoolar  Down-easter,  ye  see  — 
kinder  piercin'  into  a  subject,  like  our 
nation  in  gin'ral  —  and  the  whull 
schim  hangs  together  a  little,  I  cal- 
culate, mister  ?  "  "  So  I  should 
think,  Mr  Snout,  indeed,"  I  said. 
Here  the  American  gave  another 
chuckle,  and  turned  to  again  on  his 
walk,  double  quick,  till  you'd  have 
thought  the  whole  length  of  the  poop 
shook :  when  who  should  I  see  with  the 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short''1  Yarn.— Part  III. 


185 


tail  of  my  eye,  but  my  friend  the  Kit- 
magar salaaming  to  Mr  Snout,  by  the 
break  of  the  quarter- deck*  The 
Yankee  seemed  rather  taken  aback  at 
first,  and  didn't  know  what  to  make 
of  him.  "  S'  laam,  sah  'b,"  said  the 
dark  servant,  with  an  impudent  look, 
and  loud  enough  for  me  to  hear,  as  I 
stepped  from  aft,  —  "  Judge  sahib 
i-send  genteeman  salaam  —  say  too 
much  hivvy  boot  he  got — all  same  as 
Illimphant !  S'pose  master  not  so 
much  loud  walk,  this  side  ?  "  "  Well!" 
broke  out  the  American,  looking  at 
the  Bengalee's  flat  turban  and  mus- 
tache, as  if  he  were  too  great  a  curi- 
osity to  be  angry  with,  then,  turning 
on  his  heel  to  proceed  with  his  walk, 
"  Now,  mister,"  said  he  to  me,  "that's 
what  I  call  an  incalculable  irnpwdent 
black — but  he's  the  first  I  ev,er  saw 
with  hair  on  his  lip,  it's  a  fact ! " 
"Master  not  mind?"  said  the  Kit- 
magar, raising  his  key  next  time  Mi- 
Snout  wheeled  round.  "  Judge  sahib 
burra  burra  buhadoorkea ! — ver'  great 
man  ! "  "  D niggur  ! "  said  Mi- 
Snout,  tramping  away  aft;  "there's 
your  British  regoolations,  I  say,  young 
man  !  niggurs  baaing  on  the  quarter- 
deck, and  free-born  citizens  put  off 
it ! "  "  Bhote  hhoob,  mistree  !  " 
squeaked  out  the  native  again ;  "burra 
judge  sahib  not  i-sleep  apter  he  dine? 
— ven  well — I  tell  the  sahib,  passlger 
mistree  moor  stamp-i-stamp  all  the 
moor  I  can  say  ! "  So  off  he  went  to 
report  in  the  poop-cabin.  A  little 
after,  up  shot  a  head  wrapped  in  a 
yellow  bandanna,  just  on  the  level  of 
the  poop-deck,  looking  through  the 
breast- rail ;  and  the  next  thing  I  saw 
was  the  great  East  Indian  himself, 
with  a  broad- flapped  Man  ilia  hat  over 
this  top-gear,  and  a  red-flowered 
dressing-gown,  standing  beside  the 
binnacle  with  Captain  Williamson. 
"  What  the  deuce,  Captain  William- 
son !  "  said  the  judge,  with  an  angry 
glance  up  to  the  poop,  "  cannot  I 
close  my  eyelids  after  dinner  for  one 
instant — in  my  own  private  apart- 
ments, sir — for  this  hideous  noise  ! 
Who  the  deuce  is  that  person  there — 
eh,  eh  ?  "  "  He 's  an  American 
gentleman,  I  believe,  Sir  Charles," 
replied  the  captain.  "  Believe,  sir !  " 
said  the  judge,  "  you  ought  to  knoic 
every  individual,  I  think,  Captain 
Williamson,  whom  you  admitted  into 


this  vessel !  I  expressly  stipulated 
for  quiet,  sir — I  understood  that  no 
suspicious  or  exceptionable  persons 
should  travel  in  the  same  conveyance 
with  my  suwarry.  I  'd  have  taken 
the  whole  ship,  sir  !  "  "I 've  no 
more  to  do  than  tell  him  the  regula- 
tions aboard,  Sir  Charles,"  said  the 
captain,  "  and  the  annoyance  will 
cease."  "  Tell  him,  indeed ! "  said 
the  judge,  a  little  more  good-humour  - 
edly,  "  why,  captain,  the  man  looks 
like  a  sea-pirate  !  You  should  have 
taken  only  such  raw  griffins  as  that 
young  lad  on  the  other  side.  Ho, 
kitmagar  !  "  "  Maharaj  ?  "  said  the 
footman,  bowing  down  to  the  deck. 
"  Slippers  lao  !  "  "  Jee,  khodabund," 
answered  the  native,  and  immediately 
after  he  reappeared  from  the  round- 
house door,  with  a  pair  of  turned-up 
yellow  slippers.  "  Take  them  up 
with  my  salaam  to  that  gentleman 
there,"  said  Sir  Charles,  in  Hindos- 
tanee,  "and  ask  him  to  use  them." 
"Hullo!,"  sung  out  Mr  Snout,  on 
being  hove- to  by  the  kitmagar,  with 
one  hand  on  his  breast  and  the  other 
holding  the  slippers,  "  this  won't  do  ! 
You'd  better  not  rile  me  again,  you 
cussed  uiggur  you — out  o'  my  way  ! " 
There  they  went  at  it  along  the  poop 
together,  Mr  Snout  striding  right  for- 
ward with  his  long  legs,  and  the  kit- 
magar  hopping  backward  out  of  his 
way,  as  he  tried  to  make  himself  un- 
derstood ;  till,  all  at  once,  the  poor 
fellow  lost  his  balance  at  the  ladder- 
head,  and  over  he  went  with  a  smash 
fit  to  have  broken  his  neck,  if  the 
captain's  broad  back  hadn't  fortu- 
nately been  there  to  receive  it.  The 
rage  of  Sir  Charles  at  this  was  quite 
beyond  joking ;  nothing  else  would 
satisfy  him  but  the  unlucky  Yankee's 
being  shoved  off  the  poop  by  main 
force,  and  taken  below —  the  one 
stamping  and  roaring  like  an  old 
buffalo,  and  the  other  testifying 
against  all  "  aristocratycal  tyranny." 
At  eight  bells,  again,  I  found  it  a 
fine  breezy  night,  the  two  upper 
mates  walking  the  weather  quarter-  \ 
deck  in  blue-water  style,  six  steps 
and  a  look  to  windward,  then  a 
wheel  round,  and,  now  and  then,  a 
glance  into  the  binnacle.  I  went  aft 
and  leant  over  the  Seringapatam's 
lee  quarter,  looking  at  the  white  back- 
wash running  aft  from  her  bows,  in 


186 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


green  sparks,  into  the  smooth  along- 
side, and  the  surge  coming  round  her 
counter  to  meet  it.  Everything  was 
set  aloft  that  could  draw,  even  to  a 
starboard  main-topmast-stunsail ;  the 
high  Indiaman  being  lighter  than  if 
homeward-bound,  and  the  breeze 
strong  abeam,  she  had  a  good  heel- 
over  to  port :  but  she  went  easily 
through  the  water,  and  it  was  only  at 
the  other  side  you  heard  it  rattling 
both  ways  along  the  bends.  The 
shadow  of  her  went  far  to  leeward, 
except  where  a  gleam  came  on  the  top 
of  a  wave  or  two  between  the  sails 
and  under  their  foot.  Just  below  the 
sheer  of  the  hull  aft  it  was  as  dark  as 
night,  though  now  and  then  the  light 
from  a  port  struck  on  it  and  went  in 
again ;  but  every  time  she  sank,  the 
bight  of  her  wake  from  astern 
swelled  up  away  round  the  counter, 
with  its  black  side  as  smooth  as  a 
looking-glass.  I  kept  peering  into  it, 
and  expecting  to  see  my  own  face, 
while  all  the  time  I  was  very  naturally 
thinking  of  one  quite  different,  and 
felt  uneasy  till  I  should  actually  see 
her.  "  Confound  it !"  I  thought, 
"  were  it  only  a  house,  one  might  walk 
round  and  round  it  till  he  found  out 
the  window !"  I  fancied  her  bewitch- 
ing face  through  the  garden  door,  as 
clearly  as  if  I  saw  it  in  the  dark  head 
of  the  swell;  but  I'd  have  given 
more  only  to  hear  that  imp  of  a 
cockatoo  scream  once — whereas  there 
was  nothing  but  the  water  working  up 
into  the  rudder-case ;  the  pintles 
creaking,  and  the  tiller-ropes  cheep- 
ing as  they  traversed ;  and  the  long 
welter  of  the  sea  when  the  ship  eased 
down,  with  the  surgeon  and  his  friends 
walking  about  and  laughing  up  to 
windward.  From  that,  again,  I  ran 
on  putting  things  together,  till,  in 
fact,  Jacobs's  notion  of  a  shipwreck 
seemed  by  far  the  best.  No  doubt 
Jacobs  and  Westwood,  with  a  few 
others,  would  be  saved,  while  I  didn't 
even  object  much  to  the  old  nabob 
himself,  for  respectability's  sake, 
and  to  spare  crape.  But,  by  Jove, 
wouldn't  one  bring  him  to  his  bear- 
ings soon  enough  there !  Every  sailor 
gets  hold  of  this  notion  some  night- 
watch  or  other,  leaning  over  the  side, 
with  pretty  creatures  aboard  he  can 
scarce  speak  to  otherwise  :  and  I  was 
coiling  it  down  so  fast  myself,  at  the 


moment,  that  I  had  just  begun  to 
pitch  into  the  nabob  about  our  all 
being  Adam's  sons  and  daughters, 
under  a  knot  of  green  palm-trees,  at 
the  door  of  a  wooden  house,  half 
thatched  with  leaves,  when  I  was 
brought  up  with  a  round  turn  by  see- 
ing a  light  shining  through  the  hazy 
bull's-eye  in  the  deck  where  I  stood. 
No  doubt  the  sweet  girl  I  had  been 
thinking  of  was  actually  there,  and 
going  to  bed  !  I  stretched  over  the 
quarter,  but  the  heavy  mouldings 
were  in  the  way  of  seeing  more  than 
the  green  bars  of  the  after  window — 
all  turned  edgeways  to  the  water, 
where  the  gallery  hung  out  like  a 
corner  turret  from  the  ship's  side. 
Now  and  then,  however,  when  she 
careened  a  little  more  than  ordinary, 
and  the  smooth  lee  swell  went  heaping 
up  opposite,  I  could  notice  the  light 
through  the  Venetians  from  the  state- 
room come  out  upon  the  dark  water 
in  broad  bright  lines,  like  the  grate 
across  a  fire,  then  disappearing  in  a 
ripple,  till  it  was  gone  again,  or  some- 
body's shadow  moved  inside.  It 
was  the  only  lighted  window  in  the 
gallery,  and  I  looked  every  time 
it  came  as  if  I  could  see  in  ;  when  at 
last,  you  may  fancy  my  satisfaction, 
as,  all  of  a  sudden,  onelong  slowheave- 
over  of  the  ship  showed  me  the  whole 
bright  opening  of  the  port,  squared 
out  of  her  shadow,  where  it  shone 
upon  the  glassy  round  of  the  swell. 
'Twas  as  plain  as  from  a  mirror  in  a 
closet, — the  lighted  gallery  window 
with  its  frame  swung  in,  a  bit  of  the 
deck -roof  I  was  standing  on,  and  two 
female  figures  at  the  window — mere 
dark  shapes  against  the  lamp.  I  al- 
most started  back  at  the  notion  of 
their  seeing  me,  but  away  lengthened 
the  light  on  the  breast  of  the  swell, 
and  it  sank  slowly  down  into  a  black 
hollow,  as  the  Indiaman  eased  up  to 
windward.  Minute  by  minute,  quite 
breathless,  did  I  watch  for  such  another 
chance  ;  but  next  time  she  leant  over 
as  much,  the  port  had  been  closed, 
and  all  was  dark  ;  although  those  few 
moments  were  enough  to  send  the 
heart  into  my  mouth  with  sheer  delight. 
The  figure  I  had  seen  holding  with  one 
hand  by  the  portsill,  and  apparently 
keeping  up  her  dress  with  the  other, 
as  if  she  were  looking  down  steadily 
on  the  heave  of  the  sea  below — it 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


187 


couldn't  be  mistaken.  The  line  of 
her  head,  neck,  and  shoulders,  came 
out  more  certain  than  if  they  hadn't 
been  filled  up  with  nothing  but  a  black 
shadow;  it  was  just  Lota  Hyde's,  as 
she  sat  in  the  ball-room  amongst  the 
crowd,  I'd  have  bet  the  Victory  to  a 
bumboat  on  it :  only  her  hair  hung 
loose  on  one  side,  while  the  girl  be- 
hind seemed  to  be  dressing  the  other, 
for  it  was  turned  back,  so  that  I  saw 
clear  past  her  cheek  and  neck  to  where 
the  lamp  was,  and  her  ear  gleamed  to 
the  light.  For  one  moment  nothing 
could  be  plainer,  than  the  glimpse 
old  Davy  Jones  gave  me  by  one  of  his 
tricks  ;  but  the  old  fellow  was  quite 
as  decorous  in  his  way  as  a  chamber- 
blind,  and  swallowed  his  pretty  little 
bit  of  blab  as  quickly  as  if  it  had  been 
amermaid  caught  at  her  morning  toilet. 
Whenever  I  found  there  was  to  be  no 
more,  of  it  for  the  night,  the  best  thing 
to  calm  one's  feelings  was  to  light  a 
cigar  and  walk  out  the  watch ;  but  I 
took  care  it  should  rather  be  over  the 
nabob's  head  than  his  daughter's, 
and  went  up  to  the  weather  side,  where 
there  was  nobody  else  by  this  time, 
wishing  her  the  sweetest  of  dreams, 
and  not  doubting  I  should  see  her 
next  day. 

I  daresay  I  should  have  walked  out 
the  first  watch,  and  the  second  too, 
if  Westwood  hadn't  come  up  beside 
me  before  he  turned  in. 

"  Why,  you  look  like  the  officer  of 
the  watch,  Ned  ! "  said  my  friend, 
after  taking  a  glance  round  at  the 
night.  "  Yes— what  ?— a— a— I  don't 
think  so,"  stammered  I,  not  knowing 
what  he  said,  or  at  least  the  meaning 
of  it,  thotigh  certainly  it  was  not  so 
deep.  "  I  hope  not  though,  Tom  !"  said 
I  again,  "  'tis  the  very  thing  I  don't 
want  to  look  like!"  "You  seem 
bent  on  keeping  it  up,  and  coming 
the  innocent,  at  any  rate,"  said  he ; 
"I  really  didn't  know  you  the  first 
time  I  saw  you  in  the  cuddy."  "Why, 
man,  yon  never  saw  our  theatricals  in 
the  dear  old  Iris,  on  the  African  sta- 
tion !  I  was  our  best  female  actor  of 
tragedy  there,  and  did  Desdemona  so 
well  that  the  black  cook  who  stood  for 
Othello  actually  cried.  He  said,  '  No- 
body but  'ee  dibble  nmself  go  forsmnd- 
der  missee  Dasdemoner !'  "  "  I  dare- 
say," said  Westwood;  "but  what  is 
the  need  for  it  now,  even  if  you  could 


serve  as  a  blind  for  me  ?"  "  My  dear 
fellow  !"  said  I,  "not  at  all — you've 
kept  it  up  very  well  so  far— just  go 
on."  Keep  it  up,  Ned  ?  "  inquired  he, 
"  what  do  you  mean  ?  I've  done  no- 
thing except  keep  quiet,  from  mere 
want  of  spirits. "  "  So  much  the  better," 
I  said ;  "  I  never  saw  a  man  look  more 
like  a  prophet  in  the  wilderness  ;  it 
doesn't  cost  you  the  least  trouble — why 
you'd  have  done  for  Hamlet  in  the  Iris, 
if  for  nothing  else !  After  all,  though,  a 
missionary  don't  wear  bine  pilot-cloth 
trousers,  nor  tie  his  neckerchief  as  yon 
do,  Tom.  You  must  bend  a  white 
neckcloth  to-morrow  morning !  I'm 
quite  serious,  Westwood,  I  assure 
you,"  continued  I.  "Just  think  of 
the  suspicious  look  of  two  navy  men 
being  aboard  an  Indiaman,  nobody 
knows  how  !  Why,  the  first  frigate  we 
speak,  or  port  we  touch  at,  they'd 
hand  one  or  both  of  us  over  at  once — 
which  I,  for  my  part,  shouldn't  at  all 
like !"  "  Indeed,  Collins,"  said  Tom, 
turning  round,  "  I  really  cannot  un- 
derstand why  you  went  out  in  her ! 
It  distresses  me  to  think  that  here 
you've  got  yourself  into  this  scrape 
on  my  account !  At  least  you'll  put 
back  in  the  first  home-bound  ship 

we " 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  I,  blushing  a 
little  in  the  dark  though,  both  at 
Westwood's  simplicity  and  my  not 
wishing  to  tell  him  my  secret  yet — 
"  I'm  tired  of  shore— I  want  to  see 
India  again — I'm  thinking  of  going 
into  the  army,  curse  it !"  "  The  army, 
indeed !"  said  Westwood,  laughing  for 
the  first  time,  "  and  you  midshipman 
all  over.  No — no — that  won't  do !  I 
see  your  drift,  you  can't  deceive  me ! 
You're  a  true  friend,  Ned,  to  stand 
by  an  old  schoolmate  so  !  "  "  No, 
Tom  !"  said  I ;  "  'tis  yourself  has  too 
kind  a  heart,  and  more  of  a  sailor's, 
all  fair  and  above-board,  than  I  can 
manage !  I  won't  humbug  you,  at  any 
rate — I  tell  you  I've  got  a  scheme  of 
my  own,  and  you'll  know  more  of  it 
soon."  Tom  whistled  ;  however  I 
went  on  to  tell  him,  "  The  long  and  the 
short  of  it  is,  Westwood,  you'll  bring 
both  of  us  by  the  head  if  you  don't 
keep  up  the  missionary."  "Mission- 
ary!" repeated  he;  "you  don't  mean  to 
say  you  and  Neville  intended  all  that 
long  toggery  you  supplied  my  kit  with, 
for  me  to  sail  tinder  missionary 


188 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short''  Yarn.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


colours  ?  I  tell  you  what,  Ned,  it's 
not  a  character  I  like  to  cut  jokes 
upon,  much  less  to  sham  !"  "  Jokes  !" 
said  I ;  "  there's  no  joking  about  it ; 
'tis  serious  enough."  "  Why,"  said 
Westwood,  "  now  I  know  the  reason 
of  a  person  like  a  clergyman  sighting 
me  through  his  spectacles  for  half  an 
hour  together,  these  two  evenings  be- 
low !  This  very  afternoon  he  called  me 
his  brother,  and  began  asking  me  all 
manner  of  questions  which  I  could  no 
more  answer  than  the  cook's  mate." 
"  Clergyman  be  hanged  ! "  said  I, 
"  yon  must  steer  clear  of  him,  Tom — 
take  care  you  don't  bowse  up  your  jib 
too  much  within  hail  of  him  !  Mind, 
I  gave  your  name,  both  to  the  head- 
steward  and  the  skipper,  as  the  Reve- 
rend Mr  Thomas,  going  back  to 
Bombay."  "The  devil  you  did!" 
"  Why  there  was  nothing  else  for  it, 
Westwood,"  I  said,  "  when  you  were 
beyond  thinking  for  'yourself.  All 
you've  got  to  do  with  that  solemn  chap 
in  the  spectacles,  is  just  to  look  as 
wise  as  possible,  and  let  him  know  you 
belong  to  the  Church.  And  as  forsham- 
ming,you  needn't  sham  abit — takeloit^ 
my  dearfellow,  ifthat  willdoyougood !" 
I  said  this  in  joke,  but  Westwood 
seemed  to  ponder  on  it  for  a  minute 
or  two.  "  Indeed,  Collins,"  said  he 
gravely,  "I  do  think  you're  right. 
What  do  we  sailors  do,  but  give  up 
everything  in  life  for  a  mere  school- 
boy notion,  and  keep  turning  up  salt 
water  for  years  together  like  the  old 
monks  did  the  ground;  only  they  grew 
corn  and  apples  for  their  pains,  and  we 
have  nothing  but  ever  so  many  dull 
watches  and  wild  cruises  ashore  to  re- 
member !  How  many  sailors  have 
turned  preachers  and  missionaries,  just 
because  something,  by  accident  as  it 
were,  taught  them  to  put  to  account 
what  you  can't  help  feeling  now  and 
then  in  the  very  look  of  the  sea.  What 
does  it  mean  in  the  Scriptures,  Ned, 
about  '  seeing  the  wonders  of  the  Lord 
in  the  deep  ?'  "  As  Westwood  said  this, 
both  ofus  stopped  on  the  taffrail,  and, 
somehow  or  other,  a  touch  of  I  didn't 
well  know  ichat  went  through  me.  I 
held  my  breath,  with  his  hand  on  my 
armjust  at  the  sight  I  had  seen  a  thous- 
and times — the  white  wake  running 
broad  away  astern,  with  a  mark  in  the 
middle  as  if  it  had  been  torn,  on  to  the 
green  yeast  of  the  waves,  then  right 


to  their  black  crests  plunging  in  the 
dark.  It  was  midnight  ahead,  and  the 
clouds  risen  aloft  over  where  I  had 
been  looking  half  an  hour  before  ;  but 
the  long  ragged  split  to  westward  was 
opened  up,  and  a  clear  glaring  glance 
of  the  sky,  aspale  as  death,  shot  through 
it  on  the  horizon.  "  I  can't  be  sorry 
for  having  gone  to  sea,"  said  West- 
wood  again  ;  "  but  isn't  it  a  better 
thing  to  leave  home  and  friends,  as 
those  men  do,  for  the  sake  of  carrying 
the  gospel  to  the  heathen  ?"  As  soon, 
as  we  wheeled  round,  with  the  ship 
before  us,  leaning  over  and  mounting 
to  the  heave,  and  her  spread  of  can- 
vass looming  out  on  the  dark,  my 
thoughts  righted.  "Well,"  said  I, 
"it  may  be  all  very  well  for  some — 
every  one  to  his  rope ;  but,  for  my 
part,  I  think  if  a  man  hadn't  been 
made  for  the  sea,  he  couldn't  have 
built  a  ship,  and  where  would  your 
missionaries  be  then?  You're  older 
than  I  am,  Westwood,  or  I'd  say  you 
let  some  of  your  notions  run  away 
with  you,  like  a  Yankee  ship  with 
her  short-handed  crew !"  "  Oh,  Xed,'' 
said  he,  "  of  all  places  in  the  world 
for  one's  actions  coining  back  on  him 
the  sea  is  the  worst,  especially  when 
3'ou're  an  idler,  and  have  nothing  to 
do  but  count  the  sails,  or  listen  to  the 
passengers'  feet  on  deck.  These  two 
dajrs,  now,  I've  thought  more  than  I 
ever  did  in  my  life.  I  can't  get  that 
man's  death  out  of  my  head ;  every 
time  the  sea  flashes  round  me  as  I 
come  from  below,  I  think  of  him — it 
seems  to  me  he  is  lying  yet  by  the 
side  of  the  Channel  I  can't  help  hav- 
ing the  notion  he  perhaps  fired  in  the 
air!"  "'Twas  a  base  lie!"  said  I ; 
' '  If  he  weren't  there,  you  wouldn't  be 
here,  I  can  tell  yon,  Westwood."  "  I 
don't  know  how  I  shall  ever  drag 
through  this  voyage,"  continued  he. 
"  If  there  were  a  French  gunboat  to 
cut  out  to-morrow  morning,  or  if  we 
were  only  to  have  a  calm  some  day  in 
sight  of  a  Spanish  slaver, — 'tis  nothing 
but  a  jogging  old  Indiaman  though ! 
I  shall  never  more  see  the  flag  over 
my  head  with  pride — every  prospect 
I  had  was  in  the  service !" 

Next  morning  was  fine,  and  pro- 
mised to  be  hot ;  the  ship  still  with  a 
sidewind  from  near  south-west,  which 
'twas  easy  to  see  had  slackened  since 
midnight  with  a  pour  of  rain,  the 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  «  Sliort"  Yarn.— Part  TIL 


189 


sails  being  all  wet,  and  coats  hung 
to  dry  in  the  fore-rigging ;  she  was 
going  little  more  than  five  or  six 
knots  headway.  The  water  was 
bluer,  lifting  in 'long  waves,  scarce  a 
speck  of  foam  except  about  the  ship  ; 
but  instead  of  having  broke  up  with 
the  sun,  or  sunk  below  the  level,  the 
long  white  clouds  were  risen  high  to 
leeward,  wandering  away  at  the  top 
and  facing  us  steady  below  out  of  the 
sky,  a  pretty  sure  sign  they  had  more 
to  do.  However,  the  Indiaman  was 
all  alive  from  stem  to  stern :  decks 
drying  as  clean  as  a  table  ;  hens  and 
ducks  clucking  in  the  coops  at  their 
food ;  pigs  grunting ;  stewards  and 
cabin-boys  going  fore  and  aft,  below 
and  above,  and  the  men  from  aloft 
coming  slowly  down  for  breakfast, 
with  an  eye  into  the  galley  funnel. 
Most  of  the  passengers  were  upon 
deck,  in  knots  all  along  the  poop-net- 
tings, to  look  out  for  Corvo  and  Flores, 
the  westernmost  of  the  Azores,  which 
we  had  passed  before  daybreak. 

"  I  say,  Fawd !"  said  the  warlike 
cadet  with  the  mustache,  all  of  a 
sudden  yawning  and  stretching  him- 
self, as  if  he'd  been  struck  with  the 
thing  himself,  "  Cussed  dull  this 
vessel  already,  ain't  it?"  "Blast 
me,  no,  you  fellow !"  said  Ford,  the 
nautical  man — "  that's  because  you're 
not  interested  in  the  ocean— the  sea — 
as  I  am !  You  should  study  the 
<ro/?,  Bob,  my  boy !  I'll  teach  you  to  go 
aloft.  I  only  wish  it  would  blow  harder 
— not  a  mere  capful  of  wind,  you  know, 
but  a  tempest !"  "  By  Jove !  Fawd," 
said  the  other,  '•'•how  we  shall  enjoy 
India — even  that  breakfast  with  old 
Rollock !  By  the  bye,  ain't  breakfast 
ready  yet  ?  "  These  two  fellows,  for 
my  part,  I  took  for  a  joint-model,  just 
trying  to  hit  a  mid-helm  betwixt 
them,  else  I  couldn't  have  got  through 
it :  accordingly  they  both  patronised 
me.  "Haw,  Cawlins!"  said  one, 
nodding  to  me.  "  Is  that  you,  my 
boy?"  said  the  other;  "now  you're 
a  fellow  never  would  make  a  sailor!" 
"  I  daresay  not,"  I  said,  gravely,  "  if 
they  have  all  to  commence  as  horse- 
marines."  "  Now,  such  ignorance ! " 
said  Ford ;  "  marines  don't  ride  horses, 
Collins,  you  fellow ! — how  d'you  think 
they  could  be  fed  at  sea — eh?" 


"Well — now — that  didn't  occur  to 
me !"  said  I,  in  the  cadet  key.  "Fawd, 
my  boy,  you — demmee — you  know 
too  much — you're  quite  a  sea-cook ! " 
"  Oh,  now !  But  I'm  afraid,  Winter- 
ton,  I  never  shall  land  ashore  in  India 
— I  am  tempted  to  go  into  the  navy 
instead."  "  I  say,  Mr  Ford,"  put  in 
a  fat  unlicked  cub  of  a  tea-middy, 
grinning  as  he  listened,  "  I've  put  you 
up  to  a  few  rises  aboard,  but  I  don't 
think  I  told  you  we've  got  a  dozen  or 
so  of  donkeys*  below  in  the  steerage?  " 
"Donkeys! — no?"  said  the  griffin. 
"Yes,"  replied  the  midshipman; 
"  they  kick  like  blazes,  though,  if  they 
get  loose  in  a  gale — why  mine,  now, 
would  knock  a  hole  through  the  side 
in  no  time — I'll  show  you  them  for  a 
glass  of  grog,  Mr  Ford."  "Done!" 
and  away  they  went.  "That  fool, 
Fawd,  you  know,  Cawlins,  makes  one 
sick  with  his  stuff;  I  declare  he  chews 
little  bits  of  tobacco  in  our  room  till 
he  vomits  as  much  as  before,"  said 
Wiutertou..  "I  tell  you  what,  Caw- 
lins, you're  a  sensible  man — I'll  let 
you  into  a  secret!  What  do  you 
think — there's  the  deucedest  pretty 
girl  in  the  vessel,  we've  none  of  us 
seen  except  myself ;  I  caught  a  sight 
of  her  this  very  mawning.  She  don't 
visit  the  cuddy  at  all ;  papa's  proud, 
you  pusseeve — a  nabob  in  short,!" 
"Oh,  dear!"  said  I.  "Yes,  I  do 
assure  you,  quite  a  bew-ty !  What's 
to  be  done  ? — we  absolutely  must  meet 
her  —  eh,  Cawlins?"  Here  I  mused 
a  bit.  "Oh!"  said  I,  looking  up 
again,  "  shall  we  send  a  deputation, 
do  you  think?"  "  Or  get  up  a  ball, 
Cawlins? — Hallo,  what's  this?"  said 
he,  leaning  over  the  breast-rail  to 
look  at  a  stout  lady  who  was  lugging 
a  chubby  little  boy  of  three  or  four, 
half-dressed,  up  the  poop-stair,  while 
her  careful  husband  and  a  couple  of 
daughters  blocked  it  up  above.  "See, 
Tommy,  dear!"  said  she,  "look  at 
the  land — the  nice  land,  you  know, 
Tommy."  "Come  away,  my  love," 
said  her  spouse,  "else  you  won't  see  it." 
Tommy,  however,  hung  back  man- 
fully. "  Tommy  don't  want  wook 
at  yand,"  sang  out  he,  kicking  the 
deck ;  "  it  all  such  'mell  of  a  sheep, 
ma ;  me  wook  at  'at  man  wis  gate 
feel.  Fare  other  feel,  man  ?  Oh,  fat 


Sea  slang  for  sailors'  chests. 


190 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


a  ugwy  man ! "  The  honest  tar  at  the 
wheel  pulled  up  his  shirt,  and  looked 
terribly  cut  at  this  plain  remark  on 
his  phiz,  which  certainly  wasn't  the 
most  beautiful ;  meanwhile  he  had 
the  leech  of  the  main  to' gallant  sail 
shaking.  "Mind  your  helm,  there," 
sung  out  the  second  mate  from  the 
capstan.  "My  good  man,"  said  the 
lady,  "  will  you  be  so  kind  as  to  show 
as  the  land?"  "Ay,  ay,  sir,"  growled 
he,  putting  up  his  weather  spokes ; 
"  sorry  I  carn't,  ma'am — please  not  to 
speak  to  the  man  at  the  wheel." 
Jacobs  was  coiling  down  the  ropes  on 
a  carronade  close  by,  and  stepped 
forward:  "Beg  your  ladyship's  par- 
don," said  he,  "  but  if  ye'll  give  me 
charge  o'  the  youngster  till  yon  goes 
on  the  poop — why,  I've  got  a  babby 
at  home  myself."  The  stout  lady 
handed  him  over,  and  Jacobs  managed 
the  little  chap  wonderfully.  This  was 
the  first  time  Tommy  had  been  on 
deck  since  leaving  home,  and  he 
could-nt  see  over  the  high  bulwarks, 
so  he  fancied  it  was  a  house  he  was 
in.  "  Oh,  suts  big  tees,  man ! "  shouted 
he,  clapping  his  hands  as  soon  as  he 
noticed  the  sails  and  rigging  aloft; 
"suts  warge  birds  in  a  tees  /"  "  Ay, 
ay,  my  little  man,"  answered  Jacobs, 
"  that's  the  wonderfowl  tree!  Did 
ye  ever  hear  Jack  and  the  Bean-stalk, 
Tommy?"  "Oh,  'ess,  to  be  soo, 
man!"  said  Tommy,  scornfully,  as  if 
he  should  think  he  had.  "Well, 
little  un,"  said  Jacobs,  "  that's  it,  ye 
see.  It  grows  up  every  night  afore 
Jack's  door — and  them's  Jack  an' 
his  brothers  a-comin'  down  out  on  the 
wonderfowl  country  aloft,  with  fruits 
in  their  hands."  The  little  fellow  was 
delighted,  and  for  going  aloft  at  once. 
"Ye  must  wait  a  bit,  Tommy,  my 
lad,  till  you're  bigger,"  said  Jacobs ; 
"here  I'll  show  you  the  country, 
though;"  so  he  lifted  the  boy  up  to 
let  him  see  the  bright  blue  sea  lying 
high  away  round  the  sky.  In  place 
of  crying,  as  he  would  have  done  other- 
wise, Tommy  stared  with  pleasure, 
and  finished  by  vowing  to  get  as  soon 
big  as  possible,  Jacobs  advising  him 
to  eat  always  as  hard  as  he  had  been 
doing  hitherto. 

This  morning  the  breakfast  party 
was  in  high  spirits:  Mr  Finch,  the 
chief  officer,  rigged  up  to  the  nines 
in  white  trowsers  and  Company's 


jacket,  laying  himself  out  to  please 
the  young  ladies,  with  whom  he  be- 
gan to  be  a  regular  hero.  He  was 
as  blustering  as  a  young  lion,  and  as 
salt-tongued  as  a  Channel  pilot  to 
the  men ;  but  with  the  ladies,  on  the 
poop  or  in  the  cabin,  he  was  always 
twisting  his  sea-talk  into  fine  lan- 
guage, like  what  you  see  in  books, 
as  if  the  real  thing  weren't  good 
enough.  He  rubbed  his  hands  at 
hearing  the  mate  on  deck  singing  out 
over  the  sky-light  to  trim  yards, 
and  gave  a  look  along  to  the  captain. 
li  You  must  understand,  ladies,"  said 
the  mate,  "this  is  what  we  mariners  call 
the  '  ladies'  wind ! '  "  "  Oh  delight- 
ful! "  "  Oh  so  nice!"  "  You  sailors 
are  so  polite !  "  exclaimed  the  young 
ladies — "  then  does  it  actually  belong 
to  us  ?  "  "  Why  it's  a  Trade  wind,Miss 
Fortescue ! "  said  Ford  the  nautical 
cadet,  venturing  to  put  in  a  word ;  but 
the  ladies  paid  no  attention  to  him, 
and  the  chief  mate  gave  him  a  look  of 
contempt.  "You  see,  ladies,  the 
reason  is,"  said  the  mate,  in  a  flourish- 
ing way,  "  because  it's  so  regular, 
and  as  gentle  as  —  as  —  why  it  wafts 
your  bark  into  the  region  of,  you 
see,— the  — "  "  The  '  Doldrums,'  " 
put  in  the  third  mate,  who  was  a 
brinier  individual  by  far,  and  a  true 
seaman,  but  wished  to  pay  his  compli- 
ments too,  between  his  mouthfuls. 
"At  any  rate,"  Finch  went  on,  "it's 
congenial,  I  may  say,  to  the  feelings 
of  the  fair — you  need  never  touch  her 
braces  from  one  day  to  another.  I 
just  wish,  Miss  Fortescue,  you'd  allow 
me  the  felicity  of  letting  you  see  how 
to  put  the  ship  about !"  "A  soldier 
might  put  her  in  stays,  miss,"  said  the 
third  mate  again,  encouragingly,  "and 
out  of  'em  again  ;  she's  a  remarkable 
easy  craft,  owing  to  her "  "Con- 
found it !  Mr  Kickett,"  said  the  first 
mate,  turning  round  to  his  unlucky 
inferior,  "  you're  a  sight  too  coarse 
for  talking  to  ladies.  Well  the  cap- 
tain didn't  hear  you!"  Rickett  looked 
dumbfoundered,  not  knowing  what 
was  wrong ;  the  old  ladies  frowned  ; 
the  young  ones  either  blushed  or  put 
their  handkerchiefs  to  their  mouths, 
and  some  took  the  occasion  for  walk- 
ing off. 

The  weather  began  to  have  a  dif- 
ferent turn  already  by  the  time  we 
got  up — the  clouds  banking  to  lee- 


1849.] 


Tie  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


191 


ward,  the  sea  dusky  under  them,  and 
the  air-line  between  rather  bluish. 
Two  or  three  lazy  gulls  in  our  wake 
began  to  look  alive,  and  show  them- 
selves, and  a  whole  black  shoal  of  por- 
poises went  tumbling  and  rolling  across 
the  bows  for  half  an  hour,  till  down 
they  dived  of  a  sudden,  head- foremost, 
one  after  another  in  the  same  spot, 
like  so  many  sheep  through  a  gap. 
My  gentleman -mate  was  to  be  seen 
everywhere  about  the  decks,  and  ac- 
tive enough,  I  must  say  :  the  next 
minute  he  was  amongst  two  or  three 
young  ladies  aft,  as  polite  as  a  dan- 
cing-master, showing  them  every- 
thing in  board  and  out,  as  if  no- 
body knew  it  except  himself.  Here 
a  young  girl,  one  of  Master.  Tommy's 
sisters,  came  skipping  aft,  half  in  a 
fright.  "  Oh,  Miss  Fortescue !"  cried 
she,  "just  think  ! — I  peeped  over 
into  a  nasty  black  hole  there,  with  a 
ladder  in  it,  and  saw  ever  so  many 
common  sailors  hung  up  in  bags  from 
the  ceiling.  Oh,  what  do  you  think, 
one  of  them  actually  kissed  his  hand 
to  me  1"  "  Only  one  of  the  watch 
below  awake,  Miss,"  said  the  mate  ; 
"impertinent  swab! — I  only  wish  I 
knew  which  it  was."  "Poor  fel- 
lows !"  said  the  young  ladies  ;  "  pray, 
don't  be  harsh  to  them — bnt  what 
have  they  been  doing  ?"  "  Oh,  no- 
thing," said  he,  with  a  laugh,  "  but 
swing  in  their  hammocks  since  eight 
bells."  "  Then  are  they  so  lazy  as 
to  dislike  getting  up  to  such  delight- 
ful-looking occupations  ?"  >'  Why, 
ma'am,"  said  tlfe  mate,  staring  a 
little,  "they've  been  on  deck  last 
night  two  watches,  of  four  hours  each, 
I  must  say  that  for  them."  "  Dear 
me !"  broke  out  the  ladies  ;  and  on 
this  the  chief  officer  took  occasion  to 
launch  out  again  concerning  "  the 
•weary  vigils,"  as  he  called  them, 
"  which  we  mariners  have  to  keep,  far 
distant  from  land,  without  a  smile  from 
the  eyes  of  the  fair  to  bless  us !  But, 
however,  the  very  thought  of  it  gives 
courage  to  the  sailor's  manly  heart,  to 
disregard  the  billows'  fearful  rage,  and 
reef  topsails  in  the  tempest's  angry 
height!"  Thought  I,  "he'd  much 
better  do  it  before."  However,  the 
young  ladies  didn't  seem  to  see  that, 
evidently  looking  upon  the  mate  as 
the  very  pink  of  seamen ;  and  he 
actually  set  a  second  lower  stud-sail, 


to  show  them  how  fast  she  could 
walk. 

"  D'ye  know,  sir,"  put  in  the  third 
mate,  coming  from  forward,  "  I'm  in 
dpubt  it's  going  to  be  rather  a  sneezer, 
sir,  if  ye  look  round  the  larboard 
stun-s'ls."  Sure  enough,  if  our  fine 
gentleman  had  had  time,  amidst  hia 
politeness,  just  to  cast  an  eye  beyond 
his  spread  of  cloth,  he  would  have  no- 
ticed the  clouds  gathered  all  in  a  lump 
to  north-eastward,  one  shooting  into 
another — the  breast  of  them  lowering 
down  to  the  horizon,  and  getting  the 
same  colour  as  the  waves,  till  it  bulked 
out  bodily  in  the  middle.  You'd  have 
fancied  the  belly  of  it  scarce  half  a  mile 
off  from  the  white  yard-arms,  and  the 
hollow  of  it  twenty — coming  as  steal- 
thily as  a  ghost,  that  walks  without 
feet  after  you,  its  face  to  yours,  and 
the  skirt  of  its  winding-sheet  in 
"kingdom  come"  all  the  while.  I 
went  up  on  the  poop,  and  away  be- 
hind the  spanker  I  could  see  the  sun 
gleam  for  one  minute  right  on  the  eye 
of  a  stray  cloud  risen  to  nor'-westr 
with  two  short  streaks  of  red,  purple, 
and  yellow  together — what  is  called 
a  "  wind-gall ;"  then  it  was  gone.  The 
American  was  talking  away  with  jo- 
vial old  Bollock  and  Ford,  who  began 
to  look  wise,  and  think  there  was  mis- 
chief brewing  in  the  weather.  "Mind 
your  helm  there,  sirrah !"  sung  out 
the  mate,  walking  aft  to  the  wheel, 
as  everything  aloft  fluttered.  "She 
won't  lie  her  course,  sir !"  said  the 
man.  "  All  aback  for'ud  !"  hailed 
the  men  at  work  on  the  bowsprit ; 
and  hard  at  it  went  all  hands,  trim- 
ming yards  over  and  over  again ;  the 
wind  freshening  fast,  stun-sails  flap- 
ping, booms  bending,  and  the  whole 
spread  of  canvass  in  a  cumber,  to 
teach  the  mate  not  to  be  in  such  a 
hurry  with  his  infernal  merchantman's 
side-wings  next  time.  The  last  stun- 
sail  he  hauled  down  caught  full  aback 
before  the  wheel  could  keep  her  away 
quick  enough  ;  the  sheet  of  it  hitched 
foul  at  the  boom-end,  and  crack 
through  went  the  boom  itself,  with  a 
smash  that  made  the  ladies  think  it  a 
case  of  shipwreck  commencing.  The 
loose  scud  was  flying  fast  out  from 
behind  the  top  of  the  clouds,  and 
spreading  away  overhead,  as  if  it 
would  catch  us  on  the  other  side ; 
while  the  clouds  themselves  broke  up 


192 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


slowly  to  both  hands,  and  the  north- 
east breeze  came  sweeping  along  right 
into  the  three  topsails,  the  wind  one 
way  and  the  sea  another.  As  she 
rounded  away  steadying  before  it,  you 
felt  the  masts  shake  in  her  till  the 
topsails  blew  out  full ;  she  gave  one 
sudden  bolt  up  with  her  stern,  like  an 
old  jackass  striking  behind,  which 
capsized  three  or  four  passengers  in  a 
heap  ;  and  next  minute  she  was  surg- 
ing along  through  the  wide  heave  of 
the  water  as  gallantly  as  heart  could 
wish,  driving  a  wave  under  her  bows 
that  swung  back  under  the  fore-chains 
on  both  sides,  with  two  boys  running 
up  the  rigging  far  aloft  on  each  mast 
to  stow  the  royals.  The  next  thing 
I  looked  at  was  poor  Ford's  nautical 
hat  lifting  alongside  on-  the  top  of  a 
wave,  as  if  it  were  being  handed  up 
to  him;  but  no  sooner  seen,  than  it 
was  down  in  the  hollow  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  off,  a  couple  of  white  gulls 
making  snatches  at  it  and  one  an- 
other, and  hanging  over  it  again  with 
a  doubtful  sort  of  a  scream.  Still  the 
wind  was  as  yet  nothing  to  speak  of 
when  once  aft ;  the  sea  was  getting  up 
slowly,  and  the  Indiaman's  easy  roll 
over  ft  made  every  one  cheerful,  in 
spite  of  the  shifts  they  were  put  to 
for  getting  below.  When  the  bell 
struck  for  dinner,  the  sun  was  pretty 
clear,  away  on  our  starboard  bow ;  the 
waves  to  south-westward  glittered  as 
they  rose  ;  one  side  of  the  ship  shone 
bright  to  the  leech  of  the  mainto'gal- 
lant-sail,  and  we  left  the  second  mate 
hauling  down  the  jibs  fer  want  of  use 
for  them. 

The  splendid  pace  she  went  at  was 
plain,  below  in  the  cuddy,  to  every- 
body ;  you  felt  her  shoving  the  long 
seas  aside  with  the  force  of  a  thousand 
horses  in  one,  then  sweep  they  came 
after  her,  her  stern  lifted,  she  rolled 
round,  and  made  afloatingrush  ahead. 
In  the  middle  of  it  all,  something  dar- 
kened the  half-open  skylight,  where  I 
perceived  the  Scotch  second-mate's 
twisted  nose  and  red  whiskers,  as  he 
squinted  down  with  one  eye  aloft,  and 
disappeared  again ;  after  which  I  heard 
them  clue  up  to'gallantsails.  Still 
she  was  driving  through  it  rather  too 
bodily  to  let  the  seas  rise  under  her ; 
you  heard  the  wind  hum  off  the  main- 
topsail,  and  sing  through  betwixt  it 
and  the  main- course,  the  scud  flying 


over  the  skysail-mast  truck,  which  I 
could  see  from  below.  The  second 
mate  looked  in  once  more,  caught  the 
first  officer's  eye  with  a  glance  aloft, 
and  the  gallant  mate  left  attending  to 
the  ladies  to  go  on  deck.  Down  went 
the  skylight  frame,  and  somebody  care- 
fully threw  a  tarpaulin  over  it,  so  that 
there  was  only  the  light  from  the  port- 
windows,  by  which  a  dozen  faces 
turned  still  whiter. 

The  moment  I  shoved  my  head  out 
of  the  booby-hatch,  I  saw  it  Avas  like  to 
turn  out  a  regular  gale  from  nor'-east. 
Both  courses  brailed  close  up,  and 
blowing  out  like  rows  of  big-bladders; 
the  three  topsail-yards  down  on  the 
caps  to  reef,  their  canvass  swelling  and 
thundering  on  the  stays  like  so  many 
mad  elephants  breaking  loose ;  the 
wild  sky  ahead  of  us  staring  right 
through  in  triumph,  as  it  were,  and 
the  wind  roaring  from  aft  in  her 
bare  rigging  ;  while  a  crowd  of  men  in 
each  top  were  laying  out  along  the 
foot-ropes  to  both  yard-arms.  Below, 
they  were  singing  out  at  the  reef- 
tackles,  the  idlers  tailing  on  behind 
from  the  cook  to  the  cabin-boys,  a 
mate  to  each  gang,  and  the  first  officer 
with  his  hands  to  his  mouth  before  the 
wheel,  shouting  "  Bear  a  hand ! — d'ye 
hear! — two  reefs  !"  It  did  one's  heart 
good,  and  I  entered  into  the  spirit  of 
it,  almost  forgiving  Finch  his  fine 
puppy  lingo,  when  I  saw  him  take  it 
so  coolly,  standing  like  a  seaman,  and 
sending  his  bull's  voice  right  up  with 
the  wind  into  the  bellies  of  the  top- 
sails— so  I  e'en  feM-to  myself,  and 
dragged  with  the  steward  upon  the 
mizen  reef-tackle  till  it  was  chock  up. 
There  Ave  were,  running  dead  before 
it,  the  huge  waves  swelling  long  and 
dark  after  us  out  of  the  mist,  then  the 
tops  of  them  scattered  into  spray  ;  the 
glaring  white  yards  swayed  slowly 
over  aloft,  each  dotted  with  ten  or  a 
dozen  sturdy  figures,  that  leant  over 
with  the  reef- points  in  their  hands, 
waiting  till  the  men  at  the  earings 
gave  the  word  ;  and  Jacobs's  face,  as 
he  looked  round  to  do  so — hanging  on. 
heaven  knows  what  at  one  of  the  ends 
— was  as  distinct  as  possible  against  the 
gray  scud  miles  off,  and  sixty  feet 
above  the  water.  A  middy,  without 
his  cap,  and  his  hair  blowing  out, 
stood  holding  on  in  the  main-top  to 
quicken  them  ;  the  first  mate  waved 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  HI. 


193 


his  hand  for  the  helmsman  to  "  luff  a 
little."  The  ship's  head  was  rounding 
slowly  up  as  she  rose  on  a  big  blue 
swell,  that  caught  a  wild  gleam  on  it 
from  westward,  when  I  happened  to 
glance  towards  the  wheel.  I  could 
scarcely  trust  my  eyes — in  fact  it  had 
never  been  less  in  my  mind  since 
coming  aboard  than  at  that  very  point 
— but  outside  one  of  the  round-house 
doors,  which  was  half  open,  a  few  feet 
from  the  bulwark  I  leant  over — of  all 
moments  in  the  day,  there  stood  Lota 
Hyde  herself  at  last !  Speak  of  faces  ! 
— why,  I  hadn't  even  power  to  turn  far- 
ther round,  and  if  I  was  half  out  of 
breath  before,  what  with  the  wind  and 
with  pulling  my  share,  I  was  breath- 
less now— all  my  notions  of  her  never 
came  up  to  the  look  of  her  face  at  that 
instant !  She  just  half  stopped,  as  it 
were,  at  sight  of  the  state  of  things, 
her  hands  letting  go  of  the  large  shawl, 
and  her  hair  streaming  from  under  a 
straw  hat  tied  down  with  a  ribbon — 
her  lips  parted  betwixt  dread  and  be- 
wilderment, and  her  eyes  wandering 
round  till  they  settled  a-gazing  straight 
at  the  scene  ahead,  in  pure  delight.  I 
actually  looked  away  aloft  from  her 
again,  to  catch  what  it  was  she  seemed 
to  see  that  could  be  so  beautiful  1 — the 
second  reef  just  made  fast,  men  crowd- 
ing in  to  run  down  and  hoist  away 
•with  the  rest,  till,  as  they  tailed  along 
decks,  the  three  shortened  topsails 
rose  faster  up  against  the  scud,  and 
their  hearty  roaring  chorus  was  as 
loud  as  the  gale.  "  Keep  her  away, 
my  lad !"  said  the  mate,  with  another 
wave  of  his  hand  ;  the  topsails  swelled 
fair  before  it,  and  the  Indiaman  gave 
a  plunge  right  through  the  next  sea, 
rising  easily  to  it,  heave  after  heave. 
The  setting  sun  struck  two  or  three 
misty  spokes  of  his  wheel  through 
a  cloud,  that  made  a  big  wave  here 
and  there  glitter ;  the  ship's  white 
yards  caught  some  of  it,  and  a  row  of 
broad  backs,  with  their  feet  stretching 
the  foot-rope  as  they  stowed  the  fore- 
sail, shone  bright  out,  red,  blue,  and 
striped,  upon  the  hollow  of  the  yellow 
fore-topsail,  in  the  midst  of  the  gale ; 
while  just  under  the  bowsprit  you  saw 
her  black  figure-head,  with  his  white 
turban,  and  his  hand  to  his  breast, 
giving  a  cool  salaam  now  and  then  to 
the  spray  from  her  bows.  At  that 
moment,  though,  Lota  Hyde's  eye  was 


the  brightest  thing  I  could  find — all 
the  blue  gone  out  of  the  waves  was  in 
it.  As  for  her  seeing  myself,  I  hadn't 
had  space  to  think  of  it  yet,  when  all 
of  a  sudden  I  noticed  her  glance  light 
for  the  first  time,  as  it  were,  on  the 
mate,  who  was  standing  all  the  while 
with  his  back  to  her,  on  the  same  plank 
of  the  quarterdeck.  "  Down  main- 
course!"  he  sung  out,  putting  one  hand 
inhisjacket-pocket;  "down  both  tacks 
— that's  it,  my  men — down  with  it ! " 
— and  out  it  flapped,  slapping  fiercely 
as  they  dragged  it  by  main  force  into 
the  bulwark-elects,  till  it  swelled  steady 
above  the  main- stay,  and  the  old  ship 
sprang  forward  faster  than  before, 
with  a  wild  wash  of  the  Atlantic  past 
her  sides.  "  Another  hand  to  the 
wheel,  here!"  said  the  first  officer. 
He  took  a  look  aloft,  leaning  to  the 
rise  of  her  bows,  then  to  windward  as 
she  rolled;  everything  looked  trim 
and  weatherly,  so  he  stepped  to  the 
binnacle,  where  the  lamp  was  ready 
lighted,  and  it  just  struck  me  what  a 
smart,  good-looking  fellow  the  mate 
was,  with  his  sun-burnt  face ;  and 
when  he  went  to  work,  straight-for- 
ward, no  notion  of  showing  off.  "  Con- 
found it,  though  !"  thought  I  of  a 
sudden,  seeing  her  eyes  fixed  on  him 
again,  and  then  to  seaward.  "  Mr 
Macleod,"  said  he  to  the  second  mate, 
"  send  below  the  watch,  if  you  please. 
This  breeze  is  first-rate,  though!" 
When  he  turned  round,  he  noticed 
Miss  Hyde,  started,  and  took  off  his 
cap  with  a  fine  bow.  "  I  beg  pardon, 
ma'am,"  said  h£,  "  a  trifle  of  wind  we 
have!  I  hope,^tiss  Hyde,  it  hasn't 
troubled  you  in  the  round-house?" 
What  Miss  Hyde  might  have  said  I 
don't  know,  but  her  shawl  caught  a 
gust  out  of  the  spanker,  though  she 
was  in  the  lee  of  the  high  poop ;  it 
blew  over  her  head,  and  then  loose — I 
sprang  forward — but  the  mate  had 
hold  of  it,  and  put  it  over  her  again. 
The  young  lady  smiled  politely  to  the 
mate,  and  gave  a  cold  glance  of  sur- 
prise, as  I  thought,  at  me.  I  felt,  that 
moment,  I  could  have  knocked  the 
mate  down  and  died  happy.  "  Why, 
sir,"  said  he,  with  a  cool  half  sneer, 
"I  fancied  none  of  you  gentlemen 
would  have  favoured  us  this  capful  of 
wind — plenty  of  air  there  is  on  deck, 
though."  It  just  flashed  through  my 
mind  what  sort  of  rig  I  was  in— I 


TJie  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.—  Part  III. 


[Aug. 


looked  over  my  infernal  'long-shore 
toggery,  and  no  wonder  she  didn't 
recollect  me  at  all!  "  Curse  this 
confounded  folly!"  muttered  I,  and 
made  a  dart  to  run  up  the  poop- steps, 
where  the  breeze  took  me  slap  aback, 
just  as  the  judge  himself  opened  the 
larboard  door.  "  Why,  Violet ! "  ex- 
claimed he,  surprised  at  seeing  his 
daughter,  "  are  yon  exposing  yourself 
to  this  disagreeable — I  declare  a  per- 
fect storm!"  "But  see,  papa!"  said 
she,  taking  hold  of  his  arm,  "  how 
changed  the  sea  is ! — and  the  ship ! — 
j  ust  look  where  the  sun  was !"  "  Get  in 
— getin,do!"  kept  onher father;  "you 
can  see  all  that  again  in  some  finer 
place  ;  you  should  have  had  a  servant 
with  you,  at  least,  Violet."  "I  shall 
come  out  oftener  than  I  thought,  papa, 
I  can  tell  you ! "  said  she,  in  an  arch 
sort  of  way,  before  she  disappeared. 
The  mate  touched  his  cap  to  the  judge, 
who  asked  where  the  captain  was. 
"  'Gad,  sir,"  said  the  judge  crossly, 
"  the  floor  resembles  an  earthquake 
— every  piece  of  furniture  swings, 
sir ;  'tis  well  enough  for  sleep- 
ing, but  my  family  find  it  impos- 
sible to  dine.  If  this  oolta-poolta  con- 
tinues in  my  apartments,  I  must  speak 
to  Captain  Williamson  about  it !  He 
must  manage  to  get  into  some  other 
part  of  the  sea,  where  it  is  less  rough," 
saying  which  he  swayed  himself  in 
and  shut  the  door.  I  still  kept  think- 
ing and  picturing  her  face  —  Lota 
Hyde's — when  she  noticed  the  mate. 
After  all,  any  one  that  knew  tack 
from  bowline  might  reef  topsails  in  a 
fair  wind  ;  but  a  girl  like  that  would 
make  more  count  of  a  man  knowing 
how  to  manage  wind  and  sea,  than  of 
the  Duke  on  his  horse  at  Waterloo 
beating  Bonaparte ;  and  as  for  talk,  he 
would  jaw  away  the  whole  voyage,  no 
doubt,  about  moonlight  and  the  ocean, 
and  your  genteel  fancy  mariners !  "  By 
George,  though!"  thought  I,  "if the 
mate's  a  better  man  than  me,  hang 
rne — it's  all  right ;  but  burn  my  wig 
if  I  don't  go  and  turn  a  Hindoo  fakeer, 
with  my  one 'arm  stuck  up  in  the  air 
till  I  die!  Go  it,  old  lady!"  said 
I,  _as  I  glanced  over  the  side  before 
going  below  for  the  night,  "  roll  away, 
only  shake  something  or  other  to  do 
'  out  of  the  pace  you're  going  at ! " 

The  next  morning,  when  Westwood 
and  I  went  on  deck,  there  was  still  a 


long  sea  running  after  us.  However, 
by  noon  the  sun  came  sifting  through 
aloft,  the  breeze  got  warm,  the  decks 
were  dry  as  a  bone,  and  one  just  saw 
the  large  dark-blue  swells  lift  up 
alongside  with  a  shower  of  spray,  be- 
tween the  seams  of  the  bulwarks.  By 
six  o'clock,  again,  it  was  got  pretty 
dusk  ahead,  and  I  strolled  forward 
right  to  the  heel  of  the  bowsprit, 
with  Westwood,  looking  down  through 
her  head-boards  into  the  heap  of 
white  foam  that  washed  up  among 
the  woodwork  every  time  she  plunged. 
One  knot  of  the  men  were  sitting 
with  their  legs  over  the  break  of  the 
topgallant  forecastle,  swinging  as 
she  rolled — laughing,  roaring,  and 
singing  as  loud  as  they  could  bawl, 
since  the  wind  carried  it  all  for- 
ward out  of  the  officers'  hearing.  I 
was  rather  surprised  to  see  and  hear 
that  Jacobs's  friends,  Bill  Dykes  and 
Tom,  were  there :  the  rogues  were  tak- 
ing back  their  savage  to  the  Anda- 
man Isles  again,  I  suppose.  "  Well, 
my  lads,"  said  Tom,  a  regular  sample 
of  the  man  -o'-  war's  -man  :  "  this 
is  what  I  calls  balling  it  off!  That 
mate  knows  how  to  make  her  go,  any 
how!"  "  We'll  soon  be  into  tropical 
regents,  I  consider ! "  remarked  Bill, 
who  made  a  point  of  never  using  sea- 
phrases  except  ashore,  when  he  came 
out  double  salt,  to  make  up  for  his 
gentility  afloat.  "  Hum,"  grumbled 
a  big  ugly  fellow,  the  same  so  flattered 
at  the  wheel  by  little  Tommy,  "  I 
doesn't  like  .your  fair  winds !  I'll  tell 
you  what,  mates,  we'll  be  havin'  it 
puff  more  from  east'ard  ere  third 
watch."  "What's  the  odds,  Harry, 
old  ship?"  said  Tom,  "a  fair  wind 
still ! "  "I  say,  my  lads,"  exclaimed 
Tom  again,  looking  along  toward  the 
poop,  "  yonder's  the  ould  naboob 
squinting  out  of  the  round-house 
doors ! — what's  he  after  now,  I  won- 
der?" On  stooping  down,  accord- 
ingly, I  could  see  the  judge's  face 
with  the  binnacle-light  shining  on  it, 
as  he  swayed  to  and  fro  in  the  doorway, 
seemingly  in  a  passion  at  something  or 
other.  "  Why,"  said  Bill,  "  I  consider 
he  can't  altogether  circumstand  the 
shindy  as  this  here  roll  kicks  up  in- 
side of  his  blessed  paliss ! '  "  Nabob, 
does  ye  call  him !"  said  Harry,  sulkily ; 
"  I'll  tell  you  what,  'mates,  he  ben't 
nothiu'  but  a  reg'lar  bloody  ould 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


195 


tyrant !  T'other  mornin'  there,  I 
just  chances  to  brush  against  him  as 
I  kiles  up  a  rope,  says  he  '  Fellow ! ' 
an'  says  he  to  the  skipper,  '  I'd  take 
it  kind,'  says  he,  'if  ye'd  horder  them 
commiu  sailors  for  to  pay  more  con- 
tention alongside  o'  my  legs,  Captin 
Willumsen ! '  Why,  do  the  old  beg- 
gar not  think  as  a  feller  ben't  a  man 
as  well  as  hisself,  with  his  commin 
sailors,  an'  be  blowed  to  him !" 
"  Well  though,  Harry,  old  ship,"  said 
Tom,  "  an't  that  daurter  of  his'n  a 
jewel !  I  say,  'mates,  she's  all  rounded 
into  the  head,  and  a  clear  run  from 
aft,  like  a  corvette  model !  My  eye, 
that  hair  of  hers  is  worth  gold ;  I'd  go 
down  on  the  deck  to  please  her,  d'ye 
see ! "  "  No  doubt,"  says  Bill,  "  she's 
what  I  call  a  exact  sparkler!" 
"Well,  I  doesn't  know,"  said  Harry. 
"  Last  vy'ge  but  one  we'd  got  one 
aboard,  a'most  beautifuller — half  as 
high  again,  an'  twice  her  beam — I'm 
not  sure  but  she — "  "  All  my  eye, 
messmates!"  broke  in  Tom ;  "that  one 
were  built  for  stowing,  ye  see,  bo', 
like  yer  cargo  lumpers.  Now,  this  here 
young  gal  minds  me  o'  no  other  blessed 
thing  but  the  Nymph  corvette's  figure- 
head— and  that  warn't  her  match, 
neither !  She  don't  look  down  upon 
a  sailor,  I  can  tell  ye ;  there  I  see  her 
t'other  morning-watch  a  talkin'  to 
Jacobs  yonder,  as  pleasant  and  cheery 

as Hullo,  there's  the  captain  corned 

put  o'  the  naboob's  cabin,  and  speak- 
ing with  the  mate  by  the  compass, — 
blessed  if  they  an't  agoin'  to  alter  her 
course ! " 

"Send  aft  here  to  the  braces!" 
sung  out  the  first  officer  to  the  boat- 
swain. "  Blow  me,  shipmates,  that's 
yeer  naboob  now,  I'll  bet  a  week's 
grog,"  growled  Harry ;  "  ship's  course 
as  fair  as  a  handspike  through  a 
grummet;  couldn't  bring  the  wind 
more  aft;  b — t  my  eyes,  the  sea's 
comin'  to  be  bought  and  sold ! " 
Whatever  it  might  be  for,  in  came  the 
starboard  yardarms  till  she  lay  over 
a  little ;  down  studding  and  top-gal- 
lant sails,  as  neither  of  them  could 
stand  it  except  from  aft ;  and  off  went 
the  old  ship  rising  high  athwart  the 
seas,  her  head  sou'-south-east,  and 
one  streak  of  broken  yellow  light,  low 
down  to  westward  on  her  lee  quarter. 
It  was  beginning  to  blow  harder,  too, 
and  by  eight  bells  it  was  "  Reef  top- 


sails, single  reef!"  The  waves 
played  slap  on  her  weather  side,  the 
heavy  sprays  came  showering  over 
her  bulwarks  forward,  and  the  fore- 
castle planks  were  far  from  being  so 
comfortable  for  a  snooze  as  the  night 
before.  As  soon  as  the  wheel  was 
relieved,  and  the  other  watch  below, 
the  "  ugly  man  "  and  his  companions 
returned.  "Mates,"  said  he,  solemnly, 
planting  his  back  against  the  bitts, 
"  I've  sailed  this  five-and-twenty 
year  before  the  mast,  an'  I  never 
yet  seed  the  likes  o'  that!  Take  my 
say  for  it,  we're  on  a  wind  now,  but 
afore  next  mornin'  we'll  be  close- 
hauled,  beating  up  against  it." 
"Well,"  said  another,  "she  leaks  a 
deal  in  the  eyes  of  her  below  ;  in  that 
case,  Harry,  your  watch  as  slings  in 
the  fore- peak  '11  be  all  afloat  by  that 
time."  "What  day  did  this  here  craft 
sail  on,  I  asks  ?  "  said  the  sailmaker 
gravely.  "  Why,  a  Thursday  night, 
old  ship,"  replied  several  eagerly. 
"  No,"  went  on  the  saUmaker ;  "  you 
counts  sea-fashion,  shipmates ;  but 
till  ye're  clear  o'  the  pilot,  ye  know, 
its  land  fashion  ye  ought  for  to  go  by. 
'Twas  a  Friday  by  that  'ere  said 
reckoning,  shipmates."  "  No !  so  it 
was  though,"  said  the  rest — "  it  don't 
look  well."  " Howsomedever  I'm 
not  goin'  to  come  for  to  go  and  be 
a  croaker,"  continued  the  sailmaker 
in  a  voice  like  a  ghost's.  "  Well, 
luck  or  no  luck,  'mates,"  grumbled 
big  Harry,  "if  so  be  them  larboard 
bowlines  is  hauled  taut  by  the  morn- 
ing watch,  blow  me  if  I  don't  be  up- 
sides with  that  'ere  bloody  ould 
naboob — that's  all." 

Next  morning,  after  all,  it  was  easy 
to  feel  the  ship  had  really  been  hauled 
closeonawind.  When  we  went  up,  the 
weather  was  clearing,  though  with  a 
strongish  gale  from  eastward,  a  heavy 
sea  running,  on  which  the  Indiaman 
strained  and  creaked  as  she  rose, 
rolling  slowly  to  windward  with  her 
three  double-reefed  topsails  strained 
full,  then  pitched  head  into  it,  as  a 
cloud  of  foam  and  spray  flew  over  her 
weather  bow.  It  was  quite  early,  the 
decks  lately  washed  down,  and  the  In- 
dian judge  walking  the  weather  quar- 
terdeck as  grave  and  comfortable  as  if 
it  was  all  right.  The  captain  was 
with  him,  and  two  mates  to  leeward. 
"  Sail  O  !"  hailed  a  man  on  the  fore- 


196 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  HI. 


[Aug. 


yard.  "Where  away?"  sung  out 
the  mate  of  the  watch.  "  Broad 
abeam  !"  The  captain  went  up  to 
the  poop,  and  I  stood  on  the  foremost 
carronade  near  the  main  rigging, 
where  I  could  just  see  her  now  and 
then  white  against  the  blue  haze  be- 
tween the  hollows  of  the  waves,  as 
the  Indiaman  lifted.  ' '  There  she  is ! " 
said  I,  thinking  it  was  Westwood  that 
stopped  behind  me ;  it  was  the  judge, 
however,  and  as  soon  as  I  got  down 
he  stepped  up,  holding  on  with  one 
hand  to  a  back-stay.  The  ship  was 
rising  after  a  pitch,  every  bulkhead  and 
timber  in  her  creaking,  when  all  of  a 
sudden  I  felt  by  my  feet  what  all  sailors 
feel  the  same  way — she  was  coming  up 
in  the  wind  too  fast  to  mount  with  the 
next  wave,  and  a  regular  comber  it 
was  going  to  be.  I  looked  to  the 
wheel — there  was  big  Harry  himself 
with  a  grin  on  his  face,  and  his  eye 
on  Sir  Charles,  as  he  coolly  gave  her 
half  a  weather-spoke  more,  and  then 
whirled  it  back  again  to  meet  her. 
"For  heaven's  sake,  look  out,  sir!" 
exclaimed  I.  "  Why  so  I  do,"  said 
the  judge,  rather  good-naturedly. 
'"Zounds!  what's—"  You  felt  the 
whole  ship  stop  creaking  for  a  mo- 
ment, as  she  hung  with  the  last  wave — 
"Hold  on!"  shouted  a  mid — she 
gave  a  dull  quiver  from  stem  to  stern, 
and  I  fairly  pulled  the  judge  close  into 
the  bulwark,  just  as  smash,  like  thun- 
der, came  a  tremendous  green  sea 
over  us,  three  in  one,  washing  down 
into  the  lee  scuppers.  The  old  gen- 
tleman staggered  up,  dripping  like  a 
poodle,  and  unable  to  see — one  heard 
the  water  trickling  through  the  sky- 
lights, and  stepping  away  down  stairs 
like  a  fellow  with  iron  heels;  while 
'there  was  the  sailor  at  the  wheel 
grinding  down  his  spokes  in  right 
earnest,  looking  aloft  at  the  shaking 
foretop-sail,  and  the  Indiamau  seem- 
ingly doubtful  whether  to  fall  off  or 
broach-to.  Up  she  rose  again,  how- 
ever, and  drove  round  with  her  Turk- 
head  in  the  air,  then  dip  through  the 
spray  as  gallantly  as  ever.  "  Send 
that  lubber  from  the  wheel,  Mr  Mac- 
leod ! "  said  the  captain  angrily,  when 
he  came  down,  "  he  nearly  broached 
the  ship  to  just  now!"  The  "ugly 
man"  put  on  a  double-gloomy  face,  and 
grumbled  something  about  her  "steer- 
ing wild  ; "  but  the  knowing  squint  he 


gave  Jacobs,  who  relieved  him,  was 
enough  to  show  me  he  was  one  of  the 
best  helmsmen  aboard.  As  for  the 
judge,  he  hadn't  the  least  notion  it 
was  anything  more  than  a  natural 
mischance,  owing  to  exposing  himself. 
He  eyed  the  bulwark  as  if  he  couldn't 
understand  how  any  wave  was  able  to 
rise  over  it,  while  the  captain  was  apo- 
logising, and  hop  ing  he  wouldn't  be  the 
worse.  "Eh,  younggentleman  ! "  said 
Sir  Charles  of  a  sudden,  turning  round 
to  me,  after  a  glance  from  the  weather 
side  to  the  lee  one,  "  now  I  observe 
the  circumstances,  the  probability  is 
I  should  have  had  myself  severely 
injured  on  the  opposite  side  there,  had 
it  not  been  for  your  presence  of  mind, 
sir — eh  ?  "  Here  I  made  a  bow,  and 
looked  as  modest  as  I  could.  "  I  per- 
ceive you  are  wet,  young  gentleman," 
said  he  again ;  "  you'd  better  change 
your  dress — eh  ?  "  "  Thank  you,  sir ! " 
I  said ;  and  as  he  walked  off  quite 
drenched  to  his  cabin,  with  the  cap- 
tain, I  heard  him  remark  it  was 
"  wonderfully  intelligent  in  a  mere 
griffin." 

However,  the  wind  soon  got  down 
to  a  fine  top-gallant  breeze ;  less  of  a 
sea  on,  the  clouds  sunk  in  a  long  gray- 
bank  to  leeward,  and  the  strange  sail 
plain  abeam  of  us — a  large  ship  steer- 
ing seemingly  more  off  the  wind  than 
the  Seringapatam,  with  top-gallant- 
sails  set — you  could  just  see  the  heads  of 
hercourses,  and  her  black  lower-yards, 
when  both  of  us  rose  together.  Our 
first  officer  was  all  alive  at  the  sight ; 
the  reefs  were  out  of  our  topsails 
already,  and  he  soon  had  us  ploughing 
along  under  ordinary  canvass,  though 
still  hugging  the  wind.  In  a  short 
time  the  stranger  appeared  to  take 
the  challenge,  for  he  slanted  his  yards, 
clapped  on  royals,  and  hauled  down  a 
stunsail,  heading  our  course,  till  he 
was  one  body  of  white  cloth  on  the 
horizon.  For  a  while  we  seemed 
to  gain  on  her ;  but  after  dinner,  there 
was  the  other  ship's  hull  up  on  our 
lee-bow,  rising  her  white  streak  out 
of  the  water  steadily,  and  just  lifting 
at  times  on  the  long  blue  seas :  she 
was  fore-reaching  on  us,  as  plain  as 
could  be.  The  mate  gave  a  stamp  on 
the  deck,  and  kept  her  away  a  little  to 
set  a  stunsail.  "  AVhy,"  said  I  to 
Westwood,  "  he'll  fall  to  leeward  of 
himself!"  "She's  too  much  by  the  head. 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


197 


Collins,"  said  Westwood ;  "that'sit!" 
"  Hasn't  he  the  sense  to  take  the  fore- 
course  off  her?"  said  I,  "instead  of 
packing  more  on!  Why,  that  craft 
weathers  on  us  like  a  schooner — I 
•wish  you  and  I  had  the  Indiaman  for 
an  hour  or  two,  Tom  !"  It  wasn't  an 
hour  before  we  could  see  the  very 
waves  splashing  up  under  her  black 
weather-side,  and  over  her  high  bows,  as 
she  slanted  right  through  it  and  rose  to 
windward  again,  standing  up  to  cross 
our  course — a  fine  frigate-built  India- 
man, sharper  stemmed  than  her  kind 
in  ordinary,  and  square  in  her  spread ; 
one  yardarm  just  looking  over  the  other 
as  they  ranged  aloft,  and  all  signs  of  a 
weatherly  craft.  "  That's  the  Duke  o' 
Bedford ! "  said  a  sailor  at  the  braces 
to  his  companions,  "  all  oak  planks, 
and  not  a  splinter  of  teak  in  her! 
No  chance !"  Out  flew  the  British 
colours  from  her  mizen-peak,  and  next 
the  Company's  striped  ensign  at  her 
fore-royal-mast  head,  as  a  signal  to 
speak.  However,  the  Seringapatam 
only  answered  by  showing  her  colours, 
and  held  on.  All  of  a  sudden  the 
other  Indiaman  was  seen  slowly  fall- 
ing off  before  the  wind,  as  if  in  scorn 
at  such  rude  manners,  and  sure  of 
passing  us  if  she  chose.  For  a  moment 
the  red  sunset  glanced  through  be- 
twixt all  three  of  her  masts,  every 
rope  as  fine  as  wire ;  then  the  canvass 
swung  broad  against  it,  blood-red 
from  the  sun,  and  she  showed  us  her 
quarter- gallery,  with  a  glimpse  of  her 
.stern-windows  glittering, — you  even 
made  out  the  crowd  of  passengers 
and  soldiers  on  her  poop,  and  a  man 
or  two  going  up  her  rigging.  The 
sea  beyond  her  lay  as  blue  as  blue 
could  be,  what  with  the  crimson 
streak  that  came  zig-zag  on  both  sides 
of  her  shadow,  and  gleamed  along  the 
smooth  troughs,  taking  a  crest  or  two 
to  dance  on  by  the  way ;  and  what 
with  the  rough  of  it  near  hand,  where 
the  tops  of  the  dark  waves  ran  hither 
and  thither  in  broad  white  flakes,  we 
.surging  heavily  over  them. 

In  a  few  minutes  more  the  sun  was 
not  only  down,  but  the  clouds  banked 
up  to  westward,  of  a  deep  purple ;  and 
almost  at  once  you  saw  nothing  of  the 
other  ship,  except  when  a  stray  streak 
somehow  or  other  caught  her  rising, 
or  her  mast-heads  came  across  a  pale 
line  in  the  clouds.  The  breeze  got 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVI. 


pleasanter  as  the  night  went  on,  and 
the  Seringapatam  rattled  away  in  fine 
style,  careening  to  it  by  herself. 

Well,  you  know,  nothing  could  be 
better  for  a  good  understanding  and 
high  spirits  amongst  us  than  a  fast 
course,  fine  weather,  and  entering 
the  tropics.  As  for  the  tropics,  if 
you  have  only  a  roomy  ship  and  a 
good  run  of  wind,  as  we  had,  in 
those  latitudes  everything  outside  of 
you  seems  almost  to  have  double 
the  stuff  in  it  that  air  and  water 
have  in  other  places ;  while  inside  of 
one,  again,  one  felt  twice  the  life  he 
had  before,  and  everybody  else  came 
out  newer  a  good  deal  than  on  the 
parlour  rug  at  home.  As  the  days 
got  each  hotter  than  the  last,  and  the 
sea  bluer  and  bluer,  we  began  to- 
think  better  of  the  heavy  old  Seringa- 
patam's  pace,  teak  though  she  was, 
and  her  sole  good  point  right  before 
the  wind.  Every  night  she  lighted 
her  binnacle  sooner,  till  deuce  the  bit 
of  twilight  there  was,  and  the  dark 
sky  came  down  on  us  like  the  extin- 
guisher over  a  candle.  However,  the 
looks  of  things  round  and  aloft  made 
full  amends  for  it,  as  long  as  we  held 
the  "Trades;"  old  Neptune  shiftinghis- 
scenes  there  so  quickly,  that  nobody 
missed  getting  weather  and  air,  more 
than  he  could  help,  were  it  only  a 
sight  of  how  the  Indiaman  got  onr 
without  trouble  to  any  living  soul 
save  the  man  at  the  wheel,  as  one 
long,  big,  bright  wave  shoved  her  to 
another,  and  the  slower  they  rose  the 
more  business  she  seemed  to  do  of  her- 
self. By  the  time  they  had  furbished 
her  up  at  their  leisure,  the  Seringa- 
patam had  a  queer  Eastern  style,  toor 
throughout ;  with  her  grass  mattings 
and  husky  coir  chafing-gear,  the  yel- 
low varnish  about  her,  and  her  three 
topsails  of  country-canvass,  cut  nar- 
row towards  the  head — bamboo  stu'n- 
sail  booms,  and  spare  bits  of  bamboo 
always  ready  for  everything ;  besides 
the  bifious-like  gold- coloured  patches 
here  and  there  in  the  rest  of  her  sails, 
and  the  outlandish  figure-head,  that 
made  you  sometimes  think  there 
might  be  twenty  thousand  of  them  un- 
der the  bows,  dancing  away  with  her 
like  Juggernaut's  travelling  pagoda. 
The  decks  were  lively  enough  to  look 
at ;  the  men  working  quietly  by  twos 
and  threes  about  the  bulwarks  all  day 
o 


198 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yam.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


long,  and  pairs  of  them  to  be  made 
out  at  different  points  aloft,  yarning 
away  comfortably  together,  as  the 
one  passed  the  ball  for  the  other's 
serving- mallet,  with  now  a  glance  at 
the  horizon,  and  now  a  grin  at  the 
passengers  below,  or  a  cautious  squint 
at  the  top  of  the  mate's  cap,  White 
awnings  triced  over  poop  and  quarter- 
deck, the  cover  of  the  waist  hammock- 
netting  clean  scrubbed,  and  the  big 
shady  main-course  half  brailed-up, 
rustling  and  bulging  above  the  boats 
and  booms  amidships ;  every  hatch- 
way and  door  with  a  round  funnel  of 
a  wind-sail  swelling  into  it,  and  their 
bellies  moving  like  so  many  boa- con- 
strictors come  down  from  aloft,  and 
going  in  to  catch  cadets.  You  saw 
the  bright  white  sky  dazzling  along 
under  the  awning-cheeks,  that  glared 
on  it  like  snow ;  and  the  open  quar- 
ter-deck ports  let  in  so  many  squares 
of  shifting  blue  light,  with  a  draught 
of  air  into  the  hot  carronade  muzzles, 
that  seemed  to  gasp  for  it  with  their 
red  tompions  stuck  out  like  tongues. 
The  very  look  of  the  lifting  blue  water 
on  the  shady  side  was  refreshing,  and 
the  brighter  the  light  got,  it  grew  the 
darker  blue.  You  listened  for  every 
cool  splash  of  it  on  the  bends,  and 
every  rustle  of  the  canvass  aloft ;  and 
instead  of  thinking,  as  the  landsmen 
did,  of  green  leaves  and  a  lazy  nook 
for  shelter,  why,  to  my  fancy  there's 
a  deuced  sight  more  satisfaction  in 
good  dark  blue,  with  a  spray  over 
the  cat-head  to  show  you're  going, 
and  with  somewhat  to  go  for !  For 
want  of  better,  one  would  have  given 
his  ears  to  jump  in  head-foremost, 
and  have  a  first-rate  bathe — the  very 
sea  itself  kept  rising  up  alongside  to 
make  an  easy  dive  for  one,  and  sink- 
ing into  little  round  troughs  again, 
where  the  surges  would  have  sprinkled 
over  your  head.  Now  and  then  a 
bigger  wave  than  ordinary  would  go 
swelling  up,  and  out  sprang  a  whole 
glittering  shower  of  flying-fish,  freck- 
ling the  dark  side  with  drops,  and 
went  flittering  over  into  the  next,  or 
skimming  the  crests  out  of  sight  into 
a  hollow.  The  writers  and  cadets 
were  in  high  feather  at  knowing 
they  were  in  the  same  latitude  as 
India,  and  appeared  in  all  sorts  of 
straw  hats,  white  trousers,  and  white 
jackets.  Ford  had  left  off  talk- 


ing of  going  aloft  for  a  while,  to 
flourish  about  his  swimming — when 
he  looked  over  with  the  surgeon  in- 
to the  smooth  of  a  hollow,  and  saw 
something  big  and  green,  like  an  im- 
mense cucumber,  floating  along  within 
a  fathom  or  two  of  the  ship,  deep 
down  in  the  blue  water.  While  the 
griffin  asked  what  it  was,  a  little 
ripple  broke  above,  a  wet  black  horn 
came  right  out  of  it,  and  two  devilish 
round  eyes  glared  up  at  us  ahead  of 
it,  as  we  leant  over  the  quarter,  set 
wide  in  a  broad  black  snout,  shaped 
like  a  gravedigger's  shovel;  then  it 
sank  away  into  the  next  wave.  Ford 
shivered,  in  spite  of  the  heat.  "  The 
devil?"  inquired  one  of  the  writers, 
coolly,  to  the  surgeon.  "  Not  just 
him,"  said  the  Scotchman  ;  "it's  only 
the  first  shark!" 

The  young  ladies,  in  their  white 
dresses,  now  made  you  think  of  angels 
gliding  about :  as  to  the  only  one  I 
had  an  eye  for,  by  this  time  it  wasn't 
of  not  seeing  her  often  enough  I  had 
to  complain,  as  she  seemed  to  delight 
in  nothing  else  but  being  somewhere 
or  other  upon  deck ;  first  one  part  of 
the  ship,  then  another,  as  if  to  see 
how  different  the  look-out  could  be 
made,  or  to  watch  something  in  the 
waves  or  the  horizon.  Instead  of  sit- 
ting with  a  needle  or  a  book,  like  the 
rest,  with  the  corner  of  one  eye  to- 
ward the  gentlemen,  or  talking  and 
giggling  away  at  no  allowance,  she 
would  be  noticing  a  man  aloft  as  if 
she  were  there  herself,  or  trying  to 
see  past  a  sail,  as  if  she  fancied  there 
was  something  strange  on  the  other 
side  of  it.  The  rest  of  the  girls  ap- 
peared shy  of  her  at  first,  no  doubt 
on  account  of  the  Judge's  separate 
quarters  and  his  grandee  style ;  next, 
they  made  acquaintance,  she  speaking 
and  smiling  just  as  if  she  had  known 
them  before;  then,  again,  most  of 
them  seemingly  got  jealous  because 
the  cadets  squinted  after  her  ;  while 
old  Bollock  said  Miss  Hyde  would  be 
the  beauty  on  Ohowringee  Course, 
and  the  first  officer  was  eternally 
pointing  out  things  to  her,  like  a  show- 
man at  a  fair.  However,  she  seemed 
not  to  mind  it  at  all,  either  way: 
those  that  did  talk  to  her  would  scarce 
hear  her  answer  ere  they  lost  her,  and 
there  she  was,  looking  quietly  down 
by  herself  into  the  ripples  alongside  ; 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  HI. 


199 


a  minute  after,  she  would  be  half- 
playing  with  little  Tommy,  aud  mak- 
ing companions  of  Tommy's  young 
sisters,  to  see  the  sheep,  the  pigs,  and 
the  cow,  or  feed  the  poultry.  As  for 
the  handsome  "  first  officer,"  when  he 
caught  occasion  for  his  politeness,  she 
took  it  graciously  enough,  and  listened 
to  all  he  said;  till,  of  a  sudden,  a  smile 
would  break  over  her  face,  and  she 
seemed  to  me  to  put  him  off  as  easy 
as  a  duchess — on  the  score,  it  might 
be,  of  the  Judge's  looking  for  her  off 
the  poop,  or  something  else  of  the 
kind.  'Twas  the  more  curious  how 
much  at  home  she  seemed  amongst 
the  men  at  work,  when  she  chanced 
to  go  "forward"  with  Tommy  and 
his  sisters,  as  they  skipped  hither 
and  thither :  the  rough,  blue-shirted 
fellows  took  the  quids  out  of  their 
cheeks  as  soon  as  they  saw  the  party 
coming  from  aft,  and  began  to  smirk, 
shoving  the  tar-buckets  and  ropes 
aside.  One  forenoon,  an  old  lady 
under  the  poop  awning,  where  she  and 
her  daughter  were  sewing  together  at  a 
bright  strip  of  needlework,  asked  me 
to  hold  her  woollen  yarns  for  her  as 
she  balled  them  off— being  the  red  coat 
for  a  sepoy  killing  a  tiger,  which  her 
daughter  was  making  in  yellow.  I 
couldn't  well  refuse,  seeing  that 
amongst  the  ladies  I  was  reckoned  a 
mild,  quiet  young  man.  Even  in  these 
days,  I  must  say  I  had  a  good  deal  of 
that  look,  and  at  home  they  used 
always  to  call  me  "  quiet  Ned."  My 
mother,  good  soul,  never  would  believe 
I  broke  windows,  killed  cats,  or  fought, 
and  the  mystery  to  her  always  is  why 
the  neighbours  had  a  spite  at  me ;  for 
if  I  had  been  a  wild  boy,  she  said,  or 
as  noisy  as  little  Brown  next  door, 
why  she  wouldn't  have  objected  to  my 
going  to  sea ! — that  noisy  little  Brown, 
by  the  bye,  is  a  fat  banker.  So  in  I 
had  to  stick  my  thumbs  at  arms'- 
length,  and  stoop  down  to  the  old 
lady,  the  more  with  a  will  since  I 
guessed  what  they  were  talking  of. 
"  Well  though,  Kate,"  continued  the 
old  lady,  winding  away  at  the  thread, 
"  you  cannot  deny  her  to  be  a  charm- 
ing creature,  my  love  ?"  "  Oh,  if 
you  mean  pretty ! "  said  the  girl,  "  I 
don't  want  to  deny  it — not  /,  ma'am ! 
— why  should  I,  indeed?"  "Pity 
she's  a  little  light-headed,"  said  her 
mother  in  a  musing  way.  "  Affected, 


you  mean,  mother  !"  said  Miss  Fortes- 
cue,  "  and  haughty."  "  Do  you  know, 
Kate,"  replied  the  old  lady,  sighing, 
"  I  fear  she'll  soon  go  in  India !" 
"Go?"  said  the  daughter  sharply. 
"  Yes  ;  she  won't  stand  the  hot  season 
as  I  did — these  flighty  girls  never  do. 
Poor  thing  !  she  certainly  hasn't  your 
stamina  no  w,  my  love !"  Here  Miss  For- 
tescue  bit  her  lip,  tossed  her  head,  and 
was  saying  that  wasn't  what  she  cared 
about,  though  in  fact  she  looked  ready 
to  cry ;  when  just  at  the  moment  I  saw 
Lota  Hyde  herself  half  above  the  little 
gallery  stair,  gazing  straight  at  me, 
for  the  first  time,  too  ;  a  curious  kind 
of  half-smile  on  her  face,  as  I  stood 
with  my  paws  out,  the  old  lady  jerk- 
ing the  yarn  off  my  wrists,  and  I 
staring  right  over  her  big  bonnet  at 
the  sky  astern  of  the  awning,  pretend- 
ing not  to  listen.  All  at  once  my 
mouth  fell,  and  before  she  could  turn 
her  face  away  from  the  funny  counte- 
nance I  no  doubt  put  on,  I  saw  her 
cheek  rosy  and  her  eyes  sparkle  with 
laughter,  instead  of  seeming  like  one  to 
die  soon.  For  my  part  I  couldn't  stand 
it  at  all,  so  I  just  bolted  sheer  round 
and  made  three  strides  to  the  poop 
ladder,  as  dignified  as  was  possible 
with  ever  so  many  plies  of  red  yarn 
foul  of  my  wrists,  and  a  big  red  ball 
hopping  after  me  when  I'd  vanished, 
like  a  fellow  running  from  a  hot  shot ! 
I  daresay  they  thought  on  the  poop 
I'd  had  a  stroke  of  the  sun  on  my 
brain  ;  but  till  next  day  I  kept  clear 
of  the  passengers,  and  took  to  swigging 
off  stiff  nor' -westers  of  grog,  as  long 
as  Westwood  would  let  me. 

Next  evening,  when  the  cuddy  din- 
ner was  scarce  over,  I  went  up  to  the 
poop,jvhere  there  was  no  one  to  be 
seen  ;  the  sun  just  setting  on  our  star- 
board-quarter in  a  golden  blaze  that 
stretched  overhead,  with  flakes  of  it 
melting,  as  'twere,  all  over  the  sky  to 
port,  and  dropping  in  it  like  threads  of 
oil  in  water ;  the  ship  with  a  light 
breeze  aft,  and  stunsails  packed  large 
upon  her,  running  almost  due  for  the 
Line.  The  waves  to  westward  were 
like  liquid  light,  and  the  eddies  round 
our  counter  came  glittering  out,  the 
whole  spread  of  her  mizen  and  main 
canvass  shining  like  gold  cloth  against 
the  fore :  then  'twas  but  the  royals 
and  skysails  brighter  than  ever,  as  the 
big  round  sun  dipped  down  with  a 


200 


77;e  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


reel  streak  or  two,  and  the  red  water- 
line,  against  his  hot  old  face.    Every 
blue  surge  between  had  a  clear  green 
edge  about  its  crest,  the  hollows  turn- 
ing themselves  inside  out  from  deep 
purple  into  bright  blue,  and  outside 
in  again, — and  the  whole  rim  of  the 
sea  grew  out  cool  and  clear  away  from 
the  ship's  taffrail.     A  pair  of  sharp- 
headed  dolphins  that  had  kept  along- 
side for  the  last  few  minutes,  swim- 
ming near  the  surface,  turned  tail 
round,  the  moment  I  put  my  nose 
over  the  bulwark, .  and  shot  off  like 
two  streaks  of  a  rainbow  after  the 
flying-fish.      I  was  just  wondering 
where  Lota  Hyde  could  be,  this  time, 
when  on  a  sudden  I  observed  little 
Tommy  poke  his  curly  head  out  of 
the  booby-hatch,  peeping  cautiously 
round  ;  seeing  nobody,  however,  save 
the  man  at  the  wheel,  who  was  look- 
ing over  his  shoulder  at  the  sun,  the 
small  rogue  made  a  bolt  out  of  the 
companion,  and  scampered  aft  under 
the  awning  to  the  Judge's  starboard 
door,  with  nothing  on  but  his  night- 
shirt.   There  he  commenced  kicking 
and  shoving  with  his  bare  feet  and 
arms,  till  the  door  flew  open,  and  over 
went  Tommy  on  his  nose,  singing  out 
in  fine  style.    The  next  thing  I  heard 
was  a  laugh  like  the  sound  of  a  silver 
bell ;  and  just  as  the  boy's  sister  ran 
up  in  a  fright  lest  he  had  gone  over- 
board, Violet  Hyde  came  out  leading 
the  little  chap  wrapped  in  a  long  shawl 
that  trailed  astern  of  him,  herself  with 
a  straw  bonnet  barely  thrown  upon 
her  head.     "Tommy  says  you  put 
him  to  bed  too  soon,  Jane !"  said  she 
smiling.  "  Iss ! "  said  Master  Thomas, 
stoutly,  "go  'way,  Dzane  !"    "You 
hadn't  bid  me  good-night — wasn't  that 
it,  Tom  ?    But  oh !  ivhat  a  sea  1"  ex- 
claimed she,  catching  sight  of  it  under 
the  awning.    The  little  fellow  wanted 
to  see  it  too,  so  the  young  lady  lifted 
him  up  in  her  arms,  no  small  weight 
I  daresay,  and  they  both  looked  over 
the  bulwark :  the  whole  sky  far  out  of 
the  awning  to  westward  being  spotted 
with  orange  scales,  turning  almost 
scarlet,  faster  than  the    dusk  from 
both  ends  could  close  in ;   the  clear 
greenish  tint  of  it  above  the  openings 
of  the  canvass,  going  up  into  fathom- 
less blue  overhead,  the  horizon  purple, 
and  one  or  two  still,  black    clouds 
tipped  with  vermilion  against  the  far 


sky — while  the  Indiaman  stole  along, 
scarce  plashing  under  her  bends. 
Every  now  and  then  you  heard  a 
whizz  and  a  flutter,  as  the  flying-fish 
broke  out  of  a  bigger  surge,  sometimes 
just  missing  the  ship's  side  :  at  last 
two  or  three  fell  over  the  mizen  chains, 
and  pop  came  one  all  of  a  sudden  right 
into  the  white  breast  of  Miss  Hyde's 
dress  inside  her  scarf,  where  only  the 
wings  kept  it  from  disappearing.  She 
started,  Jane  screamed,  but  the  little 
boy  coolly  pulled  it  out,  commencing 
to  overhaul  it  in  great  delight.  ''  Oh 
fat  a  funny  ickoo  bird ! "  shouted  her 
"it's  fell  down  out  of  'ese  fees!" 
looking  aloft.  "  No,  no,"  said  Miss 
Hyde,  laughing,  as  she  drew  her 
shoulders  together  with  a  shiver, 
"  birds'  noses  don't  drop  water ! 
'Twill  die  if  you  don't  put  it  in  again, 
Tommy— 'tis  a  fish!"  "A  fish!" 
said  he,  opening  his  eyes  wider,  and 
smacking  his  lips,  "yes,  Tommy  eat 
it  for  my  beckfust!"  However  the 
young  lady  took  it  out  of  his  hand 
and  dropped  it  overboard  ;  on  which 
the  small  ogre  went  off  rather  discon- 
tented, and  kissed  her  more  as  a 
favour  than  otherwise.  It  was  almost 
dark  already,  the  water  shining  up  in 
the  ship's  wake,  and  the  stars  coming 
out  aloft ;  so  I  was  left  wondering  at 
the  impudence  of  flying-fish,  and  the 
blessings  of  being  a  fat  little  imp  in  a 
frock  and  trousers,  compared  with 
this  puzzle  of  a  "  traverse,"  betwixt 
being  a  third  lieutenant  and  hailing 
for  a  "  griffin." 

The  night  following,  after  a  sultry 
hot  day,  the  wind  had  varied  a  good 
deal,  and  the  ship  was  running  almost 
close-hauled  on  a  warm  south-easterly 
breeze,  with  somewhat  of  a  swell  in 
the  water.  Early  in  the  first  watch 
there  was  a  heavy  shower,  after  which 
I  went  on  deck,  leaving  Westwoocl 
at  his  book.  The  half-moon  was  just 
getting  down  to  leeward,  clear  of 
a  ragged  dark  cloud,  and  a  long 
space  of  faint  white  light  spread 
away  on  the  horizon,  behind  the 
sheets  of  the  sails  hauled  aft;  so 
that  you  just  saw  a  sort  of  a  glim- 
mer under  them,  on  the  black  heave 
of  the  swell  between.  Every  time 
she  rolled  to  leeward  on  it,  a  gleam  of 
the  moonshine  slipped  inside  the  sha- 
dow of  her  high  bulwarks,  from  one 
wet  carronade  to  another,  and  went 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


201 


glistening  over  the  moist  decks,  and 
among  the  boats  and  booms,  that 
looked  like  some  big  brute  or  other 
lying  stretched  out  on  his  paws,  till 
you  saw  the  men's  faces  on  the  fore- 
•castle  as  if  they  were  so  many  muti- 
neers skulking  in  the  dark  before  they 
rushed  aft :  then  up  she  righted  again, 
and  all  was  dark  inboard.  The  awn- 
ings were  off,  and  the  gruff  third  mate 
-creaking  slowly  to  and  fro  in  his  soak- 
ed shoes;  the  Judge  stood  talking 
with  the  captain  before  one  of  the 
round-house  doors;  directly  after  I 
noticed  a  young  lady's  figure  in  a 
white  dress  close  by  the  mizen-rig- 
ging,  apparently  intent  on  the  sea  to 
leeward.  "  Well,  now  or  never!" 
thought  I,  stepping  over  in  the  shadow 
of  the  main-sheet.  I  heard  her  draw 
a  long  breath :  and  then,  without 
turning  her  head  at  the  sound  of  my 
foot,  "  I  wonder  if  there  is  anything 
so  strange  in  India,"  exclaimed  she  ; 

"  is  there  now?"    "No,  by ,  no, 

madam!  "  said  I,  starting,  and  watch- 
ing as  the  huge  cloud  grew  darker, 
with  a  rusty  stain  in  it,  while  three  or 
four  broad-backed  swells,  one  beyond 
the  other,  rose  up  black  against  the 
setting  moon,  as  if  they'd  plunge  right 
into  her.  Miss  Hyde  turned  round, 
with  one  hand  on  the  bulwark  to  steady 
herself,  and  half  looked  at  me.  "  I 
thought — "  said  she ;  "  where  is  papa  ? 
— I  thought  my  father — "  I  begged 
pardon  for  intruding,  but  next  minute 
she  appeared  to  have  forgotten  it,  and 
said,  in  a  musing  sort  of  way,  partly 
to  herself,  partly  to  me — "  I  seem  to 
remember  it  all — as  if  I  just  saw  that 
black  wave — and— that  monstrous 
cloud — over  again !  Oh  !  really  that  is 
the  very  same  top  it  had  then — see  !  " 
•"  Yes,"  said  I,  leaning  forward,  with 
a  notion  I  had  seen  it  before,  though 
heaven  knew  when.  "Did  you  ever 
read  about  Columbus  and  Vasco  di 
Gama  ?  "  asked  she,  though  directly 
afterwards  her  features  broke  into 
a  laughing  smile  as  she  caught  sight 
of  mine — at  the  thought,  I  suppose,  of 
my  ridiculous  figure  the  last  time  she 
saw  me.  "  No,  never,"  said  I ;  "  but 
look  to  windward,  ma'am  ;  'tis  coming 
on  a  squall  again.  For  heaven's  sake, 
Miss  Hyde,  go  in  !  We're  to  have  an- 
other shower,  and  that  pretty  thick. 
I  wonder  the  mate  don't  stow  the 
royals."  "  What  do  you  mean  ?"  said 


she,  turning.  "  Why  are  you  alarm- 
ed, sir?  I  see  nothing  particular."  The 
sea  was  coming  over,  in  a  smooth, 
round-backed  swell,  out  of  a  dirty, 
thick  jumble  of  a  sky,  with  a  pitch- 
black  line  behind — what  Ford  would 
have  called  "  wild"  by  daylight ;  but 
the  young  lady's  eye  naturally  saw  no 
more  in  it  than  a  dark  night.  Here 
the  Judge  came  over  from  the  bin- 
nacle, giving  me  a  nod,  as  much  as  to 
say  he  recollected  me.  "  I  am  afraid, 
sir,"  said  I,  "  if  you  don't  make  haste, 
you'll  get  wet."  "How!"  said  Sir 
Charles,  "  'tis  an  exceedingly  plea- 
sant night,  I  think,  after  such  a 
deuced  hot  day.  They  don't  know 
how  to  cool  rooms  here— this  perpe- 
tual wood  retains  heat  till  midnight, 
sir !  That  detestable  pitch  precludes 
walking — the  sea  absolutely  glares 
like  tin.  Why  do  you  suppose  so  now 
— eh,  young  gentleman  ?  "  said  he 
again,  turning  back,  all  of  a  sudden, 
with  his  daughter  on  his  arm.  "  Why 
—why — why,  Sir  Charles,"  said  I,  he- 
sitating betwixt  sham  innocence  and 
scarce  knowing  what  reason  to  give  ; 
"  why,  I  just  think — that  is  to  say,  it's 
my  feeling,  you  see."  "  Ah,  ah,  I  do 
see,"  replied  the  Judge,  good-hu- 
mouredly ;  "  but  you  shouldn't  ape 
the  sailor,  my  good  fellow,  as  I  fancy 
you  do  a  little.  I  don't  particularly 
admire  the  class,  but  they  always 
have  grounds  for  what  they  say  in 
theirprofession,  frequently  even  acute. 
At  your  aunt's,  Lady  Somers's,  now, 
Violet,  who  was  naturally  so  sur- 
rounded by  naval  officers,  what  I  had 
to  object  to  was,  not  their  want  of  in- 
telligence, but  their  forwardness.  Eh ! 
eh!  who — what  is  that?"  exclaimed 
he  suddenly,  looking  straight  up  into 
the  dark,  as  five  or  six  large  drops 
fell  on  his  face  out  of  it.  All  at  once 
you  heard  a  long  sigh,  as  it  were,  in 
the  canvass  aloft,  a  clap  like  two  or 
three  carronades  fired  off,  as  all  the 
sails  together  went  in  to  the  masts — 
then  a  hum  in  the  air  far  and  near — 
and  whish!  rush!  came  the  rain  in 
sheets  and  bucketfuls  off  the  edge  of 
a  cloud  over  our  very  heads,  plashing 
and  washing  about  the  deck  with  coils 
of  rope  ;  ship  rolling  without  a  breath 
of  wind  in  her  sails  ;  sails  flapping  out 
and  in ;  the  rain  pouring  down  ten 
times  faster  than  the  scupper- holes 
would  let  it  out,  and  smoking  gray  in 


202 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


the  dark  hollow  of  the  swells,  that 
sank  under  the  force  of  it.  The  first 
officer  came  on  deck,  roaring  in  the 
hubbub  to  clue  up  and  furl  the  royals 
before  the  wind  came  again.  It  got 
pitch-dark,  you  couldn't  see  your  hand 
before  you,  and  we  had  all  lost  mark 
of  each  other,  as  the  men  came  shoving 
in  between  us.  However  I  knew 
whereabouts  Miss  Hyde  was,  so  I  felt 
along  the  larboard  rigging  till  I  found  a 
backstay  clasped  in  her  hands,  and  the 
soaked  sleeve  of  her  muslin  dress, 
while  she  leant  back  on  a  carronade, 
to  keep  from  being  jerked  down  in  the 
water  that  washed  up  over  her  feet 
with  every  roll,  full  of  ropes  and  a 
capstan-bar  or  two.  Without  saying 
a  word,  I  took  up  Lota  in  my  arms,  and 
carried  her  aft  in  spite  of  the  roll  and 
confusion,  steering  for  the  glimmer  of 
the  binnacle,  till  I  got  her  inside  one 
of  their  own  cabins,  where  there  was 
a  lamp  swinging  about,  and  laid  her 
on  a  sofa.  I  felt  somehow  or  other, 
as  I  went,  that  the  sweet  creature 
hadn't  fainted,  though  all  the  while  as 
still  as  death ;  accordingly  I  made 
off  again  at  once  to  find  the 
Judge,  who,  no  doubt,  was  call- 
ing for  his  daughter,  with  a  poor 
chance  of  being  heard.  In  a  minute 
or  two  more  the  rain  was  over ;  it 
•was  light  enough  to  make  out  the 
horizon,  as  the  belt  of  foam  came 
broadening  out  of  it ;  the  ship  gave 
two  or  three  wild  bounds,  the  wheel 
jolting  and  creaking  :  up  swelled  the 
black  waves  again  over  one  side,  the 
topsails  flapped  full  as  the  squall 
rushed  roaring  into  them,  and  away 
she  rose  ;  then  tore  into  it  like  a 
scared  horse,  shaking  her  head  and 
throwing  the  snow-white  foam  into 
her  forechatns.  'Twas  as  much  as 
three  men  could  do  to  grind  down 
her  wheel,  leaning  and  grinning  to  it; 
yon  saw  just  the  Indiaman  herself, 
scarce  so  far  forward  as  the  booms, 
and  the  broad  swell  mounting  with 
her  out  of  the  dark,  as  she  slowly 
squared  yards  before  it,  taking  in 
to'gallant-sails  while  she  did  so,  with 
her  topsail-yards  lowered  on  the  caps. 
However,  the  look  of  it  was  worse  than 
its  force,  else  the  swell  wouldn't  have 
risen  so  fast,  as  every  sailor  knew ;  and 
by  two  bells  of  the  mid-watch  she  was 
bowling  under  all,  as  easy  as  before,  the 
mate  of  the  watch  setting  a  stunsail. 


When  I  went  down,  shaking  myself 
like  a  Newfoundland,  Westwood  was 
swinging  in  his  cot  with  a  book  turned 
to  the  lamp,  reading  Don  Quixote  in 
Spanish.  "  Bless  me,  Ned  !"  said  he, 
"  you  seem  to  like  it !  paying  fair  and 
weathering  it  too!"  "Only  a  little 
adventure,  Westwood! "  said  I,  laugh- 
ing. "  Why,  here  have  I  been  enjoy- 
ing better  adventures  than  we  seem 
likely  to  have,"  said  he,  "without 
stirring  a  hand,  except  for  the  wild 
swings  you  gave  me  from  deck. 
Here's  Don  Quixote — "  "  Don  Quixote 
be  hanged !"  said  I :  "  I'd  rather  wear 
ship  in  a  gale,  myself,  than  all  the 
humbug  that  never  happened — out  of 
an  infernal  play-book.  What's  the  use 
of  thinking  you  see  service,  when  you 
don't  ?  After  all,  you  couldn't  expect 
much  till  we've  crossed  the  Line — 
nothing  like  the  tropics,  or  the  Cape, 
for  thickening  a  plot,  Tom.  Then 
there's  the  Mozambique,  you  know  !" 
"Well,  we'll  see,"  said  Westwood, 
lazily,  and  half  asleep. 

The  whole  next  day  would  have 
been  weary  enough  in  itself,  as  not  a 
single  glimpse  of  the  fair  Lota  could 
I  catch  ;  and  the  weather,  between 
the  little  puffs  of  air  and  squalls  we 
had,  was  fit  to  have  melted  poor  Ford 
to  the  bone,  but  for  the  rain.  How- 
ever, that  day  was  sufficient,  by  fits 
and  starts,  to  bring  us  up  to  the  Line ; 
and,  before  crossing  it,  which  we  did 
by  six  o'clock  in  one  of  the  black 
squalls,  half  of  the  passengers  had 
been  pretty  well  ducked  by  Neptune 
and  his  gang,  besides.  Rare  fun  we 
had  of  it  for  three  or  four  hours  on 
end ;  the  cadets  and  writers  show- 
ing fight  in  a  body,  the  Yankee  being 
regularly  keelhauled,  tarred,  and 
feathered,  though  I  believe  lie  had 
crossed  the  Line  twice  by  land ;  while 
the  Scotch  surgeon  was  found  out,  in 
spite  his  caution,  never  to  have  been 
lower  than  the  West  Indies — so  he  got 
double  ration.  A  word  to  Jacobs 
took  Westwood  Scot-free  ;  but,  for 
my  own  part,  wishing  of  course  to 
blind  the  officers,  I  let  the  men  stick 
the  tar-brush  in  my  mouth  the  first 
word  I  spoke,  and  was  shaved  like 
the  mischief,  not  to  speak  of  plumping 
afterwards  behind  the  studding-sail 
curtain  into  three  feet  water,  where  I 
absolutely  saved  Ford  from  drowning, 
he  being  as  sick  as  a  dog. 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short  Yarn."— Part  III. 


203 


Late  at  night,  the  breeze  held  and 
freshened  ;  and,  being  Saturday  night, 
the  gentlemen  in  the  cuddy  kept  it 
uproariously  after  their  troubles, 
drinking  and  singing  songs,  Tom 
Little's  and  your  sentimental  affairs  ; 
till,  being  a  bit  flushed  myself,  I  was 
on  the  point  of  giving  them  one  of 
Dibdin's,  when  I  thought  better  of 
it,  and  went  on  deck  instead.  The 
mate  was  there,  however,  and  his 
red-whiskered  Scotch  sub  with  the 
twisted  snout,  leaning  on  the  capstan 
with  their  noses  together.  The  night 
was  dark,  and  the  ship  made  a  good 
noise  through  the  water ;  so  "  hang 
it ! "  thought  I,  "  somehow  or  other 
I'  11  have  out  a  stave  of  '  Black-eyed 
Susan  '  at  the  top  of  my  pipe,  though 
overboard  I  go  for  it !  "  There  was 
an  old  spare  topsail-yard  slung  along- 
side to  larboard,  as  far  as  the  quarter- 
boat,  and  I  went  up  to  the  poop  to 
get  over  and  sit  on  it;  especially 
when  I  found  Ford's  friend,  the  fat 
midshipman,  was  in  the  boat  itself, 
"  caulking "  *  his  watch  out,  as  he 
did  every  night  in  a  fresh  place.  I 
was  no  sooner  there,  again,  than  I 
saw  a  light  in  th^aftermost  gallery 
window,  and  tooHet  in  my  head  if  I 
sung  there,  why,  in  place  of  being 
afraid  there  was  some  one  under  her 
casement,  that  and  the  wind  and 
water  together  would  put  her  to  sleep, 
if  she  was  the  worse  of  last  night— 
in  fact  I  may  say  I  was  a  little 
"  slewed "  f  at  the  time.  How  to 
get  there,  though,  was  the-  matter,  it 
being  rather  nice  practice  to  sling 
over  an  Indiaman's  quarter- gallery, 
bulging  out  from  her  steep  counter : 
accordingly,  first  I  took  the  end  of  a 
coil  round  the  mizzen- shrouds,  and 
made  a  bowline- knot  to  creep  down 
the  stern- mouldings  with,  and  then 
swing  free  by  help  of  a  guide-line  to 
boot.  Just  before  letting  go  of  the 
taffrail,  another  fancy  struck  me,  to 
hitch  the  guide-line  to  the  trigger  of 
the  life-buoy  that  hung  ready  for  use ; 
not  that  I'd  the  notion  of  saving  my- 
self if  I  went  overboard,  but  just 
because  of  the  good  joke  of  a  fellow 
slipping  his  own  life-buoy,  and 
then  cruizing  away  with  a  light  at 
his  mast- head  back  to  the  Line.  'Twas 


curious — but  when  I  was  "  two  or 
three  cloths  in  the  wind,"  far  from 
growing  stupid,  I  used  always  to  get 
•a  sort  of  cunning  that  would  have 
made  me  try  and  cheat  a  purser  ;  so 
away  I  lowered  myself  till  the  rope 
was  taut,  when  I  slipped  easy  enough 
round  the  counter,  below  the  window. 
Every  time  she  rolled,  out  I  swung, 
and  in  again,  till  I  steadied  with  my 
feet,  slacking  off  the  other  line  from 
one  hand.  Then  I  began  to  give  voice 
like  old  Boreas  himself,  with  a  sort  of 
a  notion,  at  each  shove  I  got,  how  I 
was  rocking  the  Indiaman  like  a  big 
cradle,  as  Jacobs  did  his  baby.  All 
at  once,  I  felt  the  rope  was  giving  off 
the  belaying-pin,  till  I  came  down 
with  a  jolt  under  the  window  below ; 
only  singing  the  louder,  as  it  was  half 
open,  and  I  could  just  look  in.  With 
every  wash  of  the  waves,  the  water, 
a  couple  of  fathoms  under  my  feet, 
blazed  up  like  fire,  and  the  wake  ran 
boiling  out  from  the  black  stern  by 
the  rudder,  like  the  iron  out  of  a  fur- 
nace :  now  and  then  there  came  a 
sulky  flare  of  dumb  lightning  to  lee- 
ward, and  showed  the  black  swell  out 
of  the  dark  for  miles.  I  fancied  I 
didn't  care  for  the  water ,  but  I  began 
to  think  'twas  rather  uncomfortable 
the  notion  of  sousing  into  such  an  in- 
fernally flame- looking  stream :  I  was 
actually  in  a  fright  at  being  boiled, 
and  not  able  to  swim.  So  I  dropped 
chorus  to  haul  myself  up  ;  when  of  a 
sudden,  by  the  lamp  inside  the  state- 
room, I  saw  Winterton  and  Ford  come 
reeling  in,  one  after  the  other,  as 
drunk  as  lords.  Winterton  swayed 
about  quietly  on  his  legs  for  a  minute, 
and  then  looked  gravely  at  Ford,  as 
if  he'd  got  a  dreadful  secret  to  make 
known.  "Ford!"  said  he.  "Ay," 
said  Ford,  feeling  to  haul  off  his 
trousers, — "  ay — avast  you  —  blub- 
lub-lubber  1"  "I  say,  Ford !"  said  the 
cadet  again,  in  a  melancholy  way,  fit 
to  melt  a  maiTmspike,  and  then  fell 
to  cry — Ford  all  the  time  pulling  off 
his  trousers,  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth, 
till  he  got  on  a  chest,  and  contrived 
to  flounder  into  his  cot  with  his  coat 
on.  After  that  he  stretched  over  to 
put  the  lamp  out,  carefully  enough ; 
but  he  let  fall  his  cigar,  and  one  leg 


*  Sleeping  on  deck. 


Anglice — not  sober. 


204 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  III. 


[Aug. 


of  his  nankeen  trousers  hung  out  of 
the  cot,  just  scraping  the  deck  every 
time  he  swung.  I  watched,  accord- 
ingly, holding  on  by  the  sill,  till  I 
saw  a  spark  catch  in  the  stuff — and 
there  it  was,  swinging  slowly  away 
in  the  dark,  with  a  fiery  ring  creeping 
round  the  leg  of  the  trousers,  ready 
to  blow  into  a  flame  as  soon  as  it  had 
a  clear  swing.  No  doubt  the  fool 
•would  come  down  safe  enough  him- 
self with  his  cot ;  but  I  knew  Winter- 
ton  kept  powder  in  the  cabin  sufficient 
to  blow  up  the  deck  above,  where 
that  sweet  girl  was  sleeping  at  the 
moment.  "  Confound  it !"  I  thought, 
quite  cooled  by  the  sight,  "  the  sooner 
I  get  on  deck  the  better !"  However, 
you  may  fancy  my  thoughts  when  I 
heard  men  at  the  taffrail,  hauling  on 
the  spanker- boom  guys,  so  I  held  on 
till  they'd  go  forward  again  :  suddenly 
the  mate's  voice  sung  out  to  know 
"  what  lubber  had  belayed  the  slack 
of  a  topsail-clueline  here  ?  "  Down  I 
went  with  the  word,  as  the  rope  was 
thrown  off,  with  just  time  to  save 
myself  by  a  clutch  of  the  port-sill  at 
arm's-length — where,  heaven  knew,  I 
couldn't  keep  long.  The  mate  looked 
over  and  caught  sight  of  my  face,  by 
a  flicker  of  the  summer  lightning,  as 
I  was  slipping  down  :  I  gave  him  one 
••curse  as  loud  as  I  could  hail,  and  let 
go  the  moulding — "  Man  overboard !" 
shouted  he,  and  the  men  after  him: 
however  I  wasn't  altogether  over- 
board yet,  for  I  felt  the  other  part  of 
the  rope  bring  me  up  with  a  jerk  and 
a  swing  right  under  the  quarter-boat, 
where  I  clung  like  a  cat.  How  to 
get  on  deck  again,  without  being  seen, 
was  the  question,  and  anxious  enough 
I  was  at  thought  of  the  burning  train 
inside ;  when  out  jumped  some  one 
over  my  head :  I  heard  a  splash  in  the 
water,  and  saw  a  fellow's  face  go 
sinking  into  the  bright  wake  astern, 
while  the  boat  itself  was  coming  down 


over  me  from  the  davits.  I  still  had 
the  guide-line  from  the  life-buoy  round 
my  wrist,  and  one  moment's  thought 
was  enough  to  make  me  give  it  a 
furious  tug,  when  away  I  sprang  clear 
into  the  eddies.  The  first  thing  I 
saw  at  coming  up  was  the  ships' 
lighted  stern- windows  driving  to  lee- 
ward, then  the  life-buoy  flaring  and 
dipping  on  a  swell,  and  a  bare  head, 
with  two  hands,  sinking  a  few  feet  off. 
I  made  for  him  at  once,  and  held  him 
up  by  the  hair  as  I  struck  out  for  the 
buoy.  A  couple  of  minutes  after,  the 
men  in  the  boat  had  hold, of  us  and 
it ;  the  ship  came  sheering  round  to 
the  wind,  and  we  were  very  shortly 
aboard  again.  "  Confound  it,  Simm, 
what  took  you  overboard,  man'?" 
asked  the  mid  in  the  boat  at  his  drip- 
ping messmate,  the  fat  reefer.  "  Oh, 
bother !"  said  he,  "  if  you  must  know 
— why,  I  mistook  the  quarter-boats  ; 
I  thought  'twas  the  other  I  was  in, 
when  yon  kicked  up  that  shindy ! 
Now  I  remember,  though,  there  was 
too  much  rain  in  it  for  comfort !" 
"  Well,  youngster,"  said  Tom,  the 
man-o'-war'sman,  "  this  here  gentle- 
man saved  ywu*  life,  anyhow  !" 
"  Why,  mate,"  Miispered  Bill,  "  'tis 
the  wery  same  greenhorn  we  puck- 
alowed  so  to-day !  Didn't  he  jump 
sharp  over,  too?"  "Pull!  for  your 
lives,  my  lads !"  said  I,  looking  up  at 
Ford's  window ;  and  the  moment  we 
got  on  deck,  below  I  ran  into  the 
state-room,  and  cut  Ford  down  by 
the  heels,  with  the  tinder  hanging 
from  him,  and  one  leg  of  his  trousers 
half  gone.  As  for  the  poor  reefer,  a 
pretty  blowing-up  he  got;  the  men 
swore  I  had  jumped  overboard  after 
him,  and  the  mate  would  have  it  that, 
instead  of  sleeping,  he  wanted  to  get 
into  the  Judge's  cabins ;  especially 
when  next  day  Sir  Charles  was  in  a 
rage  at  his  daughter  being  disturbed  by 
some  sailor  or  other  singing  outside. 


1849.]  For  the  Last  Page  of  "  Our  Album:1  205 


FOR  THE  LAST  PAGE  OF  "  OUR  ALBUM." 

AT  length  our  pens  must  find  repose ! 
With  verse,  or  with  poetic  prose, 

Filled  is  each  nook ; 
And  these  poor  little  rhymes  must  close 

Our  pleasant  book ! 

Its  every  page  is  filled  at  last ! 
When  on  these  leaves  my  eyes  I  cast, 

Dull  thoughts  to  cheer, 
How  many  memories  of  the  past 

Seem  written  here ! 

Those  who  behold  a  river  run 
Bright  glittering  in  the  noonday  sun, 

See  not  its  source ; 
And  few  can  know  whence  has  begun 

Its  giddy  course ! 

And  thus  the  feelings  that  gave  rise 
To  many  a  verse  that  meets  their  eyes 

How  few  can  tell ! 
Yet  for  those  feelings  gone,  I  prize 

And  love  it  well ! 

Some  stanzas  were  composed  to  grace 
An  hour  of  pleasure, — some  to  chase 

Sad  care  away ; 
Aiid  some  to  help  on  time's  slow  pace 

Which  would  delay ! 

In  some,  we  trace  affection's  tone 

To  friends  then  kind,— now  colder  grown 

By  force  or  art ; 
In  some,  the  shade  of  hopes,  now  gone, 

Then,  next  the  heart ! 

Such  fancies  with  each  line  I  weave, 
And  thus  our  book  I  cannot  leave 

Without  a  sigh ! 
Fond  recollections  make  me  grieve 

To  lay  it  by! 

How  other  hands,  perchance,  than  mine, 
A  fairer  wreath  for  it  might  twine, 

'Twere  vain  to  tell ; 
I  can  but  say,  in  one  brief  line, 

Dear  Book,  Farewell ! 


206 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


[Aug. 


THE  INSURRECTION  IN  BADEN. 


(TO  THE  EDITOR  OF  BLACKWOOD'S  MAGAZINE.) 


SIR, — I  chanced  to  be  at  Heidel- 
berg at  the  outbreak  of  the  late  revo- 
lutionary movement,  and  remained 
there,  or  in  the  neighbourhood,  during 
its  entire  duration.  It  occurs  to  me 
that  a  brief  narrative  of  the  leading 
events  of  that  period  of  confusion  and 
anarchy,  from  the  pen  of  one  who  was 
not  only  an  eye-witness  of  all  that 
passed,  but  who,  from  long  residence 
in  this  part  of  Germany,  has  a  pretty 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  real 
condition  and  feelings  of  the  people, 
may  prove  suitable  to  the  pages,  and 
not  uninteresting  to  the  readers,  of 
BlackwoocCs  Magazine. 

At  a  public  meeting  held  at  Offen- 
burg,  in  the  duchy  ofBaden,  on  the  13th 
of  May  1849,  and  which  was  attended 
by  many  of  the  most  violent  members 
of  the  German  republican  party,  it 
was  resolved  that  the  constitution 
voted  by  the  national  assembly  at 
Frankfort  should  be  acknowledged ; 
that  Brentano  and  Peter  should  be 
charged  with  the  formation  of  a  new 
ministry ;  that  Struve,  and  all  other 
political  offenders,  should  be  forthwith 
set  at  liberty ;  that  the  selection  of 
officers  for  the  army  should  be  left  to 
the  choice  of  the  privates  ;  and  lastly, 
that  the  movement  in  the  Palatinate 
(Rhenish  Bavaria)  should  be  fully 
supported  by  the  government  of 
Baden. 

For  the  information  of  those  who 
have  not  closely  followed  the  late 
course  of  events  in  Germany,  it  may 
be  necessary  to  mention,  that  early  in 
the  month  of  May  a  revolutionary 
movement,  the  avowed  object  of  which 
was  to  force  the  King  to  acknowledge 
the  constitution  drawn  up  by  the  par- 
liament at  Frankfort,  had  broken  out 
in  Rhenish  Bavaria.  A  provisional 
government  had  been  formed,  the 
public  money  seized,  forced  contribu- 
tions levied,  and  the  entire  Palatinate 
declared  independent  of  Bavaria.  The 
leaders  of  the  insurrection  had  been 
joined  by  a  portion  of  discontented 
military;  and,  in  an  incredibly  short 
space  of  time,  the  whole  province, 
with  the  exception  of  the  fortresses  of 


Germersheim  and  Landau,  had  fallen 
into  their  hands. 

Although  the  declared  motive  of 
the  Oflenbnrg  assembly  was  to  support 
this  movement,  and  thus  oblige  the 
reigning  princes  to  bow  to  the  decrees 
of  the  central  parliament,  there  is 
little  doubt  that  a  long -formed  and 
widely- extended  conspiracy  existed, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  proclaim  a 
republic  throughout  Germany.  The 
meeting  in  question  was  attended  by 
upwards  of  twenty  thousand  persons, 
many  of  whom  were  soldiers,  seduced 
by  promises  of  increased  pay,  and  of 
the  future  right  to  elect  their  officers. 
Money  was  plentifully  distributed ; 
and  towards  evening  the  mob,  mad 
with  drink  and  excitement,  returned, 
howling  revolutionary  songs,  to  their 
homes.  At  the  very  time  this  was 
going  on,  a  mutiny  in  the  garrison  of 
Rastadt  had  placed  that  fortress 
in  the  power  of  about  four  thousand 
soldiers,  many  of  them  raw  recruits. 
This  extraordinary  event,  apparently 
the  result  of  a  drunken  quarrel,  was 
shrewdly  suspected  to  be  part  of  a 
deep-laid  scheme  for  supporting  the 
movement,  which  was  expected  to 
follow  the  next  day's  meeting  at 
Offenburg.  If  such  were  the  hopes  of 
the  leaders,  they  were  not  disappoint- 
ed ;  the  train  was  laid,  and  wanted 
but  a  spark  to  fire  it.  The  result  of 
the  Offenburg  meeting  was  known  at 
Carlsruhe  by  six  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing of  the  day  of  its  occurrence  ;  and 
on  the  same  evening,  some  riotous 
soldiers  having  been  placed  in  confine- 
ment, their  comrades  insisted  on  their 
release.  In  vain  did  the  officers, 
headed  by  Prince  Frederick,  (the 
Grand-duke's  second  son,)  endeavour 
to  appease  them ;  they  were  grossly 
insulted,  and  the  prince  received  a 
sabre  cut  on  the  head.  It  is  thought 
by  many  persons  that  if,  at  this  time, 
energetic  measures  had  been  taken, 
the  whole  movement  might  have  been 
crushed. 

But  with  citizens  timid  or  luke- 
warm, and  soldiers  the  greater  num- 
ber of  whom  were  in  open  mutiny,  it 


1849.] 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


207 


is  difficult  to  say  where  the  repressive 
power  was  to  have  been  found.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  the  barracks  were  de- 
molished, the  stores  broken  open  and 
robbed;  and  by  eleven  o'clock  that 
night  the  ducal  family,  and  as  many 
of  the  ministers  and  attendants  as 
could  find  the  means  of  evasion,  were 
in  full  flight.  With  arms  supplied  by 
the  plunder  of  the  barracks,  the  mob 
next  attacked  the  arsenal,  which  was 
under  the  protection  of  the  national 
guard.  A  squadron  of  dragoons  who 
came  to  assist  the  latter  were  fired 
on  by  both  parties,  and  the  captain,  a 
promising  young  officer,  was  killed  on 
the  spot.  The  dragoons,  seeing  their 
efforts  to  support  the  citizens  thus 
misinterpreted,  retired,  and  left  the 
arsenal  to  its  fate. 

Early  next  morning,  a  provisional 
government,  headed  by  Brentano  and 
Fickler,  was  proclaimed,  to  which  all 
people  were  summoned  to  swear  obe- 
dience ;  and,  absurdly  enough,  the 
very  men,  soldiers  and  citizens,  who 
the  day  before  had,  with  the  ac- 
quiescence of  the  duke,  taken  an  oath 
of  allegiance  to  the  empire,  now  swore 
to  be  faithful  to  the  new  order  of 
things.  The  news  of  the  outbreak 
spread  like  wildfire.  It  was  received 
with  particular  exultation  in  the  towns 
of  Mannheim  and  Heidelberg;  in  the 
latter  of  which  a  very  republican 
spirit  prevailed,  and  where,  at  the 
first  call,  the  national  guard  assem- 
bled, eager  to  display  their  valour — 
in  words.  It  was  not  long  before  their 
mettle  was  put  to  the  proof.  The 
Duke,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
fortress  of  Germersheim,  had  been 
escorted  in  his  flight  by  about  three 
hundred  dragoons,  with  sixteen  pieces 
of  artillery.  These  brave  fellows,  who 
had  remained  faithful  to  their  sove- 
reign, attempted,  after  leaving  him  in 
safety,  to  make  their  way  to  Frank- 
fort. As  every  inch  of  the  country 
they  had  to  traverse  was  in  open  re- 
volt, the  circumstance  was  soon  known 
at  Heidelberg,  where,  late  in  the 
evening,  the  tocsin  rang,  to  summon 
the  peasants  from  the  neighbouring 
villages,  and  the  generate  beat  through 
the  streets  to  call  the  citizens  to  arms, 
in  order  that  parties  might  be  sent 
out  to  intercept  the  soldiers.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  describe  the  panic  that 
prevailed  in  Heidelberg  at  the  first 


sound  of  this  terrible  drum.  The 
most  ridiculous  and  contradictory  re- 
ports were  circulated.  That  some 
great  danger  was  at  hand,  all  agreed ; 
and  the  story  generally  credited 
was,  that  the  peasants  of  the  Oden- 
wald  were  coming  down,  ten  thousand 
strong,  to  plunder  the  town.  When 
the  real  cause  of  the  disturbance  was 
discovered,  it  may  be  doubted  whether, 
to  many,  the  case  appeared  much 
mended ;  for,  besides  the  disinclination 
a  set  of  peaceable  tradesmen  might 
feel  to  attack  a  body  of  dragoons, 
backed  by  sixteen  pieces  of  artillery, 
many  of  those  who  were  summoned 
from  their  beds  were  secretly  opposed 
to  the  cause  they  were  called  upon  to 
serve.  But  there  was  no  remedy ; 
and,  amidst  the  tears  and  shrieks  of 
women,  the  ringing  of  bells,  and  beat- 
ing of  drums,  the  first  detachment 
marched  off.  No  sooner  did  they  ar- 
rive at  the  supposed  scene  of  action, 
than,  seized  with  a  sudden  panic, 
caused  by  a  row  of  trees  which,  in 
the  dark,  they  mistook  for  the  enemy 
in  battle  array,  they  faced  about,  and 
fairly  ran  for  it  till  they  found  them- 
selves once  more  in  Heidelberg. 

The  consequences  were  more  serious 
to  some  of  the  members  of  a  second 
party,  despatched  to  Ladenburg.  In 
the  middle  of  the  night,  the  sentry 
posted  on  the  bridge  mistook  the  trot- 
ting of  some  stray  donkey  for  a  charge 
of  dragoons,  and  firing  his  rifle,  with- 
out farther  deliberation  he  threw  him- 
self over  the  bridge,  breaking  a  thigh 
and  a  couple  of  ribs  in  the  fall.  The 
others  stood  their  ground ;  but  it  is 
well  known  that  several  of  the  party 
were  laid  up  next  day  with  nervenfeber, 
(a  sort  of  low  typhus,)  brought  on  by 
the  fear  and  agitation  they  had  under- 
gone. 

These  facts  are  merely  mentioned 
to  show  that,  had  the  government,  at 
the  commencement  of  the  outbreak, 
made  the  slightest  show  of  firmness, 
they  would  not  have  met  with  the  re- 
sistance which  they  afterwards  found. 

The  dragoons,  after  dodging  about 
for  two  days  and  nights,  worn  out 
with  fatigue  and  hunger,  at  length 
allowed  themselves  to  be  captured 
near  the  frontiers  of  Wurtemberg. 
It  seems  that  the  soldiers  positively 
refused  to  make  use  of  their  arms  after 
the  Duke's  flight,  which,  indeed,  is 


208 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


[Aug. 


the  only  way  of  accounting  for  three 
hundred  mounted  dragoons,  with  six- 
teen pieces  of  artillery  fully  supplied 
with  ammunition,  falling  into  the 
hands  of  as  many  peasants,  who  would 
undoubtedly  have  fled  at  the  first  shot 
fired. 

Whilst  these  events  passed,  the 
reins  of  government  at  Carlsruhe  had 
been  seized  by  Brentano,  Peter,  Fick- 
ler,  and  Goegg — the  latter  a  convicted 
felon.  Struve  and  Blind,  condemned 
to  eight  years'  imprisonment  for  their 
rebellion  the  year  before,  were  re- 
leased, and,  with  their  friends,  took  a 
prominent  part  in  the  formation  of  the 
new  ministry.  The  war  department 
was  given  to  a  Lieutenant  Eichfeld, 
who,  by  the  way,  had  some  time  pre- 
viously quitted  the  service,  on  account 
of  a  duel  in  which  he  displayed  the 
white  feather.  His  first  measure  was 
to  order  the  whole  body  of  soldiers, 
now  entirely  deprived  of  their  officers, 
to  select  others  from  the  ranks.  The 
choice  was  just  what  might  have  been 
expected ;  and  instances  occurred  in 
which  recruits  of  three  weeks'  stand- 
ing passed  at  once  to  the  rank  of 
captain  and  major.  All  discipline 
was  soon  at  an  end.  The  army,  con- 
sisting of  17,000  men,  was  placed 
under  the  command  of  Lieutenant 
Sigel,  a  young  man  of  twenty-two, 
Avhose  sole  claims  to  preferment  seem 
to  have  been,  that  he  was  compro- 
mised in  Struve's  abortive  attempt  at 
Friburg,  and  had  since  contributed  a 
number  of  articles,  violently  abusive  of 
the  government,  to  some  low  revolu- 
tionary newspapers.  Head-quarters 
were  established  at  Heidelberg,  where 
Sigel,  accompanied  by  Eichfeld,  ar- 
rived on  the  19th  of  May. 

The  pecuniary  affairs  of  the  insur- 
gents were  in  the  most  flourishing 
•condition.  Seven  millions  of  florins 
(about  £560,000)  were  found  in  the 
war-chest,  besides  two  and  a  half 
millions  of  paper-money,  and  large 
sums  belonging  to  other  departments  of 
the  ministry.  Their  stock  of  arms  con- 
sisted of  seventy  thousand  muskets, 
without  reckoning  those  of  the  national 
guard  and  military.  Thus  equipped  and 
supplied,  they  would  have  been  able, 
Avith  a  little  drill,  and  if  properly 
commanded,  to  make  a  long  stand 
against  the  regular  forces  sent  against 
them.  By  this  time,  too,  the  country 


was  fast  filling  with  political  refugees 
of  all  shades  of  opinion.  Italians, 
Swiss,  Poles,  and  French  were  daily 
pouring  in  ;  and  the  well-known  Met- 
teunich,  of  Mayenee  celebrity,  who 
had  not  been  heard  of  since  his  flight 
from  the  barricades  at  Frankfort, 
again  turned  up  as  commander  of  a 
free  corps.  A  sketch  of  his  costume 
will  give  a  pretty  fair  idea  of  that 
adopted  by  all  those  who  wished  to 
distinguish  themselves  as  ultra-libe- 
rals. He  wore  a  white  broad-  brimmed 
felt  hat,  turned  up  on  one  side,  with  a 
large  red  feather ;  a  blue  kittel  or 
smock-frock ;  a  long  cavalry  sabre 
swung  from  his  belt,  in  which  were 
stuck  a  pair  of  ponderous  horse  pistols ; 
troopers'  boots,  reaching  to  the  middle 
of  the  thigh,  were  garnished  with 
enormous  spurs,  and  across  his  breast 
flamed  a  crimson  scarf,  the  badge  of 
the  red  republican. 

In  order  to  extend  the  revolt,  and 
to  place  Baden  in  a  state  of  defence 
before  the  governments  should  recover 
from  their  panic,  the  most  energetic 
measures  were  taken.  A  decree  was 
issued  for  arming  the  whole  male 
population,  from  eighteen  to  thirty 
years  of  age  ;  and  as  in  many  instances 
the  peasantry  proved  refractory,  a  tax 
of  fifty  florins  per  day  was  laid  on  all 
recusants,  who,  when  discovered,  were 
taken  by  force  to  join  the  army. 
Raveaux,  Trutschler,  Erbe,  and 
Frobel,  the  latter  that  friend  of 
Robert  Blum,  who  so  narrowly 
escaped  the  cord  when  his  companion 
was  shot, — made  their  appearance  at 
Carlsruhe.  They  issued  a  violent 
proclamation  against  the  King  of 
Prussia,  and,  the  better  to  disguise 
their  real  object,  called  on  all  Germany 
to  arm  in  defence  of  the  parliament  at 
Frankfort,  and  the  provisional  govern- 
ment of  Baden.  Every  artifice,  no 
matter  how  disreputable,  that  could 
serve  the  cause,  was  unscrupulously 
resorted  to.  It  was  officially  an- 
nounced that  Wiirtemberg  and  Hesse- 
Darmstadt  were  only  waiting  a 
favourable  opportunity  to  join  the 
movement ;  and  to  further  this  object, 
a  public  meeting  (which  it  was  hoped 
would  bring  forth  the  same  fruits  at 
Darmstadt,  as  that  of  Offenburg  had 
produced  at  Carlsruhe)  was  called  by 
the  radicals  of  the  Odenwald.  It 
took  place  at  Laudenbach,  a  village 


1849.] 

situated  about  three 
the  Hessian  frontier,  and  was  at- 
tended by  upwards  of  six  thousand 
armed  peasants,  and  by  three  or 
four  thousand  of  the  Baden  free 
corps.  The  authorities  were,  how- 
ever, on  the  alert;  and  after  a 
fruitless  summons  to  the  insurgents 
to  quit  the  territory,  the  military  were 
called  out.  Before  orders  to  fire  were 
given,  the  civil  commissary,  desirous 
to  avoid  effusion  of  blood,  advanced 
alone  towards  the  crowd,  endeavour- 
ing to  persuade  them  to  retire  peace- 
ably. He  was  barbarously  murdered  ; 
and  the  sight  of  his  dead  body  so 
incensed  the  Hessian  soldiers,  that 
they  rushed  forward  without  waiting 
for  the  word  of  command,  and  with 
one  volley  put  the  whole  mob  of  in- 
surgents to  flight. 

The  spirit  displayed  on  this  occa- 
sion probably  saved  the  country  from 
a  bloody  civil  war ;  for  had  the  revolu- 
tionary ^movement  passed  the  frontiers 
of  Baden,  at  that  moment  the  flame 
would  doubtless  have  spread  to  Wiir- 
temberg,  and  thence  not  improbably 
to  the  whole  of  Germany,  with  the 
exception  perhaps  of  Prussia. 

To  counteract  the  very  unsatisfac- 
tory effect  of  the  meeting  at  Lauden- 
bach,  it  was  resolved,  by  a  council 
held  at  Carlsruhe,  that  a  bold  stroke 
should  be  struck.  The  Hessians, 
hitherto  unsupported  by  other  troops, 
could  not  command  anything  like  the 
numerical  force  of  Baden,  and  Sigel 
received  orders  to  cross  the  frontier 
with  all  his  disposable  troops.  Four 
battalions  of  the  line,  with  about  six 
thousand  volunteers,  were  reviewed  at 
Heidelberg  before  taking  the  field. 
They  were  indeed  a  motley  crew  !  The 
soldiers,  who  had  helped  themselves 
from  the  stores  at  Carlsruhe  to  what- 
ever best  suited  their  fancy,  appeared 
on  parade  equipped  accordingly.  Sha- 
kos, helmets,  caps,  greatcoats,  frocks, 
full-dress  and  undress  uniforms,  all 
figured  in  the  same  ranks.  The  so- 
called  officers,  in  particular,  cut  a 
pitiful  figure.  If  the  smart  uniform 
and  epaulette  could  have  disguised 
the  clownish  recruit,  who  had  perhaps 
figured  but  a  few  weeks  in  the  ranks, 
the  license  of  his  conduct  would  soon 
have  betrayed  him ;  for  officers  and 
privates,  arm  in  arm,  and  excessively 
drunk,  might  constantly  be  seen  reel- 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 
miles    within     ing  through 


209 

the  streets.  The  free 
corps,  unwilling  to  be  outdone  by  the 
regulars,  indulged  in  all  sorts  of 
theatrical  dresses,  yellow  and  red 
boots  being  in  great  favour ;  whilst 
one  fellow,  claiming  no  lower  rank 
than  that  of  colonel,  actually  rode 
about  in  a  blouse  and  white  cotton 
drawers,  with  Hessian  boots  and 
large  gold  tassels. 

As  it  was  strongly  suspected  that 
the  soldiers  placed  little  confidence  in 
their  new  leaders,  and  the  free  corps, 
many  of  whom  were  serving  against 
their  own  wishes,  seemed  equally 
unwilling  to  risk  their  lives  under 
such  commanders  as  Metternich  and 
Bb'nin,  (a  watchmaker  from  Wies- 
baden,) all  sorts  of  artifices  were 
resorted  to,  to  encourage  both  regulars 
and  irregulars.  Their  whole  force 
might  amount  to  thirty  thousand 
men ;  but,  by  marches  and  counter- 
marches, similar  to  those  by  which, 
in  a  theatre,  a  few  dozen  of  soldiers 
are  made  to  represent  thousands,  they 
so  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  ignorant, 
that  it  was  believed  their  army 
numbered  nearly  a  hundred  thou- 
sand men.  The  cavalry,  in  parti- 
cular, which  were  quartered  in  Heidel- 
berg, were  marched  out  and  in  again 
five  times  in  as  many  days — at  each 
appearance  being  hailed  as  a  fresh 
regiment.  Soothsayers  and  prophets 
were  also  consulted,  and  interpreted 
divers  passages  in  holy  writ  as  fore- 
telling the  defeat  of  the  Prussians,  and 
the  success  of  the  "  Army  of  Free- 
dom." But  the  trick  which,  no  doubt, 
had  the  greatest  influence  on  the 
minds  of  the  poor  duped  people  was  a 
forged  declaration,  purporting  to  be 
one  put  forth  by  the  Hessian  troops, 
professing  their  intention  of  throwing 
down  their  arms  on  the  approach  of 
their  "  German  brothers." 

On  the  28th  of  May,  the  insur- 
gents, ten  thousand  in  number,  crossed 
the  frontier  of  Hesse-Darmstadt.  The 
Hessians,  with  three  battalions  of 
infantry,  a  couple  of  six-pounders, 
and  a  squadron  of  light  cavalry, 
waited  their  approach ;  and  having 
withdrawn  their  outposts,  (a  move- 
ment interpreted  into  a  flight  by  the 
opposite  party,)  they  suddenly  opened 
a  severe  fire  on  the  advancing  col- 
umns— driving  them  back  to  Wein- 
heim,  with  a  loss  of  upwards  of  fifty 


210 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


[Aug. 


killed  and  wounded.  The  affair  com- 
menced  at  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, and  by  ten  at  night  the  whole 
insurgent  force  arrived  pell-mell  at 
Heidelberg.  Officers  and  dragoons 
led  the  van,  followed  by  artillery, 
infantry,  baggage-waggons,  and  free 
corps,  mingled  together  in  the  utmost 
disorder.  They  had  run  from  Wein- 
heim,  a  distance  of  twelve  miles,  in 
three  hours — driven  by  their  fears 
only ;  for  the  Hessians,  too  weak 
to  take  advantage  of  their  victory, 
and  content  with  driving  them  from 
their  own  territory,  waited  rein- 
forcements before  attempting  farther 
hostilities. 

This  check  was  a  sad  damper  to  the 
ardour  of  the  insurgents.  It  was  neces- 
sary to  find  some  one  on  whom  to  fix 
the  blame  ;  and  as  the  dragoons  were 
known  to  be  unfavourable  to  the  new 
order  of  things,  the  official  account  of 
the  affair  stated  that  the  enemy  would 
have  been  thoroughly  beaten,  had  the 
cavalry  charged  when  ordered  so  to  do. 

This  was  the  only  action  fought 
under  Sigel's  generalship — as  a  speci- 
men of  which  it  may  be  mentioned 
that  the  band  of  the  Guards  was  sent 
into  action  at  the  head  of  the  regi- 
ment, and  lost  five  men  by  the  first 
volley  fired.  Whatever  the  reason, 
Sigel  was  removed  from  his  functions 
next  day,  and  Eichfeld,  disgusted 
with  such  an  opening  to  the  cam- 
paign, changed  his  place  of  minister 
of  war  for  a  colonelcy  in  the  Guards  ; 
and,  pocketing  a  month's  pay,  took 
himself  quietly  off,  and  has  never 
been  heard  of  since. 

As  it  was  now  evident  there  could 
be  no  hopes  of  the  Hessians  joining 
the  movement,  the  tactics  were 
changed,  and  the  most  violent  abuse 
was  lavished  on  them  by  the  organs 
of  the  provisional  government.  The 
vilest  calumnies  were  resorted  to,  to 
exasperate  the  Baden  troops  against 
them,  such  as  that  they  tortured  and 
massacred  their  prisoners,  &c. 

Sigel  had  succeeded  Eichfeld  as  mi- 
nister of  war;  and  as  it  was  tolerably 
clear  that  they  possessed  no  general 
fit  to  lead  their  army  to  the  field, 
Meiroslawski  was  invited  to  take  the 
command.  A  large  sum  of  money 
was  sent  to  him  in  Paris,  and,  while 
waiting  his  arrival,  it  was  determined 
to  act  strictly  on  the  defensive.  With 


this  object  the  whole  line  of  the 
Neckar,  from  Mannheim  to  Eberbach 
and  Mosbach,  was  strongly  fortified ; 
and  the  regular  troops  were  withdrawn 
from  Eastadt,  and  concentrated  on 
the  Hessian  frontier. 

At  length  the  Polish  adventurer, 
whose  arrival  had  been  so  impatiently 
expected,  made  his  appearance  at 
Heidelberg.  Meiroslawski,  a  native 
of  the  grand-duchy  of  Posen,  began, 
his  career  as  a  cadet  in  the  Prussian 
service.  In  the  Polish  revolution  of 
1832  he  played  an  active  part,  and 
was  deeply  implicated  in  the  plot 
concocted  at  Cracow  in  1846,  which 
brought  such  dreadful  calamities  on' 
the  unfortunate  inhabitants  of  Gal- 
licia.  For  the  second  time  he  took 
refuge  in  France,  and  only  returned 
to  his  native  country  to  join  the  out- 
break at  Posen  in  1848.  There  he  con- 
trived to  get  himself  into  a  Prussian, 
prison,  from  which,  however,  he  was 
after  a  time  released.  He  next  led 
the  ranks  of  the  Sicilian  insurgents ; 
and  on  the  submission  of  the  island 
to  the  Neapolitan  troops,  had  scarcely 
time  to  gain  his  old  asylum,  France, 
before  he  was  called  on  to  aid  the 
revolutionists  of  Baden.  He  is  -a 
man  of  about  forty  years  of  age,  of 
middle  height,  slightly  built,  and,  so 
long  as  he  is  on  foot,  of  military  car- 
riage and  appearance ;  but  seen  on 
horseback,  riding  like  a  postilion 
rather  than  a  soldier,  the  effect  is  not 
so  good.  His  eyes  are  large  and  ex- 
pressive, his  nose  aquiline,  and  the 
lower  part  of  his  face  covered  with  a 
large  sandy  beard,  which  descends  to 
the  middle  of  his  breast.  Sixty  of 
the  Duke's  horses,  left  in  the  stables 
at  Carlsruhe,  were  sent  to  mount  him 
and  his  aides-de-camp.  Poles,  Swiss, 
desperadoes  of  every  description,  re- 
ceived commissions,  and  were  attached 
to  the  staff,  the  members  of  which, 
when  assembled,  were  not  unlike  a 
group  of  masqueraders.  Accidents, 
such  as  stumbling  over  their  own 
sabres  or  their  comrades'  spurs,  were 
of  common  occurrence.  Sometimes  a 
horse  and  his  rider  would  be  seen  roll- 
ing over  together ;  for,  excepting  one 
gentleman,  whose  rank  I  could  not 
learn,  but  who  had  figured  as  rider  at 
an  equestrian  circus  that  had  attended 
the  fair,  none  of  the  party  looked  as  if 
they  had  ever  mounted  a  horse  before. 


1849.] 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


211 


The  first  step  taken  by  the  govern- 
ment, after  Meiroslawski's  arrival, 
was  to  make  a  formal  treaty  of  al- 
liance with  the  provisional  govern- 
ment of  Rhenish  Bavaria,  in  pursuance 
of  one  of  whose  provisions  a  plentiful 
supply  of  artillery  was  sent  from  the 
fortress  of  Rastadt,  to  furnish  the 
army  in  that  part  of  the  country. 
That  the  two  governments  were  in 
constant  communication  with  Ledru 
Rollin  and  his  friends,  is  now  an 
authenticated  fact,  as  well  as  that 
their  chief  hopes  of  success  were  built 
on  the  assistance  they  expected  to  re- 
ceive from  Paris.  So  confidently  did 
they  anticipate  the  overthrow,  by  the 
Montague  party,  of  the  present  order 
of  things  in  France,  that  on  the  very 
morning  the  attempt  took  place  in 
Paris,  placards  were  posted  up  in 
Carlsruhe,  Mannheim,  and  Heidelberg, 
announcing  that  the  citadel  of  Stras- 
burg  was  in  the  hands  of  the  de- 
mocrats, who  were  hastening  with 
a  hundred  thousand  men  to  the  as- 
sistance of  their  friends  in  Baden. 

Until  the  arrival  of  Meiroslawski, 
Brentano  had  refused  to  put  in  exe- 
cution the  rigorous  measures  urged  on 
him  by  Struve  and  his  party ;  but 
things  were  now  conducted  differently. 
Numbers  of  persons  were  cast  into 
prison  without  any  formal  accusation. 
One  clergyman  in  particular,  thrown 
into  a  miserable  dungeon,  and  kept 
for  weeks  in  solitary  confinement, 
entirely  lost  his  senses,  and,  on  the 
arrival  of  his  liberators,  the  Prussians, 
had  to  be  taken  to  a  lunatic  asylum, 
where  he  still  remains.  The  whole 
country  was  declared  to  be  under 
martial  law,  and  notice  was  given 
that  anybody  expressing  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  government  would  be 
severely  punished.  No  person  whom 
the  malice  or  ignorance  of  the  mob 
might  choose  to  consider  a  spy  was 
safe  :  many  of  the  principal  shops  in 
the  towns  were  closed,  the  proprietors 
having  sent  off  or  concealed  their 
goods,  and  fled  the  country.  Persons 
known  to  be  inimical  to  the  govern- 
ment were  punished  for  their  opinions 
by  contributions  being  levied  on  their 
property,  or  soldiers  billeted  in  their 
houses.  Count  Obendorf,  who  has  a 
chateau  in  the  vicinity  of  Heidelberg, 
had  no  less  than  seven  hundred  and 
twenty  men  quartered  on  him  at  one 


time.  Complaint  was  unavailing  ; 
tyranny  and  terrorism  reigned 
throughout  the  land. 

In  order  to  give  the  semblance  of 
legality  to  their  proceedings,  the  elec- 
tions'for  a  new  chamber  commenced. 
It  will  readily  be  imagined  that  none 
but  the  friends  of  those  in  power  pre- 
sented themselves  as  candidates :  the 
deputies  were  therefore,  without  ex- 
ception, the  intimates  or  supporters 
of  Brentano  &  Co.  The  first  act  of 
the  new  assembly  was  to  dissolve  the 
Landes-auschuss,  or  provisional  go- 
vernment, as  being  too  numerous  a 
body  to  act  with  the  required  vigour ; 
and  a  dictatorial  triumvirate,  composed 
of  Brentano,  Peter,  and  Goegg,  was 
appointed  in  its  stead. 

By  this  time  serious  dissensions  had 
broken  out  among  the  leading  mem- 
bers of  the  democratic  party.  Bren- 
tano had  quarrelled  with  Struve,  who 
was  resolved  on  nothing  less  than  the 
proclamation  of  the  red  republic. 
Finding  his  friends  at  Carlsruhe  op- 
posed to  this  attempt,  he  called  a 
public  meeting  at  Mannheim.  Here 
again  his  efforts  were  unsuccessful, 
the  soldiers  especially  being  opposed 
to  his  doctrines.  As  the  Wurtemberg 
deputies  had  always  figured  among 
the  most  violent  of  the  left,  or  republi- 
can party,  at  Frankfort,  and  late  events 
had  given  rise  to  the  idea  that  the 
people  of  that  country  were  disposed 
to  support  the  movement  in  Baden, 
Fickler  was  sent  to  Stuttgardt,  with  a 
considerable  sum  of  money  to  corrupt 
the  soldiers ;  and  in  full  expectation  of 
the  success  of  his  mission,  billets  were 
made  out  for  three  thousand  men,  who, 
it  was  stated,  were  to  arrive  in  the 
evening  at  Heidelberg.  Disappoint- 
ment ensued.  The  Wiirtembergers, 
satisfied  with  having  forced  from  their 
king  a  promise  to  accept  the  constitu- 
tion in  support  of  which  the  Badeners 
professed  to  be  fighting,  were  not  in- 
clined to  bring  further  trouble  and 
confusion  into  their  country,  and 
Fickler  was  thrown  into  prison.  This 
untoward  event,  had  the  Baden  revo- 
lution lasted  much  longer,  was  to  have 
produced  a  terrible  war  between  the 
two  countries.  The  Wurtemberg 
minister,  however,  laughed  at  the 
insurgent  government's  absurd  and 
impotent  threats,  and  Fickler  still 
remains  in  confinement. 


212 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


[Aug. 


The  first  week  after  Meiroslawski's 
arrival  was  taken  up  with  preparations 
for  opening  the  campaign  on  a  grand 
scale.  Upwards  of  fifty  thousand  men 
were  collected  on  the  Hessian  frontiers, 
from  which  side  it  was  expected  that 
the  enemy  would  make  their  attack. 
At  the  same  time,  the  Hessians  hav- 
ing been  reinforced  by  troops  from 
Mecklenburg,  Nassau,  Hesse-Cassel, 
and  Prussia,  prepared  to  take  the  field 
in  earnest.  Whilst  the  first  division 
of  the  army,  under  the  command  of 
the  Prince  of  Prussia  and  General 
Hirschfeld,  entered  the  Palatinate  be- 
tween Kreutznach  and  Saarbrucken, 
and  advanced  to  the  relief  of  Germers- 
heiui  and  Landau  ;  Meiroslawski  was 
held  in  check  by  continual  feints,  made 
along  the  whole  line  of  the  Nectar. 
On  the  15th  of  June,  a  battalion  of 
Mecklenburgers,  with  a  squadron  of 
Hessian  light  cavalry,  and  a  couple  of 
guns,  advanced  from  Weinheim  as  far 
as  Ladenburg.  The  village  was  taken 
at  the  point  of  the  bayonet ;  but,  igno- 
rant of  the  immense  force  of  the  insur- 
gents, or  perhaps  from  undervaluing 
their  courage,  the  troops  allowed 
themselves  to  be  almost  surrounded 
by  the  enemy.  With  great  difliculty 
they  succeeded  in  regaining  their  old 
position  ;  while  the  major  who  com- 
manded the  party,  and  ten  privates, 
were  left  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels. 
The  loss  on  both  sides  was  consider- 
able, but  was  in  some  degree  compen- 
sated to  the  Imperial  troops,  by  two 
companies  of  the  Baden  Guards  passing 
over  to  them.  This  slight  success  was 
boasted  of  by  Meiroslawski  as  a  splen- 
did victory,  in  the  following  bulletin: — 

"  HEADQUARTERS,  HEIDELBERG, 
"IGthJune  1849. 

"  Our  operations  against  the  advancing 
enemy  have  been  crowned  with  success. 
Yesterday,  our  brave  army  was  simulta- 
neously attacked  on  all  sides. 

"  In  Rhenish  Bavaria  the  Prussians  were 
driven  back  with  great  loss.  At  Laden- 
burg,  Colonel  Sigel  engaged  the  enemy, 
who  had  advanced  in  front;  while  a  column, 
under  the  command  of  the  valiant  Oborski, 
attacked  them  in  rear.  The  enemy  was 
defeated  on  all  points,  and  driven  back^in 
the  greatest  confusion. 

"  It  is  only  to  be  regretted  that  want 
of  cavalry  prevented  our  following  and 
completely  annihilating  them. 

"  Many  prisoners  were  made,  and  their 
loss  in  arms,  ammunition,  and  baggage, 


all  of  which  fell  into  our  hands,  was  con- 
siderable. 

"  Inhabitants  of  Heidelberg,  fear  no- 
thing for  the  future.  Continue  to  pro- 
vide the  intrepid  army  under  my  com- 
mand with  necessaries  for  continuing  the 
campaign  so  gloriously  commenced,  and  I 
will  answer  for  the  result.  Strict  obe- 
dience to  my  orders  is  all  I  require  from 
you,  to  prevent  the  enemy  from  overrun- 
ning the  country. 

"  In  commemoration  of  the  victory  of 
yesterday,  so  gloriously  [obtained,  the 
town  of  Heidelberg  will  be  illuminated. 
The  lights  will  be  left  burning  till  day- 
break, and  the  beer-houses  will  remain 
open  the  whole  night. 

"  (Signed)     Louis  MEIROSLAWSKI, 
"  General-in-Chief  of  the  Army." 

This  bombastic  effusion  was  follow- 
ed by  several  others  equally  false  and 
ridiculous.  The  Prussians  had  advan- 
ced as  far  as  Ludwigshafen,  opposite 
Mannheim,  without  encountering  any 
serious  resistance.  The  insurgent  army 
in  the  Pfalz,  numbering  about  twelve 
thousand  men,  under  the  command 
of  the  Polish  General  Sznayda,  had 
abandoned  their  intrenchments  almost 
without  striking  a  blow,  and,  with  the 
provisional  government,  fled  to"  Kniel- 
ingen,  from  whence  they  crossed  the 
Rhine  into  Baden.  The  only  serious 
impediment  encountered  by  the  Prus- 
sians was  at  Ludwigshafen,  which 
suffered  immense  damage  from  the 
heavy  and  constant  bombardment  kept 
up  from  batteries  erected  at  the  oppo- 
site town  of  Mannheim.  The  railway 
station  was  burned  to  the  ground,  and 
the  value  of  property  destroyed  in  the 
store-houses  alone  has  been  calculated 
at  two  millions  of  florins,  (£170,000.) 
On  the  17th,  Landau  and  Germers- 
heirn  were  relieved ;  and  the  Prince  of 
Prussia,  with  his  whole  force  concen- 
trated before  the  latter  fortress,  pre- 
pared to  cross  the  Rhine  under  the 
protection  of  its  guns. 

Having  thus  fully  accomplished  the 
first  part  of  his  arduous  undertaking, 
by  re-establishing  order  in  the  Pfalz, 
the  Prince  of  Prussia  prepared  to  ef- 
fect a  junction  with  the  second  and 
third  divisions  of  the  army,  under  the 
command  of  General  Von  Groben,  and 
Peucker,  the  former  of  whom  had 
again  advanced  to  Ladenburg,  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Neckar.  Meiroslaw- 
ski, in  the  mean  time,  remained  totally 
inactive  from  the  15th  to  the  20th  inst. 


1849.] 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


213 


Upwards  of  fifty  thousand  men  had 
been  reviewed  by  him  in  Heidelberg 
and  its  vicinity ;  besides  this,  the  twelve 
thousand  Bavarian  insurgents,  under 
the  command  of  Sznayda,  were  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bruchsal ;  and  with 
such  a  force,  anything  like  a  deter- 
mined resistance  would  have  compel- 
led the  Prussians  to  purchase  victoiy 
by  a  heavy  loss.  Whatever  may  be 
his  reputation  for  talent,  Meiroslawski 
showed  but  little  skill  as  a  general 
during  his  short  command  in  Baden. 
Instead  of  opposing  the  crossing  of  the 
Rhine  by  the  Prussians,  which,  with  so 
large  a  force,  and  fifty-four  pieces  of 
well-served  artillery,  he  might  easily 
have  done,  the  Prince  of  Bcussia,  with 
a  division  of  fifteen  thousand  men,  was 
allowed  to  obtain  a  secure  footing  in 
his  rear,  almost  unopposed. 

From  this  moment  the  position  of 
the  insurgents  became  critical  in  the 
extreme.  The  line  of  the  Neckar  was 
occupied  on  the  right  bank  by  the 
second  and  third  divisions  of  the  army, 
comprising  upwards  of  thirty  thousand 
men.  Although  hitherto  held  in  check 
by  the  strong  intrenchments  that  had 
been  thrown  up,  they  might  still  ad- 
vance in  front ;  whilst  the  high  road 
to  Rastadt  was  effectually  cut  off  by 
the  Prince  of  Prussia,  whose  head- 
quarters were  now  at  Phillipsburg. 

The  Rhine  had  been  crossed  by  the 
Prussians  on  the  20th,  and  on  the 
evening  of  that  day  Meiroslawski,  for 
the  first  time,  showed  a  disposition  to 
move  from  his  comfortable'  quarters 
at  the  Prince  Carl  hotel  in  Heidelberg. 
Collecting  all  his  force,  (with  the  ex- 
ception of  three  or  four  thousand  men, 
who  were  left  in  the  intrenchments 
before  Ladenburg  and  on  the  line  of 
the  Neckar,)  he  left  Heidelberg  "  to 
drive  the  Prussians,"  as  he  announced, 
"  into  the  Rhine,"  and  effect  a  junc- 
tion with  Sznayda's  corps  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Carlsruhe.  The 
plan  was  a  bold  one;  but  Meiros- 
lanski  ought  to  have  known  better 
than  to  attempt  its  execution  with 
the  undisciplined  force  he  command- 
ed. He,  however,  appears  to  have 
entertained  no  doubt  of  the  result; 
for  the  commissariat,  baggage,  and 
even  the  military  chest  were  sent  for- 
ward, he  himself  following  in  a 
carriage  and  four. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  21st  the 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVI. 


action  commenced,  and  Meiroslawski 
found  to  his  costthatsix  thousand  well- 
disciplined  Prussians  were  more  than 
a  match  for  his  whole  army.  At  ten 
o'clock  on  the  same  morning  a  pro- 
clamation was  issued  at  Heidelberg 
by  Struve,  stating  "  that  the  Prussians 
were  beaten  on  all  points,  that  their 
retreat  to  the  Rhine  was  cut  off,  and 
that  ten  thousand  prisoners  would  be 
sent  to  Heidelberg  in  the  evening.  The 
loss  on  the  side  of  the  "  Army  of 
Freedom"  was  eight  slightly  hurt,  and 
two  severely  wounded — no  killed ! 

In  spite  of  the  obvious  absurdity  of 
this  proclamation,  most  of  the  towns- 
people believed  it ;  and  it  was  not  till 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  that  their 
eyes  were  opened  to  the  deception 
practised  on  them,  by  the  arrival  of 
between  thirty  and  forty  cart-loads  of 
wounded  insurgents.  Before  nightfall, 
upwards  of  three  hundred  suffering 
wretches  filled  the  hospitals.  Crowds 
of  fugitives  flocked  into  the  town,  and 
every  appearance  of  discipline  was  at 
an  end.  It  seems  that,  on  the  approach 
of  the  enemy,  the  Prussian  advanced 
guard,  composed  of  one  battalion  only, 
retired  till  they  drew  the  insurgents 
into  the  very  centre  of  their  line, 
which  lay  concealed  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Wagheiisel.  This  movement 
was  interpreted  into  a  flight  by  Meiros  • 
lawski ;  a  halt  was  called  ;  and  whilst 
he  was  refreshing  himself  at  a  road- 
side inn,  and  his  troops  were  in  ima- 
gination swallowing  dozens  of  Prus- 
sians with  every  fresh  glass  of  beer, 
they  suddenly  found  themselves  al- 
most surrounded  by  the  royal  forces. 
At  the  very  first  volley  fired  by  the 
Prussians,  many  of  the  Baden  heroes 
threw  down  their  arms,  and  took  to 
their  heels ;  the  artillery  and  baggage 
waggons,  which  were  most  unaccount- 
ably in  advance,  faced  aoout,  and 
drove  through  the  ranks  at  full  speed, 
overthrowing  and  crushing  whole 
companies  of  insurgents.  The  panic 
soon  became  general:  dragoons,  in- 
fantry, baggage-waggons,  and  artil- 
lery, got  mingled  together  in  the  most 
inextricable  confusion,  and  those  who 
could,  fled  to  the  woods  for  safety. 
The  approach  of  night  prevented  the 
Prince  of  Prussia  from  following  up 
his  victoiy,  but  he  established  his 
headquarters  at  Langenbruken,  with- 
in nine  miles  of  the  town. 


214 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden, 


[Aug. 


Whilst  the  hopes  of  the  insurgents 
received  a  deathblow  in  this  quarter, 
General  Peucker  had  pushed  with  his 
division  through  the  Odenwald,  and, 
after  some  insignificant  skirmishing 
at  Hirschhorn,  crossed  the  Neckar  in 
the  vicinity  of  Zwingenberg,  with  the 
intention  of  advancing  on  Sinsheim, 
and  cutting  off  the  retreat  of  the  re- 
bels in  that  direction.  Von  Grbben, 
who,  on  account  of  the  bridges  at  La- 
denburg,  Mannheim,  and  Heidelberg, 
being  undermined,  was  unwilling  to 
cross  the  Neckar,  sent  a  small  recon- 
noitring party  over  the  hills,  and,  to 
the  great  consternation  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, the  Prussians  suddenly  made 
their  appearance  on  the  heights  above 
the  village  of  Neuenheim,  thus  com- 
manding the  town  of  Heidelberg. 
Four  hundred  of  the  foreign  legion 
immediately  sallied  over  the  bridge, 
and,  posting  themselves  in  some  houses 
on  that  side  of  the  river,  kept  up  a 
desperate  firing,  though  the  enemy 
were  too  far  above  their  heads  for 
their  bullets  to  take  effect.  The  Prus- 
sians for  some  time  looked  on  with 
indifference,  but,  before  retiring,  they 
gave  the  insurgents  a  taste  of  what 
their  newly- invented*  zund-nadel 
muskets  could  accomplish.  Out  of 
four  shots  fired,  at  a  distance  of  full 
fifteen  hundred  yards,  two  took  effect ; 
the  one  killing  an  insurgent  on  the 
bridge,  and  the  other  wounding  one  of 
the  free  corps  in  the  town. 

To  return  to  Meiroslawski's  army. 
After  those  who  had  been  fortunate 
enough  to  reach  Heidelberg  had  taken 
a  few  hours'  rest  and  refreshment,  the 
entire  mass  moved  off  in  the  direction 
of  Sinsheim,  their  only  hope  of  escape 
being  to  pass  that  town  before  the 
arrival  of  General  Peucker's  division. 
Thousands  had  thrown  away  their 
arms  and  fled ;  and  most  of  the  soldiers, 
anxious  to  escape  another  collision 
with  the  Prussians,  threw  off  their 
uniforms  and  concealed  themselves  in 


the  woods.  One-half  of  the  rebels 
were  disbanded,  or  had  been  taken 
prisoners ;  and  Meiroslawski,  with  the 
remnant,  made  all  speed  to  quit  the 
town.  Every  horse  in  the  neighbour- 
hood was  put  into  requisition  to  aid 
them  in  their  flight,  and  the  whole 
gang  of  civil  authorities,  headed  by 
Struve  and  his  wife  in  a  carriage, 
(well  filled  with  plunder,)  followed  the 
great  body  of  fugitives.  The  intrench- 
ments  at  Ladenburg,  &c.,  were  aban- 
doned, and  by  7  o'clock  on  the  evening 
of  the  22d,  the  town  of  Heidelberg 
was  once  more  left  to  the  peaceable 
possession  of  its  terrified  inhabitants. 
The  foreign  legion,  composed  of  Poles, 
Italians,  Svuss,  French — in  short,  the 
refuse  of  au  nations — were  the  last  to 
leave ;  nor  did  they  do  so,  till  they 
had  helped  themselves  to  whatever 
they  could  conveniently  carry  off  : 
indeed,  the  near  vicinity  of  the  Prus- 
sians alone  prevented  the  complete 
plunder  of  the  town.  During  the 
night,  the  better  disposed  citizens  re- 
moved the  powder  that  undermined 
the  bridge,  and  a  deputation  was  sent 
to  inform  General  von  Groben  that  he 
could  advance  without  impediment. 
At  4  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the 
23d,  to  the  great  joy  of  every  respect- 
able inhabitant  of  Heidelberg,  he  made 
his  entry  into  the  town.  Mannheim 
had  also  been  taken  possession  of 
without  firing  a  shot,  and  the  com- 
munication between  the  first  and  se- 
cond divisions  of  the  royal  army  was 
now  open. 

After  leaving  Heidelberg,  Meiros- 
lawski succeeded  in  once  more  uniting 
about  fifteen  thousand  of  the  fugitives 
under  his  banner.  General  Peucker's 
attempt  to  intercept  him  at  Sinsheim 
had  failed,  the  insurgent  general  hav- 
ing reached  it  two  hours  before  him. 
Taking  to  the  hills,  he  got  out  in  rear 
of  the  Prince  of  Prussia's  division, 
and  joined  his  force  to  that  of  Sznayda, 
which  was  before  C  arlsruhe .  Robbery 


*  The  advantages  of  this  new  invention  (of  which  the  Prussians  have  now  50,000 
in  use)  are  the  increased  rapidity  of  loading,  extent  of  range,  and  precision  of  aim. 
A  thoroughly  drilled  soldier  can  fire  from  eight  to  ten  rounds  in  a  minute,  whilst  with 
a  common  percussion  gun  three  times  is  considered  good  practice.  Neither  ramrod 
nor  cap  is  required ;  the  cartridge,  which  is  placed  in  the  gun  by  opening  the  breech, 
contains  a  fulminating  powder,  which  is  pierced  by  the  simple  action  of  pulling  the 
trigger;  and  the  charge  of  powder  being  ignited  in  front,  instead  of  from  behind,  (as 
in  the  common  musket,)  the  entire  force  of  powder  is  exploded  at  once.  The  barrels 
are  rifled,  and  spitz  or  pointed  bullets  are  used. 


1849.] 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


215 


and  plunder  marked  the  entire  line  of 
inarch.  Wine  and  provisions  that 
could  not  be  carried  off,  were  wanton- 
ly destroyed,  and  the  inhabitants  of 
the  villages  traversed  by  this  undis- 
ciplined horde,  will  long  have  reason 
to  remember  the  passage  of  the  self- 
styled  "  Army  of  Freedom." 

At  Upsdal,  Durlach,  and  Bruchsal, 
the  rebels  made  a  more  energetic  re- 
sistance than  they  had  yet  done;  and 
it  was  not  without  a  hard  struggle,  and 
great  loss  on  both  sides,  that  the 
Prince  of  Prussia,  at  the  head  of  the 
three  divisions  of  his  army,  (now  united, 
and  numbering  upwards  of  forty 
thousand  men,)  entered  Carlsruhe  on 
the  25th  of  June.  On  the  approach 
of  the  Prussians,  the  provisional  gov- 
ernment, the  members  of  the  chamber, 
and  the  civil  authorities  of  every  des- 
cription, having  emptied  the  treasury, 
and  carried  off  all  the  public  money 
on  which  they  could  lay  their  hands, 
made  their  escape  to  join  the  remains 
of  the  Rump  parliament,  who,  since 
they  had  been  kicked  out  of  Wiirtem- 
burg,  had  established  themselves  at 
Freiburg. 

After  a  rest  of  two  days  in  the 
capital  of  Baden,  the  Prussian  army 
was  again  put  in  motion  to  attack  the 
insurgents,  now  strongly  intrenched 
along  the  valley  of  the  Murg,  the 
narrowest  part  of  the  duchy.  Owing 
to  the  numerous  and  well-served  ar- 
tillery of  the  insurgents,  it  was  not 
without  severe  fighting,  and  great 
sacrifice  of  life,  that  they  were  driven 
from  their  positions.  Another  disor- 
derly flight  succeeded  ;  and  by  the 
30th  of  the  month,  the  Prussians 
were  in  quiet  possession  of  Baden- 
Baden,  Oos,  Offenburg,  and  Kehl, 
besides  having  completely  surrounded 
Rastadt,  and  cut  off  every  hope  of 
retreat  from  that  fortress.  The  re- 
mainder of  Meiroslawski's  force  was 
entirely  dispersed,  the  greater  num- 
ber being  captured,  or  escaping  in 
small  parties  into  France  or  Swit- 
zerland. A  few  hundreds  only  re- 
mained in  Freiburg,  under  the  com- 
mand of  Sigel.  Meiroslaweki  took 
refuge  in  Basle,  having  held  the  com- 
mand of  the  Baden  forces  exactly 
three  weeks ;  and  Brentano,  after 
having  remained  just  long  enough  to 
be  abused  and  threatened  by  his  own 
party,  made  his  escape  with  most  of 


the  other  revolutionary  leaders  into 
Switzerland,  from  which  he  issued  the 
following  justification  of  his  conduct. 
As  the  document  contains  a  tolerably 
faithful  sketch  of  the  revolution,  with 
the  opinion  of  one  who  may  certainly 
be  considered  as  an  unprejudiced 
judge,  we  give  it  in  full : — 

u  To  THE  PEOPLE  OF  BADEN. 

"  Fellow-citizens  !  Before  leaving  the 
town  of  Freiburg  and  the  duchy  of  Baden, 
on  the  night  of  the  28th  June,  I  informed 
the  president  of  the  constitutional  assem- 
bly that  it  was  my  intention  to  justify  my 
conduct  towards  the  people  of  Baden,  but 
not  towards  an  assembly  that  had  treated 
me  with  outrage.  If  I  did  not  do  this  at 
the  time  I  left  the  country  for  which  I 
have  acted  all  through  with  a  clear  con- 
science, and  from  which  I  was  driven  by 
a  tyrannical  and  selfish  party,  it  was 
because  I  wished  to  see  what  this  party 
would  say  against  the  absent.  To-day  I 
have  seen  their  accusation,  and  no  longer 
delay  my  defence,  in  order  that  you  may 
judge  whether  I  have  merited  the  title  of 
traitor  ;  or  whether  the  people's  cause — 
the  cause  of  freedom,  for  which  your  sons, 
your  brothers,  have  bled — can  prosper  in 
the  hands  of  men  who  only  seek  to  hide 
personal  cowardice  by  barbarity,  mental 
incapacity  by  lies,  and  low  selfishness  by 
hypocrisy. 

"  Fellow-citizens  !  Since  the  month  of 
February  I  have  strained  every  nerve  in 
the  cause  of  freedom.  Since  the  month 
of  February,  I  have  sacrificed  my  own 
affairs  to  the  defence  of  persecuted  repub- 
licans. I  have  willingly  stood  up  for  all 
who  claimed  my  assistance ;  and  let  any  say 
if  I  have  been  reimbursed  one  kreutzer  of 
the  hundreds  I  have  expended.  Fellow- 
citizens  !  I  am  loath  to  call  to  mind  the 
sacrifices  I  have  made  ;  but  a  handful  of 
men  are  .shameless  enough  to  call  me 
traitor ;  a  handful  of  men,  partly  those 
in  whose  defence  I  disinterestedly  strained 
every  nerve,  would  have  me  brought 
to  *  well-deserved  punishment  : '  these 
men,  whose  sole  merit  consists  in  tending 
to  bring  discredit  on  freedom's  cause, 
through  their  incapacity,  barbarity,  and 
terrorism  ;  and  whose  unheard-of  extra- 
vagance has  brought  us  to  the  brink  of 
ruin. 

"  I  did  not  return  home  after  Fickler's 
trial.  The  exertion  I  had  used  in  his  de- 
fence had  injured  my  health,  and  I  went 
for  medical  advice  to  Baden-Baden.  On 
the  14th  of  May,  I  was  fetched  from  my 
bed ;  but,  in  spite  of  bodily  weakness,  I  was 
unwilling  to  remain  behind.  I  wished  to 
seethe  cause  of  freedom  free  from  all  dirty 
machinations,  I  wished  to  prevent  the 


216 


The  Insuirection  in  Baden. 


[Aug. 


holy  cause  from  falling  into  disrepute 
through  disgraceful  traffic  ;  I  wished  to 
keep  order,  and  to  protect  life  and  pro- 
perty. For  some  time  I  was  enabled  to 
effect  this  :  I  endeavoured  to  prevent 
injustice  of  all  kinds,  and  in  every  place, 
and  whenever  I  was  called  on  ;  I  strove 
to  protect  the  innocent  against  force, 
and  to  prove  that  even  the  complete  over- 
throw of  the  government  could  be  accom- 
plished without  allowing  anarchy  to  reign 
in  its  stead. 

"  Fellow-citizens  !  However  my  con- 
duct as  a  revolutionist  may  be  judged,  I 
have  a  clear  conscience.  Not  a  deed  of 
injustice  can  be  laid  to  my  door  :  not  a 
kreutzer  of  your  money  have  I  allowed  to 
be  squandered,  not  a  heller  has  gone  into 
my  pocket  !  But  this  I  must  say,  you 
will  be  astonished,  if  ever  you  see  the  ac- 
counts, to  find  how  your  money  has  been 
wasted,  and  how  few  there  were  who 
sacrificed  anything  to  the  holy  cause  of 
the  people,  and  how  many  took  care  to 
be  well  paid  out  of  the  national  coffers 
for  every  service  rendered. 

"  No  sooner  had  the  revolution  broken 
out  than  hundreds  of  adventurers  swarmed 
into  the  land,  with  boasts  of  having  suf- 
fered in  freedom's  cause  :  they  claimed 
their  reward  in  hard  cash  from  your 
coffers.  There  was  no  crossing  the  streets 
of  Carlsruhe  for  the  crowds  of  uniformed, 
sabre-carrying  clerks  ;  and  whilst  this 
herd  of  idlers  revelled  on  your  money, 
your  half-famished  sons  were  exposing 
their  breasts  to  the  bullets  of  the  enemy 
in  freedom's  cause.  But  whoever  set 
himself  to  oppose  this  order  of  things 
was  proclaimed  to  be  a  mean  and  narrow- 
minded  citizen ;  whoever  showed  a  dis- 
inclination to  persecute  his  political  ad- 
versary h  la  Windischgr'dts,  was  a  reac- 
tionnaire  or  a  traitor. 

"  At  the  head  of  this  party  was  Struve, 
the  man  whose  part  I  took  before  the  tri- 
bunal at  Freiburg — not  as  a  legal  adviser, 
but  as  a  friend  ;  the  man  whose  absurd 
plan  for  giving  the  ministers  salaries  of 
six  thousand  florins  ;  of  sending  ambas- 
sadors to  Rome  and  Venice,  and  agents  to 
St  Petersburg  and  Hungary,  I  overruled  ; 
the  man  whose  endeavour  to  give  every 
situation  to  which  a  good  salary  was  at- 
tached to  foreign  adventurers,  was  effectu- 
ally opposed  by  me.  This  man,  despised  for 
his  personal  cowardice,  whose  dismissal 
from  the  provisional  government  was  de- 
manded by  the  entire  army—  this  man,  in- 
stead of  supporting  and  strengthening  the 
government  as  he  promised,  tried,  because 
his  ambitious  views  found  no  encourage- 
ment, and  with  the  assistance  of  foreign 
adventurers,  to  overthrow  me  ;  and  when 
I  showed  him  the  force  that  was  drawn  up 


ready  to  oppose  him,  he  took  refuge  in 
base  lies,  and  had  not  even  sufficient 
courage  to  go  home,  till  I,  whom  he  had 
just  tried  to  overthrow,  protected  him 
with  my  own  body  to  his  house. 

"  The  people  had  chosen  between  us,  for 
at  the  elections  he  had  been  first  thrown 
out,  and  he  only  obtained  three  thousand 
votes  as  a  substitute,  whilst  I  had  been 
elected  by  seven  thousand  voices. 

"  I  had  placed  all  my  hopes  in  the  Con- 
stitutional Assembly.  I  thought  that  men 
elected  by  the  free  choice  of  the  people 
would  duly  support  my  honest  endea- 
vours. I  was  mistaken.  An  assembly, 
the  majority  of  whose  members  were 
mere  ranters,  totally  incapable  of  ful- 
filling the  task  imposed  on  them,  and 
who  sought  to  conceal  their  ignorance 
by  proposing  revolutionary  measures — 
which  were  carried  one  day,  to  be  re- 
voked as  impracticable  the  next — was 
the  result  of  the  election.  That  I  should 
prove  a  thorn  in  the  sides  of  such  men 
was  clear;  and  as  it  was  not  in  their 
power  to  get  rid  of  me,  they  sought  to 
make  me  a  powerless  tool,  by  creating  a 
three-headed  dictatorship,  with  the  evi- 
dent intention  of  making  use  of  my  name, 
whilst  holding  me  in  check  by  the  other 
two  dictators.  Although  such  a  situation 
might  be  undignified,  still,  from  love  of 
the  cause,  I  determined  to  accept  it.  I 
scarcely  ever  saw  my  colleagues  in  Carls- 
ruhe, as  they  found  it  more  agreeable  to 
run  after  the  army.  No  reports  from  the 
seat  of  war  ever  reached  me;  and  yet  the 
assembly  demanded  from  me,  as  being  the 
only  one  present,  accounts  of  what  I  had 
received  no  report  of.  All  responsibility 
was  thrown  on  my  shoulders.  If  the 
minister  of  war  neglected  to  supply  the 
army  with  arms  or  ammunition,  the  fault 
was  mine ;  if  the  minister  of  finance 
wanted  money,  I  was  to  blame;  and  if  the 
army  was  beaten,  my  want  of  energy  was 
the  cause  of  it! 

"  Thus  was  I  abandoned  at  Carlsruhe 
in  the  last  most  dangerous  days,  and  left 
with  a  set  of  deputies  who,  for  the  most 
part,  had  not  even  sufficient  courage  to 
sleep  in  the  capital.  My  co- dictators 
found  it  more  convenient  to  play  the  easier 
part  of  mock  heroes  with  the  army. 
Thousands  can  bear  witness  that  I  shrunk 
from  no  work,  however  trivial;  but  I  can 
prove  to  most  of  these  pot-valiant  heroes, 
that  they  put  off  the  most  urgent  motions 
as  'not  pressing,'  whilst  they  clung  to 
others  that  were  of  no  importance,  merely 
because  they  carried  them  out  of  all  dan- 
ger at  the  national  expense. 

"  In  Offenburg  we  were  joined  by  the 
newly-elected  member  Gustavus  Struve, 
who  immediately  demanded  my  dismissal 


1849.] 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


217 


from  the  government.  On  being  told  that 
this  was  impossible,  he  next  wished  me 
to  be  taken  from  the  dictatorship,  and  to 
be  given  one  of  the  minister's  places.  He 
talked  of  the  want  of  energy  displayed  by 
the  government,  called  it  little  better  than 
treason,  and  tried  to  learn  from  my  friends 
what  plans  I  intended  to  adopt.  He  de- 
manded that  the  fugitives  from  the  Pfalz 
should  be  placed  in.  office,  though,  God 
knows,  we  owed  them  nothing.  Indignant 
at  such  conduct,  I  took  no  part  in  the 
secret  council  held  at  Freiburg,  although 
I  informed  several  of  the  deputies  of  my 
intention  to  resign,  unless  I  received  full 
satisfaction  for  the  machinations  of 
Struve. 

"  The  first  public  meeting  of  the  assem- 
bly took  place  on  the  evening  of  the  28th 
June,  when  Struve  brought  forward  the 
following  motion: — 

"  '  That  every  effort  at  negotiation  with 
the  enemy  be  considered  and  punished  as 
high  treason.'  Considering  what  had  before 
taken  place,  I  could  not  do  less  than  oppose 
the  motion,  which  I  did  on  the  grounds 
that,  as  such  negotiations  could  only  pro- 
ceed from  the  government,  the  motion  was 
tantamount  to  a  vote  of  want  of  confidence. 
In  spite  of  this  declaration  on  my  part, 
the  motion  was  carried  by  twenty-eight 
against  fifteen  votes,  and  the  contest 
between  Struve  and  Brentano  was  decided 
in  favour  of  the  former.  Although  some 
few  of  the  deputies  declared  their  vote  not 
to  imply  want  of  confidence,  the  assembly 
did  not,  in  that  capacity,  express  such  an 
opinion.  If  they  did,  I  call  on  them  to 
produce  the  notes  of  such  a  resolution 
having  been  carried;  and  if  they  fail  to  do 
so,  I  brand  them  with  the  name  of  infa- 
mous liars.  After  this,  I  did  what  all 
honourable  men  would  have  done — I  re- 
signed. Who,  I  ask,  Avas  to  prevent  my 
doing  so;  and  why  am  I  to  be  branded 
with  the  name  of  traitor?  I  laugh  those 
fools  to  scorn  who  imagine  they  could 
prevent  freedom  of  action  in  a  man  who, 
having  been  shamefully  ill-used,  chose  to 
withdraw  from  public  life. 

"  I  do  not  fear  inquiry,  and  demand 
from  the  national  assembly  that  the  result 
of  their  investigation  be  made  public,  as 
it  can  only  terminate  in  victory  for  me 
and  destruction  to  my  adversaries.  Why 
did  this  same  assembly  keep  secret  the  fact 
that,  on  the  28th  of  June,  they  decided  to 
send  me  a  deputation  the  next  morning,  in 
order  to  beg  I  would  remain  in  power — 
I  the  traitor,  I  who  was  to  be  brought 
to  '  well-merited  punishment!'  It  was 
easy  to  foresee  the  personal  danger  I  was 
exposed  to  if  I  refused,  and  I  therefore 
preferred  seeking  quiet  and  repose  in 
Switzerland,  to  enjoying  the  rags  of  free- 


dom emitted  under  Struve's  dictatorship 
in  Baden. 

"  I  am  to  be  called  to  account !  My 
acts  are  open  to  the  world.  No  money 
ever  came  under  my  superintendence — 
this  was  taken  care  of  by  men  who  had 
been  employed  in  the  department  for 
years.  My  salary  as  head  of  the  govern- 
ment was  three  florins  per  day,  and  I 
have  paid  all  travelling  expenses  out  of 
my  own  pocket.  But  if  those  are  to  be 
called  to  account  who  had  charge  of  the 
public  money,  and  became  my  enemies 
because  I  would  not  have  it  squandered, 
then,  people  of  Baden!  you  will  open  your 
eyes  with  astonishment;  then, brave  com- 
batants, you  will  learn  that,  whilst  you 
fasted,  others  feasted! 

"  The  people  of  Baden  will  not  be  thank- 
ful for  a  '  Struve  government,'  but  they 
will  have  to  support  it ;  and  over  the 
grave  of  freedom,  over  the  graves  of  their 
children,  will  they  learn  to  know  those  who 
were  their  friends  and  those  who  only 
sought  for  self-aggrandisement  and 
tyranny ! 

"  And  when  the  time  comes  that  the 
people  are  in  want  of  me  again,  my  ear 
will  not  be  deaf  to  the  call!  But  I  will 
never  serve  a  government  of  tyrants,  who 
can  only  keep  in  power  by  adopting  mea- 
sures that  we  have  learned  to  despise,  as 
worthy  of  a  Windischgratz  or  a  Wrangel! 

"Fellow- citizens!  I  have  not  entered 
into  details.  I  have  only  drawn  a  gene- 
ral sketch,  which  it  will  require  time  to 
fill  up.  Accused  of  treason  by  the  princes, 
accused  of  treason  by  the  deputies  of 
Freiburg,  I  leave  you  to  decide  whether 
I  have  merited  the  title. 

"  Feuerthalen  bei  Schaffhausen, 
1  July,  1849. 

"  Louis  BRENTANO." 

At  this  time  of  writing,  Rastadt  still 
remains  in  possession  of  two  or  three 
thousand  insurgents;  but,  almost  with- 
out provisions,  and  deprived  of  all 
hopes  of  assistance,  the  fortress  may 
be  daily  expected  to  surrender.  Such 
is  the  termination  of  an  insurrection 
of  seven  weeks'  duration,  which  is  cal- 
culated.to  have  cost  the  country  thirty 
millions  of  florins  and  four  thousand 
lives.  There  is  no  denying  that,  at 
one  time,  it  assumed  a  most  formidable 
aspect ;  and  had  the  people  of  Wlir- 
tevnburg  given  it  the  support  its 
leaders  confidently  expected  from 
them,  it  might,  aided  by  the  discon- 
tent that  undoubtedly  prevails  in 
many  other  parts  of  Germany,  long 
have  baffled  the  efforts  of  Prussia  to 


218 


The  Insurrection  in  Baden. 


[Aug. 


put  it  down.  Yet  there  are  few  per- 
sons, even  among  those  who  witnessed 
the  outbreak  from  its  commencement, 
who  can  tell  what  was  the  object  of 
its  promoters,  unless  plunder  and  per- 
sonal aggrandisement  be  assigned  as 
their  incentives.  Their  professed  mo- 
tive was  to  support  the  union  of  Ger- 
many in  one  empire ;  but,  as  the  Grand- 
duke  of  Baden  had  already  taken  the 
oath  to  obey  and  defend  the  constitu- 
tion framed  at  Frankfort,  there  was 
not  the  slightest  pretext  for  upsetting 
his  government.  It  is  certain  that 
the  republicans  played  a  most  active 
part  in  the  aifair — their  intention  no 
doubt  being,  as  soon  as  they  found 
themselves  victorious  under  the  banner 
of  the  empire,  to  hoist  a  democratic  flag 
of  their  own.  Many  wtio  were  not 
inclined  to  go  so  far,  joined  them  upon 
doubts  of  the  fair  intentions  of  the 
Germanic  princes  towards  their  sub- 
jects. Some  were  perhaps  glad  of 
any  sort  of  change,  other  turbulent 


spirits  were  anxious  for  a  row,  but, 
from  first  to  last,  none  seem  to  have 
had  any  clearly  defined  object,  or 
anything  to  offer  in  extenuation  of 
such  waste  of  blood  and  treasure. 
The  next  striking  circumstance  is  the 
evident  incapacity  of  the  chiefs,  civil 
and  military.  Throughout  the  affair, 
we  do  not  see  one  proof  of  superior 
talent,  or  a  single  act  of  daring  courage. 
The  only  useful  reflection  it  affords  is 
one  that  is  perhaps  worthy  the  atten- 
tion of  the  rulers  of  Germany.  Last 
year,  Struve's  attempt  to  revolutionise 
the  country  was  principally  supported 
by  ignorant  peasants,  rnad  students, 
and  a  few  ultra-liberals  and  republi- 
cans, and  it  was  in  great  measure  put 
down  by  the  soldiers  of  Baden.  This 
year,  a  great  proportion  of  the  citizens 
in  the  principal  towns  were  openly  in 
favour  of  the  movement,  and  nearly  the 
whole  Baden  army  joined  the  revolt. 

HEIDELBERG,  15th  July  1849. 


1849.] 


Lamartine's  Revolution  o/"1848. 


219 


LAMARTINE'S  REVOLUTION  OF  1848. 


So  completely  was  the  ordinary 
framework  of  European  society  bro- 
ken up  in  France  by  the  Revolution 
of  1789,  that  the  leaders  of  every 
great  political  movement,  since  that 
time,  have  sprung  from  an  entirely 
different  class  of  society  from  what 
they  were  before  that  event.  The  old 
territorial  noblesse  no  longer  appear 
as  the  leaders  in  action,  or  the  rulers 
of  thought.  The  time  has  gone  by 
when  an  Admiral  de  Coligny,  or  a 
Henry  of  Beam,  stood  forth  as  the 
chiefs  of  the  Reformed  movement ; 
a  Due  d'Orleans  no  longer  heads  the 
defection  of  the  nobles  from  the 
throne,  or  a  Mirabeau  roase  a  resist- 
ance to  the  mandates  of  the  sove- 
reign. Not  only  the  powers  of  the 
sword,  not  only  the  political  lead  of 
the  people,  but  the  direction  of  their 
thoughts,  has  passed  from  the  old  no- 
bility. The  confiscation  of  their  pro- 
perty has  destroyed  their  consequence, 
the  dispersion  of  their  families  ruined 
their  influence.  Neither  collectively 
nor  individually  can  they  now  lead 
the  people.  The  revolution  of  1830, 
begun  by  Thiers  and  the  writers  in 
the  National  newspaper,  was  carried 
out  by  Lafitte  the  great  banker. 
That  of  1848,  springing  from  the  co- 
lumns of  the  Reforme  and  the  Demo- 
cratic Pacifique,  soon  fell  under  the 
lead  of  M.  Marrast  the  journalist,  and 
M.  Lamartme  the  romancer  and  poet. 
And  now  the  latter  of  these  authors 
has  come  forth,  not  only  as  the  leader 
but  as  the  historian  of  the  movement. 
Like  Caesar,  he  appears  as  the  an- 
nalist of  his  own  exploits :  like  him, 
he  no  doubt  flatters  himself  he  can 
say,  "  I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered." 

The  reason  is,  that  mankind  cannot 
exist  even  for  a  day  but  under  the 
lead  of  a  few.  Self-government  is 
the  dream  of  the  enthusiast,  the  vision 
of  the  inexperienced :  oligarchy  is  the 
history  of  man.  In  vain  are  institu- 
tions popularised,  nobles  destroyed, 
masses  elevated,  education  diffused, 
self-government  established:  all  that 
will  not  alter  the  character  of  man ; 
it  will  not  qualify  the  multitude  for 
self- direction  ;  it  will  not  obviate  that 
first  of  necessities  to  mankind — the 


necessity  of  being  governed.  What  is 
the  first  act  of  every  assembly  of  men 
associated  together  for  any  purpose, 
social,  political,  or  charitable?  To 
nominate  a  committee  by  whom  their 
common  affairs  are  to  be  regulated. 
What  is  the  first  act  of  that  commit- 
tee? To  nominate  a  sub-committee 
of  two  or  three,  in  whom  the  direc- 
tion of  affairs  is  practically  to  be 
vested.  Begin,  if  you  please,  with 
universal  suffrage:  call  six  millions 
of  electors  to  the  poll,  as  in  France 
at  this  time,  or  four  millions,  as  in 
America — the  sway  of  two  or  three, 
ultimately  of  one,  is  not  the  less  ine- 
vitable. Not  only  does  the  huge  mass 
ultimately  fall  under  the  direction  of 
one  or  two  leading  characters,  but 
from  the  very  first  it  is  swayed  by 
their  impulsion.  The  millions  repeat 
the  thoughts  of  two  or  three  journals, 
they  elaborate  the  ideas  of  two  or 
three  men.  What  is  the  origin  of  the 
whole  free-trade  principles  which  have 
totally  altered  the  policy,  and  probably 
shortened  the  existence,  of  the  British 
empire  ?  The  ideas  of  Adam  Smith, 
nurtured  in  the  solitude  of  Kirkaldy. 
Would  you  learn  what  are  the  opi- 
nions generally  prevalent  in  the 
urban  circles  in  England,  in  whom 
political  power  is  practically  vested, 
on  Wednesday  or  Thursday  ?  Read 
the  leading  articles  of  the  Times  on 
Monday  or  Tuesday.  The  more  men 
are  educated,  the  more  that  instruc- 
tion is  diffused,  the  more  widely  that 
journals  are  read,  the  more  vehement 
the  political  excitement  that  prevails, 
the  more  is  the  sway  of  this  oligarchy 
established,  for  the  greater  is  the  apti- 
tude of  the  general  mind  to  receive  the 
impulse  communicated  to  it  by  the 
leaders  of  thought.  The  nation,  in 
such  circumstances,  becomes  a  vast 
electric-machine,  which  vibrates  with 
the  slightest  movement  of  the  central 
battery. 

Lamartine,  as  an  author,  can  never 
be  mentioned  without  the  highest 
respect.  The  impress  of  genius  is  to 
be  seen  in  all  his  works :  nature  has 
marked  him  for  one  of  the  leaders  of 
thought.  A  mind  naturally  ardent 
and  enthusiastic,  has  been  nurtured 


220 


Lamm-tine's  Revolution  of  1848. 


[Ang-, 


by  travel,  enriched  by  reflection, 
chastened  by  suffering.  His  descrip- 
tive powers  are  of  the  very  highest 
order.  We  have  already  done  jus- 
tice, and  not  more  than  justice,  to  the 
extreme  beauty  of  his  descriptions  of 
Oriental  scenery.*  They  are  the 
finest  in  the  French,  second  to  none 
in  the  English  language.  His  mind 
is  essentially  poetical.  Many  of  his 
effusions  in  verse  are  touching  and 
beautiful,  though  they  do  not  possess 
the  exquisite  grace  and  delicate  ex- 
pression of  Beranger.  But  his  prose 
is  poetry  itself :  so  deeply  is  his  mind 
imbued  with  poetical  images — so  sen- 
sitive is  his  taste  to  the  grand  and 
the  beautiful — so  enthusiastic  is  his 
admiration  of  the  elevated,  whether 
in  nature  or  art,  that  he  cannot  treat 
even  an  ordinary  subject  without 
tinging  it  with  the  colours  of  romance. 
From  this  peculiar  texture  of  La- 
martine's  mind  arises  both  the  excel- 
lences and  defects  of  his  historical 
compositions.  He  has  all  the  roman- 
tic and  poetical,  but  few  of  the  intel- 
lectual qualities  of  an  historian. 
Eminently  dramatic  in  his  description 
of  event,  powerful  in  the  delineation 
of  character,  elevated  in  feeling, 
generous  in  sentiment,  lofty  in  specu- 
lation— he  is  yet  destitute  of  the 
sober  judgment  and  rational  views 
which  are  the  only  solid  foundation 
for  either  general  utility  or  durable 
fame  in  historical  composition.  He 
has  the  conceptions  of  genius  and  the 
fire  of  poetry  in  his  narrative,  but 
little  good  sense,  and  still  less  of 
practical  acquaintance  with  mankind. 
That  is  his  great  defect,  and  it  is  a 
defect  so  serious  that  it  will  probably, 
in  the  end,  deprive  his  historical  works 
of  the  place  in  general  estimation  to 
which,  from  the  beauty  of  their  com- 
position and  the  rich  veins  of  ro- 
mance with  which  they  abound,  they 
are  justly  entitled.  These  imagina- 
tive qualities  are  invaluable  additions 
to  the  sterling  qualities  of  truth, 
judgment,  and  trust-worthiness  ;  but 
they  can  never  supply  their  place. 
They  are  the  colouring  of  history ; 
they  give  infinite  grace  to  its  compo- 
sition ;  they  deck  it  out  with  all  the 
charms  of  light  and  shade :  but  they 
can  never  make  up  for  the  want  of 


accurate  drawing  from  nature,  and  a 
faithful  delineation  of  objects  as  they 
really  exist  in  the  world  around  us. 
Nay,  an  undue  preponderance  of  the 
imaginative  qualities  in  an  historian, 
if  not  accompanied  by  a  scrupulous 
regard  to  truth,  tends  rather  to  lessen 
the  weight  due  to  his  narrative,  by 
inspiring  a  constant  dread  that  he  is 
either  passing  off  imaginary  scenes 
for  real  events,  or  colouring  reality  so 
highly  that  it  is  little  better  than  fic- 
tion. This  is  more  especially  the 
case  with  a  writer  such  as  Lamartine, 
whose  thoughts  are  so  vivid  and  style 
so  poetical,  that,  even  when  he  is- 
describing  events  in  themselves  per- 
fectly true,  his  narrative  is  so  embel- 
lished that  it  assumes  the  character 
of  romance,  and  is  distrusted  from  a 
suspicion  that  it  is  a  mere  creation  of 
the  imagination. 

In  addition  to  this,  there  is  a  capital 
deficiency  in  Lamartine's  historical 
works,  for  which  no  qualities  of  style 
or  power  of  composition,  how  brilliant 
soever,  can  compensate ;  and  which, 
if  not  supplied  in  some  future  editions, 
will  go  far  to  deprive  them  of  all 
credit  or  authority  with  future  times. 
This  is  the  entire  ijount  of  all  authori- 
ties or  references,  either  at  the  bottom 
of  the  page  or  at  the  end  of  the  work. 
In  the  eight  volumes  of  the  History  of 
the  Girondists,  and  the  four  on  the 
Revolution  of  1848,  now  before  us, 
we  do  not  recollect  ever  having  met 
with  a  single  reference  or  foot-note 
containing  a  quotation  from  any  state 
paper,  speech,  or  official  document, 
It  is  impossible  to  over-estimate  the 
magnitude  of  this  defect ;  and'  it  is 
astonishing  how  so  able  and  well- 
informed  a  writer  as  Lamartine  should 
have  fallen  into  it.  Does  he  suppose 
that  the  world  are  to  take  everything 
he  says  off  his  hand,  without  reference- 
or  examination  ;  or  imagine  that  the 
brilliant  and  attractive  graces  of  his 
style  do  not  increase  the  necessity  for 
such  authorities,  from  the  constant 
suspicion  they  beget  that  they  have- 
been  drawn  from  the  store  of  his 
imagination,  not  the  archives  of  his- 
tory? No  brilliancy  of  description, 
no  richness  of  colouring,  no  amount 
of  dramatic  power,  can  make  up  for 
a  want  of  the  one  thing  needful — 


See  Blackirood's  Magazine,  vol.  Ivi.,  p.  657. 


1849.] 


Lamar tine's  Revolution  of  1848. 


trust  in  the  TRUTH  of  the  narrative. 
Observe  children :  every  one  knows 
how  passionately  fond  they  are  of 
having  stories  told  them,  and  how 
much  they  prefer  them  to  any  of  the 
ordinary  pastimes  suited  to  their 
years.  How  often,  however,  do  you 
hear  them  say,  But  is  it  all  true  ?  It 
is  by  making  them  believe  that  fiction 
is  the  narrative  of  real  event  that  the 
principal  interest  is  communicated  to 
the  story.  Where  the  annals  of 
event  are  coloured  as  Lamartiue 
knows  how  to  colour  them,  they  be- 
come more  attractive  than  any  ro- 
mance. The  great  success  of  his 
History  of  the  Girondists,  and  of  Ma- 
caulay's  History  of  England,  is  a  suffi- 
cient proof  of  this..  But  still  the 
question  will  recur  to  men  and  wo- 
men, as  well  as  children — "  But  is  it 
all  true?"  And  truth  in  his  hands 
wears  so  much  the  air  of  romance, 
that  he  would  do  well,  by  all  possible 
adjuncts,  to  convey  the  impression 
that  it  is  in  every  respect  founded  in 
reality. 

There  is  no  work  which  has  been 
published  in  France,  of  late  years, 
which  has  met  with  anything  like  the 
success  which  his  History  of  the 
Girondists  has  had.  We  have  heard 
that  fifty  thousand  copies  of  it  were 
sold  in  the  first  year.  Beyond  all 
doubt,  it  had  a  material  effect  in  pro- 
ducing the  Revolution  of  1848,  and 
precipitating  Louis  Philippe  from  the 
throne.  It  was  thus  popular,  from  the 
same  cause  which  attracts  boys  to  nar- 
ratives of  shipwrecks,  or  crowds  to  re- 
presentations of  woe  on  the  theatre — 
deep  interest  in  tragic  events.  He 
represented  the  heroes  of  the  first 
great  convulsion  in  such  attractive 
colours,  that  men,  and  still  more 
women,  were  not  only  fascinated  by 
the  narrative  and  deeply  interested  in 
the  characters,  but  inspired  by  a  desire 
to  plunge  into  similar  scenes  of  excite- 
ment themselves — just  as  boys  become 
sailors  from  reading  terrific  tales  of 
shipwreck,  or  soldiers,  from  stories  of 
perils  in  the  deadly  breach.  In  his 
hands,  vice  equally  with  virtue,  weak- 
ness with  resolution,  became  attrac- 
tive. He  communicated  the  deepest 
interest  to  Robespierre  himself,  who  is 
the  real  hero  of  his  story,  as  Satan  is 
of  the  Paradise  Lost.  He  drew  no 
veil  over  the  weakness,  the  irresolu- 


221 

tion,  the  personal  ambition  of  the 
Girondists,  so  fatal  in  their  conse- 
quences to  the  cause  of  freedom  in 
France,  and  through  it  to  that  of 
liberty  over  the  whole  world ;  but  he 
contrived  to  make  them  interesting 
notwithstanding  their  faults — nay,  in 
consequence  of  those  -very  faults.  He 
borrowed  from  romance,  where  it  has 
been  long  understood  and  successfully 
practised,  especially  in  France,  the 
dangerous  secret  of  making  characters 
of  imperfect  goodness  the  real  heroes 
of  his  tale.  He  knew  that  none  of  the 
leading  characters  at  Paris  were  Sir 
Charles  Grandisons;  and  he  knew  that, 
if  they  had  been  so,  their  adventures 
would  have  excited,  comparatively 
speaking,  very  little  interest.  But  he 
knew  that  many  of  them  were  political 
Lovelaces ;  and  he  knew  well  that  it  is 
by  such  characters  that  in  public, 
equally  as  private  life,  the  weakness 
of  the  world  is  fascinated,  and  their 
feelings  enchained.  And  it  is  in  the 
deep  interest  which  his  genius  has 
communicated  to  really  worthless 
characters,  and  the  brilliant  colours 
in  which  he  has  clothed  the  most 
sinister  and  selfish  enterprises,  that 
the  real  danger  of  his  work  consists, 
and  the  secret  of  the  terrible  conse- 
quences with  which  its  publication 
was  followed  is  to  be  found. 

In  truth,  however,  the  real  cause  of 
those  terrible  consequences  lies  deeper, 
and  a  fault  of  a  more  fundamental 
kind  than  any  glossing  over  the  frail- 
ties of  historical  characters  has  at 
once  rendered  his  work  so  popular 
and  its  consequences  so  tremendous. 
Rely  upon  it,  truth  and  reason,  all- 
powerful  and  even  victorious  in  the 
end,  are  never  a  match  for  sophistry 
and  passion  in  the  outset.  When  you 
hear  of  a  philosophical  historical  work 
going  through  half-a-dozen  editions 
in  six  months,  or  selling  fifty  thousand 
copies  in  a  year,  you  may  be  sure 
that  there  is  a  large  intermixture  of 
of  error,  misrepresentation,  and  one- 
sidedness  in  its  composition.  The 
cause  is,  that  truth  and  reason  are 
in  general  distasteful  in  the  outset  to 
the  human  mind ;  and  it  is  by  slow 
degrees,  and  the  force  of  experience 
alone,  that  their  ascendency  is  esta- 
blished. What  attracts,  in  the  first 
instance,  in  thought,  independent  of 
the  charms  of  eloquence  and  the  graces 


Lamartine's  Revolution  of  1848. 


[Aug. 


of  composition — which  of  course  are 
indispensable  to  great  success — is  co- 
incidence with  the  tendency  and  aspira- 
tions of  general  thought.  But  so  prone 
to  error  and  delusion  is  the  human 
mind,  from  its  inherent  character  and 
original  texture,  that  it  is  a  hundred 
to  one  that  general  thought  at  any 
one  time,  especially  if  it  is  one  of  con- 
siderable excitement  or  vehement 
feeling,  is  founded  in  error.  And 
thus  it  often  happens,  that  the  works 
which  have  the  most  unbounded  suc- 
cess at  their  first  publication,  and  for 
a  considerable  time  after,  are  precisely 
those  which  contain  the  largest  por- 
tion of  error,  and  are  likely,  when  re- 
duced into  practice,  to  have  the  most 
fatal  effects  upon  the  best  interests  of 
the  species.  Witness  the  works  of 
Eousseau  and  Voltaire  in  France,  to 
whose  influence  the  first  revolution  is 
mainly  to  be  ascribed ;  those  of  La- 
martine,  Victor  Hugo,  and  Eugene 
Sue,  who  have  been  chiefly  instru- 
mental in  bringing  about  the  still  more 
widespread  convulsions  of  our  times. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  La- 
martine's  political  philosophy,  and 
which  we  regard  as  his  grand  error, 
and  the  cause  at  once  of  his  success  in 
the  outset  and  his  failure  in  the  end,  is 
the  principle  of  the  general  innocence 
and  perfectibility  of  human  nature. 
It  is  this  principle,  so  directly  repug- 
nant to  the  fundamental  doctrines  of 
Christianity,  that  it  may  be  regarded 
as  literally  speaking  the  "  banner-cry 
of  hell,"  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
whole  revolutionary  maxims  ;  and  it 
is  so  flattering  to  the  hopes,  and  agree- 
able to  the  weakness  of  human  nature, 
that  it  can  scarcely  ever  fail,  when 
brought  forward  with  earnestness  and 
enforced  by  eloquence,  to  captivate 
the  great  majority  of  mankind.  Rous- 
seau proclaimed  it  in  the  loudest  terms 
in  all  his  works ;  it  was  the  great 
secret  of  his  success.  According  to 
him,  man  was  born  innocent,  and  with 
dispositions  only  to  virtue:  all  his 
vices  arose  from  the  absurdity  of 
the  teachers  who  tortured  his  youth, 
all  his  sufferings  from  the  tyranny  of 
the  rulers  who  oppressed  his  man- 
hood. Lamartine,  taught  by  the 
crimes,  persuaded  by  the  sufferings  of 
the  first  Revolution,  has  modified  this 
pilnciple  without  abandoning  its  main 
doctrines,  and  thus  succeeded  in  ren- 


dering it  more  practically  dangerous, 
because  less  repugnant  to  the  com- 
mon sense  and  general  experience  of 
mankind.  His  principle  is,  that  de- 
magogic is  always  selfish  and  dan- 
gerous ;  democratic  always  safe  and 
elevating.  The  ascendency  of  a  few 
ambitious  or  worthless  leaders  preci- 
pitates the  masses,  when  they  first 
rise  against  their  oppressors,  into  acts 
of  violence,  which  throw  a  stain  upon 
the  cause  of  freedom,  and  often  retard 
for  a  season  its  advance.  But  that 
advance  is  inevitable :  it  is  only  sus- 
pended for  a  time  by  the  reaction 
against  bloodshed :  and  in  the  pro- 
gressive elevation  of  the  millions  of 
mankind  to  general  intelligence,  and 
the  direction  of  affairs,  he  sees  the 
practical  development  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  gospel,  and  the  only  secure 
foundation  for  general  felicity.  He  is 
no  friend  to  the  extreme  doctrines  of 
the  Socialists  and  Communists,  and 
is  a  stanch  supporter  of  the  rights  of 
property — and  the  most  important  of 
all  rights,  those  of  marriage  and  fa- 
mily. But  he  sees  in  the  sway  of  the 
multitude  the  only  real  basis  of  gene- 
ral happiness,  and  the  only  security 
against  the  inroads  of  selfishness ;  and 
he  regards  the  advances  towards  this 
grand  consummation  as  being  certain 
and  irresistible  as  the  advance  of  the 
tide  upon  the  sand,  or  the  progress  from 
night  to  morning.  In  this  way  he 
hopes  to  reconcile  the  grand  doctrine 
of  human  perfectibility  with  the  uni- 
versal failure  of  all  attempts  at  its 
practical  establishment ;  and  continues 
to  dream  of  the  irresistible  and  blessed 
march  of  democracy,  while  recounting 
alike  the  weakness  of  the  Girondists, 
and  the  crimes  of  the  Jacobins — the 
woful  result  of  the  Revolution  of  1789 
— and  the  still  more  rapid  and  signal 
failure  of  that  which  convulsed  the 
world  sixty  years  afterwards. 

The  simple  answer  to  all  these  ab- 
surdities and  errors,  productive  of 
such  disastrous  consequences  when 
reduced  into  practice,  is  this—"  The 
heart  is  deceitful  above  all  things,  and 
desperately  wicked."  —  "  There  is 
none  that  doeth  good,  no,  not  one." 
It  is  from  this  universal  and  inevitable 
tendency  to  wickedness,  that  the 
practical  impossibility  of  establishing 
democratic  institutions,  without  utter 
ruin  to  the  best  interests  of  society, 


1849.] 


Lamartine's  Revolution  of  1 848. 


223 


arises.  You  seek  in  vain  to  escape 
from  the  consequences  of  this  universal 
corruption,  by  committing  power  to  a 
multitude  of  individuals,  or  extin- 
guishing the  government  of  a  few  in 
the  sway  of  numbers.  The  multitude 
are  themselves  as  bad  by  nature  as 
the  few,  and,  for  the  discharge  of  the 
political  duties  with  which  they  are 
intrusted,  incomparably  worse ;  for, 
in  their  case,  numbers  annihilate  re- 
sponsibility without  conferring  wis- 
dom, and  the  contagion  of  common 
opinions  inflames  passion  without 
strengthening  reason.  In  the  govern- 
ment of  a  few,  capacity  is  generally 
looked  for,  because  it  is  felt  to  be 
beneficial  by  the  depositaries  of 
power ;  but  in  that  of  numbers  it  is  as 
commonly  rejected,  because  it  excites 
general  jealousy,  without  the  prospect 
of  individual  benefit.  Democratic 
communities  are  ruined,  no  one  knows 
how,  or  by  whom.  It  is  impossible 
to  find  any  one  who  is  responsible  for 
whatever  is  done.  The  ostensible 
leaders  are  driven  forward  by  an  un- 
seen power,  which  they  are  incapable 
alike  of  regulating  or  withstanding: 
the  real  leaders  —  the  directors  of 
thought — are  unseen  and  irresponsible. 
If  disasters  occur,  they  ascribe  them 
to  the  incapacity  of  the  statesmen  at 
the  head  of  affairs :  they  relieve  them- 
selves of  responsibility,  by  alleging, 
with  truth,  the  irresistible  influence  of 
an  unknown  power.  No  one  is  trained 
to  the  duties  of  statesmanship,  be- 
cause no  one  knows  who  is  to  be  a 
statesman.  Ignorance,  presumption, 
and  ambition,  generally  mount  to  the 
head  of  affairs :  the  wheel  of  fortune, 
or  the  favour  of  a  multitude  incapable 
of  judging  of  the  subject,  determines 
everything.  The  only  effectual  se- 
curity against  spoliation  by  the  rulers 
of  men,  the  dread  of  being  spoliated 
themselves,  is  lost  when  these  rulers 
are  men  who  are  not  worth  spoliating. 
Durable  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
community  is  no  longer  felt,  when 
durable  tenure  of  power  is  known  to 
be  impossible.  The  only  motive  which 
remains  is,  that  of  making  the  most 
of  a  tenure  of  power  which  is  univer- 
sally known  to  be  as  short-lived  as  it 
is  precarious;  and  prolonging  it  as 


long  as  possible,  by  bending,  in  every 
instance,  to  the  passions  or  fantasies 
of  the  multitude,  nominally  vested 
with  supreme  power,  really  entirely 
guided  by  a  few  insolvent  and  ambi- 
tious demagogues — 

"  Ces  petits  souverains  qu'  il  fait  pour  ua 

annee, 
Voyant  <Tun  temps  si  court  leur  puissance 

bornee, 
Des  plus  heureux  desseins  font  avorter  le 

fruit, 

De  peur  tie  le  laiser  a  celui  qui  le  suit ; 
Comme  ils  out  peu  de  part  aux  biens  dont 

ils  ordonneut, 
Dans  le  champs  du  public  largement  ils 

moissonnent; 

Assures  que  chacun  leur  pardonne  aisemeut, 
Esperant  a  son  tour  un  pareil  traitement; 
Le  pire  des  etats,  c'est  1'etat  populaire."* 

Lamartine,  regarding  the  march  of 
democracy  as  universal  and  inevitable, 
is  noways  disconcerted  by  the  uniform 
failure  of  all  attempts  in  old  com- 
munities to  establish  it,  or  the  dread- 
ful catastrophes  to  which  they  have 
invariably  led.  These  are  merely  the 
breaking  of  the  waves  of  the  advancing 
tide ;  but  the  rise  of  the  flood  is  not 
the  less  progressive  and  inevitable. 
He  would  do  well  to  consider,  how- 
ever, whether  there  is  not  a  limit  to 
human  suffering;  whether  successive 
generations  will  consent  to  immolate 
themselves  and  their  children  for  no 
other  motive  than  that  of  advancing 
an  abstract  principle,  or  vindicating 
privileges  for  the  people  fatal  to  their 
best  interests ;  and  whether  resisted 
attempts,  and  failures  at  the  estab- 
lishment of  republican  institutions, 
will  not,  in  the  end,  lead  to  a  lasting 
apathy  and  despair  in  the  public  mind. 
Certain  it  is,  that  this  was  the  fate  of 
popular  institutions  in  Greece,  in 
Rome,  and  modern  Italy :  all  of  which 
fell  under  the  yoke  of  servitude,  from 
a  settled  conviction,  founded  on  expe- 
rience, that  anything  was  preferable  to 
the  tempests  of  anarchy.  Symptoms, 
and  those  too  of  the  most  unequivocal 
kind,  may  be  observed  of  a  similar 
disposition  in  the  great  majority,  at 
least  of  the  rural  population,  both  in 
France  and  England.  The  election 
of  Prince  Louis  Napoleon  by  four 
millions  out  of  six  millions  of  electors, 


*  CORNEILLE,  Cinna,  Act  ii.,  scene  1. 


224 


Lamartine's  Revolution  of  1848. 


[Aug. 


in  the  former  country — the  quiet  de- 
spair with  which  measures  of  the  most 
ruinous  kind  to  general  industry  are 
submitted  to  in  the  latter,  are  so 
many  proofs  of  this  disposition.  The 
bayonets  of  Changarnier,  the  devas- 
tating measures  of  free  trade  and  a 
restricted  currency,  are  submitted  to 
in  both  countries,  because  anything 
is  better  than  shaking  the  foundations 
of  government. 

In  treating  of  the  causes  which  have 
led  to  the  revolution  of  1848,  Lamar- 
tine  imputes  a  great  deal  too  much,  in 
our  estimation,  to  individual  men  or 
shades  of  opinion,  and  too  little  to 
general  causes,  and  the  ruinous  effects 
of  the  first  great  convulsion.  He 
ascribes  it  to  the  personal  unpopularity 
of  M.  Guizot,  the  selfish  and  corrupt 
system  of  government  which  the  king 
had  established,  and  the  discontent  at 
the  national  risks  incurred  by  France 
for  the  interests  only  of  the  Orleans 
dynasty,  in  the  Montpensier  alliance. 
This  tendency  arises  partly  from  the 
constitution  of  Lamartine's  mind, 
which  is  poetical  and  dramatic  rather 
than  philosophical;  and  partly  from 
the  disinclination  felt  by  all  intelligent 
liberal  writers  to  ascribe  the  failure  of 
their  measures  to  their  natural  and 
inevitable  effects,  rather  than  the 
errors  or  crimes  of  individual  men.  In 
this  respect,  doubtless,he  is  more  con  • 
sistent  and  intelligible  than  M.  Thiers, 
who,  in  his  History  of  the  French  Re- 
volution, ascribes  the  whole  calamities 
which  occurred  to  the  inevitable  march 
of  events  in  such  convulsions — forget- 
ting that  he  could  not  in  any  other 
way  so  severely  condemn  his  own 
principles,  and  that  it  is  little  for  the 
interest  of  men  to  embrace  a  cause 
which,  in  that  view,  necessarily  and 
inevitably  leads  to  ruin.  Lamartine, 
in  running  into  the  opposite  extreme, 
and  ascribing  everything  to  the  mis- 
conduct and  errors  of  individual  men, 
is  more  consistent,  because  he  saves 
the  principle.  But  he  is  not  the  less 
in  error.  The  general  discontent  to 
which  he  ascribes  so  much,  the  uni- 
versal selfishness  and  corruption  which 
he  justly  considers  as  so  alarming, 
were  themselves  the  result  of  previous 
events :  they  were  the  effects,  not  the 
causes,  of  political  change.  And 
without  disputing  the  influence,  to  a 
certain  extent,  of  the  individual  men 


to  whose  agency  he  ascribes  every- 
thing, it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that 
there  are  four  causes  of  paramount 
importance  which  concurred  in  bring- 
ing about  the  late  French  revolution  ; 
and  which  will  for  a  very  long  period, 
perhaps  for  ever,  prevent  the  esta- 
blishment of  anything  like  real  free- 
dom in  that  country. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  universal  dis- 
ruption of  all  the  old  bonds  of  society, 
which  took  place  in  the  first  Revolu- 
tion, and  the  general  fretting  against 
all  restraint,  human  or  divine,  which 
arose  from  the  ruin  of  religion  and 
confusion  of  morals  which  then  took 
place.  These  evils  have  only  been 
partially  remedied  by  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  Christian  faith  over  the 
whole  realm,  and  the  sway  which  it 
has  undoubtedly  acquired  in  the  rural 
districts.  The  active  and  energetic 
inhabitants  of  the  great  towns  still 
continue  influenced  by  the  Revolution- 
ary passions,  the  strongest  of  which  is 
the  thirst  for  present  enjoyment,  and 
the  impatience  of  any  restraint,  whether 
from  the  influence  of  conscience  or  the 
authority  of  law.  This  distinctly  ap- 
pears from  the  licentious  style  of  the 
novels  which  have  now  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  issued  from  the  press  of 
Paris,  and  which  is  in  general  such 
that,  though  very  frequently  read  in 
England,  it  is  very  seldom,  especially 
by  women,  that  this  reading  is  ad- 
mitted. The  drama,  that  mirror  of 
the  public  mind,  is  another  indication 
of  the  general  prevalence  of  the  same 
licentious  feeling:  it  is  for  the  most 
part  such,  that  few  even  of  the  least 
tight-laced  English  ladies  can  sit  out 
the  representation.  The  irreligion,  or 
rather  general  oblivion  of  religion, 
which  commonly  prevails  in  the  towns, 
is  a  part,  though  doubtless  a  most 
important  part,  of  this  universal  dis- 
position :  Christianity  is  abjured  or 
forgotten,  not  because  it  is  disbeliev- 
ed, but  because  it  is  disagreeable. 
Men  do  not  give  themselves  the 
trouble  to  inquire  whether  it  is  true 
or  false  ;  they  simply  give  it  the  go- 
by, and  pass  quietly  on  the  other 
side,  because  it  imposes  a  restraint,  to 
them  insupportable,  on  their  passions. 
Dispositions  of  this  sort  are  the  true 
feeders  of  revolution,  because  they 
generate  at  once  its  convulsions  in 
like  manner,  as  passions  which  re-. 


1849.] 


Lamartine's  Revolution  of  1848. 


225 


quire  gratification,  poverty  which 
demands  food,  and  activity  which 
pines  for  employment.  Foreign  war 
or  domestic  convulsion  are  the  only 
alternatives  which,  in  such  a  state  of 
society,  remain  to  government.  Na- 
poleon tried  the  first,  and  he  brought 
the  Cossacks  to  Paris ;  Louis  Philippe 
strove  to  become  the  Napoleon  of 
peace,  but  he  succeeded  only  in  being 
the  pioneer  of  revolution. 

The  great  and  durable  interests  of 
society,  which  the  indulgence  of  such 
passions  inevitably  ruins,  are  the 
barrier  which,  in  ordinary  circum- 
stances, is  opposed  to  these  dis- 
orders ;  and  it  is  this  influence  which 
has  so  long  prevented  any  serious  out- 
break of  anarchy  in  Great  Britain. 
But  the  immense  extent  of  the  con- 
fiscation of  landed  property  during 
the  first  Revolution,  and  the  total  ruin 
of  commercial  and  movable  wealth, 
from  the  events  of  the  maritime  war, 
and  the  effects  of  the  enormous  issue 
of  assignats,  has  prevented  the  con- 
struction of  this  barrier  in  anything 
like  sufficient  strength  to  withstand 
the  forces  which  pressed  against  it. 
Nine-tenths  of  the  realised  wealth  of 
the  country  was  destroyed  during  the 
convulsion ;  what  remained  was  for  the 
most  part  concentrated  in  the  hands  of 
a  few  bankers  and  moneyed  men,  who 
aimed  at  cheapening  everything,  and 
depressing  industry,  in  order  to  aug- 
ment the  value  of  their  metallic  riches. 
The  influence  of  the  natural  leaders  of 
the  producing  class,  the  great  proprie- 
tors of  land,  was  at  an  end,  for  they 
were  almost  all  destroyed.  The  six  mil- 
lions of  separate  landed  proprietors, 
who  had  come  in  their  place,  had 
scarcely  any  influence  in  the  state ;  for 
the  great  majority  of  them  were  too 
poor  to  pay  200  francs  a-year  (£8) 
direct  taxes — the  necessary  condition 
towards  an  admission  into  the  elec- 
toral body— and  as  individuals  they 
were  in  too  humble  ciraxmstances  to 
have  any  influence  in  the  state.  The 
returns  of  the  "  Impot  fonciere"  or 
land-tax,  showed  that  above  four  mil- 
lions of  this  immense  body  had  pro- 
perties vary  ing  from  £2  to  £10  a-year 
each— not  more  than  is  enjoyed  by  an 
Irish  bogtrotter.  In  these  circum- 
stances, not  only  was  the  steadying 
influence  of  property  in  general  nnfelt 
in  the  state,  but  the  property  which 


did  make  itself  felt  was  of  a  disturb- 
ing rather  than  a  pacifying  tendency  ; 
for  it  was  that  of  bankers  and  money- 
lenders, whose  interests,  being  those 
of  consumers,  not  producers,  went  to 
support  measures  calculated  to  depress' 
industry  rather  than  elevate  it,  and 
thereby  augment  rather  than  diminish 
the  distress  which,  from  these  causes, 
soon  came  to  press  Bo  severely  upon 
the  urban  population. 

These  causes  were  the  necessary 
results  of  the  dreadful  waste  of  pro- 
perty, and  ruin  of  industry,  which  had 
taken  place  during  the  first  Revolu- 
tion. The  multitude  of  little  pro- 
prietors with  which  France  was  over- 
spread, could  furnish  nothing  to  the 
metropolis  but  an  endless  succession 
of  robust  hands  to  compete  with  its 
industry,  and  starving  mouths  to  share 
its  resources.  What  could  the  six 
millions  of  French  landowners,  the 
majority  of  them  at  the  plough,  afford 
to  lay  aside  for  the  luxuries  of  Paris  ? 
Nothing.  You  might  as  well  expect 
the  West-End  shopkeepers  of  London 
to  be  sustained  by  the  starving  west- 
ern Highlanders  of  Scotland,  or  the 
famished  crowds  of  Irish  cottars.  The 
natural  flow  of  the  wealth  of  the  land 
to  the  capital  of  the  kingdom,  which 
invariably  sets  in  when  agricultural 
property  is  unequally  distributed,  and 
a  considerable  part  of  it  is  vested  in 
the  hands  of  territorial  magnates,  was 
at  once  stopped  when  it  became  di- 
vided among  a  multitude  of  persons, 
not  one  of  whom  could  afford  to  travel 
ten  miles  from  home,  or  to  buy  any- 
thing but  a  rustic  dress  and  a  blouse 
to  cover  it.  At  least  sixty  millions 
sterling,  out  of  the  eighty  millions 
which  constitute  the  net  territorial 
produce  of  France,  was  turned  aside 
from  Paris,  and  spent  entirely  in  the 
purchase  of  the  coarsest  manufactures 
or  rude  subsistence  in  the  provinces. 
The  metropolis  came  to  depend  mainly 
on  the  expenditure  of  foreigners,  or 
of  the  civil  and  military  employes  of 
government.  This  woful  defalcation 
in  its  resources  occurred  at  a  time,  too, 
when  the  influx  of  needy  adventurers 
from  the  country  was  daily  increasing, 
from  the  impossibility  of  earning  a 
livelihood,  amidst  the  desperate  com- 
petition of  its  squalid  landowners,  and 
the  decline  of  agriculture,  which  neces- 
sarily resulted  from  their  inability  to 


226 


Lamartine's  Revolution  0/1848. 


[Aug. 


adopt  any  of  its  improvements.  Thus 
the  condition  of  the  working  classes 
in  Paris  went  on  getting  constantly 
worse,  during  the  whole  reign  of 
Louis  Philippe ;  and  it  was  only  in 
consequence  of  the  vast  influx  of 
foreigners,  which  the  maintenance  of 
peace  and  the  attractions  of  the 
court  occasioned,  that  they  were  not 
reduced  many  years  before  to  the 
despair  and  misery  which  at  once 
occasioned  and  followed  the  last  revo- 
lution. 

Amidst  a  population  excited  to  dis- 
content by  these  causes,  another  cir- 
cumstance has  operated  with  pecu- 
liar force,  which  we  do  not  recollect 
to  have  seen  hitherto  noticed  in  dis- 
quisitions on  this  subject — this  is  the 
prodigious  number  of  natural  children 
and  foundlings  at  Paris.  It  is  well 
known  that  ever  since  the  close  of  the 
first  Revolution  the  number  of  illegi- 
timate births  in  Paris  has  borne  a  very 
great  proportion  to  the  legitimate ; 
they  are  generally  as  10,000  to  18,000 
or  19,000.  For  a  long  time  past,  every 
third  child  seen  in  the  streets  of  Paris 
has  been  a  bastard.  Hitherto  this  im- 
portant feature  of  society  has  been  con- 
sidered with  reference  to  the  state  of 
morality  in  regard  to  the  relation  of 
the  sexes  which  it  indicates ;  but 
attend  to  its  social  and  political 
effects.  These  bastards  do  not  always 
remain  children ;  they  grow  up  to  be 
men  and  women.  The  foundlings  of 
Paris,  already  sufficiently  numerous, 
are  swelled  by  a  vast  concourse  of  a 
similar  class  over  all  France,  who 
flock,  when  they  have  the  means  of 
transport,  to  the  capital  as  the  com- 
mon sewer  of  the  commonwealth. 
There  are  at  present  about  1,050,000 
souls  in  the  French  metropolis.  Sup- 
pose that  a  third  of  these  are  natural 
children,  there  are  then  850,000  per- 
sons, most  of  them  foundlings  of 
illegitimate  birth,  in  that  capital. 
Taking  a  fourth  of  them  as  capable  of 
bearing  arms,  we  have  85,000  bas- 
tards constantly  ready  to  fight  in 
Paris. 

Consider  only  the  inevitable  results 
of  such  a  state  of  things  in  an  old  and 
luxurious  metropolis,  teeming  with 
indigence,  abounding  with  tempta- 
tion, overflowing  with  stimulants  to 
the  passions.  The  enfant  trouve  of 
Paris,  when  grown  up,  becomes  a 


gamin  de  Paris,  just  as  naturally  and 
inevitably  as  a  chrysalis  becomes  a 
butterfly.  He  has  obtained  enough 
of  instruction  to  enable  him  to  imbibe 
temptation,  and  not  enough  to  enable 
him  to  combat  it.  He  has  in  general 
received  the  rudiments  of  education : 
he  can  read  the  novels  of  Victor 
Hugo,  Eugene  Sue,  and  George  Sand ; 
he  can  study  daily  the  Reforme  or 
National,  or  Democratic  Pacifique. 
He  looks  upon  political  strife  as  a 
game  at  hazard,  in  which  the  win- 
ning party  obtain  wealth  and  hon- 
our, mistresses,  fortunes,  and  enjoy- 
ments. As  to  religion,  he  has  never 
heard  of  it,  except  as  a  curious  relic 
of  the  olden  time,  sometimes  very 
effective  on  the  opera  stage;  as  to 
industry,  he  knows  not  what  it  is ; 
as  to  self-control,  he  regards  it  as 
downright  folly  where  self-indulgence 
is  practicable.  The  most  powerful 
restraints  on  the  passions  of  men — 
parents,  children,  property — are  to 
him  unknown.  He  knows  not  to 
whom  he  owes  his  birth ;  his  offspring 
are  as  strange  to  him  as  his  parents, 
for  they,  like  him,  are  consigned  to 
the  Foundling  Hospital :  he  has  no- 
thing in  the  world  he  can  call  his  own, 
except  a  pair  of  stout  arms  to  aid  in 
the  formation  of  barricades,  and  a 
dauntless  heart  ready  at  any  moment 
to  accept  the  hazard  of  death  or  plea- 
sure. Hanging  midway,  as  it  were, 
between  the  past  and  the  future,  he  has 
inherited  nothing  from  the  former 
but  its  vices,  he  will  transmit  nothing 
to  the  latter  but  its  passions.  Who- 
ever considers  the  inevitable  results 
of  eighty  or  ninety  thousand  men  in 
the  prime  of  life  actuated  by  these 
dispositions,  associating  with  an  equal 
number  of  women  of  the  same  class, 
affected  by  the  same  misfortune  in 
their  birth,  and  influenced  by  the  same 
passions,  constantly  existing  in  a  state 
of  indigence  and  destitution  in  the 
heart  of  Paris,  will  have  no  difficulty  in 
accounting  for  the  extraordinary  diffi- 
culty which,  for  the  last  half  century, 
has  been  experienced  in  governing 
France,  and  will  probably  despair  of 
ever  succeeding  in  it  but  by  force  of 
arms. 

We  hear  nothing  of  these  facts  from 
Lamartine,  whose  mind  is  essentially 
dramatic,  and  who  represents  revolu- 
tions, as  he  evidently  considers 


1849.] 


Lamm-tine's  Revolution  of  1848. 


as  the  work  of  individual  men,  work- 
ing upon  the  inevitable  march  of  so- 
ciety towards  extreme  republican  in- 
stitutions. He  gives  us  no  statistics; 
he  never  refers  to  general  causes, 
except  the  universal  progress  towards 
democracy,  which  he  regards  as  irre- 
sistible. Least  of  all  is  he  alive  to 
the  ruinous  effects  of  the  first  great  dis- 
ruption of  the  bonds  of  society  which 
naturally  followed  the  Revolution  of 
1789,  or  disposed  to  regard  the  subse- 
quent convulsions,  as  what  they  really 
are — the  inevitable  result  and  just 
punishment  of  the  enormous  sins  of 
the  Revolution.  And — markworthy 
circumstance  ! — these  consequences 
are  the  obvious  result  of  the  great 
crimes  committed  in  its  course ;  the 
confiscation  of  property  which  it  oc- 
casioned, the  overthrow  of  religion 
and  morals  with  which  it  was  at- 
tended. They  have  fallen  with  pecu- 
liar severity  upon  Paris,  the  centre  of 
the  revolutionary  faction,  and  the  focus 
from  which  all  its  iniquities  emanated, 
and  where  the  blood  of  its  noblest 
victims  was  shed.  And  if  revolutions 
such  as  we  have  witnessed  or  read 
of  in  that  country  are  indeed  inevi- 
table, and  part  of  the  mysterious 
system  of  Providence  in  the  regula- 
tion of  human  affairs,  we  can  regard 
them  as  nothing  but  a  realisation  of 
that  general  tendency  to  evil  which  is 
so  clearly  foretold  in  prophecy,  and 
indications  of  the  advent  of  those 
disastrous  times  which  are  to  be^closed 
by  the  second  coming  of  the  Messiah. 
We  have  all  heard  of  the  mingled 
treachery  and  irresolution — treachery 
in  the  national  guard,  irresolution  in 
the  royal  family  —  which  brought 
about  the  revolution  which  Lamar- 
tine  has  so  eloquently  described.  It 
is  evident,  even  from  his  account — 
which,  it  may  be  supposed,  is  not  un- 
duly hostile  to  the  popular  side — that 
it  was  the  bar-sinister  in  its  birth 
which  proved  fatal,  in  the  decisive 
moment,  to  the  Throne  of  the  Barn- 
cades  ;  and  that  the  revolution  might 
with  ease  have  been  suppressed,  if 
any  other  power  had  been  called  to 
combat  it  but  that  which  owed  its 
existence  to  a  similar  convulsion. 

K  The  King  was  lost  in  thought,  while 
the  tocsin  was  sounding,  on  the  means  by 
which  it  might  yet  be  possible  to  calm 
the  people,  and  restrain  the  revolution,  in 


which  he  persisted  in  seeing  nothing  but 
a  riot.  The  abdication  of  his  external- 
political  system,  personified  in  M.  Guizot, 
M.  Duchatel,  and  the  majority  of  the 
Chambers  entirely  devoted  to  his  inte- 
rests, appeared  to  him  to  amount  to  more 
tban  the  renunciation  of  his  crown  ;  it 
was  the  abandonment  of  his  thoughts,  of 
his  wisdom,  of  the  prestige  of  his  infalli- 
bility in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  of  his  family, 
of  his  people.  To  yield  a  throne  to  ad- 
verse fortune,  is  little  to  a  great  mind. 
To  yield  his  renown  and  authority  to  tri- 
umphant adverse  opinion  and  implacable 
history,  is  the  most  painful  effort  which 
can  be  required  of  a  man,  for  it  at  once 
destroys  and  humbles  him.  But  the  King 
was  not  one  of  those  hardy  characters 
who  enjoy,  with  sang  froid,  the  destruc- 
tion of  a  people  for  the  gratification  of 
their  pride.  He  had  read  much  of  his- 
tory, acted  much  in  troubled  times,  re- 
flected much.  He  could  not  conceal  from 
himself,  that  a  dynasty  which  should  re- 
conquer Paris  by  means  of  grape-shot  and 
bombs  would  be  for  ever  besieged  by  the 
horror  of  the  people.  His  field  of  battle 
had  always  been  opinion.  It  was  on  it 
that  he  wished  to  act ;  he  hoped  to  regain 
it  by  timely  concessions.  Only,  like  a 
prudent  economist,  he  higgled  with  opi- 
nion like  a  Jewish  pawnbroker,  in  the 
hopes  of  purchasing  it  at  the  smallest 
possible  sacrifice  of  his  system  and  dig- 
nity. He  flattered  himself  he  had  several 
steps  of  popularity  to  descend  before 
quitting  the  throne."— (Vol.  i.,  p.  102.) 

The  immediate  cause  of  the  over- 
throw of  the  throne,  it  is  well  known, 
was  the  fatal  order  which  the  delusion 
of  M.  Thiers,  when  called  to  the  mi- 
nistry, extorted  from  the  weakness  of 
the  King,  to  stop  firing — to  cease  re- 
sistance— to  succumb  to  the  assailants. 
Marshal  Bugeaud  was  perfectly  firm  ; 
the  troops  were  steady ;  ample  mili- 
tary force  was  at  their  command; 
everything  promised  decisive  success 
to  vigorous  operations.  Marshal  Bu- 
geaud's  plan  was  of  the  simplest  but 
most  efficacious  kind. 

"  Marshal  Bugeaud,  with  his  mili- 
tary instinct,  matured  by  experience  and 
the  habit  of  handling  troops,  knew  that 
immobility  is  the  ruin  of  the  morale  of 
soldiers.  He  changed  in  a  moment  the 
plan  of  operations  submitted  to  him.  He 
instantly  called  around  him  the  officers 
commanding  corps.  The  one  was  Tiburie 
Sebastiani,  brother  of  the  marshal  of  the 
same  name,  a  calm  and  faithful  oificer;  the 
other,  General  Bedeau,  whose  name,  made 
illustrious  by  his  exploits  in  Africa,  car- 


228 


Lamartine's  Revolution  o/"1848. 


[Aug. 


ried  respect  with  it,  to  his  companions  in 
arms  in  Paris.  He  ordered  them  to  form 
two  columns  of  3500  men  each,  and  to 
advance  into  the  centre  of  Paris — the  one 
by  the  streets  which  traverse  it  from  the 
Boulevards  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  the 
other  by  streets  which  cross  it  from  the 
quays.  Each  of  the  columns  had  artil- 
lery, and  their  instructions  were,  to  carry, 
iu  their  advance,  all  the  barricades,  to  de- 
stroy these  fortresses  of  the  insurrection, 
to  cannonade  the  masses,  and  concen- 
trate their  columns  on  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  the  decisive  point  of  the  day.  Ge- 
neral Lamoriciere  was  to  command  a 
reserve  of  9000  men,  stationed  around 
the  palace."— (Vol.  i.,  pp.  136,  137.) 

The  despair  of  the  troops  when 
compelled  to  retire  before  a  tumul- 
tuous mob  —  to  confess  defeat  in 
their  own  capital,  and  in  the  face  of 
Europe,  is  thus  described : — 

"  At  daybreak  the  two  columns  of 
troops  set  out  on  their  march  ;  their  pro- 
gress was,  every  ten  minutes,  reported  by 
staff-officers  in  disguise.  They  experienced 
no  serious  resistance  on  their  way  to  the 
Hotel  de  Ville;  the  crowd  opened  as 
they  advanced,  with  cries  of  '  Vixe  la 
Reforme!'  they  trampled  under  foot, 
without  firing  a  shot,  the  beginnings  of 
the  barricades.  Nevertheless,  the  uncer- 
tainty of  what  was  passing  in  the  Tuileries 
paralysed  the  arms  in  the  hands  of  the 
soldiers.  The  Marshal,  at  length  con- 
strained by  the  reiterated  orders  of  the 
King,  sent  orders  to  his  lieutenants  to 
make  the  troops  fall  back.  Marshal  Be- 
deau,  upon  this,  made  his  battalions  re- 
tire. Some  soldiers  threw  their  muskets 
on  the  ground,  as  a  sign  of  despair  or 
fraternisation.  Their  return  across  Paris 
had  the  appearance  of  a  defection,  or  of 
the  advanced  guard  of  the  revolution 
marching  on  the  Tuileries.  The  troops, 
already  vanquished  by  these  orders,  took 
up  their  position,  untouched  but  powerless, 
on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  in  the  Champs 
Elyse"es,  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  The 
French  troops,  when  disgraced,  are  no 
longer  an  army.  They  felt  in  their  hearts 
the  bitterness  of  that  retreat ;  they  feel 
it  still."— (Vol.  i.,  p.  139.) 

But  it  was  soon  found  that  these 
disgraceful  concessions  to  mob  vio- 
lence would  avail  nothing;  that  M. 
Thiers  and  M.  Odillon  Barrot  were 
alike  unequal  to  stemming  the  torrent 
which  they  had  put  in  motion;  and 
that  the  King,  as  a  reward  for  his 
humane  order  to  the  troops  not  to  fire 
upon  the  people,  was  to  be  called  on 
to  abdicate !  In  the  disgraceful  scene 


of  pusillanimity  and  weakness  which 
ensued,  we  regret  to  say  the  princes 
of  the  royal  family,  and  especially  the 
Duke  de  Montpensier,  evinced  as 
much  cowardice  as  the  princesses  did 
courage;  —  exemplifying  thus  again 
what  Napoleon  said  of  the  Bourbons 
in  1815,  that  there  was  only  one  man 
in  the  family,  and  that  man  was  a 
woman.  The  decisive  moment  is  thus 
described  with  dramatic  power,  but, 
we  have  no  doubt,  historic  truth,  by 
M.  Lamartine : — 

"  M.  Girardin,  in  a  few  brief  and  sad 
words,  which  abridged  minutes  and  cut 
short  objections,  said  to  the  King  with 
mournful  respect,  that  changes  of  minis- 
try were  no  longer  in  season  ;  that  the 
moment  was  sweeping  away  the  throne 
with  the  councils,  and  that  there  was  but 
one  word  suitable  to  the  urgency  of  the 
occasion,  and  that  word  was  'abdica- 
tion.' 

"  The  King  was  in  one  of  those  mo- 
ments when  truths  strike  without  offend- 
ing. Nevertheless,  he  let  fall,  upon  hearing 
these  words,  from  his  hands  the  pen  with 
which  he  was  arranging  the  names  of  the 
new  ministry.  He  was  desirous  of  dis- 
cussing the  question.  M.  Girardin,  piti- 
less as  evidence,  pressing  as  time,  would 
not  even  admit  of  discussion.  '  Sire  !' 
said  he, '  the  abdication  of  the  king,  or 
the  abdication  of  the  monarchy — there  is 
the  alternative.  Circumstances  will  not 
admit  even  of  a  minute  to  find  a  third 
issue  from  the  straits  in  which  we  are 
placed.'  While  he  thus  spoke,  M.  Girar- 
din placed  before  the  King  the  draft  of  a 
proclamation  which  he  had  prepared  and 
he  wished  to  have  printed.  That  pro- 
clamation, concise  as  a  fact,  consisted 
only  of  four  lines,  calculated  to  attract 
the  eyes  of  the  people. 

The  abdication  of  the  King. 

The  regency  of  the  Duchess  of  Orleans. 

The  dissolution  of  the  Chamber  of  De- 
puties. 

A  general  amnesty. 

"The  King  hesitated.  The  Duke  de 
Montpensier  his  son,  carried  away,  doubt- 
less, by  the  energetic  expression  in  the 
physiognomy,  gesticulations,  and  words 
of  M.  Girardin,  pressed  his  father  with 
more  vehemence  than  rank,  age,  and  mis- 
fortunes should  have  permitted  to  the 
respect  of  a  son.  The  pen  was  presented, 
and  the  crown  torn  from  the  monarch  by 
an  impatience  which  could  not  wait  for  his 
full  and  free  conviction.  The  rudeness  of 
fortune  towards  the  King  was  forgotten  in 
the  precipitance  of  the  council.  On  the 
other  hand,  blood  was  beginning  to  flow, 
the  throne  was  gliding  away.  The  lives 


1849.] 


Lamartine's  Revolution  of!8i8. 


even  of  the  King  and  his  family  might  be 
endangered.  Everything  can  be  explain- 
ed by  the  solicitude  and  the  tenderness  of 
the  councillors.  History  should  ever 
take  the  version  which  least  humiliates 
and  bruises  least  the  human  heart." — 
(Vol.  i.,  p.  127.) 

Observe  the  poetic  justice  of  this 
consummation.  The  member  of  his 
family,  who  at  the  decisive  moment 
failed  in  his  duty,  and  compelled  his 
infirm  and  gray-haired  father  to  ab- 
dicate, was  the  Due  DE  MONTPENSIER 
— the  very  prince  for  whose  elevation 
he  had  perilled  the  English  alliance, 
violated  his  plighted  word,  endan- 
gered the  peace  of  Europe!  The 
heir-presumptive  of  the  crown  of 
Spain  was  the  first  to  shake  the  crown 
of  France  from  his  father's  head! 
Vanquished  by  his  personal  fears,  un- 
worthy of  his  high  rank  and  higher 
prospects,  a  disgrace  to  his  country, 
he  evinced,  what  is  rare  in  France  in 
any  station,  not  merely  moral,  but 
physical  pusillanimity.  To  this  end 
have  the  intrigues  of  the  Orleans 
family,  from  Egalite'  downwards,  ulti- 
mately tended.  They  have  not  only 
lost  the  crown,  to  win  which  they 
forgot  their  allegiance  and  violated 
their  oaths,  but  they  have  lost  it  with 
dishonour  and  disgrace :  they  are  not 
only  exiles,  but  they  are  despised 
exiles.  Such  have  been  the  fruits  of 
the  Orleans  intrigues  to  gain  the 
crown  of  France. 

As  a  bright  contrast  to  this  woful 
exhibition,  we  gladly  translate  M. 
Lamartine's  account  of  the  memor- 
able scene  in  the  chambers,  where  the 
Duchess  of  Orleans  nobly  contended 
with  an  infuriated  and  bloodthirsty 
rabble  for  the  crown,  now  devolved 
to  her  son  by  his  grandfather's  abdi- 
cation. Had  such  spirited  devotion 
been  found  in  her  husband's  family, 
they  might  have  transmitted  the 
honours  they  had  won  in  the  Orleans 
dynasty. 

"The  great  door  opposite  the  tri- 
bune, on  a  level  with  the  most  elevated 
benches  in  the  hall,  opened ;  a  woman  ap- 
peared dressed  in  mourning  :  it  was  the 
Duchess  of  Orleans.  Her  veil,  half  raised 
on  her  hat,  allowed  her  countenance  to 
be  seen,  bearing  the  marks  of  an  emotion 
and  sadness  which  heightened  the  interest 
of  youth  and  beauty.  Her  pale  cheeks 
bore  the  traces  of  the  tears  of  the  widow, 
the  anxieties  of  the  mother.  No  man 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVI. 


229 

could  look  on  those  features  without  emo- 
tion. At  their  aspect,  all  resentment 
against  the  monarchy  fled  from  the  mind. 
The  blue  eyes  of  the  princess  wandered 
over  the  scene,  with  which  she  had  been 
a  moment  dazzled,  as  if  to  implore  aid  by 
her  looks.  Her  slender  but  elegant  form 
bowed  at  the  applause  which  saluted 
her.  A  slight  colour — the  dawn  of  hope 
amidst  ruin — of  joy  amidst  sorrow — suf- 
fused her  cheeks.  A  smile  of  gratitude 
beamed  through  her  tears.  She  felt  herself 
surrounded  by  friends.  With  one  hand 
she  held  the  young  king,  who  stumbled 
on  the  steps,  with  the  other  the  young 
Duke  of  Chartres  :  infants  to  whom  the 
catastrophe  which  destroyed  them  was  a. 
subject  of  amusement.  They  were  both 
clothed  in  short  black  dresses.  A  white 
shirt-collar  was 'turned  over  their  dresses, 
as  in  the  portraits  by  Vandyke  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Charles  I. 

"  The  Duke  of  Nemours  walked  beside 
the  princess,  faithful  to  the  memory  [of  his 
brother  in  his  nephews  ;  a  protector 
who  would  ere  long  stand  in  need  of 
protection  himself.  The  figure  of  that 
prince,  ennobled  by  misfortune,  breathed 
the  courageous  but  modest  satisfaction  of 
a  duty  discharged  at  the  hazard  of  his 
life.  Some  generals  in  uniform,  and 
officers  of  the  national  guard,  followed  her 
steps.  She  bowed  with  timid  grace  to  the 
assembly,  and  sat  down  motionless  at  the 
foot  of  the  tribune,  an  innocent  accused 
person  before  a  tribunal  without  appeal, 
which  was  ab»ut  to  judge  the  cause  of 
royalty.  At  that  moment,  that  cause  was 
gained  in  the  eyes  and  hearts  of  all." — 
(Vol.  i.  p.  177.) 

But  it  was  all  in  vain.  The  mob 
on  the  outside  broke  into  the  assem- 
bly. The  national  guard,  as  usual, 
failed  at  the  decisive  moment,  and 
royalty  was  lost. 

"  An  unwonted  noise  was  heard  at  the 
door  on  the  left  of  the  tribune.  Unknown 
persons,  national  guards  with  arms 
in  their  hands,  common  people  in  their 
working-dresses,  break  open  the  doors, 
overthrow  the  officers  who  surround  the 
tribune,  invade  the  assembly,  and,  with 
loud  cries,  demand  the  Duke  of  Ne- 
mours. Some  deputies  rose  from  their 
eeats  to  make  a  rampart  with  their  bodies 
around  the  princess.  M.  Mauguin  calmly 
urged  them  to  retire.  General  Oudinot 
addressed  them  with  martial  indignation. 
Finding  words  unavailing,  he  hastily  tra- 
versed the  crowd  to  demand  the  support 
of  the  national  guard.  He  represented  to 
them  the  inviolability  of  the  assembly, 
and  the  respect  due  to  a  princess  and  a 
woman  insulted  amidst  French  bayonets. 

Q 


230 


Lamartine  s  Revolution  of  1848. 


[Aug. 


The  national  guards  heard  him,  feigned 
to  be  indignant,  but  slowly  took  up  their 
arms,  and  ended  by  doing  nothinq." — 
(Vol.  i.  p.  180.) 

In  justice  to  Lamartine  also,  we 
must  give  an  abstract  of  his  animated 
and  eloquent  account  of  the  most 
honourable  event  in  his  life,  and  one 
which  should  cover  a  multitude  of 
sins — the  moment  when  he  singly 
contended  with  the  maddened  rabble 
who  had  triumphed  over  the  throne, 
and,  by  the  mere  force  of  moral 
courage  and  eloquent  expression,  de- 
feated the  Red  Republicans,  who  were 
desirous  to  hoist  the  drapeau  rouge, 
the  well-known  signal  of  bloodshed 
and  devastation : — 

"  In  this  moment  of  popular  frenzy, 
Lamartine  succeeded  in  calming  the 
people  by  a  sort  of  patriotic  hymn  on 
their  victory — so  sudden,  so  complete,  so 
unlooked-for"  even  by  the  most  ardent 
friends  of  liberty.  He  called  God  to 
witness  the  admirable  humanity  and  re- 
ligious moderation  which  the  people  had 
hitherto  shown  alike  in  the  combat  and 
their  triumph.  He  placed  prominently 
forward  that  sublime  instinct  which,  the 
evening  before,  had  thrown  them,  when 
still  armed,  but  already  disciplined  and 
obedient,  into  the  arms  of  a  few  men 
who  had  submitted  themselves  to  ca- 
lumny, exhaustion,  and  death,  for  the 
safety  of  all.  '  That,'  said  Lamartine, 
'  was  what  the  sun  beheld  yesterday,  and 
what  would  he  shine  upon  to-day  ?  He 
would  behold  a  people  the  more  furious 
that  there  was  no  longer  any  enemies 
to  combat ;  distrusting  the  men  whom 
but  yesterday  it  had  intrusted  with  the 
lead, — constraining  them  in  their  liberty, 
insulting  them  in  their  dignity,  disavow- 
ing their  authority,  substituting  a  revolu- 
tion of  vengeance  and  punishment  for  one 
of  unanimity  and  fraternity,  and  com- 
manding the  government  to  hoist,  in 
token  of  concord,  the  standard  of  a  com- 
bat to  the  death  between  the  citizens  of 
the  same  country  !  That  red  flag,  which 
was  sometimes  raised  as  the  standard 
against  our  enemies  when  blood  was 
flowing,  should  be  furled  after  the  com- 
bat, in  token  of  reconciliation'and  peace. 
I  would  rather  see  the  black  flag  which 
they  hoist  sometimes  in  a  besieged  town 
as  a  symbol  of  death,  to  designate  to  the 
bombs  the  edifices  consecrated  to  huma- 
nity, and  which  even  the  balls  of  the 
enemy  respect.  Do  you  wish,  then,  that 
the  symbol  of  your  republic  should  be 
more  menacing  and  more  sinister  than 
the  colours  of  a  besieged  city  ?'  '  No  no  !' 
cried  some  of  the  crowd,  '  Lamartine  is 


right  :  let  us  not  keep  that  standard,  the 
symbol  of  terror,  for  our  citizens.'  '  Yes, 
yes  !'  cried  others,  '  it  is  ours — it  is  that 
of  the  people — it  is  that  with  which  we 
have  conquered.  Why  should  we  not 
keep,  after  the  conflict,  the  colours  which 
we  have  stained"  with  our  blood  ?'  — 
'  Citizens !'  said  Lamartine,  after  having 
exhausted  every  argument  calculated  to 
affect  the  imagination  of  the  people, 
'  you  may  do  violence  to  the  government : 
you  may  command  it  to  change  the  colours 
of  the  nation  and  the  colours  of  France. 
If  you  are  so  ill  advised  and  so  obsti- 
nate in  error  as  to  impose  on  it  a  republic 
of  party  and  flag  of  terror,  the  govern- 
ment is  as  decided  as  myself'  to  die 
rather  than  dishonour  itself  by  obey- 
ing you :  for  myself,  my  hand  shall 
never  sign  that  decree  :  I  will  resist 
even  to  the  death  that  symbol  of  blood; 
and  you  should  repudiate  it  as  well  as 
I ;  for  the  red  flag  which  you  bring 
us  has  never  gone  beyond  the  Champ  de 
Mars,  dragged  red  in  the  blood  of  the 
people  in  '91  and  '93;  but  the  tricolor 
flag  has  made  the  tour  of  the  world,  with 
the  name,  the  glory,  and  the  liberty  of 
our  country.'  At  these  words,  Lamar- 
tine, interrupted  by  the  unanimous  cries 
of  enthusiasm,  fell  from  the  chair  which 
served  for  his  tribune,  into  the  arms 
stretched  out  on  all  sides  to  receive  him. 
The  cause  of  the  new  republic  was  tri- 
umphant over  the  bloody  recollections 
which  they  wished  to  substitute  for  it. 
The  hideous  crowd  which  filled  the  hall 
retired,  amidst  cries  of '  Vire  Lamartine .' 
— Vire  le  Drapeau  Tricolor f 

"  The  danger,  however,  was  not  over. 
The  crowd  which  had  been^carried  away 
by  his  words  was  met  by  another  crowd 
which  had  not  hitherto  been  able  to  pene- 
trate into  the  hall,  and  which  was  more 
vehement  in  words  and  gesticulations. 
Menacing  expressions,  ardent  vocifera- 
tions, cries  of  suffocation,  threatening 
gestures,  discharges  of  firearms  on  the 
stair,  tatters  of  a  red  flag  waved  by 
naked  arms  above  the  sea  of  heads,  ren- 
dered this  one  of  the  most  frightful  scenes 
of  the  Revolution.  '  Down  with  Lamar- 
tine! Death  to  Lamartine  !  no  Temporis- 
ing,—  the  Decree,  the  Decree,  or  the 
Government  of  Traitors  to  the  lamp-post!' 
exclaimed  the  assailants.  These  cries 
neither  caused  Lamartine  to  hesitate,  to 
retire,  nor  to  turn  pale.  At  the  sight  of 
him  the  fury  of  the  assailants,  instead  of 
being  appeased,  increased  tenfold.  Mus- 
kets were  directed  at  his  head,  the  nearest 
brandished  bayonets  in  his  face,  and  a  sa- 
vage group  of  twenty,  with  brutal  drunken 
visages,  charged  forward  with  their  heads 
down,  as  if  to  break  through  with  an 
enormous  battering-ram  the  circle  which 


1849.] 


Lamartine's  Revolution  of  1848. 


231 


surrounded  him.  The  foremost  appeared 
bereft  of  reason.  Naked  sabres  reached 
the  head  of  the  orator,  whose  hand  was 
slightly  wounded.  The  critical  mo- 
ment had  arrived;  nothing  was  yet  de- 
cided. Hazard  determined  which  should 
prevail.  Lamartine  expected  momentarily 
to.  be  thrown  down  and  trampled  under 
foot.  At  that  instant  one  of  the  populace 
sprang  from  the  crowd,  a  ball  discharged 
from  below  grazed  his  face  and  stained  it 
with  blood;  while  it  still  flowed,  he 
stretched  out  his  arms  to  j  Lamartine — 
'  Let  me  see  him,  let  me  touch  him,' 
cried  he,  '  let  me  kiss  his  hand !  Listen 
to  him,  oh,  my  citizens !  follow  his  coun- 
cils: you  shall  strike  me  before  touch- 
ing him.  I  will  die  a  thousand  times 
to  preserve  that  good  citizen  for  my 
country.'  With  these  words  he  precipi- 
tated himself  into  his  arms,  and  held  him 
convulsively  embraced.  The  people  were 
moved  at  this  scene  ;  and  a  hundred 
voices  again  exclaimed  'Vive  leGouverne- 
ment  Protisoire! — Vive  Lamartine.'"' — 
(Vol.  i.  pp.  393,  402.) 

We  purposely  close  our  account  of 
Laraartine's  personal  career  with  this 
splendid  passage  in  his  life.  His  sub- 
sequent conduct,  it  is  well  known,  has 
ill  accorded  with  this  beginning.  His 
popularity  in  Paris  fell  as  rapidly  as 
it  had  risen ;  and  on  occasion  of  the 
terrible  revolt  of  June  1848,  he  re- 
tired from  the  government,  with  all 
his  colleagues,  from  acknowledged  in- 
ability to  meet  the  crisis  which  had 
arisen.  We  have  heard  different  ac- 
counts of  the  real  causes  of  his  mys- 
terious alliance  with  his  former  op- 
ponent, and  the  head  of  the  Ked 
Republicans,  M.  Ledru  Rollin,  to 
which  this  fall  was  owing.  Some  of 
these  stories  are  little  to  his  credit. 
We  forbear  to  mention  them,  lest  we 
should  unwittingly  disseminate  false- 
hood in  regard  to  a  man  of  undoubted 
genius  and  great  acquirements.  Per- 
haps, in  some  future  "  Confidences," 
he  may  be  able  to  explain  much 
which  undoubtedly  at  present  stands 
in  need  of  explanation.  We  gladly 
leave  this  dubious  subject,  to  give  a 
place  to  his  dramatic  account  of  the 
dreadful  conflict  in  June,  in  the  streets 
of  Paris,  which  is  the  more  entitled  to 
credit,  as  he  was  an  eyewitness  of 
several  of  its  most  terrible  scenes: — 

"  Assemblages  of  eight  or  ten  thousand 
persons  were  already  formed  on  the  Place 
of  the  Pantheon  to  attack  the  Luxem- 
bourg. M.  Arago  harangued  them  and 
persuaded  them  to  disperse;  but  it  was 


only  to  meet  again  in  the  quarters  ad- 
joining the  Seine,  in  the  Faubourg  St 
Antoine,  and  on  the  Boulevards.  At  the 
sight  of  them  the  faubourgs  turned  out — 
the  streets  were  filled — the  Ateliers 
Nationaux  turned  out  their  hordes — the 
populace,  excited  by  some  chief,  began 
to  raise  barricades.  These  chiefs  were, 
for  the  most  part,  brigadiers  of  the 
national  workshops,  the  pillais  of  sedi- 
tion and  of  the  clubs,  irritated  at  the  dis- 
banding of  their  corps,  the  wages  of  which, 
passing  through  their  hands,  had  been 
applied,  it  is  said,  to  paying  the  Revolu- 
tion. From  the  barriers  of  Charenton, 
Fontainebleau,  and  Menilmontant,  to  the 
heart  of.  Paris,  the  entire  capital  was  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  thousand  men.  The 
rappel  called  to  their  standards  200,000 
National  Guards,  ten  times  sufficient  to 
overthrow  those  assemblages  of  the  sedi- 
tious, and  to  destroy  their  fortifications. 
But  it  must  be  said,  to  the  disgrace  of 
that  day,  and  for  the  instruction  of  pos- 
terity, that  the  National  Guard  at  that 
decisive  moment  did  not  answer  in  a  body 
to  Hie  appeal  of  the  government.  Their 
tardiness,  their  disinclination,  their  inert- 
ness, left  the  streets  in  some  quarters  open 
to  sedition.  They  looked  on  with  calm 
eyes  on  the  erection  of  thousands  of  bar- 
ricades, which  they  had  afterwards  to 
reconquer  with  torrents  of  blood.  Soon 
the  government  quitted  the  Luxembourg 
and  took  refuge  in  the  National  Assem- 
bly, where,  at  the  headquarters  of  General 
Cavaignac,  was  established  the  supreme 
council  of  the  nation. 

"  Government  had  reckoned  on  the 
support  of  the  National  Guard;  but  the 
incessant  beating  of  the  rappel  failed  in 
bringing  it  forth  to  its  standards.  In 
several  quarters  they  were  imprisoned  by 
the  insurgents.  In  fine,  be  it  tardiness, 
or  be  it  fatality,  the  army  was  far  from 
responding  in  a  body  to  the  imminence  and 
universality  of  the  peril.  Its  numerical 
weakness  aggravated  the  danger.  General 
Lamoriciere,  invincible,  though  soon  be- 
sieged by  200,000  men,  occupied  the  whole 
extent  from  the  Rue  duTemple  to  theMade- 
leine,from  the  Rue  de  Clichy  to  the  Louvre 
— constantly  onhorseback,ever  foremost  in 
fire,  he  had  two  horses  shot  under  him — 
his  countenance  black  with  powder,his  fore- 
head running  down  with  sweat,  his  voice 
hoarse  with  giving  the  word  of  command, 
but  his  eye  serene  and  calm  as  a  soldier  in 
his  native  element,  he  restored  spirit  to  his 
men,  confidence  to  the  National  Guards. 
His  reports  to  government  breathed 
the  intrepidity  of  his  soul,  but  he  made 
no  concealment  of  the  imminence  of  the 
danger,  and  the  insufficiency  of  the  troops 
at  his  disposal.  He  painted  the  immense 
multitude  of  the  assailants  and  the  vast 


Lamartine's  Revolution  0/"1848. 


[Aug. 


network  of  barricades  which  stretched  be- 
tween the  Bastile  and  the  Chateau  d'Eau, 
between  the  barriers  and  the  Boulevard. 
Incessantly  he  implored  reinforcements, 
which  the  government  as  continually  sum- 
moned to  its  support  by  the  telegraph,  and 
officers  specially  despatched.  At  length 
the  National  Guards  of  the  neighbourhood 
of  Paris  began  to  arrive,  and,  ranging 
themselves  round  the  Assembly,  furnished 
au  example  to  those  of  the  capital.  Then, 
and  not  till  then,  confidence  began  to  be 
felt  in  the  midst  of  the  chances  of  the 
combat."— (Vol.  ii.,pp.  480-481.) 

It  was  a  most  fortunate  event  for 
the  cause  of  order,  and,  with  it,  of 
real  freedom  throughout  the  world, 
that  this  great  revolt  was  so  com- 
pletely suppressed,  though  at  the  cost 
of  a  greater  number  of  lives,  particu- 
larly in  general  officers,  than  fell  in 
many  a  bloody  battle,  by  the  efforts 
of  General  Cavaignac  and  his  brave 
companions  in  arms.  It  is  said  that 
their  measures,  at  first,  were  not  skil- 
fully taken — that  they  lost  time,  and 
occasioned  unnecessary  bloodshed  at 
the  outset,  by  neglecting  to  attack  the 
barricades  when  they  began  to  be 
formed;  and  certainly  the  easy  and 
bloodless  suppression  of  the  late  re- 
volt against  the  government  of  Prince 
Louis  Napoleon,  by  General  Chan- 
gamier,  seems  to  favour  this  opinion. 
It  must  be  recollected,  however,  that 
the  revolt  of  May  1849  occurred  when 
the  memory  of  the  popular  overthrow 
of  June  1848  was  still  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  the  people;  and  it  is  not 
easy  to  overestimate  the  effect  of  that 
decisive  defeat  in  paralysing  revolt 
on  the  one  side,  and  adding  nerve  to 
resistance  on  the  other.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  Louis  Napoleon  is  not  a 
Due  de  Montpensier — he  will  not  sur- 
render his  authority  without  a  fight. 
But  supposing  that  there  was  some 
tardiness  in  adopting  decisive  mea- 
sures on  occasion  of  the  June  revolt, 
that  only  makes  the  lesson  more  com- 
plete, by  demonstrating  the  inability 
of  the  bravest  and  most  determined 
populace  to  contend  with  a  regular  mi- 
litary force,  when  the  troops  are  steady 
to  their  duty,  and  bravely  led  by  their 
chiefs.  The  subsequent  suppression  of 
the  revolts  in  Prague,  Vienna,  Madrid, 
and  Rome,  have  confirmed  the  same 
important  truth.  Henceforth,  it  is 
evident,  the  horrors  of  revolution  may 
always  be  averted,  when  government 
is  firm,  and  the  military  are  faithful. 


And  these  horrors  are  in  truth  such, 
that  it  becomes  evidently  the  first  of 
political  and  social  duties  for  the 
rulers  of  men  to  justify  the  eminence 
of  their  rank  by  their  courage,  and  the 
troops  to  vindicate  the  trust  reposed 
in  them  by  their  fidelity.  Passing  by 
the  woful  expose  of  the  almost  hope- 
less state  of  the  French  finances,  with 
a  deficit  of  above  TWELVE  MILLIONS 
sterling,  despite  an  addition  of  forty- 
five  per  cent  to  the  direct  taxes,  made 
by  Prince  Louis  Napoleon  to  the  Na- 
tional Assembly,  we  rest  on  the  fol- 
lowing curious  and  important  details 
taken  from  the  Times  of  July  12,  in 
regard  to  the  effect  of  the  revolution 
of  1848  upon  the  comforts  and  con- 
dition of  the  labouring  classes  in 
France : — 

"It  appears  it  is  the  middle  class  of 
tradesmen  that  are  now  most  suffering 
from  the  effects  of  revolution.  The  funds 
on  which  this  class  had  been  living,  in 
the  hope  that  better  days  would  soon 
arrive,  and  which  amongst  some  of  the 
small  tradesmen  formed  their  capital, 
have  become  exhausted.  Those  who  had 
no  money  had,  at  all  events,  some  credit; 
but  both  money  and  credit  are  now  gone. 
The  result  is,  that  even  in  this  period  of 
comparative  tranquillity  more  shops  are 
closed  than  in  the  days  of  turbulence. 

"  The  following  statement  of  the  fluc- 
tuations of  the  revenues  of  the  city  of 
Paris,  occasioned  also  by  revolution,  and 
which  goes  back  to  1826,  is  taken  from 
the  Debats: — 

" '  The  returns  of  the  produce  of  indi- 
rect impost  is  the  unfailing  testimony  to 
the  progress  or  decrease  of  public  tran- 
quillity. We  proved  this  truth  yesterday 
in  publishing,  on  the  authority  of  a  well- 
informed  journal,  the  comparative  state 
of  the  receipts  of  the  Paris  octroi  for  the 
first  six  months  of  the  years  1847,  1848, 
and  1849.  It  is  still  further  proved  by 
valuable  documents  which  we  have  at  this 
moment  before  us.  Thus,  the  produce  of 
the  octroi -wns,  in  1847,  34,5 11, 389 francs; 
and  in  1848, only  26,519,627  francs,  show- 
ing a  difference  of  7,991,762  francs.  This 
decrease  is  enormous,  in  relation  to  the 
immense  necessities  created  by  the  poli- 
tical and  social  crisis,  the  works  under- 
taken by  the  city,  and  the  previous  ex- 
penses it  had  to  provide  for.  We  could 
analyse  the  different  chapters  of  this 
municipal  revenue,  which  affords  life  to 
so  many  branches  of  Parisian  industry; 
but  it  is  useless  to  inquire,  for  each  of 
these  chapters,  the  particular  causes  of 
diminution.  With  the  great  event  of  1 848 
before  us,  all  details  disappear.  One  sole 


1849.] 


Lamartine's  Revolution  q/"1848. 


233 


cause  has  produced  a  decrease  in  the  re- 
ceipts, and  that  is  the  revolution  of  Feb- 
ruary; which,  at  first  menacing  society 
itself  by  the  voice  of  democratic  orators 
and  the  pens  of  demagogue  writers,  fright- 
ened away  capital  and  annihilated  indus- 
try of  all  kinds.  In  order  to  be  able  to 
judge  of  the  influence  of  great  political 
events  on  the  receipts  of  the  Paris  octroi, 
it  will  be  sufficient  to  recur  to  the  years 
•which  preceded  and  followed  the  revolu- 
tion of  1830: — 

Francs. 

In  1826  the  produce  was  .  31,057,000 
In  1827  (the  first  shock  in  conse- 
quence of  the  progress  of  the 
opposition  in  the  country,  and 
the  dissolution  of  the  national 
guard)  .  29,215,000 

In  1828  (fall  of  the  Villele  minis- 
try— continuation  of  the  politi- 
cal movement  notwithstanding 
the  Montignac  ministry      .        28,927  000 
In    1829   (ministry   of   the    8th 
August  —  presentiments    of    a 
struggle  between  the  crown  and 
country)     ....        27,695,000 
In  1830  (July  Revolution)     .        26,240,000 
In  1831  (incessant  agitation — re- 
peated outbreaks)       .        .        24,035,000 
In  1832  (continuation  of  revolu- 
tionary movement — events    of 
the  5th  and  6th  June)        .        22,798,000 
In  1833  (progressive  establishment 

of  tranquillity)   .        .        .        26,667,000 
In  1834  (the  situation  becomes 
better,  with  the  exception  of  the 
events  of  the   13th   and  14th 
April,  which,  however,  were 
brief)         ....        27,458,000 
From  1835  to  1838  (calm— cabi- 
net of  15th  April — the  produce 
in  the  latter  year)      .         .        31,518,000 
In  1839  (Parliamentary  coalition,  •• 

12th  May)  .  .  .  30,654,000 
In  1840  (fears  of  war — rutrture  of 

the  English  Alliance,  &c.)          29,906,000 
From  1841  to  1845  (calm — pro- 
gressive increase  in  the  latter 
year)         ....        34,165,000 
In     1846     (notwithstanding    the 
clearness  of  food,  the  receipts 
were)          ....        33,990,000 
In  1847  (commercial  crisis,  &c.)    33,033,000 
In  1848  (revolution  of  February)   26,519,000 

"  The  following  from  La  Patrie  gives  a 
good  idea  of  the  effects  of  an  unquiet  state 
of  society: — 

" '  Revolutions  cost  dear.  They,  in  the 
first  place,  augment  the  public  expenses 
and  diminish  the  general  resources.  Oc- 
casionally they  yield  something,  but  before 
gathering  in  the  profits  the  bill  must  be 
paid.  M.  Audigaune,  chef  de  bureau  at 
the  department  of  commerce  and  agri- 
culture, has  published  a  curious  work  on 
the  industrial  crisis  brought  on  by  the 
revolution  of  February.  M.  Audiganne 
has  examined  all  branches  of  manufactures, 


and  has  shown  that  the  crisis  affected  every 
one.  In  the  Nord,  at  Lisle,  cotton-spin- 
ning, which  occupied  thirty-four  consider- 
able establishments,  employing  a  capital 
of  7,000,000f.  or  8,000,000f.  ;  and  tulle 
making,  employing  195  looms,  were 
obliged  to  reduce  their  production  one-half. 
At  Turcoing  and  Roubaix,  where  cloth  and 
carpet  manufactories  occupied  12,000 
workmen,  the  produce  went  down  two- 
thirds,  and  8000  men  were  thrown  out  of 
work.  In  the  Pas-de-Calais  the  fabrication 
of  lace  and  cambrics  was  obliged  to  stop 
before  a  fall  of  twenty-five  per  cent.  The 
linen  factory  of  Capecure,  founded  in  1836, 
and  which  employed  1800  men,  was  in 
vain  aided  by  the  Municipal  Council  of 
Boulogne  and  the  local  banks  ;  it  at  last 
succumbed  to  the  crisis.  In  the  depart- 
ment of  the  Somme,  142,000  workmen, 
who  were  employed  in  the  woollen,  cotton, 
stocking,  and  velvet  manufactories,  were 
reduced  to  idleness.  In  the  arrondisse- 
ment  of  Abbeville,  where  the  business, 
known  by  the  name  of  'lockwork'  of 
Picardy,  yielded  an  annual  produce  of 
4,000,000f.,the  orders  stopped  completely, 
and  the  unfortunate  workmen  were 
obliged  to  go  and  beg  their  bread  in  the  en- 
virons. At  Rouen,  where  the  cotton  trade 
gave  an  annual  produce  of  more  than 
250,000,000f.,  there  were  the  same  dis- 
asters ;  yet  the  common  goods  continued 
to  find  purchasers,  owing  to  their  low 
price.  At  Caen,  the  lace  manufacture, 
which  in  1847  employedupwards  of  50,000 
persons,  or  one-eighth  of  the  population  of 
Calvados,  was  totally  paralysed.  At  St 
Quentin,  tulle  embroidery,  which  gave  a 
living  to  1500  women,  received  just  as 
severe  a  blow  as  in  March  and  April, 
1848  ;  almost  all  the  workshops  were 
obliged  to  close.  In  the  east  the  loss  was 
not  less  considerable.  Rheims  was  obliged 
to  close  its  woollen-thread  factories  during 
the  months  of  March,  April,  and  May, 
1848.  The  communal  workshop  absorbed 
in  some  weeks  an  extraordinary  loan  of 
430,000f.  Fortunately,  an  order  for 
l,500,000f.  of  merinos,  from  New  York, 
allowed  the  interrupted  factories  to  re- 
open, and  spared  the  town  fresh  sacrifices. 
The  revolutionary  tempest  penetrated* 
into  Alsace,  and  there  swept  away  two- 
thirds  of  the  production.  Muhlhauseu 
stopped  for  several  months  the  greater 
number  of  its  looms,  and  diminished  one- 
half  the  length  of  labour  in  the  workshops 
which  remained  open.  Lyons  also  felt  all 
the  horrors  of  the  crisis.  In  the  same 
way  as  muslin  and  lace,  silk  found  its 
consumption  stopped.  For  several  months 
the  unfortunate  Lyons'  workmen  had  for 
sole  subsistence  the  produce  of  the  colour* 
and  scarfs  ordered  by  the  Provisional 
Government.  At  St  Etienne  and  St 


234 


Lamm-tine's  Revolution  0/1 848. 


[Aug. 


Chamond,  the  principal  points  of  our  ribbon 
and  velvet  manufacture,  and  where  85,000 
workmen  were  employed,  the  production 
went  down  two-thirds.  At  Paris  M. 
Audiganne  estimates  the  loss  in  what  is 
called  Paris  goods  at  nine-tenths  of  the 
production.  The  loss  on  other  articles, 
he  considers,  on  the  contrary,  to  have  been 
only  two-thirds  on  the  sale,  and  a  little 
more  than  one-half  on  the  amount  of  the 
produce.  -  We  only  touch  in  these  remarks 
on  the  most  striking  points  of  the  calcula- 
tion ;  the  total  loss,  according  to  M. 
Audiganne,  amounts,  for  the  workmen 
alone,  to  upwards  of  300,000,000f. 

Such  have  been  the  consequences 
to  the  people  of  listening  to  the  voice 
of  their  demagogues,  who  impelled 
them  into  the  revolution  of  1848 — to 
the  national  guards,  of  hanging  back 
at  the  decisive  moment,  and  forget- 
ting their  oaths  in  the  intoxication  of 
popular  enthusiasm. 

And  if  any  one  supposes  that  these 
effects  were  only  temporary,  and  that 
lasting  freedom  is  to  be  won  for 
France  by  these  sacrifices,  we  recom- 
mend him  to  consider  the  present 
state  of  France,  a  year  and  a  half 
after  the  revolution  of  1848,  as  paint- 
ed by  one  of  its  ablest  supporters, 
M.  Louis  Blanc. 

PROTEST. 

"  While  Paris  is  in  a  state  of  siege, 
and  when  most  of  the  journals  which  re- 
present our  opinions  are  by  violence  con- 
demned to  silence,  we  believe  it  to  be  a 
duty  owing  to  our  party  to  convey  to  it, 
if  possible,  the  public  expression  of  our 
sentiments. 

"  It  is  with  profound  astonishment  that 
we  see  the  organs  of  the  counter-revolu- 
tion triumph  over  the  events  of  the  13th 
of  June. 

"  Where  there  has  been  no  contest,  how 
can  there  have  been  a  victory  ? 

"  What  is  then  proved  by  the  13th  of 
June  ? 

"  That  under  the  pressure  of  100,000 
soldiers,  Paris  is  not  free  in  her  move- 
ments ?  We  have  known  this  more  than 
enough. 

"  Now,  as  it  has  always  been,  the  ques- 
tion is,  if  by  crowding  Paris  with  soldiers 
and  with  cannon,  by  stifling  with  violent 
hands  the  liberty  of  the  press,  by  suppres- 
sing individual  freedom,  by  invading  pri- 
vate domiciles,  by  substituting  the  reign 
of  Terror  for  that  of  Reason,  by  unceas- 
ingly repressing  furious  despair— that 
which  there  is  wanting  a  capacity  to  pre- 
vent, the  end  will  be  attained  of  reani- 


mating confidence,  or  re-establishing 
credit,  of  diminishing  taxes,  of  correcting 
the  vices  of  the  administration,  of  chasing 
away  the  spectre  of  the  deficit,  of  deve- 
loping industry,  of  cutting  short  the  dis- 
asters attendant  upon  unlimited  competi- 
tion, of  suppressing  those  revolts  which 
have  their  source  in  the  deep  recesses  of 
human  feeling,  of  tranquillising  resent- 
ments, of  calming  all  hearts  ?  The  state 
of  siege  of  1848  has  engendered  that  of 
1849.  The  question  is,  if  the  amiable 
perspective  of  Paris  in  a  state  of  siege 
every  eight  or  ten  months  will  restore  to 
commerce  its  elastic  movements,  to  the 
industrious  their  markets,  and  to  the 
middle  classes  their  repose." — L.Blanc. 

It  is  frequently  asked  what  is  to  be 
the  end  of  all  these  changes,  and  under 
what  form  of  government  are  thepeople 
of  France  ultimately  to  settle  ?  Diffi- 
cult as  it  is  to  predict  any  thing  with  cer- 
tainty of  a  people  with  whom  nothing 
seems  to  be  fixed  but  the  disposition  to 
change,  we  have  no  hesitation  in  stat- 
ing our  opinion  that  the  future  govern- 
ment of  France  will  be  what  that  of 
imperial  Home  was,  an  ELECTIVE  MI- 
LITARY DESPOTISM.  In  fact,  with  the 
exception  of  the  fifteen  years  of  the 
Restoration,  when  a  free  constitutional 
monarchy  was  imposed  on  its  in- 
habitants by  the  bayonets  of  the 
Allies,  it  has  ever  since  the  Re  volution 
of  1789  been  nothing  else.  The  Or- 
leans dynasty  has,  to  all  appearance, 
expired  with  a  disgrace  even  greater 
than  that  which  attended  its  birth: 
the  Bourbons  can  scarcely  expect,  in 
a  country  so  deeply  imbued  with  the 
love  of  change,  to  re-establish  their 
hereditary  throne.  Popular  passion 
and  national  vanity  call  for  that  fa- 
vourite object  in  democratic  societies — 
a  rotation  of  governors :  popular  vio- 
lence and  general  suffering  will  never 
fail  to  re-establish,  after  a  brief  period 
of  anarchy,  the  empire  of  the  sword. 
The  successive  election  of  military 
despots  seems  the  only  popular  com- 
promise between  revolutionary  pas- 
sion and  the  social  necessities  of  man- 
kind; and  as  a  similar  compromise 
took  place,  after  eighty  years  of  blood- 
shed and  confusion,  in  the  Roman 
commonwealth,  so,  after  a  similar 
period  of  suffering,  it  will  probably 
be  repeated,  from  the  influence  of  the 
same  cause,  in  the  French  nation. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  235 


No.  III. 
CHRISTOPHER  UNDER  CANVASS. 


SCENE — Gutta  Percha. 
TIME — Early  Evening. 

NORTH — BULLER — SEWARD — TALBOYS. 


NORTH. 

Trim — trim — trim — 

TALBOYS. 

Gentlemen,  are  you  all  seated  ? 

NORTH. 

Why  into  such  strange  vagaries  fall  as  you  would  dance,  Longfellow! 
Seize  his  skirts,  Seward.  Buller,  cling  to  his  knees.  Billy,  the  boat-hook — 
he  will  be — he  is — overboard. 

TALBOYS. 
Not  at  all.    Gutta  Percha  is  somewhat  crank — and  I  am  steadying  her,  sir. 

NORTH. 
What  is  that  round  your  waist  ? 

TALBOYS. 

My  Air-girdle. 

NORTH. 

I  insist  upon  you  dropping  it,  Longman.  It  makes  you  reckless.  I  did 
not  think  you  were  such  a  selfish  character. 

TALBOYS. 

Alas !  in  this  world,  how  are  our  noblest  intentions  misunderstood  !  I  put 
it  on,  sir,  that,  in  case  of  a  capsize,  I  might  more  buoyantly  bear  you 
ashore. 

NORTH. 

Forgive  me,  my  friend.  But — be  seated.  Our  craft  is  but  indifferently 
well  adapted  for  the  gallopade.  Be  seated,  I  beseech  you !  Or,  if  you  will 
stand,  do  plant  both  feet — do  not — do  not  alternate  so — and  above  all,  do 
not,  I  implore  you — show  off  on  one,  as  if  you  were  composing  and  reciting 
verses. — There,  down  you  are — and  if  there  be  not  a  hole  in  her  bottom, 
Gutta  Percha  is  safe  against  all  the  hidden  rocks  in  Loch  Awe. 

TALBOYS. 

Let  me  take  the  stroke  oar. 

NORTH. 

For  sake  of  the  ancient  houses  of  the  Sewards  and  the  Bullers,  sit  where 
you  are.  We  are  already  in  four  fathom  watch 

TALBOYS. 

The  Lines  ? 

BILLY. 

Nea,  nea— Mister  Talboy.  Nane  shall  steer  Perch  when  He's  afloat  but 
t'  auld  commodore. 


236  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

NORTH. 

Shove  off,  lads. 

TALBOYS. 

Are  we  on  earth  or  in  heaven  ? 

BILLY. 

On  t'  waiter. 

NORTH. 
Billy — mum. 

TALBOYS. 

The  Heavens  are  high — and  they  are  deep.  Fear  would  rise  up  from  that 
Profound,  if  fear  there  could  be  in  the  perfectly  Beautiful ! 

SEWARD. 
Perhaps  there  is — though  it  wants  a  name. 

NORTH. 

"We  know  there  is  no  danger — and  therefore  we  should  feel  no  fear.  But  we 
cannot  wholly  disencumber  ourselves  of  the  emotions  that  ordinarily  great 
depth  inspires — and  verily  I  hold  with  Seward,  while  thus  we  hang  over  the 
sky-abyss  below  with  suspended  oars.  » 

SEWARD. 

The  Ideal  rests  on  the  Eeal — Imagination  on  Memory — and  the  Visionary  > 
at  its  utmost,  still  retains  relations  with  Truth. 

BULLER. 

Pray  you  to  look  at  our  Encampment.    Nothing  visionary  there — 

TALBOYS. 
Which  Encampment  ? 

BULLER. 

On  the  hill- side — up  yonder — at  Cladich. 

TALBOYS. 
You  should  have  said  so  at  first.    I  thought  you  meant  that  other  down — 

BULLER. 

When  I  speak  to  you,  I  mean  the  bonafide  flesh  and  blood  Talboys,  sitting 
by  the  side  of  the  bona  fide,  flesh  and  blood  Christopher  North,  in  Gutta 
Percha,  and  not  that  somewhat  absurd,  and,  I  trust,  ideal  personage,  stand- 
ing on  his  head  in  the  water,  or  it  may  be  the  air,  some  fathoms  below  her 
keel — like  a  pearl-diver. 

TALBOYS. 

Put  up  your  hands — so — my  dear  Mr  North,  and  frame  the  picture. 

NORTH. 

And  Maculloch  not  here  !  Why  the  hills  behind  Cladich,  that  people  call 
tame,  make  a  back-ground  that  no  art  might  meliorate.  Cultivation  climbs  the 
green  slopes,  and  overlays  the  green  hill- ridges,  while  higher  up  all  is  rough, 
brown,  heathery,  rocky — and  behind  that  undulating  line,  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life,  I  see  the  peaks  of  mountains.  From  afar  they  are  looking  at  the 
Tents.  And  far  off  as  they  are,  the  power  of  that  Sycamore  Grove  connects 
them  with  our  Encampment. 

TALBOYS. 

Are  you  sure,  sir,  they  are  not  clouds  ? 

NORTH. 

If  clouds,  so  much  the  better.  If  mountains,  they  deserve  to  be  clouds ;  and 
if  clouds,  they  deserve  to  be  mountains. 

SEWARD. 

The  long  broad  shadow  of  the  Grove  tames  the  white  of  the  Tents — tones 
it — reduces  it  into  harmony  with  the  surrounding  colour — into  keeping  with 
the  brown  huts  of  the  villagers,  clustering  on  bank  and  brae  on  both  sides  of 
the  hollow  river. 

NORTH. 

The  cozey  Inn  itself  from  its  position  is  picturesque. 

TALBOYS. 

The  Swiss  Giantess  looks  imposing — 

BULLER. 

So  does  the  Van.      But  Deeside  is  the  Pandemonium — 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  237 

TALBOYS. 

Well  translated  by  Paterson  in  his  Notes  on  Milton,  "All-Devil's- 
Hall." 

NORTH. 

Hush.  And  how  lovely  the  foreground !  Sloping  upland— with  single  trees 
standing  one  by  one,  at  distances  wide  enough  to  allow  to  each  its  own  little 
grassy  domain — with  its  circle  of  bracken  or  broom — or  its  own  golden  gorse 
grove— divided  by  the  sylvan  course  of  the  hidden  river  itself,  visible  only 
when  it  glimpses  into  the  Loch — Here,  friends,  we  seem  to  see  the  united  occu- 
pations of  pastoral,  agricultural — and — 

BULLER. 

Pardon  me,  sir,  I  have  a  proposition  to  make. 

NORTH. 

You  might  have  waited  a  moment  till — 

BULLER. 

Not  a  moment.  We  all  Four  see  the  background — and  the  middle-ground 
and  the  foreground — and  all  the  ground  round  and  about — and  all  the  islands 
and  their  shadows — and  all  the  mountains  and  theirs — and,  towering  high 
above  all,  that  Cruachan  of  yours,  who,  I  firmly  believe,  is  behind  us — though 
'twould  twist  my  neck  now  to  get  a  vizzy  of  him.  No  use  then  in  describing  all 
that  lies  within  the  visible  horizon— there  it  is — let  us  enjoy  it  and  be  thankful 
— and  let  us  talk  this  evening  of  whatever  may  happen  to  come  into  our  re- 
spective heads— and  I  beg  leave  to  add,  sir,  with  all  reverence,  let's  have  fair 
play — let  no  single  man — young  or  old — take  more  than  his  own  lawful 
share — 

NORTH. 

Sir? 

BULLER. 

And  let  the  subject  of  angling  be  tabooed — and  all  its  endless  botheration 
about  baskets  and  rods,  and  reels  and  tackle— salmon,  sea-trout,  yellow-fin, 
perch,  pike,  and  the  Ferox— and  no  drivel  about  Deer  and  Eagles— 

NORTH. 

Sir?    What's  the  meaning  of  all  this— Seward,  say— tell,  Talboys. 

BULLER. 

And  let  each  man  on  opening  his  mouth  be  timed — and  let  it  be  two-minute 
time — and  let  me  be  time-keeper — but,  in  consideration  of  your  years  and  habits, 
and  presidency,  let  time  to  you,  sir,  be  extended  to  two  minutes  and  thirty 
seconds — and  let  us  all  talk 'time  about — and  let  no  man  seek  to  nullify  the 
law  by  talking  at  railway  rate — and  let  no  man  who  waives  his  right  of  turn, 
however  often,  think  to  make  up  for  the  loss  by  claiming  quarter  of  an  hour 
afterwards— and  that,  too,  perhaps  at  the  smartest  of  the  soiree — and  let 
there  be  no  contradiction,  either  round,  flat,  or  angular — and  let  no  man 
speak  about  what  he  understands — that  is,  has  long  studied  and  made  himself 
master  of— for  that  would  be  giving  him  an  unfair — I  had  almost  said — would 
be  taking  a  mean  advantage — and  let  no  man — 

NORTH. 

Why,  the  mutiny  at  the  Nore  was  nothing  to  this ! 

BULLER. 

Lord  High  Admiral  though  you  be,  sir,  you  must  obey  the  laws  of  the 
service — 

NORTH. 

I  see  how  it  is. 

BULLER. 

How  is  it? 

NORTH. 

But  it  will  soon  wear  off— that's  the  saving  virtue  of  Champagne. 

BULLER. 

Champagne  indeed !  Small  Beer,  smaller  than  the  smallest  size.  You 
have  not  the  heart,  sir,  to  give  Champagne. 

NORTH. 

We  had  better  put  about,  gentlemen,  and  go  ashore. 


238  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

BULLER. 

My  ever-honoured,  long-revered  sir !  I  have  got  intoxicated  on  our  Tee- 
total debauchery.  The  fumes  of  the  water  have  gone  to  my  head — and  I  need 
but  a  few  drops  of  brandy  to  set  me  all  right.  Billy — the  flask.  There — I  am 
as  sober  as  a  Judge. 

NORTH. 

Ay,  'tis  thus,  Bnller,  you  wise  wag,  that  you  would  let  the  "  old  man 
garrulous  "  into  the  secret  of  his  own  tendencies — too  often  unconscious  he  of 
the  powers  that  have  set  so  many  asleep.  I  accept  the  law — but  let  it — do 
let  it  be  three-minute  time. 

BULLER. 

Five — ten — twenty — "  with  thee  conversing  I  forget  all  time." 

NORTH. 

Strike  medium — Ten. 

BULLER. 

My  dear  sir,  for  a  moment  let  me  have  that  Spy-glass. 

NORTH. 

I  must  lay  it  down — for  a  Bevy  of  Fair  Women  are  on  the  Mount — and 
are  brought  so  near  that  I  hear  them  laughing — especially  the  Prima  Donna, 
whose  Glass  is  in  dangerous  proximity  with  my  nose. 

BULLER. 
Fling  her  a  kiss,  sir. 

NORTH. 
There — and  how  prettily  she  returns  it ! 

BULLER. 

Happy  old  man !    Go  where  you  will — 

TALBOYS. 

Ulysses  and  the  Syrens.    Had  he  my  air-girdle,  he  would  swim  ashore. 

NORTH. 
"  Oh,  mini  prseteritos  referat  si  Jupiter  annos !" 

TALBOYS. 

The  words  are  regretful — but  there  is  no  regret  in  the  voice  that  syllables 
them — it  is  clear  as  a  bell,  and  as  gladsome. 

NORTH. 

Talking  of  kissing,  I  hear  one  of  the  most  melodious  songs  that  ever  flowed 
from  lady's  lip — 

"  The  current  that  with  gentle  motion  glides, 
Thou  knowest,  being  stopped,  impatiently  doth  rage  ; 
But  when  his  fair  course  is  not  hindered, 
He  makes  sweet  music  with  th'  enamelled  stones, 
Giving  a  gentle  kiss  to  every  sedge 
He  o'certaketh  in  his  pilgrimage ; 
And  so  by  many  winding  nooks  he  strays 
With  willing  sport  to  the  wild  ocean." 
Is  it  not  perfect  ? 

SEWARD. 
It  is.   Music — Painting,  and  Poetry — 

BULLER. 

Sculpture  and  architecture. 

NORTH. 

Buller,  you're  a  blockhead.  Dear  Mr  Alison,  in  his  charming  Essays  on 
Taste,  finds  a  little  fault  in  what  seems  to  me  a  great  beauty  in  this,  one  of 
the  sweetest  passages  in  Shakspeare. 

BULLER. 

Sweetest.    That's  a  miss-mollyish  word. 

NORTH. 

Ass.  One  of  the  sweetest  passages  in  Shakspeare.  He  finds  fault  with 
the  Current  kissing'the  Sedges.  "  The  pleasing  personification  which  we  attri- 
bute to  a  brook  is  founded  upon  the  faint  belief  of  voluntary  motion,  and  is 
immediately  checked  when  the  Poet  descends  to  any  minute  or  particular  re- 
semblance." 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  239 

SEWARD. 
Descends ! 

NORTH. 

The  word,  to  my  ear,  does  sound  strangely ;  and  though  his  expression, 
"  faint  belief,"  is  a  true  and  a  fine  one,  yet  here  the  doctrine  does  not  apply. 
Nay,  here  we  have  a  true  notion  inconsiderately  misapplied.  Without  doubt 
Poets  of  more  wit  than  sensibility  do  follow  on  a  similitude  beyond  the  sug- 
gestion of  the  contemplated  subject.  But  the  rippling  of  water  against  a 
sedge  suggests  a  kiss — is,  I  believe,  a  kiss — liquid,  soft,  loving,  lipped. 

BULLEB. 

Beautiful 

NORTH. 

Buller,  you  are  a  fellow  of  fine  taste.  Compare  the  whole  catalogue  of  meta- 
phorical kisses — admitted  and  claimable — and  you  will  find  this  one  of  the 
most  natural  of  them  all.  Pilgrimage,  in  Shakspeare's  day,  had  dropt,  in  the 
speech  of  our  Poets,  from  its  early  religious  propriety,  of  seeking  a  holy  place 
under  a  vow,  into  a  roving  of  the  region.  See  his  "  Passionate  Pilgrim."  If 
Shakspeare  found  the  word  so  far  generalised,  then  "  wanderer  through  the 
woods,"  or  plains,  or  through  anything  else,  is  the  suggestion  of  the  behold- 
ing. The  river  is  more,  indeed  ;  being,  like  the  pilgrim,  on  his  way  to  a 
term,  and  an  obliged  way — "  the  wild  ocean." 

SEWARD. 

The  "faint  belief  of  voluntary  motion" — Mr  Alison's  fine  phrase — is  one, 
and  possibly  the  grounding  incentive  to  impersonating  the  "  current"  here ; 
but  other  elements  enter  in ;  liquidity — transparency — which  suggest  a  spi- 
ritual nature,  and  Beauty  which  moves  Love. 

NORTH. 

Ay,  and  the  Poets  of  that  age,  in  the  fresher  alacrity  of  their  fancy,  had 
a  justification  of  comparisons,  which  do  not  occur  as  promptly  to  us,  nor, 
when  presented  to  us,  delight  so  much  as  they  would,  were  our  fancy  as  alive 
as  theirs.  You  might  suspect  a  priori  Ovid,  Cowley,  and  Dryden,  as  likely 
to  be  led  by  indulgence  of  their  ingenuity  into  passionless  similitudes — and 
you  may  misdoubt  even  that  Shakspeare  was  in  danger  of  being  so  ran  away 
with.  But  let  us  have  clear  and  unequivocal  instances.  This  one  assuredly 
is  not  of  the  number.  It  is  exquisite. 

TALBOYS. 

Mr  Alison,  I  presume  to  think,  sir,  should  either  have  quoted  the  whole 
speech,  or  kept  the  whole  in  view,  when  animadverting  on  those  two  lines 
about  the  kissing  Pilgrim.  Julia,  a  Lady  of  Verona,  beloved  by  Proteus,  is 
only  half-done — and  now  she  comes — to  herself. 

"  Then  let  me  go,  and  hinder  not  my  course  ; 
;    I'll  be  as  patient  as  a  gentle  stream, 

And  make  a  pastime  of  each  weary  step, 

Till  the  last  step  have  brought  me  to  my  love  ; 

And  there  I'll  rest,  as,  after  much  turmoil, 

A  blessed  soul  doth  in  Elysium." 

The  language  of  Shakspeare's  Ladies  is  not  the  language  we  hear  in  real 
life.  I  wish  it  were.  Real  life  would  then  be  delightful  indeed.  Julia  is 
privileged  to  be  poetical  far  beyond  the  usage  of  the  very  best  circles — far 
beyond  that  of  any  mortal  creatures.  For  the  God  Shakspeare  has  made 
her  and  all  her  kin  poetical — and  if  you  object  to  any  of  the  lines,  you  must 
object  to  them  all.  Eminently  beautiful,  sir,  they  are  ;  and  their  beauty  lies 
in  the  passionate,  imaginative  spirit  that  pervades  the  whole,  and  sustains 
the  Similitude  throughout,  without  a  moment's  flagging  of  the  fancy,  without  a 
moment's  departure  from  the  truthfulness  of  the  heart. 

NORTH. 
Talboys,  I  thank  you — you  are  at  the  root. 

SEWARD. 

A  wonderful  thing — altogether — is  Impersonation. 


240  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug; 

NORTH. 

It  is  indeed.  If  we  would  know  the  magnitude  of  the  dominion  which  the 
disposition  constraining  us  to  impersonate  has  exercised  over  the  human 
mind,  we  should  have  to  go  back  unto  those  ages  of  the  world  when  it  exerted 
itself,  uncontrolled  by  philosophy,  and  in  obedience  to  religious  impulses — 
when  Impersonations  of  Natural  Objects  and  Powers,  of  Moral  Powers  and 
of  Notions  entertained  by  the  Understanding,  filled  the  Temples  of  the  Nations 
•with  visible  Deities,  and  were  worshipped  with  altars  and  incense,  hymns 
and  sacrifices. 

BULLER. 

Was  ever  before  such  disquisition  begotten  by — an  imaginary  kiss  among 
the  Sedges ! 

NORTH. 

Hold  your  tongue,  Buller.  But  if  you  would  see  how  hard  this  dominion 
is  to  eradicate,  look  to  the  most  civilised  and  enlightened  times,  when  severe 
Truth  has  to  the  utmost  cleansed  the  Understanding  of  illusion — and  observe 
how  tenaciously  these  imaginary  Beings,  endowed  with  imaginary  life,  hold 
their  place  in  our  Sculpture,  Painting,  and  Poetry,  and  Eloquence — nay,  in 
our  common  and  quiet  speech. 

SEWARD. 

It  is  all  full  of  them.  The  most  prosaic  of  prosers  uses  poetical  language 
without  knowing  it — and  Poets  without  knowing  to  what  extent  and 
degree. 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Seward,  and  were  we  to  expatiate  in  the  walks  of  the  profounder 
emotions,  we  should  sometimes  be  startled  by  the  sudden  apparitions  of  boldly 
impersonated  Thoughts,  upon  occasions  that  did  not  seem  to  promise  them — 
where  you  might  have  thought  that  interests  of  overwhelming  moment  would 
have  effectually  banished  the  play  of  imagination. 

TALBOYS. 

Shakspeare  is  justified,  then — and  the  Lady  Julia  spoke  like  a  Lady  in 
Love  with  all  nature — and  with  Proteus. 

BTJLLER. 

A  most  beautiful  day  is  this  indeed — but  it  is  a  Puzzler. 

"  The  Swan  on  still  St  Mary's  Lake 
Floats  double,  Swan  and  Shadow;" 

But  here  all  the  islands  float  double — and  all  the  castles  and  abbeys — and 
all  the  hills  and  mountains — and  all  the  clouds  and  boats  and  men, — double, 
did  I  say — triple — quadruple, — we  are  here,  and  there,  and  everywhere,  and 
nowhere,  all  at  the  same  moment.  Inishail,  I  have  you — no — Gutta  Percha 
slides  over  you,  and  you  have  no  material  existence.  Very  well. 

SEWARD. 

Is  there  no  house  on  Inishail  ? 

NORTH. 

Not  one — but  the  house  appointed  for  all  living.  A  Burial-place.  I  see 
it — but  not  one  of  you — for  it  is  little  noticeable,  and  seldom  used — on  an 
average,  one  funeral  in  the  year.  Forty  years  ago  I  stepped  into'a  small 
snuff- shop  in  the  Saltmarket,  Glasgow,  to  replenish  my  shell — and  found  my 
friend  was  from  Lochawe-side.  .  I  asked  him  if  he  often  revisited  his  native 
shore,  and  he  answered — seldom,  and  had  not  for  a  longtime — but  that  though 
his  lot  did  not  allow  him  to  live  there,  he  hoped  to  be  buried  in  Inishail.  We 
struck  up  a  friendship — his  snuff  was  good,  and  so  was  bis  whisky,  for  it  was 
unexcised.  A  few  years  ago,  trolling  for  Feroces,  I  met  a  boat  with  a 
coffin,  and  in  it  the  body  of  the  old  tobacconist. 

SEWARD. 

"  The  Churchyard  among  the  Mountains,"  in  Wordsworth's  Excursion,  is 
alone  sufficient  for  his  immortality  on  earth. 

NORTH. 

It  is.    So  for  Gray's  is  his  Elegy.    But  some  hundred  and  forty  lines  ia 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  241 

all — no  more — yet  how  comprehensive — how  complete!  "In  a  Country 
Churchyard!"  Every  generation  there  buries  the  whole  hamlet — which  is 
much  the  same  as  burying  the  whole  world — or  a  whole  world. 

8EWARD. 

"  The  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep  !" 

All  Peasants — diers  and  mourners !  Utmost  simplicity  of  all  belonging  to 
life — utmost  simplicity  of  all  belonging  to  death.  Therefore,  universally 
affecting. 

NORTH. 

Then  the — Grayishness. 

BULLER. 

The  what,  sir? 

NORTH. 

The  Grayishness.  The  exquisite  scholarship,  and  the  high  artifice  of  the 
words  and  music — yet  all  in  perfect  adaptation  to  the  scene  and  its  essential 
character.  Is  there  not  in  that  union  and  communion  of  the  solemn-pro- 
found, and  the  delicate-exquisite,  something  Cathedral-like?  Which  has 
the  awe  and  infinitude  of  Deity  and  Eternity,  and  the  prostrations  and 
aspirations  of  adoration  for  its  basis — expressed  in  the  general  structure 
and  forms ;  and  all  this  meeting  and  blent  into  the  minute  and  fine  ela- 
boration of  the  ornaments  ?  Like  the  odours  that  steal  and  creep  on  the 
soft,  moist,  evening  air,  whilst  the  dim  hush  of  the  Universal  Temple 
dilates  and  elates.  The  least  and  the  greatest  in  one.  Why  not  ?  Is  not  that 
spiritual— angelical — divine  !  The  least  is  not  too  exiguous  for  apprehension 
— the  amplest  exceeds  not  comprehension — and  their  united  power  is  felt  when 
not  understood.  I  speak,  Seward,  of  that  which  might  be  suggested  for  a 
primary  fault  in  the  Elegy — the  contrast  of  the  most  artful,  scholarly  style, 
and  the  simple,  rude,  lowly,  homely  matter.  But  you  shall  see  that  every 
fancy  seizes,  and  eveiy  memory  holds  especially  those  verses  and  wordings 
which  bring  out  this  contrast — that  richest  line — 

."  The  breezy  call  of  incense-breathing  morn  !" 
is  felt  to  be  soon  followed  well  by  that  simplest — 

"  No  more  shall  rouse  them  from  their  lowly  bed  " 

where — I  take  "  lowly"  to  imply  low  in  earth — humbly  turfed  or  flowered — 
and  of  the  lowly. 

'     SEWARD. 

And  so,  sir,  the  pomp  of  a  Cathedral  is  described,  though  a  village  Church 
alone  is  in  presence.  So  Milton,  Cromwell,  and  other  great  powers  are  set 
in  array — that  which  these  were  not,  against  that  which  those  were. 

NORTH. 

Yet  hear  Dr  Thomas  Brown — an  acute  metaphysician — but  an  obtuse  critic 
— and  no  Poet  at  all.  "The  two  images  in  this  stanza  ('Full  many  a  gem,' 
&c.,)  certainly  produce  very  different  degrees  of  poetical  delight.  That  which 
is  borrowed  from  the  rose  blooming  in  solitude  pleases  in  a  very  high  degree, 
both  as  it  contains  a  just  and  beautiful  similitude,  and  still  more  as  the  similitude 
is  one  of  the  most  likely  to  have  arisen  in  such  a  situation.  But  the  simile  in 
the  two  first  lines  of  the  stanza,  though  it  may  perhaps  philosophically  be  as 
just,  has  no  other  charm,  and  strikes  us  immediately  as  not  the  natural  sug- 
gestion of  such  a  moment  and  such  a  scene.  To  a  person  moralising  amid  a 
simple  Churchyard,  there  is  perhaps  no  object  that  would  not  sooner  have 
occurred  than  this  piece  of  minute  jewellery — '  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene, 
in  the  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean.' " 

SEWARD. 

A  person  moralising !  He  forgot  that  person  was  Thomas  Gray.  And  he 
never  knew  what  you  have  told  us  now. 

'  NORTH. 

Why,  my  dear  Seward,  the  Gem  is  the  recognised  most  intense  expression, 
from  the  natural  world,  of  worth — inestimable  priceless  price — dependent  on 


242  Christopher  under  Canvass. 

rarity  and  beauty.  The  Flower  is  a  like  intense  expression,  from  the  same 
world,  of  the  power  to  call  forth  love.  The  first  image  is  felt  by  every 
reader  to  be  high,  and  exalting  its  object;  the  second  to  be  tender,  and 
openly  pathetic.  Of  course  it  moves  more,  and  of  course  it  comes  last.  The 
Poet  has  just  before  spoken  of  Milton  and  Croimvell — of  bards  and  kings 
— and  history  with  all  her  wealth.  Is  the  transition  violent  from  these 
objects  to  Gems  ?  He  is  moved  by,  but  he  is  not  bound  to,  the  scene  and 
time.  His  own  thoughts  emancipate.  Brown  seems  utterly  to  have  forgotten 
that  the  Poet  himself  is  the  Dramatic  person  of  the  Monologue.  Shall  he  be 
restricted  from  using  the  richness  and  splendour  of  his  own  thoughts  ?  That 
one  stanza  sums  up  the  two  or  three  preceding — and  is  perfectly  attuned  to 
the  reigning  mood,  temper,  or  pathos. 

BTJIXER. 

Thank  you,  gentlemen.    The  Doctor  is  done  brown. 

NORTH. 

"  The  paths  of  ^lory  lead  but  to  the  grave  ! " 

Methinks  I  could  read  you  a  homily  on  that  Text. 

BULLER. 

To-morrow,  sir,  if  you  please.  To-morrow  is  Sunday — and  you  may  read  it 
to  us  as  we  glide  to  Divine  Service  atDalmally — two  of  us  to  the  Established, 
and  two  of  us  to  the  Free  Kirk. 

NORTH. 

Be  it  so.  But  you  will  not  be  displeased  with  me  for  quoting  now,  from 
heart-memory,  a  single  sentence  on  the  great  line,  from  Beattie,  and  from 
Adam  Fergusson.  "  It  presents  to  the  imagination  a  wide  plain,  where 
several  roads  appear,  crowded  with  glittering  multitudes,  and  issuing  from 
different  quarters,  but  drawing  nearer  and  nearer  as  they  advance,  till  they 
terminate  in  the  dark  and  narrow  house,  where  all  their  glories  enter  in 
succession,  and  disappear  for  ever." 

SEWARD. 

Thank  you,  sir.    That  is  Beattie  ? 

NORTH. 

It  is.  Fergusson's  memorable  words  are — "  If  from  this  we  are  disposed 
to  collect  any  inference  adverse  to  the  pursuits  of  glory,  it  may  be  asked 
whither  do  the  paths  of  ignominy  lead?  If  to  the  grave  also,  then  our  choice 
of  a  life  remains  to  be  made  on  the  grounds  of  its  intrinsic  value,  without 
regard  to  an  end  which  is  common  to  every  station  of  life  we  can  lead, 
whether  illustrious  or  obscure." 

SEWARD. 

Very  fine.    Who  says  it  ?    Fergusson — who  was  he  ? 

NORTH. 

The  best  of  you  Euglishers  are  intolerably  ignorant  about  Scotland.  Do 
you  know  the  Reverend  John  Mitford  ? 

SEWARD. 
I  do — and  have  for  him  the  greatest  respect. 

NORTH. 

So  have  I.  He  is  one  of  our  best  Editors — as  Pickering  is  one  of  our  best 
Publishers  of  the  Poets.  But  I  am  somewhat  doubtful  of  the  truthfulness  of 
his  remarks  on  the  opening  of  the  Elegy,  in  the  Appendix  to  his  excellent  Life 
of  Gray.  "  The  Curfew  '  toll'  is -not  the  appropriate  word — it  was  not  a  slow 
bell  tolling  for  the  dead." 

SEWARD. 

True  enough,  not  for  the  dead— but  Gray  then  felt  as  if  it  were  for  the 
dying — and  chose  to  say  so — the  parting  day.  Was  it  quick  and  "  merry  as  a 
marriage-bell  ?"  I  can't  think  it— nor  did  Milton,  "  swinging  slow  with  sullen 
roar."  Gray  was  II  Penseroso.  Prospero  calls  it  the  "  solemn  curfew." 
Toll  is  right. 

NORTH. 

But,  says  my  friend  Mitford,  "  there  is  another  error,  a  confusion  of  time. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  243 

The  curfew  tolls,  and  the  ploughman  returns  from  work.  Now  the  plough- 
man returns  two  or  three  hours  before  the  curfew  rings  ;  and  '  the  glimmer- 
ing landscape'  has  'long  ceased  to  fade'  before  the  curfew.  The  'parting  day' 
is  also  incorrect ;  the  day  had  long  finished.  But  if  the  word  Curfew  is 
taken  simply  for  '  the  Evening  Bell,'  then  also  is  the  time  incorrect — and 
a  knett  is  not  tolled  for  the  parting,  but  for  the  parted — '  and  leaves  the  world 
to  darkness  and  to  me.'  'Now  fades  the  glimmering  landscape  on  the 
sight.'  Here  the  incidents,  instead  of  being  progressive,  fall  back,  and  make 
the  picture  confused  and  inharmonious  ;  especially  as  it  appears  soon  after 
that  it  was  not  dark.  For  '  the  moping  owl  does  to  the  moon  complain.' " 

8EWAED. 

Pardon  me,  sir,  I  cannot  venture  to  answer  all  that — but  if  Mitford  be 
right,  Gray  must  be  very  wrong  indeed.  Let  me  see — give  us  it  over  again — 
sentence  by  sentence — 

BULLER. 

No — no — no.    Once  is  enough — and  enough  is  as  good  as  a  feast. 

NORTH. 
Talboys? 

TALBOYS. 

Since  you  have  a  great  respect  for  Mr  Mitford,  sir,  so  have  I.  But  hitherto 
I  have  been  a  stranger  to  his  merits. 

SEWARD. 

The  best  of  you  Scottishers  are  intolerably  ignorant  about  England. 

TALBOYS. 

In  the  first  place,  Mr  North,  when  does  the  Curfew  toll,  or  ring  ? — for  hang 
me  if  I  remember — or  rather  ever  knew.  And  in  the  second  place,  when  does 
the  Evening  Bell  give  tongue  ? — for  hang  me  if  I  am  much  better  informed  as 
to  his  motions.  Yet  I  should  know  something  of  the  family  of  the  Bells.  Say — 
eight  o'clock.  Well.  It  is  summer-time,  I  suppose ;  for  you  cannot  believe 
that  so  dainty  a  person  in  health  and  habits,  as  the  Poet  Gray,  would  write  an 
Elegy  in  a  Country  churchyard  in  winter,  and  well  on  towards  night.  True, 
that  is  a  way  of  speaking ;  he  did  not  write  it  with  his  crow-quill,  in  his  neat 
hand,  on  his  neat  vellum,  on  the  only  horizontal  tomb- stone.  But  in  the 
Churchyard  he  assumes  to  sit — probably  under  a  Plane-tree,  for  sake  of  the 
congenial  Gloom.  Season  of  the  year  ascertained — Summer — time  of  Curfew 
—eight — then  I  can  find  no  fault  with  the  Ploughman.  He  comes  in  well — 
either  as  an  image  or  a  man.  He  must  have  been  an  honest,  hard-working 
fellow,  and  worth  the  highest  wages  going  between  the  years  1745  and  1750. 
At  what  hour  do  ploughmen  leave  the  stilts  in  Cambridgeshire  ?  We  must 
not  say  at  six.  Different  hours  in  different  counties,  Buller. 

BULLER. 

Go  on — all's  right,  Talboys. 

TALBOYS. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  believe  that  Hodge  did  not  grudge,  occasionally,  a 
half-hour  over,  to  a  good  master.  Then  he  had  to  stable  his  horses — Star 
and  Smiler— rub  them  down— bed  them — fill  rack  and  manger — water  them — 
make  sure  their  noses  were  in  the  oats — lock  the  stable  before  the  nags  were 
stolen — and  then,  and  not  till  then, 

"  The  Ploughman  homewards  plods  his  weary  way." 

For  he  does  not  sleep  on  the  Farm — he  has  a  wife  and  small  family—that  is, 
a  large  family  of  smallish  children — in  the  Hamlet,  at  least  two  miles  oft' — 
and  he  does  not  walk  for  a  wager  of  a  flitch  of  bacon  and  barrel  of  beer— but 
for  his  accustomed  rasher  and  a  jug — and  such  endearments  as  will  restore 
his  weariness  up  to  the  proper  pitch  for  a  sound  night's  sleep.  God  bless 
him! 

BULLER. 
Shorn  of  your  beams,  Mr  North,  eclipsed. 

TALBOYS. 

The  ploughman,  then,  does  not  return  "  two  or  three  hours  before  the  cur- 


244:  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

few  rings."  Nor  has  "  the  glimmering  landscape  long  ceased  to  fade  before  the 
curfew."  Nor  is  "  the  parting  day  incorrect."  Nor  "  has  the  day  long 
finished."  Nor,  when  it  may  have  finished,  or  may  finish,  can  any  man  in  the 
hamlet,  during  all  that  gradual  subsiding  of  light  and  sound,  take  upon  him  to 
give  any  opinion  at  all. 

NORTH. 
My  boy,  Talboys. 

TALBOYS. 

"  And  leave  the  world  to  darkness  and  to  me."  Ay — into  his  hut  goes  the 
ploughman,  and  leaves  the  world  and  me  to  darkness — which  is  coming — but 
not  yet  come — the  Poet  knows  it  is  coming — near  at  hand  its  coming  glooms  ; 
and  Darkness  shows  her  divinity  as  she  is  preparing  to  mount  her  throne. 

NORTH. 

Nothing  can  be  better. 

TALBOYS. 

"  '  Now  fades  the  glimmering  landscape  on  the  sight.'  Here  the  incident, 
instead  of  being  progressive,  falls  back,  and  makes  the  picture  confused  and  in- 
harmonious." Confused  and  inharmonious !  By  no  manner  of  means.  Nothing 
of  the  sort.  There  is  no  retrogression — the  day  has  been  unwilling  to  die — 
cannot  believe  she  is  dying — and  cannot  think  'tis  for  her  the  curfew  is  toll- 
ing ;  but  the  Poet  feels  it  is  even  so  ;  the  glimmering  and  the  fading,  beautiful 
as  they  are,  are  sure  symptoms — she  is  dying  into  Evening,  and  Evening  will 
soon  be  the  dying  into  Night ;  but  to  the  Poet's  eye  how  beautiful  the  transmuta- 
tions !  Nor  knows  he  that  the  Moon  has  arisen,  till,  at  the  voice  of  the  night- 
bird,  he  looks  up  the  ivied  church-tower,  and  there  she  is,  whether  full,  wan- 
ing, or  crescent,  there  are  not  data  for  the  Astronomer  to  declare. 

NORTH. 

My  friend  Mr  Mitford  says  of  the  line,  "No  more  shall  rouse  them  from 
their  lowly  bed  " — That  "  here  the  epithet  lowly,  as  applied  to  bed,  occasions 
an  ambiguity,  as  to  whether  the  Poet  means  the  bed  on. which  they  sleep,  or 
the  grave  in  which  they  are  laid ;"  and  he  adds,  "  there  can  be  no  greater 
fault  in  composition  than  a  doubtful  meaning." 

TALBOYS. 

There  cannot  be  a  more  touching  beauty.  Lowly  applies  to  both.  From 
their  lowly  bed  in  their  lowly  dwellings  among  the  quick,  those  joyous  sounds 
used  to  awaken  them ;  from  their  lowly  bed  in  their  lowly  dwellings  among  the 
dead,  those  joyous  sounds  will  awaken  them  never  more :  but  a  sound  will 
awaken  them  when  He  comes  to  judge  both  the  quick  and  the  dead  ;  and  for 
them  there  is  Christian  hope — from 

K  Many  a  holy  text  around  them  strewed 
That  teach  the  rustic  moralist  to  die." 

NORTH. 

"  Their  furrow  oft  the  stubborn  glebe  hath  broke  ; 
How  jocund  did  they  drive  their  team  afield  ! 
How  bowed  the  woods  beneath  their  sturdy  stroke  !" 

This  stanza— says  Mr  Mitford — "  is  made  up  of  various  pieces  inlaid. 
'  Stubborn  glebe'  is  from  Gay ;  '  drive  afield'  from  Milton  ;  '  sturdy 
stroke'  from  Spencer.  Such  is  too  much  the  system  of  Gray's  composition,  and 
therefore  such  the  cause  of  his  imperfections.  Purity  of  language,  accuracy  of 
thought,  and  even  similarity  of  rhyme,  all  give  way  to  the  introduction  of 
certain  poetical  expressions ;  in  fact,  the  beautiful  jewel,  when  brought,  does 
not  fit  into  the  new  setting,  or  socket.  Such  is  the  difference  between  the 
flower  stuck  into  the  ground  and  those  that  grow  from  it."  Talboys  ? 

BTJLLER. 

Why  not— Buller? 

TALBOYS. 

I  give  way  to  the  gentleman. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  245 

BULLER. 

Not  for  worlds  would  I  take  the  word  out  of  any  man's  mouth. 

TALBOYS. 

Gray  took  "  stubborn  glebe  "  from  Gay.  Why  from  Gay?  It  has  been 
familiar  in  men's  mouths  from  the  introduction  of  agriculture  into  this  Island. 
May  not  a  Saxon  gentleman  say  "  drive  their  teams  a-field"  without  charge 
of  theft  from  Milton,  who  said  "  drove  a-field."  Who  first  said  "  Gee-ho, 
Dobbin  ?"  Was  Spenser  the  first — the  only  man  before  Milton— who  used 
"  sturdy  stroke  ?"  and  has  nobody  used  it  since  Gray? 

BULLER. 

You  could  give  a  "sturdy  stroke"  yourself,  Talboys.  What's  your 
weight  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Gray's  style  is  sometimes  too  composite — you  yourself,  sir,  would  not  deny 
it  is  so — but  Mr  Mitford's  instances  here  are  absurd,  and  the  charge  founded  on 
them  false.  Gray  seldom,  if  ever — say  never,  "  sacrifices  purity  of  language, 
and  accuracy  of  thought,"  for  the  sake  of  introducing  certain  poetical  expres- 
sions. "  All  give  way"  is  a  gross  exaggeration.  The  beautiful  words  of 
the  brethren,  with  which  his  loving  memory  was  stored,  came  up  in  the  hour  of 
imagination,  and  took  their  place  among  the  words  as  beautiful  of  his  own 
congenial  inspirations  ;  the  flowers  he  transplanted  from  poetry  "  languished 
not,  grew  dim,  nor  died  ;"  for  he  had  taken  them  up  gently  by  the  roots,  and 
with  some  of  the  old  mould  adhering  to  their  tendrils,  and,  true  florist  as  he 
was,  had  prepared  for  them  a  richest  soil  in  his  own  garden,  which  he  held 
from  nature,  and  which  the  sun  and  the  dew  of  nature  nourished,  and  will 
nourish  for  ever. 

BIJLLER. 

That  face  is  not  pleasant,  sir.  Nothing  so  disfigures  a  face  as  envy.  Old 
Poets  at  last  grow  ugly  all — but  you,  sir,  are  a  Philosopher — and  on  your 
benign  countenance  'twas  but  a  passing  cloud.  There — you  are  as  beautiful  as 
ever — how  comely  in  critical  old  age !  Any  farther  fault  to  find  with  our 
friend  Mitford  ? 

NORTH. 
"  On  some  fond  breast  the  parting  soul  relies, 

Some  pious  drops  the  closing  eye  requires, 
Even  from  the  tomb  the  voice  of  nature  cries , 

Even  in  our  ashes  live  their  wonted  fires." 

"  '  Pious  drops'  is  from  Ovid--pise  lachrymae ;  '  closing  eye'  is  from  Pope — 
'  voice  of  nature'  from  the  Anthologia,  and  the  last  line  from  Chaucer— 'Yet 
on  our  ashes  cold  is  fire  yreken.'  From  so  many  quarries  are  the  stones  brought 
to  form  this  elaborate  Mosaic  pavement"  I  say,  for  "pia3  lachrymse"  all 
honour  to  Ovid — for  "pious  drops"  all  honour  to  Gray.  "  Closing  eye"  is  not 
from  Pope's  Elegy ;  "  voice  of  nature"  is  not  from  the  Anthologia,  but  from 
Nature  herself;  Chaucer's  line  may  have  suggested  Gray's,  but  the  reader  of 
Chaucer  knows  that  Gray's  has  a  tender  and  profound  meaning  which  is 
not  in  Chaucer's  at  all — and  he  knows,  too,  that  Mr  Mitford  is  not  a  reader 
of  Chaucer — for  were  he,  he  could  not  have  written  "ashes"  for  "ashen." 
There  were  no  quarries — there  is  no  Mosaic.  Mosaic  pavement !  Worse,  if 
possible — more  ostentatiously  pedantic — even  than  stuck  in  flowers,  jewels, 
settings,  and  sockets. 

TALBOYS. 

The  Stanza  is  sacred  to  sorrow. 

NORTH. 

"  From  this  Stanza,"  quoth  Mitford,  "  the  style  of  the  composition  drops 
into  a  lower  key ;  the  language  is  plainer,  and  is  not  in  harmony  with  the 
splendid  and  elaborate  diction  of  the  former  part."  This  objection  is  disposed 
of  by  what  I  said  some  minutes  ago 

BULLER. 

Half  an  hour  ago — on  Grayishness. 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVI.  R 


246  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

NORTH. 

And  I  have  only  this  farther  to  say,  gentlemen,  that  though  the  language  is 
plainer — yet  it  is  solemn  ;  nor  is  it  nnpoetical — for  the  hoary-headed  swain, 
was  moved  as  he  spake ;  the  style,  if  it  drop  into  a  lower  key,  is  accordant 
witli  that  higher  key  on  which  the  music  was  pitched  that  has  not  yet  left  our 
hearing.  An  Elegy  is  not  an  Ode — the  close  should  be  mournful  as  the  open- 
ing— with  loftier  strain  between — and  it  is  so ;  and  whatever  we  might  have  to 
say  of  the  Epitaph — its  final  lines  are  "  awful" — as  every  man  must  have  felt 
them  to  be — whether  thought  on  in  our  own  lonely  night-room — in  the 
Churchyard  of  Granchester,  where  it  is  said  Gray  mused  the  Elegy — or  by 
that  Burial-ground  in  Inishail — or  here  afloat  in  the  joyous  sunshine  for  an 
hour  privileged  to  be  happy  in  a  world  of  grief. 

BULLEU. 

Let's  change  the  subject,  sir.  May  I  ask  what  author  you  have  in  your 
other  hand? 

NORTH. 

Alison  on  Taste. 

BULLER. 

You  don't  say  so !    I  thought  you  quoted  from  memory. 

NORTH. 

So  I  did  ;  but  I  have  dog-eared  a  page  or  two. 

BULLER. 

I  see  no  books  lying  about  in  the  Pavilion — only  Newspapers — and  Maga- 
zines— and  Reviews — and  trash  of  that  kind 

NORTH. 
Without  which,  you,  my  good  fellow,  could  not  live  a  week. 

BULLER. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Age !  The  Age  should  be  ashamed  of  herself  for  living 
from  hand  to  mouth  on  Periodical  Literature.  The  old  Lady  should  indeed, 
sir.  If  the  Pensive  Public  conceits  herself  to  bo  the  Thinking  World — 

NORTH. 

Let  us  help  to  make  her  so.  I  have  a  decent  little  Library  of  some  three 
hundred  select  volumes  in  the  Van — my  Plate-chest — and  a  few  dozens  of 
choice  wines  for  my  friends — of  Champagne,  which  you,  Buller,  call  small 

beer 

BULLER. 

I  retracted  and  apologised.  Is  that  the  key  of  the  Van  at  your  watch- 
chain? 

NORTH. 

It  is.  So  many  hundred  people  about  the  Encampment — sometimes  among 
them  suspicious  strangers  in  paletots  in  search  of  the  picturesque,-  and  per- 
haps the  pecuniary — that  it  is  well  to  intrust  the  key  to  my  own  body-guard. 
It  does  not  weigh  an  ounce.  And  that  lock  is  not  to  be  picked  by  the  ghost 
oi  llntroy  White. 

SEWABD. 

IJiit  of  the  volume  in  hand,  sir? 

NORTH. 

"  In  that  fine  passage  in  the  Second  Book  of  the  Georgics,"  says  Mr  Alison, 
."  in  which  Virgil  celebrates  the  praises  of  his  native  country,  after  these  fine 
linos — 

'  Hio  ver  assidnum,  atque  alienis  mensibus  nestas; 
Bis  gravidro  pecudes,  bis  pomis  utilis  arbos. 
At  rabid;v  tigres  absunt,  et  eseva  leonum 
Semina:  nee  miseros  fallunt  aconita  legentes: 
Nee  rapit  immensos  orbes  per  liunmm,  neque  tanto 
Squamens  in  spiram  tractu  se  colligit  anguis.' 

There  is  no  reader  whose  enthusiasm  is  not  checked  by  the  cold  and  prosaio 
fine  which  follows, — 

'  Adde  tot  egregias  urbes,  operumque  laborcm.' 


1849.]  Christopher  undo-  Canvass.  247 

The  tameueas  and  vulgarity  of  the  transition  dissipates  at  once  the  emotion 
wo  had  shared  with  the  Poet,  and  reduces  him,  in  our  opinion,  to  the  level  of 
-a  mere  describer." 

SEWARD. 

Cold  and  prosaic  line !    Tameness  and  vulgarity !    I  am  struck  mute. 

NORTH. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  Mr  Alison  distressed  himself  with  "  Adde."  It  is  a 
word  from  a  merchant's  counting-house,  reckoning  up  his  gains.  And  so  much 
the  better.  Virgil  is  making  out  the  balance-sheet  of  Italy — he  is  inventory- 
ing her  wealth.  Mr  Alison  would  have  every  word  away  from  reality.  Not 
so  the  Poet.  Every  now  and  then,  they — the  Poets — amuse  themselves  with 
dipping  their  pencils  into  the  real,  the  common,  the  everyday,  the  homely. 
By  so  doing  they  arrest  belief,  which  above  everything  they  desire  to  hold  fast. 
I  should  not  wonder  if  you  might  catch  Spenser  at  it,  even.  Shakspeare  is 
full  of  it.  There  is  nothing  else  prosaic  in  the  passage ;  and  if  Virgil  had 
had  the  bad  taste  to  say  "  Eoce  "  instead  of  "  Adde,"  I  suppose  no  fault  would 
have  been  found. 

SEWARD. 

But  what  can  Mr  Alison  mean  by  the  charge  of  tameuess  and  -mdgarity  f 

NORTH. 

I  have  told  you,  sir. 

SEWARD. 

You  have  not,  sir. 

NORTH. 
I  have,  sir. 

BEWARD. 

Yes — yes — yes.    "  Adde  "  is  vulgar !    I  cannot  think  so. 

NORTH. 

The  Cities  of  Italy,  and  the  "  operum  labor,"  always  have  been  and  are  an 
admiration.  The  words  "  Egregias  nrbes"  suggest  the  general  stateliness 
and  wealth — "operumque  laborem,"  the  particular  buildings — Temples,  Basi- 
licas, Theatres,  and  Great  Works  of  the  lower  Utility.  A  summary  and  most 
vivid  expression  of  a  land  possessed  by  intelligent,  civilised,  active,  spirited, 
vigorous,  tasteful  inhabitants — also  an  eminent  adorning  of  the  land. 

SEWARD. 

Lucretius  says,  that  in  spring  the  Cities  are  in  flower — or  on  flower — or  a 
flower — with  children.  And  Lucan,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Pharsalia, 
describes  the  Ancient  or  Greek  Cities  desolate.  They  were  fond  and  proud 
of  their  "  tot  egreg'ue  urbes  "  as  the  Modem  Italians  are — and  with  good 
reason. 

NORTH. 

How  judiciously  the  Critics  stop  short  of  the  lines  that  would  overthrow 
their  criterion  always !  The  present  case  is  an  extraordinary  example.  Had 
Mr  Alison  looked  to  the  lines  immediately  following,  he  would  not  have 
objected  to  that  One.  For 

"  Tot  congesta  manu  prneruptis  oppida  saxis, 
Flumiuaque  antiques  subter  labeutia  muros  " 

is  very  beautiful — brings  the  whole  under  the  domain  of  Poetry,  by  singular 
Picturesqueuess,  and  by  gathering  the  whole  past  history  of  Italy  up — fetching 
it  in  with  a  word — antiquos. 

SEWARD. 

I  can  form  no  conjecture  as  to  the  meaning  of  Mr  Alison's  objections.  He 
quotes  a  few  fine  lines  from  the  "  Praise  of  Italy,"  and  then  one  line  which 
he  calls  prosaic,  and  would  have  us  to  hold  up  our  hands  in  wonder  at  tho 
lame  and  impotent  conclusion — at  the  sudden  transformation  of  Virgil  the 
poet  into  Virgil  the  most  prosaic  of  Prosers.  You  have  said  enough  already, 
sir,  to  prove  that  he  is  in  error  even  on  his  own  showing ; — but  how  can  this 
fragmentary — this  piecemeal  mode  of  quotation — so  common  among  critics  of 
the  lower  school,  and  so  unworthy  of  those  of  the  higher — have  found  favour 


248  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

with  Mr  Alison,  one  of  the  most  candid  and  most  enlightened  of  men  ?  Some 
accidental  prejudice  from  mere  carelessness — but,  once  formed,  retained  in 
spite  of  the  fine  and  true  Taste  which,  unfettered,  would  have  felt  the  fallacy, 
and  vindicated  his  admired  Virgil. 

NOETH. 

The  "  Laudes  " — to  which  the  Poet  is  brought  by  the  preceding  bold, 
sweeping,  winged,  and  poetical  strain  about  the  indigenous  vines  of  Italy — 
have  two-fold  root — TREES  and  the  glory  of  LANDS.  Virgil  kindles  on  the 
double  suggestion — the  trees  of  Italy  compared  to  the  trees  of  other  regions. 
They  are  the  trees  of  primary  human  service  and  gladness — Oil  and  Wine. 
For  see  at  once  the  deep,  sound  natural  ground  in  human  wants — the  bounty 
of  Nature — of  Mother  Earth  —  "whatever  Earth,  all-bearing  Mother, 
yields" — to  her  human  children.  That  is  the  gate  of  entrance;  but  not 
prosaically — but  two  gate-posts  of  a  most  poetical  mythus-fed  husbandman. 
For  we  have  Jason's  fire-mouthed  Bulls  ploughing,  and  Cadmus- sown  teeth 
of  the  dragon  springing  up  in  armed  men.  Then  comes,  instead,  mild,  benign, 
Man-loving  Italy — "gravidae  fruges  " — the  heavy-eared  com — or  rather  big- 
teeming — the  juice  of  Bacchus — the  Olives,  and  the  "  broad  herds  of  Cattle." 
Note — ye  Virgilians — the  Corn  of  Book  First — the  Oil  and  Wine  of  Book 
Second — and  the  Cattle  of  Book  Third — for  the  sustaining  Thought — the 
organic  life  of  his  Work  moves  in  his  heart. 

BUTLER. 

And  the  Fourth — Bees — honey — and  honey-makers  are  like  Milkers — in  a 
way  small  Milch- cows. 

NORTH. 

They  are.  Once  a-foot — or  a-wing — he  hurries  and  rushes  along,  all 
through  the  "Laudes."  The  majestic  victim-Bull  of  the  Clitumnus — the  inci- 
pient Spring — the  double  Summer — the  absence  of  all  envenomed  and  deadly 
broods — tigers — lions — aconite — serpents.  This  is  NATURE'S  FAVOUR.  Then 
Man's  Works — cities  and  forts — (rock-fortresses) — the  great  lakes  of  Northern 
Italy — showing  Man  again  in  their  vast  edifications.  Then  Nature  in  veins 
of  metals  precious  or  useful — then  Nature  in  her  production  of  Man — the 
Marsi — the  Sabellian  youth — the  Ligurian  inured  to  "labour — and  the  Volscian 
darters — then  single  mighty  shapes  and  powers  of  Man — ROMANS — the  Decii, 
the  Marii,  the  Camilli, 

"  Scipiadas  duros  bello,  et  te,  maxime  Caesar." 

The  King  of  Men — the  Lord  of  the  Earth — the  pacificator  of  the  distracted 
Empire — which,  to  a  Roman,  is  as  much  as  to  say  the  World.  Then — hail 
Saturnian  Land !  Mother  of  Corn !  Saturnian,  because  golden  Saturn  had 
reigned  there — Mother,  I  suppose  the  rather  because  in  his  time  corn  sprung 
unsown— sine  semine — She  gave  it  from  out  of  her  own  loving  and  cherishing 
bosom.  To  Thee,  Italy,  sing  I  my  Ascrsean  or  Hesiodic  song.  The  Works[and 
Days — the  Greek  Georgics  are  his  avowed  prototype — rude  prototype  to  mag- 
nificence— like  the  Arab  of  the  Desert  transplanted  to  rear  his  empire  of 
dazzling  and  picturesque  civilisation  in  the  Pyrenean  Peninsula. 

BULLER. 
Take  breath,  sir.    Virgil  said  well — 

"  Adde  tot  egregias  urbes  operumque  laborem." 

SEWARD. 

Allow  me  one,  other  word.  Virgil — in  the  vivid  lines  quoted  with  admiration 
by  Mr  Alison — lauds  his  beloved  Italy  for  the  absence  of  wild  beasts  and 
serpents — and  he  magnifies  the  whole  race  of  serpents  by  his  picture  of  One 
— the  Serpent  King — yet  with  subjects  all  equal  in  size  to  himself  in  our 
imagination.  The  Serpent  is  in  the  Poetry,  but  he  is  not  in  Italy.  Is  this  a 
false  artifice  of  composition — a  vain  ornament?  Oh,  no!  He  describes  the 
Saturnian  Land — the  mother  of  corn  and  of  men — bounteous,  benign,  golden, 
maternal  Italy.  The  negation  has  the  plenitude  of  life,  which  the  fabulous 
absence  of  noxious  reptiles  has  for  the  sacred  Island  of  lerne. 


1849.]         .  Christopher  under  Canvass.  249 

BULLER. 
Erin-go-bragh ! 

6EWARD. 

Suddenly  he  sees  another  vision — not  of  what  is  absent  but  present ;  and 
then  comes  the  line  arraigned  and  condemned — followed  by  lines  as  great — 

"  Adde  tot  egregias  urbes,  operumque  laborem, 
Tot  congesta  manu  prccruptis  oppida  saxis, 
Fluminaque  antiques  subter  labentia  muros." 

The  first  line  grasps  in  one  handful  all  the  mighty,  fair,  wealthy  CITIES  of 
Italy— the  second  all  the  rock-cresting  Forts  of  Italy— from  the  Alpine  head 
to  the  sea-washed  foot  of  the  Peninsula.  The  collective  One  Thought  of  the 
Human  Might  and  Glory  of  Italy — as  it  appears  on  the  countenance  of  the  Land 
,  — or  visible  in  its  utmost  concentration  in  the  girdled  Towns  and  Cities  of  Men. 

BULLER. 

"  Adde"  then  is  right,  Seward.     On  that  North  and  you  are  at  one. 

NORTH. 

Yes,  it  is  right,  and  any  other  word  would  be  wrong.  ADDE  !  Note  the 
sharpness,  Buller,  of  the  significance — the  vivacity  of  the  short  open  sound. 
Fling  it  out — ring  it  out — sing  it  out.  Look  at  the  very  repetition  of  the 
powerful  "  TOT" — "  tot  egregias" — "  tot  congesta" — witnessing  by  one  of  the 
first  and  commonest  rules  in  the  grammar  of  rhetoric — whether  Virgil  speaks 
in  prose  or  in  fire. 

BULLER. 

In  fire. 

NORTH. 

Mr  Alison  then  goes  on  to  say,  "  that  the  effect  of  the  following  nervous 
and  beautiful  lines,  in  the  conclusion  of  the  same  Book,  is  nearly  destroyed 
by  a  similar  defect.  After  these  lines, 

"  Hanc  olim  veteres  vitam  coluere  Sabini, 
Hanc  Remus  et  Frater ;  sic  fortis  Etruria  crevit, 
Scilicet  et  rerum  facta  est  pulcherrima  Roma  ;" 

We  little  expect  the  following  spiritless  conclusion  : — 

"  Septemque  una  sibi  muro  circumdedit  arces." 
SEWARD. 

Oh  !  why  does  Mr  Alison  calf  that  line  spiritless? 

NORTH. 

He  gives  no  reason — assured  by  his  own  dissatisfaction,  that  he  has  but  to 
quote  it,  and  leave  it  in  its  own  naked  impotence. 

SEWARD. 
I  hope  you  do  not  think  it  spiritless,  sir. 

NORTH. 

I  think  it  contains  the  concentrated  essence  of  spirit  and  of  power.  Let 
any  one  think  of  Rome,  piled  up  in  greatness,  and  grandeur,  and  glory — and 
a  Wall  round  about — and  in  a  moment  his  imagination  is  filled.  What  sort 
of  a  Wall  ?  A  garden  wall  to  keep  out  orchard  thieves — or  a  modern  wall  of 
a  French  or  Italian  town  to  keep  out  wine  and  meat,  that  they  may  come  in 
at  the  gate  and  pay  toll  ?  I  trow  not.  But  a  Wall  against  the  World  armed 
and  assailing !  Remember  that  Virgil  saw  Rome — and  that  his  hearers  did 
— and  that  in  his  eyes  and  theirs  she  was  Empress  of  the  inhabited  Earth. 
She  held  and  called  herself  such — it  was  written  in  her  face  and  on  her  fore- 
head. The  visible,  tangible  splendour  and  magnificence  meant  this,  or  they 
meant  nothing.  The  stone  and  lime  said  this — and  Virgil's  line  says  it, 
sedately  and  in  plain,  simple  phrase,  which  yet  is  a  Climax. 

SEWARD. 

As  the  dreaded  Semiramis  was  flesh  and  blood — corporeal — made  of  the  four 
elements — yet  her  soul  and  her  empiry  spake  out  of  her — so  spake  they  from 
the  Face  of  Rome. 


250  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Seward — put  these  two  things  together — the  Aspect  that  speaks  Domi- 
nation of  the  World,  and  the  Wall  that  girds  her  with  strength  impregnable 
— and  what  more  could  you  possibly  demand  from  her  Great  Poet  ? 

SEWARD. 

Arx  is  a  Citadel — we  may  say  an  Acropolis.  Athens  had  one  Arx — so  had 
Corinth.  One  Arx  is  enough  to  one  Queenly  City.  But  this  Queen,  within 
her  one  Wall,  has  enclosed  Seven  Arces — as  if  she  were  Seven  Queens. 

NORTH. 

Well  said,  Seward.  The  Seven  Hills  appeared — and  to  this  day  do — to 
characterise  the  Supremacy  of  Rome.  The  Seven- Hilled  City!  You  seem  to 
have  said  everything — the  Seven  Hills  are  as  a  seven-pillared  Throne — and 
all  that  is  in  one  line — given  by  Virgil.  Delete  it — no  not  for  a  thousand  gold 
crowns. 

BULLER. 

Not  for  the  Pigot  Diamond — not  for  the  Sea  of  Light. 

NORTH. 

Imagine  Romulus  tracing  the  circuit  on  which  the  walls  were  to  rise  of  his 
little  Rome — the  walls  ominously  lustrated  with  a  brother's  blood.  War 
after  war  humbles  neighbouring  town  after  town,  till  the  seas  that  bathe,  and 
the  mountains  that  guard  Italy,  enclose  the  confederated  Republic.  It  is  a 
step — a  beginning.  East  and  West,  North  and  South,  flies  the  Eagle,  dip- 
ping its  beak  in  the  blood  of  battle-fields.  Where  it  swoops,  there  fanning 
away  the  pride,  and  fame,  and  freedom  of  nations,  with  the  wafture  of  its 
wings.  Kingdoms  and  Empires  that  were,  are  no  more  than  Provinces  ;  till 
the  haughty  Roman,  stretching  out  the  fact  to  the  limits  of  his  ambitious 
desires,  can  with  some  plausibility  deceive  himself,  and  call  the  edges  of  the 
Earth  the  boundaries  of  his  unmeasured  Dominion. 

SEWARD. 

"  O  Italy !  Italy !  would  Thou  wert  stronger  or  less  beautiful !" — was  the 
mournful  apostrophe  of  an  Italian  Poet,  who  saw,  in  the  latter  ages,  his  re- 
fined but  enervated  countrymen  trampled  under  the  foot  of  a  more  martial 
people  from  far  beyond  the  Alps. 

NORTH. 

Good  Manners  giving  a  vital  energy  and  efficacy  to  good  Laws — in  these 
few  words,  gentlemen,  may  be  comprised  the  needful  constituents  of  National 
Happiness  and  Prosperity — the  foremost  conditions. 

TALBOYS. 

Ay — ay — sir.  For  good  Laws  without  good  Manners  are  an  empty  breath — 
whilst  good  Manners  ask  the  protecting  and  preserving  succour  of  good  Laws. 
But  the  good  Manners  are  of  the  first  necessity,  for  they  naturally  produce 
the  good  Laws. 

NORTH. 

What  does  history  show,  Talboys,  but  nations  risen  up  to  flourish  in  wealth, 
power,  and  greatness,  that  with  corrupted  and  luxurious  manners  have  again 
sunk  from  their  pre-eminence ;  whilst  another  purer  and  simpler  people  has 
in  turn  grown  mighty,  and  taken  their  room  in  the  world's  eye — some  hardy, 
simple,  frugal  race,  perhaps,  whom  the  seeming  disfavour  of  nature  constrains 
to  assiduous  labour,  and  who  maintain  in  the  lap  of  their  mountains  their 
independence  and  their  pure  and  happy  homes. 

TALBOYS. 

The  Luxury- — the  invading  Goth  and  Hun — the  dismembering — and  new 
States  uprisen  upon  the  ruins  of  the  World's  fallen  Empire.  There  is  one  line 
in  Collins'  Ode  to  Freedom — Mr  North — which  I  doubt  if  I  understand. 

NORTH. 

Which? 

TALBOYS. 

"  No,  Freedom,  no— I  will  not  tell 
How  Rome  before  thy  weeping  face 
Pushed  by  a  wild  and  artless  race 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  251 

•  From  off  its  wide,  ambitious  base, 

With  heaviest  sound  a  giant-statue  fell — 

What  time  the  northern  Sons  of  Spoil  awoke, 

And  all  the  blended  work  of  strength  and  grace, 

With  many  a  rude  repeated  stroke, 

And  many  a  barbarous  yell,  to  thousand  fragments  broke." 

NORTH. 

Which? 

TALBOYS. 

"  How  Rome  before  thy  weeping  face." 

NORTH. 

Freedom  wept  at  Eome's  overthrow — though  she  had  long  been  Freedom's 
enemy — and  though  her  destroyers  were  Freedom's  children — and  "  Spoil's 
Sous"— for  how  could  Freedom  look  unmoved  at  the  wreck  "of  all  that 
blended  work  of  strength  aud  grace  " — though  raised  by  slaves  at  the  beck  of 
Tyrants  ?  It  was  not  always  so. 

BULLER. 

Let  me,  Apollo-like,  my  dear  sir,  pinch  your  ear,  and  admonish  you  to  re- 
turn to  the  point  from  which,  in  discursive  gyrations,  you  and  Seward  have 

been 

NORTH. 

Like  an  Eagle  giving  an  Eaglet  lessons  how  to  fly 

BULLER. 

You  promised  solemnly,  sir,  not  to  mention  Eagles  this  evening. 

NORTH. 

I  did  not,  sir. 

BULLER. 

But,  then,  Seward  is  no  Eaglet — he  is,  and  long  has  been,  a  full-fledged 
bird,  and  can  fly  as  well's  yourself,  sir. 

NORTH. 

There  you're  right.  But  then,  making  a  discursive  gyration  round  a  point 
is  not  leaving  it — and  there  you're  wrong.  Silly  folk — not  you,  Buller,  for 
you  are  a  strong-minded,  strong-bodied  man — say  "  keep  to  the  point" — know- 
ing that  if  you  quit  it  one  inch,  you  will  from  their  range  of  vision  disappear 
— and  then  they  comfort  themselves  by  charging  you  with  having  melted 
among  the  clouds. 

,j      BULLER. 

I  was  afraid,  my  dear  sir,  that  having  got  your  Eaglet  on  your  back — or 
your  Eaglet  having  got  old  Aquila  on  his — you  would  sail  away  with  him — or 
he  with  you — "  to  prey  in  distant  isles." 

NORTH. 

You  promised  solemnly,  sir,  not  to  mention  Eagles  this  evening. 

BULLER. 

I  did  not,  sir.    But  don't  let  us  quarrel. 

SEWARD. 

What  does  Virgil  mean,  sir,  by  "  Rerum,"  in  the  line  which  Mr  Alison 
thinks  shoxild  have  concluded  the  strain — 

rt  Scilicet  et  rerum  facta  est  pulcherrima  Roma." 

NORTH. 

"  Rerum  " — what  does  he  mean  by  "  Rerum  ?  "  Let  me  perpend.  Why, 
Seward,  the  legitimate  meaning  of  Res  here  is  a  State — a  Commonwealth. 
"  The  fairest  of  Powers— then— of  Polities— of  States." 

SEWARD. 

Is  that  all  the  word  means  here  ? 

NORTH. 

Why,  methinks  we  must  explain.  Observe,  then,  Seward,  that  Rome  is 
the  Town,  as  England  the  Island.  Thus  "  England  has  become  the  fairest 
among  the  Kingdoms  of  the  Earth."  This  is  equivalent,  good  English  ;  and 
the  only  satisfactory  and  literal  translation  of  the  Latin  verse.  But  here,  the 


252  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

Physical  "and  the  Political  are  identified,  —  that  is,  England.  England  is 
the  name  at  ouce  of  the  Island — of  so  much  earth  limited  out  on  the  surface 
of  the  terraqueous  globe — and  of  what  besides  ?  Of  the  Inhabitants  ?  Yes ; 
but  of  the  Inhabitants  (as  the  King  never  dies)  perpetuated  from  generation 
to  generation.  Moreover,  of  this  immortal  inhabitation,  further  made  one  by 
blood  and  speech,  laws,  manners,  and  everything  that  makes  a  people. '  In 
short,  England,  properly  the  name  of  the  land,  is  intended  to  be,  at  the  same 
time,  the  name  of  the  Nation. 

"  England,  with  all  thy  faults,  I  love  Thee  still." 

There  Cowper  speaks  to  both  at  once — the  faults  are  of  the  men  only— moral 
— for  he  does  not  mean  fogs,  and  March  east  winds,  and  fever  and  agues. 
I  love  thee — is  to  the  green  fields  and  the  white  cliffs,  >s  well  as  to  all  that 
still  survives  of  the  English  heart  and  thought  and  character.  And  this  ab- 
sorption, sir,  and  compenetration  of  the  two  ideas — land  into  people,  people 
into  land — the'exposition  of  which  might,  in  good  hands,  be  made  beautiful — is 
a  fruitful  germ  of  Patriotism — an  infinite  blending  of  the  spiritual  and  the 
corporeal.  To  Virgil,  Rome  the  City  was  also  Rome  the  Romans  ;  and,  there- 
fore, sir,  those  Houses  and  Palaces,  and  that  Wall,  were  to  him,  as  those 
green  fields,  and  hills,  and  streams,  and  towns,  and  those  cliffs  are  to  Us. 
The  girdled-in  compendium  of  the  Heaven's  Favour  and  the  Earth's  Glory 
and  Power. 

"  Scilicet  et  RERCM  facta  est  pulcherrima  ROMA, 

Septemque  una  sibi  muro  circumdedit  arces." 
Do  you  all  comprehend  and  adopt  my  explanation,  gentlemen? 

TALBOYS. 
I  do. 

BULLER. 

I do. 

SEWARD. 

I  ask  myself  whether  Virgil's  "  Reruui  Pulcherrima"  may  not  mean 
"Fairest  of  Things" — of  Creatures — of  earthly  existences?  To  a  young 
English  reader,  probably  that  is  the  first  impression.  It  was,  I  think,  mine. 
But  fairest  of  earthly  States  and  Seats  of  State  is  so  much  more  idiomatic  and 
to  the  purpose,  that  I  conceive  it — indubitable. 

NORTH. 

You  all  remember  what  Horatio  sayeth  to  the  soldiers  in  Hamlet,  on  the 
coming  and  going  of  the  Ghost. 

1  In  the  most  high  and  palmy  state  of  Rome, 
A  little  ere  the  mightiest  Julius  fell, 
The  graves  stood  tenantless,  and  the  sheeted  dead 
Did  squeak  and  gibber  in  the  Roman  streets  ; 
Stars  shone  with  trains  of  fire,  dews  of  blood  fell ; 
Disasters  veiled  the  sun,  and  the  moist  star 
Upon  whose  influence  Neptune's  empire  stands, 
Was  sick  almost  to  Doomsday  with  eclipse. 

What  does  Horatio  mean  by  high  and  palmy  state  ?  That  Rome  was  in  a 
flourishing  condition  ? 

DULLER. 

That,  I  believe,  sir,  is  the  common  impression.     Hitherto  it  has  been  mine. 

NORTH: 

Let  it  be  erased  henceforth  and  for  ever. 

BCLLER. 

It  is  erased — I  erase  it. 

NORTH. 

Read  henceforth  and  for  ever  high  and  palmy  State.  Write  henceforth  and 
for  ever  State_with  a  towering  Capital.  RES  !  "  Most  high  and  palmy  State  " 
is  precisely  and  literally  "  Rerum  Pulcherrima." 

SEWARD. 

At  your  bidding — you  cannot  err. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  253 

NORTH. 

I  err  not  unfrequeutly — but  not  now,  nor  I  believe  this  evening.    Horatio, 
the  Scholar,  speaks  to  the  two  Danish  Soldiers.    They  have  brought  him  to 
be  of  their  watch  because  he  is  a  Scholar — and  they  are  none.    This  relation 
of  distinction  is  indeed  the  ground  and  life  of  the  Scene. 
"  Therefore  I  have  entreated  him,  along 
With  us  to  watch  the  minutes  of  the  night ; 
That  if  again  this  apparition  come, 
He  may  approve  our  eyes,  and  speak  to  it." 

TALBOYS. 

"  Thou  art  a  Scholar — speak  to  it,  Horatio." 
NORTH. 

You  know,  Talboys,  that  Scholars  were  actual  Conjurors,  in  the  me- 
diaeval belief,  which  has  tales  enow  about  Scholars  in  that  capacity.  Ho- 
ratio comes,  then,  possessed  with  an  especial  Power ;  he  knows  how  to  deal 
with  Ghosts — he  could  lay  one,  if  need  were.  He  is  not  merely  a  man  of 
superior  and  cultivated  intellect,  whom  intellectual  inferiors  engage  to  assist 
them  in  an  emergency  above  their  grasp — but  he  is  the  very  man  for  the  work. 

TALBOYS. 

Have  not  the  Commentators  said  as  much,  sir? 

NORTH. 

Perhaps — probably — who?  If  they  have  in  plenitude,  I  say  it  again — 
because  I  once  did  not  know  it — or  think  of  it — and  I  suppose  that  a  great 
many  persons  die  believing  that  the  Two  resort  in  the  way  of  general  depen- 
dence merely  on  Horatio. 

TALBOYS. 

I  believed,  but  I  shall  not  die  believing  so. 

NORTH. 

Therefore,  the  scholarship  of  Horatio,  and  the  non-scholarship  of  Bernardo 
and  Marcellus,  strikes  into  the  life,  soul,  essence,  ground,  foundation,  fabric, 
and  organisation  of  this  First  Ghost  Scene — sustain  and  build  the  whole 
Play. 

TALBOYS. 

Eh? 

NORTH. 

Eh?  Yes.  But  to  the  point  in  hand.  The  Ghost  has  come  and  gone  ; 
and  the  Scholar  addresses  his  Mates  the  two  Non-Scholars.  And  show  me 
the  living  Scholar  who  could  speak  as  Horatio  spake.  Touching  the  matter 
that  is  in  all  their  minds  oppressively,  he  will  transport  their  minds  a  flight 
suddenly  off  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  miles  or  leagues — their  un- 
tutored minds  into  the  Region  of  History.  He  will  take  them  to  Rome — "  a 
little  ere  " — and,  therefore,  before  naming  Rome,  he  lifts  and  he  directs  their 
imagination — "  In  the  most  high  and  palmy  STATE."  There  had  been  Four 
Great  Empires  of  the  World — and  he  will  by  these  few  words  evoke  in  their 
minds  the  Image  of  the  last  and  greatest.  And  now  observe  with  what  de- 
cision, as  well  as  with  what  majesty,  the  nomination  ensues— OF  ROME. 

TALBOYS. 

I  feel  it,  sir. 

NORTH. 

Try,  Talboys,  to  render  "  State  "  by  any  other  word,  and  you  will  be  put 
to  it.  You  may  analogise.  It  is  for  the  Republic  and  City,  what  Realm  or 
Kingdom  is  to  us — at  once  Place  and  indwelling  Power.  "  State  " — properly 
Republic — here  specifically  and  pointedly  .means  Reigning  City.  The  Ghosts 
walked  in  the  City — not  in  the  Republic. 

TALBOYS. 

I  think  I  have  you,  sir — am  not  sure. 

NORTH. 

You  have  me — you  are  sure.  Now  suppose  that,  instead  of  the  solemn, 
ceremonious,  and  stately  robes  in  which  Horatio  attires  the  Glorious  Rome, 
he  had  said  simply,  "  in  Rome,"  or  "  at  Rome,"  where  then  his  -va'ai* — 


254  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

his  leading  of  their  spirits  ?  Where  his  own  scholar-enthusiasm,  and  love, 
and  joy,  and  wonder  ?  All  gone  !  And  where,  Talboys,  are  they  who,  by 
here understanding  "state"  for  "condition" — which  every  man  alive  does — 

TALBOYS. 

Every  man  alive  ? 

NORTH. 

Yes,  you  did — confess  you  did.  Where  are  they,  I  ask,  who  thus  oblige 
Horatio  to  introduce  his  nomination  of  Rome — thus  nakedly — and  prosaic- 
ally ?  Every  hackneyer  of  this  phrase — state — as  every  man  alive  hackneys 
it — is  a  nine-fold  Murderer.  He  murders  the  Phrase — he  murders  the  Speech 
— he  murders  Horatio — he  murders  the  Ghost — he  murders  the  Scene — he 
murders  the  Play — he  murders  Borne — he  murders  Shakspeare — and  he  mur- 
ders Me. 

TALBOYS. 

I  am  innocent. 

NORTH. 

Why,  suppose  Horatio  to  mean — "  in  the  most  glorious  and  victorious  con- 
dition of  Rome,  on  the  Eve  of  Caesar's  death,  the  graves  stood  tenantless  " — 
You  ask — WHERE  ?  See  where  you  have  got.  A  story  told  with  two  de- 
terminations of  Time,  and  none  of  Place !  Is  that  the  way  that  Shakspeare, 
the  intelligent  and  intelligible,  recites  a  fact?  No.  But  my  explanation  shows 
the  Congruity  or  Parallelism.  "In  the  most  high  and  palmy  State," — that 
is,  City  of  Rome— ceremonious  determination  of  Place — "  a  little  ere  the 
mightiest  Julius  fell," — ceremonious  determination  of  Time. 

TALBOYS. 

But  is  not  the  use  of  State,  sir,  for  City,  bold  and  singular  ? 

NORTH. 

It  is.  For  Verse  has  her  own  Speech — though  Wordsworth  denies  it  in  his 
Preface — and  proves  it  by  his  Poetry,  like  his  brethren  Shakspeare  and 
Milton.  The  language  of  Verse  is  rapid — abrept  and  abrupt.  Horatio  wants 
the  notion  of  Republic ;  because  properly  the  Republic  is  high  and  palmy, 
and  not  the  wood,  stone,  and  marble.  So  he  manages  an  expeditious  word 
that  shall  include  both,  and  strike  you  at  once.  The  word  of  a  Poet  strikes 
like  a  flash  of  lightning- — it  penetrates — it  does  not  stay  to  be  scanned — 
"  probed,  vexed,  and  criticised," — it  illuminates  and  is  gone.  But  you  must 
have  eyes — and  suffer  nobody  to  shut  them.  I  ask,  then — Can  any  lawful, 
well-behaved  Citizen,  having  weighed  all  this,  and  reviewed  all  these  things, 
again  violate  the  Poesy  of  the  Avonian  Swan,  and  his  own  muse- enlightened 
intelligence,  by  lending  hand  or  tongue  to  the  convicted  and  condemned 
VULGARISM  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Now,  then,  and  not  till  now,  we  Three  know  the  full  power  of  the  lines — 

"  Scilicet  et  Rerum  facta  est  pulcherrima  Roma, 
Septemque  una  sibi  muro  circumdedit  arces." 

NORTH. 

Another  word  anent  Virgil.  Mr  Alison  says — "  There  is  a  still  more  sur- 
prising instance  of  this  fault  in  one  of  the  most  pathetic  passages  of  the  whole 
Poem,  in  the  description  of  the  disease  among  the  cattle,  which  concludes  the 
Third  Georgic.  The  passage  is  as  follows : — 

rt  Ecce  autem  duro  fumans  sub  vomere  Taurus 
Concidit,  et  mixtuni  spumis  vomit  ore  cruorem 
Extremosque  ciet  gemitus ;  it  tristis  arator, 
Mcerentem  abjungens  fraterna  morte  juvencum, 
Atque  opere  in  medio  defixa  relinquit  aratra." 

The  unhappy  image  in  the  second  line  is  less  calculated  to  excite  compassion 
than  disgust,  and  is  singularly  ill-suited  to  the  tone  of  tenderness  and  delicacy 
which  the  Poet  has  everywhere  else  so  successfully  maintained,  in  describing 
the  progress  of  the  loathsome  disease."  The  line  here  objected  to  is  the  life 
of  the  description— and  instead  of  offence,  it  is  the  clenching  of  the  pathos. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  255 

First  of  all,  it  is  that  which  the  Poet  always  will  have  and  the  Critics  wont — 
the  Necessitated — the  Thing  itself — the  Matter  in  hand.  It  shapes — features — 
characterises  that  particular  Murrain.  Leave  it  out — '  the  one  Ox  drops  dead 
in  the  furrow,  and  the  Ploughman  detaches  the  other.'  It's  a  great  pity,  and 
very  surprising — but  that  is  NO  PLAGUE.  Suddenly  he  falls,  and  blood  and 
foam  gush  mixed  with  his  expiring  breath.  Tliat  is  a  plague.  It  has  terror — 
affright — sensible  horror — life  vitiated,  poisoned  in  its  fountains.  Vomit — a 
settled  word,  and  one  of  the  foremost,  of  the  reversed,  unnatural  vital  func- 
tion. Besides,  it  is  the  true  and  proper  word.  Besides,  it  is  vivid  and  pic- 
turesque, being  the  word  of  the  Mouth.  Effundit  (which  they  would  prefer 
— (I  do  not  mean  it  would  stand  in  the  verse)  is  general — might  be  from  the 
ears.  Vomit  in  itself  says  mouth.  The  poor  mouth!  whose  function  is  to 
breathe,  and  to  eat  grass,  and  to  caress — the  visible  organ  of  life — of  vivifica- 
lion — and  now  of  mortification.  Taken  from  the  dominion  of  the  holy  powers, 
and  given  up  to  the  dark  and  nameless  destroyer.  "  Vomit  ore  cruorem!" 
The  verse  moans  and  groans  for  him — it  may  have  in  it  a  death-rattle.  How 
much  more  helpless  and  hopeless  the  real  picture  makes  Arator's  distress ! 
Now,  "  it  trislis"  comes  with  effect. 

SEWAHD. 

Yes,  Virgil,  as  in  duty  bound  to  do,  faced  the  Cattle  Plague  in  all  its  hor- 
rors. Had  he  not,  he  would  have  been  false  to  Pales,  the  Goddess  of  Shep- 
herds— to  Apollo,  who  fed  the  herds  of  Admetus.  So  did  his  Master,  Lucretius 
— whom  he  emulated — equalled,  but  not  surpassed,  in  execution  of  the  dismal 
but  inevitable  work.  The  whole  land  groaned  under  the  visitation — nor  was  it 
confined  to  Cattle — it  seemed  as  if  the  brute  creation  were  about  to  perish. 
But  his  tender  heart,  near  the  close,  singled  out,  from  the  thousands,  one  yoke 
of  Steers — in  two  lines  and  a  half  told  the  death  of  one — in  two  lines  and  a 
half  told  the  sadness  of  its  owner — and  in  as  many  lines  more  told,  too,  of  the 
survivor  sinking,  because  his  brother  "  was  not" — and  in  as  many  more  a 
lament  for  the  cruel  sufferings  of  the  harmless  creature — lines  which,  Scaliger 
says,  he  would  rather  have  written  than  have  been  honoured  by  the  Lydian 
or  the  Persian  king. 

BTJLLER. 

Perhaps  you  have  said  enough,  Seward.  It  might  have  been  better,  per- 
haps, to  have  recited  the  whole  passage. 

NORTH. 

Here  is  a  sentence  or  two  about  Homer. 

BULLER. 

Then  you  are  9K.  Oh !  sir — why  not  for  an  hour  imitate  that  Moon 
and  those  Stars?  How  silently  they  shine !  But  what  care  yon  for  the  hea- 
venly luminaries  ?  In  the  majestic  beauty  of  the  nocturnal  heavens  vain  man 
will  not  hold  his  peace. 

SEWARD. 

Is  that  the  murmur  of  the  far-off  sea  ? 

NORTH. 

It  is — the  tide,  may  be,  is  on  its  return — is  at  "  Connal's  raging  Ferry" — 
from  Loch  Etive — yet  this  is  not  its  hour — 'tis  but  the  mysterious  voice  of 
Night. 

BULLER. 

Hush! 

NORTH. 

By  moonlight  and  starlight,  and  to  the  voice  of  Night,  I  read  these  words 
from  Mr  Alison — "  In  the  speech  of  Agamemnon  to  Idomeneus,  in  the 
Fourth  Book  of  the  Iliad,  a  circumstance  is  introduced  altogether  inconsistent 
both  with  the  dignity  of  the  speech,  and  the  Majesty  of  Epic  Poetry : — 

'Divine  Idomeneus!  what  thanks  we  owe 
To  worth  like  thine,  what  praise  shall  we  bestow! 
To  Thee  the  foremost  honours  are  decreed, 
First  in  the  fight,  and  every  graceful  deed. 


256  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

For  this,  in  banquets,  when  the  generous  bowls. 
Restore  our  blood,  and  raise  the  warriors'  souls, 
Though  all  the  rest  with  stated  rules  be  bound, 
Unmixed,  unmeasured,  are  thy  goblets  crowned.'" 

SEWARD.  % 

That  is  Pope.    Do  you  remember  Homer  himself,  sir  ? 

NORTH. 

I  do. 

'l8o/*ej/ei),  Trepi  /iei>  ere  ri'co  Aavacov  ra^uTrwXwv, 
rififv  fv\  TTTO\efj,a>  ^S'  aXXot'w  eVl  epyw, 
T)8'  fv  8aid\  ore  Trep  re  yepovcriov  aWoTTa  olvov 
'Apyeicav  ol  apicrrot,  eVi  Kpijr^pai  Kepcavrai. 
e?7rep  yap  r'  aXXot  ye  KaprjKop.6a>vrfS  'A^aiol 
8airpov  irlvKHTiv,  crov  8e  TrXetoj/  SeVa?  atei 
eoT/jx',  &<TTrep  epjol,  TTiffiv,  ore  dvfios  dvd>yoi, 
aXX'  opcrev  7rdXejidi>§',  olos  irapos  fv%eo  flvai. 

I  believe  you  will  find  that  in  general  men  praise  more  truly,  that  is 
justly,  deservedly,  than  they  condemn.  They  praise  from  an  impulse  of  love — 
that  is,  from  a  capacity.  Nature  protects  love  more  than  hate.  Their  con- 
demnation is  often  mere  incapacity — want  of  insight.  Sir  Alison  had  elegance 
of  apprehension — truth  of  taste — a  fine  sense  of  the  beautiful — a  sense  of  the 
sublime.  His  instances  for  praise  are  always  well — often  newly  chosen,  from 
an  attraction  felt  in  his  own  genial  and  noble  breast.  The  true  chord  struck 
then.  But  he  was  somewhat  too  dainty-schooled — school-nursed,  and  school- 
born.  A  judge  and  critic  of  Poetry  should  have  been  caught  wild,  and  tamed ; 
he  should  carry  about  him  to  the  last  some  relish  of  the  wood  and  the 
wilderness,  as  if  he  were  ever  in  some  danger  of  breaking  away,  and  relapsing 
to  them.  He  should  know  Poetry  as  a  great  power  of  the  Universe — a  sun — 
of  which  the  Song — whosesoever — only  catches  and  fixes  a  few  rays.  How 
different  in  thought  was  Epos  to  him  and  to  Homer !  Homer  paints  Man- 
ners— archaic,  simple  manners.  Everybody  feels — everybody  says  this — Mr 
Alison  must  have  known  it— and  could  have  said  it  as  well  as  the  best — 

SEWARD. 

But  the  best  often  forget  it.  They  seem  to  hold  to  this  knowledge  better 
now,  Mr  North ;  and  they  do  not  make  Homer  answerable  as  a  Poet,  for  the 
facts  of  which  he  is  the  Historian— -Why  not  rather  accept  than  criticise  ? 

NORTH. 

I  am  sorry,  Seward,  for  the  Achsean  Chiefs  who  had  to  drink  bairpov — that  is 
all.  I  had  hoped  that  they  helped  themselves. 

SEWARD. 

Perhaps,  sir,  the  Stint  was  a  custom  of  only  the  oivov  yepno-iov — a  ceremonious 
Bowl — and  if  so,  undoubtedly  with  religious  institution.  The  Feast  is  not 
honorary — only  the  Bowl:  for  anything  that  appears,  Agamemnon,  feasting  his 
Princes,  might  say,  "  Now,  for  the  Bowl  of  Honour" — and  Idomeneus  alone 
drinks.  Or  let  the  whole  Feast  be  honorific,  and  the  Bowl  the  sealing,  and 
crowning,  and  characterising  solemnity.  Now,  the  distinction  of  the  Stint,  and 
the  Full  Bowl,  selected  for  a  signal  of  different  honouring,  has  to  me  no 
longer  anything  irksome.  It  is  no  longer  a  grudged  and  scanted  cheer — but 
lawful  Assignment  of  Place. 

TALBOYS. 

The  moment  you  take  it  for  Ceremonial,  sir,  you  don't  know  what  profound 
meaning  may,  or  may  not  be  in  it.  The  phrase  is  very  remarkable. 

NORTH. 

When  the  "  Best  of  the  Argives"  mix  in  the  Bowl  "  the  honorific  dark-glowing 
wine,"  or  the  dark-glowing  wine  of  honour — when  ore — quite  a  specific  and 
peculiar  occasion,  and  confined  to  the  wine— you  would  almost  think  that  the 
Chiefs  themselves  are  the  wine-mixers,  and  not  the  usual  ministrants — which 
would  perhaps  express  the  descent  of  an  antique  use  from  a  time  and  manners 
of  still  greater  simplicity  than  those  which  Homer  describes.  Or  take  it 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  257 

merely,  that  in  great  solemnities,  high  persons  do  the  functions  proper  to 
Servants.  This  we  do  know,  that  usually  a  servant,  the  Ta/u«vy,  or  the 
ou*>xooj,  does  mix  the  Bowl.  By  the  way,  Talboys,  I  think  you  will  be  not  a 
little  amused  with  old  Chapman's  translation  of  the  passage. 

TALBOYS. 

A  fiery  old  Chap  was  George. 

NORTH. 

It  runs  thus — 

"  0  Idomen,  I  ever  loved  thyself  past  all  the  Greeks, 
In  war,  or  any  work  of  peace,  at  table,  everywhere ; 
For  when  the  best  of  Greeks,  besides,  mix  ever  at  our  cheer 
My  good  old  ardent  wine  with  small,  and  our  inferior  mates 
Drink  ever  that  mixt  wine  measured  too,  thou  drink'st  without  those  rates 
Our  old  wine  neat  \  and  ever  more  thy  bowl  stands  like  to  mine  ; 
To  drink  still  when  and  what  thou  wilt ;  then  rouse  that  heart  of  thine  ; 
And  whatsoever  heretofore  thou  hast  assumed  to  be, 
This  day  be  greater." 

TALBOYS. 

Well  done,  Old  Buck  !  This  fervour  and  particularity  are  admirable.  But," 
uiethinks,  if  I  caught  the  words  rightly,  that  George  mistakes  the  meaning  of 
yepsa-iov — honorary ;  he  has  y*pa>v  yepovros,  an  old  man,  singing  in  his  ears ;  but 
old  for  wine  would  be  quite  a  different  word. 

NORTH. 

And  he  makes  Agamemnon  commend  Idomeneus  for  drinking  generously 
and  honestly,  whilst  the  others  are  afraid  of  their  cups — as  Claudius,  King  of 
Denmark,  might  praise  one  of  his  strong-headed  courtiers,-  and  laugh  at 
Polonius.  Agamemnon  does  not  say  that  Idomeneus'  goblet  was  not  mixed — 
was  neat — rather  we  use  to  think  that  wine  was  always  mixed — but  whether 
"with  small,"  as  old  Chapman  says,  or  with  water,  I  don't  know — but  I 
fancied  water!  But  perhaps,  Seward,  the  investigation  of  a  Grecian  Feast  in 
heroic  time,  and  in  Attic,  becomes  an  exigency.  Chapman  is  at  least  deter- 
mined— and  wisely  — to  show  that  he  is  not  afraid  of  the  matter — that  he  saw 
nothing  in  it  "  altogether  inconsistent  with  the  dignity  of  the  speech  and  the 
majesty  of  Epic  Poetry. 

SEWARD. 

Dignity !  Majesty !  They  stand,  sir,  in  the  whole  together — in  the  Manners 
taken  collectively  by  themselves  throughout  the  entire  Iliad — and  then  taken 
as  a  part  of  the  total  delineation.  Apply  our  modern  notions  of  dignity  and 
majesty  to  the  Homeric  Poetry,  and  we  shall  get  a  shock  in  every  other  page. 

NORTH. 

The  Homeric,  heroic  manners!  Heyne  has  a  Treatise  or  Excursus — as  you 
know — on  the  dvropma — I  think  he  calls  it — of  the  Homeric  Heroes — their 
waiting  on  themselves,  or  their  self-sufficiency — where  I  think  that  he  collects 
the  picture. 

SEWARD. 

I  ana  ashamed  to  say  I  do  not  know  it. 

NORTH. 

No  matter.  You  see  how  this  connects  with  the  scheme  of  the  Poem— in 
which,  prevalent  or  conspicuous  by  the  amplitude  of  the  space  which  it  occu- 
pies, is  the  individual  prowess  of  heroes  in  field — conspicuous,  too,  by  its  moment 
in  action.  This  is  another  and  loftier  mode  of  the  dvrap/ceia.  The  human  bosom 
is  a  seat  or  fountain  of  power.  Power  goes  forth,  emanates  in  all  directions, 
high  and  low,  right  and  left.  The  Man  is  a  terrestrial  God.  He  takes  coun- 
sel with  his  own  heart,  and  he  acts.  "  He  conversed  with  his  own  magna- 
nimous spirit" — or  as  Milton  says  of  Abdiel  meeting  Satan — "  And  thus  his 
own  undaunted  heart  explored." 

SEWARD. 

Yes,  Mr  North,  the  Man  is  as  a  terrestrial  God;  but— with  continual 
recognition  by  the  Poet  and  his  heroes — as  under  the  celestial  Gods.  And  I 
apprehend,  sir,  that  this  two-fold  way  of  representing  man,  in  himself  and 


258  Christopher  under  Canvass,  [Aug. 

towards  them,  is  that  which  first  separates  the  Homeric  from  and  above  all 
other  Poetry,  is  its  proper  element  of  grandeur,  in  which  we  never  bathe 
without  coming  out  aggrandised. 

NORTH. 

Seward,  you  instruct  me  by 

SEWARD. 

Oh,  no,  sir !  You  instruct  me 

NORTH. 

We  instruct  each  other.  For  this  the  heroes  are  all  Demigods — that  is,  the 
son  of  a  God,  or  Goddess,  or  the  Descendant  at  a  few  Generations.  Sarpedon 
is  the  Son  of  Jupiter,  and  his  death  by  Patroclus  is  perhaps  the  passage  of 
the  whole  Iliad  that  most  specially  and  enei'getically,  and  most  profoundly 
and  pathetically,  makes  the  Gods  intimate  to  the  life  and  being  of  men — pre- 
sents the  conduct  of  divinity  and  humanity  with  condescension  there,  and  for 
elevation  here.  I  do  not  mean  that  there  is  not  more  pomp  of  glorification  about 
Achilles,  for  whom  Jupiter  comes  from  Olympus  to  Ida,  and  Vulcan  forges 
arms — whose  Mother- Goddess  is  Messenger  to  and  from  Jupiter,  and  into 
whose  lips,  when  he  is  faint  with  toil  and  want  of  nourishment — abstaining  in 
his  passion  of  sorrow  and  vengeance — Minerva,  descending,  instils  Nectar. 
But  I  doubt  if  there  be  anything  so  touching — under  this  relation — and  so  inti- 
mately aggrandising  as  that  other  whole  place — the  hesitation  of  Jupiter  whether 
he  shall  VIOLATE  FATE,  in  order  to  save  his  own  flesh  and  blood  from  its 
decreed  stroke — the  consolatory  device  of  Juno  (in  remonstrating  and  dis- 
suading) that  he  shall  send  Apollo  to  call  Death  and  Sleep — a  God-Messenger 
to  God-Ministers — to  bear  the  dead  body  from  the  battle-field  to  his  own  land 
and  kin  for  due  obsequies.  And,  lastly,  those  drops  of  blood  which  fall  from 
the  sky  to  the  earth,  as  if  the  heart-tears  of  the  Sire  of  all  the  worlds  and 
their  inhabitants. 

BULLER. 

You  are  always  great,  sir,  on  Homer. .  But,  pray,  have  you  any  intention 
of  returning  to  the  durapiceia  ? 

NORTH. 

Ha !  Buller — do  you  speak  ?  I  have  not  wandered  from  it.  But  since  you 
seem  to  think  I  have,  think  of  Patroclus  lighting  a  fire  under  a  tripod  with  his 
own  hands,  to  boil  meat  for  Achilles'  guests — of  Achilles  himself  helping  to  lay 
the  ransomed  body  of  Hector  on  the  car  that  was  to  take  it  away.  This  last  is 
honorific  and  pathetic.  Ministrations  of  all  degrees  for  themelves,  in  their  own 
affairs,  characterise  them  all.  From  the  least  of  these  to  Achilles  fighting  the 
River-God — which  is  an  excess — all  holds  together — is  of  one  meaning — and 
here,  as  everywhere,  the  least,  and  the  familiar,  and  most  homely,  attests, 
vouches,  makes  evident,  probable,  and  facile  to  credence,  the  highest,  most 
uncouth,  remote,  and  difficult  otherwise  of  acceptation.  Pitching  the  specu- 
lation lower,  plenitude  of  the  most  robust,  ardent,  vigorous  life  overflows  the 
Iliad — up  from  the  animal  to  the  divine — from  the  beautiful  tall  poplar  by  the 
river- side,  which  the  wheelwright  or  wainwright  fells.  Eating,  drinking, 
sleeping,  thrusting  through  with  spears,  and  hacking  the  live  flesh  off  the  bone 
—all  go  together  and  help  one  another — and  make  the  "Majesty  and  Dignity" 
— or  what  not — of  the  Homeric  Epos.  But  I  see,  Buller,  that  you  are  timeing 
me — and  I  am  ashamed  to  confess  that  I  have  exceeded  the  assigned  limit. 
Gentlemen,  I  ask  all  your  pardons. 

BULLER. 

Timeing  you — my  dear  sir !  Look — 'tis  only  my  snuff-box — your  own  gift — 
with  your  own  haunted  Head  on  the  lid — inspired  work  of  Laurence  Macdonald. 

NORTH. 

Give  it  me— why  there — there — by  your  own  unhappy  awkwardness — it  has 
gone— gone— to  the  bottom  of  the  deepest  part  of  the  Loch  ! 

BULLER. 

I  don't  care.    It  was  my  chronometer !    The  Box  is  safe. 

NORTH. 
Arid  so  is  the  Chronometer.  Here  it  is — I  was  laughing  at  you — in  my  sleeve. 


1849. J  Christopher  under  Canvass.  259 

DULLER. 

Another  Herman  Boaz  ! — Bless  my  eyes,  there  is  Kilchnrn !  It  must  be — 
there  is  no  other  such  huge  Castle,  surely,  at  the  head  of  the  Loch — and  no 
other  such  mountains — 

NORTH. 

You  promised  solemnly,  sir,  not  to  say  a  single  word  about  Loch  Awe  or 
its  appurtenance,  this  Evening — so  did  every  mother's  son  of  us  at  your  order 
— and  t'was  well — for  we  have  seen  them  and  felt  them  all— at  times  not  the  less, 
profoundly — as  the  visionary  pomp  keeps  all  the  while  gliding  slowly  by — per- 
petual accompaniment  of  our  discourse,  not  uninspired,  perhaps,  by  the  beauty 
or  the  grandeur,  as  our  imagination  was  among  the  ideal  creations  of  genius 
— with  the  far-off  in  place  and  in  time — with  generations  and  empires 

M  When  dark  oblivion  swallows  cities  up, 
And  mighty  States,  characterless,  are  grated 
To  dusty  nothing  ! 

SEWARD. 

In  the  declining  light  I  wonder  your  eyes  can  see  to  read  print. 

NORTH. 

My  eyes  are  at  a  loss  with  Small  Pica — but  veritable  Pica  I  can  master, 
yet,  after  sunset.  Indeed,  I  am  sharpest-sighted  by  twilight,  like  a  cat  or  an 
owl. 

BTJLLER. 

Have  you  any  more  annotations  on  Alison  ? 

NORTH. 

Many.  The  flaws  are  few.  I  verily  believe  these  are  all.  To  elucidate 
his  Truths — in  Taste  and  in  Morals — would  require  from  us  Four  a  far  longer 
Dialogue.  Alison's  Essays  should  be  reprinted  in  one  Pocket  Volume — wis- 
dom and  Goodness  are  in  that  family  hereditary — the  editing  would  be  a  Work 
of  Love — and  in  Bohn's  Standard  Library  they  would  confer  benefit  on 
thousands  who  now  know  but  their  name. 

SEWAKD. 

My  dear  sir,  last  time  we  voyaged  the  Loch,  you  said  a  few  words — per- 
haps you  may  remember  it — about  those  philosophers — Alison — the  "  Man 
of  Taste,"  as  Thomas  Campbell  loved  to  call  him — assuredly  is  not  of  the 
number — who  have  insisted  on  the  natural  Beauty  of  Virtue,  and  natural  De- 
formity of  Vice,  and  have  appeared  to  place  our  capacity  of  distinguishing 
Eight  from  Wrong  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  on  the  sense  of  this  Beauty  and  of 
this  Deformity — 

NORTH. 

I  remember  saying,  my  dear  Seward,  that  they  have  drawn  their  views 
too  much  from  the  consideration  of  the  state  of  these  feelings  in  men  who 
had  been  long  exercised  in  the  pure  speculative  contemplation  of  moral  Good- 
ness and  Truth,  as  well  as  in  the  calmness  and  purity  of  a  tranquil,  virtuous 
life.  Was  it  so  ? 

8EWARD. 

It  was. 

NORTH. 

In  such  minds,  when  all  the  calm  faculties  of  the  soul  are  wedded  in  happy 
union  to  the  image  of  Virtue,  there  is,  I  have  no  doubt,  that  habitual  feeling 
for  which  the  term  Beauty  furnishes  a  natural  and  just  expression.  But  I 
apprehend  that  this  is  not  the  true  expression  of  that  serious  and  solemn  feeling 
which  accompanies  the  understanding  of  the  qualities  of  Moral  Action  in  the 
minds  of  the  generality  of  men.  They  who  in  the  midst  of  their  own  un- 
happy perversions,  are  visited  with  knowledge  of  those  immutable  distinctions, 
and  they  who  in  the  ordinary  struggles  and  trials  incident  to  our  condition, 
maintain  their  conduct  in  unison  with  their  strongly  grounded  principles  and 
better  aspirations,  would  seldom,  I  apprehend,  employ  this  language  for  the 
description  of  feelings  which  can  hardly  be  separated  from  the  ideas  of  an 
awful  responsibility  involving  the  happiness  and  misery  of  the  accountable  sub- 
jects of  a  moral  order  of  Government. 


2GO  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug. 

SEWARD. 

You  think,  sir,  that  to  assign  this  perception  of  Beauty  and  Deformity,  as 
the  groundwork  of  our  Moral  Nature,  is  to  rest  on  too  slight  a  foundation 
that  part  of  man's  constitution  which  is  first  in  importance  to  his  welfare  ? 

NORTH. 

Assuredly,  my  dear  friend,  I  do.  Nay,  I  do  not  fear  to  say  that  the 
Emotion,  which  may  properly  be  termed  a  Feeling  of  Beauty  in  Virtue,  takes 
place  at  those  times  when  the  deepest  affection  of  our  souls  towards  Good 
and  Evil  acts  less  strongly,  and  when  the  Emotion  we  feel  is  derived  more 
from  Imagination — and — 

SEWARD. 

And  may  I  venture  to  suggest,  sir,  that  as  Imagination,  which  is  so  strong  a 
principle  in  our  minds,  will  take  its  temper  from  any  prevalent  feelings,  and 
even  from  any  fixed  and  permanent  habits  of  mind,  so  our  Feeling  of 
Beauty  and  Deformity  shall  be  different  to  different  men,  either  according  to 
the  predominant  strength  of  natural  principles,  or  according  to  their  course 
of  life? 

NORTH. 

Even  so.  And  therefore  this  general  disposition  of  Imagination  to  receive 
its  character  will  apply,  no  doubt,  where  the  prevailing  feelings  and  habits 
are  of  a  Moral  cast ;  and  hence  in  minds  engaged  in  calm  intellectual  specula- 
tion, and  maintaining  their  own  moral  nature  rather  in  innocence  and  simplicity 
of  life  than  in  the  midst  of  difficult  and  trying  situations  and  in  conflict  with 
passions,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Imagination  will  give  itself  up  to  this 
general  Moral  Cast  of  Mind,  and  feel  Beauty  and  Deformity  vividly  and  uni- 
formly in  the  contemplation  of  the  moral  quality  of  actions  and  moral  states 
of  character. 

SEWARD. 

But  your  words  imply — do  they  not,  sir  ?  that  such  is  the  temper  of  their 
calmer  minds,  and  not  the  emotion  which  is  known  when,  from  any  great  act 
of  Virtue  or  Crime,  which  comes  suddenly  upon  them,  their  Moral  Spirit  rises 
up  in  its  native  strength,  to  declare  its  own  Affection  and  its  own  Judgment  ? 

NORTH. 

Just  so.  Besides,  my  excellent  friend,  if  you  consider  well  the  feeling  which 
takes  possession  of  us,  on  contemplating  some  splendid  act  of  heroic  and  self- 
devoting  Virtue,  we  shall  find  that  the  sort  of  enthusiastic  transport  which  may 
kindle  towards  him  who  has  performed  it,  is  not  properly  a  moral  transport 
at  all ;  but  it  is  a  burst  of  love  and  admiration.  Take  out,  then,  from  any 
such  emotion,  what  Imagination,  and  Love,  and  Sympathy  have  supplied,  and 
leave  only  what  the  Moral  Spirit  recognises  of  Moral  Will  in  the  act,  and  you 
will  find  that  much  of  that  dazzling  and  splendid  Beauty  which  produced  the 
transport  of  loving  admiration  is  removed. 

SEWARD. 

And  if  so,  sir,  then  must  it  be  very  important  that  we  should  not  deceive 
ourselves,  and  rely  upon  the  warmth  of  emotion  we  may  feel  towards  generous 
and  heroic  actions  as  evidence  of  the  force  of  the  Moral  Principle  in  our  own 
breasts,  which  requires  to  be  ascertained  by  a  very  different  test — 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Seward ;  and  it  is  important  also,  that  we  should  learn  to  acknowledge 
and  to  respect,  in  those  who,  without  the  capacity  of  such  vivid  feelings,  are 
yet  conscientiously  faithful  to  the  known  Moral  Law,  the  merit  and  dignity  of 
their  Moral  Obedience.  We  must  allow  to  Virtue,  my  dearest  Seward,  all  that 
is  her  due — her  countenance  beautiful  in  its  sweet  serenity — her  voice  gentle 
and  mild — her  demeanour  graceful — and  a  simple  majesty  in  the  flowing  folds 
of  her  stainless  raiment.  So  may  we  picture  her  to  our  imagination,  and  to  our 
hearts.  But  we  must  beware  of  making  such  abstractions  fantastic  and 
visionary,  lest  we  come  at  last  to  think  of  emotions  of  Virtue  and  Taste  as  one 
and  the  same — a  fatal  error  indeed — and  that  would  rob  human  life  of  much  of 
its  melancholy  grandeur.  The  beauty  of  Virtue  is  but  the  smile  on  her  celestial 
countenance— and  may  be  admired — loved— by  those  who  hold  but  little  com- 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  261 

munion  with  her  inner  heart — and  it  may  be  overlooked  by  those  who  pay  to 
her  the  most  devout  worship. 

TALBOY8. 

Methinks,  sir,  that  the  moral  emotion  with  which  we  regard  actions  greatly 
right  or  greatly  wrong,  is  no  transport ;  it  is  an  earnest,  solemn  feeling  of  a 
mind  knowing  there  is  no  peace  for  living  souls,  except  in  their  Moral  Obe- 
dience, and  therefore  receiving  a  deep  and  grateful  assurance  of  the  peace  of 
one  soul  more,  in  witnessing  its  adherence  to  its  virtue ;  and  the  pain  which 
is  suffered  from  crime  is  much  more  allied  to  sorrow,  in  contemplating  the 
wilful  departure  of  a  spirit  from  its  only  possible  Good,  than  to  those  feelings 
of  repugnance  and  hate  which  characterise  the  temper  of  our  common  human 
emotion  towards  crimes  offering  violence  and  outrage  to  humanity. 

NORTH. 

I  believe  that,  though  darkness  lies  round  and  about  us  seeking  to  solve 
such  questions,  a  feeling  of  deep  satisfaction  in  witnessing  the  adherence  to 
Moral  Rectitude,  and  of  deep  pain  in  witnessing  the  departure  from  it,  are 
the  necessary  results  of  a  moral  sensibility ;  but  taken  in  their  elementary 
simplicity,  they  have,  I  think,  a  character  distinct  from  those  many  other 
emotions  which  will  necessarily  blend  with  them,  in  the  heart  of  one  human 
being  looking  upon  the  actions  of  another — "  because  that  we  have  all  one 
human  heart." 

TALBOYS. 

Who  can  doubt  that  Religion  infuses  power  and  exaltation  into  the  Arts? 
The  bare  Histoiy  teaches  this.  In  Greece  Poetry  sang  of  Gods,  and  of  Heroes, 
in  whose  transactions  Gods  moved.  Sculpture  moulded  Forms  which  were 
attempted  expressions  of  Divine  Attributes.  Architecture  constructed  Tem- 
ples. De  facto  the  Grecian  Arts  rose  out  of  Religion.  And  were  not  the 
same  Arts,  of  revived  Italy,  religious  ? 

BULLER. 

They  all  require  for  their  foundation  and  support  a  great  pervading  sym- 
pathy— some  Feeling  that  holds  a  whole  national  breast.  This  is  needed  to 
munificently  defraying  the  Costlier  Arts — no  base  consideration  at  bottom. 
For  it  is  a  life-bond  of  this  life,  that  is  freely  dropped,  when  men  freely  and 
generously  contribute  their  means  to  the  honour  of  Religion.  There  is  a  sen- 
timent in  opening  your  purse. 

SEWARD. 

Yes,  Buller — without  that  sentiment,  no  man  can  love  noble  Art.  The 
true,  deep,  grand  support  of  Genius  is  the  confidence  of  universal  sympathy. 
Homer  sings  because  Greece  listens.  Phidias  pours  out  his  soul  over  marble, 
gold,  and  ivory,  because  he  knows  that  at  Olympia  united  Greece  will  wonder 
and  will  worship.  Think  how  Poet  is  dumb  and  Sculptor  lame,  who  fore- 
knows that  what  he  would  sing,  what  he  would  carve,  will  neither  be  felt  nor 
understood. 

BULLER. 

The  Religion  of  a  people  furnishes  the  sympathy  which  both  pays  and 
applauds. 

TALBOYS. 

And  Religion  affords  to  the  Artist  in  Words  or  Forms  the  highest  Norms  of 
Thought — sublime,  beautiful,  solemn — withal  the  sense  of  Aspiration — pos- 
sibly of  Inspiration. 

NORTH. 

And  it  guards  Philosophy — and  preserves  it,  by  spiritual  influence,  from 
degradation  worse  than  death.  The  mind  is  first  excited  into  activity  through 
the  impressions  made  by  external  objects  on  the  senses.  The  French  meta- 
physicians— pretending  to  follow  Locke — proceeded  to  discover  in  the  mind  a 
mere  compound  of  Sensations,  and  of  Ideas  drawn  from  Sensations.  Sensa- 
tions, and  Ideas  that  were  the  Relics  of  Sensations — nothing  more. 

TALBOYS. 

And  thus,  sir,  by  degrees,  the  Mind  appeared  to  them  to  be  nothing  else 
than  a  product  of  the  Body — say  rather  a  state  of  the  Body. 
VOL.  LXVI. — xo.  crccvi.  s 


262  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Aug.  1849. 

NORTH. 

A  self-degradation,  my  friend,  which  to  the  utmost  removes  the  mind  from 
God.  And  this  Creed  was  welcome  to  those  to  whom  the  belief  in  Him 
was  irksome.  That  which  we  see  and  touch  became  to  such  Philosophers  the 
whole  of  Reality.  Deity — the  Relation  of  the  Creation  to  the  Creator — the 
hope  of  a  Futurity  beyond  the  grave — vanished  from  the  Belief  of  Materialists 
living  in,  and  by,  and  to— Sensation. 

SEWARD. 

And  with  what  a  horrid  sympathy  was  the  creed  welcomed ! 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Seward,  I  who  lived  nearer  the  time — perhaps  better  than  you  can — 
know  the  evil.  Not  in  the  schools  alone,  or  in  the  solitude  of  philosophical 
thought,  the  doctrine  of  an  arid  speculation  circulated,  like  a  thin  and  un- 
wholesome blood,  through  the  veins  of  polite  literature ;  not  in  the  schools 
alone,  but  in  the  gorgeous  and  gay  saloons,  where  the  highly-born,  the  courtly, 
and  the  wealthy,  winged  the  lazy  hours  with  light  or  dissolute  pleasures — 
there  the  Philosophy  which  fettered  the  soul  in  the  pleasing  bands  of  the 
Senses,  which  plucked  it  back  from  a  feared  immortality,  which  opened  a  gulf 
of  infinite  separation  between  it  and  its  Maker,  was  cordially  entertained — 
there  it  pointed  the  jest  and  the  jibe.  Scepticism  a  study — the  zeal  of  Un- 
belief! Principles  of  false  thought  appeared  suddenly  and  widely  as  principles 
of  false  passion  and  of  false  action.  Doubts,  difficulties,  guesses,  fine  spinnings 
of  the  perverse  brain,  seized  upon  the  temper  of  the  times — became  the  springs 
of  public  and  popular  movements — engines  of  political  change.  The  Venera- 
lions  of  Time  were  changed  into  Abominations.  A  Will  strong  to  overthrow 
— hostile  to  Order — anarchical — "  intended  siege  and  defiance  to  Heaven." 
The  irreligious  Philosophy  of  the  calmer  time  now  bore  its  fruits.  The  Cen- 
tury had  prepared  the  explosion  that  signalised  its  close — Impiety  was 
the  name  of  the  Giant  whom  these  throes  of  the  convulsed  earth  had  borne 
into  the  day,  and  down  together  went  Throne  and  Altar. — But  where  are  we  ? 

DULLER. 

At  the  river  mouth. 

NORTH. 

What !  at  home. 

BULLER. 

See  the  Tent-Lights — hear  the  Tent-Music. 

NORTH. 

Your  arm,  Talboys — till  I  disembark.  Up  to  the  Mount  I  shall  then  climb, 
unassisted  but  by  the  Crutch. 


Pi  luted  by  William  Blacktcood  and  Sons,  EdinlAtryh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH    MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCVII. 


SEPTEMBER,  1849. 


VOL.  LXVI. 


THE  SCOTTISH  MARRIAGE  AND  REGISTRATION  BILLS. 


ABOUT  two  years  ago,  we  found  it 
necessary  to  draw  the  attention  of  our 
readers  to  certain  alterations  which 
our  Whig  rulers,  or  at  least  a  section 
of  them,  proposed  to  make  in  the  ex- 
isting law  of  marriage,  as  applicable 
to  Scotland.  We  stated  our  views 
moderately,  not  denying  that  in  some 
points  it  might  be  possible  to  effect  a 
salutary  change  ;  but  utterly  depre- 
cating the  enforcement  of  a  bill  which 
was  so  constructed  as  to  uproot  and 
destroy  the  ancient  consuetudinal  law 
of  the  kingdom,  to  strike  a  heavy  and 
malignant  blow  at  morality  and  reli- 
gion, and  which,  moreover,  was  re- 
garded by  the  people  of  Scotland  with 
feelings  of  unequivocal  disgust.  So 
widely  spread  was  that  feeling  amongst 
our  countrymen,  of  every  shade  of 
political  opinion  and  form  of  religious 
faith,  that  we  believed  this  ill-advised 
attempt,  once  arrested  in  its  progress, 
would  be  finally  withdrawn.  Popu- 
larity, it  was  quite  clear,  could  never 
be  gained  from  persisting  in  a  mea- 
sure so  unpalatable  to  the  whole  com- 
munity ;  nor  had  England,  save  in 
the  matter  of  Gretna-green  marriages, 
any  visible  interest  in  the  question. 
It  is  just  possible — for  self-conceit  will 
sometimes  betray  men  into  strange 
extravagancies — that  a  few  individual 
legislators  had  more  confidence  in  the 
soundness  of  their  own  opinions  than 
in  that  of  the  opinions  of  the  nation ; 
but,  even  if  we  should  give  them  credit 
for  such  honest  convictions,  it  still  re- 
mains a  doubtful  point  how  far  indi- 
vidual opinions  should  be  allowed  to 
override  the  national  will.  There  may 
be  parliamentary  as  well  as  regal 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVII. 


despotism ;  and  we  are  much  mistaken 
if  the  people  of  Scotland  are  inclined 
to  submit  to  the  former  yoke,  even  at 
the  hands  of  those  who  claim  honour 
for  their  party  on  the  strength  of  tra- 
ditionary denunciations  of  the  latter. 
We  think  it  is  pretty  clear  that  no 
private  member  of  parliament  would 
have  attempted  to  carry  through  a 
bill,  the  provisions  of  which  had  been 
encountered  by  such  general  opposi- 
tion in  Scotland.  No  ministry  would 
have  lent  its  support  to  such  a  case 
of  insolent  coercion ;  and  we  confess 
we  cannot  see  why  the  crotchets,  or 
even  the  convictions,  of  an  official  are 
to  be  regarded  with  greater  favour. 
In  a  matter  purely  Scottish,  it  would, 
indeed,  be  gross  despotism  if  any  Bri- 
tish cabinet  should  employ  its  power 
and  its  interest  to  overwhelm  the  voice 
of  Scotland,  as  fairly  enunciated  by 
her  representatives.  That  has  not 
been  done,  at  least  to  the  last  unpar- 
donable degree;  yet,  whilst  grateful 
to  Lord  John  Russell  for  having,  at 
the  last  moment,  stopped  the  progress 
of  these  bills,  we  may  very  fairly  com- 
plain that  earlier  and  more  decided 
steps  were  not  taken  by  the  premier 
for  suppressing  the  zeal  of  his  subor- 
dinates. Surely  he  cannot  have  been 
kept  in  ignorance  of  the  discontent 
which  has  been  excited  by  the  intro- 
duction of  these  bills,  three  several 
times,  with  the  ministerial  sanction, 
in  both  houses  of  parliament  ?  Had  a 
bill  as  obnoxious  to  the  feelings  of  the 
people  of  England,  as  these  avowedly 
are  to  the  Scots,  been  once  aban- 
doned, it  never  would  have  appeared 
again.  No  minister  would  have  been 


264 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


[Sept. 


so  blind  to  his  duty,  or  at  all  events 
to  his  interest,  as  to  have  adopted  the 
repudiated  bantling ;  since,  by  doing 
so,  he  would  have  inevitably  caused 
an  opposition  which  could  only  termi- 
nate in  his  defeat,  and  which,  proba- 
bly, might  prove  fatal  to  the  existence 
of  his  cabinet.  And  yet,  in  the  case 
of  these  bills,  we  have  seen  three 
separate  attempts  deliberately  made 
and  renewed — first  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  afterwards  in  the 
House  of  Peers — to  thrust  upon  Scot- 
land measures  of  which  she  has  em- 
phatically pronounced  her  dislike. 
No  wonder  if,  under  such  circum- 
stances, when  remonstrance  is  disre- 
garded, and  the  expression  of  popular 
opinion  either  misrepresented  or  sup- 
pressed, men  begin  to  question  the 
prudence  of  an  arrangement  which 
confides  the  chief  conduct  of  Scottish 
affairs  to  a  lawyer  and  judge-expect- 
ant, whose  functions  are  so  multifa- 
rious as  to  interfere  with  their  regular 
discharge.  No  wonder  if  the  desire 
of  the  Scottish  nation  to  have  a  sepa- 
rate and  independent  secretary  of  state, 
altogether  unconnected  with  the  legal 
profession,  is  finding  an  audible  voice 
at  the  council-boards  of  the  larger 
cities  and  towns.  Of  late  years  it  has 
been  made  a  subject  of  general  and 
just  complaint,  that  the  public  busi- 
ness of  Scotland  is  postponed  to  every- 
thing else,  huddled  over  with  indecent 
haste  at  untimeous  hours,  and  often 
entirely  frustrated  for  the  want  of  a 
parliamentary  quorum.  This  arises 
from  no  indisposition,  on  the  part  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  to  do  justice 
to  the  internal  affairs  of  the  northern 
kingdom,  but  it  is  the  natural  result 
of  the  system,  which  virtually  leaves 
Scotland  without  an  official  represen- 
tative in  the  cabinet.  Everyone  knows 
that  Sir  George  Grey  is  not  only  an 
able,  but  a  most  conscientious  home- 
secretary  ;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  he  is 
home-secretary  for  England  alone.  It 
is  impossible  to  expect  that,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  enormous  labour  attendant 
upon  the  English  home  administra- 
tion, any  man  can  adequately  master 
the  details  of  Scottish  business.  The 
fundamental  difference  which  exists  in 
the  laws  of  the  two  countries  would 
of  itself  prove  an  insurmountable  bar- 
rier to  this;  and  consequently,  like 
his  predecessors,  Sir  George  Grey  has 


no  personal  knowledge  either  of  .our 
Avishes  or  our  requirements.  He  can- 
not, therefore,  take  that  prominence 
in  a  Scottish  debate  which  his  posi- 
tion would  seem  to  require ;  and  the 
duty  which  ought  to  be  performed  by 
a  member  of  the  cabinet  is  usually 
intrusted  to  a  subordinate.  In  this 
way  Scottish  public  business  receives 
less  than  its  due  share  of  attention, 
for  the  generality  of  members,  observ- 
ing that  cabinet  ministers  take  little 
share  in  such  discussions,  naturally 
enough  attribute  their  silence  to  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  indifference,  and  are 
careless  about  their  own  attendance. 
All  this,  which  involves  not  only  scan- 
dal, but  positive  inconvenience,  would 
be  cured,  if  a  return  were  made  to  the 
older  system,  and  a  secretary  of  state 
for  Scotland  numbered  in  the  roll  of 
the  cabinet.  The  want  of  such  an 
arrangement  is  positively  detrimental 
to  the  interests  of  ministry ;  for,  dur- 
ing the  last  session,  they  have  assur- 
edly gained  but  few  laurels  from 
their  northern  legislation.  Four  or 
five  bills,  purporting  to  be  of  great 
public  importance,  have  been  with- 
drawn, and  one  only,  which  esta- 
blishes a  new  office  connected  with 
the  Court  of  Session,  has  been  graced 
by  the  royal  assent.  Among  the 
lapsed  bills  are  those  which  form  the 
subject  of  the  present  paper ;  but  they 
have  not  yet  lost  their  vitality.  On 
the  contrary,  we  are  led  to  infer  that, 
in  the  course  of  next  session,  they  will 
again  be  introduced,  in  some  form  or 
other,  before  parliament. 

This  mode  of  treatment  is  so  unpre- 
cedented, that  we  cannot  pass  it  over 
in  silence.  It  may  not  be  unconsti- 
tutional, according  to  the  letter  of  the 
law ;  but  if  it  be  true,  as  we  maintain 
it  to  be,  that  the  people  of  Scotland 
have  already  protested  against  these 
measures,  it  does  seem  rather  tyranni- 
cal that  for  the  fourth  time  they  should 
be  compelled  to  organise  a  resistance, 
and  to  make  themselves  heard  through 
petitions,  lest  the  very  absence  of 
these  should  be  held  as  an  intimation 
of  passive  acquiescence.  This  kind  of 
reasoning  has  actually  been  resorted 
to ;  and  a  very  pregnant  instance  of  it 
is  to  be  found  in  the  reported  speech 
of  the  Lord  Advocate  upon  the  third 
reading  of  the  Marriage  Bill.  "  With 
respect  to  the  dissenters  in  Scotland, 


1849.] 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


265 


there  was  not  a  single  petition  from 
them  against  the  bill ;  therefore  they 
were  to  be  takenas  being  in  favour  of  it !" 
This  is  a  notable  sequitur.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  quite  a  new  doctrine  to  main- 
tain that  because  men  do  not  organise 
meetings,  or  go  out  of  their  way  to 
petition  parliament  against  any  mea- 
sure, they  must  therefore  be  held  as 
assenting.  In  the  second  place,  it  is 
rather  a  startling  thing  to  find  that 
men  are  expected  to  petition  in  a  reli- 

fious  rather  than  in  a  social  character, 
f  this  view  be  correct,  no  individual 
Anabaptist  has  any  right  to  express 
his  political  opinions  unless  he  petitions 
along  with  his  congregation.  No 
member  of  the  Episcopal  Church  ought 
to  have  a  voice  in  a  secular  matter 
nnless  he  goes  along  with  his  dio- 
cesan. We  are  almost  tempted  to 
ask  the  question,  whether  congrega- 
tions in  Scotland  are  to  be  regarded 
as  mere  political  clubs,  or  as  associa- 
tions for  praise  and  worship?  The 
town -councils  of  most  of  the  large 
towns  of  Scotland  have  petitioned 
against  the  bills — are  there  no  dis- 
senters at  any  of  those  boards  ?  One 
hundred  and  thirty  parishes  have 
separately  recorded  their  detestation 
of  the  bills,  not  one  parish  has  made 
the  smallest  demonstration  in  their 
favour,  yet,  according  to  the  logic  of 
the  Lord  Advocate,  those  that  are 
silent  must  be  held  as  acquiescing! 
It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  if 
these  bills  really  tend  to  confer  such 
inestimable  boons  upon  the  people  of 
Scotland,  that  stubborn  race  have 
been  singularly  reluctant  to  acknow- 
ledge the  extent  of  the  benefit.  Nay 
more,  it  is  certainly  a  most  striking 
fact,  that  notwithstanding  thereligious 
divisions,  which  are  more  numerous 
here  than  elsewhere,  it  has  been  im- 
possible to  procure  one  isolated  testi- 
mony, by  an  ecclesiastical  body,  in 
direct  support  of  these  singularly  un- 
fortunate bills.  Lord  Campbell,  in 
his  evidence  given  before  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Commons — of 
which  more  anon — indicates  an  opinion 
that  the  clergy  of  the  Established 
Church  of  Scotland  have  been  actu- 
ated in  their  unanimous  and  decided 
opposition  to  the  Marriage  Bill  by  the 
desire  to  preserve  a  monopoly  of  cele- 
brating formal  marriages.  If  so,  how 
is  it  that  none  of  the  dissenting  clergy, 


in  whose  favour  this  monopoly  was  to 
be  broken  up,  came  forward  in  sup- 
port of  the  measure  ?  But  the  truth 
is,  as  we  shall  presently  show,  that  no 
such  monopoly  exists  at  all,  save  in 
the  imagination  of  the  noble  lord. 
By  the  law  of  Scotland,  there  is  no 
distinction  in  favour  of  any  sect,  and 
clergymen,  of  whatever  denomina- 
tion they  may  be,  have  the  right,  and 
are  in  the  daily  practice,  of  celebrat- 
ing formal  marriages. 

"  I  admit,"  says  the  Lord  Advo- 
cate, "  that  the  clergymen  of  Scotland 
are  generally  against  this  measure; 
but  surely  the  house  will  think  that, 
by  this  time,  the  third  year  of  the  dis- 
cussion of  this  bill,  these  reverend 
gentlemen  ought  to  have  come  for- 
ward with  some  substantial  grounds 
for  their  opposition."  We  must  fairly 
confess  our  inability  to  fathom  the 
meaning  of  this  remark.  Two  hundred 
and  twenty-five  petitions  against  this 
bill  have  emanated  from  the  Esta- 
blished Church  —  at  almost  every 
meeting  of  presbytery  and  synod,  the 
matter  has  been  fully  and  thoroughly 
discussed — the  moral  and  political 
objections  to  its  enactment  have  been 
over  and  over  again  brought  forward 
— yet  still,  in  the  eyes  of  the  learned 
lord,  there  is  a  want  of  "  substantial 
grounds."  It  is  not  enough,  there- 
fore, to  say  that  a  measure  is  unneces- 
sary, immoral,  and  impolitic — it  is 
not  enough  to  assign  reasons  why 
these  opinions  are  entertained,  and  to 
repeat  them  year  after  year.  Some- 
thing more  must  be  done,  according 
to  this  remarkably  liberal  view,  before 
it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  legislature 
to  give  any  weight  to  the  general  re- 
monstrance— something  "  substantial" 
is  required,  but  no  intelligible  defini- 
tion has  been  vouchsafed  of  that  sub- 
stantiality. Nor  does  the  following 
sentence  by  any  means  tend  to  sharpen 
the  edge  of  our  apprehension.  "  If 
they  (the  clergy)  meant  to  say  that 
they  came  here  to  assert  that  they  had 
the  power  or  right  to  supersede  the 
interference  of  the  legislature,  they 
would  put  forward  a  right  in  them 
much  greater  than  the  Church  of 
Rome  asserted,  because  they  took 
their  right  to  interfere  in  reference  to 
the  rules  of  marriage,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  a  sacrament,  which  car- 
ried with  it  a  degree  of  plausibility ; 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


266 

and  they  required  no  witness  to  their 
marriage,  or  proof  of  the  marriage, 
beyond  that  of  the  parish  priest  who 
performed  the  ceremony."  Now,  if 
any  kind  of  meaning  whatever  is  to 
be  extracted  from  this  sentence,  it 
must  be  taken  as  an  inuendo  that  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  in  petitioning 
against  the  bill,  is  directly  or  occultly 
preferring  some  ecclesiastical  claim  to 
interfere  in  the  celebration  of  regular 
public  marriages.  The  Church  of 
Scotland  asserts  no  claim  of  the  kind, 
nor  has  it  ever  been  so  much  as  hinted 
that  such  a  right  was  inherent  in  that 
body.  The  church  does  not  seek  to 
interfere  with  the  legislature.  It 
neither  has,  nor  claims  ecclesiastical 
dominion  or  preference  in  the  matter 
of  marriage.  As  a  Christian  com- 
munion and  a  Christian  church,  it 
has  entreated  parliament  not  to  pass 
a  measure  which,  justly  or  not,  it  con- 
siders as  hurtful  to  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  the  people,  and  in  doing  so,  it 
has  been  actuated  by  no  motive  save 
a  due  regard  to  its  high  and  holy 
functions.  If  such  considerations  as 
these  are  not  sufficient  to  justify  the 
right  of  petitioning,  it  is  difficult  to 
understand  why  that  right  should  be 
exercised  at  all.  Must  a  pounds- 
shillings-and-pence  interest  be  estab- 
lished, before  the  Church  of  Scotland 
can  be  allowed  to  approach  the  legis- 
lature on  such  a  question?  In  our 
mind,  the  absence  of  all  pecuniary 
interest,  and  the  utter  abnegation  of 
any  kind  of  ecclesiastical  monopoly, 
are  the  strongest  reasons  why  the 
opinion  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  in 
a  matter  such  as  this,  should  be  lis- 
tened to  with  reverence  and  respect. 

Having  thus  disposed  of  the  church, 
though  in  a  manner,  we  should  think, 
scarcely  satisfactory  to  himself,  and 
not  at  all  to  his  auditory,  the  Lord 
Advocate  summarily  remarks  of  the 
petitions  against  the  bill,  that  "  as 
proof  to  be  relied  on  of  a  general  feel- 
ing throughout  Scotland,  they  were 
worthless  and  insignificant."  It  may 
be  useful  for  intending  petitioners  to 
know  what  sort  of  demonstration  they 
must  be  prepared  to  make,  if  they 
wish  their  remonstrances  against  any 
government  measure  to  pass  the  limits 
of  worthlessness.  It  is  always  advan- 
tageous to  learn  what  is  the  last  de- 
finition of  the  true  vox  populi,  in  order 


[Sept. 


that  there  be  no  mistake  or  misinter- 
pretation of  its  extent.  We  turn  to  the 
admirable  speech  of  Mr  M'Neill,  the 
learned  Dean  of  Faculty,  and  we  find 
the  following  analysis  of  the  extent  of 
the  lay  opposition : — 

"  An  opportunity  had  been  afforded  to 
the  counties  of  Scotland  to  take  the  mea- 
sure into   consideration  at  their  annual 
meetings  on  the  30th  April.     They  had 
done  so,  and,  with  very  few  exceptions, 
had  petitioned  against  this  measure  ;  and 
of  those  that  had  not  actually  petitioned 
this  year,  some  had  petitioned  last  year ; 
and  some  had  contented  themselves  this 
year    with     reiterating,     in   resolutions 
passed  at  public  meetings,  their  continued 
dissatisfaction  with   the   measure.     The 
county  which  "he  had  the  honour  to  re- 
present (Argyleshire)  had  not  sent  up  a 
petition ;  but  they  had,  at  a  public  meet- 
ing, passed  resolutions,  temperately,  yet 
firmly  expressed,  in  reference  both  to  the 
Marriage  and  the  Registration  Bills.     No 
county,  he  believed,  had  passed  resolu- 
tions iu  favour  of  this  bill.     So  much  for 
the  counties.     Next  as  to   the  burghs. 
The   burghs   comprehended   about    one- 
third    of    the    population    of    Scotland. 
There  was  an  institution  recognised  by 
law    called    the    Convention    of   Royal 
Burghs,  and  which  consisted  of  delegates 
from  all  the  burghs  in  Scotland,  who  as- 
sembled once  a-year  or  oftener  in  Edin- 
burgh, and  deliberated  on  matters  affect- 
ing their  interests.     At  the  convention  of 
1849,  the  matter  of  these  bills  was  taken 
into  consideration.      They  were    disap- 
proved of,  and  a  petition  against  them 
was  voted  unanimously.     Thus  you  had 
all,  or  nearly  all,  the  counties  petition- 
ing,   and  you  had  the  assembled  dele- 
gates   from    all  the  burghs  petitioning. 
Then  there  were  separate  petitions  from 
the   popularly  elected  town-councils    of 
most  of  the  large    towns    in    Scotland. 
The  town-councils  of  Edinburgh,  of  Dun- 
dee, of  Perth,    of  Greenock,  of  Leith, 
of    Inverness,    of  Stirling,    of    Kilmar- 
nock,    of    St   Andrews,  of  Haddington, 
and  many  others,  had  petitioned  against 
this  bill.    There  was  also  another  body 
of  persons,  popularly  elected  to  a  great 
extent,  and  who  had  a  very  material  in- 
terest in  the  probable  effects  of  this  mea- 
sure, especially  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
fearful  extent  of  bastardy  in  some  parts 
of  England  —  he  meant    the    parochial 
boards  of  populous  parishes.     Petitions 
against  this  measure  had  been  presented 
from  the  parochial  boards  of  many  of  the 
most  populous  parishes  in  Scotland — the 
parochial  board  of  the  city  parishes  of 
Edinburgh— of  the  great  suburban  parish 


1849.] 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


2C7 


of  St  Cuthberts — of  the  city  of  Glasgow 
— of  the  great  suburban  parish  of  the 
Barouy  —  of  the  parishes  of  Dundee, 
Paisley,  Greenock,  Leith,  Port-Glasgow, 
Campbelton,  and  several  others." 

Such  is  the  demonstration  which 
the  Lord  Advocate  of  Scotland,  with- 
out any  counter  display  of  opinion  to 
back  him,  ventures  to  characterise  as 
worthless  and  insignificant!  Coun- 
ties, burghs,  town-councils,  parochial 
boards,  presbyteries,  and  General 
Assembly,  which  also  represents  the 
opinion  of  the  universities,  all  combine 
to  denounce  the  hated  measure;  still 
their  remonstrance  is  to  be  cast  aside 
as  worthless  and  insignificant,  and  as 
in  no  way  representing  the  feeling  of 
the  people  of  Scotland !  A  more  ex- 
traordinary statement,  we  venture  to 
say,  was  never  made  within  the  walls 
of  the  House  of  Commons;  but  the 
premier  very  properly  refused  to  ho- 
mologate its  extravagance,  and  with- 
drew the  bill  on  account,  as  he  ex- 
pressly said,  of  the  opinion  that  had 
been  expressed  in  the  house  regard- 
ing the  sentiments  of  the  Scottish 
people.  Indeed,  as  Lord  Aberdeen 
afterwards  remarked,  had  the  bill  not 
been  withdrawn,  "  representative  go- 
vernment would  become  a  farce ;  for 
the  whole  kingdom  of  Scotland  was 
universally  against  it." 

Some  of  our  readers  may  naturally 
wonder  why  so  much  perseverance 
should  be  shown  in  this  reiterated 
attempt  to  force  an  obnoxious  bill 
upon  the  acceptance  of  the  nation. 
It  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  an  un- 
usual thing  to  find  a  professing  phy- 
sician so  clamorously  and  importu- 
nately insisting  upon  his  right  to 
practise  on  the  person  of  a  patient, 
who  vehemently  denies  the  existence 
of  any  bodily  ailment.  It  is  true, 
that  we  are  accustomed  to  hear 
crotchety  people  crying  up  the  effi- 
cacy of  their  peculiar  remedies,  and 
we  admit  the  right  even  of  Paracelsus 
to  dilate  upon  the  value  of  his  drugs. 
But  the  case  becomes  widely  different 
when  the  empiric  requires  that,  nolens 
volens,  you  shall  swallow  them.  Such, 
however,  for  the  last  three  sessions, 
has  been  the  conduct  of  the  promoters 
of  this  bill ;  and  as  it  is  now  plain  be- 
yond all  dispute  that  nobody  wanted 
it,  this  sudden  rage  for  legislation 
becomes  proportionally  wonderful. 


Hitherto  we  have  rather  complained 
of  the  apathy  than  of  the  over- zeal  of 
our  representatives.  Sometimes  wo 
have  grumbled  at  their  want  of  spirit 
for  not  watching  more  closely  over 
our  immediate  interests,  and  in  not 
protesting  more  loudly  against  the 
injustice  of  that  neglect  to  which  Scot- 
tish charities,  foundations,  and  institu- 
tions are  consigned,  whilst  a  very 
different  mode  of  treatment  is  adopted 
by  government  upon  the  other  side  of 
the  Irish  Channel.  But  we  have  seldom 
had  reason  to  deprecate  an  excess  of 
legislative  activity,  and  it  therefore 
becomes  matter  of  curiosity  to  dis- 
cover the  motives  for  the  present  fit. 
We  must  premise  that  the  Scottish 
Marriage  and  Registration  Bills  are 
indissolubly  linked  together.  The 
object  of  the  Registration  Bill  is  to 
secure  a  perfect  record  of  all  births, 
marriages,  and  deaths;  and  no  reason- 
able objection  can  be  taken  to  this 
upon  the  score  of  principle.  It  is  ad- 
mitted on  all  hands  that  our  registers 
are  at  present  defective — that  is,  they 
are  not  sufficiently  minute  to  satisfy 
the  cravings  of  the  scrupulous  statist. 
To  hav«  a  perfect  record  is  unques- 
tionably desirable :  the  main  objec- 
tion to  the  scheme  lies  in  the  expense 
with  which  it  must  be  attended.  It 
is  not  our  present  purpose  to  examine 
the  details  of  this  bill,  which  we  have 
nevertheless  perused  with  much  at- 
tention. We  shall  therefore  merely 
remark  that  it  seems  to  us  quite  pos- 
sible to  realise  the  same  results  with 
a  far  less  expensive  machinery.  The 
present  bill  would  create  not  only  a 
well-salaried  staff  of  officials  in  Edin- 
burgh, but  registrars  in  every  county 
and  town,  whose  services  would  fall 
to  be  defrayed  by  local  assessment ; 
and  we  need  hardly  say  that,  under 
present  circumstances,  the  imposition 
of  any  new  burden,  especially  in  the 
shape  of  direct  taxation,  would  be 
felt  as  an  especial  grievance.  There 
is  no  prospect  of  relief  from  the  in- 
come and  property  tax,  though  Sir 
Robert  Peel  gave  the  country  a  direct 
assurance  that  the  measure  was  merely 
proposed  to  supply  a  temporary  de- 
ficiency. It  is  now  quite  clear  that 
neither  the  right  hon.  baronet, 
nor  his  successors,  will  ever  attempt 
to  redeem  that  dishonoured  pledge. 
The  poor-rates  are  increasing  in  Scot- 


268 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


[Sept. 


land  at  a  frightful  ratio,  and  are  al- 
ready so  high  as,  in  the  opinion  of 
many,  to  constitute  an  intolerable 
burden.  It  is  now  evident  that,  in  a 
very  short  while,  the  inexpediency  of 
the  new  system  will  be  submitted  to 
a  serious  review,  or  at  least  that  some 
such  attempt  will  be  made.  Other 
burdens  are  by  no  means  decreasing, 
whilst  the  general  wealth  and  pro- 
sperity of  the  country  has,  within  the 
last  three  years,  received  a  violent 
check.  It  is,  therefore,  not  in  the  least 
surprising,  if  men  hesitate  to  accept 
the  proffered  boon  of  a  perfect  regis- 
try at  the  price  of  a  new  assessment. 
Isolated  cases  of  inconvenience  which 
have  occurred,  from  the  want  of  such 
a  register,  may  no  doubt  be  pointed 
out ;  but,  upon  the  whole,  there  is  no 
general  grievance,  since  the  means  of 
effective  registration  are  at  present 
open  to  all  who  choose  to  avail  them- 
selves of  it.  The  present  bill  proposes 
to  do  nothing  more  than  to  substitute 
imperative  for  voluntary  registration : 
its  provisions  are  not  only  costly,  but 
in  some  respects  they  are  highly  penal, 
and  therefore,  for  a  double  reason,  it 
is  regarded  with  general  dislike.  Men 
do  not  like  to  be  taxed  for  the  altera- 
tion of  a  privilege  which  is  already  suf- 
ficiently within  their  power;  and  they 
are  jealous  of  exposing  themselves  to 
fines,  for  omitting  to  do  that  which 
is  no  duty  at  all,  except  it  is  made 
so  by  the  force  of  statute.  They  do 
not  see  any  weight  or  shadow  of 
reason  in  the  argument,  that  Scotland 
must  necessarily  have  a  registration 
act,  because  England  has  already 
submitted  herself  to  such  a  measure. 
On  the  contrary,  they  are  not  fond  of 
uniformity,  because,  under  that  pre- 
text, many  inroads  have  of  late  years 
been  made  upon  laws  and  institutions 
which  hitherto  have  worked  well,  and 
against  which,  intrinsically,  it  was 
impossible  to  bring  any  tangible 
ground  of  complaint.  Nor  is  it  with- 
out some  reason  that  they  view  with 
jealousy  that  endless  multiplication  of 
offices  which  the  Whigs  seem  deter- 
mined to  effect.  No  doubt  it  is  con- 
venient for  a  political  leader  to  extend 
the  sphere  of  his  patronage ;  but  the 
public  have,  at  the  present  time,  too 
many  stringent  motives  for  economy, 
to  acquiesce  in  the  creation  of  a  new 
staff  as  the  indispensable  consequence 


of  every  ministerial  bill.  They  do 
not  want  to  be  visited  by  a  fresh  flight 
of  locusts,  whose  period  of  occupation 
is  to  be  everlasting,  whenever  it  is 
thought  expedient  to  make  some 
change  in  the  form  and  not  the  essence 
of  our  institutions.  And  therefore  it 
is  that  the  Registration,  apart  alto- 
gether from  its  connexion  with  the 
Marriage  Bill,  has  been  regarded  as  a 
measure  not  strictly  objectionable  in 
principle,  but  exceedingly  ill-timed, 
inconvenient,  and  unlikely  to  produce 
any  results  commensurate  with  the 
cost  which  it  must  entail. 

We  believe  that  the  above  is  a  fair 
statement  of  the  public  feeling  with 
regard  to  the  Registration  Bill ;  but, 
notwithstanding  all  these  objections, 
it  might  very  possibly  have  been  car- 
ried had  it  stood  alone.  The  minis- 
terial phalanx  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons would  probably  have  regarded 
the  advantages  of  uniformity  as  a 
thorough  answer  to  the  arguments 
which  might  be  adduced  on  the  other 
side;  and  English  members  might  na- 
turally have  been  slow  to  discover 
any  valid  objections  to  the  extension 
of  a  system  already  in  full  operation 
within  their  own  domestic  bounds. 
But  the  promoters  of  the  bill  had,  at 
the  very  outset,  to  encounter  a  diffi- 
culty of  no  ordinary  weight  and 
magnitude.  That  difficulty  arose 
from  the  peculiar  position  of  the 
law  of  Scotland  with  regard  to  mar- 
riage. There  could  be  no  mistake 
about  births  and  death,  for  these  are 
distinct  contingencies ;  but  how  to 
register  marriages,  which  required  no 
legal  formality  at  all,  save  consent,  to 
render  them  binding,  was  indeed  a 
puzzle,  which  even  the  wisest  of  the 
innovators  could  not  pretend  to  solve. 
There  stood  the  law  as  it  had  done  for 
ages ;  not  demanding  any  ceremony 
to  render  the  deliberate  consent  of 
contracting  parties  binding ;  shielding 
the  weaker  sex  against  the  machina- 
tions of  fraud,  and  interposing  an 
effectual  barrier  to  the  designs  of  the 
unscrupulous  seducer.  There  it  stood, 
so  merciful  in  its  provisions  that  it  left 
open  a  door  to  reparation  and  repen- 
tance, and  did  not  render  it  imperative 
that  the  birthright  of  the  child  should 
be  irretrievably  sacrificed  on  account 
of  the  error  of  the  parents.  At  the 
same  time,  that  law  drew,  or  rather 


1849.] 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


269 


established,  a  wide  distinction  iii  point 
of  character  between  regular  and  irre- 
gular marriages.  It  had  wrought  so 
npon  the  people  that  instances  of  the 
latter  were  of  comparatively  rare  oc- 
currence, except,  perhaps,  upon  the 
Border,  which  was  crossed  by  English 
parties,  less  scrupulous  in  their  feel- 
ings of  decorum.  Irregular  marriages 
were  discountenanced  by  the  church, 
not  by  the  establishment  only,  but  by 
every  religious  body;  and,  to  consti- 
tute a  regular  marriage,  publication 
-of  the  banns  was  required.  No  com- 
plaint had  been  heard  from  Scotland 
against  the  law;  on  the  contrary,  it 
was  considered,  both  by  jurists  and 
by  the  people,  as  equitable  in  its  prin- 
ciple, and  less  liable  than  that  of 
other  nations  to  abuse  in  the  mode  of 
its  operation. 

The  existence  of  this  law  effectually 
interfered  with  the  establishment  of 
«uch  a  system  of  registration  as  was 
contemplated  by  the  reforming  Whigs. 
So  long  as  it  stood  intact,  their  efforts 
in  behalf  of  uniformity,  additional 
taxation,  and  increased  patronage, 
were  hopeless  ;  and  no  alternative 
remained  save  the  desperate  one  of 
deliberately  smiting  down  the  law. 
It  was  not  difficult  for  men  so  pur- 
posed arid  inspired  to  find  out  defects 
in  the  marriage  law,  for  never  yet 
was  law  framed  by  human  wisdom  in 
which  some  defect  could  not  be  de- 
tected. It  was,  first  of  all,  urged, 
that  the  state  of  the  Scottish  law  gave 
tindue  encouragement  to  the  contract 
of  Gretna-green  marriages  by  fugitive 
English  couples.  The  answer  to  that 
was  obvious — Pass  a  law  prohibiting 
such  marriages  until,  by  residence, 
English  parties  have  obtained  a  Scot- 
tish domicile.  That  would  at  once 
have  obviated  any  such  ground  of 
complaint,  and  such  a  measure  actually 
was  introduced  to  parliament  by  Lord 
Brougham  in  1835,  but  never  was 
carried  through.  Next,  the  whole 
fabric  of  the  law  was  assailed.  The 
facilities  given  to  the  contraction  of 
irregular  marriages  were  denounced 
as  barbarous  and  disgraceful  to  any 
civilised  country.  Old  cases  were 
raked  up  to  sho\v  the  uncertainty  of 
the  law  itself,  and  the  difficulty  of 
ascertaining  who  were  and  who  were 
not  married  persons.  According  to 
one  noble  and  learned  authority,  the 


time  of  the  House  of  Peers,  while  sit- 
ting in  its  judicial  capacity,  was  grie- 
vously occupied  in  considering  cases 
which  arose  out  of  the  anomalous  con- 
dition of  the  Scottish  law  with  regard 
to  marriage ;  and  yet,  upon  referring  to 
an  official  return,  it  appeared  very 
plainly  that,  for  the  last  seventeen  or 
eighteen  years,  only  six  cases  of  decla- 
rator of  marriage  or  legitimacy  had 
been  brought  before  that  august  tri- 
bunal, and  that  of  these  six,  three  had 
no  connexion  with  the  subject-matter 
of  the  proposed  bill !  Lord  Brougham, 
who  entertains-  strong  opinions  on  the 
subject,  felt  himself  compelled  to  ad- 
mit, in  evidence,  that  most  of  the  hy- 
pothetical abuses  which  might  take 
place  under  the  existing  system,  did 
not,  in  practice,  occur  amongst  na- 
tives and  residenters  in  Scotland. 
Lord  Brougham  is  to  this  extent  a 
Malthusian,  that  he  thinks  minors 
ought  to  be,  in  some  way  or  other, 
protected  against  the  danger  of  an 
over-hasty  marriage.  His  lordship's 
sympathies  are  strongly  enlisted  in 
behalf  of  the  youthful  aristocracy, 
more  especially  of  the  male  sex  ;  and 
he  seems  to  regard  Scotland  as  an  in- 
finitely more  dangerous  place  of  resi- 
dence for  a  young  man  of  rank  and 
fortune  than  Paris  or  Vienna.  In  the 
latter  places,  the  morals  may  be 
sapped,  but  personal  liberty  is  pre- 
served; in  the  former,  the  heir- ex- 
pectant is  not  safe,  for  at  any  moment 
he  is  liable  to  be  trapped  like  vermin. 
The  red-haired  daughters  of  the  Gael, 
thinks  Lord  Brougham,  are  ever  on 
the  watch  for  the  capture  of  some 
plump  and  unsuspecting  squire.  Pen- 
niless lads  and  younger  sons  may  be 
insured  at  a  reasonable  rate  against 
the  occurrence  of  the  matrimonial 
calamity,  but  wary  indeed  must  be 
the  eldest  son  who  can  escape  the 
perfervidum  ingenium  Scotarum.  This 
is,  no  doubt,  an  amusing  picture,  and 
the  leading  idea  might  be  worked  out 
to  great  advantage  in  a  novel  or  a 
farce;  but,  unfortunately,  it  is  not 
drawn  from  the  usual  occurrences  of 
life.  Isolated  cases  of  hasty  marriages 
may,  no  doubt,  have  taken  place,  but 
our  memory  does  not  supply  us  with 
a  single  instance  of  a  clandestine  mar- 
riage having  been  contracted  under 
such  circumstances  as  the  above.  In 
Scotland,  a  stranger  may,  for  the  base 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


[Sept. 


purposes  of  seduction,  pledge  his  so- 
lemn faith  to  a  woman,  and  so  obtain 
possession  of  her  person.  If  he  does 
so,  the  law  most  justly  interferes  to 
prevent  him  resiling  from  his  contract, 
and  declares  that  he  is  as  completely 
bound  by  the  simple  interchange  of 
consenting  vows,  as  though  he  had 
solicited  and  received  the  more  formal 
benediction  of  the  priest.  Will  any 
man  gravely  maintain  that  in  such  a 
case  the  tenor  of  the  law  is  hurtful  to 
morals,  or  prejudicial  to  the  interests 
of  society  ?  Even  if  the  woman  should 
happen  to  be  of  inferior  rank  in  life  to 
the  intending  seducer,  is  she  on  that 
account  to  be  consigned  to  shame, 
and  the  man  permitted  to  violate  his 
engagement,  and  escape  the  conse- 
quences of  his  dastardly  fraud  ?  In 
England,  it  is  notorious  to  every  one, 
and  the  daily  press  teems  with  in- 
stances, that  seduction  under  promise 
of  marriage  is  a  crime  of  ordinary 
occurrence.  We  call  it  a  crime,  for 
though  it  may  not  be  so  branded  by 
statute,  seduction  under  promise  of 
marriage  is  as  foul  an  act  as  can  well 
be  perpetrated  by  man.  In  Scotland, 
seduction  under  such  circumstances  is 
next  to  impossible.  The  Scottish 
people  are  not  without  their  vices,  but 
seduction  is  not  one  of  these ;  and  we 
firmly  believe  that  the  existing  law  of 
marriage  has  operated  here  as  an  effec- 
tual check  to  that  license  which  is  far 
too  common  in  England.  Would  it 
be  wise,  then,  to  remove  that  check, 
•when  no  flagrant  abuse,  no  common 
deviation  even  from  social  distinctions, 
can  be  urged  against  it  ?  If  seduction 
does  not  prevail  in  Scotland,  still  less 
do  hasty  and  unequal  marriages.  Lord 
Brougham  is  constrained  to  admit  that 
it  is  most  unusual  for  Scottish  heirs, 
or  persons  possessed  of  large  estates, 
or  the  heirs  to  high  honours,  to  con- 
tract irregular  marriages  when  in  a 
state  of  minority.  The  law,  in  the 
opinion  of  Lord  Brougham,  may  be 
theoretically  bad,  but  its  very  badness 
raises  a  protection  against  its  own 
mischiefs — it  ceases,  in  fact,  to  do  any 
harm,  because  the  consequences  which 
it  entails  are  clearly  and  generally 
understood.  We  confess  that,  accord- 
ing to  our  apprehension,  a  law  which 
is  theoretically  bad,  but  practically 
innocuous,  is  decidedly  preferable  to 
one  which  may  satisfy  theorists,  but 


which,  when  we  come  to  apply  it,  is 
productive  of  actual  evil.  It  requires 
no  great  stretch  of  legal  ingenuity  to 
point  out  possible  imperfections  in  the 
best  law  that  ever  was  devised  by  the 
wit  of  man.  That  is  precisely  what 
the  advocates  of  the  present  measure 
have  attempted  to  do  with  the  estab- 
lished marriage  law  of  Scotland  ;  but 
when  they  are  asked  to  specify  the 
practical  evils  resulting  from  it,  they 
are  utterly  driven  to  the  Avail,  and 
forced  to  take  refuge  under  the  con- 
venient cover  of  vague  and  random 
generalities. 

It  is  said  that,  under  the  operation; 
of  the  present  law,  persons  in  Scotland 
may  be  left  in  doubt  whether  they  are- 
married  or  not.  This  is  next  thing  to 
an  entire  fallacy,  for  though  there 
have  been  instances  of  women  claim- 
ing the  married  status  in  consequence 
of  a  habit-and-repute  connexion,  with- 
out distinct  acknowledgment  of  ma- 
trimony, such  cases  are  remarkably 
rare,  and  never  can  occur  save  under 
most  peculiar  circumstances.  The 
distinction  between  concubinage  and 
matrimony  is  quite  as  well  established 
in  Scotland  as  elsewhere.  Nothing 
short  of  absolute  public  recognition, 
so  open  and  avowed  that  there  can 
be  no  doubt  whatever  of  the  position 
of  the  parties,  can  supply  the  place  of 
that  formal  expressed  consent  which 
is  the  proper  foundation  of  matri- 
mony. If  the  consent  once  has  been 
given,  if  the  parties  have  seriously 
accepted  each  other  for  spouses,  or  if 
a  promise  has  been  given,  subsequente 
copula,  there  is  an  undoubted  mar- 
riage, and  the  parties  themselves  can- 
not be  ignorant  of  their  mutual  rela- 
tionship. It  is,  however,  quite  true 
that  proof  may  be  wanting.  It  is 
possible  to  conceive  cases  in  which 
the  contract  cannot  be  legally  estab- 
lished, and  in  which  the  actual  wife 
may  be  defrauded  of  her  conjugal 
rights.  But  granting  all  this,  why 
should  the  whole  character  of  mar- 
riage be  changed  on  account  of  pos- 
sible cases  of  deficient  evidence  ?  Fo? 
if  this  bill  were  to  pass  into  law, 
consent  must  necessarily  cease  to  be 
the  principal  element  of  marriage.  No 
marriage  could  be  contracted  at  all 
unless  parties  went  either  before  the 
priest  or  the  registrar ;  and  the  fact 
of  the  mutual  contract  would  be 


1849.] 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


271 


ignored  without  the  addition  of  the 
imposed  formality.  Upon  this  point 
the  commentary  of  Mr  M'Neill  seems 
to  us  peculiarly  lucid  and  quite  irre- 
sistible in  its  conclusions. 

"  The  law  of  Scotland  being  now  as 
heretofore,  that  consent,  given  in  the  way 
he  had  described,  makes  marriage — that 
it  is,  in  the  language  of  Archbishop 
Cranmer,  'beyond  all  doubt  ipsum  matri- 
monium' —  the  present  bill  says  that 
henceforth  it  shall  not  make  marriage, 
whatever  may  have  followed  upon  it, 
unless  the  consent  is  given  in  presence  of 
a  clergyman,  or  by  signing  the  register. 
It  does  not  say  that  all  marriages  must 
be  celebrated  in  presence  of  a  clergy- 
man ;  but,  professing  to  recognise  the 
principle  that  consent,  though  not  given 
in  presence  of  a  clergyman,  may  consti- 
tute marriage,  it  says  that  the  consent 
shall  be  of  non-avail  whatever  may  have 
followed  upon  it,  unless  it  was  given  in 
the  particular  form  of  signing  the  regis- 
ter, and  can  be  there  pointed  out.  No 
matter  how  deliberately  the  consent  may 
have  been  interchanged,  and  how  com- 
pletely susceptible  of  proof.  No  matter 
although  the  parties  may  have  lived  all 
their  lives  as  man  and  wife — may  have 
so  published  themselves  to  the  world 
every  day,  by  acts  a  thousand  times  more 
public  than  any  entry  in  a  register  can 
possibly  be — by  a  course  of  life  more 
clearly  indicating  deliberate  and  conti- 
nued purpose  than  a  single  entry  in  a 
register  can  do.  All  that  shall  not  avail 
them  or  their  families  ;  they  are  to  be 
denied  the  rights  and  privileges  of  legiti- 
macy unless  they  can  point  to  their  names 
in  the  journal  kept  by  the  registrar. 
To  borrow  the  language  of  a  high  au- 
thority, relied  upon  in  support  of  the  bill, 
'  It  may  be  according  to  the  law  of  Scot- 
land that  it  is  a  complete  marriage,  and 
so  it  may  be  by  the  law  of  God  ;  but  if 
the  woman  is  put  to  prove  that  marriage 
after  the  birth  of  children,  of  that  she  is 
or  may  be  without  proof.'  That  which,  by 
the  law  of  Scotland  and  by  the  law  of  God, 
is  a  marriage,  the  people  of  Scotland  wish 
to  be  allotted  to  prove  by  all  the  evidence  of 
which  it  is  susceptible.  They  do  not  wish 
that  parties  should  be  allowed  to  escape 
from  such  solemn  obligations  undertaken 
towards  each  other,  to  their  offspring, 
and  to  society.  They  are  unwilling  that 
any  man  should  be  enabled,  with  the  con- 
fidence of  perfect  inipunity,  to  impose 
upon  an  unsuspecting  community,  by 
wearing  a  mask  of  pretended  matrimony, 
behind  which  is  conceuled  the  reality  of 
vice.  I  do  not  wonder  that  the  people  of 
Scotland  have  no  liking  to  this  measure. 


There  may  occasionally  be  cases  in  which 
the  proof  of  marriage  is  attended  with 
difficulty ;  and  so  there  may  be  with 
regard  to  any  matter  of  fact  whatever. 
So  there  may  be  in  regard  to  the  fact 
of  marriage  under  the  proposed  bill,  even 
where  the  marriage  has  been  celebrated  in 
the  most  solemn  manner  in  presence  of  a 
clergyman.  Occasional  difficulty  of  proof 
is  not  a  satisfactory  or  adequate  reason 
for  so  great  a  change  in  the  law.  Cer- 
tainty is  desirable  in  all  transactions,  and 
is  especially  desirable  in  regard  to  mar- 
riage ;  and  the  means  of  preserving  evi- 
dence of  such  contracts  is  also  desirable  ; 
but  although  these  objects  are  desirable, 
they  should  not  be  prized  so  highly,  or 
pursued  so  exclusively,  as  to  endanger 
other  advantages  not  less  valuable." 

We  think  it  is  impossible  for  any 
one  to  peruse  the  foregoing  extract 
from  the  speech  of  the  Dean  of  Fa- 
culty, without  being  forcibly  impress- 
ed by  the  soundness  and  strength  of 
his  argument.  He  is  not  contending 
against  registration ;  he  simply  de- 
mands that  through  no  pedantic  desire 
for  uniformity  or  precision,  shall  the 
general  principle  of  the  law  of  Scot- 
land regarding  marriage  be  virtually 
repealed.  We  are  indeed  surprised 
to  find  a  lawyer  of  great  professional 
reputation  attributing  to  the  estab- 
lished clergy  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land a  desire  to  arrogate  to  themselves 
the  functions  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
whilst,  in  the  same  breath,  he  asks 
the  legislature  to  constitute  itself  into 
an  ecclesiastical  court,  and  to  enact 
new  preliminaries,  without  the  obser- 
vance of  which  there  shall  hencefor- 
ward be  no  marriage  at  all.  If  the- 
old  principle  of  the  law  is  to  be  aban- 
doned, if  consent  is  no  longer  to  be 
held  as  sufficient  for  the  contraction 
of  a  marriage,  but  if  some  further 
ceremony  or  means  of  publication  are 
thought  to  be  essential,  we  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  we  would 
infinitely  prefer  the  proscription  and 
annulment  of  all  marriages  which  are 
not  performed  in  facie  ccclesice,  with 
the  previous  proclamation  of  the 
banns,  to  a  hybrid  measure  such  as 
this,  which  neither  declares  marriage 
to  be  the  proper  subject  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal function,  nor  permits  it  to  remain 
a  civil  contract  which  may  be  estab- 
lished and  proved  by  any  mode  of 
evidence  within  the  reach  of  either  of 
the  parties.  If  marriage  is  not  a 


72 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Sills. 


[Sept. 


sacrament,  but  a  civil  contract,  why 
take  it  out  of  the  operation  of  the 
common  law?  Why  make  it  null 
without  the  observance  of  certain  civil 
ceremonies,  unless  it  is  intended  vir- 
tually to  confer  upon  the  legislature 
regulating  powers  which  have  been 
claimed  by  none  of  the  reformed 
churches,  and  which,  when  arrogated 
by  that  of  Rome,  have  been  bitterly 
and  universally  opposed  ? 

Another  objection  to  our  present 
law  of  marriage  has  been  frequently 
urged,  and  great  use  has  been  made 
of  it  to  prejudice  the  minds  of  English 
members  in  favour  of  the  proposed 
alteration.  We  have  already  shown 
that  there  is  in  reality  no  doubt  of 
what  constitutes  a  Scottish  marriage ; 
that  parties  so  contracting  know  very 
well  what  they  are  about,  and  are  fully 
sensible  of  the  true  nature  of  their  ob- 
ligations. If  any  doubt  should  by 
possibility  exist,  it  can  be  set  at  rest 
by  a  simple  form  of  process — a  form, 
however,  which  is  never  resorted  to, 
unless  there  has  been  gross  intention 
to  deceive  on  the  one  part,  or  a  most 
unusual  degree  of  imprudence  on  the 
other.  But  it  is  said  that  the  possible 
existence  of  a  private  marriage  may 
entail  the  most  cruel  of  all  injuries 
upon  innocent  parties — that  it  is  easy 
for  a  man  who  has  already  contracted 
a  private  marriage,  to  present  himself 
in  the  character  of  an  unfettered  suitor, 
and  to  enter  into  a  second  matrimonial 
engagement,  which  may  be,  at  any 
moment,  shamefully  terminated  by  the 
appearance  of  the  first  wife.  No  ordi- 
nary amount  of  rhetoric  has  been  ex- 
pended in  depicting  the  terrible  con- 
sequences of  such  a  state  of  things ; 
the  misery  of  the  deceived  wife,  and 
the  wrongs  of  the  defrauded  children, 
have,  in  their  turn,  been  employed  as 
arguments  against  the  existing  mar- 
riage law  of  Scotland. 

This  is  a  most  unfair  mode  of  rea- 
soning. Unless  it  can  be  shown, 
which  we  maintain  it  cannot,  that  the 
law  of  Scotland,  with  regard  to  matri- 
mony, is  so  loose  that  a  party  may 
really  be  married  without  knowing  it, 
the  argument  utterly  fails.  Without 
distinct  matrimonial  consent  there  is 
no  marriage,  and  no  one  surely  can  be 
ignorant  of  his  own  intention  and  act 
upon  an  occasion  of  that  kind.  He 
jnay  try  to  suppress  proofs,  but  for  all 


that  he  is  married,  and  if,  during  the 
lifetime  of  the  other  party,  he  shall 
contract  a  second  marriage,  he  has 
committed  bigamy,  and  is  guilty  of  a 
criminal  offence.  Lord  Campbell,  in 
his  evidence,  admits  that  the  marriage 
law  of  Scotland  has  been  perfectly 
well  ascertained  upon  most  points — 
that  there  can  be  no  doubt  what  is, 
and  what  is  not,  a  marriage  ;  but  that 
the  real  difficulty  consists  in  getting  at 
the  facts.  Armed  with  this  testimony, 
we  may  fairly  conclude  that  uninten- 
tional bigamy  is  impossible  ;  but  that 
bigamy,  when  it  takes  place,  is  the 
deliberate  act  of  a  party. 

Bigamy  is  beyond  all  dispute  a  crime 
of  a  heinous  nature.  Its  consequences 
are  so  obviously  calamitous,  that  no 
power  of  oratory  can  make  them  ap- 
pear greater  than  they  are ;  and  we 
should  rejoice  to  see  any  legislative 
measure  introduced  which  could  ren- 
der its  perpetration  impossible.  But, 
unfortunately,  the  eradication  of  big- 
amy, like  that  of  every  other  crime,  is 
beyond  the  power  of  statute.  It  may 
perhaps  be  lessened  by  decreasing 
facilities,  or  by  augmenting  its  punish- 
ment, but  we  cannot  see  how  it  is  to 
be  prevented  altogether  by  any  effort 
of  human  ingenuity.  But  if  the 
marriage  law  of  Scotland  is  to  be 
assailed  upon  this  ground,  it  is  incum- 
bent upon  its  opponents  to  show  that 
it  really  tends  to  promote  bigamy.  If 
the  wrongs  so  pathetically  deplored 
have  a  real  existence,  let  us  be  made 
aware  of  that  fact,  and  we  shall  all  of 
us  be  ready  to  lend  our  assistance  to- 
wards the  remedy.  No  paltry  scruples 
shall  stand  in  the  way  of  such  a  refor- 
mation, and  we  shall  willingly  pay 
even  for  registration,  if  it  can  be  made 
the  means  of  averting  an  actual  social 
calamity. 

But  here  again  we  find,  on  exa- 
mination, that  we  are  dealing  with  a 
pure  hypothesis.  We  are  told  of  hor- 
rible private  injuries  that  may  occur 
under  the  operation  of  a  law  which 
has  been  in  force  for  centuries :  we 
ask  for  instances  of  those  injuries ; 
and,  as  in  the  former  case,  it  turns 
out  that  they  have  no  existence  save 
in  the  imagination  of  the  promoters  of 
the  new  bills.  If  the  present  law  of 
Scotland  has  a  tendency  to  promote 
bigamy,  surely  by  this  time  it  would 
have  been  extremely  fruitful  in  its 


1849.] 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


273 


results.    On  the  contrary,  we  are  told 
by  Lord  Campbell  that  the  Scots  are 
a  very  virtuous  people ;  and  certainly, 
iu  so  far  as  bigamy  is  concerned,  no 
one  will  venture  to  contradict  that 
opinion.     One  case,  it  appears,   has 
occurred,  in  which  a  man  of  high  rank, 
Jiaving  previously  contracted  a  private 
marriage  under  peculiar  circumstances, 
married  a  second  time,  and  that  union 
was  found  to  be  illegal.    The  case  is 
a  notorious  one  in  the  books  and  in 
the  records  of  society,  and  it  occurred 
forty  years  ago.     "  About  forty  years 
ago,"  said  the  Dean  of  Faculty,  "  a 
gentleman  of  high  position  in  society, 
so  far  forgot  for  the  time  what  was 
worthy  of,  and  due  to  that  position  in 
point  of  honour,  and  truth,  and  obser- 
vance of  the  law,  as  to  marry  a  lady 
in  England,  while  he  had  a  wife  living 
in  Scotland — and  so  he  might  have  done 
if  he  had  had  a  wife  living  in  France 
or  Holland.     In  short,  he  committed 
bigamy.    And  this  one  case  of  bigamy, 
forty  years  ago,  without  even  an  alle- 
gation of  any  similar  case  since  that 
time,  is  brought  forward  at  the  present 
day,  as  a  reason  for  now  altering  the 
law  of  Scotland  in  regard  to  the  con- 
stitution of  marriage."   The  individual 
in  question  lived  and  died  in  exile, 
and  the  case  is  never  quoted  without 
ex  pressions  of  deep  reprobation.    It  is 
the  only  one  of  the  kind  which  can  be 
brought  forward  ;  and  surely  it  cannot 
be  taken  as  any  ground  for  altering  the 
established  law  of  the  country.     But 
does  registration  prevent  bigamy  ?  Un- 
fortunately it  is  shown  by  numerous 
instances  in  England  that  it  does  not. 
In  that  country,  registration  is  already 
established,  but,  notwithstanding  re- 
gistration, bigamy  is  infinitely  more 
prevalent  there  than  in  Scotland.     It 
is,  indeed,  impossible  by  any  means  of 
legislation  to  prevent  imposition,  fraud, 
and  crime,  if  men  are  determined  to 
commit  them.     Registration  at  Man- 
chester will  not  hinder  a  heartless  vil- 
lain from  committing  deliberate  bigamy 
in  London.     The  thing  is  done  every 
day,  and  will  be  done  in  spite  of  all 
the  efforts  of  law-makers.   Why,  then, 
make  the  law  of  Scotland  conformable 
to  that  of  England,  since,  under  the 
operation  of  the  latter,  the  very  griev- 
ance complained  of  flourishes  fourfold? 
We  pause  for  a  reply,  and  are  likely 
to  pause  long  before  we  receive  any 


answer  which  can  be  accepted  as  at  all 
satisfactory. 

Under  the  Scottish  law,  it  is  ad- 
mitted that  there  is  far  less  seduction, 
and  far  less  bigamy,  than  under  the 
English  law,  which  is  here  propounded 
as  the  model.  And  having  come  to 
this  conclusion — which  is  not  ours 
only,  but  that  of  the  witnesses  exa- 
mined in  favour  of  the  bill,  all  evi- 
dence against  it  having  been  refused — 
what  need  have  we  of  saying  anything 
further?  Surely  there  is  enough  on 
the  merits  of  the  question  to  explain 
and  justify  the  unanimous  opposition 
which  has  been  given  to  the  Marriage 
Bill  by  men  of  every  shade  of  opinion 
throughout  Scotland,  without  expos- 
ing them  to  the  imputation  either  of 
obstinacy  or  caprice :  indeed  we  are 
distinctly  of  opinion  that  the  pro- 
moters of  the  bill  have  laid  themselves 
palpably  open  to  the  very  charges 
which  they  rashly  bring  against  their 
opponents. 

We  cannot,  however,  take  leave  of 
the  subject,  without  making  a  few 
remarks  upon  the  evidence  of  a  noble 
and  learned  lord,  who  was  kind  enough 
to  take  charge  of  this  bill  during  its 
passage  through  the  upper  house. 
Lord  Campbell  is  not  a  Scottish  peer, 
nor,  strictly  speaking,  a  Scottish  law- 
yer, though  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
attending  pretty  regularly  at  the  hear- 
ing of  Scottish  appeals.  But  he  is  of 
Scottish  extraction  ;  he  has  sat  in  the 
House  of  Commons  as  member  for 
Edinburgh,  and  he  ought  therefore  to 
be  tolerably  well  conversant  with  the 
state  of  the  law.  Now  we  presume 
it  will  be  generally  admitted,  that 
any  person  who  undertakes  to  show 
that  an  amendment  of  the  law  is 
necessary,  ought,  in  the  first  place,  to 
be  perfectly  cognisant  of  the  state  of 
the  law  as  it  exists.  That  amount  of 
knowledge  we  hold  to  be  indispensa- 
bly necessary  for  a  reformer,  since  he 
must  needs  establish  the  superiority 
of  his  novel  scheme,  by  contrasting  its 
advantages  with  the  deficiencies  of 
the  prevalent  system.  But  in  read- 
ing over  the  evidence  of  Lord  Camp- 
bell, as  given  before  the  Committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  a  very  pain- 
ful suspicion  must  arise  in  every  mind, 
that  the  learned  peer  is  anything  but 
conversant  with  the  Scottish  marriage 
law :  nay,  that  upon  many  important 


274 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


[Sept. 


particulars  he  utterly  misunderstands 
its  nature.  Take  for  example  the 
following  sentence : — 

"  With  regard  to  this  bill  which  has 
been  introduced,  I  am  very  much  surprised 
and  mortified  to  find  the  grounds  upon 
which  it  has  been,  opposed  ;  for  it  has 
been  opposed  on  the  ground  that  it  intro- 
duces clandestine  marriages  into  Scotland. 
I  think,  with  deference  to  those  who  may 
have  a  contrary  opinion,  that  its  direct 
tendency,  as  well  as  its  object,  is  to  pre- 
vent clandestine  marriages.  I  may  like- 
wise observe,  that  I  am  very  sorry — being 
the  son  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland — to  find  that  it  is  opposed,  and 
I  believe  very  violently  opposed,  by  the 
clergy  of  the  Established  Church  of  Scot- 
land. I  think  that  they  proceed  upon 
false  grounds ;  and  I  am  afraid,  although 
I  would  say  nothing  at  all  disrespectful 
of  a  body  for  whom  I  feel  nothing  but 
respect  and  affection,  that  they  are  a  little 
influenced  by  the  notion,  that  a  marriage 
by  a  clergyman  who  is  not  of  the  Established 
Church,  is  hereafter  to  be  put  upon  the 
same  footing  with  a  marriage  celebrated  by 
a  clergyman  of  the  Established  Church : 
but  I  should  be  glad  if  they  would  con- 
sider, that  they  are  placed  nearly  in  the 
same  situation  as  the  clergy  of  the  Church 
of  England,  who,  without  the  smallest 
ecruple  or  repining,  have  submitted  to  it, 
because  a  marriage  before  a  Baptist  min- 
ister, or  before  a  Unitarian  minister,  ia 
just  as  valid  now  as  if  celebrated  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  and  I  should 
trust  that,  upon  consideration,  they  would 
be  of  opinion  that  their  dignity  is  not  at 
all  compromised,  and  that  their  opposition 
to  it  may  subside." 

We  can  conceive  the  amazement 
with  which  a  minister  of  the  Esta- 
blished Church,  could  he  have  been 
present  at  the  deliberations  of  the 
select  committee,  must  have  listened 
to  the  reasons  so  calmly  assigned  for 
his  opposition,  and  that  of  his  brethren, 
to  the  progress  of  the  present  bill! 
Never  for  a  moment  could  it  have 
crossed  his  mind,  that  a  marriage 
celebrated  by  him  was  of  more  value 
in  the  eye  of  the  law  than  that  which 
had  received  the  benediction  of  a  dis- 
senter ;  and  yet  here  was  a  distinct 
assumption  that  he  was  in  possession 
of  some  privilege,  of  which,  up  to  that 
hour,  he  had  been  entirely  ignorant. 
"  At  present,"  continued  Lord  Camp- 
bell, "  a  marriage  by  a  dissenting 
clergyman,  I  rather  think,  is  not 
strictly  regular!"  Here  a  hint  was 


interposed  from  the  chair  to  the  fol- 
lowing effect: — "He  cannot  marry 
without  banns ;  he  is  subject  to  pun- 
ishment if  he  marries  without  banns?" 
But  the  hint,  though  dexterously 
given,  fell  dead  on  the  ear  of  the  ex- 
chancellor  of  Ireland.  He  proceeded 
deliberately  to  lay  down  the  law, — 
u  There  are  statutes  forbidding  mar- 
riages unless  by  clergymen  of  the 
Established  Church." 

This  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  a  sin- 
gular instance  of  delusion.  No  such 
statutes  are  in  force ;  they  have  long 
been  repealed  ,•  and  every  clergyman  is 
free  to  perform  the  ceremony  of  mar- 
riage, whatever  be  his  denomination, 
provided  he  receives  a  certificate  of  the 
regular  proclamation  of  the  banns. 
So  that  Lord  Campbell,  if  he  again 
girds  himself  to  the  task,  must  be  pre- 
pared to  account  on  some  more  intel- 
ligible grounds  for  the  opposition  which 
his  father's  brethren  have  uniformly 
given  to  this  bill.  But,  to  do  him 
justice,  Lord  Campbell  does  not  stand 
alone  in  error  with  regard  to  the  pre- 
sent requirements  for  the  celebration 
of  a  regular  marriage.  Unless  there 
is  a  grievous  error  in  the  reported  de- 
bate before  us,  the  Lord  Advocate  of 
Scotland  is  not  quite  so  conversant 
with  statute  law  as  might  be  expected 
from  a  gentleman  of  his  undoubted 
eminence.  Whilst  advocating  a  sys- 
tem which  is  to  entail  the  inevitable 
payment  of  a  fee  to  the  registrar,  he 
at  the  same  time  considers  the  fee 
which  is  presently  exigible  for  pro- 
claiming the  banns  a  grievance.  "  He 
was  astonished  to  hear  the  honourable 
baronet  opposite  (Sir  George  Clerk) 
state  that  it  was  the  first  time  he  had 
heard  it  considered  a  grievance,  that 
persons  could  not  marry  without  pro- 
clamation of  banns  in  the  parish  church, 
by  the  payment  of  a  large  fee  to  the 
precentor  or  other  officer  of  the  church. 
That  had  always  been  considered  a 
very  great  grievance  by  the  dissent- 
ing body  throughout  Scotland,  so  far 
as  he  understood.  The  members  of 
the  Episcopal  communion  were,  how- 
ever, saved  from  that  grievance,  be- 
cause they  were  in  possession  of  an 
act  of  parliament,  which  provided  that 
the  proclamation  of  banns  made  in 
their  own  chapel  was  sufficient  to  au- 
thorise a  clergyman  to  solemnise  the 
marriage,"  We  should  like  very  much. 


1849.]  The  Scottish  Marriage 

indeed  to  know  what  act  of  parlia- 
ment gives  any  such  dispensation  from 
parochial  proclamation  to  the  Episco- 
palians. Certain  we  are  that  the 
statute  10  Anne,  cap.  7,  confers  no 
such  privilege ;  for  though  it  allows 
proclamation  of  banns  to  be  made  in 
an  Episcopal  chapel,  it  at  the  same 
time  enjoins,  under  a  penalty,  that  pro- 
clamation shall  also  be  made  "  in  the 
churches  to  which  they  belong  as  pa- 
rishioners by  virtue  of  their  residence ;" 
and  accordingly,  in  practice,  no  Epis- 
copalian marriage  is  ever  celebrated 
without  previous  proclamation  of  the 
banns  in  the  parish  church.  We  do 
not  attribute  much  importance  to  this 
error,  though  it  is  calculated  to  mis- 
lead those  who  are  not  conversant 
with  the  law  and  practice  of  Scotland. 
We  were  rather  impressed,  on  reading 
the  debate,  with  the  circumstance,  that 
the  old  system  of  proclaiming  by  banns 
in  the  parish  church  was  denounced, 
and  we  therefore  directed  our  atten- 
tion the  more  closely  to  the  provisions 
of  the  bill,  in  order  to  discover  the  exact 
nature  of  the  new  method  by  which 
it  was  to  be  superseded.  The  bill  is 
singularly  ill- drawn  and  worded  ;  but 
•we  comprehend  it  sufficiently  to  see 
that,  had  it  passed  into  law,  regular 
marriages  could  have  been  contract- 
ed nnder  its  sanction  without  any 
difficulty,  and  with  no  publicity  at 
all. 

The  bill  declares  that  henceforward 
marriage  shall  be  contracted  in  Scot- 
land in  one  of  the  following  modes, 
and  not  otherwise : — 1st,  By  solem- 
nisation in  presence  of  a  clergyman  ; 
or,  2d,  by  registration,  the  parties 
proposing  so  to  marry  appearing  "  in 
presence  of  the  registrar,  and  there 
and  then  signing,  before  witnesses, 
the  entry  of  their  marriage  in  the  re- 
gister." 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  without 
some  precaution  for  publicity,  the  re- 
gistrar's office  would  be  as  much  a 
temple  of  Hymen  as  the  blacksmith's 
forge  at  Gretna-green,  and  accord- 
ingly, previous  to  registration — that 
is,  legal  marriage — residence  for  four- 
teen days  was  required ;  and,  besides 
that,  a  written  notice  to  the  registrar, 
with  the  names  and  designations  of  the 
parties,  seven  days  previous  to  the 
fated  entry.  A  copy  of  such  notice 
Avas  to  be  affixed  upon  the  door  of  the 


and  Registration  Bills. 


275 


parish  church  for  one  Sunday,  and  this 
was  to  be  the  whole  of  the  publication. 
Notwithstanding  this,  if  the  registrar 
chose  to  take  the  risk  of  a  penalty, 
and  allow  the  parties  to  sign  the  re- 
gister without  their  havingproved  their 
residence  or  given  notice  of  their  in- 
tention, the  marriage  was,  neverthe- 
less, to  be  valid  and  effectual. 

Worse  regulations,  we  are  bound  to 
say,  never  were  invented.  Why  se- 
lect the  church  door?  Why  post  up 
the  names  amidst  lists  of  candidates 
for  registration,  notices  of  roups,  and 
advertisements  of  the  sale  of  cattle? 
Is  not  the  present  mode  of  announcing 
the  names  within  the  church  more 
decent  than  the  other,  and  likely  to 
attract  greater  notice?  But  the  whole 
thing  is  a  juggle.  The  bill  gives  ample 
facility  for  evasion,  should  that  be 
contemplated ;  for  it  is  easy  to  divine 
that,  with  the  whole  proof  in  his  own 
hand,  and  no  check  whatever  placed 
upon  him,  no  registrar  would  be  hard- 
hearted enough  to  refuse  dispensing 
with  the  preliminaries  in  any  case 
where  the  amorous  couple  were  ready 
and  willing  to  remunerate  him  for  the 
risk  of  his  complaisance. 

So  much  for  marriage  by  registra- 
tion, which,  instead  of  throwing  any 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  ill-advised  or 
hasty  unions,  would,  in  effect,  have 
a  direct  tendency  to  increase  them. 
But  the  case  is  absolutely  worse  when 
we  approach  the  other  form  of  mar- 
riage, which  was  to  supersede  that 
solemnity  which  is  at  present  in 
every  case  preceded  by  the  formal 
proclamation  of  banns.  The  provi- 
sions of  the  bill  were  as  follows : — 

No  clergymen  could  solemnise  a 
marriage,  unless, 

1st.  Both  or  one  parties  should 
have  been  resident  for  fourteen 
days  within  the  parish  in  which 
the  marriage  was  to  take  place  : 
or, 

2d.  In  some  other  parish  in  Scot- 
land :  the  certificate  in  both 
cases  to  be  granted  by  the  Regis- 
trar ;  or, 

3d.  Unless  both  or  one  of  the 
parties  had  been  for  a  fortnight 
a  member  or  members  of  the 
congregation  resorting  to  the 
church  or  chapel  in  which  the 
clergyman  solemnising  the  mar- 
riage usually  officiates ;  or. 


276 


The  Scottish  Marriage  and  Registration  Bills. 


[Sept. 


4th.  Unless  they  had  similarly 
attended  some  other  place  of  wor- 
ship ;  the  same  to  be  certified  by 
the  minister  of  such  congrega- 
tion; or, 

5th.  Unless    they    could    produce 
the  registrar's    certificate  of  a 
week's  notice ;  or 
6th.  Unless  they  had  been  regularly 

proclaimed  by  banns. 
Such  is  the  species  of  hotch-potch, 
which  it  was  seriously  proposed  to 
substitute,  instead  of  the  present 
clear,  simple,  cheap,  and  decent  mode 
of  celebrating  regular  marriages  ;  and 
it  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  hardly 
one  native  of  Scotland  could  be  found 
to  raise  his  voice  in  favour  of  such 
an  enormity.  So  far  from  publicity 
being  obtained  or  increased,  it  would 
have  afforded  the  most  ample  facili- 
ties for  the  celebration  of  marriage 
without  the  slightest  warning  given 
to  the  friends  of  either  party.  In 
reality,  this  pretended  mode  of  mar- 
riage in  facie  ecclesite,  would  have 
been  far  more  objectionable  than  the 
simple  method  of  registration ;  for,  in 
the  latter  case,  the  registrar,  if  he  did 
his  duty,  was.  bound  to  give  some 
kind  of  notice ;  in  the  former,  none 
whatever  was  required  by  the  clergy- 
man. What  is  a  member  of  a  con- 
gregation? Abounding  as  Scotland 
is  in  sects,  we  apprehend  that  any 
one  who  pays  for  a  sitting  in  any 
place  of  worship  is  entitled  to  that 
denomination.  For  ten  shillings,  or 
five  shillings,  or  half-a-crown,  a  seat 
may  be  readily  purchased  in  some 
place  of  worship ;  and  if  any  one  held 
that  seat  for  a  fortnight,  he  was  to 
be  entitled,  according  to  this  bill,  to 
ask  the  officiating  minister  to  marry 
him,  without  any  further  process 
whatever.  If  it  should,  however,  be 
held,  that  no  one  is  a  member  of  a 
congregation  unless  he  is  in  full  com- 
munion, all  difficulty  could  have  been 
got  over,  by  resorting  to  the  fourth 
method.  The  member  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  had  simply  'to  ask 
from  his  minister  a  certificate  of  his 
membership,  and,  armed  with  that, 
he  might  be  legally  married  anywhere, 
and  by  any  kind  of  clergyman,  with- 
out the  slightest  notice  to  the  public! 
We  confess  that,  when  we  arrived  at 
this  portion  of  the  provisions  of  the 
bill,  we  could  scarcely  credit  the  tes- 


timony of  our  eyesight.  We  have 
heard  it  proclaimed,  over  and  over 
again,  by  those  who  supported  the 
measure,  that  its  principal  aim  was 
to  put  an  end  to  hasty  and  ill-advised 
marriages ;  and  on  perusing  the  evi- 
dence, we  found  Lord  Brougham 
most  clamorous  against  the  facilities 
given  by  the  present  law  of  Scotland 
for  tying  the  nuptial  knot,  without 
due  warning  afforded  to  parents, 
more  especially  when  young  noble- 
men were  concerned.  We  look  to 
the  remedy,  and  we  find  that,  with- 
out the  assistance  of  the  registrar, 
marriages  might,  under  the  provisions 
of  this  bill,  have  been  contracted 
before  a  clergyman,  at  a  minute's 
notice,  without  any  banns  at  all,  and 
no  formality,  beyond  payment  of 
seat-rent  for  a  single  fortnight  in  any 
chapel,  or  a  certificate  to  the  same 
effect !  A  proposal  more  preposterous 
than  this — more  irreconcilable  with 
decency — more  injurious  to  the  in- 
terests of  society  and  of  religion, 
it  is  really  impossible  to  conceive ; 
and  if  the  language  which  has  been 
used  regarding  it  throughout  Scot- 
land has  been  generally  temperate, 
we  apprehend  that  the  temperance 
has  been  entirely  owing  to  a  some- 
what inaccurate  estimate  of  the  full 
extent  of  its  provisions.  It  is,  in  our 
judgment,  emphatically  a  bad  bill; 
and  we  trust  that  after  this,  its  third 
defeat,  it  will  never  again  be  per- 
mitted to  appeal'  in  either  house  of 
parliament.  Our  representatives  have 
done  no  more  than  their  duty  in 
giving  it  their  most  strenuous  op- 
position ;  and,  though  a  few  in- 
dividuals may  mourn  over  the  frus- 
trated hopes,  occasioned  by  the  ruth- 
less blight  of  a  crop  of  expected 
offices,  they  can  look  for  no  sym- 
pathy from  the  people.  We  can 
assure  Lord  John  Russell,  that  he 
never  acted  more  wisely  than  in 
refusing  to  force  through  the  final 
stages  such  unpalatable  bills  as 
these ;  and  we  hope  that,  in  future,  he 
will  give  the  Scottish  people  credit 
for  understanding  their  own  affairs, 
and  not  suffer  their  deliberate  and 
expressed  opinion  to  be  treated  with 
undeserved  contempt,  simply  because 
it  may  be  possible,  by  "making  a 
house,"  to  swamp  the  suffrages  of 
their  representatives. 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.— Part  XVI. 


277 


THE  CAXTONS. — PART  XVI. 


CHAPTER  XCV. 


THE  stage-scene  has  dropped.  Settle 
yourselves,  my  good  audience ;  chat 
each  with  his  neighbour.  Dear  ma- 
dam in  the  boxes,  take  up  your  opera- 
glass  and  look  about  yon.  Treat  Tom 
and  pretty  Sal  to  some  of  those  fine 
oranges,  O  thou  happy  -  looking 
mother  in  the  two-shilling  gallery ! 
Yes,  brave  'prentice  boys,  in  the  tier 
above,  the  cat- call  by  all  means !  And 
you,  "  most  potent,  grave,  and  reve- 
rend seigneurs,"  in  the  front  row  of 
the  pit — practised  critics  and  steady 
old  play-goers — who  shake  your  heads 
at  new  actors  and  play-wrights,  and, 
true  to  the  creed  of  your  youth,  (for 
the  which  all  honour  to  you!)  firmly 
believe  that  we  are  shorter  by  the 
head  than  those  giants  our  grand- 
fathers— laugh  or  scold  as  you  will, 
while  the  drop-scene  still  shuts  out  the 
stage.  It  is  just  that  you  should  all 
amuse  yourselves  in  your  own  way, 
O  spectators !  for  the  interval  is  long. 
All  the  actors  have  to  change  their 
dresses ;  all  the  scene- shifters  are  at 
work,  sliding  the  "sides"  of  a  new 
world  into  their  grooves  ;  and,  in 
high  disdain  of  all  unity  of  time  as  of 
place,  you  will  see  in  the  playbills 
that  there  is  a  great  demand  on  your 
belief.  You  are  called  upon  to  sup- 
pose that  we  are  older  by  five  years 
than  when  you  last  saw  us  "  fret  our 
hour  upon  the  stage."  Five  years ! 
the  author  tells  us  especially  to  humour 
the  belief  by  letting  the  drop-scene 
linger  longer  than  usual  between  the 
lamps  and  the  stage. 

Play  up,  O  ye  fiddles  and  kettle- 
drums! the  time  is  elapsed.  Stop  that 
cat-call,  young  gentleman !  —  heads 
down  in  the  pit  there !  Now  the 
flourish  is  over — the  scene  draws  up  : 
— look  before. 

A  bright,  clear,  transparent  atmo- 
sphere— bright  as  that  of  the  East,  but 
vigorous  and  bracing  as  the  air  of  the 
North ;  a  broad  and  fair  river,  rolling 
through  wide  grassy  plains ;  yonder, 
far  in  the  distance,  stretch  away  vast 
forests  of  evergreen,  and  gentle  slopes 
break  the  line  of  the  cloudless  horizon; 
see  the  pastures,  Arcadian  with  sheep 


in  hundreds  and  thousands — Thyrsis 
and  Menalcas  would  have  had  hard 
labour  to  count  them,  and  small  timer 
I  fear,  for  singing  songs  about  Daphne. 
But,  alas !  Daphnes  are  rare ;  no 
nymphs  with  garlands  and  crooks  trip 
over  those  pastures. 

Turn  your  eyes  to  the  right,  nearer 
the  river ;  just  parted  by  a  low  fence 
from  the  thirty  acres  or  so  that  are 
farmed  for  amusement  or  convenience, 
not  for  profit  —  that  comes  from  the 
sheep, — you  catch  a  glimpse  of  agarden. 
Look  not  so  scornfully  at  the  primi- 
tive horticulture ;  such  gardens  are 
rare  in  the  Bush.  I  doubt  if  the 
stately  King  of  the  Peak  ever  more 
rejoiced  in  the  famous  conservatory, 
through  which  you  may  drive  in  your 
carriage,  than  do  the  sons  of  the  Bush 
in  the  herbs  and  blossoms  which  taste 
and  breathe  of  the  old  fatherland. 
Go  on,  and  behold  the  palace  of  the 
patriarchs — it  is  of  wood,  I  grant  you, 
but  the  house  we  build  with  our  own 
hands  is  always  a  palace.  Did  you 
ever  build  one  when  you  were  a  boy  ? 
And  the  lords  of  that  palace  are  lords 
of  the  land,  almost  as  far  as  you  can 
see,  and  of  those  numberless  flocks ; 
and,  better  still,  of  a  health  which  an 
antediluvian  might  have  envied,  and 
of  nerves  so  seasoned  with  horse- 
breaking,  cattle-driving,  fighting  with 
wild  blacks — chases  from  them  and 
after  them,  for  life  and  for  death — 
that  if  any  passion  vex  the  breast  of 
those  kings  of  the  Bushland,  fear  at 
least  is  erased  from  the  list. 

See,  here  and  there  through  the 
landscape,  rude  huts  like  the  masters' 
— wild  spirits  and  fierce  dwell  within. 
But  they  are  tamed  into  order  by 
plenty  and  hope;  by  the  hand  open 
but  firm,  by  the  eye  keen  but  just. 

Now,  out  from  those  woods,  over 
tnosc  green  rolling  plains,  harum- 
scarum,  helter-skelter,  long  hair  flying 
wild,  and  all  bearded  as  a  Turk  or  a 
pard,  comes  a  rider  you  recognise. 
The  rider  dismounts,  and  another  old 
acquaintance  turns  from  a  shepherd, 
with  whom  he  has  been  conversing 
on  matters  that  never  plagued  Thyr- 


278 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


[Sept. 


sis  and  Menalcas,  whose  sheep  seem 
to  have  been  innocent  of  foot-rot  and 
scab,  and  accosts  the  horseman. 

PISISTRATUS.  —  My  dear  Guy, 
where  on  earth  have  you  been  ? 

GUY  {producing  a  book  from  his 
pocket  with  great  triumph.) — There ! 
Dr  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets.  I 
could  not  get  the  squatter  to  let  me 
have  Kentlu'orth,  though  I  offered  him 
three  sheep  for  it.  Dull  old  fellow, 
that  Dr  Johnson,  I  suspect ;  so  much 
the  better,  the  book  will  last  all  the 
longer.  And  here's  a  Sydney  paper 
too,  only  two  months  old!  (Guy  takes 
a  short  pipe  or  dodeen  from  his  hat,  in 
the  band  of  which  it  had  been  stuck,  fills 
and  lights  it.) 

PISISTRATUS.  —  You  must  have 
ridden  thirty  miles  at  the  least.  To 
think  of  your  turning  book-hunter, 
Guy! 

GUY  BOLDING,  (philosophically.) — 
Ay,  one  don't  know  the  worth  of  a 
thing  till  one  has  lost  it.  No  sneers 
at  me,  old  fellow ;  you,  too,  declared 
that  you  were  bothered  out  of  your 
life  by  those  books,  till  you  found  how 
long  the  evenings  were  without  them. 
Then,  the  first  new  book  we  got — an 
old  volume  of  the  Spectator!  —  such 
fun! 

PISISTRATUS. — Very  true.  The 
brown  cow  has  calved  in  your  absence. 
Do  you  know,  Guy,  I  think  we  shall 
have  no  scab  in  the  fold  this  year  ?  If 
so,  there  will  be  a  rare  sum  to  lay 
by!  Things  look  up  with  us  now, 
Guy. 

GUY  BOLDIXG. — Yes ;  very  diffe- 
rent from  the  first  two  years.  You 
drew  a  long  face  then.  How  wise 
you  were,  to  insist  on  our  learning  ex- 
perience at  another  man's  station  be- 
fore we  hazarded  our  own  capital ! 
But,  by  Jove !  those  sheep,  at  first, 
were  enough  to  plague  a  man  out  of 
his  wits !  What  with  the  wild  dogs, 
just  as  the  sheep  had  been  washed 
and  ready  to  shear ;  then  that  cursed 
scabby  sheep  of  Joe  Timmes's,  that 
we  caught  rubbing  his  sides  so  com- 
placently against  our  unsuspecting 
poor  ewes.  I  wonder  we  did  not  run 
away.  But  "  Patiejitiafit," — what  is 
that  line  in  Horace?  Never  mind  now. 
"  It  is  a  long  lane  that  has  no  turn- 
ing" does  just  as  well  as  anything  in 
Hoi  ace,  and  Virgil  to  boot.  I  say,  has 
not  Vivian  been  here  ? 


PISISTRATUS. — No ;  but  he  will  be 
sure  to  come  to-day. 

GUY  BOLDING. — He  has  much  the 
best  berth  of  it.  Horse-breeding  and 
cattle-feeding;  galloping  after  those 
wild  devils ;  lost  in  a  forest  of  horns ; 
beasts  lowing,  scampering,  goring, 
tearing  off  like  mad  buffaloes  ;  horses 
galloping  up  hill,  down  hill,  over 
rocks,  stones,  and  timber ;  whips 
cracking,  men  shouting  —  your  neck 
all  but  broken  ;  a  great  bull  making 
at  you  full  rush.  Such  fun!  Sheep 
are  dull  things  to  look  at  after  a  bull- 
hunt  and  a  cattle-feast. 

PISISTRATUS.  —  Every  man  to  his 
taste  in  the  Bush.  One  may  make 
one's  money  more  easily  and  safely, 
with  more  adventure  and  sport,  in 
the  bucolic  department.  But  one 
makes  larger  profit  and  quicker  for- 
tune, with  good  luck  and  good  care, 
in  the  pastoral — and  our  object,  I  take 
it,  is  to  get  back  to  England  as  soon 
as  we  can. 

GUY  BOLDING. — Humph  !  I  should 
be  content  to  live  and  die  in  the  Bush 
— nothing  like  it,  if  women  were  not 
so  scarce.  To  think  of  the  redundant 
spinster  population  at  home,  and  not 
a  spinster  here  to  be  seen  within 
thirty  miles,  save  Bet  Goggins,  in- 
deed— and  she  has  only  one  eye !  But 
to  return  to  Vivian — why  should  it 
be  our  object,  more  than  his,  .to  get 
back  to  England  as  soon  as  we  can  ? 

PISISTRATUS. — Not  more,  certainly. 
But  you  saw  that  an  excitement  more 
stirring  than  that  we  find  in  the  sheep 
had  become  necessary  to  him.  You 
know  he  was  growing  dull  and  deject- 
ed ;  the  cattle  station  was  to  be  sold  a 
bargain.  And  then  the  Durham  bulls, 
and  the  Yorkshire  horses,  which  Mr 
Trevanion  sent  you  and  me  out  as  pre- 
sents, were  so  tempting,  I  thought  we 
might  fairly  add  one  speculation  to 
another ;  and  since  one  of  us  must 
superintend  the  bucolics,  and  two  of 
us  were  required  for  the  pastorals,  I 
think  Vivian  was  the  best  of  us  three 
to  intrust  with  the  first;  and,  cer- 
tainly, it  has  succeeded  as  yet. 

GUY. — Why,  yes,  Vivian  is  quite 
in  his  element — always  in  action,  and 
always  in  command.  Let  him  be 
first  in  everything,  and  there  is  not  a 
finer  fellow,  nor  a  better  tempered — 
present  company  excepted.  Hark  ! 
the  dogs,  the  crack  of  the  whip ;  there 


1849.J 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


270 


he  is.    And  now,  I  suppose,  we  may 
go  to  dinner. 

Enter  VIVIAN. 

His  frame  has  grown  more  athletic ; 
his  eye,  more  steadfast  and  less  rest- 
less, looks  you  full  in  the  face.  His 
smile  is  more  open;  but  there  is  a 
melancholy  in  his  expression,  almost 
approaching  to  gloom.  His  dress  is 
the  same  as  that  of  Pisistratus  and 
Guy — white  vest  and  trowsers ;  loose 
neckcloth,  rather  gay  in  colour ;  broad 
cabbage-leaf  hat ;  his  mustache  and 
beard  are  trimmed  with  more  care 
than  ours.  He  has  a  large  whip  in 
his  hand,  and  a  gun  slung  across  his 
shoulders.  Greetings  are  exchanged ; 
mutual  inquiries  as  to  cattle  and  sheep, 
and  the  last  horses  despatched  to  the 
Indian  market.  Guy  shows  the  Lives 
of  the  Poets;  Vivian  asks  if  it  is  pos- 
sible to  get  the  Life  of  Clive,  or  Na- 
jjoleon,  or  a  copy  of  Plutarch.  Guy 
shakes  his  head — says,  if  a  Robinson 
Crusoe  will  do  as  well,  he  has  seen 
one  in  a  very  tattered  state,  but  in  too 
great  request  to  be  had  a  bargain. 

The  party  turn  into  the  hut.  Mise- 
rable animals  are  bachelors  in  all 
countries ;  but  most  miserable  in  Bush- 
land.  A  man  does  not  know  what 
a  helpmate  of  the  soft  sex  is  in  the 
Old  World,  where  women  seem  a 
matter  of  course.  But  in  the  Bush, 
a  wife  is  literally  bone  of  your  bone, 
flesh  of  your  flesh — your  better  half, 
your  ministering  angel,  your  Eve  of 
the  Eden — in  short,  all  that  poets 
have  sung,  or  young  orators  say  at 
public  dinners,  when  called  upon  to 
give  the  toast  of  "The  Ladies." 
Alas !  we  are  three  bachelors,  but  we 
are  better  off  than  bachelors  often  are 
in  the  Bush.  For  the  wife  of  the 
shepherd  I  took  from  Cumberland 
does  me  and  Bolding  the  honour  to 
live  in  our  hut,  and  make  things  tidy 
and  comfortable.  She  has  had  a 
couple  of  children  since  we  have  been 
in  the  Bush ;  a  wing  has  been  added 
to  the  hut  for  that  increase  of  family. 
The  children,  I  daresay,  one  might 
have  thought  a  sad  nuisance  in  Eng- 
land; but  I  declare  that,  surrounded 
as  one  is  by  great  bearded  men,  from 
sunrise  to  sunset,  there  is  something 
humanising,  musical,  and  Christian- 
like,  in  the  very  squall  of  the  baby. 


There  it  goes — bless  it !  As  for  my 
other  companions  from  Cumberland, 
Miles  Square,  the  most  aspiring  of  all, 
has  long  left  me,  and  is  superinten- 
dent to  a  great  sheep-owner  some  two 
hundred  miles  oiF.  The  Will-o'-the- 
Wisp  is  consigned  to  the  cattle  sta- 
tion, where  he  is  Vivian's  head  man, 
finding  time  now  and  then  to  indulge 
his  old  poaching  propensities  at  the 
expense  of  parrots,  black  cockatoos, 
pigeons,  and  kangaroos.  The  shep- 
herd remains  with  us,  and  does  not 
seem,  honest  fellow,  to  care  to  better 
himself;  he  has  a  feeling  of  clanship, 
which  keeps  down  the  ambition  com- 
mon in  Australia.  And  his  wife — 
such  a  treasure !  I  assure  you,  the 
sight  of  her  smooth,  smiling  woman's 
face,  when  we  return  home  at  night- 
fall, and  the  very  flow  of  her  gown, 
as  she  turns  the  "  dampers"*  in  the 
ashes,  and  fills  the  teapot,  have  in 
them  something  holy  and  angeli- 
cal. How  lucky  our  Cumberland 
swain  is  not  jealous!  Not  that  there 
is  any  cause,  enviable  dog  though  he 
be;  but  where  Desdemonas  are  so 
scarce,  if  you  could  but  guess  how 
green-eyed  their  Othellos  generally 
are !  Excellent  husbands,  it  is  true 
— none  better;  but  you  had  better 
think  twice  before  you  attempt  to 
play  the  Cassio  in  Bushland !  There, 
however,  she  is,  dear  creature ! — 
rattling  among  knives  and  forks, 
smoothing  the  tablecloth,  setting  on 
the  salt-beef,  and  that  rare  luxury  of 
pickles,  (the  last  pot  in  our  store), 
and  the  produce  of  our  garden  and 
poultry-yard,  which  few  Bushmen 
can  boast  of— and  the  dampers,  and  a 
pot  of  tea  to  each  banqueter;  no 
wine,  beer,  nor  spirits — those  arc  only 
for  shearing- time.  We  have  just  said 
grace,  (a  fashion  retained  from  the 
holy  mother  country),  when,  bless  my 
soul !  what  a  clatter  without,  what  a 
tramping  of  feet,  what  a  barking  of 
dogs!  Some  guests  have  arrived. 
They  are  always  welcome  in  Bush- 
land!  Perhaps  a  cattle-buyer  in 
search  of  Vivian ;  perhaps  that  cursed 
squatter,  whose  sheep  are  always 
migrating  to  ours.  Never  mind,  a 
hearty  welcome  to  all — friend  or  foe. 
The  door  opens ;  one,  two,  three 
strangers.  More  plates  and  knives  ; 


v  A  damper  is  a  cake  of  flour  baked  without  yeast,  iu  the  ashes. 
VOL,  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVII.  U 


280 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


[Sept. 


draw  your  stools  ;  just  in  time.     First 
eat,  then — what  news  ? 

Just  as  the  strangers  sit  down,  a 
voice  is  heard  at  the  door — 

"  You  will  take  particular  care  of 
this  horse,  young  man :  walk  him 
about  a  little ;  wash  his  back  with 
salt  and  water.  Just  unbuckle  the 
saddle-bags  ;  give  them  to  me.  Oh ! 
safe  enough,  I  daresay — but  papers  of 
consequence.  The  prosperity  of  the 
colony  depends  on  these  papers. 
What  would  become  of  you  all  if  any 
accident  happened  to  them,  I  shudder 
to  think." 

And  here,  attired  in  a  twill  shoot- 
ing-jacket, budding  with  gilt  buttons, 
impressed  with  a  well-remembered 
device  ;  a  cabbage-leaf  hat  shading  a 
face  rarely  seen  in  the  Bush — a  face 
smooth  as  razor  could  make  it :  neat, 
trim,  respectable-looking  as  ever — his 
arm  full  of  saddle-bags,  and  his  nostrils 
gently  distended,  inhaling  the  steam 
of  the  banquet,  walks  in — Uncle  Jack. 

PISISTRATUS,  (leaping  up.) — Is  it 
possible!  You  in  Australia — you  in 
the  Bush ! 

Uncle  Jack,  not  recognising  Pisis- 
tratus  in  the  tall,  bearded  man  who  is 
making  a  plunge  at  him,  recedes  in 
alarm,  exclaiming — "Who  are  you? 
— never  saw  you  before,  sir !  I  sup- 
pose you'll  say  next  that  /  owe  you 
something ! " 

PISISTRATUS. — Uncle  Jack ! 

UNCLE  JACK,  (dropping  his  saddle- 
bags.')— Nephew! — Heaven  be  praised . 
Come  to  my  arms ! 

They  embrace ;  mutual  introduc- 
tions to  the  company — Mr  Vivian, 
Mr  Bolding,  on  the  one  side — Major 
MacBlarney,  Mr  Bullion,  Mr  Emanuel 
Speck  on  the  other.  Major  Mac- 
Blarney  is  a  fine  portly  man,  with  a 
slight  Dublin  brogue,  who  squeezes 
your  hand  as  he  would  a  sponge. 
Mr  Bullion — reserved  and  haughty — 
wears  green  spectacles,  and  gives  you 
a  forefinger.  Mr  Emanuel  Speck — 
unusually  smart  for  the  Bush,  with  a 
blue  satin  stock,  and  one  of  those 
blouses  common  in  Germany,  with 
elaborate  hems,  and  pockets  enough 
for  Briareus  to  have  put  all  his  hands 
into  at  once — is  thin,  civil,  and  stoops 
— bows,  smiles,  and  sits  down  to  dinner 
again,  with  the  air  of  a  man  accus- 
tomed to  attend  to  the  main  chance. 

UNCLE  JACK,   (his  mouth  full  of 


beef.) — Famous  beef! — breed  it  your- 
self, eh  ?  Slow  work  that  cattle-feed- 
ing !  (Empties  the  rest  of  the  pickle- 
jar  into  his  plate.)  Must  learn  to  go 
ahead  in  the  new  world — railway  times 
these  !  We  can  put  him  up  to  a  thing 
or  two — eh,  Bullion  ?  (  Whispering 
me,) — Great  capitalist  that  Bullion  ! 
LOOK  AT  Hm  ! 

MR  BULLION,  (gravely.) — A  thing 
or  two  !  If  he  has  capital — you  have 
said  it,  Mr  Tibbets.  (Looks  round  for 
the  pickles — the  green  spectacles  remain 
fixed  upon  Uncle  Jack's  plate.) 

UNCLE  JACK. — All  that  this  colony 
wants  is  a  few  men  like  us,  with  capi- 
tal and  spirit.  Instead  of  paying 
paupers  to  emigrate,  they  should  pay 
rich  men  to  come — eh,  Speck  ? 

While  Uncle  Jack  turns  to  Mr  Speck, 
Mr  Bullion  fixes  his  fork  in  a  pickled 
onion  in  Jack's  plate,  and  transfers  it 
to  his  own— observing,  not  as  inciden- 
tally to  the  onion,  but  to  truth  in 
general — "  A  man,  gentlemen,  in  this 
country,  has  only  to  keep  his  eyes  on 
the  look-out,  and  seize  on  the  first  ad- 
vantage ! — resources  are  incalculable !" 

Uncle  Jack,  returning  to  the  plate 
and  missing  the  onion,  forestalls  Mr 
Speck  in  seizing  the  last  potato — ob- 
serving also,  and  in  the  same  philoso- 
phical and  generalising  spirit  as  Mr 
Bullion — "  The  great  thing  in  this 
country  is  to  be  always  beforehand  : 
discovery  and  invention,  promptitude 
and  decision  ! — that's  your  go.  Ton 
my  life,  one  picks  up  sad  vulgar  say- 
ings among  the  natives  here! — 'that's 
your  go !'  shocking !  What  would 
your  poor  father  say  ?  How  is  he — 
good  Austin  ?  Well  ?— that's  right : 
and  my  dear  sister  ?  Ah,  that  dam- 
nable Peck  ! — still  harping  on  the 
Anti-  Capitalist,  eh  ?  But  I'll  make  it 
up  to  you  all  now.  Gentlemen,  charge 
your  glasses — a  bumper-toast" 

MR  SPECK,  (in  an  affected  tone.) — 
I  respond  to  the  sentiment  in  a  flowing 
cup.  Glasses  are  not  forthcoming. 

UNCLE  JACK. — A  bumper-toast  to 
the  health  of  the  future  millionnaire, 
whom  1  present  to  you  in  my  nephew 
and  sole  heir — Pisistratus  Caxton, 
Esq.  Yes,  gentlemen,  I  here  publicly 
announce  to  you  that  this  gentleman 
will  be  the  inheritor  of  all  my  wealth — 
freehold,  leasehold,  agricultural,  and 
mineral ;  and  when  I  am  in  the  cold 
grave — (takes  out  his  pochet-handker- 


18-19.] 

chief) — arid  nothing  remains  of  poor 
John  Tibbets,  look  upon  that  gentle- 
man, and  say,  "  John  Tibbets  lives 
again !" 

MK  SPECK,  (chauntingly.) — 

"Let  the  bumper  toast  go  round." 

GUY  BOLDING. — Hip,  hip,  hurrah  ! 
— three  times  three  !  What  fun  ! 

Order  is  restored  ;  dinner-things  are 
cleared;  each  gentleman  lights  his  pipe. 

VIVIAN. — What  news  from  Eng- 
land? 

MR  BULLION. — As  to  the  funds,  sir? 

MR  SPECK. — I  suppose  you  mean, 
rather,  as  to  the  railways  :  great  for- 
tunes will  be  made  there,  sir ;  but 
still  I  think  that  our  speculations  here 
will— 

VIVIAN. — I  beg  pardon  for  inter- 
rupting you,  sir  ;  but  I  thought,  in  the 
last  papers,  that  there  seemed  some- 
thing hostile  in  the  temper  of  the 
French.  No  chance  of  a  war  ? 

M\JOR  MACBLARNEY. — Is  it  the 
wars  you'd  be  after,  young  gintleman  ? 
If  me  interest  at  the  Horse  Guards 
can  avail  you,  bedad  !  you'd  make  a 
proud  man  of  Major  MacBlarney. 

MR  BULLION,  (authoritatively.') — 
No,  sir,  we  won't  have  a  war :  the 
capitalists  of  Europe  and  Australia 
won't  have  it.  The  Rothschilds,  and 
a  few  others  that  shall  be  nameless, 
have  only  got  to  do  this,  sir — (Mr  Bul- 
lion buttons  up  his  pockets) — and  we'll 
do  it  too  ;  and  then  what  becomes  of 
your  war,  sir  ?  (Mr  Bullion  snaps  his , 
pipe  in  the  vehemence  with  which  he 
brings  his  hand  on  the  table,  turns  round 
the  green  spectacles,  and  takes  up  Mr 
Speck's  pipe,  which  that  gentlemen  had 
laid  aside  in  an  unguarded  moment.) 

VIVIAN. — But  the  campaign  in 
India  ? 

MAJOR  MACBLARNEY. — Oh  ! — and 
if  its  the  Ingees  you'd — 

BULLION,  (refilling  Speck's  pipe  from 
Guy  Balding' s  exclusive  tobacco-pouch, 
and  interrupting  the  Major.) — India — 
that's  another  matter  :  I  don't  object 
to  that !  War  there — rather  good  for 
the  money  market  than  otherwise  ! 

VIVIAN.— What  news  there,  then  ? 
BULLION.  —  Don't  know— haven't 
got  India  stock. 

MR  SPECK. — Nor  I  either.  The  day 
for  India  is  over :  this  is  our  India 
now.  (Misses  his  tobacco-pipe ;  sees 
it  in  Bullion's  mouth,  and  stares  aghast! 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


281 


— N.  B. — The  pipe  is  not  a  clay  dodeen, 
but  a  small  meerschaum — irreplaceable 
in  Bushland.) 

PISISTRATUS. — Well,  uncle,  but  I 
am  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  new 
scheme  yon  have  in  hand.  Something 
benevolent,  I  am  sure — something  for 
your  fellow-creatures  —  for  philan- 
thropy and  mankind  ? 

MR  BULLION,  (starting.)  — Why, 
young  man,  are  you  as  green  as  all 
that? 

PISISTRATUS. — I,  sir — no — Heaven 
forbid !  But  my — (  Uncle  Jack  holds 
up  his  forefinger  imploringly,  and  spills 
his  tea  over  the  pantaloons  of  his 
nephew !) 

Pisistratus,  wroth  at  the  effect  of 
the  tea,  and  therefore  obdurate  to  the 
sign  of  the  forefinger,  continues  rapid- 
ly, "But  my  uncle  is! — some  grand 
national-imperial-colonial-anti-mono- 
poly"- 

UNCLE  JACK. — Pooh !  Pooh !  What 
a  droll  boy  it  is ! 

MR  BULLION,  (solemnly.) — With 
these  notions,  which  not  even  in  jest 
should  be  fathered  on  my  respectable 
and  intelligent  friend  here — (Uncle 
Jack  bows) — I  am  afraid  you  will  never 
get  on  in  the  world,  Mr  Caxton.  I 
don't  think  our  speculations  will  suit 
you !  It  is  growing  late,  gentlemen : 
we  must  push  on. 

UNCLE  JACK,  (jumping  up.) — And 
I  have  so  much  to  say  to  the  dear  boy. 
Excuse  us  :  you  know  the  feelings  of 
an  uncle !  (Takes  my  arm,  and  leads 
me  out  of  the  hut.) 

UNCLE  JACK,  (as  soon  as  we  are  in 
the  air.) — You'll  rain  us — you,  me, 
and  your  father  and  mother.  Yes ! 
What  do  you  think  I  work  and  slave 
myself  for  but  for  you  and  yours  ? — 
Ruin  us  all,  I  say,  if  you  talk  in  that 
way  before  Bullion  !  His  heart  is  as 
hard  as  the  Bank  of  England's — and 
quite  right  he  is,  too.  Fellow-crea- 
tures ! — stuff !  I  have  renounced  that 
delusion — the  generous  follies  of  my 
youth  !  I  begin  at  last  to  live  for  my- 
self— that  is,  for  self  and  relatives ! 
I  shall  succeed  this  time,  you'll  see  ! 

PISISTRATUS.  —  Indeed,  uncle,  I 
hope  so  sincerely ;  and  to  do  yon  jus- 
tice, there  is  always  something  very 
clever  in  your  ideas — only  they  don't — 
UNCLE  JACK,  (interrupting  me  with 
a  groan.) — The  fortunes  that  other 
men  have  gained  by  my  ideas!— 


282 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


[Sept. 


shocking  to  think  of !  What ! — and 
shall  I  be  reproached  if  I  live  no  longer 
for  such  a  set  of  thieving,  greedy,  un- 
grateful knaves  ?  No — no !  Number 
one  shall  be  my  maxim  ;  and  I'll  make 
you  a  Croesus,  rny  boy — I  will. 

Pisistratns,  after  grateful  acknow- 
ledgments for  all  prospective  benefits, 
inquires  how  long  Jack  has  been  in 
Australia ;  what  brought  him  into  the 
colony ;    and  what  are  his  present 
views.     Learns,  to  his  astonishment, 
that  Uncle  Jack  has  been  four  years 
in  the  colony ;  that  he  sailed  the  year 
after  Pisistratus — induced,  he  says,  by 
that  illustrious  example,  and  by  some 
mysterious    agency    or   commission, 
which  he  will  not  explain,  emanating 
either  from  the  Colonial  Office,  or  an 
Emigration   Company.     Uncle  Jack 
has  been  thriving  wonderfully  since  he 
abandoned  his  fellow-creatures.    His 
first  speculation,  on  arriving  at  the 
colony,  was  in  buying  some  houses  in 
Sydney,  which  (by  those  fluctuations 
in  prices  common  to  the  extremes  of 
the  colonial  mind — which  is  one  while 
skipping  up  the  rainbow  with  Hope, 
and  at  another  plunging  into  Ache- 
rontian  abysses    with    Despair)    he 
bought  excessively  cheap,  and  sold 
excessively  dear.    But  his  grand  ex- 
periment has  been  in  connexion  with 
the  infant  settlement  of  Adelaide,  of 
which  he  considers  himself  one  of  the 
first  founders  ;  and  as,  in  the  rush  of 
emigration    which    poured    to    that 
favoured  establishment  in  the  earlier 
years  of  its  existence, — rolling  on  its 
tide  all  manner  of  credulous  and  in- 
experienced adventurers, — vast  sums 
were  lost,  so,  of  those  sums,  certain 
fragments  and  pickings  were  easily 
griped  and  gathered  up  by  a  man  of 
Uncle  Jack's  readiness  and  dexterity. 
Uncle  Jack  had  contrived  to  procure 
excellent  letters  of  introduction  to  the 
colonial  grandees :  he  got  into  close 
connexion  with  some  of  the  principal 
parties  seeking  to  establish  a  mono- 
poly of  land,  (which  has  since  been 
in  great  measure  effected  by  raising 
the  price,  and  excluding  the  small  fiy 
of  petty  capitalists ;)  and  effectually 
imposed  on  them,  as  a  man  with  a 
vast   knowledge  of  public   business 
— in  the  confidence  of  great  men  at 
home  —  considerable    influence  with 
the  English  press,  &c.,  &c.    And  no 
discredit  to    their   discernment,  for 


Jack,  when  he  pleased,  had  a  way 
with  him  that  was  almost  irresistible. 
In  this  manner  he  contrived  to  asso- 
ciate himself  and  his  earnings  with 
men  really  of  large  capital,  and  long 
practical  experience  in  the  best  mode 
by  which  that  capital  might  be  em- 
ployed. He  was  thus  admitted  into 
a  partnership  (so  far  as  his  means 
went)  with  Mr  Bullion,  who  was  one 
of  the  largest  sheep-owners  and  land- 
holders in  the  colony,  though,  having 
many  other  nests  to  feather,  that  gen- 
tleman resided  in  state  at  Sydney, 
and  left  his  runs  and  stations  to  the 
care  of  overseers  and  superintendents. 
But  land-jobbing  was  Jack's  special 
delight ;  and  an  ingenious  German 
having  lately  declared  that  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Adelaide  betrayed  the 
existence  of  those  mineral  treasures 
which  have  since  been  brought  to  day, 
Mr  Tibbets  had  persuaded  Bullion 
and  the  other  gentlemen  now  accom- 
panying him,  to  undertake  the  land 
journey  from  Sidney  to  Adelaide, 
privily  and  quietly,  to  ascertain  the 
truth  of  the  German's  report,  which 
was  at  present  very  little  believed. 
If  the  ground  failed  of  mines,  Uncle 
Jack's  account  convinced  his  asso- 
ciates that  mines  quite  as  profitable 
might  be  found  in  the  pockets  of  the 
raw  adventurers,  who  were  ready  to 
buy  one  year  at  the  dearest  market, 
and  driven  to  sell  the  next  at  the 
cheapest. 

"  But,"  concluded  Uncle  Jack,  with 
a  sly  look,  and  giving  me  a  poke  in 
the  ribs,  "I've  had  to  do  with  mines 
before  now,  and  know  what  they  are. 
I'll  let  nobody  but  you  into  my  pet 
scheme:  you  shall  go  shares  if  you 
like.  The  scheme  is  as  plain  as  a 
problem  in  Euclid, — if  the  German  is 
right,  and  there  are  mines,  why,  the 
mines  will  be  worked.  Then  miners 
must  be  employed ;  but  miners  must 
eat,  drink,  and  spend  their  money. 
The  thing  is  to  get  that  money.  Do 
you  take  ?  " 

PISISTRATUS. — Not  at  all ! 

UNCLE  JACK,  (majestically.')  —  A 
Great  Grog  and  Store  Depot  I  The 
miners  want  grog  and  stores,  come  to 
your  depot ;  you  take  their  money ; 
Q.E.D!  Shares— eh,  you  dog?  Cribs, 
as  we  said  at  school.  Put  in  a  paltry 
thousand  or  two,  and  you  shall  go 
halves. 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


283 


PISISTRATUS,  (vehemently.)  —  Not 
for  all  the  mines  of  Potosi. 

UNCLE  JACK,  (good  humouredlt/.) 
— Well,  it  shan't  be  the  worse  for 
you.  I  shan't  alter  my  will,  in  spite 
of  your  want  of  confidence.  Your 
young  friend, — that  Mr  Vivian,  I 
think  you  call  him — intelligent-look- 
ing fellow,  sharper  than  the  other,  I 
guess, — would  he  like  a  share  ? 

PISISTRATUS. — In  the  grog  depot  ? 
You  had  better  ask  him ! 

UNCLE  JACK. — What!  you  pretend 
to  be  aristocratic  in  the  Bush !  Too 
good.  Ha,  ha ! — they're  calling  to  me 
— we  must  be  off. 

PISISTRATUS. — I  will  ride  with  you 
a  few  miles.  What  say  you,  Vivian  ? 
and  you,  Guy  ? — 

As  the  whole  party  now  joined  us. 

Guy  prefers  basking  in  the  sun, 
and  reading  the  Lives  of  the  Poets. 
Vivian  assents  ;  we  accompany  the 
party  till  sunset.  Major  MacBlarney 
prodigalises  his  offers  of  service  in 
every  conceivable  department  of  life, 
and  winds  up  with  an  assurance  that, 
if  we  want  anything  in  those  depart- 
ments connected  with  engineering — 
such  as  mining,  mapping,  surveying, 
&c. — he  will  serve  us,  bedad,  for 
nothing,  or  next  to  it.  We  suspect 
Major  MacBlarney  to  be  a  civil  en- 
gineer, suffering  under  the  innocent 


hallucination  that  he  has  been  in  the 
army. 

Mr  Specks  lets  out  to  me,  in  a  con- 
fidential whisper,  that  Mr  Bullion  is 
monstrous  rich,  and  has  made  his  for- 
tune from  small  beginnings,  by  never 
letting  a  good  thing  go.  I  think  of 
Uncle  Jack's  pickled  onion,  and  Mi- 
Speck's  meerschaum,  and  perceive, 
with  respectful  admiration,  that  Mr 
Bullion  acts  uniformly  on  one  grand 
system.  Ten  minutes  afterwards,  Mr 
Bullion  observes,  in  a  tone  equally 
confidential,  that  Mr  Speck,  though 
so  smiling  and  civil,  is  as  sharp  as  a 
needle ;  and  that  if  I  want  any  shares 
in  the  new  speculation,  or  indeed  in 
any  other,  I  had  better  come  at  once 
to  Bullion,  who  would  not  deceive 
me  for  my  weight  in  gold.  "  Not," 
added  Bullion,  "  that  I  have  any- 
thing to  say  against  Speck.  He  is 
well  enough  to  do  in  the  world — a 
warm  man,  sir ;  and  when  a  man  is 
really  warm,  I  am  the  last  person  to 
think  of  his  little  faults,  and  turn  on 
him  the  cold  shoulder." 

"Adieu!"  said  Uncle  Jack,  once 
more  pulling  out  his  pocket-handker- 
chief; "my  love  to  all  at  home." 
And,  sinking  his  voice  into  a  whisper, 
"  If  ever  you  think  better  of  the  grog 
and  store  depot,  nephew,  you'll  find 
an  uncle's  heart  in  this  bosom ! " 


CHAPTER  XCVI. 


It  was  night  as  Vivian  and  myself 
rode  slowly  home.  Night  in  Austra- 
lia !  How  impossible  to  describe  its 
beauty !  Heaven  seems,  in  that  new 
world,  so  much  nearer  to  earth ! 
Every  star  stands  out  so  bright  and 
particular,  as  if  fresh  from  the  time 
when  the  Maker  willed  it.  And  the 
moon  like  a  large  silvery  sun ; — the 
least  object  on  which  it  shines  so 
distinct  and  so  still.*  Now  and  then 
a  sound  breaks  the  silence,  but  a 
sound  so  much  in  harmony  with  the 
solitude  that  it  only  deepens  its 
charms.  Hark !  the  low  cry  of  a 
night-bird,  from  yonder  glen  amidst 


the  small  gray  gleaming  rocks.  Hark ! 
as  night  deepens,  the  bark  -of  the  dis- 
tant watch-dog,  or  the  low  strange 
howl  of  his  more  savage  species,  from 
which  he  defends  the  fold.  Hark! 
the  echo  catches  the  sound,  and  flings 
it  sportively  from  hill  to  hill — farther, 
and  farther,  and  farther  down,  till  all 
again  is  hushed,  and  the  flowers 
hang  noiseless  over  your  head,  as 
you  ride  through  a  grove  of  the  giant 
gum-trees.  Now  the  air  is  literally 
charged  with  the  odours,  and  the  sense 
of  fragrance  grows  almost  painful  in 
its  pleasure.  You  quicken  your  pace, 
and  escape  again  into  the  open  plains, 


*  "  I  have  frequently,"  says  Mr  Wilkinson,  in  his  invaluable  work  upon  South 
Australia,  at  once  so  graphic  and  so  practical,  "  been  out  on  a  journey  in  such  a 
night,  and,  whilst  allowing  the  horse  his  own  time  to  walk  along  the  road,  have 
solaced  myself  by  reading  in  the  still  moonlight." 


284 


The  Caxtons—Part  XV]. 


[Sept. 


and  the  fall  moonlight,  and  through 
the  slender  tea-trees  catch  the  gleam 
of  the  river,  and,  in  the  exquisite  fine- 
ness of  the  atmosphere,  hear  the  sooth- 
ing sound  of  its  murmur. 

PISISTRATUS. — And  this  land  has 
become  the  heritage  of  our  people ! 
Methinks  I  see,  as  I  gaze  around,  the 
scheme  of  the  All-beneficent  Father 
disentangling  itself  clear  through  the 
troubled  history  of  mankind.  How 
mysteriously,  while  Europe  rears  its 
populations,  and  fulfils  its  civilising 
mission,  these  realms  have  been  con- 
cealed from  its  eyes — divulged  to  us 
just  as  civilisation  needs  the  solution 
to  its  problems ;  a  vent  for  feverish 
energies,  baffled  in  the  crowd  ;  offer- 
ing bread  to  the  famished,  hope  to  the 
desperate  ;  in  very  truth  enabling  the 
"  New  World  to  redress  the  balance 
of  the  Old."  Here,  what  a  Latium 
for  the  wandering  spirits, 

"  On   various   seas   by  various    tempests 
toss'd." 

Here,  the  actual  JEneid  passes  before 
our  eyes.  From  the  huts  of  the  ex- 
iles scattered  over  this  hardier  Italy, 
who  cannot  see  in  the  future, 

"  A  race  from  whence  new  Alban  sires  snail 

come, 
And  the  long  glories  of  a  future  Eome  "  ? 

VIVIAN,  (mournfully.) — Is  it  from 
the  outcasts  of  the  workhouse,  the 
prison,  and  the  transport- ship,  that  a 
second  Rome  is  to  arise  ? 

PISISTRATUS. — There  is  something 
in  this  new  soil — in  the  labour  it  calls 
forth,  in  the  hope  it  inspires,  in  the 
sense  of  property,  which  I  take  to  be 
the  core  of  social  morals — that  expe- 
dites the  work  of  redemption  with 
marvellous  rapidity.  Take  them  alto- 
gether, whatever  their  origin,  or  what- 
ever brought  them  hither,  they  are  a 
fine,  manly,  frank- hearted  race,  these 
colonists  now  ! — rude,  not  mean,  es- 
pecially in  the  Bush — and,  I  suspect, 
will  ultimately  become  as  gallant  and 
honest  a  population  as  that  now 
springing  up  in  South  Australia,  from 
which  convicts  are  excluded — and  hap- 
pily excluded — for  the  distinction  will 
sharpen  emulation.  As  to  the  rest, 
and  in  direct  answer  to  your  question, 
I  fancy  even  the  emancipist  part  of 
our  population  every  whit  as  respect- 
able as  the  mongrel  robbers  under 
Romulus. 


VIVIAN. — But  were  they  not  sol- 
diers ? — I  mean  the  first  Romans  ? 

PISISTRATUS. — My  dear  cousin,  we 
are  in  advance  of  those  grim  outcasts, 
if  we  can  get  lands,  houses,  and  wives, 
(though  the  last  is  difficult,  and  it  is 
well  that  we  have  no  white  Sabines 
in  the  neighbourhood !)  without  that 
same  soldiering  which  was  the  neces- 
sity of  their  existence. 

VIVIAN,  (after  a  pause.) — I  have 
written  to  my  father,  and  to  yours 
more  fully — stating  in  the  one  letter 
my  wish,  in  the  other  trying  to  explain 
the  feelings  from  which  it  springs. 

PISISTRATUS.  —  Are  the  letters 
gone  ? 

VIVIAN.— Yes. 

PISISTRATUS. — And  you  would  not 
show  them  to  me  ! 

VIVIAN. — Do  not  speak  so  re- 
proachfully. I  promised  your  father 
to  pour  out  my  whole  heart  to  him, 
whenever  it  was  troubled  and  at  strife. 
I  promise  you  now  that  I  will  go  by 
his  advice. 

PISISTRATUS,  {disconsolately.)  — 
What  is  there  in  this  military  life  for 
which  you  yearn  that  can  yield  you 
more  food  for  healthful  excitement  and 
stirring  adventure  than  your  present 
pursuits  afford? 

VIVIAN. — Distinction!  You  do  not 
see  the  difference  between  us.  You 
have  but  a  fortune  to  make,- 1  have  a 
name  to  redeem  ;  you  look  calmly  on 
the  future,  I  have  a  dark  blot  to  erase 
from  the  past. 

PISISTRATUS,  (soothingly.) — It  is 
erased.  Five  years  of  no  weak  be- 
wailings,  but  of  manly  reform,  stead- 
fast industry,  conduct  so  blameless, 
that  even  Guy  (whom  I  look  upon  as 
the  incarnation  of  blunt  English  ho- 
nesty) half  doubts  whether  you  are 
''cute  enough  for  "a  station  " — a  cha- 
racter already  so  high,  that  I  long  for 
the  hour  when  you  will  again  take 
your  father's  spotless  name,  and  give 
me  the  pride  to  own  our  kinship  to 
the  world  ;  all  this  surely  redeems  the 
errors  arising  from  an  uneducated 
childhood  and  a  wandering  youth. 

VIVIAN,  (haniny  over  his  horse, 
and  putting  his  hand  on  my  shoulder.) — 
"My  dear  friend,  what  do  I  owe  you?'' 
Then  recovering  his  emotion,  and 
push  ing  on  at  a  quicker  pace,  while  he 
continues  .to  speak,  "  But  can  you 
not  see  that,  just  in  proportion  as  my 


1849.] 


The  Cartons.— Part  XVI. 


285 


comprehension  of  right  would  become 
clear  and  strong,  so  my  conscience 
would  become  also  more  sensitive  and 
reproachful ;  and  the  better  I  under- 
stand my  gallant  father,  the  more  I 
must  desire  to  be  as  he  would  have 
had  his  son.  Do  you  think  it  would 
content  him,  could  he  see  me  brand- 
ing cattle  and  bargaining  with  bullock- 
drivers?  Was  it  not  the.  strongest 
wish  of  his  heart  that  I  should  adopt 
his  own  career  ?  Have  I  not  heard  you 
say  that  he  would  have  had  you  too  a 
soldier,  but  for  your  mother  ?  I  have 
no  mother  !  If  I  made  thousands,  and 
tens  of  thousands,  by  this  ignoble 
calling,  would  they  give  my  father 
half  the  pleasure  that  he  would  feel  at 
seeing  my  name  honourably  men- 
tioned in  a  despatch?  No,  no  !  you 
have  banished  the  gipsy  blood,  and 
now  the  soldier's  breaks  out !  Oh  for 
one  glorious  day  in  which  I  may  clear 
my  way  into  fair  repute,  as  our  fathers 
before  us  ! — when  tears  of  proud  joy 
may  flow  from  those  eyes  that  have 
wept  such  hot  drops  at  my  shame  ! 
When  she,  too,  in  her  high  station, 
beside  that  sleek  lord,  may  say,  '  His 
heart  was  not  so  vile,  after  all ! ' 
Don't  argue  with  me — it  is  in  vain  ! 
Pray,  rather,  that  I  may  have  leave 
to  work  out  my  own  way;  for  I 
tell  you  that,  if  condemned  to  stay 
here,  I  may  not  murmur  aloud — I 
may  go  through  this  round  of  low  du- 


ties as  the  brute  turns  the  wheel  of  a 
mill :  but  my  heart  will  prey  on  itself, 
and  you  shall  soon  write  on  my  grave- 
stone the  epitaph  of  the  poor  poet  you 
told  us  of,  whose  true  disease  was  the 
thirst  of  glory — '  Here  lies  one  whose 
name  was  written  in  water.' " 

I  had  no  answer ;  that  contagious 
ambition  made  my  own  veins  run 
more  warmly,  and  my  own  heart  beat 
with  a  louder  tumult.  Amidst  the 
pastoral  scenes,  and  under  the  tran- 
quil moonlight,  of  the  New,  the  Old 
World,  even  in  me,  rude  Bushman, 
claimed  for  a  while  its  son.  But  as 
we  rode  on,  the  air,  so  inexpressibly 
buoyant,  yet  soothing  as  an  anodyne, 
restored  me  to  peaceful  Nature.  Now 
the  flocks,  in  their  snowy  clusters, 
were  seen  sleeping  under  the  stars ; 
hark,  the  welcome  of  the  watch-dogs  ; 
see  the  light  gleaming  far  from  the 
chink  of  the  door !  And,  pausing,  I 
said  aloud,  "  No,  there  is  more  glory 
in  laying  these  rough  foundations  of 
a  mighty  state,  though  no  trumpets 
resound  with  your  victory — though  no 
laurels  shall  shadow  your  tomb — than 
in  forcing  the  onward  progress  of  your 
race  over  burning  cities  and  hecatombs 
of  men  !  "  I  looked  round  for  Vivian's 
answer ;  but,  ere  I  spoke,  he  had 
spurred  from  my  side,  and  I  saw  the 
wild  dogs  slinking  back  from  the  hoofs 
of  his  horse,  as  he  rode  at  speed,  on 
the  sward,  through  the  moonlight. 


CHAPTER  XCVII. 


The  weeks  and  the  months  rolled 
on,  and  the  replies  to  Vivian's  letters 
came  at  last :  I  foreboded  too  well 
their  purport.  I  knew  that  my  father 
could  not  set  himself  in  opposition  to 
the  deliberate  and  cherished  desire  of 
a  man  who  had  now  arrived  at  the 
full  strength  of  his  understanding,  and 
must  be  left  at  liberty  to  make  his 
own  election  of  the  paths  of  life. 
Long  after  that  date,  I  saw  Vivian's 
letter  to  my  father ;  and  even  his  con- 
versation had  scarcely  prepared  me 
for  the  pathos  of  that  confession  of  a 
mind  remarkable  alike  for  its  strength 
and  its  weakness.  If  born  in  the  age, 
or  submitted  to  the  influences,  of  reli- 
gious enthusiasm,  here  was  a  nature 
that,  awaking  from  sin,  could  not  have 


been  contented  with  the  sober  duties 
of  mediocre  goodness — that  would  have 
plunged  \nto  the  fiery  depths  of  monk- 
ish fanaticism — wrestled  with  the  fiend 
in  the  hermitage,  or  marched  barefoot 
on  the  infidel,  with  the  sackcloth  for 
armour — the  cross  for  a  sword.  Now, 
the  impatient  desire  for  redemption 
took  a  more  mundane  direction,  but 
with  something  that  seemed  almost 
spiritual  in  its  fervour.  And  this  en- 
thusiasm flowed  through  strata  of  such 
profound  melancholy !  Deny  it  a  vent, 
and  it  might  sicken  into  lethargy,  or 
fret  itself  into  madness — give  it  the 
vent,  and  it  might  vivify  and  fertilise 
as  it  swept  along. 

My  father's   reply  to   this    letter 
was  what  might   be  expected.      It 


286 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


[Sept. 


gently  reinforced  the  old  lessons  in 
the  distinctions  between  aspirations 
towards  the  perfecting  ourselves — as- 
pirations that  are  never  in  vain — and 
the  morbid  passion  for  applause  from 
others,  which  shifts  conscience  from 
our  own  bosoms  to  the  confused  Babel 
of  the  crowd,  and  calls  it  "fame." 
But  my  father,  in  his  counsels,  did 
not  seek  to  oppose  a  mind  so  obsti- 
nately bent  upon  a  single  course — he 
sought  rather  to  guide  and  strengthen 
it  in  the  way  it  should  go.  The  seas 
of  human  life  are  wide.  Wisdom  may 
suggest  the  voyage,  but  it  must  first 
look  to  the  condition  of  the  ship,  and 
the  nature  of  the  merchandise  to  ex- 
change. Not  every  vessel  that  sails 
from  Tarshish  can  bring  back  the 
gold  of  Ophir ;  but  shall  it  therefore 
rot  in  the  harbour?  No;  give  its 
sails  to  the  wind  ! 

But  I  had  expected  that  Roland's 
letter  to  his  son  would  have  been  full 
of  joy  and  exultation — joy  there  was 
none  in  it,  yet  exultation  there  might 
be — though  serious,  grave,  and  sub- 
dued. In  the  proud  assent  that  the 
old  soldier  gave  to  his  son's  wish,  in 
his  entire  comprehension  of  motives 
so  akin  to  his  own  nature — there  was 
yet  a  visible  sorrow ;  it  seemed  even 
as  if  he  constrained  himself  to  the 
assent  he  gave.  Not  till  I  had  read 
it  again  and  again,  could  I  divine  Ro- 
land's feelings  while  he  wrote.  At 
this  distance  of  time,  I  comprehend 
them  well.  Had  he  sent  from  his 
side,  into  noble  warfare,  some  boy 
fresh  to  life,  new  to  sin,  with  an  en- 
thusiasm pure  and  single-hearted  as 
his  own  young  chivalrous  ardour — 
then,  with  all  a  soldier's  joy,  he  had 
yielded  a  cheerful  tribute  to.  the  hosts 
of  England ;  but  here  he  recognised, 
though  perhaps  dimly,  not  the  frank 


military  fervour,  but  the  stern  desire 
of  expiation — and  in  that  thought  he 
admitted  forebodings  that  would  have 
been  otherwise  rejected — so  that,  at 
the  close  of  the  letter,  it  seemed  not 
the  fiery  war-seasoned  Roland  that 
wrote,  but  rather  some  timid,  anxious 
mother.  Warnings  and  entreaties, 
and  cautions  not  to  be  rash,  and  as- 
surances that  the  best  soldiers  were 
ever  the  most  prudent — were  these 
the  counsels  of  the  fierce  veteran,  who, 
at  the  head  of  the  forlorn  hope,  had 

mounted  the  wall  at ,  his  sword 

between  his  teeth ! 

But,  whatever  his  presentiments, 
Roland  had  yielded  at  once  to  his 
son's  prayer — hastened  to  London  at 
the  receipt  of  his  letter— obtained  a 
commission  in  a  regiment  now  in  ac- 
tive service  in  India ;  and  that  com- 
mission was  made  out  in  his  son's 
name.  The  commission,  with  an  order 
to  join  the  regiment  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible, accompanied  the  letter. 

And  Vivian,  pointing  to  the  name 
addressed  to  him,  said,  "  Now,  in- 
deed, I  may  resume  this  name,  and, 
next  to  Heaven,  will  I  hold  it  sacred ! 
It  shall  guide  me  to  glory  in  life,  or 
my  father  shall  read  it,  without  shame, 
on  my  tomb !"  I  see  him  before  me, 
as  he  stood  then — his  form  erect,  his 
dark  eyes  solemn  in  their  light,  a 
serenity  in  his  smile,  a  grandeur  on 
his  brow,  that  I  had  never  marked  till 
then  !  Was  that  the  same  man  I  had 
recoiled  from  as  the  sneering  cynic, 
shuddered  at  as  the  audacious  traitor, 
or  wept  over  as  the  cowering  outcast  ? 
How  little  the  nobleness  of  aspect  de- 
pends on  symmetry  of  feature,  or  the 
mere  proportions  of  form !  What  dig- 
nity robes  the  man  who  is  filled  with 
a  lofty  thought ! 


CHAPTER  XCVIII. 


He  is  gone !  he  has  left  a  void  in 
my  existence.  I  had  grown  to  love 
him  so  well;  I  had  been  so  proud 
when  men  praised  him.  My  love  was 
a  sort  of  self-love — I  had  looked 
upon  him  in  part  as  the  work  of  my 
own  hands.  I  am  a  long  time  ere  I  can 
settle  back,  with  good  heart,  to  iny 
pastoral  life.  Before  my  cousin  went, 
we  cast  up  our  gains,  and  settled  our 


shares.  When  he  resigned  the  allow- 
ance which  Roland  had  made  him, 
his  father  secretly  gave  to  me,  for  his 
use,  a  sum  equal  to  that  which  I  and 
Guy  Bolding  brought  into  the  com- 
mon stock.  Roland  had  raised  the 
sum  upon  mortgage ;  and,  while  the 
interest  was  a  trivial  deduction  from 
his  income,  compared  to  the  former 
allowance,  the  capital  was  much  more 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons— Part  XVI. 


287 


useful  to  his  son  than  a  mere  yearly 
payment  could  have  been.  Thus,  be- 
tween us,  we  had  a  considerable  sum 
for  Australian  settlers — £4500.  For 
the  first  two  years  we  made  nothing ; 
indeed,  great  part  of  the  first  year 
was  spent  in  learning  our  art,  at  the 
station  of  an  old  settler.  But,  at  the 
end  of  the  third  year,  our  flocks  hav- 
ing then  become  very  considerable, 
we  cleared  a  return  beyond  my  most 
sanguine  expectations.  And  when 
my  cousin  left,  just  in  the  sixth  year 
of  exile,  our  shares  amounted  to  £4000 
each,  exclusive  of  the  value  of  the 
two  stations.  My  cousin  had,  at  first, 
wished  that  I  should  forward  his  share 
to  his  father,  but  he  soon  saw  that 
Roland  would  never  take  it ;  and  it 
was  finally  agreed  that  it  should  rest 
in  my  hands,  for  me  to  manage  for 
him,  send  him  out  interest  at  five 
per  cent,  and  devote  the  surplus  pro- 
fits to  the  increase  of  his  capital.  I 
had  now,  therefore,  the  control  of 
£12,000,  and  we  might  consider  our- 
selves very  respectable  capitalists.  I 
kept  on  the  cattle  station,  by  the  aid 
of  the  Will-o'-the- Wisp,  for  about  two 
years  after  Vivian's  departure,  (we 
had  then  had  it  altogether  for  five.) 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  I  sold  it  and 
the  stock  to  great  advantage.  And 
the  sheep — for  the  "  brand"  of  which 
I  had  a  high  reputation — having  won- 
derfully prospered  in  the  meanwhile, 
I  thought  we  might  safely  extend  our 
speculations  into  new  ventures.  Glad, 
too,  of  a  change  of  scene,  I  left  Bold- 
ing  in  charge  of  the  flocks,  and  .bent 
my  course  to  Adelaide,  for  the  fame 
of  that  new  settlement  had  already 
disturbed  the  peace  of  the  Bush.  I 
found  Uncle  Jack  residing  near  Ade- 
laide, in  a  very  handsome  villa,  with 
all  the  signs  and  appurtenances  of  co- 
lonial opulence ;  and  report,  perhaps, 
did  not  exaggerate  the  gains  he  had 
made : — so  many  strings  to  his  bow — 
and  each  arrow,  this  time,  seemed  to 
have  gone  straight  to  the  white  of  the 
butts  !  I  now  thought  I  had  acquired 
knowledge  and  caution  sufficient  to 
avail  myself  of  Uncle  Jack's  ideas, 
without  ruining  myself  by  following 
them  out  in  his  company ;  and  I  saw 
a  kind  of  retributive  justice  in  making 
his  brain  minister  to  the  fortunes 
which  his  ideality  and  constructive- 
ness,  according  to  Squills,  had  served 


so  notably  to  impoverish.  I  must 
here  gratefully  acknowledge,  that  I 
owed  much  to  this  irregular  genius. 
The  investigation  of  the  supposed 
mines  had  proved  unsatisfactory  to 
Mr  Bullion ;  and  they  were  not  fairly 
discovered  till  a  few  years  after. 
But  Jack  had  convinced  himself  of 
their  existence,  and  purchased,  on  his 
own  account,  "  for  an  old  song,"  some 
barren  land,  which  he  was  persuaded 
would  prove  to  him  a  Golconda,  one 
day  or  other,  under  the  euphonious 
title  (which,  indeed,  it  ultimately 
established)  of  the  "Tibbet's  Wheal." 
The  suspension  of  the  mines,  how- 
ever, fortunately  suspended  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Grog  and  Store  Depot, 
and  Uncle  Jack  was  now  assisting 
in  the  foundation  of  Port  Philip.  Pro  - 
fiting  by  his  advice,  I  adventured 
in  that  new  settlement  some  timid 
and  wary  purchases,  which  I  resold 
to  considerable  advantage.  Mean- 
while, I  must  not  omit  to  state  briefly 
what,  since  my  departure  from  Eng- 
land, had  been  the  ministerial  career 
of  Trevamon. 

That  refining  fastidiousness, — that 
scrupulosity  of  political  conscience, 
which  had  characterised  him  as  an  in- 
dependent member,  and  often  served, 
in  the  opinion,  both  of  friend  and  of 
foe,  to  give  the  attribute  of  general 
impracticability  to  a  mind  that,  in 
all  details,  was  so  essentially  and  labo- 
riously practical — might  perhaps  have 
founded  Trevanion's  reputation  as  a 
minister,  if  he  could  have  been  a 
minister  without  colleagues — if,  stand- 
ing alone,  and  from  the  necessary 
height,  he  could  have  placed,  clear  and 
single,  before  the  world,  his  exquisite 
honesty  of  purpose,  and  the  width  of 
a  statesmanship  marvellously  accom- 
plished and  comprehensive.  But 
Trevanion  could  not  amalgamate  with 
others,  nor  subscribe  to  the  discipline 
of  a  cabinet  in  which  he  was  not  the 
chief,  especially  in  a  policy  which 
must  have  been  thoroughly  abhorrent 
to  such  a  nature — a  policy  that,  of 
late  years,  has  distinguished  not  one 
faction  alone,  but  has  seemed  so 
forced  upon  the  more  eminent  political 
leaders,  on  either  side,  that  they  who 
take  the  more  charitable  view  of 
things  may,  perhaps,  hold  it  to  arise 
from  the  necessity  of  the  age,  fostered 
by  the  temper  of  the  public — I  mean 


288 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


[Sept. 


the  policy  of  Expediency.  Certainly 
not  in  this  book  will  I  introduce  the 
angry  elements  of  party  politics  ;  and 
how  should  I  know  much  about  them? 
All  that  I  have  to  say  is,  that,  right 
or  wrong,  such  a  policy  must  have 
been  at  war,  every  moment,  with  each 
principle  of  Trevanion's  statesman- 
ship, and  fretted  each  fibre  of  his 
moral  constitution.  The  aristocratic 
combinations  which  his  alliance  with 
the  Castleton  interest  had  brought  to 
his  aid,  served  perhaps  to  fortify  his 
position  in  the  cabinet ;  yet  aristo- 
cratic combinations  were  of  small 
avail  against  what  seemed  the  atmo- 
spherical epidemic  of  the  age.  I  could 
see  how  his  situation  had  preyed  on 
his  mind,  when  I  read  a  paragraph 
in  the  newspapers,  "  that  it  was  re- 
ported, on  good  authority,  that  Mr 
Trevanion  had  tendered  his  resigna- 
tion, but  had  been  prevailed  upon  to 
withdraw  it,  as  his  retirement  at  that 
moment  would  break  up  the  govern- 
ment." Some  months  afterwards 
came  another  paragraph,  to  the  effect 
"  that  Mr  Trevanion  was  taken  sud- 
denly ill,  and  that  it  was  feared  his 
illness  was  of  a  nature  to  preclude  his 
resuming  his  official  labours."  Then 
parliament  broke  up.  Before  it  met 
again,  Mr  Trevanion  was  gazetted 
as  Earl  of  Ulverstone,  a  title  that 
had  been  once  in  his  family — and 
had  left  the  administration,  unable 
to  encounter  the  fatigues  of  ofiice. 
To  an  ordinary  man,  the  elevation 
to  an  earldom,  passing  over  the 
lesser  honours  in  the  peerage,  would 
have  seemed  no  mean  close  to  a 
political  career ;  but  I  felt  what  pro- 
found despair  of  striving  against  cir- 
cumstance for  utility — what  entangle- 
ments with  his  colleagues,  whom  he 
could  neither  conscientiously  support, 
nor,  according  to  his  high  old-fashioned 
notions  of  party  honour  and  etiquette, 
energetically  oppose — had  driven  him 
to  abandon  that  stormy  scene  in  which 
his  existence  had  been  passed.  The 
House  of  Lords,  to  that  active  intellect, 
was  as  the  retirement  of  some  warrior 
of  old  into  the  cloisters  of  a  convent. 
The  gazette  that  chronicled  the  Earl- 
dom of  Ulverstone  was  the  proclama- 
tion that  Albert  Trevanion  lived  no 
more  for  the  world  of  .public  men. 
And,  indeed,  from  that  date  his  career 
vanished  out  of  sight.  Trevanion 


died — the  Eaii  of  Ulverstone  made 
no  sign. 

I  had  hitherto  written  but  twice  to 
Lady  Ellinor  during  my  exile — once 
upon  the  marriage  of  Fanny  with  Lord 
Castleton,  which  took  place  about  six, 
months  after  I  sailed  from  England, 
and  again,  when  thanking  her  husband 
for  some  rare  animals,  equine,  pastoral, 
and  bovine,  which  he  had  sent  as 
presents  to  Bolding  and  myself.  I 
wrote  again  after  Trevanion's  eleva- 
tion to  the  peerage,  and  received  in 
due  time  a  reply,  confirming  all  my 
impressions — for  it  was  full  of  bitter- 
ness and  gall,  accusations  of  the 
world,  fears  for  the  country  :  Richelieu 
himself  could  not  have  taken  a 
gloomier  view  of  things,  when  his 
levees  were  deserted,  and  his  power 
seemed  annihilated  before  the  u  Day 
of  Dupes."  Only  one  gleam  of  com- 
fort appeared  to  visit  Lady  Ulver- 
stone's  breast,  and  thence  to  settle 
prospectively  over  the  future  of  the 
world — a  second  son  had  been  born  to 
Lord  Castleton  ;  to  that  son  the  earl- 
dom of  Ulverstone,  and  the  estates 
held  in  right  of  its  countess,  would 
descend  !  Never  was  there  a  child  of 
such  promise!  Not  Virgil  himself, 
when  he  called  on  the  Sicilian  Muses 
to  celebrate  the  advent  of  a  son  to 
Pollio,  ever  sounded  a  loftier  strain. 
Here  was  one,  now  perchance  en- 
gaged on  words  of  two  syllables, 
called — 

"  By  labouring  nature  to  sustain 
The  nodding  frame  of  heaven,  and  earth,  and 

main, 

See  to  their  hase  restored,  earth,  sea,  and  air. 
And  joyful   ages  from  behind  in  crowding- 
ranks  appear!  " 

Happy  dream  which  Heaven  sends 
to  grandparents !  rebaptisin  of  Hope 
in  the  font  whose  drops  sprinkle  the 
grandchild  ! 

Time  flies  on ;  affairs  continue  to 
prosper.  I  am  just  leaving  the  bank 
at  Adelaide  with  a  satisfied  air,  when 
I  am  stopped  in  the  street  by  bowing 
acquaintances,  who  never  shook  me 
by  the  hand  before.  They  shake  me 
by  the  hand  now,  and  cry — "•  I  wish 
you  joy,  sir.  That  brave  fellow,  your 
namesake,  is  of  course  your  near 
relation." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  " 

"Have  not  you  seen  the  papers? 
Here  they  are." 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Parl  XVI. 


289 


"  Gallant  conduct  of  Ensign  de 
Caxton — promoted  to  a  lieutenancy 
on  the  field  " — I  wipe  my  eyes,  and 
cry  —  "  Thank  Heaven — it  is  my 
cousin !  "  Then  new  hand-shakings, 
new  groups  gather  round.  I  feel 
taller  by  the  head  than  I  was  before  ! 
Wt1  grumbling  English,  always  quar- 
relling with  each  other — the  world 
not  wide  enough  to  hold  us  ;  and  yet, 
when  in  the  far  land  some  bold  deed 
is  done  by  a  countryman,  how  we  feel 
that  we  are  brothers  !  how  our  hearts 
warm  to  each  other !  What  a  letter  I 
wrote  home !  and  how  joyously  I  went 


back  to  the  Bush !  The  Will-o'-the 
Wisp  has  attained  to  a  cattle  station 
of  his  own.  I  go  fifty  miles  out  of 
my  way  to  tell  him  the  news  and 
give  him  the  newspaper;  for  he  knows 
now  that  his  old  master,  Vivian,  is  a 
Cumberland  man — a  Caxton.  Poor 
Will-o'-the  Wisp !  The  tea  that  night 
tasted  uncommonly  like  whisky- 
punch  !  Father  Mathew  forgive  us  ! 
— but  if  you  had  been  a  Cumberland 
man,  and  heard  the  Will-o'-the  Wisp 
roaring  out,  u  Blue  bonnets  over  the 
Borders,"  I  think  your  tea,  too,  would, 
not  have  come  out  of  the  caddy  ! 


CHAPTER  XCIX. 


A  great  change  has  occurred  in  our 
household.  Guy's  father  is  dead — 
his  latter  years  cheered  by  the  accounts 
of  his  son's  steadiness  and  prosperity, 
and  by  the  touching  proofs  thereof 
which  Guy  has  exhibited.  For  he 
insisted  on  repaying  to  his  father  the 
old  college  debts,  and  the  advance  of 
the  £1500,  begging  that  the  money 
might  go  towards  his  sister's  portion. 
Now,  after  the  old  gentleman's  death, 
the  sister  resolved  to  come  out  and 
live  with  her  dear  brother  Guy.  An- 
other wing  is  built  to  the  hut.  Ambi- 
tious plans  for  a  new  stone  house,  to 
be  commenced  the  following  year,  are 
entertained ;  and  Guy  has  brought 
back  from  Adelaide  not  only  a  sister, 
but,  to  my  utter  astonishment,  a  wife, 
in  the  shape  of  a  fair  friend,  by  whom 
the  sister  was  accompanied.  The 
young  lady  did  quite  right  to  come  to 
Australia  if  she  wanted  to  be  married. 
She  was  very  pretty,  and  all  the  beaux 
in  Adelaide  were  roundher  in  amoment. 
Guy  was  in  love  the  first  day — in  a 
rage  with  thirty  rivals  the  next — in 
despair  the  third — put  the  question 
the  fourth — and  before  the  fifteenth 
was  a  married  man,  hastening  back 
with  a  treasure,  of  which  he  fancied 
all  the  world  was  conspiring  to  rob 
him.  His  sister  was  quite  as  pretty 
as  her  friend,  and  she  too  had  offers 
enough  the  moment  she  landed — only 
she  was  romantic  and  fastidious,  and 
I  fancy  Guy  told  her  that  "  I  was  just 
made  for  her." 

However,  charming  though  she  be 
— with  pretty  blue  eyes,  and  her 
brother's  frank  smile — I  am  not  en- 


chanted. I  fancy  she  lost  all  chance 
of  my  heart  by  stepping  across  the 
yard  in  a  pair  of  silk  shoes.  If  I  were 
to  live  in  the  Bush,  give  me  a  wife  as 
a  companion  who  can  ride  well,  leap 
over  a  ditch,  walk  beside  me  when  I 
go  forth,  gun  in  hand,  for  a  shot  at 
the  kangaroos.  But  I  dare  not  go  on 
with  the  list  of  a  Bush  husband's  requi- 
sites. This  change,  however,  serves, 
for  various  reasons,  to  quicken  my 
desire  of  return.  Ten  years  have  now 
elapsed,  and  I  have  already  obtained 
a  much  larger  fortune  than  I  had  cal- 
culated to  make.  Sorely  to  Guy's 
honest  grief,  I  therefore  wound  up  our 
afiairs,  and  dissolved  partnership ;  for 
he  had  decided  to  pass  his  life  in  the 
colony — and,  with  his  pretty  wife,  who 
has  grown  very  fond  of  him,  I  don't 
wonder  at  it.  Guy  takes  my  share  of 
the  station  and  stock  off  my  hands  ; 
and,  all  accounts  squared  between  us, 
I  bid  farewell  to  the  Bush.  Despite 
all  the  motives  that  drew  my  heart 
homeward,  it  was  not  without  partici- 
pation in  the  sorrow  of  my  old  com- 
panions, that  I  took  leave  of  those  I 
might  never  see  again  on  this  side  the 
grave.  The  meanest  man  in  my  em- 
ploy had  grown  a  friend ;  and  when 
those  hard  hands  grasped  mine,  and 
from  many  a  breast  that  once  had 
waged  fierce  war  with  the  world  came 
the  soft  blessing  to  the  Homeward- 
bound — with  a  tender  thought  for  the 
Old  England,  'that  had  been  but  a 
harsh  step-mother  to  them — I  felt  a 
choking  sensation,  which  I  suspect  is 
little  known  to  the  friendships  of  May- 
fair  and  St  James's.  I  was  forced  to- 


290 


The  Caxtons.—  Part  XVI. 


[Sept. 


get  off,  with  a  few  broken  words, 
when  I  had  meant  to  part  with  a  long 
speech:  perhaps  the  broken  words 
pleased  the  audience  better.  Spurring 
away,  I  gained  a  little  eminence  and 
looked  back.  There,  were  the  poor 
faithful  fellows  gathered  in  a  ring, 
watching  me — their  hats  off — their 
hands  shading  their  eyes  from  the  sun. 
And  Guy  had  thrown  himself  on  the 
ground,  and  I  heard  his  loud  sobs 
distinctly.  His  wife  was  leaning  over 
his  shoulder,  trying  to  soothe:  for- 
give him,  fair  helpmate,  you  will  be 
all  in  the  world  to  him— to-morrow  ! 


And  the  blue-eyed  sister,  where  was 
she  ?  Had  she  no  tears  for  the  rough 
friend  who  laughed  at  the  silk  shoes, 
and  taught  her  how  to  hold  the  reins, 
and  never  fear  that  the  old  pony 
would  run  away  with  her?  What 
matter? — if  the  tears  were  shed,  they 
were  hidden  tears.  No  shame  in 
them,  fair  Ellen — since  then,  thou 
hast  wept  happy  tears  over  thy  first- 
born —  those  tears  have  long  ago 
washed  away  all  bitterness  in  the 
innocent  memories  of  a  girl's  first 
fancy. 


(DATED  FROM  ADELAIDE.) 


Imagine  my  wonder — Uncle  Jack 
has  just  been  with  me,  and — but  hear 
the  dialogue. 

UNCLE  JACK — So  you  are  posi- 
tively going  back  to  that  smoky, 
fusty,  old  England,  just  when  you  are 
on  your  high  road  to  a  plumb.  A 
plumb,  sir,  at  least !  They  all  say 
there  is  not  a  more  rising  young  man 
in  the  colony.  I  think  Bullion  would 
take  you  into  partnership.  What  are 
you  in  such  a  hurry  for  ? 

PISISTRATUS. — To  see  my  father, 
and  mother,  and  Uncle  Roland,  and 

(was  about  to  name  some  one  else, 

but  stops.) 

You  see,  my  dear  uncle,  I  came  out 
solely  with  the  idea  of  repairing  my 
father's  losses,  in  that  unfortunate 
speculation  of  The  Capitalist. 

UNCLE  JACK  (coughs  and  ejaculates') 
—That  villain  Peck ! 

PISISTRATUS. — And  to  have  a  few 
thousands  to  invest  in  poor  Roland's 
acres.  The  object  is  achieved  :  why 
should  I  stay  ? 

UNCLE  JACK. — A  few  paltry  thou- 
sands, when  in  twenty  years  more, 
at  the  farthest,  you  would  wallow  in 
gold! 

PISISTRATUS. — A  man  learns  in  the 
Bush  how  happy  life  can  be  with 
plenty  of  employment,  and  very  little 
money.  I  shall  practise  that  lesson 
in  England. 

UNCLE  JACK. — Your  mind's  made 
up? 

PISISTRATUS. — And  my  place  in  the 
ship  taken. 


UNCLE  JACK. — Then  there's  no 
more  to  be  said.  (Hums,  haws,  and 
examines  his  nails — -filbert  nails,  not  a 
speck  on  them.)  Then  suddenly,  and 
jerking  up  his  head.  "That  '•Capi- 
talist!'1 it  has  been  on  my  conscience, 
nephew,  ever  since;  and,  somehow 
or  other,  since  I  have  abandoned  the 
cause  of  my  fellow- creatures,  I  think 
I  have  cared  more  for  my  rela- 
tions." 

PISISTRATUS,  (smiling,  as  he  re- 
members his  father's  shrewd  predictions 
thereon.) — Naturally,  my  dear  uncle  : 
any  child  who  has  thrown  a  stone  into 
a  pond  knows  that  a  circle  disappears 
as  it  widens. 

UNCLE  JACK. — Very  true — I  shall 
make  a  note  of  that,  applicable  to  my 
next  speech,  in  defence  of  what  they 
call  the  "land  monopoly."  Thank 
you — stone — circle !  (  Jots  down  notes 
in  his  pocket-booh.)  But,  to  return  to 
the  point :  I  am  well  off  now — I  have 
neither  wife  nor  child ;  and  I  feel  that 
I  ought  to  bear  my  share  in  your  fa- 
ther's loss  :  it  was  our  joint  specula- 
tion. And  your  father,  good  dear 
Austin,  paid  my  debts  into  the  bar- 
gain. And  how  cheering  the  punch 
was  that  night,  when  your  mother 
wanted  to  scold  poor  Jack  !  And  the 
£300  Austin  lent  me  when  I  left  him  : 
nephew,  that  was  the  remaking  of  me 
— the  acorn  of  the  oak  I  have  trans- 
planted. So  here  they  are,  (added 
Uncle  Jack  with  a  heroical  effort — 
and  he  extracted  from  the  pocket- 
book,  bills  for  a  sum  between  three 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  XVI. 


291 


and  four  thousand  pounds.)  There, 
it  is  done — and  I  shall  sleep  better 
for  it !  (  With  that  Uncle  Jack  got  up, 
and  bolted  out  of  the  room.) 

Ought  I  to  take  the  money  ?  Why, 
I  think  yes! — it  is  but  fair.  Jack 
must  be  really  rich,  and  can  well  spare 
the  money ;  besides,  if  he  wants  it 
again,  I  know  my  father  will  let  him 
have  it.  And,  indeed,  Jack  caused 
the  loss  of  the  whole  sum  lost  on  The 
Capitalist,  &c. ;  and  this  is  not  quite 
the  half  of  what  my  father  paid  away. 
But  is  it  not  fine  in  Uncle  Jack ! 
Well,  my  father  was  quite  right  in  his 
milder  estimate  of  Jack's  scalene  con- 
formation, and  it  is  hard  to  judge  of  a 
man  when  he  is  needy  and  down  in 
the  world.  When  one  grafts  one's 
ideas  on  one's  neighbour's  money,  they 
are  certainly  not  so  grand  as  when 
they  spring  from  one's  own. 

UNCLE  JACK,  (popping  his  head  into 
the  room.) — And  you  see,  you  can 
double  that  money  if  yon  will  just 
leave  it  in  my  hands  for  a  couple  of 
years. — you  have  no  notion  what  I 
shall  make  of  the  Tibbet's  Wheal !  Did 
I  tell  you? — the  German  was  quite 
right, — I  have  been  offered  already 
seven  times  the  sum  which  I  gave  for 
the  land.  But  I  am  now  looking  out  for 
a  Company :  let  me  put  you  down  for 
shares  to  the  amount  at  least  of  those 
trumpery  bills.  Cent  per  cent, — I 
guarantee  cent  per  cent !  (And  Uncle 
Jack  stretches  out  those  famous  smooth 


hands  of  his,  ivith  a  tremulous  motion 
of  the  ten  eloquent  fingers.) 

PISISTRATUS. — Ah,  my  dear  uncle, 
if  you  repent 

UNCLE  JACK. — Eepent !  when  I 
offer  you  cent  per  cent,  on  my  per- 
sonal guarantee ! 

PISISTRATUS,  (carefully  putting  the 
bills  into  his  breast  coat-pocket.)  Then, 
if  you  don't  repent,  my  dear  uncle, 
allow  me  to  shake  you  by  the  hand, 
and  say  that  I  will  not  consent  to 
lessen  my  esteem  and  admiration  for 
the  high  principle  which  prompts  this 
restitution,  by  confounding  it  with 
trading  associations  of  loans,  interests, 
and  copper  mines.  And,  you  see, 
since  this  sum  is  paid  to  my  father,  I 
have  no  right  to  invest  it  without  his 
permission. 

UNCLE  JACK,  (with  emotion.) — 
"Esteem,  admiration,  high  principle!" 
— these  are  pleasant  words,  from  you, 
nephew.  (Then  shaking  his  head  and 
smiling.)  You  sly  dog !  you  are  quite 
right :  get  the  bills  cashed  at  once. 
And  hark  ye,  sir,  just  keep  out  of  my 
way,  will  you? — and  don't  let  me  coax 
you  out  of  a  farthing!  (Uncle  Jack 
slams  the  do'or,  and  rushes  out.  Pisis- 
tratus  draws  the  bills  warily  from  his 
pocket,  half- suspecting  they  must  al- 
ready have  turned  into  withered  leaves, 
like  fairy  money;  slowly  convinces  him- 
self that  the  bills  are  good  bills,  and  by 
lively  gestures  testifies  his  delight  and 
astonishment.)  SCENE  CHANGES. 


292 


Autobiography —  Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


[Sept. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY — CHATEAUBRIAND'S  MEMOIRS. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  when  skilfully 
and  judiciously  done,  is  one  of  the 
most  delightful  species  of  composition 
of  which  literature  can  boast.  There 
is  a  strong  desire  in  every  intelligent 
and  well-informed  mind  to  be  made 
acquainted  with  the  private  thoughts, 
and  secret  motives  of  action,  of  those 
who  have  filled  the  world  with  their 
renown.  We  long  to  learn  their  early 
history,  to  be  made  acquainted  with 
their  first  aspirations — to  learn  how 
they  became  so  great  as  they  after- 
wards turned  out.  Perhaps  literature 
has  sustained  no  greater  loss  than  that 
of  the  memoirs  which  Hannibal  wrote 
of  his  life  and  campaigns.  From  the  few 
fragments  of  his  sayings  which  Roman 
admiration  or  terror  has  preserved, 
his  reach  of  thought  and  statesman- 
like sagacity  would  appear  to  have 
been  equal  to  his  military  talents. 
Caesar's  Commentaries  have  always 
been  admired;  but  there  is  some  doubts 
whether  they  really  were  written  by 
the  dictator ;  and,  supposing  they 
were,  they  relate  almost  entirely 
to  military  movements  and  public 
events,  without  giving  much  insight 
into  private  character.  It  is  that 
which  we  desire  in  autobiography : 
we  hope  to  find  in  it  a  window  by 
which  we  may  look  into  a  great  man's 
mind.  Plutarch's  Lives  owe  their  vast 
and  enduring  popularity  to  the  insight 
into  private  character  which  the  in- 
numerable anecdotes  he  has  collected, 
of  the  heroes  and  statesmen  of  anti- 
quity, afford. 

Gibbon's  autobiography  is  the  most 
perfect  account  of  an  eminent  man's 
life,  from  his  own  hand,  which  exists 
in  any  language.  Independent  of  the 
interest  which  naturally  belongs  to 
it  as  the  record  of  the  studies,  and  the 
picture  of  the  growth  of  the  mind  of 
the  greatest  historian  of  modern  times, 
it  possesses  a  peculiar  charm  from  the 
simplicity  with  which  it  is  written, 
and  the  judgment  it  displays,  con- 
spicuous alike  in  what  is  revealed 
and  what  is  withheld  in  the  narrative. 
It  steers  the  middle  channel  so  diffi- 


cult to  find,  so  invaluable  when  found, 
between  ridiculous  vanity  on  the  one 
side,  and  affected  modesty  on  the 
other.  We  see,  from  many  passages 
in  it,  that  the  author  was  fully  aware 
of  the  vast  contribution  he  had  made 
to  literature,  and  the  firm  basis  on 
which  he  had  built  his  colossal  fame. 
But  he  had  good  sense  enough  to  see, 
that  those  great  qualities  were  never 
so  likely  to  impress  the  reader  as 
when  only  cautiously  alluded  to  by 
the  author.  He  knew  that  vanity 
and  ostentation  never  fail  to  make  the 
character  in  which  they  predominate 
ridiculous — if  excessive,  contemptible ; 
and  that,  although  the  world  would 
thankfully  receive  all  the  details,  how 
minute  soever,  connected  with  his  im- 
mortal work,  they  would  not  take  off 
his  hands  any  symptom  of  his  own 
entertaining  the  opinion  of  it  which 
all  others  have  formed.  It  is  the  con- 
summate judgment  with  which  Gib- 
bon has  given  enough  of  the  details 
connected  with  the  preparation  of  his 
works  to  be  interesting,  and  not 
enough  to  be  ridiculous,  which  consti- 
tutes the  great  charm,  and  has  oc- 
casioned the  marked  success,  of  his 
autobiography.  There  are  few  pas- 
sages in  the  English  language  so 
popular  as  the  well-known  ones  in 
which  he  has  recounted  the  first  con- 
ception, and  final  completion  of  his 
history,  which,  as  models  of  the  kind, 
as  well  as  passages  of  exquisite  beauty, 
we  cannot  refuse  ourselves  the  plea- 
sure of  transcribing,  the  more  espe- 
cially as  they  will  set  off,  by  way  of 
contrast,  the  faults  in  some  parallel 
passages  attempted  by  Chateaubriand 
and  Lamartine. 

u  At  the  distance  of  twenty-fire  years, 
I  can  neither  forget  nor  express  the  strong 
emotions  which  agitated  my  mind  as  I 
first  approached  and  entered  the  Eternal 
City.  After  a  sleepless  night,  I  trod  with 
a  lofty  step  the  ruins  of  the  Forum.  Each 
memorable  spot — where  Romulus  stood, 
or  Tully  spoke,  or  Caesar  fell — was  at  once 
present  to  my  eyes;  and  several  days  of 
intoxication  were  lost,  or  enjoyed,  before 


Mtmoires   d'Outre  Tombe. 
Paris,  1846-9. 


Par  M.  le   VICOMTE  DE  CHATEAUBRIAND.      4  vols. 


1849.] 


Autobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


1  could  descend  to  a  cool  and  minute  in- 
vestigation. It  was  at  Rome,  on  the  15th 
October  1764,  as  I  sat  musing  amidst  the 
ruins  of  the  Capitol,  while  the  barefooted 
friars  were  singing  vespers  in  the  Temple 
of  Jupiter,  that  the  idea  of  writing  this 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  city  first  started  to 
my  mind.  But  my  original  plan  was  cir- 
cumscribed to  the  decay  of  the  city,  rather 
than  of  the  empire ;  and  though  my  read- 
ing and  reflections  began  to  point  towards 
that  object,  some  yean  elapsed,  and  seve- 
ral avocations  intervened,  before  I  was 
seriously  engaged  in  the  execution  of  that 
laborious  work." — (Life,  p.  198,  8vo  edi- 
tion.) 

Again,  the  "well-known  description 
of  the  conclusion  of  his  labours  : — 

"  I  have  presumed  to  mark  the  moment 
of  conception:  I  shall  now  commemorate 
the  hour  of  my  final  deliverance.  It  was 
on  the  day,  or  rather  night,  of  the  27th 
June  1787,  between  the  hours  of  eleven 
and  twelve,  that  I  wrote  the  last  lines  of 
the  last  page,  in  a  summer-house  in  my 
garden.  After  laying  down  my  pen,  I 
took  several  turns  in  a  berceau,  or  covered 
walk  of  acacias,  which  commands  a  pro- 
spect of  the  country,  the  lake,  and  moun- 
tain*. The  air  was  temperate,  the  sky 
was  serene,  the  silver  orb  of  the  moon  was 
reflected  from  the  waters,  and  all  nature 
was  silent.  I  will  not  dissemble  the  first 
emotions  of  joy  on  recovery  of  my  free- 
dom, and  perhaps  the  establishment  of  my 
fame.  But  my  pride  was  soon  humbled, 
and  a  sober  melancholy  was  spread  over 
my  mind,  by  the  idea  that  I  had  taken  an 
everlasting  leave  of  an  old  and  agreeable 
companion ;  and  that,  whatever  might  be 
the  future  fate  of  my  History,  the  life  of 
the  historian  must  be  short  and  preca- 
rious."— (Life,  p.  255,  8vo  edition.) 

Hume's  account  of  his  own  life  is  a 
model  of  perspicuity,  modesty,  and 
good  sense ;  but  it  is  so  brief  that  it 
scarcely  can  be  called  a  biography. 
It  is  not  fifty  pages  long.  The  wary 
Scotch  author  was  well  aware  how 
vanity  in  such  compositions  defeats  its 
own  object :  he  had  too  much  good 
sense  to  let  it  appear  in  his  pages. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  existence  of 
such  a  feeling  in  the  recesses  of  his 
breast  may  be  detected  in  the  promin- 
ent manner  in  which  he  brings  forward 
the  discouragement  he  experienced 
when  the  first  volume  of  his  history 
was  published,  and  the  extremely 


293 

limited  sale  it  met  with  for  some  time 
after  its  first  appearance.  He  kneAv 
well  how  these  humble  beginnings 
would  be  contrasted  with  its  subse- 
quent triumphant  success.  Amidst 
his  many  great  and  good  qualities, 
there  is  none  for  which  Sir  Walter 
Scott  was  more  admirable  than  the 
unaffected  simplicity  and  good  sense 
of  his  character,  which  led  him  to  con- 
tinue through  life  utterly  unspotted 
by  vanity,  and  unchanged  by  an 
amount  of  adulation  from  the  most 
fascinating  quarters,  which  would  pro- 
bably have  turned  the  head  of  any 
other  man.  Among  the  many  causes 
of  regret  which  the  world  has  for  the 
catastrophes  which  overshadowed  his 
latter  years,  it  is  not  the  least  that 
it  prevented  the  completion  of  that 
autobiography  with  which  Mr  Lock- 
hart  has  commenced  his  Life.  His 
simplicity  of  character,  and  the 
vast  number  of  eminent  men  with 
whom  he  was  intimate,  as  well  as  the 
merit  of  that  fragment  itself,  leave  no 
room  for  doubt  that  he  would  have 
made  a  most  charming  memoir, 
if  he  had  lived  to  complete  it.  This 
observation  does  not  detract  in  the 
slightest  degree  from  the  credit  justly 
due  to  Mr  Lockhart,  for  his  admirable 
Life  of  his  illustrious  father-in-law :  on 
the  contrary,  it  forms  its  highest  enco- 
mium. The  charm  of  that  work  is 
mainly  owing  to  its  being  so  embued 
with  the  spirit  of  the  subject,  that  it 
may  almost  be  regarded  as  an  auto- 
biography. 

Continental  writers  of  note  have, 
more  than  English  ones,  fallen  into 
that  eiTor  which  is  of  all  others  the 
most  fatal  in  autobiography — inordi- 
nate vanity.  At  the  head  of  all  the 
delinquents  of  this  class  we  must 
place  Rousseau,  whose  celebrated 
Confessions  contain  a  revelation  of 
folly  so  extreme,  vanity  so  excessive, 
and  baseness  so  disgraceful,  that  it 
would  pass  for  incredible  if  not  proved 
by  the  book  itself,  which  is  to  be  found 
in  every  library.  Not  content  with 
affirming,  when  past  fifty,  that  there 
was  no  woman  of  fashion  of  whom 
he  might  not  have  made  the  conquest 
if  he  chose  to  set  about  it,*  he 
thought  fit  to  entertain  the  world 


*  "II  y  a  peu  des  femmes,  meme  dans  le  haut  rang,  dont  je  n'eusee  fait  la  conquete 
sijel'avais  enterprise." — Biographie  L'lilrcrtelle,  xxxix.  136. 


294 


Autobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


[Sept. 


with  all  the  private  details  of  his  life, 
which  the  greater  prudence  of  his 
most  indiscreet  biographers  would 
have  consigned  to  oblivion.  No  one 
who  wishes  to  discredit  the  Genevese 
philosopher,  need  seek  in  the  works  of 
others  for  the  grounds  of  doing  so. 
Enough  is  to  be  found  in  his  own  to 
consign  him  to  eternal  execration  and 
contempt.  He  has  told  us  equally  in 
detail,  and  with  the  same  air  of 
infantine  simplicity,  how  he  com- 
mitted a  theft  when  in  service  as  a 
lackey,  and  permitted  an  innocent 
girl,  his  fellow-servant,  to  bear  the 
penalty  of  it ;  how  he  alternately 
drank  the  wine  in  his  master's  cellars, 
and  made  love  to  his  wife ;  how  he 
corrupted  one  female  benefactress 
who  had  sheltered  him  in  extremity 
of  want,  and  afterwards  made  a  boast 
of  her  disgrace ;  and  abandoned  a 
male  benefactor  who  fell  down  in  a 
fit  of  apoplexy  on  the  streets  of  Lyons, 
and  left  him  lying  on  the  pavement, 
deserted  by  the  only  friend  whom  he 
had  in  the  world.  The  author  of  so 
many  eloquent  declamations  against 
mothers  neglecting  their  children,  on 
his  own  admission,  when  in  easy  cir- 
cumstances, and  impelled  by  no  neces- 
sity, consigned  five  of  his  natural 
children  to  a  foundling  hospital,  with 
such  precautions  against  their  being 
known  that  he  never  did  or  could 
hear  of  them  again !  Such  was  his 
vanity,  that  he  thought  the  world 
would  gladly  feed  on  the  crumbs  of 
this  sort  which  fell  from  the  table  of 
the  man  rich  in  genius.  His  grand 
theory  was  that  the  human  mind  is 
born  innocent,  with  dispositions  only 
to  good,  and  that  all  the  evils  of 
society  arise  from  the  follies  of  educa- 
tion or  the  oppression  of  government. 
Judging  from  the  picture  he  has  pre- 
sented of  himself,  albeit  debased  by 
no  education  but  what  he  himself  had 
afforded,  we  should  say  his  disposition 
was  more  corrupt  than  has  even  been 
imagined  by  the  most  dark-minded 
and  bigoted  Calvinist  that  ever  ex- 
isted. 

Alfieri  was  probably  as  vain  in 
reality  as  Rousseau ;  but  he  knew 
better  how  to  conceal  it.  He  had 
not  the  folly  of  supposing  that  he 
could  entertain  women  by  the  boast- 
ful detail  of  his  conquests  over  them. 
He  judged  wisely,  and  more  like  a  man 


who  had  met  with  bonnes  fortunes^ 
that  he  would  attain  more  effectually 
the  object  of  interesting  their  feelings, 
by  painting  their  conquests  over  him. 
He  has  done  this  so  fully,  so  sincere- 
ly, and  with  such  eloquence,  that 
he  has  made  one  of  the  most  power- 
ful pieces  of  biography  in  any  lan- 
guage. Its  charm  consists  in  the 
picture  he  has  drawn,  with  equal 
truth  and  art,  of  a  man  of  the 
most  impetuous  and  ardent  tempera- 
ment, alternately  impelled  by  the 
strongest  passions  which  can  agitate 
the  breast — love  and  ambition.  Born 
of  a  noble  family,  inheriting  a  great 
fortune,  he  exhibited  an  uncommon 
combination  of  patrician  tastes  and 
feelings  with  republican  principles 
and  aspirations.  He  was  a  democrat 
because  he  knew  the  great  by  whom 
he  was  surrounded,  and  did  not  know 
the  humble  who  were  removed  to  a 
distance.  He  said  this  himself,  after 
witnessing  at  Paris  the  horrors  of  the 
10th  August. — "  Je  connais  bien  les 
grands,  maisje  ne  connais  pas  lespetits.^ 
He  drew  the  vices  of  the  former 
from  observation,  he  painted  the 
virtues  of  the  latter  from  imagination. 
Hence  the  absurdity  and  unnatural 
character  of  many  of  his  dramas, 
which,  to  the  inhabitant  of  our  free 
country,  who  is  familiar  with  the 
real  working  of  popular  institutions, 
renders  them,  despite  their  genius, 
quite  ridiculous.  But,  in  the  deli- 
neation of  what  passed  in  his  own 
breast,  he  is  open  to  no  such  reproach. 
His  picture  of  his  own  feelings  is  as 
forcible  and  dramatic  as  that  of  any 
he  has  drawn  in  his  tragedies  ;  and  it 
is  far  more  truthful,  for  it  is  taken 
from  nature,  not  an  imaginary  world 
of  his  own  creation,  having  little 
resemblance  to  that  we  see  around 
us.  His  character  and  life  were 
singularly  calculated  to  make  such  a 
narrative  interesting,  for  never  was 
one  more  completely  tossed  about  by 
vehement  passions,  and  abounding 
with  melodramatic  incidents.  Al- 
ternately dreaming  over  the  most 
passionate  attachments,  and  labour- 
ing of  his  own  accord  at  Dante  four- 
teen hours  a-day  ;  at  one  time  mak- 
ing love  to  an  English  nobleman's 
wife,  and  fighting  him  in  the  Park,  at 
another  driving  through  France  with 
fourteen  blood  horses  in  harness ; 


1849.] 


Autobiography —  Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


295 


now  stealing  from  the  Pretender  his 
queen,  now  striving  to  emulate  Sopho- 
cles in  the  energy  of  his  picture  of  the 
passions,  he  was  himself  a  living 
example  of  the  intensity  of  those  feel- 
ings which  he  has  so  powerfully 
portrayed  in  his  dramas.  It  is  this 
variety,  joined  to  the  simplicity  and 
candour  of  the  confessions,  which 
constitutes  the  charm  of  this  very 
remarkable  autobiography.  It  could 
have  been  written  by  no  one  but 
himself;  for  an  ordinary  biographer 
would  only  have  described  the  inci- 
dents of  his  life,  none  else  could  have 
painted  the  vehement  passions,  the 
ardent  aspirations,  from  which  they 
sprang. 

From  the  sketches  of  Goethe's  life 
which  have  been  preserved,  it  is  evi- 
dent that,  though  probably  not  less 
vain  than  the  French  philosopher  or 
the  Italian  poet,  his  vanity  took  a 
different  direction  from  either  of  theirs. 
He  was  neither  vain  of  his  turpitudes, 
like  Rousseau,  nor  of  his  passions, 
like  Alfieri.  His  self-love  was  of  a 
more  domestic  kind ;  it  partook  more 
of  the  home-scenes  of  the  Father- 
land. No  one  will  question  the 
depth  of  Goethe's  knowledge  of  the 
heart,  or  the  sagacity  of  the  light 
which  his  genius  has  thrown  on  the 
most  profound  feelings  of  human 
nature.  But  his  private  life  partook 
of  the  domestic  affections  and  un- 
obtrusive rest  in  which  it  was 
passed,  exempt  alike  from  the  grind- 
ing poverty  which  too  often  impelled 
the  Genevese  watchmaker's  son  into 
disgraceful  actions,  or  the  vehement 
passions  which  drove  the  Italian 
nobleman  into  brilliant  crimes.  Hence 
his  biography  exhibits  an  extraor- 
dinary mixture  of  lofty  feelings  with 
puerile  simplicity,  of  depth  of  views 
with  childishness,  of  divine  philoso- 
phy with  homely  inclinations.  Amidst 
all  his  enthusiasm  and  effusions  of 
sentiment,  he  was  as  much  under  the 
influence  as  any  man  of  creature 
comforts ;  and  never  hesitated  to 
leave  the  most  lofty  efforts  of  the 
muse,  to  participate  in  the  substantial 
advantages  of  rich  preserves  or  sweet 
cakes.  This  singular  mixture  arose 
in  a  great  measure  from  the  habits  of 
his  life,  and  the  limited  circle  by  which, 
during  the  greater  part  of  it,  he  was 
surrounded.  Living  with  a  few 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVII. 


friends  in  the  quiet  seclusion  of  a 
small  German  town,  the  object  of 
almost  superstitious  admiration  to  a 
few  females  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded, he  became  at  once  a  little 
god  of  his  own  and  their  idolatry, 
and  warmly  inclined,  like  monks  all 
over  the  world,  to  the  innocent  but 
not  very  elevating  pleasures  of  break- 
fast and  dinner.  Mahomet  said  that 
he  experienced  more  difficulty  in  per- 
suading his  four  wives  of  his  divine 
mission,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
besides ;  and  this,  says  Gibbon,  was 
not  surprising,  for  they  knew  best  his 
weaknesses  as  a  man.  Goethe 
thought,  on  the  same  principle,  his 
fame  was  secure,  when  he  was  wor- 
shipped asagod  by  his  female  coterie. 
He  had  the  highest  opinion  of  his 
own  powers,  and  of  the  lofty  mission 
on  which  he  was  sent  to  mankind ; 
but  his  self-love  was  less  offensive 
than  that  of  Rousseau,  because  it  was 
more  unobtrusive.  It  was  allied 
rather  to  pride  than  vanity — and 
though  pride  may  often  be  hateful,  it 
is  never  contemptible. 

From  the  Life  of  Lord  Byron  which 
Moore  has  published,  it  may  be  in- 
ferred that  the  latter  acted  wisely  in 
consigning  the  original  manuscript  of 
the  noble  poet's  autobiography  to  the 
flames.  Assuming  that  a  consider- 
able part  of  that  biography  is  taken 
from  what  the  noble  bard  had  left  of 
himself,  it  is  evident  that  a  more  com- 
plete detail  of  his  feelings  and  motives 
of  action  would  have  done  anything 
rather  than  have  added  to  his  reputa- 
tion. In  fact,  Moore's  Life  has  done 
more  than  anything  else  to  lower  it. 
The  poetical  biographer  had  thought 
and  sung  so  much  of  the  passions,  that 
he  had  forgot  in  what  light  they  are 
viewed  by  the  generality  of  men  ;  he 
was  so  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  his  hero,  that  he  had  come  to  regard 
his  errors  and  vices  as  not  the  least 
interesting  part  of  his  life.  That  they 
may  be  so  to  that  class  of  readers, 
unhappily  top  extensive,  who  are  en- 
gaged in  similar  pursuits,  is  probably 
true ;  but  how  small  a  portion  do  these 
constitute  of  the  human  race,  and  how 
weak  and  inaudible  is  their  applause 
when  compared  to  the  voice  of  ages  ! 
What  has  become  of  the  innumerable 
licentious  works  whose  existence  in 
antiquity  has  become  known  from  the 


Autobiography —  Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


296 

specimens  disinterred  in  the  ruins  of 
Herculaneum  ?  Is  there  one  of  them 
which  has  taken  its  place  beside  the 
Lives  of  Plutarch  ?  Whatever  is  fetid, 
however  much  prized  at  the  moment, 
is  speedily  sunk  in  the  waves  of  time. 
Nothing  permanently  floats  down  its 
stream  but  what  is  buoyant  from  its 
elevating  tendency. 

Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  is  so  re- 
plete with  the  sayings  and  thoughts 
of  the  intellectual  giant,  whom  it  was 
so  much  his  object  to  elevate,  even 
above  his  natural  Patagonian  stature, 
that  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
autobiography,  dictated  by  the  sage 
in  his  moments  of  abandon  to  his  de- 
vout worshipper.  It  is  hardly  going  too 
far  to  say  that  it  is  the  most  popular 
book  in  the  English  language.  John- 
son's reputation  now  mainly  rests  on 
that  biography.  No  one  now  reads 
the  Rambler  or  the  Idler — few  the 
Lives  of  the  Poets,  interesting  as  they 
are,  and  admirable  as  are  the  criticisms 
on  our  greatest  authors  which  they 
contain.  But  Boswell's  Life  of  John- 
son is  in  everybody's  hands  ;  you 
will  hear  the  pithy  sayings,  the  admi- 
rable reflections,  the  sagacious  remarks 
it  contains,  from  one  end  of  the  world 
to  the  other.  The  secret  of  this  asto- 
nishing success  is  to  be  found  in  the 
caustic  tone,  sententious  brevity,  and 
sterling  good  sense  of  Johnson,  and 
the  inimitable  accuracy,  faithful  me- 
mory, and  almost  infantine  simplicity 
of  his  biographer.  From  the  un- 
bounded admiration  with  which  he 
was  inspired  for  the  sage,  and  the 
faithful  memory  with  which  he  was 
gifted,  he  was  enabled  to  commit  to 
paper,  almost  as  they  were  deliver- 
ed, those  admirable  sayings  which 
have  ever  since  been  the  delight 
and  admiration  of  the  world.  We 
almost  live  with  the  members  of  the 
Literary  Club  ;  we  hear  their  divers 
sentiments,  and  can  almost  conceive 
their  tones  of  voice.  We  see  the  gigan- 
tic form  of  the  sage  towering  above 
his  intellectual  compeers.  Burke  said 
that  Johnson  was  greater  in  conver- 
sation than  writing,  and  greater  in 
Boswell  than  either ;  and  it  is  easy  to 
conceive  that  this  must  have  been  the 
case.  The  Life  contains  all  the  admi- 
rable sayings,  verbatim  as  they  were 
delivered,  and  without  the  asperity  of 
tone  and  manner  which  formed  so 


[Sept. 


great  a  blot  in  the  original  deliverer. 
Johnson's  sayings  were  of  a  kind 
which  were  susceptible  of  being  accu- 
rately transferred,  and  with  full  effect, 
to  paper,  because  they  were  almost  all 
reflections  on  morals,  men,  or  man- 
ners, which  are  of  universal  applica- 
tion, and  come  home  to  the  senses  of 
mankind  in  every  age.  In  this  re- 
spect they  were  much  more  likely  to 
produce  an  impression  in  biography 
than  the  conversation  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  which,  however  charming  to 
those  who  heard  it,  consisted  chiefly 
of  anecdotes  and  stories,  great  part  of 
the  charm  of  which  consisted  in  the 
mode  of  telling  and  expression  of 
the  countenance,  which,  of  course, 
could  not  be  transferred  to  paper. 

But  it  is  not  every  eminent  man 
who  is  so  fortunate  as  to  find  a  bio- 
grapher like  Boswell,  who,'totally  for- 
getful of  self,  recorded  for  posterity 
with  inimitable  fidelity  all  the  sayings 
of  his  hero.  Nor  is  it  many  men 
who  would  bear  so  faithful  and  search- 
ing an  exposure.  Johnson,  like  every 
other  man,  had  his  failings ;  but  they 
were  those  of  prejudice  or  manner, 
rather  than  morals  or  conduct.  We 
wish  we  could  say  that  every  other 
eminent  literary  man  was  equally 
immaculate,  or  that  an  entire  dis- 
closure of  character  would  in  every 
case  reveal  no  more  weaknesses  or 
failings  than  have  been  brought  to 
light  by  Boswell's  faithful  chronicle. 
We  know  that  every  one  is  liable  to 
err,  and  that  no  man  is  a  hero  to  his 
valet-de-chambre.  But  being  aware 
of  all  this,  we  were  not  prepared  for 
the  immense  mass  of  weaknesses, 
follies,  and  errors,  which  have  been 
brought  to  light  by  the  indiscreet  zeal 
of  biographers,  in  the  character  of 
many  of  our  ablest  literary,  poetical, 
and  philosophical  characters.  Cer- 
tainly, if  we  look  at  the  details  of  their 
private  lives,  these  men  of  literary 
celebrity  have  had  little  title  to  set 
up  as  the  instructors,  or  to  call  them- 
selves the  benefactors  of  mankind. 
From  the  days  of  Milton,  whose 
divine  genius  was  so  deeply  tarnished 
by  the  asperity  of  his  feelings,  and 
the  unpardonable  license  in  contro- 
versy which  he  permitted  to  his 
tongue,  to  those  of  Lord  Byron,  who 
scandalised  his  country  and  the  world 
by  the  undisguised  profligacy  of  his 


1849.] 


A  utobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


297 


private  life,  the  biography  of  literary 
men,  with  a  few  brilliant  exceptions, 
— in  the  foremost  of  which  we  must 
place  Sir  Walter  Scott — consists  in 
great  part  of  a  series  of  follies,  weak- 
nesses, or  faults,  which  it  would  be 
well  for  their  memory  could  they  be 
buried  in  oblivion.  We  will  not  say 
that  the  labours  of  their  biographers 
have  been  the  Massacre  of  the  Inno- 
cents, for  truly  there  were  very  few 
innocents  to  massacre;  but  we  will 
say  that  they  have,  in  general,  done 
more  to  degrade  those  they  intended 
to  elevate,  than  the  envenomed  hosti- 
lity of  their  worst  enemies.  We  for- 
bear to  mention  names,  which  might 
give  pain  to  many  respectable  persons 
still  alive.  The  persons  alluded  to, 
and  the  truth  of  the  observation,  will 
be  at  once  understood  and  admitted 
by  every  person  acquainted  with  the 
literary  history  of  France  and  Eng- 
land during  the  last  century. 

Vanity  and  jealousy — vanity  of  them- 
selves, jealousy  of  others — are  the 
great  failings  which  have  hitherto  tar- 
nished the  character  and  disfigured  the 
biography  of  literary  men.  We  fear  it 
is  destined  to  continue  the  same  to  the 
end  of  the  world.  The  qualities  which 
contribute  to  their  greatness,  which 
occasion  their  usefulness,  which  insure 
their  fame,  are  closely  allied  to  failings 
which  too  often  disfigure  their  private 
lives,  and  form  a  blot  on  their  memory, 
when  indiscreetly  revealed  in  bio- 
graphy, either  by  themselves  or  others. 
Genius  is  almost  invariably  united  to 
susceptibility;  and  this  temperament 
is  unhappily  too  apt  to  run  into  irrita- 
bility. No  one  can  read  D'Israeli's 
essay  on  TJie  Literary  Character,  the 
most  admirable  of  his  many  admirable 
works,  without  being  convinced  of 
that.  Celebrity  of  any  sort  is  the 
natural  parent  of  vanity,  and  this 
weakness  is  in  a  peculiar  manner  fos- 
tered in  poets  and  romance  writers,  be- 
cause their  writings  interest  so  warmly 
the  fair,  who  form  the  great  dispensers 
of  general  fame,  and  convey  it  in  the 
most  flattering  form  to  the  author.  It 
would  perhaps  be  unjust  to  women  to 
say  that  poets  and  novelists  share  in 
their  weaknesses ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
their  disposition  is,  in  general,  essen- 
tially feminine,  and  that,  as  they  attract 
the  admiration  of  the  other  sex  more 
strongly  than  any  other  class  of  wri- 


ters, so  they  are  liable  in  a  peculiar 
degree  to  the  failings,  as  well  as  distin- 
guished by  the  excellencies,  by  which 
their  female  admirers  are  character- 
ised. We  may  regret  that  it  is  so : 
we  may  lament  that  we  cannot  find 
poets  and  romancers,  who  to  the  genius 
of  Byron,  or  the  fancy  of  Moore,  unite 
the  sturdy  sense  of  Johnson,  or  the 
simplicity  of  character  of  Scott :  but 
it  is  to  be  feared  such  a  combination 
is  as  rare,  and  as  little  to  be  looked  for 
in  general  life,  as  the  union  of  the 
strength  of  the  war-horse  to  the  fleet- 
ness  of  the  racer,  or  the  courage  of  the 
mastiff  to  the  delicacy  of  the  grey- 
hound .  Adam  Smith  long  ago  pointed 
out  the  distinction  between  those  who 
serve  and  those  who  amuse  mankind ; 
and  the  difference,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
exists  not  merely  between  the  philoso- 
pher and  the  opera-dancer,  but  be- 
tween the  instructors  of  men  in  every 
department  of  thought,  and  those 
whose  genius  is  devoted  rather  to  the 
pleasing  of  the  eye,  the  melting  of  the 
feelings,  or  the  kindling  of  the  imagi- 
nation. Yet  this  observation  is  only 
generally,  not  tiniversally,  true ;  and 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  remains  a  me- 
morable proof  that  it  is  possible  for  an 
artist  to  unite  the  highest  genius  and 
most  imaginative  power  of  mind  to  the 
wisdom  of  a  philosopher,  the  liberality 
of  a  gentleman,  the  benevolence  of  a 
Christian,  and  the  simplicity  of  a 
child. 

We  are  not  at  all  surprised  at  the 
intoxication  which  seizes  the  literary 
men  and  artists  whose  genius  procures 
for  them  the  favour  or  admiration  of 
women.  Everybody  knows  it  is  the 
most  fascinating  and  transporting  flat- 
tery which  the  mind  of  man  can  receive. 
But  we  confess  we  are  surprised,  and 
that  too  not  a  little,  at  the  want  of 
sense  which  so  frequently  makes  men 
even  of  the  highest  abilities  mar  the 
influence  of  their  own  genius,  and  de- 
tract from  the  well-earned  celebrity 
of  their  own  productions,  by  the  in- 
discreet display  of  this  vanity,  which 
the  applause  they  have  met  with  has 
produced  in  their  minds.  These 
gentlemen  are  charmed  with  the 
incense  they  have  received,  and  of 
course  desirous  to  augment  it,  and  ex- 
tend the  circle  from  which  it  is  to  be 
drawn.  Well,  that  is  then-  object; 
let  us  consider  what  means  they  take 


298 


Autobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


[Sept. 


to  gain  it.  These  consist  too  often  in 
the  most  undisguised  display  of  vanity 
in  their  conduct,  manner,  and  conver- 
sation. Is  this  the  way  likely  to  aug- 
ment the  admiration  which  they  enjoy 
so  much,  and  are  so  solicitous  to  ex- 
tend ?  Are  they  not  clear-sighted 
enough  to  see,  that,  holding  this  to 
be  fheir  aim,  considering  female  admi- 
ration as  the  object  of  their  aspira- 
tions, they  cannot  in  any  way  so  effec- 
tually mar  their  desires  as  by  permit- 
ting the  vanity,  which  the  portion  of 
it  they  have  already  received  has  pro- 
duced, to  appear  in  their  manner  or 
conversation?  Are  they  so  little 
versed  in  the  female  heart,  as  not  to 
know  th'at  as  self-love  acts,  if  not  in 
a  stronger  at  least  in  a  more  conspicu- 
ous way  in  them  than  in  the  other  sex, 
so  there  is  nothing  which  repels  them 
so  effectually  as  any  display  of  that 
vanity  in  men  which  they  are  all  con- 
scious of  in  themselves,  and  nothing  at- 
tracts them  so  powerfully  as  that  self- 
forgetfulness,  which,  estimable  in  all, 
is  in  a  peculiar  manner  graceful  and 
admirable  when  it  is  met  with  in 
those  whom  none  others  can  forget  ? 
Such  a  quality  is  not  properly  modesty 
— that  is  the  retiring  disposition  of 
those  who  have  notyet  won  distinction. 
No  man  who  has  done  so  is  ignorant 
of  it,  as  no  woman  of  beauty  is  in- 
sensible to  her  charms.  It  is  more 
nearly  allied  to  good  sense,  and  its 
invariable  concomitant — a  due  regard 
for  the  feelings  of  others.  It  not 
infrequently  exists,  in  the  highest 
degree,  in  those  who  have  thestrongest 
inward  consciousness  of  the  services 
they  have  rendered  to  mankind.  No 
man  was  more  unassuming  than 
Kepler,  but  he  wrote  in  reference  to 
his  great  discoveries,  and  the  neglect 
they  at  first  met  with,  "I  may 
well  be  a  century  without  a  reader, 
since  God  Almighty  has  been  six 
thousand  years  without  such  an  ob- 
server as  me."  Yet  is  this  univer- 
sally felt  to  have  been  no  unworthy 
effusion  of  vanity,  but  a  noble  ex- 
pression of  great  services  rendered  by 
one  of  his  most  gifted  creatures  to 
the  glory  of  the  Almighty.  Such 
men  as  Kepler  are  proud,  but  not 
vain,  and  proud  men  do  not  bring 
their  feelings  so  prominently  or  fre- 
quently forward  as  vain  ones  ;  for 
pride  rests  on  the  consciousness  of 


superiority,  and  needs  no  external 
support ;  vanity  arises  from  a  secret 
sense  of  weakness,  and  thirsts  for  a 
perpetual  solace  from  the  applause  of 
others. 

It  is  in  the  French  writers  that 
this  inordinate  weakness  of  literary 
men  is  most  conspicuous,  and  in 
them  it  exists  to  such  an  extent  as, 
on  this  side  of  the  Channel,  to  be  alto- 
gether ridiculous.  Every  Frenchman 
thinks  his  life  worth  recording.  It 
was  long  ago  said  that  the  number 
of  unpublished  memoirs  which  exist 
in  France,  on  the  war  of  the  League, 
would,  if  put  together,  form  a  large 
library.  If  those  relating  to  the  war 
of  the  Revolution  were  accumulated, 
we  have  no  doubt  they  would  fill  the 
Bibliotheque  du  Roi.  The  number 
already  published  exceeds  almost  the 
dimensions  of  any  private  collection 
of  books.  The  composition  and  style 
of  these  memoirs  is  for  the  most  part 
as  curious,  and  characteristic  of 
French  character,  as  their  number 
is  descriptive  of  their  ruling  passion. 
In  the  age  of  the  religious  wars,  every 
writer  of  memoirs  seems  to  have 
placed  himself  in  the  first  rank, 
Henry  IV.  in  the  second ;  in  that  of 
the  Revolution,  the  greater  part  of  the 
autobiographies  scarcely  disguise  the 
opinion,  that,  if  the  first  place  must 
be  reluctantly  conceded  to  Napoleon 
Buonaparte,  the  second  must,  beyond 
all  question,  be  assigned  to  them- 
selves. The  Abbe1  de  Pradt  expressed 
the  feeling  almost  every  one  enter- 
tained of  himself  in  France,  not  the 
sentiment  of  an  individual  man,  when 
he  said,  "  There  was  one  who  over- 
turned Napoleon,  and  that  man  was 
me."  Most  persons  in  this  country 
will  exclaim,  that  this  statement  is 
overcharged,  and  that  it  is  incredible 
that  vanity  should  so  generally  per- 
vade the  writers  of  a  whole  nation. 
If  they  will  take  the  trouble  to  read 
Lamartine's  Confidences  and  Raphael, 
containing  the  events  of  his  youth,  or 
his  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  de  1848, 
recently  published,  they  will  find  ample 
confirmation  of  these  remarks;  nor  are 
they  less  conspicuously  illustrated  by 
the  more  elaborate  Memoir es  d 'Outre 
Tombe  of  Chateaubriand,  the  name  of 
which  is  prefixed  to  this  essay. 

One  thing  is  very  remarkable,  and 
forcibly  illustrates  the  marked  differ- 


1849.] 


Autobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


299 


ence,  in  this  respect,  between  the  cha- 
racter of  the  French  and  the  English 
nation.  In  France  all  memoirs  as- 
sume the  form  of  autobiographies :  and 
so  general  is  the  thirst  for  that  species 
of  composition  that,  where  a  man  of 
any  note  has  not  compiled  his  own 
life,  his  papers  are  put  into  the 
hands  of  some  skilful  bookmaker, 
who  speedily  dresses  them  up,  in 
the  form  of  an  attractive  autobio- 
graphy. This  was  done  with  the 
papers  of  Brissot^  Robespierre,  Mar- 
shal Ney,  Fouche,  and  a  great  many 
others,  all  of  which  appeared  with  the 
name  of  their  authors,  and  richly 
stored  with  these  private  papers, 
though  it  was  morally  certain  that 
they  could  not  by  possibility  have 
written  their  own  lives.  In  England 
nothing  of  the  kind  is  attempted. 
Scarcely  any  of  the  eminent  men  in  the 
last  age  have  left  their  own  memoirs ; 
and  the  papers  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  them  have  been  published 
•without  any  attempt  at  biography. 
Thus  we  have  the  Wellington  Papers, 
the  Marlborough  Papers,  the  Nelson 
Papers,  the  Castlereagh  Papers,  pub- 
lished without  any  autobiography, 
and  only  a  slight  sketch,  though  in 
all  these  cases  very  ably  done,  of  the 
author's  life  by  their  editor.  The 
lives  of  the  other  eminent  men  of  the 
last  age  have  been  given  by  others, 
not  themselves :  as  that  of  Pitt,  by 
Tomliue  and  Gifford ;  that  of  Fox,  by 
Trotter;  that  of  Sheridan,  by  Moore  ; 
that  of  Lord  Eldon,  by  Twiss  ;  that  of 
Lord  Sidmouth,  by  Pellew.  There  is 
more  here  than  an  accidental  diversity : 
there  is  a  difference  arising  from  a 
difference  of  national  character.  The 
Englishmen  devoted  their  lives  to 
the  public  service,  and  bestowed  not 
a  thought  on  its  illustration  by  them- 
selves ;  the  French  mainly  thought  of 
themselves  when  acting  in  the  public 
service,  and  considered  it  mainly  as 
a  means  of  elevation  and  self-lauda- 
tion to  themselves. 

In  justice  to  the  literary  men  of 
France,  however,  it  must  be  stated 
that,  of  late  years  at  least,  they  have 
been  exposed  to  an  amount  of  tempta- 
tion, and  of  food  for  their  self-love, 
much  exceeding  anything  previously 
seen  among  men,  and  which  may  go 
far  to  account  for  the  extraordinary 
vanity  which  they  have  everywhere 


evinced.  In  England,  literary  distinc- 
tion is  neither  the  only  nor  the  greatest 
passport  to  celebrity.  Aristocratic 
influences  remain,  and  still  possess 
the  deepest  hold  of  the  public  mind  : 
statesmen  exist,  whose  daily  speeches 
in  parliament  render  their  names  as 
household  words.  Fashion  exercises 
an  extraordinary  and  almost  inex- 
plicable sway,  especially  over  the 
fairest  part  of  creation.  How  cele- 
brated soever  an  author  may  be,  he 
will  in  London  soon  be  brought  to  his 
proper  level,  and  a  right  appreciation 
of  his  situation.  He  will  see  himself 
at  once  eclipsed  by  an  old  nobleman, 
whose  name  is  fraught  with  historic 
glory ;  by  a  young  marquis,  who  is  an 
object  of  solicitude  to  the  mothers 
and  daughters  in  the  room;  by  a 
parliamentary  orator,  who  is  begin- 
ning to  acquire  distinction  in  the 
senate  house.  We  hold  this  state  of 
things  to  be  eminently  favourable  to 
the  right  character  of  literary  men ; 
for  it  saves  them  from  trials  before 
which,  it  is  all  but  certain,  both  their 
good  sense  ancl  their  virtue  would 
succumb.  But  in  Paris  this  salutary 
check  upon  individual  vanity  and 
presumption  is  almost  entirely  awant- 
ing.  The  territorial  aristocracy  is 
confiscated  and  destroyed;  titles  of 
honour  are  abolished ;  historic  names 
are  almost  forgotten  in  the  ceaseless 
whirl  of  present  events;  parliamentary 
orators  are  in  general  unpopular,  for 
they  are  for  the  most  part  on  the  side 
of  power.  Nothing  remains  but  the 
government  of  mind.  The  intellectual 
aristocracy  is  all  in  all. 

It  makes  and  unmakes  kings  alter- 
nately ;  produces  and  stops  revolu- 
tions ;  at  one  time  calls  a  new  race  to 
the  throne,  at  another  consigns  them 
with  disgrace  to  foreign  lands.  Cabi- 
nets are  formed  out  of  the  editors 
of  newspapers,  intermingled  with  a 
few  bankers,  whom  the  public  con- 
vulsions have  not  yet  rendered  insol- 
vent ;  prime  ministers  are  to  be  found 
only  among  successful  authors.  Thiers, 
the  editor  of  the  National  and  the 
historian  of  the  Revolution  ;  Guizot, 
the  profound  professor  of  history ; 
Villemain,  the  eloquent  annalist  of 
French  literature;  Lamartine,  the 
popular  traveller,  poet,  and  historian, 
have  been  the  alternate  prime  mini- 
sters of  France  since  the  revolution  of 


Autobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


[Sept. 


1830.  Even  the  great  name  of  Na- 
poleon cannot  save  his  nephew  from 
the  irksomeness  of  bending  to  the 
same  necessity.  He  named  Thiers 
his  prime  minister  at  the  time  of  the 
Boulogne  misadventure,  he  is  caress- 
ing him  now  in  the  salons  of  the 
Elyse"e  Bourbon.  Successful  authors 
thus  in  France  are  surrounded  with 
a  halo,  and  exposed  to  influences,  of 
which  in  this  country  we  cannot  form 
a  conception.  They  unite  in  their  per- 
sons the  fame  of  Mr  Fox  and  the  lustre 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott :  often  the  political 
power  of  Mr  Pitt  with  the  celebrity  of 
Lord  Byron.  Whether  such  a  con- 
centration is  favourable  either  to  their 
present  utility  or  lasting  fame,  and 
whether  the  best  school  to  train  au- 
thors to  be  the  instructors  of  the 
world  is  to  be  found  in  that  which 
exposes  them  to  the  combined  influence 
of  its  greatest  temptations,  are  ques- 
tions on  which  it  is  not  necessary  now 
to  enter,  but  on  which  posterity  will 
probably  have  no  difficulty  in  coming 
to  a  conclusion. 

But  while  we  fully  admit  that  these 
extraordinary  circumstances,  unparal- 
leled in  the  past  history  of  the  world, 
go  far  to  extenuate  the  blame  which 
must  be  thrown  on  the  French  writers 
for  their  extraordinary  vanity,  they 
will  not  entirely  exculpate  tham. 
Ordinary  men  may  well  be  carried 
away  by  such  adventitious  and  flatter- 
ing marks  of  their  power ;  but  we  can- 
not accept  such  an  excuse  from  the 
first  men  of  the  age — men  of  the 
clearest  intellect,  and  the  greatest  ac- 
quisitions— whose  genius  is  to  charm, 
whose  wisdom  is  to  instruct  the  world 
through  every  succeeding  age.  If  the 
teachers  of  men  are  not  to  be  above 
the  follies  and  weaknesses  which  are 
general  and  ridiculous  in  those  of 
inferior  capacity,  where  are  we  to 
look  for  such  an  exemption  ?  It  is  a 
poor  excuse  for  the  overweening  va- 
nity of  a  Byron,  a  Goethe,  a  Lamar- 
tine,  or  a  Chateaubriand,  that  a  similar 
weakness  is  to  be  found  in  a  Madame 
Grisi  or  a  Mademoiselle  Cerito,  in  the 
first  cantatrice  or  most  admired  balle- 
rina of  the  day.  We  all  know  that 
the  professors  of  these  charming  arts 
are  too  often  intoxicated  by  the  ap- 
plause which  they  meet  with ;  we 
excn.=e  or  overlook  this  weakness  from 
respect  due  to  their  genius  and  their 


sex.  But  we  know,  at  the  same  time, 
that  there  are  seme  exceptions  to  the 
general  frailty ;  and  in  one  enchanting 
performer,  our  admiration  for  talents 
of  the  very  highest  order  is  enhanced 
by  respect  for  the  simplicity  of  cha- 
racter and  generosity  of  disposition 
with  which  they  are  accompanied.  We 
might  desiderate  in  the  men  who  aspire 
to  direct  the  thoughts  of  the  world, 
and  have  received  from  nature  talents 
equal  to  the  task,  the  unaffected  single- 
ness of  heart,  and  sterling  good  sense, 
which  we  admire,  not  less  than  her  ad- 
mirable powers,  in  Mademoiselle  Jenny 
Lind. 

The  faults,  or  rather  frailties,  we 
have  alluded  to,  are  in  an  especial 
manner  conspicuous  in  two  of  the  most 
remarkable  writers  of  France  of  the 
present  century  —  Lamartine  and 
Chateaubriand.  There  is  some  excuse 
for  the  vanity  of  these  illustrious  men. 
They  have  both  acquired  an  enduring 
fame — their  names  are  known  all  over 
the  world,  and  will  continue  to  be  so 
while  the  French  language  is  spoken 
on  the  earth  ;  and  they  have  both,  by 
their  literary  talents,  been  elevated  to 
positions  far  beyond  the  rank  in  so- 
ciety to  which  they  were  born,  and 
which  might  well  make  an  ordinary 
head  reel  from  the  giddy  precipices 
with  which  it  is  surrounded.  Chateau- 
briand powerfully  aided  in  crush- 
ing Napoleon  in  1814,  when  Europe 
in  arms  surrounded  Paris  :  with 
still  more  honourable  constancy  he 
resisted  him  in  1804,  when,  in  the 
plenitude  of  his  power,  he  executed 
the  Duke  d'Enghien.  He  became 
ambassador  to  London  for  the  Resto- 
ration— minister  of  foreign  affairs,  and 
representative  of  France  at  the  Con- 
gress of  Verona.  He  it  was  who  pro- 
jected and  carried  into  execution  the 
French  invasion  of  the  Peninsula  in 
1823,  the  only  successful  expedition  of 
the  Restoration.  Lamartine's  career, 
if  briefer,  has  been  still  more  dazzling. 
He  aided  largely  in  the  movement 
which  overthrew  Louis  Philippe ;  by  the 
force  of  his  genius  he  obtained  the  mas- 
tery of  the  movement,  "struggled  with 
democracy  when  it  was  strongest,  and 
ruled  it  when  it  was  wildest ;"  and  had 
the  glory,  by  his  single  courage  and 
energy,  of  saving  the  character  of  the 
revolution  from  bloodshed,  and  coer- 
cing the  Red  Republicans  in  the  very 


1849.] 


A utobiography —  Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


301 


tumult  of  their  victory.  He  has  since 
fallen  from  power,  less  from  any  known 
delinquencies  imputed  to  him,  than 
from  the  inherent  fickleness  of  the 
French  people,  and  the  impossibility 
of  their  submitting,  for  any  length  of 
time,  to  the  lead  of  a  single  individual. 
The  autobiography  of  two  such  men 
cannot  be  other  than  interesting  and 
instructive  in  the  highest  degree;  and 
if  we  see  in  them  much  which  we  in 
England  cannot  altogether  under- 
stand, and  which  we  are  accustomed 
to  stigmatise  with  the  emphatic  epi- 
thet "French,"  there  is  much  also 
in  them  which  candour  must  respect, 
and  an  equitable  spirit  admire. 

The  great  thing  which  characterises 
these  memoirs,  and  is  sufficient  to  re- 
deem a  multitude  of  vanities  and  frail- 
ties, is  the  elevated  and  chivalrous 
spirit  in  which  they  are  composed. 
In  this  respect  they  are  a  relic,  we 
fear,  of  the  olden  time ;  a  remnant  of 
those  ancient  days  which  Mr  Burke 
has  so  eloquently  described  in  his  por- 
trait of  Marie  Antoinette.  That  is 
the  spirit  which  pervades  the  breasts  of 
these  illustrious  men  ;  and  therefore  it 
is  that  we  respect  them,  and  forgive  or 
forget  many  weaknesses  which  would 
otherwise  be  insupportable  in  their  au- 
tobiographies. It  is  a  spirit,  however, 
more  akin  to  a  former  era  than  the 
present ;  to  the  age  which  produced 
the  crusades,  more  than  that  which 
gave  birth  to  railways ;  to  the  days  of 
Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  rather  than  those 
which  raised  a  monument  to  Mr  Hud- 
son. We  are  by  no  means  convinced, 
however,  that  it  is  not  the  more  likely 
to  be  enduring  in  the  future  ages  of 
the  world  ;  at  least  we  are  sure  it  will 
be  so,  if  the  sanguine  anticipations 
everywhere  formed,  by  the  apostles 
of  the  movement  of  the  future  im- 
provement of  the  species,  are  destined 
in  any  degree  to  be  realised. 

Although,  however,  the  hearts  of 
Chateaubriand  and  Lamartine  are 
stamped  with  the  impress  of  chivalry, 
and  the  principal  charm  of  their  writ- 
ings is  owing  to  its  generous  spirit, 
yet  we  should  err  greatly  if  we  ima- 
gined that  they  have  not  shared  in  the 
influencesof  the  age  in  which  they  lived, 
and  become  largely  imbued  with  the 
more  popular  and  equalising  notions 
which  have  sprung  up  in  Europe  dur- 
ing the  last  century.  They  could  not 


have  attained  the  political  power  which 
they  have  both  wielded  if  they  had 
not  done  so  ;  for  no  man,  be  his 
genius  what  it  may,  will  ever  acquire 
a  practical  lead  among  men  unless  his 
opinions  coincide  in  the  main  with 
those  of  the  majority  by  whom,  he  is 
surrounded.  Chateaubriand's  earliest 
work,  written  in  London  in  1793— the 
Essai  Historique  —  is,  in  truth,  ra- 
ther of  a  republican  and  sceptical  ten- 
dency; and  it  was  not  till  he  had 
travelled  in  America,  and  inhaled  a 
nobler  spirit  amid  the  solitudes  of  na- 
ture, that  the  better  parts  of  his  nature 
regained  their  ascendency,  and  his 
fame  was  established  on  an  imperish- 
able foundation  by  the  publication  of 
Atala  et  Rene,  and  the  Genie  du 
Christianisme.  Throughout  his  whole 
career,  the  influence  of  his  early  liberal 
principles  remained  conspicuous :  al- 
beit a  royalist,  he  was  the  steady  sup- 
porter of  the  freedom  of  the  press  and 
the  extension  of  the  elective  suffrage ; 
and  he  kept  aloof  from  the  government 
of  Louis  Philippe  less  from  aversion 
to  the  semi-revolutionary  spirit  in 
which  it  was  cradled,  than  from  an 
honourable  fidelity  to  misfortune  and 
horror  at  the  selfish  corrupt  multitude 
by  which  it  was  soon  surrounded. 
Lamartine's  republican  principles  are 
universally  known  :  albeit  descended 
of  a  noble  family,  and  largely  imbued 
with  feudal  feelings,  he  aided  in  the 
revolt  which  overturned  the  throne  of 
Louis  Philippe  in  February  1848,  and 
acquired  lasting  renown  by  the  cour- 
age with  which  he  combated  the  san- 
guinary spirit  of  the  Red  Republicans, 
when  minister  of  foreign  affairs.  Both 
are  chivalrous  in  heart  and  feeling, 
rather  than  opinions  ;  and  they  thus 
exhibit  curious  and  instructive  in- 
stances of  the  fusions  of  the  moving 
principle  of  the  olden  time  with  the 
ideas  of  the  present,  and  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  true  spirit  of  nobility, 
forgetfulness  of  self,  can  accommodate 
itself  to  the  varying  circumstances  of 
society,  and  float,  from  its  buoyant 
tendency,  on  the  surface  of  the  most 
fetid  stream  of  subsequent  selfish- 
ness. 

In  two  works  recently  published  by 
Lamartine,  Les  Confidences  and  Ra- 
phael, certain  passages  in  his  auto- 
biography are  given.  The  first  recounts 
the  reminiscences  of  his  infancy  and 


302 


Autobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


[Sept. 


childhood;  the  second,  a  love-story 
in  his  twentieth  year.     Both  are  dis- 
tinguished by  the  peculiarities,  in  re- 
spect of  excellences  and  defects,  which 
appear  in  his  other  writings.    On  the 
one  hand  we  have  an  ardent  imagina- 
tion, great  beauty  of  language,  a  gene- 
rous heart — the  true  spirit  of  poetry — 
and  uncommon  pictorial  powers.    On 
the  other,  an  almost  entire  ignorance 
of  human  nature,  extraordinary  va- 
nity, and  that  susceptibility  of  mind 
which  is  more  nearly  allied  to  the 
feminine  than  the  masculine  character. 
Not  but  that    Lamartine  possesses 
great  energy  and  courage:  his  con- 
duct, during  the  revolution  of  1848, 
demonstrates  that  he  possesses  these 
qualities  in  a  very  high  degree  ;  but 
that  the  ardour  of  his  feelings  leads 
him  to  act  and  think  like  women,  from 
their  impulse  rather  than  the  sober 
dictates  of  reason.     He  is  a  devout 
optimist,  and  firm  believer  in  the  in- 
nocence of  human  nature,  and  indefi- 
nite perfectibility  of  mankind,  under 
the  influence  of  republican  institu- 
tions.    Like  all  other  fanatics,  he  is 
wholly  inaccessible  to  the  force  of 
reason,   and   altogether  beyond  the 
reach  of  facts,  how  strong  or  convin- 
cing soever.   Accordingly,  he  remains 
to  this  hour  entirely  convinced  of  the 
perfectibility  of  mankind,  although  he 
has  recounted,  with  equal  truth  and 
force,  that  it  was  almost  entirely  owing 
to  his  own  courage  and  energy  that 
the  revolution  was  prevented,  in  its 
very  outset,  from  degenerating  into 
bloodshed  and  massacre ;  and  a  tho- 
rough believer  in  the  ultimate  sway 
of   pacific  institutions,   although  he 
owns  that,  despite  all  his  zeal  and 
eloquence,  the  whole  provisional  go- 
vernment, with  himself  at  its  head, 
would  on  the  16th  April  have  been 
guillotined  or  thrown  into  the  Seine, 
but  for  the  determination  and  fidelity 
of  threebattalions  of  the  Garde  Mobile, 
whom   Changarnier    volunteered    to 
arrange  in  all  the  windows  and  ave- 
nues  of  the   Hotel  de  Ville,   when 
assailed  by  a  column  of  thirty  thou- 
sand furious  revolutionists. 

Chateaubriand  is  more  a  man  of 
the  world  than  Lamartine.  He  has 
passed  through  a  life  of  greater  vicis- 
situdes, and  been  much  more  fre- 
quently brought  into  contact  with 
men  in  all  ranks  and  gradations  of 


society.  He  is  not  less  chivalrous 
than  Lamartine,  but  more  practical ; 
his  style  is  less  pictorial  but  more 
statesmanlike.  The  French  of  all  shades 
of  political  opinion  agree  in  placing 
him  at  the  head  of  the  writers  of  the 
last  age.  This  high  position,  how- 
ever, is  owing  rather  to  the  detached 
passages  than  the  general  tenor  of  his 
writings,  for  their  average  style  is 
hardly  equal  to  such  an  encomium. 
He  is  not  less  vain  than  Lamartine, 
and  still  more  egotistical — a  defect 
which,  as  already  noticed,  he  shares 
with  nearly  all  the  writers  of  autobio- 
graphy in  France,  but  which  appears 
peculiarly  extraordinary  and  lament- 
able in  a  man.  of  such  talents  and 
acquirements.  His  life  abounded 
with  strange  and  romantic  adven- 
tures, and  its  vicissitudes  would  have 
furnished  a  rich  field  for  biography 
even  to  a  writer  of  less  imaginative 
powers. 

He  was  born  on  the  4th  September 
1768 — the  same  year  with  Napoleon — 
at  an  old  melancholy  chateau  on  the 
coast  of  Brittany,  washed  by  the  waves 
of  the  Atlantic  ocean.  His  mother, 
like  those  of  almost  all  other  eminent 
men  recorded  in  history,  was  a  very 
remarkable  woman,  gifted  with  a 
prodigious  memory  and  an  ardent 
imagination  —  qualities  which  she 
transmitted  in  a  very  high  degree  to 
her  son.  His  family  was  very  an- 
cient, going  back  to  the  year  1000  ; 
but,  till  illustrated  by  Francois  Rene, 
who  has- rendered  it  immortal,  the 
Chateaubriands  lived  in  unobtrusive 
privacy  on  their  paternal  acres.  After 
receiving  the  rudiments  of  education 
at  home,  he  was  sent  at  the  age  of - 
seventeen  into  the  army;  but  the 
Revolution  having  soon  after  broken 
out,  and  his  regiment  revolted,  he 
quitted  the  service  and  came  to  Paris, 
where  he  witnessed  the  horrors  of 
the  storming  of  the  Tuileries  on  the 
10th  of  August,  and  the  massacre  in 
the  prisons  on  2d  September.  Many 
of  his  nearest  relations — in  particular 
his  sister-in-law,  Madame  de  Cha- 
teaubriand, and  sister,  Madame  Ro- 
zambo — were  executed  along  with 
Malesherbes,  shortly  before  the  fall 
of  Robespierre.  Obliged  now  to  fly 
to  England,  he  lived  for  some  years  in 
London  in  extreme  poverty,  support- 
ing himself  by  his  pen.  It  was  there 


1849.] 


Autobiography —  Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


he  wrote  his  earliest  and  least  credi- 
table work,  the  Essai  Historique. 
Tired  of  such  an  obscure  and  mono- 
tonous life,  however,  he  set  out  for 
America,  with  the  Quixotic  design  of 
discovering  by  land  journey  the 
North-west  passage.  He  failed  in 
that  attempt,  for  which,  indeed,  he 
had  no  adequate  means ;  but  he  dined 
with  Washington,  and  in  the  solitudes 
of  the  Far  West  imbibed  many  of 
the  noblest  ideas,  and  found  the  sub- 
jects of  several  of  the  finest  descrip- 
tions, which  have  since  adorned  his 
works.  Finding  that  there  was  no- 
thing to  be  done  in  the  way  of  dis- 
covery in  America,  he  returned  to 
England.  Afterwards  he  went  to 
Paris,  and  there  composed  his  greatest 
works,  Atala  et  Rene  and  the  Genie 
du  Christianisme,  which  soon  acquired 
a  colossal  reputation,  and  raised  the 
author  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  lite- 
rary fame. 

Napoleon,  whose  piercing  eye  dis- 
cerned talent  wherever  it  was  to  be 
found,  now  selected  him  for  the  pub- 
lic service  in  the  diplomatic  line.  He 
gives  the  following  interesting  account 
of  the  first  and  only  interview  he  had 
with  that  extraordinary  man,  in  the 
saloon  of  his  brother  Lucien  : — 

"  I  was  in  the  gallery  when  Napoleon 
entered  ;  his  appearance  struck  me  with 
an  agreeable  surprise.  I  had  never  pre- 
viously seen  him  but  at  a  distance.  His 
smile  was  sweet  and  encouraging  ;  his 
eye  beautiful,  especially  from  the  way  in 
which  it  was  overshadowed  by  the  eye- 
brows. He  had  no  charlatanism  in  his 
looks,  nothing  affected  or  theatrical  in  his 
manner.  The  Genie  du  Christianisme, 
which  at  that  time  was  making  a  great 
deal  of  noise,  had  produced  its  effect  on 
Napoleon.  A  vivid  imagination  animated 
his  cold  policy  ;  he  would  not  have  been 
what  he  was  if  the  Muse  had  not  been 
there  ;  reason  in  him  worked  out  the 
ideas  of  a  poet.  All  great  men  are  com- 
posed of  two  natures — for  they  must  be 
at  once  capable  of  inspiration  and  action, 
— the  one  conceives,  the  other  executes. 

"  Buonaparte  saw  me,  and  knew  me  I 
know  not  how.  When  he  moved  towards 
me,  it  was  not  known  whom  he  sought. 
The  crowd  opened;  every  one  hoped  the 
First  Consul  would  stop  to  converse  with 
him ;  his  air  showed  that  he  was  irritated 
at  these  mistakes.  I  retired  behind  those 


303 

around  me;  Buonaparte  suddenly  raised 
his  voice,  and  called  out,  "  Monsieur  de 
Chateaubriand."  I  then  remained  alone  in 
front;  for  the  crowd  instantly  retired,  and 
re-formed  in  a  circle  around  us.  Buona- 
parte addressed  me  with  simplicity,  with- 
out questions,  preamble,  or  compliments. 
He  began  speaking  about  Egypt  and  the 
Arabs,  as  if  I  had  been  his  intimate 
friend,  and  he  had  only  resumed  a  con- 
versation already  commenced  betwixt  us. 
'  I  was  always  struck,'  said  he,  '  when  I 
saw  the  Scheiks  fall  on  their  knees  in 
the  desert,  turn  towards  the  east,  and 
touch  the  sand  with  their  foreheads. 
What  is  that  unknown  thing  which  they 
adore  in  the  east  ?'  Speedily  then  pass- 
ing to  another  idea,he  said, '  Christianity! 
the  Ideologues  wished  to  reduce  it  to  a 
system  of  astronomy  !  Suppose  it  were 
so,  do  they  suppose  they  would  render 
Christianity  little?  Were  Christianity 
only  an  allegory  of  the  movement  of  the 
spheres,  the  geometry  of  the  stars,  the 
esprits  forts  would  have  little  to  say  : 
despite  themselves,  they  have  left  suffi- 
cient grandeur  to  VInfame'  * 

"  Buonaparte  immediately  withdrew. 
Like  Job  in  the  night,  I  felt  as  if  a  spirit 
had  passed  before  me;  the  hairs  of  my 
flesh  stood  up.  I  did  not  know  its  coun- 
tenance ;  but  I  heard  its  voice  like  a  little 
whisper. 

"  My  days  have  been  an  uninterrupted 
succession  of  visions.  Hell  and  heaven 
continually  have  opened  under  my  feet,  or 
over  my  head,  without  my  having  had  time 
to  sound  their  depths,  or  withstand  their 
dazzling.  I  have  met  once,  and  once 
only,  on  the  shores  of  the  two  worlds,  the 
man  of  the  last  age,  and  the  man  of  the 
new — Washington  and  Napoleon — I  con- 
versed a  few  moments  with  each — both 
sent  me  back  to  solitude — the  first  by  a 
kind  wish,  the  second  by  an  execrable 
crime. 

"  I  remarked  that,  in  moving  through 
the  crowd,  Buonaparte  cast  on  me  looks 
more  steady  and  penetrating  than  he  had 
done  before  he  addressed  me.  I  followed 
him  with  my  eyes. 

'  Who  is  that  great  man  -who  cares  not 
For  conflagrations  ?'"f— (Vol.  iv.  118-121.) 

This  passage  conveys  a  just  idea  of 
Chateaubriand's  Memoirs :  his  eleva- 
tion of  mind,  his  ardent  imagination, 
his  deplorable  vanity.  In  justice  to 
so  eminent  a  man,  however,  we  tran- 
scribe a  passage  in  which  the  noble- 
ness of  his  character  appears  in  its 
true  lustre,  untarnished  by  the  weak- 


*  Alluding  to  the  name  VInfame,  given  by  the  King  of  Prussia,  D'Alembert,  and 
Diderot,  in  their  correspondences,  to  the  Christian  religion, 
t  Dante. 


301 


Autobiography — Chateaubriand's  Memoirs. 


[Sept. 


nesses  which  so  often  disfigure  the  cha- 
racter of  men  of  genius.  We  allude  to 
his  courageous  throwing  down  the 
gauntlet  to  Napoleon,  on  occasion  of 
the  murder  of  the  Duke  d'Enghien : — 

"  Two  days  before  the  fatal  20th  March, 
I  dressed  myself,  before  taking  leave  of 
Buonaparte,  on  my  way  to  the  Valais, 
to  which  I  had  received  a  diplomatic  mis- 
sion; I  had  not  seen  him  since  the  time 
when  he  had  spoken  to  me  at  the  Tuile- 
ries.  The  gallery  where  the  reception 
was  going  on  was  full ;  he  was  accom- 
panied by  Murat  and  his  aide-de-camp. 
When  he  approached  me,  I  was  struck 
with  an  alteration  in  his  countenance : 
his  cheeks  were  fallen  in,  of  a  livid  hue ; 
his  eyes  stern ;  his  colour  pale ;  his  air 
sombre  and  terrible.  The  attraction 
which  had  formerly  drawn  me  towards 
him  was  at  an  end  ;  instead  of  awaiting, 
I  fled  his  approach.  He  cast  a  look  to- 
wards me,  as  if  he  sought  to  recognise  me, 
moved  a  few  steps  towards  me,  turned, 
and  disappeared.  Returned  to  the  Hotel 
de  France,  I  said  to  several  of  my  friends, 
'  Something  strange,  which  I  do  not  know, 
must  have  happened :  Buonaparte  could 
not  have  changed  to  such  a  degree  unless 
he  had  been  ill.'  Two  days  after,  at 
eleven  in  the  forenoon,  I  heard  a  man  cry 
in  the  streets — '  Sentence  of  the  military 
commission  convoked  at  Vincennes,  which 
has  condemned  to  the  pain  of  DEATH 
Louis  Antoine  Henri  de  Bourbon,  born 
2d  August  1772  at  Chantilly.'  That  cry 
fell  on  me  like  a  clap  of  thunder:  it 
changed  my  life  as  it  changed  that  of  Na- 
poleon. I  returned  home,  and  said  to 
Madame  de  Chateaubriand — '  The  Duke 
d'Enghien  has  just  been  shot.'  I  sat 
down  to  a  table  and  began  to  write  my 
resignation — Madame  de  Chateaubriand 
made  no  opposition  :  she  had  a  great  deal 
of  courage.  She  was  fully  aware  of  my 
danger:  the  trial  of  Moreau  and  Georges 
Cadoudal  was  going  on:  the  lion  had 
tasted  blood :  it  was  not  the  moment  to 
irritate  him."— (Vol.  iv.  228-229.) 

After  this  honourable  step,  which 
happily  passed  without  leading  to 
Chateaubriand's  being  shot,  he  tra- 
velled to  the  East,  where  he  visited 
Greece,  Constantinople,  the  Holy 
Land,  and  Egypt,  and  collected  the 
materials  which  have  formed  two  of 
his  most  celebrated  works,  L1  Itineraire 
a  Jerusalem,  and  Les  Martyrs.  He 
returned  to  France,  but  did  not  appear 
in  public  life  till  the  Allies  conquered 
Paris  in  1814,  where  he  composed  with 
extraordinary  rapidity  his  famous 
pp^iphlet  entitled  Buonaparte  and  the 
rtourbons,  which  had  so  powerful  an 


effect  in  bringing  about  the  Restora- 
tion. The  royalists  were  now  in 
power,  and  Chateaubriand  was  too 
important  a  man  to  be  overlooked.  In 
1821  he  was  sent  as  ambassador  to 
London,  the  scene  of  his  former 
penury  and  suffering ;  in  1823  he  was 
made  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and 
in  that  capacity  projected,  and  success- 
fully carried  through,  the  expedition 
to  Spain  which  reseated  Ferdinand  on 
the  throne  of  his  ancestors;  and  he 
was  afterwards  the  plenipotentiary  of 
France  at  the  congress  of  Verona  in 
1824.  He  was  too  liberal  a  man  to  be 
employed  by  the  administration  of 
Charles  X.,  but  be  exhibited  an  hon- 
ourable constancy  to  misfortune  on 
occasion  of  the  Revolution  of  1830.  He 
was  offered  the  portfolio  of  Foreign 
Affairs  if  he  would  abstain  from  oppo- 
sition ;  but  he  refused  the  proposal^ 
made  a  last  noble  and  eloquent  speech 
in  favour  of  his  dethroned  sovereign  in 
the  Chamber  of  Peers;  and,  withdraw- 
ing into  privacy,  lived  in  retirement, 
engaged  in  literary  pursuits,  and  in  the 
composition  or  revising  of  his  numer- 
ous publications,  till  his  death,  which 
occurred  in  June  1848. 

Such  a  life  of  such  a  man  cannot  be 
other  than  interesting,  for  it  unites 
the  greatest  possible  range  and  variety 
of  events  with  the  reflections  of  a 
mind  of  great  power,  ardent  imagina- 
tion, and  extensive  erudition.  His 
autobiography,  or  Memoires  d1  Outre 
Tombe,  as  it  is  called,  was  accord- 
ingly looked  for  with  great  inte- 
rest, which  has  not  been  sensibly 
diminished  by  the  revolution  of  1848, 
which  has  brought  a  new  set  of  poli- 
tical actors  on  the  stage.  Foul- 
volumes  only  have  hitherto  been  pub- 
lished, but  the  rest  may  speedily  be 
looked  for,  now  that  the  military 
government  of  Prince  Louis  Napoleon 
has  terminated  that  of  anarchy  in 
France.  The  three  first  volumes  cer- 
tainly disappointed  us :  chiefly  from 
the  perpetual  and  offensive  vanity 
which  they  exhibited,  and  the  num- 
ber of  details,  many  of  them  of  a 
puerile  or  trifling  character,  which 
they  contained.  The  fourth  volume, 
however,  from  which  the  preceding 
extracts  have  been  taken,  exhibits 
Chateaubriand,  in  many  places,  in  his 
original  vigour ;  and  if  the  succeeding 
ones  are  of  the  same  stamp,  we  pro- 
pose to  return  to  them. 


1819.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.    Part  IV. 


305 


THE  GREEN  HAND. 


A  "SHORT"  TARN.     PART  iv. 


"  You  must  surely  be  tired  by  this 
time,  ma'am,  of  this  long-winded 
yarn  of  mine  ?  "  said  the  commander  of 
the  Gloucester  to  the  elder  of  his  fair 
listeners,  next  evening  they  met  with 
the  evident  expectation  of  hearing 
further ;  "  but  after  all,  this  must  be 
dull  work  for  you  at  present,  so  I 
daresay  you  are  amused  with  any- 
thing by  way  of  a  change. 

"  Well,  one  morning  when 

Westwood  and  I  went  on  deck,  it  was 
a  stark  staring  calm ;  as  dead  as  a 
mill-pond,  save  for  the  long  winding 
heave  that  seemed  to  come  miles  up 
out  of  the  stale  blue  water,  and  get 
tired  with  the  journey — from  the 
horizon  to  us  in  one  lazy  coil,  and  on 
every  side,  just  serving  to  jerk  the 
wheel  a  spoke  back  and  forward,  with 
nobody  at  it.  The  very  bits  of 
pumpkin-paring  and  fat  which  the 
cook  had  thrown  overboard  the  night 
before,  lay  still  alongside,  with  an 
oily  track  oozing  round  about  them 
from  the  '  slush,'  * — the  sails  hang- 
ing from  the  yards,  up  and  down, 
like  clothes  on  a  screen — and  when 
you  looked  over  the  side  away  from 
the  sun,  yoti  saw  your  own  face,  like 
a  fellow's  that  had  been  long  drowned, 
peering  back  at  you  as  it  were  round 
the  keel — in  fact,  there  you  scarce 
knew  where  the  water  was.  Some- 
how or  other  the  ship  kept  sheering 
round,  by  little  and  little,  till,  although 
one  had  chosen  a  shady  spot,  all  of  a 
sudden  the  blazing  sun  came  right 
into  his  eyes  ;  or  the  single  streak  of 
white  cloud  laying  behind  you,  to  star- 
board, a  while  after  stuck  itself  before 
your  face  from  the  very  opposite 
quarter — you  fancying,  too,  you  had 
your  eye  the  whole  time  on  the  same 
bit  of  water.  Being  lost  in  a  wood 
or  a  fog  was  nothing  to  it,  especially 
with  the  sun  at  noon  drawn  up  right 
overhead,  so  that  you  couldn't  look 
aloft,  and  staring  down  into  the  sea 
out  of  a  pool  of  bright  light ;  "  like 
one  tremendously  keen  little  eye,"  as 
some  of  the  passengers  said,  "  ex- 


amining a  big  blind  one."  "  Why," 
put  in  one  of  the  "  writers,"  "  I  fear 
he  wants  to  take  the  mote  out  of  his 
brother's  eyCj — this  vessel,  that  is  to 
say  !  "  "  Hang  it,  I  hope  not ! "  said 
Winterton,  rather  alarmed.  "  He 
promises  well  to  do  it,  then,"  said 
another  young  civilian,  "  but  I  wish 
he'd  take  the  beam  out  of  his  own, 
first— ha,  Smythe?"  However,  few 
men  have  the  spirit  to  laugh  at  little 
in  a  calm  near  the  Line,  so  Smythe 
gave  no  more  than  a  sickly  grin,  while 
Westwood  looked  the  clergyman  very 
properly. 

Both  passengers  and  crew,  all  of  us 
that  could  swim,  gave  wistful  looks  now 
and  then  alongside  at  the  ,water,  hot 
as  it  seemed,  for  a  bathe ;  just  floating 
up,  as  it  were,  with  the  mere  huge 
size  of  it,  under  a  dazzle  of  light,  and 
so  blue  and  smooth  you  could'nt  see  a 
hair'sbreadth  below ;  while,  a  bit  off, 
the  face  of  it,  and  the  very  air,  ap- 
peared to  dance  and  quiver  like  little 
streams  of  glass.  However,  all 
thoughts  of  bathing  were  put  out  of 
your  head  when  you  saw  the  black 
three-cornered  affair,  with  a  rake  aft, 
somewhat  like  the  end  of  a  scythe,  that 
went  steering  slowly  round  us ;  then 
cruising  hither  and  thither,  till  its 
infernal  horn  was  as  dry  as  the  deck ; 
and  at  times  driving  straight  off,  as  if 
it  ran  in  a  groove  through  the  level 
surface,  when  back  again  it  came 
from  the  other  side,  creeping  lazily 
towards  us,  till  it  sank  with  a  light 
tip,  and  a  circle  or  two  on  the  blue 
water.  The  hook  and  chain  were 
hanging  up  and  down  over  the  taffrail, 
with  the  piece  of  rank  pork  looking 
green  in  the  shadow  near  the  rudder, 
where  you  read  the  white  figures  of 
her  draught  as  plain  as  in  dock  ;  but 
the  shark,  a  fifteen-feet  customer,  if 
he  was  an  inch,  was  too  knowing  to 
have  touched  it.  *'  Pity  he's  gone, 
Collins,"  said  Ford  to  me,  after  we 
had  watched  him  at  last  out  of  sight ; 
"  wasn't  there  any  plan  of  catching 
him,  I  wonder !  Now  we  shall  have  a 


Cook's  grease. 


306 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


[Sept. 


bathe  though,  at  any  rate."  "  Gone?" 
said  I,  "  lie  won't  leave  us  in  a  huny, 
if  we  don't  leave  him ! "  "  Fob,  man ! " 
said  Ford,  "  I  tell  you  he's  tired  out 
and  gone  away  !"  Five  minutes  after, 
Ford  was  leaning  over  the  quarter, 
and  wiping  his  face,  while  he  fanned 
himself  with  his  straw-hat,  which  fell 
out  of  his  hand  into  the  water.  He  had 
got  over  into  the  mizen-chains  to 
throw  a  line  round  it,  when  he  gave  a 
loud  shriek,  and  jumped  in-board 
again.  Two  or  three  fathoms  of 
green  came  up  from  the  keel,  balan- 
cing on  a  pair  of  broad  fins  under 
Ford's  hat,  and  a  big  round  snout 
touched  it ;  then  a  dozen  feet  of  white 
belly  gleamed  in  the  water,  the  hat 
gave  a  gulp  as  it  was  drawn  down, 
and  a  few  small  air-bells  rose  to  the 
top.  "  He  prefers  some  flavours  to 
others  you  see,  Ford,"  said  I.  "  'Tis 
the  second  hat  I've  seen  yon  lose :  I 
hope  your  head  won't  be  in  the  third; 
but  you  mariners,  you  see /'how- 
ever Ford  had  bolted  to  his  cabin. 
On  turning  round  I  perceived  Miss 
Hyde  with  the  General's  lady  under 
the  awning  on  the  other  side,  where 
the  old  lady  leant  against  a  cushion, 
with  her  hands  crossed,  and  her  bon- 
net-strings loose — though  a  strapping 
raw-boned  Irishwoman  she  was  — 
and  kept  Miss  Hyde's  maid  fanning 
her  from  behind  with  a  large  feather 
punkah.  The  old  lady  had  started  at 
Ford's  cry,  and  gave  a  look  round  at 
me,  half  fierce  and  half  order- wise,  as 
if  she  expected  to  know  what  was  the 
matter  at  once.  "  Only  my  friend 
lost  his  hat,  ma'am,"  said  I,  stepping 
forward.  "  These  cadets  are  so  tay- 
gious,  my  dear!"  said  she  to  the 
young  lady,  falling  back  again  with- 
out the  least  other  notice  of  me. 
il  They  plague  the  life  of  me,  but  the 
brigadier  can't  drill  them  as  he  would 
if  this  were  a  troop-ship — I  wish  he 
could,  for  the  sake  of  the  profession ! 
— now,  my  dear,  d/*o  kape  out  of  the 
s-hun!"  However  I  stuck  where  I 
•was,  fancying  I  caught  the  slightest 
bit  of  an  arch  twinkle  in  the  corner  of 
the  young  lady's  eye,  though  she 
didn't  look  at  me.  "  Keep  going, 
can't  ye ! "  said  the  old  lady  crossly 
to  the  maid.  "  No,  ma'am,  indeed !" 
said  the  girl,  glancing  over  to  her 
young  mistress,  "  I'm  ready  to  drop !" 
"  Send  up  papa's  kitmagar,  then, 


Wilkins,"  said  Miss  Hyde ;  and  the 
girl  went  off  toward  the  gallery  stair, 
muttering  she  "  hoped  she  didn't  come 
— here  to  be — made  a  black  Indian 
slave  of— at  least  to  an  old" — the  re- 
mainder being  lost  in  the  stair.  As  I 
leant  on  the  rail-netting,  behind  the 
old  lady,  I  happened  to  tread  on  her 
fat  pug-dog's  tail,  whereupon  the  ugly 
brute  made  its  teeth  meet  without 
further  notice  in  the  small  of  my  leg, 
after  which  it  gave  a  yelp,  and  ran 
beneath  the  chairs.  "  What's  that, 
Die?"  exclaimed  its  mistress :  "good 
hivens  !  is  that  same  griffin  here  yet, 
my  dear !  Hadn't  he  ay  v en  the  spirit  to 
take  a  hint  ? — I  say,  was  it  you  hurt 
Dianny.  young  man?"  "  Oh,  dear  ! 
no,  ma'am,  not  for  the  world ! "  said 
I,  looking  at  my  trousers,  hard  as 
the  thing  was  to  stand,  but  thinking  to 
smooth  her  over,  though  Iwas'nt  quite 
up  to  the  old  Irishwoman,  it  turned 
out.  "Ha!  ha!  so  she  bit  yon?" 
said  she,  with  a  flash  of  her  hawk's- 
eye,  and  leaning  back  again  coolly : 
"  If  he'd  only  kicked  poor  Die  for 
it  under  my  chair,  now,  I'd  have 
forgiven  him ;  but  he  hadn't  ayven 
the  heart  at  the  time  to  drop  her  a 
curse, — and  /  thinking  all  the  while, 
too,  by  the  luke  of  his  eye,  he  was 
from  the  county  Clare  !  My  heart 
warms  to  the  county  Clare  always, 
because,  although  I'm  not  Irish  my- 
self, you  know,  I'd  once  a  schoolfellow 
was  born  in  it — without  counting  all 
my  relations  !  Oh,  the  smooth  spal- 
peen!" continued  she,  harder  than 
•before,  glancing  at  me  as  I  looked  all 
abroad  from  one  to  the  other ; — "  lis- 
ten, niver  you  let  that  fellow  spake  to 

you,  my  dear!  he's  too ."      But 

here  I  walked  quietly  off,  to  put  the 
poop's  length  betwixt  me  and  the 
talking  old  vixen,  cursing  her  and  her 
dog  both,  quite  enough  to  have  pleased 
her  Irish  fancy. 

On  the  quarterdeck,  the  Judge  and 
the  General  seemed  to  enjoy  the  heat 
and  quiet,  sitting  with  their  feet  up 
before  the  round-house,  and  smoking 
their  long  red-twisted  hookahs,  while 
they  watched  the  wreaths  of  smoke  go 
whirling  straight  up  from  the  bowls  to 
the  awning,  and  listened  to  the  faint 
bubble  of  it  through  the  water  in  the 
bottles,  just  dropping  a  word  now  and 
then  to  each  other.  A  tall  thin  "  na- 
tive" sen-ant,  with  long  sooty  hair 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand.— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


307 


hanging  from  his  snow-Avhite  turban, 
stood  behind  the  Judge's  chair,  bolt 
upright,  with  his  arras  folded,  and 
twice  as  solemn  as  Sir  Charles  him- 
self: you  saw  a  stern-window  shining 
far  abaft,  through  one  of  the  round- 
house doors,  and  the  fat  old  fellow  of 
a  consumah*  busy  laying  the  cloth  for 
tiffin,  while  the  sole  breath  of  air 
there  was  came  out  of  there- away. 

Suddenly  eight  bells  struck,  and 
every  one  seemed  glad  of  something 
new ;  the  Judge's  consumah  came  out 
salaaming  to  say  tiffin  was  ready ; 
the  cuddy  passengers  went  below  for 
wine-and- water  and  biscuit ;  and  the 
men  were  at  dinner.  There  being 
nothing  to  take  care  of  on  deck,  and 
the  heat  of  course  getting  greater,  not 
a  soul  staid  up  but  myself ;  but  I  pre- 
ferred at  the  moment  lighting  a 
cheroot,  and  going  up  aft  to  see  clear 
of  the  awnings.  The  cockatoo  had 
been  left  on  the  poop-rail,  with  his 
silver  chain  hitched  round  one  of  the 
mizen  back-stays,  where  it  shifted 
from  one  leg  to  the  other,  hooked 
itself  up  the  back-stay  as  far  as  it 
could  go,  then  hurried  down  again, 
and  mused  a  bit,  as  wise  as  Solomon, 
— then  screamed  out  at  the  top  of  its 
voice — "  Tip — tip — pr-r-retty  cacka 
— tip-poo  —  cok-ka  —  whee-yew-ew- 
ew!"  finishing  by  a  whistle  of  tri- 
umph fit  to  have  split  one's  ears,  or 
brought  a  gale  of  wind — though  not 
on  account  of  skill  in  its  books,  at  any 
rate.  Again  it  took  to  swinging 
quietly  head-down,  at  a  furious  rate, 
and  then  slewed  upright  to  plume  its 
feathers,  and  shake  the  pink  tuft  on 
its  head.  No  sooner  had  I  got  up  the 
stair,  however,  than,  to  my  perfect 
delight,  I  saw  Violet  Hyde  was  still 
sitting  aft,  and  the  old  Irishwoman 
gone ;  so  I  stepped  to  the  taffrail  at 
once,  and,  for  something  to  be  about, 
I  hauled  up  the  shark-hook  from 
astern.  The  moment  I  caught  her 
eye,  the  young  lady  smiled — by  way 
of  making  up,  no  doubt,  for  the  old 
one.  "  How. very  lonely  it  is  !"  said 
she,  rising  and  looking  out;  "  the 
ship  almost  seems  deserted,  except  by 
us!"  "  By  Jove!  I  almost  wish  it 
were,"  thought  I.  "  A  dead  calm, 
madam,"  I  said,  "  and  likely  to  hold 
— the  under-swell's  gone  quite  down, 


and  a  haze  growing."  "  Are  we  sure 
ever  to  leave  this  spot  then?"  asked 
she,  with  a  slight  look  of  anxiety. 
"  Never  fear  it,  ma'am,"  said  I ;  "as 
soon  as  the  haze  melts  again,  we're 
near  a  breeze  I  assure  you — only,  by 
the  length  of  the  calm  and  the  heat 
together,  not  to  speak  of  our  being  so 
far  to  east'ard,  I'm  afraid  we  mayn't 
get  rid  of  it  without  a  gale  at  the  end 
to  match."  "  Indeed?"  said  Miss 
Hyde.  The  fact  was,  Westwood  and 
I  had  been  keeping  a  log,  and  calcu- 
lated just  now  we  were  somewhere  to 
south-eastward  of  Ascension ;  where- 
as, by  the  captain  and  mate's  reckon- 
ing, she  was  much  farther  to  west. 
"  I  never  thought  the  sea  could  ap- 
pear so  awful,"  said  she,  as  if  to  her- 
self— "  much  more  than  in  a  storm." 
"  Why,  madam,"  said  I,  "  you 
haven't  exactly  seen  one  this  voyage 
— one  needs  to  be  close-hauled  off  the 
Cape  for  that."  Somehow  or  other, 
in  speaking  to  her,  by  this  time  I  for- 
got entirely  about  keeping  up  the 
sham  cadet,  and  slipped  into  my  own 
way  again;  so  all  at  once  I  felt  her 
two  dark-blue  eyes  looking  at  me 
curiously.  "How! — why,"  exclaimed 
she  suddenly,  and  then  laughing, 
"  you  seem  to  know  all  about  it ! — 
why,  you  speak — have  you  been  stu- 
dying sea  affairs  so  thoroughly,  sir, 
with  your  friend,  who — but  I  do  think, 
now,  one  can  scarcely  trust  to  what 
you  have  said?"  "Well  —  why — 
well,"  said  I,  fiddling  with  the  shark- 
hook,  "  I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  I 
feel  as  if  I  must  have  been  at  sea 
some  time  or  other  before  ; — you 
wouldn't  suppose  it,  ma'am,  but  when- 
ever I  fix  my  eyes  on  a  particular 
rope,  I  seem  almost  to  know  the  name 
of  it!"  "And  its  use,  too?"  asked 
she,  merrily.  "  I  shouldn't  wonder!" 
said  I ;  "  perhaps  I  was  born  at  sea, 
you  know,  ma'am  ?"  and  I  gave  a  side- 
look  to  notice  how  she  took  it.  "  Ah ! 
perhaps  ! "  said  Miss  Hyde,  laughing ; 
"  but  do  you  know  one  sometimes 
fancies  these  things  ;  and  now  I  think 
of  it,  sir,  I  even  imagined  for  a  moment 
I  had  seen  yourself  before !"  "  Oh," 
said  I,  "  that  couldn't  be  the  case ;  I'm 
sure,  for  my  part,  I  should  recollect 
clear  enough  if  I'd  seen — a — a  lady 
anywhere !  I  think  you  said  something 


*  East-Indian  steward. 


308 


Tlie  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


[Sept. 


of  the  kind,  ina'am,  that  night  of  the 
last  squall — about  the  water  and  the 
clouds,  ma'am,  you  remember?"  The 
young  lady  looked  away,  though  a  no- 
tion seemed  to  flash  through  her  mind. 
"  Yes,"  said  she,  "  that  terrible  rain — 
you  were "  "  Washed  into  the  lee- 
scuppers,"  said  I,  indifferently,  for  I 
didn't  want  her  to  suspect  it  was  / 
that  had  kissed  her  hand  in  the  dark 
as  I  carried  her  in.  "I  hope  Sir 
Charles  and  yourself  got  in  safe, 
madam?"  However,  she  was  watching 
the  water  alongside,  and  suddenly  she 
exclaimed  —  "  Dear !  what  a  pretty 
little  fish  !"  "  By  heavens  !"  said  I, 
seeing  the  creature  with  its  sharp  nose 
and  blue  bars,  as  it  glanced  about  near 
the  surface,  and  then  swam  in  below 
the  ship's  bilge  again,  "  that's  one  of 
the  old  villain's  pilots — he's  lying  right 
across  our  keel !  I  wish  I  could  catch 
that  shark !"  The  pork  was  of  no  use 
for  such  an  old  sea-lawyer,  and  I  cast 
a  wistful  eye  on  the  Irishwoman's  fat 
pug-dog  stretched  asleep  on  her  shawl 
by  the  bulwark ;  she  was  far  gone  in 
the  family  way,  and,  thought  I,  "  he'd 
take  that  in  a  trice !"  I  even  laid  out 
some  marline  from  a  stern-locker,  and 
noticed  how  neatly  one  could  pass  the 
hook  under  her  belly  round  to  the 
tail,  and  seize  her  so  snugly  on, 
muzzled  and  all ;  but  it  was  no  go, 
with  the  devil  to  pay  afterwards.  All 
of  a  sudden  I  heard  somebody  hawking 
and  spitting  above  the  awning  forward, 
near  where  the  cockatoo  kept  still  try- 
ing to  master  his  own  name.  "  The 
Yankee,  for  a  thousand !"  thought  I, 
"  is  Daniel  trying  to  walk  along  the 
spanker-boom !"  Next,  some  one  sung 
out,  "  Hal-loo-oo-oo !"  as  if  there  was 
a  tomahawk  over  him,  ready  to  split 
his  brain.  Miss  Hyde  looked  alarmed, 
when  the  Scotch  mate,  as  I  thought, 
roared,  "  Shiver  my  tops'ls  !"  then  it 
was  a  sailor  hailing  gruffly,  "  Bloody 
Capting  Brown  —  bloody  Capting 
Brown,  damn  your — Capting  Brown!" 
"  Somebody  drunk  aloft!"  thought  I, 
walking  forward  to  see ;  when  a  funny 
little  black  head  peeped  round  the 
awning,  with  a  yellow  nose  as  sharp  as 
a  marlinspike,  and  red  spectacles, 


seemingly,  round  its  keen  little  eyes ; 
then,  with  a  flutter  and  a  hop,  the 
steward's  pet  Mina-bird  came  down, 
and  lighted  just  under  the  cockatoo. 
"Ha!"  said  I,  laughing,  "it's  only 
Parson  Barnacle !"  as  the  men  called 
him — a  sooty  little  creature  scarce  big- 
ger than  a  blackbird,  with  a  white 
spot  on  each  wing,  and  a  curious  pair 
of  natural  glasses  on  his  head,  which 
they  kept  in  the  forecastle  and  taught 
all  sorts  of  "jaw,"  till  they  swore  he 
could  have  put  the  ship  about,  took 
kindly  to  tar,  and  hunted  the  cock- 
roaches like  a  cat.  No  doubt  he  was 
glad  to  meet  his  countryman  the 
cockatoo,  but  Tippoo  stuck  up  his 
crest,  swelled  his  chops,  and  looked 
dreadfully  frightened ;  while  the  Mina- 
bird*  cocked  his  head  on  one  side, 
gave  a  knowing  wink  as  it  were, 
though  all  the  time  as  grave  with  his 
spectacles  as  a  real  parson.  "  How's 
her  head?"  croaked  he,  in  a  voice  like 
a  quarter-master's,  "  blowing  hard !" 
"  Damn  Capting  Brown !"  and  hopped 
nearer  to  the  poor  cockatoo,  who  could 
stand  it  no  longer,  but  hooked  himself 
up  the  backstay  as  fast  as  possible,  out 
of  sight,  the  chain  running  with  him  : 
and  just  as  I  swung  myself  clear  of  the 
awning  to  run  aloft  for  a  catch  of  it, 
out  flew  Parson  Barnacle  to  the  end  of 
the  crojack-yard,  while  the  cockatoo 
gave  a  flap  that  loosed  the  kitmagar's 
lubberly  hitch,  and  sent  him  down  with 
his  wings  spread  on  the  water.  At 
another  time  it  wouldn't  have  cost  me 
a  thought  to  go  head-foremost  after 
him,  when  I  heard  his  young  mistress 
exclaiming,  "Oh,  poor  dear  Tippoo 
will  be  drowned !"  but  recollecting  our 
hungry  green  friend  on  the  other  side, 
I  jumped  down  for  the  end  of  a  rope 
to  slip  myself  quietly  alongside  with. 
However,  at  the  very  moment,  Tom 
the  man-o' -war's  man  happening  to 
come  up  from  the  fore-hatchway  to 
throw  something  overboard,  and  seeing 
Miss  Hyde's  cockatoo,  off  went  his 
shoes  and  jacket  at  once,  and  I  heard 
the  splash  as  he  struck  the  water.  I 
had  scarce  time  to  think,  either,  before 
I  saw  Mick  O'Hooney's  red  head  shoot 
up  on  deck,  and  heard  him  sing  out, 


*  Mina-bird,  or  Grakle  ;  a  frequent  pet  in.  homeward-bound  East  Indiamen,  and 
singular  for  its  mimetic  faculty ;  but  impudent,  and,  from  educational  disadvantages, 
not  particularly  select  in  its  expressions :  appearance  as  described  by  the 
lieutenant. 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yam.     Part  IV. 


1849.] 

*'  Man  overboard,  be  the  powers,  boys ! 
Folly  my  lader  !  Hurroo !"  and  over 
he  sprang.  "  Here's  dip,"  said  another, 
and  in  half  a  minute  every  man  that 
could  swim  was  floundering  in  the 
smooth  water  alongside,  or  his  head 
showing  as  it  came  up, — pitching  the 
cockatoo  to  each  other,  and  all  ready 
to  enjoy  their  bathe  ;  though,  for  my 
part,  I  made  but  one  spring  to  the 
ship's  starboard  quarter,  to  use  the 
only  chance  of  saving  the  thoughtless 
fellows  from  a  bloody  fate  to  some  of 
them.  I  knew  the  shark  would  be 
cautious  at  first,  on  such  a  sudden  to- 
do,  and  I  had  marked  his  whereabouts 
while  the  men  were  all  well  toward  the 
bows;  and  "hang  it!,"  thought  I, 
seeing  the  old  woman's  fat  pug  in  my 
way,  "  Dianny,  or  die-all ;  I  bear  no 
malice,  but  you  must  go  for  it,  my 
beauty !"  As  quick  as  thought,  I  made 
one  turn  of  marline  round  her  nose, 
took  off  the  pork,  and  lashed  her  fast 
on  to  the  hook  all  standing,  in  spite  of 
her  squeaks  ;  then  twisted  the  lady's 
shawl  round  the  chain  fora  blind  to  it, 
and  flung  the  whole  right  over  the  lar- 
board quarter,  where  I  guessed  the  old 
fellow  would  be  slewing  round  astern 
to  have  a  lookout  before  he  went  fairly 
in  chase.  I  watched  the  line  sink 
slowly  with  the  weight  over  the  gun- 
wale for  half  a  minute,  afraid  to  let  him 
see  rny  head,  and  trembling  for  fear  I 
should  hear  a  cry  from  one  of  the  men  ; 
when  jerk  went  the  rope  clear  of  a  be- 
laying-pin  as  he  ran  off  with  his  bait. 
I  took  a  quick  turn  to  hookhim  smartly 
in  the  throat,  and  then  eased  off  again 
till  the  "  cleets"  brought  him  up  with 
a  "  surge  "  fit  to  have  parted  the  line, 
had  it  not  been  good  new  three-inch 
rope — though,  as  it  was,  the  big  India- 
man  would  soon  have  sheered  stem- 
round  to  the  force  of  it,  if  he'd  only 
pulled  fair.  The  young  lady  stood 
noticingwhat  I  did,  first  in  a  perplexed 
sort  of  way,  and  then  with  no  small 
surprise,  especially  when  the  shai-k 
gave  every  now  and  then  a  fiercer  tug, 
as  he  took  a  sweep  astern :  by  this 
time,  however,  everybody  was  on  deck 
in  a  crowd,  the  passengers  all  in  a 
flurry,  and  half  of  the  men  scrambling 
up  from  alongside  to  tail  on  to  the 
line,  and  run  him  out  of  water.  So 
away  they  went  with  it  full  speed  to- 
wards the  bows,  as  soon  as  the  ladies 
were  out  of  the  way — dragging  two  or 


three  cadets  back  foremost,  head  over 
heels,  down  the  poop  stair — till,  in 
spite  of  his  tugging,  the  shark's  round 
snout  showed  over  the  taffrail,  with 
the  mouth  wide  open  under  his  chin, 
as  it  were,  and  one  row  of  teeth  laid  flat 
behind  another,  like  a  comb-maker's 
shop.  A  running  bowline  passed  round 
his  handsome  waist,  then  another  pull, 
and  over  he  came  on  the  poop,  floun- 
dering fourteen  feet  long,  and  flourish- 
ing his  tail  for  room,  till  the  carpenter 
chopped  it  across,  in  a  lucky  moment, 
with  his  axe. 

All  hands  gathered  round  the  shark 
to  see  him  cut  up,  which  was  as  good 
as  a  play  to  them,  becalmed  as  we 
were ;  when,  to  my  no  small  dismay, 
I  heard  Mrs  Brigadier  Brady's  loud 
voice  asking  where  her  dog  was  ;  and 
the  Brigadier  himself,  who  seemed 
more  afraid  of  his  wife  than  anybody 
else,  kept  poking  about  with  his  red- 
faced  English  butler  to  find  the  ani- 
mal. "For  godsake,"  said  he,  in  a 
half  whisper,  twenty  times  over, 
"  haven't  ye  seen  Mrs  Brady's  dog, 
any  of  ye  ? — she'll  rout  the  ship  inside 
out  for  it,  captain,  if  we  don't  soon 
ase  her  mind  I"  However,  I  knew 
only  Miss  Hyde  was  aware  who 
caught  the  shark,  and  as  she  didn't 
appear  to  have  told,  why  of  course  I 
kept  all  fast,  myself.  "  Here's  a 
'baccy-box!"  sung  out  the  big  old 
boatswain,  standing  astride  over  the 
tail,  while  the  cook  and  his  black  mate 
ripped  away  from  the  tail  up.  "  Hand 
over,  if  ye  please,  sir,"  said  '  ugly ' 
Harry,  "  it's  mine's,  Mr  Burton  !  " 
Harry  gave  it  a  wipe  on  his  knee,  and 
coolly  bit  a  quid  off  the  end  of  his 
lost  pigtail.  The  next  thing  was 
Ford's  hat,  which  no  one  claimed,  so 
black  Sambo  clapped  it  on  his  woolly 
head.  "  What's  that  you've  got  there 
now,  Sambo?"  said  the  boatswain, 
"  out  with  it,  my  lad  !"  "  Golly !" 
chuckled  the  nigger,  rolling  the  whites 
of  his  eyes  and  grinning  like  mad ; 
"  oh  sar,  misser  Barton !  dis  'ere 
shark  riglar  navligator !  I  'clare  to 
you,  sar,  um  got  chr'ometer  aboard! 
Oh  gum !  berry  mnch  t'ink  dis  you 
own  lost  silber  tickler,  misser  Barton ! " 
"Bless  me,  so  it  is,  my  lad!"  said 
the  boatswain,  as  the  black  handed 
him  a  silver  watch  as  big  as  a  turnip, 
and  he  looked  at  the  cook,  who  was 
busy  fumbling  with  his  knife.  "  Sorry 


310 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


[Sept. 


as  you  was  taxed  with  it,  doctor!"* 
said  he,  doubtfully, — "  well  I'm  blow- 
eel,  though ! — it  only  goes  an  hour  and 
a-half, — and  here  it's  a-ticking  yet!" 
Here  a  burst  of  laughter  went  round, 
and  somebody  sung  out,  "  Maybe  the 
ould  pawn-broking  Judas  of  a  shark 
winded  it  up,  hisself,  jist  to  mark 
the  time  o'  his  '  goin'  off  the  hooks'!" 
"I  say,  doctor!"  hailed  another, 
"  too  bloody  bad,  an't  it  though,  to 
cut  up  yer  uncle?'1'1  "  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  ! " 
cried  the  cadets  and  writers,  looking 
at  the  Scotch  surgeon,  "  d'ye  hear 
that,  doctor?  I  wouldn't  stand  it! 
They  say  you  ain't  particular  in  Edin- 
bro',  though !  Some  rum  mistakes 
happened  there,  eh,  doctor?"  The 
Scotchman  got  into  a  passion  at  this, 
being  the  worst  cut  they  could  give 
any  fellow  from  a  country  where  they 
were  famous  for  kindred  and  body- 
snatching  at  once — but  all  of  a  sudden 
there  was  a  "  Hull  op !  Shiver  my 
taw'sels  !  What's  this  ?  Let's  see ! " 
and  the  whole  poopful  of  us  were 
shoving  together,  and  jumping  on  each 
other's  shoulders  to  have  a  look. 
"Well,  we-ell!"  said  the  old  boat- 
swain, as  he  peered  curiously  into 
the  mess  of  shark's  bowels — "  I'll  be 

d d!"    "  The  likes  o' that  now !" 

croaked  the  old  sailmaker,  lifting  up 
his  two  hands,  "  tan't  lucky,  Mr  Bur- 
ton !"  "  My  eye  !  them's  not  young 
sharks,  anyhow ! "  said  one  of  the 
men.  "  What's  t'ou  think  they  be, 
mun,"  said  the  north- country  Chips, 
"  but  litter  o'  yoong  blind  poops?  an' 
here's  t'  ou'd  uu,  see,  as  deed's  mutton ! 
Dang  him,  but  some  un's  got  an' 
baited  t'  hook  wi't,  there's  nou't  else 
in  's  guts ! "  The  whole  poop  was 
one  roar  of  laughing,  when  Mrs 
Brady's  pug  was  found  delivered  of 
four  pups,  inside  the  shark,  since  she 
went  overboard,  and  two  of 'em  alive  ; 
the  news  ran  fore  and  aft  in  a  moment. 
"  Took  short  she's  been,  Jack!"  said 
one.  "Beats  the  profit  Joney!" 
"  I  say,  'mate,  them  whelps  is  born 
twice  over.  Blessed  if  my  Sal  at 
home,  now,  wouldn't  give  a  year's 
'lotment  for  one  on  'em ! "  "  Poor 
devil !"  said  one  of  the  writers,  "  she 
must  have  been  sadly  in  want  of  a 
lying-in  hospital  !"  "Look  out, 
all  hands  of  ye ! "  cried  some  one, 


"  there's  the  old  girl  herself  coming 
on  deck  !  sharp's  the  word ! "  And 
away  we  scuttled  right  and  left,  some 
aloft,  and  some  down  one  poop-ladder, 
as  Mrs  Brady,  with  the  Brigadier 
and  his  butler  after  her,  came  fuming 
up  the  other.  The  black  made  one 
spring  over  the  quarter  as  soon  as  he 
saw  her;  but  the  Irish  topman,  Mick, 
slipped  his  foot  amongst  the  shark's 
blood,  and  rolled  on  his  back,  while 
the  old  bo'suu  made  stand  in  the 
thick  of  it  behind.  "  Saze  the  villains, 
I  charge  ye,  Brigadier!"  screamed 
Mrs  Brady,  though  he  and  his  man- 
servant only  kept  dodging  the  boat- 
swain round  a  sort  of  a  quagmire  of 
blood  and  grease,  while  the  old  vixen 
caught  Mick  by  his  red  hair  and 
Avhiskers.  "  Where's  my  dog,  ye 
murdering  spalpeen  ?  "  said  she,  pant- 
ing for  breath,  "  what  have  ye  done 
with  myDianny,  yemonsther?  Spake, 

or  I'll "     "  Be  the  holy  elaven 

thousand,  yer  ladyship  ! "  said  Mick, 
"an' it's  lost  did  ye  think  shewor! 
isn't  there  five  of  'em  back  !  Whisper ! 
yer  ladyship's  riv'rence, — she's  laid  in, 

poor  craythure,  an' "     "Oh  !  you 

Irish  thief!"  roared  Mrs  Brady,  hit- 
ting him  a  slap  as  he  tried  to  rise, 
that  sent  him  down  again,  "  is  it  that 

you'd  say  to "   "  No,  thin',"  sung 

out  Mick,  rubbing  his  ear,  and  guard- 
ing with  one  arm, — "rest  her  sowl ! 
but  I'm  innycint !  Av  that  '11  plase, 
mim,  och  an'  I'll  swear  she  died  a 

vargin  "    Tug  came   both  Mrs 

Brady's  hands  through  his  hair,  while 
the  butler  caught  a  kick  in  the  stomach 
from  Mick's  foot.  "Murther!" 
gasped  the  poor  fellow,  "sure  an'  I 
dun'  know  she  was  ayven  a  faym'le  ; 
bad  luck  t'ye,  'mates,  give  uz  a  hand. 
Och,  an'  is  this  the  road  ye  thrate  a 
counthryman,  mim?"  "Me  your 
countryman!  ye  bogtrottin'  wretch 
ye ! "  screamed  the  old  fury,  her 
brogue  getting  worse  the  more  she 
heated, — "  take  that! — don't  rise,  if  ye 
dare!"  "Faix  thin,  yer  ladyship 
darlin',"  said  O'Hooney,  grinning  in 
spite'of  his  hard  usage,  "  I  tould  a  lie, 
— och,  lave  some  o'  me  hair! — mur- 

ther  intirely  !  I'm "    All  the  time 

none  of  us  could  stir  for  sheer  laugh- 
ing, but  seeing  poor  Mick  like  to  fare 
hard  with  the  old  vixen,  who  was 


Familiar  metonomy,  at  sea,  for  the  ship's  cook. 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


311 


near  as  big  as  himself,  and  as  strong 
as  a  horse,  I  whispered  to  the  men  to 
run  round  and  let  go  the  poop  awn- 
ing— so  down  it  came,  with  a  few 
buckets  of  water  in  it,  over  the  five 
of  them ;  and  you  just  saw  Mrs 
Brady's  sharp  elbow  through  the  can- 
vass, lifted  for  the  next  slap,  when 
we  had  her  all  fast,  struggling  like  a 
cat  in  a  bag,  while  O'Hooney  and  the 

boatswain  crept  out  below.   "  D d 

breeze  that  we've  had ! "  said  the 
bo'suu,  shaking  himself  on  the  fore- 
castle. "  Couldn't  ye've  bowsed  over 
on  the  old  jade's  pitticuts,  Mick?" 
said  one  of  his  shipmates,  "  and  cap- 
sized her  all  standing?"  "  Sorra  fut 
you'd  stir,  yourself,  'mate,"  said  he, 
wiping  his  face,  "  wid  such  a  shay 
grinnydeer !  she'd  manhandle  ye  as 
asy's  twurl  a  mop  !" 

After  all  this  you  may  suppose 
one  didn't  weary  even  of  the  calm. 
As  soon  as  the  decks  were  clear,  most 
of  us  took  tea  on  the  poop,  for  fear  of 
meeting  the  Brigadier's  lady  below, 
every  one  holding  his  cup  ready  for  a 
start.  Rollock  the  planter,  who  had 
slept  and  swung  in  his  cot  half  the 
day,  was  like  to  split  his  sides  when 
he  heard  the  story:  by  the  way,  I 
believe  both  the  little  pups  lived  and 
throve  on  goats'  milk,  and  the  men 
called  one  of  them  'Young  Jonah,' 
though  he  had  so  much  of  the  terrier 
that  the  old  lady  disowned  him.  It 
was  quite  dark,  and  cool  for  a  night 
near  the  Line,  though  not  a  ripple 
stirred,  and  I  staid  after  the  rest  to 
smoke  a  cigar,  stopping  every  now 
and  then  near  the  aftermost  bull's- 
eye,  that  shone  through  the  deck, 
and  thinking  of  Lota.  "  By  Jove ! " 
thought  I,  "  she  hasn't  said  a  word  of 
it.  Think  of  having  a  secret,  almost, 
with  her!'11  After  all,  though,  I  felt 
well  enough  I  might  as  soon  hope  for 
the  Emperor  of  China's  daughter  as 
for  such  a  creature,  unless  something 
wonderfully  strange  fell  out :  deucedly 
in  love  as  I  was,  I  wasn't  puppy 
enough  to  fancy  I'd  ever  succeed  by 
mere  talk ;  "  but  here's  for  a  bold 
heart  and  a  weather-eye !"  I  thought ; 
"  and  if  these  can  do  it,  I  will!"  said 
I  aloud,  when  some  one  clapped  me 
on  the  shoulder.  "Well,  Tom,  are 
you  there?"  said  I,  thinking  it  was 
Westwood.  "  Why,"  answered  old 
Rollock,  laughing,  "  not  so  far  wrong, 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  ccccvn. 


my  boy,  —  but  as  it's  thirty  years 
since  any  one  called  me  so,  I  thought 
you  were,  for  a  moment! — meditating, 
eh  ?"  "  Only  a  cigar  before  bed-time 
— will  you  have  one,  sir?"  "Ah — 
well,"  said  the  planter,  "I'll  take  a 
light,  at  least  —  queer  life  this,  eh? 
Shouldn't  know  this  was  water,  now 
— more  like  train-oil !  ~Lo6ksjunglisfi 
a  little  under  the  stars  yonder." 
"  Nothing  but  the  haze  come  down," 
said  I;  "'tis  clear  enough  aloft,  though, 
— look  out  for  squalls  ere  long  !" 
' '  As  your  friend  Ford  would  have  it, " — 
said  Rollock ;  "  but  how  a  lad  of  your 
spirit  can  manage  to  stand  this  so 
well,  I  can't  think!"  "Deyvilish 
dull,  sir!"  said  I,  with  a  lazy  drawl, 
"  but  can't  be  helped,  you  know." 
"  Come,  come,  now,  don't  mend  it  by 
copying  poor  Winterton,"  ch'uckled 
Rollock;  "you're  no  fool,  Collins,  so 
don't  pretend  to  be.  I  say  though, 
Collins  my  boy,"  continued  he,  rather 
gravely,  "  there  is  one  really  soft 
piece  I  begin  to  notice  in  you  lately — 
I  fear  you're  falling  in  love  with  that 
girl ! "  "  /,  sir ! "  said  I ;  "  dear  me ! 
what  makes  you — "  "  My  dear  boy," 
went  on  the  kind-hearted  old  fellow, 
"I  take  an  interest  in  you;  no  lad 
of  your  stuff  practises  all  this  tom- 
foolery without  something  under  it, 
and  I  see  you've  some  serious  meaning 
or  other.  Did  you  know  her  before  ?  " 
"  Oh — why — not  exactly,"  I  dropped 
out,  taken  rather  short.  "I  see,  I 
see!"  he  went  on;  "but  I  tell  you 
what,  Collins,  a  cadet  can  do  nothing 
madder  than  many  at  first  landing ; 
she  had  better  be  a  cold-hearted  flirt, 
after  all — though,  God  knows,  no  man. 
can  say  what  that  does  but  one  that's 
— felt  it !  I — I  mean  I  knew — a  young 
fellow  that  went  out  as  ambitious  as 
you  can  be,  and  he — "  Here  the 
planter's  voice  shook  a  little,  and  he 
stopped,  puffing  at  his  cheroot  till  the 
short  end  of  it  just  lighted  up  his  hook 
nose  and  part  of  his  big  white  whiskers 
in  the  dark,  only  you  saw  his  eye 
glistening  too.  "Devil  take  it!" 
thought  I,  "  who'd  have  expected  the 
old  boy  to  be  so  sharp,  though." 
"  Well  but,  Collins,"  said  he  at  last, 
"just  you  enter  heart  and  soul  into 
your  profession ;  I'd  stake  my  life  you'll 
rise,  who  knows  how  far — get  your 
captain's  pay  even,  then  you  may  think 
of  it— that  is,  if  she— "  "Why,"  said 


312 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yam.     Part  IV. 


I,  "  d'ye  suppose  the  Judge  would — " 
'•'•Judge!'1''  exclaimed  Mr  Bollock, 
"  when — worse  and  worse  !  weren't 
we  talking  of  pretty  little  Kate  For- 
tescue?  My  dear  boy,  yon  don't 
intend  to  say  you  mean  Miss  Hyde ! 
I  left  that  to  your  first  officer,  as  they 
call  him ! — why,  that  young  girl  will 
be  the  beauty  of  Calcutta."  At  this 
I  fancied  some  one  else  gave  a  whistle 
near  us.  "  Of  course,  sir,"  said  I, 
raising  my  voice,  "you  didn't  suppose 
me  such  a  fool."  In  fact,  Miss  For- 
tescue  had  never  entered  my  head  at 
all.  "  Something  strange  about  you, 
Collins!"  said  the  planter,  a  little 
shortly;  "you  puzzle  me,  I  must 
say."  As  we  turned  to  go  below,  I 
heard  somebody  walk  down  the  poop- 
ladder,  and  then  the  mate's  voice 
sung  out  from  the  binnacle  to  "  strike 
eight  bells ! " 

The  calm  was  as  dead  as  ever  next 
morning,  and,  if  possible,  hotter  than 
before — not  a  rope  changed  aloft,  nor 
a  cloth  in  the  sails  moved  ;  but  it  was 
pretty  hazy  round  us,  which  made  the 
water  a  sort  of  pale  old-bottle  blue, 
that  sickened  you  to  look  at ;  and  a 
long  dipping  and  drawling  heave  gra- 
dually got  up  as  if  there  were  blankets 
on  it ;  the  ship,  of  course,  shifting 
round  and  round  again  slowly,  like  a 
dog  going  to  lie  down,  and  the  helm 
getting  eveiy  now  and  then  a  sudden 
jolt.  Near  noon  it  cleared  up  with  a 
blaze  of  light,  as  it  were ;  the  sole 
difference  at  first  being,  that  what 
looked  like  melting  lead  before,  now 
turned  into  so  many  huge  bright  sheets 
of  tin,  every  bend  of  it  as  good  as 
flashing  up  thousands  of  needles  in 
your  eyes.  A  good  deal  surprised  we 
were,  however,  shortly  after,  to  find 
there  was  a  sail  in  sight,  another 
square-rigged  vessel,  seemingly  stand- 
ing up  on  the  horizon  six  or  seven  miles 
off.  Being  end  on  to  us  at  the  time, 
though  every  glass  in  the  ship  was 
brought  to  bear  on  her,  'twas  hard  to 
say  what  she  was ;  then  she  and  we 
went  bobbing  and  going  up  and  down 
with  a  long  round  heave  between  us, 
slowly  enough,  but  always  at  cross 
purposes,  like  two  fellows  see-sawing 
on  a  plank  over  a  dyke.  When  she 
was  up,  we  were  down,  and  we  just 
caught  sight  of  her  royal,  no  bigger 
than  a  gull  on  the  water;  j~erk  went 
jour  rudder,  and  next  time  she  seemed 


[Sept. 

to  have  vanished  out  of  the  glasses 
altogether,  till  we  walked  round  to  the 
other  side,  and  made  her  out  again 
under  the  awning  on  the  opposite 
beam.  At  length  she  lifted  broad  to 
us  for  a  moment  or  two,  showing  a 
long  pale  sort  of  hull  with  a  red  streak, 
apparently  without  ports,  and  brig- 
rigged,  though  the  space  betwixt  her 
two  masts  was  curious  for  that  kind 
of  craft.  "  Wonderful  light-sparred 
for  her  size  that  brig,  sir,"  said  the 
third  officer,  dropping  his  glass.  "Ay, 
so  she  is,  Mr  Small,"  replied  Captain 
Williamson :  "  what  would  you  call 
her,  then  ?  You've  as  good  knowledge 
of  craft  as  an}-  man,  Mr  Small,  I 
think."  "  Why,"  said  the  old  mate, 
screwing  his  eye  harder  for  a  long  look, 
"I'd  say  she's — not  a  cruiser,  Cap- 
tin  Williamson — no,  nor  a  Greenock 
Indyman — nor  a — "  "Oh!"  said 
Finch,  "some  African  timberer  or 
other,  I  daresay,  Small."  "  Well,  Mi- 
Finch,"  said  the  third  mate,  handing 
him  the  glass,  "  mayhap  you'll  just 
say  yourself,  sir."  "No,  no,  Mr 
Small,"  said  the  captain ;  "I'd  trust  to 
you  as  soon  as  any  man,  sir,  in  a 
matter  of  the  kind."  "  Why,  the  hull 
of  her  's  wonderful  Yankee-like,  sir," 
said  Small  again ;  "  I'm  thinking 
they've  been  and  squared  her  out  of  a 
schooner — and  a  d — — d  bad  job  of  it, 
sir!  Bless  us !  what  a  lean-headed 
pair  o'  taups'ls,  too, — as  high  as  our 
fore  one,  sir."  Suddenly  the  old  mate 
gave  his  thigh  a  slap,  and  laid  down 
his  glass  on  the  capstan:  "Lord, 
sir !"  said  he,  "that's  the  thing ;  she's 
nothing  more  nor  less  but  a  John 
Crapeau,  Captain  Williamson!"  "I 
daresay  you're  right,  Mr  Small,"  said 
the  skipper,  taking  the  glass;  "just 
so, — ay,  ay, — I  thought  it  myself!" 
"Pity  old  Nap's  boxed  up  yonder 
then,  sir,"  said  the  first  officer,  rub- 
bing his  hands  and  pointing  to  east- 
ward, where  he  thought  St  Helena 
was:  "why,  sir,  we  should  have  the 
peppering  of  the  Frenchman ;  I  don't 
suppose  we'd  need  to  care  though  she 
were  twice  the  size  —  and  what's 
more,  we  want  fresh  water  before 
seeing  the  Cape,  sir ! "  "  Well,"  said 
the  old  skipper,  laughing,  "that  is  the 
worst  of  it,  Finch!  As  for  spirit, 
you've  as  much  as  any  man.  Mi- 
Finch,  and  I  do  think  we'd  know  how 
to  take  the  weather-hand  of  him— eh  ?'' 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


313 


"I'll  be  bound  we  should!"  said 
Finch,  laughing  too.  As  for  the 
Frenchman,  both  Westwood  and  I 
had  made  him  out  by  his  rig  at  once, 
thanks  to  man-o'-war  practice ;  but 
we  smiled  to  each  other  at  the  notion 
of  making  a  prize  of  Monsieur,  under 
Finch's  management,  with  not  a  gnn 
that  could  have  been  used  for  half  a 
day,  and  everything  else  at  sixes  and 
sevens. 

In  a  little  while  it  was  proposed 
amongst  the  cadets,  hot  as  the  calm 
was,  to  make  a  party  to  go  and  see 
the  French  vessel.  Ford  of  course 
was  at  the  head  of  it.  Winterton 
thought  they  would  no  doubt  have 
plenty  of  champagne  on  board,  and 
some  others,  who  could  row,  wanted 
to  try  their  hands.  Accordingly  the 
captain's  gig  was  got  ready,  a  sort  of 
awning  rigged  over  it,  and  two  or 
three  of  them  got  in ;  when  one,  who 
was  Miss  Fortescue's  cousin,  per- 
suaded her  to  join,  if  Mr  Rollock  . 
would  come.  Then  the  Brigadier,  being 
rather  a  goodhumoured  man,  said  he 
should  like  to  face  the  French  once 
more,  and  Daniel  Snout  shoved  him- 
self in  without  asking  by  your  leave. 
One  of  the  men  was  sent  to  take 
charge ;  and  as  there  was  room  still, 
I  was  just  going  to  jump  in  too,  for 
the  amusement  of  it,  when  Mrs  Brady 
hurried  to  the  tafirail  with  her  parasol 
up,  and  said,  if  the  Brigadier  went, 
she  should  go  as  well, — in  fact,  the 
old  woman's  jealousy  of  her  rib  was 
always  laughably  plain.  "  Hang  it ! 
then,"  thought  I,  "  catch  me  putting 
myself  in  the  same  boat  with  her ! 
the  same  ship  is  enough,  in  all  con- 
science ! "  So  away  they  were  low- 
ered oiF  the  davits,  and  began  pulling 
in  tolerable  style  for  the  brig,  a  couple 
of  hours'  good  work  for  such  hands  at 
mid-day,  smooth  water  as  it  was. 
"Now,  gentlemen,"  said  the  first 
officer  briskly,  as  we  looked  after 
them  dipping  over  the  long  bright 
blue  heave — "  now,  gentlemen,  and 
ladies  also,  if  they  please,  we'll  have 
another  party  as  soon  as  the  men  get 
their  dinner — give  these  gentlemen  a 
full  hour's  law,  we  '11  overhaul  them. 
See  the  larboard  quarter-boat  clear, 
Jacobs."  It  was  just  the  least  pos- 
sible hazy  again  behind  the  brig  in 
the  distance,  and  as  the  Judge  stood 
talking  to  his  daughter  on  the  poop,  I 


heard  her  say,  "  Is  the  other  vessel 
not  coming  nearer  already,  papa  ? 
See  how  much  more  distinct  its  sails 
are  this  moment — there! — one  al- 
most observes  the  white  canvass !  " 
"Pooh,  Lota  child!"  answered  Sir 
Charles,  "that  cannot  be — 'tis  per- 
fectly calm,  don't  you  know?"  In 
fact,  however,  Lota  showed  a  sailor's 
eye  for  air,  and  I  was  noticing  it  my- 
self ;  but  it  was  only  the  air  made  it 
look  so.  "  Ah  !  now,"  exclaimed  she 
again,  "  'tis  as  distant  as  ever !  That 
must  have  been  the  light :  "  besides, 
the  brig  had  been  lifting  on  a  wide 
swell.  "  I  beg  pardon,  Sir  Charles," 
said  the  mate,  coming  up  and  taking 
off  his  cap,  "  but  might  I  use  the  free- 
dom —  perhaps  yourself  and  Miss 
Hyde  would  like  to  visit  the  French 
brig  ?  "  The  Judge  looked  at  his 
daughter  as  much  as  to  ask  if  she 
would  like  it.  "  Oh  yes  !  so  much !  " 
exclaimed  she,  her  bright  eyes  spark- 
ling, "  shall  we  ?  "  "  No,  the  deuce ! 
Not  //"  said  Sir  Charles:  "I  shall 
take  my  siesta.  Quite  safe,  sir — eh?" 
"  Oh,  quite  safe,  Sir  Charles  !  "  said 
Finch,  "a  dead  calm,  sir — I'll  take 
the  utmost  cfire  you  may  be  sure, 
Sir  Charles — as  safe  as  the  deck,  sir !" 
"  Oh,  very  well,"  replied  the  Judge, 
and  he  walked  down  to  see  after  his 
tiffin.  The  young  lady  was  going 
down  the  quarter-gallery  stair,  when 
I  caught  my  opportunity  to  say — "I 
hope  you  '11  excuse  it,  Miss  Hyde, 
ma'am — but  I  do  trust  you  '11  not  risk 
going  in  the  boat  so  far,  just  now  !  " 
Half  a  minute  after  I  spoke,  she 
turned  round,  and  looked  at  me  with 
a  curious  sort  of  expression  in  her 
charming  face,  which  I  couldn't  make 
out, — whether  it  was  mischievous, 
whether  it  was  pettish,  or  whether 
'twas  inquisitive.  "  Dear  me !  "  said 
she,  "  why— do  you  —  "  "The 
weather  might  change,"  I  said,  look- 
ing round  about,  "  and  I  shouldn't 
wonder  if  it  did— or  a  swell  might 
get  up — or — "  "  I  must  say,  Mr — 
Mr  Collins,"  said  she,  laughing 
slightly,  "  you  are  very  gloomy  in 
anticipating — almost  timorous,  I  de- 
clare !  I  wonder  how  you  came  to 
be  so  weather-wise  !  But  why  did 
you  not  advise  —  poor  Mrs  Brady, 
now  ? "  I  couldn't  see  her  face  as 
she  spoke,  but  the  tone  of  the  last 
words  made  me  feel  I'd  have  given 


8U 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


[Sept. 


worlds  to  look  round  and  see  what  it 
was  like  at  the  moment.  "  Perhaps, 
ma'am,"  said  I,  "  you  may  remember 
the  rain?'"  "Well,  we  shall  see, 
sir !  "  replied  she,  glancing  up  with  a 
bright  sparkle  in  her  eye  for  an  in- 
stant, but  only  toward  the  end  of  the 
spanker-boom,  as  it  were  ;  and  then 
tripping  down  the  stair. 

I  kept  watching  the  gig  pull  slowly 
toward  the  brig  in  the  distance,  and 
the  cutter  making  ready  on  our  quar- 
ter, till  the  men  were  in,  with  Jacobs 
amongst  them  ;  where  they  sat  wait- 
ing in  no  small  glee  for  the  mate  and 
his  party,  who  came  up  a  few  minutes 
after:    and  I  was  just  beginning  to 
hope  that  Violet  Hyde  had  taken  my 
advice,  when  she  and  another  young 
lady  came  out  of  the  round-house, 
dressed  for  the  trip,  and  the  captain 
gallantly   handed  them    in.      "  My 
compliments  to  the  French  skipper, 
Mr  Finch,"  said  the  captain,  laugh- 
ing, "  and  if  he  an't  better  engaged, 
happy  to  see  him  to  dinner  at  two 
bells  *  in  the  dog-watch,  we  '11  make 
it!"      "Ay,  ay,  sir,"    said  Finch. 
4 '  Now  then !— all  ready  ?  "  "  Smy the's 
coming  yet,"  said  a  "writer."    "We 
<;an't  wait  any  longer  for  him,"  re- 
plied  the   mate  ;    "  ease  away  the 
falls,  handsomely,  on  deck ! "  "Stop," 
said  I,  "  I'll  go,  then !  "    "  Too  late, 
young    gentleman,  "    answered    the 
mate,    sharply,    "  you  '11    cant    us 
gunnel  up,  sir  ! — lower  away,  there !" 
However,  I  caught  hold  of  a  rope  and 
let  myself  down  the  side,  time  enough 
to  jump  lightly  into  her  stem- sheets 
the  moment  they  touched  the  water. 
The  officer  stared  at  me  as  he  took 
the  yokelines  to  steer,  but  he  said 
nothing,   and  the  boat  shoved  off; 
while  Miss  Hyde's  blue  eyes  only 
•opened  out,  as  it  were,  for  an  instant, 
at  seeing  me    drop    in    so   uncere- 
moniously ;      and     her    companion 
laughed.      "  I  shouldn't  have  sup- 
posed you  so  nimble,  Mr  Collins ! " 
said  the  writer,  looking  at  me  through 
his  eye-glass.    "  Oh,"  said  I,  "Ford 
and  I  have  practised  climbing  a  good 
deal  lately."     "  Ha !  ha ! "  said  the 
civilian,  "shouldn't  be  surprised,  now, 
if  youv  friend  were  to  take  the  navi- 
gation out  of  Mr  Finch's  hands,  some 
day ! "    "  Bless  me,  yes,  sir  ! "  said 


Finch,  with  a  guffaw,  as  he  sat  hand- 
ling the  lines  carelessly,  and  smiling 
to  the  ladies,  with  his  cap  over  one 
ear;  "  to  be  sure — ha  !  ha !  ha !— it's 
certain,  Mr  Beveridge !  Wouldn't  you 
take  the  helm  here,  sir  ?  "  to  me. 
"  Oh,  thank  you,  no,  sir  !  "  replied  I, 
modestly,  "  I'm  not  quite  so  far  yet — 
but  we  Ve  got  a  loan  of  Hamilton 
Moore  and  Falconer's  Dictionary 
from  the  midshipmen,  and  mean  to — 
44  No  doubt  you'll  teach  us  a  trick  or 
two  yet  ! "  said  Finch,  with  a 
sneer.  "Now,  for  instance,"  said  I 
coolly,  "  aloft  yonder,  you've  got  the 
throat  halliards  jammed  in  the  block 
with  a  gasket,  and  the  mizen-topsail 
cluelines  rove  wrong-side  of  it,  which 
Hamilton  Moore  distinctly — "  "Hang 
the  lubber  that  did  it,  so  they  are !" 
exclaimed  the  mate,  looking  through 
the  spy-glass  we  had  with  us.  "  Now 
you've  your  jibs  hauled  down,  sir," 
continued  I,  "  and  if  a  squall  came  on 
abeam,  no  doubt  they'd  wish  to  shorten 
sail  from  q/it,  and  keep  her  away — 
however,  she  would  broach-to  at  once, 
as  Hamilton  Moore  shows  must — " 

"  You  and  Hamilton  Moore  be ; 

no  fear  of  a  squall  just  now,  at  any 
rate,  ladies,"  said  he.  "Stretchout, 
men — let's  head  upon  Mr  Ford  and  his 
gig,  yet !"  Terribly  hot  it  was  close  to 
the  water,  and  so  stifling  that  you 
scarce  could  breathe,  while  the  long 
glassy  swell  was  far  higher  than  one 
thought  it  from  the  ship's  deck  ;  how- 
ever, we  had  an  awning  hoisted,  and 
it  refreshed  one  a  little  both  to  hear 
the  water  and  feel  it  below  again,  as 
the  cutter  went  sliding  and  rippling 
over  it  to  long  slow  strokes  of  the 
oars ;  her  crew  being  all  man-o'-war's- 
raen,  that  knew  how  to  pull  together 
and  take  it  easy.  The  young  ladies 
kept  gazing  rather  anxiously  at  the 
big  old  Seringapatam,  as  she  rose  and 
dropped  heavily  on  the  calm,  amused 
though  they  were  at  first  by  a  sight 
of  their  late  home  turning  "  gable"  on 
to  us,  with  her  three  masts  in  one, 
and  a  white  straw  hat  or  two  watch- 
ing us  from  her  taffrail ;  whereas, 
ahead,  they  only  now  and  then  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  brig's  upper  canvass, 
over  a  hot,  hazy,  sullen-looking  sweep 
of  water  as  deep-blue  as  indigo — with 
six  hairy  brown  breasts  bending  be- 


*  Fire  o'clock,  P.M. 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


315 


fore  them  to  the  oars,  and  as  many 
pair  of  queer,  rollicking,  fishy  sort  of 
eyes  fixed  steadily  on  their  bonnets, 
in  a  shame-faced,  down-hill  kind  of 
way,  like  fellows  that  couldn't  help  it. 
In  fact,  I  noticed  a  curious  grin  now 
and  then  on  every  one  of  the  men's 
faces,  and  a  look  to  each  other,  when 
they  caught  sight  of  myself,  sitting 
behind  the  mate  as  he  paid  off  his 
high-flying  speeches ;  Jacobs,  again, 
regarding  me  all  the  while  out  of  the 
whites  of  his  eyes,  as  it  were,  in  a 
wooden,  unknowing    fashion,  fit  to 
have  made  a  cat  laugh — seeing  he 
never  missed  his  mark  for  one  moment, 
and  drew  back  his  head  at  every  pull 
with  the  air  of  a  drunk  man  keeping 
sight  of  his  waistcoat  buttons.     By 
the  time  we  were  half-way,  the  swell 
began  to  get  considerable,  and  the 
mate  stepped  up  abaft  to  look  for  the 
gig.     u  Can't  see  the  boat  yet,"  said 
he;  "give  way  there,  my  lads — stretch 
out  and  bend  your  backs  !  there's  the 
brig!"  "Hal-lo!"  exclaimed  he  again, 
"she's  clued   up  royals  and  to'gal- 
lants'ls !  By  heavens !   there  go  her 
tops'ls  down  too !  Going  to  bend  new 
sails,  though,  I  daresay,  for  it  looks 
clear  enough  there."   "  The  ship's  run 
up  a  flag  aft,  sir,"  said  Jacobs.  "The 
— so  she  has,"   said  Finch,  turning 
round ;      "  recall     signal !       What's 
wrong?     Sorry  we  can't  dine  aboard 
the  French  vessel  this  time,  ladies  !" 
said   he — "extremely   so — and    the 
griffins  there  after  all,  too.   I  hope  you 
won't  be  disappointed  in  any  great 
measure,    Miss    Hyde  —  but  if  you 
wished  it  now,  Miss,  I'd  even  keep  on, 
and — "    The  young  lady  coloured  a 
little  at  this,  and  turned  to  her  com- 
panion just  as  I  remembered  her  doing 
from  the  dragoon  in  the  ball-room. 
"  Do  you  not  think,  Miss  Wyndham," 
said  she,  "  we  ought  not  to  wish  any 
officer  of  the  ship  should  get  reproved, 
perhaps,  on  our  account?"   "  Oh  dear 
no,"  said  Miss  Wyndham  ;  "  indeed, 
Mr  Finch,  you  had  better  go  back,  if 
the  captain  orders  you."     "  Hold  on 
there  with  your  la'rboard  oars,  you 
lubbers  !"  sang  out  Finch,  biting  his 
lip,  and  round  we  went  pulling  for  the 
Indiaman  again ;  but  by  this  time  the 
swell  was  becoming  so  heavy  as  to 
make  it  hard  work,  and  it  was  soon 
rarely  we  could  see  her  at  all ;   for 
nothing  gets  up  so  fast  as  a  swell, 


sometimes,  near  the  Line ;  neither  one 
way  nor  the  other,  but  right  up  and 
down,  without  a  breath  of  wind,  in 
huge  smooth  hills  of  water,  darker 
than  lead,  not  a  speck  of  foam,  and 
the  sky  hot  and  clear.    'Twas  almost 
as  if  a  weight  had  been  lifted  from  off 
the  long  heaving  calm,  and  the  whole 
round  of  it  were  going  up  dark  into 
the  sky,  in  one  weltering  jumble,  the 
more  strange  that  it  was  quiet :  sweep 
up  it  took  the  boat,  and  the  bright 
wet  oar-blades  spread  feathering  out 
for  another  stroke  to  steady  her,  let 
alone  making  way ;  though  that  was 
nothing  to  the  look  of  the  Indiamau 
when  we  got  near.    She  was  rolling 
her  big  black  hull  round  in  it  as  help- 
less as  a  cask ;  now  one  side,  then  the 
other,  dipping  gunwale  to  in  the  round 
swell  that  came  heaping  up  level  with 
her  very  rail,  and  went  sheeting  out 
bright  through  the  bulwarks  again  \ 
the  masts  jumping,  clamps  and  boom- 
irons  creaking  on  the  yards,  and  every 
sail  on  her  shaking,  as  her  lower  yard- 
arms  took  it  by  turns  to  aim  at  the 
water — you  heard  all  the  noise  of  itr 
the  plunge  of  her  flat  broadside,  the 
plash  from  her  scuppers,  the  jolts  of 
her  rudder,  and  voices  on  board ;  and 
wet  you  may  swear  she  was  from  stem 
to  stem.  "  Comfortable!"  thought  I ; 
"  we've  come  home  too  soon  of  a 
washing-day,  and  may  wait  at  the 
door,  I  fear!"  "  Oh  dear,"  exclaimed 
the  three  griffins,    "  how  are  we  to 
get  in  !"  and  the  young  ladies  looked 
pale  at  the  sight.    The  mate  steered 
for  her  larboard  quarter  without  say- 
ing a  word,  but  I  saw  he  lost  coolness 
and  got  nervous — not  at  all  the  man. 
for  a  hard  pinch :  seemingly,  he  meant 
to  dash  alongside  and  hook  on.     "If 
you    do,    sir,"    said   I,    "you'll  be 
smashed  to  staves ;"  and  all  at  once 
the  ship  appeared  almost  over  our 
heads,  while  the  boat  took  a  send  in. 
I  looked  to  Jacobs  and  the  men,  and 
they  gave  one  long  stroke  off,  that 
seemed  next  heave  to  put  a  quarter  of 

a  mile  between  us.    "  D d  close 

shave  that,"  said  the  bowman.  "  Begs 
pardon,  sir,"  said  Jacobs,  touching 
his  hat,  with  his  eyes  still  fixed  past 
the  mate,  upon  me ;  "  hasn't  we  better 
keep  steadying  off,  sir,  till  such  time 
as  the  swell — "  "  Hold  your  jaw, 
sirrah,"  growled  Finch,  as  he  looked 
ahead  still  more  flurried ;  "  there's  a 


316 


The  Green  Hand— A  «  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


[Sept. 


squall  coming  yonder,  gentlemen,  and 
if  we  don't  get  quick  aboard,  we  may 
lose  the  ship  in  it !  Pull  round,  d'ye 
hear  there."  Sure  enough,  when  we 
lifted,  there  was  the  French  brig  clear 
out  against  a  sulky  patch  of  dark-gray 
sky,  growing  in  as  it  were  far  off  be- 
hind the  uneven  swell,  till  it  began  to 
look  pale ;  the  Indiaman's  topsails 
gave  a  loud  flap  out,  too,  one  after  the 
other,  and  fell  to  the  mast  again. 
Suddenly  I  caught  the  glance  of  Violet 
Hyde's  eyes  watching  me  seriously  as 
I  sat  overhauling  the  Indiaman  for  a 
notion  of  what  to  do,  and  I  fancied 
the  charming  girl  had  somehow  got 
nearer  to  me  during  the  last  minute  or 
two,  whether  she  knew  it  or  not :  at 
any  rate  the  thought  of  protecting  such 
a  creature  made  all  my  blood  tingle. 
"  Never  fear,  ma'am,"  said  I,  in  a 
half  whisper ;  when  Finch's  eye  met 
mine,  and  he  threw  me  a  malicious 
look,  sufficient  to  show  what  a  devil 
the  fellow  would  be  if  ever  he  had  oc- 
casion ;  however,  he  gave  the  sign  for 
the  men  to  stretch  out  again,  and  high 
time  it  was,  as  the  Indiaman's  main- 
topsail  made  another  loud  clap  like  a 
musket-shot.  Still  he  was  holding 
right  for  her  quarter — the  roll  the  ship 
had  on  her  was  fearful,  and  it  was 
perfect  madness  to  try  it ;  but  few 
merchant  mates  have  chanced  to  be 
boating  in  a  Line  swell,  I  daresay  : 
when  just  as  we  came  head  on  for  her 
starboard  counter,  I  took  the  boat's 
tiller  a  sudden  shove  with  my  foot, 
as  if  by  accident,  that  sent  us  sheering 
in  close  under  her  stern.  The  bowman 
prized  his  boat-hook  into  the  rudder- 
chains,  where  the  big  hull  swung 
round  us  on  both  sides  like  an  im- 
mense wheel  round  its  barrel,  every 
stern -window  with  a  face  watching 
us — though  one  stroke  of  the  loose 
rudder  would  have  stove  us  to  bits, 
and  the  swell  was  each  moment  like 
to  make  the  men  let  go,  as  it  hove  us 
up  almost  near  enough  to  have  caught 
a  hand  from  the  lower-deck.  "  For 
godsake  steady  your  wheel,"  said  I; 
"hard  a-port!"  while  the  mate  was 
singing  out  for  a  line.  "  Now,  up 
you  go,"  said  I  to  Jacobs  in  the  hub- 
bub, u  look  sharp,  and  send  us  down 
a  whip  and  basket  from  the  boom-end, 
as  we  did  once  in  the  Pandora,  you 
know!"  Up  the  rope  went  Jacobs 
like  a  cat,  hand  over  hand  ;  and  five 


minutes  after,  down  came  the  "  bas- 
ket "  over  our  heads  into  the  boat, 
made  out  of  a  studding-sail  and  three 
capstan-bars,  like  a  big  grocer's  scale 
dangling  from  the  spanker-boom. 
The  mate  proposed  to  go  up  first  with 
Miss  Hyde,  but  she  hung  back  in. 
favour  of  her  companion ;  so  away 
aloft  went  Miss  Wyndham  and  he, 
swinging  across  the  Indiaman's  stem 
as  she  rolled  again,  with  a  gautline  to 
steady  them  in — Finch  holding  on  to 
the  whip  by  one  hand,  and  the  other 
round  the  young  lady,  while  my  blood 
crept  at  the  thought  how  it  might 
have  been  Lota  herself !  As  soon  as  it 
came  down  again,  she  looked  for  a 
moment  from  me  to  Jacobs,  when 
Captain  Williamson  himself  shouted 
over  the  taffrail,  ' '  Sharp,  sharp  there ! 
the  squall's  coming  down !  she'll  be 
up  in  the  wind !  let's  get  the  helm, 
free  !"  and  directly  after  I  found  my- 
self swinging  twenty  feet  over  the 
water  with  Violet  Hyde,  as  the  ship 
heeled  to  a  puff  that  filled  the  spanker, 
and  rose  again  on  a  huge  swell, 
gathering  steerage  way,  while  every 
bolt  of  canvass  in  her  flapped  in  again 
at  once  like  thunder.  I  felt  her 
shudder  and  cling  to  me — there  was 
one  half  minute  we  swung  fairly  clear 
of  the  stern,  they  stopped  hoisting, 
—  and  I  almost  thought  I'd  have 
wished  that  same  half  minute  half  a 
day ;  but  a  minute  after  she  was  in 
the  Judge's  arms  on  the  poop ;  the 
men  had  contrived  to  get  the  cadets 
on  board,  too,  and  the  boat  was  drag- 
ging astern,  with  the  line  veered  out, 
and  her  crew  still  in  it  baling  her  out. 
I  fixed  my  eyes  at  once,  breathless 
as  we  of  the  boat-party  were,  on  the 
weather-signs  and  the  other  vessel, 
which  everybody  on  the  poop  was 
looking  at,  as  soon  as  we  were  safe, 
and  our  friends  in  the  gig  had  to  be 
thought  of.  The  short  top-swell  was 
beginning  to  soften  in  long  regular 
seas,  with  just  air  enough  aloft  to  give 
our  light  sails  a  purchase  on  it,  and 
put  an  end  to  the  infernal  clatter ; 
but  the  vapour  had  gathered  quicker 
than  you  could  well  fancy  behind  the 
brig  in  the  distance,  so  that  she  looked 
already  a  couple  of  miles  nearer,  rising 
up  two  or  three  times  on  as  many 
huge  swells  that  shone  like  blue  glass, 
while  she  steadied  herself  like  a  tight- 
rope dancer  on  the  top  of  them,  by  a 


1840.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Sltort "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


studding-sail  set  high  from  each  side. 
On  the  far  horizon  beyond  her,  you'd 
have  thought  there  was  a  deep  black 
ditch  sunk  along  under  the  thickening 
blue  haze,  as  it  stretched  out  past  her 
to  both  hands,  till  actually  the  solid 
breast  of  it  seemed  to  shove  the  brig 
bodily  forward  over  the  oily-like 
water,  every  spar  and  rope  distinct ; 
then  the  fog  lifted  below  as  if  the  teeth 
of  a  saw  came  spitting  through  it,  and 
we  saw  her  bearing  down  toward  us 
— cloud,  water,  and  all,  as  it  were — 
with  a  white  heap  of  foam  at  her 
bows.  "  Brace  up  sharp,  Mr  Finch !" 
said  the  old  skipper  hastily,  u  and 
stand  over  to  meet  her.  Confound  this ! 
we  must  have  these  people  out  of  that 
brig  in  a  trice  !  we  shall  soon  have  a 
touch  of  the  Horse  Latitudes,  or  my 
uame's  not  Richard  Williamson — ay, 
and  bid  good-bye  to  'ein,  too,  I 
think!" 

For  a  quarter  of  an  hour  or  so,  ac- 
cordingly, we  kept  forging  slowly 
ahead,  while  the  brig  continued  to 
near  us.  No  one  spoke,  almost — you 
heard  the  lazy  swash  of  the  water 
round  our  fore-chains,  and  the  still- 
ness aboard  had  a  gloomy  enough 
effect,  as  one  noticed  the  top  of  the 
haze  creep  up  into  round  vapoury 
heads  upon  the  sky,  and  felt  it  dark- 
ening aloft  besides.  We  were  scarce 
three  quarters  of  a  mile  apart,  and 
could  see  her  sharp  black  bows  drip 
over  the  bright  sheathing,  as  she 
rolled  easily  on  the  swell,  when  the 
Indiaman  suddenly  lost  way  again, 
sheered  head  round,  and  slap  went  all 
her  sails  from  the  royals  down,  as  if 
she  had  fired  a  broadside.  Almost  the 
next  moment,  a  long,  low  growl  ran 
muttering  and  rumbling  far  away 
round  the  horizon,  from  the  clouds 
and  back  to  them  again,  as  if  they 
had  been  some  huge  monster  or  other 
on  the  watch,  with  its  broad  grim 
muzzle  shooting  quietly  over  us  as  it 
lay ;  the  brig  dipped  her  gilt  figure- 
head abeam  of  us,  and  then  showed 
her  long  red  streak  ;  the  swell  sinking 
fast,  and  the  whole  sea  far  and  wide 
coming  out  from  the  sky  as  dark  and 
round  as  the  mahogany  drum-head  of 
the  capstan. 

"  Bless  me,  Small,"  said  the  Cap- 
tain, "  but  I  hope  they've  not  knocked 
a  hole  in  my  gig_ay,  there  they  are, 
I  think,  looking  over  the  brig's  quar- 


ter; but  don't  seem  to  have  a  boat 
to  swim !  Get  the  cutter  hauled  along- 
side, Mr  Stebbing,"  continued  he  to 
the  fourth  mate,  "  and  go  aboard  for 
them  at  once — confounded  bothering, 
this !  Mind  get  my  gig  safe,  sir,  if  you 
please — can  ye  parky-voo,  though,  Mr 
Stebbing?"  "  Not  a  Avord,  sir,"  said 
the  young  mate,  a  gentlemanly,  rather 
soft  fellow,  whom  the  other  three  all 
used  to  snub.  "  Bless  nie,  can't  we 
muster  a  bit  o'  French  amongst  us?" 
said  the  skipper  ;  "  catch  a  monshoor 
that  knows  a  word  of  English  like  any 
other  man  —  'specially  if  they've  a 
chance  of  keeping  my  gig!"  "  Well, 
sir,"  said  I,  "  I'll  be  happy  to  go  with 
the  officer,  as  I  can  speak  French  well 
enough  !"  "  Thank  ye,  young  gentle- 
man, thank  ye,"  said  he,  "  you'll  do  it 
as  well  as  any  man,  I'm  sure — only 
look  sharp,  if  you  please,  and  bring 
my  gig  with  you  !"  So  down  the  side 
we  bundled  into  the  cutter,  and  pulled 
straight  for  the  brig,  Avhich  had  just 
hois  ted  French  colours,  not  old  "three- 
patches,"  of  course,  but  the  new  Re- 
storation flag. 

I  overhauled  her  well  as  we  got 
near,  and  a  beautiful  long  schooner- 
model  she  was,  with  sharp  bows,  and 
a  fine  easy-run  hull  from  stem  to 
stern,  but  dreadfully  dirty  and  spoilt 
with  top-bulwarks,  as  if  they  meant 
to  make  her  look  as  clumsy  as  pos- 
sible ;  while  the  brig-rig  of  her  aloft, 
with  the  ropes  hanging  in  bights  and 
hitches,  gave  her  the  look  of  a  hedge- 
parson  on  a  race-horse :  at  the  same 
time,  I  counted  six  closed  ports  of  a 
side,  in  her  red  streak,  the  exact 
breadth  and  colour  of  itself.  Full  of 
men,  with  a  long  gun,  and  schooner- 
rigged,  she  could  have  sailed  round 
the  Indiaman  in  a  light  breeze,  and 
mauled  her  to  any  extent. 

They  hove  us  a  line  out  of  the  gang- 
way at  once,  the  mate  got  up  her  side 
as  she  rolled  gently  over,  and  I  follow- 
ed him :  the  scene  that  met  our  eyes 
as  soon  as  we  reached  her  deck,  how- 
ever, struck  me  a  good  deal  on  va- 
rious accounts.  We  couldn't  at  first 
see  where  Mr  Rollock  and  his  party 
might  be,  for  the  shadow  of  a  thick 
awning  after  the  glare  of  the  water, 
and  the  people  near  the  brig's  gang- 
way ; — but  I  saw  two  or  three  dark- 
faced,  very.  French-like  individuals, 
in broad-brimmedstraw  hats  and  white 


318 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short11  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


[Sept. 


trousers,  seemingly  passengers;  while 
about  twenty  Kroomen  and  Negroes, 
ami  as  many  seamen  with  unshaven 
chins,  ear-rings,  and  striped  frocks, 
were  in  knots  before  the  longboat, 
turned  keel  up  amidships,  careless 
enough,  to  all  appearance,  about  us. 
One  of  the  passengers  leant  against 
the  mainmast,  with  his  arms  folded 
over  his  broad  chest,  and  his  legs 
crossed,  looking  curiously  at  us  as  we 
came  up ;  his  dark  eyes  half  closed, 
the  shadow  of  his  hat  down  to  his 
black  mustache,  and  his  shirt-collar 
open,  showing  a  scar  on  his  hairy 
breast ;  one  man,  whom  I  marked  for 
the  brig's  surgeon,  beside  him ;  and 
another  waiting  for  us  near  the  bul- 
warks— a  leathery-faced  little  fellow, 
with  twinkling  black  eyes,  and  a  sort 
of  cocked  hat  fore-and-aft  on  his 
cropped  head.  "  Mot,  Monsieur," 
said  he,  slapping  his  hand  on  his 
breast  as  the  mate  looked  about  him, 
"  oui,  je  suis  capitaine,  monsieur." 
u  Good-day,  sir ; "  said  Stebbing, 
"  we've  just  come  aboard  for  our 
passengers — and  the  gig — sir,  if  you 
please."  "  Certainement,  monsieur," 
said  the  French  skipper,  bowing  and 
taking  a  paper  from  his  pocket,  which 
he  handed  to  the  mate,  "  I  comprind, 
sare  —  monsieur  le  capitaine  d'  la 
fregatte  Anglaise,  il  nous  demande  nos 
— vat  you  call, — peppares — voila !  I 
have  'ad  le  honncur,  messieurs,  to  be 
already  sarch  by  vun  off  vos  crusoes — 
pour  des  esclaves  !  vous  imaginez  cela, 
messieurs ! "  and  here  the  worthy 
Frenchman  cast  up  his  hands  and 
gave  a  grin  which  seemed  meant  for 
innocent  horror.  "  Slaifs!  c/iez  le 
brigantin  Louis  Bourbon,  Capitaine 
Jean  Duprez  ?  Non !  "  said  he,  talk- 
ing away  like  a  windmill,  "  de  Mar- 
seilles k  1'Isle  de  France,  avec  les  vins 
choisis "  "  You  mistake,  mon- 
sieur," said  I,  in  French;  "  the  ship  is 
an  Indiaman,  and  we  have  only  come 
for  our  friends,  who  are  enjoying  your 

wine,  I  daresay,  but  we  must " 

"  Comment?"  said  he,  staring,  "  what, 

monsieur?  have  de  gotness  to " 

Here  the  mustached  passenger  sud- 
denly raised  himself  off  the  mast,  and 
made  one  stride  between  us  to  the 
bulwarks,  where  he  looked  straight 
out  at  the  Indiaman,  his  arms  still 
folded,  then  from  us  to. the  French 
master.  He  was  a  noble-looking  man, 


with  an  eye  I  never  saw  the  like  of  i» 
any  one  else,  'twas  so  clear,  bold,  and 
prompt, — it  actually  went  into  you 
like  a  sword,  and  I  couldn't  help  fancy- 
ing him  in  the  thick  of  a  battle,  with 
thousands  of  men  and  miles  of  smoke. 
"  Duprez,"  said  he,  quickly,  "  je  vous 
le  dis  encore — debarquez  ces  misera- 
bles! — nous  combattrons !  "  Then, 
mon  ami,"  said  the  surgeon,  in  a  low, 
cool,  determined  tone,  stepping  up 
and  laying  a  hand  on  his  shoulder, 
"  aussi,  nous  couperons  les  ailes  de 
VAigle,  seulement! — Hush,  mon  ami, 
restrain  this  unfortunate  madness  of 
yours !  —  c'est  bien  malapropos,  a 
present ! "  and  he  whispered  some- 
thing additional,  on  which  the  pas- 
senger fell  back  and  leant  against  the 
main-mast  as  before.  "  Ah  ! "  said 
the  French  master,  shaking  his  head, 
and  giving  his  forehead  a  tap,  "  le 
pauvre  homme-la!  He  has  had  a 
coup-de-soleil,  messieurs,  or  rather  of 
the  moon,  you  perceive,  from  sleep- 
ing in  its  rays!  Ma  foil'1''  exclaimed 
he,  on  my  explaining  the  matter,  "c'est 
pos-sible?—  we  did  suppose  your  boat 
intended  to  visit  us,  when  evidently 
deterred  by  the  excessive  undulation  ! 
—My  friends,  resign  yourselves  to  a 
misfort — "  "  Great  heavens  !  Mr 
Stebbing,"  said  I,  "  the  boat  is  lost!" 
"By  George!  what  will  the  captain 
say,  then  ! "  replied  he ;  however,  as 
soon  as  I  told  him  the  sad  truth,  poor 
Stebbing,  being  a  good-hearted  fellow, 
actually  put  his  hands  to  his  face  and 
sobbed.  All  this  time  the  brig's  crew 
were  gabbling  and  kicking  up  a  con- 
founded noise  about  something  they 
were  at  with  the  spare  spars,  and  in 
throwing  tarpaulins  over  the  hatches; 
for  it  was  fearfully  dark,  and  going  to 
rain  heavy;  the  slight  swell  shone 
and  slid ,  up  betwixt  the  two  vessels 
like  oil,  and  the  clouds  to  south-west- 
ward had  gathered  up  to  a  steep  black 
bank,  with  round  coppery  heads,  like 
smoke  over  a  town  on  fire.  "  Will 
you  go  down,  messieurs,"  said  the 
Frenchman,  politely,  "  and  taste  my 
vin  de — "  "  No,  sir,"  said  I,  "  we 
must  make  haste  off,  or  else — besides, 
by  the  way,  we  couldn't,  for  you've 
got  all  your  hatches  battened  down  !" 
"  Diable,  so  they  are  !"  exclaimed  he, 
"par  honnenr,  gentlemen,  I  regret  the 
occasion  of—  ha! "  Just  before,  a  glar- 
ing brassy  sort  of  touch  had  seemed  to 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 

as  the 


1849.] 

come  across  the  face  of  the  immense 
cloud;  and  though  every  thing,  far 
and  wide,  was  as  still  as  death,  save 
the  creaking  of  the  two  ships'  yards, 
it  made  you  think  of  the  last  trumpet's 
mouth !  But  at  this  moment  a  dazzling 
flash  leaped  zig-zag  out  of  it,  running 
along  from  one  cloud  to  another,  while 
the  huge  dark  mass,  as  it  were,  tore 
right  up,  changing  and  turning  its  in- 
side out  like  dust — you  saw  the  sea  far 
away  under  it,  heaving  from  glassy 
blue  into  unnatural-like  brown — when 
crash  broke  the  thunder  over  our  very 
heads,  as  if  something  had  fallen  out 
of  heaven,  then  a  long  bounding  roar. 
The  mad  French  passenger  stood  up, 
walked  to  the  bulwarks,  and  looked 
out  with  his  hand  over  his  eyes  for 
the  next;  while  the  young  mate  and  I 
tumbled  down  the  brig's  side  without 
further  to  do,  and  pulled  fast  for  the 
ship,  where  we  hardly  got  aboard  be- 
fore there  was  another  wild  flash,  an- 
other tremendous  clap,  and  the  rain 
fell  in  one  clash,  more  like  stone  than 
water,  on  sea  and  decks.  For  half- 
an-hour  we  were  rolling  and  soaking 
in  the  midst  of  it,  the  lightning  hissing 
through  the  rain,  and  showing  it 
glitter;  Avhile  every  five  minutes  came 
a  burst  of  thunder  and  then  a  rattle 
fit  to  split  one's  ears.  At  length,  just 
as  the  rain  began  to  slacken,  you 
could  see  it  lift  bodily,  the  standing 
sheets  of  it  drove  right  against  our 
canvass  and  through  the  awnings, — 
when  we  made  out  the  French  brig 
with  her  jib,  topsails,  and  boom-main- 
sail full,  leaning  over  as  she  clove 
through  it  before  the  wind.  The 
squall  burst  into  our  wet  topsails  as 
loud  as  the  thunder,  with  a  flash  al- 
most like  the  lightning  itself,  taking 
us  broad  abeam ;  the  ship  groaned 
and  shook  for  a  minute  ere  gathering 
way  and  falling  off,  and  when  she 
rose  and  began  to  go  plunging  through 
the  black  surges,  no  brig  was  to  be 
seen:  every  man  on  deck  let  his 
breath  out  almost  in  a  cry,  scarce 
feeling  as  yet  but  it  was  equal  to  los- 
ing sight  for  ever  of  our  late  ship- 
mates, or  the  least  hope  of  them.  The 
passengers,  ladies  and  all,  crowded  in 
the  companion-hatch  in  absolute  ter- 
ror, every  face  aghast,  without  think- 
ing of  the  rain  and  spray :  now  and 
then  the  sulky  crest  of  a  bigger  wave 
would  be  caught  sight  of  beyond  the 


310 


bulwarks,  as  the  sea  rose  with  its 
green  back  curling  over  into  white ; 
and  you'd  have  said  the  shudder  ran 
down  into  the  cabin,  at  thought  of 
seeing  one  or  other  of  the  lost  boat's 
crew  come  weltering  up  from  the  mist 
and  vanish  again.  I  knew  it  was  of 
no  use,  but  I  held  on  in  the  weather 
mizen-rigging,  and  looked  out  to 
westward,  against  a  wild  break  of 
light  which  the  setting  sun  made 
through  the  troughs  of  the  sea ;  once 
and  again  I  could  fancy  I  saw  the 
boat  lift  keel  up,  far  off  betwixt  me 
and  the  fierce  glimmer.  "  Oh,  do  you 
see  them  ?  do  you  not  see  it  yet !" 
was  passed  up  to  me  over  and  over, 
from  one  sharp-pitched  voice  to  an- 
other ;  but  all  I  could  answer  was  to 
shake  my  head.  At  last,  one  by  one, 
they  went  below ;  and  after  what  had 
happened,  I  must  say  I  could  easily 
fancy  what  a  chill,  dreary-like,  awful 
notion  of  the  seannust  have  come  for 
the  first  time  on  a  landsman,  not  to 
speak  of  delicate  young  girls  fresh 
from  home :  at  sight  of  the  drenched 
quarterdeck  leaning  bare  down  to 
leeward,  the  sleet  and  spray  battering 
bleak  against  the  round-house  doors, 
where  I  had  seen  Miss  Hyde  led  sob- 
bing in,  with  her  wet  hair  about  her 
face  ;  then  the  ship  driving  off  from 
where  she  had  lost  them,  with  her 
three  strong  lower-masts  aslant  into 
the  gale,  ghastly  white  and  dripping 
— her  soaked  sheets  of  canvass  blown 
gray  and  stiff  into  the  rigging,  and  it 
strained  taut  as  iron  ;  while  you  saw 
little  of  her  higher  than  the  tops,  as 
the  scud  and  the  dark  together  closed 
aloft.  Poor  Miss  Fortescue's  mother 
was  in  fits  below  in  her  berth — the 
two  watches  were  on  the  yards  aloft, 
where  noeye  couldseethem,  struggling 
hard  to  furl  and  reef;  so  altogether  it 
was  a  gloomy  enough  moment.  I 
stayed  awhile  on  deck,  wrapped  in  a 
peacoat,  keeping  my  feet  and  hanging 
on,  and  thinking  how  right  down  in 
earnest  matters  could  turn  of  a  sud- 
den. I  wasn't  remarkably  thoughtful 
in  these  days,  I  daresay,  but  there 
did  I  keep,  straining  my  eyes  into  the 
mist  to  see  I  couldn't  tell  what,  and 
repeating  over  and  over  again  to- 
myself  these  few  words  out  of  the 
prayer-book,  "In  the  midst  of  life  we 
are  in  death,"  though  scarce  knowing 
what  I  said. 


320 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.    Part  IV. 


However,  the  Indiamau's  officers 
and  crew  had  work  enough  in  manag- 
ing her  at  present :  after  a  sunset 
more  like  the  putting  out  of  him  than 
anything  else,  with  a  flaring  snuff  and 
a  dingy  sort  of  smoke  that  followed, 
the  wind  grew  from  sou'west  into 
a  regular  long  gale,  that  drove  the 
tops  of  the  heavy  seas  into  the  dead- 
lights astern,  rising  aft  out  of  the  dark 
like  so  many  capes,  with  the  snow 
drifting  off  them  over  the  poop.  At 
midnight,  it  blew  great  guns,  with  a 
witness ;  the  ship,  under  storm  stay- 
sails and  close-reefed  maintopsail,  go- 
ing twelve  knots  or  more,  when,  as 
both  the  captain  and  mate  reckoned, 
we  were  near  St  Helena  on  our  pre- 
sent coarse,  and  to  haul  on  a  wind 
was  as  much  as  her  spars  were  worth : 
her  helm  was  put  hard  down  and  we 
lay  to  for  morning,  the  ship  drifting 
off  bodily  to  leeward  with  the  water. 
The  night  was  quite  dark,  the  rain 
coming  in  sudden  spits  out  of  the  wind ; 
you  only  heard  the  wet  gale  sob  and 
hiss  through  the  bare  rigging  into  her 
storm- canvass,  when  the  look-out  men 
ahead  sung  out,  "  Land — land  close 
to  starboard!"  "Bless  me,  sir,"  said 
the  mate  to  the  captain,  "it's  the  Rock 
— well  that  we  did — "  "  Hard  up ! 
hard  up  with  the  helm !"  yelled  the 
men  again,  "  it's  a  ship  /"  I  ran  to 
the  weather  main-chains  and  saw  a 
broad  black  mass,  as  it  were,  rising 
high  abeam,  and  seeming  to  come  out 
from  the  black  of  the  night,  with  a 
gleam  or  two  in  it  which  they  had 
taken  for  lights  ashore  in  the  island. 
The  Seringapatam's  wheel  was  put  up 
already,  but  she  hung  in  the  gale, 
doubtful  whether  to  fall  off  or  not ; 
and  the  moment  she  did  sink  into  the 
trough,  we  should  have  had  a  sea  over 
her  broadside  fit  to  wash  away  men, 
boats,  and  all — let  alone  the  other  ship 
bearing  down  at  twelve  knots. 
"  Show  the  head  of  the  fore-topmast- 
staysail!"  shouted  I  with  all  my 
strength  to  the  forecastle,  and  up  it 
went  slapping  its  hanks  to  the  blast — 
the  Indiaman  sprang  round  heeling  to 
her  ports  on  the  next  sea,  main-top- 
sail before  the  wind,  and  the  staysail 
down  again.  Next  minute,  a  large 
ship,  with  the  foam  washing  over  her 
cat-heads,  and  her  martingale  gear 
dripping  under  the  huge  white  bow- 
sprit, came  lifting  close  past  us — as 


[Sept. 

black  as  shadows  aloft,  save  the  glim- 
mer of  her  main-tack  to  the  lanterns 
aboard — and  knot  after  knot  of  dim 
faces  above  her  bulwarks  shot  by,  till 
you  saw  her  captain  standing  high  in 
the  mken-chains,  with  a  speaking 
trumpet.  He  roared  out  something 
or  other  through  it,  and  the  skipper 
sung  out  under  both  his  hands,  "  Ay, 
ay,  sir !"  in  answer;  but  it  turned  out 
after  that  nobody  knew  what  it  was, 
unless  it  might  be  as  I  thought, 
"  Where  are  you  going?"  The  minute 
following,  we  saw  her  quarter-lanterns 
like  two  will-o'-the-wisps  beyond  a 
wave,  and  she  was  gone — a  big  frigate 
running  under  half  her  canvass,  strong 
though  the  gale  blew. 

"  Why,  Mr  Finch,"  said  Captain 
Williamson,  as  soon  as  we  had  time 
to  draw  breath,  "  who  was  that,  bid 
show  the  fo'topmast-stays'l — 'twan't 
you  f  "  No,"  said  the  mate,  "  I'd  like 
to  know  who  had  the  hanged  impu- 
dence to  give  orders  here  without — " 
"  Well  now,  Finch,"  continued  the 
old  skipper,  "I'm  not  sure  but  that 
was  our  only  chance  at  the  moment, 
sir  ;  and  if  'twas  one  of  the  men,  why 
I'd  pass  it  over,  or  even  give  him  an 
extra  glass  of  grog  in  a  quiet  way  !" 
No  one  could  say  who  it  was,  how- 
ever;  and,  for  my  part,  the  sight  of  the 
frigate  made  me  still  more  cautious 
than  before  of  letting  out  what  West- 
wood  and  I  were :  in  fact,  I  couldn't 
help  feeling  rather  uneasy,  and  I  was 
glad  to  hear  the  superstitious  old 
sailmaker  whispering  about  how  he 
feared  there  was  no  luck  to  be  looked 
for,  when  "  drowned  men  and  ghost- 
esses  began  to  work  the  ship !"  The 
first  streak  of  dawn  was  hardly  seen, 
when  a  sail  could  be  made  out  in  it, 
far  on  our  lee  bow,  which  the  officers 
supposed  to  be  the  frigate;  Westwood 
and  I,  however,  were  of  opinion  it  was 
the  French  brig,  although  by  sunrise 
we  lost  sight  of  her  again.  Every  one 
in  the  cuddy  talked  of  our  unfortunate 
friends,  and  their  melancholy  fate ; 
even  Ford  and  Winterton  were  missed, 
while  old  Mr  Rollock  had  been  the 
life  of  the  passengers.  But  there  was 
naturally  still  more  felt  for  the  poor 
girl  Fortescue ;  it  made  all  of  us 
gloomy  for  a  day  or  two ;  though  the 
fresh  breeze,  and  the  Indiaman's  fast 
motion,  after  our  wearisome  spell  of  a 
calm,  did  a  great  deal  to  bring  things 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


1849.] 

round  again.  Westwood  was  greatly 
taken  up  with  my  account  of  the  brig 
and  her  people,  both  of  us  agreeing 
there  was  somewhat  suspicious  about 
her,  though  I  thought  she  was  pro- 
bably neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
slaver,  and  he  had  a  notion  she  was 
after  something  deeper :  what  that 
might  be,  'twas  hard  to  conceive,  as 
they  didn't  appear  like  pirates.  One 
thing,  however,  we  did  conclude  from 
the  matter,  that  the  brig  couldn't 
have  been  at  all  inclined  for  visitors ; 
and,  in  fact,  there  was  little  doubt  but 
she  would  actually  refuse  letting  the 
boat  aboard,  if  they  reached  her  ;  so 
in  all  likelihood  our  unhappy  friends 
had  been  swamped  on  that  very  ac- 
count, just  as  the  squall  came  on. 
When  this  idea  got  about  the  ship,  of 
course  you  may  suppose  neither  pas- 
sengers nor  crew  to  have  felt  particu- 
larly amiable  towards  the  French  ves- 
sel; and  if  we  had  met  her  again,  with 
any  good  occasion  for  it,  all  hands 
were  much  inclined  to  give  her  a  right- 
down  thrashing,  if  not  to  make  prize 
of  her  as  a  bad  character. 

"  Well,  Tom,"  said  I  to  West- 
wood  one  day,  "  I  wish  these  good 
folks  mayn't  be  disappointed,  but  I 
do  suspect  this  blessed  mate  of  ours 
will  turn  out  to  have  run  us  into 
some  fine  mess  or  other  with  his  navi- 
gation !  Did  you  notice  how  blue  the 
sky  looked  this  morning,  over  to  east- 
ward, compared  with  what  it  did 
just  now  where  the  sun  set?"  "  No," 
said  Westwood,  "  not  particularly  ; 
but  what  of  that  ?"  "  Why,  in  the 
Iris,"  replied  I,  "  we  used  always  to 
reckon  that  a  sign,  hereabouts,  of  our 
being  near  the  land!  Just  you  see, 
now,  to-morrow  morning,  if  the  dawn 
hasn't  a  hazy  yellow  look  in  it  before 
the  breeze  fails ;  in  which  case,  'tis 
the  African  coast  to  a  certainty!  Pity 
these  'Hyson  Mundungo'  men,  as 
Jack  calls  them,  shouldn't  have  their 
eyes  about  'em  as  well  as  on  the  log- 
slate  !  I  daresay,  now,"  continued  I, 
laughing,  "  you  heard  the  first  mate 
bothering  lately  about  the  great  vari- 
ation of  the  compass  here?  Well, 
what  do  you  suppose  was  the  reason 
of  it — but  that  sly  devil  of  a  kitmagar 
shoving  in  his  block  for  grinding  curry, 
under  the  feet  of  the  binnacle,  every 
time  he  was  done  using  it !  I  saw  him 
get  a  kick  one  morning  from  the  man 


321 


at  the  wheel,  who  chanced  to  look 
down  and  notice  him.  Good  solid 
iron  it  is,  though  painted  and  polished 
like  marble,  and  the  circumcised  rascal 
unluckily  considered  the  whole  binnacle 
as  asort  of  second  Mecca  for  security!" 
"  Hang  the  fellow !"  said  Westwood, 
"  but  I  don't  see  much  to  laugh  at, 
Ned.  Why,  if  you're  right,  we  shall 
all  be  soaked  and  fried  into  African 
fever  before  reaching  the  Cape,  and 
we've  had  misfortunes  enough  already! 
Only  think  of  an  exquisite  creature 

like  Miss "      "  Oh,"  interrupted 

I,  fancying  Master  Tom  began  lately 
to  show  sufficient  admiration  for  her, 
"  betwixt  an  old  humdrum,  and  a 
conceited  fool  like  that,  what  could 
you  expect  ?  All  I  say  is,  my  dear 
parson,  stand  by  for  a  pinch  when  it 
comes." 

On  going  down  to  tea  in  the  cuddy, 
we  found  the  party  full  of  spirits,  and 
for  the  first  time  there  was  no  men- 
tion of  their  lost  fellow-passengers, 
except  amongst  a  knot  of  cadets  and 
writers  rather  elevated  by  the  Madeira 
after  dinner,  who  were  gathered  round 
the  reverend  Mr  Knowles,  pretending 
to  talk  regretfully  of  his  Yankee  Mend, 
Mr  Daniel  Snout.  "  Yes,  gentlemen," 
said  the  missionary,  who  was  a  wor- 
thy, simple-hearted  person,"  "  in  spite 
of  some  uncouthness — and  perhaps 
limited  views,  the  result  of  defective 
education — he  was  an  excellent  man, 
I  think ! "  "Oh  certainly,  certainly ! " 
said  a  writer,  looking  to  his  friends, 
"  and  the  one  thing  needful  you  spoke 
of  just  now,  air,  I  daresay  he  had  it 
always  in  his  eye.  now  ?  "  "  Mixed, 
I  fear,"  replied  the  missionary,  "  with 
some  element  of  worldly  feeling — for 
in  America  they  are  apt  to  make  even 
the  soul,  as  well  as  religious  associa- 
tion, matter  of  commerce — but  Mr 
Snout,  I  have  reason  to  be  assured, 
had  the  true  welfare  of  India  at  heart 
— we  had  much  interesting  conversa- 
tion on  the  subject."  "Ah!"  said 
the  sharp  civilians,  "  he  was  fond  of 
getting  information,  was  poor  Daniel! 
Was  that  why  he  asked  you  so  many 
questions  about  the  Hindoo  gods,  Mr 
Knowles  ?  "  "  He  already  possessed 
much  general  knowledge  of  their 
strange  mythology,  himself,"  answered 
the  missionary,  "  and  I  confess  I  was 
surprised  at  it — especially,  as  he  con- 
fessed to  me,  that  that  gorgeous 


322  The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.    Part  IV. 

country,  with    its    many   boundless    like 


many 

capabilities,  should  have  occupied  his 
thoughts  more  and  more  from  boy- 
hood, amidst  the  secular  activity  of 
modern  life— even  as  it  occurred  unto 
myself!"  Here  the  worthy  man  took 
off  his  large  spectacles,  gave  them  a 
wipe,  and  put  them  on  again,  while 
he  finished  his  tea.  "  Before  this 
deplorable  dispensation,"  continued 
he  again,  "he  was  on  the  point  of 
revealing  to  me  a  great  scheme  at 
once  for  the  enlightenment,  I  believe, 
of  that  benighted  land,  and  for  more 
lucrative  support  to  those  engaged  in 
it.  I  fear,  gentlemen,  it  was  enthu- 
siasm— but  I  have  grounds  for  think- 
ing that  our  departed  friend  has  left 
in  this  vessel  many  packages  of  vol- 
umes translated  into  several  dialects 
of  the  great  Hindu  tongue — not  omit- 
ting, I  am  convinced,  the  best  of 
books."  "Where!"  exclaimed  several 
of  the  cadets,  rather  astonished,  "well! 
poor  Snout  can't  have  been  such  a  bad 
fellow,  after  all ! "  "  All  hum ! "  said 
the  writer,  doubtfully,  "  depend  upon 
it.  I  should  like,  now,  to  have  a  peep 
at  Jonathan's  bales!"  "I  myself 
have  thought,  also,"  said  the  mission- 
ary, "  it  would  gratify  me  to  look  into 
his  apartment — and  were  it  permitted 
to  use  one  or  two  of  the  volumes,  I 
should  cheerfully  on  our  arrival  in 

Bom "      "Come    along!"    said 

the  cadets, — "  let's  have  a  look  ! — 
shouldn't  wonder  to  see  Daniel  beside 
his  lion  yet,  within !  or  hear  '  guess 
I  aint.'  "  "  My  young  friends,"  said 
the  missionary,  as  we  all  went  along 
the  lighted  passage,  "  such  levity  is 
unseemly;"  and  indeed  the  look  of 
the  state-room  door,  fastened  outside 
as  the  steward  had  left  it  before  the 
gale  came  on,  made  the  brisk  cadets 
keep  quiet  till  the  lashing  on  it  was 
unfastened — 'twas  so  like  breaking  in 
upon  a  ghost.  However,  as  it 
chanced,  Mr  Snout's  goods  had  got 
loose  during  her  late  roll,  and  heaped 
down  to  leeward  against  the  door — 
so,  whenever  they  turned  the  handle, 
a  whole  bundle  of  packages  came 
tumbling  out  of  the  dark  as  it  burst 
open,  with  a  shower  of  small  affairs 


[Sept, 

so  many  stones  after  them. 
"What's  all  this!"  exclaimed  the 
cadets,  stooping  to  look  at  the  articles 
by  the  lamp-light,  strewed  as  they 
were  over  the  deck.  The  reverend 
gentleman  stooped  too,  stood  straight, 
wiped  his  spectacles  and  fixed  them 
on  his  nose,  then  stooped  again  ;  at 
length  one  long  exclamation  of  sur- 
prise broke  out  of  his  mouth.  They 
were  nothing  but  little  ugly  images, 
done  in  earthenware,  painted  and 
gilt,  and  exactly  the  same :  the  writer 
dived  into  a  canvass  package,  and 
there  was  a  lot  of  a  different  kind, 
somewhat  larger  and  uglier.  Every 
one  made  free  with  a  bale  for  himself, 
shouting  out  his  discoveries  to  the 
rest.  "I  say  Smythe,  this  is  Vishnu, 

it's  marked  on  the  corner !"  "  D n 

it,  Ramsay,  here's  Brahma!"  "Ha! 
ha !  ha !  if  7  havn't  got  Seeva  !"  "I 
say,  what's  this  though  ?"  screamed  a 
young  lad,  hauling  at  the  biggest  bale 
of  all,  while  the  missionary  stood 
stock  upright,  a  perfect  picture  of  be- 
wilderment—  "io."'  being  all  he 
could  say.  "  What  can  '  Lingams  ' 
be,  eh?"  went  on  the  young  griffin, 
reading  the  mark  outside — " '  Lingams 
— extra  fine  gilt,  Staffordshire — 70  Rs. 
per  doz. — D.  S.  to  Bombay,' — what 
may  Lingams  be  ?  "  and  he  pulled  out 
a  sample,  meant  for  an  improvement 
on  the  shapeless  black  stones  reckoned 
so  sacred  by  Hindoo  ladies  that  love 
their  lords,  as  I  knew  from  seeing 
them  one  morning  near  Madras,  bring- 
inggifts  and  bowing  to  the  Lingam,  at  a 
pretty  little  white  temple  under  an  old 
banian-tree.  For  my  part,  I  had  lighted 
on  a  gross  or  so  of  gentlemen  and 
ladies  with  three  heads  and  five  arms, 
packed  nicely  through  each  other  in 
cotton,  but  inside  the  state-room. 
At  this  last  prize,  however,  the  poor 
missionary  could  stand  it  no  longer  ; 
"  Oh  !  oh  !"  groaned  he,  clapping  his 
hand  to  his  head,  and  walking  slowly 
off  to  his  berth  ;  while,  as  the  truth 
gleamed  on  the  cadets  and  us,  we  sat 
down  on  the  deck  amidst  the  spoil, 
and  roared  with  laughter  like  to  go 
into  fits,  at  the  unfortunate  Yankee's 
scheme  for  converting  India."*  "Well 


*  It  is  here  due  to  the  credit  of  our  friend  the  captain,  who  was  not  unusually  ima- 
ginative for  a  sailor,  to  state,  that  this  speculation  as  a  commercial  one,  is  strictly 
and  literally  a /act,  as  the  Anglo-Indian  of  Calcutta  can  probably  testify.  The  bold 
and  all  but  poetical  catholicity  of  the  idea  could  have  been  reached,  perhaps,  by  the 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


323 


— hang  me ! "  said  a  writer,  as  soon 
as  be  could  speak,  "but  this  is  a  streak 
beyond  the  Society  for  Diffusing  Use- 
ful Knowledge!"  "Every  man  his 
own  priest, — ha!  ha!  ha!"  shouted 
another.  "I  say,  Smythe,"  sung 
out  a  cadet,  "just  fancy — ha!  ha! 
4D.  Snout  and  Co'— ho!  ho!  ho! 
you  know  it's  too  rich  to  enjoy  by  our- 
selves. '  Mythullogy  store,'  Bombay, 
near  the  cathedral!"  "Cheap  Bra- 
mahs,  wholesale  and  retail — eh? 
families  supplied!"  "By  George! 
he's  a  genius  lost!"  said  Smythe, 
"  but  the  parson  needn't  have  broken 
with  him  for  that, — I  shouldn't  won- 
der, now,  if  they  had  joined  partner- 
ship, but  Daniel  might  have  thought 
of  mining  all  their  heads  with  gun- 
powder and  percussion  springs,  so 
that  the  missionary  could  have  gone 
round  afterwards  and  blown  up  hea- 
thenism by  a  touch!"  The  noise  of 
all  this  soon  brought  along  the  rest 
of  the  gentlemen,  and  few  could  help 
laughing.  When  the  thing  got  wind 
on  deck,  however,  neither  the  old 
skipper  nor  the  men  seemed  to  like  it 
much  :  what  with  the  notion  of  the 
ship's  being  taken,  as  it  were,  by  a 
thousand  or  two  of  ugly  little  imps 
and  Pagan  idols,  besides  bringing  up 
a  drowned  man's  concerns,  and  '  yaw- 
hawing,'  as  they  said,  into  his  very 
door, — it  was  thought  the  best  thing 
to  have  them  all  chucked  over  board 
next  morning. 

'Twas  a  beautifully  fine  night,  clear 
aloft,  and  the  moon  rising  large  on  our 
larboard  bow,  out  of  a  delicate  pale 
sort  of  haze,  as  the  ship  headed 
south'ard  with  the  breeze ;  for  I 
marked  the  haze  particularly,  as  well 
as  the  colour  of  the  sky  that  lay  high 
over  it  like  a  deep-blue  hollow  going 
away  down  beyond,  and  filling  up  with 
the  light.  There  was  no  living  below 
for  heat,  and  the  showers  of  cock- 
roaches that  went  whirring  at  the 
lamps,  and  marching  with  their  infer- 
nal feelers  out,  straight  up  your  legs ; 
so,  fore  and  aft,  the  decks  were  astir 
with  us  all.  Talk  of  moonlight  on 
land !  but  even  in  the  tropics  you  have 
to  see  it  pouring  right  down,  as  it  was 
then,  the  whole  sky  full  of  it  aloft  as 


the  moon  drew  farther  up ;  till  it  came 
raining,  as  it  were,  in  a  single  sheet 
from  one  bend  of  the  horizon  to  an- 
other :  the  water  scarce  rippling  to  the 
breeze,  only  heaving  in  long  low 
swells,  that  you  heard  just  wash  her 
bends ;  one  track  brighter  than  the 
rest,  shining  and  glancing  like  a  look- 
ing-glass drawn  out,  for  a  mile  or  so 
across  our  quarter,  and  the  ship's 
shadow  under  her  other  bow.  You 
saw  the  men  far  forward  in  her  head, 
and  clustered  in  a  heap  on  the  bow- 
sprit-heel, enjoying  it  mightily,  and 
looking  out  or  straight  aloft  as  if  to 
polish  their  mahogany  faces,  and  get 
their  bushy  whiskers  silvered  ;  while 
the  awnings  being  off  the  poop,  the 
planks  in  it  came  out  like  so  much 
ivory  from  the  shade  of  the  spanker, 
which  sent  down  a  perfect  gush  of 
light  on  every  one  moving  past.  For 
the  air,  again,  as  all  the  passengers 
said,  it  was  balmy ;  though  for  my 
part — perhaps  it  might  be  a  fancy  of 
mine — but  now  and  then  I  thought  it 
sniffed  a  little  too  much  that  way,  to 
be  altogether  pleasant  in  the  circum- 
stances. 

Of  course,  no  sooner  had  I  caught 
sight  of  Sir  Charles  Hyde  than  I  looked 
for  his  daughter,  and  at  last  saw  some 
one  talking  to  a  young  lady  seated 
near  the  after-gratings,  with  her  head 
turned  round  seaward,  whom  it  didn't 
require  much  guessing  for  me  to  name. 
Not  having  seen  her  at  all  since  the 
affair  of  the  boats,  I  strolled  aft,  when 
I  was  rather  surprised  to  find  that  her 
companion  was  Tom  Westwood,  and 
they  seemed  in  the  thick  of  an  inte- 
resting discourse.  The  instant  I  got 
near,  however,  they  broke  it  off;  the 
young  lady  turned  her  head — and 
never,  I'd  swear,  was  woman's  face 
seen  fairer  than  I  thought  hers  at  that 
moment — when  the  bright  moonlight 
that  had  seemed  trying  to  steal  round 
her  loose  bonnet  and  peep  in,  fell 
straight  down  at  once  from  her  fore- 
head to  her  chin,  appearing,  as  it 
were,  to  dance  in  under  her  long  eye- 
lashes to  meet  her  eyes;  while  one 
mass  of  her  brown  hair  hung  bright  in 
it,  and  white  against  the  shadow 
round  her  cheek,  that  drew  the  charm- 


'  progressing '  American  intellect  alone,  while  Staffordshire,  it  is  certain,  furnished 
its  realisation  :  the  investment,  it  is  nevertheless  believed,  proved  eventually  unpro- 
fitable. 


324 


Tfte  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


[Sept. 


ing  line  of  her  nose  and  lip  as  clear 
as  the  horizon  on  the  sky !  The  very 
moment,  in  fact,  that  a  bitter  thought 
flashed  into  my  mind — for  to  my  fancy 
she  looked  vexed  at  seeing  me,  and  a 
colour  seemed  mounting  up  to  her 
cheek,  even  through  the  fairy  sort  of 
glimmer  on  it.  Could  Tom  Westwood 
have  been  acting  no  more  than  the 
clerical  near  such  a  creature  ?  and  if  a 
fellow  like  him  took  it  in  his  head, 
•what  chance  had  I?  The  next  minute, 
accordingly,  she  rose  off  her  seat,  gave 
me  a  slight  bow  in  answer  to  mine, 
and  walked  direct  to  the  gallery  stair, 
where  she  disappeared. 

"  We  were  talking  of  that  unlucky 
adventure  the  other  day,"  said  West- 
wood,  glancing  at  me,  but  rather  taken 
aback,  as  I  thought.  "Ay?"  said  I, 
carelessly.  "  Yes,"  continued  he ; 
"  Miss  Hyde  had  no  idea  you  and  I 
were  particularly  acquainted,  and 
seems  to  think  me  a  respectable 
clergyman ;  but  I  must  tell  you,  Ned, 
she  has  rather  a  suspicious  opinion  of 
yourself!"  "Oh,  indeed!"  said  I, 
sullenly.  "  Fact,  Ned,"  said  he  ; 
"  she  even  remembers  having  seen  you 
before,  somewhere  or  other — I  hope, 
mydearfellow,  itwasn't  on  thestage?" 
"  Ha !  ha !  how  amusing !"  I  said, 
with  the  best  laugh  I  could  get  up. 
"  At  any  rate,  Collins,"  he  went  on, 
"  she  sees  through  your  feigned  way 
of  carrying  on,  and  knows  you're  nei- 
ther griffin  nor  land-lubber,  but  a 
sailor  ;  for  I  fancy  this  is  not  the  first 
time  the  young  lady  has  met  with  the 
cloth !  What  do  you  suppose  she 
askedmenow,  quite  seriously?"  "Oh, 
1  couldn't  guess,  of  course,"  replied  I, 
almost  with  a  sneer ;  "  pray  don't — " 
"  Why,  she  inquired  what  could  be 
the  design  of  one  concealing  his  pro- 
fession so  carefully ;  and  actually  ap- 
pearing to  be  on  a  secret  understand- 
ing with  some  of  the  sailors !  Directly 
after,  she  asked  whether  that  brig 
mightn't  really  have  been  a  pirate, 
and  taken  off  the  poor  general,  Miss 
Fortescne,  and  the  rest?"  "Ah," 
said  I,  coldly,  "  and  if  I  might  venture 
to  ask,  what  did  you—"  "Oh,  of 
course,"  replied  Westwood,  laughing, 
"  I  could  only  hide  my  amusement, 
and  profess  doubts,  you  know,  Ned !" 
"  Deuced  good  joke,  Mr  Westwood," 
thought  I  to  myself,  "  but  at  least  you 
can't  weather  on  me  quite  so  inno- 


cently, my  fine  fellow !  I  didn't  think 
it  of  him,  after  all !  By  heaven,  I  did 
not!"  "By  the  bye,  Collins,"  ex- 
claimed Westwood  in  a  little,  as  he 
kept  his  eye  astern,  "  there's  some- 
thing away  yonder  on  our  lee -quarter 
that  I've  been  watching  for  these  last 
ten  minutes — what  do  you  think  it 
may  be?  Look  !  Justin  the  tail  of  the 
moonshine  yonder!"  What  it  might 
be,  I  cared  little  enough  at  the  time  ; 
but  I  did  give  a  glance,  and  saw  a 
little  black  dot,  as  it  were,  rising  and 
falling  with  the  long  run  of  the  water, 
apparently  making  way  before  the 
breeze.  "  Only  a  bit  of  wood,  I  dare- 
say," remarked  I ;  "  but  whatever  it 
is,  at  any  rate  the  drift  Avill  take  it  far 
to  leeward  of  us,  so  you  needn't 
mind."  Here  we  heard  a  steward 
come  up  and  say  to  the  first  officer, 
who  was  waiting  with  the  rest  to  take 
a  lunar  observation,  that  Captain 
Williamson  had  turned  in  unwell,  but 
he  wanted  to  hear  when  they  found 
the  longitude  :  accordingly,  they  got 
their  altitude,  and  went  on  making 
the  calculations  on  deck.  "  Well, 
steward,"  said  the  mate,  after  a  little 
humming  and  hawing,  "go  down  and 
tell  the  captain,  in  the  meantime, 
about  five  east;  but  I  think  it's  a  good 
deal  over  the  mark — say  I'll  be  down 
myself  directly." 

"  A  deuced  sight  below  the  mark, 
rather! "  said  I,  walking  aft  again, 
where  Westwood  kept  still  looking 
out  for  the  black  dot.  "  You'll  see  it 
nearer,  now,  Ned,"  said  he ;  "  more 
like  a  negro's  head,  or  his  hand,  than 
a  bit  of  wood — eh  ?"  "  Curious  !"  I 
said  ;  "it  lies  well  iip  for  our  beam, 
still — 'spite  of  the  breeze.  Must  be  a 
shark's  back-fin,  I  think,  making  for 
convoy."  In  ten  minutes  longer,  the 
light  swell  in  the  distance  gave  it  a 
lift  up  fair  into  the  moonshine ;  it 
gleamed  for  a  moment,  and  then 
seemed  to  roll  across  into  the  blue 
glimmer  of  the  sea.  "  By  Jove,  Col- 
lins," said  Westwood,  gazing  eagerly 
at  it,  "  'tis  more  like  a  bottle,  to  my 
sight ! "  We  walked  back  and  forward, 
looking  each  time  over  the  taffrail,  till 
at  length  the  affair  in  question  could 
be  seen  dipping  and  creeping  ahead 
in  the  smooth  shining  wash  of  the  sur- 
face, just  like  to  go  bobbing  across  our 
bows  and  be  missed  to  windward. 
"  Crossing  our  hause  I  do  declare  ! — 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.     Part  IV. 


Hanged  if  that  ain't  fore-reaching  on 
us,  with  a  witness!"  exclaimed  the 
two  of  us  together:  "and  a  bottle  it 
«/"  said  Westwood.  I  slipped  down 
the  poop-stair,  and  along  to  the  fore- 
castle, where  I  told  Jacobs ;  when 
two  or  three  of  the  men  went  out  on 
the  martingale-stays,  with  the  bight 
of  a  line  and  a  couple  of  blocks  in  it, 
ready  to  throw  round  this  said  floating 
oddity,  and  haul  it  alongside  as  it 
surged  past.  Shortly  after  we  had  it 
safe  in  our  hands ;  a  square-built  old 
Dutchman  it  was,  tight  corked,  with 
a  red  rag  round  the  neck,  and  crusted 
over  with  salt — almost  like  one  of 
Vanderdecken's  messages  home,  com- 
ing up  as  it  did  from  the  wide  glitter- 
ing sea,  of  a  tropical  moonlight  night, 
nine  weeks  or  so  after  leaving  land. 
The  men  who  had  got  it  seemed  afraid 
of  their  prize,  so  Westwood  and  I  had 
no  difficulty  in  smuggling  it  away 
below  to  our  berth,  where  we  both 
sat  down  on  a  locker  and  looked  at 
one  another.  "What  poor  devil 
hove  this  overboard,  I  wonder,  now," 
said  he;  "I  daresay  it  may  have 
knocked  about,  God  knows  how  long, 
since  his  affair  was  settled."  "  Why, 
for  that  matter,  Westwood,"  replied 
I,  "  I  fancy  it's  much  more  important 
to  find  there's  a  strong  easterly  cur- 
rent hereabouts  just  now !  "  *  Here 


Westwood  got  a  cork-screw,  and  pulled 
out  the  cork  with  a  true  parson-like 
gravity :  as  we  had  expected,  there 
was  a  paper  tacked  to  it,  crumpled  up 
and  scrawled  over  in  what  we  could 
only  suppose  was  blood. 

"  '  No.  20,'"  read  he,— "  what  does 
that  mean  ?  "  "  The  twentieth  bottle 
launched,  perhaps,"  said  I,  and  he 
went  on — "  '  For  Godsake,  if  you  find 
this,  keep  to  the  south-west — we  are 
going  that  way,  we  think — we've  fallen 
amongst  regular  Thugs,  I  fear — just 
from  the  folly  of  these  three — (they're 
looking  over  my  shoulder,  though) — 
we  are  not  ill-treated  yet,  but  kept 
below  and  watched — yours  in  haste — ' 
What  this  signature  is  I  can't  say  for 
the  life  of  me,  Ned ;  no  date  either ! " 
"  Did  the  fellow  think  he  was  writing 
by  post,  I  wonder,"  said  I,  trying  to 
make  it  out.  "  By  the  powers !  West- 
wood,  though,"  and  I  jumped  up, 
"  that  bottle  might  have  come  from 
the  Pacific,  'tis  true — but  what  if  it 
were  old  Rollock  after  all !  Thugs, 
did  you  say  ?  Why,  I  shouldn't  won- 
der if  the  jolly  old  planter  were  on 
the  hooks  still.  That  rascally  brig ! " 
And  accordingly,  on  trying  the  scrawl 
at  the  end,  over  and  over,  we  both 
agreed  it  was  nothing  but  T.  ROL- 
LOCK! 


*  Currents  are  designated  from  the  direction  they  run  towards;  winds,  the  quarter 
they  blow  from. 


326 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


[Sept. 


MORAL  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITION  OF  WALES. 


WE  have  before  us  a  valuable  and 
interesting  work  on  a  portion  of  the 
British  dominions  much  visited  but 
little  known,  and  one  which  is  satis- 
factory, not  only  from  the  good  feel- 
ing and  taste  it  evinces  on  the  part  of 
its  author,  but  also  from  its  setting  at 
rest  a  question  that  was  lately  much 
agitated,  and  to  which  we  at  the  time 
adverted  in  our  pages  for  May  1848. 
Sir  Thomas  Phillips  has  taken  up  the 
cudgel,  or  rather  the  pen,  to  defend 
the  honour  of  his  beloved  country,  and 
has  acquitted  himself  well  of  the  task, 
partly  in  combating  real  opponents, 
partly  in  knocking  down  men  of  straw. 
The  book,  however,  comes  so  far  late 
of  its  subject  as  that  the  interest  felt 
upon  it  had  been  gradually  subsiding. 
No  very  mighty  grievance  could  be 
alleged  by  our  hot-blooded  Cambrian 
brethren ;  many  hard  words  and  blus- 
tering speeches  had  been  uttered 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
Wales,  and  a  sort  of  Celtic  agitation 
had  been  got  up  by  sundry  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  not  much  connected  with 
the  country.  The  nation  at  large, 
however,  had  not  paid  great  atten- 
tion to  it ;  the  British  lion  did  not 
show  any  indication  to  lash  his  sides 
into  foam  with  his  magnanimous  tail ; 
the  storm  in  a  tea-cup  was  left  to 
itself:  oil  had  been  floating  on  the 
face  of  the  troubled  waters ;  and  though 
a  few  disappointed  persons  had  tried 
to  revive  a  little  excitement,  for  the 
sake  of  "  having  their  names  before 
the  public,"  peace  was  again  reigning 
throughout  Cambria's  vales,  and  her 
people  were  following  their  own  simple 
occupations,  unknowing  and  unknown. 
Sir  Thomas  Phillips,  however,  with  a 
most  patriotic  motive,  determined  to 
fire  one  shot  more  against  his  coun- 
try's traducers ;  and  thus,  while  con- 
cocting a  final  reply  to  the  "  Blue 
Books," — as  they  are  commonly  called 


in  the  Principality — found  himself  led 
on  and  on,  from  page  to  page,  and 
chapter  to  chapter,  until,  instead  of  a 
pamphlet,  he  has  produced  a  thick 
volume  of  six  hundred  pages,  and  has 
compiled  what  may  be  termed  a  com- 
plete apology  for  Wales. 

Our  readers  will  very  likely  remem- 
ber that  certain  Reports  on  the  state 
of  education  in  Wales,  printed  by 
order  of  the  House  of  Commons,  gave 
immense  offence  to  all  who  had  got 
ever  so  little  Welsh  blood  in  their 
veins.  We  reviewed  these  very  re- 
ports, and  gave  our  opinions  on  Welsh 
education  at  considerable  length; 
and  therefore  we  do  not  open  Sir  Tho- 
mas Phillips'  pages  with  the  intention 
of  reverting  to  that  part  of  the  sub- 
ject, though  the  author,  in  compiling 
it,  seems  to  have  had  the  education  of 
his  countrymen  principally  in  view. 

We  consider,  however,  that  a  work 
written  by  a  gentleman,  known  for 
his  forensic  abilities  and  literary  pur- 
suits, upon  a  large  portion  of  this 
island,  and  purporting  to  be  a  complete 
account  of  its  moral  and  social  con- 
dition, must  form  a  suitable  topic  for 
review  and  discussion.  Our  readers 
will  not  repent  our  introducing  it  to 
their  notice :  we  can  at  once  assure 
them  that  it  will  amply  repay  the 
trouble — if  it  be  a  trouble  at  all — of 
perusing  it.  The  style  is  graceful  and 
yet  nervous;  the  whole  tone  and  colour 
of  the  thoughts  of  the  author  show 
the  gentleman  ;  while  the  general  com- 
pilation and  discussion  of  the  facts 
collected  prove  Sir  Thomas  Phillips  to 
have  the  mind  and  the  abilities  of  a 
statesman.*  Another,  and  a  more 
important  reason,  however,  why  this 
work  will  be  acceptable  to  many  of 
our  readers,  is  that  it  touches  upon 
various  questions  which,  at  times  like 
the  present,  are  of  vital  importance  to 
the  welfare,  not  of  Wales  only,  but  of 


Wales  :  the  Language,  Social  Condition,  Moral  Character,  and  Religious  Opinions 
of  the  People  considered  in  their  relation  to  Education.  By  Sir  THOMAS  PHILLIPS. 
1  vol.  8vo,  pp.  606.  London  :  1 849. 

*  For  the  information  of  those  among  our  readers  who  may  not  be  aware  of  the 
fact,  it  will  be  well  to  mention  that  Sir  Thomas  Phillips  was  knighted  for  having,  as 
mayor  of  Newport,  in  Monmouthshire,  aided  so  materially  in  suppressing  the  Char- 
tist riots  that  took  place  there  in  1839. 


1849.] 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


327 


the  British  empire ;  and  that  it  proves 
the  existence  of  feelings  in  the  Princi- 
pality— mentioned  by  ns  on  a  pre- 
vious occasion — which  ought  to  be 
brought  before  the  notice  of  the  public, 
and  commented  upon.  This  is  the 
task  which  we  reserve  for  ourselves 
after  reviewing  more  in  detail  the  work 
of  tho  learned  author ;  for  Wales  may 
become  a  second  Ireland  in  time,  if 
neglected,  or  it  may  continue  to  be 
a  source  of  permanent  strength  to 
the  crown,  if  properly  treated  and  pro- 
tected. The  existence  of  such  a  state 
of  things  is  hinted  at  in  the  preface — 
an  uncommonly  good  one,  by  the  way, 
and  dated,  with  thorough  Cambrian 
spirit,  on  St  David's  Day,  if  not  from 
the  top  of  Snowdon,  yet  from  the  more 
prosaic  and  less  mountainous  locality 
of  the  Inner  Temple.  The  author's 
words  are — 

"  Amongst  the  mischievous  results  which 
the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  reports  have 
provoked  in  Wales,  I  regard  with  dis- 
comfort and  anxiety  a  spirit  of  isolation 
from  England,  to  which  sectarian  agen- 
cies, actively  working  through  various 
channels,  have  largely  ministered.  In 
ordinary  times  this  result  might  be  disre- 
garded ;  but  at  a  period  of  the  world's 
history  when  the  process  of  decomposi- 
tion is  active  amongst  nations,  and  phrases 
which  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  race 
become  readily  mischievous,  it  behoves 
those  very  excellent  persons,  who  claim 
Wales  for  the  Welsh,  to  consider  whether 
they  are  prepared  to  give  up  England  to 
the  English,  and  to  relinquish  the  advan- 
tages which  a  poor  province  enjoys  by  its 
union  with  a  rich  kingdom.  For  genera- 
tions, Welshmen  have  been  admitted  to 
an  equal  rivalry  with  Englishmen,  as 
well  in  England  as  in  those  colonial  pos- 
sessions of  the  British  crown,  which  have 
offered  so  wide  a  field  for  enterprise,  and 
secured  such  ample  rewards  to  provident 
industry ;  and,  whether  at  the  bar  or  in 
the  senate,  or  in  the  more  stirring  feats  of 
war,  they  have  obtained  a  fair  field,  and 
have  won  honourable  distinction.  There 
are  offices  in  the  Principality,  the  duties 
of  which  demand  a  knowledge  of  the 
Welsh  language,  and  for  them  such  know- 
ledge should  be  made  a  condition  of  eli- 
gibility, in  the  same  manner  as  a  know- 
ledge of  English  would  be  required,  under 
analogous  circumstances,  in  England.  In 
the  law  these 'offices  will  be  few,  and  pro- 
bably confined  to  the  local  judges  ;  as  it 
will  not  be  seriously  proposed  that,  in  our 
assize  courts,  the  pleadings  of  the  advo- 
cate, and  the  address  of  the  judge,  sliall 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  ccccvir. 


be  delivered  in  the  Welsh  language;  and 
even  in  the  courts  of  quarter-sessions, 
which  are  composed  of  local  magistrates 
most  of  whom  were  born  and  reside  in 
the  country,  but  few  of  those  gentlemen 
could  address  a  jury  in  their  own  tongue. 
A  remedy  for  the  inconvenience  occa- 
sioned by  an  ignorant  or  imperfect  ac- 
quaintance, on  the  part  of  the  people,  with 
the  language  employed  in  courts  of  jus- 
tice, must  be  looked  for  iu  that  instruc- 
tion in  the  English  language  which  is  in- 
tended to  be  provided  for  all,  and  which 
is  necessary  to  qualify  men  to  appear  as 
witnesses,  or  to  serve  as  jurors,  in  courts 
wherein  the  proceedings  are  conducted 
in  that  tongue.  The  difficulties  arising 
from  language  are  principally  felt  in  the 
Church  :  and  it  seems  a  truism  to  affirm, 
that  where  Welsh  is  the  ordinary  lan- 
guage of  public  worship,  and  the  common 
medium  of  conversation,  the  language 
should  be  known  to  those  who  are  to 
teach  and  exhort  the  people,  and  to  with- 
stand and  convince  gainsayers.  The  no- 
mination of  foreign  prelates  to  English 
sees  before  the  Reformation,  occasioned 
great  dissatisfaction  in  the  minds  of  the 
English  clergy,  and  tended  to  alienate 
them  from  the  papacy;  and  yet  men  who 
are  prompt  to  recognise  that  grievance, 
are  insensible  to  the  effect  produced  on 
the  Welsh  clergy,  by  their  general  exclu- 
sion from  the  higher  offices  of  the  Church. 
The  ignorance  of  Welsh  in  men  promoted 
to  bishoprics  in  Wales,  may  be  more  than 
compensated  for  by  the  possession  of  other 
qualifications;  and  a  rigid  exclusion  from 
the  episcopal  office  in  the  Principality  of 
every  man  who  is  unacquainted  with  the 
language  of  the  people,  might  be  inconve- 
nient, if  not  injurious,  to  the  best  interests 
of  the  Church.  The  selection,  however, 
for  the  episcopal  office  of  men  conversant 
with  the  language  of  the  country,  when 
otherwise  qualified  to  bear  rule  in  the 
Christian  ministry,  would  give  a  living 
reality  to  the  episcopate  in  the  Principal- 
ity, and  might  materially  aid  in  bringing 
back  the  people  into  the  fold  of  the 
Church." 

The  difference  of  language  is  here 
made  the  principal  grievance  between 
the  Saxon  and  Celtic  population ;  and 
it  is  certainly  one  of  the  principal, 
though  not  the  main,  nor  the  only, 
cause  of  the  unpleasantness  and  un- 
settledness  of  feeling  that  exists  in 
Wales  towards  England  and  English 
people.  Where  two  languages  exist, 
it  is  impossible  but  that  national  dis- 
tinctions should  exist  also ;  and  as  tho 
traditions  of  conquest,  and  the  heredi- 
tary consciousness  of  political  inferior- 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


ity,  are  some  of  the  last  sentiments  that 
abandon  a  vanquished  people,  so  it  is 
probable  that  the  Welsh  will  remain  a 
distinct  people  for  more  centuries  to 
come  than  we  care  to  count  up.  We 
do  not  know  but  that,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, it  may  be  a  source  of  strength  to 
England  that  it  should  be  so,  though  it 
will  undoubtedly  be  a  cause  of  weak- 
ness and  division  to  Wales.  Never- 
theless, the  difficulty  is  not  so  great  as 
may  be  at  first  sight  supposed.  In 
adverting  to  this  part  of  the  subject, 
Sir  Thomas  Phillips  observes — 

"When  Edward  the  First  conquered 
the  country,  and  subjected  the  natives  to 
English  rule,  he  was  deeply  sensible  of 
the  difficulty  which  now  paralyses  educa- 
tion commissioners,  and  he  dealt  with  it 
in  a  manner  characteristic  of  the  monarch 
and  the  times.  Of  him  Carlyle  would 
say,  he  was  a  real  man,  and  no  sham;  and 
did  not  believe  in  any  distracted  jargon 
of  universal  rose-water  in  this  world  still 
so  full  of  sin.  Accordingly,  he  gathered 
all  the  Welsh  bards  together,  and  put 
them  to  death  ;  and  Hume,  a  philosophic 
and  ordinarily  not  a  cruel  historian,  says 
this  policy  was  not  absurd.  English 
legislation,  between  the  conquest  of  the 
country  by  Edward  the  First  and  its  in- 
corporation with  England  by  Henry  the 
Eighth,  was  characterised  by  a  deliberate 
and  pertinacious  endeavour  to  extirpate 
the  language  and  subjugate  the  spirit  of 
the  inhabitants.  By  laws  of  the  Lancas- 
trian princes,  (whose  usurpation  was  long 
resisted  by  the  Welsh  people,)  'rhymers, 
minstrels,  and  other  Welsh  vagabonds,' 
were  forbidden  to  burden  the  country  ; 
the  natives  were  not  permitted  to  have 
any  house  of  defence,  to  bear  arms,  or  to 
exercise  any  authority  ;  and  an  English- 
man, by  the  act  of  marrying  a  Welsh  wo- 
man, became  ineligible  to  hold  office  in 
his  adopted  country.  By  statutes  of 
Henry  the  Eighth,  it  was  enacted,  that 
law  proceedings  should  be  in  the  English 
tongue  ;  that  all  oaths,  affidavits,  and 
verdicts,  should  be  given  and  made  in 
English;  and  that  no  Welsh  person,  'who 
did  not  use  the  English  speech'  should 
hold  office  within  the  King's  dominions. 
Even  at  the  Reformation,  which  secured 
the  sacred  volume  to  Englishmen  '  in 
their  own  tongue  wherein  they  were  born,' 
the  revelation  to  man  of  God's  will  was 
not  given  to  Welshmen  in  a  language  un- 
derstood by  the  people.  In  1562,  how- 


[Sept. 


ever,  provision  was  made  for  translating 
the  Bible  and  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  into  the  British  or  Welsh  tongue, 
by  an  act  which  declared  that  the  most 
and  greatest  part  of  the  Queen's  loving 
subjects  in  Wales  did  not  understand  the 
English  tongue,  and  therefore  were  ut- 
terly destitute  of  God's  holy  Word,  and 
did  remain  in  the  like,  or  rather  more, 
darkness  and  ignorance  than  they  were  in 
the  time  of  papistry,  and  required  that 
not  only  a  Welsh,  but  also  an  English, 
Bible  and  Book  of  Common  Prayer  should 
be  laid  in  every  church  throughout  Wales, 
there  to  remain,  that  such  as  understood 
them  might  read  and  peruse  the  same  ; 
and  that  such  as  understood  them  not 
might,  by  conferring  both  tongues  together, 
the  sooner  attain  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
English  tongue. 

"  Nearly  six  centuries  have  elapsed 
since  the  first  Edward  crossed  the  lofty 
mountains  of  North  Wales,  which,  before 
him,  no  King  of  England  had  trodden, 
and  in  the  citadel  of  Caernarvon  received 
the  submission  of  the  Welsh  people  ;  and 
more  than  three  centuries  have  passed 
away  since  the  country  was  incorporated 
with,  and  made  part  of,  the  realm  of 
England  ;  and  although,  for  so  long  a 
period,  English  laws  have  been  enforced, 
and  the  use  of  the  Welsh  language  dis- 
couraged, yet,  when  the  question  is  now 
asked,  what  progress  has  been  made  in 
introducing  the  English  language  \  the 
answer  may  be  given  from  Part  II.  of  the 
Reports  of  the  Education  Commissioners, 
page  68.  In  Cardiganshire,  3000  people 
out  of  68,766  speak  English.*  The  re- 
sult may  be  yet  more  strikingly  shown  by 
saying  that  double  the  number  of  persons 
now  speak  Welsh  who  spoke  that  lan- 
guage in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth." 

It  is  a  mistaken  idea  to  suppose  that 
the  Welsh  language  is  hard  to  be  ac- 
quired,— the  very  reverse  of  this  is  the 
fact, :  there  is  probably  no  spoken 
language  of  Europe,  not  derived  from 
the  Latin,  which  may  be  so  soon  or  so 
agreeably  acquired  as  the  Welsh.  A 
good  knowledge  of  it,  so  as  to  enable 
the  learner  to  read  and  write  it  cur- 
rently, may  be  attained  certainly  with- 
in a  year  by  even  a  moderately  dili- 
gent student ;  and  the  power  of  con- 
versing in  it  with  ease  and  fluency  is 
to  be  gained  within  the  course  of 
perhaps  a  couple  of  years.  The  lan- 
guage is  daily  studied  more  and  more 


"  In  Breconshire,  the  proportion  of  persons  who  speak  English  is  much  larger; 
but  a  considerable  number  of  these  are  immigrants  from  England  to  the  iron 
works  ;  whilst,  in  Radnorshire,  the  great  bulk  of  the  population  is  not  Celtic,  and 
English  is  all  but  universal." 


1849.] 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


329 


by  persons  not  connected  with  the 
Principality,  and  acquired  by  them ; 
nay,  what  is  a  remarkable  fact,  next 
to  the  galaxy  of  the  Williamses,*  the 
best  Welsh  scholar  of  the  present  day 
is  Dr  Meyer,  the  learned  German 
librarian  at  Buckingham  Palace  ; 
while  Dr  Thirlwall,  the  present  bishop 
of  St  David's,  has  made  himself,  with 
only  a  few  years'  study,  as  good  a 
Welsh  scholar  as  he  had  long  before 
been  a  German  one.  We  believe  that, 
if  the  present  system  of  education  be 
steadily  carried  out,  with  its  conse- 
quent developments,  in  the  Principa- 
lity, the  two  languages,  English  and 
Welsh,  will  become  equally  familiar 
to  those  who  may  be  born  in  the 
second  generation  from  the  present 
day;  and  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Wales,  becoming  thoroughly  bilingual 
— for  we  do  not  anticipate  that  they 
will  abandon  their  ancient  tongue — 
this  apparent  obstacle  to  a  more  com- 
plete amalgamation  of  interests  be- 
tween the  two  races  will  be  entirely 
removed.  One  thing  is  certain,  that 
the  aptitude  of  Welsh  children  to  learn 
English,  of  the  purest  dialectic  kind, 
is  very  remarkable— and  that  the  de- 
sire to  acquire  English  is  prevalent 
amongst  all  the  people. 

We  confess  that  we  should  be  sorry 
to  see  any  language  impaired,  much 
less  forgotten :  they  constitute  some  of 
the  great  marks  which  the  Almighty 
has  impressed  upon  the  various  tribes 
of  his  children — not  lightly  to  be  ne- 
glected nor  set  aside.  They  form 
some  of  the  surest  grounds  of  national 
strength  and  permanence;  and  they 
are  some  of  those  old  and  venerable 
things  which,  as  true  conservatives, 
we  are  by  no  means  desirous  to  see 
obliterated  or  injured.  As,  however, 
it  is  obviously  impossible  that  the 
whole  literature  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  should  be  translated  into  Welsh, 
it  is  essential  to  the  Cambrians  that 
they  should  no  longer  hesitate  as  to 
qualifying  themselves  for  reading,  in 
its  own  tongue,  that  literature  which 
is  exercising  so  great  an  influence  over 
a  large  portion  of  the  globe ;  and  the 
possession  of  the  two  languages  will 
tend  to  elevate  the  character,  as  well 
as  to  remove  the  prejudices,  of  the 


people  that  shall  take  the  trouble  to 
acquire  them. 

The  social  condition  of  Wales  is 
gone  into  by  the  author  at  some 
length;  but  he  confines  his  observa- 
tions principally  to  the  manufacturing 
and  mining  population  of  Glamorgan 
and  the  southern  counties.  Upon 
this  part  of  the  subject  he  has  com- 
piled much  valuable  information 
which,  though  not  exactly  new,  tells 
well  in  his  work  when  brought  into 
a  focus  and  reasoned  upon.  He  in- 
troduces the  subject  thus: — 

"  The  social  condition  of  the  inhabitants 
is  influenced  by  the  configuration  of  the 
country,  for  the  most  part  abrupt,  and 
broken  into  hill  and  valley;  the  elevation 
of  the  upper  mountain  ranges,  which  are 
the  loftiest  in  South  Britain,  and  the 
large  proportion  of  waste  and  barren 
land;  the  humidity  of  the  climate;  the 
variety  and  extent  of  the  mineral  riches 
in  certain  localities;  and  the  great  length 
of  the  sea-coast,  forming  numerous  bays 
and  havens  ;  and  thus  there  is  presented 
much  variety  in  the  occupation,  and  re- 
markable contrasts  in  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence and  habits  of  life,  of  the  people. 
Monmouthshire,  Glamorganshire,  and  the 
southern  extremity  of  Breconshire,  are 
the  seat  of  the  iron  and  coal  trades.  In 
the  western  part  of  Glamorganshire, 
around  Swansea,  and  in  the  south-eastern 
corner  of  Carmarthenshire,  copper  ore, 
imported  from  Cornwall,  as  well  as  from 
foreign  countries,  is  smelted  in  large 
quantities  ;  and  the  same  neighbourhood 
is  the  seat  of  potteries,  at  which  an  inex- 
pensive description  of  earthenware  is 
made.  Coal,  in  limited  quantities,  and  of 
a  particular  description,  is  exported  from.; 
Carmarthenshire  and  Pembrokeshire;  and 
lead  ore  and  quarries  of  slate  are  worked 
in  Cardiganshire.  In  North  Wales,  con- 
siderable masses  of  people  are  collected 
around  the  copper  mines  of  Anglesey  ; 
amidst  the  slate  quarries  opened  in  the 
lofty  mountains  of  Caernarvonshire  and 
Merionethshire,  as  well  as  in  some  of  the 
sea-ports  of  those  counties  ;  amongst  the 
lead  mines  of  Flintshire,  and  the  coal  and 
iron  districts,  which  extend  from  the  con- 
fines of  Cheshire,  through  Flintshire  and 
Denbighshire,  to  the  confines  of  Merion- 
ethshire ;  and  in  those  parts  of  Montgom- 
eryshire, on  the  banks  of  the  Severn, 
where  flannel-weaving  prevails.  For- 
merly, the  woollen  cloths  and  flannels 
with  which  the  people  clothed  themselves 
were  manufactured  throughout  the  coun- 


*  The  leading  scholars  and  authors  of  Wales  are  all  named  Williams  :  viz.  Arch- 
kacon  Williams,  and  the  Revs.  Robert  Williams,  John  Williams,  Rowland  Williams, 
Charles  Williams,  and  Morris  Williams— none  of  them  relations  ! 


330 

try,  at  small  mills  or  factories  placed  on 
the  margin  of  mountain  streams,  which 
furnished  the  power  or  agency  necessary 
for  carrying  on  the  process  ;  but  the 
growth  of  the  large  manufacturing  esta- 
blishments in  the  north  of  England  and 
Scotland,  and  the  substitution  of  cotton 
for  wool  in  various  articles  of  clothing, 
have  uprooted  many  of  the  native  facto- 
ries, and  reduced  to  very  small  dimensions 
the  once  important  manufacture  of  home- 
made cloths  and  flannels.  The  larger 
portion  of  the  industrial  population  of 
North  Wales,  and  of  the  counties  of  Car- 
digan, Carmarthen,  Radnor,  and  Pem- 
broke, in  South  Wales,  is  engaged  in 
agriculture.  It  consists,  for  the  most 
part,  of  small  farmers — a  frugal  and  cau- 
tious race  of  men,  employing  but  few  la- 
bourers, and  cultivating,  by  means  of  their 
own  families  and  a  few  domestic  servants, 
the  lands  on  which  they  live. 

"  In  times  of  mining  and  manufacturing 
prosperity,  the  productions  of  the  agricul- 
tural and  pastoral  districts  find  ready 
purchasers,  at  remunerating  prices,  at  the 
mining  and  manufacturing  establishments, 
to  which  they  are  conveyed  from  distant 
places;  and  the  surplus  labour  of  the  agri- 
cultural districts  finds  profitable  employ- 
ment at  the  mines,  factories,  and  shipping 
ports,  where  a  heterogeneous  population 
is  collected  from  every  part  of  the  king- 
dom. The  wages  of  labour  are,  neverthe- 
less, very  low,  in  the  agricultural  portions 
both  of  North  and  South  Wales;  and  are 
probably  lower  in  the  western  counties  of 
South  Wales,  and  in  some  districts  of 
North  Wales,  than  in  any  other  part  of 
South  Britain.  The  Welsh  farmer  pre- 
sents, however,  a  stronger  contrast  than 
even  the  Welsh  labourer  to  the  same  class 
in  England.  He  occupies  a  small  farm, 
employs  an  inconsiderable  amount  of 
capital,  and  is  but  little  removed,  either 
in  his  mode  of  life,  his  laborious  occupa- 
tion, his  dwelling,  or  his  habits,  from  the 
day-labourers  by  whom  he  is  surrounded; 
feeding  on  brown  bread,  often  made  of 
barley,  and  partaking  but  seldom  of  ani- 
mal food.  The  agricultural  and  pastoral 
population  is,  for  the  most  part,  scattered 
in  lone  dwellings,  or  found  in  small  ham- 
lets, in  passes  amongst  the  hills,  on  the 
sides  of  lofty  mountains,  or  the  margin  of 
a  rugged  sea-coast,  or  on  lofty  moors,  or 
table-land;  and  oftentimes  this  population 
can  be'approached  only  along  sheep-tracks 
or  bridle-paths,  by  which  these  mountain 
solitudes  are  traversed. 

"  Whilst,  however,  such  is  the  condition 
of  a  wide  area  of  the  Principality,  there 
is  found  in  particular  districts,  of  which 
mention  has  been  already  made,  a  popu- 
lation congregated  together  in  large  num- 
bers, which  has  grovai  with  a  rapidity  of 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


[Sept. 


which  there  is  scarcely  another  example 
— not  by  the  gradual  increase  of  births 
over  deaths,  but  by  immigration  from 
other  districts,  as  well  of  Wales  and  Eng- 
land, as  of  Ireland  and  Scotland  also. 
That  immigration  is  not  constant  in  its 
operation  and  regular  in  its  amount,  but 
fluctuating,  or  abruptly  suspended  ;  and 
in  times  of  adversity,  which  frequently 
recur,  men,  drawn  hither  by  the  prospect 
of  high  wages,  however  short-lived  such 
prosperity  may  prove,  migrate  in  search 
of  employment  to  other  districts,  or  are 
removed  to  their  former  homes.  In  the 
iron  and  coal  districts  of  South  Wales, 
these  colonies  are  collected -at  two  points 
— the  mountain  sides,  at  which  the  mine- 
rals are  raised,  and  the  shipping  ports,  at 
which  the  produce  of  the  mines  is  ex- 
ported." 

It  appears  that  the  total  value  of 
shipments  from  the  counties  of  Mon- 
mouth,  Glamorgan,  and  Carmarthen,, 
in  metals  and  minerals,  during  the 
year  1847  was,  in  round  numbers,  as 
follows : — 


Iron,   . 

Copper, 
Coal,  . 
Tin  plate, 


.£4,000,000 

2,000,000 

800,000 

400,000 

£7,200,000 


The  copper  specified  above  is  not 
copper  found  in  Wales,  but  that  which 
is  brought  to  Swansea,  and  other 
ports  of  Glamorgan  and  Carmarthen, 
for  the  purpose  of  being  smelted, 
and  then  reshipped  for  various  parts 
of  the  world,  principally  to  France 
and  South  America.  This  trade  gives 
occupation  to  a  large  population 
in  those  districts,  and  it  forms  one 
of  the  few  branches  of  British  manu- 
factures, in  which  no  very  great 
fluctuations  have  been  experienced 
during  the  last  few  years.  It  is,  in- 
deed, estimated  that  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  all  the  copper  used  on  the 
face  of  the  globe  is  smelted  in  the 
South-Welsh  coal-field.  Buthowpros- 
perous  soever  may  have  been  the  con- 
dition of  the  great  capitalists  and  iron- 
masters in  South  Wales,  it  does  not 
appear  that,  with  two  or  three  bright 
exceptions,  they  have  done  much  to 
ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  people 
in  their  employment, — and  even,  in  the 
present  unsettled  state  of  the  world, 
the  influence  upon  their  hearts,  of  the 
metals  they  deal  in,  may  be  but  too 
evidently  seen.  We  find  a  most  inge- 


1849.] 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


331 


niotis  and  important  passage  in  SirT. 
rhillips'  work  upon  this  subject,  full 
of  sound  philosophy  and  excellent 
feeling.  He  observes  :  — 

"  The  wilderness,  or  mountain  waste, 
has  been  covered  with  people;  an  activity 
and  energy  almost  superhuman  characte- 
rise the  operations  of  the  district;  wealth 
has  been  accumulated  by  the  employer; 
and  large  wages  have  been  earned  by  the 
labourer.  Thus  far  the  picture  which  has 
been  presented  is  gratifying  enough  ;  but 
the  more  serious  question  arises — How 
have  the  social  and  moral  relations  of  the 
district  been  influenced  by  the  changes 
which  it  has  witnessed  ?  May  it  not  be 
said  with  truth,  that  the  wealth  of  the 
capitalist  has  ordinarily  ministered  to  the 
selfish  enjoyments  of  the  possessor,  whilst 
the  ample  wages  earned  in  prosperous 
times  by  the  labourer  have  been  usually 
squandered  in  coarse  intemperance,  or 
careless  extravagance  ?  Prosperity  is  suc- 
ceeded periodically  by  those  seasons  of 
adversity  to  which  manufacturing  indus- 
try is  peculiarly  exposed  ;  when  the  la- 
bourer, whose  wants  grew  with  increased 
means,  experiences  positive  suffering  at  a 
rate  of  wages  on  which  he  would  have 
lived  in  comfort,  had  he  not  been  accus- 
tomed to  larger  earnings.  Crowded  dwell- 
ings, badly-drained  habitations,  constant 
incitements  to  intemperance,  and,  above 
all,  association  with  men  of  lawless  and 
abandoned  character,  (who  so  frequently 
resort  to  newly-peopled  districts,)  are  also 
unfavourable  elements  in  the  social  condi- 
tion of  this  people.  To  those  influences 
may  be  added,  the  absence  of  a  middle 
class,  as  a  connecting  link  between  the 
employer  and  the  employed  ;  the  neglect 
of  such  moral  supervision  on  the  part  of 
the  employers  as  might  influence  the  cha- 
racter of  their  workmen  ;  and  the  want 
of  those  institutions  for  the  relief  of  moral 
or  physical  destitution — whether  churches, 
schools,  almshouses,  or  hospitals — which 
characterise  our  older  communities. 
AVealth  accumulated  by  the  employer  is 
found  by  the  side  of  destitution  and  suffer- 
ing in  the  labourer — often,  no  doubt,  the 
result  of  intemperance  and  improvidence, 
but  not  seldom  the  effect  of  those  calami- 
ties against  which  no  forethought  can 
adequately  guard  ;  and  when  no  provision 
is  made  for  the  relief  of  physical  or  moral 
suffering,  by  a  dedication  to  God's  service, 
for  the  relief  of  His  creatures,  of  any  por- 
tion of  that  wealth,  to  the  accumulation 
of  which  by  the  capitalist  the  labourer 
has  contributed,  it  will  be  manifest  that 
the  social  and  political  institutions  of  our 
Jand  are  exposed  to  trials  of  no  ordinary 
severity  in  these  new  communities. 

•"  We  live  in  times  of  great  mental  and 


moral  activity.  In  the  year  which  has 
now  reached  its  close,  changes  have  been 
accomplished,  far  more  extensive  and 
important  than  are  usually  witnessed  by 
an  entire  generation  of  the  sons  of  men  ; 
and  around  and  about  us  opinions  may  be 
discerned,  which  involve,  not  merely  the 
machinery  of  government,  but  the  very 
framework  of  society  :  and  these  opinions 
are  not  confined  to  the  closets  of  the  stu- 
dious, but  pervade  the  workshop  and  the 
market,  and  interest  the  men  who'fill  our 
crowded  thoroughfares.  In  former  ages, 
as  well  as  in  other  conditions  than  the 
manufacturing  in  our  own  times,  social 
inequalities  may  have  presented  them- 
selves, or  may  still  exist,  great  as  those 
which  characterise,  in  our  own  age,  the 
seats  of  manufacturing  labour  ;  and  the 
lord  and  vassal  of  the  feudal  system  may 
have  exhibited,  and  the  squire  and  the 
peasant  of  some  of  our  agricultural  dis- 
tricts may  still  present,  as  wide  a  dispar- 
ity of  condition,  as  exists  at  this  day  be- 
tween the  master  manufacturer  and  the 
operative  ;  but  the  antagonism  of  inter- 
ests, whether  real  or  apparent,  between 
the  manufacturer  and  the  operative,  is 
altogether  unlike  that  simple  disparity  of 
condition  which  may  have  perplexed  for- 
mer serfdom,  or  may  excite  wonder  in  the 
agricultural  mind  of  our  own  age.  To 
the  eyes  and  the  contemplations  of  the 
serf,  as  of  the  peasant,  the  lord  or  the 
squire  was  the  possessor  of  wide  and  fer- 
tile lauds,  which  he  had  inherited  from 
other  times,  and  which  neither  serf  nor 
peasant  had  produced,  but  which  both 
believed  would  minister  to  their  necessi- 
ties, whether  in  sickness  or  in  poverty, 
because  neither  the  castle -gate  nor  the 
hall-door  had  ever  been  closed  against 
their  tales  of  suffering  and  woe.  Neither 
the  ancient  serf,  nor  the  modern  peasant, 
witnessed  that  rapid  accumulation  of 
wealth,  which  is  so  peculiarly  the  product 
of  our  manufacturing  system,  and  saw 
not,  as  the  operative  does,  fortunes  built 
up  from  day  to  day,  which  he  regards  as 
the  creation  of  his  sweat  and  labour— and 
at  once  the  result  and  the  evidence  of  a 
polity  which  fosters  capital  more  than 
industry,  and  regards  not  the  poverty  with 
which  labour  is  so  often  associated.  Dif- 
ferent ages  and  conditions  produce  differ- 
ent maxims.  The  modern  manufacturer 
is  not  a  worse  (he  may  be,  and  often  is,  a 
better)  man  than  the  ancient  baron,  but 
he  has  been  brought  up  in  a  different  phi- 
losophy. By  him,  the  operative  is  well- 
nigh  regarded  as  a  machine,  from  whom 
certain  economical  results  may  be  obtained 
— who  is  free  to  make  his  own  bargains, 
and  whose  moral  condition  is  a  problem 
to  be  solved  by  himself,  because,  for  that 
condition,  no  duty  attaches  to  his  em- 


332 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


[Sept, 


ployer,  who  has  contracted  with  him  none 
other  than  an  economical  relation.  Yet, 
is  there  not  danger  that,  in  pursuing  with 
logical  precision,  and  with  the  confidence 
of  demonstrated  truths,  the  doctrines  of 
political  economy,  we  may  forget  duties 
far  higher  than  any  which  that  science 
can  teach — duties  which  man  owes  to  his 
fellow,  and  which  are  alike  independent 
of  capital  and  labour  ?  It  is  no  doubt 
true,  that  men  who  earn  large  wages, 
whilst  blessed  with  health  and  strength, 
and  in  full  employment,  ought  to  make 
provision  for  sickness,  old  age,  or  want  of 
work  ;  but  suppose  that  duty  neglected, 
even  then  the  obligation  attaches  to  the 
employer  to  care  for  those  of  his  own 
household.  In  old  communities,  too,  the 
proportion  must  ever  be  large  of  those 
who,  in  prosperity,  can  barely  provide  for 
their  bodily  wants,  and,  in  adversity,  ex- 
perience the  bitterness  of  actual  want  in 
some  of  its  sharpest  visitations.  To  the 
humble-minded  Christian,  who  has  been 
accustomed  to  consider  the  gifts  of  God, 
whether  bodily  strength,  or  mental  power, 
or  wealth,  or  rank  and  influential  station, 
as  talents  intrusted  to  him,  as  God's 
steward,  for  the  good  of  his  fellow-crea- 
tures—afflicting, indeed,  is  the  spectacle 
of  wealth,  rapidly  accumulated  by  the 
agency  of  labour,  employed  only  for  self- 
aggrandisement,  with  no  fitting  acknow- 
ledgment, by  its  possessor,  of  the  claims 
of  his  fellow-men. 

"  In  our  new  and  neglected  communi- 
ties, Chartism  is  found  in  its  worst  mani- 
festations— not  as  an  adhesion  to  political 
dogmas,  but  as  an  indication  of  that  class- 
antagonism  which  proclaims  the  rejection 
of  our  common  Christianity,  by  denying 
the  brotherhood  of  Christians.  This  anta- 
gonism originated,  as  great  social  evils 
ever  do,  in  the  neglect  of  duty  by  the 
master,  or  ruling  class.  They  first  practi- 


cally denied  the  obligation  imposed  on 
every  man  who  undertakes  to  govern  or 
to  guide  others,  whether  as  master  or 
ruler,  to  care  for,  to  counsel,  to  instruct, 
and,  when  necessary,  to  control  those  who 
have  contracted  with  him  the  dependent 
relation  of  servant  or  subject  ;  and  from 
that  neglect  of  duty  has  sprung  up,  and 
been  nourished  in  the  subject,  or  depend- 
ent class,  impatience  of  restraint,  discon- 
tent with  their  condition,  a  jealousy,  often 
amounting  to  hatred,  of  the  classes  above 
them,  and  a  desire,  first  to  destroy  to  the 
base,  and  then  to  reconstruct  on  differ- 
ent principles,  the  political  and  social 
systems  under  which  they  live.  Thus 
will  it  ever  be,  as  thus  it  ever  has  been, 
throughout  the  world's  history  ;  and  the 
violation  or  neglect  of  duty,  whether  by 
nations  or  individuals,  in  its  own  direct 
and  immediate  consequences,  works  out 
the  appropriate  national  or  individual 
punishment;  and  those  who  sow  the  wind, 
will  surely  reap  the  whirlwind — it  may 
be,  not  in  their  own  persons,  but  in  the 
visitation  of  their  children's  children." 

Notwithstanding  the  lamentable 
prevalence  of  diseased  political  and 
moral  feeling  among  a  certain  portion 
of  the  inhabitants  of  South  Wales,  it 
is  certain  that  the  primitive  simplicity 
of  character  by  which  the  Welsh 
nation  is  still  distinguished,  tends  in  a 
great  degree  to  keep  them  from  the 
commission  of  those  crimes  which  at- 
tract the  serious  notice  of  the  law.  In 
most  of  the  counties  of  Wales,  the 
business  on  the  crown  side  at  the 
assizes  is  generally  light,  sometimes 
only  nominal ;  and  the  general  con- 
dition of  the  public  mind  may  be  fairly 
judged  of  from  the  following  table  of 
criminal  returns  for  1846  : — 


"  Convictions — 

England,             ....  17,644,  or  1  in     850 

Monmouthshire  and  Glamorganshire,     .  250,  or  1  in  1200 

1 1  counties  of  North  and  South  Wales,  250,  or  1  in  3000 

Executions — 

England,              ...  6 

Wales,     ....'.  None. 

Transportations — 

England,              ....  2801,  or  1  in     5300 

Monmouthshire  and  Glamorganshire,     .  29,  or  1  in  10,000 

11  Welsh  counties,         .             .             .  o5j  or  j  ja  30,000 

Imprisonments  above  a  year — 

England,              ....  322,  or  1  in       4500 

Monmouthshire  and  Glamorganshire,     .  10,  or  1  in    30,000 

1 1  Welsh  counties,          .             .             .  2,  or  1  in  350,000 

Imprisonments  not  above  a  year — 

England,             ....  14,515,  or  1  in  1000 

Monmouthshire  and  Glamorganshire,     .  211,  or  1  in  1500 

11  Welsh  counties,         .             .             .  223,  or  1  in  3300 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


1819.] 

"  The  comparative  rarity  of  crime  in 
the  eleven  Welsh  counties  is  represented 
by  1  offence  to  3000  of  the  population  ; 
and  the  absence  of  serious  crimes  by  the 
small  number  of  transportations,  namely, 
25,  or  1  in  30,000 ;  and  still  more  remark- 
ably, by  the  large  proportion  of  the  offend- 
ers whose  punishment  did  not  exceed  a 
year's  imprisonment,  namely,  223  out  of 
250,  leaving  27  as  the  number  of  all  the 
criminals  convicted  [in  a  year,  in  eleven 
counties,  whose  punishment  exceeded  a 
year's  imprisonment." 

The  accusation  that  was  brought 
forward  in  the  unfortunate  Blue  Books 
against  the  chastity  of    the  Welsh 
women,  and  which  was  the  real  cause 
of  the  hubbub  made  about  them,  we 
dismiss  from  our  consideration.     It 
arose  from  a  misapprehension  of  the 
degree  of  criminality  implied  by  the 
prevalence   of   an    ancient    custom, 
which  exists  not  in  Wales  only,  but 
we  rather  think  amongst  the  peasants 
of  the  whole  of  Europe,  and  certainly 
as  widely  in  England  as  in  Wales. 
Whether  existing  in  other  nations  or 
not,  the  Welsh  press,  (generally  con- 
ducted by  Englishmen,  be  it  observed,) 
and  the  pseudo-patriots  of  Wales,  a 
noisy  empty-headed    class,  made  a 
great  stir    about  it,   and  declaimed 
violently  :  they  did  not,  however,  ad- 
duce a  single  solid  argument  in  dis- 
proof of  the  accusation.    There  is  one 
fact  alone  which  is  quite  sufficient  to 
explain  the  accusation  and  to  remove 
the  stain :  bastardy  is  not  less  common 
than  in  England,  but  prostitution  is 
almost  unknown  ;  the  common  people 
do  not  consider  that  to  be  a  crime  be- 
fore marriage,  which  after  it  they  look 
upon  as  a  heinous  enormity.     Such  is 
their  code  of  national  morals  :  whether 
right  or  wrong,  they  abide  by  it  pretty 
consistently  ;  and  they  appear  to  have 
done  so  from  time  immemorial.   They 
mean  no  harm  by  it,  and  they  look 
upon  it  as  venial :  this  is  the  state  of 
the  national  feeling,  and  it  settles  the 
question. 

Wo  now  turn  to  the  chapters  that 
refer  to  the  religious  condition  of  the 
country,  which  is  treated  of  by  the 
author  at  full  length,  though  our  own 
comments  must  be  necessarily  brief. 
He  gives  a  luminous  account  of  the 
rise  and  progress  of  modern  dissent 
in  Wales  ;  from  which,  however,  we 
give  the  highly  improbable  statement, 
that  the  actual  number  of  members  of 


333 


dissenting  congregations,  of  all  deno- 
minations in  Wales,  amounted  to  only 
166,606  in  1846,  with  1890  ministers. 
We  should  rather  say  that,  whatever 
the  gross  population  of  the  country 
may  be  at  the  present  moment,  there 
is  not  more  than  one  person  out  of 
ten,  who  have  arrived  at  years  of  dis- 
cretion, belonging  altogether  to  the 
church ;  and  we  infer  the  fulness  of 
dissenting  chapels,  not  only  from  the 
crowds  that  we  have  seen  thronging 
them-,  on  all  occasions,  but  also  from 
the  thinness  of  the  congregations  at 
church.     For  the  Welsh  are  eminently 
an  enthusiastic,  and  we  might  almost 
say,  a  religious  people:  they  are  decid- 
edly a  congregational  people  ;  and  as 
for  staying  at  home  on  days  of  public 
worship,  no  such  idea  ever  yet  entered 
a  true  Welshman's  head.    We  think 
that  the  author  must  have  been  mis- 
informed on  this  head,  and  that  the 
numbers  should  rather  be  the  other 
way— 100,000  out  of  900,000  being  a 
very  fair  proportion  for  the  members 
of  the  church. 

For  all  this  there  are  good  and 
legitimate  reasons  to  be  found,  not 
only  in  what  is  adduced  in  this  work 
on  the  church  establishment,  but  also 
in  the  current  experience  of  every 
man  of  common  observation  through- 
out the  Principality.  The  wonder 
is,  not  that  dissent  should  have  at- 
tained its  present  height,  but  that 
the  church  should  have  continued  to 
exist  at  all,  amidst  so  many  abuses, 
so  much  ignorance,  so  much  neglect, 
and  such  extraordinary  apathy — until 
of  late  days — on  the  part  of  her  rulers. 
The  actual  condition  of  the  church  in 
Wales  may  be  summed  up  in  a  few 
words — it  is  that  of  the  church  in  Ire- 
land :  only  those  who  differ  from  it  are 
Protestants  instead  of  Roman  Catho- 
lics. Let  us  quote  Sir  Thomas 
Phillips  again : — 

"  We  have  now  passed  in  review  various 
influences  by  which  the  church  in  Wales 
has  been  weakened.  We  have  seen  the 
religious  edifices  erected  by  the  piety  of 
other  times,  and  with  the  sustentation  of 
which  the  lands  of  the  country  have  been 
charged,  greatly  neglected,  whilst  the  lay 
officers,  on  whom  the  duty  of  maintaining 
those  buildings  in  decent  condition  was 
imposed,  are  sometimes  not  appointed,  or, 
if  appointed,  make  light  or  naught  of  their 
duties  :  we  have  seen  ecclesiastical  offi- 
cers, specially  charged  with  the  oversight 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


[Sept. 


of  the  churches,  not  required  to  exercise 
functions  which  have  been  revived  by  re- 
cent legislative  enactments  :  we  have 
found  a  clergy,  with  scanty  incomes,  and 
a  want  of  decent  residences,  ministering 
in  a  peculiar  language,  with  which  the 
gentry  have  most  commonly  an  imperfect 
and  often  no  acquaintance— even  where  it 
is  the  language  of  public  worship — influ- 
ences which  lower  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual standard  of  the  clergy,  by  intro- 
ducing into  holy  orders  too  large  a  pro- 
portion of  men,  whose  early  occupations, 
habits,  and  feelings,  do  not  ordinarily  con- 
duce to  maintain  the  highest  standard  of 
conduct,  and  who  (instead  of  forming,  as 
in  England,  a  minority  of  the  whole  body, 
and  being  elevated  in  tone,  morally  and 
mentally,  by  association  with  minds  of 
higherculture)  compose  the  largemajority 
of  the  clergy  of  the  Principality.  It  can- 
not, then,  be  matter  of  surprise,  if  amongst 
those  men  some  should  be  found  who  (not 
being  received  on  a  footing  of  equality 
into  the  houses  of  the  gentry,  over  whom 
they  exercise  but  little  influence)  again 
resume  the  habits  from  which  they  were 
temporarily  rescued  by  an  education  itself 
imperfect,  and,  selecting  for  daily  compa- 
nionship uneducated  men,  are  either 
driven  for  social  converse  to  the  village 
alehouse,  or  become  familiarised  with 
ideas  and  practices  unsuited  to  the  cha- 
racter, injurious  to  the  position,  and  de- 
structive to  the  influence  of  the  Christian 
pastor.  Nor  could  we  wonder,  if  even 
the  religious  opinions  and  well-meant  ac- 
tivity of  the  more  zealous  among  persons 
thus  circumstanced,  were  to  borrow  their 
tone  and  colour  from  the  more  popular 
influences  by  which  they  are  surrounded, 
rather  than  from  the  profounder  and  more 
•disciplined  theology  of  the  church  of 
which  they  are  ministers.  We  have 
found  the  ecclesiastical  rulers  of  this 
clergy  and  chief  pastors  of  the  people,  as 
well  as  many  other  holders  of  valuable 
church  preferment,  to  consist  often  of 
strangers  to  the  country,  ignorant  alike  of 
the  language  and  character  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, by  many  of  whom  they  are  regarded 
with  distrust  and  dislike ;  unable  to  in- 
struct the  flock  committed  to  their  charge, 
or  to  teach  and  exhort  with  wholesome 
doctrine,  or  to  preach  the  word,  or  to 
withstand  and  convince  gainsayers,  in  the 
language  familiar  to  the  common  people  of 
the  land.  Finally,  we  have  seen  the 
church,  whilst  she  compassed  sea  and 
land  to  gain  one  proselyte  from  the  hea- 
thendom without,  allow  a  more  deplorable 
heathendom  to  spring  into  life  within  her 
own  borders;  and  the  term  baptised  hea- 
tliens,  instead  of  being  a  contradiction  in 
terms,  has  become  the  true  appellation  of 


thousands  of  men  and  women  in  this 
island  of  Christian  profession  and  Chris- 
tian action.  Nevertheless  the  Welsh  are 
not  an  irreligious  people;  and  whilst  the 
religious  fabrics  of  dissent  are  reared  up 
by  the  poor  dwellers  of  their  mountain 
valleys,  in  every  corner  in  which  a  few 
Christian  men  are  congregated,  and  these 
buildings  are  thronged  by  earnest-minded 
worshippers,  assembled  for  religious  ser- 
vices in  the  only  places,  it  may  be,  there 
dedicated  to  God's  glory,  the  feeling  must 
be  ever  present,  '  Surely  these  men  and 
women  might  have  been  kept  within  the 
fold  of  the  church.'  A  supposed  excita- 
bility in  the  Cambro-Briton,  a  love  for 
extemporaneous  worship,  and  an  impa- 
tience of  formal  services,  have  been  repre- 
sented as  intractable  elements  in  the  cha- 
racter of  this  people.  Even  if  such  ele- 
ments exist,  it  does  not  follow  that  they 
might  not  have  received  a  wholesome  di- 
rection ;  while,  unfortunately,  their  action 
now  finds  excuse  in  the  neglect  and  pro- 
vocation which  alone  render  them  danger- 
ous. The  church  in  Wales  has  been  pre- 
sented in  her  least  engaging  aspect  ;  her 
offices  have  been  reduced  to  the  baldest 
and  lowest  standard;  and  whilst  no  suffi- 
cient efforts  have  been  employed  to  make 
the  beauty  of  our  liturgical  services 
appreciated  by  the  people,  neither  has  any 
general  attempt  been  made  to  enlist,  in  the 
performance  of  public  worship,  their  pro- 
found and  characteristic  enjoyment  of 
psalmody,  by  accustoming  them  to  chant 
or  sing  the  hymns  of  the  church." 

All  the  abuses  of  ecclesiastical 
property  seem  to  have  flourished  in 
the  land  of  Wales,  as  in  a  nook  where 
there  was  no  chance  of  their  being 
ever  brought  to  light  ; — more  than 
one-half  of  the  income  of  the  church, 
for  parochial  purposes,  totally  alien- 
ated ;  the  bishops  and  other  digni- 
taries totally  asleep,  and  exercising  no 
spiritual  supervision  ;  pluralities  and 
non-residence  prevailing  to  a  great  ex- 
tent ;  the  character  of  the  clergy  de- 
graded ;  the  gentry  and  aristocracy 
of  the  land  starving  the  church,  and 
giving  it  a  formal,  not  a  real  support; 
— how  can  any  spiritual  system  flourish 
under  such  an  accumulation  of  evils  ? 
The  true  spirit  of  the  church  being 
dead,  a  reaction  on  the  part  of  the 
people  inevitably  took  place ;  and  it 
is  hardly  going  too  far  to  say,  that  had 
it  not  been  for  the  efforts  of  dissenters, 
"  progressing  by  antagonism,"  Chris- 
tianity would  by  this  time  have  fallen 
into  desuetude  within  the  Principality. 


1849.] 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


335 


It  is  a  very  thorny  subject  to  touch 
upon,  in  the  present  excitable  state 
of  the  world,  and  therefore  we  refrain; 
but    we  would   earnestly  solicit  the 
attention  of  our  readers  to  the  pages 
of  Sir  Thomas  Phillips, — himself  one 
of  the  very  few  orthodox  churchmen 
still  left  in  Wales, — for  a  proof  of 
what  we  have  asserted  ;   and  should 
they  still  doubt,  let  them  try  an  ex- 
cursion among  the  wilds  of  the  nor- 
thern, or  the  vales  of  the  southern 
division  of  the  country,  and  they  will 
become  full  converts  to  our  opinion. 
Things,  however,  in  this  respect  are 
mending — the  church  has  at  length 
stirred,  abuses  are  becoming  corrected, 
the  ecclesiastical  commissioners  have 
done  justice  in  several  cases — and  in 
none  more  signally  than  in  the  extra- 
ordinary epitome  of  all  possible  abuses, 
shown   by  the   chapter  of  Brecon — 
abuses  existing  long  before  the  Refor- 
mation, but  increased,  like  many  others, 
tenfold  since  that  period.     The  church 
has  never  yet  had  fair  play  in  the 
country,  for  she  has  never  yet  done 
herself — much  less  her  people — justice ; 
so  that  what  she  is  capable  of  effect- 
ing among  the  Cambrian  mountains 
cannot  yet  be  predicated.    We  fondly 
think,  at   times,  that   all  these   evils 
might  be  abolished  ;    but  this  is  not 
the  place  for  such  a  lengthy  topic : 
we  have  adverted  to  the  state  of  things 
as  they  have   hitherto  existed  in  the 
Principality,  chiefly  with  the  view  of 
showing  their  influence  upon  the  pecu- 
liar political  and  ethnical  condition  of 
the  people,  which  it  is  our  main  object 
to  discuss.     We  will  content  ourselves 
with    observing,   that     Sir     Thomas 
Phillips'    remarks    on    this    subject, 
and  on  the  connexion  of  the  state 
with  the  education  of  the  country,  are 
characterised  by  sound  religious  feel- 
ing, and  a  true  conservative  interpre- 
tation of  the  political  condition  of  the 
•empire. 

On  a  calm  view  of  the  general  con- 
dition of  Wales,  we  are  of  opinion  that 
the  inhabitants,  the  mass  of  the  nation, 
are  as  well  off,  iu  proportion  to  the 
means  of  the  country  itself,  to  the 
moderate  quantity  of  capital  collected 
in  the  Principality,  and  the  number  of 
resident  gentry — which  is  not  very 
great — as  might  have  been  fairly  ex- 
pected ;  and  that  it  is  no  true  argu- 
ment against  the  national  capabilities 


of  the  Welsh,  that  they  are  not  more 
nearly  on  a  level  with  the  inhabitants 
of  some  parts  of  England.  The  Welsh 
inhabit  a  peculiar  land,  where  fog  and 
rain,  and  snow  and  wind,  are  more 
prevalent  than  fine  working  weather 
in  more  favoured  spots  of  this  island. 
A  considerable  part  of  their  land  is 
still  unreclaimed  and  uncultivated — 
their  country  does  not  serve  as  a  place 
of  passage  for  foreigners.  Visitors, 
indeed,  come  among  them  ;  but,  with 
the  exception  of  the  annual  flocks  of 
summer  tourists,  and  the  passengers 
for  Ireland  on  the  northern  line  of  rail- 
road, they  are  left  to  themselves  with- 
out much  foreign  admixture  during  a 
great  portion  of  each  year.  The  mass 
of  the  gentry  are  neither  rich  nor 
generous :  there  are  some  large  and 
liberal  proprietors,  but  the  body  of  the 
gentry  do  not  exert  themselves  as 
much  as  might  be  expected  for  the 
benefit  of  their  dependants ;  and  hence 
the  Welsh  agriculturist  lacks  both 
example  and  encouragement.  That  the 
cultivation  of  theland,  therefore,  should 
be  somewhat  in  arrear,  that  the  min- 
eral riches  of  the  country  should  be  but 
partially  taken  advantage  of,  and  that 
extensive  manufactures  should  rarely 
exist  amongst  the  Welsh,  ought  not  to 
form  any  just  causes  of  surprise :  these 
things  will  in  course  of  time  be  reme- 
died of  themselves.  The  main  evil  that 
the  Welsh  have  to  contend  against  is 
one  that  belongs  to  their  blood  as  a 
Celtic  nation  ;  and  which,  while  that 
blood  remains  as  much  unmixed  as  at 
present,  there  is  no  chance  of  eradi- 
cating. We  allude  to  that  which  has 
distinguished  all  Celtic  tribes  wherc- 
ever  found,  and  at  whatever  period  of 
their  history — we  mean  their  national 
indolence  and  want  of  perseverance — 
the  absence  of  that  indomitable  energy 
and  spirit  of  improvement  which  has 
raised  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  crossed 
as  it  has  been  with  so  many  other 
tribes,  to  such  a  mighty  position  in 
the  dominion  of  the  world. 

This  absence  of  energy  is  evident 
upon  the  very  face  of  things,  and  lies 
at  the  bottom  of  whatever  slowness  of 
improvement  is  complained  of  in  Wales. 
It  is  the  same  pest  that  infests  Ireland, 
only  it  exists  in  a  minor  degree ;  it  is 
that  which  did  so  much  harm  to  the 
Scottish  Highlands  at  one  period  of 
their  history ;  and  it  is  a  component 


336 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


[Sept. 


cause  of  many  anomalies  in  the  French 
character,  though  in  this  case  it  is 
nearly  bred  out.  One  of  the  most 
striking  evidences  and  effects  of  it  is 
the  dirt  and  untidiness  which  is  so  strik- 
ing and  offensive  a  peculiarity  of  Welsh 
villages  and  towns  — •  that  shabby, 
neglected  state  of  the  houses,  streets, 
and  gardens,  which  forms  such  a  pain- 
ful contrast  the  moment  you  step 
across  the  border  into  the  Principality. 
In  this  the  Welsh  do  not  go  to  the 
extremes  of  the  Irish  :  they  are  pre- 
served from  that  depth  of  degradation 
by  some  other  and  better  points  of 
their  character;  but  they  approach 
very  closely  to  the  want  of  cleanliness 
observable  in  France — and  the  look  of 
a  Welsh  and  a  French  village,  nay, 
the  very  smell  of  the  two  places,  is 
nearly  identical.  A  Welsh  peasant, 
amidst  his  own  mountains,  if  he  can 
get  a  shilling  a-day,  will  prefer  starv- 
ing upon  that  to  labouring  for  another 
twelvepence.  A  farmer  with  £50 
a-year  rent  has  no  ambition  to  become 
one  of  £200 ;  the  shopkeeper  goes  on 
in  the  small-ware  line  all  his  life,  and 
dies  a  pedlar  rather  than  a  tradesman. 
There  are  brilliant  and  extraordi- 
nary exceptions  to  all  this,  we  are 
well  aware  ;  nay,  there  are  differences 
in  this  respect  between  the  various 
counties, — and  generally  the  southern 
parts  of  Wales  are  as  much  in  advance 
of  the  northern,  in  point  of  industry, 
as  they  are  in  point  of  intellect  and 
agricultural  wealth,  It  is  the  general 
characteristic  of  this  nation — and  it 
evidences  itself,  sometimes  most  dis- 
agreeably, in  the  want  of  punctuality, 
and  too  often  of  straightforward  deal- 
ing, which  all  who  have  any  commer- 
cial or  industrial  communications  with 
the  lower  and  middle  classes  of  the 
Welsh  have  inevitably  experienced. 
It  is  the  vice  of  all  Celtic  nations,  and 
is  not  to  be  eradicated  except  by  a 
cross  in  the  blood.  Joined  with  all 
this,  there  is  a  mean  and  petty  spirit  of 
deceit  and  concealment  too  often  shown 
even  in  the  middle  classes  ;  and  there 
is  also  the  old  Celtic  vice  of  feud  and 
clanship,  which  tends  to  divide  the 
nation,  and  to  impede  its  advance- 
ment in  civilisation.  Thus  the  old 
feud  between  North  and  South  Wales 
still  subsists,  rife  as  ever ;  the  nor- 
thern man,  prejudiced,  ignorant,  and 
indolent,  comes  forth  from  his  moun- 


tains and  looks  down  with  contempt 
on  the  dweller  in  the  southern  vales, 
liis  superior  in  all  the  arts  and  pursuits 
of  civilised  life.  Even  a  difference  of 
colloquial  dialects  causes  a  national 
enmity ;  and  the  rough  Cymro  of 
Gwynedd  still  derides  the  softer  man 
from  Gwent  and  Morganwg.  All 
these  minor  vices  and  follies  tend  to 
impair  the  national  character — and 
they  are  evidences  of  a  spirit  which 
requires  alteration,  if  the  condition  of 
the  people  is  to  be  permanently  eleva- 
ted. On  the  other  hand,  the  Welsh 
have  many  excellent  qualifications 
which  tend  to  counteract  their  innate 
weaknesses,  and  afford  promise  of 
much  future  good :  their  intellectual 
acuteness,  their  natural  kindliness  of 
heart,  their  constitutional  poetry  and 
religious  enthusiasm,  their  indomit- 
able love  of  country — which  they  share 
with  all  mountain  tribes — all  these 
good  qualities  form  a  counterbalance 
to  their  failings,  and  tend  to  rectify 
their  national  course.  Take  a  Welsh- 
man out  of  Wales,  place  him  in  Lon- 
don or  Liverpool,  send  him  to  the  East 
Indies  or  to  North  America,  and  he 
becomes  a  banker  of  fabulous  wealth, 
a  merchant  of  illimitable  resources,  a 
great  captain  of  his  country's  hosts,  or 
an  eminent  traveller  and  philosopher  ; 
but  leave  him  in  his  native  valley,  and 
he  walks  about  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  angles  for  trout,  and  goes  to 
chapel  with  hopeless  pertinacity.  Such 
was  the  Highlander  once ;  but  his 
shrewd  good  sense  has  got  the  better 
of  his  indolence,  and  he  has  come  out 
of  his  fastnesses,  conquering  and  to 
conquer.  Not  such,  but  far,  far  worse 
is  the  Irishman  ;  and  such  will  he  be 
till  he  loses  his  national  existence.  St 
Andrew  is  a  better  saint  than  St 
David,  and  St  David  than  St  Patrick ; 
but  they  all  had  the  same  faults  once, 
and  it  is  only  by  external  circum- 
stances that  any  amelioration  has  been 
produced. 

It  is  a  fact  of  ethnology,  that  while 
a  tribe  of  men,  kept  to  itself  and  free 
from  foreign  admixture,  preserves  its 
natural  good  qualities  in  undiminished 
excellence  through  numerous  ages,  all 
its  natural  vices  become  increased  in 
intensity  and  vitality  by  the  same 
circumstances  of  isolation.  Look  at 
the  miserable  Irish,  always  standing  in 
their  own  light;  look  at  the  Spaniards,, 


1849.] 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


337 


keeping  to  themselves,  and  stifling  all 
their  noble  qualities  by  the  perma- 
nence of  their  national  vices ;  look 
at  the  tribes  of  Asia,  doomed  to  per- 
petual subjection  while  they  remain 
unmixed  in  blood.  Had  the  Saxons 
remained  with  uncrossed  blood,  they 
had  still  been  stolid,  heavy,  dreaming, 
impracticable  Germans,  though  they 
had  peopled  the  plains  of  England ; 
but,  when  mixed  with  the  Celts  and 
the  Danes,  they  formed  the  Lowland 
Scots,  the  most  industrious  and  can- 
niest chields  in  the  wide  world  :  fused 
with  the  Dane  and  Norman,  and  sub- 
sequently mixed  with  all  people,  they 
became  Englishmen — rerum  Domini — 
like  the  Romans  of  old.  It  may  be 
mortifying  enough  to  national  pride, 
but  the  fact  is,  nevertheless,  patent 
and  certain,  that  extensive  admix- 
ture of  blood  commonly  benefits  a 
nation  more  than  all  its  geographical 
advantages. 

It  is  our  intimate  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  this  fact,  so  clearly  deducible 
from  the  page  of  universal  history, 
and  especially  from  the  border  history 
of  England  and  Wales,  that  shows  us, 
inter  a/ia,  how  false  and  absurd  is  the 
pretended  patriotism  of  a  small  party 
among  the  gentry  and  clergy  of  Wales 
who  have  lately  raised  the  cry  of 
"Wales  for  the  Welsh!"  and  who 
would,  if  they  could,  get  up  a  sort  of 
agitation  for  a  repeal  of  the  Norman 
conquest !  There  are  sundry  persons 
in  Wales  who,  principally  for  local 
and  party  purposes,  are  trying  to 
keep  the  Welsh  still  more  distinct  from 
the  English  than  they  now  are, — who 
try  to  revive  the  old  animosities  be- 
tween Celt  and  Saxon, — who  pretend 
that  Englishmen  have  no  right  even 
to  settle  in  Wales, — and  who,  instead 
of  promoting  a  knowledge  of  the  Eng- 
lish language,  declaim  in  favour  of  the 
exclusive  maintenance  of  the  Welsh. 
These  persons,  actuated  by  a  desire  to 
bring  themselves  forward  into  tempo- 
rary notoriety,  profess,  at  the  same 
time,  by  an  extraordinary  contradic- 
tion, to  be  of  the  high  Conservative 
party,  and  amuse  themselves  by  thwart- 
ing the  Whigs,  and  abusing  the  Dis- 
senters, to  the  utmost  of  their  power. 
They  are  mainly  supported — not  by 
the  Welsh  of  the  middle  classes,  who 
have  their  separate  hobby  to  ride, 
and  who  distrust  the  former  too  much 


to  co-operate  with  them — but  by  Eng- 
lish settlers  in  Wales,  and  on  its 
borders,  who,  in  order  to  make  for 
themselves  an  interest  in  the  country, 
pander  to  the  prejudices  of  a  few  am- 
bitious twaddlers,  and  get  up  public 
meetings,  at  which  more  nonsense  i& 
talked  than  any  people  can  be  supposed 
gullible  enough  to  swallow.  This 
spirit  exists  in  the  extreme  northern 
portion  of  Wales,  in  Flintshire,  Den- 
bighshire, and  Caernarvonshire ;  and 
on  the  south-eastern  border  of  the 
country,  in  Monmouthshire,  more  than 
in  any  other  district.  It  is  doomed  to 
be  transient,  because  it  is  opposed, 
not  less  to  the  wishes  and  the  good 
sense  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  than 
to  the  views  and  policy  of  the  nobles 
and  leading  gentry  of  the  Principality. 
One  or  two  radical  M.P.s.,  a  few 
disappointed  clergymen,  who  fancy 
lhat  their  chance  of  preferment  lies  in 
abusing  England,  and  a  few  amateur 
students  of  Welsh  literature,  who 
think  that  they  shall  thereby  rise  to 
literary  eminence,  constitute  the  cliquer 
which  will  talk  and  strut  for  its  dayr 
and  then  die  away  into  its  primitive 
insignificance.  But,  by  the  side  of 
this  unimportant  faction,  there  does 
exist,  amongst  the  working  classes  and 
the  lower  portion  of  the  middle  orders, 
a  spirit  of  radicalism,  chartism,  or 
republicanism, — for  they  are  in  rea- 
lity synonymous  terms,  —  which  is 
doing  much  damage  to  the  Principality, 
and  which  it  lies  easily  within  the 
power  of  the  upper  classes  to  extin- 
guish,— not  by  force,  but  by  kindness- 
aud  by  example. 

It  hag  been  one  of  the  consequences 
of  dissent  in  Wales — not  intended,  we 
believe,  by  the  majority  of  the  mini- 
sters, but  following  inevitably  from 
the  organisation  of  their  congrega- 
tions, —  that  a  democratic  spirit  of 
self-government  should  have  arisen 
among  the  people,  and  have  inter- 
woven itself  with  their  habits  of 
thought  and  their  associations  of  daily 
life.  The  middle  and  lower  classes, 
separated  from  the  upper  by  a  differ- 
ence of  language,  and  alienated  from 
the  church  by  its  inefficiency  and  ne- 
glect, have  thrown  themselves  into 
the  system  of  dissent, — that  is,  of  self- 
adopted  religious  opinions,  meditated 
upon,  sustained,  and  expounded  in 
their  own  native  tongue,  with  all  the 


338 

enthusiasm  that  marks  the  Celtic  cha- 
racter. The  gulf  between  the  nobles 
and  gentry  of  Wales  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  middle  and  lower  classes  on 
the  other,  was  already  sufficiently 
wide,  without  any  new  principle  of 
disunion  being  introduced ;  but  now 
the  church  has  become  emphatically 
the  church  of  the  upper  classes  alone, 
— the  chapel  is  the  chapel  of  the  lower 
orders — and  the  country  is  divided 
thereby  into  two  hostile  and  bitterly 
opposed  parties.  On  the  one  hand 
are  all  the  aristocratic  and  hierarchic 
traditions  of  the  nation ;  on  the  other 
is  the  democratic  self-governing  spirit, 
opposed  to  the  former  as  much  as 
light  is  to  darkness,  and  adopted  with 
.the  greater  readiness,  because  it  is 
linked  to  the  religious  feelings  and 
ipractices  of  the  vast  majority  of  the 
whole  people.  Dissent  and  democra- 
tic opinions  have  now  become  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  lower  orders  in  Wales ; 
And  every  thing  that  belongs  to  the 
•church  or  the  higher  orders  of  the 
country,  is  repulsive  to  the  feelings  of 
the  people,  because  they  hold  them 
identical  with  oppression  and  super- 
stition. The  traditions  of  the  con- 
quest were  quite  strong  enough, — the 
Welshman  hated  the  Englishman  tho- 
roughly enough  already  ;  but  now 
that  he  finds  his  superiors  all  speak- 
ing the  English  tongue,  all  members 
of  the  English  church,  he  clings  the 
more  fondly  and  more  obstinately  to 
his  own  self-formed,  self-chosen,  sys- 
tem of  worship  and  government,  and 
the  work  of  reunion  and  reconciliation 
is  made  almost  impossible.  In  the 
midst  of  all  this,  the  church  in  Wales 
is  itself  divided  into  high  and  low, 
into  genteel  and  vulgar;  the  digni- 
taries hold  to  the  abuses  of  the  system, 
— and  some,  less  burdened  with  com- 
•mon  sense  than  the  rest,  gabble  about 
"  Wales  and  the  Welsh,"  as  if  any 
fresh  fuel  were  wanted  to  feed  the  fire 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


[Sept. 


already  burning  beneath  the  surface 
of  society ! 

Even  at  the  present  moment,  char- 
tism is  active  in  Wales  :  Monnonites 
and  Latter-day  Saints  still  preach  and 
go  forth  from  the  Principality  to  the 
United  States,  (fortunately  for  this 
country;)  and  unprincipled  itinerant 
lecturers  on  socialism,  chartism,  and 
infidelity,  are  now  going  their  circuits 
in  Wales,  and  obtaining  numerous 
audiences.* 

Most  of  the  leading  gentry  and 
nobility  of  Wales  are,  strange  to  say, 
dabblers  in  Whiggism  and  amateur 
radicalism ;  many  of  the  M.P.s  are 
to  be  found  on  the  wrong  side  in  the 
most  disgraceful  divisions  :  the  cor- 
porations of  the  country  are  of  an  un- 
satisfactory character,  and  disaffection 
prevails  extensively  in  many  of  the 
chief  towns.  We  believe  that  a  great 
deal  of  all  this  has  arisen  from  the 
folly,  the  neglect,  the  bad  example, 
and  the  non-residence  of  the  natural 
leaders  of  the  Principality.  Welsh 
landlords,  like  Irish — though  not  so 
bad  as  the  latter — are  uncommonly 
unwilling  to  loosen  their  purse-strings, 
except  for  their  own  immediate  plea- 
sures. Scores  of  parishes  have  no 
other  representative  of  the  upper 
classes  in  them  than  a  half-educated 
and  poorly  paid  resident  clergyman  : 
agents  and  lawyers  ride  it  roughly 
and  graspingly  over  the  land ;  the 
people  have  few  or  no  natural  leaders 
within  reach ;  they  pay  their  rents, 
but  they  get  little  back  from  them,  to 
be  spent  in  their  humble  villages. 
Their  only,  and  their  best  friend,  as 
they  imagine,  is  their  preacher — one 
of  themselves,  elected  by  themselves, 
deposabk  by  themselves.  They  come 
in  contact  with  a  sharp  lawyer,  a 
drunken  journalist,  a  Chartist  lecturer, 
a  Latter-day  Saint — can  the  result  be 
wondered  at? 

As  long  as  the  patriotism  of  the 


*  It  is  only  a  short  time  since  that  Vincent,  of  London  notoriety,  made  a  success- 
ful visit  to  South  Wales,  lecturing  in  the  Baptist  chapels,  wherever  he  went,  on  the 
'Claims  of  the  Age,  on  the  Rights  of  Woman,  on  the  Claims  of  Labour,  and  the  other 
usual  clap-trap  subjects.  At  Swansea,  though  it  is  a  poor  compliment  to  the  good 
sense  of  its  inhabitants,  he  actually  succeeded  in  getting  one  of  his  meetings  pre- 
sided over  by  a  gentleman  who  had  once  been  mayor  of  the  town,  and  he  lined  his 
pockets  at  the  expense  of  not  a  few  persons  calling  themselves  respectable,  and  pre- 
tending to  be  people  of  discernment.  The  lecturer,  in  his  hand-bills  posted  on  the 
walls  of  Swansea  and  Tenby,  called  himself  simply  Henry  Vincent;  but  in  the  smaller 
towns,  such  as  Llanelly  and  Caermarthen,  he  gave  himself  out  as  Henry  Vincent, 


1849.] 


Moral  and  Social  Condition  of  Wales. 


339 


"Welsh  gentry  and  clergy  consists,  as  it 
now,  too  often,  does,  in  frothy  words, 
and  an  absence  of  deeds — in  the  accept- 
ing of  English  money  and  in  abusing 
England — in  playing  the  Aristocrat  at 
home,  and  the  Whig-radical-liberal 
in  public — so  long  will  disaffection 
continue  in  the  Principality,  and  the 
social  condition  of  the  people  remain 
unimproved.  The  only  thing  that 
preserves  Wales  from  rapidly  verging 
to  the  condition  of  Ireland,  is  the 
absence  of  large  towns  with  their  con- 
taminating influences,  and  the  purely 
agricultural  character  of  the  greatest 
portion  of  the  people.  But  even  the 
mountaineer  and  the  man  of  the  plain 
may  be  corrupted  at  last,  and  he  may 
degenerate  into  the  wretched  cottier — 
the  poor  slave,  not  of  a  proud  lord, 
but  of  a  profligate  republic.  It  is 
from  this  lowest  depth  that  we  would 
wish  to  see  him  rescued ;  for  in  the 
peasantry  the  ultimate  hope  of  the 
country  is  involved  quite  as  much  as  in 
the  upper  classes  ;  and  until  the  latter 
set  the  example,  by  actually  putting 
their  shoulders  to  the  wheel,  throwing 
aside  their  political  tamperings  with 
the  worst  faction  that  divides  the 
state,  and  especially  by  encouraging 
the  introduction  of  English  settlers 
into  all  corners  of  the  country, — we 
shall  not  see  the  social  and  moral  con- 
dition of  Wales  such  as  it  should  be. 
Let  the  nobles  and  gentry  spend  their 


incomes  in  the  country,  not  out  of  it ; 
let  them  live  even  amid  their  moun- 
tains, and  mix  with  their  people  ;  let 
them  improve  the  towns  by  introdu- 
cing English  tradesmen  as  much  as 
possible  ;  let  them  try  to  get  up  a 
spirit  of  industry,  perseverance,  and 
cleanliness  throughout  the  land; — so 
shall  they  discomfit  the  Chartists, 
and  convert  the  democrats  into  good 
subjects.  Let  the  clergy  reform  the 
discipline  of  the  Welsh  church ;  let 
them  alter  the  financial  inequalities 
and  abuses  that  prevail  in  it,  to  an 
almost  incredible  extent;  and  let  them, 
by  their  doctrines  and  practice,  emulate 
the  good  qualities  of  their  professional 
opponents  ; — so  shall  they  empty  the 
meeting-houses,  and  thaw  the  cold- 
ness of  Independentism  or  Methodism 
into  the  warmth  of  union  and  affec- 
tionate co-operation.  Let  every 
Welshman,  while  he  maintains  intact 
and  undiminished  the  real  honour  of 
his  country,  join  with  his  Saxon 
neighbour,  imitating  his  good  quali- 
ties, correcting  his  evil  ones  by  his 
own  good  example  ;  and  let  their 
children,  mingling  in  blood,  obliterate 
the  national  distinctions  that  now  are 
mischievously  sought  to  be  revived  ; 
— so  shall  the  union  of  Wales  with 
England  remain  unrepealed,  and  the 
common  honour  of  the  two  countries, 
distinct  yet  conjoined,  be  promoted 
by  their  common  weal. 


The  Strayed  Reveller. 


[Sept. 


THE  STRAYED  REVELLER. 


THE  other  evening,  on  returning 
home  from  the  pleasant  hospitalities 
of  the  Royal  Mid-Lothian  Yeomanry, 
our  heart  cheered  with  claret,  and  our 
intellect  refreshed  by  the  patriotic  elo- 
quence of  M'Whirter,  we  found  upon 
our  table  a  volume  of  suspicious  thin- 
ness, the  title  of  which  for  a  moment 
inspired  us  with  a  feeling  of  dismay. 
Fate  has  assigned  to  us  a  female  rela- 
tive of  advanced  years  and  a  curious 
disposition,  whose  affection  is  con- 
stantly manifested  by  a  regard  for  our 
private  morals.  Belonging  to  the 
Supra-lapsarian  persuasion,  she  never 
loses  an  opportunity  of  inculcating  her 
own  peculiar  tenets :  many  a  tract  has 
been  put  into  our  hands  as  an  anti- 
dote against  social  backslidings  ;  and 
no  sooner  did  that  ominous  phrase, 
The  Strayed  Reveller,  meet  our  eye, 
than  we  conjectured  that  the  old  lady 
had  somehow  fathomed  the  nature  of 
our  previous  engagement,  and,  in  our 
absence,  deposited  the  volume  as  a 
special  warning  against  indulgence  in 
military  banquets.  On  opening  it, 
however,  we  discovered  that  it  was 
verse ;  and  the  first  distich  which  met 
our  eye  was  to  the  following  effect : — 

"  O  Vizier,  thou  art  old,  I  young, 
Clear  in  these  things  I  cannot  fee. 
My  head  is  burning ;  and  a  heat 
Is  in  my  skin,  which  angers  me." 

This  frank  confession  altered  the 
current  of  our  thought,  and  we  straight- 
way set  down  the  poet  as  some  young 
roysterer,  who  had  indulged  rather 
too  copiously  in  strong  potations,  and 
who  was  now  celebrating  in  lyrics  his 
various  erratic  adventures  before 
reaching  home.  But  a  little  more 
attention  speedily  convinced  us  that 
jollity  was  about  the  last  imputation 
which  could  possibly  be  urged  against 
our  new  acquaintance. 

One  of  the  most  painful  features  of 
our  recent  poetical  literature,  is  the 
marked  absence  of  anything  like  hear- 
tiness, happiness,  or  hope.  We  do 
not  want  to  see  young  gentlemen 
aping  the  liveliness  of  Anacreou,  in- 
dulging in  praises  of  the  rosy  god,  or 
frisking  with  supernatural  agility; 


but  we  should  much  prefer  even  such 
an  unnecessary  exuberance  of  spirits, 
to  the  dreary  melancholy  which  is 
but  too  apparent  in  their  songs.  Read 
their  lugubrious  ditties,  and  you  would 
think  that  life  had  utterly  lost  all 
charm  for  them  before  they  have 
crossed  its  threshold.  The  cause  of 
such  overwhelming  despondency  it  is 
in  vain  to  discover ;  for  none  of  them 
have  the  pluck,  like  Byron,  to  commit 
imaginary  crimes,  or  to  represent 
themselves  as  racked  with  remorse  for 
murders  which  they  never  perpetrated. 
If  one  of  them  would  broadly  accuse 
himself  of  having  run  his  man  through 
the  vitals — of  having,  in  an  experi- 
mental fit,  plucked  up  a  rail,  and  so 
caused  a  terrific  accident  on  the  South- 
western— or  of  having  done  some 
other  deed  of  reasonable  turpitude  and 
atrocity,  we  conld  understand  what 
the  fellow  meant  by  his  excessively 
nnmirthful  monologues.  But  we  are 
not  indulged  with  any  full-flavoured 
fictions  of  the  kind.  On  the  contrary, 
our  bards  affect  the  purity  and  inno- 
cence of  the  dove.  They  shrink  from 
naughty  phrases  with  instinctive  hor- 
ror— have  an  idea  that  the  mildest 
kind  of  flirtation  involves  a  deviation 
from  virtue ;  and,  in  their  most  savage 
moments  of  wrath,  none  of  them  would 
injure  a  fly.  How,  then,  can  we  ac- 
count for  that  unhappy  mist  which 
floats  between  them  and  the  azure 
heaven,  so  heavily  as  to  cloud  the 
whole  tenor  of  their  existence ?  What 
makes  them  maunder  so  incessantly 
about  gloom,  and  graves,  and  misery? 
Why  confine  themselves  everlastingly 
to  apple-blossoms,  whereof  the  pro- 
duct in  autumn  will  not  amount  to  a 
single  Ribston  pippin?  What  has 
society  done  to  them,  or  what  can 
they  possibly  have  done  to  society, 
that  the  future  tenor  of  their  span 
must  be  one  of  unmitigated  woe? 
We  rather  suspect  that  most  of  the 
poets  would  be  puzzled  to  give  satis- 
factory answers  to  such  queries.  They 
might,  indeed,  reply,  that  misery  is  the 
heritage  of  genius;  but  that,  we  ap- 
prehend, would  be  arguing  upon  false 


The  Strayed  Reveller,  and  other  Poems.     By  A.     London:  1849. 


1849.] 


The  Strayed  Reveller. 


premises;  for  we  can  discover  very 
little  genius  to  vindicate  the  existence 
of  so  vast  a  quantity  of  woe. 

We  hope,  for  the  sake  of  human 
nature,  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  hum- 
bug ;  nay,  we  have  not  the  least  doubt 
of  it;  for  the  experience  of  a  good 
many  years  has  convinced  us,  that  a 
young  poet  in  print  is  a  very  different 
person  from  the  actual  existing  bard. 
The  former  has  nerves  of  gossamer, 
and  states  that  he  is  suckled  with  dew ; 
the  latter  is  generally  a  fellow  of  his 
inches,  and  has  no  insuperable  objec- 
tion to  gin  and  water.  In  the  oue 
capacity,  he  feebly  implores  an  early 
death;  in  the  other,  he  shouts  for 
broiled  kidneys  long  after  midnight, 
when  he  ought  to  be  snoring  on  his 
truckle.  Of  a  morning,  the  Strayed 
Keveller  inspires  you  with  ideas  of 
dyspepsia — towards  evening,  your  es- 
timate of  his  character  decidedly  im- 
proves. Only  fancy  what  sort  of  a 
companion  the  author  of  the  following 
lines  must  be : — 

"  TO  FAUSTA. 

"  Joy  comes  and  goes:  life  ebbs  and  Howe, 

Like  the  wave. 
Change  doth  unknit  the  tranquil  strength 

of  men. 

Love  lends  life  a  little  grace, 
A  few  sad  smiles :  and  then, 
Both  are  laid  in  one  cold  place, 
In  the  grave. 

•"  Dreams  dawn  and  fly :  friends  smile  and  die, 

Like  spring  flowers. 
Our  vaunted  life  is  one  long  funeral. 
Men  dig  graves  with  bitter  tears, 
For  their  dead  hopes ;  and  all, 
Mazed  with  doubts,  and  sick  with  fears, 
Count  the  hours. 

*'  We  count  the  hours :  these  dreams  of  ours, 

False  and  hollow, 
Shall  we  go  hence  and  find  they  are  not 

dead  ? 

Joys  we  dimly  apprehend, 
Faces  that  smiled  and  fled, 
Hopes  born  here,  and  born  to  end, 
Shall  we  follow?" 

It  is  impossible  to  account  for  tastes ; 
but  we  fairly  confess,  that  if  we 
thought  the  above  lines  were  an  ac- 
curate reflex  of  the  ordinary  mood  of 
the  author,  we  should  infinitely  prefer 
supping  in  company  with  the  nearest 
sexton.  However,  we  have  no  sus- 
picion of  the  kind.  An  early  inti- 
macy with  the  writings  of  Shelley,  who 
in  his  own  person  was  no  impostor,  is 
enough  to  account  for  the  composition 
of  these  singularly  dolorous  verses, 


without  supposing  that  they  are  any 
symptom  whatever  of  the  diseased 
idiosyncrasy  of  the  author. 

If  we  have  selected  this  poet  as  the 
type  of  a  class  now  unfortunately  too 
common,  it  is  rather  for  the  purpose 
of  remonstrating  with  him  on  the  abuse 
of  his  natural  gifts,  than  from  any  de- 
sire to  hold  him  up  to  ridicule.  We 
know  not  whether  he  may  be  a  strip- 
ling or  a  grown-up  man.  If  the  lat- 
ter, we  fear  that  he  is  incorrigible, 
and  that  the  modicum  of  talent  which, 
he  certainly  possesses  is  already  so 
perverted,  by  excessive  imitation,  as  to 
afford  little  ground  for  hope  that  he 
can  ever  purify  himself  from  a  bad 
style  of  writing,  and  a  worse  habit  of 
thought.  But  if,  as  we  rather  incline 
to  believe,  he  is  still  a  young  man,  we 
by  no  means  despair  of  his  reforma- 
tion, and  it  is  with  that  view  alone 
that  we  have  selected  his  volume  for 
criticism.  For  although  there  is  hardly 
a  page  of  it  which  is  not  studded  with 
faults  apparent  to  the  most  common 
censor,  there  are  nevertheless,  here 
and  there,  passages  of  some  promise 
and  beauty ;  and  one  poem,  though  it 
be  tainted  by  imitation,  is  deserving 
of  considerable  praise.  It  is  the  glit- 
ter of  the  golden  ore,  though  obscured 
by  much  that  is  worthless,  which  has 
attracted  our  notice;  and  we  hope, 
that  by  subjecting  his  poems  to  a  strict 
examination,  we  may  do  the  author  a 
real  service. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the 
first  essay  of  a  young  poet  should  be 
faultless.  Most  youths  addicted  to 
versification,  are  from  an  early  age 
sedulous  students  of  poetry.  They 
select  a  model  through  certain  affini- 
ties of  sympathy,  and,  having  done  so, 
they  become  copyists  for  a  time.  We 
are  far  from  objecting  to  such  a  prac- 
tice ;  indeed,  we  consider  it  inevitable ; 
for  the  tendency  to  imitate  pervades 
every  branch  of  art,  and  poetry  is  no 
exception.  We  distrust  originality  hi 
a  mere  boy,  because  he  is  not  yet 
capable  of  the  strong  impressions,  or 
of  the  extended  and  subtile  view?, 
from  which  originality  ought  to  spring. 
His  power  of  creating  music  is  still 
undeveloped,  but  the  tendency  to  imi- 
tate music  which  he  has  heard,  and 
can  even  appreciate,  is  strong.  Most 
immature  lyrics  indicate  pretty  clearly 
the 'favourite  study  of  their  authors. 


342 

Sometimes  they  read  like  a  weak  ver- 
sion of  the  choric  songs  of  Euripides  : 
sometimes  the  versification  smacks  of 
the  school  of  Pope,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  it  betrays  an  undue  intimacy 
with  the  writings  of  Barry  Cornwall. 
Nor  is  the  resemblance  always  con- 
fined to  the  form ;  for  ever  and  anon 
we  stumble  upon  a  sentiment  or  ex- 
pression, so  very  marked  and  idiosyn- 
cratic as  to  leave  no  doubt  whatever 
of  its  paternity. 

The  same  remarks  apply  to  prose 
composition.  Distinctions  of  style 
occupy  but  a  small  share  of  academi- 
cal attention ;  and  that  most  important 
rhetorical  exercise,  the  analysis  of 
the  Period,  has  fallen  into  general  dis- 
regard. Rules  for  composition  cer- 
tainly exist,  but  they  are  seldom 
made  the  subject  of  prelection  ;  and 
consequently  bad  models  find  their 
way  into  the  hands,  and  too  often 
pervert  the  taste,  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion. The  cramped,  ungrammatical 
style  of  Carlyle,  and  the  vague  pom- 
posity of  Emerson,  are  copied  by 
numerous  pupils  ;  the  value  of  words 
has  risen  immensely  in  the  literary 
market,  whilst  that  of  ideas  has  de- 
clined; in  order  to  arrive  at  the 
meaning  of  an  author  of  the  new 
school,  we  are  forced  to  crack  a  sen- 
tence as  hard  and  angular  as  a  hick- 
ory-nut, and,  after  all  our  pains,  we 
are  usually  rewarded  with  no  better 
kernel  than  a  maggot. 

The  Strayed  Reveller  is  rather  a 
curious  compound  of  imitation.  He 
claims  to  be  a  classical  scholar  of  no 
mean  acquirements,  and  a  good  deal 
of  his  inspiration  is  traceable  to  the 
Greek  dramatists.  In  certain  of  his 
poems  he  tries  to  think  like  Sophocles, 
and  has  so  far  succeeded  as  to  have 
constructed  certain  choric  passages, 
which  might  be  taken  by  an  unletter- 
ed person  for  translations  from  the 
antique.  The  language,  though  hard, 
is  rather  stately;  and  many  of  the 
individual  images  are  by  no  means 
destitute  of  grace.  The  epithets 
which  he  employs  bear  the  stamp  of 
the  Greek  coinage ;  but,  upon  the 
whole,  we  must  pronounce  these  speci- 
mens failures.  The  images  are  not 
bound  together  or  grouped  artisti- 
cally, aud  the  rhythm  which  the 
author  has  selected  is,  to  an  English 
ear,  utterly  destitute  of  melody.  It 


The  Strayed  Reveller. 


[Sept. 


is  strange  that  people  cannot  be 
brought  to  understand  that  the  genius 
and  capabilities  of  one  language  differ 
essentially  from  those  of  another :  and 
that  the  measures  of  antiquity  are 
altogether  unsuitable  for  modern  verse. 
It  is  no  doubt  possible,  by  a  Pro- 
crustean operation,  to  force  words 
into  almost  any  kind  of  mould ;  a 
chorus  maybe  constructed,  which,  so 
far  as  scanning  goes,  might  satisfy  the 
requirements  of  a  pedagogue,  but  the 
result  of  the  experiment  will  inevit- 
ably show  that  melody  has  been  sacri- 
fied  in  the  attempt.  Now  melody  is 
a  charm  without  which  poetry  is  of 
little  worth ;  we  are  not  quite  sure 
whether  it  would  not  be  more  correct 
to  say,  that  without  melody  poetry 
has  no  existence.  Our  author  does 
not  seem  to  have  the  slightest  idea  of 
this ;  and  accordingly  he  treats  us  to 
such  passages  as  the  following  : — 

"  No,  no,  old  men,  Creon  I  curse  not. 

I  weep,  Thebans, 
One  than  Creon  crueller  far, 
For  he,  he,  at  least  by  slaying  her, 
August  laws  doth  mightily  vindicate  : 
But  thou,  too  bold,  headstrong,  pitiless, 
Ah  me  !  honourest  more  than  thy  lover, 

O  Antigone, 
A  dead,  ignorant,  thankless  corpse." 

"  Nor  was  the  love  untrue 

Which  the  Dawn-Goddess  bore 

To  that  fair  youth  she  erst, 

Leaving  the  salt-sea  beds 
And  coming  flush M  over  the  stormy  frith 

Of  loud  Euripus,  saw  : 

Saw  and  snatch 'd,  wild  with  love, 

From  the  pine-dotted  spurs 

Of  Parnes,  where  thy  waves, 

Asopus ,  gleam  rock-hemm'd  ; 
The  Hunter  of  the  Tanagroean  Field. 

But  him,  in  his  sweet  prime, 

By  severance  immature, 

By  Artemis'  soft  shafts, 

She,  though  a  goddess  born, 
Saw  in  the  rocky  isle  of  Delos  die. 

Such  end  o'ertook  that  love, 

For  she  desired  to  make 

Immortal  mortal  man, 

And  blend  his  happy  life, 

Far  from  the  gods,  with  hers : 
To  him  postponing  an  eternal  law." 

We  are  sincerely  sorry  to  find  the 
lessons  of  a  good  classical  education 
applied  to  so  pitiable  a  use  ;  for  if,  out 
of  courtesy,  the  above  should  be  de- 
nominated verses,  they  are  neverthe- 
less as  far  removed  from  poetry  as 
the  Indus  is  from  the  pole.  It  is  one 
thing  to  know  the  classics,  and  an- 
other to  write  classically.  Indeed,  if 


1849.] 


The  Strayed  Reveller. 


this  be  classical  writing,  it  would  fur- 
nish the  best  argument  ever  yet  ad- 
vanced against  the  study  of  the  works 
of  antiquity.  Mr  Tennyson,  to  whom, 
as  we  shall  presently  have  occasion  to 
observe,  this  author  is  indebted  for 
another  phase  of  his  inspiration,  has 
handled  classical  subjects  with  fine 
taste  and  singular  delicacy ;  and  his 
"  Ulysses"  and  "  (Enone"  show  how 
beautifully  the  Hellenic  idea  may  be 
wrought  out  in  mellifluous  English 
verse.   But  Tennyson  knows  his  craft 
too  well  to  adopt  either  the  Greek 
phraseology  or  the  Greek    rhythm. 
Even  in  the  choric  hymns  which  he 
has  once  or  twice  attempted,  he  has 
spurned  halt  and   ungainly  metres, 
and  given  full  freedom  and  scope  to 
the  cadence  of  his  mother  tongue. 
These  antique  scraps  of  the  Reveller 
are  further  open  to  a  still  more  serious 
objection,  which  indeed  is  applicable 
to  most  of  his  poetry.  We  read  them, 
marking  every  here  and  there  some 
image  of  considerable  beauty;  but, 
when  we  have  laid  down  the  book, 
we  are  unable  for  the  life  of  us  to  tell 
what  it  is  all  about.    The  poem  from 
which  the  volume  takes  its  name  is  a 
confused  kind  of  chaunt  about  Circe, 
Ulysses,  and  the  Gods,  from  which 
no  exercise  of  ingenuity  can  extract 
the  vestige  of  a  meaning.     It  has 
pictures  which,  were  they  introduced 
for  any  conceivable  purpose,  might 
fairly  deserve  some  admiration  ;  but, 
thrust  in  as  they  are,  without  method 
or   reason,   they   utterly  lose    their 
effect,  and  only  serve  to  augment  our 
dissatisfaction  at  the  perversion  of  a 
taste  which,  with  so  much  culture, 
should  have  been  capable  of  better 
things. 

The  adoption  of  the  Greek  choric 
metres,  in  some  of  the  poems,  appears 
to  xis  the  more  inexplicable,  because 
in  others,  when  he  descends  from  his 
classic  altitudes,  our  author  shows 
that  he  is  by  no  means  insensible  to 
the  power  of  melody.  True,  he  wants 
that  peculiar  characteristic  of  a  good 
poet — a  melody  of  his  own ;  for  no 
poet  is  master  of  his  craft  unless  his 
music  is  self-inspired  :  but,  in  default 
of  that  gift,  he  not  unfrequently  bor- 
rows a  few  notes  or  a  tune  from  some 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  exhibits  a 
fair  command  and  mastery  of  his  in- 
strument. Here,  for  example,  are  a 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVII. 


few  stanzas,  the  origin  of  which  no- 
body can  mistake.  They  are  an 
exact  echo  of  the  lyrics  of  Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning : — 

"  Are  the  accents  of  your  luring 
More  melodious  than  of  yore  ? 
Are  those  frail  forms  more  enduring 
Than  the  charms  Ulysses  bore  ? 
That  we  sought  you  with  rejoicings, 
Till  at  evening  we  descry, 
At  a  pause  of  siren  voicings, 
These  vext  branches  and  this  howling  sky  ? 

"  Oh  !  your  pardon.   The  uncouth  ness 
Of  that  primal  age  is  gone, 
And  the  kind  of  dazzling  smoothness 
Screens  not  now  a  heart  of  stone. 
Love  has  flushed  those  cruel  faces  ; 
And  your  slackened  arms  forego 
The  delight  of  fierce  embraces  ; 

And  those  whitening  bone-mounds  do   not 
grow. 

"  '  Come,'  you  say  ;  '  the  large  appearance 

Of  man's  labour  is  but  vain ; 

And  we  plead  as  firm  adherence 

Due  to  pleasure  as  to  pain.' 

Pointing  to  some  world- worn  creatures, 

'  Come,'  you  murmur  with  a  sigh  : 

'  Ah  !  we  own  diviner  features, 
Loftier  bearing,  and  a  prouder  eye.'  " 

High  and  commanding  genius  is 
able  to  win  our  attention  even  in  its 
most  eccentric  moods.  Such  genius 
belongs  to  Mrs  Browning  in  a  very 
remarkable  degree,  and  on  that  ac- 
count we  readily  forgive  her  for  some 
forced  rhyming,  intricate  diction,  and 
even  occasional  obscurity  of  thought. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  man  who 
seeks  to  reproduce  her  marvellous 
effects  by  copying  her  blemishes  ?  Read 
the  above  lines,  and  you  will  find  that, 
in  so  far  as  sound  and  mannerism  go, 
they  are  an  exact  transcript  from  Mrs 
Browning.  Apply  your  intellect  to 
the  discovery  of  their  meaning,  and 
you  will  rise  from  the  task  thoroughly 
convinced  of  its  hopelessness.  The 
poem  in  which  they  occur  is  entitled 
The  New  Sirens,  but  it  might  with 
equal  felicity  and  point  have  been 
called  The  New  Harpies,  or  The  Lay 
of  the  Hurdy-Gurdy.  It  seems  to  us 
a  mere  experiment,  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  that  words  placed  together 
in  certain  juxtaposition,  without  any 
regard  to  their  significance  or  pro- 
priety, can  be  made  to  produce  a 
peculiar  phonetic  effect.  The  pheno- 
menon is  by  no  means  a  new  one — it 
occurs  whenever  the  manufacture  of 
nonsense-verses  is  attempted ;  and  it 
needed  not  the  staining  of  innocent 
2A 


344 


The  Strayed  Reveller. 


[Sept. 


wire- wove  to  convince  us  of  its  prac- 
ticability. Read  the  following  stanza 
— divorce  the  sound  from  the  sense, 
and  then  tell  us  what  you  can  make 
of  it  :— 

"  With  a  sad  majestic  motion — 
With  a  stately  slow  surprise — 
From  their  earthward-bound  devotion 
Lifting  up  your  languid  eyes  : 
Would  you  freeze  my  louder  boldness, 
Humbly  smiling  as  you  go  ? 
One  faint  frown  of  distant  coldness 

Flitting  fast  across  each  marble  brow  ?  " 

What  say  you,  Parson  Sir  Hugh 
Evans  ?  "  The  tevil  with  his  tarn ; 
what  phrase  is  this— -freeze  my  louder 
boldness  ?  Why,  it  is  affectations." 

If  any  one,  in  possession  of  a  good 
ear,  and  with  a  certain  facility  for 
composing  verse,  though  destitute  of 
the  inventive  faculty,  will  persevere 
in  imitating  the  style  of  different 
poets,  he  is  almost  certain  at  last  to 
discover  some  writer  whose  peculiar 
manner  he  can  assume  with  far  greater 
facility  than  that  of  others.  The 
Strayed  Reveller  fails  altogether  with 
Mrs  Browning ;  because  it  is  beyond 
his  power,  whilst  following  her,  to 
make  any  kind  of  agreement  between 
sound  and  sense.  He  is  indeed  very 
far  from  being  a  metaphysician,  for 
his  perception  is  abundantly  hazy ; 
and  if  he  be  wise,  he  will  abstain  from 
any  future  attempts  at  profundity. 
But  he  has  a  fair  share  of  the  painter's 
gift ;  and  were  he  to  cultivate  that 
on  his  own  account,  we  believe  that 
he  might  produce  something  far  supe- 
rior to  any  of  his  present  efforts.  As 
it  is,  we  can  merely  accord  him  the 
praise  of  sketching  an  occasional 
landscape,  very  like  one  which  we 
might  expect  from  Alfred  Tennyson. 
He  has  not  only  caught  the  trick  of 
Tennyson's  handling,  but  he  can  use 
his  colours  with  considerable  dexte- 
rity. He  is  like  one  of  those  second- 
rate  artists,  who,  with  Danby  in  their 
eye,  crowd  our  exhibitions  with  fiery 
sunsets  and  oceans  radiant  in  carmine ; 
sometimes  their  pictures  are  a  little 
overlaid,  but,  on  the  whole,  they  give 
a  fair  idea  of  the  manner  of  their  un- 
doubted master. 

The  following  extract  will,  we 
think,  illustrate  our  meaning.  It  is 
from  a  poem  entitled  Mycerinus. 
which,  though  it  does  not  possess  the 


interest  of  any  tale,  is  correctly  and 
pleasingly  written : — 

"  So  spake  he,  half  in  anger,  half  in  scorn, 
And  one  loud  cry  of  grief  and  of  amaze 
Broke  from  his  sorrowing  people  ;  so  he  spake, 
And  turning,   left  them  there ;   and  with   brief 

pause, 

Girt  with  a  throng  of  revellers,  bentf  his  way 
To  the  cool  regions  of  the  grove  he  loved. 
There  by  the  river  banks  he  wandered  on, 
From  palm-grove  on  to  palm-grove ;  happy  trees, 
Their  smooth  tops  shining  sunwards,  and  beneath 
Burying   their    unsunn'd    stems    in    grass    and 

flowers  ; 

Where  in  one  dream  the  feverish  time  of  youth 
Might  fade  in  slumber,  and  the  feet  of  Joy 
Might  wander  all  day  long  and  never  tire  : 
Here  came  the  king,  holding  high  feast,  at  morn 
Rose-crown 'd ;    and  ever,  when  the  sun   went 

down, 

A  hundred  lamps  beam'd  in  the  tranquil  gloom 
From   tree  to  tree,  all  through  the    twinkling 

grove, 

Revealing  all  the  tumult  of  the  feast, 
Flugh'd  guests,  and  golden  goblets,  foam'd  with. 

wine, 

While  the  deep  burnish'd  foliage  overhead 
Splinter'd  the  silver  arrows  of  the  moon." 

This  really  is  a  pretty  picture ;  its 
worst,  and  perhaps  its  only  fault,  being 
that  it  constantly  reminds  us  of  the 
superior  original  artist.  Throughout 
the  book  indeed,  and  incorporated  in 
many  of  the  poems,  there  occur 
images  to  which  Mr  Tennyson  has  a 
decided  right  by  priority  of  invention, 
and  which  the  Strayed  Reveller  has 
"  conveyed  "  with  little  attention  to 
ceremony.  For  example,  in  a  poem 
which  we  never  much  admired,  The 
Vision  of  Sin,  Mr  Tennyson  has  the 
two  following  lines — 

"  And  on  the  glimmering  limit,  far  withdrawn, 
God  made  himself  an  awful  rose  of  dawn." 

This  image  is  afterwards  repeated  in 
the  Princess.    Thus — 

"  Till  the  sun 

Grew  broader  toward  his  death  and  fell,  and  all 
The  rosy  heights  came  out  above  the  lawns." 

Young  Danby  catches  at  the  idea, 
and  straightway  favours  us  with  a 
copy— 

"  When  the  first  rose-flush  was  steeping 
All  the  frore  peak's  awful  crown." 

The  image  is  a  natural  one,  and  of 
course  open  to  all  the  world,  but  the 
diction  has  been  clearly  borrowed. 

Not  only  in  blank  verse  but  in 
lyrics  does  the  Tennysonian  tendency 
of  oui'  author  break  out,  and  to  that  ten- 


1 849.]  The  Strayed  Reveller, 

dency  we  owe  by  far  the  best  poem  in 
the  present  volume.  "  The  Forsaken 
Merman,"  though  the  subject  is  fan- 
tastic, and  though  it  has  further  the 
disadvantage  of  directly  reminding  us 
of  one  of  Alfred's  early  extravagan- 
zas, is  nevertheless  indicative  of  con- 
siderable power,  not  only  of  imagery 
and  versification,  but  of  actual  pathos. 
A  maiden  of  the  earth  has  been  taken 
down  to  the  depths  of  the  sea,  where 
for  years  she  has  resided  with  her 
merman  lover,  and  has  borne  him 
children.  We  sna11  let  the  poet  tell 
the  rest  of  his  story,  the  more  readily 
because  we  are  anxious  that  he  should 
receive  credit  for  what  real  poetical 
accomplishment  he  possesses,  and  that 
he  may  not  suppose,  from  our  cen- 
sure of  his  faults,  that  we  are  at  all 
indifferent  to  his  merits. 


345 


But,  ah,  she  gave  me  never  a  look, 

For  her  eyes  were  sealed  to  the  holy  book. 

'  Loud  prays  the  priest ;  shut  stands  the  door.' 

Come  away,  children,  call  no  more. 

Come  away,  come  down,  call  no  more. 


"  Children  dear,  was  it  yesterday 
(Call  yet  once)  that  she  went  away  ? 
Once  she  sate  with  you  and  me, 
On  a  red  gold  throne  in  the  heart  of  the  sea, 
And  the  youngest  sate  on  her  knee. 
She  comb'd  its  bright  hair,  and  she  tended  it  well, 
"When  down  swung  the  sound  of  the  far-offbell. 
She  sigh'd,  she  look'd  up  through  the  clear  green 

sea. 

She  said,  '  I  must  go,  for  my  kinsfolk  pray 
In  the  little  gray  church  on  the  shore  to-day. 
Twill  be  Easter-time  in  the  world — ah  me ! 
And  I  lose  my  poor  soul,  Merman,  here  with 

thee.' 

I  said, '  Go  up,  dear  heart,  through  the  waves, 
Say  thy  prayer,  and  come  back  to  the  kind  sea- 
caves.' 
She  srail'd,  she  went  up  through  the  surf  in  the 

bay. 
Children  dear,  was  it  yesterday  ? 

"  Children  dear,  were  we  long  alone  ? 
'  The  sea  grows  stormy,  the  little  ones  moan. 
Long  prayers,'  I  said, '  in  the  world  they  say. 
Come,'  I  said,  and  we  rose  through  the  surf  in  the 

bay. 

We  went  up  the  beach,  by  the  sandy  down 
Where  the  sea-stocks  bloom,  to  the  white- wall'd 

town. 
Through  the  narrow  pav'd  streets,  where  all  was 

still, 

To  the  little  gray  church  on  the  windy  hill. 
From  the  church  came  a  murmur  of  folk  at  their 

prayers, 

But  we  stood  without  in  the  cold-blowing  airs. 
We  climbed  on  the  graves,  on  the  stones  worn 

with  rains, 
And  we  gazed  up  the  aisle  through  the  small 

leaded  panes. 

She  sate  by  the  pillar  ;  we  saw  her  clear : 
'  Margaret,  hist !  come  quick,  we  are  here. 
Dear  heart,'  I  said,  '  we  are  long  alone, 
The  sea  grows  stormy,  the  little  ones  moan.' 


"  Down,  down,  down, 

Down  to  the  depths  of  the  sea. 
She  sits  at  her  wheel  in  the  humming  town, 

Singing  most  joyfully. 
Hark,  what  she  sings ;  '  O  joy,  O  joy, 
For  the  humming  street,  and  the  child  with  its 

toy. 
For  the  priest,  and  the  bell,  and  the  holy  well. 

For  the  wheel  where  I  spun, 

And  the  bless'd  light  of  the  sun.' 

And  so  she  sings  her  fill, 

Singing  most  joyfully, 

Till  the  shuttle  falls  from  her  hand, 

And  the  whizzing  wheel  stands  still. 
She  steals  to  the  window,  and  looks  at  the  sand  ; 

And  over  the  sand  at  the  sea  ; 

And  her  eyes  are  set  in  a  stare ; 

And  anon  there  breaks  a  sigh, 

And  anon  there  drops  a  tear, 

From  a  sorrow-clouded  eye, 

And  a  heart  sorrow-laden, 

A  long,  long  sigh, 
For  the  cold  strange  eyes  of  a  little  Mermaiden, 

And  the  gleam  of  her  golden  hair." 

Had  the  author  given  us  much 
poetry  like  this,  our  task  would,  in- 
deed, have  been  a  pleasant  one ;  but 
as  the  case  is  otherwise,  we  can  do  no 
more  than  point  to  the  solitary  pearl. 
Yet  it  is  something  to  know  that,  in 
spite  of  imitation,  and  a  taste  which 
has  gone  far  astray,  this  writer  has 
powers,  which,  if  properly  directed 
and  developed,  might  insure  him  a 
sympathy,  which,  for  the  present, 
must  be"  withheld.  Sympathy,  in- 
deed, he  cannot  look  for,  so  long  as  he 
appeals  neither  to  the  heart,  the  aflFec- 
tions,  nor  the  passions  of  mankind,  but 
prefers  appearing  before  them  in  the 
ridiculous  guise  of  a  misanthrope. 
He  would  fain  persuade  us  that  he  is 
a  sort  of  Timon,  who,  despairing  of 
the  tendency  of  the  age,  wishes  to 
wrap  himself  up  in  the  mantle  of  ne- 
cessity, and  to  take  no  part  whatever 
in  the  vulgar  concerns  of  existence. 
It  is  absolutely  ridiculous  to  find  this 
young  gentleman — after  confiding  "  to 
a  Republican  friend  "  the  fact  that  he 
despises 

"  The  barren,  optimistic  sophistries 
Of  comfortable  moles,  whom  what  they  do 
Teaches  the  limit  of  the  just  and  true, 
And  for  such  doing  have  no  need  of  eyes,"— - 

thus  favouring  the  public  in  a  sonnet 


The  Strayed  Reveller. 


[Sept. 


with  his  views  touching  the  onward 
progress  of  society : — 

"  Yet,  when  I  muse  on  what  life  is,  I  seem 
Rather  to  patience  prompted,  than  that  proud 
Prospect  of  hope  which  France  proclaims  so 

loud — 
France,  famed   in   all  good   arts,   in    none 

supreme. 
Seeing   this  vale,  this   earth,  whereon    we 

dream, 

Is  on  all  sides  overshadowed  by  the  high 
Uno'erleap'd  mountains  of  necessity, 
Sparing  us  narrower  margin  than  we  deem. 
Nor  will  that  day  dawn  at  a  human  nod, 
When,  bursting  through  the  network  super- 

pos'd 

By  selfish  occupation — plot  and  plan, 
Lust,  avarice,  envy — liberated  man, 
All  difference  with  his  fellow-man  composM, 
Shall  be  left  standing  face  to  face  with  God." 

What  would  our  friend  be  at  ?  If 
he  is  a  Tory,  can't  he  find  work 
enough  in  denouncing  and  exposing 
the  lies  of  the  League,  and  in  taking 
up  the  cudgels  for  native  industry  ?  If 
he  is  a  Whig,  can't  he  be  great  upon 
sewerage,  and  the  scheme  of  planting 
colonies  in  Connaught,  to  grow  corn 
and  rear  pigs  at  prices  which  will  not 
pay  for  the  manure  and  the  hogs' - 
wash  ?  If  he  is  a  Chartist,  can't  he 
say  so,  and  stand  up  manfully  with 
Julian  Harney  for  "the points,"  what- 


ever may  be  their  latest  number  ?  But 
we  think  that,  all  things  considered, 
he  had  better  avoid  politics.  Let  him 
do  his  duty  to  God  and  man,  work  six 
hours  a-day,  whether  he  requires  to  do 
so  for  a  livelihood  or  not,  marry  and 
get  children,  and,  in  his  moments  of 
leisure,  let  him  still  study  Sophocles 
and  amend  his  verses.  But  we  hope 
that,  whatever  he  does,  he  will  not 
inflict  upon  us  any  more  such  plati- 
tudes as  "  Resignation,"  addressed 
"  to  Fausta,"  or  any  sonnets  similar 
to  that  which  he  has  written  in  Emer- 
son's Essays.  We  tender  our  counsel 
with  a  most  sincere  regard  for  his  fu- 
ture welfare ;  for,  in  spite  of  his  many 
faults,  the  Strayed  Reveller  is  a  clever 
fellow ;  and  though  it  cannot  be  averred 
that,  up  to  the  present  time,  he  has 
made  the  most  of  fair  talents  and  a 
first-rate  education,  we  are  not  with- 
out hope  that,  some  day  or  other,  we 
may  be. .able  to  congratulate  him  on 
having  fairly  got  rid  of  his  affected 
misanthropy,  his  false  philosophy,  and 
his  besetting  sin  of  imitation,  and  that 
he  may  yet  achieve  something  which 
may  come  home  to  the  heart,  and  se- 
cure the  admiration  of  the  public. 


1849.] 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


347 


NEW  LIGHT   OX   THE   STORY  OF   LADY  GRANGE. 


BEFORE  we  offer  our  readers  some 
new  light  on  this  renowned  mystery, 
it  is  necessary  that  we  should  give 
them,  in  a  sentence,  the  briefest  pos- 
sible outline  of  the  oft-told  tale,  so 
far  as  it  has  been  hitherto  known. 
John  Erskine,  Lord  Grange,  a  judge 
of  the  Court  of  Session,  and  a  leader 
of  the  ultra-religious  party  in  Scot- 
land, was  married  to  the  daughter  of 
that  Chiesley  of  Dairy  who  had  shot 
the  Lord  President  in  the  High  Street 
of  Edinburgh,  for  giving  a  decision 
against  him.  The  marriage  was  a 
very  unhappy  one.  The  pious  leader 
of  a  religious  party  was  scandalised 
in  various  ways,  obliged  toliveseparate 
from  his  wife,  and  subjected  to  many 
outrages  from  her.  At  length  her 
death  was  announced,  her  funeral  was 
duly  attended,  and  the  widower  pre- 
served the  decorous  silence  of  one  to 
whom  death  has  brought  relief  from 
what  is  generally  counted  a  calamity. 

This  occurred  in  January  1732. 
The  lapse  of  nearly  nine  years  had 
almost  consigned  the  remembrance  of 
the  unfortunate  woman  to  oblivion, 
when  strange  rumours  gained  circu- 
lation, that  she  who  was  believed  to 
be  dead  and  buried  Avas  living  in  bon- 
dage in  the  distant  island  of  St  Kilda. 
The  account  she  subsequently  gave  of 
her  adventures,  bore,  that  one  night  in 
her  solitary  lodging  she  was  seized  by 
some  Highlanders,  whom  she  knew  to 
be  retainers  of  Lord  Lovat,  and  con- 
veyed away,  gagged  and  blindfolded,  in 
the  arms  of  a  man  seated  in  a  sedan 
chair.  It  appears  that  she  was  kept  in 
various  places  of  confinement,  and  sub- 
jected to  much  rough  usage,  in  the  Low 
Country.  At  length  she  was  conveyed 
north-westward,  towards  the  Highland 
line.  She  passed  through  the  grim  soli- 
tudes of  Glencoe,  where  recent  murder 
must  have  awakened  in  the  captive  hor- 
rible associations,  on  to  the  western 
part  of  Lord  Lovat's  country,  where 
any  deed  of  tyranny  or  violence  might 
be  committed  with  safety.  Thence  she 
was  transferred  to  the  equally  safe 
country  of  Glengarry,  and,  after  cross- 
ing some  of  the  highest  mountains  in 
Scotland,  was  shipped  on  the  wild 
Loch  Hourn,  for  ever  darkened  by  the 


shadow  of  gigantic  mountains  falling 
on  its  narrow  waters.  She  was  kept 
for  some  time  on  the  small  island  of 
Heskir,  belonging  to  Macdonald  of 
Sleat,  and  was  afterwards  transferred 
to  the  still  more  inaccessible  St  Kilda, 
which  has  acquired  a  sort  of  celebrity 
from  its  connexion  with  her  strange  his- 
tory. In  1741,  when  a  communication 
from  the  captive  had,  through  devious 
courses,  reached  her  friends  in  Edin- 
burgh, an  effort  was  made  to  release 
her ;  but  it  was  baffled  by  her  trans- 
ference to  another  place  of  confine- 
ment, where  she  died  in  1745. 

Little  did  the  old  judge  imagine,  at 
the  time  when  he  had  so  successfully 
and  so  quietly  got  rid  of  his  domestic 
curse — when  the  mock  funeral  had 
been  performed,  the  family  condo- 
lences acted  over,  and  the  victim 
safely  conveyed  to  her  distant  prison, 
that  on  some  future  day  the  public, 
frantic  with  curiosity,  would  tear  to 
pieces  the  covering  of  his  great  mys- 
tery, and  expose  every  fragment  of 
it  to  the  admiring  crowd.  It  was  but 
a  simple  matter  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  were  concerned  in  it.  The 
woman  was  troublesome — her  husband 
was  a  judge,  and  therefore  a  power- 
ful man — so  he  put  her  out  of  the 
way.  Nor  was  he  cruel  or  unscru- 
pulous, according  to  .  the  morality  of 
the  circle  in  which  he  lived,  in  the 
method  he  adopted  to  accomplish  his 
end.  He  had  advisers  about  him, 
who  would  have  taken  a  shorter  and 
a  more  effectual  plan  for  ridding  them- 
selves of  a  troublesome  woman,  wife 
or  not,  and  would  have  walked  forth 
into  the  world  without  being  haunted 
by  any  dread  that  rumours  of  remote 
captivities  might  rise  up  to  disturb 
their  peace.  Indeed,  when  we  re- 
member the  character  of  the  instru- 
ments to  whom  Lord  Grange  com- 
mitted the  kidnapping  and  removal 
of  his  wife,  it  is  only  wonderful 
that  they  had  patience  enough  to 
carry  out  so  long  and  troublesome  an 
operation ;  and  that  they  did  not,  out 
of  regard  to  themselves  and  to  their 
employer,  put  a  violent  termination 
to  the  career  of  their  troublesome 
charge,  and  send  her  at  once  to  where 


348 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


[Sept. 


the  weary  are  at  rest.  Had  this  been 
her  fate,  the  affair  of  Lady  Grange 
would  have  been  one  of  secondary 
interest.  Such  things  were  too  easily 
accomplished  in  those  days.  The 
chances  would  have  been  greatly 
against  a  discovery,  and  if  it  took  place, 
equally  great  against  the  conviction 
and  punishment  of  the  offenders,  un- 
less the  lady  had  a  more  powerful 
party  at  her  back  than  the  daughter 
of  Chiesley  the  murderer  would  be 
likely  to  command.  It  would  have 
created,  so  far  as  it  was  known,  great 
excitement,  and  some  little  horror  at 
the  time,  but  it  would  have  speedily 
sunk  to  the  level  of  the  ordinary  con- 
tents of  the  criminal  records,  and 
would  never  have  bequeathed  to  the 
ensuing  century  an  object  which  anti- 
quarians have  hunted  out  as  religiously 
and  zealously  as  if  it  had  involved  the 
fate  of  Europe. 

In  fact,  Lord  Grange  was  what  was 
called  in  his  day  "  a  discreet  man." 
He  wished  to  avoid  scandal,  and  bore 
a  character  for  religious  zeal,  which 
afipears  to  have  been  on  occasion  a 
very  serious  burden  not  easily  borne. 
He  dreaded  scandal  and  notoriety,  and 
therefore  he  shrouded  his  great  act  of 
iniquity  in  the  most  profound  secrecy. 
Moreover,  he  kept  a  conscience — 
something  that,  like  Rob  Roy's 
honesty,  might  be  called  a  conscience 
"  after  a  kind."  He  said  pretty  accu- 
rately of  himself  in  his  Diary — "  I 
have  religion  enough  to  spoil  my 
relish  and  prosecution  of  this  world, 
and  not  enough  to  get  me  to  the 
next."  We  may  probably  believe 
that,  even  if  he  could  have  performed 
the  deed  with  perfect  secrecy  and 
safety,  so  far  as  this  world  is  con- 
cerned, he  would  not  have  murdered 
his  wife,  his  conscience  recoiling  at 
the  dreadful  crime — his  fear  of  the 
world  causing  him  .to  shrink  from  ex- 
posure. Urged  by  these  two  conflict- 
ing motives,  he  adopted  the  expedient 
of  the  secret  removal  to  a  desolate  and 
distant  spot,  believing  that  he  had  sur- 
rounded the  whole  project  with  a  deep 
and  impenetrable  cloud  of  mystery. 
Never  was  human  foresight  more 
signally  set  at  naught.  It  was  this 
very  machinery  of  intense  mystery 
that,  by  ministering  to  one  of  the 


cravings  of  the  human  imagination, 
has  made  the  incident  one  of  the  most 
notorious  of  human  events.  It  is 
almost  satisfactory  to  know  that  this 
dreaded  notoriety  visited  the  hoary 
tyrant,  for  after  he  had  for  nine  years 
enjoyed  in  secret  the  success  of  his 
plot,  and  kept  his  fair  fame  with  the 
world,  we  find  him,  when  legal  pro- 
ceedings were  commenced  against 
him,  bitterly  saying  that  "  strange 
stories  were  spread  all  over  the  town 
of  Edinburgh,  and  made  the  talk  of 
coffee-houses  and  tea-tables,  and  sent, 
as  I  have  ground  to  apprehend,  to 
several  other  places  of  Great  Britain."  * 
One  may  notice,  too,  in  the  following 
discontented  mumblings,  the  bitter- 
ness with  which  he  contemplated  the 
divulging  of  the  secret, — it  is  in  a 
letter  to  the  imprisoned  lady's  cham- 
pion, Mr  Hope  of  Rankeillor. 

"  Any  of  the  smallest  discretion  will 
see  what  a  worthy  part  he  acts  towards 
me  and  mine,  and  many  others,  and  even 
towards  the  person  pretended  to  be  cared 
for,  who,  in  such  an  occasion,  begins  by 
spreading  through  Great  Britain  strange 
stories,  unexamined  and  unvouched,  and 
not  so  much  as  communicated  to  us  con- 
cerned ;  and  next,  when  offered  satisfac- 
tion, yet  proceeds  to  fix  such  on  public 
records,  and  to  force  others  to  bring  on 
record  sad  and  proved  truths,  which  he 
himself  knows  and  formerly  has  acknow- 
ledged to  be  truths,  and  that  ought  for 
ever  to  be  sunk.  This  cannot  be  con- 
strued to  be  anything  but  an  endeavour 
to  fix,  as  far  as  in  him  lies,  a  lasting  blot 
on  persons  and  families.  The  first  was 
defamation,  and  the  next  would  be  the 
same,  under  a  cover  of  a  pretended  legal 
shape,  but  in  itself  more  atrocious.  One 
cannot  doubt  that  this  is  a  serious  thing 
to  many  more  than  me,  and  cannot  but 
be  laid  to  heart."  f 

The  text  from  which  we  are  at  pre- 
sent discoursing,  is  a  bundle  of  confi- 
dential letters  from  Lord  Grange, 
printed  in  the  Miscellany  of  the 
Spotting  Club,  and  not  the  least 
valuable  and  curious  of  the  many 
contributions  made  by  that  useful 
and  spirited  institution,  to  the  eluci- 
dation of  Scottish  history  and  man- 
ners. At  the  foot  of  the  high  conical 
hill  of  Bennochie,  in  a  small  group  of 
forest  trees,  there  nestles  one  of  those 
quaint  small  turreted  mansions  of  old 


*  Miscellany  of  the  Spalding  Club,  iii.  58. 


t  Ibid.  62-3. 


1849.] 


New  Liyht  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


349 


French  architecture  so  frequently  to 
be  seen  iii  the  north  of  Scotland. 
The  owner  of  this  mansion  was  an 
Erskine ;  he  was  related  to  Erskine 
of  Grange,  and  it  so  happened  that 
this  relative  was  the  person  in  whose 
ear  he  poured  his  secret  sorrows,  as  a 
disappointed  and  morbid  politician. 
Such  confidential  outpourings  are  not 
the  most  interesting  of  communica- 
tions, even  when  one  has  the  fortune  to 
be  so  far  connected  with  the  waller  as 
to  be  the  chosen  vessel  into  which  he 
pours  the  anguish  of  his  heart.  Some  of 
these  letters  are  portentous — they  are 
absolute  pamphlets  —  in  their  spirit 
as  yellow  and  mildewed  with  discon- 
tent, as  their  outward  aspect  may 
have  been  by  the  cold  damp  air  of 
Bennochie,  when  they  were  discov- 
ered in  the  worm-eaten  chest.  It  re- 
quires a  little  zeal  to  peruse  the  whole 
series  ;  but,  unless  we  are  greatly  de- 
ceived, we  think  we  can  present  our 
readers  with  a  few  plums  picked  out 
of  the  mass,  which  they  may  find  not 
unacceptable.  And  here,  by  the  way, 
let  us  observe,  how  great  a  service  is 
done  by  those  who  ransack  the  repo- 
sitories of  our  old  Scottish  houses, 
and  make  their  contents  accessible  to 
the  public.  We  are  convinced  that 
in  dusty  garrets,  in  vaults,  in  musty 
libraries,  and  crazy  old  oak-chests, 
there  is  still  an  almost  inexhaustible 
wealth  of  curious  lore  of  this  descrip- 
tion. The  correspondence  of  the  old 
Scottish  families  is  generally  far  more 
interesting  than  that  of  English  houses 
of  the  same  rank.  Since  the  civil  wars 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  England 
may  be  said  to  have  been  internally 
undisturbed,  and  no  private  papers 
contain  matters  of  state,  save  those  of 
the  great  families  whose  ancestors 
have  been  high  in  office.  But  in 


Scotland,  the  various  outbreaks,  and 
the  unceasing  Jacobite  intrigues, 
made  almost  all  the  country  gentle- 
men statesmen — made  too  many  of 
them  state  offenders.  The  Essex 
squire,  be  he  ever  so  rich,  was  still 
but  the  lord  of  a  certain  quantity  of 
timber  and  oxen,  grass  and  turnips. 
The  Highland  laird,  be  he  ever  so  poor, 
was  a  leader  of  men — a  person  who 
had  more  or  less  the  power  of  keeping 
the  country  in  a  state  of  war  or  dan- 
ger— a  sort  of  petty  king  reigning 
over  his  own  people.  Hence,  while 
the  letters  of  the  last  century  one 
might  pick  up  in  a  comfortable  old 
English  mansion,  would  relate  to 
swing-gates  and  turnpike  roads, 
game  preserves  and  tithes,  those 
found  hidden  behind  the  wainscoat  of 
a  gaunt  old  cheerless  Scottish  fortalice, 
would  relate  to  risings  at  home,  or 
landings  from  abroad — to  the  number 
of  broadswords  and  targets  still  kept 
in  defiance  of  the  Arms  Act — to  com- 
munications received  through  French 
Jesuits,  or  secret  missions  "  across 
the  water."  * 

We  believe  that  the  passages  from 
these  documents,  on  which  we  are 
now  to  comment,  in  the  first  place 
exhibit  to  us  pretty  plainly  the  motive 
of  Lord  Grange  for  the  deportation 
of  his  wife ;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
prove  that  he  entertained  designs  of  a 
similar  character  against  another  fe- 
male with  whom  he  was  nearly  con- 
nected. 

When  Lady  Grange's  strange  his- 
tory was  first  communicated  to  the 
public,  it  was  believed  that  the  cause 
of  her  abduction  was  not  merely  her 
violent  temper,  but  her  possession  of 
certain  secrets  which  would  enable 
her  to  compromise  the  safety  of  her 
husband  and  his  friends,  by  proving 


*  We  remember  once  in  such  a  house — it  was  a  rainy  day,  and  for  the  amusement 
of  the  inmates  a  general  rummage  was  made  among  old  papers — that  in  a  corner  of 
a  press  of  a  law  library  were  found  a  multitude  of  letters  very  precisely  folded  up, 
and  titled — they  had  a  most  business-like  and  uninteresting  appearance,  but  on 
being  examined  they  were  found  to  consist  of  the  confidential  correspondence  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Jacobite  army  in  1745.  Their  preservation  was  accounted  for  by  the 
circumstance  that  an  ancestor  of  the  owner  of  the  house  was  sheriff  of  the  county  at 
the  period  .of  the  rebellion.  He  had  seized  the  letters;  but,  finding  probably  that 
they  implicated  a  considerable  number  of  his  own  relations,  he  did  not  consider  him- 
self especially  called  on  to  invite  the  attention  of  the  law  officers  of  the  crown  to  hia 
prize  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  damnatory  documents  were  carefully  preserved, 
lest  some  opportunity  should  occur  of  turning  them  to  use.  They  are  uow  printed 
in  a  substantial  quarto,  under  the  patronage  of  one  of  the  book  clubs. 


Ntw  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


350 

their  connexion  with  the  Jacobite 
intrigues  of  the  period.  The  view 
more  lately  taken  of  the  mystery, 
has  been  that  she  was  merely 
a  mad  woman,  and  that  her  ab- 
duction, with  all  its  laborious  mys- 
tery, was  only  an  attempt  to  ac- 
commodate the  judge  with  a  resource 
in  which  Scotland  was  then  deficient 
— a  lunatic  asylum  forinsane  relatives. 
Though,  as  we  shall  presently  see, 
his  confidential  communications  give 
other  and  darker  revelations,  this  was 
the  light  in  which  Lord  Grange  wished 
the  matter  to  be  viewed,  after  his 
plot  had  been  discovered;  and  in  his 
controversial  letter  to  Mr  Hope,  al- 
ready referred  to,  he  gives  an  account 
of  her  frantic  outbreaks,  which  cer- 
tainly affords  a  picture  of  one  likely  to 
have  been  a  most  distressing  partner 
in  life  to  a  grave  judge,  having  a  few 
secrets  to  conceal  which  required  him. 
to  be  peculiarly  circumspect  in  his 
walk  ;  and  holding  a  high,  but  a  rather 
precarious  position,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  religious  world.  After  stating 
that  she  had  agreed  to  a  separation, 
he  continues — 

"  Then  it  was  hoped  that  I  and  the 
children  (who  she  used  to  curse  bitterly 
when  they  went  dutifully  to  wait  on  her) 
would  be  in  quiet;  but  she  often  attacked 
my  house,  and  from  the  streets,  and 
among  the  footmen  and  chairmen  of 
•visitors,  cried  and  raged  against  me  and 
mine,  and  watched  for  me  in  the  streets, 
and  chased  me  from  place  to  place  in 
the  most  indecent  and  shameless  manner, 
and  threatened  to  attack  me  on  the 
bench,  which,  dreading  she  would  do 
every  time  I  went  to  it,  made  my  duty 
there  very  heavy  on  me,  lest  that  honour- 
able Court  of  Session  should  be  disturbed 
and  affronted  on  my  occasion.  And  not 
content  with  these,  and  odd  and  very  bad 
contrivances  about  the  poor  children,  she 
waited  on  a  Sunday's  afternoon  that  my 
sister,  Lady  Jane  Paterson,  with  my 
second  daughter,  came  out  of  the  Tron 
Church,  and  on  the  street,  among  all 
the  people,  fell  upon  her  with  violent 
scolding  and  curses,  and  followed  her  so 
down  Merlin's  Wynd,  till  Lady  Jane  and 
the  child  near  the  bottom  of  it  got  shelter 
from  her  and  being  exposed  to  the  multi- 
tude in  a  friend's  house.  You  also 
know,  and  may  well  remember,  that  be- 
fore yon  and  the  rest  advised  the  separa- 
tion, and  till  she  went  from  my  house, 
she  would  not  keep  herself  in  that  part 


[Sept, 


of  it  (the  best  apartment)  which  was  as- 
signed her,  but  abused  all  in  the  family,, 
and  when  none  were  adverting,  broke 
into  the  room  of  anc  old  gentlewoman, 
recommended  to  me  for  housekeeper, 
and  carried  off  and  destroyed  her  ac- 
compts,  &c.,  and  committed  outrages,  so 
that  at  length  I  was  forced  to  have  a 
watch  in  my  house,  and  especially  in  the 
night  time,  as  if  it  had  been  in  the  fron- 
tier of  an  enemy's  country,  or  to  be 
spoiled  by  robbers."* 

This  was  doubtless  the  truth,  but 
not  the  whole  truth.  Founding  ap- 
parently on  these  statements,  which 
are  Lord  Grange's  vindication  of 
himself,  the  editor  of  the  collection  of 
letters  says— -"The  letters  now  printed 
must  considerably  impair  the  mystery 
of  the  reasons  which  led  to  the  abduc- 
tion of  Lady  Grange.  They  may  be 
held  conclusively  to  refute  the  sup- 
position that  the  affair  had  any  con- 
nexion with  the  political  intrigues  of 
the  period."  On  the  contraiy,  we 
cannot  read  the  confidential  portion 
of  the  correspondence  without  feeling 
that  it  almost  conclusively  establishes 
the  fact,  that  the  affair  had  a  "  con- 
nexion with  the  political  intrigues  of 
the  period  ;"  and  that  the  reason  why 
so  many  people  of  rank  and  political 
influence  aided  the  plot,  why  the  re- 
moval was  conducted  with  so  much- 
secrecy,  and  the  place  of  seclusion 
was  so  remote  and  inaccessible,  was 
because  Lady  Grange  was  possessed 
ot  dangerous  secrets,  which  compro- 
mised her  husband  and  his  friends. 
The  general  tone  of  the  letters,  and 
their  many  cautious  and  mysterious, 
yet  unmistakeable  references  to  the 
proceedings  of  friends  across  the 
water,  show  that  the  judge  confided 
to  the  owner  of  the  old  mansion  at 
the  foot  of  Bennochie  some  things 
which  it  would  be  dangerous  for  an 
enemy  to  know.  But  we  shall  cite 
just  one  passage,  which  we  consider 
sufficient  of  itself  to  support  our  posi- 
tion. It  is  taken  from  a  letter  dated 
22d  March  1731,  just  ten  months  be- 
fore his  wife  was  seized  and  carried 
off.  There  is  something  very  peculiar 
in  the  structure  of  the  letter;  and, 
whether  in  pursuit  of  some  not  very 
appreciable  joke,  or  to  waylay  the 
penetration  of  any  hostile  party  who 
might  take  the  liberty  of  opening  the 


Miscellany  of  the  Spaldiny  Club,  Hi.  60. 


1849.] 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


351 


packet  on  its  journey,  the  writer 
speaks  of  himself  during  the  most 
curious  and  important  part  of  it,  in 
the  third  person.  Talking  of  a  very 
difficult  and  hazardous  project  in 
which  he  is  about  to  be  engaged,  he 
thus  passes  a  neat  commendation  on 
himself, — u  but  I  am  sure  he  never 
yet  was  frightened  from  what  was 
right  in  itself,  and  his  duty  towards 
his  friends,  by  his  own  trouble  or 
danger,  and  he  seems  as  little  frighted 
now,  as  ever  in  his  life."  He  then 
approaches  the  subject  of  his  wife's 
character  and  intentions,  like  a  man 
treading  on  the  verge  of  a  frightful  pit- 
fall. "I  have  found  that,  in  such  a 
case,  there  is  no  bounds  set  to  such 
mischief,  and  it  is  pushed  on  though  it 
should  go  the  length  of  your  utter 
ruin,  and  of  Tyburn  itself,  or  the 
Grassmarket"  —  the  one  being  the 
place  where  the  gibbet  of  London,  the 
other  where  that  of  Edinburgh  stood. 
From  such  portentous  associations  he 
passes  immediately  to  his  wife  and 
her  proceedings.  To  make  the  pas- 
sage more  distinct,  we  fill  up  the 
names,  of  which  the  letter  contains 
only  the  first  and  last  letters ;  it  will 
be  remarked  that  he  still  assumes  the 
third  person,  and  that  he  himself  is 
the  person  about  to  depart  for 
London. 

"  Then  I  am  told  that  Lady  Grange 
is  going  to  London.  She  knows  no- 
thing of  his  going,  nor  is  it  suspected 
here,  nor  shall  be  till  the  day  before 
he  goes  off,  and  so  she  cannot  pretend 
it  is  to  follow  him.  She  will  certainly 
strive  to  get  access  to  Lady  Mary 
Wortley,  Lady  Mar's  sister,  (whom 
she  openly  blesses  for  her  opposition 
to  our  friends,)  and  to  all  where  her 
malice  may  prompt  her  to  hope  she 
can  do  hurt  to  us.  You  will  remember 
with  what  lying  impudence  she  threat- 
ened Lord  Grange,  and  many  of  his 
friends,  with  accusations  of  high  trea- 
son and  other  capital  crimes,  and 
spoke  so  loud  of  her  accusing  directly 
by  a  signedinformation  to  Lord  Justice- 
Clerk,  that  it  came  to  his  ears,  and 
she  was  stopped  by  hearing  he  said, 
that,  if  the  mad  woman  came  to  him, 
he  would  cause  his  footmen  turn  her 
down -stairs.  What  effect  her  lies 
may  have,  where  she  is  not  so  well 


known,  and  with  those  who,  from 
opposition  to  what  Lord  Grange  is 
about,  may  think  their  interest  to  en- 
courage them,  one  cannot  certainly 
know  ;  but  if  proper  measures  be  not 
fallen  on  against  it,  the  creature  may 
prove  troublesome;  at  any  rate,  this 
whole  affair  will  require  a  great 
deal  of  diligence,  caution,  and  ad- 
dress."* 

He  talks  of  her  as  mad  ;  and  so  far 
as  passion  and  the  thirst  of  vengeance 
make  people  mad,  she  undoubtedly 
was  so.  He  speaks  of  her  intended 
accusations  as  lies — that  is,  of  course, 
a  convenient  expression  to  use  towards 
them.  But  what  is  very  clearly  at 
the  bottom  of  all  the  trepidation,  and 
doubt,  and  difficulty,  is,  that  she 
might  be  able,  mad  and  false  as  she 
was,  to  get  facts  established  which 
called  up  very  ugly  associations  with 
Tyburn  and  the  Grassmarket.  A 
minute  incident  stated  in  the  common 
histories  of  the  affair,  that  Lady 
Grange  planned  a  journey  to  London 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  her  accusa- 
tion to  the  fountain-head  of  political 
power,  is  confirmed  by  this  extract. 
It  may  easily  be  believed  that,  among 
Grange's  official  colleagues — some  of 
whom  had  also  their  own  secrets  to 
keep — the  lady's  frantic  accusations 
met  with  little  encouragement.  The 
Justice-clerk  referred  to  in  the  extract, 
Adam  Cockburn  of  Ormiston,  was, 
like  Grange  himself,  a  great  professed 
light  of  the  church,  and  what  sort  of 
interview  he  would  have  held  with 
the  furious  lady,  may  be  inferred  from 
the  character  given  of  him  by  a  con- 
temporary,— "He  became  universally 
hated  in  Scotland,  where  they  called 
him  the  curse  of  Scotland  ;  and  when 
ladies  were  at  cards,  playing  the  nine 
of  diamonds,  commonly  called  '  the 
curse  of  Scotland,'  they  called  it  the 
Justice-Clerk.  He  was,  indeed,  of  a 
hot  temper,  and  violent  in  all  his 
measures. "f 

In  the  old  narratives  of  the  affair, 
it  is  stated  that  Grange  felt  his  posi- 
tion to  be  the  more  dangerous,  as 
some  letters  had  been  intercepted 
tending  to  inculpate  him  with  the 
Jacobites  on  the  Continent.  It  is  sin- 
gular that  this  should  also  be  pretty 
satisfactorily  proved  by  the  present 


Miscellany  of  the  Spalding  Club,  iii.  6. 


Houston's  Memoirs,  92. 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


352 

correspondence.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  Grange  was  a  brother  of 
the  Earl  of  Mar,  whose  prominence 
in  the  affairs  of  1715  had  driven  him 
into  exile.  A  strong  attachment  to 
this  unfortunate  man  is,  on  the  whole, 
the  most  pleasing  feature  in  the  cha- 
racter of  the  more  cautious  and  more 
fortunate  judge.  It  was  natural  that 
the  brothers  should  keep  up  a  corre- 
spondence, and  quite  as  natural  that 
Sir  Robert  Walpole  should  be  parti- 
cularly anxious  to  discover  what  they 
said  to  each  other.  Grange  con- 
ducted some  negotiations  with  the 
government  for  his  brother's  pardon 
and  restoration,  and  we  find  him  de- 
feated in  his  aim,  and  receiving  some 
very  significant  hints  about  the  nature 
of  his  correspondence. 

"  Sir  Robert  told  me  in  wrath  that 
he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
Lord  Mar,  that  he  had  dealt  ill  with 
him,  and  he  should  not  have  his  par- 
don ;  and  he  would  by  no  means  give 
me  any  reason  for  it,  but  Lord  Town- 
send  did,  whom  they  had  stirred  up  ; 
for  he  in  anger  told  me  Sir  Robert  had 
intercepted  his  letters  to  me  with  very 
odd  things  in  them,  injurious  to  Sir 
Robert  and  his  friends. 
Soon  after  this,  Hay,  with  cloudy 
looks,  began  to  make  insinuations  of 
some  discoveries  against  me  too,  and 
at  length  told  me  that  Sir  Robert  said 
that  he  had  also  intercepted  bad  let- 
ters of  mine  to  Lord  Mar,  but  con- 
fessed they  were  not  directed  to  Lord 
Mar,  and  neither  subscribed  by  me 
nor  in  my  hand  of  write,  but  that  by 
the  contents  they  knew  them  to  be 
mine  to  Lord  Mar.  I  answered  that 
they  might  assert  what  they  pleased 
of  letters  said  to  be  directed  to  me, 
and  which  they  owned  I  had  never 
seen,  but  that  I  must  know  of  letters 
wrote  by  myself,  and  that  I  ever 
wrote  any  such  was  a  damned,  villain- 
ous, malicious  lie  ;  and  let  Sir  Robert 
or  any  else  be  the  asserter  of  it,  who- 
ever did  assert  it,  was  a  liar."* 

This  is  a  very  successful  outbreak  of 
virtuous  indignation,  and  does  consi- 
derable credit  to  its  author,  as  a  pupil 
of  that  school  of  which  his  dear  friend 
Lord  Lovat  was  the  undoubted  head. 

We  cannot  help  considering  that  it 
is  a  question  of  some  historical  in- 


[Sept. 


terest  and  importance  whether  the 
abduction  of  Lady  Grange  was  or  was 
not  a  measure  adopted  for  political 
reasons,  and  that  the  letters  before  us, 
by  finally  deciding  the  question,  throw 
an  important  light  on  the  political 
state  of  Scotland  in  the  early  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  If  we  suppose 
that  the  lady  was  carried  under  cir- 
cumstances of  such  profound  mystery, 
and  by  the  agency  of  some  conspicuous 
and  distinguished  personages,  to  the 
distant  island  of  St  Kilda,  merely  be- 
cause she  was  a  lunatic  who  required 
to  be  in  custody,  we  only  see  that 
many  important  and  sagacious  people 
were  taking  a  very  complex  and 
cumbrous  method  of  accomplishing 
what  might  have  been  done  with 
ease ;  for  in  those  days,  few  would 
have  troubled  themselves  about  the 
wretched  woman,  if  her  husband  had 
chosen  to  keep  her  in  any  place  of 
confinement,  telling  the  neighbourhood 
that  she  was  insane.  But  when  we 
find  that  the  Jacobite  party  in  Scot- 
land were  powerful  enough  to  kidnap 
a  person  obnoxious  to  them,  and  keep 
her  for  nine  years  in  a  place  to  which 
the  laws  of  the  realm  and  the  autho- 
rity of  the  crown  nominally  extended, 
but  where  their  own  power  was  the 
real  operative  authority,  we  have  a 
very  formidable  notion  of  the  strength 
and  compactness  of  the  Jacobite  union, 
during  Walpole's  apparently  powerful 
ministry. 

The  correspondence  of  Lord  Grange 
admits  its  reader  to  a  species  of  con- 
fidential intercourse  with  him,  which 
can  scarcely  be  called  agreeable.  It 
exhibits  one  of  the  most  disgusting  of 
all  the  moral  diseases — the  rankling  of 
the  arrow  of  disappointment  in  the 
heart  of  a  defeated  political  schemer. 
It  is  not  the  man  of  brave  and  bold 
designs  baffled,  or  the  Utopian  enthu- 
siast disappointed  of  the  fulfilment  of 
his  golden  dreams,  or  the  adherent  of 
one  absorbing  political  idea  looking  at 
it  lying  broken  to  pieces  at  his  feet : 
in  all  of  these  there  is  a  dash  of  noble 
and  disinterested  sentiment,  and  the 
politician  defeated  in  his  conflict  with 
the  world  has  still  the  consolation  of 
an  honest  if  mistaken  heart,  into 
which  he  can  retire  without  the  sting 
of  self-reproach.  But  all  Grange's 


Miscellany  of  the  Spaldlng  Club,i\\.  34-5. 


1849.] 

disappointments  were  connected  with 
paltry  schemes  of  personal  aggrandise- 
ment. Fawn  and  flatter  as  he  might, 
Sir  Robert  Walpole,  and  his  Scottish 
coadjutor  Ilay,  knew  him  and  dis- 
trusted him,  and,  when  he  came  to 
court  them,  gave  him  but  fair  words, 
and  sometimes  not  even  that.  With 
Sir  Robert  he  carried  on  an  unequal 
war.  Believing  that  he  could  scourge 
the  minister  in  parliament,  while  he 
was  a  judge  of  the  Court  of  Session,  he 
resolved  to  obtain  a  seat,  and  there- 
upon the  all-powerful  minister  at  once 
checkmated  him,  by  carrying  an  act 
to  prohibit  judges  of  the  Court  of 
Session  from  holding  seats  in  the  House 
of  Commons — it  was  a  less  invidious 
proceeding  than  the  dismissal  of  his 
lordship  from  the  bench  would  have 
been,  and  it  had  the  appearance  of 
being  dictated  by  a  desire  for  the 
public  good.  Grange  preferred  the 
senate  to  the  bench,  and  resigned  his 
judgeship,  but  he  never  achieved 
political  eminence.  In  the  mean  time 
he  acquired  Dr  Johnson's  desideratum 
of  an  honest  hatred  towards  his  enemy, 
and  indeed  hatred  appears  to  have 
been  the  only  honest  ingredient  in  his 
character.  He  expressed  it  so  well 
towards  Walpole,  that  we  must  quote 
his  confidential  opinion  of  that  mighty 
statesman : — 


"  An  insolent  and  rapacious  minister, 
who  has  kept  us  under  the  expense  of  war 
in  time  of  peace,  yet  hindered  us  to  fight 
to  vindicate  our  trade,  so  grossly  violated 
by  Spanish  robberies,  and  when  we  could 
have  put  a  stop  to  it,  and  corrected  them 
without  drawing  upon  us  the  arms  of  any 
other  nation,  maintained  bis  hollow  and 
expensive  peace  by  ridiculous  contradic- 
tory treaties,  trying  us  to  take  part  in  all 
the  quarrels  of  Europe,  and  sometimes  to 
be  on  both  sides,  and  at  the  same  time 
allowing  confederacies  to  go  on  so  power- 
ful, and  which  we  are  not  of,  that  now 
when  a  war  is  breaking  out  we  know  not 
where  to  turn  us  ;  laying  plots  to  devour 
the  land  by  new  swarms  of  officers  of  the 
revenue,  to  put  the  merchants'  stocks  in 
the  possession  of  these  vermin,  and  trade 
under  their  power,  &c.,  as  by  that  most 
damned  excise  scheme;  openly  protecting 
the  frauds  and  villains  that  plunder  the 
stocks  and  ruin  multitudes,  and  must  sink 
the  kingdom  ;  plundering  the  revenue, 
and  using  all  his  art,  and  power,  and 


Lit/fit  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange.  353 

bribes  to  stop  all  inquiry  into,  or  the  least 
amendment  of  these  things,  either  by  par- 
liament or  otherwise  ;  openly  ridiculing 
all  virtue  and  uprightness  ;  enhancing  all 
power  to  himself  and  his  brother,  and 
suffering  almost  none  else  to  do  or  know 
anything  ;  barefaced  and  avowed  bribing 
of  members  of  parliament  and  others,  and 
boasting  of  it  ;  heaping  up  immense 
wealth  to  himself  and  his  most  abject  pro- 
fligate creatures  of  both  sexes,  while  the 
public  treasure  and  trade  of  the  nation  ia 
ruined  ;  suffering  and  encouraging  these 
locusts  to  get  large  bribes,  and  giving 
considerable  employment  at  their  recom- 
mendation, while  men  of  merit  and  service, 
and  of  the  best  families  and  interest,  are 
neglected  or  abused,  employing  insignifi- 
cant brutes  or  the  greatest  rogues,  and 
favouring  almost  none  but  such ;  maltreat- 
ing and  insulting  all  whom  hia  rascals  and 
jades  complain  of.  But  the  list  is  too  long 
to  go  through  with  here."  * 

Grange  thought  at  one  time  that  he 
had  great  claims  on  Walpole  and 
Lord  Ilay ;  and  he  seems  to  have 
very  diligently  performed  one  class  of 
duties  which  politicians  sometimes 
think  sufficient  to  establish  a  claim 
for  reward — he  had  been  an  indefati- 
gable petitioner  for  ministerial  favours. 
We  have  heard  somewhere  of  a  story 
of  a  political  economist,  who  during 
a  long  walk  is  pestered  by  an  Irish 
beggar,  who  asks-  his  honour  just  to 
give  him  a  sixpence,  "  for  the  love  of 
God."  The  economist  turns  round  to 
argue  the  matter  :  "  I  deny,"  says  he, 
"  that  I  would  be  showing  my  love  to 
the  Deity  by  giving  an  idle  rascal  like 
you  money ;  if  you  can  state  any 
service  you  have  ever  done  to  me 
worth  the  sixpence,  you  shall  have 
it." — "  Why,  then,"  says  the  mendi- 
cant thus  appealed  to,  "  haven't  I 
been  keeping  your  honour  in  discourse 
this  half  hour  ?  "  Such  seems  to  have 
been  the  character  of  Grange's  claim 
on  the  ministry — he  kept  them  in 
unceasing  "  discourse"  as  a  peti- 
tioner. Not  that  he  did  not  profess 
some  claims  of  another  kind.  "  Dur- 
ing all  this  time,"  he  says,  "I  ran 
their  errands  and  fought  their  battles 
in  Scotland."  Nor  did  he  fail  some- 
times to  allude  to  his  services  as  a 
religious  professor,  so  ill-requited, 
that  he  taunts  Ilay  with  having 
"already  effectually  interposed  for 


*  Miscellany  of  the  Spalding  Club,  iii.  p.  57. 


354 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


[Sept. 


Tom  (now  Baron)  Kennedy,  who  had 
been  Queen's  advocate,  and  obnoxious 
to  all  the  Presbyterian  party,  which  I 
was  not."  And  how  was  he  re- 
warded for  all  this  running  errands, 
fighting  battles,  and  being  reli- 
gious enough  not  to  be  obnoxious? 
"  Hay  showed  me  no  countenance, 
and  Argyle  shunned  to  see  me.  .  .  . 
He  [Hay]  never  speaks  nor  writes  to 
me  of  any  business,  but  to  shamm  me 
(as  you  have  seen)  about  my  own  : 
and,  these  three  or  four  years  past, 
has  visibly  to  all  the  world  drawn  off 
by  degrees  from  all  familiarity  with 
me,  and  has  dropped  me  even  from 
his  conversation  about  trifles  or 
mirth.  I  could  give  you  many  strong 
instances  of  this."  Here  is  an  inci- 
dent told  with  a  pathos  sufficient  to 
move  a  whole  antechamber  to 
tears : — 

"  Before  I  came  from  London  in  No- 
vember last,  he  bade  me  wait  on  Sir 
Robert  at  his  levee.  I  told  him  I  had 
always  done  so,  but  was  not  in  the  least 
noticed,  or  had  so  much  as  a  smile  or  a 
gracious  nod  from  him.  But  said  he,  '  I 
promise  you  I'll  tell  him  to  take  particu- 
lar notice  of  you,  and  to  assure  you  of 
favour,  and  that  he  will  do  for  you:  which 
(said  his  lordship)  will  make  my  game 
more  easy  when  I  ask  anything  for  you  ;' 
and  he  bid  me  come  to  him  that  he  might 
carry  me  to  the  levee  in  his  coach.  This 
was  done,  and  I  set  myself  in  Sir  Robert's 
eye  in  the  front  of  the  crowd  that  sur- 
rounded him,  and  Hay  was  by  and  look- 
ing on.  Sir  Robert  came  and  went  by 
me  without  the  least  regard.  Hay  slipt 
into  another  room  ;  and,  that  I  might 
not  wait  longer  in  so  silly  a  figure,  I 
made  up  without  being  called  to  the 
great  knight ;  and  told  him  I  came  to 
testify  my  respect,  and  ask  his  commands 
for  Scotland.  His  answer,  with  a  very 
dry  look,  and  odd  air  was, '  I  have  nothing 
to  say  to  you,  my  lord.  I  wish  you  a 
good  journey.'  I  saw  Hay  afterwards, 
and  he  said  there  was  nothing  in  it.  Sir 
Robert  had  only  forgot,  and  I  am  sure 
(said  he)  he  will  do  for  you  what  I  de- 
sired him."* 

In  the  sequel  he  exclaims,  "  Can 
such  usage  be  bore,  even  by  the  spirit 
of  a  poor  mouse ! " — deeming  probably 
that  its  endurance  by  a  rat  was  quite 
out  of  the  question. 


It  is  singular  enough  to  find  from 
these  revelations  of  Lord  Grange's 
character  and  habits,  that  while  he 
WAS  plotting  the  abduction  of  one  mad 
woman,  he  was  busily  engaged  in 
attempting  the  release  of  another. 
Yes,  as  a  first  step,  he  was  intending 
to  release  her;  but  there  are  a  few 
hints,  slight  in  themselves,  but  won- 
derfully suggestive  when  they  are 
associated  with  his  wife's  history, 
showing  us  that  his  ultimate  intention 
was  to  make  a  second  victim.  In 
this  scheme  he  was  defeated  by  a  spi- 
rit less  crafty  but  more  audacious 
than  his  own — by  no  less  renowned  a 
person  than  Lady  Mary  Wortley 
Montague,  whose  name  has  already 
been  mentioned  as  "  openly  blessed" 
by  Lady  Grange  for  her  "  opposition 
to  our  friends,"  meaning  the  Jacobites. 
We  have  among  the  papers  the  his- 
tory of  the  baffled  attempt — at  least 
one  side  of  the  history,  and,  when 
shaken  free  of  the  dust  of  Grange's 
prolix  grumblings,  it  is  infinitely 
amusing.  The  intended  victim  in 
this  instance  was  Lady  Mar,  Lady 
Mary's  sister,  the  wife  of  Grange's 
brother.  Lady  Mar  was  insane,  and 
in  some  shape  or  other  committed  to 
the  guardianship  of  her  sister. 
There  were  some  pecuniary  matters 
depending  on  the  question  of  her  de- 
tention or  release,  so  vaguely  hinted 
at  that  it  is  not  easy  to  discover  their 
nature.  It  would  appear  that  Lady 
Mar  was  allowed  by  the  favour  of  the 
court,  and  probably  through  the  inte- 
rest of  her  relatives,  a  jointure  of 
£500  a-year  over  the  estates  which 
wereforfeited  from  her  husband.  Lord 
Mar  was  then  living  in  poverty 
abroad;  and  Lord  Grange  was  in- 
clined to  think  that  this  sum  would 
be  better  administered  by  himself 
and  his  friends  than  by  Lady  Mary. 
Looking  at  the  £500  from  his  own 
side,  he  of  course  saw  Lady  Mary  on 
the  other,  and  judged  that  her  mo- 
tives were  as  parallel  to  his  own  as 
the  one  jaw  of  a  shark  is  to  the  other — 
so  he  says,  "  Lady  Mar,  they  say,  is 
quite  well ;  and  so  as  in  common  jus- 
tice she  can  no  longer  be  detained  as 
a  lunatic ;  but  she  is  obstinately 
averse  to  appearing  in  chancery,  that 


*  Miscellany  of  the  Spalding  Club,  iii.  p.  46. 


1849.] 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


355 


the  sentence  may  be  taken  off.  Her 
sister  probably  will  oppose  her  liberty, 
for  thereby  she  would  lose,  and  Lord 
Mar  in  effect  gain,  £500  yearly :  and 
the  poor  lady,  being'  in  her  custody, 
and  under  her  management,  had  need 
to  be  very  firmly  recovered,  for  the 
guardian  may  at  present  so  vex, 
tease,  and  plague  her,  that  it  would 
turn  anybody  mad."* 

It  was  believed  that  if  Lady  Mar 
were  released  from  Lady  Mary  Wort- 
ley  Montague's  influence,  means  might 
be  taken  for  so  arranging  matters  that 
her  husband  should  participate  in  her 
jointure.  There  was  another  matter, 
however,  in  which  Grange  himself 
had  a  more  particular  prospect  of 
pecuniary  advantage.  Lady  Mar  ap- 
pears to  have  had  a  beneficiary  inte- 
rest in  a  lease  of  a  house  in  White- 
hall, forming  part  of  the  royal  demesne. 
An  arrangement  seems  to  have  been 
made  by  which,  during  her  incapacity 
from  insanity,  her  own  term  was  con- 
veyed to  her  brother-in-law,  Lord 
Grange,  while  he  at  the  same  time 
obtained  a  reversion  of  the  lease  in 
his  own  favour.  He  had,  it  appears, 
sold  his  whole  interest  in  the  pro- 
perty— both  the  lease  he  had  obtained 
from  Lady  Mar's  guardians  and  his 
own  reversionary  interest.  He  was 
now,  therefore,  in  endeavouring  to 
procure  the  release  of  Lady  Mar,  on 
the  ground  of  her  restoration  to 
sanity,  about  to  enable  her  to  revoke 
the  transference  that  had  been  made 
to  him  of  her  own  share  in  the  lease. 
In  his  own  words,  "  On  Lady  Mar's 
being  at  freedom,  the  assignment  of 
her  lease  to  Lord  Grange  becomes 
void,  and  so  does  the  sale  he  has 
made  of  it ;  and  in  that  sale  the  lease 
to  Lady  Mar  was  valued  at  £800 
sterling,  which  will  be  lost  by  the 
avoidance  of  it."  Such  is  the  danger ; 
and  now,  in  a  very  brief  continuation 
of  the  quotation,  let  us  observe  the 
way  in  which  it  was  to  be  met,  for, 
considering  who  was  the  writer,  it 
is  really  well  worthy  of  observation. 
"  Were  Lady  Mar  in  her  freedom,  in 
right  hands,  she  would  ratify  the  bar- 
gain, but  if  in  her  sister's,  probably 
she  will  not."  Such  was  the  plot; 
she  was  to  be  restored  to  her  freedom 


that  she  might  be  put  "in  right  hands," 
— in  hands  in  which  there  was  no  chance 
of  her  refusing  what  might  be  de- 
manded. But  there  was  a  lion  in  the 
way,  or  rather  a  lioness,  as  we  shall 
see.  Lord  Grange's  anticipations  of 
Lady  Wortley  Montague's  operations 
is  not  the  least  remarkable  of  his 
revelations.  It  is  "  the  power  within 
the  guilty  breast"  working  as  in 
Eugene  Aram's  dream.  What  Lady 
Mary  suspected  it  were  difficult  to 
say,  but  he  who  ventured  to  predict 
her  suspicions  spoke  from  his  own 
guilty  conscience — spoke  as  the  kid- 
napper and  secret  imprisoner.  We 
pray  attention  to  the  remarkable  ex- 
pressions with  which  the  following 
quotation  closes : — 

"  May  not  an  artful  woman  impose  on 
one  in  such  circumstances,  and  whose 
mind  cannot  yet  be  very  firm  ?  And  this 
is  the  more  to  be  feared,  because  at  the 
beginning  of  her  illness  the  sister  said 
loudly,  and  oftener  than  once  to  Lord 
Grange  himself,  that  her  husband's  bad 
usage  had  turned  her  [Lady  Marl  mad. 
Supposing,  then,  the  sister  tell  and  per- 
suade her  to  this  purpose  :  '  You  see 
your  husband's  friends  quite  neglect  you. 
Lord  Erskine,  though  in  the  place,  seldom 
comes  near  you.  How  easy  were  it  for 
Lord  Grange  to  have  made  you  a  visit  on 
hearing  you  are  so  well.  Surely  it  be- 
came the  fellow  to  pay  you  that  regard, 
and  he  would  have  done  it  had  he  any 
kindness  for  you  ;  and,  if  the  husband 
had,  he  would  have  laid  such  commands 
on  his  son  and  brother  which  they  could 
not  have  resisted.  Now,  you  may  get 
your  freedom,  but  can  you  again  trust 
yourself  in  their  hands  ?  Quite  separated 
from  your  father's  and  mother's  friends, 
and  from  your  country,  locked  up  in  Scot- 
land or  foreign  parts,  and  wholly  in  their 
power,  what  can  you  expect  ?  Your 
friends  here  could  give  you  no  relief,  and 
you  should  be  wholly  at  the  barbarous 
mercy  of  those  whose  sense  get  not  suf- 
ficiently the  better  of  their  hatred  or  con- 
tempt, as  to  make  them  carry  with  seem- 
ing respect  to  you  till  they  get  you  in 
their  power.  What  will  they  not  do  when 
they  hate  youl"~\" 

Such  are  Lord  Grange's  "imaginary 
conversations"  of  Lady  Mary  Wort- 
ley — like  many  others,  a  more  accu- 
rate reflection  of  the  thoughts  habitu- 
ally dwelling  in  the  writer's  own  mind, 


Miscellany  of  Ihe  Spalding  Club,  iii.  4. 


t  Ibid.  p.  6. 


356 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


[Sept. 


than  of  those  of  the  person  in  whose 
name  they  are  uttered.  And  then,  in 
continuation,  he  paints  the  formidable 
effect  of  the  imaginary  pleading — 
"  Such  things  to  a  woman  so  lately  of 
a  disturbed  brain,  constantly  incul- 
cated by  so  near  a  relation  whom  she 
only  sees,  and  her  creatures,  and  de- 
pends on  her  entirely  for  the  time — 
what  may  they  not  produce  ?  And  if 
they  have  their  effect,  then  the  con- 
sequences are  these :  the  lady  being 
at  freedom  legally,  but  de  facto  still 
tinder  her  sister's  absolute  govern- 
ment, the  bargain  about  her  jointure 
becomes  void,  and  thereby  she  (or 
rather  the  sister)  gets  more  by  £500 
sterling  yearly,  and  our  friend  has 
nothing  at  all."  Then  follows  the 
statement  about  the  lease ;  and  the 
meaning  of  the  whole  is,  that  Lady 
Mar,  as  a  free  woman,  would  be 
entitled  to  live  with  her  sister,  and 
dispose  of  her  own  property,  unless 
she  were  put  in  the  "  right  hands"  to 
make  her  "ratify"  any  desired  bar- 
gain. 

The  interchange  of  compliments 
between  the  parties,  when  they  came 
to  actual  conflict,  is  extremely  in- 
structive. "  She  concluded  with  rage," 
says  the  judge,  "  that  we  were  both 
rascals,  with  many  other  ridiculous 
things."  Bat  perhaps  more  people 
will  think  her  ladyship's  penetration 
was  not  more  ridiculously  at  fault  on 
this  than  on  other  occasions.  Horace 
Walpole  left  an  unfavourable  testi- 
mony to  her  treatment  of  her  sister, 
when  he  alluded  to  "  the  unfortunate 
Lady  Mar,  whom  she  treated  so  hardly 
when  out  of  her  senses."  Pope  caught 
up  the  same  charge  in  the  insinua- 
tion— 

"  Who  starves  a  sister,  or  denies  a  debt." 

Lord  Grange,  for  his  own  part,  has 
the  merit,  when  characterising  his  op- 
ponent, of  a  coincidence  with  the  illus- 
trious poet — at  least  in  the  bestowal 
of  an  epithet.  Every  one  remembers 
Pope's — 

"  Avidien  and  his  wife,  no  matter  which; 
For  him  you  call  a  dog,  and  her  a .'" 

It  is  satisfactory  to  find,  on  the  most 
palpable  evidence,  that  Lord  Grange 
had  sufficient  poetical  genius  to  supply 
this  rhyme,  though  whether  his  poetic 
powers  went  any  farther,  we  are  un- 


able, and  perhaps  no  one  will  ever  be 
able,  to  determine. 

We  must  quote,  unmutilated,  one 
of  Grange's  conflicts  with  Avidien's 
wife.  Though  the  scene  be  roughly 
described,  it  has  an  interest,  from  the 
unscrupulous  vehemence  of  the  prin- 
cipal actors,  and  the  eminence  of  the 
little  group,  who  cluster  round  it  like 
a  circle  of  casual  passengers  round  the 
centre  of  disturbance,  where  the  wife 
and  the  brother-bacchanalian  compete, 
on  the  pavement,  for  the  possession 
of  some  jovial  reveller,  whose  half- 
clouded  mind  remains  vibrating  be- 
tween the  quiet  comforts  of  home  and 
the  fierce  joys  of  the  tavern.  There 
is  something  affecting  in  the  vacil- 
lating miseries  of  the  poor  invalid — 
we  wonder  how  much  of  the  cruel 
contest  can  be  true ;  for,  that  it  is  all 
true,  it  is  impossible  to  believe — yet 
Lady  Mary  could  be  violent,  and  she 
could  be  hard,  when  she  was  attacked 
or  baffled  ;  and  she  had  a  rough  and 
unscrupulous  nature  to  combat  with, 
in  the  historian  of  their  warfare. 

"  Lady  Mary,  perceiving  how  things 
were  like  to  go,  did  what  I  was  always 
afraid  of,  and  could  not  possibly  prevent : 
she  went  in  rage  to  her  poor  sister,  and 
so  swaggered  and  frightened  her,  that  she 
relapsed.     While  she  was  about  that  fine 
piece  of  work,  Lord  Erskine  happened  to 
go  to  Lady  Mar's;  and  in  his  presence 
Lady  Mary  continued  to  this  purpose 
with  her  sister :  '  Can  you  pretend  to  be 
well  1    Don't  you  know  yon  are  still  mad  ? 
You  shan't  get  out  of  my  custody ;  and  if 
Lord  Grange  and  his  confederates  bring 
you   before  Lord  Chancellor,  I'll   make 
you,  in  open  court,  in  presence  of  the 
world,  lay  your  hand  on  the  Gospel,  and 
swear  by  Almighty  God,  whether  you  can 
say  you  are  yet  well.     Your  salvation 
shall  be  at  stake  ;  for,  remember,  perjury 
infers   damnation — your  eternal  damna- 
tion.'   So  soon  as  1  was  informed  of  this, 
I  assured  my  lady  (and  so  did  others,) 
that  in  law  no  such  oath  could  be  put  to 
her,  and  that  Lady  Mary  had  only  said 
so  to  fright  her.    But  so  strong  was  the 
fright,  that  nothing  we  could  say  was  able 
to  set  her  right  again.     And  Lady  Mary, 
having  thus  dismounted  her,  came  again 
and  coaxed  her,  and  (as  I  found  by  di- 
verse instances)  strove  to  give  her  bad 
impressions  of  her  family,  and  everybody 
but  Lady  Mary's  sweet  self.     Yet  next 
day  Lady  Mar  went  and  dined  at  Mr 
Baillie's  in  town,  and  there  saw  a  deal  of 
company,  and  behaved  very  well.     And 
Dr  Arbuthnot,  who,  among  others,  saw 


1849.] 


New  Light  on  t/ie  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


357 


her  there,  said  he  thought  her  very  well ; 
and  had  not  the  turn  happened  you  will 
presently  hear  of,  he  and  Dr  Monro  (son 
to  Mr  Monro  who,  at  the  Revolution,  was 
Principal  of  Edinburgh  College,  and  is 
now  physician  to  Bedlam,)  and  Dr  Mead, 
were  to  have  gone  to  her  with  me  next 
day  and  afterwards,  that  they  might  have 
vouched  her  condition  before  the  chan- 
cellor. I  believed  it  best  for  me  not  to 
be  at  Mr  Baillie's,  that  all  might  appear 
as  it  was,  free  and  natural,  and  not  con- 
ducted by  any  art  of  mine ;  only  I  went 
thither  about  seven  at  night, and  found  her 
in  a  room  with  Ladies  Harvey,  Binning, 
Murray,  Lady  Grizzel  Baillie,  and  others. 
She  was  behaving  decently,  but  with  the 
gravity  of  one  that  is  wearied  and  tired. 
Mr  Baillie  himself,  and  the  other  gentle- 
men and  ladies,  (a  great  many  being  in 
the  next  room,)  now  and  then  joined  us, 
and  she  seemed  not  in  anything  discom- 
posed, till  the  conversation  turned  on  her 
sister's  late  insult,  which,  it  was  visible, 
gave  a  shock  to  her,  and  disconcerted  her; 
and  when  Lady  Murray  and  I  went  home 
with  her  to  Knightsbridge,  she  was  so 
dumpish  that  she  scarcely  said  one  word. 
When  I  went  to  her  next  day,  I  saw  how 
strongly  Lady  Mary's  physic  wrought, 
and  dissipated  her  poor  returning  senses. 
She  had  before  urged  me  earnestly  to 
proceed  faster  than  was  fit,  to  get  her 
before  the  chancellor,  and  do  everything 
needful  for  her  liberation,  that  she  might 
go  to  her  husband  and  family.  But  now 
she  told  me  she  would  not  for  the  world 
appear  before  the  chancellor,  and  that 
neither  she  nor  any  other  must  make  oath 
as  to  her  recovery,  (at  this  time,  indeed, 
it  had  been  a  very  bold  oath)  ;  and  that 
she  preferred  her  soul's  salvation  to  all 
things.  And,  among  other  things,  she 
said,  what  a  dismal  condition  shall  I  be 
in  if,  after  all,  the  chancellor  send  me 
back  under  Mary's  government ;  how 
shall  I  pass  my  time  after  such  an  at- 
tempt ?  In  short,  she  was  bambouzled, 
and  frighted  quite.  But  that  her  head 
was  really  turned  by  Lady  Mary's  threats 
of  damnation,  farther  appeared  by  this 
instance  :  Lady  Grizzel  Baillie  and  Lady 
Murray  having  gone  to  take  leave  of  her, 
(their  whole  family  is  gone  to  Spa,)  when 
I  saw  her  next  day,  she  gravely  told  me 
that  Lady  Murray  was  no  more  her 
friend,  having  endeavoured,  when  taking 
leave,  to  deprive  her  of  all  the  comfort 
left  her — the  hope  of  heaven.  And  though 
(said  she)  I  was  bred  to  the  Church  of 
England,  and  she  to  that  of  Scotland,  yet 
merely  the  difference  is  not  BO  great  that 
she  must  pronounce  me  in  a  state  of 


damnation  :  and  she  asked  me  seriously, 
what  Lady  Murray  had  said  tome  about  her 
beiug  damned  ?  Never  in  my  life,  madam, 
answered  I,  did  she  or  any  London  lady 
speak  to  me  about  salvation  or  damna- 
tion; but  I'm  sure  my  Lady  Murray  loves 
you  as  her  sister,  and  heartily  wishes 
your  happiness  here  and  hereafter.  Then 
she  gave  me  a  sealed  letter  to  Lady 
Murray,  begging  me  to  deliver  it  and 
bring  an  answer.  I  read  it  with  Lady 
Murray.  It  was  long,  and  all  expostu- 
latory  why  she  pronounced  her  to  be 
damned  ;  and  said  many  odd  things. 
Lady  Murray's  answer  was  the  proper 
one — short  and  general,  but  very  kind, 
which  I  also  delivered  ;  and  Lady  Mar 
said  no  more  to  me  on  that  head.  Before 
she  took  this  turn,  perceiving  her  so  va- 
pourish and  easily  disconcerted,  I  would 
not  venture  to  put  the  case  wholly  on 
perfect  recovery,  but  stated  it  also  as  I 
really  thought  it — viz.,  recovered  from  all 
that  could  properly  be  called  lunacy,  yet 
exceeding  weak,  and  apt  to  be  over- 
turned. And  I  had  prepared  a  memorial 
in  law  on  that  supposition,  which  I  was 
to  have  laid  before  Mr  Talbot,  solicitor- 
general,  and  other  counsel,  the  very  day 
she  took  this  wrong  turn;  but  thereupon 
stopt  altogether.  At  parting,  she  ap- 
peared to  me  as  one  who,  fearing  to  pro- 
voke a  worse  fate  by  attempting  to  be 
better,  sat  down  in  a  sort  of  sullen  de- 
spairing, content  with  her  present  con- 
dition, which  she  (justly)  called  misery. 
Thus  seemed  she  to  be  as  to  any  sense 
that  remained  with  her;  but  all  her  sense 
was  clouded,  and,  indeed,  fancies  which 
now  perplexed  her  brain  were,  like  the 
clouds,  fleeting,  inconstant,  and  sometimes 
in  monstrous  shapes."  * 

We  have  no  more  of  this  affair  until 
the  lapse  of  several  months,  when  the 
judge,  at  the  very  moment  of  apparent 
victoiy,  is  routed  by  his  watchful  an- 
tagonist. He  had  obtained  possession 
of  Lady  Mar — she  was  on  her  way  to 
Scotland,  "  in  right  hands,"  but  had 
not  crossed  the  border.  This  was  in 
1733,  a  few  months  after  Lady  Grange 
had  been  safely  conveyed  to  the  grim 
solitudes  of  Hesker.  Surely  some  bird 
of  the  ah-  had  whispered  the  matter  to 
Lady  Mary ;  for  her  measures  were 
prompt  and  stern,  and  they  draw  from 
the  baffled  plotter  many  hard  expres- 
sions and  insinuations.  "  But  on  the 
road,  she  [Lady  Mar]  was  seized  by 
Lord  Chief- Justice's  warrant,  procured 
on  false  affidavit  of  her  sister  Lady 


Miscellany  of  the  Spaldinq  Club,  pp.  17-20. 


358 


New  Light  on  the  Story  of  Lady  Grange. 


[Sept. 


Mary,  &c.,  and  brought  back  to  Lon- 
don— declared  lunatic,  and  by  Lord 
Chancellor  (whose  crony  is  Mr  Wort- 
ley,  Lady  Mary's  husband)  delivered 
into  the  custody  of  Lady  Mary,  to  the 
astonishment  and  offence  even  of  all 
the  English,  (Sir  Robert  among  the 
rest ;)  and  Hay  pretended  to  be  angry 
at  it,  yet  refused  to  give  me  that  relief 
by  the  king  in  council,  which  by  law 
was  undoubtedly  competent."* 

The  people  with  whom  his  London 
connexion  brought  the  judge  in  con- 
tact, display  a  gathering  of  dazzling 
names  in  the  firmament  of  fashion  and 
wit.  Bolingbroke,  Windham,  and 
"the  courtly  Talbot"  are  casually 
mentioned.  Grange  says  in  passing, 
"  I  am  acquainted  with  Chesterfield." 
He  has  something  to  say  of  "  sweet 
Lepel,"  the  "  wife  of  that  Lord  Her- 
vey  who  last  winter  wrote  the  pam- 
phlet against  Mr  Pulteney,  and  on  Mr 
Pulteney's  answer,  fought  with  him 
and  was  wounded."  Arbuthnot,  and 
the  prince  of  classical  collectors, 
Richard  Mead,  mis  with  the  ordinary 
actors  of  the  scene.  Young  Murray, 
not  then  a  crown  lawyer — but  suffi- 
ciently distinguished  for  wit,  elo- 
quence, and  fashionable  celebrity,  to 
have  called  forth  the  next  to  immortal 
compliments  of  Pope — must  have  been 
one  of  the  brilliant  circle ;  and  in  the 
early  period  of  his  intercourse  with 
his  brother's  sister-in-law,  accident 
would  be  strangely  against  him,  if  he 
did  not  sometimes  meet  in  the  ordi- 
nary circle  the  pale  distorted  youth, 
with  noble  intellectual  features  and 
an  eye  of  fire,  whose  war  of  wit  and 
rancour  with  "  furious  Sappho"  left 
the  world  uncertain  whether  to  laugh 
with  their  fierce  wit,  or  lament  the 
melancholy  picture  of  perverted  ge- 
nius, exhibited  by  a  hatred  so  paltry 
yet  so  unquenchable. 

In  his  autobiographical  revelations, 
the  economical  old  judge  leaves  some 
traces  of  his  consciousness  that  his 
journeys  from  Merlyn's  Wynd  to 
Whitehall  were  a  decided  transition 
from  the  humble  to  the  great  world. 
He  thus  describes  one  of  these  jour- 
neys, in  the  letter  already  cited,  in 
which  he  gratified  his  humour  by  talk- 
ing of  himself  in  the  third  person. 

"  Lord  G.is  now  pretty  well  acquainted 


with  the  ways  there  ;  his  personal  charges, 
he  is  sure,  will  be  small  in  comparison  ; 
he  will  not  be  in  expensive  companies  or 
houses,  but  when  business  requires  it ; 
nor  at  any  diversion  but  what  he  finds 
necessary  for  keeping  up  the  cheerfulness 
of  his  own  spirit,  and  the  health  of  his 
body.  He  wears  plaiu  and  not  fine 
clothes.  When  there  last  he  kept  not  a 
servant,  but  had  a  fellow  at  call,  to  whom 
he  gave  a  shilling  a-day  such  days  as  he 
was  to  be  at  court  or  among  the  great, 
and  must  have  a  footman  as  necessarily 
as  a  coat  on  his  back  or  a  sword  by  his 
side.  He  never  was  nice  and  expensive 
in  his  own  eating,  and  less  now  than 
ever  ;  for  this  winter  he  has  quite  lost  the 
relish  of  French  claret,  the  most  expen- 
sive article  in  London.  He  is  to  travel 
without  a  servant,  for  whom  he  knows 
not  any  sort  of  use  on  the  road,  and  only 
has  a  post-boy,  whom  he  must  have,  had 
he  twenty  servants  of  his  own  ;  and  so 
lie  travelled  last  year."f 

Strange  indeed  were  the  social  ex- 
tremes between  which  this  journey  lay. 
At  the  one  end  we  see  the  brilliant 
assemblages  of  the  most  brilliant  age 
of  English  fashion.  The  rays  of  the 
wax-lights  glitter  back  from  stars  and 
sword-hilts,  diamond  buttons  and 
spangles.  Velvet  coats,  huge  laced 
waistcoats,  abundant  hoops,  spread 
forth  their  luxurious  wealth — the  air 
is  rich  and  thick  with  perfumed  pow- 
der— the  highest  in  rank,  and  wealth, 
and  influence  are  there,  so  are  the  first 
in  genius  and  learning.  Reverse  the 
picture,  and  take  the  northern  end  of 
the  journey.  In  an  old  dark  stone 
house,  at  the  end  of  a  dismal  alley, 
Lovat's  ragged  banditti  throttle  a 
shrieking  woman — a  guilty  cavalcade 
passes  hurriedly  at  night  across  the 
dark  heath — next  opens  a  dreary 
dungeon  in  a  deserted  feudal  fortalice 
— a  boat  tosses  on  the  bosom  of  the 
restless  Atlantic — and  the  victim  is 
consigned  to  the  dreary  rock,  where 
year  follows  year,  bringing  no  change 
with  it  but  increasing  age.  The  con- 
trast is  startling.  Yet,  when  we  read 
Lady  Grange's  diary  and  Lady  Mary 
Wortley's  letters  together,  they  leave 
one  doubtful  whether  most  to  shudder 
at  the  savage  lawlessness  of  one  end 
of  the  island,  or  the  artificial  vices  that 
were  growing  out  of  a  putrid  civilisa- 
tion in  the  other. 


Hotiston's  Memoirs,  p.  31. 


1849.] 


Tfte  Royal  Progress. 


359 


THE  ROYAL  PROGRESS. 


QUESTION — "What  is  a  King?" 
Answer — "  A  monster  who  devours 
the  human  race."  Such  was  a  part 
ef  the  catechism  taught  to  all  the 
children  of  France  during  the  first 
fervour  of  the  Revolution  in  1789.  "I 
wonder  the  people  should  die  of  want," 
said  a  princess  during  the  dreadful 
famine  of  1774 ;  "  for  my  part,  if  I  was 
one  of  them,  I  should  live  on  beef- 
steaks and  porter,  rather  than  perish." 
Such  are  the  feelings  with  which  the 
members  of  the  same  community, 
children  of  the  same  family,  unhappily 
sometimes  come  to  regard  each  other 
during  periods  of  democratic  excite- 
ment, or  mutual  estrangement.  Igno- 
rance, worked  on  by  falsehood,  and 
misled  by  ambition,  is  the  main  cause 
of  this  fatal  severance.  Nothing  re- 
moves it  so  effectually  as  bringing 
them  together.  So  natural  are  the 
feelings  of  loyalty  to  the  human  heart, 
so  universally  do  they  spring  up  when 
the  falsehood  which  has  smothered 
them  is  neutralised  by  the  evidence  of 
the  senses,  that  it  may  be  considered 
as  one  of  the  greatest  evils  which  can 
afflict  society,  when  circumstances 
occur  which  keep  sovereigns  aloof  from 
their  people,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  when  they  can  rejoin  each 
other.  Of  this,  a  signal  example  oc- 
curred on  the  return  of  the  royal 
family  of  France  from  the  fatal  jour- 
ney to  Varennes,  when  Barnave,  who 
had  been  sent  down  with  Petion,  as 
one  of  the  most  vehement  and  stern 
republicans,  to  bring  them  back  to 
Paris,  was  so  impressed  with  the  phi- 
lanthropic benevolence  of  the  King, 
and  so  melted  by  the  heroic  magnani- 
mity of  the  Queen,  that  he  became 
thenceforward  one  of  the  most  faithful 
defenders  of  the  royal  cause.  "  How 
often,"  says  Thiers,  in  recounting 
this  remarkable  conversion,  "would 
factions  the  most  inveterate  be  recon- 
ciled, if  they  could  meet  and  read  each 
other's  hearts!" 

The  sudden  change  often  produced 
in  the  general  mind,  by  the  veil  of 
ignorance  and  prejudice  being  with- 
drawn, which  had  concealed  from  them 
the  real  character  of  their  rulers,  is 
not  to  be  ascribed  merely  to  the  lustre 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVII. 


of  royalty,  or  the  dazzling  of  the  pub- 
lic gaze  by  the  magnificent  pageants 
which,  on  such  occasions,  generally 
surround  it.  It  arises  mainly  from  a 
different  cause:  it  is  allied  to  the 
generous  affections — it  springs  from 
the  feelings  planted  by  the  Author  of 
nature  in  the  human  heart,  to  bind 
society  together.  It  is  often  seen 
most  strongly  when  the  royal  pageants 
are  the  most  unpretending,  and  the 
royal  personages,  laying  aside  their 
previous  state,  mingle  almost  without 
distinction,  save  from  the  superior  grace 
of  their  manners,  with  the  ordinary  citi- 
zens. It  is  more  like  the  irresistible 
gush  of  affection  which  overspreads 
every  heart,  when  the  members,  long 
severed,  of  a  once  united  family  are 
reassembled ;  or  when  the  prodigal 
returns  to  his  father's  home,  only  the 
more  dear  from  the  events  which  had 
estranged  him  from  it. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  loyalty  is 
an  instinctive  principle,  meant  to  sup- 
ply the  place  of  reason  before  the  in- 
tellectual faculties  have  grown  to  their 
full  strength  among  a  people,  but  un- 
necessary, and  which  gradually  dies 
out,  when  society,  under  the  direction 
of  self-government,  has  come  to  be 
regulated  by  the  rational  faculties. 
There  never  was  a  greater  mistake ; 
and  every  day's  experience  may  con- 
vince us  that  it  is  not  only  false,  but 
directly  the  reverse  of  the  truth.  The 
time  will  never  come,  when  the  aid  of 
loyalty  will  not  be  required  to  bind 
society  to  its  chief:  and  if  the  time 
should  ever  come  that  its  generous  in- 
fluence is  no  longer  felt,  it  may  safely 
be  concluded  that  the  sun  of  national 
prosperity  has  set,  and  that  a  night 
of  darkness  and  suffering  is  at  hand. 
Mankind  cannot  be  attached,  save  in 
a  passing  moment  of  fervour,  to  an 
abstract  principle,  or  a  vast  com- 
munity without  a  head,  or  some- 
thing which  may  supply  its  want  to 
the  senses.  The  aid  of  individuals  or 
localities  is  required  to  concentrate 
and  keep  alive  the  patriotic  affections, 
where  they  are  not  centred  on  an 
individual  sovereign.  What  the 
Acropolis  was  to  Athens,  the  Capitol 
to  Rome,  St  Mark's  to  Venice,  that 

2B 


360 


The  Royal  Progress. 


[Sept. 


the  sovereign  is  to  a  monarchical 
community,  and  so  it  will  remain  to 
the  end  of  the  world.  All  the  fervour 
of  the  Revolution  could  not  supply  in 
France  the  want  of  one  chief,  till 
Napoleon  concentrated  the  loyal  affec- 
tioiis  on  himself.  The  real  enemy  to 
loyalty  is  not  reason,  but  selfishness. 
It  dies  away,  not  under  the  influence 
of  enlarged  education,  but  under  that 
of  augmented  corruption  ;  and  till  that 
last  stage  of  national  decay  has  arrived, 
its  flame  will  only  burn  the  more  stead- 
ily from  reason  adding  the  fuel  by 
which  it  is  to  be  fed. 

If  any  doubt  could  be  entertained, 
by  a  well-informed  mind,  of  the  incal- 
culable importance  of  loyalty,  as  the 
chief  and  often  the  only  bond  which 
holds  society  together,  it  would  be  re- 
moved by  two  events  which  have  oc- 
curred in  our  own  times, — the  Moscow 
invasion,  and  the  steadiness  of  Eng- 
land during  the  mind-quake  of  1848. 
On  the  first  occasion,  this  sacred  prin- 
ciple defeated  the  mightiest  arma- 
ment ever  assembled  by  the  powers  of 
intellect  against  the  liberties  of  man- 
kind; on  the  last,  it  preserved  un- 
shaken and  unscathed  the  ark  of  the 
constitution  in  the  British  islands, 
amidst  the  deluge  which  had  shaken 
the  thrones  of  almost  all  the  other 
European  monarchies.  In  these  two 
examples,  where  two  states  in  the 
opposite  extremes  of  infancy  and  civi- 
lisation were  successively  rescued  from 
the  most  appalling  dangers,  amidst 
the  ruins  of  all  around  them,  by  the 
influence  of  this  noble  principle,  we 
may  discern  the  clearest  proof  of  its 
lasting  influence  upon  man,  and  of 
the  incalculable  blessings  it  is  fitted  to 
confer,  not  less  in  the  most  enlight- 
ened than  the  most  unenlightened  ages 
of  society.  But  for  it,  the  social  insti- 
tutions of  Great  Britain  would  have 
been  overturned  on  the  10th  April 
1848,  and  England,  with  all  its  edu- 
cation, civilisation,  and  habits  of  free- 
dom, would  have  been  consigned  to 
destruction  by  a  deluge  of  civilised 
barbarians,  compared  to  whom,  as 
Macaulay  has  well  said,  those  that 
followed  the  standard  of  Attila  or 
Alaric  were  humane  and  temperate 
warriors.  Hence  we  may  learn  how 
wonderfully  loyalty  is  strengthened, 
instead  of  being  weakened,  by  the 
progress  of  knowledge  and  the  spread 


of  civilisation  in  a  really  free  commu- 
nity ;  and  what  force  that  noble  prin- 
ciple acquires  when,  to  the  generous 
enthusiasm  which  binds  the  unlettered 
warrior  to  his  chief,  is  added  the  de- 
termination of  freemen  to  defend  a 
throne  which  all  feel  to  be  the  key- 
stone in  the  arch  of  the  national  for- 
tunes. 

It  is  a  fortunate,  perhaps  it  would 
be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  a  provi- 
dential circumstance,  that  a  QUEEN, 
during  the  late  eventful  years,  has  been 
on  the  throne  of  the  British  empire. 
Had  a  king  been  there,  still  more  one 
of  unpopular  manner  or  retired  habits, 
when  all  the  thrones  of  Europe  were 
falling  around  us,  the  event  might 
have  been  very  different,  and  England, 
with  all  its  glories,  have  been  sunk  in 
the  bottomless  pit  of  revolution.  The 
feelings  of  loyalty  to  a  Queen,  especi- 
ally if  she  is  young  and  handsome,  and 
unites  the  virtues  to  the  graces  of  her 
sex,  are  very  different  from  those 
which,  under  the  most  favourable  cir- 
cumstances, can  be  awakened  in  favour 
of  a  king.  The  natural  gallantry  of 
man,  the  feek'ngs  of  chivalry,  the  re- 
spect due  to  the  softer  sex,  are  mingled 
in  overwhelming  proportions  with  the 
abstract  passions  of  loyalty  when  a 
young  and  interesting  woman,  endow- 
ed with  masculine  energy,  but  adorned 
with  feminine  beauty,  surrounded  by 
the  husband  of  her  choice  and  the 
children  of  her  love,  is  seen  braving 
the  risks  and  enduring  the  fatigues  of 
a  journey  through  lands  recently  con- 
vulsed by  civil  dissension,  solely  to 
win  the  love  of  her  subjects,  to  heal 
the  divisions  of  the  great  family  of 
which  she  forms  the  head. 

History  affords  numerous  examples 
of  the  far  greater  power,  in  periods  of 
intestine  troubles,  queens  have  than 
kings  in  winning  the  affections  or 
calming  the  exasperation  of  their  sub- 
jects. Despite  all  her  errors,  not- 
withstanding her  faults,  Queen  Mary 
exercised  a  sway  over  a  large  part  of 
her  subjects  which  no  man  in  similar 
circumstances  could  have  done.  Aus- 
tria would  have  been  crushed  by  the 
arms  of  France  and  Bavaria  in  1744, 
but  for  the  chivalrous  loyalty  which 
led  the  Hungarian  nobles  to  exclaim 
in  a  transport  of  generous  enthusiasm, 
"MoriamuT  pro  Rege  nostro,  Maria 
Theresa." 


1849.] 


The  Royal  Progress. 


361 


"  Fair  Austria  spreads  her  mournful  charms, 
The  Queen,  the  beauty,  sets  the  world  in 
arms." 

And  it  is  doubtful  if  all  the  fervours 
of  the  Reformation  could  have  enabled 
England  to  withstand  the  assault  of 
the  Catholic  league,  headed  by  Spain 
in  the  time  of  Philip  II.,  if  in  defence 
of  the  nation  had  not  been  joined  the 
chivalrous  loyalty  of  a  gallant  nobility 
to  their  queen,  as  well  as  the  stern  re- 
solution of  a  Protestant  people  in  be- 
half of  their  religion  and  their  liberties. 

But  the  passion  of  loyalty,  as  all 
other  passions,  requiries  aliment  for  its 
support.  Like  love,  it  can  live  on 
wonderfully  little  hope,  but  it  absolutely 
requires  some.  A  look,  a  smile,  a 
word  from  a  sovereign,  doubtless  go  a 
great  way ;  but  entire  and  long- conti- 
nued absence  will  chill  even  the  warm- 
est affections.  It  is  on  this  account 
that  royal  progresses  have  so  impor- 
tant an  influence  in  knitting  together 
the  bonds  which  unite  a  people  to  their 
sovereign.  They  have  one  inestimable 
effect — they  make  them  known  to  each 
other.  The  one  sees  in  person  the 
enthusiastic  affection  with  which  the 
sovereign  is  regarded  by  the  people, 
the  latter  the  parental  interest  with 
which  the  people  are  regarded  by  their 
sovereign.  Prejudices,  perhaps,  nou- 
rished by  faction  or  fostered  by  party, 
melt  away  before  the  simple  light  of 
truth.  A  few  hours  of  mutual  inter- 
course dispels  the  alienation  which 
years  of  separation,  and  the  continued 
efforts  of  guilty  ambition  during  a 
generation,  may  have  produced.  The 
generous  affections  spring  up  unbidden, 
when  the  evidence  of  the  senses  dis- 
pels the  load  of  falsehood  by  which 
they  had  been  restrained.  Mutual 
knowledge  produces  mutual  interest ; 
and  the  chances  of  success  to  sub- 
sequent efforts  to  bring  about  an 
estrangement  are  materially  lessened, 
by  the  discovery  of  how  wide  had  been 
the  misapprehension  which  had  for- 
merly existed,  and  how  deep  the  mu- 
tual affection  which  really  dwelt  in  the 
recesses  of  the  heart,  and  was  now 
brought  to  light  by  the  happy  ap- 
proximation of  the  sovereign  and  her 
people. 

It  was  a  noble  spectacle  to  behold  a 
young  Queen,  at  a  time  when  scarce  a 
monarch  in  Europe  was  secure  on  his 
throne,  setting  out  with  her  illustrious 


consort  and  family  to  make  a  royal 
progress  through  her  dominions,  and 
selecting  for  the  first  place  of  her  visit 
the  island  which  had  so  .recently 
raised  the  standard  of  rebellion 
against  her  government,  and  for  the 
next  the  city  which  had  first  in  the 
empire  responded  to  the  cry  of  treason 
raised  in  Paris,  on  the  overthrow  of 
the  throne  of  Louis  Philippe.  Nor 
has  the  result  failed  to  correspond, 
even  more  happily  than  could  have 
been  hoped,  to  the  gallant  undertaking. 
If  it  be  true,  as  is  commonly  reported, 
that  our  gracious  sovereign  said,  "  She 
went  to  Ireland  to  make  friends,  but 
to  the  Land  of  Cakes  to  find  them," 
she  must  by  this  time  have  been  con- 
vinced that  the  generous  design  has, 
in  both  islands,  proved  successful  be- 
yond what  her  most  enthusiastic 
friends  could  have  dared  to  hope. 
Who  could  have  recognised,  in  the 
multitudes  which  thronged  to  witness 
her  passage  through  Cork,  Dublin,  and 
Belfast,  and  the  universal  acclamations 
with  which  she  was  everywhere  re- 
ceived by  all  classes  of  her  subjects, 
the  chief  cities  of  an  island  long  torn 
by  civil  dissension,  and  which  had  only 
a  year  before  broken  out  into  actual 
rebellion  against  her  government? 
Who  could  have  recognised  in  the 
youthful  sovereign  visiting  the  public 
buildings  of  Dublin,  like  a  private 
peeress,  without  any  of  the  state  of  a 
Sovereign,  and  chiefly  interested  with 
her  royal  consort  in  the  institutions 
devoted  to  beneficence,  the  Head  of  a 
Government  whom  The  Nation  had  so 
long  represented  as  callous  to  all  the 
sufferings  of  the  people?  And  du- 
ing  the  magnificent  spectacle  of  the 
royal  progress  through  Glasgow, 
where  five  hundred  thousand  persons 
were  assembled  from  that  great  city, 
and  the  neighbouring  counties,  to  see 
their  Queen — and  she  passed  for  three 
miles  through  stately  structures,  loaded 
with  loyalty,  under  an  almost  con- 
tinued archway  of  flags,  amidst  inces- 
sant and  deafening  cheers — who  could 
have  believed  he  was  in  a  city  in  which 
democratic  revolt  had  actually  broken 
out  only  eighteen  months  before,  and 
the  walls  had  all  been  placarded,  on 
the  day  when  London  was  menaced, 
with  treasonable  proclamations,  call- 
ing on  the  people  to  rise  in  their  thou- 
sands and  tens  of  thousands  against 


362 


The  Royal  Progress. 


[Sept. 


the  throne?  And  how  blessed  the 
contrast  to  the  condition  of  Scotland 
when  her  last  Queen  had  been  in  that 
neighbourhood,  and  the  towers  of 
Glasgow  cathedral  looked  down  on 
Morton  issuing  from  the  then  diminu- 
tive borough,  to  assail,  in  the  imme- 
diate vicinity  at  Langside,  the  royal 
army  headed  by  Mary,  and  drive  her 
to  exile,  captivity,  and  death.* 

We  are  not  foolish  enough  to  expect 
impossibilities  from  the  Queen's  visit, 
— how  splendid  and  gratifying  soever 
its  circumstances  may  have  been.  We 
know  well  how  many  and  deep-rooted 
are  the  social  evils  which  in  both 
islands  afflict  society,  and  we  are  not 
so  simple  as  to  imagine  that  they  will 
be  removed  by  the  sight  of  the  Sove- 
reign, as  the  innocent  peasants  believe 
that  all  physical  diseases  will  be  cured 
by  the  royal  touch.  We  are  well 
aware  that  the  impression  of  even 
the  most  splendid  pageants  is  often 
only  transitory,  and  that  sad  reali- 
ties sometimes  return  with  accu- 
mulated force  after  they  are  over, 
from  the  contrast  they  present  to 
imaginative  vision.  Still  a  step,  and 
that,  too,  a  most  important  one,  has 
been  taken  in  the  right  direction.  If 
great,  and,  in  some  respects,  lasting 
good  has  been  done — if  evils  remain, 
as  remain  they  ever  will,  in  the  pre- 


sent complicated  condition  of  society, 
and  the  contending  interests  which 
agitate  its  bosom — one  evil,  and  that 
the  greatest  of  all,  is  lessened,  and 
that  is  an  estrangement  between  the 
People  and  their  Sovereign.  Crimes 
may  return ;  but  the  recurrence  of  the 
greatest  of  all,  because  it  is  the  parent 
of  all  others — high  treason — is  for  a 
time,  to  any  extent  at  least,  ren- 
dered impossible.  The  most  sacred 
and  important  of  all  bonds,  that 
which  unites  the  sovereign  and  her  sub- 
jects, has  been  materially  strength- 
ened. The  most  noble  of  all  feel- 
ings, the  disinterested  affection  of  a 
people  to  their  Queen,  has  been 
called  into  generous  and  heart-stirring 
action.  The  "  unbought  loyalty  of 
men,  the  cheap  defence  of  nations,"  is 
not  at  an  end.  And  if  the  effect  of 
the  Koyal  Visit  were  only  that,  in  the 
greatest  cities  of  her  dominions,  our 
gracious  sovereign,  in  an  age  unusually 
devoted  to  material  influences,  has 
succeeded,  by  the  sweetness  and  grace 
of  her  manners,  in  causing  the  hearts 
of  some  hundred  thousands  of  her 
subjects  to  throb  with  loyal  devotion, 
and,  for  a  time  at  least,  supplanted 
the  selfish  by  the  generous  emo- 
tions— the  effect  is  not  lost  to  the 
cause  of  order  and  the  moral  eleva- 
tion of  her  people. 


*  It  is  a  curious  coincidence,  that  the  first  man  whom  her  Majesty  met  with  and 
addressed,  when  she  landed  in  Glasgow,  was  the  Earl  of  Morton,  the  lineal  descen- 
dant of  the  ruthless  baron  whose  arms  then  proved  so  fatal  to  her  beautiful  aud 
unfortunate  ancestress. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  363 


Dtc$ 

No.  IV. 
CHRISTOPHER  UNDER  CANVASS. 


SCENE — The  Pavilion. 

TIME — One  P.M. 
BULLER — SEWARD — TALBOYS — NORTH. 


TALBOYS. 

Here  he  is — here  he  is  !  I  traced  him  by  Cratch-print  to  the  Van — like  an 
old  Stag  of  Ten  to  his  lair  by  the  Slot. 

SEWARD. 
Thank  heaven !    But  was  this  right,  my  dear  sir  ? 

BULLER. 
Your  Majesty  ought  not  thus  to  have  secreted  yourself  from  your  subjects* 

SEWARD. 

We  feared  you  had  absconded — abdicated — and  retired  into  a  Monastery. 

BULLER. 

We  have  all  been  miserable' about  you  since  an  early  hour  in  the  morning — 
invisible  to  mortal  eye  since  yester  bed-going  gong — regal  couch  manifestly 
unslept  in — tent  after  tent  scrutinised  as  narrowly  as  if  for  a  mouse — Swiss 
Giantess  searched  as  if  by  custom-house  officers — no  Christopher  in  the  En- 
campment— what  can  I  compare  it  to — but  a  Bee-hive  that  had  lost  its  Queen. 
The  very  Drones  were  in  a  ferment — the  workers  demented — dismal  the  hum 
of  grief  and  rage — of  national  lamentation  and  civil  war. 

NORTH. 

Billy  could  have  told  you  of  my  retreat. 

SEWARD. 

Billy  was  in  a  state  of  distraction— rushed  to  the  Van — and,  finding  it 
empty,  fainted. 

NORTH. 

Billy  saw  me  in  the  Van — and  I  told  him  to  shut  the  spring  smartly — and 
be  mum. 

BULLER. 

Villain ! 

NORTH. 

Obedience  to  orders  is  the  sum-total  of  Duty.  Most  of  the  men  seem 
tolerably  sober — those  whom  despair  had  driven  to  drink  have  been  sent  to 
sleeping-quarters — the  Camp  has  recovered  from  its  alarm — and  is  fit  for 
Inspection  by  the  General  Commanding  the  Forces. 

SEWARD. 

But  have  you  breakfasted,  my  dear  sir? 

NORTH. 
Leave  me  alone  for  that.    What  have  you  all  been  about  ? 


364  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

TALBOYS. 
We  three  started  at  Five  for  Luib,  in  high  glee. 

NORTH. 

What !  in  face  of  my  prediction  ?  Did  I  not  tell  you  that  in  that  dull, 
dingy,  dirty,  ochre  sunset — in  that  wan  moon  and  those  tallow-candle  stars — 
I  saw  the  morning's  Deluge. 

BULLER. 

But  did  you  not  also  quote  Sir  David  Brewster?  "  In  the  atmosphere  in 
which  he  lives  and  breathes,  and  the  phenomena  of  which  he  daily  sees,  and 
feels,  and  describes,  and  measures,  the  philosopher  stands  in  acknowledged 
ignorance  of  the  laws  which  govern  it.  He  has  ascertained,  indeed,  its  extent, 
its  weight,  and  its  composition ;  but  thougi  he  has  mastered  the  law  of  heat 
and  moisture,  and  studied  the  electric  agencies  which  influence  its  condition, 
he  cannot  predict,  or  even  approximate  to  a  prediction,  whether  on  the  mor- 
row the  sun  shall  shine,  or  the  rain  fall,  or  the  wind  blow,  or  the  lightning 
descend." 

NORTH. 

And  all  that  is  perfectly  true.  Nevertheless,  we  weather-wise  and  weather- 
foolish  people — not  Philosophers  but  Empirics — sailors  and  shepherds — with 
all  our  eyes  on  the  lower  and  the  higher  heavens — gather  up  prognostications 
of  the  character  of  the  coming  time — an  hour  or  a  day — take  in  our  canvass 
and  set  our  storm-jib — or  run  for  some  bay  where  the  prudent  ship  shall  ride 
at  anchor,  as  safe  and  almost  as  motionless  as  if  she  were  in  a  dry-dock ;  or 
off  to  the  far  hill-side  to  look  after  the  silly  sheep — yet  not  so  silly  either — 
for  there  they  are,  instinctive  of  a  change,  lying  secured  by  that  black  belt  of 
Scotch-Firs  against  the  tempest  brewing  over  Lockerby  or  Lochmaben — far 
from  the  loun  Bilholm  Braes ! — You  Three  started  at  Five  o'clock  for  Luib  ? 

TALBOYS. 

I  rejoice  we  did.  A  close  carriage  is  in  all  weathers  detestable — your 
vehicle  should  be  open  to  all  skyey  influences — with  nothing  about  it  that  can 
be  set  up  or  let  down — otherwise  some  one  or  other  of  the  party — on  some 
pretence  or  other — will  be  for  shutting  you  all  in.  And  then — Farewell,  Thou 
green  Earth — Thou  fair  Day — and  ye  Skies !  It  had  apparently  been  raining 

for  some  little  time 

NORTH. 

For  six  hours,  and  more  heavily,  I  do  think,  than  I  ever  heard  it  rain  before 
in  this  watery  world.  Having  detected  a  few  drops  in  the  ceiling  of  my  cubi- 
culum,  I  had  slipt  away  to  the  Van  on  the  first  Wash  of  the  business — and 
from  that  hour  to  this  have  been  under  the  Waterfall — as  snug  as  a  Kelpie. 

TALBOYS. 

In  we  got — well  jammed  together — a  single  gentleman,  or  even  two,  would 
have  been  blown  out — and  after  some  remonstrances  with  the  old  Greys,  we 
were  off  to  Luib.  Long  before  we  were  nearly  half-way  up  the  brae  behind  the 
Camp,  Seward  complained  that  the  water  was  running  down  his  back — but  ere 
we  reached  the  top,  that  inconvenience  and  every  other  was  merged.  The  car- 
riage seemed  to  be  in  a  sinking  state,  somewhere  about  Achlian  ;  and  rolling 
before  the  rain-storm — horses  we  saw  none — it  needed  no  great  power  of  ima- 
gination to  fear  we  were  in  the  Loch.  At  this  juncture  we  came  all  at  once 
close  upon — and  into — an  appalling  crash,  and  squash,  and  splash — a  plunging, 
rushing,  groaning,  and  moaning,  and  roaring — which  for  half-a-minute  baffled 
conjecture.  The  Bridge — you  know  it,  sir — the  old  Bridge,  that  Seward  was 
never  tired  of  sketching — going — going — gone  ;  down  it  went — men,  horses, 
all,  at  the  very  parapet,  and  sent  us  with  ajaup  in  among  the  Woods. 

NORTH. 

Do  you  mean  to  say  you  were  on  the  Bridge  as  it  sunk  ? 

TALBOYS. 

I  know  nothing  about  it.  How  should  I?  We  were  in  the  heart  of  the 
Noise — we  were  in  the  heart  of  the  Water — we  were  in  the  heart  of  the 
Wood — we,  the  vehicle,  the  horses — the  same  horses,  I  believe,  that  were 
standing  behind  the  Camp  when  we  mounted — though  I  had  not  seen  them 


1849.]  Christophw  under  Canvass. 

distinctly  since,  till  I  recognised  them  madly  galloping  in  their  traces  up 
and  down  the  foaming  banks. 

NORTH. 
Were  you  all  on  this  side  of  the  River  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Ultimately  we  were — else  how  could  we  have  got  here  ?  You  seem  incre- 
dulous, sir.  Mind  me — I  don't  say  we  were  on  the  Bridge — and  went  down 
with  it.  It  is  an  open  question — and  in  the  absence  of  dispassionate  wit- 
nesses must  be  settled  by  probabilities.  Sorry  that,  though  the  Driver  saved 
himself,  the  Vehicle  in  the  mean  time  should  be  lost — with  all  the  Rods. 

NORTH. 

They  will  be  recovered  on  a  change  of  weather.  How  and  when  got  ye 
back? 

TALBOYS.  \_ 

On  horseback.  Buller  behind  Seward — myself  before  a  man  who  occa- 
sionally wore  a  look  of  the  Driver.  I  hope  it  was  he — if  it  was  not — the  Driver 
must  have  been  drowned.  We  had  now  the  wind — that  is,  the  storm — that 
is,  the  hurricane  in  our  faces — and  the  animals  every  other  minute  wheeled 
about  and  stood  rooted  for  many  minutes  to  the  road,  with  their  tails  towards 
Cladich.  My  body  had  fortunately  lost  all  sensation  hours  before  we  regained 
the  Camp. 

NORTH. 

Hours !    How  long  did  it  take  you  to  accomplish  the  two  miles  ? 

TALBOYS. 

I  did  not  time  it ;  but  we  entered  the  Great  Gate  of  the  Camp  to  the  sound 
of  the  Breakfast  Bagpipes. 

SEWARD. 
As  soon  as  we  had  changed  ourselves — as  you  say  in  Scotland 

TALBOYS. 

Let's  bother  Mr  North  no  more  about  it.  With  exception  of  the  Bridge, 
'tis  not  worth  talking  of— and  we  ought  to  be  thankful  it  was  not  Night. 
Then  what  a  delightful  feeling  of  security  now,  sir,  from  all  intrusion  of  vagrant 
visitors  from  the  Dalmally  side !  By  this  time  communication  must  be  cut  oft* 
with  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow — via  Inverary — so  the  Camp  is  virtually  insu- 
lated. In  ordinary  weather,  there  is  no  calling  the  Camp  our  own.  So  far 
back  as  yesterday  only,  8  English — 4  German — 3  French — 2  Italian — 1  Irish, 
all  Male,  many  mustached — and  from  those  and  other  countries,  nearly  an 
equal  number  of  Female — some  mustached  too — "  but  that  not  much." 

NORTH. 

Impossible  indeed  it  is  to  enjoy  one  hour's  consciousness  of  secure  solitude, 
in  this  most  unsedentary  age  of  the  world. — Look  there.  Who  the  deuce 
are  you,  sir?  Do  you  belong  to  Cloud-land — and  have  you  made  an  in- 
voluntary descent  in  the  deluge  ?  Or  are  yon  of  the  earth  earthy  ?  Oif,  sir — off 
to  the  back  premises.  Enter  the  Pavilion  at  your  peril,  yon  Phenomenon. 
Turn  him  out,  Talboys. 

TALBOYS. 

Then  I  must  turn  out  myself.  I  stepped  forth  for  a  moment  to  the 
Trout 

NORTH. 

And  have  in  that  moment  been  transmogrified  into  the  Man  of  the  Moon. 
A  false  alarm.  But  methinks  you  might  have  been  satisfied  with  the  Bridge. 

TALBOYS. 

It  is  clearing  up,  sir — it  is  clearing  up — pails  and  buckets,  barrels  and  hogs- 
heads, fountains  and  tanks,  are  no  longer  the  order  of  the  day.  Jupiter  Plu- 
vitis  is  descending  on  Juno  with  moderated  impetuosity — is  restricting  himself 
to  watering  pans  and  garden  engines — there  is  reason  to  suspect,  from  the  look 
of  the  atmosphere,  that  the  supplies  are  running  short — that  in  a  few  hours  the 
glass  will  be  up  to  Stormy — and  hurra,  then,  for  a  week  of  fine,  sunshiny, 
shadowy,  breezy,  balmy,  angling  Weather!  Why,  it  is  almost  fair  now. 
I  do  trust  that  we  shall  have  no  more  of  those  dry,  dusty,  sandy,  gravelly 


366  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

days,  so  unlike  Lochawe-side,  and  natural  only  in  Modern  Athens  or  the 
Great  Desert.  Hark !  it  is  clearing  up.  That  is  always  the  way  with 
thorough-bred  rain — desperate  spurt  or  rush  at  the  end — a  burst  when  blown 

— dead-beat 

SKWARD. 
Mr  North,  matters  are  looking  serious,  sir. 

NORTH. 

I  believe  there  is  no  real  danger. 

SEWARD. 
The  Pole  is  cracking 

TALBOYS. 

Creacking.  All  the  difference  in  the  world  between  these  two  words.  The 
insertion  of  the  letter  E  converts  danger  into  safety — trepidation  into  confi- 
dence— a  Tent  into  a  Rock. 

BULLER. 

I  have  always  forgot  to  ask  if  the  Camp  is  insured? 

NORTH. 

An  insurance  was  effected,  on  favourable  terms,  on  the  Swiss  Giantess 
before  she  came  into  my  possession — the  Trustees  are  answerable  for  the  Van 
— the  texture  of  the  Tents  is  tough  to  resist  the  Winds — and  the  stuff  itself 
was  re-steeped  during  winter  in  pyroligneous  acid  of  my  own  invention, 
which  has  been  found  as  successful  with  canvass  as  with  timber.  Dee- 
side,  the  Pavilion  and  her  fair  Sisterhood  are  impervious  alike  to  Wet  and 
Dry  Rot — Fire  and  Water. 

TALBOYS. 

You  can  have  no  idea,  sir,  of  the  beautiful  running  of  our  Drains.  When 
were  they  dug  ? 

NORTH. 

Yestreen — at  dusk.  Not  a  field  in  Scotland  the  worse  of  being  drained — 
my  lease  from  Monzie  allows  it — a  good  landlord  deserves  a  good  tenant ;  and 
though  it  is  rather  late  in  the  year  for  such  operations,  I  ventured  on  the 
experiment — partly  for  sake  of  the  field  itself,  and  partly  for  sake  of  self-pre- 
servation. Not  pioneers,  and  miners,  and  sappers  alone — the  whole  Force 
were  employed  under  the  Knave  of  Spades — open  drains  meanwhile — to  be  all 
covered  in — with  tiles — ere  we  shift  quarters. 

TALBOYS. 

A  continuance  of  this  weather  for  a  day  or  two  will  bring  them  up  ia 
shoals  from  the  Loch — Undoubtedly  we  shall  have  Eels.  I  delight  in  drain- 
angling.  Silver  Eels  !  Gold  Fish !  You  shall  be  wheeled  out,  my  dear  sir, 
in  Swing,  and  the  hand  of  your  own  Talboys  shall  disengage  the  first  "  Fish 
without  fins"  from  the  Wizard's  Hook. 

SEWARD. 

And  he  shall  be  sketched  by  his  own  Seward,  in  a  moment  of  triumph,  and 
lithographed  by  Schenck  for  the  forthcoming  Edition  of  Tom  Stoddart. 

BULLER. 

And  his  own  Buller  shall  make  the  chips  fly  like  Michael  Angelo — and  from 
the  marble  block  evolve  a  Christopher  Piscator  not  unworthy  a  Steele — or  a 
Macdonald. 

NORTH. 

Lay  aside  your  tackle,  Talboys,  and  let  us  talk. 

TALBOYS. 

I  am  never  so  talkative  as  over  my  tackle. 

BULLER. 

Lay  it  aside  then,  Talboys,  at  Mr  North's  request. 

TALBOYS. 

Would,  my  dear  sir,  you  had  been  with  me  on  Thursday,  to  witness  the 
exploits  of  this  GRIESLY  PALMER.  Miles  up  Gleusrae,  you  come — suddenly  on 
the  left — in  a  little  glen  of  its  own — on  such  a  jewel  of  a  Waterfall.  Not  ten 
feet  tall — in  the  pleasure-grounds  of  a  lowland  mansion  'twould  be  called  a 
Cascade.  But  soft  as  its  voice  is,  there  is  something  in  it  that  speaks  the 


1819.]  Cliristopher  under  Canvass.  367 

Cataract.  You  discern  the  Gaelic  gurgle — and  feel  that  the  Fountain  is  high 
up  in  some  spot  of  greensward  among  heather-hills.  Snow-white  it  is  not — almost 
as  translucent  as  the  pool  into  which  it  glides.  You  see  through  it  the  green 
ledge  it  slides  over  with  a  gentle  touch — and  seeking  its  own  way,  for  a  few 
moments,  among  some  mossy  cones,  it  slips,  without  being  wearied,  into  its 
place  of  rest,  which  it  disturbs  not  beyond  a  dimple  that  beautifies  the  quiver- 
ing reflection  of  the  sky.  A  few  birch-trees — one  much  taller  than  the  rest — 
are  all  the  trees  that  are  there — but  that  sweetest  of  all  scents  assures  you  of 
the  hawthorn — and  old  as  the  hills — stunted  in  size — but  full-leaved  and 
budded  as  if  in  their  prime — a  few  hawthorns  close  by  among  the  clefts.  But 
why  prattle  thus  to  you,  my  dear  sir? — no  doubt  you  know  it  well — for  what 
bea'utiful  secret  in  the  Highlands  is  unknown  to  Christopher  North  ? 

NORTH. 

I  do  know  it  well ;  and  your  description — so  much  better  than  I  could  have 
drawn — has  brought  it  from  the  dimmer  regions  of  memory,  "  into  the  study 
of  imagination." 

TALBOYS. 

After  a  few  circling  sweeps  to  show  myself  my  command  of  my  gear,  and 
to  give  the  Naiad  warning  to  take  care  of  her  nose,  I  let  drop  this  GRIESLY 
PALMER,  who  alighted  as  if  he  had  wings.  A  Grilse !  I  cried — a  Grilse  !  No, 
a  Sea- trout — an  Amber  Witch — a  White  Lady — a  Daughter  of  Pearl — whom 
with  gentle  violence  and  quick  despatch  I  solicited  to  the  yellow  sands — and 
folding  not  my  arms,  as  is  usual  in  works  of  fiction,  slightly  round  her  waist — 
but  both  hands,  with  all  their  ten  fingers,  grasping  her  neck  and  shoulders  to 
put  the  fair  creature  out  of  pain — in  with  her — in  with  her  into  my  Creel — 
and  again  to  business.  It  is  on  the  First  Victim  of  the  Day,  especially  if,  as 
in  this  case,  a  Bouncer,  an  angler  fondly  dwells  in  reminiscence — each  succes- 
sive captive — however  engrossing  the  capture — loses  its  distinct  individuality 
in  the  fast  accumulating  crowd ;  and  when,  at  close  of  day,  sitting  down 
among  the  broom,  to  empty  and  to  count,  it  is  on  the  First  Victim  that  the- 
angler's  eye  reposes — in  refilling,  it  is  the  First  Victim  you  lay  aside  to  crowi> 
the  treasure — in  wending  homewards  it  is  on  the  First  Victim's  biography  you 
muse ;  and  at  home — in  the  Pavilion — it  is  the  First  Victim  you  submit  to  the. 

critical  ken  of  Christopher 

BULLER. 

Especially  if,  as  in  this  case,  she  be  a  Bouncer. 

NORTH. 

You  pride  yourself  on  your  recitation  of  poetry,  Talboys.  Charm  us  with 
the  finest  descriptive  passage  you  can  remember  from  the  British  Poets. 
Not  too  loud — not  too  loud — this  is  not  Exeter  Hall — nor  are  you  about  to- 
address  the  Water- witch  from  the  top  of  Ben-Lomond. 

TALBOYS. 

"  But  thou,  Clitumnus!  in  thy  sweetest  wave 

Of  the  most  living  crystal  that  was  e'er 

The  haunt  of  river  nymph,  to  gaze  and  lave 

Her  limbs  where  nothing  hid  them,  thou  dost  rear 

Thy  grassy  banks,  whereon  the  milk-white  steer 

Grazes;  the  purest  god  of  gentle  waters! 

And  most  serene  of  aspect,  and  most  clear; 

Surely  that  stream  was  unprofaned  by  slaughters — 
A  mirror  and  a  bath  for  Beauty's  youngest  daughters  ! 

u  And  on  thy  happy  shore  a  Temple  still, 

Of  small  and  delicate  proportion,  keeps, 

Upon  a  mild  declivity  of  hill, 

Its  memory  of  thee;  beneath  it  sweeps 

Thy  current's  calmness;  oft  from  out  it  leaps 

The  finny  darter  with  the  glittering  scales, 

Who  dwells  and  revels  in  thy  glassy  deeps; 

While,  chance,  some  scatter'd  water-lily  sails 
Down  where  the  shallower  wave  still  tells  its  bubbling  tales. 


368  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

"  Pass  not  unblest  the  Genius  of  the  place  ! 
If  through  the  air  a  zephyr  more  serene 
Win  to  the  brow,  'tis  his ;  and  if  ye  trace 
Along  his  margin  a  more  eloquent  green, 
If  on  the  heart  the  freshness  of  the  scene 
Sprinkle  its  coolness,  and  from  the  dry  dust 
Of  weary  life  a  moment  lave  it  clean 
With  Nature's  baptism, — 'tis  to  him  ye  must 
Pay  orisons  for  this  suspension  of  disgust." 

NORTH. 

Admirably  said  and  sung.  Your  low  tones,  Talboys,  are  earnest  and  impres- 
sive ;  and  you  recite,  like  all  true  lovers  of  song,  in  the  spirit  of  soliloquy,  as 
if  you  were  yourself  the  sole  listener.  How  I  hate  Spouting.  Your  elocu- 
tionist makes  his  mouth  a,  jet  cTeau — and  by  his  gestures  calls  on  all  the  audi- 
tors to  behold  the  performance.  From  the  lips  of  the  man  who  has  music  in. 
his  soul,  the  words  of  inspiration  flow  as  from  a  natural  fountain,  for  his  soul 
has  made  them  its  own — and  delights  to  feel  in  their  beauty  an  adequate 
expression  of  its  own  emotions. 

TALBOYS. 

I  spoke  them  to  myself — but  I  was  still  aware  of  your  presence,  my  dear  sir. 

NORTH. 
The  Stanzas  are  fine — but  are  they  the  finest  in  Descriptive  Poetry  ? 

TALBOYS. 

I  do  not  say  so,  sir.  Any  request  of  yours  I  interpret  liberally,  and  accede 
to  at  once.  Finer  stanzas  there  may  be — many;  but  I  took  them  because  they 
first  came  to  heart.  "  Beautiful  exceedingly "  they  are — they  may  not  be 
faultless. 

NORTH. 

Sir  Walter  has  said — "  Perhaps  there  are  no  verses  in  our  language  of  hap- 
pier descriptive  power  than  the  two  stanzas  which  characterise  the  Clituni- 
nus." 

TALBOYS. 

Then  I  am  right. 

NORTH. 

Perhaps  you  are.  Scott  loved  Byron — and  it  is  ennobling  to  hear  one  great 
Poet  praising  another :  yet  the  stanzas  which  so  delighted  our  Minstrel  may 
not  be  so  felicitous  as  they  seemed  to  be  to  his  moved  imagination. 

TALBOYS. 

Possibly  not. 

NORTH. 

In  the  First  Stanza  what  do  we  find  ?  An  apostrophe — "  Thou  Clitumuus," 
not  yet  quite  an  Impersonation — a  few  lines  on,  an  Impersonation  of  the  Stream — 

" the  purest  God  of  gentlest  waters! 

And  most  serene  of  aspect,  and  most  clear." 

What  is  gained  by  this  Impersonation  ?  Nothing.  For  the  qualities  here 
attributed  to  the  River- God  are  the  very  same  that  had  already  been  attributed 
to  the  water — purity — serenity — clearness.  "  Sweetest  wave  of  the  most  living 
crystal" — affects  us  just  as  much— here  I  think  more  than  the  two  lines  about 
the  God.  And  observe,  that  no  sooner  is  the  God  introduced  than  he  disap- 
pears. His  coming  and  his  going  are  alike  unsatisfactory — for  his  coming 
gives  us  no  new  emotion,  and  his  going  is  instantly  followed  by  lines  that 
have  no  relation  to  his  Godship  at  all. 

TALBOYS. 
Why — why — I  really  don't  know. 

NORTH. 

I  have  mildly — and  inoffensively  to  all  the  world — that  is,  to  all  us  Four — 
shown  one  imperfection  ;  and  I  think — I  feel  there  is  another — in  this  Stanza. 
11  The  sweetest  wave  of  the  most  living  crystal"  is  visioned  to  us  in  the  open- 
ing lines  as  the  haunt  "  of  river  nymph,  to  gaze  and  lave  her  limbs  where  no- 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  369 

thing  hid  them," — and  we  are  pleased ;  it  is  visioned  to  us,  in  the  concluding 
line,  as  "  the  mirror  and  the  bath  for  Beauty's  youngest  daughters" — and  we 
are  not  pleased ;  or  if  we  are,  but  for  a  moment — for  it  is,  as  nearly  as  may 
be,  the  same  vision  over  again — a  mirror  and  a  bath ! 

TALBOYS. 

But  then,  sir — 

NORTH. 

Well? 

TALBOYS. 

Go  on,  sir. 

NORTH. 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  understand  "  Beauty's  youngest  daughters." 

TALBOYS. 

Why,  small  maidens  from  ten  to  twelve  years  old,  who  in  their  innocent 
"beauty  may  bathe  without  danger,  and  in  their  innocent  self-admiration  may 
gaze  without  fear. 

NORTH. 

Then  is  the  expression  at  once  commonplace  and  obscure. 

TALBOYS. 

Don't  say  so,  sir. 

NORTH. 

Think  you  Byron  means  the  Graces  ? 

TALBOYS. 

He  does — he  does — the  Graces  sure  enough — the  Graces. 

NORTH. 

Whatever  it  means — it  means  no  more  than  we  had  before.  A  descriptive 
Stanza  should  ever  be  progressive,  and  at  the  close  complete.  To  my  feeling, 
"  slaughters"  had  better  been  kept  far  away  from  the  imagination  as  from  the 
eyes.  I  know  Byron  alludes  here  to  the  Sanguinetto  of  the  preceding  Stanza. 
But  he  ought  not  to  have  alluded  to  it — the  contrast  is  complete  without 
such  reference  —  between  the  river  we  are  delighting  in  and  the  blood- 
named  torrent  that  has  passed  away.  Why,  then,  force  such  an  image  back 
upon  us — when  of  ourselves  we  should  never  have  thought  of  it,  and  it  is  the 
last  image  we  should  desire  to  see  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Allow  me  a  few  minutes  to  consider 

NORTH. 

A  day.  Will  you  be  so  good,  Talboys,  as  tell  me  in  ten  words  the  meaning 
of— in  the  next  Stanza — "  keeps  its  memory  of  Thee"? 

TALBOYS. 
I  will  immediately. 

NORTH. 
To  my  mind — angler  as  I  am — 

TALBOYS. 

The  Prince  of  Anglers. 

NORTH. 

To  my  mind,  two  lines  and  a  half  about  Fishes  are  here  too  much — "  finny 
darter"  seems  conceited — and  "dwells  and  revels'1'1  needlessly  strong — and 
the  frequent  rising  of  "  finny  darters  with  the  glittering  scales"  to  me  seems 
hardly  consistent  with  the  solemn  serenity  inspired  by  the  Temple,  "  of  small 
and  delicate  proportion"  "  keeping  its  memory  of  Thee," — whatever  that  may 
mean ; — nor  do  I  think  that  a  poetical  mind  like  Byron's,  if  fully  possessed  in 
ideal  contemplation  with  the  beauty  of  the  whole,  would  have  thought  so 
much  of  such  an  occurrence,  or  dwelt  upon  it  with  so  many  words. 

TALBOYS. 

I  wish  that  finny  darters  with  the  glittering  scales  had  oft  leaped  from  out 
thy  current's  calmness,  Thou  Glenorchy,  yesterday — but  not  a  fin  could  I  stir 
with  finest  tackle  and  Double-Nothings. 

NORTH. 

That  is  no  answer,  either  one  way  or  another,  to  my  gentle  demur  to  the 


370  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

perfection  of  the  stanzas.  The  "  scattered  water-lily"  may  be  well  enough — so 
let  it  pass — with  this  ob,  that  the  flower  of  the  water-lily  is  not  easily  separated 
from  its  stalk— and  is  not,  in  that  state,  eligible  as  an  image  of  peace. 

TALBOYS. 
It  is  of  beauty. 

NORTH. 

Be  it  so.  But  is  "scattered"  the  right  word?  No.  A  water-lily  to  be 
scattered  must  be  torn — for  you  scatter  many,  not  one— a  fleet,  not  a  ship — a 
flock  of  sheep,  not  one  lamb.  A  solitary  water-lily — broken  off  and  drifting 
by,  has,  as  you  said,  its  own  beauty — and  Byron  doubtlessly  intended  that — 
but  he  has  not  said  it — he  has  said  the  reverse — for  a  "  scattered  "  water-lily 
is  a  dishevelled  water-lily — a  water-lily  no  more — a  dispersed  or  dispersing 
multitude  of  leaves — of  what  had  been  a  moment  before — a  Flower. 

TALBOYS. 

The  image  pleases  everybody — take  it  as  you  find  it,  and  be  content. 

NORTH. 

I  take  it  as  I  find  it,  and  am  not  content ;  I  take  it  as  I  don't  find  it,  and 
am.  Then  I  gently  demur  to  "  still  tells  its  bubbling  tales."  In  Gray's  line — 

"  And  pore  upon  the  brook  that  babbles  by," 

the  word  "  babbles  "  is  the  right  one — a  mitigated  "  brawling" — a  continuous 
murmur  without  meaning,  till  you  give  it  one  or  many — like  that  of  some 
ceaseless  female  human  being,  pleasantly  accompanying  your  reveries  that 
have  no  relation  to  what  you  hear.  Her  blameless  babble  has  that  effect — 
and  were  it  to  stop,  you  would  awake.  But  Byron's  "  shallower  wave  still 
tells  its  bubbling  tales  " — a  tale  is  still  about  something — however  small — and 
pray  what  is  that  something  ?  Nothing.  "  Tales,"  then,  is  not  the  t-e?T/word 
here — nor  will  "bubbling"  make  it  so — at  best  it  is  a  prettyism  rather  than 
Poetry.  The  Poet  is  becoming  a  Poetaster. 

TALBOYS. 

I  shall  never  recite  another  finest  descriptive  passage  from  the  whole  range 
of  our  British  Poets — during  the  course  of  my  life — in  this  Pavilion. 

NORTH. 

Let  us  look  at  the  Temple. 

TALBOYS. 

Be  done,  I  beseech  you,  sir. 

NORTH. 

Talboys,  yon  have  as  logical — as  legal  a  head  as  any  man  I  know. 

TALBOYS. 

What  has  a  logical  or  legal  head  to  do  with  Byron's  description  of  the 
Clitumnus  ? 

NORTH. 

As  much  as  with  any  other  "  Process."  And  you  know  it.  But  you  are 
in  a  most  contradictory — I  had  almost  said  captious  mood,  this  forenoon — 

and  will  not  imbibe  genially 

TALBOYS. 

Imbibe  genially — acids — after  having  imbibed  in  the  body  immeasurable 
rain. 

NORTH. 
Let  us  look  at  the  Temple.    "  A  Temple  still"  might  mean  a  still  temple. 

TALBOYS. 

But  it  doesn't. 

NORTH. 

A  Poet's  meaning  should  never,  through  awkwardness,  be  ambiguous. 
But  no  more  of  that.  "  Keeps  its  Memory  of  Thee  "  suggests  to  my  mind  that 
the  Temple,  dedicated  of  old  to  the  River- God,  i-etains,  under  the  new  religion 
of  the  laud,  evidence  of  the  old  Deification  and  Worship.  The  Temple  survives 
to  express  to  us  of  another  day  and  faith,  a  Deification  and  worship  of  Thee — 
Clitumnus— dictated  by  the  same  apprehension  of  thy  characteristic  Beauty 
in  the  hearts  of  those  old  worshippers  that  now  possesses  ours  looking  on  Thee. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  371 

Thou  art  unchanged — the  sensitive  and  imaginative  intelligence  of  Thee  in 
man  is  unchanged — although  times  have  changed — states,  nations — and,  to  the 
eyes  of  man,  the  heavens  themselves!  If  all  this  be  meant — all  this  is  not 
said — in  the  words  you  admire. 

TALBOYS. 

I  cannot  say,  as  an  honest  man,  that  I  distinctly  understand  you,  my  dear 
sir. 

NORTH. 
You  understand  me  better  than  you  understand  Byron. 

TALBOYS. 

I  understand  neither  of  you. 

NORTH. 

The  poetical  thought  seems  to  be  here — that  the  Temple  rises  up  spon- 
taneously on  the  bank — under  the  power  of  the  Beautiful  in  the  river — a  per- 
manent self-sprung  reflexion  of  that  Beautiful — as  indeed,  to  imagination,  all 
things  appear  to  create  themselves! 

TALBOYS. 

You  speak  like  yourself  now,  sir. 

NORTH. 

But  look  here,  my  good  Talboys.  The  statue  of  Achilles  may  "  keep  its 
memory"— granting  the  locution  to  be  good,  which  it  is  not — of  Achilles — for 
Achilles  is  no  more.  Sink — in  a  rapture  of  thought — the  hand  of  the  artist — 
think  that  the  statues  of  Achilles  came  of  themselves — as  unsown  flowers  come 
— for  poets  to  express  to  all  ages  the  departed  Achilles.  They  keep — as 
long  as  they  remain  uuperished — "their  memory  of  Achilles" — they  were 
from  the  beginning  voluntary  and  intentional  conservators  of  the  Memory  of 
the  Hero.  But  Clitumnus  is  here — alive  to  this  hour,  and  with  every  prospect 
of  outliving  his  own  Temple.  What  do  you  say  to  that  ? 

TALBOYS. 

To  what? 

NORTH. 

Finally— if  that  reminiscence  of  the  Heathen  deification,  which  I  first  pro- 
posed, was  in  Byron's  mind — and  he  means  by  "  still  keeps  its  memory  of  Thee" 
memory  of  the  River-God — and  of  the  Worship  of  the  River-God — then  all  he 
says  about  the  mere  natural  river — its  leaping  fishes,  and  so  forth,  is  wide 
of  his  own  purpose — and  what  is  worse — implies  an  absurdity — a  reminiscence 
— not  of  the  past — bat  of  the  present. 

TALBOYS. 

If  all  that  were  submitted  to  me  for  the  Pursuer,  in  Printed  Papers — I 
should  appoint  answers  to  be  given  in  by  the  Defender — within  seven  days — 
and  within  seven  days  after  that — give  judgment. 

NORTH. 

Keep  your  temper,  Mr  Testy.  As  I  have  no  wish  to  sour  you  for  the  rest 
of  the  day,  I  shall  say  little  about  the  Third  Stanza.  "  Pass  not  unblest  the 
Genius  of  the  Place,"  would  to  me  be  a  more  impressive  prayer,  if  there  were 
more  spirituality  in  the  preceding  stanzas — and  in  the  lines  which  follow  it ; 
for  the  Genius  of  the  Place  has  been  acting,  and  continues  to  act,  almost 
solely  on  the  Senses.  And  who  is  the  Genius  of  the  Place  ?  The  River-God — 
he  to  whom  the  Gentile  worship  built  that  Temple.  But  Byron  says,  most 
unpoetically,  "  along  his  margin " — along  the  margin  of  the  Genius  of  the 
Place !  Then,  how  flat — how  poor— after  "  the  Genius  of  the  Place" — "  the 
freshness  of  the  Scene1'' — for  the  freshness  of  the  Scene  bless  the  genius  of  the  Place! 
Is  that  language  flowing  from  the  emotion  of  a  Poet's  heart?  And  the  last  line 
spoils  all ;  for  he  whom  we  are  to  bless — the  River- God — or  the  Genius  of  the 
Place— has  given  the  heart  but  a  "moment's"  cleanness  from  dry  dust — but  a 
moment's,  and  no  more !  And  never  did  hard,  coarse  Misanthropy  so  mar  a 
Poet's  purpose  as  by  the  shocking  prose  that  is  left  grating  on  our  souls — 
"  suspension  of  disgust!"  So,  after  all  this  beauty — and  all  this  enjoyment  of 
beauty — well  or  ill  painted  by  the  Poet — you  must  pay  orisons  to  the  River-God 
or  the  Genius — whom  you  had  been  called  on  to  bless — for  a  mere  momentary 


372  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

suspension  of  disgust  to  all  our  fellow-creatures — a  disgust  that  would  return 
as  strong — or  stronger  than  ever — as  soon  as  you  got  to  Eome. 

TALBOYS. 

I  confess  I  don't  like  it. 

NORTH. 

"  MUST  !"  There  are  NEEDS  of  all  sorts,  shapes,  and  sizes.  There  is  terrible 
necessity — there  is  bitter  necessity — there  is  grinding  necessity — there  is  fine 
— delicate— loving— playful  necessity. 

TALBOYS. 

Sir? 

NORTH. 

There  are  MUSTS  that  fly  upon  the  wings  of  devils — Musts  that  fly  upon  the 
wings  of  angels — Musts  that  walk  upon  the  feet  of  men — Musts  that  flutter 
upon  the  wings  of  Fairies. — But  I  am  dreaming ! — Say  on. 

TALBOYS. 

I  think  the  day's  clearing — let  us  launch  Gutta  Percha,  Buller,  and  troll  for 
a  Ferox. 

NORTH. 

Then  fling  that  Tarpaulin  over  your  Feather- Jacket,  on  which  you  plume 
yourself,  and  don't  forget  your  Gig-Parasol,  Longfellow — for  the  rain-gauge  is 
running  over,  so  are  the  water-butts,  and  I  hear  the  Loch  surging  its  way  up 
to  the  Camp.  The  Cladich  Cataract  is  a  stunner.  Sit  down,  my  dear  Tal- 
boys.  Recite  away. 

TALBOYS. 
No. 

NORTH. 

Gentlemen,  I  call  on  Mister  Buller. 

BULLER. 

"  The  roar  of  waters  ! — from  the  headlong  height 
Velino  cleaves  the  wave-worn  precipice  ; 
The  fall  of  waters  !  rapid  as  the  light 
The  flashing  mass  foams  shaking  the  abyss  ; 
The  hell  of  waters  !  where  they  howl  and  hiss, 
And  boil  in  endless  torture  ;  while  the  sweat 
Of  their  great  agony,  wrung  out  from  this 
Their  Phlegethon,  curls  round  the  rocks  of  jet 
That  gird  the  gulf  around,  in  pitiless  horror  set, 

"  And  mounts  in  spray  the  skies,  and  thence  again 

Returns  in  an  unceasing  shower,  which  round, 

With  its  unemptied  cloud  of  gentle  rain, 

Is  an  eternal  April  to  the  ground, 

Making  it  all  one  emerald  : — how  profound 

The  gulf !  and  how  the  giant  element 

From  rock  to  rock  leaps  with  delirious  bound, 

Crushing  the  cliffs,  which,  downward  worn  and  rent 
"With  his  fierce  footsteps,  yield  in  chasms  a  fearful  vent 

"  To  the  broad  column  which  rolls  on,  and  shows 
More  like  the  fountain  of  an  infant  sea 
Torn  from  the  womb  of  mountains  by  the  throes 
Of  a  new  world,  than  only  thus  to  be 
Parent  of  rivers,  which  flow  gushingly 
With  many  windings,  through  the  vale; — Look  back  : 
Lo  !  where  it  comes  like  an  eternity, 
As  if  to  sweep  down  all  things  in  its  track, 
Charming  the  eye  with  dread, — a  matchless  cataract, 

"  Horribly  beautiful !  but  on  the  verge, 
From  side  to  side,  beneath  the  glittering  morn, 
An  Iris  sits,  amidst  the  infernal  surge, 
Like  Hope  upon  a  death-bed,  and,  unworn 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  373 

Its  steady  dyes,  while  all  around  is  torn 
By  the  distracted  waters,  bears  serene 
Its  brilliant  hues  with  all  their  beams  unshorn  ; 
Resembling,  'mid  the  torture  of  the  scene, 
Love  watching  Madness  with  unalterable  mien." 

NORTH. 

In  the  First  Stanza  there  is  a  very  peculiar  and  a  very  striking  form — or  con- 
struction—The Roar  of  Waters— The  Fall  of  Waters— The  Hell  of  Waters. 

BULLER. 

You  admire  it. 

NORTH. 

I  do. 

TALBOYS. 

Don't  believe  him,  Buller.  Let's  be  off— there  is  no  rain  worth  mentioning 
— see — there's  a  Fly.  Oh  !  'tis  but  a  Red  Professor  dangling  from  my  bonnet 
— a  Red  Professor  with  tinsy  and  a  tail.  Come,  Seward,  here's  the  Chess- 
Board.  Let  us  make  out  the  Main. 

NORTH. 

The  four  lines  about  the  Roar  and  the  Fall  are  good 

TALBOYS. 

Indeed,  sir. 

NORTH. 

Mind  your  game,  sir.  Seward,  you  may  give  him  a  Pawn.  The  next  four 
— about  Hell — are  bad. 

TALBOYS. 

Indeed,  sir. 

NORTH. 

Seward,  you  may  likewise  give  him  a  Knight.  As  bad  as  can  be.  For  there 
is  an  incredible  confusion  of  tormented  and  tormentor.  They  howl,  and  hiss, 
and  boil  in  endless  torture — they  are  suffering  the  Pains  of  Hell — they  are  in 
Hell.  "  But  the  sweat  of  their  great  agony  is  wrung  out  from  this  their 
Phlegethon."  Where  is  this  their  Phlegethon?  Why,  this  their  Phlegethon 
is — themselves !  Look  down — there  is  no  other  river — but  the  Velino. 

BULLER. 

Hear  Virgil — 

"  Moania  lata  videt,  triplici  circumdata  muro, 
Qmu  rapidus  flammis  ambit  torreutibus  aninis 
Tartareus  Phlegethon,  torquetque  sonantia  saxa." 

No  Phlegethon  with  torrents  of  fire  surrounding  and  shaking  Byron's  Hell.   I 
do  not  understand  it — an  unaccountable  blunder. 

NORTH. 
In  next  stanza,  what  is  gained  by 

"  How  profound 

The  gulf !  and  how  the  giant  element 
From  rock  to  rock  leaps  with  delirious  bound  "  ? 

Nothing.  In  the  First  Stanza,  we  had  the  "  abyss,"  "  the  gulf,"  and  the  agony 
— all  and  more  than  we  have  here. 

SEWARD. 
Check-mate. 

TALBOYS. 

Confound  the  board ! — no,  not  the  board — but  Hurwitz  himself  could  not 
play  in  such  an  infernal  clatter. 

NORTH. 

Boiler  has  not  got  to  the  word  "  infernal "  yet,  PhUlidor— but  he  will 
by-and-by.  "  Crushing  the  Cliffs" — crushing  is  not  the  right  word — it  is  the 
wrong  one — for  not  such  is  the  process — visible  or  invisible.  "  Downward 
worn"  ia  silly.  "Fierce  footsteps,"  to  my  imagination,  is  tame  and  out  of 
place — though  it  may  not  be  to  yours ; — and  I  thunder  in  the  ears  of  the 
Chess-players  that  the  first  half  of  the  next  stanza— the  third— is  as  bad 
waiting  as  is  to  be  found  in  Byron. 


374  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

TALBOYS. 

Or  in  North. 

NORTH. 

Seward — you  may  give  him  likewise  a  Bishop — 

"  Look  back : 
Lo!  where  it  comes  like  an  Eternity  !" 

I  do  not  say  that  is  not  sublime.  If  it  is  an  image  of  Eternity  — 
sublime  it  must  be — but  the  Poet  has  chosen  his  time  badly  for  inspiring  us 
with  that  thought — for  we  look  back  on  what  he  had  pictured  to  us  as  falling 
into  hell — and  then  flowing  diffused  "  only  thus  to  be  parents  of  rivers  that 
flow  gushingly  with  many  windings  through  the  vale" — images  of  Time. 

"  As  if  to  sweep  down  all  things  in  its  track," 

is  well  enough  for  an  ordinary  cataract,  but  not  for  a  cataract  that  comes 
"  like  an  Eternity." 

TALBOYS. 

"  Charming  the  eye  with  dread — a  matchless  cataract, 
Horribly  beautiful." 

SEWAKD. 
One  game  each. 

TALBOYS. 

Let  us  go  to  the  Swiss  Giantess  to  play  out  the  Main. 

NORTH. 

In  Stanza  Fourth — "  But  on  the  verge"  is  very  like  nonsense — 

TALBOYS. 

Not  at  all. 

NORTH. 

The  Swiss  Giantess  is  expecting  you — good-bye,  my  dear  Talboys.  Now, 
Buller,  I  wish  you,  seriously  and  calmly,  to  think  on  this  image — 

"  An  Iris  sits,  amidst  the  infernal  surge, 
Like  Hope  upon  a  death-bed." 

Did  Hope — could  Hope  ever  sit  by  stick  a  death-bed !  The  infernal  surge — the 
hell  of  waters — the  howling— the  hissing — the  boiling  in  endless  torture — the 
sweat  of  the  great  agony  wrung  out — and  more  of  the  same  sort — these  image 
the  death-bed.  Hope  has  sat  beside  many  a  sad — many  a  miserable  death- 
bed— but  not  by  such  as  this  ;  and  yet,  here,  such  a  death-bed  is  hinted  at  as 
not  uncommon — in  a  few  words — "  like  Hope  upon  a  death-bed."  The 
simile  came  not  of  itself — it  was  sought  for — and  had  far  better  have  been 
away.  There  is  much  bad  writing  here,  too  — "  unworn" — "  unshorn" — 
"  torn" — "  dyes" — "hues" — "beams" — "  torture  of  the  scene" — epithet  heaped 
on  epithet,  without  any  clear  perception,  or  sincere  emotion — the  Iris  changing 
from  Hope  upon  a  death-bed  to  Love  watching  Madness — both  of  which  I 
pronounce,  before  that  portion  of  mankind  assembled  in  this  Tent,  to  be  on 
the  FALSETTO — and  wide  from  the  thoughts  that  visit  the  suffering  souls  of 
the  children  of  men  remembering  this  life's  greatest  calamities. 

SEWARD. 

Yet  throughout,  sir,  there  is  Power. 

NORTH. 

Power!  My  dear  Seward,  who  denies  it?  But  great  Power — true  poeti- 
cal Power — is  self-collected — not  turbulent  though  dealing  with  turbulence — 
in  its  own  stately  passion  dominating  physical  nature  in  its  utmost  distrac- 
tion— and  in  her  blind  forces  seeing  a  grandeur — a  sublimity  that  only  becomes 
visible  or  audible  to  the  senses,  through  the  action  of  imagination  creating 
its  own  consistent  ideal  world  out  of  that  turmoil — making  the  fury  of  falling 
waters  appeal  to  our  Moral  Being,  from  whose  depths  and  heights  rise  emo- 
tions echoing  all  the  tones  of  the  thundering  cataract.  In  these  stanzas  of 
Byron,  the  main  Power  is  in  the  Cataract — not  in  the  Poetry — loud  to  the  ear 
—to  the  eye  flashing  and  foaming — full  of  noise  and  fury,  signifying  not  much  to 
the  soul,  as  it  stuns  and  confounds  the  senses — while  its  more  spiritual  signifi- 


1819.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  375 

cations  are  uncertain,  or  unintelligible,  accepted  with  doubt,  or  rejected  with- 
out hesitation,  because  felt  to  be  false  and  deceitful,  and  but  brilliant  mockeries 
of  the  Truth. 

TALBOYS. 

Spare  Byron,  who  is  a  Poet — and  castigate  some  popular  Versifier. 

NORTH. 

I  will  not  spare  Byron — and  just  because  he  is  a  Poet.  For  popular  Versi- 
fiers, they  may  pipe  at  their  pleasure,  but  aloof  from  our  Tents — chirp  any- 
where but  in  this  Encampment ;  and  if  there  be  a  Gowdspink  T  Yellow-ham- 
mer among  them,  let  us  incline  our  ear  kindly  to  his  chattering  or  his  yammer- 
ing, "  low  doun  in  the  broom,"  or  high  up  on  his  apple-tree,  in  outfield  or 
orchard,  and  pray  that  never  naughty  schoolboy  may  harry  his  nest. 

SEWARD. 
Would  Sir  Walter's  Poetry  stand  such  critical  examination  ? 

NORTH. 

All — or  nearly  so — directly  dealing  with  War — Fighting  in  all  its  branches- 
Indeed,  with  any  kind  of  Action  he  seldom  fails — iu  Reflection,  often — and, 
strange  to  say,  almost  as  often  in  description  of  Nature,  though  there  in  his 
happier  hours  he  excels. 

SEWARD. 

I  was  always  expecting,  during  that  discussion  about  the  Clitumnus,  that 
you  would  have  brought  in  Virgil. 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Maro — in  description — is  superior  to  them  all — in  the  JEneid  as  well  as 
in  the  Georgics.  But  we  have  no  time  to  speak  of  his  Pictures  now — only  just 
let  me  ask  you — Do  you  remember  what  Payne  Knight  says  of  JEneas  ? 

SEWARD. 

No,  for  I  never  read  it. 

NORTH. 

Payne  Knight,  in  his  Analytical  Inquiry  into  the  Principles  of  Taste — a  work 
of  high  authority  in  his  own  day,  and  containing  many  truths  vigorously 
expounded,  though  characterised  throughout  by  arrogance  and  presumption — 
speaks  of  that  "  selfish  coldness  with  which  the  JEneas  of  Virgil  treats  the  unfor- 
tunate princess,  whose  affections  he  had  seduced"  and  adds,  that  "  Every  modern 
reader  of  the  JEneid  finds  that  the  Episode  of  Dido,  though  in  itself  the  most 
exquisite  piece  of  composition  existing,  weakens  extremely  the  subsequent  inte- 
rest of  the  Poem,  it  being  impossible  to  sympathise  either  cordially  or  kindly 
with  the  fortunes  or  exertions  of  a  hero  who  sneaks  away  from  his  high- 
minded  and  much-injured  benefactress  in  a  manner  so  base  and  unmanly. 
When,  too,  we  find  him  soon  after  imitating  all  the  atrocities,  and  surpassing 
the  utmost  arrogance,  of  the  furious  and  vindictive  Achilles,  without  display- 
ing any  of  his  generosity,  pride,  or  energy,  he  becomes  at  once  mean  and 
odious,  and  only  excites  scorn  and  indignation  ;  especially  when,  at  the  con- 
clusion, he  presents  to  Lavinia  a  hand  stained  with  the  blood  of  her  favoured 
lover,  whom  he  had  stabbed  while  begging  for  quarter,  and  after  being  ren- 
dered incapable  of  resistance."  Is  not  this,  Seward,  much  too  strong  ? 

SEWARD. 

I  think,  sir,  it  is  not  only  much  too  strong,  but  outrageous ;  and  that  we 
are  bound,  in  justice  to  Virgil,  to  have  clearly  before  our  mind  his  own  Idea 
of  his  Hero. 

TALBOYS. 

To  try  that  2Eneas  by  the  rules  of  poetry  and  of  morality ;  and  if  we  find 
his  character  such  as  neither  our  imagination  nor  our  moral  sense  will  suffer 
us  to  regard  with  favour — to  admire  either  in  Hero  or  Man — then  to  throw 
the  2Eneid  aside. 

BULLER. 

And  take  up  his  Georgics. 

TALBOYS. 

To  love  Virgil  we  need  not  forget  Homer — but  to  sympathise  with  JEneas, 
our  imagination  must  not  be  filled  with  Achilles. 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVII.  2  C 


37(3  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

SEWARD. 

Troy  is  dust — the  Son  of  Thetis  dead.  Let  us  go  with  the  Fugitives  arid 
their  Leader. 

TALBOYS. 

Let  us  believe  from  the  first  that  they  seek  a  Destined  Seat — under  One 
Man,  who  knows  his  mission,  and  is  worthy  to  fulfil  it.  Has  Virgil  so  sus- 
tained the  character  of  that  Man — of  that  Hero  ?  Or  has  he,  from  ineptitude, 
and  unequal  to  so  great  a  subject — let  him  sink  below  our  nobler  sympathies — 
nay,  unconscious  of  failure  of  his  purpose,  as  Payne  Knight  says,  accom- 
modated him  to  our  contempt  ? 

SEAVARD. 

For  seven  years  he  has  been  that  Man — that  Hero.  One  Night's  Tale  has 
shown  him — as  he  is — for  I  presume  that  Virgil — and  not  Payne  Knight — was 
his  Maker.  If  that  Speech  was  all  a  lie — and  the  Son  of  Auchises,  not  a  gal- 
lant and  pious  Prince,  but  a  hypocrite  and  a  coward — shut  the  Book  or  burn 
it. 

TAXBOYS. 

Much  gossip — of  which  any  honest  old  woman,  had  she  uttered  the  half  of 
it,  would  have  been  ashamed  before  she  had  finished  her  tea — has  been  scrib- 
bled by  divers  male  pens — stupid  or  spritely — on  that  magnificent  Recital. 
^Eneas,  it  has  been  said,  by  his  own  account,  skulked  during  the  Town  Sack — 
and  funked  during  the  Sea  Storm.  And  how,  it  has  been  asked,  came  he  to 
lose  Creusa  ?  Pious  indeed !  A  truly  pious  man,  say  they,  does  not  speak 
of  his  piety— he  takes  care  of  his  household  gods  without  talking  about  Lares 
and  Penates.  Many  critics — some  not  without  name — have  been  such — 
unrepentant — old  women.  Come  we  to  Dido. 

NORTH. 

Be  cautious — for  I  fear  I  have  been  in  fault  myself  towards  JSneas  for  his 
part  in  that  transaction. 

TALBOYS. 

I  take  the  account  of  it  from  Virgil.  Indeed  I  do  not  know  of  any 
scandalous  chronicle  of  Carthage  or  Tyre.  A  Trojan  Prince  and  a  Tyriau 
Queen — say  at  once  a  Man  and  a  Woman — on  sudden  temptation  and  unfore- 
seen opportunity — SIN — and  they  continue  to  sin.  As  pious  men  as  .ZEneas — 
and  as  kingly  and  heroic  too,  have  so  sinned  far  worse  than  that — yet  have 
not  been  excommunicated  from  the  fellowship  of  saints,  kings,  or  heroes. 

SEWARD. 

To  say  that  2Eneas  "  seduces  Dido,"  in  the  sense  that  Payne  Knight  uses 
the  word,  is  a  calumnious  vulgarism. 

TALBOYS. 
And  shows  a  sulky  resolution  to  shut  his  eyes — and  keep  them  shut. 

SEWARD. 

Had  he  said  that  in  the  Schools  at  Oxford,  he  would  have  been  plucked  at 
his  Little-go.  But  I  forget — there  was  no  plucking  in  those  days — and  indeed 
I  rather  think  he  was  not  an  University  Man. 

NORTH. 
Nevertheless  he  was  a  Scholar. 

SEWARD. 

Not  nevertheless,  sir — notwithstanding,  sir. 

NORTH. 

I  sit  corrected. 

SEWARD. 

Neither  did  Infelix  Elissa  seduce  him — desperately  in  love  as  she  was — 
'twas  not  the  storm  of  her  own  will  that  drove  her  into  that  fatal  cave. 

TALBOYS. 
Against  Venus  and  Juno  combined,  alas !  for  poor  Dido  at  last ! 

SEWARD. 

^Eneas  was  in  her  eyes  what  Othello  was  in  Desdemona's.  No  Desdemona 
she — no  "  gentle  Lady" — nor  was  Virgil  a  Shakspeare.  Yet  those  remon- 
strances— and  that  raving — and  that  suicide ! 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  377 

TALBOYS. 

Ay,  Dan  Virgil  feared  not  to  put  the  condemnation  of  his  Hero  into  those 
lips  of  fire — to  let  her  winged  curses  pursue  the  Pious  Perfidious  as  he 
puts  to  sea.  But  what  is  truth — passion — nature  from  the  reproachful  and 
raving — the  tender  and  the  truculent — the  repentant  and  the  revengeful — the 
true  and  the  false  Dido — for  she  had  forgot  and  she  remembers  Sychaeus — 
when  cut  up  into  bits  of  bad  law,  and  framed  into  an  Indictment  through 
which  the  Junior  Jehu  at  the  Scottish  Bar  might  drive  a  Coach  and  Six  ! 

8EWARD. 

But  he  forsook  her  !  He  did — and  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  heaven. 
Throughout  the  whole  of  his  Tale  of  Troy,  at  that  fatal  banquet,  he  tells  her 
whither,  and  to  what  fated  region,  the  fleet  is  bound — he  is  not  sailing  under 
sealed  orders — Dido  hears  the  Hero's  destiny  from  the  lips  of  Mcestissimus 
Hector,  from  the  lips  of  Creusa's  Shade.  But  Dido  is  deaf  to  all  those  solemn 
enunciations — none  so  deaf  as  those  who  will  not  hear ;  the  Likeness  of  Ascanius 
lying  by  her  on  her  Royal  Couch  fired  her  vital  blood — and  she  already  is  so 
insane  as  to  dream  of  lying  ere  long  on  that  God-like  breast.  He  had  forgot 
— and  he  remembers  Ms  duty — yes — his  duty  ;  according  to  the  Creed  of  his 
country — of  the  whole  heathen  world — in  deserting  Dido,  he  obeyed  the 
Gods. 

TALBOYS. 

He  sneaked  away !  says  Knight.  Go  he  must — would  it  have  been  more 
heroic  to  set  fire  to  the  Town,  and  embark  in  the  General  Illumination  ? 

SEWABD. 

Would  Payne  Knight  have  seriously  advised  Virgil  to  marry  zEneas,  in 
good  earnest,  to  Dido,  and  make  him  King  of  Carthage  ? 

BULLER. 

Would  they  have  been  a  happy  Couple  ? 

SEWARD. 

Does  not  our  sympathy  go  with  zEneas  to  the  Shades  ?  Is  he  unworthy 
to  look  on  the  Campos  Lugentes  ?  On  the  Elysian  Fields  ?  To  be  shown 
by  Anchises  the  Shades  of  the  predestined  Heroes  of  unexisting  Rome  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Do  we — because  of  Dido — despise  him  when  first  he  kens,  on  a  calm 
bright  morning,  that  great  Grove  on  the  Latian  shore  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Tiber  ? 

"  ^Eneas,  primique  duces,  et  pulcher  lulus, 
•  Corpora  sub  ramis  deponunt  arboris  alta?, 

Instituuntque  dapes." 

STEWARD. 

But  he  was  a  robber — a  pirate—an  invader — an  usurper — so  say  the  Payne 
Knights.  Virgil  sanctifies  the  Landing  with  the  spirit  of  peace — and  a  hun- 
dred olive-crowned  Envoys  are  sent  to  Laurentum  with  such  peace- offerings 
as  had  never  been  laid  at  the  feet  of  an  Ausonian  King. 

TALBOYS. 

Nothing  can  exceed  in  simple  grandeur  the  advent  of  JEneas — the  reception 
of  the  Envoys  by  old  Latinus.  The  right  of  the  Prince  to  the  region  he  has 
reached  is  established  by  grant  human  and  divine.  Surely  a  father,  who  is  a 
king,  may  dispose  of  his  daughter  in  marriage — and  here  he  must ;  he  knew, 
from  omen  and  oracle,  the  Hour  and  the  Man.  Lavinia  belonged  to  -Eneas 
— not  to  Turnus — though  we  must  not  severely  blame  the  fiery  Rutulian 
because  he  would  not  give  her  up.  Amata,  in  and  out  of  her  wits,  was  on  his 
side  ;  but  their  betrothment — if  betrothed  they  were — was  unhallowed — and 
might  not  bind  in  face  of  Fate. 

BULLER. 

Turnus  was  in  the  wrong  from  beginning  to  end.  Virgil,  however,  has 
made  him  a  hero — and  idiots  have  said  that  he  eclipses  JEneas — the  same 
idiots,  who,  at  the  same  time,  have  told  us  that  Virgil  could  not  paint  a  hero 
at  all. 


378  CliristopJier  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

TALBOYS. 

That  his  genius  has  no  martial  fervonr.  Had  the  blockheads  read  the  Kising 
— the  Gathering — in  the  Seventh  2Eneid  V 

NORTH. 

Sir  Walter  himself  had  much  of  it  by  heart — and  I  have  seen  the  "  repeated 
air"  kindle  the  aspect,  and  uplift  the  Lion-Port  of  the  greatest  War- Poet  that 
ever  blew  the  trumpet. 

SEWARD. 

JEneas  at  the  Court  of  Evander — that  fine  old  Grecian !  There  he  is  a  Hero 
to  be  loved — and  Pallas  loved  him — and  he  loved  Pallas — and  all  men  with  hearts 
love  Virgil  for  their  sakes. 

TALBOYS. 

And  is  he  not  a  Hero,  when  relanding  from  sea  at  the  mouth  of  his  own 
Tiber,  with  his  Etrurian  Allies — some  thousands  strong?  And  does  he  not  then 
act  the  Hero  ?  Virgil  was  no  War-Poet !  Second  only  to  Homer,  I  hold — 

SEWARD. 

An  imitator  of  Homer !  With  fights  of  the  Homeric  age — how  could  he  help 
it?  But  he  is,  in  much,  original  on  the  battle-field — and  is  there  in  all  the 
Iliad  a  Lausus,  or  a  Pallas  ?— 

BTJLLER. 

Or  a  Camilla? 

SEWARD. 

Fighting  is  at  the  best  a  sad  business — but  Payne  Knight  is  offensive  on 
the  cruelty — the  ferocity  of  JEneas.  I  wish  Virgil  had  not  made  him  seize  and 
sacrifice  the  Eight  Young  Men  to  appease  the  Manes  of  Pallas.  Such  sacri- 
fice Virgil  believed  to  be  agreeable  to  the  manners  of  the  time — and,  if  usual 
to  the  most  worthy,  here  assuredly  due.  In  the  final  Great  Battle, 

"  Away  to  heaven,  respective  Lenity, 
And  fire-eyed  Fury  be  my  conduct  now." 

BULLER. 

Knight  is  a  ninny  on  the  Single  Combat.  In  all  the  previous  circumstances 
regarding  it,  Turnus  behaved  ill — now  that  he  must  fight,  he  fights  well :  'tis 
as  fair  a  fight  as  ever  was  fought  in  the  field  of  old  Epic  Poetry :  tutelary  in- 
terposition alternates  in  favour  of  either  Prince :  the  bare  notion  of  either 
outliving  defeat  never  entered  any  mind  but  Payne  Knight's :  nor  did  any 
other  fingers  ever  fumble  such  a  charge  against  the  hero  of  an  Epic  as 
"  Stabbing  while  begging  for  quarter" — but  a  momentary  weakness  in  Turnus 
which  was  not  without  its  effect  on  JEneas,  till  at  sight  of  that  Belt,  he 
sheathed  the  steel. 

TALBOYS. 

Payne  works  himself  up,  in  the  conclusion  of  the  passage,  into  an  absolute 
maniac. 

NORTH. 

Good  manners,  Talboys — no  insult — remember  Mr  Knight  has  been  long 
dead. 

•  TALBOYS. 
So  has  JEneas — so  has  Virgil. 

NORTH. 

Time.  Young  gentlemen,  I  have  listened  with  much  pleasure  to  your  ani- 
mated and  judicious  dialogue.  Shall  I  now  give  Judgment? 

BULLER. 

Lengthy  ? 

NORTH. 

Not  more  than  an  hour. 

BULLER. 
Then,  if  you  please,  my  Lord,  to-morrow. 

NORTH. 

You  must  all  three  be  somewhat  fatigued  by  the  exercise  of  so  much  critical 
acumen.  So  do  you,  Talboys  and  Seward,  unbend  the  bow  at  another  game 


1849.]  Christopher  wider  Canvass.  379 

of  Chess ;  and  you,  Buller,  reanimate  the  jaded  Moral  Sentiments  by  a  sharp 
letter  to  Marmaduke,  insinuating  that  if  he  don't  return  to  the  Tents  within 
a  week,  or  at  least  write  to  say  that  he  and  Hal,  Volusene  and  Woodburn, 
are  not  going  to  return  at  all,  but  to  join  the  Rajah  of  Sarawak,  the  Grand 
Lama,  or  Prester  John — which  I  fear  is  but  too  probable  from  the  general 
tone  and  tenor  of  their  life  and  conversation  for  some  days  before  their  Seces- 
sion from  the  Established  Camp — there  will  be  a  general  breaking  of  Mothers' 
hearts,  and  in  his  own  particular  case,  a  cutting  off  with  a  shilling,  or  disin- 
heriting of  the  heir  apparent  of  one  of  the  finest  Estates  in  Cornwall.  But  I 
forget — these  Entails  will  be  the  rain  of  England.  What !  Billy,  is  that 
you? 

BILLY. 

Measter,  here's  a  Fish  and  a  Ferocious. 

TALBOYS. 

Ha !  what  Whappers ! 

BULLER. 

More  like  Fish  before  the  Flood  than  after  it. 

SEWARD. 

After  it  indeed!  During  it.  What  is  Billy  saying,  Mr  North?  That 
Coomerlan'  dialect's  Hottentot  to  my  Devonshire  ears. 

NORTH. 

They  have  been  spoiled  by  the  Doric  delicacies  of  the  "  Exmopr  Courtship." 
He  tells  me  that  Archy  M'Callum,  the  Cornwall  Clipper,  and  himself,  each  in 
a  cow-hide,  having  ventured  down  to  the  River  Mouth  to  look  after  and  bale 
Gutta  Percha,  foregathered  with  an  involuntary  invasion  of  divers  gigantic 
Fishes,  who  had  made  bad  their  landing  on  our  shores,  and  that  after  a 
•desperate  resistance  they  succeeded  in  securing  the  Two  Leaders — a  Salmo 
Salar  and  a  Salmo  Ferox — see  on  snout  and  shoulder  tokens  of  the  Oar. 
Thirty— and  Twenty  Pounders— Billy  says;  I  should  have  thought  they  were 
respectively  a  third  more.  No  mean  Windfall.  They  will  tell  on  the  Spread. 
I  retire  to  my  Sanctum  for  my  Siesta. 

TALBOYS. 

Let  me  invest  you,  my  dear  sir,  with  my  Feathers. 

BULLER. 

Do — do  take  my  Tarpaulin. 

SEWARD. 
Billy,  your  Cow-hide. 

NORTH. 

I  need  none  of  your  gimcracks — for  I  seek  the  Sanctum  by  a  subterranean 
— beg  your  pardon — a  Subter- Awning  Passage. 


SCENE  II. 

SCENE — Deeside. 

TIME — Seven  p.c. 

NORTH — BULLER — SEWARD — TALBOYS  . 

NORTH. 

How  little  time  or  disposition  for  anything  like  serious  Thinking,  or  Read- 
Ing,  out  of  people's  own  profession  or  trade,  in  this  Railway  World !  The 
busy-bodies  of  these  rattling  times,  even  in  their  leisure  hours,  do  not  affect 
an  interest  in  studies  their  fathers  and  their  grandfathers,  in  the  same  rank 
of  life,  pursued,  even  systematically,  on  many  an  Evening  sacred  from  the  dis- 
traction that  ceased  with  the  day. 


380  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

TAXBOYS. 
Not  all  busy-bodies,  my  good  sir — think  of 

NORTH. 

I  have  thought  of  them — and  I  know  their  worth — their  liberality  and  their 
enlightenment.  In  all  our  cities  and  towns — and  villages — and  in  all  orders 
of  the  people — there  is  Mind — Intelligence,  and  Knowledge  ;  and  the  more's 
the  shame  in  that  too  general  appetence  for  mere  amusement  in  literature,  per- 
petually craving  for  a  change  of  diet — for  something  new  in  the  light  way — 
while  anything  of  any  substance,  is,  "  with  sputtering  noise  rejected"  as  tough 
to  the  teeth,  and  hard  of  digestion — however  sweet  and  nutritious ;  would  they 
but  taste  and  try. 

SEWARD. 

I  hope  you  don't  mean  to  allude  to  Charles  Dickens  ? 

NORTH. 

Assuredly  not.  Charles  Dickens  is  a  man  of  original  and  genial  genius — 
his  popularity  is  a  proof  of  the  goodness  of  the  heart  of  the  people ; — and  the 
love  of  him  and  his  writings — though  not  so  thoughtful  as  it  might  be — does 
honour  to  that  strength  in  the  English  character  which  is  indestructible  by 
any  influences,  and  survives  in  the  midst  of  frivolity,  and  folly,  and  of  mental 
depravations,  worse  than  both.  *- 

SEWARE. 

Don't  look  so  savage,  sir. 

NORTH. 

I  am  not  savage — I  am  serene.  Set  the  Literature  of  the  day  aside  alto- 
gether— and  tell  me  if  you  think  our  conversation  since  dinner  would  not  have 
been  thought  dull  by  many  not  altogether  uneducated  persons,  who  pride 
themselves  not  a  little  on  their  intellectuality  and  on  their  full  participation  in 
the  Spirit  of  the  Age  ? 

TAXBOYS. 

Onr  conversation  since  dinner  DULL  ! !  No — no — no.  Many  poor  creatures, 
indeed,  there  are  among  them — even  among  those  of  them  who  work  the  Press 
— pigmies  with  pap  feeding  a  Giant  who  sneezes  them  away  when  sick  of 
them  into  small  offices  in  the  Customs  or  Excise ; — but  not  one  of  our  privi- 
leged brethren  of  the  Guild — with  a  true  ticket  to  show — but  would  have 
been  delighted  with  such  dialogue — but  would  be  delighted  with  its  continu- 
tion — and  thankful  to  know  that  he,  "  a  wiser  and  a  better  man,  will  rise  to- 
morrow morn." 

SEWARD. 

Do,  my  dear  sir — resume  your  discoursing  about  those  Greeks. 

NORTH. 

I  was  about  to  say,  Seward,  that  those  shrewd  and  just  observers,  and  at 
the  same  time  delicate  thinkers,  the  ancient  Greeks,  did,  as  you  well  know, 
snatch  from  amongst  the  ordinary  processes  which  Nature  pursues,  in  respect 
of  inferior  animal  life,  a  singularly  beautiful  Type  or  Emblem,  expressively 
imaging  to  Fancy  that  bursting  disclosure  of  Life  from  the  bosom  of  Death, 
which  is  implied  in  the  extrication  of  the  soul  from  its  corporeal  prison, 
when  this  astonishing  change  is  highly,  ardently,  and  joyfully  contemplated. 
Those  old  festal  religionists — who  carried  into  the  solemnities  of  their 
worship  the  buoyant  gladsomeness  of  their  own  sprightly  and  fervid  secular 
life,  and  contrived  to  invest  even  the  artful  splendour  and  passionate  human 
interest  of  their  dramatic  representations  with  the  name  and  character  of 
a  sacred  ceremony — found  for  that  soaring  and  refulgent  escape  of  a  spirit 
from  the  dungeon  and  chains  of  the  flesh,  into  its  native  celestial  day,  a  fine 
and  touching  similitude  in  the  liberation  of  a  beautiful  Insect,  the  gorgeously- 
winged,  aerial  Butterfly,  from  the  living  tomb  in  which  Nature  has,  during  a 
season,  cased  and  urned  its  torpid  and  death- like  repose. 

SEWARD. 

Nor,  my  dear  sir,  was  this  life-conscions  penetration  or  intuition  of  a  keen 
and  kindling  intelligence  into  the  dreadful,  the  desolate,  the  cloud-covered 
Future,  the  casual  thought  of  adventuring  Genius,  transmitted  in  some  happier 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  881 

verse  only,  or  in  some  gracious  and  visible  poesy  of  a  fine  chisel ;  but  the 
Symbol  and  the  Thing  symbolised  were  so  bound  together  in  the  understand- 
ing of  the  nation,  that  in  the  Greek  language  the  name  borne  by  the  Insect 
and  the  name  designating  the  Soul  is  one  and  the  same — ¥YXH. 

NORTH. 

Insects !  They  have  come  out,  by  their  original  egg- birth,  into  an  active 
life.  They  have  crept  and  eaten — and  slept  and  eaten — creeping,  and  sleep- 
ing, and  eating — still  waxing  in  size,  and  travelling  on  from  fitted  pasture  to 
pasture,  they  have  in  not  many  suns  reached  the  utmost  of  the  minute 
dimensions  allotted  them — the  goal  of  their  slow-footed  wanderings,  and  the 
term,  shall  we  say — of  their  life. 

SEWARD. 

No!  But  of  that  first  period,  through  which  they  have  made  some  display 
of  themselves  as  living  agents.  They  have  reached  this  term.  And  look  at 
them — now. 

NORTH. 

Ay — look  at  them — now.  Wonder  on  wonder !  For  now  a  miraculous  instinct 
guides  and  compels  the  creature — who  has,  as  it  were,  completed  one  life — 
who  has  accomplished  one  stage  of  his  existence — to  entomb  himself.  And  he 
accordingly  builds  or  spins  himself  a  tomb — or  he  buries  himself  in  his  grave. 
Shall  I  say,  that  she  herself,  his  guardian,  his  directress,  Great  Nature,  coffins 
him  ?  Enclosed  in  a  firm  shell — hidden  from  all  eyes — torpid — in  a  death-like 
sleep — not  dead — he  waits  the  appointed  hour,  which  the  days  and  nights 
bring,  and  which  having  come — his  renovation,  his  resuscitation  is  come.  And 
now  the  sepulture  no  longer  holds  him  I  Now  the  prisoner  of  the  tomb  has  right 
again  to  converse  with  embalmed  ah-  and  with  glittering  sunbeams — now,  the 
reptile  that  was — unrecognisably  transformed  from  himself — a  glad,  bright, 
mounting  creature,  unfurls  on  either  side  the  translucent  or  the  richly- 
hued  pinions  that  shall  waft  him  at  his  liking  from  blossom  to  blossom,  or  lift 
him  in  a  rapture  of  aimless  joyancy  to  disport  and  rock  himself  on  the  soft- 
flowing  undulating  breeze. 

SEWARD. 

My  dearest  sir,  the  Greek  in  his  darkness,  or  uncertain  twilight  of  belief, 
has  culled  and  perpetuated  his  beautiful  emblem.  Will  the  Christian  look 
unmoved  upon  the  singular  imaging,  which,  amidst  the  manifold  strangely- 
charactered  secrets  of  nature,  he  finds  of  his  own  sealed  and  sure  faith  ? 

NORTH. 

No,  Seward.  The  philosophical  Theologian  claims  in  this  likeness  more 
than  an  apt  simile,  pleasing  to  the  stirred  fancy.  He  sees  here  an  ANALOGT 
— and  this  Analogy  he  proposes  as  one  link  in  a  chain  of  argumentation, 
by  which  he  would  show  that  Reason  might  dare  to  win  from  Nature,  as 
a  Hope,  the  truth  which  it  holds  from  God  as  revealed  knowledge. 

SEWARD. 

I  presume,  sir,  you  allude  to  Butler's  Analogy.    I  have  studied  it. 

NORTH. 

I  do — to  the  First  Chapter  of  that  Great  Work.  This  parallelism,  or  appre- 
hended resemblance  between  an  event  continually  occurring  and  seen  in 
nature,  and  one  iinseen  but  continually  conceived  as  occurring  upon  the  utter- 
most brink  and  edge  of  nature — this  correspondency,  which  took  such  fast  hold 
of  the  Imagination  of  the  Greeks,  has,  as  you  know,  my  dear  friends,  in  these 
latter  days  been  acknowledged  by  calm  and  profound  Reason,  looking  around 
on  every  side  for  evidences  or  intimations  of  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 

BTJLLER. 

Will  you  be  so  good,  sir,  as  let  me  have  the  volume  to  study  of  an  evening 
in  my  own  Tent  ? 

NORTH. 
Certainly.    And  for  many  other  evenings — in  your  own  Library  at  home. 

TALBOY8. 

Please,  sir,  to  state  Butler's  argument  in  your  own  words  and  way. 

NORTH. 

For  Butler's  style  is  hard  and  dry.  A  living  Being  undergoes  a  vicissitude  by 


382  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

which  on  a  sudden  he  passes  from  a  state  in  which  he  has  long  continued  into  a 
new  state,  and  with  it  into  a  new  scene  of  existence.  The  transition  is  from  a 
narrow  confinement  into  an  ample  liberty — and  this  change  of  circumstances  is 
accompanied  in  the  subject  with  a  large  and  congruous  increment  of  powers. 
They  believe  this  who  believe  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul.  But  the  fact  is,  that 
changes  bearing  this  description  do  indeed  happen  in  Nature,  under  our  very 
eyes,  at  every  moment ;  this  method  of  progress  being  universal  in  her  living 
kingdoms.  Such  a  marvellous  change  is  literally  undergone  by  innumerable 
kinds,  the  human  animal  included,  in  the  instant  in  which  they  pass  out  from 
the  darkness  and  imprisonment  of  the  womb  into  the  light  and  open  liberty  of 
this  breathing  world.  Birth  has  been  the  image  of  a  death,  which  is  itself 
nothing  else  than  a  birth  from  one  straightened  life  into  another  ampler  and 
freer.  The  ordering  of  Nature,  then,  is  an  ordering  of  Progression,  whereby 
new  and  enlarged  states  are  attained,  and,  simultaneously  therewith,  new  and 
enlarged  powers  ;  and  all  this  not  slowly,  gradually,  and  insensibly,  but  sud- 
denly and  per  saltum. 

TALBOYS. 

This  analogy,  then,  sir,  or  whatever  there  is  that  is  in  common  to  birth  as 
we  know  it,  and  to  death  as  we  conceive  it,  is  to  be  understood  as  an  evidence 
set  in  the  ordering  of  Nature,  and  justifying  or  tending  to  justify  such  our 
conception  of  Death  ? 

NORTH. 

Exactly  so.  And  you  say  well,  my  good  Talboys,  "justifying  or  tending 
to  justify."  For  we  are  all  along  fully  sensible  that  a  vast  difference — a  dif- 
ference prodigious  and  utterly  confounding  to  the  imagination — holds  betwixt 
the  case  from  which  we  reason,  birth — or  that  further  expansion  of  life  in 
some  breathing  kinds  which  might  be  held  as  a  second  birth — betwixt  these 
cases,  I  say,  and  the  case  to  which  we  reason,  DEATH  ! 

TALBOYS. 

Prodigious  and  utterly  confounding  to  the  imagination  indeed!  For  in 
these  physiological  instances,  either  the  same  body,  or  a  body  changing  by 
such  slow  and  insensible  degrees  that  it  seems  to  us  to  be  the  same  body,  ac- 
companies, encloses,rand  contains  the  same  life — from  the  first  moment  in  which 
that  life  comes  under  our  observation  to  that  in  which  it  vanishes  from  our 
cognisance ;  whereas,  sir,  in  the  case  to  which  we  apply  the  Analogy — our  own 
Death — the  life  is  supposed  to  survive  in  complete  separation  from  the  body, 
in  and  by  its  union  with  which  we  have  known  it  and  seen  it  manifested. 

NORTH. 

Excellently  well  put,  my  friend.    I  see  you  have  studied  Butler. 

TALBOYS. 

I  have — but  not  for  some  years.  The  Analogy  is  not  a  Book  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

NORTH. 

This  difference  between  the  case  from  which  we  reason,  and  the  case  to 
which  we  reason,  there  is  no  attempt  whatever  at  concealing — quite  the  con- 
trary— it  stands  written,  you  know,  my  friend,  upon  the  very  Front  of  the 
Argument.  This  difference  itself  is  the  very  motive  and  occasion  of 
the  Whole  Argument !  Were  there  not  this  difference  between  the  cases 
which  furnish  the  Analogy,  and  the  case  to  which  the  Analogy  is  applied — had 
we  certainly  known  and  seen  a  Life  continued,  although  suddenly  passing  out 
from  the  body  where  it  had  hitherto  resided — or  were  Death  not  the  formid- 
able disruption  which  it  is  of  a  hitherto  subsisting  union — the  cases  would  be 
identical,  and  there  would  be  nothing  to  reason  about  or  to  inquire.  There  is 
this  startling  difference — and  accordingly  the  Analogy  described  has  been  pro- 
posed by  Butler  merely  as  a  first  step  in  the  Argument. 

TALBOYS. 

It  remains  to  be  seen,  then,  whether  any  further  considerations  can  be  pro- 
posed which  will  bring  the  cases  nearer  together,  and  diminish  to  our  minds 
the  difficulty  presented  by  the  sudden  separation. 

NORTH. 

Just  so.    What  ground,  then,  my  dear  young  friends— for  you  seem  and 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  383 

are  young  to  me — what  ground,  my  friends,  is  there  for  believing  that  the 
Death  which  we  see,  can  affect  the  living  agent  which  we  do  not  see  ?  But- 
ler makes  his  approaches  cautiously,  and  his  attack  manfully — and  this  is  the 
course  of  his  Argument.  I  begin  with  examining  my  present  condition  of 
existence,  and  find  myself  to  be  a  Being  endowed  with  certain  Powers  and 
Capacities — for  I  act,  I  enjoy,  I  suffer. 

TALBOYS. 

Of  this  much  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  for  of  all  this  an  unerring  conscious- 
ness assures  me.  Therefore,  at  the  outset,  I  hold  this  one  secure  position — 
that  I  exist,  the  possessor  of  certain  powers  and  capacities. 

NORTH. 

But  that  I  do  now  before  Death  exist,  endued  with  certain  powers  and  capa- 
cities, affords  a  presumptive  ov  prima  facie  probability  that  I  shall  after  death 
continue  to  exist,  possessing  these  powers  and  capacities — 

BULLER. 

How  is  that,  sir  ? 

NORTH. 

You  do  well  to  put  that  question,  my  dear  Buller — a  prima  facie  proba- 
bility, unless  there  be  some  positive  reason  to  think  that  death  is  the  "  de- 
struction" of  Me,  the  living  Being,  and  of  these  my  living  Faculties. 

BULLER. 

A  presumptive  or  prima  facie  probability,  sir?     Why  does  Butler  say  so? 

NORTH. 

"  Because  there  is  in  every  case  a  probability  that  all  things  will  continue  as 
we  experience  they  are,  in  all  respects,  except  those  in  which  we  have  some 
reason  to  think  they  will  be  altered." 

BULLER. 

You  will  pardon  me,  sir,  I  am  sure,  for  having  asked  the  question. 

NORTH. 

It  was  not  only  a  proper  question,  but  a  necessary  one.  Butler  wisely 
says — "  This  is  that  kind  of  Presumption  or  Probability  from  Analogy,  ex- 
pressed in  the  very  word  CONTINUANCE,  which  seems  our  only  natural  reason 
for  believing  the  course  of  the  world  will  continue  to-morrow,  as  it  has  done 
so  far  as  our  experience  or  knowledge  of  history  can  carry  us  back."  I  give 
you,  here,  the  Bishop's  very  words — and  I  believe  that  in  them  is  affirmed  a 
truth  that  no  scepticism  can  shake. 

TALBOYS. 

If  I  mistake  not,  sir,  the  Bishop  here  frankly  admits,  that  were  we  not  for- 
tified against  a  natural  impression,  with  some  better  instruction  than  unre- 
flecting Nature's,  the  spontaneous  disposition  of  our  Mind  would  undoubtedly 
e  to  an  expectation  that  in  this  great  catastrophe  of  our  mortal  estate,  We 

arselves  must  perish ;  but  he  contends — does  he  not,  sir? — that  it  would  be  a 
L  id  fear,  and  without  rational  ground. 

NORTH. 

Yes — that  it  is  an  impression  of  the  illusory  faculty,  Imagination,  and  not 
an  inference  of  Reason.  There  would  arise,  he  says,  "  a  general  confused 
suspicion,  that  in  the  great  shock  and  alteration  which  we  shall  undergo  by 
death,  We,  i.e.  our  living  Powers,  might  be  wholly  destroyed ; " — but  he  adds 
solemnly,  u  there  is  no  particular  distinct  ground  or  reason  for  this  apprehen- 
sion, so  far  as  I  can  find." 

TALBOY8. 

Such  "  general  confused  suspicion,"  then,  is  not  justified? 

NORTH. 

Butler  holds  that  any  justifying  ground  of  the  apprehension  that,  in  the 
shock  of  death,  I,  the  living  Being,  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  These  my 
powers  of  acting,  enjoying,  and  suffering,  shall  be  extinguished  and  cease, 
must  be  found  either  in  "  the  reason  of  the  Thing"  itself,  or  in  "  the  Analogy 
of  Nature."  To  say  that  a  legitimate  ground  of  attributing  to  the  sensible 
mortal  change  a  power  of  extinguishing  the  inward  life  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Reason  of  the  Thing,  is  as  much  as  to  say,  that  when  considering  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  this  great  and  tremendous,  or  at  least  dreaded  change,  Death, 


384  Cliristopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

and  upon  also  considering  what  these  powers  of  acting,  of  enjoying,  of  suffer- 
ing, truly  are,  and  in  what  manner,  absolutely,  they  subsist  in  us — there 
does  appear  to  lie  therein  demonstration,  or  evidence,  or  likelihood,  that 
the  change,  Death,  will  swallow  up  such  living  Powers — and  that  We  shall  no 
longer  be. 

TALBOYS. 

In  short,  sir,  that  from  considering  what  Death  is,  and  upon  what  these 
Powers  and  their  exercise  depend,  there  is  reason  to  think,  that  the  Powers  or 
their  exercise  will  or  must  cease  with  Death. 

NORTH. 

The  very  point.  And  the  Bishop's  answer  is  bold,  short,  and  decisive.  We 
cannot  from  considering  what  Death  is,  draw  this  or  any  other  conclusion,  for 
we  do  not  know  what  Death  is !  We  know  only  certain  effects  of  Death — the 
stopping  of  certain  sensible  actions — the  dissolution  of  certain  sensible  parts. 
We  can  draw  no  conclusion,  for  we  do  not  possess  the  premises. 

SEWARD. 

From  your  Exposition,  sir,  I  feel  that  the  meaning  of  the  First  Chapter  of 
the  Analogy  is  dawning  into  clearer  and  clearer  light. 

NORTH. 

Inconsiderately,  my  dear  sir,  we  seem  indeed  to  ourselves  to  know  what 
Death  is  ;  but  this  is  from  confounding  the  Thing  and  its  Effects.  For  we  see 
effects :  at  first,  the  stoppage  of  certain  sensible  actions — afterwards,  the  dis- 
solution of  certain  sensible  parts.  But  what  it  is  that  has  happened — where- 
fore the  blood  no  longer  flows — the  limbs  no  longer  move — that  we  do  not  see. 
We  do  not  see  it  with  our  eyes — we  do  not  discern  it  by  any  inference  of  our 
understanding.  It  is  a,  fact  that  seems  to  lie  shrouded  for  ever  from  our  facul- 
ties in  awful  and  impenetrable  mystery.  That  fact — the  produce  of  an 
instant — which  has  happened  within,  and  in  the  dark — that  fact  come  to  pass 
in  an  indivisible  point  of  time — that  stern  fact — ere  the  happening  of  which 
the  Man  was  alive — an  inhabitant  of  this  breathing  world — united  to  our- 
selves  our  Father,  Brother,  Friend — at  least  our  Fellow-Creature — by  the 

happening,  he  is  gone — is  for  ever  irrecoverably  sundered  from  this  world,  and 
from  us  its  inhabitants — is  DEAD — and  that  which  lies  outstretched  before 
our  saddened  eyes  is  only  his  mortal  remains — a  breathless  corpse — an  inani- 
mate, insensible  clod  of  clay : — Upon  that  interior  sudden  fact — sudden,  at 
last,  how  slowly  and  gradually  soever  prepared — since  the  utmost  attenuation 
of  a  thread  is  a  thing  totally  distinct  from  its  ending,  from  its  becoming  no 
thread  at  all,  and  since,  up  to  that  moment,  there  was  a  possibility  that  some 
extraordinary,  perhaps  physical  application  might  for  an  hour  or  a  few 
minutes  have  rallied  life,  or  might  have  reawakened  consciousness,  and  eye, 
and  voice upon  that  elusive  Essence  and  self  of  Death  no  curious  search- 
ing of  ours  has  laid,  or,  it  may  be  well  assumed,  will  ever  lay  hold.  When 
the  organs  of  sense  no  longer  minister  to  Perception,  or  the  organs  of  motion 
to  any  change  of  posture — when  the  blood  stopped  in  its  flow  thickens  and 
grows  cold — and  the  fair  and  stately  form,  the  glory  of  the  Almighty's  Hand, 
the  burning  shrine  of  a  Spirit  that  lately  rejoiced  in  feeling,  in  thought,  and  in 
power,  lies  like  a  garment  .done  with  and  thrown  away — "  a  kneaded  clod" — 
ready  to  lose  feature  and  substance — and  to  yield  back  its  atoms  to  the 
dominion  of  the  blind  elements  from  which  they  were  gathered  and  com- 
pacted  What  is  Death?  And  what  grounds  have  we  for  inferring  that  an 

event  manifested  to  us  as  a  phenomenon  of  the  Body,  which  alone  we  touch, 
and  hear,  and  see,  has  or  has  not  reached  into  the  Mind,  which  is  for  us  Now 
just  as  it  always  was,  a  Thing  utterly  removed  and  exempt  from  the  cognis- 
ance and  apprehension  of  our  bodily  senses?  The  Mind,  or  Spirit,  the  un- 
known Substance,  in  which  Feeling,  and  Thought,  and  Will,  and  the  Spring  of 
Life  were — was  united  to  this  corporeal  frame ;  and,  being  united  to  it,  ani- 
mated it,  poured  through  it  sensibility  and  motion,  glowing  and  creative  life — 
crimsoned  the  lips  and  cheeks — flashed  in  the  eye — and  murmured  music  from 
the  tongue  ; — now,  the  two — Body  and  Soul — are  disunited — and  we  behold 
one-half  the  consequence — the  Thing  of  dust  relapses  to  the  dust ; — we  dare 
to  divine  the  other  half  of  the  consequence — the  quickening  Spark,  the  sentient 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  385 

Intelligence,  the  Being  gifted  with  Life,  the  Image  of  the  Maker,  in  Man,  has 
reascended,  has  returned  thither  whence  it  came,  into  the  Hand  of  God. 

SEWARD. 

If,  sir,  we  were  without  light  from  the  revealed  Word  of  God,  if  we  were 
left,  by  the  help  of  reason,  standing  upon  the  brink  of  Time,  dimly  guessing, 
and  inquiringly  exploring,  to  find  for  ourselves  the  grounds  of  Hope  and  Fear, 
would  your  description,  my  dear  Master,  of  that  which  has  happened,  seem  to 
our  Natural  Faculties  impossible  ?  Surely  not. 

NORTH. 

My  dear  Seward,  we  have  the  means  of  rendering  some  answer  to  that 
question.  The  nations  of  the  world  have  been,  more  or  less,  in  the  condition 
supposed.  Self-left,  they  have  borne  the  burden  of  the  dread  secret,  which 
for  them  only  the  grave  could  resolve ;  but  they  never  were  able  to  sit  at  rest 
in  the  darkness.  Importunate  and  insuppressible  desire,  in  their  bosoms, 
knocked  at  the  gate  of  the  invisible  world,  and  seemed  to  hear  an  answer 
from  beyond.  The  belief  in  a  long  life  of  ages  to  follow  this  fleet  dream — 
imaginary  revelations  of  regions  bright  or  dark — the  mansions  of  bliss  or  of 
sorrow — an  existence  to  come,  and  often  of  retribution  to  come — has  been  the 
religion  of  Mankind — here  in  the  rudest  elementary  shape — here  in  elabo- 
rated systems. 

SEWARD. 

Ay,  sir;  methinks  the  Hell  of  Virgil — and  his  Elysian  Fields  are  examples 
of  a  high,  solemn,  and  beautiful  Poetry.  But  they  have  a  much  deeper  in- 
terest for  a  man  studious,  in  earnest,  of  his  fellow-men.  Since  they  really 
express  the  notions  under  which  men  have  with  serious  belief  shadowed  out 
for  themselves  the  worlds  to  which  the  grave  is  a  portal.  The  true  moral 
spirit  that  breathes  in  his  enumeration  of  the  Crimes  that  are  punished, 
of  the  Virtues  that  have  earned  and  found  their  reward,  and  some  scattered 
awful  warnings — are  impressive  even  to  us  Christians. 

NORTH. 

Yes,  Seward,  they  are.  Hearken  to  the  attestation  of  the  civilised  and 
the  barbarous.  Universally  there  is  a  cry  from  the  human  heart,  beseeching, 
as  it  were,  of  the  Unknown  Power  which  reigns  in  the  Order  and  in  the  Muta- 
tions of  Things,  the  prolongation  of  this  vanishing  breath — the  renovation,  in 
undiscovered  spheres,  of  this  too  brief  existence — an  appeal  from  the  tyranny 
of  the  tomb — a  prayer  against  annihilation.  Only  at  the  top  of  Civilisation, 
sometimes  a  cold  and  barren  philosophy,  degenerate  from  nature,  and  bastard 
to  reason,  has  limited  its  sullen  view  to  the  horizon  of  this  Earth — has  shut 
out  and  refused  all  ulterior,  happy,  or  dreary  anticipation. 

SEWARD. 

You  may  now,  assured  of  our  profound  attention — return  to  Butler — if  in- 
deed you  have  left  him 

NORTH. 

I  have,  and  I  have  not.  A  few  minutes  ago  I  was  expounding — in  my  own 
words — and  for  the  reason  assigned,  will  continue  to  do  so — his  argument.  If, 
not  knowing  what  death  is,  we  are  not  entitled  to  argue,  from  the  nature  of 
death,  that  this  change  must  put  an  end  to  Ourselves,  and  those  essential 
powers  in  our  mind  which  we  are  conscious  of  exerting — just  as  little  can  we 
argue  from  the  nature  of  these  powers,  and  from  their  manner  of  subsisting  in 
us,  that  they  are  liable  to  be  affected  and  impaired,  or  destroyed  by  death. 
For  what  do  we  know  of  these  powers,  and  of  the  conditions  on  which  we 
hold  them,  and  of  the  mind  in  which  they  dwell?  Just  as  much  as  we  do  of 
the  great  change,  Death  itself— that  is  to  say — NOTHING. 

TALBOY8. 

We  know  the  powers  of  our  mind  solely  by  their  manifestations. 

NORTH. 

But  people  in  general  do  not  think  so — and  many  metaphysicians  have 
written  as  if  they  had  forgot  that  it  is  only  from  the  manifestation  that  we 
give  name  to  the  Power.  We  know  the  fact  of  Seeing,  Hearing,  Remember- 
ing, Reasoning — the  feeling  of  Beauty — the  actual  pleasure  of  Moral  Appro- 
bation, the  pain  of  Moral  Disapprobation — the  state — pleasure  or  pain  of  loving 


086  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

— the  state — pleasure  or  pain  of  hating — the  fire  of  anger — the  frost  of  fear — 
the  curiosity  to  know — the  thirst  for  distinction — the  exultation  of  conscious 
Power — all  these,  and  a  thousand  more,  we  know  abundantly:  our  conscious 
Life  is  nothing  else  but  such  knowledge  endlessly  diversified.  But  the  POWERS 
themselves,  which  are  thus  exerted — what  they  are — how  they  subsist  in  us 
ready  for  exertion — of  this  we  know — NOTHING. 

TALBOYS. 

We  know  something  of  the  Conditions  upon  which  the  exercise  of  these 
Powers  depends — or  by  which  it  is  influenced.  Thus  we  know,  that  for  seeing, 
we  must  possess  that  wondrous  piece  of  living  mechanism,  the  eye,  in  its 
healthy  condition.  We  know  further,  that  a  delicate  and  complicated  system 
of  nerves,  which  convey  the  visual  impressions  from  the  eye  itself  to  the  see- 
ing power,  must  be  healthy  and  unobstructed.  We  know  that  a  sound  and 
healthy  state  of  the  brain  is  necessary  to  these  manifestations — that  accidents 
befalling  the  Brain  totally  disorder  the  manifestations  of  these  powers — turn- 
ing the  clear  self-possessed  mind  into  a  wild  anarchy — a  Chaos — that  other 
accidents  befalling  the  same  organ  suspend  all  manifestations.  We  know 
that  sleep  stops  the  use  of  many  powers — and  that  deep  sleep — at  least  as  far 
as  any  intimations  that  reach  our  waking  state  go — stops  them  all.  We  know 
that  a  nerve  tied  or  cut  stops  the  sensation — stops  the  motoiy  volition  which 
usually  travels  along  it.  We  know  how  bodily  lassitude — how  abstinence — 
how  excess — affects  the  ability  of  the  mind  to  exert  its  powers.  In  short,  the 
most  untutored  experience  of  every  one  amongst  us  all  shows  bodily  con- 
ditions, upon  which  the  activity  of  the  facilities  which  are  seated  in  the  mind, 
depends.  And  within  the  mind  itself  we  know  how  one  manifestation  aids  or 
counteracts  another — how  Hope  invigorates — how  Fear  disables — how  Intre- 
pidity keeps  the  understanding  clear — 

NORTH. 

You  are  well  illustrating  Butler,  Talboys.  Then,  again,  we  know  thai  for 
Seeing,  we  must  have  that  wonderful  piece  of  living  mechanism  perfectly  con- 
structed, and  in  good  order — that  a  certain  delicate  and  complicated  system 
of  nerves  extending  from  the  eye  inwards,  is  appointed  to  transmit  the  im- 
mediate impressions  of  light  from  this  exterior  organ  of  sight  to  the  percipient 
Mind — that  these  nerves  allotted  to  the  function  of  seeing,  must  be  free  from 
any  accidental  pressure ;  knowledge  admirable,  curious,  useful ;  but  when  all 
is  done,  all  investigated,  that  our  eyes,  and  fingers,  and  instruments,  and 
thoughts,  can  reach — What,  beyond  all  this  marvellous  Apparatus  of  seeing, 
is  That  which  sees — what  the  percipient  Mind  is — that  is  a  mystery  into  which 
no  created  Being  ever  had  a  glimpse.  Or  what  is  that  immediate  connexion 
between  the  Mind  itself,  and  those  delicate  corporeal  adjustments — whereby 
certain  tremblings,  or  other  momentary  changes  of  state  in  a  set  of  nerves,  upon 
the  sudden,  turn  into  Colours — into  Sight — INTO  THE  VISION  OF  A  UNIVERSE. 

SEWARD. 

Does  Butler  say  all  that,  sir  ? 

NORTH. 

In  his  own  dry  way  perhaps  he  may.  These,  my  friends,  are  Wonders  into 
which  Reason  looks,  astonished  ;  or,  more  properly  speaking,  into  which  she 
looks  not,  nor,  self-knowing,  attempts  to  look.  But,  reverent  and  afraid,  she 
repeats  that  attitude  which  the  Great  Poet  has  ascribed  to  "  brightest  cheru- 
bim" before  the  footstool  of  the  Omnipotent  Throne,  who 

"  Approach  not,  but  with  both  wings  veil  their  eyes." 
TALBOYS. 

For  indeed  at  the  next  step  beyond  lies  only  the  mystery  of  Omnipotence — 
that  mystery  which  connects  the  world,  open  and  known  to  us,  to  the  world 
withheld  and  unknown. 

NORTH. 

The  same  with  regard  to  Pleasure  and  Pain.  What  enjoys  Pleasure  or 
suifers  Pain  ?— all  that  is,  to  our  clearest,  sharpest-sighted  science,  nothing 
else  but  darkness — but  black  unfathomable  night.  Therefore,  since  we  know  not 
what  Death  itself  is — and  since  we  know  not  what  this  Living  Mind  is,  nor 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  387 

what  any  of  its  powers  and  capacities  are — what  conclusion,  taken  in  the  na- 
ture of  these  unknown  subjects,  can  we  possibly  be  warranted  in  drawing  as 
to  the  influence  which  this  unknown  change,  Death,  will  exert  upon  this  un- 
known Being— Mind — and  upon  its  unknown  faculties  and  sensibilities  ? — 
None. 

SEWARD. 

Shall  unknown  Death  destroy  this  unknown  Mind  and  its  unknown  capa- 
cities? It  is  just  as  likely,  for  anything  that  Reason  can  see,  that  it  will  set 
them  free  to  a  larger  and  more  powerful  existence.  And  if  we  have  any  reason 
upon  other  grounds  to  expect  this — then  by  so  much  the  more  likely. 

NORTH. 

We  know  that  this  Eye  and  its  apparatus  of  nerves  no  longer  shall  serve 
for  seeing — we  know  that  these  muscles  and  their  nerves  shall  no  longer  serve 
for  moving — we  know  that  this  marvellous  Brain  itself  no  longer  shall  serve,  as 
we  are  led  to  believe  that  it  now  serves,  for  thinking — we  know  that  this 
bounding  heart  never  again  shall  throb  and  quicken,  Avith  all  its  leaping  pulses, 
with  joy — that  pain  of  this  body  shall  never  again  tire  the  mind,  and  that  pain 
of  this  mind  shall  never  again  tire  this  body,  once  pillowed  and  covered  up  in 
its  bed  of  imperturbable  slumber.  And  there  ends  our  knowledge.  But  that 
this  Mind,  which,  united  to  these  muscles  and  their  nerves,  sent  out  vigorous 
and  swift  motions  through  them — which,  united  to  this  Brain,  compelled  this 
Brain  to  serve  it  as  the  minister  of  its  thinkings  upon  this  Earth  and 
in  this  mode  of  its  Being — which,  united  to  this  Frame,  in  it,  and  through 
it,  and  from  it,  felt  for  Happiness  and  for  Misery — that  this  Mind, 
once  disunited  from  all  these,  its  instruments  and  servants,  shall  therefore 
perish,  or  shall  therefore  forego  the  endowment  of  its  powers,  which  it  mani- 
fested by  these  its  instruments — of  that  we  have  no  warranty — of  that  there  is 
no  probability. 

TALBOYS. 

Much  rather,  sir,  might  a  probability  lie  quite  the  other  way.  For  if  the 
structure  of  this  corporeal  frame  places  at  the  service  of  the  Mind  some  five  or 
six  senses,  enabling  it,  by  so  many  avenues,  to  communicate  with  this  external 
world,  this  very  structure  shuts  up  the  Mind  in  these  few  senses,  ties  it  down 
to  the  capacities  of  exactness  and  sensibility  for  which  they  are  framed.  But 
we  have  no  reason  at  all  to  think  that  these  few  modes  of  sensibility,  which 
we  call  our  external  senses,  are  all  the  modes  of  sensibility  of  which  our  spirits 
are  capable.  Much  rather  we  must  believe  that,  if  it  pleased,  or  shall  ever 
please,  the  Creator  to  open  in  this  Mind,  in  a  new  world,  new  modes  of  sensa- 
tion, the  susceptibility  for  these  modes  is  already  there  for  another  set  of 
senses.  Now  we  are  confined  to  an  eye  that  sees  distinctly  at  a  few  paces  of 
distance.  We  have  no  reason  for  thinking  that,  united  with  a  finer  organ  of 
sight,  we  should  not  see  far  more  exquisitely ;  and  thus,  sir,  our  notices  of  the 
dependence  in  which  the  Mind  now  subsists  upon  the  body  do  of  themselves 
lead  us  to  infer  its  own  self-subsistency. 

NORTH. 

What  we  are  called  upon  to  do,  my  friends,  is  to  set  Reason  against  Ima- 
gination and  against  Habit.  We  have  to  lift  ourselves  up  above  the  limited 
sphere  of  sensible  experience.  We  have  to  believe  that  something  more  is 
than  that  which  we  see — than  that  which  we  know. 

TALBOYS. 

Yet,  sir,  even  the  facts  of  Mind,  revealed  to  us  living  in  these  bodies,  are 
enough  to  show  us  that  more  is  than  these  bodies — since  we  feel  that  WE 
ARE,  and  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  regard  these  bodies  otherwise  than  as 
possessions  of  ours — utterly  impossible  to  regard  them  as  Ourselves. 

NORTH. 

We  distinguish  between  the  acts  of  Mind,  inwardly  exerted — the  acts,  for 
instance,  of  Reason,  of  Memory,  and  of  Affection — and  acts  of  the  Mind  com- 
municating through  the  senses  with  the  external  world.  But  Butler  seems  to 
me  to  go  top  far  when  he  says,  "  I  confess  that  in  sensation  the  mind  uses  the 
body  ;  but  in  reflection  I  have  no  reason  to  think  that  the  mind  uses  the  body." 
But,  my  dear  friends,  I,  Christopher  North,  think,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 


388  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept. 

Mind  uses  the  Brain  for  a  thinking  instrument ;  and  that  much  thought 
fatigues  the  Brain,  and  causes  an  oppressive  flow  of  the  blood  to  the  Brain, 
and  otherwise  disorders  that  organ.  And  altogether  I  should  be  exceedingly 
sorry  to  rest  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul  upon  so  doubtful  an  assumption  as 
that  the  Brain  is  not,  in  any  respect  or  sort,  the  Mind's  Organ  of  Thinking.  I 
see  no  need  for  so  timid  a  sheltering  of  the  argument.  On  the  contrary,  the 
simple  doctrine,  to  my  thought,  is  this — The  Mind,  as  we  know  it,  is  impli- 
cated and  mixed  up  with  the  Body — throughout — in  all  its  ordinary  actions. 
This  corporeal  frame  is  a  system  of  organs,  or  Instruments,  which  the  Mind 
employs  in  a  thousand  ways.  They  are  its  instruments — all  of  them  are — and 
none  of  them  is  itself.  What  does  it  matter  to  me  that  there  is  one  more 
organ — the  Brain — for  one  more  function — thinking  ?  Unless  the  Mind  were 
in  itself  a  seeing  thing — that  is,  a  thing  able  to  see — it  could  not  use  the  Eye 
for  seeing ;  and  unless  the  Mind  were  a  thinking  thing,  it  could  not  use  the 
Brain  for  thinking.  The  most  intimate  implication  of  itself  with  its  instru- 
ments in  the  functions  which  constitute  our  consciousness,  proves  nothing  in 
the  world  to  me,  against  its  essential  distinctness  from  them,  and  against  the 
possibility  of  its  living  and  acting  in  separation  from  them,  and  when  they  are 
dissolved.  So  far  from  it,  when  I  see  that  the  body  chills  with  fear,  and  glows 
with  love,  I  am  ready  to  call  fear  a  cold,  and  love  a  warm  passion,  and  to  say 
that  the  Mind  uses  its  bodily  frame  in  fearing  and  in  loving.  All  these  things 
have  to  do  with  manifestations  of  my  mind  to  itself,  Now,  whilst  implicated 
in  this  body.  Let  me  lift  myself  above  imagination — or  let  my  imagination 
soar  and  carry  my  reason  on  its  wings — I  leave  the  body  to  moulder,  and  I  go 
sentient,  volent,  intelligent,  whithersoever  /  am  called. 

TALBOYS. 

It  seems  a  timidity  unworthy  of  Butler  to  make  the  distinction.  Such  a 
distinction  might  be  used  to  invalidate  his  whole  doctrine. 

NORTH. 

It  might — if  granted — and  legitimately.  But  the  course  is  plain,  and  the 
tenor  steadfast.  As  a  child,  you  think  that  your  finger  is  a  part  of  yourself, 
and  that  you  feel  with  it.  Afterwards,  you  find  that  it  can  be  cut  off  without 
diminishing  you:  and  physiologists  tell  you,  and  you  believe,  that  it  does  not 
feel,  but  sends  up  antecedents  of  feeling  to  the  brain.  Am  I  to  stop  any- 
where ?  Not  in  the  body.  As  my  finger  is  no  part  of  Me,  no  more  is  my 
liver,  or  my  stomach,  or  my  heart — or  my  brain.  When  I  have  overworked 
myself,  I  feel  a  lassitude,  distinctly  local,  in  my  brain — inside  of  my  head — 
and  therewithal  an  indolence,  inertness,  inability  of  thinking.  If  reflection — 
as  Butler  more  than  insinuates — hesitatingly  says — is  independent  of  my  brain 
and  body,  whence  the  lassitude  ?  And  how  did  James  Watt  get  unconquer- 
able headachs  with  meditating  Steam-engines? 

TALBOYS. 

It  is  childish,  sir,  to  stagger  at  degrees,  when  we  have  admitted  the  kind. 
The  Bishop's  whole  argument  is  to  show,  that  the  thing  in  us  which  feels,  wills, 
thinks,  is  distinct  from  our  body ;  that  I  am  one  thing,  and  my  body  another. 

NORTH. 

Have  we  Sours  ?  If  we  have — they  can  live  after  the  body — cannot  perish 
with  it ;  if  we  have  not — wo  betide  us  all ! 

8EWARD. 

Will  you,  sir,  be  pleased  to  sum  up  the  Argument  of  the  First  Chapter  of  the 
Analogy  ? 

NORTH. 
No.    Do  you.     You  have  heard  it — and  you  understand  it. 

SEWARD. 

I  cannot  venture  on  it. 

NORTH. 

Do  you,  my  excellent  Talboys — for  you  know  the  Book  as  well  as  I  do 
myself. 

TALBOYS. 

That  the  Order  of  Nature  shows  us  great  and  wonderful  changes,  which 
the  living  being  undergoes — and  arising  from  beginnings  inconceivably 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  389 

low,  to  higher  and  higher  conditions  of  consciousness  and  action  ; — 
That  hence  an  exaltation  of  our  Powers  by  the  change  Death,  would  be  con- 
gruous to  the  progress  which  we  have  witnessed  in  other  creatures,  and  have 
experienced  in  ourselves ; — That  the  fact,  that  before  Death  we  possess 
Powers  of  acting,  and  suffering,  and  enjoying,  affords  a  primd  facie  probabi- 
lity that,  after  Death,  we  shall  continue  to  possess  them ;  because  it  is  a  con- 
stant presumption  in  Nature,  and  one  upon  which  we  constantly  reason  and 
rely,  speculatively  and  practically,  that  all  things  will  continue  as  they  are, 
unless  a  cause  appear  sufficient  for  changing  them  ; — But  that  in  Death  no- 
thing appears  which  should  suffice  to  destroy  the  Powers  of  Action,  Enjoy- 
ment, and  Suffering  in  a  Living  Being ; — For  that  in  all  we  know  of  Death 
we  know  the  destruction  of  parts  instrumental  to  the  uses  of  a  Living 
Being; — But  that  of  any  destruction  reaching,  or  that  we  have  reason  to  sup- 
pose to  reach  the  Living  Being,  we  know  nothing ; — That  the  Unity  of  Con- 
sciousness persuades  us  that  the  Being  in  which  Consciousness  essentially 
resides  is  one  and  indivisible — by  any  accident,  Death  inclusive,  indiscerp- 
tible  ; — That  the  progress  of  diseases,  growing  till  they  kill  the  mortal  body, 
but  leaving  the  Faculties  of  the  Soul  in  full  force  to  the  last  gasp  of  living 
breath,  is  a  particular  argument,  establishing  this  independence  of  the  Living 
Being — the  Spirit — which  is  the  Man  himself — upon  the  accidents  which  may 
befall  the  perishable  Frame. 

NORTH. 

Having  seen,  then,  a  Natural  Probability  that  the  principle  within  us,  which 
is  the  seat  and  source  of  Thought  and  Feeling,  and  of  such  Life  as  can  be  im- 
parted to  the  Body,  will  subsist  undestroyed  by  the  changes  of  the  Body — and 
having  recognised  the  undoubted  Power  of  the  Creator — if  it  pleases  Him — 
indefinitely  to  prolong  the  life  which  He  has  given — how  would  you  and  I, 
my  dear  Friends,  proceed — from  the  ground  thus  gained — and  on  which — with 
Butler — we  take  our  stand — to  speak  farther  of  reasons  for  believing  in  the 
Immortality  of  the  Soul  ? 

SEWARD. 

I  feel,  sir,  that  I  have  already  taken  more  than  my  own  part  in  this  conver- 
sation. We  should  have  to  inquire,  sir,  whether  in  His  known  attributes,  and 
in  the  known  modes  of  His  government,  we  could  ascertain  any  causes  making 
it  probable  that  He  will  thus  prolong  our  existence — and  we  find  many  such 
grounds  of  confidence. 

NORTH. 

Go  on,  my  dear  Seward. 

SEWARD. 

If  you  please,  sir,  be  yours  the  closing  words — for  the  Night. 

.WORTH. 

The  implanted  longing  in  every  human  bosom  for  such  permanent  exist- 
ence— the  fixed  anticipation  of  it — and  the  recoil  from  annihilation — seem 
to  us  intimation  vouchsafed  by  the  Creator  of  His  designs  towards 
us ; — the  horror  with  which  Remorse  awakened  by  sin  looks  beyond  the 
Grave,  partakes  of  the  same  prophetical  inspiration.  We  see  how  precisely  the 
lower  animals  are  fitted  to  the  places  which  they  hold  upon  the  earth,  with 
instincts  that  exactly  supply  their  needs,  with  no  powers  that  are  not  here 
satisfied — while  we,  as  if  out  of  place,  only  through  much  difficult  experience 
can  adapt  ourselves  to  the  physical  circumstances  into  which  we  are  intro- 
duced— and  thus,  in  one  respect,  furnished  below  our  condition,  are,  on  the 
other  hand,  by  the  aspirations  of  our  higher  faculties,  raised  infinitely  above 
it — as  if  intimating  that  whilst  those  creatures  here  fulfil  the  purpose  of  their 
creation,  here  we  do  not — and,  therefore,  look  onward ; — That  whilst  our 
other  Powers,  of  which  the  use  is  over,  decline  in  the  course  of  nature  as  Death 
approaches,  our  Moral  and  Intellectual  Faculties  often  go  on  advancing  to  the 
last,  as  if  showing  that  they  were  drawing  nigh  to  their  proper  sphere  of  ac- 
tion ; — That  whilst  the  Laws  regulating  the  Course  of  Human  Affairs  visibly 
proceed  from  a  Ruler  who  favours  Virtue,  and  who  frowns  upon  Vice,  yet  that  a 
just  retribution  does  not  seem  uniformly  earned  out  in  the  good  success  of 
well-doers,  and  the  ill  success  of  evil-doers — so  that  we  are  led  on  by  the 


390  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Sept.  1849. 

constitution  of  our  souls  to  look  forward  to  a  world  in  which  that  which  here 
looks  like  Moral  Disorder,  might  be  reduced  into  Order,  and  the  Justice  of  the 
Kuler  and  the  consistency  of  His  Laws  vindicated  ; — That  in  studying  the 
arrangements  of  this  world,  we  see  that  in  many  cases  dispositions  of  Human 
affairs,  which,  upon  their  first  aspect,  appeared  to  us  evil,  being  more  clearly 
examined  and  better  known,  resulted  in  good — and  thence  draw  a  hope  that 
the  stroke  which  daunts  our  imagination,  as  though  it  were  the  worst  of  evils, 
will  prove,  Avhen  known,  a  dispensation  of  bounty — "  Death  the  Gate  of  Life," 
opening  into  a  world  in  which  His  beneficent  hand,  if  not  nearer  to  us  than  here, 
will  be  more  steadily  visible— no  clouds  interposing  between  the  eyes  of  our  soul 
and  their  Sun ; — That  the  perplexity  which  oppresses  our  Understanding  from 
the  sight  of  this  world,  in  which  the  Good  and  Evil  seem  intermixed  and  crossing 
each  other,  almost  vanishes,  when  we  lift  up  our  thoughts  to  contemplate  this  mu- 
table scene  as  a  place  of  Probation  and  of  Discipline,  where  Sorrows  and  Suffer- 
ings are  given  to  school  us  to  Virtue — as  the  Arena  where  Virtue  strives  in  the 
laborious  and  perilous  contest,  of  which  it  shall  hereafter  receive  the  well- won 
and  glorious  crown ; — That  we  draw  confidence  in  the  same  conclusions,  from 
observing  how  closely  allied  and  agreeing  to  each  other  are  the  Two  Great 
Truths  of  Natural  Religion,  the  Belief  in  God  and  the  Belief  in  our  own 
Immortality ;  so  that,  when  we  have  received  the  idea  of  God,  as  the  Great 
Governor  of  the  Universe,  the  belief  in  our  own  prolonged  existence  appears 
to  us  as  a  necessary  part  of  that  Government ;  or  if,  upon  the  physical  argu- 
ments, we  have  admitted  the  independent  conviction  of  our  Immortality,  this 
doctrine  appears  to  us  barren  and  comfortless,  until  we  understand  that  this  con- 
tinuance of  our  Being  is  to  bring  us  into  the  more  untroubled  fruition  of  that 
Light,  which  here  shines  upon  us,  often  through  mist  and  cloud ; — That  in  all 
these  high  doctrines  we  are  instructed  to  rest  more  securely,  as  we  find  the 
growing  harmony  of  one  solemn  conviction  with  another — as  we  find  that  all 
our  better  and  nobler  Faculties  co-operate  with  one  another — and  these  pre- 
dominating principles  carry  us  to  these  convictions  —  so  that  our  Under- 
standing then  first  begins  to  possess  itself  in  strength  and  light  when  the 
heart  has  accepted  the  Moral  Law ; — But  that  our  Understanding  is  only  fully 
at  ease,  and  our  Moral  Nature  itself,  with  all  its  affections,  only  fully  sup- 
ported and  expanded,  when  both  together  have  borne  us  on  to  the  knowledge 
of  Him  who  is  the  sole  Source  of  Law — the  highest  Object  of  Thought — the 
Favourer  of  Virtue — towards  whom  Love  may  eternally  grow,  and  still  be 
infinitely  less  than  His  due — till  we  have  reached  this  knowledge,  and  with  it 
the  steadfast  hope  that  the  last  act  of  this  Life  joins  us  to  Him — does  not  for 
ever  shut  us  up  in  the  night  of  Oblivion ; — And  we  have  strengthened  our- 
selves in  inferences  forced  upon  us  by  remembering  how  humankind  has  con- 
sented in  these  Beliefs,  as  if  they  were  a  part  of  our  Nature — and  by  remem- 
bering farther,  how,  by  the  force  of  these  Beliefs,  human  Societies  have  sub- 
sisted and  been  held  together — how  Laws  have  been  sanctioned,  and  how 
Virtues,  Wisdom,  and  all  the  good  and  great  works  of  the  Human  Spirit 
have,  under  these  influences,  been  produced ; — Surely  GREAT  is  THE  POWER 
of  all  these  concurrent  considerations  brought  from  every  part  of  our  Nature — 
from  the  Material  and  the  Immaterial — from  the  Intellectual  and  Moral — from 
the  Individual  and  the  Social — from  that  which  respects  our  existence  on  this 
side  of  the  grave,  and  that  which  respects  our  existence  beyond  it — from  that 
which  looks  down  upon  the  Earth,  and  that  which  looks  up  towards 
Heaven. 


Printed  by  William  Blackwood  and  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH    MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCVIII. 


OCTOBER,  1849. 


VOL.  LXVI. 


THE  CAXTONS. — PART  THE  LAST. 


CHAPTER  CI. 


ADIEU,  thou  beautiful  land !  Canaan 
of  the  exiles,  and  Ararat  to  many  a 
shattered  ark !  Fair  cradle  of  a  race 
for  whom  the  unbounded  heritage  of 
a  future,  that  no  sage  can  conjecture, 
no  prophet  divine,  lies  afar  in  the 
golden  promise-light  of  Time ! — des- 
tined, perchance,  from  the  sins  and 
sorrows  of  a  civilisation  struggling 
with  its  own  elements  of  decay,  to 
renew  the  youth  of  the  world,  and 
transmit  the  great  soul  of  England 
through  the  cycles  of  Infinite  Change. 
All  climates  that  can  best  ripen  the 
products  of  earth,  or  form  into  various 
character  and  temper  the  different 
families  of  man,  "rain  influences"  from 
the  heaven,  that  smiles  so  benignly 
on  those  who  had  once  shrunk,  ragged, 
from  the  wind,  or  scowled  on  the 
thankless  sun.  Here,  the  hardy  air 
of  the  chill  Mother  Isle,  there  the  mild 
warmth  of  Italian  autumns,  or  the 
breathless  glow  of  the  tropics.  And 
•with  the  beams  of  every  climate,  glides 
subtle  HOPE.  Of  her  there,  it  may 
be  said  as  of  Light  itself,  in  those  ex- 
quisite lines  of  a  neglected  poet — 

"  Through  the  soft  ways  of  heaven,  and  air, 

and  sea, 

Which  open  all  their  pores  to  thee  ; 
Like  a  clear  river  thou  dost  glide — 

All  the  world's  bravery,  that  delights  our 

eyes, 

Is  but  thy  several  liveries ; 
Thou  the  rich  dye  on  them  bestowest  ; 
Thy  nimble  pencil  paints  the  landscape  as 

thou  goest."* 


Adieu,  my  kind  nurse  and  sweet 
foster-mother! — a  long  and  a  last 
adieu !  Never  had  I  left  thee  but  for 
that  louder  voice  of  Nature  which  calls 
the  child  to  the  parent,  and  woos  us 
from  the  labours  we  love  the  best  by 
the  chime  in  the  Sabbath-bells  of  Home. 

No  one  can  tell  how  dear  the  memory 
of  that  wild  Bush-life  becomes  to  him 
who  has  tried  it  with  a  fitting  spirit. 
How  often  it  haunts  him  in  the  com- 
monplace of  more  civilised  scenes ! 
Its  dangers,  its  risks,  its  sense  of 
animal  health,  its  bursts  of  adventure, 
its  intervals  of  careless  repose — the 
fierce  gallop  through  a  very  sea  of 
wide  rolling  plains — the  still  saunter, 
at  night,  through  woods  never  chang- 
ing their  leaves — with  the  moon,  clear 
as  sunshine,  stealing  slant  through 
their  clusters  of  flowers.  With  what 
an  effort  we  reconcile  ourselves  to  the 
trite  cares  and  vexed  pleasures,  "  the 
quotidian  ague  of  frigid  impertinences," 
to  which  we  return !  How  strong  and 
black  stands  my  pencil-mark  in  this 
passage  of  the  poet  from  which  I  have 
just  quoted  before ! — 

"We  are  here  among  the  vast  and 
noble  scenes  of  Nature — we  are  there 
among  the  pitiful  shifts  of  policy ;  we 
walk  here,  in  the  light  and  open  ways 
of  the  Divine  Bounty — we  grope  there, 
in  the  dark  and  confused  labyrinth  of 
human  malice."  f 

But  I  Aveary  you,  reader.  The  New 
World  vanishes — now  a  line — now  a 


*  Cowley's  Ode  to  Light. 
t  Cowley  on  Town  and  Country. 
VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVIII. 


(Discourse  on  Agriculture.) 


392 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


[Oct. 


speck:  let  us  turn  away,  with  the  face 
to  the  Old. 

Among  my  fellow-passengers,  how 
many  there  are  returning  home  dis- 
gusted, disappointed,  impoverished, 
ruined,  throwing  themselves  again  on 
those  unsuspecting  poor  friends, 'who 
thought  they  had  done  with  the  luck- 
less good-for-naughts  for  ever.  For 
don't  let  me  deceive  thee,  reader,  into 
supposing  that  every  adventurer  to 
Australia  has  the  luck  of  Pisistratus. 
Indeed,  though  the  poor  labourer,  and 
especially  the  poor  operative  from 
London  and  the  great  trading  towns, 
(who  has  generally  more  of  the  quick 
knack  of  learning — the  adaptable  fa- 
culty— required  in  a  new  colony,  than 
the  simple  agricultural  labourer,)  are 
pretty  sure  to  succeed,  the  class  to 
which  I  belong  is  one  in  which  failures 
are  numerous,  and  success  the  ex- 
ception— I  mean  young  men  with 
scholastic  education  and  the  habits  of 
gentlemen — with  small  capitals  and 
sanguine  hopes.  But  this,  in  ninety- 
nine  times  out  of  a  hundred,  is  not  the 
fault  of  the  colony,  but  of  the  emi- 
grants. It  requires,  not  so  much 
intellect  as  a  peculiar  turn  of  intellect, 
and  a  fortunate  combination  of  physi- 
cal qualities,  easy  temper,  and  quick 


mother- wit,  to  make  a  small  capitalist 
a  prosperous  Bushman.  *  And  if  you 
could  see  the  sharks  that  swim  round 
a  man  just  dropped  at  Adelaide  or 
Sydney,  with  one  or  two  thousand 
pounds  in  his  pocket !  Hurry  out  of 
the  towns  as  Fast  as  you  can,  my  young 
emigrant;  turn  a  deaf  ear,  for  the 
present  at  least,  to  all  jobbers  and 
speculators  ;  make  friends  with  some 
practised  old  Bushman ;  spend  several 
months  at  his  station  before  you  hazard 
your  capital ;  take  with  you  a  temper 
to  bear  everything  and  sigh  for  no- 
thing ;  put  your  whole  heart  in  what 
you  are  about ;  never  call  upon  Her- 
cules when  your  cart  sticks  in  the  rut, 
and,  whether  you  feed  sheep  or  breed 
cattle,  your  success  is  but  a  question 
of  time. 

But,  whatever  I  owed  to  nature,  I 
owed  also  something  to  fortune.  I 
bought  my  sheep  at  little  more  than 
7s.  each.  When  I  left,  none  were 
worth  less  than  15s.,  and  the  fat  sheep 
were  worth  £l.f  I  had  an  excellent 
shepherd,  and  my  whole  care,  night 
and  day,  was  the  improvement  of  the 
flock.  I  was  fortunate,  too,  in  enter- 
ing Australia  before  the  system  mis- 
called "The  Wakefield"t  had  dimin- 
ished the  supply  of  labour  and  raised 


*  How  true  are  the  following  remarks  : — 

"  Action  is  the  first  great  requisite  of  a  colonist,  (that  is,  a  pastoral  or  agricultural 
settler.)  With  a  young  man,  the  tone  of  his  mind  is  more  important  than  his  pre- 
vious pursuits.  I  have  known  men  of  an  active,  energetic,  contented  disposition, 
with  a  good  flow  of  animal  spirits,  who  had  been  bred  in  luxury  and  refinement, 
succeed  better  than  men  bred  as  farmers,  who  were  always  hankering  after  bread 
and  beer,  and  market  ordinaries  of  Old  England.  ...  To  be  dreaming  when 
you  should  be  looking  after  your  cattle,  is  a  terrible  drawback.  .  .  .  There  are 
certain  persons  who,  too  lazy  and  too  extravagant  to  succeed  in  Europe,  sail  for 
Australia  under  the  idea  that  fortunes  are  to  be  made  there  by  a  sort  of  legerdemain, 
spend  or  lose  their  capital  in  a  very  short  space  of  time,  and  return  to  England  to 
abuse  the  place,  the  people,  and  everything  connected  with  colonisation." — Sidney's 
Australian  Handbook — admirable  for  its  wisdom  and  compactness. 

t  Lest  tbis  seem  an  exaggeration,  I  venture  to  annex  an  extract  from  a  MS.  letter 
to  the  author  from  Mr  George  Blakeston  Wilkinson,  author  of  South  A  ustralia. 

"  I  will  instance  the  case  of  one  person,  who  had  been  a  farmer  in  England,  and 
emigrated  with  about  £2000  about  seven  years  since.  On  his  arrival,  he  found  that 
the  prices  of  sheep  had  fallen  from  about  30s.  to  5s.  or  6s.  per  head,  and  he  bought 
some  well-bred  flocks  at  these  prices.  He  was  fortunate  in  obtaining  a  good  and 
extensive  run,  and  he  devoted  the  whole  of  his  time  to  improving  his  flocks,  and 
encouraged  his  shepherds  by  rewards  ;  so  that,  in  about  four  years,  his  original  num- 
ber of  sheep  had  increased  from  2500  (which  cost  him  £700)  to  7000  ;  and  the 
breed  and  wool  were  also  so  much  improved  that  he  could  obtain  £1  per  head  for 
2000  fat  sheep,  and  15s.  per  head  for  the  other  5000,  and  this  at  a  time  when  the 
general  price  of  sheep  was  from  10s.  to  16s.  This  alone  increased  his  original  capital, 
invested  in  sheep,  from  £700  to  £5700.  The  profits  from  the  wool  paid  the  whole  of 
his  expenses  and  wages  for  his  men." 

t  I  felt  sure,  from  the  first,  that  the  system  called  "  The  Wakefield"  could  never 
fairly  represent  the  ideas  of  Mr  Wakefield  himself,  whose  singular  breadth  of  under- 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


393 


the  price  of  land.  When  the  change 
came,  (like  most  of  those  with  large 
allotments  and  surplus  capital,)  it 
greatly  increased  the  value  of  my  own 
property,  though  at  the  cost  of  a  ter- 
rible blow  on  the  general  interests  of 
the  colony.  I  was  lucky,  too,  in  the 
additional  venture  of  a  cattle  station, 
and  in  the  breed  of  hdrses  and  herds, 
which,  in  the  five  years  devoted  to 
that  branch  establishment,  trebled  the 
sum  invested  therein,  exclusive  of  the 
advantageous  sale  of  the  station.  *  I 


was  lucky,  also,  as  I  have  stated,  in 
the  purchase  and  resale  of  lands,  at 
Uncle  Jack's  recommendation.  And, 
lastly,  I  left  in  time,  and  escaped  a 
very  disastrous  crisis  in  colonial  af- 
fairs, which  I  take  the  liberty  of 
attributing  entirely  to  the  mischievous 
crotchets  of  theorists  at  home,  who 
want  to  set  all  clocks  by  Greenwich 
time,  forgetting  that  it  is  morning 
in  one  part  of  the  world  at  the  time 
they  are  tolling  the  curfew  in  the 
other. 


CHAPTER  Cn. 


London  once  more !  How  strange, 
lone,  and  savage  I  feel  in  the  streets. 
I  am  ashamed  to  have  so  much  health 
and  strength,  when  I  look  at  those 
slim  forms,  stooping  backs,  and  pale 
faces.  I  pick  my  way  through  the 
crowd  with  the  merciful  timidity  of  a 
good-natured  giant.  I  am  afraid  of 
jostling  against  a  man  for  fear  the  col- 
lision should  kill  him.  I  get  out  of 
the  way  of  a  thread-paper  clerk,  and 
'tis  a  wonder  I  am  not  run  over  by  the 
omnibuses  ; — I  feel  as  if  I  could  run 
over  them !  I  perceive,  too,  that  there 
is  something  outlandish,  peregrinate, 
and  lawless  about  me.  Beau  Brum- 
mell  would  certainly  have  denied  me 
all  pretension  to  the  simple  air  of  a 
gentleman,  for  every  third  passenger 
turns  back  to  look  at  me.  I  retreat 
to  my  hotel — send  for  bootmaker, 
hatter,  tailor,  and  haircutter.  I 
humanise  myself  from  head  to  foot. 
Even  Ulysses  is  obliged  to  have  re- 
course to  the  arts  of  Minerva,  and,  to 
speak  unmetaphorically,  "  smarten 
himself  up,"  before  the  faithful  Pene- 
lope condescends  to  acknowledge  him. 
The  artificers  promise  all  despatch. 
Meanwhile  I  hasten  to  re-make  ac- 
quaintance with  my  mother  country 


over  files  of  the  Times,  Post,  Chronicle, 
and  Herald.  Nothing  comes  amiss  to 
me,  but  articles  on  Australia  ;  from 
those  I  turn  aside  with  the  true 
pshaw-supercilious  of  your  practical 
man. 

No  more  are  leaders  filled  with 
praise  and  blame  of  Trevanion. 
"  Percy's  spur  is  cold."  Lord  Ulver- 
stone  figures  only  in  the  Court  Circular, 
or  "  Fashionable  Movements."  Lord 
Ulverstone  entertains  a  royal  duke  at 
dinner,  or  dines  in  turn  with  a  royal 
duke,  or  has  come  to  town,  or  gone 
out  of  it.  At  most,  (faint  Platonic 
reminiscence  of  the  former  life,)  Lord 
Ulverstone  says  in  the  House  of 
Lords  a  few  words  on  some  question, 
not  a  party  one  ;  and  on  which  (though 
affecting  perhaps  the  interests  of  some 
few  thousands,  or  millions,  as  the  case 
may  be)  men  speak  without  "  hears," 
and  are  inaudible  in  the  gallery ;  or 
Lord  Ulverstone  takes  the  chair  at  an 
agricultural  meeting,  or  rettirns  thanks 
when  his  health  is  drank  at  a  dinner 
at  Guildhall.  But  the  daughter  rises 
as  the  father  sets,  though  over  a  very 
different  kind  of  world. 

"  First  ball  of  the  season  at  Castle - 
ton  House!"  Long  descriptions  of 


standing,  and  various  knowledge  of  mankind,  belied  the  notion  that  fathered  on  him 
the  clumsy  execution  of  a  theory  wholly  inapplicable  to  a  social  state  like  Australia. 
I  am  glad  to  see  that  he  has  vindicated  himself  from  the  discreditable  paternity.  But 
I  grieve  to  find  that  he  still  clings  to  one  cardinal  error  of  the  system,  in  the  dis- 
couragement of  small  holdings,  and  that  he  evades,  more  ingeniously  than  ingenu- 
ously, the  important  question — "  What  should  be  the  minimum  price  of  land  \ " 

'  The  profits  of  cattle-farming  are  smaller  than  those  of  the  sheepowner,  (if  the 
latter  have  good  luck,  for  much  depends  upon  that,)  but  cattle-farming  is  much  more 
safe  as  a  speculation,  and  less  care,  knowledge,  and  management  are  required.  £2000, 
laid  out  on  700  head  of  cattle,  if  good  runs  be  procured,  might  increase  the  capital 
in  five  years,  from  £2000  to  £6000,  besides  enabling  the  owner  to  maintain  himself, 
pay  wages,  &o."—M8.  letter  from  G.  B.  Wilkinson. 


The  Cantons.— Part  the  Last. 


[Oct. 


the  rooms  and  the  company;  above 
all,  of  the  hostess.  Lines  on  the 
Marchioness  of  Castleton's  picture  iu 
the  "  Book  of  Beauty,"  by  the  Hon. 
Fitzroy  Fiddledum,  beginning  with, 
•"  Art  thou  an  angel  from,"  &c. — a 
paragraph  that  pleased  me  more  on 
"  Lady  Castleton's  Infant  School,  at 
Raby  Park  ;  "  then  again — "  Lady 
Castleton,  the  new  patroness  at 
Almacks ; "  a  criticism  more  rapturous 
than  ever  gladdened  living  poet,  on 
Lady  Castleton's  superb  diamond 
stomacher,  just  re- set  by  Storr  and 
Mortimer ;  Westmacott's  bust  of  Lady 
Castleton ;  Landseer's  picture  of  Lady 
Castleton  and  her  children,  in  the 
eostume  of  the  olden  time.  Not  a 
month  in  that  long  file  of  the  Morning 
Post  but  what  Lady  Castleton  shone 
forth  from  the  rest  of  womankind — 

" Velut  inter  ignes 

Luna  minores." 

The  blood  mounted  to  my  cheek. 
Was  it  to  this  splendid  constellation 
in  the  patrician  heaven  that  my  obs- 


cure, portionless  youth  had  dared  to 
lift  its  presumptuous  eyes  ?  But 
what  is  this?  "Indian  intelligence 
— Skilful  Retreat  of  the  Sepoys,  under 
Captain  de  Caxton!"  A  captain 
already — what  is  the  date  of  the  news- 
paper? Three  months  ago.  The  lead- 
ing article  quotes  the  name  with  high 
praise.  Is  there  no  leaven  of  envy 
amidst  the  joy  at  my  heart?  How 
obscure  has  been  my  career — how 
laurel-less  my  poor  battle  with  adverse 
fortune  !  Fie,  Pisistratus  !  I  am 
ashamed  of  thee.  Has  this  accursed 
Old  "\Vorld,  with  its  feverish  rivalries, 
diseased  thee  already?  Get  thee 
home,  quick,  to  the  arms  of  thy 
mother,  the  embrace  of  thy  father — 
hear  Roland's  low  blessing,  that  thou 
hast  helped  to  minister  to  the  very 
fame  of  that  son.  If  thou  wilt  have 
ambition,  take  it,  not  soiled  and  foul 
with  the  mire  of  London.  Let  it 
spring  fresh  and  hardy  in  the  calm 
air  of  wisdom  ;  and  fed,  as  with  dews, 
by  the  loving  charities  of  Home. 


CHAPTER  CIH. 


It  was  at  sunset  that  I  stole  through 
the  ruined  courtyard,  having  left  my 
chaise  at  the  foot  of  the  hUl  below. 
Though  they  whom  I  came  to  seek 
knew  that  I  had  arrived  in  England, 
they  did  not,  from  my  letter,  expect 
me  till  the  next  day.  I  had  stolen  a 
march  upon  them  ;  and  now,  in  spite 
of  all  the  impatience  which  had  urged 
me  thither,  I  was  afraid  to  enter — 
afraid  to  see  the  change  more  than 
ten  years  had  made  in  those  forms, 
for  which,  in  my  memory,  Time  had 
stood  still.  And  Roland  had,  even 
when  we  parted,  grown  old  before  his 
time.  Then,  my  father  was  in  the 
meridian  of  life,  now  hehad  approached 
to  the  decline.  And  my  mother, 
whom  I  remembered  so  fair,  as  if  the 
freshness  of  her  own  heart  had  pre- 
served the  soft  bloom  to  the  cheek — 
I  could  not  bear  to  think  that  she 
was  no  longer  young.  Blanche,  too, 
whom  I  had  left  a  child — Blanche, 
my  constant  correspondent  during 
those  long  years  of  exile,  in  letters 
crossed  and  re-crossed,  with  all  the 
small  details  that  make  the  eloquence 
of  letter  writing,  so  that  in  those  epistles 
I  had  seen  her  mind  gradually  grow 


up  in  harmony  with  the  veiy  charac- 
ters— at  first  vague  and  infantine — 
then  somewhat  stiff  with  the  first 
graces  of  running  hand,  then  dashing 
off,  free  and  facile ;  and,  for  the  last 
year  before  I  left,  so  formed,  yet  so 
airy — so  regular,  yet  so  unconscious 
of  effort — though,  in  truth,  as  the 
caligraphy  had  become  thus  matured, 
I  had  been  half  vexed  and  half  pleased 
to  perceive  a  certain  reserve  creeping 
over  the  style — wishes  for  my  return 
less  expressed  from  herself  than  as 
messages  from  others ;  words  of  the 
old  childlike  familiarity  repressed  ; 
and  "Dearest  Sisty  "  abandoned  for 
the  cold  form  of  "  Dear  Cousin." 
Those  letters,  coming  to  me  in  a  spot 
where  maiden  and  love  had  been  as 
myths  of  the  bygone,  phantasms  and 
eidola,  only  vouchsafed  to  thevisions  of 
fancy,  had,  by  little  and  little,  crept 
into  secret  corners  of  my  heart ;  and 
out  of  the  wrecks  of  a  former  romance, 
solitude  and  reverie  had  gone  far  to 
build  up  the  fairy  domes  of  a  romance 
yet  to  come.  My  mother's  letters 
had  never  omitted  to  make  mention 
of  Blanche — of  her  forethought  and 
tender  activity,  of  her  warm  heart 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  the  Last. 


395 


and  sweet  temper — and,  in  many  a 
little  home  picture,  presented  her 
image  where  I  would  fain  have  placed 
it,  not  "crystal-seeing,"  but  join- 
ing my  mother  in  charitable  visits  to 
the  village,  instructing  the  young, 
and  tending  on  the  old,  or  teaching 
herself  to  illuminate,  from  an  old 
missal  in  my  father's  collection,  that 
she  might  surprise  my  uncle  with  a 
new  genealogical  table,  with  all  shields 
and  quarterings,  blazoned  or,  sable, 
and  argent;  or  flitting  round  my  father 
where  he  sat,  and  watching  when  he 
looked  round  for  some  book  he  was 
too  lazy  to  rise  for.  Blanche  had 
made  a  new  catalogue  and  got  it  by 
heart,  and  knew  at  once  from  what 
comer  of  the  Heraclea  to  summon 
the  ghost.  On  all  these  little  traits 
had  my  mother  been  eulogistically 
minute*;  but  somehow  or  other  she 
had  never  said,  at  least  for  the  last 
two  years,  whether  Blanche  was  pretty 
or  plain.  That  was  a  sad  omission. 
I  had  longed  just  to  ask  that  simple 
question,  or  to  imply  it  delicately  and 
diplomatically  ;  but,  I  know  not  why, 
I  never  dared — for  Blanche  would 
have  been  sure  to  have  read  the  letter 
— and  what  business  was  it  of  mine  ? 
And,  if  she  loos  ugly,  what  question 
more  awkward  both  to  put  and  to  an- 
swer? Now,  in  childhood,  Blanche 
had  just  one  of  those  faces  that  might 
become  very  lovely  in  youth,  and 
would  yet  quite  justify  the  suspicion 
that  it  might  become  gryphonesque, 
witch-like,  and  grim.  Yes,  Blanche, 
it  is  perfectly  true !  If  those  large, 
serious  black  eyes  took  a  fierce  light, 
instead  of  a  tender — if  that  nose,  which 
seemed  then  undecided  whether  to 
be  straight  or  to  be  aquiline,  arched 
off  in  the  latter  direction,  and  assumed 
the  martial,  Roman,  and  imperative 
character  of  Roland's  manly  proboscis 
— if  that  face,  in  childhood  too  thin, 
left  the  blushes  of  youth  to  take  refuge 
on  two  salient  peaks  by  the  temples 
(Cumberland  air,  too,  is  famous  for 
the  growth  of  the  cheek-bone  \) — if  all 
that  should  happen,  and  it  very  well 
might,  then,  O  Blanche,  I  wish  thou 
hadst  never  written  me  those  letters  ; 
and  I  might  have  done  wiser  things 
than  steel  my  heart  so  obdurately  to 
pretty  Ellen  Boldiug's  blue  eyes  and 
silk  shoes.  Now,  combining  together 
all  these  doubts  and 'apprehensions, 


wonder  not,  O  reader,  why  I  stole  so 
stealthily  through  the  ruined  court- 
yard, crept  round  to  the  other  side  of 
the  tower,  gazed  wistfully  on  the  sun 
setting  slant  on  the  high  casements 
of  the  hall,  (too  high,  alas,  to  look 
within,)  and  shrunk  yet  to  enter ; — 
doing  battle,  as  it  were,  with  my 
heart. 

Steps ! — one's  sense  of  hearing 
grows  so  quick  in  the  Bushland ! — 
steps,  though  as  light  as  ever  brushed 
the  dew  from  the  harebell !  I  crept 
under  the  shadow  of  the  huge  but- 
tress mantled  with  ivy.  A  form 
comes  from  the  little  door  at  an 
angle  in  the  ruins — a  woman's  form. 
Is  it  my  mother  ? — it  is  too  tall,  and 
the  step  is  more  bounding.  It  winds 
round  the  building,  it  turns  to  look 
back,  and  a  sweet  voice — a  voice 
strange,  yet  familiar — calls,  tender, 
but  chiding,  to  a  truant  that  lags 
behind.  Poor  Juba !  he  is  trailing 
his  long  ears  on  the  ground:  he  is 
evidently  much  disturbed  in  his 
mind ;  now  he  stands  still,  his  nose 
in  the  air.  Poor  Juba!  I  left  thee 
so  slim  and  so  nimble — 

"  Thy  form,  that  was  fashioned  as  light  as  a 

fay's, 
Has  assumed  a  proportion  more  round." 

Years  have  sobered  thee  strangely, 
and  made  thee  obese  and  Primmins- 
like.  They  have  taken  too  good  care 
of  thy  creature  comforts,  0  sensual 
Mauritanian !  still,  in  that  mystic 
intelligence  we  call  instinct,  thou  art 
chasing  something  that  years  have 
not  swept  from  thy  memory.  Thou 
art  deaf  to  thy  lady's  voice,  however 
tender  and  chiding.  That's  right, 
—  come  near  —  nearer  —  my  cousin 
Blanche ;  let  me  have  a  fair  look  at 
thee.  Plague  take  the  dog !  he  flies 
oif  from  her :  he  has  found  the  scent 
— he  is  making  up  to  the  buttress! 
Now — pounce — he  is  caught!  whining 
ungallant  discontent.  Shall  I  not  yet 
see  the  face?  it  is  buried  in  Juba's 
black  curls.  Kisses  too !  Wicked 
Blanche,  to  waste  on  a  dumb  animal 
what,  I  heartily  hope,  many  a  good 
Christian  would  be  exceedingly  glad 
of!  Juba  struggles  in  vain,  and  is 
borne  off.  I  don't  think  that  those 
eyes  can  have  taken  the  fierce  turn, 
and  Roland's  eagle  nose  can  never 
go  with  that  voice  which  has  the  coo 
of  the  dove. 


396 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


I  leave  my  hiding-place,  and  steal 
after  the  Voice,  and  its  owner.  Where 
can  she  be  going?  Not  far.  She 
springs  up  the  hill  whereon  the  lords 
of  the  castle  once  administered  justice 
— that  hill  which  commands  the  land 
far  and  wide,  and  from  which  can  be 
last  caught  the  glimpse  of  the  west- 
ering sun.  How  gracefully  still  is 
that  attitude  of  wistful  repose  !  Into 
what  delicate  curves  do  form  and 
drapery  harmoniously  flow  !  How 
softly  distinct  stands  the  lithe  image 
against  the  purple  hues  of  the  sky! 
Then  again  comes  the  sweet  voice, 
gay  and  carolling  as  a  bird's — now  in 
snatches  of  song,  now  in  playful  ap- 
peals to  that  dull  four-footed  friend. 
She  is  telling  him  •  something  that 
must  make  the  black  ears  stand  on 
end,  for  I  just  catch  the  words,  "  He 
is  coming,"  and  "  home  !  " 

I  cannot  see  the  sun  set  where  I 
lurk  in  my  ambush,  amidst  the  brake 
and  the  ruins  ;  but  I  feel  that  the  orb 
has  passed  from  the  landscape,  in  the 
fresher  air  of  the  twilight,  in  the 
deeper  silence  of  eve.  Lo !  Hesper 


[Oct. 

conies  forth :  at  his  signal,  star  after 
star,  come  the  hosts — 

"  Cli'eran  con  lui,  quando  Pamor  divino, 
Mosse  da  prima  quelle  cose  belle  !  " 

and  the  sweet  voice  is  hushed. 

Then  slowly  the  watcher  descends 
the  hill  on  the  opposite  side — the 
form  escapes  from  my  view.  What 
charm  has  gone  from  the  twilight? 
See,  again,  where  the  step  steals 
through  the  ruins  and  along  the  deso- 
late court.  Ah  !  deep  and  true  heart, 
do  I  divine  the  remembrance  that 
leads  thee  ?  I  pass  through  the  wick- 
et, down  the  dell,  skirt  the  laurels, 
and  behold  the  face,  looking  up  to 
the  stars — the  face  which  had  nestled 
to  my  breast  in  the  sorrow  of  parting, 
years,  long  years  ago:  on  the  grave 
where  we  had  sat,  I  the  boy,  thou 
the  infant — there,  O  Blanche !  is  thy 
fail-  face — (fairer  than  the  fondest 
dream  that  had  gladdened  my  exile) 
— vouchsafed  to  my  gaze ! 

"Blanche,  my  cousin! — again, 
again — soul  with  soul,  amidst  the 
dead !  Look  up,  Blanche ;  it  is  I." 


CHAPTER    CIV. 


"Go  in  first,  and  prepare  them, 
dear  Blanche :  I  will  wait  by  the  door. 
Leave  it  ajar,  that  I  may  see  them." 

Roland  is  leaning  against  the  wall 
— old  armour  suspended  over  the  gray 
head  of  the  soldier.  It  is  but  a  glance 
that  I  gave  to  the  dark  cheek  and 
high  brow :  no  change  there  for  the 
worse — no  new  sign  of  decay.  Bather, 
if  anything,  Roland  seems  younger 
than  when  I  left.  Calm  is  the  brow 
— no  shame  on  it  now,  Roland ;  and 
the  lips,  once  so  compressed,  smile 
with  ease — no  struggle  now,  Roland, 
"  not  to  complain."  A  glance  shows 
me  all  this. 

"  Papa?! "  says  my  father,  and  I  hear 
the  fall  of  a  book,  "  I  can't  read  a  line. 
He  is  coming  to-rnorrow  ! — to-mor- 
row !  If  we  lived  to  the  age  of  Me- 
thusalem,  Kitty,  we  could  never 
reconcile  philosophy  and  man ;  that 
is,  if  the  poor  man's  to  be  plagued 
with  a  good  affectionate  son  !" 

And  my  father  gets  up  and  walks 
to  and  fro.  One  minute  more,  father 
— one  minute  more — and  I  am  on  thy 
breast  !  Time,  too,  has  dealt  gently 


with  thee,  as  he  doth  with  those  for 
whom  the  wild  passions  and  keen 
cares  of  the  world  never  sharpen  his 
scythe.  The  broad  front  looks  more 
broad,  for  the  locks  are  more  scanty 
and  thin  ;  but  still  not  a  furrow ! 

Whence  comes  that  short  sigh  ? 

"  What  is  really  the  time,  Blanche  ? 
Did  you  look  at  the  turret  clock  ? 
Well,  just  go  and  look  again." 

"  Kitty,"  quoth  my  father,  "  you 
have  not  only  asked  what  time  it  is 
thrice  within  the  last  ten  minutes,  but 
you  have  got  my  watch,  and  Roland's 
great  chronometer,  and  the  Dutch 
clock  out  of  the  kitchen,  all  before 
you,  and  they  all  concur  in  the  same 
tale — to-day  is  not  to-morrow." 

"  They  are  all  wrong,  I  know,"  said 
my  mother,  with  mild  firmness ;  "and 
they've  never  gone  right  since  he  left." 

Now  out  comes  a  letter — for  I  hear 
the  rustle — and  then  a  step  glides  to- 
wards the  lamp  ;  and  the  dear,  gentle, 
womanly  face — fair  still,  fair  ever  for 
me — fair  as  when  it  bent  over  my 
pillow,  in  childhood's  first  sickness,  or 
when  we  threw  flowers  at  each  other 


1849.] 

on  the  lawii  at  sunny  noon !  And 
no\v  Blanche  is  whispering ;  and  now 
the  nutter,  the  start,  the  cry — "It  is 
true !  it  is  true !  Your  arms,  mother. 


The  Caxtons—Part  the  Last. 


307 


Close,  close  round  my  neck,  as  in  the 
old  time.  Father !  Roland,  too  !  Oh 
joy !  joy  !  joy !  home  again — home 
till  death!" 


CHAPTER  CV. 


From  a  dream  of  the  Bushland, 
howling  dingoes,*  and  the  war-whoop 
of  the  wild  men,  I  wake  and  see  the 
sun  shining  in  through  the  jasmine 
that  Blanche  herself  has  had  traiued 
round  the  window — old  school-books, 
neatly  ranged  round  the  wall — fishing 
rods,  cricket-bats,  foils,  and  the  old- 
fashioned  gun,— and  my  mother  seated 
by  the  bedside — and  Juba  whining 
and  scratching  to  get  up.  Had  I 
taken  thy  murmured  blessing,  my 
mother,  for  the  whoop  of  the  blacks, 
and  Juba's  low  whine  for  the  howl  of 
the  dingoes  ? 

Then  what  days  of  calm  exquisite 
delight ! — the  interchange  of  heart  with 
heart ;  what  walks  with  Roland,  and 
tales  of  him  once  our  shame,  now  our 
pride ;  and  the  art  Avith  which  the  old 
man  would  lead  those  walks  round  by 
the  village,  that  some  favourite  gossips 
might  stop  and  ask,  "  What  news  of 
his  brave  young  honour  ?  " 

I  strive  to  engage  my  uncle  in  my 
projects  for  the  repair  of  the  ruins — 
for  the  culture  of  those  wide  bogs  and 
moorlands :  why  is  it  that  he  turns 
away,  and  looks  down  embarrassed  ? 
Ah,  I  guess! — his  true  heir  now  is 
restored  to  him.  He  cannot  consent 
that  I  should  invest  this  dross,  for 
which  (the  Great  Book  once  published) 
I  have  no  other  use,  in  the  house  and 
the  lands  that  will  pass  to  his  sou. 
Neither  would  he  suffer  me  so  to  in- 
vest even  his  son's  fortune,  the  bulk  of 
which  I  still  hold  in  trust  for  that  son. 
True,  in  his  career,  my  cousin  may 
require  to  have  his  money  always 
forthcoming.  But  I,  who  have  no 
career, — pooh  !  these  scruples  will  rob 
me  of  half  the  pleasure  my  years  of  toil 
were  to  purchase.  I  must  contrive  it 
somehow  or  other  :  what  if  he  would 
let  me  house  and  moorland  on  a'long 
improving  lease  ?  Then,  for  the  rest, 
there  is  a  pretty  little  property  to  be 
sold  close  by,  on  which  I  can  retire 
when  my  cousin,  as  heir  of  the  family, 
comes,  perhaps  with  a  wife,  to  reside 


at  the  Tower.  I  must  consider  of  all 
this,  and  talk  it  over  with  Bolt  when 
my  mind  is  at  leisure  from  happiness 
to  turn  to  such  matters ;  meanwhile 
I  fall  back  on  my  favourite  proverb, 
— "  Where  tliere's  a  will  there's  a  way." 

What  smiles  and  tears,  and  laughter 
and  careless  prattle  with  my  mother, 
and  roundabout  questions  from  her,  to 
kuow  if  I  had  never  lost  my  heart  in  the 
Bush  ;  and  evasive  answers  from  me, 
to  punish  her  for  not  letting  out  that 
Blanche  was  so  charming.  "  I  fancied 
Blanche  had  grown  the  image  of  her 
father,  who  has  a  fine  martial  head 
certainly,  but  not  seen  to  advantage 
in  petticoats  !  How  could  you  be  so 
silent  with  a  theme  so  attractive  ?" 

"  Blanche  made  me  promise." 

Why  ?  I  wonder.  Therewith  I  fell 
musing. 

What  quiet  delicious  hours  are 
spent  with  my  father  in  his  study,  or 
by  the  pond,  where  he  still  feeds  the 
carps,  that  have  grown  into  Ceprini- 
dian  leviathans.  The  duck,  alas ! 
has  departed  this  life — the  only  victim 
that  the  Grim  King  has  carried  off; 
so  I  mourn,  but  am  resigned  to  that 
lenient  composition  of  the  great  tribute 
to  Nature.  I  am  sorry  to  say  the 
Great  Book  has  advanced  but  slowly 
— by  no  means  yet  fit  for  publication, 
for  it  is  resolved  that  it  shall  not  come 
out  as  first  proposed,  a  part  at  a  time, 
but  totus,  teres,  atque  rotundus.  The 
matter  has  spread  beyond  its  original 
compass  ;  no  less  than  five  volumes — 
and  those  of  the  amplest — will  contain 
the  History  of  Human  Error.  How- 
ever, we  are  far  in  the  fourth,  and  one 
must  not  hurry  Minerva. 

My  father  is  enchanted  with  Uncle 
Jack's  "  noble  conduct,"  as  he  calls  it ; 
but  he  scolds  me  for  taking  the  money, 
and  doubts  as  to  the  propriety  of  re- 
turning it.  In  these  matters  my  father 
is  quite  as  Quixotical  as  Roland.  I 
am  forced  to  call  in  my  mother  as 
umpire  between  us,  and  she  settles  the 
matter  at  once  by  an  appeal  to  feeling. 


Dingoes — the  name  given  by  Australian  natives  to  the  wild  dogs. 


398 


TJie  Caxtons.—Part  the  Last. 


[Oct. 


"  Ah,  Austin !  do  you  not  humble  me, 
if  you  are  too  proud  to  accept  what  is 
due  to  you  from  my  brother  " 

"  Velit,  nolit,  quod  arnica"  an- 
swered my  father,  taking  off  and  rub- 
bing his  spectacles — "which  means, 
Kitty,  that  when  a  man's  married  he 
has  no  will  of  his  own.  To  think," 
added  Mr  Caxton,  musingly,  "  that 
in  this  world  one  cannot  be  sure  of  the 
simplest  mathematical  definition !  You 
see,  Pisistratus,  that  the  angles  of  a 
triangle  so  decidedly  scalene  as  your 
Uncle  Jack's,  may  be  equal  to  the 
angles  of  a  right-angled  triangle  after 
all  !"* 

The  long  privation  of  books  has 
quite  restored  all  my  appetite  for  them. 
How  much  I  have  to  pick  up  ! — what 
a  compendious  scheme  of  reading  I 
and  my  father  chalk  out.  I  see 
enough  to  fill  up  all  the  leisure  of 
life.  But,  somehow  or  other,  Greek 
and  Latin  stand  still :  nothing  charms 
me  like  Italian.  Blanche  and  I  are 
reading  Metastasio,  to  the  great  indig- 
nation of  my  father,  who  calls  it 
"rubbish,"  and  wants  to  substitute 
Dante.  I  have  no  associations  at  pre- 
sent with  the  souls 

"  Che  son  content! 
Nel  fuoco  ; " 

I  am  already  one  of  the  "  beate 
gente."  Yet,  in  spite  of  Metastasio, 
Blanche  and  I  are  not  so  intimate  as 
cousins  ought  to  be.  If  we  are  by 
accident  alone,  I  become  as  silent  as 
a  Turk,  as  formal  as  Sir  Charles 
Grandison.  I  caught  myself  calling 
her  Miss  Blanche  the  other  day. 

I  must  not  forget  thee,  honest 
Squills ! — nor  thy  delight  at  my  health 
and  success ;  nor  thy  exclamation  of 
pride,  (one  hand  on  my  pulse  and  the 
other  griping  hard  the  "  ball "  of  my 
arm,)  "It  all  comes  of  my  citrate  of 
iron  ;  nothing  like  it  for  children  ;  it 
has  an  effect  on  the  cerebral  develop- 
ments of  hope  and  combativeness." 
Nor  can  I  wholly  omit  mention  of  poor 
Mrs  Primmins,  who  still  calls  me 
"  Master  Sisty,"  and  is  breaking  her 


heart  that  I  will  not  wear  the  new 
flannel  waistcoats  she  had  such  plea- 
sure in  making — "Young  gentlemen 
just  growing  up  are  so  apt  to  go  off  in  a 
galloping  'sumption  !"  "  She  knew  just 
such  another  as  Master  Sisty,  when 
she  lived  at  Torquay,  who  wasted 
away,  and  went  out  like  a  snuff,  all 
because  he  would  not  wear  flannel 
waistcoats."  Therewith  my  mother 
looks  grave,  and  says,  "  One  can't 
take  too  much  precaution." 

Suddenly  the  whole  neighbourhood 
is  thrown  into  commotion.   Trevanion 
— I  beg  his  pardon,  Lord  Ulverstone 
— is  coming  to  settle   for  good  at 
Compton.    Fifty  hands  are  employed 
daily  in  putting  the  grounds  into  hasty 
order.    Fonrgons,  and  waggons,  and 
vans  have  disgorged  all  the  necessaries 
a  great  man  requires,  where  he  means 
to  eat,  drink,  and  sleep — books,  wines, 
pictures,  furniture.      I  recognise  my 
old  patron  still.     He  is  in  earnest, 
whatever  he  does.     I  meet  my  friend, 
his  steward,  who  tells  me  that  Lord 
Ulverstone  finds  his  favourite  seat, 
near  London,  too  exposed  to  interrup- 
tion ;  and,  moreover,  that  as  he  has 
there  completed  all  improvements  that 
wealth  and  energy  can  effect,  he  hag 
less  occupation  for  agricultural  pur- 
suits, to  which  he  has  grown  more 
and  more  partial,  than  on  the  wide 
and  princely  domain  which  has  hither- 
to wanted  the  master's  eye.     "  He  is 
a  bra'  farmer,   I  know,"  quoth  the 
steward,  "  so  far  as  the  theory  goes ; 
but  I  don't  think  we  in  the  north  wan* 
great  lords  to  teach  us  how  to  follow 
the  pleugh."    The  steward's  sense  of 
dignity  is  hurt ;  but  he  is  an  hones* 
fellow,   and  really  glad  to  see  the 
family  come  to  settle  in  the  old  place. 
They  have  arrived,  and  with  them 
the  Castletons,  and  a  whole  posse 
comitatus    of   guests.      The  County 
Paper  is  full  of  fine  names. 

' '  What  on  earth  didLord  Ulverstone 
mean  by  pretending  to  get  out  of  the 
way  of  troublesome  visitors  ?  " 

"My  dear  Pisistratus,"  answered 


*  Not  having  again  to  advert  to  Uncle  Jack,  I  may  be  pardoned  for  informing  the 
reader,  by  way  of  annotation,  that  he  continues  to  prosper  surprisingly  in  Aus- 
tralia, though  the  Tibbets'  Wheal  stands  still  for  want  of  workmen.  Despite  of  a 
few  ups  and  downs,  I  have  had  no  fear  of  his  success  until  this  year,  (1849,)  when  I 
tremble  to  think  what  effect  the  discovery  of  the  gold  mines  in  California  may  have 
on  his  lively  imagination.  If  thou  escapest  that  snare,  Uncle  Jack,  res  acfe,tutus  eris, — 
thou  art  safe  for  life ! 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


my  father  to  that  exclamation,  "  it 
is  not  the  visitors  who  come,  bnt  the 
visitors  who  stay  away,  that  most 
trouble  the  repose  of  a  retired  minister. 
In  all  the  procession,  he  sees  but  the 
images  of  Brutus  and  Cassius — that 
are  not  there !  And  depend  on  it,  also, 
a  retirement  so  near  London  did  not 
make  noise  enough.  You  see,  a  re- 
tiring statesman  is  like  that  fine  carp 
— the  farther  he  leaps  from  the  water, 
the  greater  splash  he  makes  in  falling 
into  the  weeds!  But,"  added  Mr 
Caxton,  in  a  repentant  tone,  "this 
jesting  does  not  become  us ;  and,  if  I 
indulged  it,  it  is  only  because  I  am 
heartily  glad  that  Trevaniou  is  likely 
now  to  find  out  his  true  vocation. 
And  as  soon  as  the  fine  people  he 
brings  with  him  have  left  him  alone 
in  his  library,  I  trust  he  will  settle  to 
that  vocation,  and  be  happier  than  he 
has  been  yet." 

"  And  that  vocation,  sir,  is — " 
Metaphysics ! "  said  my  father. 
"  He  will  be  quite  at  home  in  puzzling 
over  Berkeley,  andconsidering  whether 
the  Speaker's  chair,  and  the  official 
red  boxes,  were  really  things  whose 
ideas  of  figure,  extension,  and  hard- 
ness, were  all  in  the  mind.  It  will 
be  a  great  consolation  to  him  to  agree 
with  Berkeley,  and  to  find  that  he  has 
only  been  baffled  by  immaterial  phan- 
tasma!" 

My  father  was  quite  right.  The 
repining,  subtle,  truth-weighing  Tre- 
vanion,  plagued  by  his  conscience  in- 
to seeing  all  sides  of  a  question,  (for 
the  least  question  has  more  than  two 
sides,  and  is  hexagonal  at  least,)  was 
much  more  fitted  to  discover  the  origin 
of  ideas  than  to  convince  Cabinets 
and  Nations  that  two  and  two  make 
four — a  proposition  on  which  he  him- 
self would  have  agreed  with  Abraham 
Tucker,  where  that  most  ingenious 
and  suggestive  of  all  English  meta- 
physicians observes,  "Well  persuaded 
as  I  am  that  two  and  two  make  four, 
if  I  were  to  meet  with  a  person  of 
credit,  candour,  and  understanding, 
who  should  sincerely  call  it  in  question, 
I  would  give  him  a  hearing ;  for  I  am 
not  more  certain  of  that  than  of  the 
whole  being  greater  than  a  part.  And 


yet  I  could  myself  suggest  some  con- 
siderations that  might  seem  to  contro- 
vert this  point"*  I  can  so  well  imagine 
Trevanion  listening  to  "  some  person 
of  credit,  candour,  and  understanding," 
in  disproof  of  that  vulgar  proposition 
that  twice  two  make  four !  But  the 
news  of  this  arrival,  including  that  of 
Lady  Castleton,  disturbed  me  greatly, 
and  I  took  to  long  wanderings  alone. 
In  one  of  these  rambles,  they  all  called 
at  the  Tower — Lord  and  Lady  Ulver- 
stone,  the  Castletons,  and  their  chil- 
dren. I  escaped  the  visit;  and  on 
my  return  home,  there  was  a  certain 
delicacy  respecting  old  associations, 
that  restrained  much  talk  before  me 
on  so  momentous  an  event.  Roland, 
like  me,  had  kept  out  of  the  way. 
Blanche,  poor  child,  ignorant  of  the 
antecedents,  was  the  most  communi- 
cative. And  the  especial  theme  she 
selected — was  the  grace  and  beauty  of 
Lady  Castleton ! 

A  pressing  invitation  to  spend  some 
days  at  the  castle  had  been  cor- 
dially given  to  all.  It  was  accep- 
ted only  by  myself:  I  wrote  word 
that  I  would  come. 

Yes  ;  I  longed  to  prove  the  strength 
of  my  own  self-conquest,  and  accu- 
rately test  the  nature  of  the  feelings 
that  had  disturbed  me.  That  any  senti- 
ment which  could  be  called  love 
remained  for  Lady  Castleton,  the 
wife  of  another,  and  that  other  a  man- 
with  so  many  claims  on  my  affection 
as  her  lord,  I  held  as  a  moral  impos- 
sibility. But,  with  all  those  lively 
impressions  of  early  youth  still  en- 
graved on  my  heart — impressions 
of  the  image  of  Fanny  Trevanion, 
as  the  fairest  and  brightest  of  human 
beings — could  I  feel  free  to  love 
again?  Could  I  seek  to  woo,  and 
rivet  to  myself  for  ever,  the  entire 
and  virgin  affections  of  another,  while 
there  was  a  possibility  that  I  might 
compare  and  regret?  No;  either 
I  must  feel  that,  if  Fanny  were 
again  single — could  be  mine  without 
obstacle,  human  or  divine  —  she 
had  ceased  to  be  the  one  I  would 
single  out  of  the  world;  or,  though 
regarding  love  as  the  dead,  I  would 
be  faithful  to  its  memory  and  its 


*  L'ujht  of  Nature — chapter  on  Judgment. — See  the  very  ingenious  illustration  of 
doubt,  "whether  the  part  is  always  greater  than  the  whole  " — taken  from  time,  or 
rather  eternity. 


400 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


[Oct. 


ashes.  My  mother  sighed,  and 
looked  fluttered  and  uneasy  all  the 
morning  of  the  day  on  which  I  was 
to  repair  to  Compton.  She  even 
seemed  cross,  for  about  the  third  time 
in  her  life,  and  paid  no  compliment 
to  Mr  Stultz,  when  my  shooting- 
jacket  was  exchanged  for  a  black 
frock,  which  that  artist  had  pro- 
nounced to  be  "  splendid  ;  "  neither 
did  she  honour  me  with  any  of  those 
little  attentions  to  the  contents  of  my 
portmanteau,  and  the  perfect  "getting 
up "  of  my  white  waistcoats  and 
cravats,  which  made  her  natural 
instincts  on  such  memorable  occa- 
sions. There  was  also  a  sort  of  que- 


rulous pitying  tenderness  in  her  tone 
when  she  spoke  to  Blanche,  which 
was  quite  pathetic;  though,  for- 
tunately, its  cause  remained  dark 
and  impenetrable  to  the  innocent 
comprehension  of  one  who  could  not 
see  where  the  past  filled  the  unis  of 
the  future,  at  the  fountain  of  life. 
My  father  understood  me  better — 
shook  me  by  the  hand,  as  I  got  into 
the  chaise,  and  muttered,  out  of 
Seneca — 

"  Non  tanquam  tra  nsfuga,  sed  tanquam 
explorator!  " 

'  Not  to  desert,  but  examine/ 

Quite  right. 


CHAPTER  CVI. 


Agreeably  to  the  usual  custom  in 
great  houses,  as  soon  as  I  arrived  at 
Compton  I  was  conducted  to  my 
room,  to  adjust  my  toilet,  or  com- 
pose my  spirits  by  solitude :  — it 
wanted  an  hour  to  dinner.  I  had 
not,  however,  been  thus  left  ten 
minutes,  before  the  door  opened,  and 
Trevanion  himself,  (as  I  would  fain 
still  call  him)  stood  before  me.  Most 
cordial  were  his  greeting  and  wel- 
come ;  and,  seating  himself  by  my 
side,  he  continued  to  converse,  in  his 
peculiar  way — bluntly  eloquent,  and 
carelessly  learned — till  the  half  hour 
bell  rang.  He  talked  on  Australia, 
the  Wakefield  system — cattle — books, 
his  trouble  in  arranging  his  library — 
his  schemes  for  improving  his  pro- 
perty, and  embellishing  his  grounds — 
his  delight  to  find  my  father  look  so 
well — his  determination  to  see  a  great 
deal  of  him,  whether  his  old  college 
friend  would  or  no.  He  talked,  in 
short,  of  everything  except  politics, 
and  his  own  past  career — showing  only 
his  soreness  in  that  silence.  But  (in- 
dependently of  the  mere  work  of  time,) 
he  looked  yet  more  worn  and  jaded  in 
his  leisure  than  he  had  done  in  the  full 
tide  of  business  ;  and  his  former  ab- 
rupt quickness  of  manner  now  seemed 
to  partake  of  feverish  excitement.  I 
hoped  that  my  father  would  see  much 
of  him,  for  I  felt  that  the  weary  mind 
wanted  soothing. 


Just  as  the  second  bell  rang,  I  en- 
tered the  drawing-room.  There  were 
at  least  twenty  guests  present — each 
guest,  no  doubt,  some  planet  of  fashion 
or  fame,  with  satellites  of  its  own. 
But  I  saw  only  two  forms  distinctly — 
first,  Lord  Castleton,  conspicuous 
with  star  and  garter,  somewhat  am- 
pler and  portlier  in  proportions,  and 
with  a  frank  dash  of  gray  in  the  silky 
waves  of  his  hair,  but  still  as  pre- 
eminent as  ever  for  that  beauty — 
the  charm  of  which  depends  less  than 
any  other  upon  youth — arising,  as  it 
does,  from  a  felicitous  combination  of 
bearing  and  manner,  and  that  exqui- 
site suavity  of  expression  which  steals 
into  the  heart,  and  pleases  so  much 
that  it  becomes  a  satisfaction  to  ad- 
mire !  Of  Lord  Castleton,  indeed,  it 
might  be  said,  as  of  Alcibiades,  '  that 
he  was  beautiful  at  every  age.'  I  felt 
my  breath  come  thick,  and  a  mist 
passed  before  my  eyes,  as  Lord  Cas- 
tleton led  me  through  the  crowd,  and 
the  radiant  vision  of  Fanny  Treva- 
ion,  how  altered — and  how  dazzling ! 
— burst  upon  me. 

I  felt  the  light  touch  of  that  hand 
of  snow ;  but  no  guilty  thrill  shot 
through  my  veins.  I  heard  the  voice, 
musical  as  ever — lower  than  it  was 
once,  and  more  subdued  in  its  key, 
but  steadfast  and  untremulous — it  was 
no  longer  the  voice  that  made  "my 
soul  plant  itself  in  the  ears."  *  The 


*  Sir  Philip  Sidney. 


1849.] 

event  was  over,  and  I  knew  that  the 
dream  had  fled  from  the  wakiiig  world 
for  ever. 

"Another  old  friend!"  as  Lady 
Ulverstone  came  forth  from  a  little 
group  of  children,  leading  one  fine 
boy  of  nine  years  old,  while  one,  t\vo 
or  three  years  3rounger,  clung  to  her 
gown.  "  Another  old  friend ! — and," 
added  Lady  Ulverstone,  after  the  first 
kind  greetings,  "two  new  ones,  when 
the  old  are  gone."  The  slight  melan- 
choly left  the  voice,  as,  after  presenting 
to  me  the  little  viscount,  she  drew 
forward  the  more  bashful  Lord  Albert, 
who  indeed  had  something  of  his 
grandsire's  and  namesake's  look  of  re- 
fined intelligence  in  his  brow  and  eyes. 

The  watchful  tact  of  Lord  Castleton 
was  quick  in  terminating  whatever 
embarrassment  might  belong  to  these 
introductions,  as,  leaning  lightly  on 
my  arm,  he  drew  me  forward,  and 
presented  me  to  the  guests  more  im- 
mediately in  our  neighbourhood,  who 
seemed  by  their  earnest  cordiality  to 
have  been  already  prepared  for  the 
introduction. 

Dinner  was  now  announced,  and  I 
welcomed  that  sense  of  relief  and  se- 
gregation with  which  one  settles  into 
one's  own  "particular"  chair  at  your 
large  miscellaneous  entertainments. 

I  stayed  three  days  at  that  house. 
How  truly  had  Trevanion  said  that 
Fanny  would  make  "  an  excellent 
great  lady."  What  perfect  harmony 
between  her  manners  and  her  position; 
just  retaining  enough  of  the  girl's  se- 
ductive gaiety  and  bewitching  desire 
to  please,  to  soften  the  new  dignity  of 
bearingshe  had  unconsciously  assumed 
— less,  after  all,  as  great  lady  than  as 
wife  and  mother:  with  a  fine  breeding, 
perhaps  a  little  languid  and  artificial, 
as  compared  with  her  lord's — which 
sprang,  fresh  and  healthful,  wholly 
from  nature — but  still  so  void  of  all 
the  chill  of  condescension,  or  the  subtle 
impertinence  that  belongs  to  that  order 
of  the  inferior  noblesse,  which  boasts 
the  name  of  "  exclusives ;  "  with  what 
grace,  void  of  prudery,  she  took  the 
adulation  of  the  flatterers,  turning 
from  them  to  her  children,  or  escaping 
lightly  to  Lord  Castleton,  with  an 
ease  that  drew  round  her  at  once  the 
protection  of  hearth  and  home. 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


401 


And  certainly  Lady  Castleton  was 
more  incoutestably  beautiful  than 
Fanny  Trevanion  had  been. 

All  this  I  acknowledged,  not  with  a 
sigh  and  a  pang,  but  with  a  pure  feeling 
of  pride  and  delight.  I  might  have 
loved  madly  and  presumptuously,  as 
boys  will  do ;  but  I  had  lo ved  worthily ; 
— the  love  left  no  blush  on  my  man- 
hood ;  and  Fanny's  very  happiness 
was  my  perfect  and  total  cure  of  every 
wound  in  my  heart  not  quite  scarred 
over  before.  Had  she  been  discon- 
tented, sorrowful,  without  joy  in  the 
ties  she  had  formed,  there  might  have 
been  more  danger  that  I  should  brood 
over  the  past,  and  regret  the  loss  of 
its  idol.  Here  there  was  none.  And 
the  very  improvement  in  her  beauty 
had  so  altered  its  character — so  altered 
— that  Fanny  Trevauion  and  Lady 
Castleton  seemed  two  persons.  And, 
thus  observing  and  listening  to  her,  I 
could  now  dispassionately  perceive 
such  differences  in  our  nature  as 
seemed  to  justify  Trevanion's  asser- 
tion, which  once  struck  me  as  so 
monstrous,  "  that  we  should  not  have 
been  happy  had  fate  permitted  our 
union."  Pure-hearted  and  simple 
though  she  remained  in  the  artificial 
world,  still  that  world  was  her  element ; 
its  interests  occupied  her ;  its  talk, 
though  just  chastened  from  scandal, 
flowed  from  her  lips.  To  borrow  the 
words  of  a  man  who  was  himself  a 
courtier,  and  one  so  distinguished  that 
he  could  afford  to  sneer  at  Chester- 
field,* "  Site  had  the  routine  of  that 
style  of  conversation  which  is  a  sort 
of  gold  leaf,  that  is  a  great  embellish- 
ment where  it  is  joined  to  anything 
else."  I  will  not  add,  "but  makes  a 
very  poor  figure  by  itself," — for  that 
Lady  Castleton's  conversation  cer- 
tainly did  not  do — perhaps,  indeed, 
because  it  was  not  "by  itself" — and 
the  gold  leaf  was  all  the  better  for 
being  thin,  since  it  could  not  cover 
even  the  surface  of  the  sweet  and  ami- 
able nature  over  which  it  was  spread. 
Still,  this  was  not  the  mind  in  wliich 
now,  in  maturer  experience,  I  would 
seek  to  find  sympathy  with  manly 
action,  or  companionship  in  the  charms 
of  intellectual  leisure. 

There   was    about    this    beautiful 
favourite  of  nature  and  fortune  a  cer- 


*  Lord  Hervey's  Memoirs  of  George  II. 


402 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


[Oct. 


tain"  helplessness,  which  had  even  its 
grace  in  that  high  station,  and  -which 
perhaps  tended  to  insure  her  domestic 
peace,  for  it  served  to  attach  her  to 
those  who  had  won  influence  over  her, 
and  was  happily  accompanied  by  a 
most  affectionate  disposition.  But- 
still,  if  less  favoured  by  circumstances, 
less  sheltered  from  every  wind  that 
could  visit  her  too  roughly — if,  as  the 
wife  of  a  man  of  inferior  rank,  she  had 
failed  of  that  high  seat  and  silken 
canopy  reserved  for  the  spoiled  darlings 
of  fortune — that  helplessness  might 
have  become  querulous.  I  thought  of 
poor  Ellen  Bolding  and  her  silken 
shoes.  Fanny  Trevanion  seemed  to 
have  come  into  the  world  with  silk 
shoes — not  to  walk  where  there  was 
a  stone  or  a  briar !  I  heard  something, 
in  the  gossip  of  those  around,  that  con- 
firmed this  view  of  Lady  Castleton's 
character,  while  it  deepened  my  ad- 
miration of  her  lord,  and  showed  me 
how  wise  had  been  her  choice,  and 
how  resolutely  he  had  prepared  him- 
self to  vindicate  his  own.  One  evening, 
as  I  was  sitting  a  little  apart  from  the 
rest,  with  two  men  of  the  London 
world,  to  whose  talk — for  it  ran  upon 
the  on-dits  and  anecdotes  of  a  region 
long  strange  to  me — I  was  a  silent  but 
amused  listener ;  one  of  the  two  said 
— "Well,  I  don't  know  anywhere  a 
more  excellent  creature  than  Lady 
Castleton  ;  so  fond  of  her  children — 
and  her  tone  to  Castleton  so  exactly 
what  it  ought  to  be— so  affectionate, 
and  yet,  as  it  were,  respectful.  And 
the  more  credit  to  her,  if,  as  they  say, 
she  was  not  in  love  with  him  when 
she  married,  Cto  be  sure,  handsome  as 
he  is,  he  is  twice  her  age !)  And  no 
woman  could  have  been  more  flattered 
and  courted  by  Lotharios  and  lady- 
killers  than  Lady  Castleton  has  been. 
I  confess,  to  my  shame,  that  Castleton's 
luck  puzzles  me,  for  it  is  rather  an 
exception  to  my  general  experience." 
"My  dear  *  *  *,"  said  the  other, 
who  was  one  of  those  wise  men  of 
pleasure,  who  occasionally  startle  us 
into  wondering  how  they  come  to  be 
so  clever,  and  yet  rest  contented  with 
mere  drawing-room  celebrity — men 
who  seem  always  idle,  yet  appear  to 
have  read  everything ;  always  indif- 
ferent to  what  passes  before  them,  yet 
who  know  the  characters  and  divine 
the  secrets  of  everybody—"  my  dear 


*  * *,"  said  the  gentleman,  "you  would 
not  be  puzzled  if  you  had  studied  Lord 
Castleton,  instead  of  her  ladyship.  Of 
all  the  conquests  ever  made  by  Sedlcy 
Beaudesert,  when  the  two  fairest 
dames  of  the  Faubourg  are  said  to 
have  fought  for  his  smiles  in  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne — no  conquest  ever  cost 
him  such  pains,  or  so  tasked  his  know- 
ledge of  women,  as  that  of  his  wife 
after  marriage  !  He  was  not  satisfied 
with  her  hand,  he  was  resolved  to  have 
her  whole  heart,  '  one  entire  and  per- 
fect chrysolite;'  and  he  has  succeeded? 
Never  was  husband  so  watchful,  and 
so  little  jealous— never  one  who  con- 
fided so  generously  in  all  that  was  best 
in  his  wife,  yet  was  so  alert  in  protect- 
ing and  guarding  her  wherever  she 
was  weakest !  When,  in  the  second 
year  of  marriage,  that  dangerous 
German  Prince  Von  Leibenfels  at- 
tached himself  so  perseveringly  to 
Lady  Castleton,  and  the  scandal- 
mongers pricked  up  their  ears  in  hopes 
of  a  victim,  I  watched  Castleton  with 
as  much  interest  as  if  I  had  been  look- 
ing over  Deschappelles  playing  at 
chess.  You  never  saw  anything  so 
masterly:  he  pitted  himself  against  lib 
highness  with  the  cool  confidence,  not 
of  a  blind  spouse,  but  a  fortunate  rival. 
He  surpassed  him  in  the  delicacy  of  his 
attentions,  he  outshone  him  by  his 
careless  magnificence.  Leibenfels  had 
the  impertinence  to  send  Lady  Castle- 
ton a  bouquet  of  some  rare  flowers 
just  in  fashion.  Castleton,  an  hour 
before,  had  filled  her  whole  balcony 
with  the  same  costly  exotics,  as  if  they 
were  too  common  for  nosegays,  and 
only  just  worthy  to  bloom  for  her  a 
day.  Young  and  really  accomplished 
as  Leibenfels  is,  Castleton  eclipsed 
him  by  his  grace,  and  fooled  him  with 
his  wit :  he  laid  little  plots  to  turn  his 
mustache  and  guitar  into  ridicule  \ 
he  seduced  him  into  a  hunt  with  the 
buckhounds,  (though  Castleton  him- 
self had  not  hunted  before,  since  he 
was  thirty,)  and  drew  him,  spluttering 
German  oaths,  out  of  the  slough  of  a 
ditch ;  he  made  him  the  laughter  of 
the  clubs;  he  put  him  fairly  out  of 
fashion— and  all  with  such  suavity  and 
politeness,  and  bland  sense  of  supe- 
riority, that  it  was  the  finest  piece  of 
high  comedy  you  ever  beheld.  The 
poor  prince,  who  had  been  coxcomb 
enough  to  lay  a  bet  with  a  French- 


1849.] 

man  as  to  his  success  with  the  English 
in  general,  and  Lady  Castleton  in 
particular,  went  away  with  a  face  as 
long  as  Don  Quixote's.  If  you  had 

but  seen  him  at  S House,  the  night 

before  he  took  leave  of  the  island,  and 
his  comical  grimace  when  Castleton 
offered  him  a  pinch  of  the  Beaudesert 
mixture !  No !  the  fact  is,  that  Castle- 
ton made  it  the  object  of  his  existence, 
the  masterpiece  of  his  art,  to  secure  to 
himself  a  happy  home,  and  the  entire 
possession  of  his  wife's  heart.  The 
first  two  or  three  years,  I  fear,  cost 
him  more  trouble  than  any  other  man 
ever  took,  with  his  own  wife  at  least 
— but  he  may  now  rest  in  peace ;  Lady 
Castleton  is  won,  and  for  ever." 

As  my  gentleman  ceased,  Lord 
Castleton's  noble  head  rose  above  the 
group  standing  round  him ;  and  I 
saw  Lady  Castleton  turn  with  a  look 
of  well-bred  fatigue  from  a  handsome 
young  fop,  who  had  affected  to  lower 
his  voice  while  he  spoke  to  her,  and, 
encountering  the  eyes  of  her  husband, 
the  look  changed  at  once  into  one  of 
such  sweet  smiling  affection,  snch 
frank  unmistakeable  wife-like  pride, 
that  it  seemed  a  response  to  the  as- 
sertion— "  Lady  Castleton  is  won,  and 
for  ever." 

Yes,  that  story  increased  my  ad- 
miration for  Lord  Castleton :  it  show- 
ed me  with  what  forethought  and  ear- 
nest sense  of  responsibility  he  had 
undertaken  the  charge  of  a  life,  the 
guidance  of  a  character  yet  undeve- 


The  Caxtons.—Part  the  Last. 


403 


loped  ;  it  lastingly  acquitted  him  of 
the  levity  that  had  been  attributed  to 
Sedley  Beaudesert.  But  I  felt  more 
than  ever  contented  that  the  task  had 
devolved  on  one  whose  temper  and 
experience  had  so  fitted  him  to  dis- 
charge it.  That  German  prince  made 
me  tremble  from  sympathy  with  the 
husband,  and  in  a  sort  of  relative  shud- 
der for  myself!  Had  that  episode 
happened  to  me,  I  could  never  have 
drawn  "  high  comedy"  from  it ! — I 
could  never  have  so  happily  closed 
the  fifth  act  with  a  pinch  of  the  Beau- 
desert  mixture !  No,  no ;  to  my 
homely  sense  of  man's  life  and  em- 
ployment, there  was  nothing  alluring 
in  the  prospect  of  watching  over  the 
golden  tree  in  the  -garden,  with  a 
"  woe  to  the  Argus,  if  Mercury  once 
lull  him  to  sleep ! "  Wife  of  mine 
shall  need  no  watching,  save  in  sick- 
ness and  sorrow !  Thank  Heaven, 
that  my  way  of  life  does  not  lead 
through  the  roseate  thoroughfares,  be- 
set with  German  princes  laying  bets 
for  my  perdition,  and  fine  gentlemen 
admiring  the  skill  with  which  I  play  at 
chess  for  so  terrible  a  stake !  To  each 
rank  and  each  temper,  its  own  laws. 
I  acknowledge  that  Fanny  is  an  ex- 
cellent marchioness,  and  Lord  Cas- 
tleton'an  incomparable  marquis.  But, 
Blanche !  if  I  can  win  thy  true  simple 
heart,  I  trust  I  shall  begin  at  the  fifth 
act  of  high  comedy,  and  say  at  the 
altar — 

"  Once  won,  won  for  ever !  " 


CHAPTER  CVII. 


I  rode  home  on  a  horse  my  host 
lent  me ;  and  Lord  Castleton  rode 
part  of  the  way  with  me,  accompanied 
by  his  two  boys,  who  bestrode  man- 
fully their  Shetland  ponies,  and  can- 
tered on  before  us.  I  paid  some  com- 
pliment to  the  spirit  and  intelligence 
of  these  children — a  compliment  they 
well  deserved,  • 

"Why,  yes,"  said  the  marquis, 
with  a  father's  becoming  pride,  "I 
hope  neither  of  them  will  shame  his 
grandsire,  Trevaniou.  Albert  (though 
not  quite  the  wonder  poor  Lady  Ulver- 
stone  declares  him  to  be)  is  rather  too 
precocious  ;  and  it  is  all  I  can  do  to 
prevent  his  being  spoilt  by  flattery  to 
his  cleverness,  which,  I  think,  is  much 


worse  than  even  flattery  to  rank— a 
danger  to  which,  despite  Albert's 
destined  inheritance,  the  elder  brother 
is  more  exposed.  Eton  soon  takes 
out  the  conceit  of  the  latter  and  more 

vulgar  kind.    I  remember  Lord 

(you  know  what  an  unpretending 
good-natured  fellow  he  is  now)  strut- 
ting into  the  play-ground,  a  raw  boy 
with  his  chin  up  in  the  air,  and  burly 
Dick  Johnson  (rather  a  tuft-hunter 
now,  I'm  afraid)  coming  up,  and  say- 
ing, '  Well,  sir,  and  who  the  deuce  are 

you  ? '     '  Lord  ,'  says  the  poor 

devil  unconsciously,  'eldest  son  of  the 

Marquis  of .'    '  Oh,  indeed !'  cries 

Johnson  ;  '  then,  there's  one  kick  for 
my  lord,  and  two  for  the  marquis ! ' 


404 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last 


[Oct. 


I  am  not  fond  of  kicking,  but  I  doubt 

if  anything  ever  did more  good 

than  those  three  kicks !  But "  con- 
tinued Lord  Castleton,  "when  one 
flatters  a  boy  for  his  cleverness,  even 
Eton  itself  cannot  kick  the  conceit  out 
of  him.  Let  him  be  last  in  the  form, 
and  the  greatest  dunce  ever  flogged, 
there  are  always  people  to  'say  that 
your  public  schools  don't  do  for  your 
great  geniuses.  And  it  is  ten  to  one 
but  what  the  father  is  plagued  into 
taking  the  boy  home,  and  giving  him 
a  private  tutor,  who  fixes  him  into  a 
prig  for  ever.  A  coxcomb  in  dress," 
said  the  marquis  smiling,  "  is  a  trifler 
it  would  ill  become  me  to  condemn, 
and  I  own  that  I  would  rather  see  a 
youth  a  fop  than  a  sloven  ;  but  a  cox- 
comb in  ideas — why,  the  younger  he  is, 
the  more  unnatural  and  disagreeable. 
Now,  Albert,  over  that  hedge,  sir.": 

"  That  hedge,  papa  ?  The  pony 
will  never  do  it." 

"Then,"saidLord  Castleton,  taking 
off  his  hat  with  politeness,  "  I  fear 
you  will  deprive  us  of  the  pleasure  of 
your  company." 

The  boy  laughed,  and  made  gal- 
lantly for  the  hedge,  though  I  saw  by 
his  change  of  colour  that  it  a  little 
alarmed  him.  The  pony  could  not 
clear  the  hedge  ;  but  it  was  a  pony  of 
tact  and  resources,  and  it  scrambled 
through  like  a  cat,  inflicting  sundry 
rents  and  tears  on  a  jacket  of  Raphael 
blue. 

Lord  Castleton  said,  smiling,  "You 
see  I  teach  them  to  get  through  a 
difficulty  one  way  or  the  other.  Be- 
tween you  and  me,"  he  added  serious- 
ly, "I  perceive  a  very  different  world 
rising  round  the  next  generation  from 
that  in  which  I  first  went  forth  and 
took  my  pleasure.  I  shall  rear  my 
boys  accordingly.  Rich  noblemen 
must  now-a-days  be  useful  men ;  and 
if  they  can't  leap  over  briars,  they 
must  scramble  through  them.  Don't 
you  agree  with  me  ?" 

"  Yes,  heartily." 

"Marriage  makes  a  man  much 
wiser,"  said  the  marquis,  after  a  pause. 
"  I  smile  now,  to  think  how  often  I 


sighed  at  the  thought  of  growing  old. 
Now  I  reconcile  myself  to  the  gray 
hairs  without  dreams  of  a  wig,  and 
enjoy  youth  still — for"  (pointing  to  his 
sons)  "it is  there!" 

"  He  has  very  nearly  found  out  the 
secret  of  the  saffron  bag  now,"  said 
my  father,  pleased,  and  rubbing  his 
hands,  when  I  repeated  this  talk  with 
Lord  Castleton.  "  But  I  fear  poor 
Trevanion,"  he  added,  with  a  compas- 
sionate change  of  countenance,  "is  still 
far  away  from  the  sense  of  Lord 
Bacon's  receipt.  And  his  wife,  you 
say,  out  of  very  love  for  him,  keeps 
always  drawing  discord  from  the  one 
jarring  wire." 

"  You  must  talk  to  her,  sir." 

"  I  will,"  said  my  father  angrily  ; 
"  and  scold  her  too — foolish  woman  ! 
I  shall  tell  her  Luther's  advice  to  the 
Prince  of  Anhalt." 

"  What  was  that,  sir?" 

"  Only  to  throw  a  baby  into  the 
river  Maldon,  because  it  had  sucked 
dry  five  wet-nurses  besides  the  mo- 
ther, and  must  therefore  be  a  change- 
ling. Why,  that  ambition  of  hers 
would  suck  dry  all  the  mothers'  milk 
in  the  genus  mammalian  !  And  such 
a  withered,  rickety,  malign  little 
changeling  too !  She  shall  fling  it  into 
the  river,  by  all  that  is  holy  !"  cried 
my  father  ;  and,  suiting  the  action  to 
the  word,  away  went  the  spectacles  he 
had  been  rubbing  indignantly  for  the 
last  three  minutes,  into  the  pond. 
"  Papse  !"  faltered  my  father  aghast, 
while  the  Ceprinidas,  mistaking  the 
dip  of  the  spectacles  for  an  invitation 
to  dinner,  came  scudding  up  to  the 
bank.  "  It  is  all  your  fault,"  said  Mr 
Caxton,  recovering  himself.  "  Get 
me  the  new  tortoise-shell  spectacles 
and  a  large  slice  of  bread.  You  see 
that  when  fish  are  reduced  to  a  pond 
they  recognise  a  benefactor,  which 
they  never  do  when  rising  at  flies,  or 
groping  for  worms,  in  the  waste  world 
of  a  river.  Hem ! — a  hint  for  the 
Ulverstones.  Besides  the  bread  and 
the  spectacles,  just  look  out  and  bring 
me  the  old  black-letter  copy  of  St 
Anthony's  Sermon  to  Fishes." 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


405 


CHAPTER   CVIII. 


Some  weeks  now  have  passed  since 
my  return  to  the  Tower :  the  Castle- 
tons  are  gone,  and  all  Trevanion's  gay 
guests.  And  since  these  departures, 
visits  between  the  two  houses  have 
beeninterchanged  often,  and  the  bonds 
of  intimacy  are  growing  close.  Twice 
has  my  father  held  long  conversations 
apart  with  Lady  Ulverstone,  (my 
mother  is  not  foolish  enough  to  feel  a 
pang  now  at  such  confidences,)  and  the 
result  has  become  apparent.  Lady 
Ulverstone  has  ceased  all  talk  against 
the  world  and  the  public — ceased  to 
fret  the  galled  pride  of  her  husband 
with  irritating  sympathy.  She  has 
made  herself  the  true  partner  of  his 
present  occupations,  as  she  was  of 
those  in  the  past ;  she  takes  interest 
in  farming,  and  gardens,  and  flowers, 
and  those  philosophical  peaches  which 
come  from  trees  academical  that  Sir 
William  Temple  reared  in  his  graceful 
retirement.  She  does  more — she  sits 
by  her  husband's  side  in  the  library, 
reads  the  books  he  reads,  or,  if  in 
Latin,  coaxes  him  into  construing 
them.  Insensibly  she  leads  him  into 
studies  farther  and  farther  remote  from 
Blue  Books  and  Hansard  ;  and,  taking 
my  father's  hint, 

"  Allures  to  brighter  -worlds,  and  leads  the 
way." 

They  are  inseparable.  Darby-and- 
Joan-like,  you  see  them  together  in 
the  library,  the  garden,  or  the  homely 
little  pony-phaeton,  for  which  Lord 
Ulverstone  has  resigned  the  fast-trot- 
ting cob,  once  identified  with  the 
eager  looks  of  the  busy  Trevanion.  It 
is  most  touching,  most  beautiful !  And 
to  think  what  a  victory  over  herself 
the  proud  woman  must  have  obtained  I 
— never  a  thought  that  seems  to  mur- 
imir,  never  a  word  to  recall  the  ambi- 
tious man  back  from  the  philosophy 
into  which  his  active  mind  flies  for 
refuge.  And  with  the  effort  her  brow 
has  become  so  serene !  That  care- 
worn expression,  which  her  fine 
features  once  wore,  is  fast  vanishing. 
And  what  affects  me  most,  is  to  think 
that  this  change  (which  is  already  set- 
tling into  happiness)  has  been  wrought 
by  Austin's  counsels  and  appeals  to 
her  sense  and  affection.  "  It  is  to  you," 
he  said,  "  that  Trevanion  must  look 


for  more  than  comfort — for  cheerful- 
ness and  satisfaction.  Your  child  is 
gone  from  yon — the  world  ebbs  away 
— you  two  should  be  all  in  all  to  each 
other.  Be  so."  Thus,  after  paths  so 
devious,  meet  those  who  had  parted 
in  youth,'  now  on  the  verge  of  age. 
There,  in  the  same  scenes  where 
Austin  and  Ellinor  had  first  formed 
acquaintance,  he  aiding  her  to  soothe 
the  wounds  inflicted  by  the  ambition 
that  had  separated  their  lots,  and 
both  taking  counsel  to  insure  the  hap- 
piness of  the  rival  she  had  preferred. 

After  all  this  vexed  public  life  of 
toil,  and  care,  and  ambition, — to  see 
Trevanion  and  Ellinor  drawing  closer 
and  closer  to  each  other,  knowing 
private  life  and  its  charms  for  the  first 
time, — verily  it  would  have  been  a 
theme  for  an  elegiast  like  Tibullos. 

But  all  this  while  a  younger  love, 
with  no  blurred  leaves  to  erase  from 
the  chronicle,  has  been  keeping  sweet 
account  of  the  summer  time.  "  Very 
near  are  two  hearts  that  have  no  guile 
between  them,"  saith  a  proverb,  traced 
back  to  Confucius.  O  ye  days  of  still 
sunshine,  reflected  back  from  ourselves 
— O  ye  haunts,  endeared  evermore  by 
a  look,  tone,  or  smile,  or  rapt  silence  ; 
when  more  and  more  with  each  hour, 
unfolded  before  me  that  nature,  so 
tenderly  coy,  so  cheerful  though  seri- 
ous, so  attuned  by  simple  cares  to  af- 
fection, yet  so  filled,  from  soft  musings 
and  solitude,  with  a  poetry  that  gave 
grace  to  duties  the  homeliest ; — setting 
life's  trite  things  to  music.  Here 
nature  and  fortune  concurred  alike : 
equal  in  birth  and  pretensions — simi- 
lar in  tastes  and  in  objects, — loving 
the  healthful  activity  of  purpose,  but 
content  to  find  it  around  us — neither 
envying  the  wealthy,  nor  vying  with 
the  great  ;  each  framed  by  temper  to 
look  on  the  bright  side  of  life,  and  find 
founts  of  delight,  and  green  spots 
fresh  with  verdure,  where  eyes  but 
accustomed  to  cities  could  see  but  the 
sands  and  the  mirage.  While  afar  (as 
man's  duty)  I  had  gone  through  the 
travail  that,  in  wrestling  with  fortune, 
gives  pause  to  the  heart  to  recover  its 
losses,  and  know  the  value  of  love, 
in  its  graver  sense  of  life's  earnest 
realities ;  heaven  had  reared,  at  the 


406 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


[Oct. 


thresholds  of  home,  the  young  tree 
that  should  cover  the  roof  with  its 
blossoms,  and  embalm  with  its  fra- 
grance the  daily  air  of  my  being. 

It  had  been  the  joint  prayer  of  those 
kind  ones  I  left,  that  such  might  be 
my  reward ;  and  each  had  contributed, 
in  his  or  her  several  way,  to  fit  that 
fair  life  for  the  ornament  and  joy  of 
the  one  that  now  asked  to  guard  and 
to  cherish  it.  From  Roland  came  that 
deep,  earnest  honour — a  man's  in  its 
strength,  and  a  woman's  in  its  deli- 
cate sense  of  refinement.  From 
Roland,  that  quick  taste  for  all  things 
noble  in  poetry,  and  lovely  in  nature 
— the  eye  that  sparkled  to  read  how 
Bayard  stood  alone  at  the  bridge,  and 
saved  an  army — or  wept  over  the 
page  that  told  how  the  dying  Sidney 
put  the  bowl  from  his  burning  lips.  Is 
that  too  masculine  a  spirit  for  some  ? 
Let  each  please  himself.  Give  me 
the  woman  who  can  echo  all  thoughts 
that  are  noblest  in  man !  And  that 
eye,  too — like  Roland's, — could  pause 
to  note  each  finer  mesh  in  the  won- 
derful webwork  of  beauty.  No  land- 
scape to  her  was  the  same  yesterday 
and  to-day, — a  deeper  shade  from  the 
skies  could  change  the  face  of  the 
moors — the  springing  up  of  fresh  wild 
flowers,  the  very  song  of  some  bird 
unheard  before,  lent  variety  to  the 
broad  rugged  heath.  Is  that  too  sim- 
ple a  source  of  pleasure  for  some  to 
prize  ?  Be  it  so  to  those  who  need  the 
keen  stimulants  that  cities  afford.  But 
if  we  were  to  pass  all  our  hours  in 
those  scenes,  it  was  something  to  have 
the  tastes  which  own  no  monotony  in 
Nature. 

All  this  came  from  Roland;  and 
to  this,  with  thoughtful  wisdom,  my 
father  had  added  enough  knowledge 
from  books  to  make  those  tastes 
more  attractive,  and  to  lend  to  im- 
pulsive perception  of  beauty  and  good- 
ness the  culture  that  draws  finer 
essence  from  beauty,  and  expands  the 
Good  into  the  Better  by  heightening 
the  site  of  the  survey :  hers,  know- 
ledge enough  to  sympathise  with 
intellectual  pursuits,  not  enough  to 
dispute  on  man's  province — Opinion. 
Still,  whether  in  nature  or  in  lore,  still 

"  The  fairest  garden  in  her  looks, 
And  in  her  mind  the  choicest  hooks  !  " 

And  yet,  thou  wise  Austin — and  thou 
Roland,  poet  that  never  wrote  a  verse, 


— yet  your  work  had  been  incomplete, 
but  then  Woman  stept  in,  aud  the 
mother  gave  to  her  she  designed  for  a 
daughter  the  last  finish  of  meek  every- 
day charities — the  mild  household 
virtues, — "  the  soft  word  that  turneth 
away  wrath," — the  angelic  pity  for 
man's  rougher  faults — the  patience 
that  bideth  its  time— and,  exacting  no 
"  rights  of  woman,"  subjugates  us, 
delighted,  to  the  invisible  thrall. 

Dost  thou  remember,  my  Blanche, 
that  soft  summer  evening  when  the 
vows  our  eyes  had  long  interchanged 
stole  at  last  from  the  lip  ?  Wife  mine ! 
come  to  my  side, — look  over  me  while 
I  write ;  there,  thy  tears — (happy 
tears,  are  they  not,  Blanche  ?) — have 
blotted  the  page  !  Shall  we  tell  the 
world  more  ?  Right,  my  Blanche,  no 
words  should  profane  the  place  where 
those  tears  have  fallen ! 

****** 

And  here  I  would  fain  conclude  ; 
but  alas,  and  alas !  that  I  cannot 
associate  with  our  hopes,  on  this  side 
the  grave,  him  who,  we  fondly  hoped, 
(even  on  the  bridal-day,  that  gave  his 
sister  to  my  arms,)  would  come  to  the 
hearth  where  his  place  now  stood 
vacant,  contented  with  glory,  and 
fitted  at  last  for  the  tranquil  happiness, 
which  long  years  of  repentance  and 
trial  had  deserved. 

Within  the  first  year  of  my  mar- 
riage, and  shortly  after  a  gallant  share 
in  a  desperate  action,  which  had 
covered  his  name  with  new  honours, 
just  when  we  were  most  elated,  in  the 
blinded  vanity  of  human  pride — came 
the  fatal  news  !  The  brief  career  was 
run.  He  died,  as  I  knew  he  would 
have  prayed  to  die,  at  the  close  of  a 
day  ever  memorable  in  the  annals  of 
that  marvellous  empire,  which  valour 
without  parallel  has  annexed  to  the 
Throne  of  the  Isles.  He  died  in  the 
arms  of  Victory,  and  his  last  smile 
met  the  eyes  of  the  noble  chief  who, 
even  in  that  hour,  could  pause  from 
the  tide  of  triumph  by  the  victim  it 
had  cast  on  its  bloody  shore.  "  One 
favour,"  faltered  the  dying  man ;  "  I 
have  a  father  at  home — he  too  is  a 
soldier.  In  my  tent  is  my  will :  it 
gives  all  I  have  to  him — he  can  take 
it  without  shame.  That  is  not  enough ! 
Write  to  him— you— with  your  own 
hand,  and  tell  him  how  his  son  fell !  " 
And  the  hero  fulfilled  the  prayer,  and 


1849.] 

that  letter  is  dearer  to  Roland  than 
all  the  long  roll  of  the  ancestral  dead ! 
Nature  has  reclaimed  her  rights,  and 
the  forefathers  recede  before  the  son. 
In  a  side  chapel  of  the  old  Gothic 
church,  amidst  the  mouldering  tombs 
of  those  who  fought  at  Acre  and  Agin- 
court,  a  fresh  tablet  records  the  death 
of  HERBERT  DE  CAXTON,  with  the 
simple  inscription — 

HE  FELL  ON  THE  FIELD  : 

HIS  COUNTRY  MOURNED  HIM, 

AND  HIS  FATHER  IS  RESIGNED. 

Years  have  rolled  away  since  that 
tablet  was  placed  there,  and  changes 
have  passed  on  that  nook  of  earth 
which  bounds  our  little  world :  fail- 
chambers  have  sprung  up  amidst  the 
desolate  ruins ;  far  and  near,  smiling 
corn-fields  replace  the  bleak,  dreary 
moors.  The  land  supports  more  re- 
tainers than  ever  thronged  to  the 
pennon  of  its  barons  of  old  ;  and  Ro- 
land can  look  from  his  tower  over 
domains  that  are  reclaimed,  year  by 
year,  from  the  waste,  till  the  plough- 
share shall  win  a  lordship  more  opu- 
lent than  those  feudal  chiefs  ever  held 
by  the  tenure  of  the  sword.  And  the 
hospitable  mirth  that  had  fled  from 
the  ruin  has  been  renewed  in  the  hall ; 
and  rich  and  poor,  great  and  lowly, 
have  welcomed  the  rise  of  an  ancient 
house  from  the  dust  of  decay.  All 
those  dreams  of  Roland's  youth  are 
fulfilled ;  but  they  do  not  gladden  his 
heart  as  does  the  thought  that  his  son, 
at  the  last,  was  worthy  of  his  line,  and 
the  hope  that  no  gulf  shall  yawn  be- 
tween the  two  when  the  Grand 
Circle  is  rounded,  and  man's  past 
and  man's  future  meet  where  Time 
disappears.  Never  was  that  lost  one 
forgotten  !  — never  was  his  name 
breathed  but  tears  rushed  to  the  eyes ; 
and,  each  morning,  the  peasant  going 
to  his  labour  might  see  Roland  steal 
down  the  dell  to  the  deep-set  door  of 
the  chapel.  None  presume  there  to 
follow  his  steps,  or  intrude  on  his 
solemn  thoughts;  for  there,  in  sight 
of  that  tablet,  are  his  orisons  made, 
and  the  remembrance  of  the  dead 
forms  a  part  of  the  commune  with 
heaven.  But  the  old  man's  step  is 
still  firm,  and  his  brow  still  erect ;  and 
you  may  see  in  his  face  that  it  was  no 
hollow  boast  which  proclaimed  that 

VOL.  LXVI. — KO.  ccccvin. 


Tne  Caxtons.—Part  the  Last. 


407 


the  "  father  was  resigned :  "  and  ye 
who  doubt  if  too  Roman  a  hardness 
might  not  be  found  in  that  Christian 
resignation,  think  what  it  is  to  have 
feared  for  a  son  the  life  of  shame,  and 
ask,  then,  if  the  sharpest  grief  to  a 
father  is  in  a  son's  death  of  honour. 

Years  have  passed,  and  two  fair 
daughters  play  at  the  knees  of  Blanche 
or  creep  round  the  footstool  of  Austin, 
waiting  patiently  for  the  expected 
kiss  when  he  looks  up  from  the  Great 
Book,  now  drawing  fast  to  its  close ; 
or,  if  Roland  enter  the  room,  forget 
all  their  sober  demureness,  and,  un- 
awed  by  the  terrible  "Papae!"  run 
clamorous  for  the  promised  swing  in 
the  orchard,  or  the  fiftieth  recital  of 
"  Chevy  Chase." 

For  my  part,  I  take  the  goods  the 
gods  provide  me,  and  am  contented 
with  girls  that  have  the  eyes  of  their 
mother ;  but  Roland,  ungrateful  man, 
begins  to  grumble  that  we  are  so  ne- 
glectful of  the  rights  of  heirs-male. 
He  is  in  doubt  whether  to  lay  the 
fault  on  Mr  Squills  or  on  us:  I  am 
not  sure  that  he  does  not  think  it  a 
conspiracy  of  all  three  to  settle  the 
representation  of  the  martial  De  Cax- 
tons  on  "the  spindle  side."  Who- 
soever be  the  right  person  to  blame, 
an  omission  so  fatal  to  the  straight 
line  in  the  pedigree  is  rectified  at  last ; 
and  Mrs  Primmins  again  rushes,  or 
rather  rolls — in  the  movement  natural 
to  forms  globular  and  spheral — into 
my  father's  room  with — 

"  Sir,  sir — it  is  a  boy  !" 

Whether  my  father  asked  also  this 
time  that  question  so  puzzling  to 
metaphysical  inquirers,  "  What  is  a 
boy  ?"  I  know  not ;  I  rather  suspect 
he  had  not  leisure  for  so  abstract  a 
question  :  for  the  whole  household 
burst  on  him,  and  my  mother,  in  that 
storm  peculiar  to  the  elements  of  the 
Mind  Feminine— a  sort  of  sunshiny 
storm  between  laughter  and  crying- 
whirled  him  off  to  behold  the  Neogilos. 

Now,  some  months  after  that  date, 
on  a  winter's  evening,  we  were  all 
assembled  in  the  hall,  which  was  still 
our  usual  apartment,  since  its  size 
permitted  to  each  his  own  segregated 
and  peculiar  employment.  A  large 
screen  fenced  off  from  interruption  my 
father's  erudite  settlement ;  and  quite 
out  of  sight,  behind  that  impermeable 
barrier,  he  was  now  calmly  winding 
SE 


408 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


[Oct. 


tip  that  eloquent  peroration  which  will 
astonish  the  world  whenever,  by 
Heaven's  special  mercy,  the  printer's 
devils  have  done  with  "The  History 
of  Human  Error."  In  another  nook 
my  uncle  had  ensconced  himself— 
stirring  his  coffee,  (in  the  cup  my 
mother  had  presented  to  him  so  many 
years  ago,  and  which  had  miracu- 
lously escaped  all  the  ills  the  race  of 
crockery  is  heir  to,)  a  volume  of 
Ivanhoe  in  the  other  hand :  and,  de- 
spite the  charm  of  the  Northern 
Wizard,  his  eye  not  on  the  page.  On 
the  wall  behind  him,  hangs  the  picture 
of  Sir  Herbert  de  Caxton,  the  soldier- 
comrade  of  Sidney  and  Drake  ;  and, 
at  the  foot  of  the  picture,  Roland  has 
slung  his  son's  sword  beside  the  letter 
that  spoke  of  his  death,  which  is 
framed  and  glazed :  sword  and  letter 
bad  become  as  the  last,  nor  least 
honoured,  Penates  of  the  hall : — the 
son  was  grown  an  ancestor. 

Not  far  from  my  uncle  sat  Mr 
Squills,  employed  in  mapping  out 
phrenological  divisions  on  a  cast  he 
had  made  from  the  skull  of  one  of  the 
Australian  aborigines — a  ghastly  pre- 
sent which  (in  compliance  with  a 
yearly  letter  to  that  effect)  I  had 
brought  him  over,  together  with  a 
stuffed  "  wombat"  and  a  large  bundle 
of  sarsaparilla.  (For  the  satisfaction 
of  his  patients,  I  may  observe,  paren- 
thetically, that  the  skull  and  the 
"wombat" — that  last  is  a  creature 
between  a  miniature  pig  and  a  very 
small  badger — were  not  precisely 
packed  up  with  the  sarsaparilla !)  Far- 
ther on  stood  open,  but  idle,  the  new 
pianoforte,  at  which,  before  my  father 
had  given  his  preparatory  hem,  and 
sat  down  to  the  Great  Book,  Blanche 
and  my  mother  had  been  trying  hard 
to  teach  me  to  bear  the  third  in  the 
glee  of  "  The  Chough  and  Crow  to 
roost  have  gone," — vain  task,  in  spite 
of  all  flattering  assurances  that  I  have 
a  very  fine  "  bass,"  if  I  could  but 
manage  to  humour  it.  Fortunately 
for  the  ears  of  the  audience,  that  at- 
tempt is  now  abandoned.  My  mother 
is  hard  at  work  on  her  tapestry — the 
last  pattern  in  fashion — to  wit,  a  rosy- 
cheeked  young  troubadour  playing  the 
lute  under  a  salmon-coloured  bal- 
cony :  the  two  little  girls  look  gravely 
on,  prematurely  in  love,  I  suspect, 
with  the  troubadour;  and  Blanche  and 


I  have  stolen  away  into  a  corner,  which, 
by  some  strange  delusion,  we  consider 
out  of  sight,  and  in  that  corner  is  the 
cradle  of  the  Neogilos.  Indeed  it  is  not 
our  fault  that  it  is  there — Roland 
would  have  it  so  ;  and  the  baby  is  so 
good,  too,  he  never  cries — at  least  so 
say  Blanche  and  my  mother :  at  all 
events  he  does  not  cry  to-night.  And 
indeed,  that  child  is  a  wonder  !  He 
seems  to  know  and  respond  to  what 
was  uppermost  at  our  hearts  when  he 
was  born ;  and  yet  more,  when  Ro- 
land (contrary,  I  dare  say,  to  all  cus- 
tom) permitted  neither  mother,  nor 
nurse,  nor  creature  of  womankind,  to 
hold  him  at  the  baptismal  font,  but 
bent  over  the  new  Christian  his  own 
dark,  high-featured  face,  reminding 
one  of  the  eagle  that  hid  the  infant 
in  its  nest,  and  watched  over  it  with 
wings  that  had  battled  with  the  storm : 
and  from  that  moment  the  child,  who 
took  the  name  of  HERBERT,  seemed 
to  recognise  Roland  better  than  his 
nurse,  or  even  mother — seemed  to 
know  that,  in  giving  him  that  name, 
we  sought  to  give  Roland  his  son 
once  more !  Never  did  the  old  man 
come  near  the  infant  but  it  smiled 
and  crowed,  and  stretched  out  its 
little  arms ;  and  then  the  mother  and  I 
would  press  each  other's  hands  secretly, 
and  were  not  jealous.  Well,  then, 
Blanche  and  Pisistratus  were  seated 
near  the  cradle,  and  talking  in  low 
whispers,  when  my  father  pushed 
aside  the  screen  and  said — 

"There — the  work  is  done!  and 
now  it  may  go  to  press  as  soon  as 
you  will." 

Congratulations  poured  in — my 
father  bore  them  with  his  usual  equa- 
nimity ;  and  standing  on  the  hearth, 
his  hand  in  his  waistcoat,  he  said 
musingly,  "  Among  the  last  delusions 
of  Human  Error,  I  have  had  to  notice 
Rousseau's  phantasy  of  Perpetual 
Peace,  and  all  the  like  pastoral  dreams, 
which  preceded  the  bloodiest  wars 
that  have  convulsed  the  earth  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years ! " 

"And  to  judge  by  the  newspapers,' 
said  I,  "the  same  delusions  are  re- 
newed again.  Benevolent  theorists 
go  about,  prophesying  peace  as  a 
positive  certainty,  deduced  from  that 
sibyl-book  the  ledger;  and  we  are 
never  again  to  buy  cannons,  provided 
only  we  can  exchange  cotton  for  corn. 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last. 


409 


MR  SQUILLS,  (who,  having  almost 
wholly  retired  from  general  business, 
has,  from  want  of  something  better  to 
do,  attended  sundry  "  Demonstrations 
in  the  North,"  since  which  Ae  has  talked 
much  about  the  march  of  improvement, 
the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  "  us  of  the 
nineteenth  century.'''1) — I  heartily  hope 
that  these  benevolent  theorists  are 
true  prophets.  I  have  found,  in  the 
course  of  my  professional  practice, 
that  men  go  out  of  the  world  quite 
fast  enough,  without  hacking  them 
into  pieces,  or  blowing  them  up  into 
the  air.  War  is  a  great  evil. 

BLANCHE,  (passing  by  Squills,  and 
glancing  towards  Roland.) — Hush ! 

Roland  remains  silent. 

MR  CAXTON. — War  is  a  great  evil ; 
but  evil  is  admitted  by  Providence 
into  the  agency  of  creation,  physical 
and  moral.  The  existence  of  evil  has 
puzzled  wiser  heads  than  ours,  Squills. 
But,  no  doubt,  there  is  One  above 
who  has  His  reasons  for  it.  The 
combative  bump  seems  as  common  to 
the  human  skull  as  the  philo-progeni- 
tive ;  if  it  is  in  our  organisation,  be 
sure  it  is  not  there  without  cause. 
Neither  is  it  just  to  man,  nor  wisely 
submissive  to  the  Disposer  of  all 
events,  to  suppose  that  war  is  wholly 
and  wantonly  produced  by  human 
crimes  and  follies — that  it  conduces 
only  to  ill,  and  does  not  as  often  arise 
from  the  necessities  interwoven  in  the 
framework  of  society,  and  speed  the 
great  ends  of  the  human  race,  confor- 
mably with  the  designs  of  the  Omni- 
scient. Not  one  great  war  has  ever 
desolated  the  earth,  but  has  left  behind 
it  seeds  that  have  ripened  into  bless- 
ings incalculable. 

MR  SQUILLS,  (with  the  groan  of  a 
dissentient  at  a  '•'•Demonstration.'''1) — 
Oh  !  oh !  OH  ! 

Luckless  Squills!  Little  could  he 
have  foreseen  the  shower-bath,  or 
rather  douche,  of  erudition  that  fell 
splash  on  his  head,  as  he  pulled  the 
spring  with  that  impertinent  Oh!  oh! 
Down  first  came  the  Persian  War, 
with  Median  myriads  disgorging  all 
the  rivers  they  had  drunk  up  in  their 
march  through  the  East— all  the  arts, 
all  the  letters,  all  the  sciences,  all  the 
notions  of  liberty  that  we  inherit  from 
Greece — my  father  rushed  on  with 
them  all,  sousing  Squills  with  his 
proofs  that,  without  the  Persian  War, 


Greece  would  never  have  risen  to 
be  the  teacher  of  the  world.  Be- 
fore the  gasping  victim  could  take 
breath,  down  came  Hun,  Goth,  and 
Vandal,  on  Italy  and  Squills. 

"  What,  sir !  "  cried  my  father, 
"don't  you  see  that,  from  those  erup- 
tions on  demoralised  Rome,  came  the 
regeneration  of  manhood  ;  the  re- 
baptism  of  earth  from  the  last  soils  of 
paganism ;  and  the  remote  origin  of 
whatever  of  Christianity  yet  exists, 
free  from  the  idolatries  with  which 
Rome  contaminated  the  faith  ?  " 

Squills  held  up  his  hands,  and  made 
a  splutter.  Down  came  Charle- 
magne— paladins  and  all !  There 
my  father  was  grand !  What  a  pic- 
ture he  made  of  the  broken,  jarring, 
savage  elements  of  barbaric  society. 
And  the  iron  hand  of  the  great  Frank 
— settling  the  nations,  and  founding 
existent  Europe.  Squills  was  now 
fast  sinking  into  coma,  or  stupefaction ; 
but,  catching  at  a  straw,  as  he  heard 
the  word  "Crusades"  he  stuttered 
forth,  "  Ah !  there  I  defy  you ! " 

"  Defy  me,  there !"  cries  my  father ; 
and  one  would  think  the  ocean  was  in 
the  shower-bath,  it  came  down  with 
such  a  rattle.  My  father  scarcely 
touched  on  the  smaller  points  in  ex- 
cuse for  the  Crusades,  though  he  re- 
cited veiy  volubly  all  the  humane 
arts  introduced  into  Europe  by  that 
invasion  of  the  East  ;  and  showed 
how  it  had  served  civilisation,  by  the 
vent  it  afforded  for  the  rude  energies 
of  chivalry — by  the  element  of  de- 
struction to  feudal  tyranny  that  it 
introduced — by  its  use  in  the  emanci- 
pation of  burghs,  and  the  disrupture 
of  serfdom .  But  he  showed,  in  colours 
vivid  as  if  caught  from  the  skies  of  the 
East,  the  great  spread  of  Mahometan- 
ism,  and  the  danger  it  menaced  to 
Christian  Europe — and  drew  up  the 
Godfreys,  and  Tancreds,  and  Richards, 
as  a  league  of  the  Age  and  Necessity, 
against  the  terrible  progress  of  the 
sword  and  the  Koran.  "  You  call 
them  madmen,"  cried  my  father,  "  but 
the  frenzy  of  nations  is  the  statesman- 
ship of  fate !  How  know  yon  that — 
but  for  the  terror  inspired  by  the  hosts 
who  inarched  to  Jerusalem — how 
know  you  that  the  Crescent  had  not 
waved  over  other  realms  than  those 
which  Roderic  lost  to  the  Moor  ?  If 
Christianity  had  been  less  a  passion, 


410 

and  the  passion  had  less  stirred  up  all 
Europe — how  know  you  that  the  creed 
of  the  Arab  (which  was  then,  too,  a 
passion)  might  not  have  planted  its 
mosques  in  the  forum  of  Kome,  and 
on  the  site  of  Notre  Dame  ?  For  in 
the  war  between  creeds — when  the 
creeds  are  embraced  by  vast  races — 
think  you  that  the  reason  of  sages  can 
cope  with  the  passion  of  millions  ? 
Enthusiasm  must  oppose  enthusiasm. 
The  crusader  fought  for  the  tomb  of 
Christ,  but  he  saved  the  life  of  Chris- 
tendom." 

My  father  paused.  Squills  was  quite 
passive ;  he  struggled  no  more — he  was 
drowned. 

"  So,"  resumed  Mr  Caxton,  more 
quietly — "  so,  if  later  Avars  yet  per- 
plex us  as  to  the  good  that  the  All- 
wise  One  draws  from  their  evils,  our 
posterity  may  read  their  uses  as  clear- 
ly as  we  now  read  the  finger  of 
Providence  resting  on  the  barrows  of 
Marathon,  or  guiding  Peter  the  Her- 
mit to  the  battle-fields  of  Palestine. 
Nor,  while  we  admit  the  evil  to  the 
passing  generation,  can  we  deny  that 
many  of  the  virtues  that  make  the 
ornament  and  vitality  of  peace  sprang 
up  first  in  the  convulsions  of  war !" 
Here  Squills  began  to  evince  faint 
signs  of  resuscitation,  when  my  father 
let  fly  at  him  one  of  those  numberless 
waterworks  which  his  prodigious 
memory  kept  in  constant  supply. 
"  Hence,"  said  he,  "  hence  not  un- 
justly has  it  been  remarked  by  a  philo- 
sopher, shrewd  at  least  in  worldly 
experience — (Squills  again  closed  his 
eyes,  and  became  exanimate) — '  It  is 
strange  to  imagine  that  war,  which  of 
all  things  appears  the  most  savage, 
should  be  the  passion  of  the  most 
heroic  spirits.  But  'tis  in  war  that 
the  knot  of  fellowship  is  closest  drawn ; 
'tis  in  war  that  mutual  succour  is  most 
given — mutual  danger  run,  and  com- 
mon affection  most  exerted  and  em- 
ployed ;  for  heroism  and  philanthropy 
are  almost  one  and  the  same  !'"* 

My  father  ceased,  and  mused  a 
little.  Squills,  if  still  living,  thought 
it  prudent  to  feign  continued  extinc- 
tion. 

"  Not,"  said  Mr  Caxton,  resuming 
— u  not  but  what  I  hold  it  our  duty 
never  to  foster  into  a  passion  what  we 


The  Caxtons. — Part  the  Last.  [Oct. 

must  rather  submit  to  as  an  awful 
necessity.  You  say  truly,  Mr  Squills 
— war  is  an  evil ;  and  woe  to  those 
who,  on  slight  pretences,  open  the 
gates  of  Janus, 

'  The  dire  abode, 

And  the  fierce  issues  of  the  furious  god.' " 

Mr  Squills,  after  a  long  pause, 
(employed  in  some  of  the  more  handy 
means  for  the  reanimation  of  sub- 
merged bodies,  supporting  himself 
close  to  the  fire  in  a  semi-erect  pos- 
ture, with  gentle  friction,  self- applied, 
to  each  several  limb,  and  copious  re- 
course to  certain  steaming  stimulants 
which  my  compassionate  hands  pre- 
pared for  him,)  stretches  himself,  and 
says  feebly,  "  In  short,  then,  not  to 
provoke  further  discussion,  you  would 
go  to  war  in  defence  of  your  country. 
Stop,  sir — stop,  for  God's  sake!  I 
agree  with  you — I  agree  with  you ! 
But,  fortunately,  there  is  little  chance 
now  that  any  new  Boney  will  build 
boats  at  Boulogne  to  invade  us." 

MR  CAXTON. — I  am  not  so  sure  of 
that,  Mr  Squills.  {Squills  falls  back 
iviih  a  glassy  stare  of  deprecating  hor- 
ror.) I  don't  read  the  newspapers 
very  often,  but  the  past  helps  me  to 
judge  of  the  present. 

Therewith  my  father  earnestly  re- 
commended to  Mr  Squills  the  careful 
perusal  of  certain  passages  in  Tbucy- 
dides,  just  previous  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  (Squills 
hastily  nodded  the  most  servile  acquies- 
cence^) and  drew  an  ingenious  paral- 
lel between  the  signs  and  symptoms 
foreboding  that  outbreak,  and  the  very 
apprehension  of  coming  war  which 
was  evinced  by  the  recent  Io  pceans 
to  peace.  And,  after  sundry  notable 
and  shrewd  remarks,  tending  to  show 
where  elements  for  war  were  already 
ripening,  amidst  clashing  opinions  and 
disorganised  states,  he  wound  up  with 
saying, — "  So  that,  all  things  con- 
sidered, I  think  we  had  better  just 
keep  up  enough  of  the  bellicose  spirit, 
not  to  think  it  a  sin  if  we  are  called 
upon  to  fight  for  our  pestles  and  mor- 
tars, our  three  per  cents,  goods,  chat- 
tels, and  liberties.  Such  a  time  must 
come,  sooner  or  later,  even  though 
the  whole  world  were  spinning  cotton, 
and  printing  sprigged  calicoes.  We 
may  not  see  it,  Squills,  but  that 


Shaftesbury. 


1849.] 


The  Caxtons.—Part  the  Last. 


411 


young  gentleman  in  the  cradle,  whom 
you  have  lately  brought  into  light, 
may." 

"  And  if  so,"  said  my  uncle  abruptly, 
speaking  for  the  first  time — "if  indeed 
it  is  for  altar  and  hearth ! " 

My  father  suddenly  drew  in  and 
pished  a  little,  for  he  saw  that  he  was 
caught  in  the  web  of  his  own  elo- 
quence. 

Then  Roland  took  down  from  the 
wall  his  son's  sword.  Stealing  to  the 
cradle,  he  laid  it  in  its  sheath  by  the 
infant's  side,  and  glanced  from  my 
father  to  us  with  a  beseeching  eye. 
Instinctively  Blanche  bent  over  the 
cradle,  as  if  to  protect,  the  Neogilos  ; 
but  the  child,  waking,  turned  from 
her,  and,  attracted  by  the  glitter  of 
the  hilt,  laid  one  hand  lustily  thereon, 
and  pointed  with  the  other,  laugh- 
ingly, to  Roland. 


"Only  on  my  father's  proviso,"  said 
I  hesitatingly.  "  J'or  hearth  and  altar 
— nothing  less !" 

"  And  even  in  that  case,"  said  my 
father,  "add  the  shield  to  the  sword !" 
and  on  the  other  side  of  the  infant  he 
placed  Roland's  well-worn  Bible, 
blistered  in  many  a  page  with  secret 
tears. 

There  we  all  stood,  grouping  round 
the  young  centre  of  so  many  hopes 
and  fears — in  peace  or  in  war,  born 
alike  for  the  Battle  of  Life.  And  he, 
unconscious  of  all  that  made  our  lips 
silent,  and  our  eyes  dim,  had  already 
left  that  bright  bauble  of  the  sword, 
and  thrown  both  arms  round  Roland's 
bended  neck. 

"Herbert"  murmured  Roland;  and 
Blanche  gently  drew  away  the  sword, 
— and  left  the  Bible. 


412 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


[Oct. 


LYXMOUTH  REVISITED. 


BY  THE  SKETCHER. 


NEARLY  sixteen  years  ago,  there 
appeared  in  the  pages  of  Maga,  de- 
scriptions of  the  scenery  of  Lynmouth, 
North  Devon.  As  Sketcher,  I  then 
proposed  to  myself  to  analyse  the 
impressions  which  landscape  scenery 
makes  upon  the  minds  of  artists  and 
lovers  of  nature,  and  to  show  that 
there  must  be  in  the  artist  a  higher 
aim  .than  imitation;  and  that  the 
pleasure  of  the  unpractising  admirer 
will  be  in  proportion  to  his  power  of 
extracting  from  the  insensitive  matter 
of  nature,  the  poetic  life  of  thought; 
to  rescue  both  art  and  nature  from 
the  degradation  they  suffer  when  dis- 
connected with  the  higher  senses;  to 
show  that  nature,  to  be  the  worthy  ob- 
ject of  art,  should  be  suggestive.  Its 
charm  is  to  elicit,  to  draw  out  finely, 
and  to  embellish  what  is  already,  in  a 
ruder  state,  in  the  mind.  If  there  be 
poverty  within,  there  is  no  room  for 
the  reception  of  the  riches  so  profusely 
surrounding  us  in  the  external  world. 
Neither  artists  nor  amateurs  are  gene- 
rally sufficiently  aware,  that  a  pre- 
vious education  is  necessary  to  make 
sketching  effective  and  expressive. 
We  find  ourselves  everywhere.  What- 
ever be  the  scenery,  the  sketcher 
brings  little  back  that  he  does  not 
take  with  him.  Hence  the  diversity 
in  the  character  of  sketches — of  differ- 
ent sketchers — and  the  one  character 
that  pervades  the  portfolio  of  each. 
I  have  heard  of  an  artist  who  visited 
our  lakes,  and  brought  back  with  him 
only  cottages  !  Morland  would  have 
added,  or  rather  made  the  principal, 
the  stye  and  pigs ;  and  even  Gains- 
borough's sketch-book  may  have 
shown  little  more  than  ragged  pol- 
lards, and  groups  of  rustic  children. 
To  know  what  is  in  nature,  you  must 
know  what  is  in  yourself.  If  you  are 
ignorant  of  art,  your  sketches  can 
only  be  accidentally  good.  It  is  pos- 
sible to  be  a  very  close  observer,  even 
of  minute  beauties,  and  yet  be  a  very 
bad  sketcher.  One  of  an  original 
genius  will  convert,  and,  by  a  bold 
dissimilitude  in  non-essentials,  incor- 


porate into  his  own  previous  concep- 
tions whatever  is  before  him  ;  and 
thus,  by  preserving  the  great  sugges- 
tive characteristics,  represent  nature 
with  a  far  greater  truth,  exhibiting 
her  very  life  and  feeling,  than  they 
who  aim  at  truth  through  exact  and 
minute  imitation. 

Let  this  be  exemplified  in  Salvator 
Rosa.  Do  his  wild  scenes  of  rock, 
and  rugged  rock- engendered  trees, 
exist  to  the  general  eye,  exactly  in 
their  form,  and  colour,  and  composi- 
tion, as  he  has  represented  them  ? 
The  exact  sketcher  would  have  found 
a  less  correspondence  in  branches  and 
foliage — a  less  marked  living  feeling 
between  the  rocks  and  trees ;  he 
would  have  found  much  in  the  colour- 
ing, especially  in  the  green  leaves, 
where  they  are  so  few  and  scattered, 
of  an  inconsistent  gaiety.  These 
would  have  been  distracting ;  but  his 
educated  eye,  toned  by  a  one  bold 
feeling,  rejected  these,  and  seized  the 
wilder  characteristic,  to  which  he 
resolutely,  under  the  impulse  of  his 
genius,  made  all  the  rest  subservient 
and  suggestive.  He  embodied  what 
he  saw  with  what  he  felt,  and  marred 
not  the  savage  freedom  by  attractive 
littlenesses,  but  gave  it  full  play ; 
and  with  an  execution  as  bold  and 
free,  which  the  minute  critic  would 
pronounce  not  natural,  though  most 
natural,  as  most  expressive  of  that 
spontaneous  out-flung  unconstrained- 
ness  of  nature's  growth,  which  really 
pervades  all,  he  harmoniously  brought 
all  the  parts  under  the  dominion  of 
one  poetic  feeling.  Take  his  foliage, 
even  in  form — to  say  nothing  of  its 
actual  unnaturalness  of  colour  in  the 
exact  sense — there  is  a  raggedness,  as 
torn  and  storm-beaten,  in  the  indi- 
vidual leafage,  which  the  untutored 
sketcher  will  in  vain  look  for  in  his 
beat;  but  all  this  stamps  one  great 
truth,  and  that  speaks  more  of  nature 
than  many  small  ones.  I  do  not 
mean  here  to  give  the  palm  to  Salva- 
tor Rosa,  as  if  he  were  "•  Lord  of 
Landscape ;"  I  mention  him  as  a 


1849.] 


Li/nmouth  Revisited. 


413 


strong  example,  as  the  boldest  devi- 
ator  from  that  which  the  unpoetic 
eye  sees,  and  minds  totally  tin- 
charmed  by  poetry  can  conceive. 
I  think  it  well  here  to  lay  some  stress 
upon  these  preliminary  remarks,  be- 
cause much  has  been  written,  with  a 
great  fascination  of  language,  recom- 
mending, as  I  believe  too  strongly,  a 
close  observation  in  detail  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature  ;  overlooking  the 
great  phenomenon — the  accordance  of 
external  nature  with  the  heart,  feel- 
ings, and  very  life  and  soul  of  man. 
One  writer  in  particular,  with  great 
ability,  and  audacious  confidence,  be- 
cause in  his  blindness  he,  uneducated 
to  it,  sees  not  in  nature  what  such 
great  men  as  Salvator  Rosa  and 
Gaspar  Poussin  have  extracted  from 
it,  and  yet  made  it  nature's  and  their 
own,  flings  upon  their  established 
fame  the  brutum  fulmen  of  his  con- 
tempt and  abuse.  Damnat  quod  non 
inteUigit.  He  knows  not  the  true 
principles  of  art  which  exist  to  per- 
fection in  their  works,  nor  knows  how 
strictly  these  principles  belong  to  art 
and  nature  only  through  and  by  their 
connexion  with  the  mind  of  man. 
You  may  study  meteorology  in  the 
Penny  Magazine,  or  geology  and 
botany,  most  scientifically ;  but  it  will 
further  you  a  very  little  way,  while 
your  portfolio  is  under  your  arm,  and 
your  eye  in  search  of  a  picturesque 
which  you  have  not  learned  to  find. 
Nay,  it  may  happen,  for  it  often  does 
happen,  that  the  more  you  sketch 
the  farther  you  are  from  art.  It  is 
possible,  also,  for  the  most  accom- 
plished artist  to  sketch  too  much ; 
and  to  stay  the  power  of  his  invention, 
by  referring  too  constantly  to  the  pre- 
ciseness  and  individuality  of  scenery. 
He  dares  not  so  much  trust  his  palette 
as  his  portfolio,  as  it  were  his  register 
of  nature,  to  which  he  has  bound  him- 
self beyond  the  usual  apprenticeship. 
It  has  been  remarked  by  sketchers, 
amateurs,  and  artists  by  profession, 
that,  upon  a  sketching  expedition, 
"their  hands  are  not  in"  for  some 
days.  I  doubt  if  the  fault  be  so  much 
in  the  hand  as  in  the  eye ;  for  in  most 
cases  the  hantl  had  come  from  the 
immediate  practice  of  the  studio: 
but  the  eye  is  distracted  by  the  many 
beauties  which  now  force  themselves 
into  observation,  and  which  in  the 


home-practice,  and  in  following  the 
mind's  bent  on  the  canvass,  the 
memory  did  not  vividly  present  as  not 
wanted.  It  is  more  difficult,  there- 
fore, at  first  to  generalise,  to  escape 
the  fascinations  of  local  form  and 
colour,  which  keep  the  eye  from  the 
instant  acknowledgment  of  a  whole. 
We  are  thus  at  first  apt  to  begin  with 
the  detail,  instead  of  leaving  it  to  the 
last,  by  which  means  we  have  more 
than  we  want,  or  less  accurately  and 
accommodatingly  what  is  wanted. 
When  we  have  learned  again  to 
reject,  and  to  see,  we  are  surprised 
with  a  facility  we  at  first  despaired  of. 
We  do,  then,  because  we  know  what 
to  do. 

I  would  recommend,  therefore,  be- 
fore setting  out  on  such  expeditions, 
where  it  be  practicable,  to  visit  daily, 
and  all  day,  during  a  week  or  fortnight, 
the  best  galleries  of  pictures,  such  as 
contain  all  schools,  that  as  much  as 
possible  there  may  be  no  bias,  but 
such  as  every  one  must  find  in  him- 
self before  he  reaches  the  gallery.  I 
would  do  this  to  confirm,  and  fasten 
upon  the  memory,  the  principles  of 
art, — breadth,  greatness,  truth,  ex- 
pression, colouring,  sentiment,  and 
how  obtained.  Here  will  be  a  gram- 
mar without  its  drudgery ;  for  every 
lesson  will  be  a  delight,  if  we  go  to  it 
with  no  conceited  opinions  of  our  own, 
and  no  cavilling  spirit  bringing  our- 
selves down  to  an  admission  that  these 
great  men  of  former  days  had  some 
foundation  upon  which  they  built  their 
fame,  their  acknowledged  fame — so 
searching,  we  shall  see  the  reasons  of 
their  doings — why  they,  each  for  their 
own  purpose,  adopted  this  or  that 
style  of  colour,  or  of  composition,  or 
chiaro-scuro.  Going  then  imme- 
diately to  nature  from  art,  we  shall 
see  how  very  true  art  is — a  secret  that, 
without  this  immediate  comparison, 
would  be  very  apt  to  be  hidden  from 
us.  No  man  in  Ills  senses  would  be- 
gin a  science  from  his  own  observation 
alone.  It  was  not  the  first  shepherd 
who,  studying  the  stars,  laid  open  the 
study  of  astronomy.  We  shall  learn 
nothing  by  despising  all  that  has  been 
learnt  before  we  were  born.  So  it  is 
in  art ;  some  principles  have  been 
established,  which  it  is  well  to  know 
thoroughly  ;  and,  the  more  we  know 
them,  the  more  enthusiastic  will  be 


Lynmoutlt  Revisited. 


[Oct. 


our  admiration,  the  love  of  art  through 
nature,  and  of  nature  through  art. 

During  my  former  visits  to  the 
beautiful  scenery  of  Lynmotith,  I  had 
seldom  taken  any  whole  view,  but 
-chiefly  studied  parts  for  use  in  the 
detail  of  compositions ;  and  this  I 
think  to  be  a  good  practice  for  the 
landscape  painter,  which  term  I  use 
here  in  contradistinction  to  the  pain- 
ter of  views.  There  is  so  great  a 
pleasure  in  as  it  were  creating — in 
being  the  71-04777-779,  the  maker — that,  to 
one  accustomed  to  and  at  all  skilled 
in  composing,  it  becomes  an  irksome 
task  to  make  a  "view."  The  con- 
tinued habit  of  view-painting  must 
necessarily  check  invention,  and 
limit  unworthily  the  painter's  aim. 
In  revisiting  Lynmouth,  I  changed 
my  purpose  ;  and  this,  not  under  the 
idea  of  making  pictures  of  any  of  the 
sketches,  but  for  the  practice  of  not- 
ing how  a  picture,  framed  in  from 
nature,  as  if  it  were  a  work  of  art, 
would  be  bronght  to  its  completion  ; 
for  sketching  with  such  an  object,  I 
.cannot  but  think  of  as  great  impor- 
tance as  the  other  method.  We  must 
learn  from  nature  to  make  a  whole, 
as  well  as  the  use  of  the  parts  sepa- 
rately. With  this  purpose  the 
sketcher  will  look  out  for  subjects, 
not  detail ;  he  will  be  curious  to  see 
how  nature  composes  now,  and  when 
it  is  that  scenes  are  most  agreeable — 
made  so  by  what  combination  of  lines, 
by  what  agreement  of  colours,  by 
what  proportions  of  light,  and  grada- 
tions of  shadow  :  for  he  will  often  find, 
when  nature  looks  her  best,  that  light 
and  shade  are  employed  as  substitutes 
for  lines  which,  in  the  actual  and  true 
drawing  of  them,  would  be  unfortu- 
nate. How  often  is  it  that  a  scene 
strikes  the  eye  at  once  for  its  great 
beauty,  that,  when  we  come  to  it  again, 
seems  entirely  to  have  lost  its  charm ! 
Now  these  spots  should  be  visited 
again  and  again,  till  the  causes  be 
ascertained  of  the  charm  and  of  the 
deterioration :  for  here  must  lie  the 
principles  of  art,  nature  assuming  and 
putting  off  that  which  is  most  agree- 
able to  us,  that  in  which  our  human 
sympathies  are  engaged.  Sketchers 
often  pass  hastily  these  spots  that  are 
no  longer  beautiful ;  but  they  are 
wrong,  for  they  can  learn  best,  by 
accurate  observation  of  the  changes 


presented  to  them.  And  they  will 
thus  learn  to  remedy  deficiencies, 
and  acquire  a  better  power  of  selecting 
scenes,  by  knowing  where  the  defi- 
ciencies lie  ;  the  mind's  eye  will  not 
dwell  upon  them,  or  will  fill  them  up, 
and  the  composition  show  itself  to 
them  in  a  manner  quite  otherwise  than 
it  would  have  appeared,  had  no  such 
previous  observations  been  made. 
There  are  sometimes  good  lines  marred 
by  bad  effects,  and  bad  lines  remedied 
by  skilful  management  of  effects — of 
light  and  shadow.  It  must  be  a 
practised  eye  that  can  properly  ab- 
stract and  separate  lines  from  effects, 
and  effects  from  lines.  We  play  with 
colour,  but  our  serious  business  is 
with  light  and  shade ;  the  real  picture 
is  more  frequently  in  black  and  white, 
than  those  who  addict  themselves  to 
colour  will  credit.  I  will  here  but 
refer  to  some  passages  in  the  early 
numbers  of  The  Sketcher,  on  the  com- 
position of  lines,  wherein  I  showed, 
and  I  believe  truly  explained,  the 
principle  of  composition  upon  which 
many  of  the  old  masters  worked.  And 
I  particularly  exemplified  the  princi- 
ple in  the  pictures  of  Gaspar  Poussin, 
whom  Thompson  calls  learned  Pous- 
sin, (unless  he  meant  Nicolo,  who, 
though  in  other  respects  he  may  with 
equal  justice  be  called  learned,  is,  in 
this  art  of  the  composition  of  lines,  in 
no  way  to  be  compared  with  his 
brother-in-law.)  I  showed  that  there 
was  one  simple  rule  which  he  invari- 
ably adopted.  We  may  likewise  go 
to  nature,  and  find  the  rule  there, 
when  nature,  as  a  composition,  looks 
her  best. 

I  think  it  will  be  found  that  any 
scene  is  most  pleasing  when  its  va- 
riety is  in  the  smallest  portion — that 
is,  when  the  greatest  part  of  the  pic- 
ture is  made  up  of  the  most  simple 
and  pervading  lines,  and  the  intri- 
cacies, all  variety,  and  alternations, 
and  interchanges  of  lines  and  parts, 
shall  be  confined  to  a  very  small  por- 
tion ;  for  thus  a  greatness,  a  large- 
ness, an  importance,  is  preserved  and 
heightened,  and  at  the  same  time 
monotony  is  avoided — though  there 
be  much  in  it,  the  piece  is  not 
crowded.  There  is  a  print  from  a 
picture  by  Smith  of  Chichester,  who, 
by  the  bye,  obtained  the  prize  against 
Richard  Wilson,  which  attracted  ray 


1849.] 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


415 


•attention  the  other  day  at  a  print- 
seller's  window.  It  was  meant,  I 
presume,  as  an  imitation  of  Claude, 
Claude  reduced  to  the  then  English 
vulgarity.  If  multiplicity  of  parts 
would  make  a  picture,  doubtless 
Richard  Wilson,  with  his  simple, 
sweeping,  free  lines,  could  have  no 
chance  in  competition  with  such  a 
painter.  Every  niche  was  crowded 
— and  equally  so — every  niche  might 
have  made  a  picture,  such  as  it  was, 
but  all  the  niches  made  none,  or  a 
bad  one.  Why,  the  variety  was  uni- 
versal ;  it  should  have  been  confined 
to  the  smaller  space.  The  picture  is 
objectionable  in  other  points  of  view; 
but  this  ignorance  of  the  very  nature 
of  composition  was  fatal.  Yet  this 
work  was  evidently  an  imitation  of 
Claude,  whose  variety,  however,  of 
distance,  the  modern  imitator  brought 
into  his  very  foreground.  He  could 
not  see  the  simplicity  of  Claude. 
Not  that  Claude  himself  was  a  learned 
composer ;  his  lines  are  often  incon- 
gruous, and  there  is  not  unfrequently 
a  poverty  of  design,  scarcely  con- 
cealed by  the  magic  of  his  colouring. 
Now,  I  find,  in  looking  over  my 
sketches,  that  I  had  selected  those 
scenes  where  the  passages  of  variety 
lay  in  the  distance,  and,  it  being  a 
narrow  valley,  they  occupied  but  a 
small  space  ;  but,  though  small,  it 
was  mostly  the  place  of  interest  — 
there  was  the  more  vivid  light  or  the 
deeper  shade,  the  change,  the  life  of 
the  picture,  and  the  embellished  way 
of  escape  out  of  a  defile,  that  from 
its  closeness  would  have  been  other- 
wise painful.  In  saying  "  painful,"  I 
seem  to  point  to  a  defect  in  this 
Lynmouth  valley.  Indeed,  it  will 
not  suit  those  who  do  not  love  close 
scenery.  That  certainly  is  its  charac- 
ter. Yet  is  it  not  so  close,  but  that 
there  is  room  for  this  kind  of  variety. 
I  think  what  I  have  said  upon  this 
point,  of  interest  and  variety  lying  in 
the  smaller  portion  of  the  canvass — 
for  I  here  speak  even  of  nature  as  a 
picture — may  be  applicable  generally 
to  light.  I  imagine  those  scenes  will 
be  found  most  pleasing,  where  the 
light  is  by  far  the  smallest  portion, 
the  half-tone  by  far  the  larger,  and 
the  dark  but  to  show  the  power  of 
both.  Take,  for  instance,  a  garden 
scene — a  broad  walk,  trees  ou  each 


side — all  is  in  broad  light,  but  all  is 
in  painful  glare,  monotony,  and  same- 
ness of  endless  detail.  Let  a  shadow 
pass  over  it,  a  broad  shadow — or 
rather  a  half-tone  of  light,  that  shall 
only  show  the  local  colour  subdued — 
now,  let  a  gleam  pass  across  it,  and 
just  touch  here  and  there  the  leafage, 
and  seem  to  escape  behind  it — how 
small  is  the  light,  but  it  has  given 
life  to  the  picture.  I  cannot  but 
think  it  a  fault  of  our  day  that  half- 
tone is  neglected ;  light  is  made  a 
glare,  and  therefore  the  very  object  of 
light  is  lost.  I  believe  it  was  the 
aim  at  a  mere  novelty  that  first  intro- 
duced this  false  principle.  It  was 
recommended  to  Guido,  but  he  failed 
in  it :  pictures  so  painted  by  him  are 
far  from  being  his  best.  Rubens 
erred  in  it ;  but  modern  artists  have 
carried  the  false  principle  to  the  ut- 
most limit ;  and,  in  doing  so,  are 
liable  to  a  palpable  incongruity, 
an  impossibility  in  nature,  which  they 
profess  to  imitate.  For  it  is  the  pro- 
perty of  light  to  take  away  colour ; 
yet  in  this  school,  the  whitest  light, 
and  the  most  vivid  colours,  are  in  the 
same  piece.  The  old  painters,  aware 
of  this  property  of  light,  in  their  out- 
of-door  scenes,  avoid,  not  to  say  a 
white,  but  even  a  light  sky — especially 
the  Venetian  —  so  that  their  great 
depth  and  power  of  colour  was  ren- 
dered natural,  by  the  depth  of  their 
skies.  Their  blues  were  dark — in- 
tensely so — but  they  were  sustained 
by  the  general  colour.  If  it  be  said  the 
Italian  skies  are  notoriously  the  bluest, 
Mr  Ruskin  has,  in  contradiction,  pro- 
nounced them  to  be  white ;  but  I  be- 
lieve the  fact  is,  that  the  great  pain- 
ters considered  colour,  as  a  beauty  in 
art,  sui  generis,  and  that  there  was  no 
need  of  a  slavish  adherence,  in  this 
respect,  to  nature  herself.  Indeed, 
they  delighted,  even  when  aiming  at 
the  richest  colouring,  to  subdue  all 
glare,  and  to  preserve  rather  a  deep 
half-tone. 

I  believe  they  studied  nature  through 
coloured  glasses;  and  we  learn  from 
Mrs  Merrifield  that  Caspar  Poussin 
used  a  black  mirror,  which  had  been 
bequeathed  to  him  by  Bamboccio. 
The  works  of  some  of  the  Flemish 
painters  evidently  show  that  they  used 
such  a  mirror. 

Have  I  not,   then,  reached  Lyn- 


416 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


[Oct. 


mouth  yet?  I  found  it  in  full  leafage, 
and  the  little  river  as  clear  as  amber, 
and  like  it  in  colour.  It  is  always 
beautiful,  and  variable  too — after  rain 
it  assumes  more  variety  of  colour,  and 
of  great  richness.  For  most  part  of 
the  time  of  my  visit,  it  was  more  shal- 
low than  I  had  ever  seen  it.  I  was 
pleased  that  it  was  so,  though  I  heard 
many  complaints  on  that  score.  To 
those  who  sketch  close  to  the  water, 
it  is,  in  fact,  an  advantage ;  for  where 
the  scenery  is  so  confined,  it  is  a  great 
thing  to  be  able  to  reach  the  large 
stones  in  mid-stream,  and  thus  many 
new  views  are  obtained ;  and  when 
you  are  pretty  close  to  water,  whether 
it  be  a  fall,  or  still,  there  is  really  but 
very  little  difference  whether  the  river 
be  full  or  not — the  falls  still  retain 
sufficient  body,  and  the  still  pools  are 
sufficiently  wide. 

There  are  but  two  parties  who  know 
anything  of  the  painter-scenery  of 
Lynmouth  —  the  sketchers  and  the 
anglers.  The  common  road  generally 
taken  by  tourists  shows  not  half  the 
beauty  of  the  place.  Did  Lynmouth 
appear  less  beautiful? — certainly  not. 
I  easily  recognised  the  chosen  spots, 
and  was  surprised  to  find  what  little 
change  had  taken  place.  I  knew  in- 
dividual trees  perfectly,  and,  strange 
to  say,  they  did  not  seem  to  have  ac- 
quired growth.  There  were  ap- 
parently the  same  branches  stretch- 
ing over  the  stream. 

In  one  spot  where  large  ledges  of 
rock  shoot  out  in  mid-stream,  down 
whose  grooves  the  river  rushes  pre- 
cipitously, (I  had,  sixteen  years  ago, 
sketched  the  scene,)  there  was  grow- 
ing out  of  the  edge  of  the  rock  a  young 
ash-tree  shoot — to  my  surprise,  there 
it  was  still,  or  the  old  had  decayed, 
and  a  similar  had  sprung  up.  There 
is  something  remarkable  in  this  con- 
tinued identity,  year  after  year,  as  if 
the  law  of  mutability  had  been  sus- 
pended. Yet  there  were  changes. 
I  remember  sketching  by  a  little  fall 
of  the  river,  where  further  progress 
was  staid  by  a  large  mass  of  project- 
ing rock.  I  felt  sure  there  must  be 
fine  subjects  beyond,  and  in  my  at- 
tempt to  reach  it  from  the  opposite 
side  by  climbing,  and  holding  by  the 
boughs  of  a  tree,  one  broke  oif.  and  I 
fell  into  the  cauldron.  I  found  now 
that  the  whole  mass  of  this  ledge  of 


rock  had  given  way,  and  opened  a 
passage,  and  one  of  no  great  difficulty. 
Here,  as  I  suspected,  were  some  very 
fine  studies.  The  place  where  I  de- 
scended is  about  half  a  mile,  or  less, 
from  Lynmouth,  where  the  road  turns, 
near  to  a  little  bridge  across  a  water- 
course intercepting  the  road.  The 
view  of  this  little  fall  from  above  is 
singularly  beautiful ;  and,  being  so- 
much  elevated,  you  see  the  bed  of  the 
river  continuous  for  a  long  distance,, 
greatly  varied.  I  know  no  place 
where  there  are  such  fine  studies  of 
this  kind,  though  they  are  rarely 
taken,  being  only  parts  for  composi- 
tion— the  whole  not  making  a  view. 

Was  Lynmouth,  then,  to  me  as  it 
was? — not  quite.  The  interval  of  years 
had  not,  I  trust,  been  lost.  If  there 
was  little  change  in  the  place,  there 
was  a  change  in  the  mind's  eye  and 
head  of  the  sketcher.  Though  I  re- 
cognised nearly  all  the  spots  where  I 
had  sketched,  I  found  many  new — 
some  that  might  have  escaped  me, 
because  I  had  not  taken  the  feeling 
with  me,  at  least  not  in  the  degree 
in  which  I  now  possessed  it.  During 
all  the  years  that  had  intervened,  I 
had  scarcely  painted  a  single  view. 
I  could  not  but  observe  that  the  new 
scenes  were  those  more  especially 
suggestive,  leading  to  the  ideal. 

A  Mend  who  was  part  of  the  time 
with  me  observed  that  he  had  thought 
some  of  my  pictures,  which  he  had 
seen,  compositions  without  the  war- 
ranty of  nature  ;  but  he  now  saw  that 
nature  supplied  me  with  what  I 
wanted,  and  acknowledged  that  the 
sketches  were  correct.  It  was  then 
I  observed  that  the  sketcher  may  find 
almost  everywhere  what  he  has  learnt 
to  look  for.  The  fact  is,  that  it  is  not 
whole  and  large  scenery,  nor  the  most 
beautiful,  that  best  suits  the  painter, 
but  those  parts  which  he  can  com- 
bine. The  real  painter  looks  to  nature 
for  form  and  colour,  the  elements  of 
his  art :  upon  these  he  must  work ; 
and  they  seldom  reach  any  great 
magnitude,  or  are  diffused  over  large 
space. 

Why  is  it,  that  generally  what  we 
term  beautiful  scenery  was  seldom  the 
ground  of  the  old  painters?  They 
were  not,  generally  speaking,  painters 
of  views  ;  and  why  not  ?  There  the 
pictures  were  made  for  them.  They 


1849.] 

and  all  the  world  had  the  thing  be- 
fore them  to  love  and  to  admire — it 
was  already  done  ;  there  was  no  room 
for  their  genius,  which  13  a  creative, 
not  an  imitative  faculty.  The  scene 
for  every  eye  was  not  theirs.  They 
found  that,  by  their  art,  they  could 
take  nature's  best  feeling,  even  from 
her  fragments.  It  requires  not  an 
Alp  to  portray  grandeur.  Fifty  feet 
of  rock,  precipitous  or  superimpend- 
ing,  will  better  represent  the  greatness 
of  danger ;  for  it  is  a  more  immediate 
and  solid  mass  to  crush  the  intruder, 
and  the  form  may  frown  with  a  demon 
malice.  The  whole  awe  of  darkness 
may  be  felt  in  a  cavern  of  a  few  feet 
space.  Indeed,  it  may  be  almost  said 
that  largeness  is  not  to  be  obtained 
on  the  canvass,  by  the  largeness  of 
whole  extensive  scenes  in  nature,  but 
by  the  continuous  lines  of  near 
masses :  whatever  is  actually  largest 
in  nature — the  forest  and  the  moun- 
tain— in  art  may  with  advantage 
occupy  the  smallest  space.  For  the 
best  magnitude  here  is  in  perspective, 
and  in  that  aerial  tone  which,  as  a 
veil,  half  conceals,  and  thereby  makes 
mysterious,  and  converts  into  one 
azure  whole  the  parts  which  would, 
otherwise  seen,  but  break  up  the 
great  character.  The  Arabian  genii 
were  greatest  when  dimly  seen  through 
smoke  and  vapour. 

Art,  indeed,  differs  from  nature  in 
this,  as  regards  the  pleasure  derived 
through  the  eye,  that  nature  allows  you 
many  unperspective  views  at  many  in- 
stant glances,  and  therefore  surprises 
you,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  with  a 
perspective  impossibility,  of  which  the 
judgment  at  the  time  is  not  cognisant ; 
whereas  art  is  bounded  by  a  rule, 
looks  not  all  around,  and  comprehends 
by  mind  beyond  the  eye,  but  is  con- 
strained to  frame  in  the  conception. 
It  must,  therefore,  make  to  itself  an- 
other power — and  this  power  it  finds 
in  form,  in  light  and  shade,  and  co- 
lour, all  which  are  in  greater  intensity 
and  force  in  the  .fragmentary  parts 
than  in  the  whole  and  large  scenes. 
It  is  a  step  for  the  young  artist  to  be- 
lieve that  art  and  nature  are  not  and 
^  should  not  be  the  same — that  they  are 
essentially  different,  and  use  their 
materials  differently,  have  other  rules 
of  space  and  largeness.  If  art  be 
more  limited,  its  power  is  greater  by 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


417 


being  more  condensed, — and  its  im- 
pressions more  certain,  because  more- 
direct,  and  not  under  the  vague  and 
changeable  process  of  making  an  ideat 
from  many  perspectives. 

If  there  be  truth  iii  these  remarks, 
we  may  see  why  the  old  masters  left 
untouched  those  scenes  which  are  th& 
delight  of  tourists.  To  copy  the  scene 
before  them  was  to  put  their  creative 
faculty  in  abeyance.  It  was  only  to 
work  after  a  given  pattern — and  that 
pattern  imperfect — of  a  whole  which 
defied  the  laws  of  optics.  I  here 
speak  almost  entirely  of  the  Italian 
masters,  both  the  historical,  and  more 
strictly  the  landscape  painters.  The 
Flemish  and  Dutch  schools  had  mostly 
another  aim,  and  were  more  imita- 
tive ;  -  hence  they  are  more  easily 
understood,  but  felt  with  a  far  less 
passion.  But  even  these,  far  from 
undervaluing  the  conventional  aids  of 
art,  applied  as  much  of  them  as  the 
nature  of  their  subjects  would  admit. 

But  the  sketcher  must  not  consider 
himself  in  his  studies  when  he  is  out 
with  his  portfolio.  However  he  may 
select,  he  must  be  faithful.  And  this 
fidelity  I  have  seen  painters  of  great 
skill  often  unwisely  contemn,  become 
too  conventional,  both  in  their  draw- 
ing and  colouring.  It  requires  much 
practice  of  the  eye,  as  well  as  that 
knowledge  which  constitutes  taste, 
to  frame  in  as  it  were  pictures,  from 
the  large  space  that  fills  the  eye. 
Nothing  is  more  useful  than  to  carry 
in  the  portfolio  a  light  frame  of  stiff 
paper  or  wood,  and  to  hold  it  up,  so 
as  actually  to  frame  in  pictures,  and 
thus  to  experimentalise  upon  the 
design,  and  see  what  shiftings  of  the 
frame  make  the  best  choice.  It  is  an 
assistance  even  to  the  most  practised 
in  composition. 

Lynmouth  is  greatly  improved  of 
late  years  in  accommodation  ;  many 
new  lodging-houses  are  built,  and 
there  are  some  residents  who  have 
shown  great  taste  in  laying  out  their 
grounds,  and  in  their  buildings.  The 
little  pier  has  been  rendered  pic- 
turesque, by  the  erection  of  a  small 
look-out  house  after  a  model  from 
Rhodes.  There  is  not  much  here  at 
any  time  that  would  deserve  the 
name  of  shipping ;  but  a  few  fishing 
boats,  and  such  small  craft  compose 
well  with  the  little  pier.  The  even- 


418 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


[Oct. 


ings  arc  very  fine,  the  sun  setting 
over  the  Channel ;  and  the  Welsh 
coast  in  the  distance  assumes,  occa- 
sionally, a  very  beautiful  ultramarine 
blue,  like  a  glaze  over  warm  colour- 
•iag.  When  the  tide  comes  in,  and 
the  little  vessels  are  afloat,  these  are 
good  subjects,  the  water  being  of  a 
gray  green,  softening  the  reflections. 
I  began  a  sketch  when  the  boats  were 
aground ;  but  the  tide,  coming  in 
rapidly,  soon  so  altered  the  position 
ef  the  vessels  that  I  did  not  proceed. 
When  the  tide  receded,  leaving  the 
vessels  aground,  they  were  not  in  the 
same  direction  in  which  I  had  sketched 
them  ;  and  an  artist  who  was  present 
remarked,  that  the  beauty  of  the 
scene  as  a  composition  was  gone,  and 
referred  to  the  sketch.  This  led  to 
some  discussion,  as  to  the  cause — Why 
should  it  be  less  good  now,  said  he, 
than  when  you  drew  it  ?  I  believe  I 
saw  the  reason,  and  pointed  it  out. 
There  was  a  sloop,  larger  by  much 
than  all  the  rest,  which  were  indeed, 
though  having  masts,  but  boats.  The 
larger  vessel  was  the  principal  ob- 
ject, even  more  so  than  the  buildings 
on  the  pier,  towards  which  it  leaned  ; 
and  this  leaning  was  important,  for 
a  union  and  certain  connexion  of 
parts  was  everything  here,  for  it  made 
•one  of  many  things.  Accordingly, 
the  smaller  boats  on  each  side  the 
larger  vessel  inclined  their  masts 
towards  it ;  so  that  this  manifest 
uniting,  and  the  belonging  of  one  to 
the  other,  was  the  pleasing  idea, 
and  invested  the  whole  with  a  kind 
of  life  and  sensitiveness  ;  but  in  the 
alteration,  after  the  receding  of  the 
tide,  this  communication  of  the  one 
with  the  other  was  gone,  and,  on  the 
.contrary,  there  was  left  an  uncomfort- 
able feeling  of  disunion. 

This  reasoning  was  admitted,  and 
we  further  discussed  the  principle  in- 
volved in  the  remarks,  as  applicable 
•to  all  scenes  and  subjects.  It  is  this 
correspondence  of  part  with  part 
which  animates  the  works  of  nature, 
invests  them  with  an  ideal  sensitive- 
ness ;  and  through  this  fond  belief  of 
-their  life,  our  own  sensitiveness  is 
awakened  to  a  sympathy  with  them. 
Whatever  inanimate  objects  we  in 
our  fancy  invest  with  life,  through 
our  own  sympathy,  we  clothe  with  a 
kind  of  humanity  ;  and  thus  we  look 


on  trees  and  rocks,  and  water,  as  to  a 
degree  our  fellow  creatures,  in  this 
great  wild  world.  We  love  accord- 
ingly. Nihil  humanum  a  me  aliemnn 
puto.  The  very  winds  speak  to  us 
as  human  voices,  as  do  the  trees  in 
their  whisperings  or  complainings; 
and  the  waters  are  ever  repeating 
their  histories  and  their  romances  to 
our  willing  ears.  As  we  walked  we 
tested  the  principle,  and  were  believ- 
ers in  its  truth.  "Mark,"  said  our 
friend,  "that  bank  of  fern  —  how 
graceful,  hoAv  charming,  is  their  bend- 
ing, their  interchange,  their  masses 
and  their  hollow  shades,  their  little 
home- depths,  wherein  they  grow, 
and  retire  as  their  home-chambers  : 
there  is  throughout  the  pleasing  idea 
of  a  family  enjoying  their  quiet  ex- 
istence, and  all  in  one  small  green 
world  of  their  own."  He  enjoys 
nature  most  worthily,  and  most  in- 
tensely, who  carries  with  him  this 
sense  of  nature's  life,  and  of  a  mu- 
tuality, a  co-partnership  with  the 
blessings  of  existence  with  himself. 
There  are  some  fine  rocks  at  the  base 
of  the  precipitous  cliffs— of  fine  form 
and  colour';  I  never  went  sufficiently 
near  to  sketch  them,  having  no  fancy 
to  be  caught  by  the  tide.  I  have 
seen  sketches  made  amongst  them 
that  prove  them  to  afford  very  good 
subjects.  Many  years  ago,  while  sit- 
ting under  these  cliffs,  I  heard  a 
groan  ;  I  thought  at  the  time  it  must 
have  been  a  delusion,  but  on  that 
evening  a  man  had  fallen  over  the 
cliffs.  His  body  was,  I  think,  found 
the  next  day.  It  fell  from  Countes- 
bury  Hill,  the  road  on  which  is 
certainly  not  sufficiently  protected. 
And  this  reminds  me  to  speak  of 
an  alarming  occurrence  on  the  road, 
about  half  a  mile  from  Lynmouth. 
We  were  a  small  party,  and  had 
taken  shelter  from  rain  against  the 
receding  part  of  the  rocks  cut  for 
the  widening  the  road.  I  and 
another  were  reading  a  newspaper. 
Looking  up,  we  suddenly  saw  a  wo- 
man on  horseback  very  near  us.  The 
animal  started,  and  was  frightened  at 
the  newspaper.  Our  endeavour  to 
conceal  it  made  the  matter  worse  ;  the 
horse  retreated  from  us,  and  I  think 
his  hind  legs  could  not  have  been 
many  inches  from  the  precipice.  It 
was  a  trying  moment ;  one  step  more 


1849.] 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


419 


back  would  have  been  certain  death  to 
both  the  woman  and  the  horse.  We 
were  truly  happy  when,  by  a  little 
management,  we  contrived  to  get 
them  past  us.  The  road,  too,  is  in 
these  dangerous  places  very  narrow ; 
yet  the  people  venture  to  drive  at  a 
good  pace,  and  without  reins,  their 
uncouth  and  apparently  unmanage- 
able teams  —  neither  quite  dray  nor 
cart — fearlessly.  It  is  surprising  that 
accidents  do  not  often  occur,  especi- 
ally as  there  is  some  danger  from  the 
falling  of  masses  of  stone  from  above ; 
and  even  such  as  the  sheep  remove 
with  their  feet  may  frighten  horses, 
and  precipitate  all  to  sure  destruction. 
There  are  great  rents  in  huge  masses 
of  rock,  close  to  the  road,  and  some 
apparently  are  kept  firm  with  but 
little  earth,  and  seem  to  threaten  a 
move.  I  have  had  some  blows  on  the 
back  occasionally  from  small  stones, 
cast  down  by  passing  sheep,  while  I 
have  been  sketching  down  by  the 
water ;  and  once  so  large  a  one  took 
the  corner  of  my  portfolio,  that  with 
my  best  speed  I  quitted  the  place. 
That  was  some  years  ago  ;  but  I  have 
recently  seen  not  very  small  fragments 
fall  very  near  me.  I  would,  there- 
fore, caution  the  sketcher  to  choose  as 
safe  a  position  as  he  can,  which  he 
may  generally  find  under  some  pro- 
jection of  rock.  Some  of  the  masses 
in  the  bed  of  the  river  are  of  enormous 
size ;  and  let  me  here  remark  upon 
the  fine,  bold  character  these  masses 
in  the  river  possess — they  are  very 
fine  in  form,  and  the  beauty  and 
variety  in  their  colouring  are  quite 
wondrous.  Some  are  very  dark,  en- 
tirely covered  with  brown,  and  some 
with  bright  golden  moss.  But  most 
of  them  when  dry  are  gray — but  one 
name  will  not  describe  that  gray, 
varying  as  it  does  from  the  blue  to  the 
green  and  pink  hues.  They  are  com- 
monly in  bold  relief  against  the  dark 
water  —  yet  themselves  show  dark, 
edged  by  the  white  foam,  where  the 
water,  sloping  insinuatingly,  falls  and 
rushes  by  them.  Here  and  there,  in 
some  deep-shaded,  wild,  lonely  places, 
they  are  of  gigantic  size,  and  look 
like  huge  Titans  turned  to  stone,  amid 
the  fragments  that  had  hurled  them 
down.  The  sketcher  may  easily 
imagine  himself  in  the  territory  of 
magic.  Shall  I  confess  that,  in  such 


places,  I  do  not  like  to  sketch  alone  ? 
And  why  not  ?  Why  should  there  be 
a  something  like  a  superstitious  awe 
of  the  spot,  the  "  severi  reliyio  loci?" 

Doubtless  it  is  because  we  do  feel 
contradicting  knowledge,  in  this  con- 
sciousness of  all  nature  in  its  own  life 
and  power.  Nor  can  we  divest  our- 
selves of  a  kind  of  natural  poetry — a 
feeling  that  the  rocks,  the  wild  trees, 
and  the  somewhere  though  unseen 
"  genius  loci"  all  look  at  us,  and  we 
fancy  ourselves  but  under  sufferance, 
and  know  not  how  long  our  presence 
may  be  endured.  It  is  surprising  how 
a  sense  of  such  presences  possesses 
us  when  alone.  I  could  often  have 
fancied  voices,  aud  mocking  ones  too, 
in  the  waters,  and  threats  that  thun- 
dered-in  the  ear,  and  went  off  as  if  to 
fetch  and  bring  whole  cataracts  down 
upon  me.  In  such  places  I  do  not 
like  to  be  caught  by  the  dusk  of  the 
evening,  being  quite  alone. 

The  fact  is,  nature,  to  a  real  lover 
and  sketcher,  is  at  all  times  powerful. 
Scenes  affect  him  as  they  affect  no 
other.  I  have  often  surprised  people 
by  the  assertion  that  I  could  not  live 
in  the  midst  of  fine  scenery ;  it  is  too 
powerful,  it  unnerves  one  with  an 
unrelaxing  watchfulness.  The  pre- 
sence of  the  mountain  will  not  be 
shaken  off.  It  becomes  a  nightmare 
upon  the  spirits,  holds  communion 
with  the  wild  winds  and  storms,  and 
has  fearful  dealings  I  would  not  dream 
of  in  the  dark,  howling,  dismal  nights. 
Nor,  when  the  sombre  light  of  a  melan- 
choly day  just  obscures  the  clouds  that 
have  been  gathering  round  it,  would 
I  in  imagination  draw  the  curtain  to 
behold  the  unearthly  drama. 

There  is  something  terrific  in  the 
sound  of  unseen  rushing  water.  When 
all  else  is  still  in  the  dark  night,  and 
you  are  uncertain  of  the  path,  and 
feel  the  danger  that  a  false  footing 
may  plunge  you  into  an  abyss  of 
waters,  that  seem  to  cry  out  and  roar 
for  a  victim,  have  you  not  felt  both 
fear  and  shame  ?  Recently  I  experi- 
enced this  in  Lynmouth,  having  in 
the  darkness  lost  my  way.  To  the 
poet  and  the  painter,  here  is  a  source 
of  the  sublime.  Plunge  your  pencil 
boldly  into  this  eclipse,  and  work 
into  it  a  few  dim  lights,  formless  and 
undefined — the  obscure  will  be  of  a 
grand  mystery.  The  night-darkness 


420 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


[Oct. 


that  settles  over  fine  mountainous 
scenery  does  not  remove  the  sense  of 
its  presence ;  as  its  lakes  blacken, 
they  become  fabulous,  of  unknown 
depths,  below  which  may  be  infernal 
"  bolge."  But  I  am  wandering  into 
strange  regions  now,  and  far  from 
Lynmouth,  whose  scenes,  after  all, 
are  not  of  a  very  severe  beauty,  unless 
we  will  to  make  it  so.  It  will  then 
answer  the  demand  imagination  makes 
upon  it.  Many  are  the  scenes  of  a 
purely  quiescent  kind,  still  and  calm, 
and  of  gentle  repose,  where  the  shal- 
low river  shows  its  amber  bed,  where- 
in the  gleams  rest  upon  the  well-de- 
fined ledges  beneath,  whose  gray 
shadows  melt  into  golden  tints ;  and 
beyond,  in  the  deeper  pools,  the  green 
of  the  trees  is  reflected  greener  still, 
across  which  here  and  there  is  a  gray 
streak,  showing  the  river's  silent  on- 
ward movement ;  and  farther  on,  some 
dark  stones  send  their  brown  and 
purple  hues,  mirrored  and  softened 
down  into  the  green,  just  dotted  here 
and  there  with  white.  Then  the  trees 
shoot  out  lovingly  from  the  bank  over- 
head, and  reach  and  communicate 
pleasantly  with  those  on  the  opposite 
side ;  and  here  a  bough  sends  down 
and  just  forbears  to  touch  the  stream, 
Narcissus-like,  loving  its  own  image. 
The  gray  stones  in  the  foreground, 
half  beneath  the  water,  are  of  a  deli- 
cate hue,  blue  intermingling  with  pale 
greenish  and  lakey  tints  ;  for  there  is 
nothing  violent  in  all  this  scene  of 
peaceful  repose.  Very  many  spots  of 
this  kind  are  there  that  court  the 
sketcher.  Let  him  wind  his  way  over 
masses  of  stone,  and  roots  of  trees, 
beyond  these — the  scene  how  chang- 
ed !  The  masses  of  stone  are  huge, 
blocking  up,  in  various  positions,  the 
free  passage  of  the  river,  which  chafes 
and  foams  between  them,  throwing 
oft7  its  whiteness  into  the  brown  and 
green  water  depths.  One  broad  sha- 
dow is  over  the  dark  stones ;  and  be- 
yond that  rise  the  tops  of  other 
masses,  gray  illuminated ;  and  beyond 
them,  a  gleam  or  two  of  falling  water. 
Wilder  are  the  trees  that  shoot  out, 
from  rocky  fragments  near,  and  lock 
their  branches  with  those  on  the  other 
side ;  while  in  the  hollow  space  be- 
neath their  arching  boles,  distant  and 
fantastic  stems  cross  the  stream. 
Opposite  are  huge  masses,  ledges 


with  precipitous  and  brown-mossed 
sides ;  above  which  the  high  rocky 
bank  sends  forth  large  trees,  their 
roots  twisting  about  the  rocks  and 
coming  out  again  through  the  fissures, 
and  met  by  green  weed  leafage.  The 
trees  are  darker  than  the  dun -red 
ground,  but  edged  with  greenish  light ; 
and  above  them  the  yellow  sunlight 
gleams  through,  and  the  dotted  blue 
of  sky  is  just  seen ;  and,  as  avoiding 
the  light,  a  huge  branch,  or  limb 
rather,  shoots  down,  edged  with  the 
light  on  its  upper  surface,  and  dark 
underneath,  and  throws  a  scanty  de- 
fined leafage  across  over  the  depth  of 
the  river.  But  this  precipitous  bank 
again  terminates  towards  the  ledges 
in  fine  masses,  rocks  that  project  and 
recede,  partially  luminous  with  re- 
flected light,  and  then  falling  back 
into  extreme  brown  and  purple  dark- 
ness, down  into  which  the  ivy  falls 
clustering  and  perpendicular,  with  in-- 
numerable briar- like  shoots  and  ten- 
drils. Here  are  severer  studies. 
They  are  to  be  found  by  crossing  the 
Lyn  by  the  wooden  bridge,  not  far 
from  Lynmouth,  and  following  the 
path  through  the  wood  some  way, 
and  seeking  the  bed  of  the  river  by  a 
scarcely-discernible  sheep-path,  till 
it  be  lost  at  the  edge  of  a  downward 
way,  not  very  difficult  of  descent. 
Within  a  very  small  space,  there  are 
fine  and  very  different  subjects.  One 
of  scarcely  less  grandeur  than  the 
last  described,  if  it  had  not  more 
beauty  blended  with  it ;  but  it 
must  be  seen  in  the  sun's  eye — 
the  best  time  will  be  about  3  o'clock. 
Beach  a  large  stone  that  juts  out  from 
the  river's  side,  climb  it,  and  look 
down  the  stream.  You  must  sketch 
rapidly,  for  the  charm  will  not  last — it 
is  most  lovely  in  colour,  and  the  forms 
are  very  beautiful.  The  opposite  side 
of  the  river  may  be  termed  a  moun- 
tain side,  broken  into  hollows,  in  which 
rock  and  vegetation  deepen  into  shade. 
The  top  is  covered  with  trees,  very 
graceful,  the  sun  edges  their  tops,  and 
rays  flow  through  them,  touching  with 
a  white  and  silver  light  the  ivied  rock, 
which  is  here  perpendicular.  Beyond 
this  mountain-side,  which  juts  out,  is 
another  clothed  cliff,  terminating  at 
the  base  in  bold  and  bare  rock ;  be- 
yond this,  and  high  above,  shooting 
into  the  sky,  are  piled  rocks  of  a  wild 


1849.] 


Lynmouth  Revisited. 


421 


and  broken  character,  gray,  but  dark 
against  the  distant  mountain  range,  of 
an  ultramarine  haze,  over  warm  and 
slightly  marked  downward  passages ; 
above  is  the  illumined  and  illuminat- 
ing sky.  On  the  side  of  the  river  from 
which  this  lovely  view  is  seen,  are 
large  masses,  backed  by  trees,  which 
shoot  across,  but  high  overhead,  so 
that  in  the  sketch  the  leafage  would 
drop  as  it  were  from  the  sky  into  the 
middle  of  the  picture.  The  river  itself 
is  quite  accordant  in  colour,  and  in  the 
forms  and  light  and  shade  of  the 
stones,  that,  though  so  large,  are 
dwarfed  by  the  large  precipitous  rocks 
perpendicular  above  them.  The  course 
of  the  stream  is  away  from  the  eye  of 
the  spectator — is  in  parts  darkly  tran- 
sparent and  deep — here  and  there 
showing  the  white  foam,  and  in  other 
parts  its  amber  and  reddish  bed. 

A  little  further  back  from  this  point 
of  view  is  another  of  the  same  scene  ; 
I  am  doubtful  which  would  make  the 
best  picture.  On  the  very  same  stone 
from  which  I  sketched  the  scene  de- 
scribed, turning  with  my  back  to  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river,  I  was  much 
struck  with  the  fine  forms  and  solemn 
light  and  shade  of  a  rock,  that  was 
cavernously  hollow  at  its  base,  and 
very  near  the  stream.  Above  it,  and 
declining  into  the  middle  of  the  pic- 
ture, the  sunlit  boles  of  coppice-trees, 
rising  among  the  light- green  leafage, 
made  the  only  positive  sunlight  of 
the  picture :  whatever  else  of  light 
there  was,  was  shade  luminous.  This 
rock  was  united  with  another  across 
the  picture,  that  thus  made  a  centre 
and  opening  for  the  coppice,  dotted 
with  the  blue  sky ;  but  all  that  side  of 
the  picture  was  in  very  dark  shadow, 
being  rock  perpendicular,  througli  the 
depth  of  which  light  and  boldly  formed 
trees  rose  to  the  top  of  the  picture,  and 
threw  down  leafage  into  the  deep 
shade.  The  colouring  of  the  cavernous 
hollow  was  remarkable  :  it  was  dark, 
yet  blending  gray,  and  pink,  and  green. 
The  scene  was  of  an  ideal  character ; 
and  I  doubt  if  the  sketch,  though 
taken  with  as  much  truth  as  I  could 
reach,  would  be  thought  to  be  from 
nature.  The  same  rocky  mass,  taken 
in  another  direction,  supplies  a  very 
different  but  perhaps  equally  good 
subject  for  the  pencil.  I  say  these 
sketches  are  of  an  ideal  kind.  It  maybe 


asked — Are  they  not  true  ? — are  they 
not  in  nature  ?  They  are ;  but  still  for 
a  better  use  than  the  pleasure  of  the 
imitation  a  mere  sketch  offers.  These 
are  the  kinds  of  scenes  for  the  painter's 
invention,  into  which  he  is  to  throw 
his  mind,  and  to  dip  his  pencil  freely 
into  the  gloom  of  his  palette,  and  con- 
centrate depths,  and  even  change  the 
forms,  and  even  to  omit  much  of  the 
decorative  detail,  and  make  severity 
severer.  He  would  give  the  little  trees 
a  wilder  life,  a  more  visible  power,  as 
if  for  lack  of  inhabitant  they  only  were 
sentient  of  the  scene.  If  a  figure  be 
introduced,  they  would  be  kept  dbwn, 
but  shoot  their  branches  towards  him, 
for  there  would  be  an  agreement,  a 
sentient  sympathy.  But  what  figure? 
It  is  not  peaceful  enough  for  a  hermit ; 
too  solemn  for  the  bandit,  such  as 
Salvator  would  love  to  introduce ;  an 
early  saint,  perhaps  a  St  Jerome — no 
unapt  place  for  him  and  his  lion :  and 
somehow  it  must  be  contrived  to  have 
the  water  perhaps  entering  even  into 
the  retreat,  and  reflecting  the  aged, 
the  hoary  bearded  saint.  Is  not  then 
the  subject  ideal,  and  the  sketch  only 
suggestive?  And  here  let  me  remark, 
with  regard  to  that  favourite  word 
"  finish," — an  elaborate  finish  of  all 
the  detail,  either  of  objects  or  colour- 
ing, would  ruin  the  sketch  •;  it  would 
lose  its  suggestive  character,  which  is 
its  value.  I  have  here  described,  I 
know  how  inadequately,  several  very 
striking  scenes ;  yet  are  they  scarcely 
a  stone's  throw  apart.  I  mention  them 
exclusively  on  that  account,  for,  where 
there  is  so  much,  it  must  be  the  more 
worth  the  while  of  the  sketcher  to 
take  some  pains  to  find  out  the  spot. 
What  do  we  mean  by  the  "  ideal " 
of  landscape  ?  The  "  naturalists  " 
ask  the  question  in  a  tone  of  somewhat 
more  than  doubt.  The  sketcher  is  apt 
to  be  caught  in  the  snare  of  nature's 
many  beauties,  and,  growing  enamour- 
ed of  them  in  detail,  to  lose  the  higher 
sense  in  his  practical  imitation.  This 
is  a  danger  he  must  avoid,  by  study, 
byreflection,  bypoetry.  If  the  "ideal" 
be  in  himself,  he  will  find  it  in  nature. 
If  he  sees  in  mountains,  woods,  and 
fields  but  materials  for  the  use  of  man, 
and  what  the  toil  of  man  has  made 
them,  he  may  be  a  good  workman 
in  his  imitation,  but  he  will  be  a  poor 
designer.  The  "  ideal"  grows  out  of 


Lynmouili  Revisited. 


422 

a  reverence,  which  he  can  scarcely 
feel.    If  the  earth  be  nothing  to  him 
but  for  the  plough,  and  the  rivers  for 
the  mill,  and  its  only  people  are  the 
present  people — doomed  to  toil,  bear- 
ing about  them  parochial  cares,  and 
tasteless  necessity,  ignorant  and  re- 
gardless of  the  history  of  the  earth 
they  tread — he  may  boast  of  his  love 
of  nature  •  but  his  love  is,  in  fact,  the 
love  of  his  technical  skill,  of  his  imi- 
tation.    He  thinks  more  of  the  how 
to  represent,  than  what  the  scene  may 
represent.    The  ideal  ranges  beyond 
the  present  aspect,  and  he  who  has  a 
belief  in  it  will  reverence  this  ancient 
earth,  the  cradle  wherein  he  and  all 
living  things  took  form  from   their 
creation.     He  will  see  visions  of  the 
past,  and  dream  dreams  of  its  future 
aspects  and  destiny ;  and  will  learn,  in 
his  meditations,  to  recall  the  people  of 
old,  and  imprint  its  soil  with  imagi- 
nary footsteps.    The  painter  is  no  true 
artist  if  he  feel  not  the  greatness  of 
nature's  immortality — atleast,  that  as 
it  rose  from  the  creation  so  will  it  be, 
throwing  forth  its  bounty,  and  beam- 
ing with  the  same  vigorous  beauty, 
till  it  shall  pass  away  as  a  scroll.   The 
painter-poet  must  be  of  a  loving  super- 
stition,   must    acknowledge    powers 
above  his  own — beings  greater  between 
him  and  the  heavens.    They  may  be 
invisible  as  angels,  yet  leave  some  un- 
derstanding of  their  presence.    They 
will  voice  the  woods  and  the  winds, 
and  tell  everywhere  that  all  of  nature 
is  life.    Are  there  not  noble  elements 
here  for  the  landscape  painter,  and 
can  neither  history  nor  fable  supply 
him  with  better  figures  than  toil-worn 
labourers,  drovers  taking  their  cattle 
or'  sheep  to  the  butchers,  and  paupers 
walking  to  the  poorhouse?    I  like  not 
the  "naturalist's"  poverty  of  thought. 
If  the  art  be  not  twin  sister  with  poetry, 
her  charm  is  only  for  the  eye.  Nothing 
great  ever  came  from  such  hands. 

"  And  deeper  faith — intenser  fire — 

Fed  sculptor's  chisel — poet's  pen  ; 
What  nobler  theme  might  art  require 

Than  gods  on  earth,  and  godlike  men  ? 
Yea,  gods  then  watched  with  loving  care 

(Or  such,  at  least,  the  fond  belief) 
E'en  lifeless  things  of  earth  and  air — 

The  cloud,  the  stream,  the  stem,  the  leaf : 
Iris,  a  goddess  !  tinged  the  flower 

With  more  than  merely  rainbow  hues  ; 
Great  Jove  himself  sent  down  the  shower, 

Or  freshcn'd  earth  with  healing  dews ! " 
KEN  VON 's  Poems. 


[Oct. 


How  do  such  thoughts  enhance  all 
nature's  beauties !  The  sketcher's 
real  work  is  to  see,  to  feel  them  all, 
and  to  fit  them  to  the  mind's  poetic 
thoughts. 

I  seem  to  be  forgetting  that  the 
reader  and  myself  are  all  this  while  at 
the  water's  edge,   and  under  deep- 
brow'd  rocks;  that  sunshine  has  left 
us,  and  it  is  time  to  climb  to   the 
path  that  leads  toward  Lynmouth. 
For  such  an  hour  we  are  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  stream.    Now  the  woods 
are  mapped,  and  edged  only  by  the  sun 
hasteningdownward.  Yet  after  awhile 
we  shall  not  regret  that  we  are  in  this 
path.    Escaping  the  closer  and  shaded 
wood,  we  shall  reach  a  more  open 
space,  and  see  the  flood  of  evening's 
sunlight  pouring  in.    Here  it  is  ;  my 
sketch  was  poor  indeed,  for  there  was 
neither  time  nor  means  to  do  anything 
like  justice  to  the  scene.    Here  is  a 
narrow,  winding  rocky  path,  a  little 
above  the  river,  from  whose  superim- 
pending  bank,  trees  that  now  look 
large  shoot  across  the  landscape,  and 
a  bold  stem  or  two  rises  up  boldly  to 
meet  them ;   the    river  stretches  to 
some  distance,  wooded  on  this  side  to 
the  edge,  and  wooded  hills  in  front, 
and  in  perspective.    The  distant  hills 
are  most  lovely  in  colour,  pearly  and 
warm   gray;    the  river,  the  blazing 
sky  reflected,  yet  showing  how  rich 
the  tone,  by   a  few  yellowish-gray 
lighter  streaks  that  mark  its  move- 
ment.    The  fragments  of  rock  in  the 
river    are    of   a   pinkish  -gray,   and, 
though  not  dark,  yet  strongly  marked 
against  the  golden  stream, — the  whole 
scene  great  in  its  simplicity  of  effect 
and  design.      In  broad  day  the  scene 
would  be  passed  unnoticed ;  it  would 
want  that  simplicity    which    is    its 
charm,  and  be  a  scene  of  detail ;  but 
now  the  lines  are  the  simplest,  and, 
happily,  where  the  river  really  turns, 
its  view  is  lost  in  the  reflection  of  the 
shaded  wood.      And  here,    in   this 
smallest  portion  of  the  picture,  the 
hills  on  each  side  seem  to  meet  and 
fold,  giving  the  variety  in  the  smallest 
space,  upon  which  I  have  made  re- 
marks in  this  paper.     This  beautiful 
picture    of  nature  I  visited  several 
evenings,  and  it  little  varied.   But  the 
charm  lasts  not  long — the  sun  sets,  or 
is  behind  the  wooded  hill,  before  its 
actual  setting,  yet  leaves  its  tinge  of 


1849.]  Lynmouth 

lake  blushing  above  the  gold  in  the 
sky — the  life  of  the  scene  has  faded, 
and  it  is  still  and  solemn.  I  cannot 
better  describe  the  impression  it  left, 
than  by  a  quotation  from  an  old  play, 
in  which  the  lover  sees  his  mistress, 
who  had  swooned,  or  was  in  a  death- 
like sleep : — 

"  ANTONIO. 

At  the  first  sight  I  did  believe  her  dead — 
Yet  in  that  state  so  awful  she  appeared, 
That  I  approached  her  with  as  much  respect 
As  if  the  soul  had  animated  still 
That  body  which,  though  dead,  scarce  mortal 

seemed. 

But  as  the  sun  from  our  horizon  gone, 
His  beams  do  leave  a  tincture  on  the  skies, 
AVhich  shows  it  was  not  long  since  he  withdrew  ; 
So  in  her  lovely  face  there  still  appeared 
Some  scattered  streaks  of  those  vermilion  beams 
Which  used  t'  irradiate  that  bright  firmament. 
Thus  did  I  find  that  distressed  miracle, 
Able  to  wound  a  heart,  as  if  alive — 
Incapable  to  cure  it,  as  if  dead." 

Thus  is  there  sympathy  between  our 
hearts  and  nature — a  sympathy,  the 
secret  of  taste,  which,  above  aU,  the 
sketcher  should  cultivate  as  the 
source  of  his  pleasure,  and  (may  it 
not  be  added  ?)  of  his  improvement. 

I  will  not  proceed  further  with 
description  of  scenes ;  Lynmouth  will 
be  long  remembered.  I  scarcely  know 
a  better  spot  for  the  study  of  close 
scenery.  On  reviewing  my  former 
impressions  with  the  present,  I  should 
not  say  that  Lynmouth  has  lost,  but 
I  have  certainly  gained  some  know- 


Revisited. 


423 


ledge,  and,  I  think,  improved  my 
sympathies  with  nature ;  and  if  I  have 
not  enjoyed  so  enthusiastically  as  I 
did  sixteen  years  ago,  I  have  enlarged 
my  sight  and  extended  my  power.  I 
am  practically  a  better  sketcher.  The 
hand  and  the  eye  work  together;  the 
improvement  of  one  advances  the 
other. 

I  know  no  better  method  of  sketch- 
ing than  the  mixture  of  transparent 
and  semi-opaque  colouring.  It  best 
represents  the  variety  and  the  power 
of  nature;  and  as  it  more  nearly 
resembles  in  its  working  the  practice 
of  oil-painting,  so  is  it  the  more 
likely  to  improve  the  painter.  I 
have  remarked  that,  even  in  depth  of 
colour,  the  semi-opaque  is  very  much 
more- powerful  than  the  transparent, 
however  rich ;  for  the  one  has,  be- 
sides its  more  varied  colour,  the 
solidity  of  nature ;  whereas  the  most 
transparent  has  ever  an  unsubstantial 
look — you  see  through  to  the  paper  or 
the  canvass.  Semi-opaque,  (or  de- 
grees of  opacity,  till  it  borders  on  the 
transparent,)  as  it  hides  the  material, 
and  throws  into  every  part  the  charm 
of  atmosphere,  so  it  will  ever  bestow 
upon  the  sketch  the  gift  of  truth. 

I  did  not  begin  this  paper  on  Lyn- 
mouth Revisited  with  any  intention 
of  entering  upon  the  technicalities  of 
art;  so  I  will  refrain  from  any 
further  remarks  tending  that  way, 
which  leads  to  far  too  wide  a  field  for 
present  discussion. 


VOL.  LXVI.— NO.  ccccvni. 


424 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


[Oct. 


WHAT  HAS  REVOLUTIONISING  GERMANY  ATTAINED? 


IT  is  now  rather  more  than  a  year 
since  we  asked,  "  What  would  revo- 
lutionising Germany  be  at  ?  "  A  full 
year  has  passed  over  the  dreamy, 
theorising,  restless,  and  excited  head 
of  Germany,  then  confused  and  stag- 
gering, like  "  a  giant  drunken  with 
new  wine,"  but  loudly  vaunting  that 
its  strong  dose  of  revolution  had 
strengthened  and  not  fuddled  it,  and 
that  it  was  about  to  work  out  of  its 
troubled  brains  a  wondrous  system  of 
German  Unity,  which  was  to  bring  it 
infinite  and  permanent  happiness ;  and 
now  we  would  once  more  ask,  What 
is  the  result  of  the  attempted  applica- 
tion of  German  revolutionising  theory 
to  practice  ?  In  fact,  what  has  revo- 
lutionising Germany  attained?  Our 
first  question  we  asked  without  being 
able  to  resolve  an  answer.  The  pro- 
blem was  stated:  an  attempt  was 
made  to  arrive  at  something  like  a 
solution  out  of  the  distracting  hurly- 
burly  of  supposed  purposes  and  so- 
called  intentions ;  but,  after  every 
effort  to  make  out  our  "  sum"  in  any 
reasonable  manner,  we  were  obliged 
to  give  it  up,  as  a  task  impossible  to 
any  political  mathematician,  not  of 
German  mould ;  to  declare  any  defi- 
nite solution  for  the  present  hopeless, — 
and  to  end  our  amount  of  calculation 
by  arriving  only  in  a  cercle  vicieux  at 
the  statement  of  the  problem  with 
which  we  started,  and  asking,  as  de- 
spairingly as  a  tired  schoolboy  with 
a  seejmngly  impracticable  equation 
before  him,  "  What,  indeed,  would 
revolutionising  Germany  be  at  ?  "  Are 
we  any  further  advanced  now  ?  We 
will  not  attempt  the  difficult  sum 
agam,  or  we  might  find  ourselves 
obliged  to  avow  ourselves  as  much 
deficient  in  the  study  of  German  poli- 
tical mathematics  as  before.  But  we 
may  at  least  try  to  undertake  a  mere 
sum  of  addition,  endeavour  to  cast  up 
the  amount  of  figures  the  Germans 
themselves  have  laid  before  us,  and 
make  out,  as  well  as  we  can,  what, 
after  a  year's  hard — and  how  hard ! — 
work,  revolutionising  Germany  has 
attained.  The  species  of  sum-total, 
as  far  as  the  addition  can  yet  go,  to 
which  we  may  arrive,  may  be  still  a 


very  confused  and  unsatisfactory  one ; 
but  in  asking,  "  What  has  revolution- 
ising Germany  attained  ?  "  we  will  not 
take  it  entirely  to  our  own  charge,  if 
the  answer  attempted  to  be  made  is 
thus  confused  and  unsatisfactory. 
German  political  sums  are  all  too 
puzzling  for  English  heads. 

Last  year  Germany  was,  as  yet, 
very  young  in  its  revolutionary  career. 
It  galloped  over  the  country  like  an 
unbroken  colt,  or  rather  like  a  mad 
bull,  "running  a-muck"  it  scarcely 
knew,  and  seemingly  little  cared,  at 
what,  provided  that  it  trampled  be- 
neath its  hoofs  all  that  stood,  and,  with 
proper  culture,  might  have  flourished 
and  borne  fruit.  It  tried  to  imitate 
the  frantic  caperings  of  its  fellow- 
revolutioniser  in  the  next  paddock, 
just  over  the  Rhine ;  but  it  imitated 
this  model  in  so  clumsy  a  fashion,  that 
it  might  have  been  very  aptly  com- 
pared to  the  ass  in  the  fable,  had  not 
the  demonstrations  it  sought  to  make 
been  destructive  kicks,  and  not  mis- 
taken caresses ;  and  the  model  it 
sought  to  copy  resembled  the  blood- 
hound rather  than  the  lap-dog.  It 
kicked  out  to  the  right  and  to  the  left, 
and,  with  its  kicks,  inflicted  several 
stunning  blows,  from  which  the  other 
states,  upon  whose  heads  the  kicks  fell, 
found  some  difficulty  in  recovering. 
Even  the  maddest  of  the  drivers  who 
spurred  it  on,  however,  found  it  neces- 
sary to  present  some  goal,  at  which  it 
was  eventually  to  arrive  in  its  mad 
career — that  goal  was  called  "  Ger- 
man Unity"  in  one  great  powerful 
united  Germany.  Where  this  vision- 
ary goal  existed,  or  how  it  was  to  be 
attained — by  what  path,  or  in  what 
direction,  none  seemed  to  know ;  but 
the  cry  was,  "  On,  on,  on!"  That  it 
should  miss  this  goal,  thus  visionary 
and  indistinct,  and  plunge  on  past  it, 
through  the  darkness  of  anarchy,  to 
another  winning-post,  just  as  indis- 
tinct and  visionary,  called  "  a  univer- 
sal republic,"  was  a  matter  of  little 
consideration,  or  was  even  one  of  hope, 
to  those  of  its  principal  drivers  who 
whipped,  and  spurred,  and  hooted  it, 
with  deafening  and  distracting  cries, 
like  the  Roman  drivers  of  the  un- 


1849.] 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


425 


ridden  horses  in  the  Corso  races.  A 
breaker-in  was  attempted,  however, 
to  be  placed,  and  not,  at  first,  pre- 
cisely by  those  who  most  wished  to 
check  it,  upon  the  back  of  the  tearing 
beast,  in  order  to  moderate  its  paces, 
and  canter  it  as  gently  as  might  be, 
onwards  to  the  denied  goal — which 
still,  however,  lay  only  in  a  most  misty 
distance,  to  which  none  seemed  to 
know  the  road.  In  this  rider,  called 
a  central  Frankfort  parliament,  men 
began  to  place  their  hopes ;  they 
trusted  confidently  that  it  might  ride 
the  animal  to  its  destination,  although 
they  knew  not  where  that  lay.  The 
revolution,  then,  was  decked  out  with 
colours  of  red,  and  black,  and  gold — 
the  colours  of  an  old  German  empire, 
and  of  a  new  derived  German  unity — 
and  the  rider  mounted  into  the  saddle. 
How  the  rider  endeavoured  to  show 
the  animal's  paces — how  he  strove  to 
guide  him  forwards — how  sometimes 
he  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  proceeding 
along  a  path,  uncertain,  it  is  true,  but 
apparently  leading  somewhere — how 
often  he  stumbled — how  often,  in  his 
inexperience,  he  slipped  in  his  saddle 
— how,  at  last,  he  slipped  and  fell  from 
it  altogether,  in  vain  endeavouring, 
maimed,  mutilated,  bruised,  and  half 
stunned,  to  spring  into  the  saddle 
again,  are  matters  of  newspaper  his- 
tory that  need  no  detail  here.  It 
suffices  to  say,  that  the  rider  was  un- 
horsed— that  the  animal  gave  a  last 
desperate  plunge,  kicking  and  wound- 
ing the  only  one  of  the  states  around 
that  strove  to  the  last  to  caress  and 
soothe  it  with  gentle  treatment — that 
it  now  stands  perspiring,  shaking, 
quivering  in  every  limb  —  snorting 
in  vain  struggle,  and  champing  the 
bit  of  the  bridle  which  Prussian  mili- 
tary force  has  thrown  upon  it.  To 
what,  then,  has  Germany  attained  in 
its  revolutionising  career?  It  has, 
at  all  events,  not  reached  that  ima- 
ginary goal  to  which  men  strove  to 
ride  it  without  direction -post.  The 
goal  is  as  far  off  as  ever,  perhaps 
farther  off  than  before,  as  may  be 
shown.  It  remains  just  as  vague,  and 
visionary,  and  misty.  Not  one  step 
seems  to  have  been  taken  towards  it. 
Has  no  farther  step  whatever  been 
taken,  then,  after  all  this  mad  rushing 
hither  and  thither  ?  And  if  any,  how, 
and  whither?  We  shall  endeavour  to 


see,  as  far  as  we  are  able.  Our  readers 
must,  then,  judge  whether  it  be  for- 
wards or  backwards,  or  whether,  in 
fact,  it  be  any  step  at  all. 

The  Frankfort  parliament  has  fallen 
from  its  seat.  Last  year,  when  we 
gave  a  sketch  of  its  sittings  in  that 
Lutheran  church  of  St  Paul  in  Frank- 
fort— now  bearing  a  stamp  which 
its  sober-minded  architect  probably 
never  dreamt  of,  as  a  historical  build- 
ing— it  was  young,  still  in  hopes ; 
and  amidst  its  inexperience,  its  va- 
pouring declamation  upon  impractic- 
able theories,  its  noise  and  confusion,  its 
clamorous  radicalism,  and  its  internal 
treachery,  that  sought  every  pretext  for 
exciting  to  anarchy  and  insurrection,  it 
put  forward  men  of  note  and  ability — 
who,  however  lacking  in  practical  ex- 
perience, gave  evidence  of  noble  hearts, 
if  not  sound  heads,  and  good  intentions, 
if  not  governmental  power.  It  con- 
tained, amidst  much  bad,  many  ele- 
ments of  good ;  and,  if  it  has  no  other 
advantageous  result,  it  has  proved  a 
school  of  experience,  tact,  andreason — 
as  far  at  least  as  Germans,  in  the  pre- 
sent condition  of  their  political  educa- 
tion, have  been  able  to  profit  by  its 
lessons  and  its  teaching.  De  mortuis 
nil  nisi  bonum  as  far  as  possible !  It 
is  defunct.  What  its  own  inability, 
want  of  judgment,  internal  disorgani- 
sation, and  "  vaulting  ambition,  that 
o'erleaps  its  sell,"  commenced,  was 
completed  by  the  refusal  of  the  prin- 
cipal northern  German  states  to  ac- 
knowledge its  ill-digested  constitution. 
It  sickened  upon  over-feeding  of  con- 
ceit, excess  of  supposed  authority,  and  a 
naturally  weak  constitution,  combined 
with  organic  defects,  weakened  still 
more  by  a  perpetual  and  distracting 
fever ;  it  was  killed  outright  by  what 
the  liberals,  as  well  as  the  democrats, 
of  Germany  choose  to  call  the  ill 
faith  and  treachery  of  Prussia  in  de- 
clining to  accept  its  offers,  and  ulti- 
mately refusing  to  listen  to  its  dic- 
tates. Its  dying  convulsions  were 
frightful.  It  fled  to  Stutgardt,  in  the 
hopes  that  change  of  air  might  save  it 
in  its  last  extremity:  and  there  it 
breathed  its  last.  Its  very  home  is  a 
wreck  ;  its  furniture  has  been  sold  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  its  burial ;  its 
lucubrations,  and  its  mighty  acts,  in 
which  it  once  fondly  hoped  to  have 
swayed  all  Germany,  if  not  the  world, 


WJiat  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


426 

have  been  dispersed,  in  their  recoi'ded 
form,  among  cheesemongers  and  green- 
grocers as  waste-paper,  at  so  much  the 
pound.  Its  house — the  silent,  sad,  and 
denuded  church  of  St  Paul — looks  now 
like  its  only  mausoleum ;  and  on  its 
walls  remains  alive  the  allegorical  pic- 
ture of  that  great  German  empire, 
which  it  deemed  it  had  but  to  will  to 
found — the  grim,  dark,  shaded  face  of 
which  grows  grimmer  and  darker  still, 
day  by  day ;  whilst  the  sun  that  rises 
behind  it,  without  illuminating  its 
form,  daily  receives  its  thicker  and 
thicker  cloud  of  dust  to  obscure  its 
painted  rays.  Of  a  sooth,  the  allegory 
is  complete.  It  is  dead,  and  resolved 
to  ashes.  Its  better  and  brighter  ele- 
ments have  given  up  their  last  breath, 
as,  in  their  meeting  at  Gotha,  they 
made  a  last  effort  to  discuss  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  constitution  which 
Prussia  offered  in  lieu  of  their  own, 
and  strove,  although  only  still  wear- 
ing a  most  ghostly  semblance  of  life, 
to  propose  to  themselves  the  best  ulti- 
mate means  of  securing  that  deside- 
ratum, which  they  still  seem  to  con- 
sider as  the  panacea  for  all  evils — the 
great  and  powerful  "  United  Ger- 
many" of  their  theoretical  dreams. 
This  last  breath  was  not  without  its 
noble  aspirations.  Its  less  pure,  more 
self-seeking,  and  darker  elements  have 
striven,  by  wild  and  no  longer  (even 
in  appearance)  legal  means,  to  galva- 
nise themselves  into  a  false  existence ; 
their  last  struggles  were  such  hideous 
and  distracted  contortions  as  are  usu- 
ally produced  by  such  galvanic  appli- 
cations ;  and  now  the  German  papers 
daily  record  the  arrest  of  various 
members  of  the  so-called  "  Rump 
Parliament,"  (so  nicknamed  by  the 
application  or  rather  misapplication  of 
an  English  historical  term,)  which  re- 
ceived its  final  extinguishing  blow  at 
Stutgardt,  mixed  up,  in  these  days  of 
imprisonment,  as  the  consequence  of 
mistaken  liberty,  along  with  insur- 
gents and  rebels  engaged  in  the  late 
disastrous  scenes  acted  in  the  duchy 
of  Baden.  Such  was  to  be  their  fate. 
But,  be  it  for  good  or  for  evil,  the 
Frankfort  parliament  has  died,  as  was 
prophesied,  and  not  without  convul- 
sions :  its  purposes  have  proved  null ; 
its  hopes  have  been  dispersed  to  the 
winds;  its  very  traces  have  been 
.swept  away;  its  memory  is  all  but  a 


[Oct. 


bitter  mockery.  Thus  far,  then,  we- 
may  indeed  shake  our  heads  despair- 
ingly as  we  ask  —  "  What  has 
revolutionising  Germany  as  yet  at- 
tained?" 

What  has  it  attained?  Let  us  go 
on.  In  the  first  place,  what  remains 
of  the  gigantic  cloud,  which  men 
attempted  to  catch,  embody,  and 
model  into  a  palpable  form,  although 
with  hands  inexperienced,  and  with 
as  little  of  the  creative  and  vivifying 
health  really  within  its  power,  as 
Frankenstein,  when  he  sought  to 
remould  the  crumbling  elements  he 
possessed  into  a  human  form,  and 
produced  a  monster.  What  remains 
of  the  great  united  German  empire 
of  men's  dreams?  Nothing  but  a 
phantom  of  a  central  power,  grasping 
the  powerless  sceptre  of  a  ghostly 
empire ;  surrounded  by  ministers 
whose  dictates  men  despise  and  dis- 
regard, in  veritable  exercise  of  their 
functions,  as  ghostly  as  itself.  The 
position  of  the  Imperial  adminis- 
tration has  become  a  byword  and  a 
scoff;  and  it  is  lamentable  to  see  a 
prince,  whose  good  intentions  never 
have  been  doubted,  and  whose  popu- 
lar sympathies  have  been  so  often 
shown,  standing  thus,  in  a  situation 
which  borders  upon  the  ridiculous — 
an  almost  disregarded  and  now  use- 
less puppet — a  quasi  emperor  without 
even  the  shadow  of  an  empire ;  and 
yet  condemned  to  play  at  empire- 
administrating — as  children  play  at 
kings  and  queens — none  heeding  their 
innocent  and  bootless  game.  How 
far  the  edicts  of  the  defunct  Frank- 
fort parliament,  and  the  decrees  of 
the  government  of  the  Imperial.  Vicar- 
age— paralysed  in  all  real  strength,  if 
not  utterly  defunct  now — are  held  as 
a  public  mockery,  is  very  pithily  evi- 
denced to  the  least  open  eyes  of  any 
traveller  to  the  baths  of  Germany, 
at  most  of  which  the  gambling  tables 
— supposed  to  be  suppressed,  and 
declared  to  be  illegal  by  the  shade  of 
the  "  central  power," — openly  pursue 
their  manoeuvres,  and  earn  their  gains 
as  of  yore  ;  or,  at  most,  fix  upon  the 
doors  of  their  hells  a  ticket,  written 
"  salons  reserves"  to  give  them  the 
faint  appearance  of  private  establish- 
ments, and  thus  adopt  a  very  flimsy 
pretext,  and  effect  a  most  barefaced 
evasion  of  a  hitherto  useless  law. 


1849.] 


What  lias  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


427 


Croupiers  and  gamblers  sit  squatting, 
most  disrespectfully,  at  almost  every 
bathiiig-place,  upon  the  Imperial  edict 
— as  the  toads  and  frogs  squatted 
upon  King  Log — treating  him  as  a 
jest,  and  covering  him  with  their 
filthy  slime.  By  what  authority — of 
the  same  Imperial  Vicar  also — the 
whole  country  around  Frankfort  is 
overrun  with  Prussian  soldiers,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  show.  That  the 
so-called  free  city  itself  should  be 
occupied  by  a  joint  garrison  of  Prus- 
sian and  Austrian  troops  for  its 
protection,  may  be  looked  upon  as 
a  legal  measure,  adopted  and  autho- 
rised by  a  new  parliament,  and  a 
central  power,  such  as  it  is,  as  by 
the  old  Diet.  But  when  we  see 
in  every  village  round  about — in 
«very  house,  in  almost  every  hovel 
— those  hosts  of  Prussian  spiked 
helmets  gleaming  in  the  sun — those 
Prussian  bayonets  planted  before 
every  door — those  Prussian  uniforms, 
studding,  with  variegated  colour, 
every  green  rural  scene ;  when  we 
never  cease  to  hear  upon  the  breeze — • 
wherever  we  may  wander  in  the 
country — the  clang  of  Prussian  mili- 
tary bands,  and  the  tramp  of  Prussian 
infantry ;  when  we  find  the  faces  of 
Prussian  military  at  every  window, 
and  observe  Prussian  soldiers  mixing 
in  every  action  of  the  common  every- 
day life  of  the  country;  and  then 
turn  to  ask  how  it  comes  that  Prus- 
sian soldiers  swarm  throughout  a 
part  of  the  land  in  no  way  belonging 
to  Prussia,  we  are  able  to  receive  no 
more  reasonable  answer  than  that 
"they  are  there  because  they  are 
there" — an  explanation  which  has  a 
more  significant  meaning  in  it  than 
the  apparently  senseless  words  seem 
to  express.  "  They  are  there  because 
they  are  there" — that  is  to  say,  without 
anyrecognised  authorityfroni  anycen- 
tral  German  power.  "  They  are  there 
because  they  are  there," — because 
Prussia  has  sent  them.  Where,  then, 
is  the  central  power? — what  is  its 
force?  what  its  authority?  what  its 
sense  ?  If,  then,  all  that  still  remains, 
in  living  form,  of  that  great  united 
Germany  of  men's  dreams,  is  but  the 
"shadow  of  a  shade,"  in  power — a 
power  disregarded — even  more,  de- 
spised and  ridiculed— what  has  revo- 
lutionising Germany  attained  in  its 


chase    after    the    phantom    of    its 
hopes  ? 

If  in  this  respect  it  has  attained 
nothing  which  it  can  show,  after 
more  than  a  year's  revolution,  for  the 
avowed  or  pretended  purpose  of  ob- 
taining some  result  to  this  very  end, 
it  cannot  be  said,  however,  that  no- 
thing remains  to  Germany  of  its 
dream  of  unity.  Spite  of  sad  expe- 
rience—  spite  of  the  uselessness  of 
every  effort — spite  of  sacrifices  made 
and  sorrows  suffered — Germany  still 
pursues  its  phantom  with  as  much 
ardour  as  before.  Like  the  prince  in 
the  fairy-tale,  who,  panting,  breath- 
less, half-dead  with  exhaustion  and 
fatigue,  still  hunted  without  rest  for 
the  imaginary  original  of  the  fair  por- 
trait placed  in  his  hands  —  untired 
and  unyielding,  after  the  repeated 
disappointments  of  lifting  veil  after 
veil  from  forms  which  he  thought 
might  be  that  of  the  beloved  one — 
still  driven  on  by  an  incurable  longing 
— still  yearning  despairingly,  and  with 
false  hope, — so  does  Germany,  after 
lifting  veil  after  veil  only  to  find  de- 
lusive spectres  beneath,  still  yearn 
and  long  for  the  object  of  its  adora- 
tion. It  is  impossible  to  travel,  even 
partially,  through  the  country,  with- 
out discovering,  from  every  conversa- 
tion with  all  classes,  that  the  intense 
craving  for  this  object — this  great 
blessing  of  a  grand  and  powerful 
United  Germany  —  is  as  strong  as 
ever — far  stronger  than  ever !  For 
what  was  not  very  long  ago  only  the 
watchword  of  the  fancied  liberal  stu- 
dent, in  his  play  of  would-be  conspi- 
rator— what  was  but  the  pretext  of 
really  conspiring  and  subversive  de- 
mocrats— what  grew  only  by  degrees 
into  the  cry  of  the  people,  who 
clamoured,  not  knowing  what  they 
clamoured  for — has  taken  evidently 
the  strongest  root  throughout  the 
whole  mass  of  German  nationality, 
and  grows — grows  in  despite  of  the 
rottenness  of  the  branches  it  has  as 
yet  sent  forth — grows  in  despite  of 
the  lopping,  breaking,  and  burning  of 
its  first  offshoots — grows  in  despite  of 
the  atmosphere  of  contention,  rather 
than  of  union,  that  becomes  thicker 
and  more  deleterious  to  its  growth, 
around  it,  and  of  the  blight  it  daily 
receives  from  the  seemingly  undis- 
persable  mildew  of  hatred,  suspicion, 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


428 

and  total  want  of  sympathy  between 
Southern  and  Northern  Germany, 
which  formerly  arose  only  from  un- 
cougeniality  of  temperament,  mixed 
up  more  or  less  with  difference  of 
religious  creed,  but  now  is  generated 
by  a  thousand  causes.  This  intense 
craving  for  the  possession  of  the 
phantom — increasing,  it  would  seem, 
in  proportion  as  the  phantom  flies 
farther  and  farther  from  the  grasp — is 
no  longer  expressed  by  the  student, 
the  democrat,  and  the  man  of  the 
people :  it  pervades  all  classes  from 
below  to  above  ;  it  is  in  the  mouth  of 
the  man  of  caution  and  of  sense,  as  in 
that  of  the  wild  and  poetico-political 
enthusiast ;  it  becomes  more  and 
more  universal,  and  it  amounts  to  a 
mania.  Ask  of  whom  you  will,  Whi- 
ther tends  German  hope  ?  and  the  an- 
swer will  still  and  ever  be  the  same — 
"  German  unity."  But  ask  no  more  ; 
for  if  you  inquire,  as  last  year,  into 
the  "how,"  the  "when,"  the  "where," 
the  answer  will  in  most  cases  be  given 
in  the  same  strain  of  incomprehensible 
and  still  more  impracticable  rhapsody 
— visionary,  poetical,  noble  some- 
times, but  purposeless  as  before ;  or 
men  will  shrug  their  shoulders,  shake 
their  heads,  and  sigh,  but  still  dream 
on  the  dream  of  German  unity — still 
clamour  for  it  loudly.  And  well  may 
they  shake  their  heads  and  groan,  if 
such  be  the  end  and  aim  of  all  Ger- 
man aspirations !  for  where,  indeed, 
is  the  path  that  leads  to  it?  That 
which  Germany  is  itself  following  up, 
leads  (for  the  present  at  least)  visibly 
from  it,  and  not  towards  it.  Prussia 
has  promulgated  its  constitution, — 
and  we  may  ask,  par  parenthese, 
whether  that  is  to  be  put  forward  as 
the  great  end  which  revolutionising 
Germany  has  attained,  after  more 
than  a  year's  revolution?  Prussia 
has  called  upon  all  Germany  to  join 
with  it,  hand  in  hand,  in  this  consti- 
tution, granted  and  given,  but  not 
accepted,  at  the  hands  of  a  Frank- 
fort parliament.  In  answer  to  its 
call,  it  has  found  the  cleft  between 
Northern  and  Southern  Germany — 
the  cleft  of  envy  and  jealousy,  suspi- 
cion and  mistrust — growing  wider  and 
wider  to  oppose  it.  It  has  attempted 
to  form  a  partial  union  of  Northern 
Germany — between  the  more  north- 
ern states  of  Prussia,  Hanover,  and 


[Oct. 


Saxony ;  but  even  in  this  union  has 
been  disunion — reticence,  and  suspi- 
cion, and  doubt,  and  indecision,  among 
the  proposed  allies  themselves  ;  while 
Austria,  Bavaria,  and  even  Wu'rtem- 
berg,  have  held  aloof  to  sulk  and 
scoff,  and  have  seemed  to  bide  that 
time  when  Austria  should  be  less 
shackled,  and  could  better  oppose  the 
supremacy  of  Northern  German  in- 
fluence. Coalitions  even  now  are 
talked  of,  to  which,  if  Prussia  be  not 
a  stranger,  it  is  to  be  admitted  only 
as  a  humbled  ally.  With  these  feel- 
ings, which  exist  not  only  between 
powers,  but  in  the  people,  the  cry  of 
United  Germany  is  but  a  jest — the 
longing  a  green- sickness.  Certainly 
revolutionising  Germany  has  not  thus 
far  attained  any  step  in  its  progress 
towards  the  great  desideratum  of  its 
nationality.  The  only  semblance  of 
progress  has  been,  in  the  advances  of 
Prussia  towards  supremacy,  in  the 
cession  of  the  principality  of  Hohen- 
zollern  Sigmaringen  to  its  territory, 
(an  example  which  other  small  Ger- 
man principalities  may  follow,)  in  its 
present  occupation  of  the  free  town  of 
Hamburg,  in  its  military  occupation 
of  the  duchy  of  Baden,  of  which 
more  further  on.  But  if  these  be 
steps  towards  a  united  Germany,  tell 
it  to  Southern  Germany,  and  hear 
what  it  will  say! 

If  so  little,  then,  has  been  attained 
by  revolutionising  Germany,  in  its 
progress  towards  its  most  loudly 
clamoured  desire,  let  us  see  what 
else  it  has  attained.  After  a  year's 
labour,  which  was  not  without  its 
throes,  revolutionising  Germany,  as 
represented  by  its  central  parliament, 
brought  forth  its  constitution  —  a 
ricketty  child,  but  fully  expected  by 
its  fond,  and  in  many  respects  infatu- 
ated parents,  to  grow  into  a  giant, 
and  flourish  under  the  edifice  of  a 
United  German  Empire.  The  im- 
plicit adoption  of  this  bantling  by 
the  several  German  states,  as  their 
heir  and  future  master,  was  declared 
by  revolutionisers  to  be  the  sine  qua 
non  of  their  sufferance  still  to  exist 
at  all,  under  the  will  of  the  people. 
Unhappy  bantling,  decked  out  with  ^ 
all  sorts  of  promised  gifts  for  the 
future  weal  of  mankind  by  its  would- 
be  fairy  godmothers  !  it  proved  but  a 
changeling — or  rather  an  imp,  pro- 


1849.] 


Wltat  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


429 


Tided  with  every  curse,  instead  of 
every  blessing ;  as  if  the  gifts  it  was 
intended  to  bestow  had  been  reversed 
by  a  wicked  fairy  among  the  god- 
mothers, who  had  more  power  than 
the  rest.  And,  of  a  truth,  there  was 
such  a  one  among  them :  and  her 
name  was  Anarchy  or  Subversion,  al- 
though the  title  she  gave  herself  was 
Red  Republic,  and  the  beast  on  which 
she  rode  was  Self-interest.  The  conse- 
quence was,  that  the  very  contrary 
occurred  to  that  which  revolutionisers 
had  prophesied  or  rather  menaced. 
Prussia,  and  the  other  states,  which 
refused  to  adopt  the  bantling,  thus 
menacingly  thrown  into  their  arms, 
have  gone  on,  we  cannot  say  the 
"  even,"  but  uneven  "  tenor  of  their 
way  " — no  matter  now  by  what  means, 
for  we  speak  only  of  the  strange 
destinies  of  the  much-laboured,  long- 
expected,  loudly- vaunted  Frankfort 
constitution.  Almost  the  only  one — 
at  least  of  the  larger  states  the  only 
one  —  that  seemingly  accepted  the 
adoption  forced  upon  it,  with  frank- 
ness, willingness,  and  openness,  has 
been  convulsed  by  the  most  terrible 
of  civil  wars.  In  Baden,  the  accep- 
tance of  the  Frankfort  constitution, 
and  not  its  rejection,  by  a  well- 
meaning,  mild,  but  perhaps  weak 
ruler,  was  eagerly  seized  upon  as 
a  pretext  for  disaffection,  armed 
insurrection,  civil  war ;  while  Wur- 
temberg,  where  it  was  received  by 
tha  king,  although  with  evident  un- 
willingness, or,  as  he  himself  ex- 
pressed it,  in  a  somewhat  overstrained 
tone  of  pathos,  "  with  bleeding  and 
broken  heart,  "  narrowly  escaped 
being  involved  in  the  same  fearful 
issue.  The  process  by  which  this 
result  was  attained  in  Baden  was 
curious  enough,  although  fully  in 
accordance  with  the  usual  mano3uvres 
of  the  anarchical  leaders  of  the  day, 
who,  while  denouncing  Jesuitism,  in 
many  parts  of  the  world,  as  the  great 
evil  and  anti-popular  influence  against 
which  they  have  most  to  contend, 
evidently  adopt  the  supposed  and 
most  denounced  principle  of  Jesuit- 
ism —  that  "  the  ends  justify  the 
means  " — as  their  own  peculiar  line 
of  conduct ;  and  use  every  species  of 
treachery,  deceit,  falsehood,  and  de- 
lusion, as  holy  and  righteous  weapons 
in  the  sacred  cause  of  liberty,  or  of 


that  idol  of  their  worship  which  they 
choose  to  nickname  liberty.  In  show- 
ing what  revolutionising  Germany 
has,  or  rather  perhaps  has  not,  as  yet, 
attained,  we  must  briefly,  then,  revert 
once  more  to  that  insurrection  and 
its  suppression,  that  has  so  fearfully 
devastated  the  duchy  of  Baden,  and 
its  neighbouring  province  of  the  Pala- 
tinate, which,  although  belonging  to 
Bavaria,  is  so  distant  and  divided 
from  that  kingdom  as  to  be  included, 
without  further  distinction,  in  the 
same  designation. 

It  was  with  almost  prophetic  spirit 
that  we,  last  year,  spoke  of  the  un- 
happy duchy  of  Baden,  which  had 
then,  as  since,  the  least  cause  of  com- 
plaint of  any  of  the  several  subdivi- 
sions of  Germany.  "  Nothing,"  it 
was  then  said,  "  can  be  more  uneasy 
and  disquieting  than  its  appearance. 
In  this  part  of  Germany,  the  revolu- 
tionary fermentation  appears  far  more 
active,  and  is  more  visible  in  the 
manner,  attitude,  and  language  of  the 
lower  classes,  than  even  in  those  (at 
that  time)  hotbeds  of  revolutionary 
movement,  Austria  and  Prussia.  To 
this  state  of  things  the  confinity  with 
agitated  France,  and  consequently  a 
more  active  affinity  with  its  ideas, 
caught  like  a  fever  from  a  next-door 
neighbour's  house,  the  agency  of  the 
emissaries  from  the  ultra-republican 
Parisian  clubs,  who  find  an  easier 
access  across  the  frontiers,  and  the  fact 
also  that  the  unhappy  duchy  has  been, 
if  not  the  native  country,  at  least 
the  scene  of  action  of  the  repub- 
lican insurgents,  Hecker  and  Struve, 
have  all  combined  to  contribute." 
"It  is  impossible  to  enter  the  duchy, 
and  converse  with  the  peasant  popu- 
lation, formerly  and  proverbially  so 
peacefully  disposed  in  patriarchal 
Germany — formerly  so  smiling,  so 
ready,  so  civil,  perhaps  only  too 
obsequious  in  their  signs  of  respect, 
now  so  insolent  and  rude — without 
finding  the  poison  of  those  various 
influences  gathering  and  festering  in 
all  their  ideas,  words,  and  actions." 

Such  were  the  views  written  last 
year;  and  this  state  of  things  has 
since  continued  to  increase,  as  regards 
popular  fermentation,  and  disposition 
to  insurrection.  Demagogic  agitators 
swarmed  in  the  land,  instilling  poison 
wherever  they  went,  and  rejoicing  as 


430 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


[Oct. 


they  saw  the  virus  do  its  work  in  the 
breaking  out  of  festering  sores.    The 
tactics  of  this  party,  in  all  lands,  has 
been  to  try  their  experiments  upon 
the  military  ;  but  it  has  only  been  in 
Baden,   thus    demoralised,   and  dis- 
organised by  weakness  of  sufferance, 
and  a  vain  spirit  of  concession  and 
looked-for    conciliation,     that    these 
subjects'  were  found  fitting  for  the 
efforts  of  the  experimentalisers.    The 
virus    had    already    done   its    work 
among  them,  to  the  utmost  hopes  of 
the  poisoning  crew,  when  the  New 
Frankfort  Constitution — the  rejection 
of  which  was  to  be  the  signal  for  a 
quasi  legal  insurrection — was  accepted 
by  the  Grand-duke  of  Baden.    But 
the  agitators  were  not  to  be  thus 
baffled.  A  pretence,  however  shallow 
and  false,   was  easily  found  in  the 
well-prepared  fermentation  of  men's 
minds ;  and  the  military,  summoned 
by  demagogic  leaders  to  tumultuous 
meetings,  were  easily  persuaded  that 
a  false,  or  at  least  a  defective  draught 
of  the  new  boasted  constitution  had 
been  read  to  them  and  proclaimed — 
that,  in  the  real  constitution,  an  enact- 
ment provided  that  the  soldiers  were 
to  choose  and  elect  their  own  officers — 
that  this  paragraph  had  been  care- 
fully suppressed  ;  and  that  the  mili- 
tary had  been    thus    deprived    and 
cheated  of  their  rights.    Easily  de- 
tected as  might  have  been  the  false- 
hood,  it  nevertheless   succeeded   in 
its  purposes.     The  military  insurrec- 
tion,  in  which  the  tumultuous  and 
evil-disposed  of  the  lower  classes,  and 
a   great   portion   of  the   disaffected 
peasantry  joined,  broke  out  on  the 
very  evening  of  one  of  these  great 
meetings  ;  and,  by  means  of  a  well- 
prepared  and  actively  organised  con- 
centration of   measures,  in  various 
parts  of  the  duchy  at  the  same  time. 
Thus  was  the  very  acceptance  of  the 
revolutionary    constitution    made  in 
Baden  a  pretext  to  stir  the  land  to 
insurrection. 

After  the  full  account  already  pub- 
lished in  these  pages,  it  is  needless 
to  enter  into  detail,  with  regard  to 
the  events  which  marked  the  pro- 
gress and  suppression  of  this  great 
insurrection.  It  is  only  to  show  the 
insensate  state  of  mind  to  which  re- 
volutionary agents,  left  to  do  their 
will,  were  able  to  work  up  the  mili- 


tary ;  the  confused  ideas  and  purposes, 
with  which  these  would-be  revolution- 
ising German  heads  were  filled ;  the 
ignorance  that  was  displayed  among 
these  men,  said  to  be  enlightened  by 
"patriots,"   and  their  want    of   all 
comprehension  of  the  very  rights  for 
which  they  pretended  to  clamour — in 
fact,  the  utter  absence  of  any  expe- 
rience gained  by  the  lower  classes, 
and  especially  the  military  portion  of 
them,  after  more  than  a  year's  revolu- 
tionising, that  we  briefly  recapitulate 
some  of  the  leading  events  of  the  out- 
break.   It  was  with  a  perfect  headlong 
frenzy  that  the  garrison  of  the  fortress 
of  Rastadt  first  revolted ;  it  was  with 
just  as  much  appearance  of  madness 
that  the  mutiny  broke  out  simulta- 
neously in  the  other  garrison  towns. 
There  was  every  evidence  of  rabid 
mania  in  the  deplorable  scenes  which 
followed,  when  superior  officers  in  vain 
attempted  with  zeal  and  courage  to 
stem  the  torrent,  and,  in  many  in- 
stances, lost  their  lives  at  the  hands 
of  the  infuriated  soldiery ;  when  others 
were  cruelly  and  disgracefully  mis- 
handled, and  two  or  three,  unable  to 
contend  with  the  sense  of  dishonour 
and  degradation  which  overwhelmed 
them  as  military  men,  rushed,  mad- 
dened also,  into  suicide,  to  have  their 
very  corpses  mutilated  by  the  men 
whom  they  had  treated,  as  it  happened, 
with  kindness  and  concession ;  when 
others  again,  who  had  escaped  over 
the  frontiers,  were,  by  a  violation  of 
the  Wiirtemberg  territory,  captured, 
led  back  prisoners,  and  immured,  under 
every  circumstances    of  cruelty  and 
ignominy,  in  the  fortress  they  had  in 
vain    attempted    loyally  to     guard. 
There  was  madness  in  all  this ;  and 
then    we    learn,    to    complete    the 
deplorable  picture,    from  a  very  ac- 
curate   account  of   all  the    circum- 
stances, lately  published  by  a  Baden 
officer,  as  well  as  from  another  pamph- 
let, more  circumscribed  in  detail,  but 
fully  as  conclusive  as  regards  narra- 
tion of  feeling,  in  almost  every  page, 
that  when  the  insurgent  soldiers  were 
asked  by  their    officers  what    they 
wanted,  they  could  only  answer,  "  Our 
rights  and  those  of  the  people  ;"  and 
when  questioned  further,  "  What  are 
those  rights?"  either  held  their  tongues 
and  shook  their  heads  in  ignorance, 
or  replied  with  the  strangest  naivete, 


1849.] 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained  ? 


"That  yon  ought  to  know  better  than 
we."  Still  more  strikingly  character- 
istic of  the  insensate  nature  of  the 
struggle  are  the  examples  where 
the  infatuated  soldiers  parted  from 
their  officers  with  tears  in  their  eyes, 
then,  driven  on  by  their  agitators, 
hunted  them  to  the  death  ;  and  then, 
again,  with  eyes  opened  at  last  to 
their  delusion,  sobbed  forth  the  bit- 
terest repentance  for  their  blindness. 

It  has  been  already  seen  how  the 
Grand-duke  fled  the  land,  how  Baden 
was  given  up,  in  a  state  of  utter 
anarchy,  to  a  Provisional  govern- 
ment, that  existed  but  long  enough 
to  be  utterly  rent  and  torn  by  the 
very  instruments  which  its  members 
had  contributed  to  set  in  movement ; 
and  to  a  disorganised,  tumultuous 
army,  prepared  to  domineer  and 
tyrannise  in  its  newly- acquired  self- 
power  ;  how  the  insurrection  was 
suppressed,  after  an  unwilling  appeal 
to  Prussia  by  the  Grand- duke — how 
the  insurgent  troops  were  dispersed  by 
means  of  a  Prussian  army — and  how 
Rastadt  was  finally  surrendered  by 
the  revolutionary  leaders.  As  these 
events  have  already  been  detailed,  and 
as  it  is  our  purpose  to  ask  in  general, 
"  What  has  revolutionising  Germany 
attained  ? "  we  need  do  no  more 
on  this  head,  than  ask,  "What, 
by  its  late  movement,  has  revolution- 
ising Baden  attained?  "  "  What  then 
is  the  present  position,  and  the  pre- 
sent aspect  of  the  country,  after  the 
armed  suppression  ?  " 

What,  indeed!  Poor  old  Father 
Rhine,  although  still,  in  these  revolu- 
tionary days,  somewhat  depressed  in 
spirits,  does  not  now,  however,  exhibit 
that  aspect  of  utter  melancholy  and 
despair  which  we  last  year  pictured  ; 
he  has  even  contrived  to  reassume 
something  of  that  conceited  air  which 
we  have  so  often  witnessed  in  his 
eld  face.  Foreign  tourists,  if  not  in 
the  pleasure-seeking  shoals  of  afore- 
time, at  least  in  very  decent  sprink- 
lings, return  again  to  pay  him  visits  ; 
and  the  hotels  upon  his  banks  give 
evidence  that  his  courts  are  not  wholly 
deserted.  Ems,  from  various  causes 
independent  of  its  natural  beauties — 
the  principal  one  of  which  has  been 
the  pilgrimage  of  French  Legitimists 
to  the  heir  of  the  fallen  Bourbons, 
during  his  short  residence  in  that 


431 

sweet  bathing-place — has  overflowed 
with  "guests."  Homburg  has  had 
scarcely  a  bed  to  offer  to  the  wan- 
derer on  his  arrival.  Rhenish  Prus- 
sia, then,  has  profited,  by  its  com- 
parative state  of  quiet,  somewhat  to 
redeem  its  losses  of  last  year.  But 
the  poor  duchy  of  Badeii  still  hangs 
its  head  mournfully ;  and  Baden- 
Baden,  the  fairest  queen  of  German 
watering-places,  finds  itself  utterly 
deprived  of  its  well-deserved  crown 
of  supremacy,  and  seems  to  have 
covered  itself,  in  shame,  with  a  veil 
of  sadness.  Although  all  now  wears 
again  a  smiling  face  of  peaceful  quiet, 
and  Prussian  uniforms,  which  at  least 
have  the  merit  of  studding  with  colour 
the  gay  scene,  give  warrant  for  peace 
by  the  force  of  the  bayonet,  yet 
tourists  seem  to  avoid  the  scene  of 
the  late  fearful  convulsions,  as  they 
would  a  house  in  which  the  plague 
has  raged,  although  now  declared 
wholly  disinfected.  A  few  wandering 
"  guests  "  only  come  and  go,  and  tell 
the  world  of  foreign  wanderers  with 
dismal  faces,  "  Baden-Baden  is 
empty !"  Travellers  seem  to  hurry 
through  the  country,  as  swiftly  as  the 
railroad  can  whirl  them  across  it,  to- 
wards Strasburg  and  Bale — ay!  rather 
to  republican  France,  or  fermenting 
Switzerland :  they  appear  unwilling 
to  turn  aside  and  seek  rest  among  the 
beautiful  hills  of  a  country  where  the 
reek  of  blood,  or  the  vapour  of  the 
cannon-smoke,  may  be  still  upon  the 
air.  In  Baden-Baden  bankrupt  hotels 
are  closed;  and  the  lower  classes, 
who  have  been  accustomed  to  amass 
comparative  wealth  by  the  annual  in- 
flux of  foreigners,  either  by  their  pro-' 
duce,  or  in  the  various  different  occu- 
pations of  attending  upon  visitors, 
wear  the  most  evident  expression  of 
disappointment,  listlessuess,  and  want. 
Baden  pays  the  bitter  penalty  of  in- 
surrection, by  being  utterly  crippled 
in  one  of  the  branches  of  its  most 
material  interests.  It  bears  as  quiet 
an  aspect  outwardly,  however,  as  if 
it  were  sitting,  in  humiliation  and 
shame,  upon  the  stool  of  repentance. 
There  is  nothing  (if  they  go  not  be- 
yond the  surface)  to  prevent  foreign 
pleasure  or  health  seekers  from  find- 
ing their  pleasure  or  repose  in  this 
sweet  country ;  and  in  what  has  been 
simply,  but  correctly,  termed  "  one  of 


432 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained  ? 


[Oct. 


the  loveliest  spots  upon  God's  earth," 
as  of  yore  ;  but  they  are  evidently  shy, 
and  look  askance  upon  it.  Baden 
pays  its  penalty. 

Although  nature  smiles,  however, 
upon  mountain  and  valley,  and  ro- 
mantic village,  as  cheerily  as  before, 
and  there  is  gaiety  still  in  every  sun- 
beam, yet  traces  of  the  horrors  lately 
enacted  in  the  land  are  still  left,  which 
cannot  fail  to  strike  the  eye  of  the 
most  listless,  mere  outward  observer, 
as  he  whisks  along  the  country — 
sometimes  in  the  trampled  plain,  on 
which  nature  has  not  been  as  yet 
able  to  throw  her  all-covering  veil 
again,  and  which  shows  where  has 
been  the  battle-field,  which  should 
have  been  the  harvest-field,  and  was 
not — sometimes  in  the  shattered  wall 
or  ruined  house — sometimes  in  the 
wood  cut  down  or  burned.  At  every 
step  the  traveller  may  be  shown,  by 
his  guide,  the  spots  on  which  battles 
or  skirmishes  have  taken  place,  where 
the  cannon  has  lately  roared,  where 
blood  has  been  shed,  where  men  have 
fallen  in  civil  contest.  Here  he  may 
be  conveyed  over  the  noble  railway- 
bridge  of  the  Neckar,  and  see  the 
broken  parapet,  and  hear  how  the 
insurgents  had  commenced  their  work 
of  destruction  upon  the  edifice,  but 
were  arrested  in  its  accomplishment 
by  the  rapid  advance  of  the  Prussian 
troops.  Here  again  he  may  mark  the 
late  repairs  of  the  railroad,  where  it 
has  been  cut  up  into  trenches,  to  pre- 
vent the  speedy  conveyance  of  the 
war-material  of  the  enemy.  If  he 
lingers  on  his  way,  he  may  seek  in 
vain  in  the  capital,  or  other  "resi- 
dence towns  "  of  Baden,  where  ducal 
palaces  stand,  for  the  treasures  of 
antiquity  which  were  their  boast. 
Pillage  has  done  its  work  :  insurgents 
have  appropriated  these  objects  of 
value  to  themselves,  in  the  name  of 
the  people ;  and  the  costly  and  be- 
jewelled trappings  of  the  East,  the 
rich  gold  inlaid  armour,  and  the  valu- 
able arms,  brought  in  triumph  home 
by  the  Margrave  Louis  of  Baden,  after 
his  Turkish  campaigns,  are  now  dis- 
persed, none  knows  where,  after  hav- 
ing fed  the  greed  of  some  French 
red-republican  or  Polish  democrat. 
But  it  is  more  particularly  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  fortress  town  of 
Eastadt,  where  the  insurgents  last 


held  out,  that  the  strongest  traces 
of  the  late  convulsions  may  be 
found.  Marks  of  devastation  are 
everywhere  perceptible  in  the  country 
around ;  the  remains  of  the  temporary 
defences  of  the  besiegers  still  lie  scat- 
tered in  newly  dug  trenches  ;  and  the 
blackened  walls  of  a  railway  station- 
house,  by  the  road-side,  tell  him  how 
it  was  bombarded  from  the  town  by 
the  besieged  insurgents,  and  then 
burned  to  the  ground,  lest  it  should 
afford  shelter  to  the  besiegers.  These 
are,  however,  after  all,  but  slight 
evidences  of  what  the  duchy  of 
Baden  has  attained  by  its  late  revolu- 
tion. If  we  go  below  the  surface,  the 
dark  spots  are  darker  and  far  more 
frequent  still. 

It  is  impossible  to  enter  into  con- 
versation with  persons  of  any  classr 
without  discovering,  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  how  deeply  rooted  still 
remains  the  demoralisation  of  the 
country.  The  bitterness  of  feeling, 
and  the  revolutionary  mania  of  revolu- 
tionising, to  obtain  no  one  can  tell 
what,  may  have  been  crushed  down 
and  overawed ;  but  they  evidently 
still  smoulder  below  the  surface  and 
ferment.  The  volcano  -  mouth  has 
been  filled  with  a  mass  of  Prussian 
bayonets  ;  but  it  still  burns  below  :  it 
is  clogged,  not  extinct.  The  demo- 
cratic spirit  has  been  too  deeply  in- 
fused to  be  drugged  out  of  the  mass 
of  the  people  by  the  dose  of  military 
force.  Fearful  experience  seems  to- 
have  taught  the  sufferers  little  or 
nothing ;  and  although,  here  and 
there,  may  be  found  evidences  of 
bitter  repentance,  consequent  upon 
personal  loss  of  property,  or  family 
suffering,  yet  even  below  that  may 
be  constantly  found  a  profound  bit- 
terness, and  an  eager  rancour,  against 
unknown  and  visionary  enemies. 
Talk  to  that  poor  old  woman,  who 
sits  with  pale  face  upon  a  stile  on  the 
mountain-side.  She  will  weep  for 
the  son  she  has  lost  among  the  in- 
surgents, and  deplore,  with  bitter 
tears,  his  error  and  his  delusion ;  and 
yet,  if  you  gain  her  confidence,  she 
will  raise  her  head,  and,  with  some 
fire  in  her  sunken  eye,  tell  you  that 
she  has  still  a  son  at  home,  a  boy, 
her  last- born,  who  bides  but  his  time 
to  take  up  the  musket  against  "  those 
accursed  enemies  of  the  people  and 


1849.] 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


433 


the  people's  rights!"  Enter  into 
conversation  with  that  shopkeeper 
behind  his  counter,  or  that  hotel- 
keeper  in  his  palace  hotel — both  are 
"  well  to  do  "  in  the  world,  or  have 
been  so,  until  revolutions  shattered 
the  commerce  of  the  one,  or  deprived 
the  other  of  wealthy  visitors  —  you 
may  expect  to  find  in  them  a  feeling, 
tanght  them  at  least  by  experience, 
against  any  further  convulsion.  No 
such  thing ;  they  are  as  ripe  for  further 
revolution  as  the  lower  classes,  and 
as  eager  to  avenge  their  losses — not 
upon  those  who  have  occasioned 
them,  but  upon  those  who  would 
have  averted  them.  Even  in  the 
tipper  classes  you  will  find  that  crav- 
ing for  the  idol,  "  United  Germany," 
to  which  we  have  before  alluded,  and 
which  seems  to  invite  revolutions, 
rather  than  to  fear  them.  Of  course 
exceptions  may  be  found,  and  many, 
to  the  examples  here  given ;  but  in 
putting  these  figures  into  the  fore- 
ground of  the  picture  to  be  painted 
of  the  state  of  Baden,  (if  not  of 
Germany  in  general,)  we  firmly 
believe  we  have  given  characteristic 
types  of  the  prevailing  feelings  of  the 
country.  German  heads,  once  let 
loose  into  the  regions  of  ideal  fantasy, 
be  it  political  or  philosophical,  or  the 
strange  and  unpractical  mixture  of 
both,  seem  as  if  they  were  not  to  be 
recalled  to  the  earth  and  the  realms 
of  palpable  truth  by  the  lessons  of 
experience,  however  strongly,  and 
even  terribly,  inculcated. 

The  prevailing  feeling,  however,  at 
the  present  time  in  Baden,  among  the 
lower  classes,  seems  the  hatred  of 
the  occupation  of  the  Prussian  army, 
which  has  saved  the  land  from  utter 
anarchy.  The  very  men  who  have 
been  taught  by  their  demagogues  to 
clamour  for  "  German  Unity"  as  a 
pretext  for  insurrection,  look  on  the 
Prussian  military  as  usurping  aliens 
and  foreign  oppressors.  Military  oc- 
cupation is  certainly  the  prevailing 
feature  of  the  country.  Prussian 
troops  are  everywhere — in  every  town, 
in  every  village,  in  every  house,  in 
every  hovel.  Whichever  way  you  turn 
your  eyes,  there  are  soldiers — soldiers 
— soldiers — horse  and  foot.  The  mili- 
tary seem  to  form  by  far  the  greater 
half  of  the  population ;  and,  much 
disposed  as  many  may  have  been  to 


greet  the  return  of  the  Grand- duke 
to  his  states,  as  the  symbol  of  the 
cause  of  order,  yet,  in  spite  of  birth- 
day fetes,  and  banners,  and  garlands, 
and  loyal  devices  in  flowers,  which 
have  bedecked  the  road  of  the  traveller 
in  the  land  not  long  since,  these  same 
men  will  grumble  to  you  of  those 
"  accursed  Prussian  soldiers,"  who 
alone  were  able  to  restore  him  to  his 
country,  when  the  Baden  army,  as 
troops  to  support  their  sovereign, 
existed  no  longer — when  those  who 
composed  it  fought  at  the  head  of  the 
insurgents.  The  very  shadow  of  a 
Baden  army,  even,  is  not  now  to  be 
found.  And  it  is  this  fact,  and  the 
evidences  that  an  insurrectionary 
spirit  is  still  widely  spread  abroad, 
which  are  given  as  the  exeuse  of  a 
continued  Prussian  occupation.  It  is 
difficult,  certainly,  for  a  traveller  in 
a  land  so  lately  convulsed,  and  still 
placed  in  circumstances  so  peculiar, 
to  arrive  at  truth.  Prussian  officers 
will  tell  him  how,  on  the  arrival  of 
the  Prussian  army  in  the  country, 
and  the  dispersion  of  the  insurgents, 
flowers  were  strewn  along  its  path 
by  the  populations,  who  thus  seeming- 
ly hailed  the  Prussian  soldiers  as 
their  deliverers ;  and  in  the  next 
breath  they  will  inform  him  that  this 
was  only  done  from  fear,  and  that, 
were  it  not  for  this  salutary  fear,  the 
insurrection  would  break  forth  again. 
He  may  suspect  that  this  account  is 
given  as  the  pretext  for  a  continued 
occupation  of  the  land.  But  Baden 
officials  will  tell  him  that  such  is  the 
case — that  Prussian  troops  alone  keep 
down  a  further  rising ;  and  if  he  still 
suspects  his  source,  he  will  certainly 
find  among  the  people,  at  all  events, 
both  the  hatred  and  the  fear.  Mean- 
while the  Prussian  officers  seem  to 
think  that  both  these  feelings  are 
necessary  for  the  pacification  of  the 
land ;  and,  upon  their  own  showing, 
or  rather  boasting,  they  inculcate 
them  by  flogging  insolent  peasants 
across  the  cannon,  by  shooting  down 
insurgent  prisoners,  who  spit  upon 
them  from  prison  windows,  without 
any  other  form  of  trial,  and  by  other 
autocratic  repressive  measures  of  a 
similar  stamp.  Meanwhile,  also,  they 
seem,  by  all  their  words  as  well  as 
actions,  to  look  upon  Baden  as  a 
conquered  province  acquired  to  Prus- 


434 


Wliat  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained  ? 


[Oct. 


sia,  and  openly  and  loudly  vaunt 
their  conquest.  Let  it  not  be  sup- 
posed that  this  is  exaggeration.  It 
is  the  general  tone  of  Prussian  officers — 
ay,  and  even  of  the  common  Prussian 
soldiers,  occupying  the  duchy  of 
Baden — with  a  super-addition  of  true 
Prussian  conceit  in  manner,  indescrib- 
able by  words.  In  spite  of  what  we 
may  read  in  late  newspaper  reports, 
then,  of  conciliation  between  the  two 
greatpowers  of  Northern  andSouthern 
Germany,  we  may  well  ask,  What 
will  rival  Austria  say  to  this  ?  Where 
is  the  prospect  here  of  a  great  United 
Germany  ?  And,  after  this  resume  of 
the  present  position  of  Baden  as  a 
part,  we  may  well  ask,  also,  What 
has  revolutionising  Germany  attained 
as  a  whole  ? 

We  have  seen  that  the  main  ob- 
ject, and  at  all  events  the  chief  pre- 
text of  the  revolution,  the  establish- 
ment of  a  great  United  Germany, 
is  still  further  from  the  grasp  of  the 
revolutionising  country  than  ever — 
although  it  remains  still  the  clamour 
and  the  cry.  Prussia  may  point  in 
irony  to  its  advances,  by  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  duchy  of  Baden  and  of 
Hamburg,  and  by  its  acquisition  of  the 
principality  of  Hohenzpllern-Sigma- 
ringen,  and  smile  while  it  says  that  it 
has  effected  thus  much  towards  a  union 
of  Germany  under  one  head.  Or,  in 
more  serious  mood,  it  may  put  for- 
ward  its  projected  alliance  of  the  three 
northern  German  potentates.  But, 
with  regard  to  the  former,  what,  in 
«pite  of  the  reports  we  hear  of  conci- 
liation, will  be  the  conduct  of  jealous 
Austria,  now  at  last  unshackled  in  its 
dealings  ?  The  latter  only  shows  still 
more  the  cleft  that  divides  the  north- 
ern portion  of  the  would-be  united 
country  from  the  southern.  "United 
Germany"  only  remains,  then,  a  play- 
thing in  the  hands  of  dreamers  and 
democrats — a  pretty  toy,  about  which 
they  may  build  up  airy  castles  to  the 
one  —  an  instrument  blunted  and 
notched,  for  the  present,  to  the  other. 
What  has  revolutionising  Germany 
attained  here  ? 

What  declared  last  year  the  mani- 
festo of  Prince  Leiningen,  then  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs,  and  leading  mem- 
ber of  the  cabinet  of  the  newly  estab- 
lished central  power — put  forward,  as 
it  was,  as  the  programme  of  the  new 


government  for  all  Germany?  It 
denounced  "jealousies  between  the 
individual  states,  and  revilings  of  the 
northern  by  the  southern  parts  of  the 
empire,"  as  "  criminal  absurdities  ;" 
and  yet  went  on  to  say  that  "if  the 
old  spirit  of  discord  and  separation 
were  still  too  powerfully  at  work — if 
the  jealousy  between  race  and  race, 
between  north  and  south,  were  still  too 
strongly  felt — the  nation  must  convince 
itself  of  the  fact,  and  return  to  the  old 
feudal  system."  It  declared,  however, 
in  the  same  breath  as  it  were,  that "  to 
retrograde  to  a  confederation  of  states 
would  only  be  to  create  a  mournful 
period  of  transition  to  fresh  catastro- 
phes, and  new  revolutions."  Failing 
of  the  realisation  of  the  great  union, 
to  which  the  revolution  was  supposed 
to  tend,  the  manifesto  then  placed  re- 
volutionising Germany  between  the 
alternative  of  returning  to  a  part, 
which  it  declared  impossible,  or  further 
convulsions  and  civil  wars.  It  put 
Germany,  in  fact,  into  a  cleft  stick. 
Has  a  year's  revolution  tended  to  ex- 
tricate it  from  this  position?  The 
alternative  remains  the  same  —  Ger- 
many sticks  in  the  cleft  stick  as  much 
as  ever.  Revolutionising  Germany, 
with  all  its  throes  and  all  its  efforts, 
has  attained  nothing  to  relieve  it  from 
this  position.  Without  accepting  the 
manifesto  of  Prince  Leiningen,  either 
as  necessarily  prophetic,  or  as  a  poli- 
tical dictum,  from  which  there  is  no 
evasion  or  escape,  it  is  yet  impossible 
to  look  back  upon  it,  while  trying  to 
discover  what  revolutionising  Ger- 
many has  attained,  without  sad  pre- 
sentiments, without  looking  with  much 
mournful  apprehension  upon  the  future 
fate  of  the  country.  To  return,  how- 
ever to  the  present  state  of  Germany — 
for  the  investigation  of  that  is  our 
purpose,  and  not  speculation  upon  the 
future,  although  none  may  look  upon 
the  present  without  asking  with  a 
sigh,  "  What  is  to  become  of  Ger- 
many ?  " 

We  find  the  revolutionary  spirit 
crushed  by  the  events  of  the  last  year, 
but  not  subdued;  writhing,  but  not 
avowing  itself  vanquished.  The  fer- 
mentation is  as  great  as  heretofore  : 
experience  seems  to  have  taught  the 
German  children  in  politics  no  useful 
lesson.  Now  that  the  great  object,  for 
which  the  revolution  appeared  to 


1819.] 


What  has  Revolutionising  Germany  attained? 


436 


struggle,  lias  received  so  notable  a 
check,  the  confusion  of  purposes,  (if 
German  political  rhapsodies  may  be 
called  such ;)  of  projects,  (if,  indeed,  in 
such  visionary  schemes  there  be  any,) 
and  pretexts,  (of  a  nature  so  evidently 
false,)  is  greater  than  ever — the  con- 
fusion not  only  exists,  but  ferments, 
and  generates  foul  air,  which  must  find 
vent  somewhere,  be  it  even  in  imagi- 
nation. Of  the  revolutionary  spirits 
whom  we  sketched  last  year  in 
Germany,  the  students  alone  seem 
somewhat  to  have  learned  a  lesson  of 
experience  and  tactics.  Although  many 
may  have  been  found  in  the  ranks  of 
insurgents,  yet  the  general  mass  has 
sadly  sobered  down,  and,  it  may  be 
hoped,  acquired  more  reason  and 
method.  The  Jews — we  cannot  again 
now  inquire  into  the  strange  whys 
and  wherefores — still  remain  the  rest- 
less, gnawing,  cankering,  agitating 
agents  of  revolutionary  movement. 
The  insolence  and  coarseness  of  the 
lower  classes  increases  into  bitter  ran- 
cour, and  has  been  in  no  way  amended 
Tby  concession  and  a  show  of  good-will. 
Among  the  middle-lower  classes,  the 
most  restless  and  reckless  spirits,  it 
appears  from  well-drawn  statistical 
accounts,  are  the  village  schoolmas- 
ters, (as  in  France) — to  exemplify  that 
"  a  little  learning  is  a  dangerous 
thing" — the  barbers,  and  the  tailors. 
Had  we  time,  it  might  form  the  sub- 
ject of  curious  speculation  to  attempt 
to  discover  why  these  two  latter 
occupations,  (and  especially  the  last 
one)  induce,  more  than  all  others, 
heated  brains  and  revolutionary 
habits ;  but  we  cannot  stop  on  our 
way  to  play  with  such  curious  ques- 
tions. Over  all  the  relations  of  social, 
as  well  as  public  life,  hover  politics 
like  a  deleterious  atmosphere,  blighting 
all  that  is  bright  and  fair,  withering  art 
in  all  its  branches,  science,  and  social 
intercourse.  And,  good  heavens,  what 
politics ! — the  politics  of  a  bedlamite 
philosopher  in  his  ravings.  In  the 
late  festivities,  given  in  honour  of 
Goethe  at  Frankfort,  the  city  of 
his  birth,  to  commemorate  the  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  that  event, 
when  it  might  have  been  supposed 
that  all  men  might  have,  for  once, 
nnited  to  do  homage  to  the  memory 
of  one  whom  Germans  considered 
their  greatest  spirit,  politics  again 


interfered  to  thwart,  and  oppose,  and 
spoil.  The  democratic  party  endea- 
voured to  prevent  the  supplies  offered 
to  be  given  by  the  town  for  the  festi- 
vities, because  they  saw  the  names  of 
those  they  called  the  "  aristocrats," 
among  the  list  of  the  committee,  even 
although  men  of  all  classes  were  in- 
vited to  join  it ;  and,  when  a  serenade 
was  given  before  the  house  in  which 
the  poet  was  born,  the  musicians  were 
driven  away,  and  their  torches  extin- 
guished, by  a  band  of  so-called  u  pa- 
triots," who  insisted  upon  singing,  in 
the  place  of  the  appointed  cantata 
composed  for  the  occasion,  the  revo- 
lutionary chorus  in  honour  of  the  re  - 
publican  Hecker  —  the  now  famous 
song  of  the  revolutionary  battle-field, 
the  Hecker-Lied.  And  such  an  ex- 
ample of  this  fermentation  of  politics 
in  all  the  circumstances  of  life,  hoAv- 
ever  far  from  political  intents,  is  nofc 
singular:  it  is  only  characteristic  of 
the  every-day  doings  of  the  times. 
Among  the  upper  classes,  those  feel- 
ings which  we  last  year  summed  up  in 
the  characteristic  words,  "  the  dulness 
of  doubt  and  the  stupor  of  apprehen- 
sion," have  only  increased  in  intensity^ 
None  see  an  issue  out  of  the  troubled 
passage  of  the  revolution.  Their  eyes 
are  blinded  by  a  mist,  and  they 
stumble  on  their  way,  dreading  a  pre- 
cipice at  every  step.  This  impression 
depicts  more  especially  the  feelings  of 
the  so-called  moderates  and  liberal 
conservatives,  who  had  their  repre- 
sentatives among  the  best  elements  of 
the  Frankfort  parliament,  and  who, 
with  the  vision  of  a  united  Germany 
before  their  eyes,  laboured  to  reach, 
that  visionary  goal,  at  the  same  time 
that  they  endeavoured  to  stem  the 
ever-invading  torrent  of  ultra-revolu- 
tion and  red- republicanism.  "The 
duluess  of  doubt,  and  the  stupor  of 
apprehension,"  seem  indeed  to  have 
fallen  upon  them  since  the  last  vain 
meeting  of  the  heads  of  their  party  in 
Gotha.  They  let  their  hands  fall 
upon  their  laps,  and  sit  shaking  their 
heads.  Gagern,  the  boldest  spirit, 
and  one  of  the  best  hearts  that 
represents  their  cause  and  has  strug- 
gled for  its  maintenance,  is  represent- 
ed as  wholly  prostrate  in  spirit,  un- 
strung— missgestimmt,  as  the  Germans 
have  it.  He  has  retired  entirely  into 
private  life,  to  await  events  with  aching 


436 


TJie  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


heart.  If  any  feeling  is  still  expressed 
by  the  moderate  liberals,  it  has  been, 
of  late,  sympathy  in  the  fate  of  Hun- 
gary, which  the  Prussians  put  forward 
visibly  only  out  of  opposition  to  Aus- 
tria, at  the  same  time  that,  with  but 
little  consistency,  they  condemn  all 
the  agents  of  the  Hungarian  struggle. 
We  have  endeavoured  to  give  a 
faint  and  fleeting  sketch  of  what  revo- 
lutionising Germany  has  attained,  after 
a  year's  revolution.  The  picture  is  a 
dark  one,  of  a  truth,  but  we  believe 


in  no  ways  overdone.  In  actual  pro- 
gress the  sum-total  appears  to  be  a 
zero.  The  position  of  Germany,  al- 
though calmer  on  the  surface,  is  as 
difficult,  as  embarrassing,  as  much  in 
the  "  cleft  stick,"  as  when  we  specu- 
lated upon  it  last  year.  All  the  well- 
wishers  of  the  country  and  of  mankind 
may  give  it  their  hopes ;  but  when 
they  look  for  realisation  of  their  hopes, 
they  can  only  shake  their  heads,  with 
the  Germans  themselves,  as  they  ask, 
"  What  will  become  of  Germany?  " 


THE  GREEN  HAND — A  "  SHORT"  TARN. 


THE  next  evening  our  friend  the 
Captain  found  his  fair  audience  by 
the  taflrail  increased  to  a  round  dozen, 
while  several  of  the  gentlemen  passen- 
gers lounged  near,  and  the  chief  officer 
divided  his  attention  between  the  gay 
group  of  ladies  below  and  the  "  fan- 
ning" main-topsail  high  up,  with  its 
corresponding  studding-sail  hung  far 
out  aloft  to  the  breeze  ;  the  narrative 
having  by  this  time  contracted  a  sort 
of  professional  interest,  even  to  his 
matter-of-fact  taste,  which  enabled 
him  to  enjoy  greatly  the  occasional 
glances  of  sly  humour  directed  to  him 
.by  his  superior,  for  whom  he  evidently 
entertained  a  kind  of  admiring  respect, 
that  seemed  to  be  enhanced  as  he  lis- 
tened. As  for  the  commander  him- 
self, he  related  the  adventures  in 
question  with  a  spirit  and  vividness  of 
manner  that  contributed  to  them  no 
small  charm ;  amusingly  contrasted 
with  the  cool,  dry,  indifferent  sort  of 
gravity  of  countenance,  amidst  which 
the  keen  gray  seawardly  eye,  under 
the  peak  of  the  naval  cap,  kept  chang- 
ing and  twinkling  as  it  seemed  to  run 
through  the  experience  of  youth  again 
— sometimes  almost  approaching  to 
an  undeniable  wink.  The  expression 
of  it  at  this  time,  however,  was  more 
serious,  while  it  appeared  to  run  along 
the  dotted  reef-band  of  the  mizen- 
topsail  above,  as  across  the  entry  in 
a  log-book,  and  as  if  there  were  some- 
thing interesting  to  come. 

"  Well,  my  dear  captain,"  asked  his 
matronly  relative, "  what  comes  next  ? 


You  and  your  friend  had  picked  up  a 
— a — what  was  it  now!" 

"  Ah !  I  remember,  ma'am,"  said  the 
naval  man,  laughing ;  "the  bottle — 
that  was  where  I  was.  Well,  as  you 
may  conceive,  this  said  scrap  of  pen- 
manship in  the  bottle  did  take  both  of 
us  rather  on  end ;  and  for  two  or  three 
minutes  Westwood  and  I  sat  staring 
at  each  other  and  the  uncouth-looking 
fist,  in  an  inquiring  sort  of  way,  lite 
two  cocks  over  a  beetle.  Westwood, 
for  his  part,  was  doubtful  of  its  being 
the  Planter  at  all;  but  the  whole 
thing,  when  I  thought  of  it,  made 
itself  as  clear  to  me,  so  far,  as  two 
half-hitches,  and  the  angrier  I  was  at 
myself  for  being  done  by  a  frog-eating, 
bloody- politeful  set  of  Frenchmen  like 
these.  Could  we  only  have  clapped 
eyes  on  the  villanous  thieving  craft 
at  the  time,  by  Jove!  if  I  wouldn't 
have  manned  a  boat  from  the  India- 
man,  leave  or  no  leave,  and  boarded 
her  in  another  fashion!  But  where 
they  were  now,  what  they  meant,  and 
whether  we  should  ever  see  them 
again,  heaven  only  knew.  For  all  we 
could  say,  indeed,  something  strange 
might  have  turned  up  at  home  in 
Europe — a  new  war,  old  Boney  got 
loose  once  more,  or  what  not — and  I 
could  scarce  fall  asleep  for  guessing 
and  bothering  over  the  matter,  as 
restless  as  the  first  night  we  cruised 
down  Channel  in  the  old  Pandora. 

Early  in  the  morning- watch  a  sudden 
stir  of  the  men  on  deck  woke  me,  and  I 
bundled  up  in  five  minutes'  time.  But 


1849.  ] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


it  was  only  the  second  mate  setting 
them  to  wash  decks,  and  out  they  came 
from  all  quarters,  yawning,  stretching 
themselves,  and  tucking  up  their 
trousers,  as  they  passed  the  full 
backets  lazily  along ;  while  a  couple 
of  boys  could  be  seen  hard  at  work  to 
keep  the  head-pump  going,  up  against 
the  gray  sky  over  the  bow.  How- 
ever, I  was  so  anxious  to  have  the 
first  look-out  ahead,  that  I  made  a 
bold  push  through  the  thick  of  it  for 
the  bowsprit,  where  I  went  out  till  I 
could  see  nothing  astern  of  me  but  the 
Indiaman's  big  black  bows  and  figure- 
head, swinging  as  it  were  round  the 
spar  I  sat  upon,  with  the  spread  of 
her  canvass  coming  dim  after  me  out 
of  the  fog,  and  a  lazy  snatch  of  foam 
lifting  to  her  cut-water,  as  the  breeze 
died  away.  The  sun  was  just  begin- 
ning to  rise ;  ten  minutes  before,  it 
had  been  almost  quite  dark ;  there  was 
a  mist  on  the  water,  and  the  sails 
were  heavy  with  dew ;  when  a  circle 
began  to  open  round  us,  where  the 
surface  looked  as  smooth  and  dirty  as 
in  a  dock,  the  haze  seeming  to  shine 
through,  as  the  sunlight  came  sifting 
through  it,  like  silver  gauze.  You  saw 
the  big  red  top  of  the  sun  glare  against 
the  water-line,  and  a  wet  gleam  of 
crimson  came  sliding  from  one  smooth 
blue  swell  to  another ;  while  the  back 
of  the  haze  astern  turned  from  blue 
to  purple,  and  went  lifting  away  into 
vapoury  streaks  and  patches.  All  of 
a  sudden  the  ship  came  clear  out  aloft 
and  on  the  water,  with  her  white 
streak  as  bright  as  snow,  her  fore- 
royal  and  truck  gilded,  her  broad  fore- 
sail as  red  as  blood,  and  every  face  on 
deck  shining  as  they  looked  ahead, 
where  I  felt  like  a  fellow  held  up  on  a 
toasting-fork,  against  the  fiery  wheel 
the  sun  made  ere  clearing  the  horizon. 
Two  or  three  strips  of  cloud  melted  in 
it  like  lumps  of  sugar  in  hot  wine  ; 
and,  after  overhauling  the  whole  sea- 
board round  and  round,  I  kept  strain- 
ing my  eyes  into  the  light,  with  the 
notion  there  was  something  to  be  seen 
in  that  quarter,  but  to  no  purpose ; 
there  wasn't  the  slightest  sign  of  the 
brig  or  any  other  blessed  thing.  What 
struck  me  a  little,  however,  was  the 
look  of  the  water  just  as  the  fog  was 
clearing  away  :  the  swell  was  sinking 
down,  the  wind  fallen  for  the  time  to 
a  dead  calm  ;  and  when  the  smooth 


face  of  it  caught  the  light  full  from 
aloft,  it  seemed  to  come  out  all  over 
long-winding  wrinkles  and  eddies, 
running  in  a  broad  path,  as  it  were, 
twisted  and  woven  together,  right  into 
the  wake  of  the  sunrise.  When  I  came 
inboard  from  the  bowsprit,  big  Harry 
and  another  grumpy  old  salt  were 
standing  by  the  bitts,  taking  a  fore- 
castle observation,  and  gave  me  a 
squint,  as  much  as  to  ask  if  I  had  come 
out  of  the  east,  or  had  been  trying  to 
pocket  the  flying-jib-boom.  "  D'you 
notice  anything  strange  about  the 
water  at  all  ? "  I  asked  in  an  off- 
hand  sort  of  way,  wishing  to  see  if  the 
men  had  remarked  aught  of  what  I 
suspected.  The  old  fellow  gave  me 
a  queer  look  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye, 
and  the  ugly  man  seemed  to  be  mea- 
suring me  from  head  to  foot.  "  No, 
sir,"  said  the  first,  carelessly ;  "  can't 
say  as  how  I  does," — while  Harry 
coolly  commenced  sharpening  his 
sheath-knife  on  his  shoe.  "  Did  you 
ever  hear  of  currents  hereabouts?" 
said  I  to  the  other  man.  "Here- 
away!" said  he  ;  "  why,  bless  ye,  sir, 
it's  unpossible  as  I  could  ha'  heer'd  tell 
on  sich  a  thing,  'cause,  ye  see,  sir,  there 
an't  none  so  far  out  at  sea,  sir — al'ays 
axin'  your  parding,  ye  know,  sir ! " 
while  he  hitched  up  his  trousers  and 
looked  aloft,  as  if  there  were  some- 
what wrong  about  the  jib-halliards. 

The  Indiaman  by  this  time  had 
quite  lost  steerage-way,  and  came 
sheering  slowly  round,  broadside  to 
the  sun,  while  the  water  began  to 
glitter  like  a  single  sheet  of  quicksilver, 
trembling  and  swelling  to  the  firm 
edge  of  it  far  off ;  the  pale  blue  sky 
filling  deep  aloft  with  light,  and  a  long 
white  haze  growing  out  of  the  horizon 
to  eastward.  I  kept  still  looking  over 
from  the  fore-chains  with  my  arms 
folded,  and  an  eye  to  the  water  on  the 
starboard  side,  nextthe  sun,  where,  just 
a  fathom  or  two  from  the  bright  cop- 
per of  her  sheathing  along  the  water- 
line,  you  could  see  into  it.  Every  now 
and  then  little  bells  and  bubbles,  as  I 
thought,  would  come  up  in  it  and 
break  short  of  the  surface ;  and  some- 
times I  fancied  the  line  of  a  slight 
ripple,  as  fine  as  a  rope-yarn,  went 
turning  and  glistening  round  one  of 
the  ship's  quarters,  across  her  shadow. 
Just  then  the  old  sailor  behind  me 
shoved  his  face  over  the  bulwark,  too, 


438 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.    Part  V. 


[Oct. 


all  warts  and  wrinkles,  like  a  ripe 
walnut-shell,  with  a  round  knob  of  a 
nose  in  the  middle  of  it,  and  seemed 
to  be  watching  to  see  it  below, 
when  he  suddenly  squirted  his  to- 
bacco-juice as  far  out  as  possible 
alongside,  and  gave  his  mouth  a  wipe 
with  the  back  of  his  tarry  yellow 
hand ;  catching  my  eye  in  a  shame- 
faced sort  of  way,  as  I  glanced  first  at 
him  and  then  at  his  floating  property. 
I  leant  listlessly  over  the  rail,  watch- 
ing the  patch  of  oily  yellow  froth,  as 
it  floated  quietly  on  the  smooth  face 
of  the  water ;  till  all  at  once  I  started 
to  observe  that  beyond  all  question  it 
had  crept  slowly  away  past  our  star- 
board bow,  clear  of  the  ship,  and  at 
last  melted  into  the  glittering  blue 
brine.  The  two  men  noticed  my  at- 
tention, and  stared  along  with  me ; 
while  the  owner  of  the  precious  cargo 
himself  kept  looking  after  it  wistfully 
into  the  wake  of  the  sunlight,  as  if  he 
were  a  little  hurt;  then  aloft  and 
round  about,  in  a  puzzled  sort  of 
way,  to  see  if  the  ship  hadn't  perhaps 
taken  a  sudden  sheer  to  port.  "  Why, 
my  man,"  I  said,  meeting  his  oyster- 
like  old  sea-eye,  "  what 's  the  reason 
of  that? — perhaps  there  is  some  cur- 
rent or  other  here,  after  all,  eh  ?  " 
Just  as  he  meant  to  answer,  however, 
I  noticed  his  watchmate  give  him  a 
hard  shove  in  the  ribs  with  his  huge 
elbow,  and  a  quick  screw  of  his 
weather  top-light,  while  he  kept  the 
lee  one  doggedly  fixed  on  myself.  I 
accordingly  walked  slowly  aft  as  if  to 
the  quarterdeck,  and  came  round  the 
long-boat  again,  right  abreast  of  them. 
Harry  was  pacing  fore  and  aft  with 
his  arms  folded,  when  his  companion 
made  some  remark  on  the  heat,  peer- 
ing all  about  him,  and  then  right  up 
into  the  air  aloft.  "  Well  then, 
shipmate,"  said  Harry,  dabbing  his 
handkerchief  back  into  his  tarpaulin 
again,  "I've  seen  worse,  myself, — 
ownly,  'twas  in  the  Bight  o'  Benin, 
look  ye, — an'  afore  the  end  on  it, 
d'ye  see,  we  hove  o'board  nine  of 
a  crew,  let  alone  six  dozen  odds  of  a 
cargo  ! "  "  Cargo  ! "  exclaimed  his 
companion  in  surprise.  "Ay,  black 
passengers  they  was,  ye  know,  old 
ship  ! "  answered  the  ugly  rascal, 
coolly;  "an'  I  tell  ye  what  it  is,  Jack, 
I  never  sails  yet  with  passengers 
aboard,  but  some'at  bad  turned  up  in 


the  end, — al'ays  one  or  another  on 
'em's  got  a  foul  turn  in  his  conscience, 
ye  see !  I  say,  'mate,"  continued  heT 
looking  round,  "  didn't  ye  note  that 
'ere  'long-shore  looking  customer  as 
walked  aft  just  now,  with  them  bloody 
soft  quest'ns  o'  his  about—"  "  Why," 
said  Jack,  "  it's  him  Jacobs  and  the 
larboard  watch  calls  the  Green  HandT 
an'  a  blessed  good  joke  they  has  about 
him ,  to  all  appearance, — but  they  keeps 
it  pretty  close."  "  Close,  be  d — d !" 
growled  Harry,  "I  doesn't  like  the 
cut  of  his  jib,  I  tell  ye,  shipmate ! 
Jist  you  take  my  word  for  it,  that 
'ere  fellow's  done  some'at  bad  at 
home,  or  he's  bent  on  some'at  bad 
afloat — it's  all  one  !  Don't  ye  mark 
how  he  keeps  boxhaulin'  and  skulk- 
ing fore  an'  aft,  not  to  say  look- 
ing out  to  wind'ard  every  now  an' 
again,  as  much  as  he  expected  a 
sail  to  heave  in  sight!"  "Well, 
I'm  blowed  but  you're  right,  Harry !" 
said  the  other,  taking  off  his  hat  to 
scratch  his  head,  thoughtfully.  "Ay, 
and  what's  more,"  went  on  Harry, 
"  it's  just  corned  ath'art  me  as  how 
I've  clapped  eyes  on  the  chap  some- 
wheres  or  other  afore  this — d — n  me 
if  I  don't  think  it  was  amongst  a  gang 
o'  Spanish  pirates  I  saw  tried  for 
their  lives  and  let  off,  in  the  Havan- 
ney!"  "Thank  you,  my  man!" 
thought  I,  as  I  leant  against  the 
booms  on  the  other  side,  "  the  devil 
you  did ! — a  wonder  it  wasn't  in  the 
Old  Bailey,  which  would  have  been 
more  possible,  though  less  romantic, — 
seeing  in  the  Havaunah  I  never  was !" 
The  curious  thing  was  that  I  began 
to  have  a  faint  recollection,  myself,  of 
having  seen  this  same  cross-grained 
beauty,  or  heard  his  voice,  before ; 
though  where  and  how  it  was,  I 
couldn't  for  the  life  of  me  say  at  the 
moment.  "  Lord  bless  us,  Harry !" 
faltered  out  the  old  sailor,  "  ye  don't 
mean  it! — sich  a  young,  soft-looked 
shaver,  too !"  "  Them  smooth-skinned 
sort  o'  coves  is  kiminonly  the  worst, 
'mate,"  replied  Harry;  "for  that 
matter  ye  may  be  d — d  sure  he's  got 
his  chums  aboard, — an'  how  does  we 
know  but  the  ship's  sold,  from  stem 
to  starn?  There's  that  'ere  black- 
avizzed  parson,  now,  and  one  or  two 
more  aft — cuss  me  if  that  'ere  feller 
smells  brine  for  the  first  time  1  An'  as 
for  this  here  Bob  Jacobs  o' yours,  blow 


1849.] 

me  if  there  an't  ov<v  many  of  his  kind 
in  the  whole  larboard  watch,  Jack  ! 
A  mau-o'-war's-man's  al'ays  a  black- 
guard out  on  a  man- o' -war,  look-yc !" 
"  Wliy,  bless  me,  shipmate,",  said 
Jack,  lowering  his  voice,  "  by  that 
recknin',  a  man  don't  know  his  friends 
in  this  here  craft !  The  sooner  we 
gives  the  mate  a  hint,  the  better,  to 
my  thinking?"  "  No,  blow  me,  no, 
Jack,"  said  Harry,  "keep  all  fast,  or 
ye'll  kick  up  a  worse  nitty,  old  boy ! 
Jist  you  hould  on  till  ye  see  what's  to 
turn  up, — ownly  stand  by  and  look 
out  for  squalls,  that's  all!  There's 
the  skipper  laid  up  below  in  his  berth, 
I  hears, — and  to  my  notions,  that  'ere 
mate  of  ours  is  no  more  but  a  blessed 
soldier,  with  his  navigation  an'  his 
head-work,  an'  be  blowed  to  him — 
where's  he  runned  the  ship,  I'd  like 
to  know,  messmate !"  "  Well,  strike 
me  lucky  if  I'm  fit  to  guess !"  answer- 
ed Jack,  gloomily.  "  No,  s'help  me 
Bob,  if  he  knows  hisself !"  said  Harry. 
"  But  here's  what  /  says,  anyhow, — 
if  so  be  we  heaves  in  sight  of  a  pirate, 
or  bumps  ashore  on  a  ileyand  i'  the 
dark,  shiver  my  tawsels  if  I  doesn't 
have  a  clip  with  a  handspike  at  that 
'ere  soft-sawderin'  young  blade  in  the 
straw  hat !"  "  Well,  my  tine  fellow," 
thought  I,  "  many  thanks  to  you 
again,  but  I  certainly  shall  look  out 
for  you!"  All  this  time  I  couldn't 
exactly  conceive  whether  the  sulky 
rascal  really  suspected  anything  of 
the  kind,  or  whether  he  wasn't  in  fact 
sounding  his  companion,  and  perhaps 
others  of  the  crew,  as  to  how  far  they 
would  go  in  case  of  an  opportunity 
for  mischief ;  especially  when  I  heard 
him  begin  to  speculate  if  "  that  'ere 
proud  ould  beggar  of  a  naboob,  aft 
yonder,  musn't  have  a  sight  o'  gould 
and  jowels  aboard  with  him  !"  "  Why, 
for  the  matter  o'  that,  'mate,"  con- 
tinued he,  "I  doesn't  signify  the 
twinklin'  of  a  marlinspike,  mind  ye, 
what  lubberly  trick  they  sarves  this 
here  craft, — so  be  ownly  ye  can  get 
anyhow  ashore,  when  all's  done  !  It's 
nouther  ship-law  nor  shore-law,  look 
ye,  'mate,  as  houlds  good  on  a  bloody 
dazart !"  "  Ay,  ay,  true  enough, 
bo',"  said  the  other,  "but  what  o' 
that? — there  au't  much  signs  of  a 
dazart,  I  reckon,  in  this  here  blue 
water!"  "Ho!"  replied  Harry, 
rather  scornfully,  "that's  'cause  you 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVIII. 


'h-ecn  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


blue-water,  long-v'yage  chaps  isn't  up 
to  them,  brother !  There's  you  and 
that  'ere  joker  in  the  striped  slops, 
Jack,  chaffing  away  over  the  side 
jist  now  about  a  current, — confounded 
sharp  he  thinks  hisself,  too! — but 
d'ye  think  Harry  Foster  an't  got  his 
weather- eye  open?  For  my  part  I 
thinks  more  of  the  streak  o'  haze 
yonder-away,  right  across  the  star- 
board bow,  nor  all  the  currents  in — " 
"  Ay,  ay,"  said  Jack,  stretching  ont 
again  to  look,  "  the  heat,  you  means  ?" 
"  Heat !"  exclaimed  the  ugly  topmau, 
"heat  be  blowed!  Hark  ye,  'mate, 
it  may  be  a  strip  o'  cloud,  no  doubt, 
or  the  steam  over  a  sand-bank, — but 
so  be  the  calm  lasts  so  long,  and  you 
sees  that  'ere  streak  again  by  sun- 
down, with  a  touch  o'  y allow  in't — " 
"What  —  what,  shipmate?"  asked 
Jack,  breathless  with  anxiety.  "Then, 
dammee,it's  the  black  coast  iv  Africay, 
and  no  mistake !"  said  Harry.  "  And 
what's  more,"  continued  the  fellow, 
coolly,  after  taking  a  couple  of  short 
turns,  "  if  there  he's  a  current,  why, 
look  ye,  it'll  set  dead  in  to  where  the 
land  lays — an'  I'm  blessed  if  there's 
one  aboard,  breeze  or  no  breeze,  as  is 
man  enough  for  to  take  her  out  o' 
the  suck  of  a  Africane  current !"  "  The 
Lord  be  with  us !"  exclaimed  the 
other  sailor,  in  alarm,  "  what's  to  be 
done,  Harry,  bo', — when  d'ye  mean 
for  to  let  them  know,  aft  ?"  "  Why, 
maybe  I'm  wrong,  ye  know,  old 
ship,"  said  Harry,  "  an'  a  man  musn't 
go  for  to  larn  his  betters,  ye  know, — 
by  this  time  half  o'  the  watch  has  a 
notion  on  it,  at  any  rate.  There's 
Dick  White,  Jack  Jones,  Jim  Sidey, 
an'  a  few  more  Wapping  men,  means 
to  stick  together  in  case  o'  accidents — 
so  d — n  it,  Jack,  man,  ye  needn't  be  in 
sich  an  a  taking!  What  the — " 
(here  he  came  out  with  a  regular  string 
of  top-gallant  oaths,)  "  when  you  finds 
a  good  chance  shoved  into  your  fist, 
none  o'  your  doin',  an't  a  feller  to  haul 
in  the  slack  of  it  'cause  he's  got  a  tarry 
paw,  and  ships  before  the  mast?  I 
tell  ye  what  it  is,  old  ship,  'tan't  the 
first  time  you  an'  me's  been  cast 
away,  an'  I  doesn't  care  the  drawin' 
of  a  rope-yarn,  in  them  here  latitudes, 
if  I'm  cast  away  again !  Hark  ye, 
ould  boy, — grog  to  the  mast-head,  a 
grab  at  the  passengers'  wallibles, 
when  they  han't  no  more  use  for  'em, 


440 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


in  course — an'  the  pick  on  the  ladies, 
jist  for  the  takin'  o'  them  ashore !" 
"  Lord  love  ye,  Harry,  belay  there  !" 
said  Jack,  "  what's  the  good  o'  talkin' 
on  what  an't  like  to  be?"  "Less 
like  things  turns  up !"  said  Harry. 
"  More  by  token,  if  I  hasn't  pitched 
upon  my  fancy  lass  a'ready  —  an' 
who  knows,  old  ship,  but  you  marries 
a  naboob's  darter  yet,  and  gets  your- 
self shoved  all  square,  like  a  rig'lar 
hare,  into  his  heestate,  as  they  calls 
it?  For  my  part,  I've  more'  notion  of 
the  maid!  An'  it  '11  go  hard  with 
me  if  we  doesn't  manage  to  haul  that 
'ere  mishynar'  parson  safe  ashore  on 
the  strength  of  it ! "  "  God  bless  ye, 
Harry,"  answered  Jack,  somewhat 
mournfully,  "I'm  twice  spliced 
already  !  "  "  Third  time's  lucky, 
though,"  replied  Harry,  with  a  chuckle, 
as  he  walked  towards  the  side  again, 
and  looked  over;  the  rest  of  the 
watch  being  gathered  on  the  other 
bow,  talking  and  laughing;  the  pas- 
sengers beginning  to  appear  on  the 
poop,  and  the  Scotch  second-mate 
standing  up  aft  on  the  taffrail,  feeling 
for  a  breath  of  wind.  The  big  top- 
man  came  slowly  back  to  his  com- 
panion, and  leant  himself  on  the  spars 
again .  ' '  Blowed  if  I  don't  think  you're 
right,  'mate,"  said  he,  "  you  and  that 
'ere  lawyer.  You'd  a'rnost  say  there's 
a  ripple  round  her  larboard  bow  just 
now,  sure  enough  —  like  she  were 
broadside  on  to  some  drift  or  another. 
Hows'ever,  that's  nouther  here  nor 
there, — for  my  part,  I  sets  more  count 
by  the  look  o'  the  sky  to  east'ard, 
an'  be  blowed,  shipmate,  if  that  same 
yonder  don't  make  me  think  o'  woods!" 
"  Well,"  said  Jack,  "  /  goes  by  sun- 
rise, messmate,  an'  I  didn't  like  it 
overmuch  myself,  d'ye  see!  That 
'ere  talk  o'  yours,  Harry,  consarnin' 
dazarts  and  what  not — why,  bless  me, 
it's  all  my  eye, — this  bout,  at  any 
rate — seein'  as  how,  if  we  doesn't  have 
a  stiff  snuffler  out  o'  that  veiy  quarter 
afore  twenty-four  hours  is  over,  you 
call  me  lubber ! "  "  Ho,  ho !  old  salt," 
chuckled  Harry,  "  none  o'  them  saws 
holds  good  hereaway,  if  its  the  coast 
of  Africay  —  d — n  it,  'mate,  two 
watches  '11  settle  our  hash  in  them 
longitudes,  without  going  the  length 
o'  six!  Han't  I  knocked  about  the 


bloody  coast  of  it  six  weeks  at  a  time, 
myself,  let  alone  livin'  as  many  months 
in  the  woods  ? — so  I  knows  the  breedin' 
of  a  turnady  a  cussed  sight  too  well,  not 
to  speak  on  the  way  the  land-blink 
looms  afore  you  sights  it ! "  "  Lived 
in  them  there  woods,  did  ye?"  in- 
quired Jack.  "  Ay,  bo',  an'  a  rum 
rig  it  was  too,  sure  enough,"  said 
Harry ;  "  the  very  same  time  I  tould 
you  on,  i'  the  Bight  o'  Benin."  "  My 
eye ! "  exclaimed  the  other,  "  a  man 
never  knows  what  he  may  come  to. 
Let's  into  the  rights  of  it,  Harry, 
carn't  ye,  afore  eight-bells  strikes?" 
"  Woods  ! "  said  Harry,  "  I  b'lic  ^ 
ould  ship.  I  see'd  enough  o'  woods, 
that  time,  arter  all ! — and  'twan't  that 
long  agone,  either — I'll  not  say  Itoir 
long,  but  it  wan't  last  v'yage.  A  sharp, 
clinker-built  craft  of  a  schooner  she 
wor,  I'm  not  goin'  to  give  ye  her  right 
name,  but  they  called  her  the  Lubber- 
hater,* — an'  if  there  wan't  all  sorts  on 
us  aboard,  it 's  blaming  ye — an'  a  big 
double-jinted  man-eatin'  chap  of  a 
Yankee  was  our  skipper,  as  sly  as 
slush — more  by  token,  he  had  a  wart 
alongside  o'  one  eye  as  made  him  look 
two  ways  at  ye— Job  Price  by  name 
— an'  arter  he'd  made  his  fortin.  I 
heard  he's  took  up  a  tea-total  chapel 
afloat  on  the  Missishippey.  She'd  got 
a  hell  of  a  long  nose,  that  'ere  schooner, 
so  my  boy  we  leaves  everything  astarn, 
chase  or  race,  I  promise  ye ;  an'  as 
for  a  blessed  ould  ten-gun  brig  what 
kept  a-cruising  thereaway,  why,  we 
jest  got  used  to  her,  like,  and  al'ays 
lowers  our  mainsail  afore  takin'  the 
wind  of  her,  by  way  o'  good  bye,  quite 
peiiite.  'Blowed  if  it  wara't  nun, 
though,  for  to  see  the  brig's  white 
figger'ed  over  the  swell,  rolfin'  under 
a  cloud  o'  canvass,  sten-s'ls  crowded 
out  alow  an'  aloft,  as  she  jogged  arter 
us !  Then  she'd  haul  her  wind  and 
fire  a  gun,  an'  go  beating  away  up  in 
chase  of  some  other  craft,  as  caught 
the  chance  for  runnin'  out  whenever 
they  sees  the  Lubber-hater  well  to 
sea— why,  s'elp  me  Bob,  if  the  traders 
on  the  coast  didn't  pay  Job  Price  half 
a  dozen  blacks  a-piece  every  trip,  jist 
for  to  play  that  'ere  dodge !  At  last, 
one  time,  not  long  after  I  joined  the 
craft,  what  does  he  do  but  nigh-hand 
loses  her  an'  her  cargo,  all  owin'  to 


*  Q,uere — Liberator  ? 


1849.] 


Tlie  Green  Hand— A  '•'Short'1'1  Yarn.     Part  V. 


441 


reckonin'  over  much  on  this  here 
traverse.  Out  we  comes  one  night  in 
the  tail  of  a  squall,  an'  as  soon  as  it 
clears,  there  sure  enough  we  made  out 
the  brig,  hard  after  UB,  as  we  thinks, 
— so  never  a  rag  more  Job  claps  on, 
'cause  two  of  his  friends,  ye  see,  was 
jist  outside  the  bar  in  the  Noon  river. 
Well,  bloody  soon  the  cruiser  begins 
to  overhaul  us,  as  one  gaff-taups'l 
wouldn't  do,  nor  yet  another,  till  the 
flying-jib  and  bonnets  made  her  walk 
away  from  them  in  right  'arnest, 
— when  slap  comes  a  long-shot  that 
took  the  fore-topmast  out  of  us  in  a 
twinkling.  So  when  the  moonlight 
corned  out,  lo  an'  behold,  instead  o' 
the  brig's  two  masts  stiff  and  straight 
against  the  haze,  there  was  three 
spanking  sticks  all  ataunto,  my  boy, 
in  a  fine  new  sloop- o'- war  as  had  fresh 
came  on  the  station — the  Irish,  they 
called  her — and  a  fast  ship  she  wor. 
But  all  said  and  done,  the  schooner 
had  the  heels  of  her  in  aught  short  of 
a  reef-taups'l  breeze, — though,  as  for 
the  other  two,  the  sloop-o'-war  picked 
off  both  on  'em  in  the  end."  At  this 
point  of  the  fellow's  account,  I,  Ned 
Collins,  began  to  prick  up  my  ears, 
pretty  sure  it  was  the  dear  old  Iris  he 
was  talking  of ;  and  thought  I,  "  Oho, 
my  mate,  we  shall^fcave  you  directly, 
— listening's  fair  with  a  chap  of  this 
breed." 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  'twas  the  next 
trip  after  that,  we  finds  the  coast  clear, 
as  commonly  was — for,  d'ye  see,  they 
couldn't  touch  us  if  so  be  we  hadn't  a 
slave  aboard, — in  fact,  we  heerd  as 
how  the  cruiser  was  up  by  Serry  Lony, 
and  left  some  young  lufftenant  or 
other  on  the  watch  with  a  sort  o' 
lateen-rigged  tender.  A  precious  raw 
chap  he  was,  by  all  accounts, — and 
sure  enough,  there  he  kept  plying  off 
and  on,  inshore,  'stead  of  out  of  sight 
to  seaward  till  the  craft  would  make 
a  bolt ;  an'  as  soon  as  ye  dropped  an 
anchor,  he'd  send  a  boat  aboard  with 
a  reefer,  to  ax  if  ye'd  got  slaves  in  the 
hold.  In  course,  ye  know,  Job  Price 
sends  back  a  message,  "  palm-ile  an' 
iv'ry,  an'  gould  if  we  can," — h'ists  the 
Portingee  colours,  brings  up  his  Por- 
tingee  papers,  and  makes  the  Portingee 
stoo'rd  skipper  for  the  spell,  —  but 
anyhow,  bein'  no  less  nor  three  slavers 
in  the  mouth  of  the  Bonny  river  at 
the  time,  why,  he  meant  to  show  fight 


if  need  be,  and  jest  manhandle  the 
young  navy  sprig  to  his  heart's  con- 
tent. Hows'ever,  the  second  or  third 
night,  all  on  a  suddent  we  fouud  he'd 
sheered  off  for  decency's  sake,  as  it 
might  be,  an  hour  or  two  afore  we'd 
began  to  raft  off  the  niggers.  Well, 
'maj;e,  right  in  the  midst  of  it  there 
comes  sich  a  fury  of  a  turnady  off  the 
land,  as  we'd  to  slip  cable  and  run 
fair  out  to  sea  after  the  other  craft 
what  had  got  sooner  full, — one  on  'em 
went  ashore  in  sight,  an'  we  not 
ninety  blacks  aboard  yet,  with  barely 
a  day's  water  stowed  in.  The  next 
morning,  out  o'  sight  of  land,  we  got 
the  sea-breeze,  and  stood  in  again 
under  everything,  till  we  made  Fer- 
nandy  Po  ileyand  three  leagues  off, 
or  thereby,  an'  the  two  ebony-brigs 
beating  out  in  company, — so  the  skip- 
per stands  over  across  their  course 
for  to  give  them  a  hail,  heaves  to  and 
pulls  aboard  the  nearest,  where  he 
stays  a  good  long  spell  and  drinks  a 
stiff  glass,  as  ye  may  fancy,  afore 
partin'.  Back  comes  Job  Price  in 
high  glee,  and  tonld  the  mate  as  how 
that  mornin'  the  brigs  had  fell  foul  o' 
the  man-o'-war  tender,  bottom  up, 
an'  a  big  Newfoundling  dog  a-howlin' 
on  the  keel— no  doubt  she'd  turned 
the  turtle  in  that  'ere  squall — more  by 
token  he  brought  the  dog  alongst 
with  him  in  a  present.  So  away  we 
filled  again  to  go  in  for  the  Bonny 
river,  when  the  breeze  fell,  and 
shortly  arter  there  we  was  all  three 
dead  becalmed,  a  couple  o'miles  be- 
twixt us,  sticking  on  the  water  like 
flies  on  glass,  an'  as  hot,  ye  know,  as 
blazes — the  very  moral  o'  this  here. 
By  sundown  we  hadn't  a  drop  o' 
water,  so  the  skipper  sent  to  the 
nearest  brig  for  some ;  but  strike  me 
lucky  if  they'd  part  with  a  bucketful 
for  love,  bein'  out'ard  bound.  As 
the  Spanish  skipper  said,  'twas  either 
hard  dollars  or  a  stout  nigger,  and 
t'other  brig  said  the  same.  A  slight 
puff  o'  land-wind  we  had  in  the  night, 
though  next  day  'twas  as  calm  as 
ever,  and  the  brigs  farther  off — so  by 
noon,  my  boy,  for  two  blessed  casks, 
if  Job  Price  hadn't  to  send  six  blacks 
in  the  boat.  Shorter  yarn,  Jack, — 
but  the  calm  held  that  night  too,  and 
'blowed  if  the  brigs  would  sell  another 
breaker — what  we  had  we  couldn't 
spare  to  the  poor  devils  under  hatches, 


442 


The  Green  Hand— A  " Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


and  the  next  day,  why,  they  died  off 
like  rotten  sheep,  till  we  hove  the  last 
on  'em  o'board ;  and  frightful  enough 
it  was,  mind  ye,  for  to  see  about  fifty 
sharks  at  work  all  round  the  schooner 
at  once,  as  long  as  it  lasted.     Well, 
in  the  arternoon  we  'd  just  commenced 
squabbling  aboard  amongst  ourselves, 
round  the  dreg  water,  or  whether  to 
board  one  o'  the  brigs  and  have  a  fair 
fight,  when  off  come  a  bit  of  a  breeze, 
betwixt  the  two  high  peaks  on  Fer- 
nandy  Po,  both  the  brigs  set  stensails, 
and  begins  slipping  quietly  off — our 
skipper  gave  orders  to  brace  after 
them,  and  clear  away  the  long  gun 
amidships ;  but  all  on  a  suddent  we 
made  out  a  lump  of  a  brig  dropping 
down  before   it  round   the  ileyand, 
which  we  knowed  her  well  enough  for 
a  Bristol  craft  as  had  lost  half  her 
hands  up  the  Callebar,  in  the  gould 
an'  iv'ry  trade.      Down  she  corned, 
wonderfle  fast  for  the  light  breeze,  if 
there  hadn't  been  one  o'  yer  currents 
besides  off  the  ileyand,  ti  11  about  half  - 
a-mile  away  she  braces  up,  seemingly 
to  sheer  across  it  and  steer  clear  of  us. 
Out  went  our  boat,  an'  the  skipper  bids 
every  man  of  her  crew  to  shove  a 
short    cutlash    inside    his    trousers. 
Says  he,"  I  guess  we'll  first  speak  'em 
fair,  but  if  we  don't  ha'  water  enough, 
it  '11  be  'tarnal  queer,  that's  all,"  says 
he — an'  Job  was  a  man  never  swore, 
but  he  looked  mighty  bad,  that  time, 
I  must  say ;  so  we  out  oars  and  pulls 
right  aboard  the  trader,  without  an- 
swerin'  ever  a  hail,  when  up  the  side 
we  bundled  on  deck,  one  arter  the 
other,  mad  for  a  drink,  and  sees  the 
master  with  five  or  six  of  a  crew,  all 
as  white  as  ghostesses,  and  two  or 
three  Kroomen,  besides  a  long-legged 
young  feller  a-sittin'  and  kicking  his 
feet  over  the  kimpanion-hatch,  with  a 
tumblerful  o'  grog  in  his  fist,  as  fresh 
to  all  seemin'  as  a  fish,  like  a  supper- 
cargo  or  some'at  o'  the  sort,  as  them 
craft  commonly  has.  "What  schooner's 
that  ? "  axes  the  master,  all  abroad 
like ;    an'  says  Job,  says  he  out  o' 
breath,   "Never  you  mind;  I  guess 
you'll  let's  have  some  water,  for  we 
wants  it  almighty  keen !  "     "  Well, 
says    the  other,   shaking   his  head, 
"  I'm  afeared  we're  short  ourselves — 
anyhow,"  says  he,  "  we'll  give  ye  a 
dipper  the  piece," — and  accordingly 
ihey  fists  us  along  a  dozen  gulps, 


hand    over  hand.     "  'Twon't  do,  I 
guess,  mister,  says  our  skipper;   "  we 
wants  a  cask  !  "     Here  the  master  o' 
the  brig  shakes  his  head  again,  and 
giv  a  look  to  the  young  'long-shore- 
like  chap  aft,  which  sings  out  as  we 
couldn't  have  no  more  for  love  nor 
money, — an'  I  see  Cap'en  Price  com- 
mence for  to  look  savitch  again,  and 
feel  for  the  handle  on  his   cutlash. 
"  Rather  you'd  ax  iv'ry  or  gould- 
dust !  "  sings  out  the  supper-cargo, — 
"hows'ever,"    says   he:    "as  ye've 
tooken  sich  a  fancy  to  it,  short  o' 
water  as  we  is,  why  a  fair  exchange 
an't  no  robbery,"  says    he :   "  you 
wants  water,  an'  we  wants  hands ; 
haven't  ye  a  couple  o'  niggers  for  to 
spare  us,  sir,  by  way  off  a  barter,  no  w  ?  " 
he  says.    Well,  'mate,  Pll  be  blowed 
if  I  ever  see  a  man  turn  so  wicked 
fur'ous  as   Job   Price  turns  at  this 
here, — an'  says  he,  through  his  teeth, 
"  If  ye'd  said  a  nigger's  nail-parin',  I 
couldn't  done  it,  so  it's  no  use  talkin'." 
"  Oh  come,  capting,"  says  the  young 
fellow,  wonderfle  angshis  like,  "  say 
one  jist — it's   all    on   the   quiet,   ye 
know.    Bless   me,  captin,"  says  he, 
"  I'd  do  a  deal  for  a  man  in  a  strait, 
'tickerly  for  yerself— an'  I  think  we'd 
manage    with  a   single  hand   more. 
I'll  give  ye  two  casks  and  a  bag  o' 
gould-dust  for  one  black,  and  we'll 
send  aboard  for  him  just  now,  our- 
selves !  "      "  No  ! "  roars  Job  Price, 
walkin'  close  up  to  him  ;  "  ye've  riz 
me,  ye  cussed  Britisher  ye,  an'  I  tell 
ye  we'll  take  what  we  wants ! "    "No 
jokes,  though,  captin !"  says  thefeller — 
"  what's  one  to  a  whole  raft-ful  I  heerd 
of    ye    shipping?"       "  Go    an'    ax 
the  sharks,  ye  beggar ! "    says  the 
skipper ; — "  here  my  lads  !  "  says  he, 
an'  makes  grab  at  the  other's  throat, 
when  slap  comes  a  jug  o'  rum  in  his 
eye-lights,  and  the  young  chap  ups 
fist  in  quick-sticks,  and   drops  him 
like  a  cock,  big  as  he  was.    By  that 
time,   though,    in    a    twinklin',    the 
master  was  flat  on  deck,   and  the 
brig's  crew  showed  no  fight — when  lo 
an'  behold,  my  boy,  up  bundles  a 
score  o'  strapping  men-o'-war's-men 
out  of  the  cabin.      One  or  two  on 
us   got  a  cut  about  the  head,  an' 
my  gentleman  supper-cargo   claps  a 
pistol  to  my  ear  from  aft,   so  we 
knocked  under  without  more  to  do. 
In  five  minutes  time  every  man  jack 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


of  us  had  a  seizing  about  his  wrists 
and  lower  pins, — and  says  Job  Price, 
in  a  givin-up  sort  o'  v'ice,  'You're 
too  cust  spry  for  playin'  jokes  on,  I 
calc'late,  squire,'  he  says.  '  Jokes  !' 
says  the  young  feller,  '  why,  it's  no 
joke — in  course  you  knows  me?' 
'Niver  see'd  ye  atweenthe  eyes  afore,' 
says  Job,  '  but  don't  bear  no  malice, 
mister,  now.'  '  That's  it,'  says  the 
t'other,  lookin'  at  the  schooner  again, 
— 'no  more  I  does — so  jist  think  a 
bit,  han't  you  really  a  nigger  or  so 
aboard  o'  ye — if  it  was  jist  one?' 
*  Squash  the  one  !'  says  Job,  shakin' 
his  head  nellicholly  like, — an'  '  Sorry 
for  it,'  says  the  chap,  '  'cause  ye  see 
I'm  the  lufftenant  belongin'  to  the 
Irish,  an'  I  carn't  titch  yer  schooner 
if  so  be  ye  han't  a  slave  aboard.' 
'  Lawk  a'mighty ! — no  !'  sings  out 
Job  Price,  'cause  bein'  half  blinded  he 
couldn't  ha'  noted  the  lot  o'  man-o'- 
war's-men  sooner. — '  But  I  can,'  says 
the  other,  '  for  piratecy,  ye  see ;  an' 
what's  more,'  he  says,  '  there's  no  help 
for  it  now,  I'm  afeared,  mister  what- 
they-call-ye !'  Well,  'mate,  after  that 
ye  may  fancy  our  skipper  turns  terrible 
down  in  the  mouth ;  so  without  a 
word  more  they  parbuckles  us  all 
down  below  into  the  cabin — a.n'  what 
does  this  here  lufftenant  do  but  he 
strips  the  whole  lot,  rigs  out  as  many 
of  his  men  in  our  duds,  hoists  out  a 
big  cask  o'  water  on  the  brig's  far 
side,  and  pulls  round  for  the  schooner, 
— hisself  togged  out  like  the  skipper, 
and  his  odd  hands  laid  down  in  the 
boat's  bottom."  You  won't  wonder 
at  my  being  highly  amused  with  the 
fellow's  yarn,  since  the  fact  was  that 
it  happened  to  be  one  of  my  own 
adventures  in  the  days  of  the  Iris, 
two  or  three  years  before,  when  we 
saw  a  good  many  scenes  together,  far 
more  wild  and  stirring,  of  course,  in 
the  thick  of  the  slave-trade ;  but 
really  the  ugly  rascal  described  it 
wonderfully  well. 

"  Well,"  said  Harry,  "  I  gets  my 
chin  shoved  up  in  the  starn- windy, 
where  I  see'd  the  whole  thing,  and 
tould  the  skipper  accordently.  The 
schooner's  crew  looked  out  for  the 
water  like  so  many  oysters  in  a  tub ; 
the  lufftenant  jumps  up  the  side  with 
his  men  after  him,  an'  not  so  much  as 
the  cross  of  two  cutlashes  did  we 
hear  afore  the  onion -jack  flew  out 


a-peak   over   her  mains'l.     In  five 
minutes     more,    the    schooner    fills 
away  before  the  breeze,  and  begins 
to  slide  off  in  fine  style  after  the  pair 
o'  brigs,  as  was  nigh  half  hull-down 
to  seaward  by  this  time.    There  we 
was,  left  neck  an'  heel  below  in  the 
trader,  and  he  hauled  up  seemin'ly  for 
the  land, — an'  arter  a  bit  says  the 
skipper  to  me,  'Foster,  my  lad,  I 
despise  this  way  o'  things,'  says  he, 
'  an't  there  no  way  on  gettin'  clear  ?' 
'  Never  say  die,  cap'en  !'  I  says  ;  an' 
says  he,  '  I  calc'late  they  left  consid- 
erable few  hands  aboard  ?'    '  None 
but  them  sleepy-like  scum  o'  iv'ry 
men,'  I  says, — but  be  blowed  if  I 
see'd  what  better  we  was,  till  down 
comes  a  little  nigger  cabin-boy  for 
some'at  or  other,  with  a  knife  in  his 
hand.    Job  fixes  his  eye  on  him — 
I've  heerd  he'd  a  way  in  his  eye  with 
niggers  as  they  couldn't  stand — an' 
says  he,  soft-sawderin'  like,  '  Come 
here,  will  ye,  my  lad,  an'  give  us  a 
drink,' — so  the  black  come  for'ad  with 
a  pannikin,  one  foot  at  a  time,  an'  he 
houlds  it  out  to  the  skipper's  lips — for, 
d'ye  see,  all  on  us  had  our  flippers 
lashed  behind  our  backs.      'Now,' 
says    he,    thankee,    boy,  —  look    iu 
atwixt  my  legs,  and  ye'll  find  a  dollar.' 
With  that,  jest  as  the  boy  stoops, 
Job  Price  ketches  his  neck  fast  be- 
twixt his  two  knees,  an'  blowed  if  he 
didn't  jam  them  harder,  grinning  all 
the  time,  till  down  drops  the  little 
black  throttled  on  the  deck.    '  That's 
for  thankin'  a  bloody  niggur!'  says 
he,  lookin'  as  savitch  as  the  devil, 
and  got  the  knife  in  his  teeth,  when 
he  turned  to  and  sawed  through  the 
seizing    round    my    wrists — an'    in 
course  I  sets  every  man  clear  in  quick- 
sticks.      'Now!"1    says    Job,   lookin' 
round,  '  the  quicker  the  better — that 
cussed  lubber- ratin'  hound's  got  my 
schooner,  but  maybe,  my  lads,  this 
here  iv'ry  man  '11  pay  expenses — by 
th'almighty,  if  I'm  made  out  a  pirate, 
I'll  arn  the  name !' 

•  "  Well,  we  squints  up  the  hatch- 
way, and  see'd  a  young  midshipman 
a-standing  with  his  back  to  us, 
watching  the  brig's  crew  at  the  braces, 
an'  a  pistol  in  one  hand — when  all  at 
once  our  skipper  slips  off  his  shoes, 
run  up  the  stair  as  quiet  as  a  cat,  an' 
caught  the  end  of  a  capstan-bar  as 
Jay  on  the  scuttle.  With  that  down 


444 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


he  comes  crash  on  the  poor  fellow's 
scull  from  aft,  and  brained  him  in  a 
moment.  Every  man  of  us  got 
bloody-minded  with  the  sight,  so  we 
scarce  knowed  what  we  did,  ye  know, 
'mate,  afore  all  hands  o'  them  was 
gone, — how,  I  an't  goin'  for  to  say, 
nor  the  share  as  one  had  in  it  more 
nor  another.  The  long  an'  the  short 
on  it  was,  we  run  the  brig  by  sun- 
down in  amongst  the  creeks  up  the 
Camaroons  river,  thinkin'  to  lie  stowed 
away  close  thereabouts  till  all  wor 
cold.  Hows'ever  they  kicked  up  the 
devil's  delight  about  a  piratecy,  and 
the  sloop-o'war  comes  back  shortly, 
when  night  an'  day  there  was  that 
young  shark  of  a_  lufftenant  huntin' 
arter  us,  as  sharp  as  a  marlinspike — 
we  dursn't  come  down  the  river 
nohow,  till  what  with  a  bad  con- 
science, fogs,  and  sleepin'  every  night 
within  stink  o'  them  blasted  muddy 
mangroves  an'  bulrushes  together, 
why,  mate,  the  whole  ten  hands  died 
off  one  arter  the  other  in  the  fever — 
leaving  ownly  me  an'  the  skipper. 
Job  Price  was  like  a  madman  over 
the  cargo,  worth,  good  knows  how 
many  thousand  dollars,  as  he  couldn't 
take  out — but  for  my  part,  I  gets  the 
brig's  punt  one  night  and  sculls  myself 
ashore,  and  off  like  a  hare  into  the 
bush  by  moonlight.  No  use,  ye 
know,  for  to  say  what  rum  chances  I 
meets  with  in  the  woods,  livin'  up 
trees  and  the  like  for  fear  o'  illiphants, 
sarpents,  an'  bloody  high-annies, — 
but,  blow  me,  if  I  didn't  think  the 
farther  ye  went  aloft,  the  more 
monkeys  an'  parrykeets  you  rowsed 
out,  jabberin'  all  night  so  as  a  feller 
couldn't  close  an  eye — an'  as  for 
the  sky,  be  blowed  if  I  ever  once 
sighted  it.  So,  d'  ye  see,  it  puts  all 
notions  o'  fruits  an'  flowers  out  o' 
my  head,  an'  all  them  jimmy-jessamy 
sort  o'  happy-go-lucky  yarns  about 
barbers'  ileyands  and  shipherdresses 
what  they  used  for  to  spell  out  o' 
dicshinars  at  school — all  gammon, 
mate !"  "  Lord  love  ye,  no,  sure- 
ly," said  Jack ;  "  it's  in  the  Bible  !" 
"  Ay,  ay,"  said  Harry,  "  that's 
arter  ye've  gone  to  Davy  Jones, 
no  doubt ;  but  I've  been  in  the 
South-Sy  ileyands  since,  myself,  an' 
be  blowed  if  it's  much  better  there  ! 
Hows'ever,  still  anon,  T  took  a  new 
fancy,  an'  away  I  makes  for  the  river, 


in  sarch  of  a  nigger  villache,  as  they 
calls  'em  ;  and  sure  enough  it  warn't 
long  ere  right  I  plumps  in  the  midst 
on  a  lot  o'  cane  huts  amongst  trees. 
But  sich  a  shine  and  a  nitty  as  I  kicks 
up,  ye  see,  bein'  half  naked,  for  all  the 
world  like  a  wild  man  o'  the  woods, 
an'  for  a  full  hour  I  has  the  town  to 
myself,  so  I  hoists  my  shirt  on  a  stick 
over  the  hut  I  took,  by  way  of  a  flag 
o'  truce,  an'  at  last  they  all  begins  for 
to  swarm  in  again.  Well,  ye  see,  I 
knowed  the  ways  o'  the  natifs  there- 
abouts pretty  well,  an'  what  does  I  do 
but  I'd  laid  myself  flat  afore  a  blasted 
ugly  divvle  of  a  wooden  himmache,  as 
stood  on  the  flour,  an'  I  wriggles  and 
twists  myself,  and  groans  like  a  chap 
in  a  fit — what  they  calls  finish,  there- 
away— an'  in  course,  with  that  they 
logs  me  down  at  once  for  a  rig'lar 
holy-possel  from  Jerusalem.  The 
long  an'  the  short  on  it  was,  the  fit- 
tish-man  takes  me  under  charge,  and 
sets  me  to  tell  fortins  or  the  like  with 
an  ould  quadrant  they'd  got  some- 
wheres — gives  me  a  hut  an'  two 
black  wives,  begad !  and  there  I  lives 
for  two  or  three  weeks  on  end,  no 
doubt,  as  proud  as  Tommy — when,  one 
fine  morning,  what  does  I  see  offshore 
in  the  river  but  that  confounded  man- 
o'-war  tender,  all  ship-shape  an' 
ataunto  again.  So,  my  boy,  I  gives 
'em  to  understand  as  how,  bein'  over 
vallible  at  home  with  the  King  of 
England,  in  course  he'd  sent,  for  to 
puckalow  me  away — an'  no  sooner 
said,  but  the  whole  town  gets  in  a 
fluster — thefittish-man,  which  akuow- 
ing  chap  he  was,  takes  an' rubs  me 
from  heel  to  truck  with  ile  out  on  a 
sartain  nut,  as  turned  me  coal-black 
in  half  an  hour,  an'  as  soon  as  I  looks 
in  the  creek,  'mate,  be  blowed  if  I'd  a 
known  myself  from  a  nigger,  some- 
how !"  To  tell  the  truth,  as  /  thought 
to  myself,  it  was  no  wonder,  as  Master 
Harry's  nose  and  lips  were  by  no 
means  in  the  classic  style,  and  his 
skin,  as  it  was,  didn't  appear  of  the 
whitest.  "So  there,  ye  know,  I  sits 
before  a  hut  grindin'  away  at  maize, 
with  nothink  else  but  a  waist-cloth 
round  me,  and  my  two  legs  stuck  out, 
till  such  time  as  the  lufftenant  an'  tvro 
boats'  crews  had  sarched  the  villache, 
haviii'  heerd,  no  doubt,  of  a  white 
man  thereabouts— an'  at  last  off  they 
went.  Well,  in  course,  at  first  this 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short  "  Yarn.     Part  V. 


445 


here  affair  gives  the  fittisli-man  a  lift 
in  the  niggerses  eyes,  by  reason  o' 
haviu'  turned  a  white  man  black — 
'cause,  ye  see,  them  fittish-men  has  a 
riglar-bred  knowledge  on  plants  and 
sichlike.  But  hows'ever,  in  a  day  or 
two  I  begins  for  to  get  rayther  oneasy, 
seein'  it  didn't  wash  off,  an'  accord- 
antly I  made  beknown  as  much  to  the 
fittish-man,  when,  my  boy,  if  he 
doesn't  shake  his  mop-head,  and  rubs 
noses,  as  much  as  to  say,  '  We  an't 
agoin'  to  part.'  'Twas  no  use,  and 
thinks  I,  '  Ye  man-eatin'  scum,  be 
blowed  if  I  don't  put  your  neck  out, 
then  !'  So  I  turns  to  with  my  knife 
on  a  log  o'  wood,  carves  a  himmage 
twice  as  big  an'  ugly  as  his'n,  and 
builds  a  hut  over  it,  where  I  plays  all 
the  conjerin'  tricks  I  could  mind  on — 
till,  be  hanged  if  the  niggers  didn't 
begin  to  leave  the  fittish-man  pretty 
fast,  an'  make  a  blessed  sight  more  o' 
me.  I  takes  a  couple  more  wives, 
gets  drunk  every  day  on  palm-wine 
and  toddy -juice — as  for  the  hogs  an' 
the  yams  they  brought  me,  why  I 
couldn't  stow  'em  away  ;  an'  in  place 
o'  wantin'  myself  white  again,  I  rubs 
myself  over  an'  over  with  that  ere 
nut,  let  alone  palm-ile,  till  the  bloody 
ould  fittish-man  looks  brown  alongside 
o'  me.  At  last  the  king  o'  the  niggers 
thereaway — KingChimbey  they  called 
him,  or  some'at  o'  the  sort — he  sends 
for  to  see  me,  an'  away  to  his  town 
they  takes  me,  a  mile  or  two  up  the 
country,  where  I  see'd  him ;  but  I'm 
blowed,  Jack,  if  he'd  got  a  crown  on 
at  all,  ounly  a  ould  red  marine's  coat, 
an'  a  pair  o'  top-boots,  what  was  laid 
away  when  lie  warn't  in  state.  Hows'  - 
ever  he  gives  me  two  white  beans  an' 
a  red  un,  in  sign  o'  high  favour,  and 
gives  me  to  know  as  I  wor  to  stay 
there.  But  one  thing  I  couldn't  make 
out,  why  the  black  king's  hut  an'  the 
'osst-honse,  as  they  calls  it,  was  all 
stuck  round  with  bones  an'  dead  men's 
skulls! — 'twan't  long,  though,  ere  I 
finds  it  out,  'mate !  That  ere  fittish- 
man,  d'ye  see,  wor  a  right-down  imp 
to  look  at,  and  devilish  wicked  he 
eyed  me ;  but  still  anon  I  sends  over 
for  my  wives,  turns  out  a  black  feller 
out  on  his  hut,  an'  slings  a  hammock 
in  it,  when  the  next  day  or  so  I  meets 
the  first  fittish-man  in  the  woods,  an' 
the  poor  diwle  looks  wonderfle 
friendly- like,  rnakin'  me  all  kinds  o' 


woeful  signs,  and  seemin'ly  as  much 
as  to  say  for  to  keep  a  bright  look-out 
on  the  other.  All  on  a  suddent  what 
does  he  do,  but  he  runs  a  bit,  as  far 
as  a  tree,  picks  up  a  sort  of  a  red 
mushroom,  an'  he  rubs  with  it  across 
the  back  o'  my  hand,  gives  a  wink, 
and  scuttles  off.  What  it  meaned  I 
couldn't  make  out,  till  I  gets  back  to 
the  town,  when  I  chanced  to  look  at 
my  flipper,  and  there  I  see  a  clean 
white  streak  alongst  it!  Well,  I 
thinks,  liberty's  sweet,  an'  I'm  blessed 
if  a  man's  able  to  cruize  much  to 
windward  o'  right-down  slavery, 
thinks  I,  if  he's  black  !  Howsomever, 
thinks  I,  I'll  jest  hold  on  a  bit  longer. 
Well,  next  day,  the  black  king  had 
the  blue-devils  with  drinkin'  rum, 
an'  he  couldn't  sleep  nohow,  'cause,  as 
I  made  out,  he'd  killed  his  uncle,  they 
said — I  doesn't  know  but  he'd  eaten 
him,  too — anyhow,  I  see'd  him  eat  as 
much  of  a  fat  hog,  raw,  as  ud  sarve 
out  half  the  watch — so  the  fittish-man 
tells  him  there's  nought  for  it  but  to 
please  the  fittish.  What  that  wor, 
blowed  if  I  knew  ;  but  no  sooner  sun- 
down nor  they  hauls  me  out  o'  my 
hut,  claps  me  in  a  stinking  hole  as 
dark  as  pitch,  and  leaves  me  to  smell 
hell  till  mornin',  as  I  thought.  Jist 
about  the  end  o'  the  mid- watch,  there 
kicks  up  a  rumpus  like  close-reef 
taups'ls  in  a  hurricane — smash  goes 
the  sticks  over  me  ;  I  seed  the  stars, 
and  a  whole  lot  o'  strange  blacks 
with  long  spears,  a-fightin',  yellin', 
tramplin',  an'  twistin'  in  the  midst 
o'  the  huts, — and  off  I'm  hoisted  in 
the  gang,  on  some  feller's  back  or 
other,  at  five  knots  the  hour,  through 
the  woods, — till  down  we  all  comes  in 
a  drove,  plash  amongst  the  very 
swamps  close  by  the  river,  where,  lo 
an'  behold,  I  makes  out  a  schooner 
afloat  at  her  anchor.  The  next  thing 
I  feels  a  blasted  red-hot  iron  come 
hiss  across  my  shoulders,  so  I  jumped 
up  and  sang  out  like  blazes,  in  course. 
But,  my  flippers  bein'  all  fast,  'twas 
no  use  :  I  got  one  shove  as  sent  me 
head-foremost  into  a  long  canoe,  with 
thirty  or  forty  niggers  stowed  away 
like  cattle,  and  out  the  men  pulls  for 
the  schooner.  A  big  bright  fire  there 
was  ashore,  astarn  of  us,  I  mind, 
where  they  heated  the  irons,  with  a 
chap  in  a  straw  hat  sarviii'  out  rum 
to  the  wild  blacks  from  a  cask ;  and 


446 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yam.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


ye  saw  the  pitch-black  woods  behind, 
with  the  branches  shoved  out  red  in 
the  light  on  it,  an'  a  bloody-like  patch 
on  the  water  under  a  clump  o'  sooty 
mangrooves.  An'  be  d — d,  Jack,  if 
I  didn't  feel  the  life  sick  in  me,  that 
time — for,  d'ye  see,  I  hears  nothin' 
spoke  round  me  but  cussed  French, 
Portingeese,  an'  nigger  tongue — 'spe- 
cially when  it  jist  lightens  on  me  what 
sort  on  a  case  I  were  in;  an'  thinks  I, 
'  By  G —  if  I'm  not  took  for  a  slave, 
arter  all ! — an' be  hanged  but  I  left  that 
'ere  'farnal  mushroom  a- lying  under 
that  there  tree  yonder ! '  I  begins  for  to 
think  o'  matters  an'  things,  an'  about 
Bristol  quay,  an'  my  old  mother,  an' 
my  sister  as  was  at  school — mind  ye, 
'mate,  all  atwixt  shovin'  off  the  man- 
groves an'  coming  bump  again  the 
schooner's  side — an'  blow  me  if  I 
doesn't  tarn  to,  an'  nigh-hand  com- 
mences for  to  blubber — when  jist  then 
what  does  I  catch  sight  on,  by  the  lan- 
tern over  the  side,  but  that  'ere  villain 
of  a  fittish-man,  an'  what's  more, 
King  Chimbey  hisself,  both  hauled  in 
the  net.  And  with  that  I  gives  a 
chuckle,  as  ye  may  suppose,  an'  no 
mistake  ;  for,  thinks  I,  so  far  as  con- 
sarns  myself,  this  here  can't  last  long, 
blow  me,  for  sooner  or  later  I'll  find 
some  un  to  speak  to,  even  an  I  niver 
gets  rid  o'  this  here  outer  darkness — 
be  blowed  if  I  han't  got  a  white  mind, 
any  ways,  an'  free  I'll  be,  my  boy ! 
But  I  laughs,  in  course,  when  I  see'd 
the  fittish-man  grin  at  me, — for  thinks 
I,  my  cocks,  you're  logged  down  for 
a  pretty  long  spell  of  it ! " 

"  Well,  bo',  somehow  I  knows  no 
more  about  it  till  such  time  as  I  sort 
o'  wakes  up  in  pitch-dark,  all  choke 
and  sweat,  an'  a  feller's  dirty  big  toe 
in  my  mouth,  with  mine  in  some  un 
else's  eye, — so  out  I  spits  it,  an'  makes 
scramble  for  my  life.  By  the  roll  an' 
the  splash,  I  knowed  I  wor  down  in 
the  schooner's  hold ;  an'  be  hanged  if 
there  wan't  twenty  or  thirty  holding 
on  like  bees  to  a  open  weather-port, 
where  the  fresh  wind  and  the  spray 
come  a-blowing  through — but  there, 
my  boy,  'twere  no  go  for  to  get  so 
much  as  the  tip  o'  yer  nose.  Accor- 
dently,  up  I  prizes  myself  with  my 
feet  on  another  poor  devil's  wool, — 
for,  d'ye  see,  by  that  time  I  minds  a 
man's  face  no  more  nor  so  much  tim- 
ber!— an'  I  feels  for  the  hatch  over  me, 


where  by  good  luck,  as  I  thought, 
there  I  finds  it  not  battened  down 
yet,  so  I  shoved  my  head  through  on 
deck  like  a  blacksmith's  hammer. 
Well,  'mate,  there  was  the  schooner's 
deck  wet,  a  swell  of  a  sea  on  round 
her,  well  off  the  land,  no  trifle  of  a 
morning  gale,  and  the  craft  heeling  ta 
it — a  lot  o'  hands  up  on  her  yards, 
a-reeflug  at  the  boom  mains'l  and 
fo'taups'l,  an'  begod  if  my  heart 
doesn't  jump  into  my  mouth  with  the 
sight,  for  I  feels  it  for  all  the  world 
like  a  good  glass  o'  grog,  settin'  all  to 
rights.  Two  or  three  there  was  walk- 
in'  aft  the  quarterdeck,  so  out  I  sings 
'  Hullo  !  hullo  there,  shipmates,  give 
us  a  hand  out  o'  this  !'  Two  on  'em 
comes  forud,  one  lifts  a  handspike, 
but  both  gives  a  grin,  as  much  as  to 
say  it's  some  nigger  tongue  or  other, 
in  place  oVgood  English — for,  d'ye  see, 
they'd  half  their  faces  black-beard, 
and  rings  i'  their  ears — when  up  walks 
another  chap  like  the  skipper,  an' 
more  the  looks  of  a  countryman. 
'D — n  it,'  roars  I  again,  *  I'm  a 
free-born  Briton  !'  with  that  he  lends 
me  a  squint,  looks  to  the  men,  an1 
gives  some  sort  o'  a  sign — when  they 
jams-to  the  hatch  and  nips  me  fast  by 
the  neck.  '  Devil  of  a  deep  beggar, 
this  here  !'  says  he;  'jist  give  him  the 
gag,  my  lads,'  says  he ;  '  the  planters 
often  thinks  more  of  a  dumby,  'cause 
he  works  the  more,  and  a  stout  piece 
o'  goods  this  is!'  says  he.  Well,  'mate, 
what  does  they  do  but  one  pulls  out 
a  knife,  an'  be  blowed  if  they  warn't 
a-goin'  for  to  cut  out  my  tongue;  but 
the  men  aloft  sung  out  to  hoist  away 
the  yards;  so  they  left  me  ready 
clinched  till  they'd  belay  the  ropes. 
Next,  a  hand  forud,  by  good  luck, 
hailed  '  Sail-O,'  and  they'd  some'at 
else  to  think  o'  besides  me ;  for  there, 
my  boy,  little  more  nor  three  miles 
to  wind'ard,  I  see'd  the  Irish  as  she 
come  driving  bodily  out  o'  the  mist, 
shakin'  out  her  three  to'gallant-sails, 
an'  a  white  spray  flying  with  her  off 
one  surge  to  another.  Bloody  bad  it 
was,  mind  ye,  for  my  wind-pipe,  foF 
every  time  the  schooner  pitched, 
away  swings  my  feet  clear  o'  the  nig- 
ger's heads, — 'cause,  d'ye  see,  we 
chancedfortobe  stowed  on  the  'tween- 
decks,  an'  another  tier  there  was,  stuffed 
in  her  lower  hold— an'  there  I  stuck, 
'mate,  so  as  I  couldn't  help  watchm? 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  V. 


447 


the  whole  chase,  till  at  last  the  hatch 
slacks  nip  a  bit,  and  clown  I  plumps 
into  the  dark  again." 

"  Well,  bo',  the  breeze  got  lighter, 
an1  to  all  seemin'  the  cursed  schooner 
held  her  own;  butiiows'ever,  the  sloop- 
o'-war  kept  it  up  all  day,  and  once 
or  twice  she  tips  us  a  long  shot ;  till 
by  sunset,  as  I  reckoned,  we  hears  no 
more  on  her.  The  whole  night  long, 
again,  there  we  stews  as  thick  as  peas 
— I  keeps  harknin'  to  the  sighs  an' 
groans,  an'  the  wash  along  the  side, 
in  a  sort  of  a  doze ;  an'  s'help  me  Bob, 
I  fancies  for  a  moment  I'm  swinging 
in  my  hammock  in  the  fox'sle,  an'  it's 
no  more  but  the  bulkheads  and  tim- 
bers creakin'.  Then  I  thinks  its  some 
un  else  I  dreams  on,  as  is  d — d  on- 
easy,  like  to  choke  for  heat  and  thirst ; 
an'  I'm  a- chuckling  at  him — when  up 
I  wakes  with  the  cockroaches  swarm- 
ing over  my  face.  Another  groan  runs 
from  that  end  to  this,  the  whole  lot 
on  us  tries  hard,  and  kicks  their  neigh- 
bours to  turn,  an'  be  blowed  if  I 
knowed  but  I  was  buried  in  a  church- 
yard, with  the  blasted  worms  all  a- 
crawl  about  me.  All  on  a  sudden, 
nigh-hand  to  day-break  it  was,  I 
hears  a  gun  to  wind'ard,  so  with  that 
I  contrives  for  to  scramble  up  with 
my  eye  to  the  scuttle-port.  'Twas  a 
stiffish  breeze,  an'  I  see'd  some'at  lift 
on  a  sea,  like  a  albatrosse's  wing,  as 
one  may  say — though  what  wor  this 
but  the  Irish's  bit  of  a  tender,  stand- 
ing right  across  our  bows — for  the 
schooner,  ye  see,  changed  her  course  i' 
the  night-time,  rig'lar  slaver's  dodge, 
thinkin'  for  to  drop  the  sloop-o'- 
war,  sure  enough.  But  as  for  the 
little  f'lucca,  why,  they  hadn't 
bargained  for  her  at  all,  lying-to  as 
she  did,  with  a  rag  o'  sail  up,  in  the 
troughs  of  the  sea,  till  the  schooner  was 
close  on  her.  Well,  no  sooner  does 
they  go  about,  my  boy,  but  the  mus  • 
keety  of  a  cruiser  lets  drive  at  her  off 
the  top  of  a  sea,  as  we  hung  broadside 
to  them  in  stays.  Blessed  if  I  ever 
see  sich  a  mark! — the  shot  jist  takes 
our  fore-top  fair  slap — for  the  next 
minute  I  see'd  the  fore-topmast  come 
over  the  lee-side,  an'  astarn  we  begins 
to  go  directly.  What's  more,  mate,  I 
never  see  a  small  craft  yet  handled 
better  in  a  sea,  as  that  'ere  chap  did — 
nor  the  same  thing  done,  cleaner  at 
any  rate — for  they  jist  comes  nigh- 


hand  tip  on  our  bowsprit-end,  as  the 
schooner  lifted — then  up  in  the  wind 
they  went  like  clock-work,  with  a 
starnway  on  as  carried  the  f'lucca 
right  alongside  on  us,  like  a  coachman 
backing  up  a  lane,  and  grind  we  both 
heaved  on  the  swell,  Avith  the  top- 
mast hamper  an'  its  canvass  for  a 
fender  atwixt  us.  Aboard  jumps  the 
man-o'-war's-men,  in  course,  cutlash 
in  hand,  an'  for  five  minutes  some 
tough  work  there  was  on  deck,  by  the 
tramp,  the  shots,  an'  the  curses  over 
our  heads — when  off  they  shoved  the 
hatches,  and  I  see'd  a  tall  young  feller 
in  a  gold-banded  capjook  below.  Be 
blowed  if  I  wasn't  goin'  to  sing  out 
again,  for,  d'ye  see,  I'm  blessed  if  I 
took  mind  on  the  chap  at  all,  as  much 
by  reason  o'  the  blood  an'  the  smoke 
he'd  got  on  his  face  as  aught  else. 
Hows'ever  I  holds  a  bit  meantime,  on 
account  o'  Job  Price  an'  that  'ere 
piratecy  consarn — till  what  does  I 
think,  a  hour  or  two  arter,  when  I 
finds  as  this  here  were  the  very  luff- 
tenant  as  chased  us  weeks  on  end  in 
the  Camaroons.  So  a  close  stopper, 
sure  enough,  I  keeps  on  my  jaw  ;  an' 
as  for  scentin'  me  out  amongst  a 
couple  o'  hundred  blacks  in  the  hold, 
why,  'twere  fit  to  paul  my  own  mother 
herself. 

"Well,  Jack,  by  this  time  beinr 
near  Serry  Lone,  next  day  or  so  we 
got  in — where,  what  does  they  do  but 
they  lubber-rates  us  all,  as  they  calls 
it,  into  a  barracoon  ashore,  till  sich 
time  as  the  slaver  ud  be  condemned — 
an'  off  goes  the  tender  down  coast 
again.  Arter  that,  they  treats  us  well 
enough,  but  still  I  dursn't  say  a  word  - 
for  one  day,  as  we  goed  to  work  makin' 
our  huts,  there  I  twigs  a  printed  bill 
upon  the  church-wall,  holdin'  out  a 
reward,  d'ye  see,  consarnin'  the  pi- 
ratecy, with  my  oun  name  and  my 
very  build  logged  down — ownly,  be 
hanged  if  they  doesn't  tack  on  to  it  all, 
by  way  of  a  topgallant  ink-jury  to  a 
man,  these  here  words — '  He's  a  very 
ugly  feller — looks  like  a  furrincr.' 
Well,  mate,  I  an't  a  young  maiden, 
sure  enough — but,  thinks  I,  afore  I  fell 
foul  o'  that  blasted  fittish-man  an'  his 
nut,  cuss  me  if  I  looks  jist  so  bad  as 
that  'ere !  So  ye  know  this  goes  more 
to  my  heart  nor  aught  else,  till  there 
I  spells  out  another  confounded  lie  in 
the  bill,  as  how  Cap'eii  Price's  men 


448 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


had  mutinied  again  him,  and  murdered 
the  brig's  crew — when,  in  course,  I  sees 
the  villain's  whole  traverse  at  once.  So 
seem'  I  watched  my  chance  one  night, 
an'  went  aboard  of  a  Yankee  brig  as 
were  to  sail  next  day ;  an'  I  tells  the 
skipper  part  o'  the  story,  offerin'  for 
to  work  my  passage  across  for  no- 
thin' — which,  says  he,  '  It's  a  hinter- 
esstin'  narritife' — them  was  his  words ; 
an'  says  he,  '  It's  a  land  o'  freedom  is 
the  States,  an'  no  mistake — an't  there 
no  more  on  ye  in  the  like  case  ? '  he 
eays.  'Not  as  I  knows  on,  sir,'  I 
answers ;  an'  says  he,  '  Plenty  o' 
coloured  gen'lmen  there  is  yonder,  all 
in  silks  an'  satins ;  an'  I  hear,'  says 
he,  '  there's  one  On  'em  has  a  chance 
o'  bein  President  next  time — anyhow 
I'm  your  friend,'  says  he,  quite 
hearty.  Well,  the  long  an'  short  of 
it  was,  I  stays  aboard  the  brig,  works 
my  spell  in  her,  an'  takes  my  trick  at 
the  helm — but  I'm  blowed,  Jack,  if 
the  men  ud  let  me  sleep  in  the  fok'sle, 
'cause  I  was  a  black, — so  I  slung  my 
hammock  aft  with  the  nigger  stoo'rd. 
D'ye  see,  I  misgived  myself  a  bit 
when  we  sank  the  coast,  for  thinks  I 
its  in  Africay  as  that  'ere  blessed 
mushroom  are  to  be  found,  to  take 
the  colour  off  me — hows'ever,  I  thinks 
it  carn't  but  wear  out  in  time,  now 
I've  got  out  o'  that  'ere  confounded 
mess,  where,  sure  enough,  things  was 
against  me — so  at  last  the  v'yage  were 
up,  an'  the  brig  got  in  to  New  Orleens. 
There  I  walks  aft  to  the  skipper  for 
to  take  leave,  when  says  he,  won- 
tlerfle  friendly  like, — '  Now  my  lad.' 
says  he,  '  I'm  goin'  up  river  a  bit  for 
to  see  a  friend  as  takes  a  interesst  in 
your  kind — an'  if  ye  likes,  why,  I'll 
pay  yer  passage  that  far  ?'  In  course 
I  agrees,  and  up  river  we  goes,  till  we 
lands  at  a  fine  house,  where  I'm  left 
in  a  far-handy,  ye  know,  while  the 
skipper  an'  his  friend  has  their  dinner. 
All  at  once  the  gen'lman  shoves  his 
head  out  of  a  doure,  takes  a  look  at 
me,  an'  in  again, — arter  that  I  hears 
the  chink  o'  dollars — then  the  skipper 
walks  out,  shuts  the  doure,  an'  says 
he  to  me,  '  Now,'  he  says,  '  that's  a 
'cute  sort  o'  tale  you  tould  me,  my 
lad — but  it's  a  lie,  I  guess  !'  '  Lie, 
sir  !'  says  I,  '  what  d'ye  mean  ?'  for 
ye  see  that  'ere  matter  o'  the  iv'ry 
brig  made  me  sing  small,  at  first. 
x  No  slack,  Pumpey,'  says  he,  liftin' 


his  fore-finger  like  a  schoolmaster, — 
'  ain't  yer  name  Pumpey  ? '  says  he. 
'  Pumpey  be  d  —  d !'  says  I,  '  my 
name's  Jack  Brown' — for  that  wor 
the  name  I'd  gived  him,  afore.  '  Oh  1' 
says  he,  'jest  say  it's  Gin'ral  Wash- 
inton,  right  off!  Come,'  says  he,  '  I 
guess  I'd  jest  tell  ye  what  tripe  you 
belongs  to — you're  a  Mandingy  nig- 
gur,'  says  he.  '  It's  all  very  well,'  he 
says,  '  that  'ere  yarn,  but  that's  wot 
they'd  all  say  when  they  comes, 
they've  been  dyed  black  !  Why,'  says 
he,'  doesn't  I  see  that  'ere  brand  one 
night  on  yer  back — there's  yer  arms 
all  over  pagan  tattooin' — '  '  Bless 
ye,  cap'en,'  I  says,  a-holdin'  up  my 
arm,  '  it's  crowns  an'  anchors !' 
'  Crowns !'  says  he,  turnin'  up  his 
nose,  '  what  does  we  know  o'  crowns 
hereaway — we  ain't  barbers  yet,  I 
guess.' — Of  what  he  meaned  by 
barbers  here,  mate,  I'm  hanged  if  I 
knowed  —  '  'sides,'  says  he,  '  you 
speaks  broken  Aimerricaue !'  '  'Mer- 
ricain  ?'  I  says,  '  why,  I  speaks  good 
English  !  an'  good  reason,  bein'  a  free- 
born  Briton — as  white's  yerself,  if  so 
be  I  could  ownly  clap  hands  for  a 
minnet  on  some  o'  them  mushrooms  I 
tould  ye  on !'  '  Where  does  they 
grow,  then  ?'  axes  he,  screwin'  one 
eye  up.  '  In  Africay  yonder,  sir,'  I 
says,  '  more's  the  pity  I  hadn't  the 
chance  to  lay  hands  on  'em  again !' 
•  Phoo !'  says  he,  '  glad  they  ain't 
here  '  An  does  you  think  we're  agoin' 
for  to  send  all  the  way  over  to  Africay 
for  them  mushrooms  you  talks  on? 
Tell  ye  what,  yer  free  papers  'ud  do 
ye  a  sight  more  good  here  /'  says  he — 
'  its  no  use,  with  a  black  skin,  for  to 
claim  white  laws ;  an'  what's  more, 
ye're  too  tarnation  ugly-faced  for  it, 
let  alone  colour,  Pumpey,  my  man !' 
he  says.  '  I  tell  ye  what  it  is,  Cap'en 
Edwards,'  says  I,  'my  frontispiece 
an't  neither  here  nor  there,  but  if  you 
calls  me  Pumpey  again,  'blowed  an' 
I  don't  pitch  inty  ye !' — so  with  that 
I  handles  my  bones  in  a  way  as 
makes  him  hop  inside  the  doure — 
an'  says  the  skipper,  houldin'  it 
half  shut,  '  Harkee,  lad,'  he  says, 
'  it's  no  go  your  tryin'  for  to  run, 
or  they'll  make  ye  think  angels  o' 
bo'sun's-mates.  But  what's  more,' 
says  he,  '  niver  you  whisper  a  word 
o'  what  ye  tells  "me,  about  nuts  an' 
mushrooms,  or  sichlike  trash  —  no 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "S/twt"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


449 


more  will  I ;  for  d'ye  see,  my  lad,  in 
that  case  they'd  jest  hush  ye  up  for 
good ! '  '  Who  d'ye  mean ! '  I  says,  all 
abroad,  an'  of  a  shiver,  like — mindin' 
on  the  slave-schooner  again.  '  Why, 
the  planter's  people,'  says  he,  '  as  I've 
sold  ye  to ; '  an'  with  that  he  p'ints 
into  his  mouth,  and  shuts  the  door. 
Well,  'mate,  ye  may  fancy  how  I  feels ! 
Here  I  stands,  givin'  a  look  round  for 
a  fair  offing .;  but  there  was  bulwarks 
two-fadom  high  all  round  the  house, 
a  big  bloodhound  chained,  with  his 
muzzle  on  his  two  paws,  an'  nobody 
seems  for  to  mind  me.  So  I  see'd  it 
were  all  up  wonst  more ;  an'  at  the 
thou't  of  a  knife  in  my  tongue,  I  sits 
right  down  in  the  far-handy,  rig'lar 
flabbergasted, —  when  out  that  'ere 
blasted  skipper  shoots  his  head  again, 
an'  says  he  'Pnmpy,  my  lad,  good 
day,'  says  he  ;  '  you  knows  some'at  o' 
the  water,  an'  as  they've  boat- work  at 
times  here-away,  I  don't  know  but,  if 
you  behaves  yerself,  they'll  trust  you 
with  an  oar  now  an'  then  ;  for  I  tould 
yer  master  jist  now,'  says  he,  '  as  how 
you  carn't  speak  no  English ! '  Well, 
I  gives  him  a  damn,  'cause  by  that 
time  I  hadn't  a  word  to  throw  at  a 
dog;  an'  shortly  arter,  up  comes  the 
overseer  with  his  black  mate,  walks 
me  off  to  a  shed,  strips  me,  and  gives 
me  a  pair  o'  cotton  drawers  an'  a 
broad  hat — so  out  I  goes  the  next 
mornin'  for  to  hoe  sugar-cane  with  a 
gang  o'  niggers. 

"  Well,  'mate,  arter  that  I  kept 
close  enough — says  no  more  but  mum- 
bles a  lot  o'  no-man's  jargon,  as  makes 
'em  all  log  me  down  for  a  sort  o' 
double-guinea  savitch — ,cause  why,  I 
were  hanged  afeared  for  my  tongue, 
seeiu',  if  so  be  I  lost  it,  I'd  be  a  nig- 
ger for  ever,  sure  enough.  So  the 
blacks,  for  most  part  bein'  country 
bred,  they  talks  nothin'  but  a  blessed 
jumble,  for  all  the  world  like  babbies 
at  home ;  an'  what  does  they  do  but 
they  fancies  me  a  rig'lar  African 
uigger,  as  proud  as  Tommy,  an' 
a'most  ready  for  to  washup  me  they 
wor — why,  the  poor  divvies  ud  bring 
me  yams  an'  fish,  they  kisses  my 
flippers  an'  toes  as  I'd  been  the  Pope ; 
an'  as  for  the  young  girls,  I'm  blowed 
if  I  wan't  all  the  go  amongst  'em — 
though  I  carn't  say  the  same  where 
both  's  white,  ye  know !  What  with 
the  sun  an'  the  cocoa-nut  ile,  to  my 


thinkin',  I  gets  blacker  an'  blacker — 
'blessed  if  I  didn't  fancy  a  feller's  veiy 
mind  tamed  nigger.  I  larns  their 
confounded  lingo,  an'  I  answers  to  the 
name  o'  Pumpey,  blast  it,  till  I  right- 
down  forgets  that  I'd  ever  another. 
As  for  runnin',  look  ye,  I  knowed  'twas 
no  use  thereaway,  as  long  as  my  skin 
tould  against  me,  an'  as  long  as  Africay 
wor  where  it  wor.  So,  my  boy,  I 
see'd  pretty  clear,  ye  know,  as  this 
here  bloody  world  ud  turn  a  man  into 
a  rig'lar  built  slave-nigger  in  the  long 
run,  if  he  was  a  angel  out  o'  heaven ! 
"  Well,  'mate,  one  day  I'm  in  the 
woods  amongst  a  gang,  chopping  fire- 
wood for  the  sugar-mill,  when,  by  the 
Lord !  what  does  I  light  on  betwixt 
some  big  ground- leaves  and  sichlike, 
but  a  lot  o'  them  very  same  red  mush- 
rooms as  the  fittish-man  shows  me  in 
Africay! — blowed  if  there  warn't  a 
whole  sight  o'  them  round  about,  too ! 
So  I  pulls  enough  for  ten,  ye  may  be 
sure,  stuffs  'em  in  my  hat,  an'  that 
same  night,  as  soon  as  all's  dark,  off 
I  goes  into  the  woods,  right  by  the 
stars,  for  the  nearest  town  'twixt  there 
an'  New  Orleens.  As  soon  as  I  got 
nigh-hand  it,  there  I  sits  down  below 
a  tree  amongst  the  bushes,  hauls  off 
my  slops,  an'  I  turns  to  for  to  rub 
myself  all  over,  from  heel  to  truck, 
till  daybreak.  So,  in  course,  I  watches 
for  the  light  angshis  enough,  as  ye 
may  suppose,  to  know  what  colour  I 
were.  Well,  strike  me  lucky,  Jack, 
if  I  didn't  jump  near  a  fadom  i'  the 
air,  when  at  last  I  sees  I'm  white 
wonst  more ! — 'blessed  if  I  didn't  feel 
myself  a  new  man  from  stem  to  starn! 
I  makes  right  for  a  creek  near  by, 
looks  at  my  face  in  the  water,  then  up 
I  comes  again,  an'  every  bloody  yarn 
o'  them  cussed  slave-togs  I  pulls  to 
bits,  when  I  shoves  'em  under  the 
leaves.  Arter  that  I  took  fair  to  the 
water  for  about  a  mile,  jist  to  smooth 
out  my  wake,  like ;  then  I  shins  aloft 
up  a  tree,  where  I  stowed  myself 
away  till  noon  —  'cause,  d'ye  see,  I 
knowed  pretty  well  what  to  look  for 
next.  An'  by  this  time,  mind  ye,  all 
them  queer  haps  made  a  feller  won- 
derfle  sharp,  so  I'd  schemed  out  the 
whole  chart  aforehand  how  to  weather 
on  them  cussed  Yankees.  Accord- 
entlye,  about  noon,  what  docs  I  hear 
but  that  'ere  blasted  bloodhound 
comin'  along  up  creek,  with  a  set  o' 


450 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


slave- catchers  astarn,  for  to  smell  out 
my  track.  With  that,  down  I  went 
in  the  water  again,  rounds  a  point 
into  the  big  river,  where  I  gets 
abreast  of  a  landin'  -  place  near  the 
town,  with  craft  laying  out- stream, 
boats  plying,  an'  all  alive.  D'ye  see, 
bo',  I'd  got  no  clothes  at  all,  an'  how 
for  to  rig  myself  again,  'bio wed  if  I 
knows  —  seein'  as  how  by  this  time 
I'd  tarned  as  white  as  the  day  I  were 
born,  an'  a  naked  white  man  in  a 
town  arn't  no  better  nor  a  black  nig- 
ger. So  in  I  swims  like  a  porpus 
afore  a  breeze,  an'  up  an'  down  I 
ducks  in  the  shallow,  for  all  the  world 
like  a  chap  a-takin'  a  bath  ;  an'  out  I 
hollers  to  all  an'  sundry,  with  a 
Yankee  twang  i'  my  nose,  for  to  know 
if  they'd  see'd  my  clothes,  till  a  whole 
lot  on  'em  crowds  on  the  quay. 
Hows'ever,  I  bethinks  me  on  that 
'ere  blasted  brand  atwixt  my  shoul- 
ders, an'  I  makes  myself  out  as  modest 
as  a  lady,  kicks  out  my  legs,  and 
splashes  like  a  whale  aground,  an' 
sticks  out  my  starn  to  'em  for  to  let 
'em  see  it's  white.  '  Hullo ! '  I  sings 
out,  'han't  ye  seen  my  clothes?' 
*  No,  stranger,'  says  they,  '  some  un's 
runned  off  with  'em,  we  calc'lates ! ' 
With  that  I  tells  'em  I'm  a  Boston 
skipper  new  corned  up  from  New 
Orleens ;  an'  not  bein'  used  to  the 
heat,  why,  I'd  took  a  bath  the  first 
thing  ;  an'  I  'scribes  the  whole  o'  my 
togs  as  if  I'd  made  'em, — '  split  new,' 
says  I,  '  an'  a  beaver  hat,  more  by 
token  there's  my  name  inside  it ;  an' ' 
says  I,  '  there's  notes  for  a  hundred 
dollars  in  my  trousers  !'  By  this 
time  down  comes  the  slave-catchers, 
an'  says  they,  hearin'  on  it,  'That  'ere 
tarnation  niggur's  gone  off  with  'em, 
we'll  know  ua  by  them  marks  well 
enough,'  says  they,  an'  off  they  goes 
across  river.  '  Hullo!'  I  sings  out  to 
the  folks,  '  I'm  a  gettin'  cold  here,  so 
I  guess  I'll  come  ashore  again,  slick 
off! '  I  twangs  out.  '  Guess  ye  can't, 
straunger  !'  they  hails;  'not  till  we  gets 
ye  some  kiverin's! — we're  considerable 
proper  here,  we  are  ! '  '  An't  this  a  free 
country,  then?'  I  says,  givin'  a 
divvle  of  a  splash  ;  an'  with  that  they 
begs  an'  axes  me  for  to  hould  on,  an' 
they'd  fix  me,  as  they  calls  it,  in  no 
time.  Well,  mate,  what  does  they  do 
but  one  an'  another  brings  me  some- 
thin'  as  like  what  I  'scribed  as  could 


be,  hands  'em  along  on  a  pole,  an'  I 
puts  'em  on  then  an'  there.  Arter 
that,  the  ladies  o'  the  place  bein' 
blessed  modest,  an'  all  of  a  fright 
leest  I'd  a  corned  out  an'  gone  through 
the  town, — why,  out  o'  granuytude, 
as  they  says,  they  gets  up  a  supper- 
scription  on  a  hundred  dollars  to  make 
up  my  loss — has  a  public  meetin'  log- 
ged down  for  the  evenin',  when  I'm 
for  to  indress  the  citizens,  as  they 
says,  all  about  freedom  an'  top-gal- 
lantry, an'  sichlike.  Hows'ever,  I  jist 
sticks  my  tongue  in  my  cheek,  eats 
a  blessed  good  dinner  in  a  hot- ell, 
watches  my  chance,  an'  off  by  a  track- 
boat  at  sun-down  to  New  Orleens, 
where  I  shipped  aboard  a  English 
barque,  an'  gets  safe  out  to  sea  wonst 
more."  "  Lord  love  ye,  Harry!"  ex- 
claimed Jack  hereupon,  "  the  likes  o' 
that  now !  But  I've  heerd  say,  them 
fittish-men  you  talks  on  has  wonder- 
ful knowledge — why,  mayhap  it's 
them  as  keeps  all  the  niggers  black, 
now  ?  "  "  Well,  bo',"  said  Harry,  "  I 
don't  doubt  but  if  them  'Merricane 
slaves  jist  knowed  o'  that  'ere  red 
mushroom,  why,  they'd  show  the  Yan- 
kees more  stripes  nor  stars !  D'ye  see, 
if  a  Yankee  knowed  as  his  own  father 
were  a-hoein'  his  sugar-canes,  'blowed 
if  he  wouldn't  make  him  work  up  his 
liberty  in  dollars!  All  the  stripes, 
d'ye  see,  'mate,  is  for  the  blacks,  an' 
all  the  stars  is  for  the  whites,  in  them 
Yankee  colours  as  they  brags  so  much 
about !  But  what  I  says  is,  it's  curst 
hard  to  get  through  this  here  world, 
shipmate,  if  ye  doesn't  keep  well  to- 
wind'ard  of  it!"  I  was  the  more 
amused  with  this  account  of  the  ugly 
rascal's  adventures,  that  I  remembered 
two  or  three  of  the  occasions  he  men-' 
tioned,  and  he  told  them  pretty  exactly 
so  far  as  I  had  to  do  with  them.  As 
for  the  fetish-man's  curious  nut,  and 
that  extraordinary  mushroom  of  hisr 
why  '  ten  to  one'  thought  I,  '  but 
all  the  while  the  fellow  never  once 
touched  a  piece  of  soapf  which,  no 
doubt,  had  as  much  to  do  with  it  as 
anything  besides.  Somehow  or  other, 
notwithstanding,  I  had  taken  almost 
a  fancy  to  the  villain — such  a  rough 
sample  of  mankind  he  was,  with  his 
uncouth,  grumpy  voice  and  his  huge 
black  beard ;  and  he  gave  the  story  in 
a  cool,  scornful  sort  of  way  that  was 
laughable  in  itself.  '  So,  my  lad,'  I 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  V. 


451 


thought,  '  it  seems  you  and  I  have 
met  twice  before  ;  but  if  you  play  any 
of  your  tricks  this  time,  Master  Harry, 
I  hope  you've  found  your  match ;'  and 
certainly,  if  I  had  fancied  my  gentle- 
man was  in  the  slaver's  hold  that  time 
off  the  African  coast,  I'd  have  '  lub- 
ber-rated' him  with  a  vengeance !  "  I 
say,  'mates,"  said  he  again,  with  a 
sulky  kind  of  importance,  to  those  of 
the  watch  who  had  gathered  round 
during  the  last  half  of  his  yarn, 
"there's  three  things  I  hates — an' 
good  reason !"  "  What  be's  they, 
Harry  ?"  asked  the  rest.  "  One's  a 
Yankee,"  said  he,  "  an'  be  bio  wed 
to  him!  the  second's  a  slaver;  and 
the  third  is — I  carn't  abide  a  nigger, 
nohow.  But  d'ye  see,  there's  one 

thing  as  I  likes  "     Here  eight 

bells  struck  out,  and  up  tumbled  the 
watch  below,  with  Jacobs's  hearty 
face  amongst  them ;  so  I  made  my 
way  aft,  and,  of  course,  missed  hear- 
ing what  that  said  delightful  thing 
might  be,  which  this  tarry  ^sop  ap- 
proved of  so  much. 

While  I  was  listening,  I  had  scarcely- 
noticed,  that  within  the  last  few  mi- 
nutes a  light  air  had  begun  to  play 
aloft  among  the  higher  canvass,  a 
faint  cat's-paw  came  ruffling  here  and 
there  a  patch  of  the  water,  till  by  this 
time  the  Indiaman  was  answering 
her  wheel  again,  and  moving  slowly 
ahead,  as  the  breeze  came  down  and 
crept  out  to  the  leeches  of  her  sails, 
with  a  sluggish  lifting  of  her  heavy 
fore-course.  The  men  were  all  below 
at  breakfast,  forward,  and,  of  course, 
at  that  hour  the  poop  above  me  was 
quite  a  Babel  of  idlers'  voices  ;  while 
I  looked  into  the  compass  and  watched 
the  ship's  head  falling  gradually  off 
from  north-east-by-north,  near  which 
it  had  stuck  pretty  close  since  day- 
break. The  sun  was  brought  before 
her  opposite  beam,  and  such  a  perfect 
gush  of  hazy  white  light  shot  from 
that  quarter  over  the  larboard  bul- 
warks, that  there-away,  in  fact,  there 
might  have  been  a  fleet  of  ships,  or  a 
knot  of  islands,  and  we  none  the 
wiser,  as  you  couldn't  look  into  it  at 
all.  The  chief  mate  came  handing  a 
wonderfully  timid  young  lady  down 
the  poop-ladder  with  great  care,  and 
as  soon  as  they  were  safe  on  the  quar- 
terdeck, she  asked  with  a  confiding 
sort  of  lisp,  "  And  where  are  we  going 


now  then,  Mr  Finch?"  "Well, 
Miss,"  simpered  he,  "wherever  you 
please,  I'll  be  glad  to  conduct  you !  " 
"  Oh,  but  the  ship  I  mean,"  replied 
she,  giggling  prettily.  "  Why,"  said 
Finch,  stooping  down  to  the  binnacle, 
"  she  heads  due  south-east  at  present, 
Miss."  "  I  am  so  glad  you  are  going 
on  again !"  said  the  young  lady ;  "  but 
oh !  when  shall  we  see  dear  land  once 
more,  Mr  Finch?"  "Not  for  more 
than  a  week,  I  fear,"  answered  the 
mate,  "  when  we  arrive  at  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope.  But  there,  Miss,  your 
poetic  feelings  will  be  gratified,  I 
assure  you !  The  hills  there,  I  might 
say,  Miss  Brodie,"  he  went  on,  "  not 
to  speak  of  the  woods,  are  quite  dra- 
matic! You  mustn't  suppose  the 
rough,  mariner,  rude  as  he  seems,  Miss 
Brodie,  is  entirely  devoid  of  romance 
in  his  sentiments,  I  hope ! "  and  he 
looked  down  for  the  twentieth  time 
that  morning  at  his  boots,  as  he 
handed  her  down  the  cabin  hatchway, 
longing  to  see  the  Cape,  no  doubt. 
'  Much  romance,  as  you  call  it,  there 
is  in  ugly  Harry  yonder  !'  thought  I ; 
and  comparing  this  sort  of  stuff,  aft, 
with  the  matter-of-fact  notions  before 
the  mast,  made  me  the  more  anxious 
for  what  might  turn  up  in  a  few  hours, 
with  this  gallant  first  officer  left  in 
full  charge,  and  the  captain,  as  I  un- 
derstood, unable  to  leave  his  cot.  A 
good  enough  seaman  the  fellow  was, 
so  far  as  your  regular  deep-sea  work 
went,  which  those  India  voyagers  had 
chiefly  to  do  with  then ;  but  for  aught 
out  of  the  way,  or  a  sudden  pinch,  why, 
the  peace  had  just  newly  set  them  free 
of  their  leading-strings,  and  here  this 
young  mate  brought  his  new-fangled 
school  navigation,  forsooth,  to  run  the 
Seringapatam  into  some  mess  or 
other ;  whereas,  in  a  case  of  the  kind, 
I  had  no  doubt  he  would  prove  as 
helpless  as  a  child.  By  this  time,  for 
my  part,  all  my  wishes  for  some  tick- 
lish adventure  were  almost  gone, 
when  I  thought  of  our  feelings  at  the 
loss  of  the  boat,  as  well  as  the  num- 
ber of  innocent  young  creatures  on 
board,  with  Lota  Hyde  herself  amongst 
them :  while  here  had  I  got  myself 
fairly  set  down  for  a  raw  griffm.  Yet 
neither  Westwood  nor  I,  unless  it 
came  to  the  very  worst,  could  venture 
to  make  himself  openly  useful !  I  was 
puzzled  both  what  to  think  of  our 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  F. 


[Oct. 


exact  case,  and  what  to  do  ;  whereas 
a  pretty  short  time  in  these  latitudes, 
as  the  foremast-man  had  said,  might 
finish  our  business  altogether;  indeed, 
the  whole  look  of  things,  somehow  or 
other,  at  that  moment,  had  a  strange 
unsettled  touch  about  it,  out  of  which 
one  accustomed  to  those  parts  might 
be  sure  some  change  would  come. 
The  air,  a  little  ago,  was  quite  suffo- 
cating, the  heat  got  greater ;  and  the 
breeze,  though  it  seemed  to  strengthen 
aloft,  at  times  sank  quietly  out  of  her 
lower  canvass  like  a  breath  drawn  in, 
and  caught  it  again  as  quietly  ere  it 
fell  to  the  masts.  What  with  the 
slow  huge  heave  of  the  water,  as  it 
washed  glittering  past,  and  what  with 
the  blue  tropical  sky  overhead,  get- 
ting paler  and  paler  at  the  horizon 
astern,  from  fair  heat — while  the  sun- 
light and  the  white  haze  on  our  lar- 
board beam,  made  it  a  complete  puzzle 
to  behold — why,  I  felt  just  like  some 
fellow  in  one  of  those  stupid  dreams 
after  a  heavy  supper,  with  nothing  at 
all  in  them,  when  you  don't  know  how 
long  or  how  often  you've  dreamt  it 
before.  Deuce  the  hand  or  foot  you 
can  stir,  and  yet  you've  a  notion  of 
something  horrid  that's  sure  to  come 
upon  you.  We  couldn't  be  much 
more  than  a  hundred  miles  or  so  to 
south'ard  of  St  Helena ;  but  we  might 
be  two  thousand  miles  off  the  land,  or 
we  might  be  fifty.  I  had  only  been 
once  in  my  life  near  the  coast  there- 
away, and  certainly  my  recollections 
of  it  weren't  the  most  pleasant.  As 
for  the  charts,  so  little  was  known  of 
it  that  we  couldn't  depend  upon  them ; 
yet  there  was  no  doubt  the  ship  had 
been  all  night  long  in  a  strong  set  of 
water  toward  north-east,  right  across 
her  course.  For  my  own  part,  I  was 
as  anxious  as  any  one  else  to  reach 
the  Cape,  and  get  rid  of  all  this 
cursed  nonsense ;  for  since  last  night, 
I  saw  quite  well  by  her  look  that 
Violet  Hyde  would  never  favour  me,  if 
I  kept  in  her  wake  to  the  day  of  judg- 
ment. There  was  I,  too,  every  time  1 
came  on  deck  and  saw  those  round- 
house doors,  my  heart  leapt  into  my 
throat,  and  I  didn't  know  port  from 
starboard !  But  what  was  the  odds, 
that  I'd  have  kissed  the  very  pitch 
she  walked  upon,  when  she  wasn't  for 
me!  —  being  deep  in  love  don't 
sharpen  the  faculties,  neither,  and  the 


morel  thought  of  matters  the  stupider 
I  seemed  to  get.  "  Green  Hand  !" 
thought  I,  "as  Jacobs  and  the  larboard 
watch  call  me,  it  appears  —  why, 
they're  right  enough  !  A  green  hand 
I  came  afloat  nine  years  ago,  and  by 
Jove !  though  I  know  the  sea  and 
what  belongs  to  it,  from  sheer  liking 
to  them,  as  'twere — it  seems  a  green 
hand  I'm  to  stick — seeing  I  know  so 
blessed  little  of  woman-kind,  not  ta 
speak  of  that  whole  confounded  world 
ashore !  With  all  one's  schemes  and 
one's  weather-eye,  something  new 
always  keeps  turning  up  to  show  one 
what  an  ass  he  is  ;  and  hang  me,  if  I 
don't  begin  to  suppose  I'm  only  fit  for 
working  small  traverses  upon  slavers 
and  jack-nasty-faces,  after  all!  There's 
Westwood,  without  troubling  himself, 
seems  to  weather  upon  me,  with  her, 
like  a  Baltimore  clipper  on  a  Dutch 
schuyt !"  In  short,  I  wanted  to  leave 
the  Seringapatam  as  soon  as  I  could, 
wish  them  all  a  good  voyage  together 
away  for  Bombay,  sit  down  under 
Table  Mountain,  damn  my  own  eyes, 
and  then  perhaps  go  and  travel 
amongst  the  Hottentots  by  way  of  a 
change. 

The  chief  officer  came  aft  towards 
the  binnacle  again,  with  a  strut  in  his 
gait,  and  more  full  of  importance  than 
ever,  of  course.  "This  breeze '11 
hold,  I  think,  Macleod  ?  "  said  he  to 
the  second  mate,  who  was  shuffling 
about  in  a  lounging,  unseamanlike 
way  he  had,  as  if  he  felt  uncomfort- 
able on  the  quarterdeck,  and  both 
hands  in  his  j  acket  pockets.  ' '  Well, " 
said  the  Scotchman,  "  do  ye  not  think 
it's  too  early  begun,  sir  ?  "  and  he 
looked  about  like  an  old  owl,  winking 
against  the  glare  of  light  past  the 
mainsheet  to  larboard  ;  "  I  '11  not  say 
but  it  will,  though,"  continued  he, 
"  but  'odsake,  sir,  it's  terrible  warm !" 
"  Can't  be  long  ere  we  get  into  Cape 
Town,  now, "  said  the  mate,  "  so 
you  '11  turn  the  men  on  deck  as  soon 
as  breakfast's  over,  Mr  Macleod,  and 
commence  giving  her  a  coat  of  paint 
outside,  sir."  "  Exactly,  Mr  Finch," 
said  the  other,  "  all  hands  it  ;ll  be, 
sir  ?  For  any  sake,  Mr  Finch,  give 
thay  lazy  scoundrels  something  ado !" 
"  Yes1,  all  hands,"  said  Finch;  and  he 
was  going  below,  when  the  second 
mate  sidled  up  to  him  again,  as  if  he 
had  something  particular  to  say. 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


1849,] 

"  The  captain  '11  be  quite  better  by 
this  time,  no  doubt,  Mr  Finch  ? " 
asked  he.  "  Well — d'ye  mean  ?  "  in- 
quired the  mate,  rather  shortly; 
"why  no,  sir — when  the  surgeon  saw 
him  in  the  morning  watch,  he  said  it 
was  a  fever,  and  the  sooner  we  saw 
the  Cape,  the  better  for  him."  "No 
doubt,  no  doubt,  sir,"  said  the  second- 
mate,  thoughtfully,  putting  his  fore- 
finger up  his  twisted  nose,  which  I 
noticed  he  did  in  such  cases,  as  if  the 
twist  had  to  do  with  his  memory, — 
"  no  doubt,  sir,  that 's  just  it  I  The 
doctor's  a  sharp  Edinbro'  lad — did  he 
see  aucht  bye  common  about  the  cap- 
tain, sir  ?  "  " No,"  said  Finch,  "ex- 
cept that  he  wanted  to  go  on  deck 
this  morning,  and  the  surgeon  took 
away  his  clothes  and  left  the  door 
locked."  "Did  he  though?"  asked 
Macleod,  shaking  his  head,  and  look- 
ing a  little  anxious;  "didna  he  ask 
for  aucht  in  particular,  sir?"  "Not 
that  I  heard  of,  Mr  Macleod,"  replied 
the  mate;  "what  do  you  mean?" 
"  Did  he  no  ask  for  a  green  leaf?  " 
replied  the  second  mate.  "Pooh!" 
said  Finch,  "  what  if  he  did?" 
"  Well,  sir,"  said  Macleod,  "  neither 
you  nor  the  doctor 's  sailed  five 
voy'ges  with  the  captain,  like  me. 
He's  a  quiet  man,  Captain  Weelum- 
son,  an'  well  he  knows  his  calling ; 
but  sometimes  warm  weather  doesn't 
do  with  him,  more  especial  siccan 
warm  weather  as  this,  when  the 
moon's  full,  as  it  is  the  night,  ye 
know,  Mr  Finch.  There 's  something 
else  besides  that,  though,  when  he 's 
taken  that  way."  "  Well,  what  is 
it  ? "  asked  the  mate  caa-elessly. 
"  Oo  !  "  said  Macleod,  "  it  can't  be 
that  this  time,  of  course,  sir, — it's 
when  he's  near  the  land !  The  cap- 
tain knows  the  smell  of  it,  these 
times,  Mr  Finch,  as  well 's  a  cock- 
roach does— an'  it's  then  he  asks  for 
a  green  leaf,  and  wants  to  go  straight 
ashore — I  mind  he  did  it  the  voy'ge 
before  last,  sir.  He 's  a  quiet  man, 
the  captain,  as  I  said,  for  ord'nar'— 
but  when  he  's  roused,  he  's  a  —  " 
"Why,  what  was  the  matter  with 
him  ?  "  said  Finch,  more  attentive 
than  before,  "you  don't  mean  to  say — ? 
go  on,  Mr  Macleod. "  The  second 
mate,  however,  looked  cautious,  closed 
his  lips  firmly,  and  twirled  his  red 
whiskers,  as  he  glanced  with  one  eye 


453 


aloft  again.  "Hoo!"  said  he,  care- 
lessly, "  hoo,  it 's  nothing,  nothing, — 
just,  I'm  thinking,  sir,  what  they 
call  disgestion  ashore  —  all  frae  the 
stommach,  Mr  Finch  I  We  used  jast 
for  to  lock  the  state-room  door,  an' 
never  let  on  we  heard — but  at  any 
rate,  sir,  this  is  no  the  thing  at  all,  ye 
know  !  "  "  Mester  Semm,  "  con- 
tinued he  to  the  fat  midshipman,  who 
came  slowly  up  from  the  steerage, 
picking  his  teeth  with  a  pocket-knife, 
"  go  forred  and  get  the  bo'suu  to  turn 
up  all  hands." 

"  Sir,"  said  I,  stepping  up  to  the 
mate  next  moment,  before  the  round- 
house, "  might  I  use  the  freedom  of  ask- 
ing whereabouts  we  are  at  present  ?" 
Finch  gave  me  a  look  of  cool  indiffe- 
rence,,without  stirring  head  or  hand  ; 
which  I  saw,  however,  was  put  on, 
as,  ever  since  our  boating  affair,  the 
man  evidently  detested  me,  with  all 
his  pretended  scorn.  u  Oh  certainly, 
sir !"  said  he,  "  of  course  ! — sorry  I 
haven't  the  ship's  log  here  to  show 
you — but  it's  two  hundred  miles  or  so 
below  St  Helena,  eight  hundred  miles 
odd  off  south-west  African  coast, 
with  a  light  westerly  breeze  bound  for 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope — so  after  that 
you  can  look  about  you,  sir!"  Are 
you  sure  of  all  that,  sir?"  asked  I, 
seriously.  "  Oh,  no,  of  course  not !" 
said  he,  still  standing  as  before,  "  not 
in  the  least,  sir!  It's  nothing  but 
quadrant,  sextant,  and  chronometer 
work,  after  all — which  eveiy  young 
gentleman  don't  believe  in !"  Then  he 
muttered  aloud,  as  if  to  himself, 
"Well,  if  the  captain  should  chance  to 
ask  for  a  green  leaf,  I  know  where  to 
find  it  for  him !"  I  was  just  on  the 
point  of  giving  him  some  angry  answer 
or  other,  and  perhaps  spoiling  all, 
when  I  felt  a  tap  on  my  shoulder, 
and  on  turning  round  saw  the  Indian 
judge,  who  had  found  me  in  the 
way  either  of  his  passage  or  his  pro- 
spect, on  stepping  out  of  the  starboard 
door.  "Eh  !"  said  he,  jocularly,  as  I 
begged  his  pardon,  "eh,  young  sir — 
I've  nothing  to  do  with  pardons — al- 
ways leave  that  to  the  governor-gene- 
ral and  councillors !  Been  doing  any- 
thing wrong,  then  ?  Ala,  what's  this — 
still  calm,  or  some  of  your  wind  again, 
Mrofficer?"  "Afine  breeze  like  to  hold, 
Sir  Charles,"  answered  the  mate,  all 
bows  and  politeness.  "  So !"  said  Sir 


454 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.     Part  V. 


[Oct. 


Charles,  "  but  I  don't  see  Captain 
Williamson  at  all  this  morning — where 
is  he?"  "  I  am  sorry  to  say  he  is  very 
unwell,  Sir  Charles,"  said  Finch. 
"  Indeed  !"  exclaimed  the  Judge,  with 
whom  the  captain  stood  for  all  the 
seamanship  aboard,  and  looking  round 
again  rather  dissatisfied.  u  Don't  like 
that,  though  !  I  hope  he  won't  be  long 
unable  to  attend  to  things,  sir — let  me 
know  as  soon  as  he  is  recovered,  if 
you  please !"  "  Certainly,  Sir  Charles," 
said  the  chief  officer,  touching  his  cap 
with  some  appearance  of  pique,  "but 
I  hope,  sir,  I  understand  my  duties  in 
command,  Sir  Charles."  "  Daresay, 
sir,"  said  the  Judge,  "  as  officer,  pro- 
bably. Commander  absent! — horrible 
accidents  already!"  he  muttered  cross- 
ly, changing  his  usual  high  sharp  key 
to  a  harsh  croak,  like  a  saw  going 
through  a  heavy  spar,  "  something 
sure  to  go  wrong — wish  we'd  done 
with  this  deuced  tiresome  voyage !" 
"Ha,  young  gentleman!"  exclaimed 
he,  turning  as  he  went  in,  "  d'ye  play 
chess — suppose  not — eh  ?"  "Why  yes, 
sir,"  said  1,  "  I  do."  "  Well,"  conti- 
nued he,  overhauling  me  more  care- 
fully than  he  had  done  before,  though 
latterly  I  had  begun  to  be  somewhat 
in  his  good  graces  when  we  met  by 
chance,  "  after  all,  you've  a  chess  eye, 
if  you  know  the  game  at  all.  Come 
in,  then,  for  godsake,  and  let's  begin  ! 
Ever  since  the  poor  brigadier  went, 
I've  had  only  myself  or  a  girl  to  play 
against !  'Gad,  sir,  there  is  something, 
I  can't  express  how  horrible  to  my 
mind,  in  being  matched  against  no- 
body— or,  what's  worse,  damme,  a 
woman  !  But  recollect,  young  gentle- 
man, I  can  not  bear  a  tyro  !"  and  he 
glanced  at  me  as  we  walked  into  the 
large  poop-cabin,  as  sharply  and  as 
cold  as  a  nor'-wester  ere  it  breaks  to 
windward.  Now  I  happened  to  know 
the  game,  and  to  be  particularly  fond 
of  it,  so,  restless  as  I  felt  otherwise,  I 
gave  the  old  nabob  a  quiet  nod,  laid 
down  my  griffin-looking  straw-hat  on 
the  sofa,  and  in  two  minutes  there  we 
were,  sitting  opposite  over  a  splendid 
China-made  chess-board,  with  ele- 
phants, emperors,  mandarins,  and 
china-men,  all  square  and  ataunto,  as 
if  they'd  been  set  ready  for  days. 
The  dark  kitmagar  commenced  fan- 
ning over  his  master's  head  with  a 
bright  feather  punka,  the  other  native 


sen-ant  handed  him  his  twisted  hookah 
and  lighted  it,  after  which  he  folded 
his  arms  and  stood  looking  down  on 
the  board  like  a  pundit  at  some  cam- 
paign of  the  Great  Mogul — while  the 
Judge  himself  waited  for  my  first 
move,  as  if  it  had  been  some  of  our 
plain  English  fellows  in  Hindostan 
commencing  against  your  whole  big 
India  hubbub  and  finery,  to  get  hold 
of  it  all  in  the  end.  For  my  part  I 
sat  at  first  all  of  a  tingle  and  tremble, 
thinking  IIOAV  near  his  lovely  daughter 
might  be ;  and  there  were  the  break- 
fast cups  laid  out  on  a  round  table  at 
the  other  side,  behind  me.  However  I 
made  my  move,  Sir  Charles  made  his, 
and  pitched  in  to  the  game  in  a  half 
impatient,  half  long-headed  sort  of 
way,  anxious  to  get  to  the  thick  of  it, 
as  it  were,  once  more.  Not  a  word 
was  said,  and  you  only  heard  the  suck 
of  the  smoke  bubbling  through  the 
water-bottle  of  his  pipe,  after  each 
move  the  Judge  made  ;  till  I  set  my- 
self to  the  play  in  right  earnest,  and, 
owing  to  the  old  gentleman's  haste  at 
the  beginning,  or  his  over-sharpness, 
I  hooked  him  into  a  mess  with  which 
I  used  to  catch  the  old  hands  at  chess 
in  the  cock-pit,  just  by  fancying  what 
they  meant  to  be  at.  The  Judge  lifted 
his  head,  looked  at  me,  and  went  on 
again.  "  Your  queen  is  in  check,  Sir 
Charles  !"  said  I,  next  time,  by  way 
of  a  polite  hint.  "  Check,  though, 
young  gentleman !"  said  he,  chuckling, 
as  he  dropped  one  of  his  outlandish 
knights,  which  I  wasn't  yet  up  to  the 
looks  of,  close  to  windward  of  my 
blessed  old  Turk  of  a  king ;  so  the 
skirmish  was  just  getting  to  be  a  fair 
set-to,  when  I  chanced  to  lift  my  eyes, 
and  saw  the  door  from  the  after-cabin 
open,  with  Miss  Hyde  coming  through . 
"  Now,  papa,"  exclaimed  she  on  the 
moment,  "  you  must  come  to  break- 
fast,"— when  all  of  a  sudden,  at  see- 
ing another  man  in  the  cabin,  she 
stopped  short.  Being  not  so  loud 
and  griffin-like  in  my  toggery  that 
morning,  and  my  hat  off,  the  young 
lady  didn't  recognise  me  at  first, — 
though  the  next  minute,  I  saw  by  her 
colour  and  her  astonished  look,  she 
not  only  did  that,  but  something  else 
— no  doubt  remembering  at  last  where 
she  had  seen  me  ashore.  "  Well, 
child,"  said  the  Judge,  "  make  haste 
with  it,  then! — Recollect  where  we 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.     Part  V. 


455> 


are,  now,  young  gentleman,  —  and 
come  to  breakfast."  She  had  a  pink 
muslin  morning-dress  on,  with  her 
brown  hair  done  up  like  the  Virgin 
Mary  in  a  picture,  and  the  sea  had 
taken  almost  all  the  paleness  off  her 
cheek  that  it  had  in  the  ball-room  at 
Epsom,  a  month  or  two  ago, — and,  by 
Jove !  when  I  saw  her  begin  to  pour 
out  the  tea  out  of  the  silver  tea-pot,  I 
didn't  know  where  I  was  !  "  Oh,  I 
forgot,"  said  the  Judge,  waving  his 
hand  from  me  to  her,  iu  a  hurry, 
"Mr  Bobbins,  Violet !— ho,  Kitma- 
gar,  curry  1'ao !"  "  Oh,"  said  she, 
stifflv,  with  a  cold  turn  of  her  pretty 
lip,  "  I  have  met  Mr— Mr— "  "  Col- 
lins, ma'am,"  said  I.  "  I  have  met 
this  gentleman  by  accident  before.'1'1 
*'  So  you  have — so  you  have,"  said 
her  father ;  "  but  you  play  chess  well, 
Mr — a — a — what's  his  name? — ah! 
Colley.  Gad  you  play  well,  sir, — we 
must  have  it  out !"  The'  young  lady 
glanced  at  me  again  with  a  sort  of  asto- 
nishment ;  at  last  she  said,  no  doubt 
for  form's  sake,  though  as  indiffer- 
ently as  possible, — "  You  have  known 
your  friend  the  missionary  gentleman 
long,  I  believe,  sir? — the  Reverend 
Mr  Thomas — I  think  that  is  his  name?" 
"  Oh  no,  ma'arn  !"  said  I  hastily,  for 
the  Judge  was  the  last  man  I  wished 
should  join  Westwood  and  me  to- 
gether, "  only  since  we  crossed  the 
Line,  or  so."  "  Why,  I  thought  he 
said  you  were  at  school  together!" 
said  she,  in  surprise.  "  Why — hem 
— certainly  not,  ma'am — a— a — I — a 
— a — I  don't  remember  the  gentleman 
there,"  I  blundered  out.  "  Eh,  what? 
— check  to  your  queen,  young  gentle- 
man, surely?"  asked  Sir  Charles. 
"  What's  this,  though !  Always  like 
to  hear  a  mystery  explained,  so" — 
and  he  gave  me  one  of  his  sharp 
glances.  "  Why,  why — surely,  young 
man,  now  I  think  of  it  in  that 
way,  I've  seen  you  before  in  some 
peculiar  circumstances  or  other — on 
land,  too.  Why,  where  was  it — let 
me  see,  now  ? "  putting  his  finger  to 
his  forehead  to  think ;  while  I  sat 
pretty  uneasy,  like  a  small  pawn 
that  had  been  trying  to  get  to  the 
head  of  the  board,  and  turn  into  a 
knight  or  a  bishop,  when  it  falls  foul 
of  a  grand  figured-out  king  and  queen. 


However,  the  queen  is  the  only  piece 
you  need  mind  at  distance,  and  bless- 
ed hard  it  is  to  escape  from  her,  of 
course.  Accordingly,  I  cared  little 
enough  for  the  old  nabob  finding  out 
I  had  gone  in  chase  of  them ;  but 
there  sat  his  charming  little  daughter, 
with  her  eyes  on  her  teacup ;  and 
whether  the  turn  of  her  face  meant 
coolness,  or  malice,  or  amusement,  I 
didn't  know — though  she  seemed  a  little 
anxious  too,  I  thought,  lest  her  father 
should  recollect  me. 

"  It  wasn't  before  me,  young  man?" 
asked  he,  looking  up  of  a  sudden: 
"  no,  that  must  have  been  in  India — 
must  have  been  in  England,  when  I 
was  last  there — let  me  see."  And  I 
couldn't  help  fancying  what  a  man's 
feelings  must  be,  tried  for  his  life,  as 
I  caught  a  side-view  of  his  temples 
working,  dead  in  my  wake,  as  it 
were.  The  thing  was  laughable 
enough,  and  for  a  moment  I  met 
Lota's  eye  as  he  mentioned  England 
— 'twas  too  short  a  glimpse,  though, 
to  make  out ;  and,  thought  I,  "  he'll 
be  down  on  Surrey  directly,  and 
then  Croydon — last  of  all,  the  back  of 
his  garden  wall,  I  suppose ! "  "Check" 
it  was,  and  what  I  was  going  to  say 
I  couldn't  exactly  conceive,  unless  I 
patched  up  some  false  place  or  other, 
with  matters  to  match,  and  mentioned 
it  to  the  old  fellow,  though  small 
chance  of  its  answering  with  such  a 
devil  of  a  lawyer — when  all  at  once  I 
thought  I  heard  a  hail  from  aloft, 
then  the  second-mate's  voice  roared 
close  outside,  "  Hullo ! — aloft  there  !" 
The  next  moment  I  started  up,  and 
looked  at  Miss  Hyde,  as  I  heard 
plainly  enough  the  cry,  "  On  deck 
there — land  O  ! "  I  turned  round  at 
once,  and  walked  out  of  the  round- 
house to  the  quarterdeck,  where,  two 
minutes  after,  the  whole  of  the  pass- 
engers were  crowding  from  below,  the 
Judge  and  his  daughter  already  on 
the  poop.  Far  aloft,  upon  the  fore- 
to'gallant-yard,  in  the  hot  glare  of  the 
sun,  a  sailor  was  standing,  with  his 
hand  over  his  eyes,  and  looking  to  the 
horizon,  as  the  Indiaman  stood  quietly 
before  the  light  breeze.  "  Where - 
away-ay?"was  the  next  hail  from 
deck.  "  Broad  on  our  larboard  bow, 
sir,"  was  the  answer. 


VOL,  LXVI. — M>.  ccccvnr. 


2n 


456 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


PHYSICAL  GEOGRAPHY. 


WE  have  here  combined  the  best  of 
all  books,  and  the  best  of  all  maps, 
for  the  study  of  the  most  interesting 
description  of  geography.  Mr  John- 
ston's Physical  Atlas,  now  published 
in  a  form  which  renders  it  accessible 
to  greater  numbers,  is  without  a  rival 
as  a  companion  and  guide  in  this  de- 
partment of  study ;  and  by  dwelling 
on  its  merits  and  utility,  we  should 
be  only  echoing  a  verdict  which  has 
already  been  pronounced  by  almost 
every  journal  of  scientific  or  critical 
celebrity.  And,  indeed,  the  same 
might  be  said  of  our  commendation  of 
Mrs  Somerville's  book ;  our  praise 
comes  lagging  in  the  rear,  and  is  well- 
nigh  superfluous.  But  not  only  are 
we  desirous  to  tender  our  tribute  of 
respect  to  one  who  has  done  more 
than  any  other  living  writer  to  extend 
amongst  us  sound,  as  well  as  general 
knowledge  of  physical  science ;  we  are 
anxious  also  to  recommend  to  our 
youth  the  enlarged  method  of  studying 
geography,  which  her  present  work 
demonstrates  to  be  as  captivating  as 
it  is  instructive. 

Mrs  Somerville's  Physical  Geography 
does  not  assume  so  profound  an  aspect, 
nor  has  it  so  lofty  an  aim,  as  the 
Cosmos  of  Alexander  Von  Humboldt ; 
neither  can  it  claim,  like  that  work, 
to  be  written  by  one  who  has  himself 
surveyed  the  greater  part  of  the  terra- 
queous globe  he  undertakes  to  de- 
scribe. This  latter  circumstance  gives 
an  extraordinary  interest  to  the  Cos- 
mos. From  time  to  time  the  pro- 
fessor of  science,  gleaning  his  know- 
ledge from  books,  and  laboratories, 
and  museums,  steps  aside,  and  we 
hear,  and  almost  see,  the  adventurous 
traveller,  the  man  Humboldt  himself, 
who  seems  to  speak  to  us  from  the 
distant  ocean  he  has  traversed,  or  the 
sublime  mountain  heights  he  has 
ascended.  Our  countrywoman  can 
claim  no  such  peculiar  prerogative. 
Who  else  can?  To  few — to  none 
other— has  it  ever  been  permitted  to 
combine  so  wide  a  range  of  knowledge 
with  so  wide  a  range  of  vision — to 


have  earned  his  mind  through  all 
science,  and  his  eye  over  all  regions. 
He  is  familiar  with  all  the  grandeurs 
of  our  earth.  He  speaks  with  the  air 
of  the  mountain  still  around  him. 
When  he  discourses  of  the  Himalaya 
or  the  Andes,  it  is  with  the  vivid 
impression  of  one  whose  footsteps  are 
still  lying  uneffaced  amongst  their 
rarely-trodden  and  precipitous  passes. 
The  phenomena  he  describes  he  has 
seen.  He  can  reveal  to  us,  and  make 
us  feel  with  him,  that  strange  impres- 
sion which  "  the  first  earthquake  " 
makes  even  upon  the  most  educated 
and  reflective  man,  who  suddenly 
finds  his  old  faith  shaken  in  the  stabi- 
lity of  the  earth.  And  what  lecturer 
upon  electricity  could  ever  arrest  the 
attention  of  his  auditors  by  so  charm- 
ing a  reference  to  his  personal  expe- 
rience as  is  contained  in  the  following 
passage? — 

"  It  was  not  without  surprise  that  I 
noticed,  on  the  shores  of  the  Orinoco, 
children  belonging  to  tribes  in  the  lowest 
stage  of  barbarism  amusing  themselves 
by  rubbing  the  dry,  flat,  shining  seeds 
of  a  leguminous  climbing  plant  (probably 
a  negretia)  for  the  purpose  of  causing 
them  to  attract  fibres  of  cotton  or  bam- 
boo. It  was  a  sight  well  fitted  to  leave 
on  the  mind  of  a  thoughtful  spectator  a 
deep  and  serious  impression.  How  wide 
is  the  interval  which  separates  the  simple 
knowledge  of  the  excitement  of  electricity 
by  friction,  shown  in  the  sports  of  these 
naked,  copper-coloured  children  of  the 
forest,  from  the  invention  of  the  metallic 
conductor,  which  draws  the  swift  lightning 
from  the  storm-cloud — of  the  voltaic  pile, 
capable  of  effecting  chemical  decomposi- 
tion— of  a  magnetic  apparatus,  evolving 
light — and  of  the  magnetic  telegraph  !" 

The  writer  naturally  reflects  on  the 
wide  interval  which  separates  the 
knowledge  of  electricity  shown  by 
these  naked  children  on  the  banks  of 
the  Orinoco,  and  the  inventions  of 
modem  science,  which  have  taught 
the  lightnings  of  heaven  to  do  our 
messages  on  the  earth.  But,  to  our 
mind,  this  wide  interval  is  far  more 
strikingly  displayed  by  the  picture 


Physical  Geography. 
The  Physical  Atlas. 


By  MARY  SOMERVILLE. 

By  ALEXANDER  KEITH  JOHNSION. 


1849.] 


Physical  Geography. 


457 


which  is  here  presented  to  the  imagi- 
nation, of  the  profound  and  meditative 
European  looking  down,  pleased  and 
surprised,  at  the  first  unconscious 
steps  in  experimental  philosophy 
which  these  copper- coloured  children 
of  the  forest  are  making  in  their 
sport. 

But  if  Mrs  Somerville's  book  has 
none  of  this  extraordinary  interest 
which  the  great  traveller  has  thrown 
over  his  work,  and  if  it  does  not  aspire 
to  that  philosophic  unity  of  view,  (of 
which  a  word  hereafter,  in  passing,)  it 
must  take  precedence  of  this,  and 
of  all  other  works,  as  a  useful  com- 
pendium of  the  latest  discoveries,  and 
the  soundest  knowledge  we  possess, 
in  the  various  subjects  it  embraces. 
Nowhere,  except  in  her  own  previous 
work,  The  Connexion  of  the  Physical 
Sciences,  is  there  to  be  found  so  large 
a  store  of  well-selected  information, 
so  lucidly  set  forth.  In  surveying 
and  grouping  together  whatever  has 
been  seen  by  the  eyes  of  others,  or 
detected  by  their  laborious  investiga- 
tions, she  is  not  surpassed  by  any 
one ;  and  the  absence  of  all  higher 
aim,  or  more  original  effort,  is  favour- 
able to  this  distinctness  of  exposition. 
We  have  no  obscurities  other  than 
what  the  imperfect  state  of  science 
itself  involves  her  in ;  no  dissertations 
which  are  felt  to  interrupt  or  delay. 
She  strings  her  beads  distinct  and 
close  together.  With  quiet  perspica- 
city she  seizes  at  once  whatever  is 
most  interesting  and  most  captivating 
in  her  subject. 

The  Cosmos  of  Humboldt  has  the 
ambitious  aim  of  presenting  to  us 
the  universe,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  in 
that  beauty  of  harmony  which  results 
from  a  whole.  Thus,  at  least,  we 
understand  his  intention.  He  would 
domineer,  as  with  an  eagle's  glance, 
over  the  known  creation,  and  embrace 
it  in  its  unity,  displaying  to  us  that 
beauty  which  exists  in  the  harmony 
of  all  its  parts.  The  attempt  no  one 
would  depreciate  or  decry,  but  mani- 
festly the  imperfect  state  of  science 
forbids  its  execution.  We  have  at- 
tained no  point  of  view  from  which  we 
can  survey  the  world  as  one  harmo- 
nious whole.  Our  knowledge  is  frag- 
mentary, uncertain,  imperfect;  and 
the  most  philosophic  mind  cannot 
reduce  it  into  any  shape  in  which  it 


shall  appear  other  than  uncertain  and 
fragmentary.  We  cannot  "  stand  in 
the  sun,"  as  Coleridge  says  in  his  fine 
verse,  and  survey  creation ;  we  have 
no  such  luminous  standing-point. 
There  never,  indeed,  was  a  time  when 
the  attempt  to  harmonise  our  know- 
ledge, and  view  the  universe  of  things 
"  in  the  beauty  of  unity,"  was  so  hope- 
less, so  desperate.  For  the  old 
theories,  the  old  methods  of  repre- 
senting to  the  imagination  the  more 
subtle  and  invisible  agencies  of  the  phy- 
sical world,  are  shaken,  or  exploded, 
and  nothing  new  has  been  able  to 
take  their  place.  What  is  new,  and 
what  is  old,  are  alike  unsettled,  un- 
confirmed. In  reality,  therefore,  the 
work  of  Mrs  Somerville  is  as  much  a 
Cosmos  as  that  of  Von  Humboldt;  and, 
as  a  work  of  instruction,  is  far  better 
for  not  aiming  higher  than  it  does. 
Mrs  Somerville  presents  to  us  each 
gospel  of  science — if  we  may  give  that 
title  to  its  imperfect  revelations — and 
does  not  bewilder  or  confuse  by 
attempting  that  "harmony  of  the 
gospels  "  which  the  scientific  expositor 
is,  as  yet,  unable  to  accomplish. 

As  yet,  we  have  said — but,  indeed, 
will  science  be  ever  able  to  realise 
this  aspiration  of  the  intellect  after 
unity  and  completeness  of  view  ?  To 
the  reflective  mind,  human  science 
presents  this  singular  aspect.  Whilst 
the  speculative  reason  of  man  con- 
tinually seeks  after  unity,  strives  to 
see  the  many  in  the  one — as  the  Pla- 
tonist  would  express  himself— or,  as 
we  should  rather  say,  strives  to  resolve 
the  multiplicity  of  phenomena  into  a 
few  ultimate  causes,  so  as  to  create 
for  itself  a  whole,  some  rounded  system 
which  the  intellectual  vision  can  em- 
brace ;  the  discoveries  of  science,  by 
which  it  hopes  and  strives  to  realise 
this  end,  do  in  fact,  at  every  stage, 
increase  the  apparent  complexity  of 
the  phenomena.  The  new  agencies, 
or  causes,  which  are  brought  to  light, 
if  they  explain  what  before  was  ano- 
malous and  obscure,  become  them- 
selves the  source  of  innumerable 
difficulties  and  conjectures.  Each  dis- 
covery stirs  more  questions  than  it 
sets  at  rest.  What,  on  its  first  intro- 
duction, promised  to  explain  so  many 
things,  is  found,  on  further  acquain- 
tance, to  have  added  but  one  more  to 
the  inexplicable  facts  around  us. 


458 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


With  each  step,  also,  in  our  inquiry, 
the  physical  agents  that  are  revealed 
to  us  become  more  subtle,  more  cal- 
culated to  excite  and  to  elude  our 
curiosity.  Already,  half  our  science 
is  occupied  with  matter  that  is  in- 
visible. From  time  to  time  some 
grand  generalisation  is  proposed — 
electricity  is  now  the  evoked  spirit 
which  is  to  help  us  through  our 
besetting  difficulties — but,  fast  as  the 
theory  is  formed,  some  new  fact 
emerges  that  will  not  range  itself 
within  it ;  the  cautious  thinker  steps 
back,  and  acknowledges  that  the 
effort  is  as  yet  premature.  It  always 
will  be  premature. 

There  is  a  perpetual  antagonism 
between  the  intellectual  tendency  to 
reduce  all  phenomena  to  a  harmo- 
nious and  complete  system,  and  that 
increase  of  knowledge  which,  while  it 
seems  to  favour  the  attempt,  renders 
it  more  and  more  impracticable.  With 
our  limited  powers,  we  cannot  embrace 
the  whole ;  and  therefore  it  must 
follow,  that  it  is  only  when  our  know- 
ledge is  scanty,  that  we  seem  capable 
of  the  task.  Every  addition  to  that 
knowledge,  from  the  time  that  Thales 
would  have  reduced  all  things  to  the 
one  element  of  water,  has  rendered 
the  task  more  hopeless.  And  as 
science  was  never  so  far  advanced  as 
at  the  present  time,  so  this  antagonism 
was  never  so  clearly  illustrated  be- 
tween the  effort  of  reason  to  general- 
ise, and  the  influx  of  broken  know- 
ledge, reducing  the  overtasked  intel- 
lect to  despair.  How  much  has 
lately  been  revealed  to  us  of  the  more 
subtle  powers  and  processes  of  nature 
— of  light,  of  heat,  of  electricity! 
How  tempting  the  generalisations 
offered  to  our  view !  We  seem  to  be, 
at  least,  upon  the  eve  of  some  great 
discovery  which  will  explain  all :  an 
illusion  which  is  destined  to  prompt 
the  researches  of  the  ardent  spirits  of 
every  age.  They  will  always  be  on 
the  eve  of  some  great  discovery  which 
is  to  place  the  clue  of  the  labyrinth 
into  their  hand.  The  new  discovery, 
like  its  predecessor,  will  add  only 
another  chamber  to  the  interminable 
labyrinth. 

Let  us,  for  instance,  suppose  that 
we  have  discovered,  in  electricity,  the 
cause  of  that  attraction  to  which  we 
had  confided  the  revolution  of  the 


planets ;  of  that  chemical  affinity  to 
which  we  had  ascribed  the  various 
combinations  of  those  ultimate  atoms 
of  which  the  material  world  is  pre- 
sumed to  be  composed  ;  of  that  vital 
principle  which  assimilates  in  the 
plant,  and  grows  and  feels  in  the 
animal.  Let  us  suppose  that  this  is  a 
sound  generalisation  ;  yet,  as  electri- 
city cannot  be  alone  both  attraction 
in  the  mass,  and  chemical  affinity  in 
the  atom,  and  irritability  and  suscep- 
tibility in  the  fibre  and  the  nerve, 
what  has  the  speculative  reason  at- 
tained but  to  the  knowledge  of  a  new 
and  necessary  agent,  producing  dif- 
ferent effects  according  to  the  different 
conditions  in  which,  and  the  different 
co-agencies  with  which  it  operates  ? 
These  conditions,  these  co-agencies, 
are  all  to  be  discovered.  It  is  one 
flash  of  light,  revealing  a  whole  world 
of  ignorance. 

To  the  explanation  of  the  most 
obstinate  of  all  problems — the  nature 
of  the  vital  principle — we  seem  to 
have  made  a  great  step  when  we 
introduce  a  current  of  electricity  cir- 
culating through  the  nerves.  If  this 
hypothesis  be  established,  we  shall 
probably  have  made  a  valuable  and 
very  useful  addition  to  our  stock  of 
knowledge ;  but  we  shall  be  as  far  as 
ever  from  solving  the  problem  of  the 
vital  principle.  We  have  now  a 
current  of  electricity  circulating  along 
the  nerves,  as  we  had  before  a  current 
of  blood,  circulating  through  the  veins 
and  arteries ;  the  one  may  become  as 
prominent  and  as  important  arfact  in 
the  science  of  the  physician  as  the 
other ;  but  it  will  be  equally  power- 
less with  the  old  discovery  of  Harvey 
to  explain  the  tiltimate  cause  of 
vitality.  To  the  speculative  reason 
it  has  but  complicated  the  phenomena 
of  animal  life. 

Within  the  memory  of  a  living 
man,  there  has  been  such  progress 
and  revolution  in  science,  that  not 
one  of  the  great  generalisations  taught 
him  in  his  youth  can  be  now  received 
as  uncontested  propositions.  Not 
many  years  ago,  how  conimodiously 
a  few  words,  such  as  attraction, 
caloric,  affinity,  rays  of  light,  and 
others,  could  be  used,  and  how  much 
they  seemed  to  explain  !  Caloric  was 
a  fluid,  unseen  indeed,  but  very  obe- 
dient to  the  imagination— expanding 


1849.] 


Physical  Geography. 


bodies,  and  radiating  from  one  to  the 
other  in  a  quite  orderly  manner. 
What  is  it  now  ?  Perhaps  the  vibra- 
tion of  a  subtle  ether  interfused 
through  all  bodies ;  perhaps  the  vibra- 
tion of  the  atomic  parts  themselves  of 
those  bodies.  Who  will  venture  to 
say  ?  Attraction  and  affinity  are  no 
longer  the  clearly  defined  ultimate 
facts  they  seemed  to  be ;  we  know  so 
much,  at  least,  that  they  are  intimately 
connected  Avith  electrical  phenomena, 
though  not  to  what  extent.  That 
electricity  is  implicated  with  chemical 
composition,  and  recomposition,  is 
clearly  recognised;  and  Sir  J.  Her- 
schel  has  lately  expressed  his  opinion, 
that  it  is  impossible  any  longer  to 
attempt  the  explanation  of  the  move- 
ments of  all  the  heavenly  bodies  by 
simple  attraction,  as  understood  in 
the  Newtonian  theory — these  comets, 
with  their  trains  perversely  turned 
from  the  sun,  deranging  sadly  our 
systematic  views.  The  ray  of  light, 
which,  with  its  reflection  and  its 
refraction,  seemed  a  quite  manageable 
substance,  has  deserted  us,  and  we 
have  an  ethereal  fluid — the  same  as 
that  which  constitutes  heat,  or  another 
— substituted  in  its  stead.  Science 
has  no  language,  and  knows  not  hoAv 
to  speak.  If  she  lectures  one  day 
upon  the  "  polarisation"  of  light,  she 
professes  the  next  not  to  know  what 
she  means  by  the  term  ;  she  is  driven 
even  to  talk  of  "invisible  rays"  of 
light,  or  chemical  rays.  Never  was 
it  so  difficult  to  form  any  scientific 
conception  on  these  subjects,  or  to 


459 

speak  of  them  with  any  consistency. 
Mrs  Somerville  is  a  correct  writer ; 
yet  she  opens  her  brief  section  upon 
magnetism  thus : — "  Magnetism  is  one 
of  those  unseen  imponderable  exist- 
ences, which,  like  electricity  and  heat, 
are  known  only  by  their  effects.  It  is 
certainly  identical  with  electricity, 
for,"  &c.  It  is  like,  and  it  is  identical, 
in  almost  the  same  sentence. 

Even  in  the  fields  of  astronomy, 
where  we  have  to  deal  with  large 
masses  of  matter,  it  is  no  longer  pos- 
sible for  the  imagination  to  form  any 
embraceable  system.  We  are  plunged 
into  hopeless  infinitude,  and  the  little 
regularities  we  had  painfully  delineated 
on  the  heavens  are  all  effaced.  The 
earth  had  been  torn  from  its  moorings 
and  sent  revolving  through  space,  but 
it  revolved  round  a  central  stationary 
sun.  Here,  at  least,  was  something 
stable.  The  sun  was  a  fixed  centre 
for  our  minds,  as  well  as  for  the 
planetary  system.  But  the  sun  him- 
self has  been  uprooted,  and  revolves 
round  some  other  centre — we  know 
not  what — or  else  travels  on  through 
infinite  space — we  know  not  whither. 
A  little  time  ago,  the  stately  seven 
rolled  round  their  central  orb  in  clear 
and  uninterrupted  space ;  their  number 
has  been  constantly  increasing;  we 
reckon  now  seventeen  planetary  bodies 
that  can  be  reduced  to  no  law  of  pro- 
portion or  harmony,  either  as  to  their 
size,  their  orbits,  the  inclination  of 
their  axes,  or  any  other  planetary  pro- 
perty ;  *  and  the  space  they  circulate 
in  is  intruded  on  by  other  smaller 


"  Nor  are  there,"  writes  Humboldt,  "  any  constant  relations  between  the  distances 
of  the  planets  from  the  central  body  round  which  they  revolve,  and  their  absolute 
magnitudes,  densities,  times  of  rotation,  eccentricities  and  inclinations  of  orbit  and  of 
axis.  We  find  Mars,  though  more  distant  from  the  sun  than  either  the  earth  or 
Venus,  inferior  to  them  in  magnitude;  Saturn  is  less  than  Jupiter,  and  yet  much 
larger  than  Uranus.  The  zone  of  the  telescopic  planets,  which  are  so  inconsiderable 
in  point  of  volume,  viewed  in  the  series  of  distances  commencing  from  the  sun,  comes 
next  before  Jupiter,  the  greatest  in  size  of  all  the  planetary  bodies.  Remarkable  as 
is  the  small  density  of  all  the  colossal  planets  which  are  farthest  from  the  sun,  yet 
neither  in  this  respect  can  we  recognise  any  regular  succession.  Uranus  appears  to 
be  denser  than  Saturn,  and  (though  the  inner  group  of  planets  differ  but  little  from 
each  other  in  this  particular)  we  find  both  Venus  and  Mars  less  dense  than  the  earth, 
which  is  situated  between  them.  The  time  of  rotation  increases,  on  the  whole,  with 
increasing  solar  distance,  but  yet  it  is  greater  in  Mars  than  in  the  earth,  and  in. 
Saturn  than  in  Jupiter."  After  other  remarks  of  the  same  character,  he  adds,  "  The 
planetary  system,  in  its  relation  of  absolute  magnitude,  relative  position  of  the  axis, 
density,  time  of  rotation,  and  different  degrees  of  eccentricity  of  the  orbits,  has,  to 
our  apprehension,  nothing  more  of  natural  necessity  than  the  relative  distribution  of 
land  and  water  on  the  surface  of  our  globe,  the  configuration  of  continents,  or  the 
elevation  of  mountain  chains.  No  general  law,  in  these  respects,  is  discoverable 
•either  in  the  regions  of  space  or  in  the  irregularities  of  the  crust  of  the  earth." 


460 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


and  miscellaneous  bodies,  asteroids, 
and  the  like,  some  of  which,  it  seems, 
occasionally  fall  to  the  earth.  Comets 
come  sweeping  in  from  illimitable 
space,  requiring,  it  is  thought,  some 
eight  thousand  years  for  their  revolu- 
tion round  the  sun.  Some  of  these 
cross  each  other's  orbits :  one  has 
crossed  the  orbit  of  the  earth;  and 
their  decreasing  circle  round  the  sun, 
gives  notice  of  some  unknown  ether 
suffused  through  the  interstellar  spaces. 
The  outlying  prospect,  beyond  our 
system,  grows  still  more  bewildering. 
The  stars  are  no  longer  "  fixed,"  nor 
is  their  brilliancy  secured  to  them ; 
this  increases  and  diminishes  with 
perplexing  mystery.  What  seemed 
a  single  point  of  light,  resolves  itself 
into  two  stars  revolving  round  each, 
perhaps  reciprocally  sun  and  planet. 
The  faint  and  telescopic  nebula,  just 
reached  by  the  glass  in  one  age,  is 
found  in  the  next  to  be  a  congrega- 
tion of  innumerable  stars.  Our  milky 
way  is,  at  the  same  distance,  just  such 
another  nebula.  "  The  elder  Her- 
schel  calculates  that  the  light  of  the 
most  distant  nebula,  discovered  by 
his  forty-feet  refractor,  requires  two 
millions  of  years  to  reach  our  eyes." 
Oh,  shut  up  the  telescope !  the  reason 
reels. 

Science,  in  short,  presents  before  us 
a  field  of  perpetual  activity — of  end- 
less excitement,  and  that  of  the  high- 
est order — of  practical  results  of  the 
greatest  utility  and  most  beneficial 
description  ;  but  it  gives  no  prospect 
of  any  resting-place — any  repose  for 
the  speculative  reason — any  position 
with  which  the  scientific  mind  shall  be 
content,  and  from  which  it  shall  em- 
brace the  scene  before  it  in  its  unity 
and  harmony.  Always  will  it  be 

"  Moving  about  in  worlds  half-realised." 

Having  touched  upon  these  subtle 
agencies  of  light,  and  heat,  and  electri- 
city, and  on  the  increasing  difficulty 
we  have  of  framing  to  ourselves  any 
distinct  conception  of  them,  we  can- 
not refrain  from  alluding  to  a  little 
work  or  pamphlet,  by  Mr  Grove, 
entitled,  The  Correlation  of  Physical 
Forces,  in  which  this  subject  is  treated 
with  great  originality.  Mr  Grove 
has  made  himself  a  name  in  experi- 
mental science  by  his  discoveries  in 
electricity  and  chemistry ;  in  this 


pamphlet  he  shows,  that  he  has  the 
taste  and  power  for  enlarged  specula- 
tion on  the  truths  which  experiment 
brings  to  light.  We  would  recom- 
mend the  perusal  of  his  pamphlet  to 
all  who  are  interested  in  these  higher 
and  more  abstract  speculations.  How 
far  the  wide  generalisation  he  adopts 
is  sustained  by  facts,  we  are  not  pre- 
pared to  say.  But  it  is  a  powerful 
work,  and  it  is  a  singular  one  ;  for  it 
is  not  often,  in  this  country  at  least, 
that  a  man  so  well  versed  in  the 
minutiae  of  science  ventures  upon  so 
bold  a  style  of  generalisation.  After 
reviewing  some  of  the  more  lately  dis- 
covered properties  of  electricity,  heat, 
light,  and  magnetism,  and  showing 
how  each  of  them  is  capable  of  pro- 
ducing or  resolving  itself  into  the 
others,  he  reasons  that  all  the  four 
are  but  the  varied  activity  of  one  and 
the  same  element.  He  adds,  that 
this  element  is  probably  no  other  than 
the  primitive  atom  itself;  and  that, 
in  fact,  these  may  be  all  regarded 
as  affections  of  matter,  which  follow 
in  their  legal  sequence,  and  not  as  the 
results  of  separate  fluids  or  ethers. 
We  are  not  sure  that  we  do  justice  to 
his  views,  as  we  have  not  the  work  at 
hand,  and  it  is  some  time  since  we 
read  it;  but  we  are  persuaded  that 
its  perusal  will  be  of  interest  to  a 
philosophic  reader,  though  its  reason- 
ing should  fail  to  satisfy  him. 

But  we  have  not  placed  the  title  of 
Mrs  Somerville's  book  at  the  head  of 
this  paper,  as  an  occasion  to  involve 
ourselves  in  these  dark  and  abstract 
discussions.  We  are  for  out-of-door 
life ;  we  would  survey  this  visible 
round  world,  whose  various  regions, 
with  their  products  and  their  inhabi- 
tants, she  has  brought  before  us. 

"  Physical  geography,"  thus  commences 
our  writer,  "is  a  description  of  the  earth, 
the  sea,  and  the  air,  with  their  inhabi- 
tants animal  and  vegetable,  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  these  organised  beings,  and 
the  causes  of  that  distribution.  Political 
and  arbitrary  divisions  are  disregarded  : 
the  sea  and  the  land  are  considered  only 
with  respect  to  these  great  features,  that 
have  been  stamped  upon  them  by  the 
hand  of  the  Almighty  ;  and  man  himself 
is  viewed  but  as  a  fellow-inhabitant  of 
the  globe  with  other  created  things,  yet 
influencing  them  to  a  certain  extent  by 
his  actions,  and  influenced  in  return." 

Physical  geography  stands  thus  in 


1849.] 


Physical  Geography. 


4G1 


contrast  with  political  and  historical 
geography.  Kussia  is  here  no  despot- 
ism, and  America  no  democracy ;  they 
are  only  portions  of  the  globe  inha- 
bited by  certain  races.  To  some  per- 
sons it  will  doubtless  seem  a  strange 
"  geography"  that  takes  no  notice  of 
the  city,  and  respects  not  at  all  the 
boundaries  of  states.  Those  to  whom 
the  name  recalls  only  the  early  labours 
of  the  school-room,  when  counties  and 
county-towns  formed  a  great  branch 
of  learning — where  the  blue  and  red 
lines  upon  the  map  were  so  anxiously 
traced,  and  where,  doubtless,  some 
suspicion  arose  that  the  earth  itself 
was  marked  out  by  corresponding 
lines,  or  something  equivalent  to  them 
— will  hardly  admit  that  to  be  geo- 
graphy which  takes  no  note  of  these 
essential  demarcations,  or  allow  that 
to  be  a  map  in  which  the  very  city 
they  live  in  cannot  be  found.  To  them 
the  Physical  Atlas  will  still  seem  no- 
thing but  a  series  of  maps,  in  which 
most  of  the  names  have  still  to  be 
inserted.  They  unconsciously  regard 
cities  and  provinces  as  the  primary 
objects  and  natural  divisions  of  the 
earth.  They  share  something  of  the 
feeling  of  that  good  man,  more  pious 
than  reflective,  who  noted  it  as  an 
especial  providence  that  all  the  great 
rivers  ran  by  the  great  towns. 

Others,  however,  will  be  glad  to 
escape  for  a  time  from  these  land- 
marks which  man  has  put  upon  the 
earth,  and  to  regard  it  in  its  great 
natural  lineaments  of  continent  and 
sea,  mountain  and  island.  To  do  this 
with  advantage,  it  is  necessary  to  dis- 
embarrass ourselves,  both  in  the  book 
and  the  map,  of  much  that  in  our 
usual  nomenclature  ranks  pre-emi- 
nently as  geography.  Nor  is  it  easy 
to  study  this,  more  than  the  older 
branch  of  geography,  without  an  ap- 
propriate atlas.  To  turn  over  the 
maps  of  Mr  Johnston's,  and  con  the 
varied  information  which  accompanies 
them,  is  itself  a  study,  and  no  dis- 
agreeable one.  Of  the  extent  of  this 
information  we  can  give  no  idea  by 
extract  or  quotation ;  it  is  manifestly 
in  too  condensed  a  form  for  quota- 
tion ;  it  is  a  perfect  storehouse  of 
knowledge,  gathered  from  the  best 
authorities. 

The  first   thing  which   strikes  an 
observant  person,  on  looking  over  a 


map,  or  turning  round  a  globe,  is  the 
nn  equal  division  and  distribution  of 
land  and  water.  Over  little  more 
than  one-fourth  of  the  surface  of  the 
earth  does  dry  land  appear ;  the  re- 
maining three-fourths  are  overflowed 
by  water.  And  this  land  is  by  no 
means  equally  disposed  over  the 
globe.  Far  the  greater  part  of  it  lies 
in  the  northern  hemisphere.  "  In  the 
northern  hemisphere  it  is  three  times 
greater  than  the  south." 

Of  the  form  which  this  land  as- 
sumes, the  following  peculiarities  have 
been  noticed : — 

"  The  tendency  of  the  land  to  assume 
a  peninsular  form  is  very  remarkable, 
and  it  is  still  more  so  that  almost  all  the 
peninsulas  tend  to  the  south — circum- 
stances that  depend  on  some  unknown 
cause  which  seems  to  have  acted  very 
extensively.  The  continents  of  South 
America,  Africa,  and  Greenland,  are 
peninsulas  on  a  gigantic  scale,  all  tending 
to  the  south  ;  the  Asiatic  peninsula  of 
India,  the  Indo-Chinese  peninsula,  those 
of  Corea,  Kamtchatka,  of  Florida,  Califor- 
nia, and  Aliaska,  in  North  America,  as 
well  as  the  European  peninsulas  of  Nor- 
way and  Sweden,  Spain  and  Portugal, 
Italy  and  Greece,  take  the  same  direc- 
tion. All  the  latter  have  a  rounded  form 
except  Italy,  whereas  most  of  the  others 
terminate  sharply,  especially  the  conti- 
nents of  South  America  and  Africa,  India 
and  Greenland,  which  have  the  pointed 
form  of  wedges;  while  some  are  long  and 
narrow,  as  California,  Aliaska,  and  Ma- 
lacca. Many  of  the  peninsulas  have  an 
island,  or  group  of  islands,  at  their  extre- 
mity— as  South  America,  which  terminates 
with  the  group  of  Terra  del  Fuego;  India 
has  Ceylon;  Malacca  has  Sumatra  and 
Banca;  the  southern  extremity  of  New 
Holland  ends  in  Van  Diemen's  Land;  a, 
chain  of  islands  run  from  the  end  of  the 
peninsula  of  Aliaska;  Greenland  has  a 
group  of  islands  at  its  extremity;  and 
Sicily  lies  close  to  the  termination  of 
Italy.  It  has  been  observed,  as  another 
peculiarity  in  the  structure  of  peninsulas, 
that  they  generally  terminate  boldly,  in 
bluffs,  promontories,  or  mountains,  which 
are  often  the  last  portions  of  the  conti- 
nental chains.  South  America  terminates 
in  Cape  Horn,  a  high  promontory  which 
is  the  visible  termination  of  the  Andes; 
Africa  with  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope ;  India 
with  Cape  Comorin,  the  last  of  the 
Ghauts;  New  Holland  ends  with  South- 
East  Cape  in  Van  Diemen's  Land ;  and 
Greenland's  farthest  point  is  the  elevated 
bluff  of  Cape  Farewell." 


462 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


These  are  peculiarities  interesting 
to  notice,  and  which  may  hereafter 
explain,  or  be  explained  by,  other 
phenomena.  Resemblances  and  ana- 
logies of  this  kind,  whilst  they  are 
permitted  only  to  direct  and  stimulate 
inquiry,  have  their  legitimate  place  in 
science.  It  was  a  resemblance  of  this 
description,  between  the  zig-zag  course 
of  the  metalliferous  veins,  and  the  path 
of  the  lightning,  which  first  suggested 
the  theory,  based,  of  course,  on  very 
different  reasonings,  that  electricity 
had  essentially  contributed  to  the  for- 
mation of  those  veins — a  theory  which 
Mrs  Somerville  has  considered  suf- 
ficiently sound  to  introduce  into  her 
work. 

What  lies  within  our  globe  is  still 
matter  of  conjecture.  The  radius  of 
the  earth  is  4000  miles,  and  by  one 
means  or  another,  mining,  and  the 
examination  of  the  upheaved  strata, 
and  of  what  volcanoes  have  thrown 
out,  we  are  supposed  to  have  pene- 
trated, with  speculative  vision,  to  about 
the  depth  of  ten  miles. 

"  The  increase  of  temperature,"  writes 
Mrs  Somerville, "with  the  depth belowthe 
surface  of  the  earth,  and  the  tremendous 
desolation  hurled  over  wide  regions  by 
numerous  fire-breathing  mountains,  show 
that  man  is  removed  but  a  few  miles  from 
immense  lakes  or  seas  of  liquid  fire.  The 
very  shell  on  which  he  stands  is  unstable 
under  his  feet,  not  only  from  those  tem- 
porary convulsions  that  seem  to  shake  the 
globe  to  its  centre,  but  from  a  slow,  almost 
imperceptible,  elevation  in  some  places, 
and  an  equally  gentle  subsidence  in  others, 
as  if  the  internal  molten  matter  were  sub- 
ject to  secular  tides,  now  heaving  and  now 
ebbing ;  or  that  the  subjacent  rocks  were 
in  one  place  expanded  and  in  another 
contracted  by  changes  in  temperature." 

Perhaps  these  "immense  lakes  or 
seas  of  liquid  fire "  are  a  little  too 
hastily  set  down  here  in  our  geography. 
But  of  these  obscure  regions  beneath 
the  earth,  the  student  must  understand 
he  can  share  only  in  the  best  conjec- 
tures of  scientific  men.  Geology  is 
compelled,  at  present,  in  many  cases, 
to  content  herself  with  intelligent  con- 
jecture. 

To  return  again  to  the  surface  of 
the  earth,  the  first  grand  spectacle 
that  strikes  us  is  the  mountains.  Be- 
fore it  was  understood  how  the  moun- 
tain was  the  parent  of  the  river,  the 
noble  elevation  was  apt  to  be  regard- 


ed in  the  light  of  a  ruin,  as  evidence 
of  some  disastrous  catastrophe  ;  and 
Burnett,  in  his  Theory  of  the  Earth, 
conceived  the  ideal  or  normal  state  of 
our  planet  to  be  that  of  a  smooth  ball, 
smooth  as  an  egg.  The  notion  not 
only  betrays  the  low  state  of  scien- 
tific knowledge  in  his  age,  but  a 
miserable  taste  in  world-architec- 
ture, which,  we  may  remark  in  excuse 
for  poor  Burnett,  was,  almost  as  much 
as  his  scientific  ignorance,  to  be  shared 
with  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  For 
it  is  surprising,  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  poets,  how  destitute  men 
were,  in  his  time,  of  all  sympathy 
with,  and  admiration  of,  the  grander 
and  more  sublime  objects  of  nature. 
"  We  have  changed  all  that ! "  The 
mountain  range,  pouring  down  its 
streams  into  the  valleys  on  both  sides, 
is  not  only  recognised  as  necessary  to 
the  fertility  of  the  plain  ;  but,  strange 
to  say,  we  become  more  and  more 
awake  to  its  surprising  beauty  and 
magnificence.  The  description  of  the 
mountain  ranges  of  the  several  con- 
tinents of  the  world,  forms  one  of  the 
principal  attractions  of  the  study  of 
physical  geography,  and  one  of  the 
great  charms  of  Mrs  Somerville's  book. 
The  mountains  of  Asia  take  prece- 
dence of  all  others  in  altitude  and 
length  of  range. 

"  The  mean  height  of  the  Himalaya  is 
stupendous.  Captain  Gerard  and  hig 
brother  estimated  that  it  could  not  be  less 
than  from  16,000  to  20,000  feet;  but,  from 
the  average  elevation  of  the  passes  over 
these  mountains,  Baron  Humboldt  thinks 
it  must  be  under  15,700  feet.  Colonel 
Sabine  estimates  it  to  be  only  11,510  feet, 
though  the  peaks  exceeding  that  eleva- 
tion are  not  to  be  numbered,  especially 
at  the  sources  of  the  Sutlej.  Indeed,  from 
that  river  to  the  Kalee,  the  chain  ex- 
hibits an  endless  succession  of  the  loftiest 
mountains  on  earth  :  forty  of  them  sur- 
pass the  height  of  Chimborazo,  one  of  the 
highest  of  the  Andes,  and  several  reach 
the  height  of  25,000  feet  at  least.  .  . 
The  valleys  are  crevices  so  deep  and  nar- 
row, and  the  mountains  that  hang  over 
them  in  menacing  cliffs  are  so  lofty, 
that  these  abysses  are  shrouded  in  perpe- 
tual gloom,  except  where  the  rays  of  a  ver- 
tical sun  penetrate  their  depths.  From  the 
steepness  of  the  descent  the  rivers  shoot 
down  with  the  swiftness  of  an  arrow,  fill- 
ing the  caverns  with  foam  and  the  air 
with  mist. 

'•'  Most  of  the  passes  over  the  Himalaya 


1849.] 


Physical  Geography. 


are  but  little  lower  than  the  top  of  Mont 
Blanc  ;  many  are  higher,  especially  near 
the  Sutlej,  where  they  are  from  18,000  to 
19,000  feet  high  ;  and  that  north-east  of 
Khoonawur  is  20,000  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  sea,  the  highest  that  has  been  at- 
tempted. All  are  terrific,  and  the  fatigue 
and  suffering  from  the  rarity  of  the  air  in 
the  last  500  feet  is  not  to  be  described. 
Animals  are  as  much  distressed  as  human 
beings,  and  many  of  them  die  ;  thousands 
of  birds  perish  from  the  violence  of  the 
winds ;  the  drifting  snow  is  often  fatal  to 
travellers,  and  violent  thunder-storms  add 
to  the  horror  of  the  journey.  The  Niti 
Pass,  by  which  Mr  Moorcroft  ascended  to 
the  sacred  lake  of  Manasa,  in  Tibet,  is 
tremendous  :  he  and  his  guide  had  not 
only  to  walk  bare-footed,  from  the  risk  of 
slipping,  but  they  were  obliged  to  creep 
along  the  most  frightful  chasms,  holding 
by  twigs  and  tufts  of  grass,  and  sometimes 
they  crossed  deep  and  awful  crevices  on 
a  branch  of  a  tree,  or  on  loose  stones 
thrown  across.  Yet  these  are  the 
thoroughfares  for  commerce  in  the  Hima- 
laya, never  repaired,  nor  susceptible  of 
improvement,  from  frequent  landslips  and 
torrents. 

"  The  loftiest  peaks,  being  bare-of  snow, 
give  great  variety  of  colour  and  beauty 
to  the  scenery,  which  in  these  passes  is 
at  all  times  magnificent.  During  the  day, 
the  stupendous  size  of  the  mountains,  their 
interminable  extent,  the  variety  and 
sharpness  of  their  forms,  and,  above  all, 
the  tender  clearness  of  their  distant  out- 
line melting  into  the  pale  blue  sky,  con- 
trasted with  the  deep  azure  above,  is  de- 
scribed as  a  scene  of  wild  and  wonderful 
beauty.  At  midnight,  when  myriads  of 
stars  sparkle  in  the  black  sky,  and  the 
pure  blue  of  the  mountains  looks  deeper 
still  below  the  pale  white  gleam  of  the 
earth  and  snowlight,  the  effect  is  of  un- 
paralleled sublimity; and  no  language  can 
-describe  the  splendour  of  the  sunbeams 
at  daybreak  streaming  between  the  high 
peaks,  and  throwing  their  gigantic 
shadows  on  the  mountains  below.  There, 
far  above  the  habitation  of  man,  no  living 
thing  exists,  no  sound  is  heard  ;  the  very 
echo  of  the  traveller's  footsteps  startles 
him  in  the  awful  solitude  and  silence  that 
reigns  in  these  august  dwellings  of  ever- 
lasting snow." 

The  table-lands  of  Asia  are  on  a 
scale  corresponding  with  its  moun- 
tains. But  the  same  elevation,  it  is 
remarked,  is  not  accompanied  with 
the  same  sterility  in  these  parts  of  the 
•world,  as  in  the  temperate  zone.  Corn 
has  been  found  growing  at  heights 
exceeding  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc. 


463 

"  According  to  Mr  Moorcroft,  the 
sacred  lake  of  Manasa,  in  Great  Tibet, 
and  the  surrounding  country,  is  17,000 
feet  above  the  sea,  which  is  1240  feet 
higher  than  Mont  Blanc.  In  this  ele- 
vated region  wheat  and  barley  grow, 
and  many  of  the  fruits  of  Southern 
Europe  ripen.  The  city  of  H'Lassa, 
in  eastern  Tibet,  the  residence  of  the 
Grand  Lama,  is  surrounded  by  vine- 
yards, and  is  called  by  the  Chinese 
'  the  Realm  of  Pleasure ! ' "  Never- 
theless the  general  aspect  of  the  table- 
lands is  that  of  a  terrific  sterility. 
Here  is  a  striking  description  of  them. 
We  should  have  been  tempted  to  say, 
that  in  this  singularly  dark  appear- 
ance of  the  sky  at  mid-day,  there  was 
something  of  exaggeration,  if  our  own 
limited  experience  had  not  taught  us 
to  be  very  cautious  in  attributing  ex- 
aggeration where  the  scenic  effects  of 
nature  are  concerned. 

"  In  summer  the  sun  is  powerful  at 
mid-day;  the  air  is  of  the  purest  transpa- 
rency, and  the  azure  of  the  sky  so  deep 
that  it  seems  black  as  in  the  darkest 
night.  The  rising  moon  does  not  en- 
lighten the  atmosphere;  no  warning  radi- 
ance announces  her  approach,  till  her 
limb  touches  the  horizon,  and  the  stars 
shine  with  the  distinctness  and  bril- 
liancy of  suns.  In  southern  Tibet  the  ver- 
dure is  confined  to  favoured  spots  ;  the 
bleak  mountains  and  high  plains  are 
sternly  gloomy — a  scene  of  barrenness 
not  to  be  conceived.  Solitude  reigns  in 
these  dreary  wastes,  where  there  is  not  a 
tree,  nor  even  a  shrub  to  be  seen  of  more 
than  a  few  inches  high.  The  scanty, 
short-lived  verdure  vanishes  in  October  ; 
the  country  then  looks  as  if  fire  had  pass- 
ed over  it;  and  cutting  dry  winds  blow 
with  irresistible  fury,  howling  in  the  bare 
mountains,  whirling  the  snow  through 
the  air,  and  freezing  to  death  the  unfortu- 
nate traveller  benighted  in  their  defiles." 

The  description  of  the  territory  of 
the  East  India  Company  will  be  read 
with  interest.  We  cannot  afford  space 
to  extract  it.  Plains  and  valleys  the 
very  richest  in  the  globe  are  to  be 
found  here,  as  also  much  rank  marshy 
land,  and  also  much  jungle.  "  It  has 
been  estimated  that  a  third  of  the 
East  India  Company's  territory  is 
jungle." 

As  a  set-off  against  this  jungle  we 
have  it  intimated  that,  if  proper  search 
were  made,  gold  would  probably  be 
found  in  this  territory,  as  abundantly 
as  in  California.  We  sincerely  hope 


464 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


no  such  discovery  will  be  made.  If 
there  is  a  sure  specific  for  demoralis- 
ing a  people,  it  is  to  involve  them  in 
the  chase  for  gold,  instead  of  that  pro- 
fitable industry  which  produces  the 
veritable  wealth  for  which  gold  has 
become  the  symbol  and  representative. 
The  discovery  of  gold  in  one  of  our 
colonies  would  not  only  demoralise,  it 
would  impoverish.  It  would  demo- 
ralise, by  substituting  for  steady  in- 
dustry, with  steady  returns,  a  species 
of  enterprise  which  has  all  the  uncer- 
tainty and  fluctuation  of  gambling ; 
and  it  would  finally  impoverish  by 
diverting  labour  from  the  creation  of 
agricultural  and  manufacturing  wealth, 
to  the  obtaining  of  the  dry  barren 
symbol  of  wealth,  which,  apart  from  its 
representative  character,  has  but  very 
little  value  whatever. 

We  will  not  look  back  towards 
Chimborazo  and  the  Andes,  as  we 
should  involve  ourselves  in  long  and 
tempting  descriptions.  In  Africa,  it 
is  remarkable  that  we  are  little  ac- 
quainted with  the  mountains.  "  No 
European  has  yet  seen  the  Mountains 
of  the  Moon !"  What  a  challenge  to 
enterprising  travellers !  We  know  the 
level  sands  of  Africa  better  than  these 
elevations  which  have  assumed  so 
magnificent  a  title.  What  a  terrific 
sterility  does  a  large  portion  of  this 
the  most  ill-fated  of  the  great  conti- 
nents present !  "  On  the  interminable 
sands  and  rocks  of  these  deserts  no 
animal — no  insect — breaks  the  dread 
silence ;  not  a  tree  nor  a  shrub  is  to  be 
seen  in  this  land  without  a  shadow. 
In  the  glare  of  noon  the  air  quivers 
with  the  heat  reflected  from  the  red 
sand,  and  in  the  night  it  is  chilled 
under  a  clear  sky  sparkling  with  its 
host  of  stars."  The  wind  of  heaven, 
which  elsewhere  breathes  so  refresh- 
ingly, is  here  a  burning  blast  fatal  to 
life;  or  else  it  drives  the  sand  in  clouds 
before  it,  obscuring  the  sun,  and 
stifling  and  burying  the  hapless  cara- 
van. 

In  the  new  continent  of  America — 
if  it  still  retains  that  title — the  desert 
is  comparatively  rare.  But  its  enor- 
mous forests  have,  in  some  regions, 
proved  that  excessive  vegetation  can 
assume  almost  as  terrific  an  appear- 
ance as  this  interminable  sterility. 

"  The  forests  of  the  Amazons  not  only 
cover  the  basin  of  that  river,  from  the  Cor- 


dillera of  Chiquitos  to  the  mountains  of 
Parima,  but  also  its  limiting  mountain- 
chains,  the  Sierra  Dos  Vertentes  and 
Parima,  so  that  the  whole  forms  an  area 
of  woodland  more  than  six  times  the  size 
of  France,  lying  between  the  1 8th  parallel 
of  south  latitude  and  the  7th  of  north, 
consequently  inter-tropical  and  traversed 
by  the  equator.  According  to  Baron  Hum- 
boldt,  the  soil,  enriched  for  ages  by  the 
spoils  of  the  forest,  consists  of  the  richest 
mould.  The  heat  is  suffocating  in  the 
deep  and  dark  recesses  of  these  primeval 
woods,  where  not  a  breath  of  air  pene- 
trates, and  where,  after  being  drenched 
by  the  periodical  rains,  the  damp  is  so  ex- 
cessive that  a  blue  mist  rises  in  the  early 
morning  among  the  huge  stems  of  the 
trees,  and  envelops  the  entangled  creepers 
stretching  from  bough  to  bough.  A  death- 
like stillness  prevails  from  sunrise  to  sun- 
set, then  the  thousands  of  animals  that  in- 
habit these  forests  join  in  one  loud  discor- 
dant roar,  not  continuous,  but  in  bursts. 
The  beasts  seem  to  be  periodically  and 
unanimously  roused  by  some  unknown  im- 
pulse, till  the  forests  ring  in  universal 
uproar.  Profound  silence  prevails  at 
midnight,  which  is  broken  at  the  dawn  of 
morning  by  another  general  roar  of  the 
wild  chorus.  The  whole  forest  often  re- 
sounds when  the  animals,  startled  from. 
their  sleep,  scream  in  terror  at  the  noise 
made  by  bands  of  its  inhabitants  flying 
from  some  night-prowling  foe.  Their 
anxiety  and  terror  before  a  thunder-storm 
is  excessive,  and  all  nature  seems  to  par- 
take in  the  dread.  The  tops  of  the  lofty 
trees  rustle  ominously,  though  not  a 
breath  of  air  agitates  them;  a  hollow 
whistling  in  the  high  regions  of  the  atmo- 
sphere comes  as  a  warning  from  the  black 
floating  vapour;  midnight  darkness  enve- 
lops the  ancient  forests,  which  soon  after 
groan  and  creak  with  the  blast  of  the 
hurricane.  The  gloom  is  rendered  still 
more  hideous  by  the  vivid  lightning,  and 
the  stunning  crash  of  thunder." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  subjects, 
of  which  mention  is  made  in  the  work 
before  us,  is  the  gradual  elevation  and 
subsidence  observed  in  some  portions 
of  these  continents  themselves.  Just 
when  the  imagination  had  become 
somewhat  familiar  with  the  sudden 
but  very  partial  upheaving  of  the  earth 
by  volcanic  agencies,  this  new  disco- 
very came  to  light  of  the  slow  rising 
and  sinking  of  vast  areas  of  the  land, 
and  unaccompanied  with  any  earth- 
quakes or  volcanic  eruptions.  In 
some  parts  the  crust  of  the  earth  has 
sunk  and  risen  again;  in  others, 


1849.] 


Physical  Geography. 


sort  of  see-saw  movement  on  a  most 
gigantic  scale  has  been  detected. 

"  There  is  a  line  crossing  Sweden  from 
east  to  west,  in  the  parallel  of  56°  3'  N. 
lat.,  along  which  the  ground  is  perfectly 
stable,  and  has  been  so  for  centuries.  To 
the  north  of  it  for  1000  miles,  between 
Gottenburg  and  North  Cape,  the  ground 
is  rising;  the  maximum  elevation,  which 
takes  place  at  North  Cape,  being  at  the 
rate  of  five  feet  in  a  century,  from  whence 
it  gradually  diminishes  to  three  inches  in 
a  century  at  Stockholm.  South  of  the 
line  of  stability,  on  the  contrary,  the  laud 
is  sinking  through  part  of  Christianstad 
and  Malmo ;  for  the  village  of  Stassten  in 
Scania  is  now  380  feet  nearer  to  the 
Baltic  than  it  was  in  the  time  of  Linnaeus, 
by  whom  it  was  measured  eighty-seven 
years  ago." 

It  is  evident  that  the  elevation  of 
the  land,  in  relation  to  the  level  of  the 
sea,  may  be  produced  either  by  an 
uprising  of  the  continent  or  a  depres- 
sion of  the  bed  of  the  ocean,  permit- 
ting the  waters  to  sink  ;  as  also  the 
apparent  depression  of  the  land  may 
be  occasioned  by  an  elevation  in  the 
bed  of  the  ocean.  This  renders  the 
problem  somewhat  more  difficult  to 
solve,  because  the  causes  we  are  seek- 
ing to  discover  may  be  sometimes 
operating  at  that  part  of  the  crust  of 
the  earth  which  is  concealed  from  our 
view.  Mr  Lyell,  who,  in  his  Prin- 
ciples of  Geology,  has  collected  and 
investigated  the  facts  bearing  upon 
this  subject,  mentions  the  following 
as  probable  causes  of  the  pheno- 
mena : — 

1.  "It  is  easy  to  conceive   that   the 
shattered  rocks  may  assume  an  arched 
form  during  a  convulsion,  so   that  the 
country  above  may  remain  permanently 
upheaved.     In  other  cases,  gas  may  drive 
before  it  masses  of  liquid   lava,  which 
may  thus  be  injected  into  newly  opened 
fissures.     The  gas  having  then  obtained 
more  room,  by  the  forcing  up  of  the  in- 
cumbent rocks,  may  remain  at  rest;  while 
the   lava,  congealing  in  the  rents,  may 
afford  a  solid  foundation  for  the  newly 
raised  district. 

2.  "  Experiments  have  recently  been 
made  in  America  by  Colonel  Patten,  to 
ascertain  the  ratio  according  to  which 
some  of  the   stones  commonly  used  in 
architecture    expand  with  given  incre- 
ments of  heat.     .    .     .     Now,  according 
to  the  law  of  expansion  thus  ascertained, 


a  mass  of  sandstone,  a  mile  in  thickness, 
which  should  have  its  temperature  raised 
200°  F.,  would  lift  a  super-imposed  layer 
of  rock  to  the  height  of  ten  feet  above  its 
former  level.  But,  suppose  a  part  of  the 
earth's  crust  one  hundred  miles  in  thick- 
ness, and  equally  expansible,  to  have  its 
temperature  raised  600°  or  800%  this 
might  produce  an  elevation  of  between 
two  and  three  thousand  feet.  The  cool- 
ing of  the  same  mass  might  afterwards 
cause  the  overlying  rocks  to  sink  down 
again,  and  resume  their  original  position. 
By  such  agency,  we  might  explain  the 
gradual  rise  of  Scandinavia,  or  the  subsi- 
dence of  Greenland,  if  this  last  pheno- 
menon should  also  be  established  as  a  fact 
on  further  inquiry. 

3."  It  is  also  possible  that,  as  the  clay 
in  Wedgwood's  pyrometer  contracts,  by 
giving  off  its  water,  and  then  by  incipient 
vitrification  ;  so  large  masses  of  argilla- 
ceous strata,  in  the  earth's  interior,  may 
shrink,  when  subjected  to  heat  and  che- 
mical changes,  and  allow  the  incumbent 
rocks  to  subside  gradually.  It  may  fre- 
quently happen  that  fissures  of  great  ex- 
tent may  be  formed  in  rocks,  simply  by 
the  unequal  expansion  of  a  continuous 
mass  heated  in  one  part,  while  in  another 
it  remains  in  a  comparatively  low  temper- 
ature. The  sudden  subsidence  of  land 
may  also  be  occasioned  by  subterranean 
caverns  giving  way,  when  gases  are  con- 
densed, or  when  they  escape  through 
newly  formed  crevices.  The  subtraction, 
moreover,  of  matter  from  certain  parts  of 
the  interior,  by  the  flowing  of  lava  and  of 
mineral  springs,  must,  in  the  course  of 
ages,  cause  vacuities  below,  so  that  the 
undermined  surface  may  at  length  fall 
in."* 

Two  agencies  of  the  most  opposite 
character  have  apparently  been,  at  all 
times,  acting  on  the  crust  of  the  earth 
to  change  its  form,  or  add  to  the  sur- 
face of  dry  land — the  volcano  and  the 
insect ! — the  one  the  most  sudden  and 
violent  imaginable,  producing  in  a 
short  time  the  most  astonishing  effects ; 
the  other  gradual,  silent,  and  imper- 
ceptible, yet  leaving  the  most  stu- 
pendous monuments  of  its  activity. 
The  volcano  has  thrown  up  a  moun- 
tain in  a  single  night ;  there  is  an  in- 
stance, too,  011  record,  where  a  moun- 
tain has  quite  a»  suddenly  disappeared, 
destroying  itself  in  its  own  violent 
combustion,  and  breaking  up  with  re- 
peated and  terrific  explosions.  On 
the  other  hand,  besides  what  has  been 


*  LyelPs  Principles  of  Geology,  p.  536. 


466 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


long  known  of  the  works  of  the  coral 
insect,  the  microscope  has  revealed  to 
us  that  huge  cliffs  have  been  con- 
structed of  the  minute  fossil  shells  of 
animalcule.  These  creatures,  abstract- 
ing from  the  water,  or  the  air,  or  both, 
the  minute  particles  of  vegetable  or 
other  matter  they  hold  in  solution, 
first  frame  of  them  their  own  siliceous 
shells,  and  then  deposit  these  shells 
by  myriads,  so  as  ultimately  to  con- 
struct enormous  solid  mounds  out  of 
imperceptible  and  fluent  particles. 

Astonishing,  indeed,  is  the  new 
world  of  animals  invisible  to  the  naked 
eye,  which  science  has  lately  de- 
tected. 

"  Professor  Ehrenberg,"  says  Mrs 
Somerville,  "has  discovered  a  new  world 
of  creatures  in  the  infusoria,  so  minute 
that  they  are  invisible  to  the  naked  eye. 
He  found  them  in  fog,  rain,  and  snow,  in 
the  ocean  and  stagnant  water,  in  animal 
and  vegetable  juices,  in  volcanic  ashes 
and  pumice,  in  opal,  in  the  dusty  air  that 
sometimes  falls  on  the  ocean  ;  and  he  de- 
tected eighteen  species  twenty  feet  below 
the  surface  of  the  ground  in  peat  earth, 
which  was  full  of  microscopic  live  animals: 
they  exist  in  ice,  and  are  not  killed  by 
boiling  water.  This  lowest  order  of  ani- 
mal life  is  much  more  abundant  than  any 
other,  and  new  species  are  found  every 
day.  Magnified,  some  of  them  seein  to 
consist  of  a  transparent  vesicle,  and  some 
have  a  tail;  they  move  with  great  alacrity, 
and  show  intelligence  by  avoiding  ob- 
stacles in  their  course:  others  have  sili- 
ceous shells.  Language,  and  even  ima- 
gination, fails  in  the  attempt  to  describe 
•the  inconceivable  myriads  of  these  in- 
visible inhabitants  of  the  ocean,  the  air, 
and  the  earth." 

With  every  great  change,  however 
brought  about,  in  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  and  the  climate  of  its  several 
regions,  it  appears  that,  either  by  the 
direct  agency  of  the  Omnipotent 
Creator,  or  through  the  intermediate 
operations  of  laws  which  are  at  present 
profoundsecrets  to  us,  a  corresponding 
change  takes  place  in  the  forms  of 
animal  life,  and  in  the  whole  vegetable 
kingdom.  Modern  science  presents 
no  subject  to  us  of  more  interest  than 
this,  and  none  apparently  so  inscrut- 
able. Nor  does  the  examination  of 
the  globe,  as  it  exists  before  us  at  this 
moment,  with  its  various  floras  and 
faunas,  at  all  assist  us  in  forming  any 
conception  of  the  law  by  which  the 


geological  series  (if  we  may  so  term 
it)  of  animal  life  has  been  regulated, 
for  the  distribution  of  the  several 
animals  over  the  several  countries  and 
climates  of  the  world  follows  no  rule 
that  one  can  detect.  Of  course,  no 
animal  can  exist  where  provision  has 
not  been  made  for  its  subsistence,  but 
the  provision  has  been  made  with  the 
same  abundance  in  two  countries,  and 
in  the  one  the  animal  is  found,  and 
the  other  not.  "We  should  ask  in 
vain  why  the  horse  was  found  a  na- 
tive of  the  deserts  of  Tartary,  and 
why  it  was  originally  unknown  to  the 
plains  of  America?  Nor  can  any 
cause  be  detected  for  the  difference 
between  the  congeners,  a  representa- 
tive species  of  one  continent  or  island, 
and  those  of  another.  And  not  only 
have  the  larger  animals  an  arbitrary 
territory  marked  out  to  them  by  na- 
ture, but  birds,  and  even  insects,  are 
separated  and  grouped  together  in  the 
same  unaccountable  manner.  The 
chapters  which  Mrs  Somerville  has 
devoted  to  this  subject  will  be  read, 
especially  by  those  to  whom  the  topic 
is  new,  with  extreme  interest.  They 
are  enlightened  and  judicious. 

It  is  a  natural  supposition  to  make, 
that,  in  the  series  of  animals  which  at 
great  geological  periods  have  been 
introduced  upon  the  earth,  there  has 
been  a  progression,  so  that  each  new 
form  of  animal  life  has  been,  in  some 
marked  manner,  superior  to  that  which 
is  substituted.  The  comparative  ana- 
tomist has  not  sanctioned  this  opinion ; 
he  tells  us  that  he  finds  the  same  "high 
organisation"  in  the  fossil  saurians  of 
a  by-gone  world,  as  in  the  lions  and 
leopards  of  the  present  day.  But 
we  would  observe  that  the  presence 
of  this  "  high  organisation  "  is  not 
sufficient  to  determine  the  question. 
We  should  be  surprised,  indeed,  if 
any  creature  were  to  be  found  whose 
structure  was  not  perfectly  adapted 
to  the  mode  of  life  it  was  destined  to 
lead.  But  it  is  permissible  to  com- 
pare one  animal  with  another  in  its 
whole  nature,  and  the  character  of  its 
existence.  The  pig  has  the  same 
high  organisation  as  the  dog,  yet  we 
should  certainly  prefer  the  one  animal 
to  the  other ;  we  should  say  that  it 
was  calculated  for  a  happier  life.  We 
cannot  suppose  that  a  bird  is  not  a 
more  joyous  creature  than  the  worm  or 


1819.] 


Physical  Geography. 


407 


the  snail.  The  adaptation  of  the  whole 
form  and  structure  to  a  pleasurable 
existence,  and  not  what  is  termed  high 
organisation,  is  that  which  we  must 
regard,  in  estimating  the  superiority  of 
one  animal  to  another.  Now,  in  this 
respect,  there  surely  has  been  a  pro- 
gression from  the  earliest  epochs. 
The  crocodile  and  the  tortoise  are, 
amongst  the  animals  which  now  exist, 
those  which  most  resemble  some  of 
the  more  remarkable  of  the  extinct 
genera.  They  are  as  perfectly 
adapted,  no  doubt,  as  any  other  crea- 
ture, to  their  peculiar  mode  of 
being  ;  but  that  mode  of  being  is  not 
an  enviable  one.  The  long  stiff  un- 
wieldy body  of  the  one,  and  the  slow 
movement,  with  the  oppressive  car- 
case, of  the  other,  are  not  consistent 
with  vivid  animal  enjoyment.  The 
crocodile,  accordingly,  lies  motionless 
for  hours  together — waits  for  its  prey 
—and  slumbers  gorged  with  food. 
And  for  the  tortoise,  it  appears  to 
lead  a  life  as  near  to  perpetual  torpor 
as  may  be.  Pass  through  a  museum, 
and  note  those  huger  animals,  the 
elephant  and  the  rhinoceros,  the  seal 
or  walrus,  all  those  which  most 
remind  us  of  the  gigantic  creatures  of 
the  antediluvian  world,  and  compare 
them  with  the  horse,  the  deer,  the 
dog,  the  antelope.  Surely  the  latter 
present  to  us  a  type  of  animal  life 
superior  to  the  former — superior,  inas- 
much as  the  latter  are  altogether  cal- 
culated for  a  more  vivacious,  sprightly, 
and  happy  existence.  We  must  jiot 
venture  to  remark  on  their  greater 
comparative  beauty,  for  we  shall  be 
told  that  this  is  a  matter  for  our  own 
peculiar  taste.  We  should  not  be 
contented  to  be  so  easily  silenced  on 
this  head,  but  we  should  require  far 
more  space  than  we  have  now  at  our 
disposal  to  defend  our  aesthetic  notions. 
We  have  found  ourselves  imper- 
ceptibly conducted  from  the  inani- 
mate to  the  animate  creation ;  we 
shall  proceed,  therefore,  with  the  same 
topic,  in  the  few  farther  extracts  we 
shall  be  able  to  make  from  the  work 
before  us.  Indeed,  with  so  vast  a 
subject,  and  so  brief  a  space,  it  would 
be  idle  to  affect  any  great  precision 
in  the  arrangement  of  our  topics; 
enough  if  they  follow  without  abrupt- 
ness, and  are  linked  together  by 
natural  associations  of  thought. 


"Three  hundred  thousand  insects 
are  known  !  "  and  every  day.  we  were 
almost  going  to  add,  increases  the 
number.  They  abound,  as  may  be 
expected,  in  equatorial  regions,  and 
decrease  towards  the  poles.  "The 
location  of  insects  depends  upon  that 
of  the  plants  which  yield  their  food  ; 
and  as  almost  each  plant  is  peopled 
with  inhabitants  peculiar  to  itself, 
insects  are  distributed  over  the  earth 
in  the  same  manner  as  vegetables ; 
the  groups,  consequently,  are  often 
confined  within  narrow  limits,  and  it  is 
extraordinary  that,  notwithstanding 
their  powers  of  locomotion,  they  often 
remain  within  a  particular  compass, 
though  the  plant,  and  all  other  cir- 
cumstancesin  their  immediate  vicinity, 
appear  equally  favourable  for  their 
habitation." 

Mountain-chains,  Mrs  Somerville 
observes,  are  a  complete  barrier  to 
insects ;  they  differ  even  in  the  two 
sides  of  the  Col  de  Tende  in  the  Alps, 
and  they  are  limited  in  the  choice  of 
their  food.  If  a  plant  is  taken  to  a 
country  where  it  has  no  congeners,  it 
will  be  safe  from  the  insects  of  that 
country ;  but  if  it  has  congeners,  the 
insect  inhabitants  will  soon  find  the 
way  to  it.  Our  cabbages  and  carrots, 
when  transplanted  to  Cayenne,  were 
not  injured  by  the  insects  of  that 
country;  and  the  tulip  tree,'and  other 
magnolias  brought  here,  are  not  mo- 
lested by  our  insects. 

The  insect  is  a  race,  or  order,  of 
creatures  not  friendly  to  man,  or  any 
of  the  larger  animals. 

•  "  The  mosquito  and  culex  are  spread 
over  the  world  more  generally  than  any 
other  tribe  ;  they  are  the  torment  of  men 
and  animals  from  the  poles  to  the  equa- 
tor, by  night  and  by  day  ;  the  species  are 
numerous,  and  their  location  partial. 
...  Of  all  places  on  earth,  the  Orinoco 
and  other  great  rivers  of  tropical  America , 
are  the  most  obnoxious  to  this  plague. 
The  account  given  by  Baron  Humboldt  is 
really  fearful  ;  at  no  season  of  the  year, 
at  no  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  can  rest 
be  found ;  whole  districts  in  the  Upper 
Orinoco  are  deserted  on  account  of  these 
insects.  Different  species  follow  one 
another  with  such  precision,  that  the 
time  of  day  or  night  may  be  known  ac- 
curately from  their  humming  noise,  and 
from  the  different  sensations  of  pain  which 
thedifferent  poisons  produce.  The  only 


468 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


respite  is  the  interval  of  a  few  minutes 
between  the  departure  of  one  gang  and 
the  arrival  of  their  successors,  for  the 
species  do  not  mix.  On  some  parts  of 
the  Orinoco,  the  air  is  one  dense  cloud  of 
poisonous  insects  to  the  height  of  twenty 
feet." 

The  sea,  as  well  as  the  air,  is  popu- 
lous with  insect  life.  The  discoloured 
portions  of  the  ocean  generally  owe 
their  tint  to  myriads  of  insects.  The 
vermilion  sea  off  California  is  pro- 
bably to  be  accounted  for  from  this 
cause,  "  as  Mr  Darwin  found  red 
and  chocolate-coloured  water  on  the 
coast  of  Chili,  over  spaces  of  several 
square  miles,  full  of  microscopic  ani- 
malcules, darting  about  in  every  direc- 
tion, and  sometimes  exploding" — we 
hope  for  joy.  "  In  the  Arctic  seas, 
where  the  water  is  pure  transparent 
ultramarine  colour,  parts  of  twenty  or 
thirty  square  miles,  one  thousand  five 
hundred  feet  deep,  are  green  and 
turbid,  from  the  quantity  of  minute 
animalcules.  Captain  Scoresby  calcu- 
lated that  it  would  require  eighty 
thousand  persons  working  unceasingly, 
from  the  creation  of  man  to  the  pre- 
sent day,  to  count  the  number  of  in- 
sects contained  in  two  miles  of  the 
green  water." 

Captain  Scoresby  must  be  very  fond 
of  calculations.  We  have  noticed,  by 
the  way,  on  several  occasions,  how 
very  bold  these  men  of  figures  are ! 
One  pounds  and  pulverises  the  Pyre- 
nees, and  strews  them  over  France, 
and  tells  us  how  many  feet  this  would 
raise  the  level  of  the  whole  country. 
Another  calculates  how  much  soil  the 
Mississippi  brings  down,  per  hour,  to 
the  ocean  ;  and  another,  still  bolder, 
undertakes  to  say  what  quantity  of 
ice  lies  amongst  the  whole  range  of 
the  Alps.  Some  of  these  calculations 
are  laborious  inutilities,  as  it  is  evi- 
dent that  no  accurate  data  can  be 
obtained  to  proceed  upon.  In  the 
last  instance,  how  find  the  depth  of 
the  ice  ?  The  sand  of  the  desert  has 
been  sounded  in  one  place,  we  are  told, 
and  the  lead  has  sunk  three  hundred 
and  sixty  feet  without  finding  a  bottom; 
but  what  plummet  can  sound  the  gla- 
cier? Here  and  there  a  crevice  may 
let  us  into  the  secret  of  its  depth,  and 
we  know  that  below  a  certain  level  ice 
cannot  remain  unmelted ;  but  who  can 
tell  the  configuration  of  the  mountain 


under  the  ice,  how  shallow  the  glacier 
may  be  in  some  parts,  and  into  what 
profound  caverns  it  rnaysink  in  others? 
Thei»e  is  something  childish  in  giving 
us  an  array  of  figures,  when  the  figures 
present  no  useful  approximation  to 
the  truth. 

We  have  alluded  to  the  difficult 
problem  of  the  distribution  of  the 
different  species  of  animals  through- 
out the  several  regions  of  the  globe  : 
the  same  problem  meets  us  in  the 
vegetable  world.  Here  we  might 
expect  to  grapple  with  it  with  some 
better  hopes  of  success,  yet  the  diffi- 
culties are  by  no  means  diminished ; 
we  only  seem  to  see  them  more  plainly. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  clear,  as  Mrs 
Somerville  says,  that  "no  similarity 
of  existing  circumstances  can  account 
for  whole  families  of  plants  being  con- 
fined to  one  particular  country,  or 
even  to  a  very  limited  district,  which, 
as  far  as  we  can  judge,  might  have 
grown  equally  well  in  many  others." 
But  the  difference  of  the  floras  is  not 
the  only  difficulty.  While  there  is 
difference  in  a  great  number  of  the 
species,  there  is  identity  in  a  certain 
other  number.  If  now  we  account 
for  the  difference  by  supposing  that 
the  several  portions  of  land  emerged 
from  the  ocean  at  different  epochs, 
and  under  different  conditions,  and 
that,  therefore,  the  generative  powers 
of  vegetable  life,  (in  whatever,  under 
the  will  of  Divine  Providence,  these 
may  be  supposed  to  consist)  mani- 
fested themselves  differently,  how 
shall  we  next  account  for  this  identity  ? 
"  In  islands  far  from  continents,  the 
number  of  plants  is  small;  but  of 
these  a  large  proportion  occur  nowhere 
else.  In  St  Helena,  of  thirty  flower- 
bearing  plants  one  or  two  only  are 
native  elsewhere."  But  these  one 
or  two  become  a  new  perplexity. 
"  In  the  Falkland  Islands  there  are 
more  than  thirty  flowering  plants 
identical  with  those  in  Great  Britain." 
Very  many  similar  cases  might  be 
cited ;  we  quote  these  only  to  show 
the  nature  of  the  difficulty  with  which 
science  has  to  cope. 

And  here  comes  in  the  following 
strange  and  startling  fact,  to  render 
this  subject  of  vegetable  production 
still  more  inexplicable : — 

"  Nothing  grows  under  these  great 
forests,  (of  South  America ;)  and  when  ac- 


1849.] 


Physical  Geography. 


469 


cideutally  burnt  down  in  the  mountainous 
parts  of  Patagonia,  they  never  rise  again  ; 
but  the  ground  they  grow  on  is  soon  covered 
with  an  impenetrable  bruslncood  of  other 
plants.  lu.  Chili  the  violently  stinging 
Loasa  appears  first  in  these  Jburnt  places, 
bushes  grow  afterwards,  and  then  comes 
a  tree-grass,  eighteen  feet  high,  of  which 
the  Indians  make  their  huts.  The  new 
vegetation  that  follows  the  burning  of 
primeval  forests  is  quite  unaccountable. 
The  ancient  and  undisturbed  forests  of 
Pennsylvania  have  no  undergrowth  ;  and 
when  burnt  down  they  are  succeeded  by 
a  thick  growth  of  rhododendrons." — (Vol. 
ii.  p.  190.) 

But  we  must  bring  our  rambling 
excursion  through  these  pleasant 
volumes  to  a  close ;  the  more  especially 
as  we  wish  once  more  to  take  this 
opportunity,  not  as  critics  only,  but 
as  readers  also,  to  express  our  grate- 
ful sense  of  the  benefit  which  Mrs 
Someryille  has  conferred  upon  society 
by  this  and  her  preceding  volume, 
The  Connexion  of  the  Physical  Sciences. 
It  was  once  a  prevailing  habit  to 
speak  in  a  sort  of  apologetic  strain  of 
works  of  popular  science.  Such  habit, 
or  whatever  residue  of  it  remains,  may 
be  entirely  laid  aside.  If  by  popular 
science  is  meant  the  conveyance,  in 
clear  intelligible  language,  as  little 
technical  as  possible,  of  the  results  of 
scientific  inquiry,  then  are  we  all  of  us 
beholden  more  or  less  to  popular 
science.  The  most  scientific  of  men 
cannot  be  equally  profound  in  all 
branches  of  inquiry.  The  field  has 
now  become  so  extensive  that  he  can- 
not hope  to  obtain  his  knowledge  in 
all  departments  from  the  first  sources. 
He  must  trust  for  much  to  the  autho- 
rity of  others.  Every  one  who  is 
desirous  of  learning  what  anatomy 
and  physiology  can  teach  us,  cannot 
attend  the  dissecting  table.  How 
much  that  we  esteem,  as  amongst  the 
most  valuable  of  our  acquisitions, 
depends  on  this  secondary  evidence ! 
How  few  can  follow  the  calculations 
of  the  mathematician,  by  which  he 
establishes  results  which  are  neverthe- 
less familiar  to  all  as  household  words! 
And  the  mathematician  himself,  great 
aristocrat  as  he  is  in  science,  must 
take  the  chemist  on  his  word  for  the 
nice  analysis  the  latter  has  performed. 
He  cannot  leave  his  papers  to  follow 
out  experiments,  often  as  difficult  and 
intricate  as  his  own  calculations.  In- 


deed the  experiments  of  the  man  of 
science  have  become  so  refined  and 
elaborate,  and  deal  often  with  such 
subtle  matter,  and  this  in  so  minute 
quantities,  that,  as  it  has  been  said 
of  the  astronomer,  that  it  requires  a 
separate  education,  and  takes  half  a 
life  to  learn  to  observe,  so  it  may 
be  truly  said,  that  to  devise  and  con- 
duct new  experiments  in  philosophy 
has  become  an  art  in  itself.  We  must 
be  content  to  see  a  great  deal  with 
the  eyes  of  others ;  to  be  satisfied  with, 
the  report  of  this  or  that  labourer  in 
the  wide  field  of  science.  We  cannot 
all  of  us  go  wandering  over  moor  and 
mountain  to  gather  and  classify  herbs 
and  flowers ;  interested  as  we  all  are 
in  geological  speculations,  we  cannot 
all  use  the  geological  hammer,  or  use 
it  to  any  purpose ;  still  less  can  we 
examine  all  manner  of  fishes,  or  pry 
with  the  microscope  into  every  cranny 
of  nature  for  infusoria. 

Mrs  Somerville  gives  us  the  book  ! 
— the  neat,  compact,  valuable  volume, 
which  we  hold  so  commodiously  in 
the  hand.  The  book — the  book  for 
ever !  There  are  who  much  applaud 
the  lecture  and  the  lecture-room,  with 
its  table  full  of  glittering  apparatus, 
glass  and  brass,  and  all  the  ingenious 
instruments  by  which  nature,  as  we 
say,  is  put  to  the  torture.  Let  such 
as  please  spend  their  hot  uneasy  hour 
in  a  crowd.  We  could  never  feed  in 
a  crowd  ;  we  detest  benches  and  sit- 
ting in  a  row.  To  our  notion,  more  is 
got,  in  half  the  time,  from  a  few  pages 
of  the  quiet  letterpress,  quietly  perused : 
the  better  if  accompanied  by  skilful 
diagrams,  or,  as  in  this  case,  by  ad- 
mirable maps.  As  to  those  experi- 
ments, on  the  witnessing  of  which  so 
much  stress  is  laid,  it  is  a  great  fallacy 
to  suppose  that  they  add  anything  to 
the  certainty  of  our  knowledge.  When 
we  see  an  experiment  performed  at  a 
distance,  in  a  theatre,  we  do,  in  fact, 
as  entirely  rely  on  the  word  of  the 
lecturer  as  if  we  only  read  of  its  per- 
formance. It  is  our  faith  in  his  cha- 
racter that  makes  all  the  difference 
between  his  exhibition  and  that  of 
the  dexterous  conjurer.  To  obtain 
any  additional  evidence  from  behold- 
ing the  experiment,  we  ought  to 
be  at  the  elbow  of  the  skilful  mani- 
pulator, and  weigh,  and  test,  and 
scrutinise. 


470 


Physical  Geography. 


[Oct. 


But,  indeed,  as  a  matter  of  evidence, 
the  experiment  in  a  popular  lecture- 
room  is  never  viewed  for  a  moment. 
It  is  a  mere  show.  It  has  degene- 
rated into  a  mere  expedient  to  attract 
idlers  and  keep  them  awake.  The 
crowd  is  there,  and  expect  to  see  some- 
thing'; and  it  has  become  the  confirmed 
habit  of  the  whole  class  of  popular 
lecturers  to  introduce  their  experi- 
ments, not  when  they  are  wanted  to 
elucidate  or  prove  their  propositions, 
but  whenever  and  wherever  they  can 
answer  the  purpose  of  amusing  the 
audience.  If  a  learned  professor  is 
lecturing  upon  the  theory  of  combus- 
tion, he  will  burn  a  piece  of  stick  or 
paper  before  you,  to  show  that  when 
such  things  are  burnt  flame  is  pro- 
duced. He  would  on  no  account  forego 
that  flame.  Yes  ;  and  the  audience 
look  on  as  if  they  had  never  seen  a 
stick  or  a  piece  of  paper  burn  before. 
And  when  he  is  so  happy  as  to  arrive 
at  the  point  where  a  few  grains  of  gun- 
powder may  be  ignited,  they  give  him 
a  round  of  applause  !  In  the  hands  of 
many,  the  lecture  itself  becomes  little 
more  than  an  occasion  for  the  experi- 
ment. The  glittering  vials,  the  air- 
pump,  the  electrical  machine,  undoubt- 
edly keep  the  eyes  at  least  of  the 
audience  open ;  but  the  expedient, 
with  all  due  deference  be  it  said,  re- 
minds us  of  the  ingenious  resource  of 
the  veteran  exhibitor  of  Punch,  who 
knows  that  if  his  puppets  receive 
knocks  enough,  and  there  is  sufficient 
clatter  with  the  sticks,  the  dramatic 
dialogue  may  take  its  course  as  it 
pleases  :  he  is  sure  of  his  popularity. 


Therefore  it  is  we  are  for  the  book ; 
and  we  hold  such  presents  as  Mrs 
Somerville  has  bestowed  upon  the 
public  to  be  of  incalculable  value,  dis- 
seminating more  sound  information 
than  all  the  literary  and  scientific  in- 
stitutions will  accomplish  in  a  whole 
cycle  of  their  existence.  We  will  con- 
clude with  one  or  two  practical  sug- 
gestions, which  would  add  to  the  utility 
of  the  last  of  her  two  works — The  Phy- 
sical Geography.  Mrs.  Somerville  has 
thought  it  well  to  insert  a  few  notes 
explanatory  of  some  scientific  terms. 
But  these  notes  are  few.  If  it 
was  well  to  explain  such  terms  as 
"  Marsupial  animals, "  or  "  Tes- 
taceap,"  a  reader  might  be  excused  for 
wishing  to  know  what  a  "  torsion 
balance"  was,  or  what  a  "  moraine," 
— terms  which  fall  upon  him  just  as 
suddenly,  and  unexplained  by  any 
previous  matter.  Would  not  a  glos- 
sary of  such  terms  be  advisable  ?  But 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  sug- 
gestion, our  next  remark  is  indis- 
putable. To  such  a  work  as  this,  an 
index  is  extremely  useful — is  all  but 
essential.  There  is  an  index,  but  it  is 
so  defective,  so  scanty,  that  it  is  worth 
nothing.  We  cannot  say  whether 
this  last  remark  applies  equally  to 
The  Connexion  of  the  Physical  Sciences, 
not  having  that  work  at  present  under 
our  eye.  But  we  beg  to  intimate  to 
all  authors  and  authoresses,  that 
whenever  a  book  is  of  such  a  nature 
that  it  becomes  valuable  as  a  work  of 
reference,  it  should  be  accompanied  by 
a  good  index.  It  is  a  plodding  busi- 
ness, but  it  must  be  executed. 


1849.] 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


471 


CIVIL  REVOLUTION  IN  THE  CANADAS. — A  REMEDY. 


To  be  British,  or  not  to  be,  is  now 
literally  the  question  in  all  the  North 
American  colonies.  Like  England, 
when  Mr  Cobden  and  the  potato 
blight  produced,  together,  a  panic 
which  seemed  to  obliterate,  for  the 
time,  all  past  arguments,  and  all 
future  consequences — changing  minds 
before  deemed  unchangeable,  and 
raising  to  fame  and  greatness  men 
and  reasoning  that  the  world  was 
never  previously  able  to  see  the  force 
or  the  depth  of— like  England  then, 
are  the  colonies  now.  They  are  in  all 
the  depths  and  mazes  of  a  panic.  One 
of  the  storms  which  occasionally  break 
over  the  heads  of  all  people  is  now 
raging  over  theirs.  Nor  is  it  sur- 
prising— with  England's  history  for 
ten  years  before  us — if  there  should  be 
those  among  them  who  shrink  from 
its  drenchings  or  its  shocks,  or  are 
incapable,  in  the  midst  of  its  wild 
commotions,  of  seeing  sunshine  in  the 
distance.  For  our  part,  we  are  fond 
of  that  sturdy  greatness  which  can  put 
its  shoulder  to  the  blast,  and  say, 
u  Blow  on,  great  guns ;  we  can  stand 
your  thunder." 

Not  that  the  panic  in  the  colonies 
arises  from  the  people's  looking  for- 
ward to  having  nothing  to  eat.  They 
have  plenty,  thank  God,  and  to  spare. 
But  they  have  nothing  in  their  pockets ; 
and,  what  is  worse,  they  are  afraid,  if 
they  go  on  much  longer  as  they  are 
noAv  doing,  they  will  soon  be  without 
pockets  too.  Factory  cotton  may  be 
but  fourpencc  a-yard ;  but  if  they 
haven't  the  fourpence  to  pay  for  it,  it 
might  as  well  be  as  dear  as  diamonds, 
as  far  as  they  are  concerned. 

The  policy  of  England,  from  the  day 
that  Lord  Chatham  said  "  that  he 
would  not  allow  the  colonies  to  make 
a  hob-nail  for  themselves,"  has  been 
to  convert  them  into  marts  for  her 
manufactures — to  make  them  useful 
and  profitable  to  her,  by  causing  them 
to  consume  those  things  which  give 
her  poor  .employment,  her  merchants 
and  manufacturers  profit,  and  her 
commercial  navy  all  the  incidental 
carrying  trade.  As  a  return  for  this, 
the  colonies  were  directly  and  indi- 
rectly assured  by  England,  that  their 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVIII. 


produce  should  be  protected  in  her 
markets — that,  for  all  the  profits  Eng- 
land might  make  by  manufacturing 
for  the  colonies,  they  should  have  a 
full  return  in  the  profits  they  should 
have  by  their  produce  being  pro- 
tected. 

Meantime,  the  United  States  pursued 
an  entirely  different  system.  They, 
notwithstanding  the  interests  of  the 
great  body  of  the  southern  states — 
whose  interest,  their  principal  product 
being  cotton,  was  to  buy  what  they 
wanted  of  manufactured  goods  in  the 
lowest  market,  and  to  sell  their  cotton 
in  the  highest — rigidly  adhered  to  the 
system  of  formingmanufacturinginter- 
ests  of  their  own,  and  of  fostering  and 
encouraging  them  by  every  means  in 
their  power.  While  the  colonies, 
therefore,  bought,  with  the  produce 
of  their  country,  broad  cloths,  cottons, 
silks,  blankets,  scythes,  hardware,  and 
crockery,  which  were  manufactured 
in  England,  they  saw  all  the  profits 
of  their  manufacture,  their  sale,  and 
their  carriage,  go  to  another  country, 
to  be  spent  among  another  people. 
The  Americans,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  bought,  with  the  produce  of  their 
lands,  the  manufactures  of  their  own 
country,  saw  the  profits  upon  these 
manufactures  applied  to  building  up 
factories,  villages,  and  towns,  which 
brought  together  a  useful  population  ; 
built  churches,  made  roads,  established 
places  of  learning  and  improvement ; 
made  better  markets  for  some  things 
which  might  have  been  sold  other- 
wise, and  made  sale  for  many  that 
could  not  otherwise  have  been  sold  at 
all,  besides  greatly  enhancing  the 
values  of  all  adjacent  property,  and 
increasing  the  general  wealth  of  the 
whole  country.  The  advantages 
of  the  one  system  over  the  other, 
however,  did  not  stop  here.  The 
necessities  and  the  advantages  of 
manufactures,  which  first  dictated  the 
making  and  improving  of  a  common 
road,  next  conceived  the  benefit  of  a 
railroad  and  a  canal,  and  the  profits 
of  manufacturing  were  straightway 
applied  to  their  construction,  and  they 
were  done.  The  farmer,  therefore, 
imperceptibly  to  himself,  was  placed 
2i 


472 


Cicil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


[Oct. 


within  a  few  hours  of  the  best  mar- 
kets over  the  continent — found  his 
produce  carried  to  them  for  a  trifle,  in 
comparison  to  what  it  used  to  cost 
him — and  found,  withal,  the  process 
which  made  it  so,  bringing  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  people  into  the 
country,  to  develop  its  riches,  to  in- 
crease the  price  of  its  lands,  and  to 
contribute  to  its  civilisation  and 
conveniencies,  from  the  establishment 
of  a  college  down  to  the  building  of  a 
blacksmith's  shop.  The  colonial 
farmer,  too,  who  bought  the  goods  of 
an  English  or  a  Scotch  manufacturer, 
contributed  to  send  those  manufac- 
turers' children  to  school,  to  give 
them  a  profession,  or  to  leave  them  a 
fortune.  The  American  farmer,  who 
bought  his  neighbours'  manufactures, 
contributed  to  establish  a  school  in 
his  own  neighbourhood,  where  his 
children  could  be  educated ;  and  to 
bring  people  together  to  support  them, 
if  they  chose  to  study  a  profession  or 
to  enter  into  business. 

To  trace,  within  the  limits  of  a 
whole  magazine  even,  much  less  in 
the  fragment  of  an  article,  the  wealth 
and  prosperity  that  have  accrued  to 
the  States  over  the  Colonies,  by  this 
system,  would  be  impossible.  We 
must  content  ourselves,  for  the  pre- 
sent, with  glancing  at  the  accumu- 
lation of  capital,  and  the  extraordin- 
ary improvements  in  one  State,  as  an 
example  of  what  must  have,  and  in 
truth  what  has,  accrued  to  the  rest, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  in  propor- 
tion as  they  have  been  engaged  in 
manufacturing. 

The  state  of  Massachusetts,  in 
point  of  soil,  climate,  and  resources, 
has  fewer,  or,  at  all  events,  as  few  ad- 
vantages as  any  other  state  in  the 
American  Union.  With  a  few  ver- 
dant valleys,  and  some  highly  pro- 
ductive land,  it  has  much  that  is 
rocky  and  barren,  and  more  that  is 
marshy  and  useless.  Yet  this  state, 
far  below  Upper  Canada  in  natural 
advantages,  has,  intersecting  it  in 
different  ways,  five  canals,  their  ag- 
gregate length  being  ninety-nine 
miles.  It  has,  too,  no  fewer  than 
eleven  railroads  winding  through  it 
and  round  it,  constructed  at  an  im- 
mense cost,  and  affording  a  profitable 
return  to  their  proprietors.  Now 
what  is  the  cause  of  this  extraordinary 


growth  of  capital,  in  a  place  where 
there  was  literally  so  little  for  it  to 
grow  upon? — and  how  came  such 
immense  facilities  for  public  business 
to  be  employed,  where  nature  has  done 
so  little  to  create  business?  The 
answer  is  obvious.  Massachusetts  has 
not  prospered  by  its  land,  ornatnral  re- 
sources— it  has  prospered  by  its  manu- 
factures ;  and  its  improvements,  great 
and  extraordinary  though  they  be,  are 
but  the  natural  offspring  of  those 
manufactures.  Its  principal  manufac- 
turing town,  Lowell,  the  largest  such 
town  in  the  United  States,  has 
grown  from  a  few  hundred  inhabit- 
ants, that  the  land  might  have  feebly 
supported,  to  some  forty  thousand, 
that  manufactures  have  profitably 
employed.  The  necessities  of  these 
manufactures  called  for  a  canal 
and  a  railroad.  The  profits  of  the 
capital  invested  in  them,  and  the 
labour  they  employed,  soon  con- 
structed them.  Salem,  wholly  by  the 
profits  of  making  cotton  fabrics,  has 
become  a  town  of  fifteen  thousand 
inhabitants.  Salem's  manufacturing 
interests  required  a  railroad  to  Bos- 
ton, and  Salem's  manufacturers'  and 
artisans'  profits  were  able  to  construct 
it.  Manchester  and  Lawrence  owe 
their  existence  and  prosperity,  and 
the  adjacent  country  owes  the  advan- 
tages they  are  to  it,  wholly  to  manu- 
factories. They  wanted,  too,  a  rail- 
road to  connect  them  ;  and  they  were 
able  to  make,  and  have  made  one. 
Springfield,  also  in  this  State,  and 
Worcester,  Fallriver,  Lynn,  and  New- 
bury-port,  and  several  other  places  of 
minor  consequence,  owe  equally  their 
existence  and  prosperity  to  the  same 
cause.  Nor  is  it  to  be  wondered  at 
that,  in  so  short  a  period,  such  vast 
improvements  should  be  made,  when 
we  consider  the  immense  profits  that 
have  accrued  upon  the  capital  em- 
ployed in  these  manufactories,  and 
upon  the  labour  engaged  in  them. 
There  is  a  cotton  factory  in  Salem 
which  itself  employs  a  capital  of 
£200,000,  giving  work  to  five  hundred 
and  seventy-five  operatives, — three- 
fourths  of  whom  are  girls, — whose 
average  wages  are  three  pounds  twelve 
shillings  sterling  a-month.  Yet,  a 
great  proportion  of  these  being  very 
young,  it  necessarily  follows  that  the 
wages  of  the  grown  up  are  reduced  to 


1849.] 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


473 


make  up  the  average  of  those  of  the 
weaker,  and  that  in  reality  an  indus- 
trious woman  "  can  generally  earn  a 
dollar  a-day ;  and  there  are  those  who 
have  been  known,  from  one  year's  end 
to  another,  even  to  exceed  this." 
Speaking  of  the  character  of  this  la- 
bour, and  of  its  effect  upon  the  States, 
Mr  Webster,  the  highest  authority 
upon  this  subject  in  America,  thus 
truthfully  and  eloquently  remarks — 

"  I  have  spoken  of  labour  as  one  of  the 
great  elements  of  our  society,  the  great 
substantial  interest  on  which  we  all  stand. 
Not  feudal  service,  not  predial  toil,  not 
the  irksome  drudgery  by  one  race  of  man- 
kind, subjected,  on  account  of  colour,  to 
the  control  of  another  race  of  mankind ; 
but  labour,  intelligent,  manly,  independ- 
ent, thinking  and  acting  for  itself,  earning 
its  own  wages,  accumulating  those  wages 
into  capital,  becoming  a  part  of  society 
and  of  our  social  system,  educating  child- 
hood, maintaining  worship,  claiming  the 
right  of  the  elective  franchise,  and  helping 
to  uphold  the  great  fabric  of  the  State. 
THAT  is  AMERICAN  LABOUR,  and  I  confess 
that  all  my  sympathies  are  with  it,  and 
my  voice,  until  I  am  dumb,  will  be  for 
it.", 

Of  the  profits  arising  from  the  capi- 
tal invested  in  these  manufactures, 
they  have  varied  in  different  years, 
but  have,  on  the  average,  vastly  ex- 
ceeded those  upon  all  similar  invest- 
ments in  England,  or  in  any  part  of 
Europe.  The  Newburyport  Herald, 
a  couple  of  years  since,  gave  a  state- 
ment of  the  profits  arising  from  the 
Essex  Steam  Mill  Company  in  that 
town,  by  which  it  appeared  that  forty  - 
two  and  a  half  per  cent  upon  the  capi- 
tal invested  was  paid  to  the  stock- 
holders, as  the  amount  of  profits  for 
1845.  The  Dedham  Company,  in  the 
same  state,  also  divided  ten  per  cent 
for  six  months  of  the  same  year ;  the 
Norfolk  Company,  twelve  per  cent  for 
the  same  period ;  and  the  Northern 
Company  ten.  All  these  companies 
were  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
cotton  goods — the  most  profitable, 
however,  of  all  manufactures  in  the 
States. 

But  against  this  immense  accumu- 
lation of  capital  in  the  States,  against 
the  vast  incidental  improvements  and 
wealth  to  the  country  that  have  arisen 
from  manufactures,  what  have  the 
British  colonies  to  show  ?  What  have 


the  Canadas  to  arrest  the  eye  of  the 
traveller,  and  to  prove  to  him  that, 
though  they  have  pursued  the  system 
which  Lord  Chatham  chalked  out  for 
them,  of  not  manufacturing  a  hob-nail 
for  themselves — and  which  the  policy 
of  England  has  ever  since  prevented 
their  doing — they  have  still  where- 
withal to  attest  that  they  have  pros- 
pered ;  and  that  their  labour  has  been 
equally  rewarded  by  agriculture  as 
by  manufactures  ? 

From  one  end  of  the  provinces  to 
the  other,  in  every  colony  Britain  has 
in  America,  there  are  no  evidences  of 
prosperity  approaching,  much  less 
equalling  that  of  Massachusetts  ;  there 
is  nothing,  in  truth,  wherewith  to  in- 
stitute a  comparison  between  them. 
Beyond  the  towns  which  are  supported 
by  the  trade  incident  to  selling  Eng- 
land's goods,  there  are  none  to  be 
found  in  British  America.  Beyond 
the  little  villages  throughout  the  pro- 
vinces, that  owe  their  existence  to  the 
necessity  for  agencies  to  collect  the 
profits  of  the  whole  products  of  the 
country,  and  to  send  them  to  other 
lands  to  be  spent,  there  is  no  appear- 
ance of  labour  employed  in  business, 
or  capital  reproducing  capital.  Pro- 
bably one  of  the  best  cultivated  and 
most  productive  districts  in  Upper 
Canada,  is  the  Gore.  It  is  situated  at 
the  head  of  Lake  Ontario ;  has  the 
beautiful  little  city  of  Hamilton  for  its 
capital ;  is  composed  of  very  fair  land, 
and  is  settled  by  a  population  distin- 
guished for  their  industry,  and  for  the 
great  comfort  and  independence  it  has 
brought  them.  Upon  entering  this 
district  by  the  high  road  from  Toronto, 
or  in  passing  in  a  steamer  up  the 
north  shore  of  Lake  Ontario,  the  tra- 
veller is  struck  with  the  appearance 
of  a  little  village  called  Oakville.  It 
is  situated  on  the  bank  of  the  lake, 
has  its  neat  white  churches,  and  its 
little  picturesque  cottages,  looking  out 
upon  the  broad  lake.  A  stranger  at 
a  distance,  from  its  situation  and 
appearance,  would  imagine  it  one  of 
those  villages  that  spring  up  so  magi- 
cally in  America, — full  of  activity, 
energy,  and  prosperity.  He  visits  it, 
and  to  his  surprise  he  finds,  that 
though  it  bears  all  the  evidences  of 
having  been  built  in  a  hurry,  it  bears 
also  all  the  tokens  of  rapid  decay — its 
shops  being  for  the  most  part  unoccu- 


474 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


[Oct. 


pied,  its  houses  nntenanted,  and  its 
streets  without  people.  And  what 
may  be  the  reason,  in  a  district  so 
prosperous  as  the  Gore,  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  country  teeming  with 
grain,  and  with  still  many  unused 
resources,  that  this  village  has  so 
palpably  disappointed  the  expecta- 
tions of  its  founder?  It  is  this, — 
Oakville  was  projected  and  built  with 
a  view  to  the  largest  prosperity  of  the 
country;  and  with  facilities  and  neces- 
sities for  a  trade  equal  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  every  lot  of  land  in  the  adjacent 
country  that  could  support  a  family, 
and  to  the  manufacturing  into  staves 
and  boards,  and  square  timber,  of 
every  tree  in  the  surrounding  woods. 
But  the  policy  of  England  has  ren- 
dered it  unprofitable  to  get  out  the 
timber;  and  free  trade  has  taken 
away  the  inducement  to  enter  into 
'Canadian  farming.  The  consequence 
is  that  the  shops,  which  were  built  to 
do  an  anticipated  trade  in  Oakville, 
are  now  unrequired ;  and  the  people, 
who  built  houses  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  those  who  were  to  be  engaged 
in  the  expected  business,  have  their 
houses  upon  their  hands.  Nor  can 
any  one  well  acquainted  with  Upper 
Canada  fail  to  recognise  in  Oakville 
a  faithful  picture  of  many,  if  not  most, 
of  the  towns  and  villages  in  the  pro- 
vince. 

But  let  us  now  reverse  the  picture, 
and  suppose  that  Oakville,  instead  of 
looking  forward  to  rising,  and  being 
supported  by  the  trade  incident  to 
selling  England's  goods,  and  the 
draining  of  the  country's  resources  to 
pay  for  them,  had  looked  forward  to 
prosperity  by  manufacturing  and  sell- 
ing goods  of  its  own.  Let  us  suppose 
that  its  founder — who,  fifteen  years 
ago,  spent  some  £20,000  in  adapting 
its  harbour  for  ships,  that  never  had 
occasion  to  come ;  and  in  building 
storehouses,  for  which  there  has 
never  been  use — had  spent  the  same 
money  in  establishing  one  of  these 
factories  which  first  formed  the  nucleus 
of  Lowell  or  Salem  in  Massachusetts. 
Is  it  not  reasonable  to  infer,  that  in 
the  same  country,  and  among  a  people 
having  the  same  necessities,  the  same 
results  would  have  accrued  in  the 
Canadas  which  have  accrued  in  the 
States?  That  the  profits  of  fifteen 
years'  manufacturing  would  have 


surrounded  Oakville  with  mansions, 
proving  the  success  of  enterprise ; 
and  filled  its  streets  with  houses, 
showing  that  labour  had  prospered, 
and  the  country  had  its  benefits? 
Would  not  its  capitalists,  instead  of 
empty  houses  and  rained  hopes,  have 
now  the  proceeds  of  well-invested 
capital,  or  see  them  reproducing 
wealth  in  railroads,  or  public  im- 
provements? 

Bat  let  us  suppose,  further,  that  the 
whole  province  of  Upper  Canada  had 
invested  in  manufactures,  from  time 
to  time,  for  fifty  years,  the  whole  pro- 
fits that  England  and  other  countries 
have  made  by  the  sale  of  all  the  goods 
to  it  that  it  has  consumed,  and  that 
this  capital  had  been  augmenting  and 
reproducing  itself  during  this  period — 
what  would  be  the  probable  result? 
It  is  impossible  to  calculate  it.  It 
can  only  be  measured  by  the  towns 
that  have  sprung  up,  by  the  railroads 
and  canals  that  have  been  made,  and 
by  the  vast  capital  that  has  been 
accumulated  in  the  same  period  by 
Massachusetts,  and  the  other  manu- 
facturing states  of  America. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  to  institutions 
or  to  laws,  to  peculiarities  of  race  or 
of  situation,  that  we  ascribe  the  pre- 
sent undeniable  prosperity  of  the 
States,  or,  at  all  events,  of  those  states 
which  have  manufactured,  over  the 
Canadas.  It  is  to  the  system  the  one 
adopted,  of  manufacturing  what  they 
required,  and  thus  securing  to  their 
country  the  benefit  of  the  population 
it  required  to  do  so,  the  profits  of  the 
labour  employed  in  it,  and  the  inciden- 
tal improvements  it  occasioned.  It  is 
the  system  the  other  followed,  or  which 
was  chalked  out  for  them,  of  spending 
all  they  could  make  in  the  purchase 
of  goods  manufactured  in  England, 
the  profits  of  which  all  went  there  to 
be  spent.  The  States,  by  the  one 
system,  have  made  the  most  of  their 
country's  resources  and  its  labour ; 
the  Canadas,  by  the  other,  have  made 
the  least.  The  States  have  cities, 
and  railroads,  and  canals,  and  elegant 
mansions,  to  show  for  their  labour  of 
fifty  years ;  the  Canadas  have  built 
elegant  mansions,  too,  by  their  la- 
bour, and  .have  bought  fine  country- 
seats,  and  have  contributed  to  make 
railroads,  but  they  are  unfortunately 
all  in  England  and  Scotland.  What 


1849.] 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


475 


holds  good  of  a  family,  sometimes 
holds  good  of  a  people.  There  is  as 
much  often  accumulated  by  saving  as 
by  making.  Probably  the  making 
little,  and  saving  it,  will  end  better 
than  making  much  and  saving  little. 
The  States  might  have  made  but  little 
on  their  produce  at  first — probably 
less,  for  many  years,  than  the  Cana- 
das ;  but  their  system  inevitably 
tended  to  saving  for  the  country  all 
they  did  make ;  whereas  the  Cana- 
dian system,  whatever  the  provinces 
made,  much  or  little,  as  inevitably 
tended  to  the  country's  losing  it: 
and  the  consequences  are,  the  vast 
difference  in  the  growth  of  capital  in 
the  one  country  over  the  other. 

The  arguments,  however,  in  favour 
of  England's  manufacturing  for  the 
colonies,  were  not  without  their  spe- 
ciousness,  and,  as  applied  to  other 
countries,  were  not  without  their 
truth.  These  were,  that  England 
could  manufacture  cheaper  for  the 
colonies  than  they  could  manufacture 
for  themselves ;  and,  moreover,  that 
the  labour  the  colonies  might  apply 
to  manufacturing,  could  be  more  pro- 
fitably employed  in  raising  produce. 
But  these  arguments,  as  far  as  the 
Canadas  and  all  America  are  con- 
cerned, are  fallacious.  In  a  country 
where  the  largest  possible  reward  for 
labour  bears  frequently  no  sort  of  pro- 
portion to  the  advantages  gained  by 
individuals  and  the  whole  common- 
wealth, by  the  mere  fact  of  that 
labour's  being  employed  in  it,  the 
question  changes  from  what  the  people 
save  upon  a  yard"  of  calico,  to  what 
the  country  loses  by  towns  not  being 
built,  by  railroads  not  being  made, 
and  by  improvements  not  taking 
place  that  always  follow  manufac- 
tures. It  may  be  true,  that  where 
the  greatest  possible  reward  for  labour 
is  the  only  object  sought  for  or  attain- 
able, that  a  people  should  find  out, 
and  engage  in  what  pays  them  best : 
but  where  the  congregation  of  a  hun- 
dred people  in  one  place  raises  the 
value  of  property  there  ten  thou- 
sand fold — and  such  has  often  been 
the  case  in  the  States — and  every 
farmer  adjacent  not  only  gains  a 
market  by  them,  but  has  his  roads 
improved,  his  lauds  increased  in  value, 
double,  and  triple,  and  ten  times ; 
and  has  a  thousand  conveniences  and 


benefits  supplied  him  by  them,  that 
he  never  otherwise  could  have  had — 
then  the  question  arises  with   him, 
Which  benefited  him  most? — the  hun- 
dred   people's    manufacturing,     and 
spreading  the  profits  of  their  labour 
around  them,  or  the  buying  a  few 
yards  of  cloth  a  few  shillings  cheaper, 
and    keeping    the    hundred    people 
away  ?    For  every  penny  that  the 
whole  people  of  the  United  States 
have  lost,  by  buying  their  own  goods, 
they  have  made  pounds  by  making 
them.    And  the  profits  of  a  mechanic's 
own  labour  sink   into  utter  insigni- 
ficance in  comparison  to  the  wealth 
he  often  acquires  by  a  single  lot  of 
land,    upon  which  he   settles   down 
with  others,  and  which   makes   him 
rich  by  also  enriching  all  around  him.  v 
To  measure,  indeed,  the  advantages 
that    manufactures    have    given    to 
America,  by  the  mere  profits  of  the 
actual  labour  employed  in  them,would 
be  but  like  valuing  an  oak  at  the  price 
of  one  of  its  acorns.    Men  may  com- 
pute the  probable  profits  of  labour 
employed  in  manufacturing,  by  com- 
puting the  cost  of  raw  material  with 
the  expense  of  manufacturing  it,  and 
what  it  sold  for.    But  the  enormous 
wealth  that  has  accrued  to  America, — 
by  the  increase  of  population  incident 
to   manufacturing,   by  the   develop- 
ment of  its  resources,  and  the  gigantic 
improvements  that  have  followed  it — 
would  be  utterly  out  of  the  reach  of 
all  human  industry  to  compute. 

But  in  striking  out  the  system  Eng- 
land did  for  her  colonies,  she  should 
at  least  have  considered  whether  the 
benefits  she  intended  to  confer  would 
be  really  used  as  benefits  ;  whether 
the  system  of  protection  to  colonial 
produce  was  not,  in  fact,  something  like 
that  of  indulgent  parents  giving  to 
their  sons  pocket-money  in  addition 
to  sufficient  salaries  —  which  same 
pocket-money  does  not  generally  add 
to  the  morals  or  property  of  the 
recipients.  And,  in  truth,  this  was 
in  effect  the  character  of  England's 
colonial  protective  system.  But  it 
went  a  little  farther  than  the  wisdom 
displayed  by  anxious  parents  ;  for, 
with  the  gifts,  it  took  good  care  to 
furnish  temptations  to  spend  them — a 
piece  of  amiable  generosity  that  we 
would  acquit  even  all  indulgent 
mothers  of.  However,  this  was — 


476 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


[Oct. 


whatever  England  meant,  or  expected, 
to  the  contrary — practically  the  effect 
of  the  system.  When  money  was 
sent  out  to  buy  produce  or  timber,  it 
was  always  sure  to  be  accompanied 
by  a  proportionate  stock  of  broad 
cloths  and  silks,  challis  and  shawls. 
Those  who  could  have  done  very 
well  with  Canadian  gray,  were  in- 
duced to  buy  broad  cloths,  and 
often  found  but  these  in  the  market ; 
for  England  bought  the  country's 
crop,  and  England's  merchants  knew 
full  well  what  the  fanners  could  af- 
ford to  pay  for.  Women  wore  silk 
dresses  and  satin  bonnets,  who  might 
have  looked  charming  enough,  before 
their  friends  at  meeting,  in  Hoyle's 
prints,  or  before  all  reasonable  beaus 
at  home,  in  good,  honest,  home-made 
flannel.  Brandy  and  water,  too,  was 
too  often  substituted  for  wholesome 
cider,  and  fashionable  tailors  for 
industrious  women.  The  sliding-scale 
of  expenditure  always  went  up  and 
down  to  suit  the  times.  A  good  year 
was  marked  by  an  increase  of  finery 
and  extravagance  ;  a  bad  one  by 
debts  and  law-suits,  depressions  and 
complaints — the  country  gaining  no- 
thing, from  year  to  year,  for  its  labour 
or  its  resources.  And  what  is  now 
the  consequence  ?  The  system  which 
occasioned  the  evil  is  now  done  away, 
but  the  evil  and  its  results  remain. 
The  farmer,  unknowing  the  cause  at 
first  of  the  declension  in  his  income, 
went  into  debt,  thinking,  as  had 
often  been  the  case  before,  that 
a  good  year  would  follow  a  bad 
one ;  and  that  he  would  be  able 
to  retrieve  by  it.  But  the  next  year 
came,  and  it  was  worse  than  the 
former.  He  could  not  pay  his  debts, 
and  he  was  obliged  to  mortgage  his 
property,  or  sell  his  stock,  to  do  so. 
He  could  no  longer  get  credit  from 
the  shopkeeper,  and  he  was  unable 
to  purchase  with  cash  the  quantity  or 
the  quality  of  goods  he  bought  before. 
The  shopkeeper,  in  his  turn  depending 
upon  the  custom  of  the  farmer  for  the 
sale  of  his  goods,  and  depending  upon 
receiving  his  accounts  from  him  to 
meet  his  own,  found  both  fail  him 
together;  was  obliged  to  curtail  his 
business  to  a  miserable  remnant ;  or 
to  shut  up  his  shop,  or  to  wait  for 
the  sheriff  to  do  it  for  him.  Hence 
the  altered  appearance  of  every  part 


of  Canada,  both  town  and  country. 
Hence  the  whole  streets  in  Montreal 
with  hardly  a  single  shop  open.  Hence 
those  sorry  emblems  of  poverty  and 
retrogression  —  empty  house/s  with 
broken  windows,  and  streets  without 
people,  which  may  be  seen  in  almost 
every  village  in  the  provinces. 

Now,  for  the  system  which  has  pro- 
duced this  state  of  things,  who  is  to 
blame  ?  Clearly  and  unmistakeably, 
England.  If  the  colonies,  as  is  now 
palpable  to  all  America,  have  worked 
but  with  one  arm  towards  prosperity, 
while  the  States  have  worked  with 
two,  it  was  England's  manufacturing 
interests  that  tied  the  colonies'  arm. 
The  colonies  were,  in  this  respect, 
wholly  in  the  hands  of  England.  She 
not  only  established  a  system  for 
them,  by  which  the  proceeds  of  every 
acre  of  laud  they  cleared,  and  every 
tree  they  hewed,  went  to  give  work 
to  her  poor,  and  wealth  to  her  rich, 
but  she  reserved  the  right  of  thinking 
for  them  as  well.  Without  her,  they 
must  have  naturally  adopted  the 
course  taken  by  the  rest  of  America. 
She  legislated  for  them ;  they  believed 
her  wise,  and  followed  her  dictates 
without  thought  or  apprehension. 
They  are  injured ;  and  she  is  to 
blame. 

But  when  Lord  Chatham  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  system  by  which  the 
colonies  have  been,  in  effect,  prevent- 
ed manufacturing  for  themselves,  he 
established  mutuality  of  interests 
between  them  and  the  mother  country. 
If  he  would  have  England's  poor 
employed,  and  England's  capitalists 
enriched  by  making  goods  for  the 
colonies,  he  would  have  the  colonies 
profit  equally  by  protection  in  the 
English  markets.  The  partnership, 
for  such  it  really  was,  gave  to  each 
country  its  own  particular  share  of 
benefits;  and  the  system  was  such, 
too,  that  the  more  the  profits  of  the 
one  rose,  though  by  its  own  individual 
efforts,  the  more  it  was  able  to  benefit 
the  other.  For  the  more  people  en- 
gaged in  Canadian  farming,  the  more 
land  that  became  cleared,  and  the  more 
timber  that  was  got  out,  the  more 
English  manufactures  were  consumed. 
But  we  have  shown,  by  comparison 
with  the  States,  the  disastrous 
effect  of  this  system  upon  the  pro- 
sperity of  the  colonies.  We  have 


1849.] 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


477 


shown,  too,  from  its  own  char- 
acter, that  it  never  was,  and  never 
could  have  been,  of  any  substantial 
benefit  to  them ;  that  it  made  them 
extravagant,  without  leaving  them 
capital ;  that  it  made  them  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  poorer,  whilst 
it  was  expected  to  make  them  richer. 
And  who  was  this  system  expressly 
and  avowedly  intended  to  benefit  ? 
Who  were,  in  all  seasons,  and  at  all 
times,  whether  good  or  bad  for  the 
colonies,  the  only  benefiters  by  it  ? 
It  was  the  manufacturers  of  England. 
For  if  the  colonies  could  buy  but 
prints  and  cottons,  they  bought  of 
these  all  they  could  pay  for,  and  these 
manufacturers  had  all  the  profit.  If 
they  could  buy  broad  cloths  and  silks, 
they  purchased  as  much  as  their  crops 
were  worth,  and  often  were  induced 
to  draw  upon  the  future,  English 
manufacturers  and  merchants  getting 
all  the  benefit.  But  after  these  manu- 
facturers had  thus  bled  the  colonies  of 
all  their  vitality,  in  the  shape  of  capi- 
tal, for  upwards  of  half  a  century — 
after  the  colonies'  right  arm  had  been 
tied  up  so  long,  for  their  express  bene- 
fit, that  it  became  impotent  from  want 
of  exercise,  these  same  manufacturers 
turned  round  and  told  their  colonial 
partners — "  We  have  now  made  all 
we  can  out  of  you  ;  or,  if  we  have  not, 
we  think  we  can  make  a  little  more  by 
free  trade  than  we  can  by  keeping  our 
honest  engagements  with  you.  We 
are  sorry  you  have  acquired  a  lamer 
arm  in  our  service.  It  is  a  pity.  It 
can't  be  helped  now.  Good-bye." 
Yes,  it  was  these  manufacturers,  who 
so  long  bled  the  colonies,  that  turned 
round  to  strike  them  in  the  end  the 
blow  that  should  finish  them.  It  was 
their  selfish  agitation  for  years ;  it 
was  their  constant  sounding  into  the 
ears  of  England  one  unvarying  theme ; 
it  was  their  disregard  of  all  inte- 
rests, of  all  duties,  and  of  all  obli- 
gations to  all  men,  in  one  deadly,  un- 
wavering struggle  for  the  attainment 
of  one  object,  and  for  one  class,  that 
cost  the  colonies  their  solemnly 
pledged  protection — that  cost  them, 
we  may  add,  their  respect  for  the 
honour  and  the  justice  of  England. 

But  we  have  now,  after  a  digression 
which  has  been  somewhat  of  the 
longest,  come  to  the  point  of  our  ar- 
gument, and  that  is  this  : — Upon  a 


question  so  vitally  affecting  the  inte- 
rests of  the  colonies  ;  upon  a  question; 
that  might  cost  them  the  institutions 
of  England ;  upon  a  question  where 
all  truth  and  justice  demanded  that 
they  should  have  been  in  a  situation  to 
protect  themselves  against  manufactur- 
ing selfishness,  does  it  not  occur  to  the 
reader,  that  the  colonies  should  have 
had  a  representation  where  it  was  de- 
cided? The  measures  that  exaspe- 
rated the  old  colonies  to  rebellion, 
shrink  into  utter  insignificance,  as  far 
as  injury  or  effect  are  concerned,  in 
comparison  to  this  one.  Here  are  three 
millions  of  people,  the  main  profits  of 
whose  labour  for  upwards  of  fifty 
years  have  gone  to  enrich  a  certain 
class  of  people  in  England.  And  here 
they  are  now,  sacrificed  to  the  selfish- 
ness of  that  very  class,  without  hav- 
ing the  opportunity  of  saying  a  word 
for  themselves.  If  the  legislation  of 
England,  for  ten  years  past,  has  been 
pregnant  with  vaster  consequences  to 
her  than  the  legislation  of  a  century, 
it  has  hardly  affected  her  so  deeply  as 
it  has  affected  her  North  American 
colonies.  If  her  landowners  see  ruin 
in  it — if  her  agricultural  labourers  see 
in  it  the  means  of  depriving  them  of 
bread — still  her  other  classes  see,  or 
think  they  see,  advantages  in  it  to 
counteract  the  evils,  and  prosperity  to 
balance  the  injury.  But  in  England 
all  have  been  heard — all  have  con- 
tended, where  giant  intellect  sways  as 
well  as  mighty  interests ;  where  mind 
has  its  influences  as  well  as  matter. 
But  in  the  colonies,  where  every  inte- 
rest and  every  class  saw,  in  imperial 
legislation,  injustice  and  ruin,  neither 
their  intellect  nor  their  interests  avail- 
ed them  anything.  They  were  literally 
placed  in  the  legislative  boat  of  Eng- 
land :  they  found  that  they  must  either 
sink  or  float  in  it ;  that  legislation 
happened  to  sink  them  ;  and  though 
they  saw  themselves  going  down,  and 
might,  with  their  friends,  have  pulled 
themselves  ashore,  they  were  not 
allowed  an  oar  to  do  so — they  were 
not  in  a  situation  to  make  an  effort  to 
save  themselves. 

In  the  face  of  these  deeply  impor- 
tant considerations,  can  it  be  fairly 
said  that  the  colonies  have  no  interest 
in  imperial  legislation,  and  that  there 
are  no  interests  for  imperial  legislation 
to  guard  in  the  colonies  ?  Palpably  to 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


[Oct- 


all  the  world,  the  States  have  been 
making  gigantic  strides  in  pros- 
perity, while  the  colonies  have  been 
standing  still.  Yet  in  the  British 
House  of  Commons,  whenever  the 
question  of  the  colonies  has  been 
mooted,  has  it  not  been  with  the 
view  to  consider  how  the  colonies 
could  be  made  to  consume  more 
English  manufactures,  rather  than 
how  they  should  prosper  by  manu- 
factures of  their  own?  Who  has 
urged  the  question  there,  that  instead 
of  England's  perpetually  sending  out 
goods,  and  draining  the  colonies  of  all 
the  fruits  of  their  labour,  England 
should  send  out  people  to  make  goods, 
who  in  making  them  would  make  the 
country?  Yet  this  is  the  root  of  the 
depression  and  the  poverty  of  the 
Canadas.  And  who  with  this  vast 
country's  resources  before  him — with 
its  ways  and  means  of  making  millions 
independent,  and  with  the  vast  faci- 
lities for  the  investment  of  capital  it 
afforded  and  affords — can  say  that  no 
interests  could  spring  up  in  it  of  con- 
sequence to  the  legislation  of  England? 
It  is  true  that  the  colonies  have 
had  their  own  parliaments ;  and  it  has 
been  imagined  that  these  parliaments 
encompassed  the  whole  of  their  in- 
terests. But  when  did  the  colonial 
legislatures  decide  that  the  colonies 
should  not  make  a  hob -nail  for  them- 
selves ?  Yet  the  want  of  making  the 
hob-nails  has  been  the  ruin  of  their 
prosperity.  It  is  estimated  that  the 
colonies  lose  upwards  of  two  hundred 
thousand  pounds  a-year  by  the  loss 
of  protection :  it  is  but  too  well  known 
how  deeply  this  loss  has  affected  them. 
Yet  whose  legislation  and  policy  edu- 
cated them  literally  to  feel  this  loss  ? 
whose  interests  were  consulted  in 
giving  the  protection,  and  taking  it 
away  again,  that  has  been  the  cause 
of  all  the  evil?  It  was  England's. 
The  colonies  have  been  allowed  by 
their  legislatures  to  shake  the  leaves 
of  their  interests ;  imperial  legisla- 
tion has  always  assailed  the  trunk. 
But  this  is  not  all ;  colonial  interests 
have  been,  unheard  and  unheeded, 
sacrificed  to  other  interests  in  England. 
The  destiny  of  the  colonies,  without 
question  and  without  redress,  has  been 
placed  in  the  hands  of  men  who  have 
made  a  convenience  of  their  interests, 
and  an  argument  of  their  misfortunes, 


brought  about  by  these  men  them- 
selves. Nor  could,  nor  ever  canr 
whatever  may  be  imagined  to  the 
contrary,  the  connexion  of  the  colo- 
nies be  preserved  with  England,  with- 
out her  policy  and  her  legislation 
vitally  affecting  them.  For  they 
must  be  either  English  or  American  ; 
they  must  be,  as  they  ever  have 
been,  if  the  connexion  is  maintained, 
made  subservient  to  the  interests  of 
England,  or  their  interests  must  be 
identified  with  hers  :  and  if  their  in- 
terests are  identical,  their  legislation 
should  be  identical  also.  It  is  impos- 
sible that  the  flag  of  England  can 
long  wave  over  what  is  all  American. 
If  the  colonies  are  to  be  wholly  inde- 
pendent in  their  interests  of  England, 
it  is  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  that 
their  measures  and  their  policy  may 
become,  not  only  what  England  might 
not  like,  but  what  might  be  an  actual 
injury  to  her ;  and  what  might  owe 
its  very  success,  like  much  of  the- 
policy  of  America,  to  its  being  detri- 
mental to  her  interests.  And  it  is  as 
unnatural  as  it  is  absurd  to  suppose, 
that  England  would  or  could,  for  any 
length  of  time,  extend  her  protection 
over  a  people  whose  interests  and 
whose  policy  might  be  pulling  against 
her  own,  whose  success  might  be 
marked  by  her  injury,  and  whose  pro- 
sperity might  increase  at  the  expense 
of  her  adversity. 

But,  apart  from  the  abstract  right 
of  the  colonies  being  represented 
where  they  are,  and,  we  insist,  must 
continue  to  be,  so  deeply  concerned, 
it  is  time  the  present  humiliating 
system  of  itnderstanding  their  views 
or  feelings  in  the  English  parliament 
should  come  to  an  end.  Upon  a 
vitally  important  question  to  them — 
upon  one  of  these  things  that  only  come 
up  once  in  a  century,  or  in  a  people's 
whole  history — take  the  following,  as 
an  example  of  the  way  in  which  their 
opinions  and  their  interests  were  re- 
garded : — 

"  DISHONESTY  OF  PUBLIC  MEN.  (From 
the  London  Post.)— Mr  Labouchere  wished 
to  show  that  Canada  chafed  under  the 
restrictions  of  the  Navigation  Laws,  and 
that  they  would  be  satisfied  with  'the 
new  commercial  principle,'  provided  the 
Navigation  Laws  were  repealed.  For 
this  purpose  the  minister  took  a  course 
which  he  would  no  more  have  thought  of 


1849.] 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


taking  in  the  affairs  of  private  life,  than  he 
would  have  thought  of  taking  purses  on 
the  highway.  The  minister  quoted  the 
statement  of  three  respectable  gentlemen 
at  Montreal,  which  coincided  with  his 
views;  and  [he  did  not  let  fall  one  word 
from  which  the  house  could  have  inferred 
that  the  opinions  thus  alluded  to,  were  not 
the  general  mercantile  opinions  of  Mon- 
treal. Now,  the  minister  could  scarcely 
be  ignorant  that  this  question  about  free 
trade,  and  the  alteration  of  the  Naviga- 
tion Laws,  has  been  the  subject  of  very 
earnest  discussion  in  Montreal;  and  he 
cannot  but  have  known  that  Mr  Young 
and  Mr  Holmes,  however  respectable  in 
their  position,  and  influential  in  their  busi- 
ness, are  the  leaders  of  a  small  minority 
of  the  body  to  which  they  belong.  Mr 
Labouchere  read  a  statement  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  which  he  had  the  confidence 
to  call  '  a  proof  irrefragable '  of  the 
mercantile  public  opinion  of  Montreal  and 
Upper  Canada,  when  the  truth  is — as 
he  could  not  but  have  known — that  the 
opinions  of  that  statement  are  the  opin- 
ions of  a  few  persons  utterly  opposed  to 
the  general  opinion  of  the  mercantile 
body.  There  was  held  in  Montreal,  on 
the  17th  of  last  month,  the  largest  public 
in-door  meeting  that  ever  assembled  in 
that  city,  at  which  a  string  of  resolutions 
was  passed  by  acclamation,  in  favour  of 
the  policy  of  protection,  and  against  the 
'  new  commercial  principle  '  of  the  go- 
vernment. That  meeting  was  addressed 
both  by  Mr  Young  and  Mr  Holmes.  They 
endeavoured  to  support  the  views  held  by 
Mr  Labouchere,  but  against  the  over- 
whelming sense  of  the  meeting,  from 
which  they  retired  in  complete  'discomfi- 
ture. We  are  bound  to  suppose  that  the 
minister  who  is  head  of  the  British  Board 
of  Trade  cannot  but  be  aware  of  this  ; 
and  yet  he  not  only  conceals  it  altogether 
from  the  House  of  Commons,  but  he  reads 
to  that  house  the  statement  of  Mr  Young 
and  Mr  Holmes,  as  '  proof  irrefragable  ' 
of  the  opinion  of  the  colony  of  Canada,  in 
favour  of  the  ministerial  policy.  The 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  would  as 
soon  cut  off  his  right  hand  as  do  anything 
of  the  kind  in  the  ordinary  concerns  of 
life  ;  and  yet  so  warped  is  he  by  party 
politics — so  desirous  of  obtaining  a  tri- 
umph for  the  political  bigotry  which  pos- 
sessed him — that  he  represents  the  mer- 
cantile interest  of  Montreal  and  Upper 
Canada  as  if  it  were  decidedly  on  his 
side,  when,  if  he  had  told  the  whole  story 
fairly  and  honestly,  he  would  have  been 
obliged  to  admit  that  exactly  the  contrary 
was  the  fact." 

Now,  if  it  be  necessary  for  England 
to  understand  colonial  feelings,  and 


479 

opinions  in  order  to  legislate  for  them, 
is  this  a  fair  or  honourable  way  of 
treating  them  ?  Are  the  interests  of 
these  great  provinces  to  be  thus  made 
subservient  to  political  trickery  ?  Is 
their  destiny  of  so  little  importance  to 
Great  Britain,  that  it  should  be  even 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  for  any 
man,  or  any  party,  in  England,  to  have 
it  in  his  or  their  power  thus  to  insult 
their  intellect  as  well  as  to  violate 
their  interests  ?  And  is  this  circum- 
stance not  a  counterpart  of  others  that 
have  from  time  to  time  occurred,  when 
Canadian  subjects  have  been  before 
parliament  ?  If  we  mistake  not,  up- 
on another  vitally  important  question 
to  them — the  corn  laws — the  petitions 
and  the  remonstrances  even  of  their 
governor  and  their  legislature  were, 
to  enable  misrepresentation  and  un- 
truth to  have  its  influence  in  a 
debate,  kept  back  and  concealed. 
A  party's  interests  in  England  were 
at  stake  ;  the  colonies  were  sacrificed. 
Now,  can  it  be  reasonably  urged,  that 
the  allowing  these  colonies  to  speak 
for  themselves,  and  to  be  understood 
for  themselves,  in  that  place  and  before 
that  people  who  literally  hold  their 
destiny  in  their  hands,  would  be  preg- 
nant with  more  danger  to  England 
than  this  dishonourable  system  is  to 
both  her  and  to  them  ?  Would  it  not 
be  better  to  have  them  constitutionally 
heard  than  surreptitiously  represented? 
Is  it  necessary  to  the  understanding 
of  the  wants  and  wishes  of  the  colonies, 
and  to  the  good  government  of  them, 
that  tricking  and  dishonesty  should 
triumph  over  truth  and  principle,  and 
that  the  legislative  boons  which  reach 
them  should  be  filtered  through  false- 
hood and  deception  ?  It  will  be  in 
the  recollection  of  all  who  have  read 
the  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  upon 
the  Navigation  Laws,  how  Lord  Stan- 
ley exposed  these  same  Messrs  Holmes 
and  Young,  mentioned  by  Mr  La- 
bouchere,  but  who,  on  this  occasion, 
in  the  Lords,  were  joined  with  a  Mr 
Knapp.  It  was  shown  by  his  lord- 
ship that  these  eminent  commercial 
men  (who  seem  to  be  the  standing 
correspondents  of  the  present  minis- 
try,) wrote  what  is  called  in  America 
a  bunkum  letter  to  Earl  Grey,  to  be 
used  in  the  House  of  Lords,  making  a 
grand  flourish  of  their  loyalty,  and  a 
great  case  out  in  favour  of  the  colonial 


480 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


[Oct. 


secretary's  side  of  the  question.  But 
it  was  unfortunately,  or  rather  for- 
tunately, discovered,  that  these  emi- 
nent individuals  had  been,  at  the  very 
same  time,  writing  to  their  commercial 
correspondents  in  London  to  shape 
their  business  for  an  early  annexation 
of  the  colonies  to  the  United  States  ! 
Yet  it  is  upon  such  eminent  testimony 
as  this  that  imperial  legislation  for  the 
colonies  is  founded.  This  is  the  way 
England  comes  to  a  sufficient  under- 
standing of  a  people's  interests,  to 
shape  a  policy  which  may  change  their 
whole  political  existence. 

But,  in  addition  to  these  reasons 
why  the  colonies  themselves  should 
be  represented  in  England,  there 
may  be  reasons  why  England  herself 
might  wish  the  same  thing.  May 
it  not  be  possible,  nay,  is  it  not  the 
fact,  that  a  vast  amount  of  trouble, 
vexation,  and  expense  might  be 
avoided  by  it  ?  How  many  commis- 
sioners sent  out  to  find  out  difficulties 
and  to  redress  grievances, — how  many 
investigations  before  parliamentary 
committees, — how  many  debates  in 
parliament, — how  many  expenses  of 
military  operations,  might  have  been 
avoided,  had  these  colonies  been  in  a 
situation  from  time  to  time  to  have 
explained  their  own  affairs,  and  to 
have  allowed  their  petty  squabbles  of 
race  and  of  faction  to  have  escaped  in 
the  safety-valves  of  imperial  legisla- 
tion ?  In  1827,  it  cost  England  the 
time  and  expense  incident  to  a  par- 
liamentary report,  upon  the  civil 
government  of  Lower  Canada  alone, 
which  extends  over  nearly  five  hun- 
dred pages  octavo.  And  this  was  irre- 
spective, of  course,  of  the  questions 
and  debates  which  led  to  it,  besides 
all  that  grew  out  of  it.  Next  came 
the  debates  upon  the  causes  of  the 
failure  of  the  remedies  proposed  in  the 
report — for  the  report  itself  turned  out 
to  be  like  throwing  a  little  water  on  a 
large  fire — it  only  served  to  increase 
the  blaze.  Then  came  Lord  Gosford, 
with  extensive  powers  to  settle  all 
difficulties,  and,  it  was  hoped,  with  a 
large  capacity  for  understanding  them. 
But  he,  whatever  else  he  did,  succeeded 
to  admiration  in  bringing  matters  to  a 
head  ;  or,  being  an  Irishman,  perhaps 
he  thought  he  would  make  things  go 
by  contraries — for  he  came  out  to  pacify 
All  parties,  and  he  managed  to  leave 


them  all  fighting.  Next  came  the 
debates  upon,  and  the  cost  of,  the 
rebellion,  and  then  rose  the  bright 
star  of  Canadian  hope  and  prosperity ; 
for  the  Earl  of  Durham  was  deputed, 
with  a  large  collection  of  wisdom,  and 
a  pretty  good  sprinkling  of  other  com- 
modity as  well,  to  settle  the  whole 
business.  But,  in  sooth,  these  Cana- 
dians must  be  a  sad  set,  for  he  pro- 
cured them  responsible  government, 
and  this  seems  to  have  set  them  clean 
into  the  fire. 

Now,  although  it  may  be  true  that 
the  colonies  might  have  had  but  few 
interests  at  first  to  engage  the  atten- 
tion of  imperial  legislation,  yet  it 
would  have  been  far  better  to  have 
educated  them  to  understand  that 
legislation,  and  to  have  appreciated 
England's  true  greatness  through  her 
institutions — and  at  the  same  time,  to 
have  England  taught,  by  practical 
association  and  connexion  with  them, 
their  real  worth — than  to  have  had 
English  legislation  largely  and  per- 
petually wasted  upon  colonial  broils, 
and  the  colonies  as  perpetually  dis- 
satisfied with  English  legislation.  The 
truth  is,  their  system  of  international 
legislation  only  made  the  two  coun- 
tries known  to  each  other  by  means 
of  their  difficulties.  The  colonies 
were  never  taught  to  look  to  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  imperial  parliament, 
unless  when  there  was  some  broil  to 
settle,  or  some  imperial  question  to 
be  decided,  that  was  linked  with  colo- 
nial ruin,  and  in  the  decision  of  which 
the  colonies  had  the  interesting  part 
to  play  of  looking  on.  Nor  has  Eng- 
land ever  thought  of,  or  regarded  the 
colonies,  except  to  hand  them  over 
bodily  to  some  subordinate  in  the 
colonial  office — unless  when  they  were 
forced  upon  her  attention  by  her  pride 
being  likely  to  be  wounded  by  her 
losing  them,  or  by  some  other  equally 
disagreeable  consideration.  The  legis- 
lative intercourse  between  them  has 
ever  been  of  the  worst  possible  kind. 
Instead  of  intending  to  teach  the 
people  of  England  to  respect,  to  rely 
upon,  and  to  appreciate  the  real  worth 
of  the  colonies,  it  has  taught  them  to 
underrate,  to  distrust,  and  to  avoid 
them.  Instead  of  imperial  legislation's 
forming  the  character  of  the  people, 
as  it  has  formed  the  character  of  the 
people  of  England,  and  giving  them 


1849.]  Civil  Revolution  in  the 

principles  to  cling  to,  and  to  hope 
upon,  it  has  directly  tended  to  con- 
centrate their  attention  upon  America, 
and  to  alienate  their  feelings  from 
England. 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  the  passing  of 
laws,  or  in  the  arrangements  of  com- 
merce, or  the  harmonising  and  com- 
bining of  interests,  that  the  colonies 
would  be  benefited  by  imperial  repre- 
sentation. They  would  be  benefited 
a  thousand  times  more  by  the  inter- 
course it  would  occasion  between  the 
two  countries.  The  colonies  would 
then  be  taught  to  regard  England  as 
their  home.  They  would  read  the 
debates  of  her  parliament  as  their  own 
debates;  they  would  feel  an  interest 
in  her  greatness,  in  her  struggles,  and 
in  her  achievements,  because  they 
would  participate  in  their  accomplish- 
ment. The  speeches  of  English  states- 
men—^the  literature  of  England — her 
institutions  and  her  history,  would 
then  be  studied,  understood,  and  ap- 
preciated by  them  ;  and  instead  of  the 
colonies  belonging  to  the  greatest 
empire  in  the  world,  and  being  the 
most  insignificant  in  legislation,  they 
would  rise  to  the  glory  and  dignity  of 
that  empire  of  which  they  formed  a 
part — sharing  in  its  intellectual  great- 
ness, its  rewards,  and  the  respect  that 
is  due  to  it  from  the  world.  Every 
person,  too,  who  represented  the  colo- 
nies in  England,  would  not  simply  be 
the  representatives  of  their  public 
policy,  or  national  interests — he  would 
also  represent  their  vast  resources, 
their  thousand  openings  for  the  pro- 
fitable investment  of  capital,  which  the 
people  of  England  might  benefit  by  as 
much  as  the  colonies.  The  public  im- 
provements now  abandoned  in  the 
colonies  for  want  of  capital  to  carry 
them  on,  and  for  want  of  sufficient 
confidence  in  their  government  on  the 
part  of  capitalists,  to  invest  their 
money  in  them,  wonld  then  become, 
as  similar  improvements  are  in  the 
States,  a  wide  field  for  English  enter- 
prise to  enrich  itself  in,  and  for  Eng- 
lish poverty  to  shake  off  its  misery 
by.  If  the  resources  of  the  colonies 
— if  their  means  of  making  rich,  and 
being  enriched,  were  understood  and 
taken  advantage  of — if  international 
legislation,  common  interests,  and  a 
common  destiny,  could  make  the  colo- 
nies stand  upon  the  same  footing  to 


Canadas. — A  Remedy.  481 

England  as  England  does  to  herself, 
God  only  can  tell  the  vast  amount 
of  human  comfort,  independence,  and 
happiness,  that  might  result  from  the 
consummation. 

But  how  can  these  advantages 
accrue  to  England,  or  to  the  colonies, 
as  long  as  it  is  understood  that,  the 
moment  a  man  plants  his  foot  upon  a 
colony,  that  moment  he  yields  up  the 
fee-simple  of  his  forefathers'  institu- 
tions— that  moment  he  takes,  as  it 
were,  a  lease  of  them,  conditioned  to 
hold  them  by  chance,  and  to  regard 
them  as  a  matter  of  temporary  con- 
venience and  necessity.  And  who 
that  has  observed  the  tone  of  public 
feeling  in  England  for  years,  or  the 
spirit  of  the  debates  in  her  parliament, 
can  deny  that  this  is  the  case  ? — who 
that  now  lives  in  the  colonies  can 
deny  it  ?  And  with  such  an  under- 
standing as  this,  and  with  an  educa- 
tion perpetually  going  on  in  colonial 
legislatures,  weaning  the  feelings  and 
separating  the  interests  of  the  colo- 
nies from  the  mother  country,  how 
can  it  be  expected  that  that  interest 
in  England  necessary  to  all  true 
loyalty,  and  that  knowledge  and  ap- 
preciation of  her  institutions  necessary 
to  all  enlightened  or  patriotic  attach- 
ment, can  take  root,  or  subsist  for  any 
length  of  time  in  the  colonies  ?  If  the 
colonies,  in  truth,  are  to  be  made,  or 
to  be  kept  British,  in  anything  else 
than  in  name — if  even  in  name  they 
can  long  be  kept  so — it  must  be  by 
the  infusion  of  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  British  character  and  British 
principle  into  them,  by  means  of 
British  legislation.  If  they  are  to  be 
part  and  parcel  of  the  great  oak,  the 
grafts  must  be  nourished  by  the  same 
sap  that  supports  the  tree  itself.  The 
little  boat  that  is  launched  on  the 
great  sea  to  shift  for  itself,  must  soon 
be  separated  from  the  great  ship. 
The  colonies,  denied  all  practical  par- 
ticipation in  the  true  greatness  of 
England,  and  having  with  them,  by 
virtue  of  their  very  name  as  colonies, 
the  prestige  of  instability  and  insecu- 
rity, must,  in  the  very  nature  of 
things,  be  avoided  by  all  who,  though 
they  would  be  glad  to  trust  the  great 
ship,  cannot  rely  upon  one  of  its  frail 
boats.  The  great  wings  of  England's 
legislation  must  be  made  to  cover  the 
North  American  colonies,  and  to  warm 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


482 

them  into  a  British  existence;  or  they 
will  be  doomed  to  stray  and  to  wander, 
and  to  be  disrespected  and  uncared 
for,  until  inevitable  destiny  at  last 
forces  them  under  the  wings  of  another. 
Franklin,  the  profoundest  thinker 
of  the  many  great  men  connected 
with  the  American  Revolution,  thus 
wrote  upon  this  subject : — 

"  The  time  has  been  when  the  colonies 
might  have  been  pleased  with  imperial 
representation  ;  they  are  now  indifferent 
about  it ;  and  if  it  is  much  longer  delayed, 
they  will  refuse  it.  But  the  pride  of  the 
English  people  cannot  bear  the  thought 
of  it,  and  therefore  it  will  be  delayed. 
Every  man  in  England  seems  to  consider 
himself  as  a  piece  of  a  sovereign  over 
America  —  seems  to  jostle  himself  into 
the  throne  with  the  King,  and  talks  of 
our  subjects  in  the  colonies.  The  par- 
liament cannot  well  and  wisely  make 
laws  suited  to  the  colonies,  without  being 
properly  and  truly  informed  of  their 
circumstances,  ability,  temper,  &e.  This 
cannot  be  without  representatives  from 
the  colonies  ;  yet  the  parliament  of  Eng- 
land is  fond  of  exercising  this  power,  and 
averse  to  the  only  means  of  acquiring 
the  necessary  knowledge  for  exercising 
it  ;  which  is  desiring  to  be  omnipotent 

without    being  omniscient 

There  remains  among  the 

colonists  so  much  respect,  veneration,  and 
affection  for  Britain,  that,  if  cultivated 
prudently,  with  a  kind  usage,  and  tender- 
ness for  their  privileges,  they  might  be 
easily  governed  by  England  still  for  ages, 
without  force,  or  any  considerable  ex- 
pense. But  I  do  not  see  there  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  the  wisdom  that  is  necessary 
to  produce  such  a  conduct,  and  I  lament 
the  want  of  it." — Letter  to  Lord  Kames. 

But  it  is  most  strange,  that  while 
England's  policy,  and  the  spirit  of  her 
legislation,  have  for  some  years  past 
clearly  indicated  to  the  world,  that 
she  expected  and  seemed  disposed  to 
pave  the  way  for  a  separation  between 
herself  and  her  colonies,  her  conduct 
in  other  respects  should  be  so  opposed 
to  her  views  in  this.  For  while  she 
was  foreshadowing  in  her  legislature 
the  independence  of  her  colonies,  she 
was  building,  at  a  heavy  expense, 
garrisons  in  them  to  support  her  power 
for  all  time  to  come.  Within  the  ten 
years  last  past,  garrison  quarters,  upon 
a  large  scale,  have  been  built  at  Toron- 
to ;  and  large  sums  have  been  laid  out 
upon  every  fort  and  place  of  defence 
in  the  colonies.  Surely  this  must 


[Oct. 


have  been  done  with  some  other  view 
than  making  safe  and  convenient 
places  for  the  stars  and  stripes  to 
wave  on  in  a  few  years !  Yet  when 
\ve  come  to  look  back  upon  England's 
legislation  for  the  same  period,  and 
upon  the  spirit  evoked  by  the  debates 
in  her  parliament,  it  would  really 
seem,  if  she  had  any  rational  design 
in  these  expenditures  at  all,  that  she 
must  have  intended  them  for  the  ex- 
press benefit  of  her  once  rebellious  son 
Jonathan.  England,  by  these  de- 
fences, would  seem  to  say  to  the  colon- 
ists— "-Look  there,  my  lads,  and  see 
the  emblems  of  your  protection,  and  of 
British  rule  in  America  for  ever."  By 
her  legislation  and  free-trade  policy, 
she  has  unequivocally  told  them, 
"  that  she  must  buy  her  bread  where 
she  pleases ;  and  they  may  find  a 
government  where  they  please."  With 
one  hand  she  has  taken  her  colonies 
by  the  shoulder,  and  told  them  they 
must  behave  themselves :  with  the 
other,  she  has  shaken  hands  with 
them,  and  told  them  they  may  kick 
up  their  heels  as  they  please  for  all 
she  cares. 

But  there  is  a  question,  upon  the 
satisfactory  answering  of  which  rests 
the  whole  matter  of  whether  the  colo- 
nies can,  or  cannot,  continue  connected 
with  Great  Britain.  And  that  ques- 
tion is,  Can  they  prosper  in  propor- 
tion to  their  abilities  to  prosper,  by 
that  connexion  ? 

We  have  already  partially  answered 
it,  by  showing  the  benefit  that  would 
inevitably  accrue  to  the  colonies  from 
their  being  represented  in  the  imperial 
parliament — by  their  whole  property 
and  worth  being,  by  this  means, 
placed  in  the  market  of  the  world  side 
by  side  with  the  property  and  worth 
of  England  herself;  and  by  England's 
capital  partially,  if  not  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  flowing  into  the  colonies 
upon  the  same  footing  that  it  flows 
through  England  —  i.  e.,  upon  the 
principle  of  advantageous  investment- 
But  we  shall  prove  that  they  can  and 
should  prosper,  to  the  fullest  extent 
of  their  capabilities,  in  connexion 
with  Britain,  in  another  way. 

It  is  admitted,  on  all  hands,  that 
were  their  connexion  with  England 
broken  off,  and  were  the  colonies  to 
become,  as  it  is  certain  they  would, 
several  States  of  the  American  Uuionr 


1849.] 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


483 


they  would  prosper,  in  proportion  to 
their  capabilities,  equally  with  any  of 
the  northern  states  having  no  greater 
advantages  in  soil  or  resources.  It  is 
thought,  and  we  believe  with  truth, 
that  the  public  improvements  which 
now  lie  dormant  for  want  of  capital  to 
carry  them  on,  or  for  want  of  sufficient 
knowledge  of,  or  confidence  in,  the 
colonies  from  without,  to  induce  the 
necessary  capital  to  be  advanced  for 
them,  would  be  completed,  if  the 
colonies  Avere  joined  to  the  States.  It 
is  thought,  too,  and  with  equal  pro- 
priety, that  Lower  Canada,  whose 
population  is  singularly  well  fitted  to 
prosper  and  be  benefited  by  manu- 
factures, would,  were  it  a  State,  be 
directed  in  that  course  most  condu- 
cive to  its  prosperity.  And  it  is 
thought — likewise  correctly — that  the 
great  resources  of  Upper  Canada, 
were  that  province  too  a  State, 
would  become  greatly  more  available 
than  they  now  are:  its  population 
would  increase ;  its  cities  and  towns 
enlarge ;  and  every  man  having  an 
acre  of  land,  or  a  lot  in  a  town  in  it, 
would  become  much  better  off  than  he 
is  at  present.  This,  if  the  States  re- 
main united  as  they  have  been,  and 
prosper  as  they  have  done,  might  be 
all  strictly  true.  But  why  is  it  that 
the  colonies  believe  this,  and  that  the 
States  are  also  of  the  same  opinion  ?  It 
is  because  the  colonies  know  what  the 
Americans  are,  and  the  Americans 
know  what  the  colonies  are  capable  of. 
They  understand  each  other,  and 
they  know  how  they  could  work  to- 
gether for  good. 

But  what  means  would  the  Ameri- 
cans employ  to  develop  the  undeveloped 
resources  of  the  colonies,  and  to  secure 
wealth  to  themselves,  while  they 
brought  prosperity  to  them?  They 
would  simply  employ  their  capital  in 
them;  and. they  know  that  it  could, 
and  they  would  see  that  it  should,  be 
so  employed  as  to  secure  these  results. 

But  let  us  now  inquire, — Is  it  impos- 
sible to  employ  the  capital  of  England 
in  these  colonies,  so  as  to  effect  the 
same  thing?  If  American  enterprise 
and  skill  could  cause  wealth  to  spring 
up  in  Lower  Canada,  and  could  enrich 
itself  by  doing  so,  is  it  impossible  for 
English  enterprise  and  skill  to  do 
likewise  ?  If  American  capitalists 
could,  beyond  any  manner  of  ques- 


tion, accumulate  wealth  for  them- 
selves, and  vastly  benefit  the  Canadas, 
by  constructingrailroads  through  them, 
or  rather  by  continuing  their  own, 
is  it  out  of  the  power  of  English  capi- 
talists to  be  enriched  by  the  same 
process  ?  If  the  Canadas,  as  we  have 
said,  believe  the  States  can  infuse 
prosperity  into  them,  because  they 
see  the  States  understand  them,  and 
know  what  they  are  capable  of,  is  it 
impossible  for  England  to  understand 
them  also,  and  to  take  advantage  of 
their  worth  ?  But  then,  it  will  be  an- 
swered, there  is  the  difficulty  of  colo- 
nial government.  Who  will  invest 
his  capital  for  a  period  of  fifteen  or 
twenty  years,  where  he  may  be  paid 
off  by  a  revolution — when,  as  Moore 
said  of  the  old  colonies — 

"  England's   debtors   might   be    changed  to 
England's  foes  ?" 

But  suppose  the  stability  of  Eng- 
land's own  government  were  imparted 
to  the  colonies,  suppose  the  perma- 
nency and  the  interests  of  England 
became  effectually  and  for  ever  iden- 
tified with  them— what  then?  That 
there  is  no  reason  under  heaven  left 
why  they  should  not  prosper,  to  the 
fullest  extent  of  their  ability  to  pros- 
per, and  that  England  might  not  be 
benefited  by  them  in  proportion. 

But  even  this  is  but  a  partial  view 
of  the  case  ;  for  the  Americans  would 
actually  borrow  the  money  in  Eng- 
land that  they  would  invest  in  the 
colonies,  and  yet  enrich  themselves  by 
doing  so.  The  colonies,  in  truth — 
joined  to  the  States — would  prosper 
by  diluted  benefits,  the  Americans 
reaping  all  the  advantages  of  the  di- 
lution. Connected  with  Great  Bri- 
tain — did  Britain  confide  in  them  as 
she  might,  and  understand  them  as 
she  should,  and  were  they  in  a  situ- 
ation to  inspire  that  confidence,  and  to 
occasion  that  understanding  —  they 
must  inevitably  reap,  in  many  re- 
spects, double  the  benefits  they  would 
enjoy  with  the  States. 

But  the  States  would  benefit  the  colo- 
nies all  they  could.  Will  England  < 

The  scheme  of  imperial  representa- 
tion for  the  North  American  colonies 
may  be,  and  doubtless  is,  open  to 
many  objections ;  and  many  difficul- 
ties would  have  to  be  got  over  before 
it  could  be  accomplished.  The  first, 


484 


Civil  Revolution  in  the  Canadas. — A  Remedy. 


[Oct. 


if  not  the  only  great  difficulty,  is — 
Would  the  colonies  bear  the  burden 
of  taxation,  and  the  responsibility  of 
being  part  and  parcel  of  the  British 
empire,  for  better  or  for  worse,  for 
all  time  to  come  ?  And  could  they,  if 
they  would  ? 

In  considering  these  questions,  it  is 
but  fair  to  view  them,  not  only  in  re- 
gard to  the  responsibilities  the  system 
we  propose  would  entail,  but  also  in 
regard  to  the  responsibilities  they 
would  and  must  incur  by  any  other 
system  they  might  adopt.  For  this 
may  be  taken  for  granted — they  must 
soon  become  all  American,  or  all  Eng- 
lish. They  must  enjoy  English  credit 
and  English  permanency,  or  they  must 
have  some  other.  A  great  country, 
with  an  industrious,  enterprising 
people,  cannot  long  remain  without 
credit,  without  prosperity,  and  with- 
out either  the  use  or  the  hope  of  capi- 
tal. The  Canadas  are  now  in  this 
situation. 

If,  then,  the  colonies  should  become 
independent,  and  it  were  possible  for 
them  to  continue  so,  they  would  have 
to  pay  for  their  own  protection.  And 
if  they  became  a  republic,  they  would 
have  to  take  their  stand  with  the 
other  powers  of  the  world,  and  bear 
the  expense  of  doing  so.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  were  taken  into  the 
American  Union,  they  would  have  to 
contribute,  in  addition  to  the  cost  of 
their  own  local  or  state  governments, 
to  the  support  of  the  general  govern- 
ment of  the  whole  Union  ;  they  would 
have,  too,  to  contribute  to  the  form- 
ing a  navy  for  the  States,  such  as  Eng- 
land has  now  got ;  and  they  would  be 
obliged  to  contribute,  too,  for  the  con- 
struction of  military  defences  for 
America,  which  England  is  pretty 
well  supplied  with.  They  would  have, 
in  short,  to  expend  upon  America  a 
great  deal  of  what  England,  in  three 
or  four  centuries,  has  been  expending 
upon  herself  as  a  nation. 

It  may  also  be  fairly  presumed, 
that,  with  interests  every  day  becom- 
ing more  independent  of  England; 
with  a  system  of  government  which 
leaves  England  nothing  in  America 
but  a  name — or,  as  Lord  Elgin  says, 
a  "  dignified  neutrality,"  and  which 
really  means  a  dignified  nothingness — 
with  a  system  of  government  such  as 
this,  every  sensible  man  must  foresee 


that  England  will  soon  get  tired  of 
paying  largely  for  the  support  of  her 
dignified  nothingness  in  America  ; 
that  she  will — as  indeed  she  has  al- 
ready done — inquire  what  right  or 
occasion  she  has  for  protecting  colo- 
nies from  their  enemies  from  without : 
or,  what  is  much  more  serious  to  her, 
from  themselves  within,  when  she  has 
ceased  to  have  a  single  interest  in 
commerce  with  them  ;  and  when  she 
must  see — if  the  present  system  be 
kept  up  much  longer — that  every  day 
must  separate  her  still  more  widely 
from  them  in  feeling,  and  in  all  the  es- 
sential principles  that  bind  a  people  to 
each  other,  or  a  colony  to  a  mother 
country  ? 

In  view,  therefore,  of  all  these  con- 
siderations, taken  separately  or  to- 
gether, it  is  but  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  the  colonies  may  soon  be  called 
upon  to  pay  for  their  own  protection 
from  their  enemies  from  without,  or 
for  their  own  squabbles  within,  if 
they  must  indulge  in  such  expensive 
amusements.  And  the  question  then 
arises — Would  their  being  practi- 
cally identified  with  the  British  em- 
pire, participating  in  all  its  greatness, 
and  enjoying  the  prestige  of  its  sta- 
bility and  its  credit,  entail  upon  them 
greater  cost  or  responsibility,  than 
they  would  have  to  incur  to  maintain 
a  puny,  helpless  independence,  or  in 
becoming  states  of  the  American 
Union? 

It  is  out  of  our  power  to  make  the 
calculation,  as  it  is  [impossible  for  us 
to  know  upon  what  terms  England 
would  agree  to  the  colonies  partici- 
pating in  her  government  as  we  pro- 
pose. It  is  likewise  impossible  for  us 
to  tell  how  much  might  be  saved  by 
removing  the  tea-pots,  so  pregnant 
with  tempests,  in  the  shape  of  colonial 
legislatures ;  in  removing  governors 
to  preserve  "  dignified  neutrality-,'' 
and  courts  to  keep  up  the  shadow  of 
England's  government  in  America, 
the  substance  having  grown  "  beauti- 
fully less  "  of  late  years.  But  after 
much  thought  and  investigation,  by 
both  ourselves  and  others  better 
accustomed  to  such  matters  than  we 
are,  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion — 
that  imperial  representation  might 
cost  the  colonies  nothing  more,  if  as 
much,  as  any  other  change  they  would 
have  to  make  ;  that  England  would 


1849.] 


Tiie  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


485 


gain  immensely  by  the  change  ;  and 
that  the  proceeds  of  the  vast  tracts  of 
country  lying  north  and  north-west 
of  the  Canadas,  their  fisheries,  their 
mineral  resources,  and  their  other 
unused  and  tinappropriated  wealth  in 
timber  and  other  things,  might  be 
converted  into  a  sinking  fund  by  the 
united  governments  of  England  and 
her  colonies,  that,  in  its  effects,  might 
astonish  both  England  and  the  world. 
We  can  but  throw  out  the  suggestion ; 
it  is  for  others  to  consider  it. 

But  if  the  connexion  of  the  colonies 
with  Great  Britain  is  to  be  made  a 
mere  matter  of  time  and  convenience, 
as  to  when  it  shall  end,  or  how,  then 
it  is  of  little  use  in  hoping  much,  or 
thinking  deeply,  upon  what  may  be 
pregnant  with  such  vast  consequences 
to  England's  race  in  America,  and 
even  America's  own  race  in  it.  A  time, 
it  would  seem,  which  has  taught 
Britons  to  know  what  their  institu- 
tions are  worth,  must  cost  them  in 
America  these  institutions.  A  time, 
which  has  exhibited,  during  the  prin- 


cipal settlement  of  the  Canada?,  the 
fall  alike  of  the  fabric  of  the  political 
enthusiast  and  the  fortress  of  the 
despot  in  Europe,  must  cost,  it  seems, 
the  colonies  that  government  which 
bore  freedom  aloft  through  the  wild 
storm.  England  has  stood  upon  a 
rock,  and,  after  pointing  out  to  her 
colonies  the  wreck  of  human  institu- 
tions, she  is  about  to  push  them  off 
to  share  the  fate  she  has  taught  them 
so  much  to  dread.  If  England  has 
the  heart  to  do  it,  it  must  be  done. 
Three  millions  of  people  will  cease  to 
say  "  God  save  the  Queen  !  "  The 
sun  will  set  upon  her  empire.  Full 
many  an  honest  tear  will  be  shed  at 
hearing  that  it  must.  Full  many  a 
heart  will  be  torn  from  what  it  would 
but  too  gladly  die  for.  But  the  days 
of  chivalry  are  gone ;  the  days  of 
memory  are  fled.  The  selfish,  mer- 
cenary nineteenth  century  will  be 
marked  with  the  loss  of  the  best  jewel 
in  Britain's  crown. 

HAMILTON,  CANADA  WEST, 
August  1849. 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH,  OR  THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 


SOME  twenty  or  more  years  before 
I  matriculated  at  Oxford,  Mr  Palmer, 
M.P.  for  Bath,  had  accomplished  two 
things,  very  hard  to  do  on  our  little 
planet,  the  Earth,  however  cheap  they 
may  happen  to  be  held  by  the  eccen- 
tric people  in  comets :  he  had  invented 
mail-coaches,  and  he  had  married  the 
daughter*  of  a  duke.  He  was,  there- 
fore, just  twice  as  great  a  man  as  Ga- 
lileo, who  certainly  invented  (or  dis- 
covered) the  satellites  of  Jupiter,  those 
very  next  things  extant  to  mail-coaches 
in  the  two  capital  points  of  speed  and 
keeping  time,  but  who  did  not  marry 
the  daughter  of  a  duke. 

These  mail-coaches,  as  organised 
by  Mr  Palmer,  are  entitled  to  a  cir- 
cumstantial notice  from  myself-— hav- 
ing had  so  large  a  share  in  developing 
the  anarchies  of  my  subsequent  dreams, 
an  agency  which  they  accomplished, 


first,  through  velocity,  at  that  time 
unprecedented ;  they  first  revealed  the 
glory  of  motion :  suggesting,  at  the 
same  time,  an  under-sense,  not  un- 
pleasurable,  of  possible  though  indefi- 
nite danger ;  secondly,  through  grand 
effects  for  the  eye  between  lamp-light 
and  the  darkness  upon  solitary  roads ; 
thirdly,  through  animal  beauty  and 
power  so  often  displayed  in  the  class 
of  horses  selected  for  this  mail  ser- 
vice ;  fourthly,  through  the  conscious 
.  presence  of  a  central  intellect,  that,  in 
the  midst  of  vast  distances,!  of  storms, 
of  darkness,  of  night,  overruled  all 
obstacles  into  one  steady  co-operation 
in  a  national  result.  To  my  own  feel- 
ing, this  Post-office  service  recalled 
some  mighty  orchestra,  where  a  thou- 
sand instruments,  all  disregarding  each 
other,  and  so  far  in  danger  of  discord, 
yet  all  obedient  as  slaves  to  the 


*  Lady  Madeline  Gordon. 

f  "  Vast  distances." — One  case  was  familiar  to  mail-coach  travellers,  where  two 
mails  in  opposite  directions,  north  and  south,  starting  at  the  same  minute  from  points 
six  hundred  miles  apart,  met  almost  constantly  at  a  particular  bridge  which  exactly 
bisected  the  total  distance. 


486 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


[Oct. 


supreme  baton  of  some  great  leader, 
terminate  in  a  perfection  of  harmony 
like  that  of  heart,  veins,  and  arteries, 
in  a  healthy  animal  organisation.  But, 
finally,  that  particular  element  in  this 
whole  combination  which  most  im- 
pressed myself,  and  through  which  it 
is  that  to  this  hour  Mr  Palmer's  mail- 
coach  system  tyrannises  by  terror  and 
terrific  beauty  over  nay  dreams,  lay  in 
the  awful  political  mission  which  at 
that  time  it  fulfilled.  The  mail-coaches 
it  was  that  distributed  over  the  face 
of  the  land,  like  the  opening  of  apoca- 
lyptic vials,  the  heart-shaking  news 
of  Trafalgar,  of  Salamanca,  of  Vitto- 
ria,  of  Waterloo.  These  were  the  har- 
vests that,  in  the  grandeur  of  then- 
reaping,  redeemed  the  tears  and  blood 
in  which  they  had  been  sown.  Neither 
was  the  meanest  peasant  so  much  be- 
low the  grandeur  and  the  sorrow  of  the 
times  as  to  confound  these  battles, 
which  were  gradually  moulding  the 
destinies  of  Christendom,  with  the  vul- 
gar conflicts  of  ordinary  warfare,  which 
are  oftentimes  but  gladiatorial  trials 
of  national  prowess.  The  victories  of 
England  in  this  stupendous  contest 
rose  of  themselves  as  natural  TeDeums 
to  heaven  ;  and  it  was  felt  by  the 
thoughtful  that  such  victories,  at  such 
a  crisis  of  general  prostration,  were 
not  more  beneficial  to  ourselves  than 
finally  to  France,  and  to  the  nations 
of  western  and  central  Europe,  through 
whose  pusillanimity  it  was  that  the 
French  domination  had  prospered. 

The  mail-coach,  as  the  national 
organ  for  publishing  these  mighty 
events,  became  itself  a  spiritualised 
and  glorified  object  to  an  impassioned 
heart ;  and  naturally,  in  the  Oxford 
of  that  day,  all  hearts  were  awakened. 
There  were,  perhaps,  of  us  gownsmen, 
two  thousand  resident*  in  Oxford, 
and  dispersed  through  five-and-twenty 
colleges.  In  some  of  these  the  custom 
permitted  the  student  to  keep  what 
are  called  "  short  terms;"  that  is,  the 
four  terms  of  Michaelmas,  Lent, 
Easter,  and  Act,  were  kept  severally 
by  a  residence,  in  the  aggregate,  of 
ninety-one  days,  or  thirteen  weeks. 
Under  this  interrupted  residence, 


accordingly,  it  was  possible  that  a 
student  might  have  a  reason  for  going 
down  to  his  home  four  times  in  the 
year.  This  made  eight  journeys  to 
and  fro.  And  as  these  homes  lay 
dispersed  through  all  the  shires  of  the 
island,  and  most  of  us  disdained  all 
coaches  except  his  majesty's  mail,  no 
city  out  of  London  could  pretend  to 
so  extensive  a  connexion  with  Mr 
Palmer's  establishment  as  Oxford. 
Naturally,  therefore,  it  became  a 
point  of  some  interest  with  us,  whose 
journeys  revolved  every  six  weeks  on 
an  average,  to  look  a  little  into  the 
executive  details  of  the  system.  With 
some  of  these  Mr  Palmer  had  no  con- 
cern; they  rested  upon  bye-laws  not 
unreasonable,  enacted  by  posting- 
houses  for  their  own  benefit,  and  upon 
others  equally  stern,  enacted  by  the 
inside  passengers  for  the  illustration 
of  their  own  exclusiveness.  These  last 
were  of  a  nature  to  rouse  our  scorn, 
from  which  the  transition  was  not 
very  long  to  mutiny.  Up  to  this  time, 
it  had  been  the  fixed  assumption  of 
the  four  inside  people,  (as  an  old  tra- 
dition of  all  public  carriages  from  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.,)  that  they,  the 
illustrious  quaternion,  constituted  a 
porcelain  variety  of  the  human  race, 
whose  dignity  would  have  been  com- 
promised by  exchanging  one  word  of 
civility  with  the  three  miserable  delf 
ware  outsides.  Even  to  have  kicked 
an  outsider  might  have  been  held  to 
attaintthe  foot  concerned  in  that  opera- 
tion ;  so  that,  perhaps,  it  would  have 
required  an  act  of  parliament  to  restore; 
its  purity  of  blood.  What  words, 
then,  could  express  the  horror,  and 
the  sense  of  treason,  in  that  case, 
which  had  happened,  where  all  three 
outsides,  the  trinity  of  Pariahs,  made 
a  vain  attempt  to  sit  down  at  the 
same  breakfast-table  or  dinner-table 
with  the  consecrated  four?  I  myself 
witnessed  such  an  attempt ;  and  on 
that  occasion  a  benevolent  old  gentle- 
man endeavoured  to  soothe  his  three 
holy  associates,  by  suggesting  that,  if 
the  outsides  were  indicted  for  this 
criminal  attempt  at  the  next  assizes, 
the  court  would  regard  it  as  a  case  of 


*  "  Resident." — The  number  on  the  books  was  far  greater,  many  of  whom  kept  up 
an  intermitting  communication  with  Oxford.  But  I  speak  of  those  only  who  were 
steadily  pursuing  their  academic  studies,  and  of  those  vyho  resided  constantly  as 
fellows. 


1849.] 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


487 


lunacy  (or  delirium  tremens)  rather 
than  of  treason.  England  owes  much 
of  her  grandeur  to  the  depth  of  the 
aristocratic  element  in  her  social  com- 
position. I  am  not  the  man  to  laugh 
at  it.  But  sometimes  it  expressed 
itself  in  extravagant  shapes.  The 
course  taken  with  the  infatuated  out- 
siders, in  the  particular  attempt  which 
I  have  noticed,  was,  that  the  waiter, 
beckoning  them  away  from  the  privi- 
leged salle-a-manger,  sang  out,  "  This 
•way,  my  good  men ;"  and  then  enticed 
them  away  off  to  the  kitchen.  But 
that  plan  had  not  always  answered. 
Sometimes,  though  very  rarely,  cases 
occurred  where  the  intruders,  being 
stronger  than  usual,  or  more  vicious 
than  usual,  resolutely  refused  to  move, 
and  so  far  carried  their  point,  as  to 
have  a  separate  table  arranged  for 
themselves  in  a  corner  of  the  room. 
Yet,  if  an  Indian  screen  could  be  found 
ample  eriough  to  plant  them  out  from 
the  very  eyes  of  the  high  table,  or 
dais,  it  then  became  possible  to  as- 
sume as  a  fiction  of  law — that  the 
three  delf  fellows,  after  all,  were  not 
present.  They  could  be  ignored  by  the 
porcelain  men,  under  the  maxim,  that 
objects  not  appearing,  and  not  exist- 
ing, are  governed  by  the  same  logical 
construction. 

Such  now  being,  at  that  time,  the 
usages  of  mail-coaches,  what  was  to 
be  done  by  us  of  young  Oxford  ?  We, 
the  most  aristocratic  of  people,  who 
were  addicted  to  the  practice  of  look- 
ing down  superciliously  even  upon  the 
insides  themselves  as  often  very  sus- 
picious characters,  were  we  voluntarily 
to  court  indignities  ?  If  our  dress  and 
bearing  sheltered  us,  generally,  from 
the  suspicion  of  being  "  raff,"  (the 
name  at  that  period  for  "  snobs,"*) 
we  really  were  such  constructively,  by 
the  place  we  assumed.  If  we  did  not 
submit  to  the  deep  shadow  of  eclipse, 
we  entered  at  least  the  skirts  of  its 
penumbra.  And  the  analogy  of  theatres 
was  urged  against  us,  where  no  man 
can  complain  of  the  annoyances  inci- 
dent to  the  pit  or  gallery,  having  his 
instant  remedy  in  paying  the  higher 
price  of  the  boxes.  But  the  sound- 
ness of  this  analogy  we  disputed.  In 


the  case  of  the  theatre,  it  cannot  be 
pretended  that  the  inferior  situations 
have  any  separate  attractions,  unless 
the  pit  suits  the  purpose  of  the  drama- 
tic reporter.  But  the  reporter  or 
critic  is  a  rarity.  For  most  people, 
the  sole  benefit  is  in  the  price.  AVhere- 
as,  on  the  contrary,  the  outside  of  the 
mail  had  its  own  incommunicable  ad- 
vantages. These  we  could  not  forego. 
The  higher  price  we  should  willingly 
have  paid,  but  that  was  connected  with 
the  condition  of  riding  inside,  which 
was  insufferable.  The  air,  the  free- 
dom of  prospect,  the  proximity  to  the 
horses,  the  elevation  of  seat — these 
were  what  we  desired ;  but,  above  allt 
the  certain  anticipation  of  purchasing 
occasional  opportunities  of  driving. 

Under  coercion  of  this  great  prac- 
tical difficulty,  we  instituted  a  search- 
ing inquiry  into  the  true  quality  and 
valuation  of  the  different  apartments 
about  the  mail.  We  conducted  this 
inquiry  on  metaphysical  principles  ; 
and  it  was  ascertained  satisfactorily, 
that  the  roof  of  the  coach,  which  some 
had  affected  to  call  the  attics,  and 
some  the  garrets,  was  really  the  draw- 
ing-room, and  the  box  was  the  chief 
ottoman  or  sofa  in  that  drawing- 
room;  whilst  it  appeared  that  the 
inside,  which  had  been  traditionally 
regarded  as  the  only  room  tenantable 
by  gentlemen,  was,  in  fact,  the  coal- 
cellar  in  disguise. 

Great  wits  jump.  The  very  same 
idea  had  not  long  before  struck  the 
celestial  intellect  of  China.  Amongst 
the  presents  carried  out  by  our  first 
embassy  to  that  country  was  a  state- 
coach.  It  had  been  specially  selected 
as  a  personal  gift  by  George  III. ;  but 
the  exact  mode  of  using  it  was  a 
mystery  to  Pekin.  The  ambassador, 
indeed,  (Lord  Macartney,)  had  made 
some  dim  and  imperfect  explanations 
upon  the  point ;  but  as  his  excellency 
communicated  these  in  a  diplomatic 
whisper,  at  the  very  moment  of  his 
departure,  the  celestial  mind  was  very 
feebly  illuminated;  and  it  became 
necessary  to  call  a  cabinet  council  011 
the  grand  state  question — "  Where 
was  the  emperor  to  sit  ?  "  The  ham- 
mer-cloth happened  to  be  unusually 


*  "  Snobs,"  and  its  antithesis,  "  nobs,"  arose  among  the  internal  factions  of  shoe- 
makers perhaps  ten  years  later.  Possibly  enough,  the  terms  may  have  existed  much 
earlier;  but  they  were  tlien  first  made  known,  picturesquely  and  effectively,  by  a 
trial  at  some  assizes  which  happened  to  fix  the  public  attention. 

VOL.  LXYI. — NO.  CCCCVUI.  2  K 


488 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


[Oct. 


gorgeous ;  and  partly  on  that  con- 
sideration, but  partly  also  because  the 
box  offered  the  most  elevated  seat, 
and  undeniably  went  foremost,  it  was 
resolved  by  acclamation  that  the  box 
was  the  imperial  place,  and,  for  the 
scoundrel  who  drove,  he  might  sit 
where  he  could  find  a  perch.  The 
horses,  therefore,  being  harnessed, 
under  a  flourish  of  music  and  a  salute 
of  guns,  solemnly  his  imperial  majesty 
ascended  his  new  English  throne, 
having  the  first  lord  of  the  treasury 
on  his  right  hand,  and  the  chief  jester 
on  his  left.  Pekin  gloried  in  the  spec- 
tacle ;  and  in  the  whole  flowery 
people,  constructively  present  by  re- 
presentation, there  was  but  one  dis- 
contented person,  which  was  the 
coachman.  This  mutinous  individual, 
looking  as  blackhearted  as  he  really 
was,  audaciously  shouted — u  Where 
am  /  to  sit  ?  "  But  the  privy  council, 
incensed  by  his  disloyalty,  unani- 
mously opened  the  door,  and  kicked 
him  into  the  inside.  He  had  all  the 
inside  places  to  himself ;  but  such  is  the 
rapacity  of  ambition,  that  he  was  still 
dissatisfied.  "  I  say,"  he  cried  out  in 
an  extempore  petition,  addressed  to 
the  emperor  through  a  window,  "  how 
am  I  to  catch  hold  of  the  reins  ?  " — 
"  Any  how,"  was  the  answer ;  "  don't 
trouble  me,  man,  in  my  glory ;  through 
the  windows,  through  the  key-holes 
— how  you  please."  Finally,  this 
contumacious  coachman  lengthened 
the  checkstrings  into  a  sort  of  jury- 
reins,  communicating  with  the  horses ; 
with  these  he  drove  as  steadily  as 
may  be  supposed.  The  emperor  re- 
turned after  the  briefest  of  circuits : 
he  descended  in  great  pomp  from  his 
throne,  with  the  severest  resolution 
never  to  remount  it.  A  public  thanks- 
giving was  ordered  for  his  majesty's 
prosperous  escape  from  the  disease  of 
a  broken  neck ;  and  the  state-coach 
was  dedicated  for  ever  as  a  votive 
offering  to  the  God  Fo,  Fo — whom  the 
learned  more  accurately  call  Fi,  Fi. 

A  revolution  of  this  same  Chinese 
character  did  young  Oxford  of  that 
era  effect  in  the  constitution  of  mail- 
coach  society.  It  was  -  a  perfect 
French  revolution ;  and  we  had  good 
reason  to  say,  Ca  ira.  In  fact,  it 
soon  became  too  popular.  The  "  pub- 
lic," a  well-known  character,  par- 
ticularly disagreeable,  though  slightly 


respectable,  and  notorious  for  affect- 
ing the  chief  seats  in  synagogues,  had 
at  first  loudly  opposed  this  revolu- 
tion ;  but  when  all  opposition  showed 
itself  to  be  ineffectual,  our  disagreeable 
friend  went  into  it  with  headlong  zeal. 
At  first  it  was  a  sort  of  race  between 
us ;  and,  as  the  public  is  usually  above 
30,  (say  generally  from  30  to  50  years 
old,)  naturally  we  of  young  Oxford, 
that  averaged  about  20,  had  the  ad- 
vantage. Then  the  public  took  to 
bribing,  giving  fees  to  horse-keepers, 
&c.,  who  hired  out  their  persons  as 
warming-pans  on  the  box-seat.  That, 
you  know,  was  shocking  to  our  moral 
sensibilities.  Come  to  bribery,  we 
observed,  and  there  is  an  end  to  all 
morality,  Aristotle's,  Cicero's,  or  any- 
body's. And,  besides,  of  what  use 
was  it?  For  we  bribed  also.  And 
as  our  bribes  to  those  of  the  public 
being  demonstrated  out  of  Euclid  to 
be  as  five  shillings  to  sixpence,  here 
again  young  Oxford  had  the  advan- 
tage. But  the  contest  was  ruinous  to 
the  principles  of  the  stable-establish- 
ment about  the  mails.  The  whole 
corporation  was  constantly  bribed, 
rebribed,  and  often  sur-rebribed ;  so 
that  a  horse-keeper,  ostler,  or  helper, 
was  held  by  the  philosophical  at  that 
time  to  be  the  most  corrupt  character 
in  the  nation. 

There  was  an  impression  upon  the 
public  mind,  natural  enough  from  the 
continually  augmenting  velocity  of 
the  mail,  but  quite  erroneous,  that  an 
outside  seat  on  this  class  of  carriages 
was  a  post  of  danger.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  maintained  that,  if  a  man  had 
become  nervous  from  some  gipsy  pre- 
diction in  his  childhood,  allocating  to 
a  particular  moon  now  approaching 
some  unknown  danger,  and  he  should 
inquire  earnestly, — "Whither  can  I 
go  for  shelter  ?  Is  a  prison  the  safest 
retreat  ?  Or  a  lunatic  hospital  ?  Or 
the  British  Museum  ?"  I  should  have 
replied—"  Oh,  no ;  I'll  tell  yon  what 
to  do.  Take  lodgings  for  the  next 
forty  days  on  the  box  of  his  majesty's 
mail.  Nobody  can  touch  you  there. 
If  it  is  by  bills  at  ninety  days  after 
date  that  you  are  made  unhappy — if 
noters  and  protesters  are  the  sort  of 
wretches  whose  astrological  shadows 
darken  the  house  of  life — then  note 
you  what  I  vehemently  protest,  viz., 
that  no  matter  though  the  sheriff  in 


1849.] 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


489 


every  county  should  be  running  after 
you  with  his  posse,  touch  a  hair  of 
your  head  he  cannot  whilst  you  keep 
house,  and  have  your  legal  domicile, 
on  the  box  of  the  mail.  It's  felony 
to  stop  the  mail ;  even  the  sheriff 
cannot  do  that.  And  an  extra  (no 
great  matter  if  it  grazes  the  sheriff) 
touch  of  the  whip  to  the  leaders  at 
any  time  guarantees  your  safety."  In 
fact,  a  bed-room  in  a  quiet  house 
seems  a  safe  enough  retreat ;  yet  it  is 
liable  to  its  own  notorious  nuisances, 
to  robbers  by  night,  to  rats,  to  fire. 
But  the  mail  laughs  at  these  terrors. 
To  robbers,  the  answer  is  packed  up 
and  ready  for  delivery  in  the  barrel  of 
the  guard's  blunderbuss.  Rats  again ! 
there  are  none  about  mail-coaches, 
any  more  than  snakes  in  Von  Troll's 
Iceland;  except,  indeed,  now  and 
then  a  parliamentary  rat,  who  always 
hides  his  shame  in  the  "  coal-cellar." 
And,  as  to  fire,  I  never  knew  but  one 
iu  a  mail-coach,  which  was  in  the 
Exeter  mail,  and  caused  by  an  obsti- 
nate sailor  bound  to  Devonport. 
Jack,  making  light  of  the  law  and 
the  lawgiver  that  had  set  their 
faces  against  his  offence,  insisted 
on  taking  up  a  forbidden  seat  in  the 
rear  of  the  roof,  from  which  he 
could  exchange  his  own  yarns  with 
those  of  the  guard.  No  greater 
offence  was  then  known  to  mail- 
coaches  ;  it  was  treason,  it  was  Icesa 
mojestas,  it  was  by  tendency  arson ; 
and  the  ashes  of  Jack's  pipe,  falling 
amongst  the  straw  of  the  hinder  boot, 
containing  the  mail-bags,  raised  a 
flame  which  (aided  by  the  wind  of 
our  motion  )  threatened  a  revolution 
in  the  republic  of  letters.  But  even 
this  left  the  sanctity  of  the  box  un- 
violated.  In  dignified  repose,  the 
coachman  and  myself  sat  on,  resting 
with  benign  composure  upon  our 
knowledge — that  the  fire  would  have 
to  burn  its  way  through  four  inside 
passengers  before  it  could  reach  our- 
selves. With  a  quotation  rather  too 
trite,  I  remarked  to  the  coachman, — 


Ucalegon." 


-"  Jam  proximus  ardet 


But,  recollecting  that  the  Virgilian 
part  of  his  education  might  have  been 
neglected,  I  interpreted  so  far  as  to 
say,  that  perhaps  at  that  moment  the 
flames  were  catching  hold  of  our 


worthy  brother  and  next-door  neigh- 
bour Ucalegon.  The  coachman  said 
nothing,  but  by  his  faint  sceptical 
smile  he  seemed  to  be  thinking  that 
he  knew  better ;  for  that  in  fact,  Uca- 
legon, as  it  happened,  was  not  in  the 
way-bill. 

No  dignity  is  perfect  which  does 
not  at  some  point  ally  itself  with  the 
indeterminate  and  mysterious.  The 
connexion  of  the  mail  with  the  state 
and  the  executive  government  —  a 
connexion  obvious,  but  yet  not  strictly 
defined — gave  to  the  whole  mail  estab- 
lishment a  grandeur  and  an  official 
authority  which  did  us  service  on  the 
roads,  and  invested  us  with  season- 
able terrors.  But  perhaps  these 
terrors  were  not  the  less  impressive, 
because  their  exact  legal  limits  were 
imperfectly  ascertained.  Look  at 
those  turnpike  gates ;  with  what  de- 
ferential hurry,  with  what  an  obedient 
start,  they  fly  open  at  our  approach  1 
Look  at  that  long  line  of  carts  and 
carters  ahead,  audaciously  usurping 
the  very  crest  of  the  road :  ah !  trai- 
tors, they  do  not  hear  us  as  yet,  but 
as  soon  as  the  dreadful  blast  of  our 
horn  reaches  them  with  the  proclama- 
tion of  our  approach,  see  with  what 
frenzy  of  trepidation  they  fly  to  their 
horses'  heads,  and  deprecate  our 
wrath  by  the  precipitation  of  their 
crane-neck  quarterings.  Treason  they 
feel  to  be  their  crime;  each  individual 
carter  feels  himself  under  the  ban  of 
confiscation  and  attainder :  his  blood 
is  attainted  through  six  generations, 
and  nothing  is  wanting  but  the  heads- 
man and  his  axe,  the  block  and  -the 
sawdust,  to  close  up  the  vista  of  his 
horrors.  What!  shall  it  be  within 
benefit  of  clergy,  to  delay  the  king's 
message  on  the  highroad  ? — to  inter- 
rupt the  great  respirations,  ebb  or 
flood,  of  the  national  intercourse — 
to  endanger  the  safety  of  tidings 
running  day  and  night  between  all 
nations  and  languages?  Or  can  it 
be  fancied,  amongst  the  weakest  of 
men,  that  the  bodies  of  the  criminals 
will  be  given  up  to  their  widows  for 
Christian  burial?  Now,  the  doubts 
which  were  raised  as  to  our  powers 
did  more  to  wrap  them  in  terror,  by 
wrapping  them  in  uncertainty,  than 
could  have  been  effected  by  the 
sharpest  definitions  of  the  law  from 
the  Quarter  Sessions.  We,  on  our 


490 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


[Oct. 


parts,  (we,  the  collective  mail,  I 
mean,)  did  our  utmost  to  exalt  the 
idea  of  our  privileges  by  the  insolence 
with  which  we  wielded  them.  Whe- 
ther this  insolence  rested  upon  law 
that  gave  it  a  sanction,  or  upon  con- 
scious power,  haughtily  dispensing 
with  that  sanction,  equally  it  spoke 
from  a  potential  station ;  and  the 
agent  in  each  particular  insolence  of 
the  moment,  was  viewed  reverentially, 
as  one  having  authority. 

Sometimes  after  breakfast  his  ma- 
jesty's mail  would  become  frisky ;  and 
in  its  difficult  wheelings  amongst  the 
intricacies  of  early  markets,  it  would 
upset  an  apple-cart,  a  cart  loaded 
with  eggs,  &c.  Huge  was  the  afflic- 
tion and  dismay,  awful  was  the  smash, 
though,  after  all,  I  believe  the  damage 
might  be  levied  upon  the  hundred. 
I,  as  far  as  was  possible,  endeavoured 
in  such  a  case  to  represent  the  con- 
science and  moral  sensibilities  of  the 
mail ;  and,  when  wildernesses  of  eggs 
were  lying  poached  under  our  horses' 
hoofs,  then  would  I  stretch  forth  my 
hands  in  sonwv,  saying  (in  words  too 
celebrated  in  those  days  from  the 
false*  echoes  of  Mareugo)  —  "Ah! 
wherefore  have  we  not  time  to  weep 
over  you  ?"  which  was  quite  impos- 
sible, for  in  fact  we  had  not  even  time 
to  laugh  over  them.  Tied  to  post- 
office  time,  with  an  allowance  in  some 
cases  of  fifty  minutes  for  eleven  miles, 
could  the  royal  mail  pretend  to  under- 
take the  offices  of  sympathy  and  condo- 
lence? Could  it  be  expected  to  provide 
tears  for  the  accidents  of  the  road  ?  If 
even  it  seemed  to  trample  on  humanity, 
it  did  so,  I  contended,  in  discharge  of 
its  own  more  peremptory  duties. 

Upholdingthe  morality  of  the  mail,  a 
fortiori  I  upheld  its  rights,  I  stretched 
to  theuttermostits  privilege  of  imperial 
precedency,  and  astonished  weak  minds 
by  the  feudal  powers  which  I  hinted 
to  be  lurking  constructively  in  the 
charters  of  this  proud  establishment. 
Once  I  remember  being  on  the  box  of 
the  Holyhead  mail,  between  Shrews- 
bury and  Oswestry,  when  a  tawdry 
thing  from  Birmingham,  some  Tallyho 


or  Highflier,  all  flaunting  with  green 
and  gold,  came  up  alongside  of  us. 
What  a  contrast  to  our  royal  simpli- 
city of  form  and  colour  is  this  plebeian 
wretch  !  The  single  ornament  on  our 
dark  ground  of  chocolate  colour  was 
the  mighty  shield  of  the  imperial 
arms,  but  emblazoned  in  proportions 
as  modest  as  a  signet-ring  bears  to  a 
seal  of  office.  Even  this  was  displayed 
only  on  a  single  pannel,  whispering, 
rather  than  proclaiming,  our  relations 
to  the  state ;  whilst  the  beast  from 
Birmingham  had  as  much  writing 
and  painting  on  its  sprawling  flanks 
as  would  have  puzzled  a  decipherer 
from  the  tombs  of  Luxor.  For  some 
time  this  Birmingham  machine  ran 
along  by  our  side, — a  piece  of  famili- 
arity that  seemed  to  us  sufficiently 
jacobinical.  But  all  at  once  a  move- 
ment of  the  horses  announced  a  des- 
perate intention  of  leaving  us  behind. 
"Do  you  see  that?"  I  said  to  the 
coachman.  "I  see,"  was  his  short 
answer.  He  was  awake,  yet  he  waited 
longer  than  seemed  prud"ent ;  for  the 
horses  of  our  audacious  opponent  had 
a  disagreeable  air  of  freshness  and 
power.  But  his  motive  was  loyal ; 
his  wish  was  that  the  Birmingham 
conceit  should  be  full-blown  before  he 
froze  it.  When  that  seemed  ripe,  he 
unloosed,  or,  to  speak  by  a  stronger 
image,  he  sprang  his  known  resources, 
he  slipped  our  royal  horses  like 
cheetas,  or  hunting  leopards  after  the 
affrighted  game.  How  they  could 
retain  such  a  reserve  of  fiery  power 
after  the  work  they  had  accomplished, 
seemed  hard  to  explain.  But  on  our 
side,  besides  the  physical  superiority, 
was  a  tower  of  strength,  namely,  the 
king's  name,  "  which  they  upon  the 
adverse  faction  wanted. "  Passing 
them  without  an  effort,  as  it  seemed, 
we  threw  them  into  the  rear  with  so 
lengthening  an  interval  between  us, 
as  proved  in  itself  the  bitterest  mock- 
ery of  their  presumption  ;  whilst  our 
guard  blew  back  a  shattering  blast  of 
triumph,  that  was  really  too  painfully 
full  of  derision. 
I  mention  this  little  incident  for  its 


*  "  False  echoes" — yes,  false  !  for  the  words  ascribed  to  Napoleon,  as  breathed  to 
the  memory  of  Desaix,  never  were  uttered  at  all.  They  stand  in  the  same  category 
of  theatrical  inventions  as  the  cry  of  the  foundering  Vengeur,  as  the  vaunt  of  General 
Cambronne  at  Waterloo,  "  La  Garde  meitrt,  mats  ne  se  rend  pas,"  as  the  repartees  of 
Talleyrand. 


1 849 .]  The  English  Mail-  Coadi, 

connexion  with  what  followed.  A 
Welshman,  sitting  behind  me,  asked 
if  I  had  not  felt  my  heart  burn  within 
me  during  the  continuance  of  the 
race  ?  I  said — No ;  because  we  were 
not  racing  with  a  mail,  so  that  no 
glory  could  be  gained.  In  fact,  it 
was  sufficiently  mortifying  that  such 
a  Birmingham  thing  should  dare  to 
challenge  us.  The  Welshman  re- 
plied, that  he  didn't  see  that ;  for  that 
a  cat  might  look  at  a  king,  and  a 
Brummagem  coach  might  lawfully 
race  the  Holyhead  mail.  "Race  us 
perhaps,"  I  replied,  "  though  even 
that  has  an  air  of  sedition,  but  not 
beat  us.  This  would  have  been  trea- 
son ;  and  for  its  own  sake  I  am  glad 
that  the  Tallyho  was  disappointed." 
So  dissatisfied  did  the  Welshman 
seem  with  this  opinion,  that  at  last  I 
was  obliged  to  tell  him  a  very  fine 
story  from  one  of  our  elder  drama- 
tists, viz. — that  once,  in  some  Ori- 
ental region,  when  the  prince  of  all 
the  land,  with  his  splendid  court, 
were  flying  their  falcons,  a  hawk 
suddenly  flew  at  a  majestic  eagle;  and 
in  defiance  of  the  eagle's  prodigious 
advantages,  in  sight  also  of  all  the 
astonished  field- sportsmen,  specta- 
tors, and  followers,  killed  him  on  the 
spot.  The  prince  was  struck  with 
amazement  at  the  unequal  contest, 
and  with  burning  admiration  for  its 
unparalleled  result.  He  commanded 
that  the  hawk  should  be  brought 
before  him ;  caressed  the  bird  with 
enthusiasm,  and  ordered  that,  for  the 
commemoration  of  his  matchless 
courage,  a  crown  of  gold  should  be 
solemnly  placed  on  the  hawk's  head ; 
but  then  that,  immediately  after  this 
coronation,  the  bird  should  be  led  off 
to  execution,  as  the  most  valiant 
indeed  of  traitors,  but  not  the  less  a 
traitor  that  had  dared  to  rise  in  rebel- 
lion against  his  liege  lord  the  eagle. 
"Now,"  said  I  to  the  Welshman, 
"  how  painful  it  would  have  been  to 
you  and  me  as  men  of  refined  feelings, 
that  this  poor  brute,  the  Tallyho,  in. 
the  impossible  case  of  a  victory  over 
us,  should  have  been  crowned  with 
jewellery,  gold,  with  Birmingham 
ware,  or  paste  diamonds,  and  then 
led  off  to  instant  execution."  The 
Welshman  doubted  if  that  could  be 
warranted  by  law.  And  when  I  hinted 
at  the  10th  of  Edward  III.  chap.  15, 


or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


491 


for  regulating  the  precedency  of 
coaches,  as  being  probably  the  statute 
relied  on  for  the  capital  punishment 
of  such  offences,  he  replied  drily — That 
if  the  attempt  to  pass  a  mail  was 
really  treasonable,  it  was  a  pity  that 
the.  Tallyho  appeared  to  have  so  im- 
perfect an  acquaintance  with  law. 

These  were  among  the  gaieties  of  my 
earliest  and  boyish  acquaintance  with 
mails.  But  alike  the  gayest  and  the 
most  terrific  of  my  experiences  rose 
again  after  years  of  slumber,  armed 
with  preternatural  power  to  shake  my 
dreaming  sensibilities ;  sometimes,  as 
in  the  slight  case  of  Miss  Fanny  on 
the  Bath  road,  (which  I  will  imme- 
diately mention,)  through  some  casual 
or  capricious  association  with  images 
originally  gay,  yet  opening  at  some 
stage  of  evolution  into  sudden  capa- 
cities of  horror ;  sometimes  through 
the  more  natural  and  fixed  alliances 
with  the  sense  of  power  so  various 
lodged  in  the  mail  system. 

The  modern  modes  of  travelling 
cannot  compare  with  the  mail-coach 
system  in  grandeur  and  power.  They 
boast  of  more  velocity,  but  not  however 
as  a  consciousness,  but  as  a  fact  of 
our  lifeless  knowledge,  resting  upon 
alien  evidence;  as,  for  instance,  be- 
cause somebody  says  that  we  have 
gone  fifty  miles  in  the  hour,  or  upon 
the  evidence  of  a  result,  as  that  actu- 
ally we  find  ourselves  in  York  four 
hours  after  leaving  London.  Apart 
from  such  an  assertion,  or  such  a  result, 
I  am  little  aware  of  the  pace.  But, 
seated  on  the  old  mail-coach,  we  need- 
ed no  evidence  out  of  ourselves  to 
indicate  the  velocity.  On  this  system, 
the  word  was — Non  magna  loquimur, 
as  upon  railways,  but  magna  vivimus* 
The  vital  experience  of  the  glad  ani- 
mal sensibilities  made  doubts  impos- 
sible on  the  question  of  pur  speed; 
we  heard  our  speed,  we  saw  it,  we  felt 
it  as  a  thrilling ;  and  this  speed  was 
not  the  product  of  blind  insensate 
agencies,  that  had  no  sympathy  to 
give,  but  was  incarnated  in  the  fiery 
eyeballs  of  an  animal,  in  his  dilated 
nostril,  spasmodic  muscles,  and  echo- 
ing hoofs.  This  speed  was  incarnated 
in  the  risible  contagion  amongst  brutes 
of  some  impulse,  that,  radiating  into 
their  natures,  had  yet  its  centre  and 
beginning  in  man.  The  sensibility  of 
the  horse  uttering  itself  in  the  maniac 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion.  [Oct. 


492 

light  of  his  eye,  might  be  the  last 
vibration  in  such  a  movement ;  the 
glory  of  Salamanca  might  be  the  first 
— but  the  intervening  link  that  con- 
nected them,  that  spread  the  earth- 
quake of  the  battle  into  the  eyeball  of 
the  horse,  was  the  heart  of  man — 
kindling  in  the  rapture  of  the  fiery 
strife,  and  then  propagating  its  own 
tumults  by  motions  and  gestures  to 
the  sympathies,  more  or  less  dim,  in 
his  servant  the  horse. 

But  now,  on  the  new  system  of 
travelling,  iron  tubes  and  boilers  have 
disconnected  man's  heart  from  the 
ministers  of  his  locomotion.  Nile  nor 
Trafalgar  has  power  any  more  to  raise 
an  extra  bubble  in  a  steam-kettle. 
The  galvanic  cycle  is  broken  up  for 
ever ;  man's  imperial  nature  no  longer 
sends  itself  forward  through  the  elec- 
tric sensibility  of  the  horse ;  the  inter- 
agencies  are  gone  in  the  mode  of  com- 
munication between  the  horse  and  his 
master,  out  of  which  grew  so  many 
aspects  of  sublimity  under  accidents 
of  mists  that  hid,  or  sudden  blazes 
that  revealed,  of  mobs  that  agitated, 
or  midnight  solitudes  that  awed.  Tid- 
ings, fitted  to  convulse  all  nations, 
must  henceforwards  travel  by  culinary 
process ;  and  the  trumpet  that  once 
announced  from  afar  the  laurelled  mail, 
heart-shaking,  when  heard  screaming 
on  the  wind,  and  advancing  through 
the  darkness  to  every  village  or  soli- 
tary house  on  its  route,  has  now  given 
way  for  ever  to  the  pot-wallopings  of 
the  boiler. 

Thus  have  perished  multiform  open- 
ings for  sublime  effects,  for  interesting 
personal  communications,  for  revela- 
tions of  impressive  faces  that  could 
not  have  oifered  themselves  amongst 
the  hurried  and  fluctuating  groups  of 
a  railway  station.  The  gatherings  of 
gazers  about  a  mail-coach  had  one 
centre,  and  acknowledged  only  one 
interest.  But  the  crowds  attending 
at  a  railway  station  have  as  little 
unity  as  running  water,  and  own  as 
many  centres  as  there  are  separate 
carriages  in  the  train. 


How  else,  for  example,  than  as  a 
constant  watcher  for  the  dawn,  and 
for  the  London  mail  that  in  summer 
months  entered  about  dawn  into  the 
lawny  thickets  of  Marlborough  Forest, 
couldst  thou,  sweet  Fanny  of  the  Bath 
road,  have  become  known  to  myself? 
Yet  Fanny,  as  the  loveliest  young 
woman  for  face  and  person  that  per- 
haps in  my  whole  life  I  have  beheld, 
merited  the  station  which  even  her  I 
could  not  willingly  have  spared  ;  yet 
(thirty-five  years  later)  she  holds  in 
my  dreams  ;  and  though,  by  an  acci- 
dent of  fanciful  caprice,  she  brought 
along  with  her  into  those  dreams  a 
troop  of  dreadful  creatures,  fabulous 
and  not  fabulous,  that  were  more 
abominable  to  a  human  heart  than 
Fanny  and  the  dawn  were  delightful. 
Miss  Fanny  of  the  Bath  road,  strictly 
speaking,  lived  at  a  mile's  distance 
from  that  road,  but  came  so  con- 
tinually to  meet  the  mail,  that  I  on 
my  frequent  transits  rarely  missed 
her,  and  naturally  connected  her  name 
with  the  great  thoroughfare  where  I 
saw  her ;  I  do  not  exactly  know,  but 
I  believe  with  some  burthen  of  com- 
missions to  be  executed  in  Bath,  her 
own  residence  being  probably  the 
centre  to  which  these  commissions 
gathered.  The  mail  coachman,  who 
wore  the  royal  livery,  being  one 
amongst  the  privileged  few,  *  hap- 
pened to  be  Fanny's  grandfather.  A 
good  man  he  was,  that  loved  his 
beautiful  granddaughter ;  and,  loving 
her  wisely,  was  vigilant  over  her 
deportment  in  any  case  where  young 
Oxford  might  happen  to  be  concerned. 
Was  I  then  vain  enough  to  imagine 
that  I  myself  individually  could  fall 
within  the  line  of  his  terrors  ?  Cer- 
tainly not,  as  regarded  any  physical 
pretensions  that  I  could  plead;  for 
Fanny  (as  a  chance  passenger  from 
her  own  neighbourhood  once  told  me) 
counted  in  her  train  a  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  professed  admirers,  if  not 
open  aspirants  to  her  favour  ;  and 
probably  not  one  of  the  whole  brigade 
but  excelled  myself  in  personal  ad  van - 


*  "  Privileged  few."  The  general  impression  was  that  this  splendid  costume  be- 
longed of  right  to  the  mail  coachmen  as  their  professional  dress.  Bat  that  was  an 
error.  To  the  guard  it  did  belong  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  was  essential  as  an 
official  warrant,  and  a  means  of  instant  identification  for  his  person,  in  the  discharge 
of  his  important  public  duties.  But  the  coachman,  and  especially  if  his  place  in  the 
series  did  not  connect  him  immediately  with  London  and  the  General  Post  Office, 
obtained  the  scarlet  coat  only  as  an  honorary  distinction  after  long  or  special  service. 


1849.] 


The  English  Mail-CoacJi,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


493 


tages.  Ulysses  even,  with  the  unfair 
advantage  of  his  accursed  bow,  could 
hardly  have  undertaken  that  amount 
of  suitors.  So  the  danger  might  have 
seemed  slight — only  that  woman  is 
universally  aristocratic  :  it  is  amongst 
her  nobilities  of  heart  that  she  is  so. 
Now,  the  aristocratic  distinctions  in 
my  favour  might  easily  with  Miss 
Fanny  have  compensated  my  physi- 
cal deficiencies.  Did  I  then  make 
love  to  Fanny  ?  Why,  yes ;  mats  oui 
done ;  as  much  love  as  one  can  make 
whilst  the  mail  is  changing  horses,  a 
process  which  ten  years  later  did  not 
occupy  above  eighty  seconds ;  but 
•fhen,  viz.  about  Waterloo,  it  occupied 
five  times  eighty.  Now,  four  hun- 
dred seconds  pffer  a  field  quite  ample 
enough  for  whispering  into  a  young 
woman's  ear  a  great  deal  of  truth ; 
and  (by  way  of  parenthesis)  some 
trifle  of  falsehood.  Grandpapa  did 
right,  therefore,  to  watch  me.  And 
yet,  as  happens  too  often  to  the  grand- 
papas of  earth,  in  a  contest  with  the 
admirers  of  granddaughters,  how 
vainly  would  he  have  watched  me 
had  I  meditated  any  evil  whispers  to 
Fanny !  She,  it  is  my  belief,  would 
have  protected  herself  against  any 
man's  evil  suggestions.  But  he,  as 
the  result  showed,  could  not  have 
intercepted  the  opportunities  for  such 
suggestions.  Yet  he  was  still  active ; 
he  was  still  blooming.  Blooming  he 
was  as  Fanny  herself. 

"  Say,  all  our  praises  why  should  lords — " 

No,  that's  not  the  line  : 

"  Say,  all  our  roses  why  should  girls  engross  ?" 

The  coachman  showed  rosy  blossoms 
on  his  face  deeper  even  than  his 
granddaughter's, — his  being  drawn 
from  the  ale  -  cask,  Fanny's  from 
youth  and  innocence,  and  from  the 
fountains  of  the  dawn.  But,  in  spite 
of  his  blooming  face,  some  infirmities 
lie  had  ;  and  one  particularly,  (I  am 
very  sure,  no  more  than  one,)  in 
which  he  too  much  resembled  a  croco- 
dile. This  lay  in  a  monstrous  inapti- 
tude for  turning  round.  The  crocodile, 
I  presume,  owes  that  inaptitude  to 
the  absurd  length  of  his  back ;  but  in 
our  grandpapa  it  arose  rather  from 
the  absurd  breadth  of  his  back,  com- 
bined, probably,  with  some  growing 
stiffness  in  his  legs.  Now  upon  this 


crocodile  infirmity  of  his  I  planted  an 
easy  opportunity  for  tendering  my 
homage  to  Miss  Fanny.  In  defiance 
of  all  his  honourable  vigilance,  no 
sooner  had  he  presented  to  us  his 
mighty  Jovian  back,  (what  a  field  for 
displaying  to  mankind  his  royal  scar- 
let !)  whilst  inspecting  professionally 
the  buckles,  the  straps,  and  the  silver 
turrets  of  his  harness,  than  I  raised 
Miss  Fanny's  hand  to  my  lips,  and, 
by  the  mixed  tenderness  and  respect- 
fulness of  my  manner,  caused  her 
easily  to  understand  how  happy  it 
would  have  made  me  to  rank  upon  her 
list  as  No.  10  or  12,  in  which  case  a 
few  casualties  amongst  her  lovers  (and 
observe  —  they  hanged  liberally  in 
those  days)  might  have  promoted  me 
speedily  to  the  top  of  the  tree ;  as, 
on  the  other  hand,  with  how  much 
loyalty  of  submission  I  acquiesced  in 
her  allotment,  supposing  that  she  had 
seen  reason  to  plant  me  in  the  very 
rearward  of  her  favour,  as  No.  199+1. 
It  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  al- 
lowed any  trace  of  jest,  or  even  of 
playfulness,  to  mingle  with  these  ex- 
pressions of  my  admiration  ;  that 
would  have  been  insulting  to  her, 
and  would  have  been  false  as  regarded 
my  own  feelings.  In  fact,  the  utter 
shadowyness  of  our  relations  to  each 
other,  even  after  our  meetings  through 
seven  or  eight  years  had  been  veiy 
numerous,  but  of  necessity  had  been 
very  brief,  being  entirely  on  mail- 
coach  allowance — timed,  in  reality,  by 
the  General  Post- Office — and  watched 
by  a  crocodile  belonging  to  the  ante- 
penultimate generation,  left  it  easy 
for  me  to  do  a  thing  which  few  people 
ever  can  have  done — viz.,  to  make 
love  for  seven  years,  at  the  same 
time  to  be  as  sincere  as  ever  creature 
was,  and  yet  never  to  compromise 
myself  by  overtures  that  might  have 
been  foolish  as  regarded  my  own 
interests,  or  misleading  as  regarded 
hers.  Most  truly  I  loved  this  beauti- 
ful and  ingenuous  girl ;  and  had  it 
not  been  for  the  Bath  and  Bristol 
mail,  heaven  only  knows  what  might 
have  come  of  it.  People  talk  of  being 
over  head  and  ears  in  love — now,  the 
mail  was  the  cause  that  I  sank  only 
over  ears  in  love,  which,  you  know, 
still  left  a  trifle  of  brain  to  overlook 
the  whole  conduct  of  the  affair.  I 
have  mentioned  the  case  at  all  for  the 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion.  [Oct. 


sake  of  a  dreadful  result  from  it  in 
after  years  of  dreaming.  But  it  seems, 
ex  abundanti^  to  yield  this  moral — viz. 
that  as,  in  England,  the  idiot  and  the 
half-wit  are  held  to  be  under  the  guar- 
dianship of  Chancery,  so  the  man  mak- 
ing love,  who  is  often  but  a  variety  of  the 
same  imbecile  class,  ought  to  be  made 
a  ward  of  the  General  Post- Office, 
whose  severe  course  of  timing  and 
periodical  interruption  might  inter- 
cept many  a  foolish  declaration,  such 
as  lays  a  solid  foundation  for  fifty 
years'  repentance. 

Ah,  reader!  when  I  look  back  upon 
those  days,  it  seems  to  me  that  all 
things  change  or  perish.  Even  thun- 
der and  lightning,  it  pains  me  to  say, 
are  not  the  thunder  and  lightning 
which  I  seem  to  remember  about  the 
time  of  Waterloo.  Roses,  I  fear,  are 
degenerating,  and,  without  a  Red  re- 
volution, must  come  to  the  dust.  The 
Fannies  of  our  island — though  this  I 
say  with  reluctance — are  not  improv- 
ing ;  and  the  Bath  road  is  notoriously 
superannuated.  Mr  Waterton  telfs 
me  that  the  crocodile  does  not  change 
— that  a  cayman,  in  fact,  or  an  alli- 
gator, is  just  as  good  for  riding  upon 
as  he  was  in  the  time  of  the  Pharaohs. 
That  may  be  ;  but  the  reason  is,  that 
the  crocodile  does  not  live  fast — he  is 
a  slow  coach.  I  believe  it  is  generally 
understood  amongst  naturalists,  that 
the  crocodile  is  a  blockhead.  It  is  my 
own  impression  that  the  Pharaohs  were 
also  blockheads.  Now,  as  the  Pha- 
raohs and  the  crocodile  domineered  over 
Egyptian  society,  this  accounts  for  a 
singular  mistake  that  prevailed  on  the 
Nile.  The  crocodile  made  the  ridicu- 
lous blunder  of  supposing  man  to  be 
meant  chiefly  for  his  own  eating. 
Man,  taking  a  different  view  of  the 
subject,  naturally  met  that  mistake  by 
another  ;  he  viewed  the  crocodile  as  a 
thing  sometimes  to  worship,  but  always 
to  run  away  from.  And  this  continued 
until  Mr  Waterton  changed  the  rela- 
tions between  the  animals.  The  mode 
of  escaping  from  the  reptile  he  showed 
to  be,  not  by  running  away,  but  by 
leaping  on  its  back,  booted  and  spurred. 


The  two  animals  had  misunderstood 
each  other.  The  use  of  the  crocodile 
has -now  been  cleared  up — it  is  to  be 
ridden ;  and  the  use  of  man  is,  that  he 
may  improve  the  health  of  the  croco- 
dile by  riding  him  a  fox-hunting  before 
breakfast.  And  it  is  pretty  certain  that 
any  crocodile,  who  has  been  regularly 
hunted  through  the  season,  and  is 
master  of  the  weight  he  carries,  will 
take  a  six-barred  gate  now  as  well  as 
ever  he  would  have  done  in  the  infancy 
of  the  Pyramids. 

Perhaps,  therefore,  the  crocodile 
does  not  change,  but  all  things  else  do : 
even  the  shadow  of  the  Pyramids  grows 
less.  And  often  the  restoration  in  vision, 
of  Fanny  and  the  Bath  road,  makes 
me  too  pathetically  sensible  of  that 
truth.  Out  of  the  darkness,  if  I  happen 
to  call  up  the  image  of  Fanny  from 
thirty-five  years  back,  arises  suddenly 
a  rose  in  June  ;  or,  if  I  think  for  an 
instant  of  the  rose  in  June,  up  rises 
the  heavenly  face  of  Fanny.  One  after 
the  other,  like  the  antiphonies  in  a 
choral  service, rises  Fanny  and  the  rose 
in  June,  then  back  again  the  rose  in 
June  and  Fanny.  Then  come  both 
together,  as  in  a  chorus ;  roses  and 
Fannies,  Fannies  and  roses,  without 
end — thick  as  blossoms  in  paradise. 
Then  comes  a  venerable  crocodile,  in  a 
royal  livery  of  scarlet  and  gold,  or  in 
a  coat  with  sixteen  capes ;  and  the 
crocodile  is  driving  four-in-hand 
from  the  box  of  the  Bath  mail. 
And  suddenly  we  upon  the  mail 
are  pulled  up  by  a  mighty  dial,  sculp- 
tured with  the  hours,  and  with  the 
dreadful  legend  of  TOO  LATE.  Then 
all  at  once  we  are  arrived  in  Marl- 
borough  forest,  amongst  the  lovely 
households*  of  the  roe-deer :  these  re- 
tire into  the  dewy  thickets ;  the  thickets 
are  rich  with  roses  ;  the  roses  call  up 
Cas  ever)  the  sweet  countenance  of 
Fanny,  who,  being  the  granddaughter 
of  a  crocodile,  awakens  a  dreadful 
host  of  wild  semi- legendary  animals — 
griffins,  dragons,  basilisks,  sphinxes 
— till  at  length  the  whole  vision  of 
fighting  images  crowds  into  one  tower- 
ing armorial  shield,  a  vast  emblazonry 


*  "  Households." — Roe-deer  do  not  congregate  in  herds  like  the  fallow  or  the  red 
deer,  but  by  separate  families,  parents,  and  children ;  which,  feature  of  approxima- 
tion to  the  sanctity  of  human  hearths,  added  to  their  comparatively  miniature  and 
graceful  proportions,  conciliate  to  them  an  interest  of  a  peculiarly  tender  character, 
if  less  dignified  by  the  grandeurs  of  savage  and  forest  life. 


1849.]  The  English  Mail-Coach, 

of  human  charities  and  human  loveli- 
ness that  have  perished,  but  quartered 
heraldically  with  unutterable  horrors 
of  monstrous  and  demoniac  natures  ; 
whilst  over  all  rises,  as  a  surmounting 
crest,  one  fair  female  hand,  with  the 
fore-finger  pointing,  in  sweet,  sorrow- 
ful admonition,  upwards  to  heaven, 
and  having  power  (which,  without  ex- 
perience, I  never  could  have  believed) 
to  awaken  the  pathos  that  kills  in  the 
very  bosom  of  the  horrors  that  madden 
the  grief  that  gnaws  at  the  heart,  to- 
gether with  the  monstrous  creations 
of  darkness  that  shock  the  belief,  and 
make  dizzy  the  reason  of  man.  This 
is  the  peculiarity  that  I  wish  the  reader 
to  notice,  as  having  first  been  made 
known  to  me  for  a  possibility  by  this 
early  vision  of  Fanny  on  the  Bath 
road.  The  peculiarity  consisted  in  the 
confluence  of  two  different  keys,  though 
apparently  repelling  each  other,  into 
the  music  and  governing  principles  of 
the  same  dream  ;  horror,  such  as  pos- 
sesses the  maniac,  and  yet,  by  momen- 
tary transitions,  grief,  such  as  may  be 
supposed  to  possess  the  dying  mother 
when  leaving  her  infant  children  to 
to  the  mercies  of  the  cruel.  Usually, 
and  perhaps  always,  in  an  unshaken 
nervous  system,  these  two  modes  of 
misery  exclude  each  other — here  first 
they  met  in  horrid  reconciliation. 
There  was  also  a  separate  peculiarity 
in  the  quality  of  the  horror.  This  was 
afterwards  developed  into  far  more  re- 
volting complexities  of  misery  and 
incomprehensible  darkness  ;  and  per- 
haps I  am  wrong  in  ascribing  any 
value  as  a  causative  agency  to  this 
particular  case  on  the  Bath  road — 
possibly  it  furnished  merely  an  occa- 
sion that  accidentally  introduced  a 
mode  of  horrors  certain,  at  any  rate, 
to  have  grown  up,  with  or  without  the 
Bath  road,  from  more  advanced  stages 
of  the  nervous  derangement.  Yet,  as 
the  cubs  of  tigers  or  leopards,  when 
domesticated,  have  been  observed  to 


or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


495 


suffer  a  sudden  development  of  their 
latent  ferocity  under  too  eager  an  ap- 
peal to  their  playfulness — the  gaieties 
of  sport  in  them  being  too  closely  con- 
nected with  the  fiery  brightness  of 
their  murderous  instincts — so  I  have 
remarked  that  the  caprices,  the  gay 
arabesques,  and  the  lovely  floral  luxu- 
riations  of  dreams,  betray  a  shocking 
tendency  to  pass  into  finer  maniacal 
splendours.  That  gaiety,  for  instance, 
(for  such  at  first  it  was,)  in  the  dream- 
ing faculty,  by  which  one  principal 
point  of  resemblance  to  a  crocodile  in 
the  mail-coachman  was  soon  made  to 
clothe  him  with  the  form  of  a  crocodile, 
and  yet  was  blended  with  accessory 
circumstances  derived  from  his  human 
functions,  passed  rapidly  into  a  fur- 
ther development,  no  longer  gay  or 
playful,  but  terrific,  the  most  terrific 
that  besieges  dreams,  viz. — the  horrid 
inoculation  upon  each  other  of  incom- 
patible natures.  This  horror  has  al- 
ways been  secretly  felt  by  man ;  it 
was  felt  even  under  pagan  forms  of 
religion,  which  offered  a  very  feeble, 
and  also  a  very  limited  gamut  for 
giving  expression  to  the  human  capa- 
cities of  sublimity  or  of  horror.  We 
read  it  in  the  fearful  composition  of 
the  sphinx.  The  dragon,  again,  is  the 
snake  inoculated  upon  the  scorpion. 
The  basilisk  unites  the  mysterious 
malice  of  the  evil  eye,  unintentional 
on  the  part  of  the  unhappy  agent, 
with  the  intentional  venom  of  some 
other  malignant  natures.  But  these 
horrid  complexities  of  evil  agency  are 
but  objectively  horrid  ;  they  inflict  the 
horror  suitable  to  their  compound  na- 
ture ;  but  there  is  no  insinuation  that 
they  feel  that  horror.  Heraldry  is 
so  full  of  these  fantastic  creatures, 
that,  in  some  zoologies,  we  find  a 
separate  chapter  or  a  supplement  de- 
dicated to  what  is  denominated  heral- 
dic zoology.  And  why  not  ?  For 
these  hideous  creatures,  however 
visionary,*  have  a  real  traditionary 


*  "  Hoicerer  visionary" — But  are  they  always  visionary  ?  The  unicorn,  the  krakcn, 
the  sea-serpent,  are  all,  perhaps,  zoological  facts.  The  unicorn,  for  instance,  so  far 
from  being  a  lie,  is  rather  too  true  ;  for,  simply  as  a  monokeras,  he  is  found  in  the 
Himalaya,  in  Africa,  and  elsewhere,  rather  too  often  for  the  peace  of  what  in  Scotland 
would  be  called  the  intending  traveller.  That  which  i-eally  is  a  lie  in  the  account  of 
the  unicorn — viz.,  his  legendary  rivalship  with  the  lion — which  lie  may  God  preserve, 
in  preserving  the  mighty  imperial  shield  that  embalms  it — cannot  be  more  destruc- 
tive to  the  zoological  pretensions  of  the  unicorn,  than  are  to  the  same  pretensions 
in  the  lion  our  many  popular  crazes  about  his  goodness  and  magnanimity,  or  the  old 
fancy  (adopted  by  Spenser,  and  noticed  by  so  many  among  our  elder  poets)  of  hi3 


496 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


[Oct. 


ground  in  medieval  belief— sincere  and 
partly  reasonable,  though  adulterating 
with  mendacity,  blundering,  credulity, 
and  intense  superstition.  But  the 
dream-horror  which  I  speak  of  is  far 
more  frightful.  The  dreamer  finds 
housed  within  himself— occupying,  as 
it  were,  some  separate  chamber  in  his 
brain — holding,  perhaps,  from  that 
station  a  secret  and  detestable  com- 
merce with  his  own  heart — some  horrid 
alien  nature.  What  if  it  were  his  own 
nature  repeated, — still,  if  the  duality 
were  distinctly  perceptible,  even  that 
— even  this  mere  numerical  double  of 
his  own  consciousness — might  be  a 
curse  too  mighty  to  be  sustained. 
But  how,  if  the  alien  nature  contra- 


dicts his  own,  fights  with  it,  perplexes, 
and  confounds  it?  How,  again,  if 
not  one  alien  nature,  but  two,  but 
three,  but  four,  but  five,  are  intro- 
duced within  what  once  he  thought  the 
inviolable  sanctuary  of  himself?  These, 
however,  are  horrors  from  the  king- 
doms of  anarchy  and  darkness,  which, 
by  their  very  intensity,  challenge  the 
sanctity  of  concealment,  and  gloomily 
retire  from  exposition.  Yet  it  was 
necessary  to  mention  them,  because 
the  first  introduction  to  such  appear- 
ances (whether  causal,  or  merely 
casual)  lay  in  the  heraldic  monsters, 
which  monsters  were  themselves  intro- 
duced (though  playfully)  by  the  trans- 
figured coachman  of  the  Bath  mail. 


GOING    DOWN    WITH    VICTORY. 


But  the  grandest  chapter  of  our  ex- 
perience, within  the  whole  mail-coach 
service,  was  on  those  occasions  when 
we  went  down  from  London  with  the 
news  of  victory.  A  period  of  about 
ten  years  stretched  from  Trafalgar  to 
Waterloo :  the  second  and  third  years 
of  which  period  (1806  and  1807)  were 
comparatively  sterile;  but  the  rest, 
from  1805  to  1815  inclusively,  fur- 
nished a  long  succession  of  victories ; 
the  least  of  which,  in  a  contest  of  that 
portentous  nature,  had  an  inappre- 
ciable value  of  position — partly  for  its 
absolute  interference  with  the  plans 
of  our  enemy,  but  still  more  from  its 
keeping  alive  in  central  Europe  the 
sense  of  a  deep-seated  vulnerability 
in  France.  Even  to  tease  the  coasts 


of  our  enemy,  to  mortify  them  by 
continual  blockades,  to  insult  them 
by  capturing  if  it  were  but  a  baubling 
schooner  under  the  eyes  of  their  ar- 
rogant armies,  repeated  from  time  to' 
time  a  sullen  proclamation  of  power 
lodged  in  a  quarter  to  which  the  hopes 
of  Christendom  turned  in  secret.  How 
much  more  loudly  must  this  procla- 
mation have  spoken  in  the  audacity* 
of  having  bearded  the  elite  of  their 
troops,  and  having  beaten  them  in 
pitched  battles !  Five  years  of  life  it 
was  worth  paying  down  for  the  privi- 
lege of  an  outside  place  on  a  mail- 
coach,  when  carrying  down  the  first 
tidings  of  any  such  event.  And  it  is 
to  be  noted  that,  from  our  insular 
situation,  and  the  multitude  of  our 


graciousness  to  maiden  innocence.  The  wretch  is  the  basest  and  most  cowardly 
among  the  forest  tribes  ;  nor  has  the  sublime  courage  of  the  English  bull-dog  ever 
been  so  memorably  exhibited  as  in  his  hopeless  fight  at  Warwick  with  the  cowardly 
and  cruel  lion  called  Wallace.  Another  of  the  traditional  creatures,  still  doubtful, 
is  the  mermaid,  upon  which  Southey  once  remarked  to  me,  that,  if  it  had  been  dif- 
ferently named,  (as,  suppose,  a  mer-ape,)  nobody  would  have  questioned  its  existence 
any  more  than  that  of  sea-cows,  sea-lions,  &c.  The  mermaid  has  been  discredited  by  her 
human  name  and  her  legendary  human  habits.  If  she  would  not  coquette  so  much 
with  melancholy  sailors,  and  brush  her  hair  so  assiduously  upon  solitary  rocks, 
she  would  be  carried  on  our  books  for  as  honest  a  reality,  as  decent  a  female,  as 
many  that  are  assessed  to  the  poor-rates. 

*  "  Audacity  /"  Such  the  French  accounted  it;  and  it  has  struck  me  that  Soult 
would  not  have  been  so  popular  in  London,  at  the  period  of  her  present  Majesty's 
coronation,  or  in  Manchester,  on  occasion  of  his  visit  to  that  town,  if  they  had  been 
aware  of  the  insolence  with  which  he  spoke  of  us  in  notes  written  at  intervals  from 
the  field  of  Waterloo.  As  though  it  had  been  mere  felony  in  our  army  to  look  a 
French  one  in  the  face,  he  said  more  than  once — "  Here  are  the  English — we  have 
them  :  they  are  caught  en  flagrant  delit."  Yet  no  man  should  have  known  us  better; 
no  man  had  drunk  deeper  from  the  cup  of  humiliation  than  Soult  had  in  the  north  of 
Portugal,  during  his  flight  from  an  English  army,  and  subsequently  at  Albuera,  in 
the  bloodiest  of  recorded  battles. 


1849.] 


The  English  Mail- Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


frigates  disposable  for  the  rapid  trans- 
mission of  intelligence,  rarely  did  any 
unauthorised  rumour  steal  away  a 
prelibation  from  the  aroma  of  the  re 
gular  despatches.  The  government  of- 
ficial news  was  generally  the  firstnews. 
From  eight  P.M.  to  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes  later,  imagine  the  mails  as- 
sembled on  parade  in  Lombard  Street, 
where,  at  that  time,  was  seated  the 
General  Post- Office.  In  what  exact 
strength  we  mustered  I  do  not  re- 
member ;  but,  from  the  length  of  each 
separate  attelage,  we  filled  the  street, 
though  a  long  one,  and  though  we 
were  drawn  up  in  double  file.  On  any 
night  the  spectacle  was  beautiful. 
The  absolute  perfection  of  all  the 
appointments  about  the  carriages  and 
the  harness,  and  the  magnificence  of 
the  horses,  were  what  might  first  have 
fixed  the  attention.  Every  carriage, 
on  every  morning  in  the  year,  was 
taken  down  to  an  inspector  for  exa- 
mination— wheels,  axles,  linchpins, 
pole,  glasses,  &c.,  were  all  critically 
probed  and  tested.  Every  part  of 
every  carriage  had  been  cleaned, 
every  horse  had  been  groomed,  with 
as  much  rigour  as  if  they  belonged  to 
a  private  gentleman ;  and  that  part 
of  the  spectacle  offered  itself  always. 
But  the  night  before  us  is  a  night  of 
victory ;  and  behold !  to  the  ordinary 
display,  what  a  heart- shaking  addi- 
tion ! — horses,  men,  carnages — all  are 
dressed  in  laurels  and  flowers,  oak 
leaves  and  ribbons.  The  guards,  who 
are  his  Majesty's  servants,  and  the 
coachmen,  who  are  within  the  privi- 
lege of  the  Post-Office,  wear  the  royal 
liveries  of  course ;  and  as  it  is  sum- 
mer (for  all  the  land  victories  were 
won  in  summer,)  they  wear,  on  this 
fine  evening,  these  liveries  exposed  to 
view,  without  any  covering  of  upper 
coats.  Such  a  costume,  and  the  ela- 
borate arrangement  of  the  laurels  in 
their  hats,  dilated  their  hearts,  by  giv- 
ing to  them  openly  an  official  connec- 
tion with  the  great  news,  in  which 
already  they  have  the  general  interest 
of  patriotism.  That  great  national 
sentiment  surmounts  and  quells  all 
sense  of  ordinary  distinctions.  Those 
passengers  who  happen  to  be  gentle- 
men are  now  hardly  to  be  distin- 


497 

gnished  as  such  except  by  dress.  The 
usual  reserve  of  their  manner  in  speak- 
ing to  the  attendants  has  on  this  night 
melted  away.  One  heart,  one  prideT 
one  glory,  connects  every  man  by  the 
transcendant  bond  of  his  English 
blood.  The  spectators,  who  are  nu- 
merous beyond  precedent,  express 
their  sympathy  with  these  fervent 
feelings  by  continual  hurrahs.  Every 
moment  are  shouted  aloud  by  the 
Post- Office  servants  the  great  ances- 
tral names  of  cities  known  to  history 
through  a  thousand  years, — Lincoln, 
Winchester,  Portsmouth,  Gloucester, 
Oxford,  Bristol,  Manchester,  York, 
Newcastle,  Edinburgh,  Perth,  Glas- 
gow— expressing  the  grandeur  of  the 
empire  by  the  antiquity  of  its  towns, 
and  the  grandeur  of  the  mail  estab- 
lishment by  the  diffusive  radiation  of 
its  separate  missions.  Every  moment 
you  hear  the  thunder  of  lids  locked 
down  upon  the  mail-bags.  That 
sound  to  each  individual  mail  is  the 
signal  for  drawing  off,  which  process 
is  the  finest  part  of  the  entire  spec- 
tacle. Then  come  the  horses  into 
play  ; — horses  !  can  these  be  horses 
that  (unless  powerfully  reined  in) 
would  bound  off  with  the  action  and 
gestures  of  leopards  ?  What  stir ! — 
what  sea-like  ferment ! — what  a  thun- 
dering of  wheels,  what  a  trampling  of 
horses ! — what  farewell  cheers — what 
redoubling  peals  of  brotherly  congra- 
tulation, connecting  the  name  of  the 
particular  mail  —  "  Liverpool  for 
ever  1 " — with  the  name  of  the  parti- 
cular victory — "  Badajoz  for  ever!" 
or  "  Salamanca  for  ever ! "  The  half- 
slumbering  consciousness  that,  all 
night  long  and  all  the  next  day — per- 
haps for  even  a  longer  period — many 
of  'these  mails,  like  fire  racing  along 
a  train  of  gunpowder,  will  be  kindling 
at  every  instant  new  successions  of 
burning  joy,  has  an  obscure  effect  of 
multiplying  the  victoiy  itself,  by  mul- 
tiplying to  the  imagination  into  infi- 
nity the  stages  of  its  progressive 
diffusion.  A  fiery  arrow  seems  to  be 
let  loose,  which  from  that  moment 
is  destined  to  travel,  almost  without 
intermission,  westwards  for  three 
hundred*  miles — northwards  for  six 
hundred ;  and  the  sympathy  of  our 


*  *  Three  hundred"    Of  necessity  this  scale  of  measurement,  to  an  American,  if  he 
happens  to  be  a  thoughtless  man,  must  sound  ludicrous.    Accordingly,  I  remember  a 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


498 

Lombard  Street  friends  at  parting  is 
exalted  a  hundredfold  by  a  sort  of 
visionary  sympathy  with  the  ap- 
proaching sympathies,  yet  unborn, 
which  we  were  going  to  evoke. 

Liberated  from  the  embarrassments 
of  the  city,  and  issuing  into  the  broad 
uncrowded  avenues  of  the  northern 
suburbs,  we  begin  to  enter  upon  our 
natural  pace  of  ten  miles  an  hour.  In 
the  broad  light  of  the  summer  even- 
ing, the  sun  perhaps  only  just  at  the 
point  of  setting,  we  are  seen  from 
every  storey  of  every  house.  Heads 
of  every  age  crowd  to  the  windows — 
young  and  old  understand  the  lan- 
guage of  our  victorious  symbols — and 
rolling  volleys  of  sympathising  cheers 
run  along  behind  and  before  our  course. 
The  beggar,  rearing  himself  against 
the  wall,  forgets  his  lameness — real  or 
assumed — thinks  not  of  his  whining 
trade,  but  stands  erect,  with  bold 
exulting  smiles,  as  we  pass  him.  The 
victory  has  healed  him,  and  says — Be 
thou  whole !  Women  and  children, 
from  garrets  alike  and  cellars,  look 
down  or  look  up  with  loving  eyes  upon 
our  gay  ribbons  and  our  martial  lau- 
rels —  sometimes  kiss  their  hands, 
sometimes  hang  out,  as  signals  of 
affection,  pocket  handkerchiefs,  aprons, 
dusters,  anything  that  lies  ready  to 
their  hands.  On  the  London  side  of 
Barnet,  to  which  we  draw  near  with- 
in a  few  minutes  after  nine,  observe 


[Oct. 


that  private  carriage  which  is  ap- 
proaching us.  The  weather  being  so 
warm,  the  glasses  are  all  down ;  and 
one  may  read,  as  on  the  stage  of  a 
theatre,  everything  that  goes  on  within 
the  carriage.  It  contains  three  ladies, 
one  likely  to  be  "  mama,"  and  two  of 
seventeen  or  eighteen,  who  are  proba- 
bly her  daughters.  What  lovely  ani- 
mation, what  beautiful  unpremeditated 
pantomime,  explaining  to  us  every 
syllable  that  passes,  in  these  inge- 
nuous girls !  By  the  sudden  start  and 
raising  of  the  hands,  on  first  discover- 
ing our  laurelled  equipage — by  the 
sudden  movement  and  appeal  to  the 
elder  lady  from  both  of  them — and  by 
the  heightened  colour  on  their  ani- 
mated countenances,  we  can  almost 
hear  them  saying — "  See,  see !  Look 
at  their  laurels.  Oh,  mama!  there 
has  been  a  great  battle  in  Spain ;  and 
it  has  been  a  great  victory."  In  a 
moment  we  are  on  the  point  of  pass- 
ing them.  We  passengers — I  on  the 
box,  and  the  two  on  the  roof  behind 
me — raise  our  hats,  the  coachman 
makes  his  professional  salute  with  the 
whip ;  the  guard  even,  though  punc- 
tilious on  the  matter  of  his  dignity  as 
an  officer  under  the  crown,  touches  his 
hat.  The  ladies  move  to  us,  in  re- 
turn, with  a  winning  graciousness  of 
gesture :  all  smile  on  each  side  in  a 
way  that  nobody  could  misunderstand, 
and  that  nothing  short  of  a  grand 


case  in  which  an  American  writer  indulges  himself  in  the  luxury  of  a  little  lying, 
by  ascribing  to  an  Englishman  a  pompous  account  of  the  Thames,  constructed  en- 
tirely upon  American  ideas  of  grandeur,  and  concluding  in  something  like  these 
terms  : — "  And,  sir,  arriving  at  London,  this  mighty  father  of  rivers  attains  a  breadth 
of  at  least  two  furlongs,  having,  in  its  winding  course,  traversed  the  astonishing  dis- 
tance of  170  miles."  And  this  the  candid  American  thinks  it  fair  to  contrast  with  the 
scale  of  the  Mississippi.  Now,  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  answer  a  pure  falsehood 
gravely,  else  one  might  say  that  no  Englishman  out  of  Bedlam  ever  thought  of  look- 
ing in  an  island  for  the  rivers  of  a  continent  ;  nor,  consequently,  could  have  thought 
of  looking  for  the  peculiar  grandeur  of  the  Thames  in  the  length  of  its  course,  or  in 
the  extent  of  soil  which  it  drains  :  yet,  if  he  had  been  so  absurd,  the  American  might 
have  recollected  that  a  river,  not  to  be  compared  with  the  Thames  even  as  to  volume 
of  water — viz.  the  Tiber — has  contrived  to  make  itself  heard  of  in  this  world  for 
twenty-five  centuries  to  an  extent  not  reached,  nor  likely  to  be  reached  very  soon,  by 
any  river,  however  corpulent,  of  his  own  land.  The  glory  of  the  Thames  is  measured 
by  the  density  of  the  population  to  which  it  ministers,  by  the  commerce  which  it  sup- 
ports, by  the  grandeur  of  the  empire  in  which,  though  far  from  the  largest,  it  is  the 
most  influential  stream.  Upon  some  such  scale,  and  not  by  a  transfer  of  Columbian 
standards,  is  the  course  of  our  English  mails  to  be  valued.  The  American  may  fancy 
the  effect  of  his  own  valuations  to  our  English  ears,  by  supposing  the  case  of  a  Sibe- 
rian glorifying  his  country  in  these  terms : — "  Those  rascals,  sir,  in  France  and  Eng- 
laud,  cannot  march  half  a  mile  in  any  direction  without  finding  a  house  where  food 
can  be  had  and  lodging  :  whereas,  such  is  the  noble  desolation  of  our  magnificent 
country,  that  in  many  a  direction  for  a  thousand  miles,  I  will  engage  a  dog  shall  not 
find  shelter  from  a  snow-storm,  nor  a  wren  find  an  apology  for  breakfast." 


1849.]  The  English  Mail-  Coach, 

national  sympathy  could  so  instanta- 
neously prompt.  Will  these  ladies  say 
that  we  are  nothing  to  them  ?  Oh,  no ; 
they  will  not  say  that.  They  cannot 
deny — they  do  not  deny — that  for  this 
night  they  are  our  sisters:  gentle  or 
simple,  scholar  or  illiterate  servant, 
for  twelve  hours  to  come — we  on  the 
outside  have  the  honour  to  be  their 
brothers.  Those  poor  women  again, 
Avho  stop  to  gaze  upon  us  with  delight 
at  the  entrance  of  Barnet,  and  seem 
by  their  air  of  weariness  to  be  return- 
ing from  labour — do  you  mean  to  say 
that  they  are  washerwomen  and  char- 
women ?  Oh,  my  poor  friend,  you  are 
quite  mistaken ;  they  are  nothing  of 
the  kind.  I  assure  you,  they  stand  in 
a  higher  rank  :  for  this  one  night  they 
feel  themselves  by  birthright  to  be 
daughters  of  England,  and  answer  to 
no  humbler  title. 

Every  joy,  however,  even  rapturous 
joy — such  is  the  sad  law  of  earth — 
may  cany  with  it  grief,  or  fear  of  grief, 
to  some.  Three  miles  beyond  Barnet, 
we  see  approaching  us  another  private 
carriage,  nearly  repeating  the  circum- 
stances of  the  former  case.  Here  also 
the  glasses  are  all  down — here  also  is 
an  elderly  lady  seated ;  but  the  two 
amiable  daughters  are  missing;  for 
the  single  young  person,  sitting  by 
the  lady's  side,  seems  to  be  an  at- 
tendant— so  I  judge  from  her  dress, 
and  her  air  of  respectful  reserve. 
The  lady  is  in  mourning;  and  her 
countenance  expresses  sorrow.  At 
first  she  does  not  look  up ;  so  that 
I  believe  she  is  not  aware  of 
our  approach,  until  she  hears  the 
measured  beating  of  our  horses'  hoofs. 
Then  she  raises  her  eyes  to  settle  them 
painfully  on  our  triumphal  equipage. 
Our  decorations  explain  the  case  to 
her  at  once ;  but  she  beholds  them 
Avith  apparent  anxiety,  or  even  with 
terror.  Some  time  before  this,  I,  find- 
ing it  difficult  to  hit  a  flying  mark, 
when  embarrassed  by  the  coachman's 
person  and  reins  intervening,  had 
given  to  the  guard  a  Courier  evening 
paper,  containing  the  gazette,  for  the 
next  carriage  that  might  pass.  Ac- 
cordingly he  tossed  it  in  so  folded  that 
the  huge  capitals  expressing  some 
such  legend  as — GLORIOUS  VICTORY, 
might  catch  the  eye  at  once.  To  see 
the  paper,  however,  at  all,  interpreted 
as  it  was  by  our  ensigns  of  triumph, 


or  the  Glory  of  Motion.  4[>9 

explained  everything ;  and,  if  the 
guard  were  right  in  thinking  the  lady 
to  have  received  it  with  a  gesture  of 
horror,  it  could  not  be  doubtful  that 
she  had  suffered  some  deep  personal 
affliction  in  connexion  with  this 
Spanish  war. 

Here  now  was  the  case  of  one  who, 
having  formerly  suffered,  might,  erro- 
neously perhaps,  be  distressing  her- 
self with  anticipations  of  another 
similar  suffering.  That  same  night, 
and  hardly  three  hours  later,  occurred 
the  reverse  case.  A  poor  woman,  who 
too  probably  would  find  herself,  in  a 
day  or  two,  to  have  suffered  the 
heavest  of  afflictions  by  the  battle, 
blindly  allowed  herself  to  express  an 
exultation  so  unmeasured  in  the  news, 
and  its  details,  as  gave  to  her  the  ap- 
pearance which  amongst  Celtic  High- 
landers is  called  fey.  This  was  at 
some  little  town,  I  forget  what,  where 
we  happened  to  change  horses  near 
midnight.  Some  fair  or  wake  had 
kept  the  people  up  out  of  their  beds. 
We  saw  many  lights  moving  about  as 
we  drew  near ;  and  perhaps  the  most 
impressive  scene  on  our  route  was 
our  reception  at  this  place.  The  flash- 
ing of  torches  and  the  beautiful  ra- 
diance of  blue  lights  (technically  Ben- 
gal lights)  upon  the  heads  of  our 
horses;  the  fine  effect  of  such  a  showery 
and  ghostly  illumination  falling  upon 
flowers  and  glittering  laurels,  whilst 
all  around  the  massy  darkness  seemed 
to  invest  us  with  walls  of  impenetrable 
blackness,  together  with  the  prodigious 
enthusiasm  of  the  people,  composed  a 
picture  at  once  scenical  and  affecting. 
As  we  staid  for  three  or  four  minutes, 
I  alighWd.  And  immediately  from  a 
dismantled  stall  in  the  street,  where 
perhaps  she  had  been  presiding  at 
some  part  of  the  evening,  advanced 
eagerly  a  middle-aged  woman.  The 
sight  of  my  newspaper  it  was  that 
had  drawn  her  attention  upon  myself. 
The  victory  which  we  were  carrying 
down  to  the  provinces  on  this  occa- 
sion was  the  imperfect  one  of  Tala- 
vera.  I  told  her  the  main  outline  of 
the  battle.  But  her  agitation,  though 
not  the  agitation  of  fear,  but  of  exul- 
tation rather,  and  enthusiasm,  had 
been  so  conspicuous  when  listening, 
and  when  first  applying  for  informa- 
tion, that  I  could  not  but  ask  her  if 
she  had  not  some  relation  in  the 


500 


The  English  Mail-Coach,  or  the  Glory  of  Motion. 


[Oct. 


Peninsular  army.  Oh!  yes:  her  only 
son  was  there.  In  what  regiment? 
He  was  a  trooper  in  the  23d  Dragoons. 
My  heart  sank  within  me  as  she  made 
that  answer.  This  sublime  regiment, 
which  an  Englishman  should  never 
mention  without  raising  his  hat  to 
their  memory,  had  made  the  most 
memorable  and  effective  charge  re- 
corded in  military  annals.  They 
leaped  their  horses — over  a  trench, 
where  they  could  into  it,  and  with  the 
result  of  death  or  mutilation  when  they 
could  not.  What  proportion  cleared  the 
trench  is  nowhere  stated.  Those  who 
did,  closed  up  and  went  down  upon 
the  enemy  with  such  divinity  of  fer- 
vour— (I  use  the  word  divinity  by  de- 
sign :  the  inspiration  of  God  must 
have  prompted  this  movement  to 
those  whom  even  then  he  was  calling 
to  his  presence) — that  two  results  fol- 
lowed. As  regarded  the  enemy,  this 
23d  Dragoons,  not,  I  believe,  origi- 
nally 350  strong,  paralysed  a  French 
column,  6000  strong,  then  ascending 
the  lull,  and  fixed  the  gaze  of  the 
whole  French  army.  As  regarded 
themselves,  the  23d  were  supposed  at 
first  to  have  been  all  but  annihilated; 
but  eventually,  I  believe,  not  so  many 
as'one  in  four  survived.  And  this,  then, 
was  the  regiment — a  regiment  already 
for  some  hours  known  to  myself  and 
all  London  as  stretched,  by  a  large 
majority,  upon  one  bloody  aceldama — 
in  which  the  young  trooper  served 
whose  mother  was  now  talking  with 
myself  in  a  spirit  of  such  hopeful  en- 
thusiasm. Did  I  tell  her  the  truth  ? 
Had  I  the  heart  to  break  up  her 
dream  ?  No.  I  said  to  myself,  To- 
morrow, or  the  next  day,  she  will  hear 
the  worst.  For  this  night,  wherefore 
should  she  not  sleep  in  peace  ?  After 


to-morrow,  the  chances  are  too  many 
that  peace  will  forsake  her  pillow. 
This  brief  respite,  let  her  owe  this  to 
my  gift  and  my  forbearance.  But,  if 
I  told  her  not  of  the  bloody  price  that 
had  been  paid,  there  was  no  reason 
for  suppressing  the  contributions  from 
her  son's  regiment  to  the  service  and 
glory  of  the  day.  For  the  very  few 
words  that  I  had  time  for  speaking, 
I  governed  myself  accordingly.  I 
showed  her  not  the  funeral  banners 
under  which  the  noble  regiment  was 
sleeping.  I  lifted  not  the  oversha- 
dowing laurels  from  the  bloody  trench 
in  which  horse  and  rider  lay  mangled 
together.  But  I  told  her  how  these 
dear  children  of  England,  privates 
and  officers,  had  leaped  their  horses 
over  all  obstacles  as  gaily  as  hunters 
to  the  morning's  chase.  I  told  her 
how  they  rode  their  horses  into  the 
mists  of  death,  (saying  to  myself,  but 
not  saying  to  her,)  and  laid  down 
their  young  lives  for  thee,  O  mother 
England!  as  willingly — poured  out 
their  noble  blood  as  cheerfully — as  ever, 
after  a  long  day's  sport,  when  infants, 
they  had  rested  their  wearied  heads 
upon  their  mothers'  knees,  or  had  sunk 
to  sleep  in  her  arms.  It  is  singular 
that  she  seemed  to  have  no  fears, 
even  after  this  knowledge  that  the 
23d  Dragoons  had  been  conspicuously 
engaged,  for  her  son's  safety :  but  so 
much  was  she  enraptured  by  the 
knowledge  that  his  regiment,  and 
therefore  he,  had  rendered  eminent 
service  in  the  trying  conflict — a  ser- 
vice which  had  actually  made  them 
the  foremost  topic  of  conversation  in 
London — that  in  the  mere  simplicity 
of  her  fervent  nature,  she  threw  her 
arms  round  my  neck,  and,  poor  wo» 
man,  kissed  me. 


1849.] 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


501 


DIARY  OF  SAMUEL  PEPYS. 


LORD  BRAYBROOKE  has  established 
a  strong  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  the 
literary  world  for  his  present  elegant, 
improved,  and  augmented  edition,  of 
the  Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys.  The 
work  may  now,  we  presume,  be  re- 
garded as  complete,  for  there  is  little 
chance  that  any  future  editor  will 
consider  himself  entitled  to  supply  the 
lacuna  or  omissions  which  still  con- 
fessedly exist.  Lord  Braybrooke  in- 
forms us  that,  after  carefully  rep£r- 
using  the  whole  of  the  manuscript,  he 
had  arrived  at  the  conclusion,  "  that 
a  literal  transcript  of  the  Diary  was 
absolutely  inadmissable ;  and  he  more 
than  hints  that  most  of  the  excluded 
passages  have  been  withheld  from 
print  on  account  of  their  strong  in- 
delicacy. We  cannot  blame  the  noble 
editor  for  having  thus  exercised  his 
judgment,  though  we  could  wish  that 
he  had  been  a  little  more  explicit  as 
to  the  general  tenor  and  application 
of  the  proscribed  entries.  The  Diary 
of  Pepys  is  a  very  remarkable  one, 
comprehending  both  a  history  or  sketch 
of  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  and  an 
accurate  record  of  his  own  private 
transactions  and  affairs.  He  chronicles 
not  only  the  faults  of  others,  as  these 
were  reported  to  him  or  fell  under  his 
personal  observation,  but  he  notes  his 
own  frailties  and  backslidings  with  a 
candour,  a  minuteness,  and  even  occa- 
sionally a  satisfaction,  which  is  at 
once  amusing  and  uncommon.  The 
one  division  of  his  subject  is  a  political 
and  social — the  other  a  psychological 
curiosity.  We  are  naturally  desirous 
to  hear  all  about  Charles  and  his  cour- 
tiers, and  not  averse  to  the  general 
run  of  gossip  regarding  that  train  of 
beautiful  women  whose  portraits,  from 
the  luxuriant  pencil  of  Lely,  still  adorn 
the  walls  of  Hampton  Court.  But 
not  less  remarkable  are  the  quaint 
confessions  of  the  autobiographer, 
whether  he  be  recording,  in  conscious 
pride,  the  items  of  the  dinner  and  the 
plate  with  which  he  appeased  the 


appetite  and  excited  the  envy  of  some 
less  prosperous  guest,  or  junketing 
with  Mrs  Pierce  and  equivocal  Mrs 
Knipp  the  actress,  whilst  poor  Mrs 
Pepys  was  absent  on  a  fortnight's 
visit  to  the  country.  Far  are  we  from 
excusing  or  even  palliating  the  pro- 
pensities of  Pepys.  We  have  enough 
before  us  to  show  that  he  was  a  sad 
flirt,  and  a  good  deal  of  a  domestic 
hypocrite:  all  this  he  admits,  and 
even  exhibits  at  times  a  certain 
amount  of  penitence  and  compunction. 
But  we  confess  that  we  should  be  glad 
to  know  from  which  section  of  the 
Diary  the  objectionable  matter  has 
been  expunged.  If  from  the  public 
part,  or  rather  that  disconnected  with 
the  personality  of  Pepys,  we  acquiesce 
without  further  comment  in  the  taste 
and  judgment  of  the  editor.  We  do 
not  want  to  have  any  minute  details, 
even  though  Pepys  may  have  written 
them  down,  of  the  drunken  and  dis- 
graceful exhibitions  of  Sir  Charles 
Sedley  and  his  comrades,  or  even  of 
the  private  actings  of  the  Maids  (by 
courtesy)  of  Honour.  We  have  enough, 
and  more  than  enough,  of  this  in  the 
Memoirs  of  Gi'ammont,  and  no  one 
would  wish  to  see  augmented  that 
repertory  of  antiquated  scandal. 
History,  and  the  products  of  the 
stage  as  it  then  existed,  speak  quite 
unequivocally  as  to  the  general  de- 
moralisation of  those  unhappy  times, 
and  it  cannot  serve  any  manner  of 
use  to  multiply  or  magnify  instances. 
But  whilst  we  so  far  freely  concede 
the  right  of  omission  to  Lord  Bray- 
brooke, we  must  own  that  we  are  not 
a  little  jealous  lest,  out  of  respect  to 
the  individual  memory  of  Pepys,  he 
should  have  concealed  some  personal 
confessions,  which  may  have  been 
really  requisite  in  order  to  form  an 
accurate  estimate  of  the  man.  We 
cannot  read  the  Diary  without  strong 
suspicions  that  something  of  the  kind 
has  taken  place.  Mere  flirtation  on 
the  part  of  her  husband  could  hardly 


Diary  and  Correspondence  of  Samuel  Pepys,  F.R.S.,  Secretary  at  the  Admiralty 
in  the  Reigns  of  Charles  II.  and  James  II.  With  a  Life  and  Notes  by  RICHARD 
LORD  BRAYBROOKE.  Third  edition,  considerably  enlarged.  London,  1849. 


502 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


[Oct, 


have  driven  Mrs  Pepys  to  the  des- 
perate extremity  of  heating  the  tongs 
in  the  fire,  and  approaching  the  nup- 
tial couch  therewith,  obviously  for  no 
good  purpose,  to  the  infinite  dismay 
of  Samuel.    Pepys  might  perhaps  be 
excused  for  a  reciprocated  oscillation 
of    the    eyelid,    when    Mrs    Knipp 
winked  at  him  from  the  stage ;   but 
why,  if  his  motives  for  frequenting 
her  company  were   strictly  virtuous 
and  artistical,  did  he  go  to  kiss  her 
in    her    tireing-room  ?    why    should 
she  have  pulled  his  hair,  when  she  sat 
behind  him  in  the  pit  ?  or  why  should 
he  have  been  sorely  troubled  "  that 
Knipp    sent    by  Moll    (an    orange- 
woman,  whose  basket  was  her  charac- 
ter) to  desire  to  speak  to  me  after  the 
play,  and  I  promised  to  come  ;  but  it 
was  so  late,  and  I  forced  to  step  to 
Mrs  Williams'  lodgings  with  my  Lord 
Brouncker  and  her,  where  I  did  not 
stay,  however,  for  fear  of  her  showing 
me  her  closet,  and  thereby  forcing  me 
to  give  her  something;    and  it  was 
so  late,  that,  for  fear  of  my  wife's 
coming  home  before  me,  I  was  forced 
to  go  straight  home,  which  troubled 
me"?    If  Pepys  was  really  innocent 
in  deed,  and  but  culpable  in  thought 
and   inclination,    his    escape  was  a 
mighty  narrow  one,  and  Mrs  Pepys 
may    well    stand    excused    for   the 
strength  and  frequency  of  her  sus- 
picions.   The  truth  is,  that  Pepys,  at 
least  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  life,  was 
avery  odious  specimen  of  the  Cockney, 
and  would  upon  many  occasions  have 
been  justly  punished  by  a  sound  kick- 
ing, or  an  ample  dose  of  the  cudgel. 
It  seems  to  us  perfectly  inexplicable 
how  the  coxcomb — who,  by  the  way, 
was  a  regular  church-goer,  and  rather 
zealous  religionist — could  have  pre- 
vailed upon  himself  to  make  such 
entries  as  the  following  in  his  journal : 
"  August  18, 1667.— 1  walked  towards 
Whitehall,  but,  being  wearied,  turned 
into  St  Dimstan's  church,   where   I 
heard  an  able  sermon  of  the  minister 
of  the  place  ;  and  stood  by  a  pretty, 
modest  maid,  whom  I  did  labour  to 
take  by  the  hand ;  but  she  would  not, 
but  got  further  and  further  from  me ; 
and  at  last  I  could  perceive  her  to 
take  pins  out  of  her  pocket  to  prick 
me  if  I  should  touch  her  again,  which 
seeing,  I  did  forbear,  and  was  glad  I 
did  spy  her  design.    And  then  I  fell 


•to  gaze  upon  another  pretty  maid  in 
a  pew  close  to  me,  and  she  on  me ; 
and  I  did  go  about  to  take  her  by  the 
hand,  which  she  suffered  a  little,  and 
then  withdrew.  So  the  sermon  ended, 
and  the  church  broke  up,  and  my 
amours  ended  also."  What  a  pity 
that  the  first  maid  in  question  had  not 
been  more  nimble  with  her  fingers ! 
The  poisoned  bodkin  which  the  goblin 
page  shoved  into  the  knee  of  Wat 
Tinlinn,  would  have  been  well  be- 
stowed, if  buried  to  the  very  head,  on 
this  occasion,  in  the  hip  of  Pepys; 
and  charity  does  not  forbid  us  from 
indulging  ourselves  in  fancy  with  the 
startling  hideousness  of  his  howl ! 
No  wonder  that  Mrs  Pepys  not  only 
made  hot  the  tongs,  but  incoherently 
insisted,  at  times,  on  the  necessity  of 
a  separate  maintenance. 

The  great  charm  of  the  book  is  its 
utter  freedom  from  disguise.  The 
zeal  of  antiquaries,  and  the  patriotic 
exertions  of  the  literary  clubs,  have, 
of  late  years,  put  the  public  in  posses- 
sion of  various  diaries,  which  are  most 
valuable,  as  throwing  light  upon  the 
political  incidents  and  social  manners 
of  the  times  in  which  the  authors  lived. 
Thus  we  have  the  journals  of  honest 
John  Nicholl,  writer  to  the  signet  in 
Edinburgh,  who  saw  the  great  Mar- 
quis of  Montrose  go  down  from  his 
prison  to  the  scaffold  ;  of  the  shrewd 
and  cautious  Fountainhall ;  of  the 
high-minded  and  accomplished  Eve- 
lyn, and  many  others — the  manu- 
scripts of  which  had  lain  for  years  un- 
disturbed on  the  shelf  or  in  the  char- 
ter-chest. But  it  cannot  be  said  of 
any  one  of  those  diaries,  that  it  was 
kept  solely  for  the  use  and  reference 
of  the  writer.  Some  of  them  may  not 
have  been  intended  for  publication ; 
and  it  is  very  likely  that  the  thoughts 
of  posthumous  renown  never  crossed 
the  mind  of  the  chronicler,  as  he  set 
down  his  daily  jotting  and  observa- 
tion. Nevertheless  those  were  family 
documents,  such  as  a  father,  if  he  had 
no  wider  aim,  might  have  bequeathed 
for  the  information  of  his  children. 
Diaries  of  more  modern  date  have, 
we  suspect,  been  kept  principally  with 
a  view  to  publication ;  or,  at  least, 
the  writers  of  them  seem  never  to 
have  been  altogether  devoid  of  a  kind 
of  consciousness  that  their  lucubra- 
tions might  one  day  see  the  light. 


1849.] 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


503 


Owing  to  that  feeling,  the  veil  of  do- 
mestic privacy  is  seldom  withdrawn, 
and  seldomer  still  are  we  treated  to 
a  faithful  record  of  the  deeds  and 
thoughts  of  the  diarist.  But  Pepys 
framed  his  journal  with  no  such  inten- 
tion. He  durst  not,  for  dear  life, 
have  submitted  a  single  page  of  it  to 
the  inspection  of  the  wife  of  his  bo- 
som— had  he  been  as  fruitful  as  Jacob, 
no  son  of  his  would  have  been  intrust- 
ed with  the  key  which  could  unlock 
the  mysterious  cipher  in  which  the 
most  private  passages  of  his  life  were 
written.  No  clerk  was  allowed  to 
continue  it  in  a  clear,  legible  hand, 
when  failing  eyesight  rendered  the 
task  irksome  or  impossible  to  him- 
self. There  is  something  of  pathos  in 
his  last  entry,  when  the  doors  of  the 
daily  confessional  were  just  closing 
for  ever.  "  And  thus  ends  all  that  I 
doubt  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  do  with 
my  own  eyes  in  the  keeping  of  my 
journal,  I  being  not  able  to  do  it  any 
longer,  having  done  now  so  long  as  to 
undo  my  eyes  almost  every  time  that 
I  take  a  pen  in  my  hand  ;  and, 
therefore,  whatever  comes  of  it,  I 
must  forbear  ;  and  therefore  resolve, 
from  this  time  forward,  to  have  it 
kept  by  my  people  in  long  hand,  and 
must  be  contented  to  set  down  no 
more  than  is  fit  for  them  and  all  the 
world  to  know ;  or,  if  there  be  any- 
thing, I  must  endeavour  to  keep  a 
margin  in  my  book  open,  to  add  now 
and  then  a  note  in  short-hand,  with  my 
own  hand."  Perhaps  it  is  as  well  that 
the  marginal  continuation  so  hinted 
at  was  withheld ;  for,  in  the  process 
of  decanting,  the  wine  would  have 
lost  its  flavour,  and  must  have  suf- 
fered terribly  in  contrast  with  the 
raciness  of  the  earlier  cooper. 

The  position  in  life  which  Pepys 
occupied  renders  his  Diary  doubly 
interesting.  Had  he  been  only  a 
hanger-on  of  the  court,  we  might  have 
heard  more  minute  and  personal  scan- 
dal, conveyed  through  the  medium  of 
Bab  May,  or  Chiffinch,  or  other  un- 
scrupulous satellites  of  a  very  profli- 
gate monarch.  Had  he  been  a  mere 
private  citizen  or  merchant,  his  know- 
ledge of  or  interest  in  public  events 
•would  probably  have  been  so  small, 
as  to  assist  us  but  little  in  unravelling 
the  intricate  history  of  the  time. 
But,  standing  as  he  did  between  two 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCVTII. 


classes  of  society,  then  separated  by  a 
far  stronger  line  of  demarcation 
than  now,  —  a  citizen  of  London 
by  birth  and  connexion,  by  occupa- 
tion a  government  official,  and 
through  instinct  an  intense  admirer  of 
the  great — he  had  access  to  more 
sources  of  information,  and  could  in- 
terpret general  opinion  better,  than 
the  professional  courtier  or  tradesman. 
Shrewd,  sharp,  and  not  very  scru- 
pulous, he  readily  seized  all  oppor- 
tunities of  making  his  way  in  the 
world  ;  and  though  privately  a  censor 
of  the  more  open  vices  of  the  great, 
he  never  was  so  truly  happy  as  when 
admitted  by  accident  to  their  society. 
Lord  Braybrooke,  we  think,  is  too 
partial  in  his  estimate  of  Pepys'  char- 
acter. If  we  are  to  judge  of  him  by 
his  own  confessions,  he  was  largely 
imbued  with  that  spirit  of  meanness, 
arrogance,  and  vanity,  which  dramatic 
writers  have  always  seized  on  as 
illustrative  of  the  parvenu,  but  which 
is  never  apparent  in  the  conversation, 
or  discernible  in  the  dealings,  of  a  true 
and  perfect  gentleman. 

Sam  does  not  appear  to  have 
troubled  himself  much  about  his  pedi- 
gree until  he  became  a  person  of 
considerable  note  and  substance.  In- 
deed, the  circumstances  of  his  imme- 
diate extraction  i  were  not  such  as  to 
have  found  much  favour  in  the  eyes  of 
the  professors  of  Herald's  College. 
His  father  was  a  respectable  tailor, 
and,  in  his  own  earlier  years,  Pepys 
had  carried  doublets  to  customers,  if 
not  actually  handled  the  goose.  The 
impressions  that  he  received  in  his 
boyhood  seem  to  have  been  indelible 
through  life;  prosperity  could  not 
make  him  insensible  to  the  flavour  of 
cucumber.  The  sight  of  a  new  gar- 
ment invariably  kindled  in  his  mind 
the  aspirations  of  his  primitive  calling, 
and  very  proud,  indeed,  was  he  when 
brother  Tom  brought  him  his  "jack- 
anapes coat  with  silver  buttons."  In 
his  way  he  was  quite  a  Sir  Piercie 
Shafton,  and  never  formed  a  complete 
opinion  of  any  man  without  due  con- 
sideration of  his  clothes.  At  the  out- 
set of  his  diary  we  find  him  married, 
and  in  rather  indifferent  circumstan- 
ces. He  was  then  a  clerk  in  some 
public  office  connected  with  the  Ex- 
chequer, at  a  small  salary.  But  he 
was  diligent  in  his  vocation,  and  pru- 


504 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


[Oct. 


dent  in  his  habits ;  so  that  he  and  his 
wife,  and  servant  Jane,  fared  not 
much  worse,  or  perhaps  rather 
better,  than  Andrew  Marvell,  for  we 
find  them  living  in  a  garret,  and  din- 
ing on  New  Year's  day  on  the  re- 
mains of  a  turkey,  in  the  dressing 
whereof  Mrs  Pepjrs  unfortunately 
burned  her  hand.  A  few  days  after- 
wards, they  mended  their  cheer  at  the 
house  of"  cosen  Thomas  Pepys"  the  tur- 
ner, where  the  dinner  u  was  very  good  ; 
only  the  venison  pasty  was  palpable 
mutton,  which  was  not  handsome." 
But  the  advent  of  better  banquets 
was  near.  In  the  preceding  autumn, 
the  old  protector,  Oliver  Cromwell, 
had  been  earned  to  the  grave,  and  the 
reins  of  government,  sorely  frayed 
and  worn,  were  given  to  the  weak 
hands  of  Richard.  In  truth,  there 
was  hardly  any  government  at  all. 
The  military  chiefs  did  not  own  the 
second  Cromwell  as  their  master  ; 
Lambert  was  attempting  to  get  up  a 
party  in  his  own  favour  ;  and  Monk, 
in  command  of  the  northern  army, 
was  suspected  of  a  similar  design. 
The  bulk  of  the  nation,  in  terror  of 
anarchy,  and  heartily  sick  of  the  con- 
sequences of  revolution,  which,  as 
usual,  had  terminated  in  arbitrary 
rule,  longed  for  the  restoration  of 
their  legitimate  sovereign,  as  the  only 
means  of  arresting  further  calamity; 
and  several  of  the  influential  officers, 
not  compromised  by  regicide,  were 
secretly  of  the  same  opinion.  Amongst 
these  latter  was  Sir  Edward  Montagu, 
admiral  of  the  fleet,  afterwards  created 
Earl  of  Sandwich,  whose  mother  was 
a  Pepys,  and  with  whom,  accordingly, 
Samuel  was  proud  to  reckon  kin. 
Sir  Edward  had  been  already  very 
kind  to  his  young  relative,  and  now 
laid  the  foundation  of  his  fortunes  by 
employing  him  as  his  secretary,  during 
the  expedition  which  ended  with  the 
return  of  Charles  II.  to  his  hereditary 
dominions.  Pepys,  in  his  boyish  days, 
had  been  somewhat  tainted  with  the 
Roundhead  doctrines,  bnt  he  was  now 
as  roaring  a  royalist  as  ever  danced 
round  a  bonfire ;  and  the  slight  ac- 
cession of  profit  which  accrued  to  him 
for  his  share  in  the  Restoration,  gave 
him  an  unbounded  appetite  for  future 
accumulations.  He  made  himself 
useful  to  Montagu,  who  presently 
received  his  earldom,  and  through  his 


interest  Pep}rs  was  installed  in  office 
as  clerk  of  the  Acts  of  the  Navy. 

Other    snug  jobs    followed,    and 
Pepys  began  to  thrive  apace.      It  is 
possible  that,  if  judged  by  the  stan- 
dard of  morality  recognised   in  his 
time,    GUI-    friend    may    have    been 
deemed,   on  the  whole,   a  tolerably 
conscientious  officer;  but,  according 
to   our  more  strict  ideas,   he  hardly 
could    have  piqued  himself,    like  a 
modern  statesman,  on  the  superior 
purity  of  his  palms.     If  not  grossly 
avaricious,  he  was  decidedly  fond  of 
money ;  he  cast  up  his  accounts  with 
great  punctuality,  and  seems  to  have 
thought  that  each  additional  hundred 
pounds    came    into    his    possession 
through  a  special  interposition  of  Pro- 
vidence. No  w,  although  we  know  well 
that  there  is  a  blessing  upon  honest 
industiy,  it  would  appear  that  a  good 
deal   of    Pepys'    money   flowed   in 
through   crooked  channels.      Bribes 
and    acknowledgments    he    received 
without  much  compunction  or  hesita- 
tion, only  taking  care  that  little  evi- 
dence should  be  left  of  the  transac- 
tion.     The  following  extract  shows 
that  his  conscience  was  by  no  means 
of  stiff1  or  inflexible  material  :     "I 
met  Captain  Grove,  who  did  give  me 
a  letter  directed  to  myself  from  him- 
self.   I  discerned  money  to  be  in  it, 
knowing  as  I  found  it  to  be,  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  place  I  have  got  him  to 
be — the  taking  up  of  vessels  for  Tan- 
gier.  But  I  did  not  open  it  till  I  came 
home — not  looking  into  it   until   all 
the  money  was  out,  that  I  might  say 
I  saw  no  money  in  the  paper,  if  ever 
I    should    be    questioned    about    it. 
There  was  a  piece  in  gold,  and  £4 
in  silver."    Pepys  made  altogether  a 
good  thing  out  of  the  Tangier  settle- 
ment, for  which  he  was  afterwards 
secretary,  as,  besides  such  small  pick- 
ings as  the  above,  we  read  of  magni- 
ficent silver  flagons — "the  noblest  that 
ever  I  saw  all  the  days  of  my  life" — 
presented  to  him,  in  grateftil  acknow- 
ledgment of  services  to  come,  by  Gau- 
den,  victualler  of  the  navy.    Samuel 
had  twinges  of  conscience,   bnt  the 
sight  of  the  plate  was  too  much  for 
him :  "  Whether  I  shall  keep  them  or 
no,"  saith  he,  striving  to  cast  dust  in 
his  own  eyes,  "  I  cannot  tell ;  for  it  is 
to  oblige  me  to  him  in  the  business  of 
the  Tangier  victualling,   wherein    I 


1849.] 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


505 


doubt  I  shall  not ;  but  glad  I  am  to 
see  that  I  shall  be  sure  to  get  some- 
thing on  one  side  or  other,  have  it 
which  will ;  so  with  a  merry  heart  I 
looked  upon  them,  and  locked  them 
tip."    The  flagons,  however,  did  the 
business.      Gauden   was    preferred ; 
and,  from  an  entry  in  the  Diary,  made 
about  a  year  afterwards,  we  must 
conclude  that  his  profits  were  enor- 
mous :   "All  the  afternoon  to  my 
accounts  ;  and  then  find  myself,  to  my 
great  joy,  a  great  deal  worth — above 
£4000  — for   which   the    Lord    be 
praised !  and  is  principally  occasioned 
by  my  getting  £500  of  Cocke  for  my 
profit  in  his  bargains  of  prize  goods, 
and  from  Mr  Gauden's  making  me  a 
present  of  £500  more,  when  I  paid 
him  £800  for  Tangier.    Thus  ends 
this  year,  to  my  great  joy,  in  this 
manner.     I  have  raised  my  estate 
from  £1300,  in  this  year,  to  £4400." 
A  pretty  accretion :  but  made,  we  fear, 
at  the  expense  of  the  nation,  by  means 
which  hardly  would  have  stood  the 
scrutiny  of  a  court  of  justice.   It  may 
be  quite  true  that  every  man  in  office, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  from 
the  chancellor  to  the  doorkeeper,  was 
then  doing  the  like ;  still  we  cannot 
give  Pepys  the  benefit  of  a  perfect  in- 
demnity on  the  score  of  the  general 
practice.    Even  when  he  tells  us  else- 
where,   with    evident   satisfaction — 
"  This  night  I  received,  by  Will,  £105, 
the  first-fruits  of  my  endeavours  in 
the  late  contract  for  victualling  of 
Tangier,  for  which  God  be  praised  ! 
for  I  'can,  with  a  safe  conscience, 
say  that  I  have  therein  saved  the 
king  £5000  per  annum,  and  yet  got 
myself  a  hope  of  .£300  per  annum, 
without  the  least  wrong  to  the  king" 
— it  is  impossible  to  reconcile  his  con- 
duct with  the  strict  rules  of  morality, 
or  of  duty :  nor,  perhaps,  need  we  do 
so,  seeing  that  Pepys  makes  no  pre- 
tence of  being  altogether  immaculate. 
He  began  by  taking  small  fees  in  a 
surreptitious    way,    and    ended   by 
pocketing  the  largest  without  a  single 
twinge.    It  is  the  progress  from  re- 
muneration to  guerdon,  as  philosophi- 
cally explained  by  Costard — "  Guer- 
don ! — O  sweet  guerdon  !  better  than 
remuneration ;    elevenpence  farthing 
better.    Most  sweet  guerdon ! — I  will 
do  it,  sir,  in  print ; — guerdon — remu- 
neration ! " 


The  common  proverb  tells  us  that 
money  easily  got  is  lightly  expended. 
In  one  sense  Pepys  formed  no  excep- 
tion to  the  common  rule ;  for,  notwith- 
standing divers  good  resolutions,  he 
led  rather  a  dissipated  life  for  a  year 
or  two  after  the  Restoration,  and  was 
in  the  constant  habit  of  drinking  more 
wine  than  altogether  agreed  with  his 
constitution.    This  fault  he  strove  to 
amend  by  registering  sundry  vows, 
which,  however,  were  often  broken ; 
and  he  was  finally  weaned  from  the 
bottle  by  the  pangs  of  disordered  di- 
gestion. His  expenses  kept  pace  with 
his  income.    The  "  jackanapes  coat, 
with  silver  buttons,"  was  succeeded 
by  a  "  fine  one  of  flowered  tabby  vest, 
and  coloured  camelott  tunique,  made 
stiff  with  gold  lace  at  the  bands,"  in 
which  Pepys  probably  expected  to  do 
great  execution  in  the  Park,  or,   at 
any  rate,  to  astonish  Mrs  Knipp ;  but 
it  proved  to  be  so  extravagantly  fine, 
that  his  friends  thought  it  necessary 
to  interfere.     "  Povy  told  me  of  my 
gold-laced  sleeve  in  the  Park  yester- 
day, which  vexed  me  also,  so  as  to 
resolve  never  to  appear  in  court  with 
them,  but  presently  to  have  them 
taken  off,  as  it  is  fit  I  should,  and  so 
called  at  my  tailor's  for  that  purpose." 
Povy's  hint  might  have  its  origin  in 
envy ;  but,  on  the  whole,  it  was  wise 
and  judicious.    Also  Mrs  Pepys  was 
indulged  with  a  fair  allowance  of  lace, 
taffeta,  and  such  trinkets  as  females 
affect ;  and  both'of  them  sat  for  their 
portraits  to  Hales,  having  previously 
been  refused  by  Lely.    Furniture  and 
plate  of  the  most  expensive  descrip- 
tion were  ordered  ;  and  finally,  to  his 
intense  delight,  Samuel  achieved  the 
great  object  of  his  own  ambition,  and 
set  up  a  carriage  of  his  own.    The 
account  of  his  first  public  appearance 
in  this  vehicle  is  too  characteristic  to 
be  lost :—"  At  noon  home  to  din- 
ner,  and  there  found  my  wife  ex- 
traordinary fine,  with  her  flowered 
gown    that    she    made    two    years 
ago,   now    laced    exceeding   pretty, 
and  indeed  was  fine  all  over ;    and 
mighty  earnest  to  go,  though  the  day 
was  very  lowering;  and  she  would  have 
me  put  on  my  fine  suit,  which  I  did. 
And  so  anon  we  went  alone  through 
the  town  with  our  new  liveries  of 
serge,  and  the  horses'  manes  and  tails 
tied  with  red  ribbons,  and  the  stan- 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


506 

davds  gilt  with  varnish,  and  all  clean, 
and    green    reins,    that   people    did 
mightily  look  upon  us ;  and,  the  truth 
is,  I  did  not  see  any  coach  more  pretty, 
though  more  gay,  than  ours  all  the 
day.     But  we  set  out,  out  of  humour 
— I,  because  Betty,  whom  I  expected, 
was  not  come  to  go  with  us  ;  and  my 
wife,  that  I  would  sit  on  the  same  seat 
•with  her,  which  she  likes  not,  being  so 
fine ;  and  she  then  expected  to  meet 
Sheres,  which  we  did  in  the  Pell  Mell, 
and,  against  my  will,  I  was  forced  to 
take  him  into  the  coach,  but  was  sullen 
all  day  almost,  and  little  complaisant ; 
the  day  being  unpleasing,  though  the 
Park  full  of  coaches,  but  dusty,  and 
windy,  and  cold,  and  now  and  then  a 
little  dribbling  of  rain ;  and,  what  made 
it  worse,  there  were  so  many  hackney 
coaches  as  spoiled  the  sight  of  the 
gentlemen's ;    and  so  we  had  little 
pleasure."    The  tale  of  Seged,  Em- 
peror of  Ethiopia,  does  not  convey  a 
clearer  moral.  No  peacock  was  proud- 
er than  Samuel  Pepys,  as  he  stepped 
that  day,  in  all  the  luxury  of  gor- 
geous   apparel,   into  his   coach,  and 
drove  through  the  streets  of  London, 
under  the  distinct  impression  that,  for 
the  moment,  he  was  the  most  remark- 
ed and  remarkable  man  in  the  whole 
of   his    Majesty's    dominions.      Yet 
there  were  drops  of  bitterness  in  the 
cup.    Betty  Turner  was  not  there  to 
enjoy  the  triumph,  and  Sheres,  who 
must  needs  join  the  party,  was  sup- 
posed by  Samuel  to  stand  rather  high 
in  the  good  graces  of  Mrs  Pepys,  in- 
somuch that  he  mourned  not  a  whit 
when  he  heard  that  the  gallant  cap- 
tain was  about  to  set  off  to  Tangier. 
Add  to  this,   the  uugenial  weather, 
and  the  insolent  display  of  hackney 
coaches,  obscuringsomewhatthe  lustre 
of  his  new  turn-out,  and  detracting 
from   the  glory  of  red  ribbons,  gilt 
standards,  and  green  reins,  and  we 
need  hardly  wonder  if,  even  in  the 
hour  of  triumph,  Pepys  felt  that  he 
was  mortal.    It  is  to  be  hoped  that, 
when  he  returned  home,  he  vented  his 
ill-humour  neither  upon  his  wife  nor 
his  monkey,  both  of  whom,  on  other 
occasions,  were  made  to  suffer  when 
anything  had  gone  wrong. 

Three  great  national  events,  which 
have  not  yet  lost  their  interest,  are 
recorded  in  this  Diary.  These  are  the 
plague,  the  great  fire  of  London,  and 


[Oct. 


the  successful  enterprise  of  De  Ruyter 
and  the  Dutch  fleet  at  Chatham.  The 
account  of  the  plague  will  be  read 
with  much  interest,  especially  at  the 
present  time,  when  another  terrible 
epidemic  has  been  raging  through  the 
streets  and  lanes  of  the  metropolis. 
The  progress  of  the  plague  through 
Europe  seems,  in  many  respects,  to 
have  resembled  that  of  the  cholera. 
It  did  not  burst  out  suddenly  in  one 
locality,  but  appears  to  have  pervaded 
the   Continent  with  a  gradual  and 
irresistible  march,  sometimes  linger- 
ing in  its  advance,  and  ever  and  anon 
breaking  out  with    redoubled  viru- 
lence.   Several  years  before  it  reached 
England,    the    pestilence    raged    in 
Naples,  and  is  said  to  have  carried  off 
in  six  months  nearly  400,000  victims. 
Its  introduction  was  traced  to  a  trans- 
port ship,   with  soldiers  on   board, 
coming  from  Sardinia.     It  reached 
Amsterdam  and  Hamburg  more  than 
a  year  before  it  broke  out  in  London, 
and  its  malignity  may  be  judged  of  by 
the  following  entry  in  Pepys'  Diary : 
"  We  were  told  to-day  of  a  sloop,  of 
three  or  four  hundred  tons,  where  all 
the  men  were  dead  of  the  plague,  and 
the  sloop  cast  ashore  at  Gottenburg." 
In  England  there  had  been  great  ap- 
prehension of  its  coming,  long  before 
the  visitation  ;   and  two  exceedingly 
unhealthy  seasons,  occurring  in  suc- 
cession, had  probably  enfeebled  the 
constitutions  of  many,  and  rendered 
them  more  liable  to  the  contagion. 
Pepys'  note  of  15th  January  1662  is 
as  follows  :  "  This  morning  Mr  Ber- 
kenshaw  came  again,  and  after  he 
had  examined   me,   and  taught  me 
something  in  my  work,  he  and  I  went 
to  breakfast  in  my  chamber  upon  a 
collar  of  brawn ;  and  after  we  had 
eaten,  asked  me  whether  we  had  not 
committed  a  fault  in  eating  to-day; 
telling  me  that  it  is  a  fast-day,  ordered 
by  the  parliament,  to  pray  for  more 
seasonable  weather  ;  it  having  hither- 
to been  summer  weather  :  that  it  is, 
both  as  to  warmth  and  every  other 
thing,  just  as  if  it  were  the  middle  of 
May  or  June,  which  do  threaten  a 
plague,   (as  all  men  think,)  to  fol- 
low, for  so  it  was  almost  the  last  win- 
ter ;  and  the  whole  year  after  hath 
been  a  very  sickly  time  to  this  day." 
The  plague  appeared  in   London  in 
December  1664,  and  reached  its  dead- 


1849.] 


Diary  of  Sarmiel  Pepys. 


507 


liest  point  in  August  and  September 
of  the  ensuing  year.  The  number  of 
those  who  died  from  it  has  been  dif- 
ferently estimated  from  sixty-eight  to 
one  hundred  thousand.  London  is 
now,  according  to  the  best  authorities, 
about  four  times  as  populous  as  it  was 
then,  so  that  we  may  easily  judge  of 
the  consternation  into  which  its  in- 
habitants must  have  been  thrown 
when  the  pestilence  was  at  its  worst. 
During  the  month  of  September  1849, 
the  greatest  number  of  deaths  occur- 
ring from  cholera  in  the  metropolis,  in 
one  day,  was  about  four  hundred  and 
fifty — a  proportion  very  small  when 
compared  with  the  ravages  of  the 
plague  at  its  most  destructive  season, 
and  yet  large  enough  to  justify  great 
apprehension,  and  to  demand  humilia- 
tion and  prayer  for  national  apathy 
and  transgression.  Yet,  great  as  the 
alarm  was,  when  death  was  waving 
his  wings  over  the  affrighted  city,  it 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  so  exces- 
sive as  we  might  well  imagine.  The 
truth  is,  that,  notwithstanding  intra- 
mural interment,  bad  sewerage,  and 
infected  air,  the  sanatory  condition  of 
London,  since  it  was  rebuilt  after  the 
great  fire,  has  improved  in  a  most  re- 
markable degree.  Prior  to  that  event, 
the  metropolis  had  at  various  times 
suffered  most  severely  from  epidemics. 
In  1204,  when  the  population  must  have 
been  very  small,  it  is  recorded  that 
two  hundred  persons  were  buried 
daily  in  the  Charterhouse-yard.  The 
mortality  in  1367  has  been  described 
as  terrific.  In  1407,  thirty  thou- 
sand persons  perished  of  a  dreadful 
pestilence.  There  was  another  in 
1478,  which  not  only  visited  London 
with  much  severity,  but  is  said  to 
have  destroyed,  throughout  England, 
more  people  than  fell  in  the  wars 
which  had  raged  with  little  intermis- 
sion for  the  fifteen  preceding  years. 
In  1485,  that  mysterious  complaint 
called  the  sweating  sickness  was  very 
fatal  in  London.  Fifteen  years  later, 
in  1500,  the  plague  there  was  so 
dreadful  that  Henry  VII.  and  his 
court  were  forced  to  remove  to  Calais. 
The  sweating  sickness,  described  as 
mortal  in  three  hours,  again  scourged 
England  in  1517,  and  its  ravages 
were  so  great,  that,  according  to 
Stowe,  half  of  the  inhabitants  of  most 
of  the  larger  towns  died,  and  Oxford 


was  almost  depopulated.  In  1603-4, 
upwards  of  thirty  thousand  persons 
died  of  the  plague  in  London  alone ; 
and  in  1625  there  was  another  great 
mortality.  Since  the  great  plague  of 
London  in  1664-5,  down  to  our  time, 
no  very  fatal  epidemic — at  least  none 
at  all  comparable  to  those  earlier 
pestilences — seems  to  have  occurred 
in  the  metropolis,  and  it  is  therefore 
natural  that  any  extraordinary  visita- 
tion should,  from  its  increased  rarity, 
occasion  a  much  higher  degree  of 
alarm.  Of  all  the  accounts  extant  of 
the  plague,  that  of  Pepys  appears  to 
be  the  most  truthful  and  the  least 
exaggerated.  He  remained  in  Lon- 
don at  his  post  until  the  month  of 
August,  when  he  removed  to  Green- 
wich ;  and  although  a  timorous  man, 
and  exceedingly  shy  of  exposing  him- 
self to  unnecessary  risks,  he  seems  on 
this  occasion  to  have  behaved  with 
considerable  fortitude.  One  anec- 
dote we  cannot  omit,  for  it  tells  in  a 
few  words  a  deep  and  tearful  tragedy, 
and  is  moreover  honourable  to  Pepys. 
It  occurred  when  the  plague  was  at 
its  height.  "  My  Lord  Brouncker, 
Sir  J.  Minnes,  and  I,  up  to  the 
vestry,  at  the  desire  of  the  justices  of 
the  peace,  in  order  to  the  doing  some- 
thing for  the  keeping  of  the  plague 
from  growing ;  but,  Lord !  to  con- 
sider the  madness  of  people  of  the 
town,  who  will,  because  they  are  for- 
bid, come  in  crowds  along  with  the 
dead  corpses  to  see  them  buried  ;  but 
we  agreed  on  some  orders  for  the  pre- 
vention thereof.  Among  other  stories, 
one  was  very  passionate,  methought, 
of  a  complaint  brought  against  a  man 
in  the  town,  for  taking  a  child  from 
London  from  an  infected  house.  Al- 
derman Hooker  told  us  it  was  the 
child  of  a  very  able  citizen  in  Gracious 
Street,  a  saddler,  who  had  buried  all 
the  rest  of  his  children  of  the  plague ; 
and  himself  and  wife,  now  being 
shut  up  iu  despair  of  escaping,  did 
desire  only  to  save  the  life  of  this 
little  child,  and  so  prevailed  to  have 
it  removed,  stark -naked,  into  the 
arms  of  a  friend,  who  brought  it,  hav- 
ing put  it  into  fresh  clothes,  to  Green- 
wich ;  when,  upon  hearing  the  story, 
we  did  agree  it  should  be  permitted 
to  be  received,  and  kept  in  the  town." 
It  is  now  generally  admitted  that 
the  Account  of  the  Plague,  written  by 


508 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


[Oct. 


Defoe,  cannot  be  accepted  as  a 
genuine  narrative,  but  must  be  classed 
with  the  other  fictions  of  that  re- 
markable man,  whose  singular  power 
of  giving  a  strong  impression  of 
reality  to  every  one  of  his  compo- 
sitions must  always  challenge  the 
admiration  of  the  reader.  He  has 
not,  perhaps,  aggravated  the  horrors 
of  the  pestilence,  for  that  were  impos- 
sible ;  but  he  has  concentrated  them 
in  one  heap,  so  as  to  produce  a  more 
awful  picture  than  probably  met  the 
eye  of  any  single  citizen  of  London 
even  at  that  disastrous  period.  Pepys, 
in  his  account  of  different  visits  which 
he  was  forced  to  make  to  the  City 
when  the  epidemic  was  at  its  height, 
has  portrayed  the  outward  desolation, 
and  the  inward  anxiety  and  appre- 
hension, which  prevailed,  in  more 
sober,  yet  very  striking  colours:  "28th 
August  1665.— To  Mr  Colville  the 
goldsmith's,  having  not  been  for  some 
days  in  the  streets ;  but  now  how  few 
people  I  see,  and  those  looking  like 
people  that  had  taken  leave  of  the 
world.  To  the  Exchange,  and  there 
was  not  fifty  people  upon  it,  and  but 
few  more  like  to  be,  as  they  told  me. 
I  think  to  take  adieu  to-day  of  the 

London  streets 30th. — 

Abroad,  and  met  with  Hadley,  our 
clerk,  who,  upon  my  asking  how  the 
plague  goes,  told  me  it  increases 
much,  and  much  in  our  parish ;  for, 
says  he,  there  died  nine  this  week, 
though  I  have  returned  but  six ; 
which  is  a  very  ill  practice,  and  makes 
me  think  it  is  so  in  other  places,  and 
therefore  the  plague  much  greater 
than  people  take  it  to  be.  I  went 
forth,  and  walked  towards Moorefields, 
to  see — God  forgive  my  presumption ! 
• — whether  I  could  see  any  dead  corpse 
going  to  the  grave,  but,  as  God  would 
have  it,  did  not.  But,  Lord!  how 
everybody's  looks  and  discourse  in  the 
street  is  of  death,  and  nothing  else ! 
and  few  people  going  up  and  down, 
that  the  town  is  like  a  place  deserted 
and  forsaken.  .  .  .  6th  Sept. — 
To  London,  to  pack  up  more  things  ; 
and  there  I  saw  fires  burning  in  the 
street,  (as  it  is  through  the  whole 
cityi)  by  the  lord  mayor's  order. 
Hence  by  water  to  the  Duke  of  Albe- 
niarle's  :  all  the  way  fires  on  each  side 
of  the  Thames,  and  strange  to  see,  in 
broad  daylight,  two  or  three  burials 


upon  the  Bankside,  one  at  the  very 
heels  of  another  :  doubtless,  all  of  the 
plague,  and  yet  at  least  forty  or  fifty 
people  going  along  with  every  one  of 
them.  .  .  .  20th.  —  Lord!  what 
a  sad  time  it  is  to  see  no  boats  upon 
the  river ;  and  grass  grows  all  up  and 
down  Whitehall  Court,  and  nobody 
but  poor  wretches  in  the  streets!" 
By  this  time  the  plague  had  become 
so  general,  that  all  attempt  to  shut 
up  the  infected  houses  was  aban- 
doned; so  that,  says  Pepys,  "to  be 
sure,  we  do  converse  and  meet  with 
people  that  have  the  plague  upon 
them."  A  little  later,  when  the  pes- 
tilence was  abating,  we  find  this 
entry  :  "  I  walked  to  the  town  ;  but, 
Lord !  how  empty  the  streets  are, 
and  melancholy !  so  many  poor,  sick 
people  in  the  streets,  full  of  sores,  and 
so  many  sad  stories  overheard  as  I 
walk,  everybody  talking  of  this  dead, 
and  that  man  sick,  and  so  many  in 
this  place,  and  so  many  in  that ;  and 
they  tell  me  that,  in  Westminster, 
there  is  never  a  physician,  and  but 
one  apothecary,  left — all  being  jlead ; 
but  that  there  are  great  hopes  of  a 
great  decrease  this  week :  God  send 
it ! "  Still,  without  the  circle  of  the 
plague,  (for  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
penetrated  beyond  the  immediate 
environs  of  London,)  men  ate,  drank, 
and  made  merry,  as  though  no  vial 
of  divine  wrath  had  been  poured  out 
amongst  them.  Even  Pepys,  after 
returning  from  the  melancholy  spec- 
tacles of  this  day,  seems  to  have 
drowned  his  care  in  more  than  usual 
jollity  ;  and  his  records  go  far  to  con- 
firm the  truthfulness  of  Boccaccio,  in 
the  account  which  he  has  given  of  the 
levity  of  the  Florentines  during  the 
prevalence  of  a  like  contagion. 

The  fire  of  London,  which  occurred 
about  the  middle  of  the  succeeding 
year,  not  only  dispelled  the  more 
poignant  memories  of  the  plague, 
but  is  thought  to  have  done  good 
service  in  eradicating  its  remains, 
which  still  lingered  in  some  parts  of 
the  city,  and  may  perhaps  have  been 
the  means  of  preventing  a  second 
outbreak  of  this  pestilence.  On  the 
second  night  the  conflagration  was 
awful:  Pepys  watched  it  from  the 
river, — "  So  near  the  fire  as  we  could 
for  the  smoke ;  and  all  over  the 
Thames,  with  one's  face  in  the  wind, 


1849.] 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


509 


you  were  almost  burned  with  a  shower 
of  firedrops.  This  is  very  true ;  so  as 
houses  were  burned  by  these  drops 
and  flakes  of  fire — three  or  four,  nay, 
five  or  six  houses,  one  from  another. 
AVhen  we  could  endure  no  more  upon 
the  water,  we  to  a  little  alehouse  on 
the  Bankside,  over  against  the  Three 
Cranes,  and  there  stayed  till  it  was 
dark  almost,  and  saw  the  fire  grow, 
and,  as  it  grew  darker,  appeared  more 
and  more ;  and  in  corners,  and  upon 
steeples,  and  between  churches  and 
houses,  as  far  as  we  could  see  up  the 
hill  of  the  City,  in  a  most  horrid, 
malicious,  bloody  flame,  not  like  the 
fine  flame  of  an  ordinary  fire.  Bar- 
bary  and  her  husband  away  before  us. 
We  stayed  till,  it  being  darkish,  we 
saw  the  fire  as  only  one  entire  arch  of 
fire,  from  this  to  the  other  side  of  the 
bridge,  and  in  a  bow  up  the  hill  for 
an  arch  of  above  a  mile  long  :  it 
made  me  weep  to  see  it.  The  churches, 
houses,  and  all  on  fire  and  flaming  at 
once ;  and  a  horrid  noise  the  flames 
made,  and  the  cracking  of  houses  at 
their  ruin."  For  five  days  the  confla- 
gration raged,  nor  was  its  force  spent 
until  the  greater  part  of  London  was 
laid  in  ashes.  The  terror  of  the  cala- 
mity was  heightened  by  rumours  in- 
dustriously propagated,  though  their 
origin  never  could  be  traced.  The  fire 
was  said  to  be  the  result  of  a  deep- 
laid  Popish  plot ;  and  that  report, 
though  in  all  probability  utterly  with- 
out foundation,  was  at  a  future  day 
the  cause  of  shameful  persecution  and 
bloodshed.  A  great  alarm  was  raised 
that  the  Dutch,  with  whom  England 
was  then  at  war,  and  whose  fleet  was 
actually  in  the  Channel,  had  lauded ; 
so  that  a  kind  of  sullen  despair  and 
apathy  seized  upon  the  minds  of 
many.  It  was  long  before  London 
could  recover  from  the  blow ;  but  at 
length  a  new  city,  far  more  substan- 
tial and  splendid  than  the  first,  arose 
from  the  scattered  ruins. 

England  was  at  that  time  contest- 
ing the  supremacy  of  the  seas  with 
the  States  of  opulent  and  enterprising 
Holland.  Amsterdam  was  then  con- 
sidered the  most  wealthy  capital  of 
Europe.  The  Dutch  navy  was  power- 
ful, well  equipped,  and  well  manned, 
and  the  admirals,  De  Ruyter  and  De 
Witt,  were  esteemed  second  to  none 
living  for  seamanship  and  ability. 


The  struggle  was  not  a  new  one.  In 
1652,  after  a  desperate  engagement 
with  Blake,  Van  Tromp,  the  renowned 
commander  of  Holland,  had  sailed  in 
triumph  through  the  Channel,  with  a 
broom  at  his  masthead,  to  denote  that 
he  had  swept  the  English  from  the 
seas.  That  premature  boast  was 
afterwards  terribly  avenged.  Three 
times,  in  three  successive  months,  did 
these  foes,  worthy  of  each  other,  en- 
counter on  the  open  seas,  and  yet 
victory  declared  for  neither.  Four 
other  battles  were  fought,  which  Eng- 
land has  added  to  her  proud  list  of 
naval  triumphs ;  but  most  assuredly 
the  decisive  palm  was  not  won  until, 
on  the  31st  July  1653,  gallant  Van 
Tromp  fell  in  the  heat  of  action.  A 
braver  man  never  trod  the  quarter- 
deck, and  Holland  may  well  be  proud 
of  such  a  hero.  For  a  time  the  States 
succumbed  to  the  stern  genius  of 
Cromwell ;  nor  did  the  struggle  com- 
mence anew  until  after  the  Restora- 
tion of  Charles.  The  first  engagement 
was  glorious  for  England.  The  Duke 
of  York,  afterwards  James  II.,  com- 
manded in  person :  he  encountered  the 
Dutch  fleet  off  Harwich,  and  defeated 
it  after  a  stubborn  engagement. 
Eighteen  of  their  finest  vessels  were 
taken,  and  the  ship  of  the  admiral 
(Opdam)  blown  into  the  air.  Mr 
Macaulay,  in  his  late  published  His- 
tory of  England,  has  not  deigned  even 
to  notice  this  engagement — a  remark- 
able omission,  the  reason  of  which  it 
is  foreign  to  our  purpose  to  inquire. 
This  much  we  may  be  allowed  to  say, 
that  no  historian  who  intends  to  form 
an  accurate  estimate  of  the  character 
of  James  II.,  or  to  compile  a  complete 
register  of  his  deeds,  can  justly  ac- 
complish his  task  without  giving  that 
unfortunate  monarch  due  credit  for 
his  conduct  and  intrepidity,  in  one 
of  the  most  important  and  successful 
naval  actions  which  stands  recorded  in 
our  annals.  The  same  year  (1665)  is 
memorable  for  another  victory,  when 
the  Earl  of  Sandwich  captured  four- 
teen of  the  enemy's  ships.  Prince 
Rupert  and  the  Duke  of  Albemarle 
were  less  successful  in  the  engage- 
ment which  commenced  on  1st  June 
1666.  The  fight  lasted  four  days, 
with  no  decisive  result,  but  consider- 
able loss  on  either  side.  The  next 
battle,  fought  at  the  mouth  of  the 


510 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


[Oct. 


Thames,  ended  in  favour  of  England  ; 
the  Dutch  lost  four-and-twenty  men- 
of-war,  and  four  of  their  admirals, 
and  four  thousand  officers  and  sea- 
men, fell.  When  we  take  into  consi- 
deration the  state  of  the  navy  during 
the  earlier  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles, 
it  is  absolutely  astonishing  that  Eng- 
land was  able  not  only  to  cope  with 
the  Dutch  on  equal  terms,  but  ulti- 
mately to  subdue  them.  We  learn 
from  Pepys  the  particulars  of  a  fact 
long  generally  known,  that  in  no  de- 
partment of  the  state  were  there 
greater  corruptions,  abuses,  and  frauds 
practised  than  in  that  of  the  Ad- 
miralty. The  pay  both  of  officers  and 
men  was  constantly  in  arrear,  inso- 
much that  some  of  them  were  re- 
duced to  absolute  starvation  whilst 
considerable  sums  were  due  to  them. 
Stores  were  embezzled  and  plundered 
almost  without  inquiry.  The  fleets 
were  often  wretchedly  commanded, 
for  there  was  not  then,  as  there  is 
now,  any  restriction  between  the  ser- 
vices ;  and  new-made  captains  from 
the  circle  of  the  court,  who  never  in 
their  lives  had  been  at  sea,  were  fre- 
quently put  over  the  heads  of  vete- 
rans who  from  boyhood  had  dwelt 
upon  the  ocean.  There  was  scarcely 
any  discipline  in  the  navy  ;  impress- 
ment was  harshly  and  illegally  prac- 
tised, and  after  each  engagement  the 
sailors  deserted  by  hundreds.  So  bad 
did  matters  at  length  become,  that, 
towards  the  close  of  the  year  1666, 
the  fleet  was  in  actual  mutiny,  and 
the  naval  arm  of  England  paralysed. 
The  subsequent  reform  of  the  navy  is 
mainly  attributable  to  the  firmness 
and  determination  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  who,  being  a  far  better  man  of 
business  than  his  indolent  and  selfish 
brother,  applied  himself  resolutely  to 
the  task.  The  most  important  sug- 
gestions and  rules  for  remedying 
grievances,  and  securing  future  effi- 
ciency, were  made  and  drawn  out  by 
Pepys,  who  showed  himself,  in  this 
respect,  a  most  able  officer  of  the 
crown,  and  who,  in  consequence,  ac- 
quired an  ascendency  in  navy  affairs, 
which  he  never  lost  until  the  Revolu- 
tion deprived  him  of  a  master  who 
thoroughly  understood  his  value.  But, 
before  any  steps  were  taken  towards 
this  most  necessary  reform,  her  daring 
adversaries  aimed  at  the  capital  of 


England  a  blow  which  narrowly  failed 
of  success. 

The  seamen,  as  we  have  said,  being 
in  a  state  of  mutiny  arising  from 
sheer  wanton  mismanagement,  it  be- 
came apparent  that  no  active  naval 
operations  could  be  undertaken  in  the 
course  of  the  following  year.  All  this 
was  well  known  to  the  Dutch,  who 
determined  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunity.  During  the  spring  of 
1667,  the  whole  British  coast,  as  far 
north  as  the  firth  of  Forth,  was  mo- 
lested by  the  Dutch  cruisers,  inso- 
much that  great  inconvenience  was 
felt  in  London  from  the  total  stop- 
page of  the  coal  trade.  In  the  month 
of  June,  De  Ruyter,  being  by  that 
time  fully  prepared  and  equipped, 
sailed  boldly  into  the  Thames,  with- 
out encountering  a  vestige  of  opposi- 
tion. It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that 
the  plague  and  fire  combined,  had  not 
struck  the  citizens  of  London  with  so 
much  alarm  as  did  this  hostile  de- 
monstration. All  the  former  naval 
triumphs  of  England  seemed  to  have 
gone  for  nothing,  for  here  was  inva- 
sion brought  to  the  very  doors  of  the 
capital.  The  supremacy  of  the  seas 
was  not  now  in  dispute :  it  was  the 
occupancy  of  the  great  British  river, 
the  highway  of  the  national  com- 
merce. Strange  were  the  thoughts 
that  haunted  the  minds  of  men  whilst 
that  mighty  armament  was  hovering- 
on  our  shores  :  it  seemed  a  new 
Armada,  with  no  gallant  Drake  to 
oppose  it.  "  We  had  good  company 
at  our  table,"  wrote  Pepys,  upon  the 
3d  of  June;  "  among  others,  my  good 
Mr  Evelyn,  with  whom,  after  dinner, 
I  stepped  aside,  and  talked  upon  the 
present  posture  of  our  affairs,  which 
is,  that  the  Dutch  are  known  to  be 
abroad  with  eighty  sail  of  ships  of 
war,  and  twenty  fireships ;  and  the 
French  come  into  the  Channel,  with 
twenty  sail  of  men-of-war,  and  five 
fireships,  while  we  have  not  a  ship 
at  sea  to  do  them  any  hurt  with  ;  but 
are  calling  in  all  we  can,  while  our 
ambassadors  are  treating  at  Breda ; 
and  the  Dutch  look  upon  them  as 
come  to  beg  peace,  and  use  them  ac- 
cordingly :  and  all  this  through  the 
negligence  of  our  prince,  who  had 
power,  if  he  would,  to  master  all  these 
with  the  money  and  men  that  he  hath 
had  the  command  of,  and  may  now 


1849.] 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


611 


have  if  lie  would  mind  his  business. 
But,  for  aught  we  see,  the  kingdom  is 
likely  to  be  lost,  as  well  as  the  repu- 
tation of  it,  for  ever ;  notwithstand- 
ing so  much  reputation  got  and  pre- 
served by  a  rebel  that  went  before 
him."  All  this  was  true.  Had  he 
been  alive — he  whose  senseless  clay 
had  six  years  before  been  exhumed 
and  dishonoured  at  Tyburn — England 
would  not  then  have  been  submitting 
to  so  unexampled  a  degradation. 
Traitor  and  renegade  as  he  was, 
Cromwell  loved  his  country  well. 
Self-ambition  might  be  his  first 
motive,  but  he  was  keenly  alive  to 
the  glory  of  England,  and  had  made 
her  name  a  word  of  fear  and  terror 
among  the  nations.  He  was  no  vulgar 
demagogue,  like  those  of  our  dogmatic 
time.  Unlawfully  as  he  had  usurped 
the  functions  of  a  sovereign,  Britain 
suffered  nothing  in  foreign  estimation 
while  her  interests  were  committed  to 
his  charge.  What  wonder  if,  at  such 
a  crisis,  Pepys  and  others  could  not 
help  reverting  to  the  memory  of  the 
strong  man  whose  bones  were  lying 
beneath  the  public  gallows,  whilst  the 
restored  king  was  squandering  among 
his  harlots  that  treasure  which,  if 
rightfully  applied,  might  have  swept 
the  enemies  of  England  from  the 
seas? 

On  the  8th  of  June,  the  Dutch  fleet 
appeared  off  Harwich.  Two  days 
afterwards  they  ascended  the  river, 
took  Sheerness,  and,  breaking  an 
enormous  chain  which  had  been  drawn 
across  the  Medway  for  defence,  pene- 
trated as  far  as  Upnor  Castle,  where, 
in  spite  of  all  resistance,  they  made 
prize  of  several  vessels,  and  burned 
three  men-of-war.  By  some  shame- 
ful mismanagement  the  English  ships 
had  been  left  too  far  down  the  river, 
notwithstanding  orders  from  the  Ad- 
miralty to  have  them  removed  :  they 
were,  besides,  only  half  manned;  and 
on  this  occasion  the  English  sailors 
did  not  exhibit  their  wonted  readiness 
to  fight.  It  was  even  reported  to 
Pepys,  by  a  gentleman  who  was  pre- 
sent, "  that  he  himself  did  hear  many 
Englishmen,  on  board  the  Dutch  ships, 
speaking  to  one  another  in  English; 
and  that  they  did  cry  and  say,  We 
did  heretofore  fight  for  tickets,  now  we 
fight  for  dollars!  and  did  ask  how 
such  and  such  a  one  did,  and  would 


commend  themselves  to  them — which 
is  a  sad  consideration."  Reinforce- 
ments arrived  from  Portsmouth ;  but 
instead  of  working,  they  "  do  come  to 
the  office  this  morning  to  demand  the 
payment  of  their  tickets;  for  other- 
wise they  would,  they  said,  do  no  more 
work ;  and  are,  as  I  understand  from 
everybody  who  has  to  do  with  them, 
the  most  debauched,  damning,  swear- 
ing rogues  that  ever  were  in  the  navy 
—just  like  their  profane  commander." 
It  seemed,  at  one  time,  more  than  pro- 
bable that  the  Dutch  would  attack 
the  city:  had  they  made  the  attempt, 
it  is  not  likely,  so  great  was  the  panic, 
that  they  would  have  been  encoun- 
tered by  effectual  opposition ;  but  De 
Kuyter  was  apprehensive  of  pushing 
his  advantage  too  far,  and  contented 
himself  with  destroying  such  shipping 
as  he  found  in  the  river. 

Meanwhile,  great  was  the  explosion 
of  public  wrath,  both  against  the  Court 
and  the  Admiralty  officials.  Crowds 
of  people  congregated  in  Westminster, 
loudly  clamouring  for  a  parliament. 
The  windows  of  the  Lord  Chancellor's 
house  were  broken,  and  a  gibbet 
erected  before  his  gate.  "  People  do- 
cry  out  in  the  streets  of  their  beiug 
bought  and  sold  ;  and  both  they,  and 
everybody  that  do  come  to  me,  do 
tell  me  that  people  make  nothing  of 
talking  treason  in  the  streets  openly ; 
as,  that  they  are  bought  and  sold,  and 
governed  by  Papists,  and  that  we  are 
betrayed  by  people  about  the  king, 
and  shall  be  delivered  up  to  the 
French,  and  I  know  not  what."  Poor 
Pepys  expected  nothing  else  than  an 
immediate  attack  upon  his  office,  in 
which,  by  some  miraculous  circum- 
stance, there  happened  to  be  at  the 
moment  a  considerable  sum  of  public 
money.  His  situation  rendered  him 
peculiarly  obnoxious  to  abuse ;  and 
at  one  time  it  was  currently  reported 
that  he  was  summarily  ordered  to  the 
Tower.  These  things  cost  him  no 
little  anxiety;  but  what  distracted 
him  most  was,  the  agonising  thought 
that  the  whole  of  his  private  sayings 
and  fortune,  which  he  had  by  him  in 
specie,  might,  in  a  single  moment,  be 
swept  away  and  dissipated  for  ever. 
If  the  seamen  who  were  mutinous  for 
pay  should  chance  to  hear  of  the  funds 
in  hand,  and  take  it  into  their  heads 
to  storm  the  office,  there  was  little- 


512 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


[Oct. 


probability  of  them  drawing  nice  dis- 
tinctions between  public  and  private 
property :  and,  in  that  case,  money, 
flagons,  and  all  would  find  their  way 
to  Wapping.  Also,  there  might  be  a 
chance  of  a  reckoning  in  any  event ; 
"for,"  said  he,  "the  truth  is,  I  do 
fear  so  much  that  the  whole  kingdom 
is  undone,  that  I  do  this  night  resolve 
to  study  with  my  father  and  wife  what 
to  do  with  the  little  I  have  in  money 
by  me,  for  I  give  up  all  the  rest  that 
I  have  iu  the  king's  hands,  for  Tan- 
gier, for  lost.  So  God  help  us !  and 
God  knows  what  disorders  we  may 
fall  into,  and  whether  any  violence 
on  this  office,  or  perhaps  some  se- 
verity on  our  persons,  as  being 
reckoned  by  the  silly  people,  or  per- 
haps may,  by  policy  of  state,  be 
thought  fit  to  be  condemned  by  the 
king  and  Duke  of  York,  and  so  put  to 
trouble  ;  though,  God  knows  !  I  have 
in  my  own  person  done  my  full  duty, 
I  am  sure."  So,  iu  the  very  midst  of 
the  confusion,  Samuel,  like  a  wise 
man,  set  about  regulating  his  own  af- 
fairs. He  was  lucky  enough  to  get 
£400  paid  him,  to  account  of  his  sa- 
lary, and  he  despatched  his  father  and 
wife  to  Cambridgeshire,  with  £1300 
in  gold  iu  their  night-bag.  Next  day 
Mr  Gibson,  one  of  his  clerks,  followed 
them  with  another  1000  pieces,  "  un- 
der colour  of  an  express  to  Sir  Jeremy 
Smith."  The  two  grand  silver  flagons 
went  to  Kate  Joyce's,  where  it  is  to 
be  presumed  they  would  be  tolerably 
safe.  Pepys,  moreover,  provided 
himself  a  girdle,  "  by  which,  with 
some  trouble,  I  do  carry  about  me 
£300  of  gold  about  my  body,  that  I 
may  not  be  without  something  in  case 
I  should  be  surprised ;  for  I  think,  in 
any  nation  but  ours,  people  that  ap- 
pear— for  we  are  not  indeed  so — so 
faulty  as  we  would  have  their  throats 
cut,"  Still  he  had  £200  in  silver  by 
him,  which  was  not  convertible  into 
gold,  there  having  been,  as  usual  on 
such  occasions,  a  sharp  run  upon  the 
more  portable  metal.  His  ideas  as  to 
secreting  this  sum  would  not  have 
displeased  Vespasian,  but  he  seems  to 
have  been  deterred  from  that  experi- 
ment by  the  obvious  difficulty  of  re- 
covering the  silver  at  the  moment  of 
need.  These  dispositions  made,  Pepys 
obviously  felt  himself  more  comfort- 
able, and  manfully  resolved  to  abide 


the  chances  of  assault,  imprisonment, 
or  impeachment. 

Xone  of  those  calamities  befel  him. 
After  the  navy  of  Holland  had  disap- 
peared from  the  waters  of  the  Thames, 
an  inquiry,  of  rather  a  strict  and  rigo- 
rous nature,  as  to  the  causes  of  the 
late  disaster,  was  instituted ;  but, 
where  the  blame  was  so  widely 
spread,  and  retort  so  easy,  it  was  dif- 
ficult to  fix  upon  any  particular  vic- 
tim as  a  propitiation  for  the  official 
sins ;  and  Pepys,  who  really  under- 
stood his  business,  made  a  gallant  and 
successful  defence,  not  only  for  him- 
self, but  for  his  associates.  We  need 
not,  however,  enter  into  that  matter, 
more  especially  as  we  hope  that  the 
reader  feels  sufficient  interest  in  Pepys 
and  his  fortunes,  to  be  curious  to 
know  what  became  of  his  money ;  nor 
is  the  history  of  its  disposal  and  re- 
covery the  least  amusing  portion  of 
this  narrative. 

Mr  Peter  Pett,  commissioner  of  the 
navy,  who  was  principally  blamable 
for  the  loss  of  the  ships  at  Chatham, 
had  been  actually  sent  to  the  Tower ; 
and  our  friend  Pepys,  being  summoned 
to  attend  the  council,  had  an  awful 
misgiving  that  the  same  fate  was  in 
store  for  him.  He  escaped,  however ; 
"  but  my  fear  was  such,  at  my  going 
in,  of  the  success  of  the  day,  that  I 
did  think  fit  to  give  J.  Hater,  whom  I 
took  with  me  to  wait  the  event,  my 
closet  key,  and  directions  where  to 
find  £500  and  more  in  silver  and 
gold,  and  my  tallies,  to  remove  [in 
case  of  any  misfortune  to  me.  Home, 
and  after  being  there  a  little,  my  wife 
came,  and  two  of  her  fellow-travellers 
with  her,  with  whom  we  drank — a 
couple  of  merchant-like  men,  I  think, 
but  have  friends  in  our  country.  They 
being  gone,  my  wife  did  give  me  so  bad 
an  account  of  her  and  my  father's  me- 
thod, in  burying  of  our  gold,  that  made 
me  mad ;  and  she  herself  is  not  pleased 
with  it — she  believing  that  my  sister 
knows  of  it.  My  father  and  she  did 
it  on  Sunday,  when  they  were  gone  to 
church,  in  open  daylight,  in  the  midst 
of  the  garden,  where,  for  aught  they 
knew,  many  eyes  might  see  them, 
which  put  me  into  trouble,  and  I  pre- 
sently cast  about  how  to  have  it  back 
again,  to  secure  it  here,  the  times 
being  a  little  better  now." 

The  autumn  was  well  advanced  be- 


1849.] 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


513 


fore  Pepys  could  obtain  leave  to  go 
down  into  the  country,  Avhither  at 
length  he  proceeded,  not  to  shoot  part- 
ridges or  pheasants,  but  to  disinter  his 
buried  treasure.  We  doubt  whether 
ever  resurrectionist  felt  himself  in  such 
a  quandary. 

"  My  father  and  I  with  a  dark-laiitern, 
it  being  now  night,  into  the  garden  with 
my  wife,  and  there  went  about  our  great 
work  to  dig  up  my  gold.  But,  Lord  ! 
what  a  tosse  I  was  for  some  time  in,  that 
they  could  not  justly  tell  where  it  was; 
that  I  began  hastily  to  sweat,  and  be 
angry  that  they  could  not  agree  better 
upon  the  place,  and  at  last  to  fear  that  it 
was  gone:  but  by-and-by,  poking  with  a 
spit,  we  found  it,  and  then  began  with  a 
spudd  to  lift  up  the  ground.  But,  good 
God !  to  see  how  sillily  they  did  it,  not  half 
afoot  under  ground,  and  in  the  sight  of  the 
world  from  a  hundred  places,  if  anybody 
by  accident  were  near  hand,  and  within 
sight  of  a  neighbour's  window  :  only  my 
father  says  that  he  saw  them  all  gone  to 
church  before  he  began  the  work,  when  he 
laid  the  money.  But  I  was  out  of  my 
wits  almost,  and  the  more  for  that,  upon 
my  lifting  up  the  earth  with  the  spudd,  I 
did  discern  that  I  had  scattered  the  pieces 
of  gold  round  about  the  ground  among 
the  grass  and  loose  earth;  and  taking  up 
the  iron  headpieces  wherever  they  were 
put,  I  perceived  the  earth  was  got  among 
the  gold,  and  wet,  so  that  the  bags  were 
all  rotten,  and  all  the  notes,  that  I  could 
not  tell  what  in  the  world  to  say  to  it,  not 
knowing  how  to  judge  what  was  wanting, 
or  what  had  been  lost  by  Gibson  in  his 
coming  down  ;  which,  ai  put  together, 
did  make  me  mad;  and  at  last  I  was  fix- 
ed to  take  up  the  headpieces,  dirt  and  all, 
and  as  many  of  the  scattered  pieces  as  I 
could  with  the  dirt  discern  by  candle-light, 
and  carry  them  into  my  brother's  cham- 
ber, and  there  lock  them  up  till  I  had  eat 
a  little  supper;  and  then,  all  people  go- 
ing to  bed,  W.  Hewer  and  I  did  all  alone, 
with  several  pails  of  water  and  besoms,  at 
last  wash  the  dirt  off  the  pieces,  and  part- 
ed the  pieces  and  the  dirt,  and  then  began 
to  tell  them  by  a  note  which  I  had  of  the 
value  of  the  whole,  in  my  pocket;  and  do 
find  that  there  was  short  above  a  hundred 
pieces  ;  which  did  make  me  mad ;  and 
considering  that  the  neighbour's  house 
was  so  near  that  we  could  not  possibly 
speak  one  to  another  in  the  garden  at  that 
place  where  the  gold  lay — especially  my 
father  being  deaf — but  they  must  know 
what  we  had  been  doing,  I  feared  that 
they  might  in  the  night  come  and  gather 
some  pieces  and  prevent  us  the  next  morn- 
ing; so  W.  Hewer  and  I  out  again  about 


midnight,  for  it  was  now  grown  so  late, 
and  there  by  candle-light  did  make  shift 
to  gather  forty-five  pieces  more.  And  so 
in,  and  to  cleanse  them;  and  by  this  time 
it  was  past  two  in  the  morning;  and  so  to 
bed,  with  my  mind  pretty  quiet  to  think 
that  I  have  recovered  so  many,  I  lay  in 
the  trundle-bed,  the  girl  being  gone  to  bed 
to  my  wife,  and  there  lay  in  some  disquiet 
all  night,  telling  of  the  clock  till  it  was 
daylight." 

Then  ensued  a  scene  of  washing  for 
gold,  the  study  of  which  may  be  use- 
ful to  any  intending  emigrant  to  Cali- 
fornia. 

"  And  then  W.  Hewer  and  I,  with  pails 
and  a  sieve,  did  lock  ourselves  into  the 
garden,  and  there  gather  all  the  earth 
about  the  place  into  pails,  and  then  sift 
those  pails  in  one  of  the  summer-houses, 
just  as  they  do  for  diamonds  in  other 
parts  of  the  world ;  and  there,  to  our 
great  content,  did  by  nine  o'clock  make 
the  last  night's  forty-five  up  seventy-nine : 
so  that  we  are  come  to  about  twenty  or 
thirty  of  what  the  true  number  should  be; 
and  perhaps  within  less  ;  and  of  them  I 
may  reasonably  think  that  Mr  Gibson 
might  lose  some  :  so  that  I  am  pretty 
well  satisfied  that  my  loss  is  not  great, 
and  do  bless  God  that  all  is  so  well. 
So  do  leave  my  father  to  make  a  second 
examination  of  the  dirt ;  and  my  mind  at 
rest  on  it,  being  but  an  accident :  and  so 
gives  me  some  kind  of  content  to  remem- 
ber how  painful  it  is  sometimes  to  keep 
money,  as  well  as  to  get  it,  and  how 
doubtful  I  was  to  keep  it  all  night,  and 
how  to  secure  it  in  London :  so  got  all 
my  gold  put  up  in  bags." 

And  then  did  Samuel  Pepys  return 
to  London  rejoicing,  not  one  whit  the 
worse  for  all  his  care  and  anxiety,  yet 
still  incubating 'on  his  treasure,  whicli 
he  had  prudently  stowed  away  beneath 
him,  and,  says  he,  "  my  work  every 
quarter  of  an  hoiir  was  to  look  to  see 
whether  all  was  well ;  and  I  did  ride 
in  great  fear  all  the  day." 

We  have  already  hinted  that 
Pepys  was  by  no  means  a  Hector  in 
valour.  The  sight  of  a  suspicious 
bumpkin  armed  with  a  cudgel,  on  the 
road,  always  gave  him  qualms  of  ap- 
prehension ;  and  in  the  night-season 
his  dreams  were  commonly  of  robbery 
and  mnrder.  For  many  nights  after 
the  great  fire,  he  started  from  sleep 
under  the  conviction  that  his  premises 
were  in  a  bright  flame  :  the  creaking 
of  a  door  after  midnight  threw  him 
into  a  cold  perspiration ;  and  a  reported 
noise  on  the  leads  nearly  drove  him 


514 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


[Oct. 


past  his  judgment.  He  thus  reports 
his  sensations  on  the  occurrence  of  the 
latter  phenomenon : — 

"  Knowing  that  I  have  a  great  sura  of 
money  in.  the  house,  this  puts  me  into  a 
most  mighty  affright,  that  for  more  than 
two  hours,  I  could  not  almost  tell  what 
to  do  or  say,  but  feared  this  night,  and 
remembered  that  this  morning  I  saw  a 
woman  and  two  men  stand  suspiciously 
in  the  entry,  in  the  dark;  I  calling  to 
them,  they  made  me  only  this  answer, 
the  woman  saying  that  the  men  only 
come  to  see  her;  but  who  she  was,  I 
cannot  tell.  The  truth  is,  my  house  is 
mighty  dangerous,  having  so  many  ways 
to  be  come  to ;  and  at  my  windows,  over 
the  stairs,  to  see  who  goes  up  and  down  ; 
but  if  I  escape  to-night,  I  will  remedy  it. 
God  preserve  us  this  night  safe  !  So,  at 
almost  two  o'clock  I  home  to  my  house, 
and,  in  great  fear,  to  bed,  thinking  every 
running  of  a  mouse  really  a  thief ;  and  so 
to  sleep,  very  brokenly,  all  night  long, 
and  found  all  safe  in  the  morning." 

All  of  us  have,  doubtless,  on  occa- 
sion, been  wakened  from  slumber  by 
a  hollow  bellowing,  as  if  an  ox  had, 
somehow  or  other,  fallen  half  way 
down  the  chimney.  Once,  in  a 
remote  country  district,  we  were 
roused  from  our  dreams  by  a  hideous 
flapping  of  wings  in  the  same  locality, 
and  certainly  did,  for  a  moment,  con- 
jecture that  the  foul  fiend  was  flying 
away  with  our  portmanteau.  The 
first  of  these  untimeous  sounds  usually 
proceeds  from  a  gentleman  of  Ethio- 
pian complexion,  who  is  perched  some- 
where among  the  chimney-pots  ;  the 
latter  we  discovered  to  arise  from  the 
involuntary  struggles  of  a  goose,  who 
had  been  cruelly  compelled  to  assist 
in  the  dislodgement  of  the  soot.  Some 
degree  of  tremor  on  such  occasions  is 
admissible  without  reproach,  but 
surely  old  Trapbois  himself  could 
hardly  have  behaved  worse  than 
Pepys  upon  the  following  alarm. 

"  Waked  about  seven  o'clock  this 
morning,  with  a  noise  I  supposed  I  heard 
near  our  chamber,  of  knocking,  which 
by-and-by  increased  ;  and  I,  now  awake, 
could  distinguish  it  better.  I  then 
waked  my  wife,  and  both  of  us  wondered 
at  it,  and  lay  so  a  great  while,  while 
that  increased,  and  at  last  heard  it  plainer, 
knocking,  as  it  were  breaking  down  a 
window  for  people  to  get  out ;  and  then 
removing  of  stools  and  chairs ;  and 
plainly,  by-and-by,  going  up  and  down 
our  stairs.  We  lay,  both  of  us,  afraid  ; 


yet  I  would  have  rose,  but  my  wife  would 
not  let  me.     Besides,   I  could  not  do  it 
without  making  noise  ;  and  we  did  both 
conclude  that  thieves  were  in  the  house, 
but  wondered  what  our  people  did,  whom 
we  thought  either  killed,  or  afraid  as  we 
were.     Thus  we  lay  till  the  clock  struck 
eight,  and  high  day.     At  last,  I  removed 
my  gown  and  slippers  safely  to  the  other 
side  of  the  bed,  over  my  wife  ;  and  there 
safely   rose,  and  put  on  my   gown  and 
breeches,  and  then,  with  a  firebrand  in 
my  hand,  safely  opened  the  door,  and  saw 
nor  heard  anything.     Then,  with  fear,  I 
confess,  went  to  the  maid's  chamber  door, 
and  all  quiet  and  safe.     Called  Jane  up, 
and  went  down  safely,  and  opened   my 
chamber   door,  where  all  well.      Then 
more  freely  about,  and  to  the  kitchen, 
where  the  cookmaid  up,  and  all  safe.     So 
up  again,  and  when  Jane  came,  and  we 
demanded  whether  she   heard  no  noise, 
she  said  "  Yes,  but  was  afraid,"  but  rose 
with  the  other  maid  and  found  nothing ; 
but  heard  a  noise  in  the  great  stack  of 
chimneys  that  goes  from  Sir  J.  Minnes's 
through  our  house  ;  and  so  we  sent,  and 
their    chimneys    have    been   swept   this 
morning,  and  the   noise   was  that,  and 
nothing  else.     It  is  one  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary  accidents    in    my   life,   and 
gives  ground  to  think  of  Don  Quixote's 
ad  ventures,  how  people  may  be  surprised; 
and  the  more  from  an  accident  last  night,, 
that  our  young  gibb-cat  did  leap  down 
our  stairs,  from  top  to  bottom,  at  two 
leaps,  and  frighted  us,  that  we  could  not 
tell  whether  it  was  the  cat  or  a  spirit, 
and  do  sometimes  think  this  morning  that 
the  house  might  be  haunted." 

Had  our  space  admitted  of  it,  we 
should  have  been  glad  to  copy  a  few 
of  the  anecdotes  narrated  by  Pepys 
regarding  the  court  of  King  Charles. 
These  are  not  always  to  be  depended 
upon  as  correct,  for  Pepys  usually  re- 
ceived them  at  second  hand,  and  put 
them  down  immediately  without  fur- 
ther inquiry.  We  all  know,  from  ex- 
perience, what  exaggeration  prevails 
in  the  promulgation  of  gossip,  and 
how  difficult  it  is  at  any  time  to  ascer- 
tain the  real  merits  of  a  story.  The 
raw  material  of  a  scandalous  anecdote 
passes  first  into  the  hands  of  a  skilful 
manufacturer,  who  knows  how  to  give 
it  due  colour  and  fit  proportion  ;  and 
when,  after  undergoing  this  process, 
it  is  presented  to  the  public,  it  would 
puzzle  any  of  the  parties  concerned  to 
reconcile  it  with  the  actual  facts.  In 
a  court  like  that  of  Charles,  there  is 
always  mixed  up  with  the  profligacy 


1849.]  Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys.  515 

a  considerable  deal  of  wit.     Such  men     story  of  Mrs  Stewart's  going  away  from 
as  Sedley,  Rochester,  Etherege,  and 
Killigrew,  were  privileged  characters, 
and    never    scrupled  to  lay  on    the 


never 

'varnish,  if  by  so  doing  they  could 
heighten    the    effect.      Neither    the 
station,  nor  the  manners,  nor,  indeed, 
the  tastes  of  Pepys,  qualified  him  to 
mix  with  such  society,  and  therefore 
he  can  only  retail  to  us  the  articles 
which  came  adulterated  to  his  hand. 
It  is  rash  in  any  historian  to  trust 
implicitly  to  memoirs.     They  may, 
indeed,  give  an  accurate  general  pic- 
ture, but  they  cannot  be  depended  on 
for  particulars :  for  example,  we  en- 
tertain a  strong  suspicion  that  one- 
half  at  least  of  the  personal  anecdotes 
related  by  Count  Anthony  Hamilton 
are,  if  not  absolutely  false,  at  least 
most  grossly  exaggerated.    We  shall 
allude  merely  to  one  notable  instance 
of  this  kind  of  misrepresentation  which 
occurs  in  Pepys.  Frances,  more  com- 
monly known  as  La  Belle  Stewart,  a 
lady  of  the  noblehouse  of  Blantyre,  was 
beloved  by  Charles  II.,  with  probably 
as  much  infusion  of  the  purer  passion 
as  could  be  felt  by  so  sated  a  volup- 
tuary.   So  strong  was  his  admiration, 
that  it  was  currently  believed  that  the 
fair  Stewart,  failing  Katherine,  had  an 
excellent  chance  of  being  elevated  to 
the  throne ;  and  it  is  quite  well  known 
that  her  virtue  was  as  spotless  as  her 
beauty  was  unrivalled.    In  spite  of 
the  opposition  of  the  king,  she  married 
Charles,  Duke  of  Lennox  and  Rich- 
mond ;  and  her  resolute  and  spirited 
conduct  on  that  occasion,  under  very 
trying  circumstances,  was  much  and 
deservedly  extolled.      And   yet  we 
find  in  the  earlier  pages  of  Pepys 
most  scandalous  anecdotes  to  her  dis- 
credit.   In  the  second  volume  there  is 
an  account  of  a  mock  marriage  be- 
tween her  and  Lady  Castlemaine,  in 
which  the  latter  personated  the  bride- 
groom, making  way,  when  the  com- 
pany had  retired,  for  the  entry  of  her 
royal  paramour.    On  several  other 
occasions  Pepys  alludes  to  her  as  the 
notorious  mistress  of  the  king,  and  it 
was  only  after  her  marriage  that  he 
appears  to  have  been  undeceived.  His 
informant  on  this  occasion  was  the 
honourable  Evelyn,  and  it  may  not 
displease  our  readers  to  hear  his  vin- 
dication of  the  lady — 

"  He  told  me,"  says  Pepys,  "  the  whole 


Court,  he  knowing  her  well,  and  be- 
lieves her,  up  to  her  leaving  the  Court, 
to  be  as  virtuous  as  any  woman  in 
the  world  :  and  told  me,  from  a  lord  that 
she  told  it  to  but  yesterday,  with  her  own 
mouth,  and  a  sober  man,  that  when  the 
Duke  of  Richmond  did  make  love  to  her 
she  did  ask  the  King,  and  he  did  the  like 
also,  and  that  the  King  did  not  deny  it : 
and  told  this  lord  that  she  was  come  to 
that  pass  as  to  have  resolved  to  have 
married  any  gentleman  of  £1500  a-year 
that  would  have  had  her  in  honour ;  for 
it  was  come  to  that  pass,  that  she  would 
not  longer  continue  at  Court  without  yield- 
ing herself  to  the  King,  whom  she  had  so 
long  kept  off,  though  he  had  liberty  more 
than  any  other  had,  or  he  ought  to  have, 
as  to  dalliance.  She  told  this  lord  that 
she  had  reflected  upon  the  occasion  she 
had  given  the  world  to  think  her  a  bad 
woman,  and  that  she  had  no  way  but  to 
marry  and  leave  the  Court,  rather  in  this 
way  of  discontent  than  otherwise,  that 
the  world  might  see  that  she  sought  not 
anything  but  her  honour ;  and  that  she 
will  never  come  to  live  at  Court  more 
than  when  she  comes  to  town  to  kiss  the 
Queen  her  mistress's  hand :  and  hopes, 
though  she  hath  little  reason  to  hope,  she 
can  please  her  lord  so  as  to  reclaim  him, 
that  they  may  yet  live  comfortably  in  the 
country  on  his  estate." 

"  A  worthy  woman,"  added  Evelyn, 
"  and  in  that  hath  done  as  great  an 
act  of  honour  as  ever  was  done  by 
woman."  The  fact  is,  that  it  was  next 
thing  to  impossible  for  any  lady  to 
preserve  her  reputation  at  the  court 
of  King  Charles.  Those  who  handle 
pitch  cannot  hope  to  escape  defile- 
ment ;  and  daily  association  with  the 
Duchess  of  Cleveland,  and  other 
acknowledged  mistresses  of  the  king, 
was  .not  the  best  mode  of  impressing 
the  public  with  the  idea  of  a  woman's 
virtue.  Frances  Stuart,  a  poor  un- 
protected girl,  did,  we  verily  believe, 
pass  through  as  severe  an  ordeal  as 
well  can  be  imagined :  the  cruel  accu- 
sations which  were  raised  up  against 
her,  were  no  more  than  the  penalty 
of  her  position ;  but  no  stain  of  dis- 
grace remains  on  the  memory  of  her, 
whose  fair  and  faultless  form  was 
selected  as  the  fittest  model  for  the 
effigy  of  the  Genius  of  Britain. 

In  a  small  way,  Pepys  had  some 
intercourse  with  the  ladies  of  the 
court,  though  it  must  be  confessed 
that  his  acquaintances  were  rather  of 


516 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


the  lower  sphere.  He  was  a  staunch 
admirer  of  that  splendid  spitfire,  Lady 
Castlemaine,  whose  portrait  he  greatly 
coveted.  " It  is,"  quoth  he,  "a  most 
blessed  picture,  and  one  I  must  have 
a  copy  of."  Mary  Davis  seems  to 
have  been  no  favourite  of  his,  princi- 
pally because  she  was  an  object  of 
especial  detestation  to  the  monopo- 
lising Castlemaine.  He  styled  her  an 
"  impertinent  slut,"  and,  one  night  at 
the  theatre,  "  it  vexed  me  to  see  Moll 
Davis,  in  the  box  over  the  king's,  and 
my  Lady  Castlemaine's,  look  down 
upon  the  king,  and  he  up  to  her ;  and 
so  did  my  Lady  Castlemaine  once,  to 
see  who  it  was ;  but  when  she  saw 
Moll  Davis,  she  looked  like  fire,  which 
troubled  me."  Why  it  should  have 
troubled  Pepys,  we  cannot  perfectly 
comprehend.  With  Nell  Gwynne, 
Samuel  was  upon  exceedingly  easy 
terms;  and  no  wonder,  for  she  and 
Knipp  belonged  to  the  same  company. 

u  To  the  King's  house :  and  there,  go- 
ing in,  met  with  Knipp,  and  she  took  us 
up  into  the  tireing-rooms;  and  to  the 
women's  shift,  where  Nell  was  dressing 
herself,  and  was  all  unready,  and  as  very 
pretty,  prettier  than  I  thought.  And  into 
the  scene-room,  and  there  sat  down,  and 
she  gave  us  fruit;  and  here  I  read  the 
questions  to  Knipp,  while  she  answered 
me,  through  all  her  part  of  "  Flora  Fig- 
arys,"  which  was  acted  to-day.  But, 
Lord !  to  see  how  they  were  both  painted 
would  make  a  man  mad,  and  did  make 
me  loathe  them;  and  what  base  company 
of  men  comes  among  them,  and  how 
lewdly  they  talk!  and  how  poor  the  men 
are  in  clothes,  and  yet  what  a  show  they 
make  upon  the  stage  by  candlelight,  is 
very  obserrable.  But  to  see  how  Nell 
cursed,  for  baring  so  few  people  in  the 
pit,  was  pretty;  the  other  house  carrying 
away  all  the  people  at  the  new  play,  and 
is  said,  now-a-days,  to  have  generally 
most  company,  as  being  better  players. 
By-and-by  into  the  pit,  and  there  saw  the 
play,  which  is  pretty  good." 

We  dare  wager  a  trifle  that  Mrs 
Pepys  died  in  total  ignorance  of  her 
husband  having  been  behind  the 
scenes.  Probably  Nelly's  style  of 
conversation  would  have  found  less 
favour  in  her  eyes.  True,  she  had 
been  introduced  to  Nelly  on  a  pre- 
vious occasion ;  but  the  little  lady 
seems  then  to  have  been  on  her  good 
behaviour,  and  had  not  made  herself 
notorious  with  Lord  Buckhurst,  and 


Sir  Charles  Sedley,  as  was  the  case 
when  Sam  assisted  at  her  toilet.  Here 
again  we  find  that  arch -intriguer, 
Knipp,  countermining  the  domestic 
peace  of  poor  innocent  Mrs  Pepys. 
"  Thence  to  the  King's  house,  and 
there  saw  The  Humorous  Lieutenant, 
a  silly  play,  I  think ;  only  the  Spirit 
in  it  that  grows  very  tall,  and  then 
sinks  again  to  nothing,  having  two 
heads  breeding  upon  one ;  and  then 
Knipp's  singing  did  please  us.  Here, 
in  a  box  above,  we  spied  Mrs  Pierce ; 
and,  going  out,  they  called  us,  and 
brought  to  us  Nelly,  a  most  pretty 
woman,  who  acted  the  great  part  of 
Coelia  to-day  very  fine,  and  did  it 
pretty  well.  I  kissed  her,  and  so  did 
my  wife ;  and  a  mighty  pretty  soul 
she  is.  We  also  saw  Mrs  Bell, 
which  is  my  little  Roman-nose  black 
girl,  that  is  mighty  pretty:  she  is 
usually  called  Betty.  Knipp  made  us 
stay  in  a  box  and  see  the  dancing — 
preparatory  to  to-morrow,  for  The 
Goblins,  a  play  of  Suckling's,  not  act- 
ed these  twenty-five  years  —  which 
was  pretty  ;  and  so  away  thence, 
pleased  with  this  sight  also,  and  spe- 
cially kissing  of  Nell." 

We  have  searched  these  volumes 
with  some  curiosity  for  entries  which 
might  throw  any  light  on  the  history 
and  character  of  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth.  Of  late  he  has  been  exalted 
to  the  rank  of  a  champion  of  the  Pro- 
testant cause,  and  figures  in  party 
chronicles  rather  as  a  martyr  than  a 
rebel.  Now,  although  there  is  no 
doubt  that  he  was  privy  to  the  designs 
of  Sydney  and  Russell,  the  object  of 
his  joining  that  faction  still  remains  a 
mystery  to  be  explained.  We  can 
understand  the  spirit  that  animated 
the  Whig  Lords  and  Republican  plot- 
ters, in  attempting  to  subvert  the 
power  of  the  crown,  which  they 
deemed  exorbitant  and  dangerous 
to  the  liberties  of  the  subject. 
The  personal  character  of  the  men 
was  quite  reconcilable  with  the  mo- 
tives they  professed,  and  the  prin- 
ciples they  avowed.  But  that  Mon- 
mouth — the  gay,  fickle,  licentious, 
and  pampered  Monmouth— had  any 
thought  beyond  his  own  aggrandise- 
ment, in  committing  such  an  act  of 
monstrous  ingratitude  as  rebellion 
against  his  indulgent  father,  seems  to 
us  an  hypothesis  unsubstantiated  by 


1849.] 

even  a  shadow  of  proof.  We  do  not 
here  allude  to  his  second  treason, 
which  brought  him  to  the  scaffold — his 
motives  on  that  occasion  are  suffi- 
ciently clear:  he  never  was  a  favourite 
with  his  uncle  ;  he  aimed  at  the  crown 
through  a  false  assertion  of  his  legiti- 
macy ;  and  the  knaves  and  fools  who 
were  his  counsellors  made  use  of  the 
cry  of  Protestantism  merely  as  a  cover 
to  their  designs.  Monmouth's  first 
treason  was  undoubtedly  his  blackest 
crime:  for,  had  he  been  the  rightful 
heir  of  Britain,  he  could  not  have  ex- 
perienced at  the  hands  of  Charles 
more  ample  honour  and  affection.  It 
is,  therefore,  valuable  to  know  what 
position  he  occupied  during  the  earlier 
period  of  his  life. 

The  following  are  some  of  Pepys' 
entries,  which  we  think  are  histori- 
cally valuable : — 

"  31st  Dec.  1662.— The  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth  is  in  so  great  splendour  at  court, 
and  so  dandled  by  the  King,  that  some 
doubt  that,  if  the  King  should  hare  no 
child  by  the  Queen,  which  there  is  yet  no 
appearance  of,  whether  he  would  not  be 
acknowledged  as  a  lawful  son  ;  and  that 
there  will  be  a  difference  between  the 
Duke  of  York  and  him,  which  God  pre- 
vent !  .  .  8th  Feb.  1663.— The  little 
Duke  of  Monmouth,  it  seems,  is  ordered 
to  take  place  of  all  Dukes,  and  so  do  fol- 
low Prince  Rupert  now,  before  the  Duke 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys, 


517. 


mother llth  September 

1667. — Here  came  Mr  Moore,  and  sat 
and  conversed  with  me  of  public  matters, 
the  sum  of  which  is,  that  he  has  no  doubt 
there  is  more  at  the  bottom  than  the  re- 
moval of  the  Chancellor;  that  is,  he  do- 
verily  believe  that  the  King  do  resolve  to 
declare  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  legitimate, 
and  that  we  shall  soon  see  it.  This  I  do 
not  think  the  Duke  of  York  will  endure 
without  blows." 

These  are  but  a  few  of  Pepys' notes 
relative  to  this  subject,  and  we  think 
there  is  much  significancy  in  them. 
The  fondness  of  Charles  for  Mon- 
mouth was,  to  say  the  least  of  it, 
extravagant  and  injudicious.  He 
promoted  him  to  the  highest  grade  of 
the  nobility;  he  procured  for  him  a 
match  with  one  of  the  wealthiest 
heiresses  in  Britain ;  and  he  allowed 
and  encouraged  him  to  assume  out- 
ward marks  of  distinction  which  had 
always  been  considered  the  preroga- 
tive of  Princes  of  the  blood  royal. 
In  the  words  of  Dryden — 

"  His  favour  leaves  me  nothing  to  require, 
Prevents  my  -wishes  and  outruns  desire ; 
What  more  can  I  expect  while  David  lives  ? 
All  but  his  kingly  diadem  he  gives." 

Such  unprecedented  honours  heaped 
upon  the  eldest  of  the  bastards  of 
Charles  must  necessarily  have  been 
extremely  annoying  to  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  were  ill-calculated  to  con- 


1UVY    1£11U/C    iVUUClL    JUUVY,    UC1U1C    IUC    i-»Ua.C  .,.',./.  •  j/L  A.  C 

of  Buckingham,  or  any  else.  ciliate  his  favour,    in    the    event  of 

his  succeeding  to  the  crown.  They 
certainly  were  enough  to  give  much 
weight  to  the  rumour  long  current  in 
the  nation,  that  Charles  contemplated 
the  step  of  declaring  Monmouth  legi- 
timate, and  of  course  they  excited  in 
the  mind  of  the  youth  aspirations  of 
the  most  dangerous  nature.  At  no 

^£^%^^^TZ£    period- of  his  career  did  the  son  of 
hour  at  the  Tangier  committee,  and     £„.,„  TIT.UA«,  <i:oni.v  nnaii+foB  ^.Vli 


27th  April. — The  Queen,  which  I  did  not 
know,  it  seems  was  at  Windsor,  at  the 
late  St  George's  feast  there;  and  the 
Duke  of  Monmouth  dancing  with  her, 
•with  his  hat  in  his  hand,  the  King  came 
in  and  kissed  him,  and  made  him  put  on 
his  hat,  which  everybody  took  notice  of. 
....  4th  May. — I  to  the  garden 
with  my  Lord  Sandwich,  after  we  had  sat 
an 


after  talking  largely  of  his  own  businesses, 
we  began  to  talk  how  matters  are  at 
court :  and  though  he  did  not  fully  tell  me 
any  such  thing,  yet  I  do  suspect  that  all 
is  not  kind  between  the  King  and  the 


Lucy  Walters  display  qualities  which 
can  fairly  entitle  him  to  our  esteem. 
As  a  husband,  he  was  false  and  heart- 
less ;  as  a  son,  he  was  undutiful  and 
treacherous.  Pepys  always  speaks  of 


Duke,  (York)  and  that  the  King's  fondness     him   disparagingly,   as    a    dissipated, 

*-iU"1:"1"  rk"1'~  J !~-  :i-  ~ J  :i    profligate  young  man;  and  he  is  borne 

out  in  this  testimony  by  the  shameful 
outrage  committed  on  the  person  of 
Sir  John  Coventry,  at  his  direct  insti- 
gation. Again  he  says,  "  IGth 
December  1666— Lord  Bronncker  tells 
me,  that  he  do  not  believe  the  Duke 
of  York  will  go  to  sea  again,  though 
there  are  many  about  the  king  that 
would  be  glad  of  any  occasion  to  take 


to  the  little  Duke  do  occasion  it;  and  it 
may  be  that  there  is  some  fear  of  his 
being  made  heir  to  the  crown.  .  .  . 
22d  Feb.  1664.— He  (Charles)  loves  not 
the  Queen  at  all,  but  is  rather  sullen  to 
her;  and  she,  by  all  reports,  incapable  of 
children.  He  is  so  fond  of  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth  that  everybody  admires  it ; 
and  he  says  that  the  Duke  hath  said, 
that  he  would  be  the  death  of  any  man 
that  says  the  King  was  not  married  to  his 


518 


Diary  of  Samuel  Pepys. 


[Oct.  1849. 


him  out  of  the  world,  he  standing  in 
their  ways :  and  seemed  to  mean  the 
Duke  of  Monmouth,  who  spends  his 
time  the  most  viciously  and  idle  of 
any  man,  nor  will  be  fit  for  anything  ; 
yet  he  speaks  as  if  it  were  not  impos- 
sible but  the  king  would  own  him 
for  his  son,  and  that  there  was  mar- 
riage between  his  mother  and  him." 
This  was  a  strange  champion  to  put 
forward  in  the  cause  of  liberty  and 
religion. 

We  now  take  our  leave  of  these 
volumes,  the  perusal  of  which  has 
afforded  us  some  pleasant  hours. 
Every  one  must  regret  that  the  health 
of  Pepys  compelled  him  to  abandon 
his  daily  task  so  early  ;  for  by  far  the 
most  interesting  period  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  remains  unillustrated  by  his 
pen.  Had  his  Diary  been  continued 
down  to  the  Revolution,  with  the 
same  spirit  which  characterises  the 
extant  portion,  it  would  have  been 
one  of  the  most  useful  historical  re- 
cords in  the  English  language.  Pepys, 
beyond  the  immediate  sphere  of  his 
own  office,  was  no  partisan.  He 
never  throws  an  unnecessary  mantle 
over  the  faults  even  of  his  friends  and 
patrons.  No  man  was  more  alive  to 
the  criminal  conduct  of  Charles,  and 
his  shameful  neglect  of  public  duty. 
He  has  his  quips  and  girds  at  the 
Duke  of  York,  though  he  entertained 
a  high,  and,  we  think,  a  just  opinion 
of  the  natural  abilities  of  that  prince  : 
and  while  he  gives  him  due  credit  for 
a  sincere  desire  to  reform  abuses  in 
that  public  department  which  was 
under  his  superintendence,  he  shows 
himself  by  no  means  blind  to  his  vices, 
and  besetting  obstinacy.  Even  the 
Earl  of  Sandwich,  to  whom  he  was  so 
much  indebted,  does  not  escape.  On 
one  occasion,  Pepys  took  upon  him- 
self to  perform  the  dangerous  office 
of  a  Mentor  to  that  high-spirited 
nobleman,  and  it  is  to  the  credit 
of  both  parties  that  no  breach  of 
friendship  ensued.  Good  advice  was 
an  article  which  Samuel  was  ever 
ready  to  volunteer,  and  his  natural 
shrewdness  rendered  his  councils  really 
valuable.  But,  like  many  other  peo- 
ple, he  was  not  always  so  ready 


with  his  purse.  Considering  that  he 
owed  everything  he  possessed  in  the 
world  to  the  earl,  we  think  he  might 
have  opened  his  coffers,  at  such  a 
pinch  as  the  following,  without  any 
Israelitish  contemplation  of  security. 
"  After  dinner  comes  Mr  Moore,  and 
he  and  I  alone  awhile,  he  telling  me 
my  Lord  Sandwich's  credit  was  like 
to  be  undone,  if  the  bill  of  £200  my 
Lord  Hinchingbroke  wrote  to  me  about 
be  not  paid  to-morrow,  and  that,  if  I 
do  not  help  them  about  it,  they  have 
no  way  but  to  let  it  be  protested.  So, 
finding  that  Creed  had  supplied  them 
with  £150  in  their  straits,  and  that 
this  was  no  bigger  sum,  I  am  very 
willing  to  serve  my  lord,  though  not 
in  this  kind ;  but  yet  I  will  endeavour 
to  get  this  done  for  them,  and  the 
rather  because  of  some  plate  that  was 
lodged  the  other  day  with  me,  by  my 
lady's  order,  which  may  be  in  part 
security  for  my  money.  This  do  trou- 
ble me ;  but  yet  it  is  good  luck  that 
the  sum  is  no  bigger."  We  cannot 
agree  with  Lord  Braybrooke  that 
Pepys  was  a  liberal  man,  even  to  his 
own  relations.  We  do  not  go  the 
length  of  saying  that  he  was  deficient 
in  family  duties,  but  it  seems  to  us 
that  he  might  have  selected  a  fitter 
gift  for  his  father  than  his  old  shoes  ; 
and  surely,  when  his  sister  Paulina 
came  to  stay  with  him,  there  was  no 
necessity  for  insisting  that  she  should 
eat  with  the  maids,  and  consider  her- 
self on  the  footing  of  a  servant. 
Whatever  Pepys  may  have  been  in 
after  life,  he  portrays  himself  in  his 
Diary  as  a  singularly  selfish  man;  nor 
is  that  character  at  all  inconsistent 
with  the  shrewd,  but  sensual,  and 
somewhat  coarse  expression  of  his 
features  in  the  frontispiece.  Yet  it 
is  impossible  to  read  the  Diary  with- 
out liking  him,  with  all  his  faults. 
There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  great  deal  of 
clay  in  his  composition,  but  also  many 
sparkles  of  valuable  metal ;  and  per- 
haps these  are  seen  the  better  from 
the  roughness  of  the  material  in  which 
they  are  embedded.  This  at  least 
must  be  conceded,  that  these  volumes 
are  unique  in  literature,  and  so  they 
will  probably  remain. 


Printed  by  William  Blackwood  and  Sons,  Edinburgh. 


No.  CCCCIX. 


NOVEMBER,  1849. 


VOL.  LXVI. 


THE  TRANSPORTATION  QUESTION. 


THE  great  question  of  SECONDARY 
PUNISHMENTS  has  now  been  settled 
by  experience,  so  far  as  the  mother 
country  is  concerned.  It  is  now 
known  that  imprisonment  has  no 
effect  whatever,  either  in  deterring 
from  crime,  or  in  reforming  criminals. 
Government,  albeit  most  unwilling 
to  recur  to  the  old  system  of  trans- 
portation, has  been  compelled  to  do 
so  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the 
country ;  by  the  difficulty  of  finding 
accommodation  for  the  prodigious  in- 
crease of  prisoners  in  the  jails  of  the 
kingdom ;  and  by  the  still  greater  diffi- 
culty, in  these  days  of  cheapness  and 
declining  incomes,  of  getting  the  per- 
sons intrusted  with  the  duty  of  provid- 
ing additional  prison  accommodation, 
to  engage  in  the  costly  and  tedious  work 
of  additional  erections.  An  order  in 
council  has  expressly,  and  most  wisely, 
authorised  a  return  to  transportation, 
under  such  regulations  as  seem  best 
calculated  to  reform  the  convicts,  and 
diminish  the  dread  very  generally  felt 
in  the  colonies,  of  being  flooded  with 
an  inundation  of  crime  from  the  mother 
country.  And  the  principal  difficulty 
felt  now  is,  to  find  a  colony  willing  to 
receive  the  penal  settlers,  and  incur  the 
risks  thought  to  be  consequent  on  their 
unrestricted  admission. 

It  is  not  surprising  ttiUt  government 
should  have  been  driven  from  the 
ruinous  system  of  substituting  impri- 
sonment for  transportation ;  for  the 
results,  even  during  the  short  period 
that  it  was  followed  out,  were  abso- 
lutely appalling.  The  actual  augmen- 
tation of  criminals  was  the  least  part 
of  the  evil;  the  increase  of  serious 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX. 


crimes,  in  consequence  of  the  har- 
dened offenders  not  being  sent  out  of 
the  country,  but  generally  liberated 
after  eighteen  months'  or  two  years' 
confinement,  was  the  insupportable 
evil.  The  demoralisation  so  strongly 
felt  and  loudly  complained  of  in  Van 
Diemen's  Land,  from  the  accumula- 
tion of  criminals,  was  rapidly  taking 
place  in  this  country.  The  persons 
tried  under  the  aggravation  of  pre- 
vious convictions  in  Scotland,  in  the 
three  last  years,  have  stood  as  fol- 
lows : — 

Under  aggrava- 

Years.        Total  convicted,   tion  of  previous 
convictions. 

1846  2936  858 

1847  3569  1024 

1848  3669  1043 
— Parliamentary  Reports,  1846-48. 

So  rapid  an  increase  of  crimes,  and 
especially  among  criminals  previously 
convicted,  sufficiently  demonstrates 
the  inadequacy  of  imprisonment  as  a 
means  either  of  deterring  from  crimes, 
or  reforming  the  criminals.  The  same 
result  appears  in  England,  where  the 
rapid  increase  of  criminals  sentenced 
to  transportation,  within  the  same 
period,  demonstrates  the  total  ineffi- 
cacy  of  the  new  imprisonment  system. 

Transported. 

Y*ears.   England  and  Wales.        Scotland. 
184G  2805  352 

1847  2896        456 

1848  3251        459 

And  of  thefutilityof  thehopc  that  the 
spread  of  education  will  have  any  effect 
in  checking  the  increase  of  crime,  deci- 
sive proof  is  afforded  in  the  same  cri- 
minal returns ;  for  from  them  it  appears 
that  the  number  of  educated  criminals 

2M 


520 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[Nov. 


in  England  is  above  twice,  in  Scotland     uneducated, — the  numbers,  during  the 
above  three  times  and  a  half  that  of  the     last  three  years,  being  as  follows  : — 


Years. 

ENGLAND  AND  WALES. 

SCOTLAND. 

Educated. 

Uneducated. 

Educated. 

Uneducated. 

1846 

1847 
1848 

16,963 
19,307 
20,176 

7,698 
9,050 
9,691 

3,155 
3,562 
3,985 

903 
1,048 
911 

— Parliamentary  Returns,  1846-8. 
Nay,  what  is  still  more  alarming, 


steadily    on     the    increase    in    Great 


it  distinctly  appears,  from  the  same  Britain.  Take  the  centesimal  pro- 
returns,  that  the  proportion  of  edu-  portions  given  in  the  last  returns  for 
cated  criminals  to  uneducated  is  England — those  of  1848  : — 


Degrees  of  Instruction. 

1839. 

1840. 

1841. 

1M2. 

1843. 

1844. 

1845. 

1846. 

1847. 

1818. 

Unable  to  read  or  write, 

33.53 

33.32 

33.21 

32.35 

31.00 

29.77 

30.61 

30.66 

31.39 

31.93 

Imperfectly, 

53.48 

55.57 

56.67 

58.32    57.60 

59.28 

58.34    59.51 

58.59 

56.38 

Well, 

10.07 

8.29 

7.40 

6.77      8.02 

8.12 

a38      7.71 

7.79 

9.83 

Superior,    . 

0.32 

0.37 

0.45 

0.22      0.47 

0.42 

0.37 

0.34 

0.28 

0.27 

Not  ascertained, 

2.60 

2.46 

227 

2.34 

2.91 

2.41 

2.30 

1.78 

1.60 

1.59 

— Parliamentary  Upturns  for  England,  1848,  p.  12. 


The  great  increase  here  is  in  the 
criminals  who  have  received  an  im- 
perfect education,  which  class  has  in- 
creased as  much  as  that  of  the  totally 
uneducated  has  diminished.  Unhap- 
pily, imperfect  education  is  precisely 
the  species  of  instruction  which  alone, 
in  the  present  days  of  cheapened  pro- 
duction and  diminishing  wages,  the 
great  body  of  the  poor  are  able  to 
give  to  their  children. 

Mr  Pearson,  M.P.,  who  has  paid 
great  attention  to  this  subject,  and 
whose  high  official  situation  in  the 
city  of  London  gives  him  such  ample 
means  of  being  acquainted  with  the 
practical  working  of  the  criminal  law, 
has  given  the  following  valuable 
information  in  a  public  speech,  which 
every  one  acquainted  with  the  subject 
must  know  to  be  thoroughly  well 
founded  : — 

"  In  the  year  1810,  which  is  the  earliest 
account  that  we  possess  in  any  of  our  ar- 
chives, the  number  of  commitments,  of 
assize  and  sessions  cases,  was  5146.  In 
the  year  1848,  the  number  of  commit- 
ments for  sessions  and  assize  cases  was 
30,349.  Population  during  that  period 
had  increased  but  60  per  cent,  whilst 
the  commitments  for  crime  had  increased 
420  per  cent.  I  should  not  be  candid 
with  this  assembly  if  I  did  not  at  once 
say,  that  there  are  various  disturbing  cir- 
cumstances which  intervene,  during  that 
period,  to  prevent  the  apparent  increase 


of  commitments  being  the  real  estimate 
of  the  actual  increase.  There  was  the 
transition  from  war  to  peace.  We  all 
know,  that  from  the  days  of  Holling- 
shed,  the  old  chronicler,  it  has  been  said 
that  war  takes  to  itself  a  portion  of  the 
loose  population,  who  find  in  the  casual- 
ties of  war,  its  dangers,  rewards  and 
profligate  indulgences,  something  like  a 
kindred  feeling  to  the  war  made  upon 
society  by  the  predatory  classes.  Hence 
we  find  that,  when  war  ceases,  a  number 
of  that  class  of  the  community  are  thrown 
back  on  the  honest  portion  of  society, 
which,  during  the  period  of  war,  had 
been  drained  off.  Besides  this,  there  are 
other  co-operating  causes.  There  is  the 
improved  police,  the  constabulary,  rural 
or  metropolitan,  who  undoubtedly  detect 
many  of  those  offences  which  were  for- 
merly committed  with  impunity.  There 
is  also  the  act  of  parliament  for  paying 
prosecutors  and  witnesses  their  expenses, 
which  led  to  an  increased  number  of  pro- 
secutors in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
crimes  actually  detected.  These  circum- 
stances have,  no  doubt,  exercised  a  con- 
siderable influence  over  the  increase  in 
the  commitments  ;  but  after  having  for 
35  years  paid  the  closest  attention  to  the 
subject,  having  filled,  and  still  filling,  a 
high  office  in  regard  to  the  administration 
of  the  law  in  the  city  of  London,  I  am 
bound  to  say,  that,  making  full  deduction 
from  the  number  which  every  feeling  of 
anxiety  to  raise  the  country  from  the  im- 
putation of  increasing  in  its  criminal 
character  dictates — after  making  every 
deduction,  I  am  bound  with  shame  and 


1849.] 


TJie  Transportation  Question. 


521 


humility  to  acknowledge,  that  it  leaves 
a  very  large  amount  of  increase  in 
the  actual,  the  positive  number  of  com- 
mitments for  crime.  Sir,  this  is  in- 
deed a  humiliating  acknowledgment  ; 
but  happily  the  statistics  of  this  coun- 
try, in  other  particulars,  warrant  us 
in  drawing  comfort  from  the  conviction, 
that  even  this  fact  affords  no  true  repre- 
sentation of  the  state  of  the  moral  char- 
acter of -the  people — no  evidence  of  their 
increasing  degradation  of  character  or 
conduct,  in  anything  like  the  proportion 
or  degree  that  those  statistics  would  ap- 
pear to  show.  I  appeal  to  history — I  ap- 
peal to  the  recollection  of  every  man  in 
this  assembly,  who,  like  myself,  has 
passed  the  meridian  of  life,  whether  society 
has  not  advanced  in  morals  as  well  as  in 
arts,  science,  and  literature,  and  every- 
thing which  tends  to  improve  the  social 
character  of  the  people.  Let  any  man 
who  has  read  not  our  country's  history 
alone,  but  the  tales  and  novels  of  former 
times — and  we  must  frequently  look  to 
them,  rather  than  to  the  records  of  his- 
tory, for  a  faithful  transcript  of  the  morals 
of  the  age  in  which  they  were  written, — 
let  any  man  recur  to  the  productions  of 
Fielding  and  of  Smollett,  and  say  whether 
the  habits,  manners,  and  morals  of  the 
great  masses  of  our  population  are  not 
materially  improved  within  the  last  cen- 
tury. Great  popular  delusions  prevail  as 
to  the  causes  of  the  increase  of  commit- 
ments for  criminal  offences  in  this  coun- 
try, which  I  deem  it  to  be  my  duty  to 
endeavour  to  dispel.  Some  ascribe  the 
increase  to  the  want  of  instruction  of  our 
youth,  some  to  the  absence  of  religious 
teaching,  some  to  the  increased  intemper- 
ance, and  some  to  the  increased  poverty 
of  the  people.  I  assert  that  there  is  no 
foundation  for  the  opinions  that  ascribe 
the  increase  of  crime  to  these  causes.  If 
the  absence  of  education  were  the  cause 
of  crime,  surely  crime  would  be  found  to 
have  diminished  since  education  has  in- 
creased. For  the  purpose  of  comparing 
the  present  and  past  state  of  education, 
for  its  influence  upon  the  criminal  statistics 
of  the  nation,  I  will  not  go  back  to  the 
time  when  the  single  Bible  in  the  parish 
was  chained  to  a  pillar  in  the  church  ;  or 
when  the  barons  affixed  their  cross  to 
documents,  from  inability  to  write  their 
names.  I  refer  to  dates,  and  times,  and  cir- 
cumstances within  our  own  recollection .  In 
the  year  1814  the  report  of  the  National 
Society  says,  there  were  only  100,000 
children  receiving  the  benefit  of  educa- 
tion. Now  there  are  above  1,000,000 


under  that  excellent  institution,  besides 
the  tens  of  thousands  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  who  are  receiving  education 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancasterian 
Society  Schools.  But  some  may  say  that 
the  value  of  .education  is  not  to  be  esti- 
mated by  numbers.  Well  then,  I  reject 
numbers,  if  you  please,  and  try  it  by  its 
quality.  I  ask  any  man  who  listens  to 
me  if  he  does  not  know  that  the  national 
schools,  and  other  gratuitous  establish- 
ments in  this  country,  now  give  privileges 
in  education  which  children  in  a  respect- 
able condition  of  life  could  hardly  obtain, 
such  was  the  defective  state  of  instruction 
in  this  country,  40  or  50  years  ago. 
(Cheers.)  No  man,  therefore,  can  say 
that  the  increase  of  crime  is  attributable 
to  the  absence  of  education.  If  it  were 
so,  with  education  increased  800  per 
cent  during  the  last  30  years,  crime 
would  have  diminshed,  instead  of  in- 
creased, 400  per  cent." — Times,  Aug.  28, 
1849. 

The  immense  expense  with  which 
the  maintenance  of  such  prodigious 
numbers  of  prisoners  in  jail  is 
attended,  is  another  most  serious 
evil,  especially  in  these  days  of 
retrenchment,  diminished  profits, 
and  economy.  From  the  last  Report 
of  the  Jail  Commissioners  for  Scot- 
land— that  for  1848 — it  appears  that 
the  average  cost  of  each  prisoner 
over  the  whole  country  for  a  year, 
after  deducting  his  earnings  in  con- 
finement, is  £16,  7s.  6d.  As  this  is 
the  cost  after  labour  has  been  gene- 
rally introduced  into  prisons,  and  the 
greatest  efforts  to  reduce  expense 
have  been  made,  it  may  fairly  be 
presumed  that  it  cannot  be  reduced 
lower.  The  average  number  of  pri- 
soners constantly  in  jail  in  Scotland  is 
now  about  3500,  which,  at  £16,  7s. 
6d.  a-head,  will  come  to  about 
£53,000  a-year.*  Applying  this  pro- 
portion to  the  60,000  criminals,  now 
on  an  average  constantly  in  confine- 
ment in  the  two  islands,  f  the  annual 
expense  of  their  maintenance  cannot 
be  under  a  million  sterling.  The 
prison  and  county  rates  of  England 
alone,  which  include  the  cost  of  pro- 
secutions, are  £1,300,000  a-year.  But 
that  result,  enormous  as  it  is  in  a 
country  in  which  poor-rates  and  all 
local  burdens  are  so  rapidly  augment- 


*  Prison  Report  1848,  p.  73. 

t  In  1848,  the  number  committed  for  serious  offences  was  73,770. 


522 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[Xov. 


ing,  is  but  a  part  of  the  evil.  Under 
the  present  system  a  thief  is  seldom 
transported,  at  least  in  Scotland,  till 
he  has  been  three  or  four  years  plying 
his  trade?  during  which  period  his 
gains  by  depredations,  and  expenses 
of  maintenance,  cannot  have  averaged 
less  than  £25 yearly.  Thusitmaywith 
safety  be  affirmed,  that  every  thief 
transported  from  Scotland  has  cost  the 
country,  before  he  goes,  at  least  £100  ; 
and  that  has  been  expended  in  training 
him  up  to  such  habits  of  hardened 
depravity,  that  he  is  probably  as 
great  a  curse  to  the  colony  to  which 
he  is  sent,  as  he  had  proved  a  burden 
to  that  from  which  he  was  conveyed. 
Sixteen  pounds  would  have  been  the  cost 
of  his  transportation  in  the  outset  of  his 
career,  when,  from  his  habits  of  crime 
not  being  matured,  he  had  a  fair  chance 
of  proving  an  acquisition,  instead  of  a 
curse,  to  the  place  of  his  destination. 
As  the  question  of  imprisonment 
or  transportation,  so  far  as  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  are  concerned, 
is  now  settled  by  the  demonstrative 
evidence  of  the  return  of  a  reluct- 
ant government  to  the  system  which 
in  an  evil  hour  they  abandoned, 
it  may  seem  unnecessary  to  go  into 
detail  in  order  to  show  how  abso- 
lutely necessary  it  was  to  do  so; 
and  how  entirely  the  boasted  system 
of  imprisonment,  with  all  its  adjuncts 
of  separation,  silence,  hard  labour, 
and  moral  and  religious  instruction, 
has  failed  either  in  checking  crime,  or 
producing  any  visible  reformation  in 


the  criminals.  No  one  practically 
acquainted  with  the  subject  ever 
entertained  the  slightest  doubt  that 
this  would  be  the  case ;  and  in  two 
articles  directed  to  the  subject  in  this 
magazine,  in  1844,  we  distinctly 
foretold  what  the  result  would  be.* 
To  those  who,  following  in  the  wake 
of  prelates  or  philanthropists,  how 
respectable  soever,  such  as  Arch- 
bishop Whately,  who  know  nothing 
whatever  of  the  subject  except  from 
the  fallacious  evidence  of  parliamen- 
tary committees,  worked  up  by  their 
own  theoretical  imaginations,  we  re- 
commend the  study  of  the  Tables  be- 
low, compiled  from  the  parliamentary 
returns  since  the  imprisonment  system 
began,  to  show  to  what  a  pass  the 
adoption  of  their  rash  visions  has 
brought  the  criminal  administration  of 
the  country.f 

It  is  not  surprising  that  it  should  be 
so,  and  that  all  the  pains  taken,  and 
philanthropy  wasted,  in  endeavouring 
to  reform  criminals  in  jail  in  this  coun- 
try, or  hindering  them  from  returning 
to  their  old  habitswhen  let  loose  within 
it,  should  have  proved  abortive.  Two 
reasons  of  paramount  efficacy  have  ren- 
dered them  all  nugatory.  The  first  of 
these  is,  that  the  theory  regarding  the 
possibility  of  reforming  offenders  when. 
in  prison,  or  suffering  punishment  in 
this  country,  is  wholly  erroneous,  and 
proceeds  on  an  entire  misconception 
of  the  principles  by  which  alone  such 
a  reformation  can  in  any  case  be 
effected.  In  prison,  how  solitary  so- 


*  See  the  "  Increase  of  Crime,  and  Imprisonment,  and  Transportation,"  IHacfacood's 
Magazine,  May  and  July  1844,  vol.  Iv.  p.  532,  and  vol.  Ivi.  p.  1. 

+  Table  showing  the  number  of  commitments  for  serious  offences  in  the  undermen- 
tioned years  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  : — 


Years. 

England. 

Scotland. 

Ireland. 

Total. 

1837 

23,612 

3,126 

24,804 

51,542 

1838 

23,094 

3,418 

25,723 

52,235 

1839 

24,443 

3,409 

26,392 

54,244 

1840 

27,187 

3,872 

23,833 

54,892 

1841 

27,760 

3,562 

20,776 

52,118 

1842 

31,309 

4,189 

21,186 

56,684 

1843 

29,591 

3,615 

20,126 

53,332 

1844 

26,542 

3,577 

19,448      49,565 

1845 

24,309 

3,537 

16,696 

44,542 

1846 

25,107 

2,901 

1  8,492 

46,500 

1847 

28,833 

4,635 

31,209 

64,677 

1848 

30,349 

4,909 

38,522* 

73,770 

— Parliamentary  Returns,  1842-8. 


*  Irish  Rebellion. 


1849.] 


The  Transportation  Question. 


523 


ever,  you  can  work  only  on  the  intel- 
lectual faculties.  The  active  powers 
or  feelings  can  receive  no  development 
within  the  four  walls  of  a  cell,  for  they 
have  no  object  by  which  they  can  be 
called  forth.  But  nine-tenths  of 
mankind  in  any  rank,  and  most  cer- 
tainly uineteen-twentieths  of  per- 
sons bred  as  criminals,  are  wholly 
inaccessible  to  the  influence  of  the 
intellect,  considered  as  a  restraint 
or  regulator  of  their  passions.  If 
they  had  been  capable  of  being  in- 
fluenced in  that  way,  they  would 
never  have  become  criminals.  Per- 
sons who  fall  into  the  habits  which 
bring  them  under  the  lash  of  the 
criminal  law,  are  almost  always  those 
in  whom,  either  from  natural  disposi- 
tion, or  the  unhappy  circumstances  of 
early  habits  and  training,  the  intel- 
lectual faculties  are  almost  entirely 
in  abeyance,  so  far  as  self-control  is 
concerned ;  and  any  development  they 
have  is  only  directed  to  procuring 
gratification  for,  or  furthering  the  ob- 
jects of  the  senses.  To  address  to  such 
persons  the  moral  discipline  of  a  prison, 
however  admirably  conducted,  is  as 
hopeless  as  it  would  be  to  descant 
to  a  man  born  blind  on  the  objects  of 
sight,  or  to  preach  to  an  ignorant  boor 
in  the  Greek  or  Hebrew  tongue. 
Sense  is  to  them  all  in  all.  Esau  is 
the  true  prototype  of  this  class  of 
men ;  they  are  always  ready  to  ex- 
change their  birthright  for  a  mess  of 
pottage. 

No  length  of  solitary  confinement, 
or  scarce  any  amount  of  moral  or  reli- 
gious instruction,  can  awaken  in  them 
either  the  slightest  repentance  for  their 
crimes,  or  the  least  power  of  self-con- 
trol when  temptation  is  again  thrown 
in  their  way.  They  regard  the  period 
of  imprisonment  as  a  blank  in  their 
lives — a  time  of  woful  monotony  and 
total  deprivation  of  enjoyment,  which 
only  renders  it  the  more  imperative  on 
them,  the  moment  it  is  terminated,  to 
begin  anew  with  fresh  zest  their  old 
enjoyments.  Their  first  object  is  to 
make  up  for  months  of  compulsory 
sobriety  by  days  of  voluntary  intoxi- 
cation. At  the  close  of  a  short 
period  of  hideous  saturnalia,  they  are 
generally  involved  in  some  fresh 
housebreaking  or  robbery,  to  pay  for 
their  long  train  of  indulgence  ;  and 
soon  find  themselves  again  immured 


in  their  old  quarters,  only  the  more 
determined  to  run  through  the  same 
course  of  forced  regularity  and  willing 
indulgence.  They  are  often  able  to 
feign  reformation,  so  as  to  impose  on 
their  jailors,  and  obtain  liberation  on 
pretended  amendment  of  character. 
But  it  is  rarely  if  ever  that  they  are 
really  reclaimed ;  and  hence  the  per- 
petual recurrences  of  the  same  charac- 
ters in  the  criminal  courts ;  till  the 
magistrates,  tired  of  imprisoning 
them,  send  them  to  the  assizes  or 
quarter- sessions  for  transportation. 
Even  then,  however,  their  career  is 
often  far  from  being  terminated  in  this 
country.  The  keepers  of  the  public 
penitentiaries  become  tired  of  keeping 
them.  When  they  cannot  send  them 
abroad,  their  cells  are  soon  crowded  ; 
and  they  take  advantage  of  a  feigned 
amendment  to  open  the  prison  doors 
and  let  them  go.  They  are  soon 
found  again  in  their  old  haunts,  and 
at  their  old  practices.  At  the  spring 
circuit  held  at  Glasgow  in  April  1848, 
when  the  effects  of  the  recent  impri- 
sonment mania  were  visible, — out  of 
117  ordinary  criminals  indicted,  no 
less  than  twenty- two  had  been  sen- 
tenced to  transportation  at  Glasgow, 
for  periods  not  less  than  seven  years, 
tvithin  the  preceding  two  years;  and  the 
previous  conviction  and  sentence  of 
transportation  was  charged  as  an  ag- 
gravation of  their  new  offence  against 
each  in  the  indictment. 

The  next  reason  which  renders  im- 
prisonment, in  an  old  society  and 
amidst  a  redundant  population,  utterly 
inefficacious  as  a  means  of  reforming 
criminals  is,  that,  even  if  they  do  im- 
bibe better  ideas  and  principles  during 
their  confinement,  they  find  it  impos- 
sible on  their  liberation  to  get  into  any 
honest  employment,  or  gain  admission 
into  any  well-doing  circle,  where  they 
may  put  their  newly-acquired  prin- 
ciples into  practice.  If,  indeed,  there 
existed  a  government  or  parochial 
institution,  into  which  they  might  be 
received  on  leaving  prison,  and  by 
which  they  might  be  marched  straight- 
way to  the  nearest  seaport,  and  there 
embarked  for  Canada  or  Australia,  a 
great  step  would  be  made  towards 
giving  them  the  means  of  durable  re- 
formation. But  as  there  is  none  such 
in  existence,  and  as  they  scarcely 
ever  are  possessed  of  money  enough,  on 


524 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[Nov. 


leaving  prison,  to  carry  them  across 
the  Atlantic,  they  are  of  necessity 
obliged  to  remain  in  their  own  coun- 
try— and  that,  to  persons  in  their  situa- 
tion, is  certain  ruin.  In  new  colonies, 
or  thinly-peopled  countries,  such  as 
Australia  or  Siberia,  convicts,  from  the 
scarcity  of  labour,  may  in  general  be 
able  to  find  employment ;  and  from  the 
absence  of  temptation,  and  the  seve- 
rance of  the  links  which  bound  them 
to  their  old  associates,  they  are  often 
there  found  to  do  well.  But  nothing 
of  that  sort  can  be  expected  in  an  old 
and  thickly-peopled  country,  where 
the  competition  for  employment  is  uni- 
versal, and  masters,  having  the  choice 
of  honest  servants  of  untainted  cha- 
racter, cannot  be  expected  to  take 
persons  who  have  been  convicted  of 
crimes,  and  exposed  to  the  pollutions 
of  a  jail. 

Practically  speaking,  it  is  impossible 
for  persons  who  have  been  in  jail  to 
get  into  any  honest  or  steady  employ- 
ment in  their  own  country ;  and  if  they 
do  by  chance,  or  by  the  ignorance  of 
their  employers  of  their  previous  his- 
tory, get  into  a  situation,  it  is  ere  long 
discovered,  by  the  associates  who  come 
about  them,  where  they  have  been,  and 
they  speedily  lose  it.  If  you  ask  any 
person  who  has  been  transported  in  con- 
sequence of  repeated  convictions,  why 
he  did  not  take  warning  by  the  first,  the 
answer  uniformly  is,  that  he  could 
not  get  into  employment,  and  was 
obliged  to  take  to  thieving,  or  starve. 
Add  to  this  that  the  newly- reformed 
criminal,  on  leaving  jail,  "and  idling 
about,  half  starved,  in  search  of  work, 
of  necessity,  as  well  as  from  inclina- 
tion, finds  his  way  back  to  his  old  re- 
sidence, where  his  character  is  known, 
and  he  is  speedily  surrounded  by  his 
old  associates,  who,  in  lieu  of  starving 
integrity,  offer  him  a  life  of  joyous  and 
well-fed  depravity.  It  can  hardly  be 
expected  that  human  virtue,  and  least 
of  all  the  infant  virtue  of  a  newly- 
reformed  criminal,  can  withstand  so 
rude  a  trial.  Accordingly,  when  the 
author  once  asked  Mr  Brebner,  the 
late  governor  of  the  Glasgow  bride- 
well, what  proportion  of  formed  cri- 
minals he  ever  knew  to  have  been 
reformed  by  prison  discipline,  he  an- 
swered that  the  proportion  was  easily 
told,  for  he  never  /mew  one.  And  in 
the  late  debate  in  parliament  on  this 


subject,  it  was  stated  by  the  Home 
Secretary,  Sir  George  Grey,  that 
while  the  prison  discipline  at  Penton- 
ville  promised  the  most  cheering  re- 
sults, it  was  among  those  trained 
there,  and  subsequently  transported, 
that  the  improvement  was  visible;  for 
that  no  such  results  were  observed 
among  those  who,  after  liberation, 
were  allowed  to  remain  in  this  coun- 
try. 

But  while  it  is  thus  proved,  both 
by  principle  and  experience,  that  the 
moral  reformation  of  offenders  cannot 
be  effected  by  imprisonment,  even 
under  the  most  improved  system,  in 
this  country,  yet,  in  one  respect,  a 
very  great  amelioration  of  the  priso- 
ner's habits,  and  extension  of  his 
powers,  is  evidently  practicable.  It  is 
easy  to  teach  a  prisoner  a  trade ;  and 
such  is  the  proficiency  which  is  rapidly 
acquired  by  the  undivided  attention, 
to  one  object  in  a  jail,  that  one 
objection  which  has  been  stated  to 
the  imprisonment  system  is,  that  it 
interferes  with  the  employment  of 
honest  industry  out  of  doors.  No 
one  can  walk  through  any  of  the 
well-regulated  prisons  in  Great  Bri- 
tain without  seeing  that,  whatever 
else  you  cannot  do,  it  is  easy  to  teach, 
such  a  proficiency  in  trade  to  the 
convicts  as  may  render  them,  if  their 
depraved  inclinations  can  be  arrested, 
useful  members  of  society,  and  give 
them  the  means  of  earning  a  liveli- 
hood by  honest  industry.  Many  of 
them  are  exceedingly  clever,  evince 
great  aptitude  for  the  learning  of 
handicrafts,  and  exert  the  utmost 
diligence  in  their  prosecution.  Let 
no  man,  however,  reckon  on  their 
reformation,  because  they  are  thus 
skilful  and  assiduous :  turn  them  out 
of  prison  in  this  country,  and  you  will 
soon  see  them  drinking  and  thieving 
with  increased  alacrity,  from  the 
length  of  their  previous  confinement,, 
It  is  evidently  not  intellectual  cunning, 
or  manual  skill,  or  vigour  in  pursuit, 
which  they  in  general  want — it  is  the 
power  of  directing  their  faculties  to 
proper  objects,  when  at  large  in  this 
country,  which  they  are  entirely  with- 
out, and  which  no  length  of  confine- 
ment, or  amount  of  moral  and  religious 
instruction  communicated  in  prison,  is 
able  to  confer  upon  them.  Here  then 
is  one  great  truth  ascertained,  by  the 


1849.] 


The  Transportation  Question. 


625 


only  sure  guide  in  such  matters — 
acperience — that  while  it  is  wholly 
impossible  to  give  prisoners  the 
power  of  controlling  their  passions,  or 
abstaining  from  their  evil  propensities, 
when  at  large,  by  any  amount  of 
prison  discipline,  it  is  always  not 
only  possible,  but  easy,  to  communi- 
cate to  them  such  handicraft  skill,  or 
power  of  exercising  trades,  as  may, 
the  moment  the  wicked  dispositions 
are  brought  under  control,  render 
them  useful  and  even  valuable  mem- 
bers of  society. 

Experience  equally  proves  that, 
though  the  moral  reformation  of  con- 
victs in  this  country  is  so  rare  as,  prac- 
tically speaking,  to  be  considered  as 
impossible,  yet  this  is  very  far  indeed 
from  being  the  case  when  they  are  re- 
moved to  a  distant  laud,  where  all  con- 
nexion with  their  old  associates  is  at 
once  and  for  ever  broken  ;  where  an 
iionest  career  is  not  only  open,  but  easy, 
to  the  most  depraved,  and  a  boundless 
supply  of  fertile  but  unappropriated 
land  affords  scope  for  the  exercise  of 
the  desire  of  gain  on  legitimate  objects, 
and  affords  no  facilities  for  the  com- 
mission of  crime,  or  the  acquisition  of 
property,  by  the  short- hand  methods  of 
theft  or  robbery.  Lord  Brougham, 
in  a  most  able  work,  which  is  little 
known  only  because  it  runs  counter  to 
the  prejudices  of  the  age,  has  well 
explained  the  causes  of  this  peculi- 
arity : — 

"  The  new  emigrants,  who  at  various 
times  continued  to  flock  to  the  extensive 
country  of  America,  were  by  no  means  of 
the  same  description  with  the  first  settlers. 
Some  of  these  were  the  scourings  of  jails, 
banished  for  their  crimes;  many  of  them 
were  persons  of  desperate  fortunes,,  to 
whom  every  place  was  equally  uninviting; 
or  men  of  notoriously  abandoned  lives,  to 
whom  any  region  was  acceptable  that 
offered  them  a  shelter  from  the  vengeance 
of  the  law,  or  the  voice  of  public  indigna- 
tion. But  a  change  of  scene  will  work 
some  improvement  upon  the  most  dissolute 
of  characters.  It  is  much  to  be  removed 
from  the  scenes  with  which  villany  has  been 
constantly  associated,  and  the  companions 
who  have  rendered  it  agreeable.  It  is  some- 
thing to  have  the  leisure  of  a  long  voyage, 
with  its  awakening  terrors,  to  promote  re- 
flection. Besides,  to  regain  once  more  the 
privilege  of  that  good  name,  which  every 


unknown  man  may  claim  until  he  is  tried, 
presents  a  powerful  temptation  to  reform, 
and  furnishes  an  opportunity  of  amend- 
ment denied  in  the  scenes  of  exposure 
and  destruction.  If  the  convicts  in  the 
colony  of  New  Holland,though  surrounded 
on  the  voyage  and  in  the  settlement  by 
the  companions  of  their  iniquities,  have 
in  a  great  degree  been  reclaimed  by  the 
mere  change  of  scene,  what  might  not  be 
expected  from  such  a  change  as  we  are 
considering  \  But  the  honest  acquisition 
of  a  little  property,  and  its  attendant 
importance,  is,  beyond  any  other  circum- 
stance, the  one  most  calculated  to  reform 
the  conduct  of  a  needy  and  profligate 
man,  by  inspiring  him  with  a  respect  for 
himself  and  a  feeling  of  his  stake  in  the 
community,  and  by  putting  a  harmless 
and  comfortable  life  at  least  within  the 
reach  of  his  exertions.  If  the  property 
is  of  a  nature  to  require  constant  industry, 
in  order  to  render  it  of  any  value;  if  it 
calls  forth  that  sort  of  industry  which 
devotes  the  labourer  to  a  solitary  life  in 
the  open  air,  and  repays  him  not  with 
wealth  and  luxury,  but  with  subsistence 
and  ease  ;  if,  in  short,  it  is  property  in 
land,  divided  into  small  portions  and 
peopled  by  few  inhabitants,  no  combina- 
tion of  circumstances  can  be  figured  to 
contribute  more  directly  to  the  reforma- 
tion of  the  new  cultivator's  character  and 


In  addition  to  these  admirable 
observations,  it  may  be  stated,  as 
another,  and  perhaps  the  principal 
reason  why  transportation,  when  con- 
ducted on  proper  principles,  is  attended 
with  such  immediate  and  beneficial  in- 
fluences on  the  moral  character  of  the 
convict,  that  it  places  him  in  situa- 
tions where  scope  is  afforded  for  the 
development  of  the  domestic  and  gene- 
rous affections.  A  counterpoise  is 
proyided  to  self.  It  is  the  impossibi- 
lity of  providing  such  a  counterpoise 
within  the  four  walls  of  a  cell — the 
extreme  difficulty  of  finding  it,  in  any 
circumstances  in  which  a  prisoner  can 
be  placed,  on  his  liberation  from  jail  in 
his  own  country,  which  is  the  chief 
cause  of  the  total  failure  of  all  attempts 
to  work  a  moral  reform  on  prisoners, 
when  kept  at  home,  by  any,  even  the 
most  approved  system  of  jail  discipline. 
But  that  which  cannot  be  obtained  at 
home  is  immediately,  on  transporta- 
tion, found  in  the  colonies.  The  cri- 
minal is  no  longer  thrown  back  oil 


*  BROUGHAM'S  Colonial  Policy,  i.  61,  62. 


52G 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[Nov. 


himself  in  the  solitude  of  a  cell — he  is 
not  surrounded  by  thieves  and  prosti- 
tutes, urging  him  to  resume  his  old 
habits,  on  leaving  it.  The  female  con- 
vict, on  arriving  in  New  South  Wales, 
is  almost  immediately  married ;  ere 
long  the  male,  if  he  is  industrious  and 
well-behaved,  has  the  means  of  being 
so.  Regular  habits  then  come  to 
supplant  dissolute — the  natural  affec- 
tions spring  up  in  the  heart  with  the 
creation  of  the  objects  on  which  they 
are  to  be  exercised.  The  solitary 
tenant  of  a  cell  —  the  dissolute  fre- 
quenter of  spirit- cellars  and  bagnios, 
acquires  a  home.  The  affections  of  the 
fireside  begin  to  spring  up,  because  a 
fireside  is  obtained. 

Incalculable  is  the  eifect  of  this 
change  of  circumstances  on  the  charac- 
ter of  the  most  depraved.  Accordingly 
it  is  mentioned  by  Mr  Cunningham,  in 
his  very  interesting  Account  of  New 
South  Wales,  that  great  numbers  of 
young  women  taken  from  the  streets  of 
London,  who  have  resisted  all  efforts 
of  Christian  zeal  and  philanthropy  in 
Magdalene  Asylums  or  Penitentiaries 
at  home,  and  embark  for  New  South 
Wales  in  the  most  shocking  state  of 
depravity,  become  sensibly  improved 
in  their  manners,  and  are  not  tinfre- 
quently  entirely  reformed  by  forming, 
during  the  voyage,  temporary  connec- 
tions with  sailors,  to  whom,  when  the 
choice  is  once  made,  they  generally  re- 
main faithful :  so  powerful  and  imme- 
diate is  the  effect  of  an  approach  even 
to  a  home,  and  lasting  ties,  on  the  female 
heart.*  The  feelings  which  offspring 
produces  are  never  entirely  obliterated 
in  the  breast  of  woman.  It  has  been 
often  observed,  that  though  dissolute 
females  generally,  when  they  remain 
at  home,  find  it  impossible  to  reform 
their  own  lives,  yet  they  rarely,  if 
they  have  the  power,  fail  to  bring  up 
their  children  at  a  distance  from  their 
haunts  of  iniquity.  So  powerful  is  the 
love  of  children,  and  the  secret  sense 
of  shame  at  their  own  vices,  in  the 
breasts  even  of  the  most  depraved  of 
the  female  sex. 

It  has  been  proved,  accordingly,  by 
experience,  on  the  very  largest  scale, 
not  only  that  the  reformation  of  of- 
fenders, when  transported  to  a  colony 
in  a  distant  part  of  the  world,  takes 


place,  if  they  are  preserved  in  a  due 
,  proportion  of  numerical  inferiority  to 
the  untainted  population,  to  an  extent 
unparalleled  in  any  other  situation; 
but  that,  when  so  regulated,  they  con- 
stitute the  greatest  possible  addition  to 
the  strength,  progress,  and  riches  of  a 
colony.  From  official  papers  laid  be- 
fore parliament,  before  the  unhappy 
crowding  of  convicts  in  New  South 
Wales  began,  and  the  gang-system 
was  introduced,  it  appears  that  be- 
tween the  years  1800  and  1817— that 
is,  in  seventeen  years — out  of  17,000 
convicts  transported  to  New  South 
Wales,  no  less  than  six  thousand  had, 
at  the  close  of  the  period,  obtained  their 
freedom  from  their  good  conduct,  and 
had  earned  among  them,  by  their  free 
labour,  property  to  the  amount  of 
£1,500,000  !  It  may  be  safely  affirmed 
that  the  history  of  the  world  does  not 
afford  so  astonishing  and  gratifying 
an  instance  of  the  moral  reformation 
of  offenders,  or  one  pointing  so  clearly 
to  the  true  system  to  be  pursued  re- 
garding them.  It  will  be  recollected 
that  this  reformation  took  place  when 
17,000  convicts  were  transported  in 
seventeen  years — that  is,  on  an  average, 
1000  a-year  only — and  when  the  gang- 
system  was  unknown,  and  the  convict 
on  landing  at  Sidney  was  immediately 
assigned  to  a  free  colonist,  by  whom 
he  was  forthwith  marched  up  the 
country  into  a  remote  situation,  and 
employed  under  his  master's  direction 
in  rural  labour  or  occupations. 

And  that  the  colony  itself  prospers 
immensely  from  the  forced  labour  of 
convicts  being  added,  in  not  too  great 
proportions,  to  the  voluntary  labour  of 
freemen,  is  decisively  proved  by  the 
astonishing  progress  which  Australia 
has  made  during  the  last  fifty  years  ; 
the  degree  in  which  it  has  distanced 
all  its  competitors  in  which  convict 
labour  was  unknown  ;  and  the  mar- 
vellous amount  of  wealth  and  comfort, 
so  much  exceeding  upon  the  whole 
that  known  in  any  other  colony,  which 
now  exists  among  its  inhabitants.  We 
say  upon  the  whole,  because  we  are 
well  aware  that  in  some  parts  of  Aus- 
tralia, particularly  Van  Diemen's 
Land,  property  has  of  late  years  been 
most  seriously  depreciated  in  value — 
partly  from  the  monetary  crisis,  which 


*  CUNNINGHAM'S  New  South  Wales,  i.  262. 


1849.] 


The  Transportation  Question. 


has  affected  that  distant  settlement  as 
well  as  the  rest  of  the  empire,  and 
partly  from  the  inordinate  number  of 
convicts  who  have  been  sent  to  that 
one  locality,  from  the  vast  increase 
of  crime  at  home,  and  the  cessations  of 
transportation  to  Sidney  ; — a  number 
which  has  greatly  exceeded  the  proper 
and  salutary  proportion  to  freemen, 
and  has  been  attended  with  the  most 
disastrous  results.  But  that  the  intro- 
duction of  convicts,  when  not  too  de- 
praved, and  kept  in  due  subordination 
by  being  in  a  small  minority  compared 
to  the  freemen,  is,  so  far  from  being  an 
evil,  the  greatest  possible  advantage 
to  a  colony,  is  decisively  proved  by  the 
parliamentary  returns  quoted  below, 
showing  the  comparative  progress 
during  a  long  course  of  years  of  Aus- 
tralia, aided  by  convict  labour,  and 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  Canada, 


which  have  not  enjoyed  that  advan- 
tage. These  returns  are  decisive. 
They  demonstrate  that  the  progress 
of  the  convict  colonies,  during  the 
last  half  century,  has  been  three  times 
as  rapid  as  that  of  those  enjoying 
equal  or  greater  advantages,  to  whom 
convicts  have  not  been  sent ;  and  that 
the  present  state  of  comforts  they 
enjoy,  as  measured  by  the  amount 
per  head  of  British  manufactures  they 
consume,  is  also  triple  that  of  any 
other  colony  who  have  been  kept 
entirely  clear  from  the  supposed  stain, 
but  real  advantages,  of  forced  labour.* 
Accordingly,  the  ablest  and  best- 
informed  statistical  writers  and  tra- 
vellers on  the  Continent,  struck  with 
the  safe  and  expeditious  method  of 
getting  quit  of  and  reforming  its 
convicts  which  Great  Britain  enjoys, 
from  its  numerous  colonies  in  every 


*  Table    showing    the   annual    exports  of  British    manufactures  to    the  under- 
mentioned Colonies,  from  1828  to  1846. 


Years. 

Canada,  &c. 
Without  Convicts. 

The  Cape, 
Without  Convicts. 

Australia, 
With  Convicts. 

1828 

£1,691,044 

£218,849 

£443,839 

1829 

1,581,723 

257,501 

310,681 

1830 

1,857,133 

330,036 

314,677 

1831 

2,089,327 

257,245 

398,471 

1832 

2,075,725 

292,405 

466,328 

1833 

2,092,550 

346,197 

558,372 

1834 

1,671,069 

304,382 

716,014 

1835 

2,158,158 

326,921 

696,345 

1836 

2,732,291 

482,315 

835,637 

1837 

2,141,035 

488,811 

921,568 

1838 

1,992,457 

623,323 

1,336,662 

1839 

3,047,671 

464,130 

1,679,390 

1840 

2,847,913 

417,091 

2,004,385 

1841 

2,947,061 

384,574 

1,269,351 

1842 

2,333,525 

369,076 

916,164 

1843 

1,751,211 

•     502,577' 

1,211,815 

1844 

3,076,861 

420,151 

744,482 

1845 

3,555,954 

648,749 

1,201,076 

1846 

3,308,059 

480,979 

1,441,640 

PORTER'S  Parliamentary  Tables,  1846,  p.  121. 

Exports,  per  head,  to  the  following  countries  in  1836. 


United  States  of  America, 
Canada,  &c., 
British  West  India  Islands, 
Australia,         .... 

Population. 

Exports. 

Proportion  per 
head. 

14,000,000 
1,500,000 
900,000 
100,000 

£12,425,605 
2,739,291 
3,786,453 
835,637 

£0   17     6 
1   16     0 
3  12     0 
8  14     0 

— PORTER'S  Parliamentary  Tables. 


528 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[Nov. 


part  of  the  world,  and  the  want  of 
which  is  so  severely  felt  in  the  Conti- 
nental states,  are  unanimous  in  con- 
sidering the  possession  of  such  colo- 
nies, and  consequent  power  of  un- 
limited transportation,  as  one  of  the 
very  greatest  social  advantages  which 
England  enjoys.  Hear  what  one  of 
the  most  enlightened  of  those  writers, 
M.  Malte-Brun,  says  on  the  sub- 
ject :— 

"  England  has  long  been  in  the  habit  of 
disposing  of  its  wicked  citizens  in  a  way 
at  once  philosophic  and  politic,  by  send- 
ing them  out  to  cultivate  distant  colonies. 
It  was  thus  that  the  shores  of  the  Dela- 
ware and  the  Potomac  were  peopled  in 
America.  After  the  American  war,  they 
were  at  a  loss  where  to  send  the  con- 
victs, and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  was 
first  thought  of;  but,  on  the  recommenda- 
tion of  the  learned  Sir  Joseph  Banks, 
New  South  Wales  obtained  the  prefer- 
ence. The  first  vessel  arrived  at  Botany 
Bay  on  the  20th  January  1788,  and 
brought  out  760  convicts,  and  according 
to  a  census  taken  in  1821,  exhibited  the 
following  results  in  thirty-three  years, 
viz. — 

Free    settlers,  men,   women 
and  children      .        .        .  23,254 

Convicts        .        .        .        .13,814 

37,068" 

In  1832,  that  population  had  risen 
to  40,000  souls.*  In  1821,  there 
were  in  the  colony  5000  horses, 
120,000  horned  cattle,  and  350,000 
sheep.  It  consumed,  at  that  period, 
5,500,000  francs'  (£340,000)  worth  of 
English  manufactures,  being  about 
£8,  10s.  a-head,  and  exported  to 
Europe  about  £100,000  worth  in  rude 
produce. 

"  Great  division  of  opinion  has  existed 
in  France,  for  a  long  course  of  years,  on 
the  possibility  of  diminishing  the  fre- 
quency of  the  punishment  of  death,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  galleys ;  but  a  serious 
difficulty  has  been  alleged  in  the  expense 
with  which  an  establishment  such  as 
New  South  Wales  would  cost.  It  is 
worthy  of  remark,  however,  that  from 
1789  to  the  end  of  1821,  England  had 
expended  for  the  transport,  maintenance, 
and  other  charges  of  33,155  convicts, 
transported  to  New  South  Wales, 
£5,301,023,  being  scarce  a  third  of  what 
the  prisoners  would  have  cost  in  the 
prisons  of  Great  Britain,  without  having 


the  satisfaction  of  having  changed  into 
useful  citizens  those  who  were  the  shame 
and  terror  of  society. 

"  When  a  vessel  with  convicts  on 
board  arrives  in  the  colony,  the  men  who 
are  not  married  in  it,  are  permitted  to 
choose  a  wife  among  the  female  convict?. 
At  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  punish- 
ment, every  convict  is  at  liberty  to  return 
to  his  own  country,  at  his  own  expense. 
If  he  chooses  to  remain,  he  obtains  a  grant 
of  land,  and  provisions  for  18  months : 
if  he  is  married  the  allotment  is  larger, 
and  an  adequate  portion  is  allowed  for 
each  child.  Numbers  are  provided  with 
the  means  of  emigration  at  the  expense 
of  government;  they  obtain  150  acres  of 
land,  seed-corn,  and  implements  of  hus- 
bandry. It  is  worthy  of  remark  that, 
thanks  to  the  vigilance  of  the  authorities, 
the  transported  in  that  colony  lose  their 
depraved  habits;  that  the  women  become 
well  behaved  and  fruitful ;  aud  that  the 
children  do  not  inherit  the  vices  of  their 
parents.  These  results  are  sufficient  to 
place  the  colony  of  New  South  Wales 
among  tlie  most  noble  philanthropic  in- 
stitutions in  the  world.  After  that,  can 
any  one  ask  the  expense  of  the  establish- 
ment?"— MALTE-BRUN,  Geographic  Uni- 
xerseUe,  xii.  194-196. 

But  here  a  fresh  difficulty  arises. 
Granting,  it  will  be  said,  that  trans- 
portation is  so  immense  a  benefit  to 
the  mother  country,  in  affording  a 
safe  and  certain  vent  for  its  criminals; 
and  to  the  colonies,  by  providing 
them  with  so  ample  a  supply  of  forced 
labour,  what  is  to  be  done  when  they 
will  not  receive  it  ?  The  colonies  are 
all  up  in  arms  against  transportation  ; 
not  one  can  be  persuaded,  on  any  terms, 
to  receive  these  convicts.  When  a 
ship  with  convicts  arrives,  they  begin 
talking  about  separation  and  inde- 
pendence, and  reminding  us  of  Bunk- 
er's Hill  and  Saratoga.  The  Cape 
shows  us  with  what  feelings  colonies 
which  have  not  yet  received  them 
view  the  introduction  of  criminals; 
Van  Diemen's  Land,  how  well  founded 
their  apprehensions  are  of  the  conse- 
quences of  such  an  invasion  of  civi- 
lised depravity.  This  difficulty,  at 
first  sight,  appears  not  only  serious 
but  insurmountable.  On  a  nearer 
examination,  however,  it  will  be 
found  that,  however  formidable  it 
may  appear,  it  could  easily  be  got 
over;  and  that  it  is  entirely  owing 


*  It  now  (1849)  exceeds  200,000  souls. 


1849.] 


The  Transportation  Question. 


529 


to  the  true  principles  of  transportation 
having  been  forgotten,  and  one  of  the 
first  duties  of  government  neglected 
by  our  rulers  for  the  last  thirty  years. 
It  is  very  remarkable,  and  throws 
an  important  light  on  this  question, 
that  this  horror  at  the  influx  of 
convicts,  which  has  now  become  so 
general  in  the  colonies  as  to  render  it 
almost  impossible  to  find  a  place 
where  they  can  with  safety  be  landed, 
is  entirely  of  recent  origin.  It  never 
was  heard  of  till  within  the  last 
fifteen  or  twenty  years.  Previous 
to  that  time,  and  even  much  later, 
transportation  was  not  only  regarded 
by  the  penal  colonies  without  aver- 
sion, but  with  the  utmost  possible 
complacency.  They  looked  to  a 
series  of  heavy  assizes  in  Great 
Britain  with  the  same  feelings  of 
anxious  solicitude,  as  the  working 
classes  do  to  a  good  harvest,  or  the 
London  tradesman  to  a  gay  and 
money-spending  season.  Spirits  never 
were  so  high  in  Sidney,  speculation 
never  so  rife,  property  never  so  valu- 
able, profits  never  so  certain,  as  when 
the  convict  ships  arrived  well  stored 
with  compulsory  emigrants.  If  any 
one  doubts  this,  let  him  open  the  early 
numbers  of  the  Colonial  Magazine, 
and  he  will  find  them  filled  with  resolu- 
tions of  public  meetings  in  New 
South  Wales,  recounting  the  immense 
advantages  the  colony  had  derived 
from  the  forced  labour  of  convicts, 
and  most  earnestly  deprecating  any 
intermission  in  their  introduction. 
As  a  specimen,  we  subjoin  a  series  of 
resolutions,  by  the  Governor  and 
Council  of  New  South  Wales,  on  a 
petition  agreed  to,  at  a  public  meet- 
ing held  in  Sidney,  on  18th  February  . 
1838. 

Resolutions  of  the  Legislative  Council,  New 
South  Wales,\lth  July  1838. 

4.  Resolved. — That,  in  opinion  of  this 
council,  the  numerous  free  emigrants  of 
character  and  capital,  including  many 
officers  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  East 
India  Company's  service,  who  have  set- 
tled in  this  colony,  with  their  families, 
together  with  a  rising  generation  of 
native-born  subjects,  constitute  a  body  of 
colonists  who,  in  the  exercise  of  the 
social  and  moral  relations  of  life,  are  not 
inferior  to  the  inhabitants  of  any  other 
dependency  of  the  British  crown,  and 


are  sufficient  to  impress  a  character  of 
respectability  upon  the  colony  at  large. 

5.  Resolved — That,  in   the   opinion  of 
this   council,   the   rapid   and   increasing 
advance  of  this  colony,  in  the  short  space 
of  fifty  years  from  its  first  establishment, 
in  rural,  commercial,  and  financial  pros- 
perity, proves  indisputably  the  activity, 
the  enterprise,  and  industry  of  the  colo- 
nists, and  is  wholly  incompatible  with 
the  state  of  society  represented  to  exist 
here. 

6.  Resolved. — That,  in  the  opinion  of 
this  council,  the  strong  desire  manifested 
by    the    colonists    generally,    to   obtain 
moral  and  religious  instruction,  and  the 
liberal   contributions,   which   have   been 
made  from  private   funds,  towards   this 
most  essential  object,  abundantly  testify 
that    the    advancement    of    virtue    and 
religion  amongst  them  is  regarded  with 
becoming  solicitude. 

7.  Resolved. — That,  in  the  opinion  of 
this  council,  if  transportation  and  assign- 
ment have  hitherto  failed  to  produce  all 
the   good  effects    anticipated   by    their 
projectors,  such  failure  may  be  traced  to 
circumstances,   many    of  which   are   no 
longer  in  existence,  whilst  others  are  in 
rapid  progress  of  amendment.     Amongst 
the  most  prominent  causes  of  failure  may 
be   adduced   the    absence,  at    the    first 
establishment  of  the  colony,  of  adequate 
religious  and  moral  instruction,  and  the 
want  of  proper  means  of  classification  in 
the  several  gaols  throughout  the  colony, 
as  well  as  of  a  sufficient  number  of  free 
emigrants,  properly  qualified  to  become 
the  assignees   of  convicts,  and  to  be  in- 
trusted with  their  management  and  con- 
trol. 

8.  Resolved. — That,  in  the  opinion  of 
this  council,  the  great  extension  which 
has  latterly  been  afforded  of  moral  and 
religious    instruction,    the    classification 
which   may   in   future  be   made  in  the 
numerous  gaols  now  in  progress  of  erec- 
tion, upoh  the  most  approved  principles 
of  inspection    and   separation,  the  most 
effectual  punishment  and  classification  of 
offenders  in  ironed  gangs,  according  to 
their  improved  system  of  management — 
the  numerous  free  emigrants  now  eligible 
as  the  assignees  of  convicts,  and  the  ac- 
cumulated experience  of  half  a  century — 
form    a    combination   of  circumstances, 
which  renders  the  colony  better  adapted 
at  the  present,  than  at  any  former  period, 
to  carry  into  effect  the  praiseworthy  in- 
tentions of  the  first  founders  of  the  sys- 
tem of  transportation   and   assignment, 
which  had  no  less  for  its  object  reforma- 
tion of  character  than  a  just  infliction  of 
punishment. 

9.  Rcsohed. — That, in  the  opinion  of  this 


530 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[Nor. 


council,  no  system  of  penal  discipline,  or 
secondary  punishmeut,will  be  found  at  once 
so  chfiap,  so  effective,  and  so  reformatory, 
as  that  of  well-regulated  assignment — the 
good  conduct  of  the  convict,  and  his  con- 
tinuance at  labour,  being  so  obviously 
the  interest  of  the  assignee  ;  whilst  the 
partial  solitude  and  privations,  incidental 
to  a  pastoral  or  agricultural  life  in  the 
remote  districts  of  the  colony,  (which 
may  be  made  the  universal  employment 
of  convicts,)  by  effectually  breaking  a 
connexion  with  companions  and  habits 
of  vice,  is  better  calculated  than  any 
other  system  to  produce  moral  reforma- 
tion, when  accompanied  by  adequate 
religious  instruction. 

10.  Re solved. — That,  in  the  opinion  of 
this  council,  many  men  who,  previously 
to  their  conviction,  had  been  brought  up 
in    habits    of   idleness    and    vice,   have 
acquired,   by  means  of  assignment,  not 
only  habits  of  industry  and  labour,  but 
the  knowledge  of  a  remunerative  employ- 
ment, which,  on  becoming  free,  forms  a 
strong   inducement    to    continue   in    an 
honest  course  of  life. 

11.  Resolved. — That,  in  the  opinion  of 
this  council,  the  sudden  discontinuance  of 
transportation  and  assignment,  by  depriv- 
ing the  colonists  of  convict  labour,  must 
necessarily   curtail   their  means  of  pur- 
chasing crown  lands,  and,  consequently, 
the  supply  of  funds  for  the  purpose  of 
immigration. 

12.  Resolved. — That,  in  the  opinion  of 
this  council,  the  produce  of  the  labour  of 
convicts,  in  assignment,  is  thus  one  of  the 
principal,  though  indirect  means,  of  bring- 
ing into  the  colony  free  persons  :    it  is 
obvious,  therefore,  that  the  continuance 
of  emigration  in  any  extended  form,  must 
necessarily  depend  upon  the  continuance 
of  the  assignment  of  convicts.* 

It  is  not  surprising  that  they  viewed, 
at  this  period,  the  transportation  sys- 
tem in  this  light ;  for  under  it  they  had 
made  advances  in  population,  comfort, 
and  riches,  unparalleled  in  any  other 
age  or  country  of  the  world. 

How,  then,  has  it  happened  that  so 
great  a  change  has  come  over  the 
views  of  the  colonists  on  this  subject  ; 
and  that  the  system  which  they  for- 
merly regarded,  with  reason,  as  the 
sheet-anchor  of  their  prosperity,  is 
now  almost  universally  looked  to 
with  unqualified  aversion,  as  the  cer- 
tain forerunner  of  their  destruction  ? 
The  answer  is  easy.  It  is  because 
transportation,  as  formerly  conducted, 


was  a  blessing,  and  because,  as  con- 
ducted of  late  years,  it  has  become  a 
curse,  that  the  change  of  opinion  has 
arisen  in  regard  to  it.  The  feelings 
of  the  colonists,  in  both  cases,  were 
founded  on  experience — both  were,  in 
the  circumstances  in  which  they  arose, 
equally  well  founded,  and  both  were 
therefore  equally  entitled  to  respect  and 
attention.  We  have  only  to  restore 
the  circumstances  in  which  the  convicts 
were  a  blessing,  to  revive  the  times 
in  which  their  arrival  will  be  regarded 
as  a  boon.  And  to  effect  this,  can 
easily  be  shown  not  only  to  be  at- 
tended with  no  difficulty,  but  only  to 
require  the  simultaneous  adoption  by 
government  of  a  system  of  punish- 
ment at  home,  and  of  voluntary  emi- 
gration at  the  public  expense  abroad, 
attended  with  a  very  trifling  expense, 
and  calculated  to  relieve,  beyond  any 
other  measure  that  could  by  pos- 
sibility be  devised,  the  existing  dis- 
tress among  the  labouring  classes  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

To  render  the  introduction  of  penal 
labour  into  a  colony  an  advantage, 
three  things  are  necessary.  1st,  That 
the  convicts  sent  out  should  be  for  the 
most  part  instructed  in  some  simple 
rural  art  or  occupation,  of  use  in  the 
country  into  which  they  are  to  be 
transplanted.  2d,  That  they  should 
in  general  bo  beginners  in  crime,  and 
a  small  number  of  them  only  hardened 
in  depravity.  3d,  What  is  most  im- 
portant of  all,  that  they  should  be  pre- 
served in  a  due  proportion,  never  ex- 
ceeding a  fourth  or  a  fifth  to  the  free  and 
untainted  settlers.  Under  these  con- 
ditions, their  introduction  will  always 
prove  a  blessing,  and  will  be  hailed  as 
a  boon.  If'they  are  neglected,  they 
will  prove  a  curse,  and  their  arrival 
be  regarded  as  a  punishment. 

Various  circumstances  have  con- 
tributed, of  late  years,  to  render  the 
convict  system  a  dreadful  evil,  instead 
of,  as  formerly,  a  signal  benefit  to  the 
colonies.  But  that  affords  no  ground 
for  despair ;  on  the  contrary,  it  fur- 
nishes the  most  well-grounded  reason 
for  hope.  We  are  suffering  under  the 
effects  of  an  erroneous  regimen,  not 
any  inherent  malady  in  the  patient. 
Change  this  treatment,  and  his  health 
will  soon  return. 


Colonial  Magazine,  i.  431,  433. 


1849.] 


77<e  Transportation  Question. 


531 


It  is  well  known  that  the  greatest 
pains  have  of  late  years  been  taken,  in 
this  country,  to  instruct  prisoners  in 
jnil  in  some  useful  handicraft;  and 
that,  so  far  has  this  been  carried,  that 
our  best-regulated  jails  are  more  in 
fact  great  houses  of  industry.  The 
general  penitentiary  at  Pentonville, 
in  particular,  where  the  convicts  sen- 
tenced to  transportation  are  trained, 
previous  to  their  removal  to  the  penal 
settlements,  is  a  perfect  model  of 
arrangement  and  attention  in  this  im- 
portant respect.  But  it  is  equally 
well  known  that  it  is  only  of  late  years 
that  this  signal  reform  has  come  into 
operation  ;  and  we  have  the  satisfac- 
tion of  knowing  that  already  its 
salutary  effects  have  been  evinced, 
in  the  most  signal  manner,  with  the 
convicts  sent  abroad.  Previous  to  the 
year  1840,  scarcely  anything  was  done 
on  any  considerable  scale,  either  to 
teach  ordinary  prisoners  trades  in  jail, 
to  separate  them  from  each  other,  or 
to  prepare  them,  in  the  public  peniten- 
tiaries, for  the  duties  in  which  they 
were  to  be  engaged,  when  they  arrived 
at  their  distant  destination.  The 
county  jails,  now  resounding  with  the 
clang  of  ceaseless  occupation,  pursued 
by  prisoners  in  their  separate  cells, 
then  only  re-echoed  the  din  of  riot  and 
revelling  in  the  day-rooms  where  the 
idle  prisoners  were  huddled  together, 
and  beguiled  the  weary  hours  of  their 
captivity  by  stories  of  perpetrated 
crime,  or  plans  for  its  renewal  the 
moment  they  got  out  of  confinement. 
But  the  ideas  of  men  are  all  formed 
on  the  experience  of  facts,  or  the 
thoughts  driven  into  them,  for  a  con- 
siderable time  back.  The  present 
universal  horror  at  transportation  is. 
founded  on  the  experience  of  the  pri- 
soners with  which,  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  New  South  Wales  had  been 
flooded,  from  the  idle  day-rooms  or  pro- 
fligate hulks  of  Great  Britain.  Some 
years  must  elapse  before  the  effects 
of  the  improved  discipline  received, 
and  laborious  habits  acquired,  in  the 
jails  and  penitentiaries  of  the  mother 
country,  produces  any  general  effect  on 
public  opinion  in  its  distant  colonies. 

The  relaxation  of  the  severity  of 
our  penal  code  at  home,  during  the 
last  thirty  years,  however  loudly 
called  for  by  considerations  of  justice 
and  humanity,  has  undoubtedly  had 


a  most  pernicious  influence  on  the 
class  of  convicts  who  have,  during  that 
period,  been  sent  to  the  colonies.  In 
so  far  as  that  change  of  system  has 
diminished  the  frequency  of  the  in- 
fliction of  the  punishment  of  death, 
and  limited,  practically  speaking,  that 
dreadful  penalty  to  cases  of  wilful 
and  inexcusable  murder,  it  must  com- 
mand the  assent  of  every  benevolent 
and  well-regulated  mind.  But,  unfor- 
tunately, the  change  has  not  stopped 
there.  It  has  descended  through 
every  department  of  our  criminal 
jurisprudence,  and  come  in  that  way 
to  alter  much  for  the  worse  the  class 
of  criminals  who  of  late  years  have 
been  sent  to  the  penal  colonies.  The 
men  who  were  formerly  hanged  are 
now  for  the  most  part  transported ; 
those  formerly  transported  are  now 
imprisoned ;  and  those  sent  abroad 
have  almost  all,  on  repeated  occasions, 
been  previously  confined,  generally  for 
a  very  long  period.  As  imprisonment 
scarcely  ever  works  any  reformation 
on  the  moral  character  or  habits  of  a 
prisoner,  whatever  improved  skill  in 
handicraft  it  may  put  into  his  fingers, 
this  change  has  been  attended  with 
most  serious  and  pernicious  effect  on 
the  character  of  the  convicts  sent  to 
the  colonies,  and  gone  far  to  produce 
the  aversion  with  which  they  are  now 
everywhere  regarded. 

It  has  been  often  observed,  by  those 
practically  acquainted  with  the  work- 
ing of  the  transportation  system  in 
the  colonies,  that  the  Irish  convicts 
were  generally  the  best,  and  the 
Scotch,  beyond  all  question,  the  worst 
who  arrived.  This  peculiarity,  so 
widely  different  from,  in  fact  precisely 
the  reverse  of,  what  has  been  observed 
of  the  free  settlers  from  these  respec- 
tive countries,  in  every  part  of  the 
world,  has  frequently  been  made  the 
subject  of  remark,  and  excited  no 
little  surprise.  But  the  reason  of  it 
is  evident,  and,  when  once  stated, 
perfectly  satisfactory.  The  Scotch 
law,  administered  almost  entirely  by 
professional  men,  and  on  fixed  prin- 
ciples, has  long  been  based  on  the 
principle  of  transporting  persons  only 
who  were  deemed  irreclaimable  in 
this  country.  Very  few  have  been 
sent  abroad  for  half  a  century,  from 
Scotland,  who  had  not  either  com- 
mitted some  very  grave  offence,  or 


532 


The  Transportation  Qttestion. 


[Nov. 


been  four  or  five  times,  often  eight  or 
ten  times,  previously  convicted  and 
imprisoned.  In  Ireland,  under  the 
moderate  and  lenient  sway  of  Irish 
county  justices,  a  poacher  was  often 
transported  who  had  merely  been 
caught  with  a  hare  tucked  up  under 
his  coat.  Whatever  we  may  think  of 
the  justice  of  such  severe  punishments 
for  trivial  offences,  in  the  first  instance, 
there  can  be  but  one  opinion  as  to  its 
tendency  to  lead  a  much  better  class 
of  convicts  from  the  Emerald  Isle,  than 
the  opposite  system  did  from  the 
shores  of  Caledonia.  Very  probably, 
also,  the  system  of  giving  prisoners 
"  repeated  opportunities  of  amend- 
ment," as  it  is  called  in  this  country — 
but  which,  in  fact,  would  be  more  aptly 
styled  "  renewed  opportunities  -for 
depravity" — has,  from  good  but  mis- 
taken motives,  been  carried  much  too 
far  in  Scotland.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
nothing  is.more  certain  than  that  the 
substitution  of  a  race  of  repeatedly 
convicted  and  hardened  offenders, 
under  the  milder  system  of  punish- 
ment in  Great  Britain,  during  the  last 
twenty  years,  for  one  comparatively 
uninitiated  in  crime,  such  as  were 
formerly  sent  out,  has  had  a  most 
pernicious  effect  on  the  character  of 
the  convicts  received  in  the  colonies, 
and  the  sentiments  with  which  their 
arrival  was  regarded. 

But  by  far  the  most  powerful  cause, 
which  has  been  in  operation  for  above 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  in  destroying 
the  beneficial  effects  of  the  system  of 
transportation,  and  substituting  the 
worst  possible  consequences  in  their 
stead,  has  been  the  sending  out  of  con- 
victs in  too  great  a  proportion  to  the  free 
population,  and  the  consequent  neces- 
sity for  substituting  the  gang  for  the 
assignment  system.  This  is  a  matter  of 
the  very  highest,  indeed  of  paramount 
importance;  and  it  may  safely  be 
affirmed  that,  unless  a  remedy  is  found 
for  it,  all  efforts  made  to  render  the 
system  of  transportation  palatable  to 
the  colonies  will  prove  nugatory. 
Fortunately  the  means  of  remedying 
that  evil  are  not  only  easy,  but,  com- 
paratively speaking,  cheap,  and  per- 
fectly efficacious ;  and  they  promise, 
while  they  remedy  the  above-men- 
tioned evil,  to  confer,  in  other  respects, 
signal  benefits  both  on  the  colonies  and 
the  mother  country. 


New  South  Wales  was  originally 
selected,  and  not  without  sufficient 
reasons,  as  the  place  for  the  establish- 
ment of  penal  colonies,  because  the 
distance  of  it  from  the  mother  country, 
and  thejength  of  the  voyage,  ren- 
dered it  a  very  difficult  matter  either 
for  runaway  convicts,  or  those  who 
had  served  their  time,  to  get  home 
again.  Once  sent  out,  you  were,  in 
the  great  majority  of  cases,  clear  of 
them  for  ever.  This  circumstance 
was  no  disadvantage,  but  rather  the 
reverse,  to  the  colony,  and  certainly  a 
very  great  advantage  to  the  parent 
state,  as  long  as  the  number  of  con- 
victs annually  sent  out  was  incon- 
siderable, and  the  whole  convict  popu- 
lation formed  a  small  minority  to  the 
number  of  free  settlers.  When  the 
whole  number  committed  a-year  in 
England  was  4500,  and  in  Scotland 
under  100,  as  it  was  in  Great  Britain 
in  1804  or  1805,  the  settlement  of 
convicts  on  the  distant  shores  of 
Australia  worked  well.  They  were 
glad  to  get  the  300  or  400  annually 
sent  out ;  they  were  benefited  by 
their  forced  labour ;  and  the  free 
settlers  were  in  sufficient  numbers 
to  keep  them  with  ease  in  subjection, 
and  prevent  their  habits  from  con- 
taminating those  of  the  free  inhabi- 
tants of  the  colony.  But  when  the 
commitments  from  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  had  risen  to  50,000  or  60,000 
a-year,  and  the  convicts  sent  out  to 
3000  or  4000  annually,  as  they  have 
done  for  some  years  past,  the  case 
was  entirely  altered.  The  polluted 
stream  became  much  too  large  and 
powerful  for  the  land  it  was  intended 
to  fertilise;  it  did  more  harm  than 
good,  and  became  the  object  of  uni- 
form and  undisguised  aversion. 

The  distance  of  Australia  from  the 
mother  country,  which  formerly  had 
been  so  great  an  advantage  to  both 
parties,  now  became  the  greatest 
possible  evil ;  because  it  prevented,  at 
the  time  this  great  influx  of  convicts 
was  going  on,  the  immigration  of 
freemen  from  preserving  anything  like 
a  due  proportion  to  it.  When  the  con- 
victs rose  to  2000  and  3000  yearly,  the 
free  settlers  should  have  been  raised 
to  8000  or  10,000  annually.  This 
would  have  kept  all  right;  because 
the  tainted  population  would  have 
been  always  in  a  small  minority  com- 


1849.] 


The  Transportation  Question. 


533 


pared  to  the  virtuous;  order  would 
have  been  preserved  by  the  decided 
majority  of  the  well-disposed ;  and  the 
assignment  system,  the  parent  of  so 
much  good,  still  rendered  practicable  by 
the  ceaseless  extension  of  free  settlers 
in  the  wilds  of  nature.  But  the 
distance  of  Australia  rendered  this 
impracticable,  when  the  emigration 
of  freemen  was  left  to  its  own  un- 
aided resources.  Steam  navigation 
contributed  powerfully  to  throw  it  into 
the  back-ground  for  all  but  the  very 
highest  class  of  emigrants.  The  voy- 
age to  Australia  is  one  of  fourteen 
thousand  miles ;  it  takes  from  five  to 
six  mouths,  must  still  be  performed 
by  sailing  vessels,  and  costs  about 
£16  a-head  for  the  ordinary  class  of 
emigrants.  That  to  America  is  one  of 
three  thousand  miles ;  it  takes  from  a 
fortnight  to  three  weeks,  is  performed 
by  great  numbers  of  steam  as  well  as 
sailing  vessels,  and  costs  from  £3  to 
£4  a-head  for  the  same  class  of  pas- 
sengers.* 

These  facts  are  decisive,  and  must 
always  continue  so,  against  the  choice 
of  Australia,  as  the  place  of  their  desti- 
nation, by  the  great  bulk  of  ordinary 
emigrants.  Several  young  men  of 
good  family,  indeed,  tempted  by  the 
high  profits  generally  made  there  in 
the  wool  trade,  and  the  boundless  faci- 
lities for  the  multiplication  of  flocks 
which  its  prairies  afforded,  have  set- 
tled there,  and  some  have  done  well. 
But  of  ordinary  labourers,  and  persons 
to  do  the  work  of  common  workmen, 
there  has  always  been  felt  a  very  great 
deficiency,  for  this  simple  reason,  that 
they  could  not  afford  the  expense  of 


the  voyage.  The  settlers  were  almost 
entirely  of  the  better  class,  and  they 
were  in  no  proportion  at  all  to  tbe 
number  of  the  convicts.  This  dis- 
tinctly appears,  not  only  from  the  ex- 
travagant wages  paid  to  shepherds 
and  common  labourers,  generally  not 
less  than  five  or  six  shillings  a- day, 
but  from  the  very  limited  number  of 
emigrants,  even  during  the  distress 
of  the  last  three  years,  when  the  vol- 
untary emigration  had  reached  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  annually 
from  the  British  islands,  who  have 
gone  to  our  colonies  in  New  South 
Wales.t 

This  unhappy  turn  of  affairs  has 
been  attended  with  a  double  disad- 
vantage. In  the  first  place,  the  vast 
increase  in  the  number  of  convicts 
sent  to  Sydney,  compared  with  the 
small  number  of  free  settlers,  has  for  a, 
long  time  past  rendered  the  continu- 
ance of  the  assignment  system  impos- 
sible ;  and  the  gang  system,  to  take  off 
and  embody  the  surplus  numbers, 
became  in  a  manner  a  matter  of  neces- 
sity. The  manners  of  the  colony,  its 
habits,  its  prospects,  its  morality,  have 
been  seriously  damaged  by  this  change. 
The  emancipated  convicts  who  have 
made  money,  known  by  the  name  of 
"  canary  birds,"  have  pressed  upon 
the  heels,  and  come  to  excite  the 
jealousy,  of  the  free  settlers.  The 
accumulation  of  convicts  in  the  lower 
walks  of  life  has  checked  the  immigra- 
tion of  free  labour,  perpetuated  the 
frightful  inequality  of  the  sexes,  and 
led  to  the  most  lamentable  disorders. 
The  gang  system,  of  necessity  intro- 
duced, because  free  settlers  did  not 


*  While  we  write  these  lines,  the  following  advertisement,  which  appeared  in  the 
Times  of  Oct.  10,  will  illustrate  this  vital  difference  : — 

"  EMIGRATION. — The  undersigned  are  prepared  to  forward  intending  emigrants  to 
every  colony  now  open  for  colonisation,  at  the  following  ratea  of  passage-money : — 
To  Sydney,  £15;  Melbourne,  £15;  Adelaide,  £15;  Swan  River,  £20;  Van  Diemen's 
Land,  £20  ;  New  Zealand,  £18  ;  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  £10  ;  Natal,  £10  ;  California, 
£25 ;  New  York,  £2,  10s. ;  Philadelphia,  £2,  10s. ;  New  Orleans,  £3.— HARRISON 
&  Co. — 11  Union  Street,  Birmingham." 
t  Emigrants  from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  to  Australia  and  New  Zealand  :— 

1830, 1,242        1836, 3,124         1842, 8,534 

1831, 1,561         1837, 5,054         1843 3,478 

1832, 3,733         1838, 14,021         1844, 2,229 

1833, 4,093         1839, 15,726         1845, 830 

1834, 2,800         1840, 15,850         1846, 2,227 

1835, 1,860         1841, 32,625 

— PORTER'S  Parliamentary  Tablet,  1846,  p.  236. 


534 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[Xov. 


exist  to  take  the  convicts  off  under  the 
assignment  system,  perpetuated  in  the 
colony  the  vices  of  the  hulks,  the 
depravity  of  the  galleys.  The  whole 
benefits  of  transportation  to  the  con- 
victs, their  whole  chances  of  amend- 
ment, are  lost,  when,  instead  of  being 
sent  to  rural  labour  in  the  solitude  of 
the  woods  and  the  prairies,  they  are 
huddled  together,  in  gangs  of  four 
or  five  hundred,  without  hope  to 
counterbalance  evil  propensities,  or 
inducement  to  resist  the  seduction  of 
mutual  bad  example.  These  evils 
were  so  sensibly  felt,  and  led  to  such 
energetic  representations  to  the  gov- 
ernment at  home,  that  at  length  the 
colony  was  pacified,  but  at  the  same 
time  its  progress  checked,  by  an  order 
in  council  in  1837,  that  no  more  con- 
victs, for  a  limited  time,  should  be 
sent  to  Sydney  or  its  dependencies. 

But  this  only  shifted  the  seat  of  the 
evil,  and  augmented  its  intensity.  The 
convicts,  now  swelled  to  above  four 
thousand  a-year,  could  not  be  kept  at 
home ;  they  required  to  be  sent  some- 
where, and  where  was  that  place  to 
be  ?  Van  Diemen's  Land  was  select- 
ed, being  the  most  southernly  portion 
of  New  Holland,  and  of  course  the 
farthest  removed  from  this  country ; 
and  thither  nearly  the  whole  convicts 
of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  soon 
above  thirty-five  hundred  annually  in 
number,  were  sent  for  several  years. 
The  consequence  of  this  prodigious  in- 
flux of  criminals  into  an  infant  colony, 
so  far  removed  from  the  parent  state 
that  it  cost  £20  a-head  to  send  a 
common  labourer  there — and  of  course 
no  free  emigration  in  proportionate 
numbers  could  be  expected  without 
public  aid — might  easily  have  been 
anticipated.  Government  did  nothing 
to  encourage  the  simultaneous  settle- 
ment of  free  settlers  in  that  distant 
land,  thus  flooded  with  convicts,  or 
so  little  as  amounted  to  nothing. 
The  consequence  was,  that,  ere  long, 
three-fifths  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
colony  were  convicts.  Every  one 
knows,  none  could  have  failed  to  anti- 
cipate the  consequences.  The  morals 
of  the  settlement,  thus  having  a  majo- 
rity of  its  inhabitants  convicts,  were 
essentially  injured.  Crimes  unutter- 
able were  committed ;  the  hideous 
inequality  of  the  sexes  induced  its 
usual  and  frightful  disorders  ;  the 


police,  how  severe  and  vigilant  soever, 
became  unable  to  coerce  the  rapidly- 
increasing  multitude  of  criminals ;  the 
most  daring  fled  to  the  woods,  where 
they  became  bush-rangers ;  life  be- 
came insecure ;  property  sank  to  half 
its  former  value.  So  powerful,  and 
evidently  well-founded,  were  the  re- 
presentations made  on  the  subject  to 
the  legislature,  that  it  became  evident 
that  a  remedy  must  be  applied ;  and 
this  was  done  by  an  order  in  council 
in  1844,  which  suspended  entirely  for 
two  years  the  transportation  of  male 
convicts  to  the  colonies.  That  of 
females  was  still  and  most  properly  con- 
tinued, in  the  hope  that,  by  doing  so, 
the  inequality  of  the  sexes  in  Australia 
might  in  some  degree  be  corrected. 

But  this  measure,  like  all  the  rest, 
not  being  founded  on  the  right  prin- 
ciple, has  entirely  failed.  The  accu- 
mulation of  offenders  in  the  British 
islands,  from  the  stoppage  of  the  usual 
vent  by  which  they  were  formerly 
carried  off,  soon  became  insupport- 
able. The  jails  were  crowded  to  suf- 
focation ;  it  was  ere  long  found  to  be 
necessary  to  liberate  many  persons, 
transported  seven  years,  at  the  expira- 
tion of  two,  to  make  way  for  new 
inmates.  The  liberated  convicts  were 
soon  back  in  their  old  haunts,  and  at 
their  old  practices ;  and  the  great  in- 
crease of  serious  crimes,  such  as  rob- 
beries, burglaries,  and  murders,  de- 
monstrated that  the  public  morals  in 
the  great  towns  were  rapidly  giving 
way,  under  the  influence  of  that  worst 
species  of  criminals — returned  convicts. 
The  judges  both  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  in  common  with  every  person 
practically  acquainted  with  the  subject, 
and  who  had  daily  proofs,  in  the  dis- 
charge of  their  important  official  duties, 
of  the  total  failure  of  the  imprisonment 
system,  were  unanimous  in  recom- 
mending a  return  to  transportation. 
All  the  temporary  expedients  adopted, 
such  as  Gibraltar,  Bermuda,  &c.,  soon 
failed  from  the  rapid  increase  of  con- 
victs, who  greatly  exceeded  all  the 
means  left  of  taking  them  off.  Govern- 
ment became  convinced  that  they  had 
made  a  step  in  the  wrong  direction ; 
and  they  most  wisely  took  counsel  from 
experience,  and  determined  to  resume 
the  practice  of  sending  convictsabroad. 
But,  on  the  threshold  of  the  renewed 
attempt,  they  were  met  by  the  refusal 


1819.] 


Tlie  Transportation  Question. 


535 


of  the  colonies  to  take  them.  The  Cape 
is  almost  in  rebellion  on  the  subject; 
and  in  despair  of  finding  a  willing 
colony,  it  is  said  they  have  in  contem- 
plation to  send  them  to  be  roasted 
under  the  White  Cliffs,  and  increase 
the  already  redundant  population  of 
Malta. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  do  any  such 
thing.  The  solution  of  the  transpor- 
tation question  is  easy,  the  method 
to  be  followed  perfectly  efficacious. 
Government  have  only  to  commence 
the  discharge  of  one  of  their  most  im- 
portant social  duties  to  get  rid  of  all 
their  difficulties,  and  render  the  immi- 
gration of  criminals,  as  it  was  in  time 
past,  as  great  a  blessing  to  the  colonies, 
and  as  ardently  desired,  as  of  late 
years  it  has  been  a  curse,  and  earnestly 
deprecated. 

Transportation  is  a  blessing  to  a  colony 
when  the  convicts  are  kept  in  a  mino- 
rity, perhaps  in  a  fourth  or  a  fifth  of 
the  community  to  which  they  are  sent, 
and  when  they  are  not  hardened  in 
crime,  and  all  instructed  in  some  use- 
ful trade.  In  such  circumstances,  they 
are  the  greatest  possible  addition  to 
its  strength,  riches,  and  progress,  and 
will  always  be  gladly  received. 

Transportation  is  a  curse  when  the 
convicts  sent  out  are  so  numerous, 
and  the  free  settlers  so  few,  that  the 
former  forms  a  large  proportion  of  the 
community  compared  to  the  latter,  and 
•when  their  habits  are  those  of  harden- 
ed irreclaimable  criminals,  instead  of 
youthful  novices  in  crime.  If  they 
become  a  majority,  certain  ruin  may 
be  anticipated  to  the  colony  thus 
flooded  with  crime. 

The  difficulties  which  now  beset  the 
transportation  question  have  all 
arisen  from  our  having  pursued  u 
course,  of  late  years,  which  rendered 
the  settlement  of  convicts  a  curse  in- 
stead of  a  blessing,  as  it  was  at  first, 
when  the  system  was  directly  the 
reverse.  To  render  it  a  blessing 
again,  we  have  only  to  restore  the 


circumstances  which  made  it  so  for- 
merly— sending  out  the  convicts  when 
not  completely  hardened  in  depravity, 
and  in  such  a  proportion  to  the  free 
settlers  as  to  keep  them  a  small  mino- 
rity to  the  free  and  untainted  part  of 
the  community.  The  immigration  of 
convicts  to  our  colonies  is  like  that  of 
the  Irish  into  western  Britain  :  every- 
thing depends  on  the  proportion  they 
bear  to  the  remainder  of  the  popula- 
tion. They  are  very  useful  if  a  fourth; 
they  can  be  borne  if  they  are  a  third  ; 
but  let  them  become  a  majority,  and 
they  will  soon  land  the  country  in  the 
condition  of  Skibbereen  or  Conne- 
mara. 

We  cannot  diminish  the  numbers 
of  convicts  transported  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, woful  results  have  made  us 
aware  that  it  should  be  materially  in- 
creased. Experience  has  taught  us, 
also,  that  voluntary  unaided  emigra- 
tion cannot  enable  the  free  settlers  in 
Australia  to  keep  pace  with  the  rapid 
increase  of  crime  in  the  British  islands. 
What,  then,  is  to  be  done  ?  The  an- 
swer is  simple  :  Discharge  in  part  the 
vast  duty,  so  long  neglected  by  govern- 
ment, of  providing,  at  the  public  ex- 
pense, for  the  emigration  of  a  certain 
portion  of  the  most  indigent  part  of  the 
community,  who  cannot  get  abroad 
on  their  own  resources,  and  SETTLE 

THEM  IN  THE  SAME  COLONY  WITH  THE 

CONVICTS.  Do  this,  and  the  labour 
market  is  lightened  at  home;  the  con- 
victs are  kept  in  a  small  minority 
abroad  ;  the  colony,  thus  aided  by  the 
combined  virtue  and  penal  labour  of 
the  mother  country,  is  secured  of  pro- 
sperity and  rapid  progress;  and  its 
rate  of  increase  will  soon  induce  the 
other  colonies  to  petition  for  a  share 
of  the  prolific  stream. 

At  present,  there  are,  or  at  least 
should  be,  above  5000  criminals  an- 
nually transported  from  the  British 
islands.*  The  cost  of  settling  a  free 
labourer  in  Australia  is  about  £16 
a-head.  To  send  16,000  free  labourers 


Sentenced  to  be  transported  : — 

England.  Scotland.  Ireland. 

1846,  .    .    .    2805  352       753 

1847,  .    .    .    2896  456  2185 

1848,  .    .    .    3251  459  2678* 


Total. 
3810 
5537 


*  Rebellion. 


-Parliamentary  Returns,  1846-8. 
VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX. 


2N 


53G 


Tlie  Transportation  Question. 


[Nov. 


with  these  5000  criminals  would 
cost  just  £256,000  a-year:  call  it 
£300,000  yearly,  to  make  room  for 
the  probable  increase  of  criminals, 
from  the  growing  necessities  or  de- 
pravity of  the  mother  country,  and 
provide  for  the  extra  and  unavoidable 
expenses  of  an  infant  establishment, 
and  the  transportation  question  is  at 
once  solved,  a  great  relief  is  afforded 
to  the  distressed  labourers  of  the 
parent  state,  and  a  certain  market  for 
our  manufactures  provided,  which  will 
double  every  two  or  three  years,  as 
long  as  the  system  is  continued. 

Let  government,  by  an  order  in 
council,  propose  these  terms  to  the 
colonies,  and  we  shall  see  if  any  of 
them  will  refuse  them.  If  none  will 
close  with  them,  let  them  at  once 
establish  a  new  colony  on  these  prin- 
ciples, in  some  unoccupied  part  of 
New  Holland.  In  twelve  months, 
there  will  be  a  race  for  who  is  to  get 
a  share  of  the  fertilising  stream.  Six- 
teen thousand  free  settlers,  and  five  or 
six  thousand  convicts,  annually  sent 
to  any  colony,  would  cause  its  num- 
bers to  double  every  two,  and  its 
prosperity  to  triple  in  value  every 
three  years.  Everything  would  go 
on  in  a  geometrical  progression.  It 
would  soon  rival  California  in  progress 
and  reputation.  Capital  would  rapidly 
follow  this  scene  of  activity  and  pro- 
gress. Moneyed  men  are  not  slow  in  dis- 
covering where  labour  is  plentiful  and 
comparatively  cheap,  and  where  their 
investments  are  doubled  in  amount 
and  value  every  two  or  three  years. 
A  colony  thus  powerfully  supported 
by  the  parent  state  would  soon  dis- 
tance all  its  competitors :  while  the 
Cape,  New  Zealand,  and  Australia 
were  slumbering  on  with  a  population 
doubling  every  ten  years,  from  the 
tardy  and  feeble  support  of  free  emi- 
grants on  their  own  resources,  the 
establishment  thus  protected  would 
double  in  two  or  three.  Volun- 
tary emigrants  would  crowd  to  the 
scene  of  activity,  progress,  and  opu- 
lence. The  20,000  persons  annually 
sent  out  would  immediately  become 
consumers  of  our  manufactures  to  the 
extent  of  £150,000  a-year  :*  and  this 
rate  would  be  doubled  the  very  next 
year !  At  the  end  of  five  or  six  years, 


it  would  amount  to  £800,000  or 
£900,000  annually.  What  a  relief  at 
once  to  the  manufacturers  of  Great 
Britain,  now  labouring  so  severely 
under  the  combined  effect  of  foreign 
competition  and  a  declining  home 
market,  and  the  starving  peasantry 
of  Ireland,  where  half  a  million  of 
stout  labourers — admirable  workmen 
in  a  foreign  country,  though  wretched 
ones  in  their  own — are  pining  in  hope- 
less destitution,  a  burden  upon  their 
parishes,  or  flocking  in  ruinous  multi- 
tudes to  Liverpool  and  Glasgow. 

But  where  is  the  £300,000  to  come 
from?  The  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer has  no  money ;  taxation  has 
reached  its  limits  ;  and  loans  are  out 
of  the  question.  What !  have  free 
trade  and  a  restricted  currency,  then, 
so  quickly  prostrated  the  resources  of 
the  country,  that  the  nation  which,  in 
1813,  with  eighteen  millions  of  in- 
habitants, at  the  close  of  a  twenty 
years'  costly  war,  raised  £72,000,000 
by  taxation,  and  £80,000,000  by  loan, 
cannot  now,  with  thirty  millions,  for 
so  very  important  an  object,  after 
thirty- three  years  of  unbroken  peace, 
muster  up  £300,000  a-year?  A  shil- 
ling a  gallon  on  the  6,259,000  gallons 
of  whisky  annually  consumed  in  Scot- 
land alone,  in  demoralising  the  com- 
munity, would  provide  the  requisite 
sum,  and  tend  to  equalise  the  ruinous 
exemption  which  Scotland  now  enjoys 
in  the  manufacture  of  that  attractive 
and  pernicious  liquor.  A  similar  duty 
on  the  12,000,000  gallons  annually 
consumed  in  England,  would  raise 
double  the  sum.  But  if  government, 
despite  the  £100,000,000  we  were 
promised  by  free  trade,  cannot  afford 
£300,000  a-year  for  this  vital  object, 
let  it  be  laid  on  the  counties  as  part 
of  the  prison  or  county  rates.  A  little 
reflection  would  soon  show  every 
person  of  sense  in  the  country,  that 
its  amount  could  speedily  be  saved  in 
prison  and  poor  rates. 

Simultaneously  with  this  change,  an 
alteration,  equally  loudly  called  for, 
should  take  place  in  the  administra- 
tion of  our  criminal  law  at  home. 
The  present  system  of  inflicting  short 
imprisonments  at  first,  and  reserving 
long  imprisonments  and  transporta- 
tion for  criminals  who  have  plied  their 


*  At  the  rate  of  £7,  14s.  a-head— the  present  rate  in  Australia. 


1849.] 


The  Transportation  Question. 


trade  of  pillage  for  two  or  three  years, 
should  be  abolished.  Imprisonment 
should  consist  of  three  kinds : — 1.  A 
very  short  imprisonment,  perhaps  of 
a  week  or  ten  days,  for  the  youngest 
criminals  and  a  first  trifling  offence, 
intended  to  terrify  merely.  2.  For  a 
second  offence,  however  trivial — or  a 
first,  if  considerable,  and  indicating 
an  association  with  professional 
thieves — a  long  imprisonment  of  nine 
months  or  a  year,  sufficient  to  teach 
every  one  a  trade,  should  invariably  be 
inflicted.  3.  The  criminal  who  has 
been  thus  imprisoned,  and  taught  a 
trade,  should,  when  next  convicted, 
be  instantly  transported.  In  this  way 
a  triple  advantage  would  be  gained. 
1.  The  immense  number  of  prisoners 
now  constantly  in  confinement  in  the 
British  islands  would  be  materially 
lessened,  and  the  prison -rates  propor- 
tionally relieved.  2.  The  cost  of  now 
maintaining  a  convict  in  one  of  the 
public  penitentiaries,  to  prepare  him 
for  transportation,  not  less  than  £17 
or  £18,  would  be  almost  entirely 
saved;  he  would  be  prepared  for  it, 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  by  his 
previous  imprisonment.  3.  The  cha- 
racter and  habits  of  the  convicts  sent 
out  would  be  materially  improved, 
by  getting  comparatively  young  and 
untainted  men  for  penal  labour,  in- 
stead of  old  offenders,  who  have  learned 
no  other  trade  than  that  of  thieving. 
To  the  country  it  would  undoubtedly 
save  £60  or  £80  on  each  criminal 
transported,  by  removing  him  at  the 
commencement  of  his  career,  when 
his  reformation  was  possible,  instead 
of  waiting  till  its  close,  when  he  had 
lived  for  three  or  four  years  in  flash- 
houses  and  prisons  at  the  public  ex- 
pense, paid  in  depredations  or  prison 
rates,  and  acquired  nothing  but  habits 
which  rendered  any  change  of  cha- 
racter abroad  difficult,  if  not  impos- 
sible. The  prisons  would  become, 
instead  of  mere  receptacles  of  vice, 
great  houses  of  industry,  where  the 
most  dangerous  and  burdensome  part 
of  our  population  would  be  trained 
for  a  life  of  industry  and  utility  in  the 
colonies. 

For  a  similar  reason,  the  great  ob- 
ject in  poor-houses,  houses  of  refuge, 


hospitals,  and  other  institutions  where 
the  destitute  poor  children  are  main- 
tained at  the  public  expense,  or  that 
of  foundations  bequeathed  by  the 
piety  of  former  times,  should  be  to 
prepare  the  young  of  both  sexes,  by 
previous  education,  for  the  habits  and 
duties  of  colonists ;  and,  when  they 
become  adults,  to  send  them  abroad  at 
the  expense  of  the  public  or  the  institu- 
tion. Incalculable  would  be  the 
blessings  which  would  ensue,  both  to 
the  public  morals  and  the  public  ex- 
penditure, from  the  steady  adoption 
of  this  principle.  It  is  a  lamentable 
fact,  well  known  to  all  practically 
acquainted  with  this  subject,  that  a 
large  proportion  of  the  orphan  or  des- 
titute boys,  educated  in  this  manner 
at  the  public  expense,  in  public  insti- 
tutions, become  thieves,  and  nearly 
all  the  girls  prostitutes.  It  could  not 
be  otherwise  with  young  creatures  of 
both  sexes,  turned  out  without  a 
home,  relation,  or  friend,  shortly  after 
the  age  of  puberty,  into  the  midst  of 
an  old  and  luxurious  community, 
overloaded  with  labour,  abounding  in, 
snares,  thickly  beset  with  temptations. 
Removed  to  Australia,  the  Cape,  or 
Canada,  they  might  do  well,  and 
would  prove  as  great  a  blessing  in 
those  colonies,  where  labour  is  dear, 
women  wanted,  and  land  boundless, 
as  they  are  a  burden  here,  where  la- 
bour is  cheap,  women  redundant,  and 
land  all  occupied.  Every  shilling  laid 
out  in  the  training  the  youth  of  both 
sexes  in  such  situations,  for  the  duties 
of  colonial  life,  and  sending  them  to  it 
when  adults,  would  save  three  in  fu- 
ture prison  or  poor  rates.  A  pauper 
or  criminal,  costing  the  nation  £15  or 
£20  a-year,  would  be  converted  into 
an  independent  man  living  on  his 
labour,  and  consuming  £7  or  £8  worth 
yearly  of  the  manufactures  of  his  na- 
tive country. 

The  number  of  emigrants  who  now 
annually  leave  the  British  shores,  is 
above  250,000 !  *  No  such  migration 
of  mankind  is  on  record  since  the  days 
when  the  Goths  and  Vandals  over- 
threw the  Roman  empire,  and  settled 
amidst  its  ruins.  It  might  naturally 
have  been  supposed  that  so  prodigious 
a  removal  of  persons,  most  of  them  in 


*  Viz. :— 1847,  258,000  ;   1848,  248,000  j    1849,  understood  to  be  still  larger.— 
Parliamentary  Reports. 


538 


The  Transportation  Question. 


[NOT. 


the  prime  of  life,  would  have  contri- 
buted in  a  material  degree  to  lighten 
the  market  of  labour,  and  lessen  the 
number  of  persons  who,  by  idleness 
or  desperation,  are  thrown  into  habits 
of  crime.  But  the  result  has  been 
just  the  reverse ;  and  perhaps  nothing 
has  contributed  so  powerfully  to  in- 
crease crime,  and  augment  destitution 
among  the  labouring  classes  of  late 
years,  as  this  very  emigration.  The 
reason  is  evident.  It  is  for  the  most 
part  the  wrong  class  which  has  gone 
abroad.  It  is  the  employer,  not  the 
employed ;  the  holders  of  little  capi- 
tals, not  the  holders  of  none.  Left  to 
its  own  unaided  resources,  emigration 
could  be  undertaken  only  by  persons 
possessed  of  some  funds  to  pay  their 
passage.  It  took  £100  to  transport 
a  family  to  Australia ;  £20  or  £30  to 
America.  The  destitute,  the  insol- 
vent, the  helpless,  could  not  get  away, 
and  they  fell  in  overwhelming  and 
crushing  multitudes  on  the  parish 
funds,  county  rates,  and  charity  of 
the  benevolent  at  home.  Labour  be- 
came everywhere  redundant,  because 
so  many  of  the  employers  of  labour 
had  gone  away.  The  grand  object 
for  all  real  lovers  of  their  country 
now,  should  be  to  induce  government 
or  the  counties  to  provide  means  for 
the  emigration,  on  a  large  scale,  of 


destitute  labourers,  chained  by  their 
poverty  to  the  soil.  About  150,000 
persons  have  annually  emigrated  from 
Ireland  for  the  last  three  years, 
carrying  with  them  above  half  its 
agricultural  capital ;  and  the  conse- 
quence is,  that  in  many  districts  the 
land  is  uncultivated,  and  the  bank- 
notes in  circulation,  which,  in  184Gr 
were  £7,500,000,  have  sunk  in  August 
1849  to  £3,833,000!*  The  small 
cultivators,  the  employers  of  the  poor, 
have  disappeared,  and  with  them  their 
capital — leaving  only  to  the  owners 
of  land  a  crowd  of  starving,  unem- 
ployed labourers,  to  consume  their 
rents.  A  million  of  such  starving 
labourers  now  oppress  the  industry  of 
Ireland.  Such  is  the  result  of  agita- 
tion at  home,  and  free  trade  in  emi- 
gration abroad.  The  American  papers 
tell  us,  that  each  of  these  starving 
Irishmen,  if  strong  and  healthy,  is 
worth  1000  dollars  to  the  United 
States.  Free-trade  emigration  can 
never  send  them  out — it  can  transport 
only  those  who  can  pay.  A  large 
increase  of  penal  emigration,  coupled 
with  such  a  proportionate  influx,  at 
the  public  expense,  of  free  settlers,  as 
would  prevent  it  from  becoming  an 
evil,  at  once  solves  the  transportation 
question,  and  is  the  first  step  in  the 
right  direction  in  that  of  Emigration. 


See  Dublin  University  Magazine,  October  1849,  p.  372. 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  7. 


539 


MY  PENINSULAR  MEDAL. 
BY  AN  OLD  PENINSULAR. 


PART  I. — CHAPTER  I. 


ON  the  evening  of  the  13th  of  Feb- 
ruary last,  I  was  sitting  in  my  library, 

at  my  residence  in Square,  when 

a  double  knock  at  the  door  announced 
the  postman.  Betty  presently  entered, 
bringing,  not  as  I  anticipated,  a  letter 
or  two,  but  a  small  packet,  which 
evidently  excited  her  curiosity,  as  it 
did  mine. 

The  first  thing  upon  the  said  packet 
that  caught  my  eye  was  a  large  seal 
of  red  wax — the  royal  arms ! — then, 
above  the  direction,  "  On  Her  Majes- 
ty's service ! " — just  beneath,  the  word, 
"Medal!"  Yes,  the  medal  that  I 
had  earned  five-and-thirty  years  be- 
fore, in  the  hard-fought  fight  on  the 
hill  of  Toulouse  —  long  expected,  it 
was  come  at  last !  And,  let  me  tell 
you,  a  very  handsome  medal,  too; 
well  designed,  well  executed;  and 
accompanied  with  a  very  civil  letter, 
from  that  old  soldier,  and  true  soldier's 
friend,  Lord  Fitzroy  Somerset,  the 
military  secretary.  This  letter  being, 
no  doubt,  precisely  the  same  as  hun- 
dreds of  "  Old  Peninsulars"  have  by 
this  time  received,  I  presume  I  am 
guilty  of  no  breach  of  confidence  in 
here  transcribing  it  for  the  benefit  of 
nay  readers : — 

"  Horse-Guards,  31st  January  1849. 

"  Sir, — I  am  directed  by  the  Com- 
mander-in- Chief  to  transmit  to  you 
the  Medal  and  Clasps  graciously 
awarded  to  you  by  her  Majesty  under 
the  general  order  of  the  first  of  June 
1847.  I  have  the  honour  to  be,  &c. 
"  FITZROY  SOMERSET." 

As  I  never  attempt  to  describe 
my  own  feelings,  except  such  as  are 
describable,  I  shall  not  relate  what  I 
aow  felt  on  the  receipt  of  this  much 
desired,  anxiously  expected  medal. 
But  this  I  will  say; — long  live  the 
Queen!  long  live  Queen  Victoria! 
God  bless  her !  Oh,  it  was  a  kind 
thought :  it  was  a  gracious  act.  It 
comes  to  cheer  the  heart  of  many  an 
old  soldier,  and  of  many  a  middle-aged 
gentleman  like  myself,  who  got  no- 


thing but  honour  and  aching  bones 
for  his  share  in  the  Peninsular  glories ; 
and  now  has  something  that  he  can 
add  to  the  archives  of  his  family,  and 
leave  to  those  who  come  after  him. 
"  Graciously  awarded  to  you  by  her 
Majesty:"  Yes;  and  I  feel  it  as  much 
so,  as  if  her  Majesty's  own  gracious 
hands  had  placed  it  in  mine.  And,  if 
ever  she  wants  defenders,  so  long  as 
this  arm  can  wield  —  but  enough  : 
romance  would  be  out  of  place. 

After  the  delivery  of  the  medals 
had  been  proceeding  for  some  time,  I 
was  coming,  one  morning,  out  of  the 
Horse-Guards,  when  I  met  old  Major 
Snaffle,  who  had  just  got  his.  The 
major  belongs  to  that  class  who  are 
known  in  the  army  by  the  name  of 
"  grumblers  ; "  and,  having  been 
knocked  down  by  the  wind  of  a  shot 
at  the  Trocadero,  having  been  brought 
away  in  the  last  boat  but  nineteen 
from  Corunna,  having  seen  the  battle 
of  Salamanca  from  the  top  of  a  tree, 
having  been  seized  with  the  ague  but 
an  hour  before  the  storming  of  Bada- 
joz,  having  again  been  very  ill  in  the 
south  of  France  from  eating  unripe 
grapes,  having  regularly  drawn  his 
pay  and  allowances,  and  never  having 
been  absent  from  his  regiment  on  sick 
leave  when  he  could  not  get  it,  now 
justly  deems  himself  a  very  ill-used 
man,  because  more  has  not  been  done 
for  him.  "  Well,  major,"  said  I,  "  I 
wish  you  joy.  So  you  have  got  your 
medal  at  last."  "  Yes,"  growled  the 
major,  or  rather  grunted,  "  at  last  I 
have  got  it.  Long  time,  though,  six- 
and-thirty  years  —  long  time  to  wait 
for  half-a-crown." 

My  own  profession,  at  present,  is 
very  different  from  that  of  arms. 
Nor  can  I  presume,  having  been  in 
but  one  general  action,  to  rank  with 
those  brave  old  fire-eaters  of  the  Pe- 
ninsular army,  whose  medals  with 
many  clasps — bar  above  bar — tell  of 
six,  seven,  eight,  critical  combats  or 
more,  in  which  they  took  a  part  under 
the  illustrious  Wellington,  in  Portu- 


540 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Nov. 


gal,  in  Spain,  in  the  south  of  France. 
By  the  bye,  how  I  should  like  to  see 
the  Duke's  own  medal !  What  a  lot 
of  bars  HE  must  have! — what  a  glori- 
ous ladder,  step  rising  above  step  in 
regular  succession,  when  he  sits  down 
to  soup  in  his  field- marshal's  coat ! 
But  I  was  going  to  say  —  to  return 
from  great  things  to  small  —  so  far 
from  being  able  to  claim  high  military 
honours  for  myself,  though  serving 
under  his  Grace's  orders  in  the  Penin- 
sular war,  I  was  not  there  at  all  in  a 
strictly  military  capacity.  Yet  as, 
from  this  very  circumstance,  I  had 
opportunities  of  seeing  scenes,  charac- 
ters, and  incidents,  connected  with 
the  British  army,  of  a  different  kind 
from  those  described  by  other  writers 
on  the  subject,  I  am  induced,  by  the 
arrival  of  my  medal,  to  place  on  record 
a  short  narrative  of  my  personal  ad- 
ventures in  the  Peninsula  and  south 
of  France. 

Yet,  ere  I  commence  the  yarn,  a 
word,  one  word,  for  the  honour- 
ed dead.  Many,  who  came  home 
safe  from  the  Peninsula,  fell  at 
Waterloo.  Others  were  borne  from 
the  western  ports  of  Europe  across 
the  Atlantic,  to  be  marks  for  Ken- 
tucky riflemen  and  New  England 
bushfighters.  Of  the  survivors,  mul- 
titudes upon  multitudes  have  gradually 
dropped  off;  and  those  who  now  re- 
main, of  the  legions  that  conquered  at 
Vimeira,  at  Vittoria,  and  at  Orthes, 
to  receive  her  Majesty's  gracious 
gift,  are  probably  fewer  in  number 
than  those  who  are  gone.  One  "  Old 
Peninsular"  I  have  heard  of,  in  whose 
own  family  and  connexions,  had  all 
lived,  there  would  have  been  fourteen 
or  fifteen  claimants  of  the  medal.  He 
is  now,  if  he  still  survives,  the  only 
one  left.  In  my  own  connexions  we 
should  have  made  seven ;  and  now, 
besides  myself,  there  remains  only 
one  venerable  uncle,  who  is  comfort- 
ably located  in  a  snug  berth  in  Canada. 
There  was  my  honoured  father,  who 
received  the  thanks  of  parliament  for 
his  services  at  Corunna,  and  pounded 
the  French  batteries  at  Cadiz.  There 
was  my  cousin,  Tom  Impett,  of  the 
53d,  whom  I  found  with  a  musket- 
ball  in  his  leg  two  days  after  the 
battle  of  Toulouse,  in  a  house  full  of 
wounded  men  and  officers.  He  died 
in  Canada.  There  was  another  vene- 


rable uncle,  as  kind  an  uncle  as  ever 
breathed,  and  as  honest  a  man  as 
ever  lived.  He  died,  to  his  honour, 
far  from  rich,  after  having  been  per- 
sonally responsible  for  millions  upon 
millions  of  public  money,  the  sinews 
of  war,  all  paid  away  in  hard  cash  for 
our  Peninsular  expenses.  He  was  ge- 
nerally known  at  headquarters  by  a 
comical  modification  of  his  two  Chris- 
tian names.  There  was  Captain,  after- 
wards Colonel  B ,  of  the  Royal 

Engineers,  a  quiet,  mild-tempered 
man,  with  military  ardour  glowing  in 
his  breast — the  man  of  education  and 
the  gentleman.  We  met  near  the 
platform  of  St  Cyprien;  and  he  had 
the  kindness  to  entertain  me  with  a 
calm  disquisition  on  the  fight,  while 
we  were  both  in  the  thick  of  it.  He 
had  his  share  of  professional  employ- 
ment in  the  Peninsular  sieges,  and  got 
a  bad  wound  or  two ;  but  lived  to 
fortify  Spike  Island,  and  was  at  length 
lost  at  sea.  And  then  there  was  colo- 
nel H ,  who  commanded  a  Portu- 
guese brigade  with  the  rank  of  briga- 
dier-general— an  extraordinary  com- 
position of  waggery,  shrewdness,  chi- 
valry, and  professional  talent.  He 
came  down  to  Lisbon  while  I  was 
there,  on  his  way  to  England,  quite 
worn  out  with  hard  service  and  the 
effect  of  his  wounds,  or,  as  he  told  us 
himself,  "  unripped  at  every  seam." 
He  died  not  many  days  after,  on  his 
passage  to  England. 

Now  for  myself.  I  commenced 
keeping  my  terms  at  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  in  the  year  1809,  the 
seventeenth  of  my  age.  A  college 
life  was  not  altogether  my  own  choice ; 
for  nearly  all  the  males  of  my  family, 
for  three  generations,  had  served  or 
were  serving  their  country  either  in 
the  army,  navy,  or  marines,  to  the 
number  of  some  ten  or  twelve  ;  and  I 
myself  had  always  looked  forward  to 
wearing  the  king's  uniform.  More- 
over, as  the  Peninsular  war  had  al- 
ready commenced  when  I  went  to  col- 
lege, and  I  had  learned  at  school  the 
use  of  the  broadsword  and  small 
sword,  had  been  drilled,  and  could 
handle  a  musket,  my  thoughts  often 
turned  to  military  scenes,  especially 
when  I  read  in  the  daily  journals  of 
victories  won,  first  by  Sir  Arthur 
Wellesley,  then  by  Lord  Wellington. 
But,  once  at  Cambridge,  I  caught  the 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


541 


fever    of   academic  emulation.     My 

cousin  B (brother  of  the  Captain 

B above  mentioned,)   had  been 

senior  wrangler,  and  had  given  me 
some  useful  hints  as  to  the  mode  of 
reading  with  effect ;  I  read  hard,  ob- 
tained a  Trinity  scholarship  in  my  first 
year,  first  class  the  same  year,  ditto 
the  second  year,  and  stood  fair  for  a 
place  among  the  wranglers..  But  now 
my  health  broke  ;  not,  however,  from 
hard  living,  but  from  hard  study.  I 
was  compelled  to  give  up ;  and,  not 
choosing  to  read  for  a  middling  degree 
after  having  been  booked  for  a  high 
one,  determined  to  go  out  among  the 
hoys.  Now  my  penchant  for  military 
adventure  returned  with  full  force.  I 
was  miserably  out  of  health,  with  an 
excellent  constitution — in  proof  of 
which  I  always  found  that  I  lost 
ground  by  nursing,  but  gained  by  a 
rough  open-air  life.  A  campaign  or 
two  would  be  just  the  thing  for  me. 
And  I  beg  to  offer  this  suggestion  to 
growing  young  gentlemen  who  are 
sickly,  and  consequently  hipped,  as  I 
was.  If,  with  rough  living — that  is, 
with  much  moving  about,  and  constant 
exposure  to  the  atmosphere — you  grow 
worse,  I  can  give  you  no  comfort ;  you 
are  a  poor  creature,  take  all  the  care 
of  yourself  you  can.  But  if,  with  the 
same  kind  of  life,  you  grow  better, 
stronger,  stouter,  heartier,  saucier, 
depend  upon  it,  you  have  some  sta- 
mina. This  was  my  case.  I  saw 
that  a  sedentary  life  was  not  the  life  I 
was  made  for  ;  an  active  life  was  the 
life  for  me ;  and  my  thoughts  dwelt 
more  and  more  on  the  Peninsula.  I 
rubbed  up  my  French,  procured  a 
Gil  Bias  in  Spanish,  ditto  in  Portu- 
guese, a  Portuguese  and  a  Spanish 
grammar,  and,  for  a  sick  man,  made 
wonderful  progress  in  all  the  three 
languages. 

But,  alas!  there  was  a  hitch.  I 
was  an  only  son,  and  an  only  child — 
intended  for  the  law!  My  dear  father 
had  already  made  me  a  present,  while 
at  school,  of  Fortescue  De  Laudibus ; 
and  I  had  already  gobbled  up  a  por- 
tion of  that  excellent  work — for  I  was 
always  an  omnivorous  reader — and 


had  digested  it  too.  And  then  what 
Avould  my  dear  mother  say,  if  I  talked 
to  her  about  going  to  be  shot  at  for 
the  benefit  of  my  health  ?  It  was  a 
delicate  point  to  manage,  and  how  to 
manage  it  I  knew  not. 

In  the  long  vacation  of  1812,  which 
closed  my  third  year  at  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  I  brought  matters 
to  an  explanation.  My  father's 

ship,  the  ,  74,  was  then  in  the 

Downs,  and  we  had  lodgings  on  Wal- 
mer  beach.  I  stated  my  desire  to 
enter  the  army,  and  my  firm  convic- 
tion that  nothing  else  would  restore 
my  shattered  constitution.  But  my 
father  was  inflexible,  my  mother  an- 
swered all  my  arguments,  and  I  saw 
that  I  had  no  chance. 

But  when  one  way  of  gaining  an 
object  fails,  another  sometimes  pre- 
sents itself.  My  two  uncles,  of  whom 
I  have  spoken,  were  already  in  the 
Peninsula,  both  of  them  in  the  same 
department,  the  senior  at  the  head  of 
it,  with  the  privilege  of  occasionally 
nominating  his  own  clerks.  Their 
friends  in  England  heard  from  them 
now  and  then  ;  and  I  saw  a  letter 
from  my  senior  uncle  to  a  particular 
old  crony  of  his  own,  who  had  influ- 
ential connexions,  asking  him  why  he 
did  not  come  out  to  the  army  with  the 
rank  of  A.  D.  P.  M.  G.,*  instead  of 
staying  at  home,  and  eating  roast  pig 
for  supper. 

Like  all  the  hipped,  a  miserable 
race,  I  was  constantly  thinking  about 
myself;  and  now  a  happy  thought 
struck  me.  As  to  parliamentary  inte- 
rest, to  be  sure  I  had  none.  Besides, 
being  under  one-and-twenty,  I  was 
not  of  an  age  to  aspire  to  an  officer's 
rank,  in  a  department  of  so  much  re- 
sponsibility as  the  paymaster-gene- 
ral's ;  therefore,  the  above  standing 
of  assistant-deputy,  which  put  an 
epaulet  on  the  shoulder  at  once,  was 
not  to  be  thought  of.  But  then,  if 
Buonaparte  would  only  have  the  kind- 
ness to  keep  us  in  hot  water  two  or 
three  years  longer,  I  might  rise  to  the 
said  rank  by  previous  good  conduct  in 
the  office  of  clerk,  and  that  my  uncle 
could  get  me  at  once. 


*  For  the  benefit  of  the  uninitiated,  assistant-deputy-paymaster-general;  A.A.D. 
P.  M.  G.,  acting-assistant-deputy-paymaster-general;  a  long  title,  but  not  so  long,  by 
four  syllables,  as  that  of  the  letter-carrier  of  a  certain  German  war-office  — Ober- 
kriegsversammhingrathsverhandlungpapieraufhebergeliulfe. 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


512 

I  again  broke  ground  with  my 
honoured  parents.  My  father  assured 
me  that,  if  I  went  to  Lisbon,  where  he 
had  been  stationed  with  his  ship,  I 
should  find  it  a  hell  upon  earth  : 
though  I  afterwards  learned  that  he 
had  contrived  to  spend  a  tolerably 
happy  life  there.  "  And  as  to  your 
being  attached  to  headquarters,  and 
following  the  movements  of  the  army, 
I,"  said  he,  "  have  seen  quite  enough 
of  service  ashore  to  be  able  to  tell  you 
that  you  will  be  soon  sick  of  that." 
But,  to  cut  the  story  short,  my  dear 
mother  now  began  to  incline  to  my 
view  of  the  subject.  To  be  sure  a 
clerkship  was  not  exactly  what  they 
had  thought  of  for  me — but  it  might 
lead  to  something  better — no  man's 
education  was  complete  without  a  tour 
on  the  Continent — the  usual  tour 
through  France,  Italy,  and  the  south 
of  Germany,  was  rendered  impossible 
by  the  war — and  where,  in  all  Europe, 
could  a  young  man  travel,  except  in 
Spain  and  Portugal?  Fighting,  and 
paying  those  who  fought,  were  diffe- 
rent things — I  might  keep  out  of  the 
way  of  bullets,  and  yet  contrive  to  see 
the  world.  In  short,  these  arguments 
prevailed.  A  letter  was  written  out 
to  my  uncle,  begging  him  to  write  a 
letter  to  the  head  office  in  London, 
nominating  me  as  one  of  his  clerks  for 
Peninsular  service.  I  went  back  to 
Cambridge,  attacked  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  with  renewed  ferocity, 
took  my  degree  of  A.  B.,  and  returned 
home  in  the  early  part  of  1813,  just  in 
time  to  meet  a  letter  from  the  best  of 
uncles,  stating  that  he  had  written  to 
the  home  authorities,  and  was  anxi- 
ously expecting  my  valuable  assis- 
tance in  the  Peninsula. 

Nothing  was  now  wanting  but  the 
nomination  from  London.  That  anxi- 
ous month !  Morning  after  morning  I 
watched  for  the  postman's  knock  ; 
and,  at  every  such  summons,  it  was 
myself  that  opened  the  door  to  him. 
But  great  bodies  move  slowly,  and 
official  dignity  delights  to  announce 
itself  by  tardiness  of  action.  At 
length  the  wished-for  communication 
arrived ;  a  letter,  u  On  His  Majesty's 
Service,"  of  no  common  magnitude  ; 
a  seal  of  correspondent  amplitude ; 
and  an  intimation,  in  terms  of  stately 
brevity,  that  I  was  appointed  a  clerk 
of  the  military  chest  attached  to  the 


[Nov. 


Peninsular  army,  and  was  to  attend 
at  the  office  in  London  to  receive  my 
instructions. 

During  that  month  the  bustle  of 
preparation,  in  our  usually  quiet  domi- 
cile, had  been  immense.  Stockings 
sufficient  to  set  up  a  Cheapside  hosier, 
shirts  enough  for  a  voyage  to  India, 
flannel  commensurate  with  a  visit  to 
the  North  Pole — everything,  in  short, 
that  could  be  thought  of,  was  prepared 
for  the  occasion  with  kind  and  provi- 
dent care.  I  said  farewell,  reached 
London,  reported  myself,  got  my 
orders  and  an  advance,  booked  my 
place  for  Falmouth,  and  found  myself 
the  same  evening  a  passenger  to  Exe- 
ter by  the  fast  coach. 

In  those  times,  the  journey  from 
London  to  Falmouth  by  the  fast  coach 
was  a  light  off-hand  affair  of  two 
nights  and  two  days.  We  reached 
Exeter  on  the  second  night,  and  there 
I  was  allowed  the  indulgence  of  three 
hours'  bed,  till  the  Falmouth  coach 
was  ready  to  start.  As  part  of  the 
said  three  hours  was  occupied  in  un- 
dressing and  dressing,  and  part  also 
in  saying  my  prayers,  I  entered  the 
new  vehicle  far  more  disposed  for 
sleep  than  for  conversation.  But 
there  I  found,  to  my  consternation,  a 
very  chatty  passenger,  perfectly/rcs/i/ 
He  was  a  man  of  universal  informa- 
tion— in  short,  a  talented  individual, 
and  an  intellectual  character ;  had  his 
own  ideas  upon  morals,  politics,  theo- 
logy, physics,  metaphysics,  and  gene- 
ral literature ;  wasparticularly anxious 
to  impart  them ;  and  was  travelling  to 
obtain  orders  in  the  rum  and  hollauds 
line.  Ah,  what  a  night  was  that ! 
Oh  the  dismal  suffering  which  a  prosy 
talker  inflicts  on  a  weary  head  !  Of  all 
nuisances,  the  most  unconscious  is 
the  bore.  I  do  think  the  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Commons  is  the  most  ill- 
used  man  in  the  three  kingdoms.  Re- 
flect :  he  must  not  only  hear — he 
must  listen!  And  then  think  what  a 
time  ! — hour  after  hour,  and  day  after 
day !  For  a  period  amounting,  in  the 
aggregate,  to  no  small  portion  of  the 
life  of  man,  must  that  unfortunate  vic- 
tim of  British  institutions  sit  and 
hearken  to 

"  Now  a  louder,  now  a  weaker, 
Now  a  snorter,  now  a  squeaker  ; 
How  I  pity  Mr  Speaker  !" 

Some  portion  of  such  suffering  I  my- 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  7. 


543 


.self  was  now  compelled  to  endure,  by 
my  communicative  friend  in  the  Fal- 
mouth  coach.  To  be  sure,  it  was 
only  a  single  proser ;  but  then  there 
was  variety  in  one.  He  commenced 
by  a  few  remarks  on  the  weather,  by 
which  he  introduced  a  disquisition  on 
meteorology.  He  then  passed,  by  an 
easy  transition,  to  the  question  of 
secondary  punishments ;  glanced  at 
the  theory  of  gravitation ;  dwelt  for 
some  time  on  heraldry ;  touched  on 
hydrostatics;  waslarge onlogarithms ; 
then  digressed  on  the  American  war  ; 
proposed  emendations  of  our  autho- 
rised version ;  discussed  the  Neptu- 
nian theory ;  and  at  length  suspended 
his  course,  to  inform  me  that  I  was 
decidedly  the  most  agreeable  fellow- 
traveller  he  had  ever  met  with.  The 
fact  is,  I  was  sitting  up  all  this  time 
in  the  corner  of  the  coach,  in  a  state 
of  agony  and  indignation  indescribable, 
meditating  some  mode  of  putting  a 
stop  to  the  annoyance,  and  mentally 
seeking  a  solution  to  the  question — 
What  right  has  a  very  stupid  person 
to  make  your  brain  a  thoroughfare 
for  his  stupid  ideas,  especially  when 
you  would  particularly  like  to  go  to 
sleep?  He  mistook  my  silence  for 
attention,  and  thought  he  was  appre- 
ciated. This  went  on  till  daylight — 
continued  to  breakfast- time — proceed- 
ed during  breakfast — ceased  not  when 
we  had  re-entered  the  coach — talk, 
talk,  talk,  de  omnibus  rebus  et  quibus- 
dam  aliis — still  the  same  stream  of 
stuff.  That  long,  that  dreary  journey 
from  Exeter  to  Falmouth !  The  soft 
lull  of  somnolency  came  at  length  to 
my  relief;  and  I  began  to  nod  my 
assent,  much  to  my  tormentor's  grati- 
fication. But  presently  I  was  dead 
asleep  ;  and,  most  unfortunately,  my " 
head  dropped  forward  into  the  pit  of 
his  stomach.  The  breath,  knocked 
out  of  his  body,  escaped  with  a  gasp, 
like  an  Indian's  "  ugh !"  In  a  moment 
I  was  broad  awake,  and  made  a  thou- 
sand apologies,  which  he  politely  ac- 
cepted, and  renewed  the  thread  of  his 
discourse.  Again,  I  dropped  off ;  and 
again  my  head  dropped  forward. 
Another  "ugh!"  another  ocean  of 
apologies,  another  resumption  of  the 
endless  yarn.  The  other  passengers, 
two  sedate  and  remarkably  silent 
.gentlemen  of  Falmouth,  in  broad- 
brimmed  hats  and  drab  coats  of  a 


peculiar  cut,  had  each  his  weather- 
eye  open,  and  began  to  enjoy  the  joke 
amazingly.  Gradually,  once  more, 
the  incessant  clack  subsided  in  my 
ears  to  a  pleasing  hum ;  I  was  off; 
the  cervical,  dorsal,  and  lumbar 
muscles  once  more  lost  their  tension 
beneath  the  narcotic  influence  of 
incessant  sound ;  and  my  drowsy 
head  gave  a  pitch  as  before,  with  the 
same  results — "  ugh!" — apologies  un- 
limited—  ditto  accepted  —  and  more 
yarn.  The  Quakers —  I  beg  their 
pardon,  the  "Friends"  —  are,  you 
must  know,  eminently  humourists. 
This,  please  to  take  notice,  arises  from 
their  superior  intelligence,  and  high 
degree  of  mental  culture ;  the  result 
of  which  is  high  susceptibility.  You 
might  now  have  seen,  in  our  two  fel- 
low-travellers in  the  Falmouth  coach, 
what  you  would  see  nowhere  but  in 
their  "connexion" — two  men  ready  to 
die  of  laughing,  and  each  looking  as 
grave  as  a  judge.  For  a  few  miles  it 
went  on.  Talk — sleep — head  pitched 
into  bread-basket — "  ugh !" — pungent 
and  profound  regrets — regrets  accept- 
ed— talk  recommenced — and  so  on 
with  a  perpetual  da  capo.  At  length 
the  most  gifted  of  gratuitous  lec- 
turers began  to  perceive  that  he  was 
contributing  to  the  amusement  of  the 
party  in  a  way  that  he  had  not  intend- 
ed, and  grew  indignant.  But  I  paci- 
fied him,  as  we  drove  into  Falmouth, 
by  politely  soliciting  a  card  of  his 
house ;  stepped  out  of  the  coach  into 
the  coffee-room  of  the  hotel,  out  of 
the  coffee-room  into  bed  as  soon  as  it 
was  ready,  and  made  up  for  two 
sleepless  nights  by  not  coming  down  to 
breakfast  till  two  o'clock  the  next  day. 
The  Lisbon  packet  was  not  to  sail 
for  a  week.  My  extra  baggage 
arrived  in  due  time  by  the  heavy ; 
and  I  occupied  the  interval,  as  best  I 
could,  in  a  pedestrian  survey  of  the 
environs  of  Falmouth,  walks  to  Truro, 
Pendennis  Castle,  &c.  I  was  much 
delighted  with  clouted  cream,  and 
gave  the  landlady  an  unlimited  order 
always  to  let  me  have  a  John  dory  for 
dinner,  when  there  was  one  in  the 
market.  N.B. — No  place  like  Fal- 
mouth for  John  dories.  Clouted  cream 
always  ask  for,  when  you  go  into  the 
West — very  good  with  tea,  not  bad 
with  coffee ;  and?«e»i.,  unimpeachable 
with  apple-pie. 


544 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Nov. 


The  packet,  that  was  to  have  the 
honour  of  conveying  mefromFalmouth 
to  Lisbon,  was  a  little  tub  of  a  gun- 
brig,  yclept  the  Princess  Wilhelmina. 
Judging  from  her  entire  want  of  all 
the  qualities  requisite  for  the  service 
on  which  she  was  employed,  I  pre- 
sume she  must  have  obtained  the 
situation  through  some  member  of 
parliament.  Her  captain  was  laid  up 
with  the  gout ;  and  we  were  to  be 
commanded  by  the  mate,  who  turned 
out  to  be  a  Yankee,  and  an  ugly  cus- 
tomer; but  more  of  him  anon.  At 
the  same  hotel  where  I  had  established 
my  habitat,  was  a  military  party, 
three  in  number,  waiting,  like  myself, 
for  the  sailing  of  the  packet ;  yet  not, 
like  myself,  men  fresh  in  the  service, 
but  all  three  regular  "  Peninsulars" — 
men  who  had  returned  on  leave  from 
the  British  army,  and  were  now  about 


to  join,  in  time  for  the  opening  of  the 
campaign.  They  had  established 
themselves  in  a  front  drawing-room 
on  the  first  floor,  seemed  very  fond  of 
music,  and  had  good  voices.  But  as 
they  always  sang  together,  and  each 
sang  his  own  song,  it  was  not  easy  to 
determine  the  vocal  powers  of  each. 
The  coffee-room  was  quite  good  enough 
for  me ;  and  there  I  had  the  honour 
of  forming  the  acquaintance  of  an- 
other fellow- voyager  that  was  to  be — 
a  partner  in  a  large  London  house  in 
the  Manchester  line,  whom,  to  avoid 
personality,  I  beg  leave  to  distinguish 
by  the  name  of  Gingham.  He  had 
many  of  the  peculiarities  of  Cockney- 
ism,  and  some  that  were  entirely  his 
own;  but  I  found  him  a  very  pleasant 
companion,  and  we  perambulated  the 
town  and  neighbourhood  in  com- 
pany. 


CHAPTER   II. 


My  first  chapter  brought  me,  on  my 
way  to  Portugal,  as  far  as  the  Royal 
Hotel,  Falmoath.  At  this  stage  of 
my  travels,  I  must  beg  to  detain  the 
reader  for  a  short  space ;  for  here  it  is 
that  I  may  be  said  to  have  had  my 
seasoning ;  here,  in  fact,  I  obtained 
my  first  introduction  to  military  so- 
ciety, and  to  military  life,  as  it  pre- 
vailed at  the  British  headquarters  in 
the  Peninsula.  This  advantage  I 
gained  by  falling  in  with  the  party  of 
"  Peninsulars "  already  mentioned, 
who  were  on  their  way  out,  like  my- 
self. I  must  also  make  my  readers 
better  acquainted  with  my  friend 
Gingham,  whom  I  hope  they  will  not 
dislike  on  further  knowledge.  Ging- 
ham and  I  afterwards  campaigned  in 
company.  I  must  premise  that  he 
had  a  touch  of  romance ;  and,  as  I 
afterwards  discovered,  had  not  been 
brought  up  as  a  merchant. 

It  was  the  early  spring  of  1813  :  a 
year  big  with  events  of  import  to 
Spain,  to  France,  to  England,  and,  in 
fact,  to  the  whole  of  Europe.  On 
leaving  London  by  the  fast  coach,  we 
had  bowled  away  over  frozen  roads. 
But  at  Falmouth,  the  trees  were  bud- 
ding in  the  hedgerows,  the  sun  was 
shining,  the  birds  were  singing;  while 
the  soft  air  stole  gently  by,  and, 
whispering,  sportively  saluted  us  as  it 


passed,  like  some  coy  nymph  invisible 
— that  idea  was  Gingham's — the  sky 
was  clear,  and  the  haze  danced  in  the 
sunshine  on  the  distant  hills — Gingham 
again.  Towards  the  afternoon,  it 
generally  fell  calm.  The  capacious 
harbour,  smooth  as  glass,  though 
gently  undulating  at  its  entrance,  with 
the  swell  of  the  Atlantic  that  rolled 
lazily  in,  bore  on  its  bosom  not  only 
the  tub-like  Princess  Wilhelmina  and 
her  Yankee  mate,  but  many  a  noble 
vessel  of  ampler  tonnage,  that  showed 
no  water-line  in  the  transparent  and 
silent  mirror  on  which  it  floated,  and 
seemed  to  hang  suspended  between 
earth  and  heaven,  motionless  in  the 
sun-lit  and  misty  ether. 

A  very  odd  fish  was  that  Gingham. 
We  enjoyed  our  walks  amazingly. 
He  was  going  out  to  Lisbon  in  a  large 
way,  on  a  mission  of  mercantile  specu- 
lation, with  full  authority  from  his 
firm  to  do  anything  and  everything, 
whether  in  the  way  of  contracts  for 
the  army,  buying  up  commissariat 
bills,  engaging  in  monetary  transac- 
tions, or,  above  all — for  that  was  his 
chief  object — forming  a  Peninsular  con- 
nexion, and  opening  a  new  market  for 
British  goods.  His  was,  indeed,  a 
voyage  of  enterprise  and  of  discovery  ; 
not,  however,  his  first.  His  manners 
were  precise.  He  was  a  higgler  in 


1819.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  /. 


little  things,  but  had  large  ideas,  and 
lots  of  gentlemanly  feeling.  Like 
many  other  Cockneys  of  those  days, 
he  was  always  dressed,  and  always 
conscious  of  being  dressed.  His  hat 
was  white,  with  the  exception  of  the 
interior  green  of  the  brim,  which 
matched  with  his  spectacles.  His 
gloves  were  white,  his  unmentionables 
were  white,  and  so  was  his  waistcoat. 
His  white  cravat  was  tied  before  in  a 
sort  of  pilot-balloon,  or  white  rosi- 
crucian  puff.  His  hair  also  was 
pomatum'd,  and  powdered  white. 
His  very  pigtail,  all  but  the  narrow 
silk  ribbon  that  held  it  together,  was 
white.  His  coat  was  not  white,  but 
a  light  pepper-and-salt,  approaching 
to  white.  On  the  whole,  there  was 
so  much  white  in  his  general  appear- 
ance, that  on  board  the  packet  he  at 
ouce  received  the  name  of  "  the  white 
man."  He  was  generally  well-in- 
formed, but  particularly  so  in  matters 
of  commerce.  Our  intimacy  increased 
rapidly,  and  I  afterwards,  indeed  very 
soon,  found  the  advantage  of  it.  He 
was  naturally  of  a  communicative  dis- 
position, while  he  had  much  to  com- 
municate that  was  worth  knowing. 
In  me  he  found  a  willing  hearer  ;  for 
I  was  glad  to  receive  any  kind  of  use- 
ful information.  With  the  prospect 
before  us  of  a  campaign  in  common, 
we  soon  knocked  up  a  sort  of  friend- 
ship. 

Gingham  could  do  the  handsome 
thing.  Two  days  before  our  embarka- 
tion he  insisted  on  my  dining  with 
him — taking  my  chop  with  him,  he 
called  it — in  return  for  half  a  beef- 
stake,  which  he  had  accepted  from 
me  at  breakfast,  his  own  being  de- 
layed. I  entered  the  coffee-room  at 
the  appointed  hour  ;  but  was  ushered 
up  stairs  into  a  private  room  with 
some  degree  of  ceremony  by  the 
waiter,  who,  I  observed,  had  on 
gloves,  knees,  silk  stockings,  and 
pumps. 

Gingham  was  there.  He  had  order- 
ed a  regular  spread.  We  sat  down. 
The  landlord,  who  had  not  hitherto 
made  himself  visible,  emerged  on  this 
festive  occasion,  brought  in  the  soup, 
bowed,  and  retired.  Gingham  said 
grace.  The  soup  excellent :  it  was 
turtle  !  "  Capital  turtle  !"  said  I ; 
"  had  no  idea  that  anything  half  so 
good  was  to  be  had  in  all  Falmouth." 


"  Always  take  a  small  stock  when  I 
travel,"  said  Gingham  ;  "  got  a  dozen 
three-quart  cases  from  Cornhill.  Just 
found  room  for  it  in  my  travelling 
store  -  closet. "  "  Travelling  store- 
closet  !"  thought  I :  "  what  a  capital 
fellow  to  campaign  with  !" 

Soup  removed.  Re-enter  landlord, 
attended  by  waiter.  John  dory,  in 
compliment  to  me,  splendid.  Large 
soles,  fried.  "  I  despise  the  man 
that  boils  a  sole,"  said  Gingham.  It 
was  despicable,  I  admitted.  "My 
dear  sir,"  said  he,  u  allow  me  to  lay 
down  a  principle,  which  you  will  find 
useful  as  long  as  you  live.  With 
boiled  fish — turbot,  for  instance,  or 
John  dory— always  take  sauce.  You 
did  quite  right,  in  allowing  me  to 
help  you  to  sauce  just  now.  But  with 
fried  fish,  at  least  with  fried  sole — 
this,  for  instance — never,  never  per- 
mit sauce  or  melted  butter  to  be  put 
upon  your  plate."  It  was  a  manoeuvre 
to  get  me  to  try  the  sole,  after  the 
John  dory.  "  Fried  sole  without 
butter  ?"  said  I.  u  Try  it  my  way," 
said  Gingham,  helping  me :  "  take 
some  salt — that's  right — now  put  to 
that  a  modicum  of  cayenne — there — a 
little  more — don't  be  afraid  of  putting 
enough — cayenne,  though  hot,  is  not 
heating,  like  common  pepper — now 
mix  them  well  together  with  the  point 
of  your  knife."  I  obeyed  implicitly. 
"  Now  then,"  said  Gingham,  with  a 
look  of  exultation,  "  TRY  THAT."  I 
tried  it ;  and  owned  that  I  had  never 
known,  till  then,  the  right  way  of 
eating  fried  sole.  It  was  excellent, 
even  after  the  John  dory.  Try  it,  only 
try  it,  the  first  time  a  fried  sole  ap- 
pears on  the  dinner  table,  under  which 
are  your  legs. 

A  peculiar  sound  at  the  side-table 
now  announced  that  he  of  the  pumps 
was  opening  a  bottle  of  champagne. 
Up  to  that  moment  we  had  managed 
to  put  up  with  Madeira,  which  was 
the  fashionable  dinner  wine  in  those 
days.  N.B. — Good  wine  to  be  got  at 
Falmouth.  It  comes  direct  from 
abroad,  not  via  London. 

Fish  removed.  Door  opens.  Though 
rejoicing  in  those  days  in  a  very  fair 
appetite,  I  was  rather  alarmed,  after 
such  a  commencement  of  our  humble 
meal,  at  the  thought  of  what  might  be 
coming.  But  Gingham  had  a  delicacy 
of  taste,  which  never  overdid  things. 


546 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Nov. 


Enter  once  more  the  landlord,  bearing 
an  elegant  little  saddle  of  Dartmoor 
mutton,  and  audibly  whispering  to  the 
waiter,  "  Boiled  fowls  and  tongue  to 
follow."  I  commenced  this  history 
with  a  resolution  to  conceal  nothing  ; 
therefore,  away  with  reserve  :  both 
mutton,  fowls,  and  tongue  were  excel- 
lent. "  A  little  more  Madeira,  Mr 
Y — ,"  said  Gingham.  The  currant 
jelly  had  distasted  my  mouth.  I 
merely  put  the  glass  to  my  lips,  and 
set  it  down  again.  Gingham  observed, 
and  at  once  discovered  the  reason. 
"  Take  a  mouthful  of  potato,"  said 
Gingham,  "  the  hottest  you  can  find 
in  the  dish."  My  taste  was  restored. 
Table  cleared  again.  I  hoped  the 
next  entree  would  be  the  cheese  and 
celery. 

During  the  short  armistice,  Ging- 
ham, who  delighted  to  communicate 
useful  knowledge,  resumed  the  subject 
of  the  potato.  Like  all  merchants 
who  pay  frequent  visits  to  the  Penin- 
sula— and  Gingham  .had  been  there 
often — he  was  knowing  in  wines,  and 
in  everything  vinous.  "  Yes,"  said 
he,  "  nothing  like  a  mouthful  of  hot 
potato  to  make  you  taste  wine.  There 
are  lots  of  things  besides,  but  none 
equal  to  that.  The  invention  is  my 
own." 

"  Then,"  replied  I,  "  I  presume  you 
use  it  at  Oporto  and  Xeres,  when  you 
make  purchases  ?  " 

"  Why,  not  exactly  that  neither," 
said  he.  "  The  worst  of  it  is,  it  makes 
all  wine  relish  alike,  bad  as  well  as 
good.  Now,  in  buying  wine,  you 
want  something  to  distinguish  the 
good  wine  from  the  bad.  And  for 
this  purpose — "  The  landlord  and 
waiter  reappeared. 

"  Sorry,  Mr  Y — ,  there  is  no  game," 
said  Gingham.  "  Fine  jack  hare  in 
the  larder  this  morning,  but  rather 
late  in  the  season.  Wouldn't  have  it. 
Can  you  finish  oif  with  one  or  two 
light  things  in  the  French  way?" 
"  My  dear  sir,  my  dear  sir  !" 
The  table  was  this  time  covered 
with  such  a  display  of  patisserie,  maca- 
roni, and  made  dishes,  as  would  have 
formed  of  itself  a  very  handsome 
petit  souper  for  half-a-dozen  people. 
Gingham  wanted  me  to  try  every- 
thing, and  set  me  an  example. 

The  whole  concluded,  and  the  cloth 
.about  to  be  removed,  "  Mr  Ging- 


ham," said  I,  "  you  said  grace  before 
dinner,  and  I  think  /  ought  to  say 
grace  -now."  The  waiter  drew  up 
reverently  with  his  back  to  the  side- 
board, adjusted  his  neckcloth,  and 
tightened  with  his  right  hand  the  glove 
upon  his  left. 

We  sat  sipping  our  wine,  and  nib- 
bling at  a  very  handsome  dessert.  I. 
wanted  to  know  more  about  distin- 
guishing good  wine  from  bad. 

"  I  have  made  large  purchases  of 
wine  on  commission,"  said  Gingham, 
"  for  private  friends ;  and  that,  you 
know,  is  a  delicate  business,  and 
sometimes  a  thankless  one.  But  I 
never  bought  a  bad  lot  yet ;  and  if 
they  found  fault  with  it,  I  wouldn't 
let  them  have  it — kept  it  myself,  or 
sold  it  for  more  in  the  market." 

"  You  were  just  on  the  point,"  said 
I,  "  of  mentioning  a  method  of  dis- 
tinguishing good  wine  from  bad." 

"  Well,"  replied  he,  "  those  fellows 
there,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Bay  of 
Biscay,  have  methods  innumerable. 
After  all,  taste,  judgment,  and  ex- 
perience must  decide.  The  Oporto 
wine  -  merchants,  who  know  what 
they  are  about,  use  a  sort  of  silver 
saucer,  with  its  centre  bulging  up- 
wards. In  this  saucer  they  make  the 
wine  spin  round.  My  plan  is  dif- 
ferent." 

"  I  should  like  to  know  it,"  said  I. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  he,  "  mix  with 
water — two-thirds  water  to  one-third 
wine.  Then  try  it." 

"  Well  ?" 

"  If  there  is  any  bad  taste  in  the 
wine,  the  mixing  brings  it  out.  Did 
you  never  notice  in  London,  even  if 
the  port  or  sherry  seems  passable 
alone,  when  you  water  it  the  compound 
is  truly  horrid,  too  nauseous  to  drink  V" 

"  The  fact  is,  though  a  moderate 
man,  I  am  not  very  fond  of  watering 
wine." 

"  The  fact  is,"  continued  Gingham, 
"  there  is  very  little  good  wine  to  be 
got  in  London,  always  excepting  such 
places,  for  instance,  as  the  Chapter. 
When  you  return,  after  having  tasted 
wine  in  the  wine  countries,  you  will 
be  of  my  opinion.  Much  that  you  get 
is  merely  poor  wine  of  the  inferior 
growths,  coloured,  flavoured,  and 
dressed  up  with  bad  brandy  for  the 
London  market.  That  sort  comes 
from  abroad.  And  much  that  you 


1849.] 

get  is  not  wine  at  all,  but  a  decoction ; 
a  vile  decoction,  sir;  not  a  drop  of 
vine  in  its  composition.  That  sort  is 
the  London  particular."  I  felt  that  I 
was  receiving  ideas. 

"Now,  sir,"  said  Gingham,  "my 
cold-water  test  detects  this.  If  what 
you  get  for  wine  is  a  decoction,  a 
compound,  and  nothing  but  a  com- 
pound, no  wine  in  it,  then  the  water 
— about  two-thirds  to  one-third — 
detects  the  filthy  reality.  Add  a 
lump  or  two  of  sugar,  and  you  get  as 
beastly  a  dose  of  physic  as  was  ever 
made  up  in  a  doctor's  shop." 

"  Just  such  a  dose,"  I  replied,  "  as 
I  remember  getting,  now  you  mention 
it,  as  I  came  down  here  by  the  fast 
coach,  at  an  inn  where  I  asked,  by 
way  of  a  change,  for  a  glass  of  cold 
white-wine  negus.  The  slice  of  lemon 
was  an  improvement,  having  done 
duty  before  in  a  glass  of  gin  punch." 

"  Shouldn't  wonder,"  said  Ging- 
ham. "  And  if  what  you  buy  for  port 
or  sherry  be  not  absolutely  a  decoc- 
tion, but  only  inferior  wine  made  up, 
then  the  water  equally  acts  as  a  de- 
tective. For  the  dilution  has  the 
effect  of  separating,  so  to  speak,  the 
respective  tastes  of  the  component 
parts — brings  them  out,  sir ;  and  you 
get  each  distinct.  You  get,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  taste  of  the  bad  brandy, 
harsh,  raw,  and  empyreumatic :  and 
you  get,  on  the  other  hand,  the  taste 
of  the  poor,  paltry  wine,  wretched 
stuff,  the  true  vinho  ordinario  flavour, 
that  makes  you  think  at  once  of  some 
dirty  road- side  Portuguese  posada, 
swarming  with  fleas." 

"  But  what  if  you  water  really  good 
wine  ?" 

"  Why,  then,"  said  Gingham,  "  the 
flavour,  though  diluted,  is  still  the 
flavour  of  good  wine." 

"I  should  like,"  said  I,  "to  be 
knowing  in  wines." 

Seeing  in  me  a  willing  learner,  he 
was  about  to  open.  But  at  this  mo- 
ment the  mail  drove  into  the  yard  of 
the  hotel ;  and,  knowing  that  Ging- 
ham was  always  ravenous  for  the 
London  journals  on  their  first  arrival, 
I  insisted  on  our  going  down  into  the 
public  room,  taking  a  cup  of  coffee, 
and  reading  the  papers.  We  had 
talked  about  wines ;  but,  being  neither 
of  us  topers,  had  taken  only  a  mode- 
rate quantum  suff.,  though  all  of  the 


My  Peninsular  Medal.  — Part  I.  547 

best  kind.  Gingham,  out  of  compli- 
ment to  me,  wished  to  prolong  the 
sitting.  But,  knowing  his  penchant 
for  a  wet  newspaper,  I  was  inflexible. 
We  rose  from  the  table. 

I  felt  that  I  had  been  handsomely 
entertained,  and  that  something  hand- 
some ought  to  be  said.  The  pleasing 
consciousness,  however,  of  having 
eaten  a  good  dinner,  though  it  excited 
my  finest  feelings,  did  not  confer  the 
faculty  of  expressing  them.  I  began: 

"  Sir,  Mr  Gingham  ;  I  feel  we 
ought  not  to  leave  this  room,  till  I 
have  expressed  the  emotions — "  Then, 
taking  a  new  departure^  "  Really,  sir, 
your  kind  hospitality  to  a  compara- 
tive stranger—  " 

"Well,  sir,"  said  Gingham,  laugh- 
ing, "  I  will  tell  you  how  it  was.  Do 
you  remember  your  first  breakfast  in 
the  coffee-room,  the  day  after  your 
arrival  by  the  mail?  I  was  present, 
and  enjoyed  it  amazingly." 

"  Oh,  sir!  oh,  sir  !  "  said  I,  a  leetle 
taken  aback ;  "  really  I  was  enor- 
mously hungry.  In  fact  I  had  eaten 
nothing  during  my  two  days'  previous 
journey;  and  was  so  sleepy  on  my 
arrival,  that  I  got  to  bed  as  fast  as  I 
could,  without  thinking  of  ordering 
supper.  And  when  I  came  down 
next  morning,  or  rather  afternoon, 
why,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  made  it 
breakfast  and  dinner  in  one  ;  and 
perhaps  I  did  seem  a  little  savage  in 
my  first  onset  on  the  Falmouth —  " 

"  No,  NO,  NO  !  "  exclaimed  Ging- 
ham, interrupting  me.  "  That  was 
not  it.  No,  NO,  NO !  far  from  it. 
My  dear  sir,  you  merely  disposed  of 
two  or  three  plates  of  ham  and  eggs ; 
then  a  few  nmffins,  with  about  half- 
a-dozen  basins  of  tea.  After  that — 
let  me  see — after  that,  to  the  best  of 
my  recollection — after  that,  you  took 
nothing,  no,  nothing,  but  the  mutton 
chops.  No,  sir,  it  was  not  the  quan- 
tity. I  have  often  made  as  hearty  a 
meal  myself;  and,  if  we  campaign 
together,  I  trust  we  shall  often  make 
as  hearty  a  meal  together.  Nothing 
like  campaigning  for  an  appetite.  No, 
sir;  that  was  not  it.  It  was  your 
manner  of  taking  it." 

' '  My  manner  of  taking  it  ?  Really ! 
And  pray  what  did  you  see  in  my 
manner  of  taking  it  ?  " 

"  Sir,"  said  Gingham,  with  emo- 
tion, "I  know  this  house.  I  have 


518 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Xov. 


long  used  this  house.  Everything  in 
this  house  is  good.  The  accommoda- 
tion is  good.  The  attendance  is 
good.  The  wine  is  good.  The  din- 
ners are  good.  The  breakfasts  are 
good.  Now,  sir,  I  have  seen  some 
persons  conduct  themselves  in  this 
house  in  a  manner  that  filled  me 
with  scorn,  disgust,  and  indignation. 
They  arrive  by  the  London  mail,  sir, 
as  you  did,  and  go  to  bed.  In  the 
morning  they  come  down  into  the 
public  room,  and  order  breakfast. 
They  breakfast,  not  like  you,  my  dear 
sir,  very  moderately,  but  enormously. 
That  I  could  forgive;  after  a  long 
journey  it  is  excusable.  But,  sir, 
what  I  cannot  tolerate  is  this  :  They 
find  fault  with  everything.  The  tea 
is  bad ;  the  coffee  is  bad.  They  take 
up  the  silver  cream-jug ;  examine  the 
clouted  cream  ;  smell  to  it — yes,  sir ; 
they  actually  smell  to  it — and  smelling 
to  anything,  I  need  not  say,  is  as 
great  a  betise  as  a  man  can  commit  at 
table — ask  the  waiter  what  he  means 
by  bringing  them  such  stuff  as  that ; 
and,  before  they  have  done,  gobble 
up  the  whole,  and  perhaps  call  for 
more." 

"  Call  for  more  ?  Why,  that,  1 
think,  is  exactly  what  I  did." 

"  Yes,  my  dear  sir,"  said  Ging- 
ham, "  you  enjoyed  it  ;  and  you 
took  a  pretty  good  lot  of  it ;  but  .you 
did  not  find  fault  with  it.  Not  so  the 
people  I  am  talking  of.  The  fact  is, 
sir,  we  Londoners  have  a  great  idea 
of  keeping  up  our  dignity.  These 
persons  wish  to  pass  for  people  of 
importance ;  and  they  think  impor- 
tance is  announced  by  finding  fault. 
Item,  they  are  enormously,  indecent- 
ly hungry,  and  fully  intend  to  make 
a  breakfast  for  two,  but  wish  to  do  it 
surreptitiously.  On  the  arrival  of 
the  beefsteak,  they  turn  round  the 
dish,  and  look  at  it  contemptuously, 
longing,  all  the  while,  to  fall  to. 
Yes,  sir,  they  turn  round  the  dish 
two  or  three  times ;  then  stick  their 
fork  into  the  steak,  and  turn  it  over 
and  over ;  perhaps  hold  it  up,  sus- 
pended by  a  single  prong,  and  ex- 
amine it  critically;  and  end  all  by 
pushing  away  their  plate,  drawing 
the  dish  into  its  place,  and  bolting 
the  whole  beefsteak,  without  taking 
time  to  masticate.  Sir,  there  was  a 
man  in  that  coffee-room  this  morning, 


who  grumbled  at  everything,  and  ate 
like  a  dog.  In  short,  they  clear  the 
table  of  eatables  and  drinkables ;  then 
call  the  waiter,  and  reproach  him, 
with  a  savage  look,  for  bringing  them 
a  tough  beefsteak  ;  and,  in  a  plaintive 
voice,  like  ill-used  men,  inquire  if 
there  is  any  cold  meat-pie." 

I  owned,  from  personal  observa- 
tion in  the  public  room,  to  the  general 
correctness  of  this  sketch. 

"  Now  you,  sir,"  continued  Ging- 
ham, "  enjoyed  your  breakfast,  and 
made  a  good  one ;  but  found  fault 
with  nothing  ;  because,  I  presume, 
there  was  nothing  to  find  fault  with. 
I  like  to  see  a  man  enjoy  his  meals. 
And  if  he  does,  I  like  to  see  him 
show  it.  It  is  one  of  the  tokens  by 
which  I  judge  of  character.  Your 
conduct,  my  dear  sir,  commanded  my 
respect.  Shall  I  say  more  ?  It  won 
my  esteem.  Then  and  there  my  re- 
solution was  formed,  to  invite  you,  at 
the  first  convenient  opportunity,  to 
partake  of  my  humble  hospitality." 

It  was  too  much.  I  extended  my 
fist.  A  shaking  of  hands,  of  some 
continuance — cordial  on  my  part,  and 
evidently  so  on  Gingham's,  by  the 
pain  I  felt  in  my  shoulder. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  Gingham,  "I  had 
already  learned  that  you  were  a  pas- 
senger for  the  Peninsula.  I  was  a 
passenger  for  the  Peninsula  ;  and,  as 
we  were  to  sail  together,  and  pro- 
bably to  campaign  together,  I  re- 
solved to  introduce  myself.  I  said, 
This  lad — I  beg  your  pardon,  this 
youth — excuse  me,  this  gentleman, 
this  young  gentleman — for  I  guess 
you  have  some  ten  years  the  advan- 
tage of  me  in  that  respect  —  this 
gentleman  is,  like  myself,  bound  for 
the  headquarters  of  the  Peninsular 
army.  I  know  something  of  cam- 
paigning ;  he  knows  nothing.  We 
campaign  together." 

"  Well  now,"  said  I,  "  that  is  just 
what  I  should  like  amazingly." 

Gingham  now  took  the  initiative, 
and  put  forth  his  paw.  Again  we 
tackled,  and,  in  the  true  pump-handle 
style,  so  dear  to  Englishmen,  ex- 
pressed mutual  cordiality :  only  that 
this  time,  being  better  prepared,  I 
reversed  the  electric  stream,  and 
brought  tears  into  Gingham's  eyes. 
He  sung  out,  "  Oh  ! "  and  rubbed  his 
arm. 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


"The  rest,"  said  Gingham,  "is 
easily  told.  After  breakfast  you 
walked  out  into  the  court-yard,  lit  a 
cigar,  and  stood  on  the  steps.  I  lit 
another,  followed,  and  had  the  plea- 
sure of  making  your  acquaintance." 

I  gave  audible  expression  to  my 
profound  self-congratulations. 

"Allow  me,  however,  to  add,"  said 
Gingham,  "  you  raised  yourself  great- 
ly in  my  esteem  by  asking  the  waiter 
for  a  red  herring.  The  request 
evinced  a  superiority  to  vulgar  pre- 
judices. Your  way  of  putting  it,  too, 
was  in  perfect  good  keeping :  for  you 
did  not  commit  yourself  by  ordering 
a  red  herring  ;  but  asked  whether 
you  could  have  one  ia  the  coffee- 
room.  Believe  me,  I  was  pained, 
when  he  stated  that  red  herrings 
were  not  permitted ;  and  could  but 
admire  your  self-denial,  in  accepting, 
as  a  substitute,  the  mutton-chops." 

We  adjourned  to  the  public  room. 

Gingham  had  entertained  me  hospi- 
tably and  handsomely.  Yet  this  was 
the  same  Gingham  who,  when  I  made 
him  take  part  of  my  beefsteak  at 
breakfast,  because  his  own  was  de- 
layed, proposed  that  we  should  desire 
the  waiter  to  tell  the  landlady  to 
charge  only  half  a  beefsteak  to  me, 
and  half  a  beefsteak  to  him,  Ging- 
ham. My  rejection  of  this  proposal 
was  the  immediate  occasion  of  the 
dinner,  at  which  the  reader  has  just 
been  present. 

While  we  were  eviscerating  the 
papers,  fresh  from  London,  Gingham 
leaned  over  the  table,  with  the  air  of 
a  man  who  had  something  important 
to  communicate.  He  looked  me  ear- 
nestly in  the  face. 

"  Mr  Y — ,"  said  he,  "  what  do  you 
say — to  a  red  herring — this  evening — 
for  supper  ?  " 

"Thank  you.  You  must  excuse 
me.  Nothing  more  to-night,  but  one 
cup  of  coffee,  and  perhaps  a  cigar. 
Not  even  an  anchovy  toast.  I  really 
couldn't." 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Gingham,  "  to- 
morrow at  breakfast.  We  will  en- 
gage a  room  up  stairs,  and  ask  leave 
of  nobody.  I  have  brought  down  a 
small  barrel  from  London  —  always 
take  some  when  I  visit  the  Penin- 
sula—get them  in  Lower  Thames 
Street.  You  will  pronounce  them 
excellent." 


549 

The  offer  was  too  good  to  be  de- 
clined. 

Next  morning  we  ordered  break- 
fast up  stairs.  Indeed,  a  fire  had 
been  h't  in  one  of  the  parlours,  by 
Gingham's  directions  ;  and  there  I 
found  him,  with  the  table  laid,  and 
the  herrings  ready  for  cooking.  Ging- 
ham had  secured  a  small  Dutch  oven ; 
not  with  the  design  of  baking  the 
herrings  —  no,  no,  he  knew  better 
than  that — but  to  keep  them  hot 
when  done.  The  doing  he  reserved 
to  himself,  on  the  plea  of  experience. 
I  was  not  to  assist,  except  in  eating 
them. 

"  Do  you  understand  cookery,  Mr 
Y—  ?  "  said  Gingham. 

I  ingenuously  owned  my  deficiency 
in  that  branch  of  education,  which  is 
no  part  of  the  Cambridge  curri- 
culum. 

"  Three  months  at  headquarters," 
said  he,  "will  make  you  an  excel- 
lent cook." 

It  so  happened  that  the  parlor,  in 
which  we  had  located  ourselves  for 
the  purpose  of  cooking  our  herrings, 
was  not  that  in  which  we  had  dined 
the  day  before,  but  one  adjoining  the 
larger  apartment  occupied  by  the 
three  military  gentlemen,  with  whom 
we  were  to  cross  the  Bay  of  Biscay. 
A  boarding,  removable  at  pleasure, 
was  the  only  separation  between  the 
two  rooms.  We  had  not  yet  become 
acquainted. 

Shortly  after  I  joined  Gingham, 
two  of  the  three  entered  their  parlour; 
presently  the  third  followed.  They 
rang  the  bell,  and  ordered  breakfast, 
all  in  high  good  humour,  and  talking 
incessantly.  We  were  not  listeners, 
but  could  not  help  hearing  every  word 
that  was  said. 

"  Good  blow-out  that,  yesterday." 
— "  Pity  we  didn't  know  of  it  sooner; 
might  as  well  have  dined  with  them." 
—"Turtle,  too."— "  Ton  your  ho- 
nour ?  " — "  Turtle,  and  lots  of  cham- 
pagne. Caught  the  waiter  swigging  off 
the  end  of  a  bottle  in  the  passage." — 
"Who  are  they ?"—"  Don't  know; 
can't  make  them  out.  Both  going 
out  with  us  in  the  packet,  though." — 
"  Think  I  remember  seeing  the  white 
fellow  at  Cadiz ;  almost  sure  I  did ; 
and  afterwards  again  at  Madrid.  Al- 
ways wore  his  hair  in  that  way,  well 
floured  and  larded,  except  when  it 


550 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  /. 


[Nov. 


was  too  hot,  and  combed  down 
straight  on  each  side  of  his  ugly  face." 
— "  What  9  nose !  Prodigious !  A 
regular  proboscis." — "  Yes,  and  all  on 
one  side,  like  the  rudder  of  a  barge." 
— u  Let  me  tell  you,  a  very  good  thing ; 
for  if  it  was  straight,  it  would  be 
always  in  his  way." — "  Always  in  his 
way?  Why  it  would  trip  him  up 
when  he  walked." — Omnes,  "  Ha,  ha, 
ha." — "  Going  with  us,  do  you  say? 
Hope  he  don't  snore.  Why,  such  a 
tromba  as  that  would  keep  a  whole 
line-of-battle  ship  awake."  —  "  Bet 
you  a  dollar  he's  blind  of  one  eye." 
— "  Done."  "  Done.  Book  it,  major." 
—  I'll  trouble  you  for  a  dollar.  He 
does  walk  a  little  sideways,  but  it  isn't 
his  eye."—"  What  is  it,  then  ?  One- 
eyed  people  always  walk  sideways." — 
"  Why,  I'll  tell  you,  now.  It's  a 
principle  which  most  people  observe 
through  life." — "  What  principle?" — 
"  Guess."—"  Come,  tell  us,  old  fel- 
low. None  of  your  nonsense." — 
"  D'ye  give  it  up  ?  "— "  Yes,  I  give  it 
up.  Come,  tell  us." — "  Follow  your 
nose." — Omnes,  "  Ha,  ha,  ha." — 
"Capital!  capital!  That's  the  best 
we've  had  for  some  time.  Follow 
your  nose !  Capital !  Ha,  ha,  ha." — 
"  Well,  that's  it,  depend  upon  it. 
Other  people  follow  their  noses  by 
walking  straight  forward.  That  white 
fellow  walks  sideways,  but  still  follows 
his  nose." — "  No,  no,  major.  Your 
theory  is  fallacious.  When  he  walks 
his  nose  points  backwards.  His  nose 
points  over  his  left  shoulder,  and  he 
walks  right  shoulders  forward."  I 
looked  at  Gingham,  and  laughed. 
Gingham  was  looking  rather  grave, 
and  feeling  his  nose.  "  No,  no.  I 
tell  you  he  walks  left  shoulders  for- 
ward." — "  Bet  you  a  dollar."  — 
"  Done."—"  Done.  Book  it,  major." 
— "  I'll  trouble  you  for  a  dollar.  Saw 
him  this  morning,  all  in  a  bustle. 
Took  particular  notice  of  his  nose." — 
"Who  is  the  young  chap?"— "Oh, 
he's  a  regular  Johnny  Newcoine,  that's 
evident." — "  Johnny  Newcome?  Yes; 
but  I  wish  he  wasn't  such  a  chap  for 
John  dories.  Price  in  the  market  is 
doubled."  Gingham  laughed  and 
looked  at  me.  "  Suppose  he's  a  sub 
going  out  to  join  his  regiment."  — 
"  No,  no.  Got  such  lots  of  baggage. 
No  regimental  officer  would  be  ass 
enough  to  take  such  a  heap  of  trunks. 


Load  for  three  mules." — "  He'll  soon 
knock  up.  Those  long  fellows  always 
knock  up." — "  Shouldn't  wonder  if  he 
gets  the  fever  next  autumn.  Then 
what  will  his  mammy  say  ?" — "  Well, 
but  what  did  they  dine  about  ?  Thou- 
sand pities  we  did  not  join  them."- 
"  Oh,  I  suppose  it  was  something  of 
a  parting  feed  ;  taking  leave  of  Old 
England,  you  know :  toasting  Miss 
Ann  Chovy,  Miss  Mary  Gold,  Miss 
Polly  Anthus,  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing." — "  Hang  it  all;  a  good  dinner 
for  eight  people ;  thousand  pities  we 
missed  it." 

By  this  time,  our  cookery  was  pro- 
ceeding in  due  course.  Two  splendid 
bloaters,  whole,  lay  extended  where 
chestnuts  are  roasted ;  while  two  more, 
split  open,  hung  suspended  from  alarge 
toasting-fork,  held  by  Gingham,  who 
told  me  to  look  and  learn,  but  not  to 
meddle.  With  a  clear  bright  fire,  they 
soon  began  to  spit.  Nor  was  there 
wanting  another  token  of  our  opera- 
tions. For  now  the  savoury  odour  of 
four  red  herrings,  simultaneously  un- 
der a  brisk  process  of  culinary  prepa- 
ration, diffused  itself  through  the 
apartment,  and  no  doubt  through  the 
whole  hotel,  from  the  cellar  to  the 
attics.  The  effect  on  our  friends  in 
the  next  room  was  instantaneous. 
Conversation  ceased.  Then  there  was 
a  deal  of  sniffing — then  audible  whis- 
pering and  suppressed  laughter — then 
again,  a  dead  silence.  Gingham  and 
I  exchanged  looks.  "  We  must  be 
acquainted,"  said  Gingham,  quietly ; 
"  and  the  sooner  the  better."  I  saw 
he  had  made  up  his  mind,  and  was 
prepared  for  what  was  about  to  take 
place.  Then  the  conversation  was 
heard  a  little  louder,  but  not  distin- 
guishable. There  was  evidently  a 
council  of  war.  Much  laughter.  Then, 
audibly  spoken,  "  Are  you  fond  of 
herrings  ?  "  —  "  Very  ;  capital  for 
breakfast." — "  So  am  I,  very ;  that  is, 
of  red  herrings.  Fresh,  can't  endure 
them." — "  Nor  I ;  they  have  such  a 
horrid  SMELL.  But  a  bloater, — often 
dined  off  them  up  the  country ;  didn't 
we,  major  ?" — "  Oh  yes,  lots  of  times. 
But  you  were  moderate.  Never  could 
manage  above  half-a-dozen  at  a  sit- 
ting."—"Ring  for  the  waiter."— "No, 
no  ;  nonsense.  Major  M — ,  YOU." 
After  a  moment's  pause,  one  of  the 
party  left  the  room  ;  walked,  appa- 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


551 


rently  to  the  end  of  the  passage ;  then 
walked  back  again;  opened  our  door; 
entered,  and  politely  apologised  for 
the  mistake.  He  was  a  middle-aged, 
well-built,  gentlemanly-looking  man, 
with  bonhomie  beaming  in  his  counte- 
nance, and  came  at  once  to  business. 
His  eye  dropped  upon  the  herrings. 

"  Beg  ten  thousand  pardons.  Oh  ! 
I  see  it's  here.  We  perceived  that 
bloaters  were  frying  somewhere  in  the 
house,  and  thought  we  should  like  to 
try  a  few.  Will  you  have  the  kind- 
ness to  inform  me  where  they  can  be 
procured  ?  Didn't  know  there  was  a 
single  bloater  in  all  Falmouth." 

I,  in  my  simplicity,  thought  the 
major  was  really  asking  for  informa- 
tion, and  was  going  to  tell  him  of 
several  shops  where  I  had  seen 
bloaters ;  but  Gingham  was  too 
quick  for  me. 

"  Here  is  a  barrel-full,"  said  Ging- 
ham, pointing  to  the  corner  of  the 
room.  "  Shall  be  most  happy  to  sup- 
ply you  and  your  friends  with  any 
quantity.  Do  me  the  favour  to  accept 
of  two  or  three  dozen." 

"  Oh  no,  sir,"  said  Major  M — , 
drawing  up,  as  if  he  had  been  misun- 
derstood. The  major  was  playing  a 
higher  game.  "  Couldn't  think  of 
such  a  thing.  Thought  you  had  pro- 
cured them  in  the  town." 

"  Indeed,  sir,"  said  Gingham,  "  I 
don't  think  the  town  contains  their 
equais.  They  are  from  London  direct. 
Always  take  a  small  barrel  with  me 
when  I  visit  the  Peninsula.  Get 
them  in  Lower  Thames  Street." 

"Really,  a  most  excellent  idea," 
said  Major  M — .  "  I  wish  I  had 
done  the  same.  Well,  I  think  I  never 
will  return  to  headquarters  again 
without  taking  a  barrel  of  red  her- 
rings." The  Major  cast  a  sort  of 
domesticated  look  about  the  room, 
as  if  he  felt  quite  at  home  with 
us. 

"  Go  it,  Major !"  said  an  opening  in 
the  partition,  sotto  voce. 

"  Come,  Major,"  said  Gingham,  "  I 
see  you  and  the  gentlemen  your  com- 
panions are  old  campaigners.  So  am 
I.  Suppose  we  waive  ceremony.  You 
see  we  have  got  our  cooking  apparatus 
all  ready.  Suppose — do  us  the  favour 
— excuse  the  shortness  of  the  invita- 
tion—I shall  be  delighted,  and  so  will 
my  friend  here,  if  you  and  your  party 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX. 


will  oblige  us  with  your  company  to 
breakfast." 

"  Yes,  yes,  Major,"  said  the  crevice, 
as  before.  "  Yes,  Major,  yes,"  said 
another  crevice. 

"  Really,  sir,"  said  the  Major,  with 
an  admirably  assumed  look  of  polite 
embarrassment,  and  turning  a  deaf 
ear  to  his  two  prompters  behind  the 
scenes — "  really,  sir,  I  hardly  know 
how  to  thank  you  sufficiently  for  your 
obliging  invitation.  But  —  shall  we 
not  intrude?  You  meant  to  break- 
fast in  private.  Yon  have,  perhaps, 
business?  Matters  to  arrange,  pre- 
paratory to  the  voyage  ?  " 

"None  in  the  world,  sir,"  said  Ging- 
ham, "  till  after  breakfast.  Oar  only 
business  here  is  to  cook  our  bloaters 
and  eat  them,  which  we  could  not  do 
in  the  public  room  below.  Do,  pray, 
oblige  us  by  negotiating  this  little 
affair,  Major,  and  persuade  your 
friends  to  favour  us  with  their  com- 
pany." 

The  Major,  in  fact,  was  negotiating 
already  ;  and  a  capital  negotiator  he 
made.  He  might,  had  he  pleased, 
have  walked  off,  at  an  earlier  stage  of 
the  proceedings,  with  a  whole  pile  of 
herrings ;  and  even  that,  at  college, 
we  should  have  thought  a  capital  coup. 
But  the  Major  was  not  so  green. 

"  Well,  sir,  since  you  are  so  very 
pressing,  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 
communicating  to  my  comrades  your 
l<ind  invitation  ;  and  I  presume,"  he 
added,  bowing  politely  to  me,  "  I  may 
also  have  the  honour  of  saying, 
the  invitation  of  your  friend,  Cap- 
tain Y— ." 

I  bowed  in  return,  too  much  taken 
by  surprise  to  disclaim  the  rank  so 
unexpectedly  conferred  ;  and  a  little 
sore  at  being  saluted  "  captain,"  by 
the  same  voice  which  I  had  heard, 
just  before,  proclaiming  aloud,  that  if 
I  was  a  regimental  officer  I  was  an 
ass.  The  Major  bowed  again  ;  backed 
out  of  the  room,  still  bowing,  and 
closed  the  door. 

The  remaining  negotiation  was  not 
of  long  continuance.  His  two  friends 
were  already  in  the  passage,  hard  by 
the  entrance  of  our  apartment.  A 
dead  silence — one  irrepressible  burst 
of  laughter,  instantly  hushed — again 
dead  silence — a  tap  at  the  door — door 
opened  by  Gingham — and  enter  THE 
THUEE  PENINSULARS. 

2o 


552 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  7. 


[Nov. 


I  really  could  not  help  admiring  the 
perfectly  free  and  easy,  but  at  the 
same  time  quiet,  self-possessed,  and 
gentlemanly  style  of  their  entree,  and 
of  their  bearing  during  the  first  few 
moments  of  our  interview.  Gingham 
expressed  his  gratification  ;  was  happy 
to  see  them.  Advancing  on  their 
right  flank,  taking  up  a  central  posi- 
tion, and  then  facing  to  the  left, 
"  Allow  me,"  said  the  major,  "  to 
avail  myself  of  my  brief  priority  of 
acquaintance,  and  to  introduce — Cap- 
tain Gabion,  of  the  Royal  Engineers," 
(bowing,  on  both  sides) — "and  Mr 
Commissary  Capsicum,"  (more  bow- 
ing,)— "  half-brothers,  I  need  not  say 
— the  family  likeness  is  so  striking." 
Gingham  presented  Mr  Y — .  Mr 
Y —  (booby !)  presented  Gingham. 

"Not  very  striking  that  family 
likeness,  though,"  thought  I,  of  course 
taking  seriously  what  the  wag  of  a 
major  spoke  with  perfect  seriousness. 
The  captain  of  the  Engineers  was  a 
pale-looking  man,  buttoned  up  to  the 
chin  in  his  regulation  frock-coat,  rather 
above  the  common  height,  air  mili- 
tary and  symmetrical.  Education  had 
traced  on  his  countenance  the  lines  of 
thought ;  and,  in  short,  his  whole  ap- 
pearance was  a  little  aristocratic,  and 
what  we  now  call  distingue.  His 
"  half-brother,"  the  commissary,  on 
the  contrary,  who  appeared  at  least 
twelve  years  his  senior,  was  a  short, 
pursy,  puffy  man  ;  with  a  full,  rubi- 
cund, oleaginous,  and  pimpled  visage; 
a  large,  spongy,  purple  blob  of  a 
nose,  its  broad  lower  extremity  pen- 
dulous, and  slightly  oscillatory  when 
he  moved  ;  a  humorous  twinkle  in  his 
eye,  which  was  constantly  on  the 
range  in  search  of  fun;  two  black, 
bushy  tufts  for  eyebrows ;  his  hair  dis- 
tributed over  his  ample  pericranium 
in  large  detached  flocks,  each  flock 
growing  a  way  of  its  own,  and  no  two 
alike ;  coat  flying  open ;  waistcoat 
open,  all  but  the  two  bottom  buttons ; 
a  bull  neck,  with  very  little  cravat ; 
and  a  profuse  display  of  shirt  and 
frill.  His  shirt  and  frill,  imperfectly 
closed,  revealed  his  grizzly  chest  ; 
while  his  nether  extremities  were  set 
off  to  great  advantage  by  a  pair  of 
tight  blue  kerseymere  pantaloons  with 
a  scarlet  stripe;  and  something — I 
suppose,  as  bustles  were  not  then  the 
fashion,  it  must  have  been  his  tailors' 


clumsiness  —  imparted  a  peculiar 
breadth  and  bulge  to  the  tail  of  his 
coat.  He  wore  splendid  gaiters  of 
bright  nankeen,  with  mother-of-pearl 
buttons.  No  ceremony  when  gentle- 
men meet.  We  were  all  quite  at 
home  in  a  moment. 

There  was  a  little  hitch.  All  the 
party  were  quite  of  one  mind  and 
will,  in  the  project  and  purpose  of 
cooking  and  eating  bloaters.  But 
how  were  five  cooks  to  cook  at  one 
fire? 

We  all  saw  it  together.  I  looked 
at  the  partition.  "Better  unship 
that,"  said  the  commissary.  The 
commissary,  I  soon  saw,  was,  by 
common  consent,  the  commanding 
officer  of  the  party.  We  went  to 
work ;  and  in  no  time  the  partition 
was  cleverly  removed,  and  stowed 
away  on  one  side.  We  thus  made 
our  small  parlour  a  large  one,  with 
the  additional  advantage  of  two  fires 
instead  of  one  for  our  culinary  opera- 
tions. Gingham,  meanwhile,  had 
slipped  out  of  the  room  ;  but  returned 
in  a  few  minutes,  looking  quite  inno- 
cent. He  had  been  absent  to  some 
purpose,  as  the  result  shortly  proved. 
We  now  found  full  employment  with 
the  herrings,  roasting  and  toasting. 
Gingham,  the  captain,  and  the  major, 
at  the  larger  fire;  I  and  Mr  Com- 
missary Capsicum  at  the  other. 

Gingham,  when  he  left  the  room, 
had  given  his  order ;  a  carte  blanche 
to  the  whole  establishment  to  extem- 
porise as  handsome  a  breakfast  as 
circumstances  would  permit,  with  a 
special  caveat  against  delay. 

Enter  the  waiter,  with  a  tray,  and 
a  large  table-cloth. — Previous  set-out 
transferred  from  the  table  to  the  tray, 
and  placed  on  the  sideboard. — Two 
tables  run  into  one — fresh  tablecloth 
laid. — Exit  waiter. 

Enter  waiter  again,  with  plates, 
cups  and  saucers,  knives,  forks,  and 
spoons,  basin,  two  sugar-basins — in 
short,  all  the  apparatus  of  a  break- 
fast-table.— The  whole  laid,  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye. — Exit  waiter. 

Enter  waiter  a  third  time,  with  a 
large  tray — bread,  (varieties,)  butter, 
water-cresses,  ham,  tongue,  cold  fillet 
of  veal,  cold  chicken,  cold  pigeon-pie, 
all  the  cold  eatables. — Boots  handed 
in  from  the  door  a  large  block  of 
quince  marmalade,  on  a  silver  salver. 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


553 


— Boots  handed  in  small  jars :  potted 
shrimps,  pickled  oysters,  pot  of  Scotch 
honey,  strawberry  jam,  other  jams. — 
Boots  handed  in  one  larger  jar,  a 
Portuguese  conserve,  quartos  de  mar- 
melas.  (N.  B.  quinces  cut  up  into 
lumps,  and  boiled  in  Brazilian  sugar. 
Portuguese  beat  all  the  world  in 
sweatmeats,  and  quartos  de  marmelas 
beat  all  the  rest.)  I  guessed  Ging- 
ham had  given  the  landlady  the  key 
of  his  travelling  store-chest. — Boots 
handed  in  milk,  cream,  clouted  cream. 
Boots  handed  in  two  splendid  brass 
kettles  of  boiling  water,  one  of  which 
waiter  placed  on  each  flre. — Exit 
waiter. 

A  temporary  pause.  During  this 
lull,  the  utmost  energies  of  the  house 
were  in  exercise  below,  to  provide 
with  despatch  the  remaining  materiel 
of  our  humble  meal.  I  observed, 
from  time  to  time,  that  he  of  the  com- 
missariat eyed  the  preparations  with 
peculiar  benignity.  It  was  all  in  his 
way,  as  I  subsequently  had  the 
pleasure  of  experiencing,  among  the 
sources  of  the  Adour  and  the  Garonne. 
"  Ever  been  with  the  army?"  said  he. 
— "  Never,"  said  I ;  "  but  hope  to  be 
soon." — "  Hope  you'll  often  dine  with 
me.  But  don't  spoil  that  fine  bloater. 
There,  hold  it  a  little  further  from  the 
fire.  Red  herring  should  be  toasted, 
not  burnt  to  death.  Done,  when  the 
backbone  is  crisp ;  not  before.  But 
should  not  be  done  quickly,  like 
murder  in  Shakspeare.  Do  it  slowly, 
my  dear  sir ;  do  it  slowly.  If  you  do 
it  fast,  you  burn  all  the  flavour  out  of 
it."  I  saw  he  was  a  connoisseur. 

Yet — stupid,  conceited,  arrogant 
young  coxcomb — so  inexperienced 
was  I  then,  so  indignant  at  the. 
shadow  of  interference,  so  unaccus- 
tomed to  anything  that  bore  the  least 
semblance  of  control,  I  inwardly 
curled  at  even  these  valuable  and  truly 
philanthropic  suggestions — thought  it 
all  exceedingly  odd,  and  took  it  for 
dictation. 

Lots  of  bloaters  were  now  toasted 
or  roasted,  and  prepared  for  eating. 
Just  as  we  were  ready,  for  the  fourth 
time  enter  waiter,  bringing  eggs, 
coffee-pot,  two  tea-pots,  (tea  and 
coffee  ready,)  muffins,  hot  buttered' 
rolls,  &c.,  &c.,  &c.  But  among  the 
etceteras  I  really  must  pause,  to  spe- 
cify a  certain  delicate  sort  of  round 


west-country  breakfast  cake — piles  of 
which  were  also  brought  in,  buttered 
and  smoking  hot.  Gingham  whispered 
the  waiter,  "Keep  on  bringing  them." 

Gingham1,  with  his  usual  judgment, 
had  prohibited  anything  hot  in  the 
shape  of  chops,  steaks,  cutlets,  grills, 
rashers,  or  even  kidneys.  It  was  a 
herring  breakfast;  and  he  excluded 
what  would  only  have  divided  the 
appetite,  and  interfered  with  the 
bloaters. 

We  made  a  capital  breakfast. 
Everythipg  was  excellent.  The  pile 
of  breakfast  cakes  received  perpetual 
accessions,  but  never  gained  in  height. 
The  bloaters,  however,  were  the  staple 
of  our  meal ;  and  Gingham's  barrel 
suffered  a  considerable  reduction.  As 
we  were  all  sensible  people,  or  wished 
to  appear  so,  there  was  very  little 
talk  ;  and  what  there  was  referred  to 
the  important  business  in  hand.  At 
length  it  was  clear  that  we  had  break- 
fasted. Gingham  was  beginning  to 
recommend  the  knick-knackeries — 
jams,  pickled  oysters,  marmalade. 
Each  seemed  disposed  to  pause,  yet 
none  had  quite  left  off.  Our  guests 
were  evidently  telegraphing,  and  ex- 
changing looks  of  approval,  when — 

Enter  the  waiter  once  more,  bring- 
ing, upon  a  silver  tray,  two  curiously 
shaped  bottles  cased  in  a  sort  of 
wicker-woi'k,  with  glasses.  A  splen- 
did Italian  liqueur!  It  was  sipped, 
approved,  tossed  off  with  wonderful 
despatch.  One  by  one  we  gradually 
leaned  back  in  our  chairs,  and  the 
bottles  began  to  move  round,  as  if 
spontaneously.  That  is,  I  cannot 
exactly  say  I  saw  any  one  pass  them ; 
but  from  time  to  time,  first  here,  first 
there,  I -noticed  a  little  finger  pointing 
to  the  ceiling ;  a  movement  which 
certainly  had  something  to  do  with 
the  progress  of  the  bottles.  We  sat, 
sipped,  and  chatted.  Our  breakfast 
was  an  accomplished  fact. 

"  Hear,  hear,  hear !"  Mr  Commissary 
Capsicum  was  on  his  legs.  Knuckles 
rapped  ;  glasses  jingled ;  "Hear,  hear, 
hear!" — The  telegraphic  communica- 
tions of  his  two  friends  had  intimated 
to  him  their  wishes :  the  unexpec- 
ed  bonus  of  the  liqueur,  coming  in  at 
the  last,  had  awakened,  in  his  own 
bosom,  its  most  benevolent  emotions  : 
he  rose  to  acknowledge  our  hospi- 
tality ;  and  in  his  friends'  name,  as 


554 

well  as  in  his  own,  to  invite  us  that 
day  to  dinner. 

His  address  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
report.  It  was  brief,  well-bred,  and 
well- expressed ;  had  several  good 
points,  and  was  heard  with  immense 
applause.  He  invited  ns  to  dinner ; 
gave  Gingham's  health  and  mine ; 
and  concluded  by  observing  that, 
"conscious  that  he  had  not  made  a 
neat  and  appropriate  speech,  he 
begged  leave,"  (filling,  and  suiting  the 
action  to  the  word,)  "to  drink  long 
life  and  prosperity  to  us,  in  a  neat 
and  appropriate  bumper."  Consid- 
ering it  was  our  first  meeting,  I  did 
think  that  was  a  little  broad. 

Gingham  returned  thanks,  and  gave 
the  health  of  Major  M— ,  R.A. 
Major  M —  returned  thanks. 

I  returned  thanks,  and  gave  the 
health  of  Captain  Gabion,  R.  E. 

Captain  Gabion  returned  thanks, 
sat  down,  and  rose  a  second  time,  but 
was  anticipated  by 

Gingham  again,  who  gave  the  health 
of  Mr  Commissary  Capsicum.  , 

Mr  Commissary  Capsicum  returned 
thanks. 

With  respect  to  the  dinner,  it  would 
not  do.  It  was  our  last  day  before 
sailing ;  Gingham  had  whole  reams  of 
letters  to  write ;  I  also  had  matters 
to  attend  to ;  we  pleaded  the  circum- 
stances, and  begged  to  be  excused. 
Our  friends  saw  the  difficulty,  and 
reluctantly  accepted  our  apologies. 

There  was  a  moment's  pause.  Then 
all  three  rose  from  the  table  at  once, 
again  thanked  us  politely  for  our  hos- 
pitality, and  withdrew  to  their  private 
apartments.  Shortly  after,  looking 
out  of  the  window,  I  saw  them  walk- 
ing down  the  street,  all  arm  in  arm, 
and  each  puffing  a  cigar. 

Gingham  stood  pensive  by  the  fire, 
his  elbow  on  the  mantelpiece,  his  head 
leaning  on  his  hand. 

"  I  fear,"  said  I,  "your  exertions 
to  entertain  your  guests  have  wearied 
you." 

•?  He  made  no  reply.  I  went  up  to  him. 
He  seemed  to  awake  as  from  a  reverie. 

"Hang  it!"  said  Gingham,  in  a 
plaintive  tone,  "  there  should  have 
been  some  mashed  potatoes." 

"  Never  mind,  my  dear  sir — excel- 
lent breakfast ;  everything  went  off 
capitally.  I,  for  one,  enjoyed  it 
amazingly." 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Nov. 


"  Yes,"  said  Gingham,  mournfully ; 
"but,  to  make  the  thing  complete, 
there  should  have  been  some  mashed 
potatoes  with  the  bloaters.  Had  I 
only  known  of  it  in  time !  By  the 
bye,"  added  he,  "  I  thought  once  or 
twice,  you  did  not  seem  entirely  at 
your  ease.  Nothing  more  gentlemanly, 
my  dear  sir,  than  your  general  man- 
ner. But  at  times,  it  struck  me,  you 
did  appear  a  little — a  little — stiffish. 
You  must  get  rid  of  that  before  \ve 
reach  headquarters." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "I'll  tell  you. 
That  'captain'  stuck  in  my  gizzard. 
There's  the  truth.  Coupled  with  what 
we  heard  previously,  and  Major  M — 
must  have  known  that  we  heard  it,  it 
was  just  the  same  as  calling  me  a, 
donkey  to  my  face." 

"  Oh,  that's  nothing,"  said  Gingham. 
"  Don't  distress  yourself  about  such 
trifles  as  that." 

"  To  tell  you  the  truth,"  said  I, 
"  the  whole  thing  appeared  to  me 
a  little  too  free  and  easy.  Here  were 
you  and  I  preparing  to  take  a  quiet 
breakfast,  when  those  three  guerilla 
fellows,  with  their  off-hand  Penin- 
sular manners,  actually  took  us  by 
storm,  made  a  most  ferocious  attack 
on  your  barrel  of  herrings,  sunk  it  one- 
third,  drank  up  your  two  bottles  of 
liqueurs,  and  civilly  wished  us  good 
morning.  Now,  when  I  was  at  col- 
lege, to  be  sure  we  were  merry  enough, 
no  etiquette,  no  ceremony  there.  But 
then  there  was  a  certain  gentlemanly  / 
feeling,  which  forbade  vulgar  familiar- 
ity in  any  shape.  And  as  to  people 
that  assumed,  or  made  free,  I  always 
kept  them  at  arm's  length." 

"  Well,  Mr  Y— ,"  said  Gingham, 
"  I  see  plainly  how  it  is.  Follow  my 
advice.  If  you  can't  take  a  joke, 
resign  your  appointment,  forfeit  your 
money,  and  return  to  London.  You'll 
find  it  awkward  enough  living  among 
military  men  on  actual  service." 

" I  trust,"  said  I,  "by  adhering  to 
my  invariable  rule,  never  to  effer  a 
deliberate  insult,  but  at  the  same  time 
never  to  brook  one,  go  where  I  will,  I 
shall  be  fortunate  enough  to  escape 
disagreeable  rencontres." 

"  Nonsense !"  said  Gingham,  look- 
ing very  serious,  and  speaking  quite 
in  a  sharp  and  peremptory  tone — 
"  nonsense !"  Then  softening  a  little, 
"Rencontres,  my  dear  sir?  Ren- 


1849.] 


Mi/  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


centres  ?  Nothing  of  the  kind.  Ren- 
contres? You  talk  like  a  militia 
officer.  Rencontres?  You'll  soon 
dismiss  all  that  kind  of  thing  from 
your  thoughts,  after  you  have  seen 
two  or  three  rencontres  with  the 
French.  Rencontres?  No,  no;  no 
field  of  forty  footsteps  at  headquarters. 
Rencontres?  It  would  be  a  perfect 
absurdity,  where  men  have  the  chance 
of  being  shot  gratis  every  day  of  their 
lives,  without  going  out  of  the  way 
for  it.  Rencontres  ?  No ;  I  did  not 
mean  that.  What  I  meant  to  say 
was  this:  you  would  infallibly  be 
made  a  general  butt.  Rencontres  ? 
Why,  Mr  Y — ,  if  you  show  any 
nonsense  of  that  sort,  you'll  be  tor- 
mented to  death.  Rencontres?  Oh, 
what  lots  of  fun  they'll  take  out  of 
you !  Meanwhile,  think  yourself  for- 
tunate that  you  are  now  getting  a 
seasoning.  I  am  truly  glad,  for  your 
sake,  that  you  have  had  the  opportu- 
nity here  at  Falmouth,  and  will  have 
the  opportunity  on  your  passage  out, 
of  seeing  something  of  military  men 
and  modes  before  you  join.  You 
may,  and  probably  will,  be  dubbed, 
on  your  arrival,  a  Johnny  Newcome. 
But,  at  any  rate,  you  will  not  be  a 
Johnny  Raw." 

Gingham  closed  the  conference  by 
walking  to  the  other  end  of  the  room, 
and  steadfastly  contemplating  his  own 
beautiful  physiognomy  in  the  glass. 
During  our  conversation,  his  hand 
had  frequently  visited  his  nose.  He 
now  stood  opposite  the  mirror,  slew- 
ing his  head  first  this  way,  then  that, 
and  at  length  broke  silence : — 

"  Well,  I  was  not  aware  of  it ;  but 
I  do  think  that  my  nose  is  a  little 
crooked." 

"  I  presume,"  said  I,  "  yon  have  no 
sisters  ?" 

"  I  have  none,"  replied  Gingham. 

"  Nor  are  you,  I  apprehend,  a  mar- 
ried man?" 

"There,  alas,  you  are  right  again," 
said  Gingham ;  "  but  what  has  that 
to  do  with  it?" 

"  Your  wife,  or  your  sisters,  if  you 
had  any,  would  have  told  you  that 
you  have  a  very  crooked  nose." 

"  Well,  but,"  said  Gingham, 
"  there's  my  mother.  My  dear 
mother  never  told  me  that  my  nose 
was  crooked." 


"  Your  mother,  probably,  is  totally 
unconscious  of  the  fact ;  and,  should  she 
hear  any  one  else  assert  such  a  thing, 
would  deny  it  most  strenuously." 

"Nay, but, "said Gingham,  "though 
I  have  neither  sister  nor  Avife,  and 
supposing  my  dear  mother  to  be  blind 
to  my  personal  defects,  I  have — in 
short,  Mr  Y — ,  before  I  left  Lon- 
don, I  took  a  tender  leave  of  her 
whom  I  hope  to  persuade,  on  my  next 
return  from  the  Peninsula,  to  accept 
the  hand  and  the  heart  of  a  Gingham. 
SHE  did  not  tell  me  that  my  nose  was 
crooked.  She  mentioned  various  ob- 
stacles to  our  union ;  but  she  never 
mentioned  that.'1'1 

"  Then,"  said  I,  "  depend  upon  it, 
she  means  to  have  you.  And  depend 
upon  this,  too ;  she  will  tell  you  your 
nose  is  crooked  when  you  have  made 
her  Mrs  Gingham,  if  she  does  not  tell 
you  so  before." 

"As  to  my  walking  sideways," 
said  Giughain,  "  that's  a  palpable 
fiction." 

"  Here,"  said  I,  "  come  to  this  ex- 
tremity of  the  room,  and  place  your- 
self opposite  the  glass."  He  came, 
and  placed  himself  accordingly. 

"  Now  walk  straight  down  upon 
the  glass,  keeping  your  eye  fixed  upon 
your  reflected  nose." 

"What  nose?  Which  nose?"  said 
Gingham,  in  a  state  of  obvious  alarm. 
"Do  you  mean  the  nose  in  my 
face  ?" 

"  I  mean  your  nose  in  the  glass. "" 
He  walked  as  I  had  directed. 

"  Well,  really,"  said  GinghamT 
"  it's  extraordinary  ;  it's  very  curious. 
When  I  walk  and  look  at  my  nose  in 
the  glass,  it  appears  quite  straight 
again— just  as  it  ought  to  be,  in  the 
middle  of  my  face." 

" That's  just  it,"  said  I.  "Then 
you  walk  sideways.  Depend  upon  it, 
if  you  walked  straight,  your  nose 
would  appear  crooked." 

He  repeated  the  experiment  again 
and  again,  muttering  to  himself, 
"Very  remarkable,  very  curious; 
quite  a  natural  phenomenon." 

"  Don't  distress  yourself  about  your 
nose,"  said  I ;  "  it  is  a  good  enough 
nose,  in  magnituderespectable,  though 
not  strictly  rectilinear.  Make  your- 
self easy  ;  and  say,  with  Erasmus, 
'  Nihil  me  pcenitet  hugeous  nasi.'  " 


556 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Nov. 


CHAPTER   III. 


Where  Gingham  got  his  classical 
knowledge,  I  had  not  at  this  time 
ascertained.  Certain  it  is,  he  was  a 
very  fair  classic.  But  there  was  one 
dreadful  drawback  to  his  character, 
and,  in  a  man  of  his  gravity,  a  strange 
one :  I  mean  his  offensive,  horrid 
practice  of  making  most  atrocious 
Latin  puns.  A  pun  in  English  he 
viewed  with  utter  contempt.  It 
stirred  his  bile.  No  English  pun 
escaped  his  lips.  But  for  a  Latin 
pun,  he  scrupled  not  to  lay  under 
contribution  even  the  first- rate  Latin 
poets,  Virgil,  Ovid — nay,  his  favour- 
ite author,  Horace ;  and  if  I,  influ- 
enced by  bad  example,  was  weak 
enough,  in  an  unguarded  moment,  to 
commit  the  same  offence,  he  stole  my 
puns,  and  made  them  again  as  his 
own. 

On  the  eve  of  our  embarkation  we 
strolled  forth,  after  an  early  dinner, 
for  a  parting  view  of  the  sunset  from 
the  castle.  Walking  up  town,  we 
met  the  man  of  rum,  the  sleep-murder- 
ing Macbeth  of  the  mail-coach.  Still 
he  was  talking — for  want  of  company, 
talking  to  himself.  But  his  eyes  were 
set,  half-closed,  and  dim ;  his  aspect 
was  peculiarly  meditative,  and  his 
course  curvilinear.  He  had  taken  on 
board  plus  cequo  of  his  own  samples. 
Perceiving  our  approach,  he  gave  a 
lurch  to  clear  us.  But  his  legs,  being 
not  altogether  under  management, 
brought  him  exactly  in  the  direction 
which  he  sought  to  shun ;  his  sto- 
mach, which  had  already  suffered  so 
many  assaults  in  the  coach,  most  un- 
fortunately impinged  upon  my  elbow  ; 
and  again  it  was  "  ugh  !"  His  gummy 
eyes  expanded,  and  gleamed  on  us 
like  two  fresh-opened  oysters.  Awhile 
he  gazed  with  drunken  gravity  ;  then, 
turning  round,  bent  over  the  roadside 
gutter,  as  if  about  to  tumble  in,  and 
jocosely  imitated  the  operation  of 
drawing  a  cork.  His  organs  of  vision 
then  assumed  a  slow  movement  of 
horizontal  oscillation,  and  gradually 
settled  on  a  pastry-cook's  shop  over 
the  way.  Towards  this  point  he  di- 
rected his  zigzag  approaches,  recom- 
mencing his  agreeable  conference  with 
himself,  in  terms  of  which  we  could 
catch  only  the  words — "  Archimedes 


— screw — pneumatic  chemistry — soda 
water — pop !"  He  left  with  us  the 
odour  of  a  very  bad  cigar,  which  led 
Gingham  to  remark  that  he  was 
"  backy  plenus"  in  more  senses  than, 
one. 

The  influence  of  bad  example  is 
dreadful.  Emerging  from  the  town  in 
our  way  to  the  castle,  we  met  a  merry 
party,  male  and  female,  all  equestri- 
ans save  some  six  or  eight,  who  occu- 
pied the  interior  and  exterior  of  a 
post-chaise.  Gingham,  who  saw  into 
a  thing  at  once,  pronounced  them  a 
wedding  party  ;  and  a  buxom  dame, 
who  was  mounted  on  a  lively  little 
west  country  galloway,  the  bride. 
"  Pony  subit  conjux,"  said  I.  "  Yes," 
said  Gingham  ;  u  but  if  that  dear  lady 
rides  so  near  the  carriage,  oh  !  oh ! 
oh!  she  will  infallibly  be  capsized! 
'  Pony  sub  curru  uimium  propinqui !' " 
We  reached  the  hill  in  time,  saw  a 
glorious  sunset,  and  returned  to  let- 
ter-writing, and  a  light  supper  on 
hashed  duck. 

As  Gingham  appears  more  than 
once  upon  the  stage  in  the  course  of 
my  Peninsular  adventures,  and  I 
should  really  be  sorry  to  annoy  the 
reader,  as  much  as  I  was  annoyed 
myself,  with  his  perpetual  and  abomi- 
nable perversions  of  classic  latiuity,  I 
beg  leave  to  dispose  of  this  part  of  the 
subject  at  once,  before  we  get  to  sea. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  then,  that  in  the 
spring  of  the  year  1838,  just  a  quarter 
of  a  century  after  the  period  of  which 
I  am  now  writing,  I  once  more  left 
London  for  Falmouth,  en  route  to  Lis- 
bon, though  with  an  object  far  diffe- 
rent from  that  of  my  voyage  now  to 
be  recorded,  and  in  a  far  different  ca- 
pacity. Science,  in  these  five-and- 
twenty  years,  had  don£  wonders  ;  and 
I  had  secured  my  passage  in  London, 
not  by  a  miserable  tub  of  a  sailing 
packet,  but  by  a  well-found  and  fast 
Peninsular  steamer.  The  day  before 
the  steamer  was  to  start  from  Fal- 
mouth,  I  walked  down  to  the  waters 
side  to  take  a  view  of  her.  On  the 
quay  stood  Gingham.  By  one  of 
those  strange  coincidences  which  some- 
times happen  in  life,  we  bad  again  met 
at  Falmouth,  and  were  again  to  cross 
the  Bay  of  Biscay  in  company.  I 


1819.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


557 


recognised  him :  he  did  not  recognise 
me.  Time  had  somewhat  changed 
his  look,  his  dress  very  little.  Its 
predominant  aspect  was  still  white. 
His  nose,  too,  was  unniistakeable. 
Perceiving  at  once  that  he  was,  like 
myself,  a  passenger  to  the  Peninsula, 
I  availed  myself  of  the  freedom  con- 
ceded in  such  cases,  and  commenced  a 
conversation  by  some  remark  on  the 
steaniei'. 

"  I  presume,  sir,"  said  he,  "  you  are 
a  passenger  ?" 

"  Yes,  Mi-  Gingham,  and  so  are 
you.  Glad  to  meet  you."  He  stared, 
but  admitted  the  fact. 

"  But,  sir,"  said  he,  "  you  have  the 
advantage  of  me." 

"  Well,  well,"  said  I,  "  you'll  find 
me  out  to-morrow  on  board  the  Gua- 
dalquivir. Fine  ship  that.  To-mor- 
row, you  know,  as  Horace  said,  when 
he  was  off  by  the  steamer : — '  Cras, 
iugins  !  iterabimus  aequor !" 

The  effect  was  instantaneous.  Ging- 
ham did  not  speak,  he  shouted : — 
"Dine  with  me:  I  have  got  a  John  dory." 

We  walked  off  to  the  town — I  rub- 
bing my  shoulder,  which  Gingham, 
shook,  when  he  shook  my  hand — he, 
for  a  few  paces,  thoughtful  and  silent. 
I  expected  a  burst  of  sentiment. 

"  By  the  bye,"  said  Gingham, 
"  while  your  hand  was  in,  you  might 
just  as  well  have  quoted  the  other  line, 
for  that,  also,  refers  to  our  voyage." 

"  The  other  line  ?" 

"  Yes,  the  other  line.  Don't  you 
see  that  pan-  of  rooks  flying  over  the 
harbour?" 

"  Rooks  fly  in  droves.  I  see  no 
rooks." 

"  Right,"  said  he  ;  "  they  are  a 
<jouple  of  crows." 

' '  But  the  line  from  Horace,  referring 
to  our  voyage  ?" 

"  Not  only  referring  to  it,"  said 
Gingham,  "  but  highly  encouraging. 
4  Nil  desperandum  two  crow  duce,  et 
auspice  two  crow." 

"  Gingham,  you  are  incorrigible." 

To  reach  the  street  from  the  water's 
side  we  had  to  pass  through  a  narrow 
passage,  and  there  met  the  stewardess 
of  the  steamer,  who  was  going  on 
board.  She  stalked  along  in  clogs  on 
tiptoe,  her  left  hand  gathering  up,  be- 
hind, her  cloak,  gown,  petticoat,  &c., 
while  her  right  hand  bore  an  umbrella 
one  size  larger  than  a  parasol,  and  a 


reticule  one  size  less  than  a  pannier ; 
emerging  from  which  pannier  appeared 
the  ugly  mug  of  an  enormous  Portu- 
guese red  ram  cat,  the  pet  of  the 
stewardess,  and  the  constant  compa- 
nion of  her  Peninsular  voyages. 

"My  cat  inter  omnes,"  said  Ging- 
ham. 

But  I  have  rambled,  and  am  a 
quarter  of  a  century  wide  of  the  mark. 
The  period  of  which  I  have  now  to 
write,  the  important  period  to  which 
my  present  narrative  refers,  is  not  the 
more  recent  year,  1838,  but  the  re- 
moter year,  1813,  glorious  in  the 
annals  of  England  ;  the  year  that  saw 
the  commencement  of  Napoleon's 
downfal ;  the  year  of  triumph  and 
rout  beneath  the  walls  of  Vittoria ; 
the  year  of  a  still  sterner  and  equally 
successful  conflict  at  St  Sebastian ; 
the  year,  too,  that  furnished  a  name 
for  a  princess  of  a  royal  line,  that 
QUEEN  VICTORIA  who,  in  her  high 
estate  and  royal  clemency,  remem- 
bered and  rewarded  the  long-forgotten 
and  long  unrecompensed  heroes  of 
those  bygone  times.  In  the  early 
spring  of  that  year,  1813,  I  was  there 
at  Falmouth,  a  raw  youth,  launched 
on  the  wide  world  in  search  of  adven- 
ture, burning  to  reach  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  Peninsular  army,  fully 
capable  of  making  a  fool  of  myself 
when  I  got  there,  and  anxiously  wait- 
ing for  the  sailing  of  the  Princess 
Wilhelmina  gun-brig,  which,  for  want 
of  a  better,  performed  the  office  of 
Lisbon  packet.  It  was  well  for  me 
that,  at  Falmouth,  I  had  already  fallen 
into  friendly  hands. 

On  the  morning  of  our  embarkation, 
March,  the  — th,  1813,  Gingham  went 
early  on  board  the  packet,  for  his  per- 
sonal baggage  was  bulky  and  various, 
to  see  to  its  stowage — part  in  his  berth, 
part  in  the  hold.  It  was  settled  be- 
tween us  that  he  was  to  return  ashore, 
that  we  were  to  breakfast  together  at 
the  hotel,  and  afterwards  go  off  to- 
gether to  the  packet,  which  was  still 
lying  in  the  harbour,  and  was  to  sail 
about  noon. 

I  waited  breakfast  for  Gingham,  but 
no  Gingham  came.  At  length  I  re- 
ceived a  long  note  from  him,  dated  on 
board  the  packet.  It  began  by  stating 
that  an  attempt  had  been  made  to 
impose  upon  him,  and  that  he  was 


558 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Nov. 


determined  not  to  stand  it.  The  at- 
tempted imposition,  as  I  learned  from 
him  afterwards,  was  this  : — 

Gingham  walked  down  from  the 
hotel  to  the  water's  side,  and  engaged 
a  boat,  which  was  to  take  him  on 
board  the  packet  for  eighteenpence ; 
he,  Gingham,  understanding  thereby, 
according  to  the  tenor  of  many  previ- 
ous bargains  at  the  same  rate  of  pay- 
ment, that  he  was  to  be  taken  on 
board,  and  put  on  shore  again.  On 
this,  however,  the  last  day  of  onr 
abode  at  Falmouth,  the  two  boatmen, 
thinking  they  might  safely  try  it  on, 
and  conjecturing  also  that  Gingham's 
time  might  possibly  be  too  valuable  to 
be  wasted  in  discussion,  determined  to 
take  a  different  view  of  the  subject, 
and  exact  a  second  fare  for  landing 
him.  The  boat  reached  the  packet, 
Gingham  went  on  board,  the  boatmen 
made  fast  to  a  harbour-buoy,  and 
waited  the  result.  Gingham  went 
below,  made  his  arrangements,  came 
on  deck,  and  hailed  his  boat  to  take 
him  ashore.  The  elder  boatman 
civilly  touched  his  hat,  and  remarked, 
with  a  winning  smile,  that  they  hadn't 
been  paid  "nuffin"  for  bringing  him 
on  board.  Gingham  replied,  that  he 
should  pay  as  usual  when  they  had 
got  back  to  the  quay.  The  boatman, 
courteous  as  before,  again  touched  his 
hat,  and  answered,  simpering,  "  Beg 
your  pardon,  sir,  but  this  ear  last  day, 
when  the  peckit's  hoff,  jeddlemen  hoi- 
ways  pays  bofe  ways,  cummin  aboord, 
and  gooin  back  again."  "  Oh,  do 
they?"  said  Gingham,  and  walked 
down  into  the  cabin,  where  he  quietly 
wrote  his  note  to  me,  in  a  hand  that 
beat  copperplate  ;  and  breakfasted 
upon  sea  biscuit,  junk,  and  ship's 
cocoa,  the  steward  not  having  yet  got 
off  his  stock  of  groceries  for  the  voyage. 
Everybody  on  board  knew  Gingham, 
and  he  had  no  difficulty  in  getting 
his  note  brought  ashore  in  the  ship's 
boat,  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
two  'longshore  fellows,  who  were  riding 
at  the  buoy,  and  who  still  thought 
they  had  the  best  of  the  bargain — as  it 
is  a  rule  in  harbour,  or  at  any  rate  was 
in  those  days,  that  no  private  passen- 
ger by  a  packet  passed  or  repassed 
except  by  'longshore  boats.  Gingham 
was  now  all  right,  and  did  not  care 
one  farthing  for  the  boatmen ;  for  he 
already  had  the  bulk  of  his  things  on 


board,  he  was  on  board  himself,  and 
his  note  advised  me  respecting  his  re- 
maining matters  ashore.  He  continu- 
ed below,  having  resolved,  as  he  told 
me  afterwards,  to  keep  the  boatmen 
waiting  alongside  till  the  packet  was 
off,  and  then  give  them  ninepence. 
Meanwhile  he  sent  up,  by  the  steward, 
an  injunction  to  the  people  on  deck, 
w^io  enjoyed  not  a  little  the  false  posi- 
tion of  the  two  boatmen,  not  on  any 
account  to  let  them  come  on  board. 

Gingham's  note  to  me,  which  was, 
as  I  have  already  intimated,  a  beau- 
tiful specimen  of  commercial  penman- 
ship, was  to  the  following  effect : — 
That  he  was  detained  on  board  by 
his  determination  to  resist  a  gross 
imposition ;  that  the  laundress  had 
still  in  her  keeping  a  small  quantity 
of  his  linen,  which  she  was  to  bring 
to  the  hotel  about  breakfast- time; 
that  he  had  settled  with  the  servants 
that  morning  ;  and  that  the  landlady 
was  indebted  to  him  in  the  sum  of 
two  shillings,  he  having  paid  his  bill 
the  night  before,  in  which  bill  was 
included  the  charge  of  two  shillings 
for  a  cold-meat  breakfast,  which  he 
should  not  take;  that  he  requested 
me  to  get  back  the  two  shillings  from 
the  landlady;  that  he  would  also 
thank  me  to  receive  the  linen  from 
the  laundress,  see  that  it  was  correct 
per  invoice,  (washing-bill,  I  presume,) 
check  her  account,  liquidate  it,  and 
bring  the  linen  on  board  with  me. 

Meanwhile  a  circumstance  arose, 
which  was  of  great  moment  in  itself, 
and  gave  Gingham  a  further  advan- 
tage in  his  affair  with  the  two  Fal- 
mouth lads.  An  extra  mail  for 
Lisbon  had  arrived  from  London, 
sent  off  by  despatch  to  catch  the 
packet  before  she  sailed;  and,  by 
management  of  Gingham's  partners, 
who  were  influential  people,  brought 
Gingham  letters  on  a  matter  of  some 
importance.  These  letters  were  taken 
off  to  Gingham  by  a  trusty  drab- 
coated  Falmouth  "  Friend,"  in  another 
'longshore  boat,  and  rendered  it  ab- 
solutely requisite  that  he  should  go 
ashore,  and  perhaps  defer  his  voyage; 
The  packet  at  this  time  was  sur- 
rounded with  boats  and  bustle,  the 
two  boatmen  still  fast  to  the  buoy  ; 
and  Gingham  had  no  difficulty  in 
returning  ashore  by  the  boat  which 
brought  off  his  mercantile  friend^ 


1849.] 


My  Peninsidar  Medal. — Part  I. 


559 


without  being  observed  by  them. 
In  fact,  they  were  half  asleep,  still 
secure,  as  they  thought,  of  their 
victim,  and  affording  no  small  sport 
to  the  crew  of  the  packet,  who  saw 
how  things  were  going.  I  shall  only 
mention  here,  that  the  communica- 
tion, received  by  Gingham  from  Lon- 
don, related  to  a  grand  financial 
speculation,  an  idea  of  his  OWB, 
having  reference  to  the  monetary 
transactions  at  headquarters,  which 
were  very  large,  and  as  well  conducted 
as  circumstances  permitted,  but  at- 
tended with  great  difficulties,  and 
considerable  loss  to  the  British  gov- 
ernment. Gingham's  plan  would  have 
been  backed  by  private  capital  to  any 
amount.  It  was  knocked  on  the  head 
by  the  peace  of  1814 :  but  I  have  more 
to  say  about  it  hereafter. 

True  to  her  time,  the  laundress 
arrived  at  the  hotel ;  not  bringing,  as 
Gingham  had  described  it,  a  small 
quantity  of  linen,  but  attended  by  a 
man  with  a  barrow,  wheeling  two 
large  buckbaskets,  each  piled  with  an 
immense  heap  of  shirts,  white  in- 
expressibles, white  double-breasted 
dimity  waistcoats,  —  in  short  every 
thing  white, — a  stock  for  a  voyage  to 
China.  On  the  interior  of  the  collar 
of  one  of  the  said  white  double- 
breasted  dimity  waistcoats,  I  noticed 

the  cypher  G£ !— No.  1  of  the  fourth 

dozen !  So  profuse  was  Gingham  in 
his  provision  for  the  habiliment  of  his 
own  elegant  exterior.  I  settled  with 
the  laundress,  engaged  the  barrow- 
man  to  go  off  with  me  in  charge  of 
the  linen,  and  take  back  the  baskets, 
finished  my  breakfast,  paid  my  bill, 
and  went  on  board.  Such  was  my- 
first  embarkation  for  the  Peninsula. 
Little  dreaming  that  there  was  a 
spoke  in  my  wheel,  and  that  some  time 
was  still  to  elapse  between  my  depar- 
ture from  Falmouth  and  my  arrival 
at  the  British  headquarters,  I  had 
longed  for  the  day  of  the  packet's 
sailing.  But  now,  when  the  wished- 
f or  moment  had  arrived,  a  lot  of  little 
things,  coming  upon  me  at  the  last, 
quite  put  it  out  of  my  head  that  I  was 
quitting  my  native  land,  and  about  to 
enter  on  new  scenes,  mingle  with 
strangers,  embark  in  active  life, 
and  master — where  alone  they  could 
be  mastered,  on  their  vernacular 


soil — two  ancient,  expressive,  and 
kindred  languages,  which  I  had 
conned  rudimentally  on  the  banks 
of  Cam.  Nor  did  I  dream  that  I 
went  to  earn  a  prospective  claim  to 
a  Peninsular  Medal;  and  jot  down 
mental  memoranda,  still  vividly  legi- 
ble, of  all  I  heard  and  saw,  for  the  in- 
formation and  amusement  of  readers 
then  unborn.  "  Gooin'  off  to  the 
peckit,  sir?  Here,  Bill,  hand  the 
jeddleman's  boxes."  Then,  when  we 
we're  half  way  to  the  brig, — "  Wherry 
'ot  on  the  worter,  sir.  Ope  you'll  be 
ginnerous  a  little  hextry  for  the  lug- 
gidge,  sir.  Wherry  dry  work  pullin', 
sir." 

Gingham,  when  I  reached  the 
packet,  was  not  on  board.  The  cause 
of  his  absence  was  explained  to  me 
by  the  steward,  who  assisted  in  stow- 
ing away  the  contents  of  the  two 
buckbaskets  in  Gingham's  berth. 
During  this  operation,  the  steward, 
who  fully  participated  in  the  anti- 
pathy to  'longshore  boatmen  common 
to  his  class,  communicated  to  me, 
with  no  small  glee,  the  occurrences  of 
the  morning ;  and  begged  me  to  take 
a  sight,  when  I  went  on  deck,  of  the 
two  expectant  gentlemen  at  the  buoy. 
There  they  were,  sure  enough,  very 
much  at  their  ease — quite  satisfied 
that  Gingham  would  want  to  be  taken 
ashore  again  before  the  packet  sailed, 
that  theirs  was  the  boat  that  must 
take  him,  and  that  they  had  the  game 
in  their  own  hands. 

On  deck  I  met  our  three  breakfast 
guests  of  the  day  before.  They 
greeted  me  cordially,  made  many 
inquiries  after  Gingham,  and  intro- 
duced me,  as  a  particular  old  crony 
of  theirs,  to  Staff-Surgeon  Pledget, 
who  had  arrived  by  the  mail  over- 
night, and  was  also  a  passenger  to 
Lisbon,  on  his  return  to  the  British 
army.  I  soon  began  to  perceive  that 
it  was  a  standing  rule  with  my  three 
new  acquaintances,  regular  "  Penin- 
sulars," to  extract  fun  from  even  the 
most  common  incidents — in  fact,  from 
everybody  and  everything.  Staff- 
Surgeon  Pledget,  as  able  a  man  in 
his  profession  as  any  staff- surgeon 
attached  to  the  Peninsular  army,  was 
matter-of-fact  personified ;  and  the 
dignified  cordiality  with  which  he 
received  an  old  crony  of  theirs,  evi- 
dently afforded  the  three  hoaxers 


560 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


[Nov. 


extraordinary  sport.  Major  M —  did 
the  presentation  with  perfect  coolness 
and  amenity.  Gammon  was  his 
element.  Mr  Commissary  Capsicum 
winked  his  eye  in  the  richest  style  of 
comedy,  and  nearly  made  me  spoil 
all  by  laughing.  Captain  Gabion 
looked  gravely  on,  and  laughed  inter- 
nally. His  sides  shook,  his  elbows 
twitched,  and  his  countenance  wore 
its  usual  expression  of  melancholy. 

Presently  after  was  seen  approach- 
ing a  man-of-war's  boat,  pulling  at 
the  steady  rate,  which  indicated  that 
it  conveyed  an  officer  of  rank.  The 
boat  came  alongside  with  a  graceful 
sweep  ;  twelve  oars  stood  upright,  as 
if  by  magic ;  and  a  tall,  military-look- 
ing man,  who  had  lost  an  arm,  rose, 
politely  took  leave  of  the  lieutenant  in 
charge  of  the  boat,  ascended  the  ship's 
side,  with  the  aid  of  his  single  hand, 
faster  than  some  people  perform  the 
same  difficult  operation  with  two, 
and  stood  on  deck.  This  was  the 

brave  Colonel  of  the  cavalry, 

who  was  going  out  with  us  to  rejoin 
his  regiment.  He  had  lost  his  arm  at 
Oporto,  on  that  memorable  occasion 
when  the  French,  to  their  astonish- 
ment, found  the  British  army  on  their 
side  of  the  Douro ;  and  when  the 
British  army,  too,  quite  surprised  at 
finding  itself,  as  if  by  magic,  on 
the  opposite  bank  of  a  broad,  deep, 
and  rapid  river,  and  struck  with  ad- 
miration at  the  bold  conception  and 
skilful  execution  which  had  effected 
the  transition  under  the  enemy's 
nose,  with  one  consent  dubbed  its 
illustrious  leader  "  Old  Douro."  By 
that  title,  from  that  time  forward,  he 
was  commonly  known  at  headquar- 
ters :  and  is  it  not  a  glorious  one,  so 
won,  and  so  conferred,  and  truly  wor- 
thy of  descending  in  his  family  ?  On 
that  occasion,  I  was  told,  Colonel 

charged  through  the  enemy  at 

the  head  of  his  regiment,  and,  as 
one  good  turn  deserves  another, 
thought  he  might  as  well  charge  back 
again.  It  was  in  this  second  charge 
that  he  lost  his  arm. 

Arrived  on  deck,  the  colonel  made 
a  somewhat  semicircular  bow  to  all  of 
us,  and  immediately  recognised  Major 
M — .  His  valet  followed  him,  and 
presently  went  below.  The  next  mo- 
ment, the  colonel  began  to  take  a  first 
view  of  the  vessel,  and  turned  from 


us  for  that  purpose.  Captain  Gabion, 
first  nudging  Mr  Commissary  Capsi- 
cum, whispered  Major  M — ,  "Come, 
major,  give  us  the  colonel."  The 
major,  having  an  arm  too  many,  in  a 
twinkling  whipped  one  behind  him, 
stepped  to  the  gangway,  and  did  the 
colonel's  first  appearance  to  the  life. 
To  execute  the  colonel's  recognition  of 
himself,  for  want  of  a  better  substitute, 
he  advanced,  with  the  colonel's  three 
military  strides,  to  me.  I,  carried 
away  by  the  drollery  of  the  scene,  so 
far  forgot  myself  that  I  did  the  major. 
This  caused  a  general  laugh ;  the 
colonel  turned  round,  and  caught  me 
and  the  major  bowing,  grimacing,  and 
shaking  hands.  He  saw  at  once  what 
had  been  going  on,  and  laughed  too. 
But  the  major  wished  to  shift  the 
responsibility.  "  That  Pledget,"  said 
he,  "keeps  us  in  a  constant  roar. " 
Mr  Staff-Surgeon  Pledget  looked  a 
little  surprised.  When  the  major  gave 
us  the  colonel's  horizontal  salutation  to 
the  company  assembled,  Pledget  took 
it  all  in  earnest,  and  bowed  in  return. 
One  other  arrival  followed.  A  shore 
boat  came  off,  having  four  more  pas- 
sengers— a  lady,  two  gentlemen,  and 
a  female  attendant.  One  of  the  said 
gentlemen,  an  Irishman,  was  the 
lady's  brother :  she,  in  face  and  form, 
a  perfect  specimen  of  Irish  beauty ; 
he,  both  in  person  and  in  feature,  all 
that  might  be  expected  in  the  brother 
of  such  a  sister.  In  this  respect  he 
presented  a  remarkable  contrast  to 
their  fellow-passenger,  who  was  a 
young  Irish  officer  of  the  East  India 
Company's  navy,  and,  what  made  it 
more  remarkable,  the  accepted  swain, 
as  we  afterwards  had  every  reason  to 
conclude,  of  his  fair  countrywoman. 
How  shall  I  describe  this  lovely  youth  ? 
His  head  was  large ;  his  face  prodigious- 
ly large  and  flat;  his  features  were  lu- 
dicrously diminutive.  Fancy  a  full 
moon  seen  broad  and  white  through  a 
Shetland  mist — in  short,  a  full  moon 
of  putty ;  then  fancy,  stuck  exactly 
in  the  centre  of  this  moon,  the  little 
screwed-up  pug  face  of  a  little  ugly 
monkey,  and  you  have  him  to  a  T. 
His  two  little  twinkling  eyes,  deep 
sunk  beneath  the  beetling  browr  of  his 
prominent  and  massive  forehead,  and 
in  such  close  proximity  that  nothing 
separated  them  but  the  bridge  of  his 
nose,  were  constantly  and  inquisitively 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  I. 


561 


on  the  move.  The  nose  itself  was  too 
insignificant  to  merit  a  description. 
Yet  it  was  not  exactly  what  is  called 
a  squashed  nose,  but  a  nose  without  a 
nib.  It  conveyed  to  you,  indeed,  the 
painful  impression  that  some  unfeeling 
barber  had  sliced  off  its  extremity, 
and  left  the  two  unprotected  nostrils 
staring  you  full  in  the  face,  like  the 
open  ports  of  a  ship.  His  ears  were 
like  an  elephant's, — large,  loose,  thin, 
flat,  and  unhemrned.  His  mouth,  like 
that  described  by  a  distinguished  au- 
thoress, "  had  a  physiognomy  of  its 
own."  Not  very  observable  when 
quiescent,  in  speaking  it  became 
curiously  expressive,  and,  at  times, 
enormously  elongated  or  strangely 
curvilinear.  It  had  also,  under  the 
same  circumstances,  another  pecu- 
liarity. It  was  a  travelling  mouth  : 
yes,  it  travelled.  When  it  talked,  it 
was  constantly  shifting  its  position, 
not  only  up  and  down,  but  side- 
ways and  obliquely.  In  the  utter- 
ance of  a  single  sentence,  it  would 
traverse  the  whole  extent  of  his 
face.  It  was  now  high,  now  low; 
now  on  this  side,  now  on  that.  It 
ranged,  at  will,  the  whole  breadth  of 
his  countenance  from  ear  to  ear  ;  so 
that  at  times  he  was  all  mouth  on 
one  side  of  his  face,  and  no  mouth  on 
the  other.  This  gave  him  the  addi- 
tional advantage,  that  his  profile  could 
maintain  a  dialogue  with  you,  as  well 
as  another  man's  full  face.  When 
conversing  with  his  lady-love,  side 
by  side  at  the  dinner-table,  he  never 
turned  to  look  at  her — he  had  no  need. 
Viewing  her  with  one  eye,  like  a  duck, 
in  tones  of  deferential  tenderness  he 
addressed  her  from  the  cheek  that 
was  nearest  hers.  His  perfectly- 
well-bred  deportment,  nay,  elegance 
of  manner,  his  inexhaustible  fund  of 
good  humour,  and  amusing  waggery, 
did  not,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  prevent 
his  acquiring,  and  bearing  during  the 
voyage,  the  name  of  Joey :  allusive, 
I  presume,  to  the  feats  of  mouth  per- 
formed in  those  days  by  the  far- 
famed  Grimaldi.  The  malevolent 
suspicion,  that  a  title  so  derogatory 
was  any  suggestion  of  mine,  I  scorn 
to  notice.  To  this,  however,  I  do 
confess,  that,  ere  we  had  been  four- 
aud-  twenty  hours  at  sea,  as  a  slight 
token  of  my  profound  veneration  for 
the  stateliest  and  the  loveliest  of 


Erin's  daughters,  I  proposed,  and  it 
was  carried  unanimously,  that  she 
should  bear  the  name  of  Juno.  And, 
the  colonel  having  pronounced  her 
brother  a  perfect  Apollo,  I  also  pro- 
posed, and  it  was  also  carried  unani- 
mously, that  we  should  call  him  Mr 
Belvidere.  But  I  am  anticipating. 
On  the  practice  of  giving  sobriquets, 
so  common  at  headquarters,  much 
remains  to  be  said  hereafter.  As  to 
the  maid-servant,  she  was  a  quiet 
little  Irishwoman  of  about  five-and- 
thirty,  in  a  duffle  cloak  with  pink 
bows,  snug  straw  bonnet  neatly  tied 
under  her  chin  with  a  pink  ribbon, 
and  snow-white  cotton  stockings,  ex- 
hibiting a  rather  broad  instep,  which, 
led  me  to  conjecture  that  she  had  not 
always  worn  shoes.  Her  mistress 
called  her  Kitty,  and  that  name  she 
was  allowed  to  keep,  as  no  one  on. 
board  thought  he  could  improve  it. 

It  is  time  to  get  to  sea.  Gingham, 
where  are  you?  what  are  you  about? 
We  shall  be  off,  and  leave  you  be- 
hind. Noon,  our  hour  of  sailing, 
was  now  near  at  hand.  The  anchor 
was  hove  short ;  the  sails  were  shak- 
ing in  the  wind  ;  the  skipper  came 
on  board  ;  the  foresail  was  then  set ; 
still  there  was  no  Gingham.  Those 
talented  individuals,  the  two  boatmen, 
still  supposing  Gingham  was  on  board, 
were  getting  a  little  uneasy.  They 
were  now  wide  awake,  and  anxiously 
peering  at  the  ship  with  their  hands 
over  their  eyes,  watching  every  one 
that  came  on  deck,  but  watching  in. 
vain.  Their  uneasiness  evidently 
increased,  as  our  remaining  time  di- 
minished ;  till  at  length,  as  the  town 
clock  struck  twelve,  the  capstan  was 
manned.  The  anchor  was  then  hove 
to  the  tune  of  "  Off  she  goes,"  per- 
formed on  a  single  fife  in  admirable 
time,  marked  by  the  tread  of  many 
feet.  The  flood- tide  was  beginning 
to  make ;  but  we  didn't  care  for  that, 
as  we  had  wind  enough  from  the  north- 
east, and  to  spare.  Other  sails  were 
now  set,  and  we  were  beginning  to 
get  way  ;  while  I  was  intently  eyeing 
the  shore,  expecting  to  see  Gingham 
shove  off,  and  perfectly  sure  he  would 
come,  because  he  had  taken  no  steps 
for  the  re- landing  of  his  baggage. 

But  I  did  not  look  in  the  right  di- 
rection. Gingham,  detained  to  the 
last  moment,  and  then,  having  settled 


562 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  L 


[Nor. 


all  things  to  his  satisfaction,  at  liberty 
to  prosecute  his  voyage,  had  made 
his  arrangements  with  his  usual  judg- 
ment. It  was  a  near  thing  though. 
He  put  off  from  a  part  of  the  town 
lower  down  than  the  quay  from  which 
he  usually  embarked,  so  as  to  cut  in 
upon  us  as  we  glided  down  the  har- 
bour ;  and  was  within  a  few  fathoms 
of  the  ship  before  I  saw  him.  He 
was  then  standing  upright  in  his  boat, 
completely  absorbed  in  a  London 
paper,  but  with  one  hand  waving  his 
umbrella,  without  looking  up,  to  stop 
the  ship.  Stopping  the  ship  was  ont 
of  the  question.  Indeed,  I  fancied  the 
skipper  would  have  been  glad  to  go 
without  him.  The  boat,  coming  end 
on,  and  not  very  cleverly  handled  by 
the  Falmouth  fellows,  bumped  against 
the  side  of  the  ship,  which,  as  she 
was  now  under  way,  they  were  afraid 
of  missing  altogether ;  and  the  shock 
almost  pitched  Gingham  and  his 
umbrella  into  the  water.  He  came 
on  board  amidst  general  laughter, 
and  the  hearty  greetings  of  such  of 
the  passengers  as  knew  him — none 
heartier  than  mine.  "  How  his  green 
spectacles  would  have  frightened  the 
fishes!"  said  Mr  Commissary  Capsi- 
cum to  Captain  Gabion.  "Don't 
joke  on  such  a  serious  subject,"  re- 
plied the  captain ;  "  had  he  gone 
over,  we  should  have  quitted  England 
without  getting  a  sight  of  the  last 
London  newspaper." 

The  two  worthies,  who,  still 
expecting  to  see  Gingham  emerge 
from  the  cabin,  had  so  long  waited 
for  him  in  vain,  were  by  this 
time  in  an  awkward  predicament. 
When  the  ship  first  began  to  move, 
they  had  no  resource  but  to  unmoor 
from  the  buoy,  out  oars,  and  pull 
away  in  company.  But  this,  it  was 
soon  clear,  would  not  do.  The  ship 
was  getting  more  and  more  way,  and, 
had  they  pulled  their  hearts  out,  would 
soon  have  left  them  astern  ;  when, 
as  their  only  chance,  they  pulled  close 
alongside,  and  made  free  with  a  rope's 
end  that  was  dragging  through  the 
water.  This  one  of  them  held,  after 
giving  it  a  turn  round  a  bench  ;  while 
the  other  kept  off  the  boat  from  the 
ship's  side  by  means  of  the  boat-hook. 


While  they  were  being  thus  dragged 
through  the  water,  each,  as  he  could, 
from  time  to  time  touching  his  hat, 
each  beseechingly  simpering,  each 
saying  something  that  nobody  could 
hear,  and  both  anxiously  looking  for 
Gingham  on  deck,  to  their  great  sur- 
prise the}'  saw  him  come  alongside  in 
another  boat,  as  I  have  already  re- 
lated ;  and,  before  they  could  say 
Jack  Robinson,  he  was  on  board." 

After  our  fir,st  greetings,  I  called 
Gingham's  attention  to  the  disagree- 
able position  of  our  two  friends,  who 
were  still  holding  on  alongside,  and 
dragging  through  the  water.  Indeed, 
I  was  disposed  to  hold  an  argument 
with  him  on  the  subject,  and  thought 
a  different  view  might  be  taken  of 
their  case.  "  No,  no,"  said  Gingham; 
"  this  is  the  first  time  any  Falmouth 
man  has  ever  attempted  to  impose 
upon  me,  and  I  mean  it  to  be  the  last." 

The  breeze,  no  unusual  circumstance 
in  such  localities,  stiffened  as  we  ap- 
proached the  entrance  of  the  harbour, 
where  the  high  land  closes  in,  and  the 
sea-way  is  comparatively  narrow ; 
and,  meeting  the  swell  which  came 
tumbling  in  from  the  ocean  with  the 
flood-tide,  knocked  up  a  little  bit  of 
an  ugly  ripple.  The  situation  of  the 
two  boatmen  was  becoming  every 
moment  more  awkward.  We  were 
now  going  six  knots,  (through  the 
water,  mind  you,  not  making  six  knots 
— that,  against  such  a  current,  was 
quite  beyond  our  tubby  little  Wilhel- 
mina's  capabilities  ;)  the  ripple  was 
gradually  becoming  nastier  ;  the  boat- 
men, still  touching  their  hats  from 
time  to  time,  still  blandly  smiling, 
and  still  making  unheard  but  pathetic 
appeals  to  Gingham's  generosity,  did 
not  like  to  let  go  till  they  had  got 
something ;  and  I  really  thought  the 
end  must  be,  that  their  boat  would 
be  swamped  alongside.  At  length, 
Gingham  put  an  end  to  the  farceT 
by  screwing  up  ninepence  in  a  bit  of 
paper,  and  throwing  it  into  the  boatr 
telling  them  it  was  threepence  more 
than  they  deserved.  They  then  let 
go ;  and  we  left  them  poppling  up  and 
down,  like  a  cork,  in  the  broken  water, 
and  scuffling  about  in  the  bottom  of 
the  boat  for  the  scattered  coin. 


1349.  J  Disenchantment.  563 


DISEXCHAKTMEXT. 


I. 

ALTHOUGH  from  Adam  stained  with  crime, 

A  halo  girds  the  path  of  time, 

As  'twere  things  humble  with  sublime, 

Divine  with  mortal  blending, 
And  that  which  is,  with  that  which  seems, — 
Till  blazoned  o'er  were  Jacob's  dreams 
With  heaven's  angelic  hosts,  in  streams, 

Descending  and  ascending. 


Ask  of  the  clouds,  why  Eden's  dyes 
Have  vanished  from  the  sunset  skies? 
Ask  of  the  winds,  why  harmonies 

Now  breathe  not  in  their  voices? 
Ask  of  the  spring,  why  from  the  bloom 
Of  lilies  comes  a  less  perfume? 
And  why  the  linnet,  'mid  the  broom, 

Less  lustily  rejoices? 

in. 

Silent  are  now  the  sylvan  tents ; 

The  elves  to  airy  elements 

Resolved  are  gone;  grim  castled  rents 

No  more  show  demons  gazing, 
With  evil  eyes,  on  wandering  men ; 
And,  where  the  dragon  had  his  den 
Of  fire,  within  the  haunted  glen, 

Now  herds  unharmed  are  grazing.* 


*  A  clearer  day  has  dispelled  the  marvels,  which  showed  themselves  in  heaveu 
above  and  in  earth  beneath,  when  twilight  and  superstition  went  hand  in  hand. 
Horace's 

"  Somnia,  terrores  magi  cos,  miracula,  sagas, 
Nocturnes  Lemures,  portentaque  Thessala," 

as  well  as  Milton's 

"  Gorgons,  Hydras,  and  Chimera's  dire," 

have  all  been  found  wanting,  when  reduced  to  the  admeasurements  of  science  ;  and 
the  "  sounds  that  syllable  men's  names,  on  sands,  and  shores,  and  desert  wilder- 
nesses," are  quenched  in  silence,  or  only  exist  in  what  James  Hogg  most  poetically 
terms 

"  That  undefined  and  mingled  hum, 
Voice  of  the  desert,  never  dumb.'11 

The  inductive  philosophy  was  "  the  bare  bodkin  "  which  gave  many  a  pleasant  vision 
"  its  quietus."  "  Homo,  naturje  minister,"  saith  Lord  Bacon,  "  et  interpres,  tantum 
facit  et  intelligit,  quantum  de  naturrc  ordine  se  vel  mente  observaverit :  nee  amplius 
scit  nee  potest." — NOT.  Organum,  Aph.  I. 

The  fabulous  dragon  has  long  acted  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  poetry  both  of  the 
north  and  south.  We  find  him  in  the  legends  of  Regnar  Lodbrog  and  Kempion,  and 
in  the  episode  of  Brandimarte  in  the  second  book  of  the  Orlando  Inamorato.  He  is 
also  to  be  recognised  as  the  huge  snake  of  the  Edda ;  and  figures  with  ourselves  in 
the  stories  of  the  Chevalier  St  George  and  the  Dragon — of  Moor  of  Moorhall  and  the 
Dragon  of  Wantley— in  the  Dragon  of  Loriton— in  the  Laidley  Worm  of  Spindleton 


564  Disenchantment.  [Nov. 

IV. 

No  more,  as  horror  stirs  the  trees, 
The  path- belated  peasant  sees 
Witches,  adown  the  sleety  breeze, 

To  Lapland  flats  careering:* 
As  on  through  storms  the  Sea-kings  sweep, 
No  more  the  Kraken  huge,  asleep, 
Looms  like  an  island,  'mid  the  deep, 

Eising  and  disappearing. 

v. 

No  more,  reclined  by  Cona's  streams, 
Before  the  seer,  in  waking  dreams, 
The  dim  funereal  pageant  gleams, 

Futurity  fore  -  showing ; 
No  more,  released  from  churchyard  trance, 
Athwart  blue  midnight,  spectres  glance, 
Or  mingle  in  the  bridal  dance, 

To  vanish  ere  cock-crowing,  f 

Heugh — in  the  Flying  Serpent  of  Lockburne — the  Snake  of  Wormieston,  &c.  &c. 
Bartholinus  and  Saxo-Grammaticus  volunteer  us  some  curious  information  regarding 
a  species  of  these  monsters,  whose  particular  office  was  to  keep  watch  over  hidden 
treasure.  The  winged  Gryphon  is  of  "  auld  descent,"  and  has  held  a  place  in  unna- 
tural history  from  Herodotus  (Thalia,  116,  and  Melpomene,  13, 27)  to  Milton  (Para- 
dise Lost,  book  v.)  — 

"  As  when  a  Gryphon,  through  the  wilderness, 

With  winged  course,  o'er  hill  or  moory  dale, 

Pursues  the  Arimaspian,"  &c. 

*  Of  the  many  mysterious  chapters  of  the  human  mind,  surely  one  of  the  most 
obscure  and  puzzling  is  that  of  witchcraft.  For  some  reason,  not  sufficiently  explained, 
Lapland  was  set  down  as  a  favourite  seat  of  the  orgies  of  the  "  Midnight  Hags." 
When,  in  the  ballad  of  "  The  Witch  of  Fife,"  the  auld  gudeman,  in  the  exercise  of 
his  conjugal  authority,  questions  his  errant  spouse  regarding  her  nocturnal  absences 
without  leave,  she  is  made  ecstatically  to  answer, 

"  Whan  we  came  to  the  Lapland  lone, 

The  fairies  war  all  in  array  ; 

For  all  the  genii  of  the  North 

War  keepyng  their  holyday. 

The  warlocke  man  and  the  weird  womyng, 

And  the  fays  of  the  woode  an!F  the  steep, 

And  the  phantom  hunteris  all  were  there, 

And  the  mermaidis  of  the  deep. 

And  they  washit  us  all  with  the  witch-water, 

Distillit  fra  the  moorland  dew, 

Quhill  our  heauty  bloomit  like  the  Lapland  rose, 

That  wylde  in  the  foreste  grew." 

Queen's  Wake,  Night  1st. 

"  Like,  but  oh  how  different,"  are  these  unearthly  goings  on  to  the  details  in  the  Wal- 
purgis  Night  of  Faust  (Act  v.  Scene  1.)  The  "  phantom-hunters"  of  the  north  were 
not  the  "  Wilde  Jager"  of  Burger,  or  "  the  Erl-king"  of  Goethe.  It  is  related  by 
Hearne,  that  the  tribes  of  the  Chippewas  Indians  suppose  the  northern  lights  to  be 
occasioned  by  the  frisking  of  herds  of  deer  in  the  fields  above,  caused  by  the  haloo 
and  chase  of  their  departed  friends. 

•f  It  is  very  probable,  that  the  apparitional  visit  of  "Alonzo  the  Brave"  to  the 
bridal  of  "  the  Fair  Imogene,"  was  suggested  to  M.  G.  Lewis,  by  the  story  in  the  old 
chronicles  of  the  skeleton  masquer  taking  his  place  among  the  wedding  revellers,  at 
Jedburgh  Castle,  on  the  night  when  Alexander  III.,  in  1286,  espoused  as  his  second 
queen,  Joleta,  daughter  of  the  Count  le  Dreux.  These  were  the  palmy  days  of  por- 
tents; and  the  prophecy  uttered  by  Thomas  of  Ercildoune,  of  the  storm  which  was 
to  roar 

"  From  Ross's  hills  to  Solway  sea," 

was  supposed  to  have  had  its  fulfilment  in  the  death  of  the  lamented  monarch,  which 


1849.]  Disenchantment.  565 

VI. 

Alas!  that  Fancy's  fount  should  cease! 
In  rose-hues  limn'd,  the  myths  of  Greece 
Have  waned  to  dreams — the  Colchian  fleece, 

And  labours  of  Alcides : — 
Nay,  Homer,  even  thy  mighty  line — 
Thy  living  tale  of  Troy  divine — 
The  sceptic  scholiast  doubts  if  thine, 

Or  Priam,  or  Pelides! 

VII. 

As  silence  listens  to  the  lark, 

And  orient  beams  disperse  the  dark, 

How  sweet  to  roam  abroad,  and  mark 

Their  gold  the  fields  adorning : 
But,  when  we  think  of  where  are  they, 
Whose  bosoms  like  our  own  were  gay, 
While  April  gladdened  life's  young  day, 

Joy  takes  the  garb  of  mourning. 

VIII. 

Warm  gushing  thro'  the  heart  come  back 
The  thoughts  that  brightened  boyhood's  track; 
And  hopes,  as  'twere  from  midnight  black, 

All  star-like  re-  awaken ; 
Until  we  feel  how,  one  by  one, 
The  faces  of  the  loved  are  gone, 
And  grieve  for  those  left  here  alone, 

Not  those  who  have  been  taken. 


The  past  returns  in  all  we  see, 

The  billowy  cloud,  and  branching  tree ; 

In  all  we  hear — the  bird  and  bee 

Remind  of  pleasures  cherish'd  ; 
When  all  is  lost  it  loved  the  best, 
Oh !  pity  on  that  vacant  breast, 
Which  would  not  rather  be  at  rest, 

Than  pine  amid  the  perish'd ! 

x. 

A  balmy  eve  I  the  round  white  moon 
Emparadises  midmost  June, 
Tune  trills  the  nightingale  on  tune— 
What  magic !  when  a  lover,' 

occurred,  only  a  few  months  after  the  appearance  of  the  skeleton  masquer,  by  a  fall 
from  his  horse,  over  a  precipice,  while  hunting  between  Burntisland  and  Kinghorn,  at 
a  place  still  called  "  the  King's  Wood-end." 

Wordsworth  appears  to  have  had  the  subject  in  his  eye,  in  two  of  the  stanzas  of 
his  lyric,  entitled  Presentiments, — the  last  of  which  runs  as  follows: — 
"  Ye  daunt  the  proud  array  of  war, 
Pervade  the  lonely  ocean  far 

As  sail  hath  been  unfurled, 
For  dancers  in  the  festive  hall 
What  ghostly  partners  hath  your  call 
Fetched  from  the  shadowy  world." 

—Poetical  Works,  1845,  p.  176. 

The  same  incident  has  been  made  the  subject  of  some  very  spirited  verses,  in  a 
little  volume — Ballads  and  Lays  from  Scottish  History  —  published  in  1844;  and 
which,  I  fear,  has  not  attracted  the  attention  to  which  its  intrinsic  merits  assuredly 
entitle  it. 


566  Disenchantment.  [Nov. 

To  him,  who  now,  gray-haired  and  lone, 
Bends  o'er  the  sad  sepulchral  stone 
Of  her,  whose  heart  was  once  his  own : 
Ah !  bright  dream  briefly  over ! 

XI. 

See  how  from  port  the  vessel  glides 

With  streamered  masts,  o'er  halcyon  tides; 

Its  laggard  course  the  sea- boy  chides, 

All  loath  that  calms  should  bind  him  ; 
But  distance  only  chains  him  more, 
With  love-links,  to  his  native  shore, 
And  sleep's  best  dream  is  to  restore 

The  home  he  left  behind  him. 


To  sanguine  youth's  enraptured  eye, 
Heaven  has  its  reflex  in  the  sky, 
The  winds  themselves  have  melody, 

Like  harp  some  seraph  sweepeth  ; 
A  silver  decks  the  hawthorn  bloom, 
A  legend  shrines  the  mossy  tomb, 
And  spirits  throng  the  starry  gloom, 

Her  reign  when  midnight  keepeth. 

XIII. 

Silence  o'erhangs  the  Delphic  cave; 
Where  strove  the  bravest  of  the  brave, 
Naught  met  the  wandering  Byron,  save 

A  lone,  deserted  barrow ; 
And  Fancy's  iris  waned  away, 
When  Wordsworth  ventured  to  survey, 
Beneath  the  light  of  common  day, 

The  dowie  dens  of  Yarrow. 

XIV. 

Little  we  dream — when  life  is  new, 
And  Nature  fresh  and  fair  to  view, 
When  throbs  the  heart  to  pleasure  true, 

As  if  for  naught  it  wanted, — 
That,  year  by  year,  and  ray  by  ray, 
Romance's  sunlight  dies  away, 
And  long  before  the  hair  is  gray, 

The  heart  is  disenchanted. 


1849.] 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


567 


ACROSS  THE   ATLANTIC. 


ANOTHER  book  from  the  active  pen 
of  our  American  acquaintance,  the 
able  seaman.  The  question  having 
been  raised  whether  Mr  Herman  Mel- 
ville has  really  served  before  the  mast, 
and  lias  actually,  like  the  heroine  of  a 
well-known  pathetic  ballad,  disfigured 
his  lily-white  fingers  with  the  nasty 
pitch  and  tar,  he  does  his  best  to  dis- 
sipate all  such  doubts  by  the  title-page 
of  his  new  work,  on  which,  in  large 
capitals,  is  proclaimed  that  Redburn 
is  "  The  Sailor -boy  Confessions  and 
Reminiscences  of  the  son  of  a  gentleman 
in  the  merchant  service;'1''  and,  colla- 
terally, by  a  dedication  to  his  younger 
brother,  "  now  a  sailor  on  a  voyage  to 
China."  An  unmerited  importance 
has  perhaps  been  given  to  the  inquiry 
whether  Mr  Melville's  voyages  were 
made  on  quarterdeck  or  on  forecastle, 
and  are  genuine  adventures  or  mere 
Robinsonades.  The  book,  not  the 
writer,  concerns  the  critic ;  and  even 
as  there  assuredly  are  circumstances 
that  might  induce  a  youth  of  gentle 
birth  and  breeding  to  don  flannel  shirt, 
and  put  fist  in  tar-bucket  as  a  mer- 
chant seaman,  so  the  probably  unplea- 
sant nature  of  those  circumstances 
precludes  too  inquisitive  investigation 
into  them.  We  accept  Mr  Melville, 
theiefore,  for  what  he  professes  to  be, 
and  we  accept  his  books,  also,  with 
pleasure  and  gratitude  Avhen  good, 
just  as  we  neglect  and  reject  them 
when  they  are  the  contrary.  Redburn, 
we  are  bound  to  admit,  is  entitled  to 
a  more  favourable  verdict  than  the 
author's  last  previous  work.  We  do 
not  like  it  so  well  as  Typee  and  Omoo ; 
and,  although  quite  aware  that  this  is 
a  class  of  fiction  to  which  one  cannot 
often  return  without  finding  it  pall,  by 
reason  of  a  certain  inevitable  same- 
ness, we  yet  are  quite  sure  we  should 
not  have  liked  it  so  well  as  those  two 
books,  even  though  priority  of  publi- 
cation had  brought  it  to  a  palate  un- 
sated  with  that  particular  sort  of  lite- 
rary diet.  Nevertheless,  after  a  de- 
cided and  deplorable  retrogression,  Mr 
Melville  seems  likely  to  go  ahead 


again,  if  he  will  only  take  time  and 
pains,  and  not  over-write  himself,  and 
avoid  certain  affectations  and  pedantry 
unworthy  a  man  of  his  ability.  Many 
of  the  defects  of  Mardi  are  corrected 
in  Redburn.  We  gladly  miss  much 
of  the  obscurity  and  nonsense  that 
abound  in  the  former  work.  The 
style,  too,  of  this  one  is  more  natural 
and  manly ;  and  even  in  the  minor 
matter  of  a  title,  we  find  reason  to 
congratulate  Mr  Melville  on  improved 
taste,  inasmuch  as  we  think  an  Eng- 
lish book  is  better  fitted  with  an  Eng- 
lish-sounding name  than  with  uncouth 
dissyllables  from  Polynesia,  however 
convenient  these  may  be  found  for  the 
purposes  of  the  puif  provocative. 

Redburn  comprises  four  months  of 
the  life  of  a  hardy  wrong-headed 
lad,  who  ships  himself  on  board  a 
trading  vessel,  for  the  voyage  from 
New  York  to  Liverpool  and  back, 
As  there  is  no  question  of  shipwreck, 
storm,  pirates,  mutiny,  or  any  other 
nautico  -  dramatic  incidents,  during 
Wellingborough  Redburn's  voyage  out 
and  home ;  and  as  the  events  of  his 
brief  abode  in  England  are  neither 
numerous  nor  (with  the  exception  of 
one  rather  far-fetched  episode)  by  any 
means  extraordinary,  it  is  evident 
that  a  good  deal  of  detail  and  inge- 
nuity are  necessary  to  fill  two  volumes, 
on  so  simple  and  commonplace  a 
theme.  So  a  chapter  is  devoted  to 
the  causes  of  his  addiction  to  the  sea, 
and  shows  how  it  was  that  childish 
reminiscences  of  a  seaport  town,  and 
stories  of  maritime  adventure  told  him 
by  his  father,  who  had  many  times 
crossed  the  Atlantic,  and  visions  of 
European  magnificence,  and,  above 
all,  the  frequent  contemplation  of  an 
old-fashioned  glass  ship  which  stood 
in  his  mother's  sitting-room,  and 
which  is  described  with  considerable 
minuteness,  and  some  rather  feeble 
attempts  at  the  facetious — how  all 
these  things  combined  had  imbued 
young  Wellingborough  with  a  strong 
craving  after  salt  water.  Other  cir- 
cumstances concurred  to  drive  him 


Redburn  :  his  First  Voyage.    By  HERMAN  MELVILLE,  author  of  Typee,  Omoo,  and 
JIardi.    2  vols.     London,  1849. 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX.  2  P 


568 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


forth  upon  the  world.  He  hints  at 
family  misfortunes.  His  father  had 
been  a  merchant  at  New  York,  in  a 
flourishing  business.  Things  were 
now  less  prosperous.  "  Some  time 
previous,  my  mother  had  removed 
from  New  York  to  a  pleasant  village 
on  the  Hudson  river,  where  we  lived 
in  a  small  house,  in  a  quiet  way.  Sad 
disappointments  in  several  plans  which 
I  had  sketched  for  my  future  life ;  the 
necessity  of  doing  something  for  my- 
self, united  to  a  naturally  roving  dis- 
position, had  now  conspired  within 
me  to  send  me  to  sea  as  a  sailor." 
And  yet  it  would  appear  that  he  might 
have  done  better  than  plunge  thus 
recklessly  into  the  hardships  and  evil 
associations  of  a  merchantman's  fore- 
castle ;  for  he  more  than  half  admits 
that  he  was  erring  and  wilful,  and  that 
he  had  kind  relatives  and  sympathis- 
ing patrons,  who  would  have  put  him 
in  the  way  of  earning  a  living  other- 
wise. Redburn,  however,  seems  to 
have  been  in  some  respects  as  preco- 
cious as  in  others  we  shall  presently 
find  him  simple  and  inexperienced.  A 
mere  boy,  adversity  had  already  con- 
verted him  into  a  misanthrope,  at  an 
age  when  most  lads  are  as  yet  without 
plans  for  their  future,  and  know  not 
disappointment  in  any  more  important 
matters  than  a  treat  to  the  play,  or  an 
extra  week's  holiday.  The  forward- 
ness of  the  rising  generation  is  remark- 
able enough  in  England,  and  has  been 
amusingly  hit  off  by  one  of  our  clever- 
est caricaturists.  In  America,  there- 
fore, which  notoriously  goes  ahead  of 
the  old  country  in  most  particulars, 
and  whose  inhabitants  lay  claim  to  an 
extraordinary  share  of  railroad  and 
earthquake  in  their  composition,  boy- 
ish precocity  is  possibly  still  more  re- 
markable ;  and  one  must  not  wonder 
at  finding  Master  Redburn  talking  in 
misanthropic  vein  of  the  world's  treat- 
ment of  him,  how  bleak  and  cheerless 
everything  seemed,  and  how  "  the 
warm  soul  of  him  had  been  flogged  out 
by  adversity."  This,  at  an  age  when 
the  stinging  memory  of  the  school- 
master's taws  must  still  have  been 
tolerably  vivid  about  the  seat  of  his 
breeks,  seems  rather  absurd  to  begin 
with.  It  was  under  the  influence  of 
such  feelings,  however,  that  this  infant 
Timon  left  his  home  to  cast  his  lot 
upon  the  wide  waters.  His  friends 


[Nov. 

were  evidently  either  very  angry  with 
him  or  very  poor ;  for  they  allowed 
him  to  depart  with  but  one  dollar  in 
his  pocket,  a  big  shooting-jacket  with 
foxes'  heads  on  the  buttons,  and  a 
little  bundle,  containing  his  entire  kit, 
slung  at  the  end  of  the  fowling-piece 
which  his  good-natured  elder  brother 
pressed  upon  him  at  parting.  Thus 
equipped,  he  tramps  off  to  the  steamer 
that  is  to  carry  him  down  the  Hudson, 
early  on  a  raw  morning,  along  a  muddy 
road,  and  through  a  drizzling  rain. 
The  skyey  influences  will  at  times 
affect  even  the  most  stoical,  and  the 
dismal  aspect  of  external  nature  makes 
Master  Redburn  revert  to  his  blighted 
prospects — how  his  soul  is  afflicted 
with  mildew,  "  and  the  fruit  which, 
with  others,  is  only  blasted  after  ripe- 
ness, with  him  is  nipped  in  the  first 
blossom  and  bud."  The  blight  he 
complains  of  is  evidently  of  a  most 
virulent  description,  for  it  "  leaves 
such  a  scar  that  the  air  of  Paradise 
might  not  erase  it."  As  he  has  just 
before  told  us  how,  whilst  walking 
along,  his  fingers  "  worked  moodily 
at  the  stock  and  trigger"  of  his  bro- 
ther's rifle,  and  that  he  had  thought 
this  was  indeed  "  the  proper  way  to 
begin  life,  with  a  gun  in  your  hand," 
we  feel,  upon  hearing  him  croak  so 
desperately,  some  apprehension  for 
his  personal  safety,  and  think  his  bro- 
ther would  have  done  as  well  to  have 
kept  his  gun.  On  this  last  point  we 
quite  make  up  our  minds,  when  we 
shortly  afterwards  find  him  levelling 
the  weapon  at  the  left  eye  of  a  steam- 
boat passenger  who  is  so  imprudent 
as  to  stare  at  him,  and  bullying  the 
steward  for  demanding  the  fare, 
(which  is  two  dollars,  whereas  Red- 
burn  has  but  one,)  and  looking  cat- 
a- mounts  at  his  less  needy  fellow- 
voyagers,  because  they  have  the  rude- 
ness to  enjoy  their  roast  beef  dinner, 
whilst  he  has  had  the  improvidence  to 
leave  home  without  even  a  crust  in 
his  wallet.  It  seems  the  author's  aim 
to  start  his  hero  in  life  under  every 
possible  circumstance  of  disadvantage 
and  hardship ;  and  to  do  this,  he 
rather  loses  sight  of  probability.  At 
last,  however,  Redburn  reaches  New 
York,  with  gun  and  bundle,  foxes' 
heads  and  shooting-jacket,  and  has- 
tens to  visit  a  friend  of  his  brother's, 
to  whom  he  is  recommended.  A  kind 


1849.] 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


569 


welcome,  good  supper,  and  warm  bed, 
go  some  way  towards  dissipating  his 
ill  humour ;  and  next  morning  the 
friend  accompanies  him  to  the  docks 
to  seek  a  ship.  But  none  of  his 
brother's  kindnesses  prosper  him. 
The  gun,  as  we  have  seen,  has  already 
led  him  to  the  verge  of  homicide,  the 
foxes'  heads  are  yet  to  be  the  source 
of  innumerable  vexations;  and  Mr 
Jones,  a  silly  young  man,  does  more 
harm  than  good,  by  taking  the  direc- 
tion of  Redburn's  affairs,  and  acting 
as  his  spokesman  with  Captain  Riga, 
of  the  regular  trader,  Highlander, 
then  loading  for  Liverpool. 

"  We  found  the  captain  in  the  cabin, 
which  was  a  very  handsome  one,  lined 
with  mahogany  and  maple ;  and  the 
steward,  an  elegant-looking  mulatto,  in  a 
gorgeous  turban,  was  setting  out,  on  a 
sort  of  sideboard,  some  dinner-service 
which  looked  like  silver,  but  it  was  only 
Britannia  ware  highly  polished.  As  soon 
as  I  clapped  my  eye  on  the  captain,  I 
thought  to  myself  he  was  just  the  cap- 
tain to  suit  me.  He  was  a  fine-looking 
man,  about  forty,  splendidly  dressed, 
with  very  black  whiskers  and  very  white 
teeth,  and  what  I  took  to  be  a  free  frank 
look  out  of  a  large  hazel  eye.  I  liked 
him  amazingly." 

The  scene  that  ensues  is  quietly 
humorous,  and  reminds  us  a  good 
deal  of  Marryat,  in  whose  style  of 
novel  we  think  Mr  Melville  would 
succeed.  The  upshot  of  the  confer- 
ence is  that  Redburn  ships  as  a  boy 
on  board  the  Highlander.  By  vaunt- 
ing his  respectability,  and  the' wealth 
of  his  relations,  his  injudicious  friend 
furnishes  Riga  with  a  pretext  for 
withholding  the  custom  aiy  advance 
of  pay ;  and  although  the  sale  of  the 
fowling-piece  to  a  Jew  pawnbroker 
produces  wherewith  to  purchase  a 
red  woollen  shirt,  a  tarpaulin  hat, 
and  jack-knife,  Redburn  goes  on 
board  but  slenderly  provided.  His 
reception  is  not  very  cheering. 

"  When  I  reached  the  deck,  I  saw  no 
one  but  a  large  man  in  a  large  dripping 
pea-jacket,  who  was  calking  down  the 
mainhatches. 

"'What  do  you  want,  Pillgarlic  ? ' 
said  he. 

'  |  I've  shipped  to  sail  in  this  ship,'  I 
replied,  assuming  a  little  dignity  to  chas- 
tise his  familiarity. 

" '  What  for —a  tailor  ? '  said  he,  look- 
ing at  my  shooting-jacket. 


"  I  answered  that  I  was  going  as  a 
'  boy;'  for  so  I  was  technically  put  down 
on  the  articles. 

"'Well,'  said  he, 'have  you  got  your 
traps  aboard 3 ' 

"  I  told  him  I  didn't  know  there  were 
any  rats  in  the  ship,  and  hadn't  brought 
any  '  trap.' 

"  At  this  he  laughed  out  with  a  great 
guffaw,  and  said  there  must  be  hay-seed 
in  my  hair. 

"  This  made  me  mad;  but,  thinking  he 
must  be  one  of  the  sailors  who  was  going 
in  the  ship,  I  thought  it  wouldn't  be 
wise  to  make  an  enemy  of  him,  so  only 
asked  him  where  the  men  slept  in  the 
vessel,  for  I  wanted  to  put  my  clothes 
away. 

" '  Where's  your  clothes  ? '  said  he. 

" '  Here  in  my  bundle,'  said  I,  holding 
it  up. 

'"Well,  if  that's  all  you've  got,' he 
cried, '  you'd  better  chuck  it  overboard. 
But  go  forward,  go  forward  to  the  fore- 
castle; that's  the  place  you  live  in  aboard 
here.' 

"  And  with  that  he  directed  me  to  a 
sort  of  hole  in  the  deck  of  the  bow  of  the 
ship;  but  looking  down,  and  seeing  how 
dark  it  was,  I  asked  him  for  a  light. 

" '  Strike  your  eyes  together  and  make 
one,'  said  he,  '  we  don't  have  any  lights 
here.'  So  I  groped  my  way  down  into 
the  forecastle,  which  smelt  so  bad  of  old 
ropes  and  tar,  that  it  almost  made  me 
sick.  After  waiting  patiently,  I  began 
to  see  a  little;  and,  looking  round,  at  last 
perceived  I  was  in  a  smoky-looking  place, 
with  twelve  wooden  boxes  stuck  round 
the  sides.  In  some  of  these  boxes  were 
large  chests,  which  I  at  once  supposed  to 
belong  to  the  sailors,  who  must  have 
taken  that  method  of  appropriating  their 
'bunks,'  as  I  afterwards  found  these 
boxes  were  called.  And  so  it  turned 
out. 

"  After  examining  them  for  a  while,  I 
selected  an  empty  one,  and  put  my  bundle 
right  in  the  middle  of  it,  so  that  there 
might  be  no  mistake  about  my  claim  to 
the  place,  particularly  as  the  bundle  was 
so  small." 

The  ship  is  not  to  sail  till  the  next 
day ;  the  crew  are  not  yet  aboard ; 
there  is  no  mess,  and  Redburn  has  no 
money.  He  passes  a  wretched  night 
in  his  evil-smelling  bunk,  and  next 
morning  is  crawling  about  the  deck, 
weak  from  hunger,  when  he  is  accosted 
by  the  first  mate,  who  curses  him  for 
a  lubber,  asks  his  name,  swears  it  is 
too  long  to  be  handy,  rebaptises  him 
by  that  of  Buttons,  and  sets  him  to 
clean  out  the  pig-pen,  and  grease  the 


570 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


[Nor; 


main-topmast.  Having  accomplished 
these  savoury  duties,  and  narrowly 
escaped  falling  overboard  from  his 
unwonted  elevation,  Redburn  is 
ordered  to  the  quarterdeck,  where 
the  men  are  divided  into  watches, 
and  he  falls  to  the  lot  of  his  friend 
the  first  mate,  who  tries  hard  to  get 
rid  of  him  to  Mr  Rigs,  the  second 
mate  ;  but  Mr  Rigs  refuses  the  tyro, 
even  as  a  free  gift.  Redburn  now 
gets  sea-sick,  and,  when  ordered  on 
deck  to  stand  the  first  night-watch, 
from  eight  o'clock  to  midnight,  he, 
feeling  qualmish,  requests  one  of  the 
sailors  to  make  his  excuses  very 
civilly  to  the  chief  mate,  for  that  he 
thinks  he  will  go  below  and  spend 
the  night  in  his  bunk.  The  sailor,  a 
good-natured  Greenlander,  laughs  at 
his  simplicity,  and  doctors  him  with 
a  canikin  of  rum  and  some  ship  bis- 
cuits, which  enable  him  to  get  through 
his  watch.  Minute  incidents  of  this 
kind,  reflections,  reminiscences,  and 
thoughts  of  home,  occupy  many 
chapters ;  and,  at  times,  one  is  in- 
clined to  think  they  are  dwelt  upon 
at  too  great  length  :  but,  as  before 
hinted,  it  is  necessary  to  do  something 
to  fill  two  volumes.  A  slight  incon- 
sistency strikes  us  in  this  first  portion 
of  the  book.  Redburn,  a  sharp 
enough  lad  on  shore,  and  who,  it  has 
been  seen,  is  altogether  precocious 
in  experience  of  the  world's  disap- 
pointments, seems  converted,  by  the 
first  sniff  of  salt  water,  into  as  arrant 
a  simpleton  as  ever  made  mirth  in  a 
cockpit.  Mr  Melville  must  surely 
have  had  Peter  Simple  in  his  head, 
when  describing  "Buttons"  at  his 
first  deck- washing.  "  The  water 
began  to  splash  about  all  over  the 
decks,  and  I  began  to  think  I  should 
surely  get  my  feet  wet,  and  catch  my 
death  of  cold.  So  I  went  to  the 
chief  mate  and  told  him  I  thought 
I  would  just  step  below,  till  this 
miserable  wetting  was  over ;  for  I 
did  not  have  any  waterproof  boots, 
and  an  aunt  of  mine  had  died  of  con- 
sumption. But  he  only  roared  out 
for  me  to  get  a  broom,  and  go  to 
scrubbing,  or  he  would  prove  a  worse 
consumption  to  me  than  ever  got  hold 
of  my  poor  aunt."  Now  Redburn, 
from  what  has  previously  been  seen 
of  him,  was  evidently  not  the  lad  to 
care  a  rush  about  wet  soles,  or  even 


about  a  thorough  ducking.  On  the 
Hudson  river  steamer,  he  had  volun- 
tarily walked  the  deck  in  a  dreary 
storm  till  soaked  through ;  and  his 
first  night  on  board  the  Highlander 
had  been  passed  uncomplainingly  in 
wet  clothes.  He  has  borne  hunger 
and  thirst  and  other  disagreeables 
most  manfully,  and  the  impression 
given  of  him  is  quite  that  of  a  stub- 
born hardy  fellow.  So  that  this  sud- 
den fear  of  a  splashing  is  evidently 
introduced  merely  to  afford  Mr  Mel- 
ville opportunity  of  making  a  little 
mild  fun,  and  is  altogether  out  of 
character.  Equally  so  is  the  elaborate 
naivete  with  which  Redburn  inquires 
of  a  sailor  whether,  as  the  big  bell 
on  the  forecastle  "hung  right  over 
the  scuttle  that  went  down  to  the 
place  where  the  watch  below  were 
sleeping,  such  a  ringing  every  little 
while  would  not  tend  to  disturb  them, 
and  beget  unpleasant  dreams."  The 
account  of  his  attempts  at  intimacy 
with  the  captain,  although  humorous 
enough,  is  liable  to  a  similar  objec- 
tion ;  and,  in  so  sharp  a  lad,  such 
simple  blunders  are  not  sufficiently 
accounted  for  by  ignorance  of  sea 
usages.  His  recollection  of  the  bland 
urbanity  with  which  Captain  Riga 
had  received  him  and  Mr  Jones,  when 
they  first  boarded  the  Highlander, 
induces  him  to  believe  that  he  may 
reckon  on  sympathy  and  attention  in 
that  quarter,  when  bullied  by  the 
rough  sailors,  and  abused  by  the 
snappish  mate.  He  had  vague  ideas 
of  Sunday  dinners  in  the  cabin,  of  an 
occasional  lesson  in  navigation,  or  an 
evening  game  at  chess.  Desirous  to 
realise  these  pleasant  visions,  but  ob- 
serving that  the  captain  takes  no 
notice  of  him,  and  altogether  omits  to 
invite  him  aft,  Buttons,  as  he  is 
now  universally  called  on  board  the 
trader,  thinks  it  may  be  expected  that 
he,  the  younger  man,  should  make  the 
first  advances.  His  pig- sty  and 
chicken-coop  cleanings  have  not  greatly 
improved  the  aspect  of  his  clothes,  or 
the  colour  of  his  hands ;  but  a  bucket 
of  water  gets  off  the  worst  of  the 
stains,  and  a  selection  from  his  limited 
wardrobe  converts  him  into  a  decent 
enough  figure  for  a  forecastle,  although 
he  still  would  not  have  excited  much 
admiration  in  Broadway  or  Bond 
Street. 


1849.] 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


571 


"  When  the  sailors  saw  me  thus  em- 
ployed, they  did  not  know  what  to  make 
of  it,  and  wanted  to  know  whether  I 
was  dressing  to  go  ashore.  I  told  them 
no,  for  we  were  then  out  of  sight  of 
land,  but  that  I  was  going  to  pay  my 
respects  to  the  captain.  Upon  which 
they  all  laughed  and  shouted,  as  if  I 
•were  a  simpleton;  although  there  seemed 
nothing  sovery  simple  in  going  to  make  an 
evening  call  upon  a  friend.  When  some 
of  them  tried  to  dissuade  me,  saying  I 
was  green  and  raw  ;  but  Jackson,  who 
sat  looking  on,  cried  out  with  a  hideous 
grin — '  Let  him  go,  let  him  go,  men;  he's 
a  nice  boy.  Let  him  go;  the  captain  has 
some  nuts  and  raisins  for  him.'  And  so 
he  was  going  on,  when  one  of  his  violent 
fits  of  coughing  seized  him,  and  he  almost 

choked For  want  of  kids,  I 

slipped  on  a  pair  of  woollen  mittens, 
which  my  mother  had  knit  for  me  to  carry 
to  sea.  As  I  was  putting  them  on, 
Jackson  asked  me  whether  he  shouldn't 
call  a  carriage  ;  and  another  bade  me 
not  forget  to  present  his  best  respects  to 
the  skipper.  I  left  them  all  tittering, 
and,  coming  on  deck,  was  passing  the 
cook-house,  when  the  old  cook  called 
after  me,  saying  I  had  forgot  my  cane." 

The  Jackson  here  referred  to  is  a 
prominent  character  in  the  book,  an 
important  personage  amongst  the  in- 
mates of  the  Highlander's  forecastle. 
He  was  a  yellow-visaged,  whiskerless, 
squinting,  broken-nosed  ruffian,  and 
his  head  was  bald,  "  except  in  the 
nape  of  his  neck  and  just  behind  the 
ears,  where  it  was  stuck  over  with 
short  little  tufts,  and  looked  like  a 
worn-out  shoe-brush."  He  claimed 
near  relationship  with  General  Jack- 
son, was  a  good  seaman  and  a  great 
bully,  and,  although  physically  weak, 
and  broken  down  by  excess  and  dis- 
ease, the  other  sailors  gave  way  to, 
and  even  petted  him.  He  had  been 
at  sea  ever  since  his  early  childhood, 
and  he  told  strange  wild  tales  of  his 
experiences  in  many  lands  and  on 
many  distant  seas,  and  of  perils  en- 
countered in  Portuguese  slavers  on 
the  African  coast,  and  of  Batavian 
fevers  and  Malay  pirates,  and  the  like 
horrible  things,  which  composed,  in- 
deed, all  his  conversation,  save  when 
he  found  fault  with  his  shipmates,  and 
cursed,  and  reviled,  and  jeered  at  them 
— all  of  which  they  patiently  endured, 
as  though  they  feared  the  devil  that 
glared  out  of  "  his  deep,  subtle,  infer- 
nal-looking eye."  All  who  have  read 


Omoo,  (the  best  of  Mr  Melville's 
books,)  will  remember  that  the  author 
is  an  adept  in  the  sketching  of  nautical 
originals.  Jackson  is  by  no  means  a 
bad  portrait,  and  doubtless  he  is 
"  founded  on  fact ;"  although  much  of 
his  savage  picturesqueness  may  be 
attributed  to  the  clever  pencil  of  his 
former  shipmate.  Riga  is  another 
good  hit.  The  handsome  captain, 
with  the  fine  clothes  and  the  shining 
black  whiskers,  who  spoke  so  smooth 
and  looked  so  sleek  when  his  craft  lay 
moored  by  New  York  quay,  is  alto- 
gether another  sort  of  character  when 
once  the  anchor  is  up.  Seamen  never 
judge  a  captain  by  his  shoregoing 
looks.  Tyrants  and  martinets  afloat  are 
often  all  simper  and  benevolence  across 
a  mahogany  plank  ashore.  But  cer- 
tainly there  never  was  a  more  thorough 
metamorphosis  than  afour-  and-t  wenty 
hours'  sail  produced  in  Captain  Riga. 
His  glossy  sxiit  and  gallant  airs  dis- 
appeared altogether.  "  He  wore  no- 
thing but  old-fashioned  snuff-coloured 
coats,  with  high  collars  and  short 
waists,  and  faded  short-legged  panta- 
loons, very  tight  about  the  knees,  and 
vests  that  did  not  conceal  his  waist- 
bands, owing  to  their  being  so  short, 
just  like  a  little  boy's.  And  his  hats 
were  all  caved  in  and  battered,  as  if 
they  had  been  knocked  about  in  a 
cellar,  and  his  boots  were  sadly 
patched.  Indeed,  I  began  to  think  he 
was  but  a  shabby  fellow  after  all,  par- 
ticularly as  his  whiskers  lost  their 
gloss,  and  he  went  days  together 
without  shaving  ;  and  his  hair,  by  a 
sort  of  miracle,  began  to  grow  of  a 
pepper  and  salt  colour,  which  might 
have  been  owing,  though,  to  his  dis- 
continuing the  use  of  some  kind  of  dye 
while  at  sea.  I  put  him  down  as  a 
sort  of  impostor."  This  the  captain 
certainly  is,  and  ultimately  proves  to 
be  something  worse,  for  he  swindles 
poor  Buttons  and  another  unfortunate 
"  boy"  out  of  their  hard-earned  wages, 
and  proves  himself  altogether  a  far 
worse  fellow  than  the  rough  mate, 
whose  first  salutation  is  often  a  curse 
or  a  cuff,  but  who,  nevertheless,  has 
some  heart  and  humanity  under  his 
coarse  envelope.  Of  various  other 
individuals  of  the  ship's  company 
sketches  are  given,  and  prominent 
amongst  these  is  the  dandy  mulatto 
steward,  called  Lavender  by  the  crew, 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


[Nov. 


from  his  having  been  a  barber  in  New 
York.  Following  the  example  of  the 
captain,  whose  immediate  dependant 
he  is,  Lavender,  when  at  sea,  lays  by 
his  gorgeous  turban,  and  sports  his 
wool,  profusely  scented  with  the  resi- 
due of  his  stock  in  trade.  "  He  was 
a  sentimental  sort  of  darky,  and  read 
the  Three  Spaniards  and  Charlotte 
Temple,  and  carried  a  lock  of  frizzled 
hair  in  his  vest  pocket,  which  he  fre- 
quently volunteered  to  show  to  people, 
with  his  handkerchief  to  his  eyes." 
It  must  have  been  sympathy  of  race, 
not  congeniality  of  disposition,  that 
made  cronies  of  Lavender  and  the 
methodistical  black  cook.  Thompson, 
the  sable  Soyer  of  the  Highlander,  was 
known  as  the  Doctor,  according  to  the 
nautical  practice  of  confounding  the 
medical  and  the  gastronomical  pro- 
fessions. He  is  a  capital  portrait, 
scarcely  caricatured.  On  a  Sunday 
morning,  "  he  sat  over  his  boiling 
pots,  reading  out  of  a  book  which  was 
very  much  soiled,  and  covered  with 
grease  spots,  for  he  kept  it  stuck  into 
a  little  leather  strap,  nailed  to  the  keg 
where  he  kept  the  fat  skimmed  off  the 
water  in  which  the  salt  beef  was  cook- 
ed." This  book  was  the  Bible,  and 
what  with  the  heat  of  the  five-feet- 
sqnare  kitchen,  and  his  violent  efforts 
to  comprehend  the  more  mysterious 
passages  of  scripture,  the  beads  of 
sweat  would  roll  off  the  Doctor's  brow 
as  he  sat  upon  a  narrow  shelf,  oppo- 
site the  stove,  and  so  close  to  it  that 
he  had  to  spread  his  legs  out  wide  to 
keep  them  from  scorching.  During 
the  whole  voyage  he  was  never  known 
to  wash  his  face  but  once,  and  that 
was  on  a  dark  night,  in  one  of  his  own 
soup-pots.  His  coffee,  by  courtesy  so 
called,  was  a  most  extraordinary  com- 
pound, and  would  not  bear  analysis. 
Sometimes  it  tasted  fishy,  at  others 
salt ;  then  it  would  have  a  cheesy 
flavour,  or — but  we  abridge  the  tin- 
savoury  details  with  which  Redburn 
disgusts  us  upon  this  head.  Sambo's 
devotional  practices  precluded  due 
attention  to  his  culinary  duties.  For 
his  narrow  caboose  he  entertained  a 
warm  affection.  "  In  fair  weather  he 
spread  the  skirt  of  an  old  jacket  before 
the  door  by  way  of  a  mat,  and  screwed 
a  small  ringbolt  into  the  door  for  a 
knocker,  and  wrote  his  name,  '  Mr 
Thompson,'  over  it,  with  a  bit  of  red 


chalk."  The  old  negro  stands  before 
us  as  we  read  ;  cooking,  praying,  per- 
spiring, and  with  all  the  ludicrous 
self-sufficiency  of  his  tribe.  Mr  Mel- 
ville is  very  happy  in  these  little 
touches.  Max  the  Dutchman  is  an- 
other original.  Although  married  to 
two  highly  respectable  wives,  one  at 
Liverpool  and  the  other  at  New  York, 
at  sea  he  is  quite  an  old  bachelor, 
precise  and  finical,  with  old-fashioned 
straight-laced  notions  about  the  duties 
of  sailor  boys,  which  he  tries  hard  to 
inculcate  upon  Redburn.  Upon  the 
whole,  however,  Red  Max,  as  he  is 
sometimes  called — his  shirt,  cheeks, 
hair,  and  whiskers  being  all  of  that 
colour — is  tolerably  kind  to  the  young- 
ster, in  whose  welfare  he  occasionally 
shows  some  little  interest.  Jack 
Blunt,  to  whose  description  the  author 
devotes  the  greater  part  of  a  chapter, 
is  not  quite  so  happy  a  hit — rather 
overdone — overloaded  with  peculiari- 
ties. Although  quite  a  young  fellow, 
his  hair  is  turning  gray,  and,  to  check 
this  premature  sign  of  age,  he  thrice 
in  the  day  anoints  his  bushy  locks 
with  Trafalgar  Oil  and  Copenhagen 
Elixir,  invaluable  preparations  retailed 
to  him  by  a  knavish  Yankee  apothe- 
cary. He  is  also  greatly  addicted  to 
drugging  himself:  takes  three  pills 
every  morning  with  his  coffee,  and 
every  now  and  then  pours  down  "  a 
flowing  bumper  of  horse  salts."  Then 
he  has  a  turn  for  romance,  and  sings 
sentimental  songs,  which  must  have 
had  an  odd  enough  sound  from  the 
lips  of  one  whose  general  appearance 
is  that  of  "  a  fat  porpoise  standing  on 
end  ;"  and  he  believes  in  witchcraft, 
and  studies  a  dream-book,  and  mutters 
Irish  invocations  for  a  breeze  when 
the  ship  is  becalmed,  &c.,  &c.  Rather 
much  of  all  this,  Mr  Melville,  and  not 
equal,  by  a  long  chalk,  to  what  you 
once  before  did  in  the  same  line.  As 
we  read,  we  cannot  help  a  comparison 
with  some  former  pencillings  of  yours, 
which,  although  earlier  made,  referred 
to  a  later  voyage.  Involuntarily  we 
are  carried  back  to  the  rat-and-cock- 
roach-haunted  hull  of  the  crazy  little 
Jule,  and  to  the  strange  collection  of 
originals  that  therein  did  dwell.  We 
think  of  bold  Jermin  and  timid  Cap- 
tain Guy,  and,  above  all,  of  that  glo- 
rious fellow  Doctor  Long-Ghost.  We 
remember  the  easy  natural  tone,  and 


1849.] 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


573 


well -sustained  interest  of  the  book  in 
which  they  figured ;  and,  desirous 
though  we  are  to  praise,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  admit  that,  in  Redburn,  Mi- 
Melville  comes  not  up  to  the  mark  he 
himself  has  made.  It  is  evident  that, 
on  his  debut,  he  threw  off  the  rich 
cream  of  his  experiences,  and  he  must 
not  marvel  if  readers  have  thereby 
been  rendered  dainty,  and  grumble  a 
little  when  served  with  the  skim-milk. 
Redburn  is  a  clever  book,  as  books 
now  go,  and  we  are  far  from  visiting 
it  with  wholesale  condemnation  ;  but 
it  certainly  lacks  the  spontaneous 
flow  and  racy  originality  of  the  author's 
South  Sea  narration. 

To  proceed,  however.  "  Redburn 
groivs  intolerably  fiat  and  stupid  over 
some  outlandish  old  guide-books.'1''  Such 
is  the  heading  of  Chapter  XXX. ;  and, 
from  what  Mr  Melville  says,  we  do 
not,  in  this  instance,  presume  to  dif- 
fer. We  are  now  in  Liverpool.  Much 
of  what  Redburn  there  sees,  says,  and 
does,  will  be  more  interesting  to 
American  than  to  English  readers,  al- 
though to  many  even  of  the  latter 
there  will  be  novelty  in  his  minute 
account  of  sailor  life  ashore — of  their 
boarding-houses,  haunts,  and  habits ; 
of  the  German  emigrant  ships,  and  the 
salt-droghers  and  Lascars,  and  of 
other  matters  seemingly  common- 
place, but  in  which  his  observant  eye 
detects  much  that  escapes  ordinary 
gazers.  We  ourselves,  to  whom  the 
aspect  and  ways  of  the  great  trading 
city  of  northern  England  are  by  no 
means  unfamiliar,  have  derived  some 
new  lights  from  Redburn's  account  of 
what  he  there  saw.  Clergymen  of  the 
Church  of  England,  we  are  informed, 
stand  up  on  old  casks,  at  quay  corners, 
arrayed  in  full  canonicals,  and  preach 
thus,  al  fresco,  to  sailors  and  loose 
women.  Paupers  are  allowed  to  lin- 
ger and  perish  unaided,  almost  in  the 
public  thoroughfare,  within  sight  and 
knowledge  of  neighbours  and  police. 
Curious,  seemingly,  of  the  horrible, 
Redburn  visits  the  dead-house,  where 
he  sees  "  a  sailor  stretched  out,  stark 
and  stiff,  with  the  sleeve  of  his  frock 
rolled  up,  and  showing  his  name  and 
date  of  birth  tatooed  upon  his  arm. 
It  was  a  sight  full  of  suggestions  :  he 
seemed  his  own  head-stone."  We  would 
implore  Mr  Melville  to  beware  of  a 
fault  by  no  means  uncommon  with  a 


certain  school  of  writers  at  the  pre- 
sent day,  but  into  which  it  would  be 
unworthy  a  man  of  his  ability  to  fall. 
We  refer  to  that  straining  for  striking 
similes,  at  the  expense  of  truth  and 
good  taste,  of  which  he  has  here  fur- 
nished us  with  a  glaring  example.  A 
dead  sailor's  name  is  tatooed  upon  his 
arm;  therefore — mark  the  conse- 
quence— he  seems  his  own  head- 
stone. How  totally  inapt  is  this ; 
how  violent  and  distorted  the  figure ! 
Such  tricks  of  pen  may,  by  a  sort  of 
tinsel  glitter,  dazzle  for  a  moment 
superficial  persons,  who  weigh  not 
what  they  read ;  but  they  will  never 
obtain  favour,  or  enhance  a  reputa- 
tion with  any  for  whose  verdict  Mr 
Melville  need  care.  Neither  will  he, 
we  apprehend,  gain  much  praise,  that 
is  worth  having,  for  such  exaggerated 
exhibitions  of  the  horrible  as  that 
afforded  in  chapter  VI.  of  his  second 
volume.  Passing  through  Lancelott's 
Hey,  a  narrow  street  of  warehouses, 
Redburn  heard  "  a  feeble  wail,  which 
seemed  to  come  out  of  the  earth.  .  .  . 
I  advanced  to  an  opening,  which  com- 
municated downwards  with  deep  tiers 
of  cellars  beneath  a  crumbling  old 
warehouse  ;  and  there,  some  fifteen 
feet  below  the  walk,  crouching  in 
nameless  squalor,  with  her  head  bowed 
over,  was  the  figure  of  what  had  been 
a  woman.  Her  blue  arms  folded  to 
her  livid  bosom  two  shrunken  things 
like  children,  that  leaned  towards  her, 
one  on  each  side.  At  first  I  knew 
not  whether  they  were  dead  or  alive. 
They  made  no  sign ;  they  did  not 
move  or  stir ;  but  from  the  vault  came 
that  soul-sickening  wail."  We  can- 
not quite  realise  the  "  opening"  in 
questioa,  but  take  it  for  granted  to  be 
some  sufficiently  dreary  den,  and  are 
only  puzzled  to  conjecture  how,  con- 
sidering its  depth,  the  woman  and 
children  got  there.  Redburn  himself 
seems  at  a  loss  to  account  for  it.  This, 
however,  his  compassionate  heart  tar- 
ried not  to  inquire;  but,  perceiving 
the  poor  creatures  were  nearly  dead 
with  want,  he  hurried  to  procure  them 
assistance.  lu  an  open  space  hard  by, 
some  squalid  old  women,  the  wretched 
chiffonieres  of  the  docks,  were  gather- 
ing flakes  of  cotton  in  the  dirt  heaps. 
To  these  Redburu  appealed.  They 
knew  of  the  beggar-woman  and  her 
brats,  who  had  been  three  days  in 


the  pit  or  vault,  with  nothing  to  eat, 
but  they  would  not  meddle  in  the  mat- 
ter ;  and  one  hag,  with  an  exagge- 
rated morality  that  does  not  sound 
very  probable,  declared  "  Betsy  Jen- 
nings desarved  it,  for  she  had  never 
been  married  !  "  Turning  into  a  more 
frequented  street,  Redburn  met  a  po-' 
liceman.  "  None  of  my  business, 
Jack,"  was  the  reply  to  his  applica- 
tion. "  I  don't  belong  to  that  street. 
But  what  business  is  it  of  yours  ?  Are 
you  not  a  Yankee  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  I ;  "  but  come,  I  will 
help  you  to  remove  that  woman,  if  you 
say  so." 

"  There  now,  Jack,  go  on  board 
your  ship,  and  stick  to  it,  and  leave 
these  matters  to  the  town." 

Two  more  policemen  were  applied 
to  with  a  like  result.  Appeals  to  the 
porter  at  an  adjacent  warehouse,  to 
Handsome  Mary  the  hostess,  and 
Brandy  Nan  the  cook  at  the  Sailors' 
boarding-house,  were  equally  fruit- 
less. Redburn  took  some  bread  and 
cheese  from  his  dinner-room,  and  car- 
ried it  to  the  sufferers,  to  whom  he 
gave  water  to  drink  in  his  hat — de- 
scending with  great  difficulty  into  the 
vault,  which  was  like  a  well.  The 
two  children  ate,  but  the  woman  re- 
fused. And  then  Redburn  found  a 
dead  infant  amongst  her  rags,  (Tie  de- 
scribes its  appearance  with  harrowing 
minuteness,)  and  almost  repented 
having  brought  food  to  the  survivors, 
for  it  could  but  prolong  their  misery, 
without  hope  of  permanent  relief.  And 
on  reflection,  "  I  felt  an  almost  irre- 
sistible impulse  to  do  them  the  last 
mercy,  of  in  some  way  putting  an  end 
to  their  horrible  lives ;  and  I  should 
almost  have  done  so,  I  think,  had  I 
not  been  deterred  by  thought  of  the 
law.  For  I  well  knew  that  the  law, 
which  would  let  them  perish  of  them- 
selves, without  giving  them  one  sup 
of  water,  would  spend  a  thousand 
pounds,  if  necessary,  in  convicting 
him  who  should  so  much  as  offer 
to  relieve  them  from  their  miserable 
existence."  The  whole  chapter  is  in 
this  agreeable  style,  and  indeed  we 
suppress  the  more  revolting  and  ex- 
aggerated passages.  Two  days  longer, 
Redburn  informs  us,  the  objects  of  his 
compassion  linger  in  their  foul  retreat, 
and  then  the  bread  he  throws  to  them 
remains  untasted.  They  are  dead, 


Across  the  Atlantic.  [Nov. 

and  a  horrible  stench  arises  from  the 
opening.  The  next  time  he  passes, 
the  corpses  have  disappeared,  and 
quicklime  strews  the  ground.  Within 
a  few  hours  of  their  death  the  nui- 
sance has  been  detected  and  removed, 
although  for  five  days,  according  to 
Redburn,  they  had  been  allowed  to 
die  by  inches,  within  a  few  yards  of 
frequented  streets,  and  with  the  full 
knowledge  and  acquiescence  of  sundry 
policemen.  We  need  hardly  waste  a 
comment  on  the  more  than  impro- 
bable, on  the  utterly  absurd  character, 
of  this  incident.  It  will  be  apparent 
to  all  readers.  Mr  Melville  is,  of 
course,  at  liberty  to  introduce  ficti- 
tious adventure  into  what  professes 
to  be  a  narrative  of  real  events  ;  the 
thing  is  done  every  day,  and  doubtless 
he  largely  avails  of  the  privilege.  He 
has  also  a  clear  right  to  deal  in  the 
lugubrious,  and  even  in  the  loathsome, 
if  he  thinks  an  occasional  dash  of  tra- 
gedy will  advantageously  relieve  the 
humorous  features  of  his  book.  But 
here  he  is  perverting  truth,  and  lead- 
ing into  error  the  simple  persons  who 
put  their  faith  in  him.  And,  from  the 
consideration  of  such  misguidance,  we 
naturally  glide  into  the  story  of  Mas- 
ter Harry  Bolton.  Redburn  had  been 
at  Liverpool  four  weeks,  and  began  to 
suspect  that  was  all  he  was  likely  to 
see  of  the  country,  and  that  he  must 
return  to  New  York  without  obtain- 
ingthe  most  distant  glimpse  of  "the  old 
abbeys,  and  the  York  minsters,  and 
the  lord  mayors,  and  coronations,  and 
the  maypoles  and  fox-hunters,  and 
Derbyraces,  and  dukes,  and  duchesses, 
and  Count  d'Orsays,"  which  his  boy- 
ish reading  had  given  him  the  habit 
of  associating  with  England, — when 
he  one  day  made  acquaintance,  at  the 
sign  of  the  Baltimore  Clipper,  with  "  a 
handsome,  accomplished,  but  unfortu- 
nate youth,  one  of  those  small  but 
perfectly-formed  beings  who  seem  to 
have  been  born  in  cocoons.  His  com- 
plexion was  a  mantling  brunette,  femi- 
nine as  a  girl's  ;  his  feet  were  small ; 
his  hands  were  white  ;  and  his  eyes 
were  large,  black,  and  womanly  ;  and, 
poetry  aside,  his  voice  was  as  the 
sound  of  a  harp."  It  is  natural  to 
wonder  what  this  dainty  gentleman 
does  in  the  sailors'  quarter  of  Liver- 
pool, and  how  he  comes  to  rub  his 
dandified  costume  against  the  tarry 


1849.] 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


575 


jackets  of  the  Clippers'  habitual  fre- 
quenters. On  these  points  we  are 
presently  enlightened.  Harry  Bolton 
was  born  at  Bury  St  Edmunds.  At 
a  very  early  age  he  came  into  posses- 
sion of  five  thousand  pounds,  went 
tip  to  London,  was  at  once  admitted 
into  the  most  aristocratic  circles, 
gambled  and  dissipated  his  money  in 
a  single  winter,  made  two  voyages  to 
the  East  Indies  as  midshipman-  in  a 
Company's  ship,  squandered  his  pay, 
and  was  now  about  to  seek  his  for- 
tune in  the  New  World.  On  reach- 
ing Liverpool,  he  took  it  into  his  head, 
for  the  romance  of  the  thing,  to  ship 
as  a  sailor,  and  work  his  passage. 
Hence  his  presence  at  the  docks,  and 
his  acquaintance  with  Redburn,  who, 
delighted  with  his  new  acquaintance, 
prevails  on  him  to  offer  his  services  to 
Captain  Riga  of  the  Highlander,  who 
graciously  accepts  them. 

"  I  now  had  a  comrade  in  my  after- 
noon strolls  and  Sunday  excursions  ;  and 
as  Harry  was  a  generous  fellow,  he  shared 
with  me  his  purse  and  his  heart.  He 
sold  off  several  more  of  his  fine  vests  and 
trousers,  his  silver-keyed  flute  and  ena- 
melled guitar  ;  and  a  portion  of  the  mo- 
ney thus  furnished  was  pleasantly  spent 
in  refreshing  ourselves  at  the  roadside 
inns,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  town.  Re- 
clining i  side  by  side  in  some  agreeable 
nook,  we  exchanged  our  experiences  of 
the  past.  Harry  enlarged  upon  the  fas- 
cinations of  a  London  life  ;  described  the 
curricle  he  used  to  drive  in  Hyde  Park  ; 
gave  me  the  measurement  of  Madame 
Vestris's  ankle  ;  alluded  to  his  first  intro- 
duction, at  a  club,  to  the  madcap  Marquis 
of  Waterford  ;  told  over  the  sums  he  had 
lost  upon  the  turf  on  a  Derby  day  ;  and 
made  various  but  enigmatical  allusions 
to  a  certain  Lady  Georgiana  Theresa,  the 
noble  daughter  of  an  anonymous  earl." 

Even  Redburn,  inexperienced  as  he 
is  in  the  ways  of  the  old  country,  is 
inclined  to  suspect  his  new  friend  of 
"  spending  funds  of  reminiscences  not 
his  own," — that  being  as  near  an 
approach  as  he  can  make  to  accusing 
the  he-brunette  with  the  harp-like 
voice  of  telling  lies — until  one  day,  when 
passing  a  fashionable  hotel,  Harry 
points  out  to  him  u  a  remarkable 
elegant  coat  and  pantaloons,  standing 
upright  on  the  hotel  steps,  and  con- 
taining a  young  buck,  tapping  his 
teeth  with  an  ivory-headed  riding- 
whip."  The  buck  is  u  very  thin  and 


limber  about  the  legs,  with  small  feet 
like  a  doll's,  and  a  small,  glossy  head 
like  a  seal's,"  and  presently  he  steps 
to  "  the  open  window  of  a  flashing 
carriage  which  drew  up ;  and,  throwing 
himself  into  an  interesting  posture, 
with  the  sole  of  one  boot  vertically 
exposed,  so  as  to  show  the  stamp  on  it 
— a  coronet — fell  into  a  sparkling  con- 
versation with  a  magnificent  white 
satin  hat,  surmounted  by  a  regal 
marabout  feather,  inside."  The  young 
gentleman  with  the  seal's-head  and 
the  coroneted-  boot,  is,  as  Harry  assures 
Redburn,  whilst  dragging  him  hastily 
round  a  corner,  Lord  Lovely,  a  most 
particular  "old  chum"  of  his  own. 
"  Sailors,"  Redburn  somewhere  ob- 
serves, "  only  go  round  the  world 
without  going  into  it ;  and  their  re- 
miniscences of  travel  are  only  a  dim 
recollection  of  a  chain  of  tap-rooms 
surrounding  the  globe,  parallel  with 
the  equator."  This  being  the  case, 
we  would  have  him  abstain  from 
giving  glimpses  of  the  English  aris- 
tocracy, his  knowledge  of  which  seems 
to  be  based  upon  the  revelations  of 
Sunday  newspapers,  and  upon  that 
class  of  novels  usually  supposed  to 
be  written  by  discarded  valets-de- 
chambre.  But  we  are  not  let  off  with 
this  peep  at  a  truant  fashionable.  Mr 
Bolton,  having  found  a  purse,  or 
picked  a  pocket,  or  in  some  way  or 
other  replenished  his  exchequer,  rigs 
out  Redburn  in  a  decent  suit  of  clothes, 
and  carries  him  off  to  London,  pre- 
viously disguising  himself  with  false 
whiskers  and  mustaches.  Enchanted 
to  visit  the  capital,  Redburn  does  not 
inquire  too  particularly  concerning 
these  suspicious  proceedings,  but  takes 
all  for  granted,  until  he  finds  himself 
"  dropped  down  in  the  evening  among 
gas-lights,  under  a  great  roof  inEuston 
Square.  London  at  last,"  he  exclaims, 
"and  in  the  West  End!"  If  not 
quite  in  the  West  End,  he  is  soon 
transported  thither  by  the  agency  of  a 
cab,  and  introduced  by  his  friend  into 
a  "  semi-public  place  of  opulent  enter- 
tainment," such  as  certainly  exists  no- 
where (at  least  in  London)  but  in  our 
sailor-author's  lively  imagination. 
The  number  of  this  enchanted  mansion 
is  forty,  it  is  approached  by  high  steps, 
and  has  a  purple  light  at  the  door. 
Can  any  one  help  us  with  a  conjec- 
ture? The  following  passage  we  take 


576 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


[Nor. 


to  be  good  of  its  kind :  "  The  cabman 
being  paid,  Hany,  adjusting  his 
whiskers  and  mustaches,  and  bidding 
me  assume  a  lounging  look,  pushed  his 
hat  a  little  to  one  side,  and  then,  locking 
arms,  we  sauntered  into  the  house, 
myself  feeling  not  a  little  abashed — it 
was  so  long  since  I  had  been  in  any 
courtly  society."  A  pair  of  tailors 
strutting  into  a  casino.  It  would 
seem  there  are  cockneys  even  in 
America.  The  "  courtly  society"  into 
which  the  Yankee  sailor  boy  and  his 
anomalous  acquaintance  now  intrude 
themselves  is  that  of  "knots  of  gentle- 
menly  men,  seated  at  numerous 
Moorish-looking  tables,  supported  by 
Caryatides  of  turbaned  slaves,  with 
cut  decanters  and  taper -waisted 
glasses,  journals,  and  cigars  before 
them."  We  regret  we  have  not  room 
for  the  description  of  the  magnificent 
interior,  which  is  a  remarkable  speci- 
men of  fine  writing ;  but  we  must 
devote  a  word  to  the  presiding  genius 
of  the  mysterious  palace,  were  it  only 
for  the  sake  of  a  simile  indulged  in  by 
Redbnrn.  At  the  further  end  of  the 
brilliant  apartment,  "behind  a  rich 
mahogany  turret-like  structure,  was  a 
very  handsome  florid  old  man,  with 
snow-white  hair  and  whiskers,  and  in 
a  snow-white  jacket — he  looked  like  an 
almond-tree  in  blossom."  Enshrined 
in  mahogany  turrets,  and  adorned  by 
so  imaginative  a  pen,  who  would  sus- 
pect this  benign  and  blooming  old 
sinner  of  condescending  to  direct 
waiters  and  receive  silver.  Never- 
theless these,  we  are  told,  are  his 
chief  duties — in  short,  we  are  allowed 
to  suppose  that  he  is  the  steward  of 
this  club,  hell,  tavern,  or  whatever 
else  it  is  intended  to  be.  Bolton 
speaks  a  word  to  the  almond  tree,  who 
appears  surprised,  and  they  leave  the 
room  together.  Redburn  remains  over 
a  decanter  of  pale-yellow  wine,  and 
catches  unintelligible  sentences,  in 
which  the  words  Loo  and  Rouge  occur. 
Presently  Bolton  returns,  his  face 
rather  flushed,  and  drags  away  Red- 
burn,  not,  as  the  latter  hoped,  for  a 
ramble,  "  perhaps  to  Apsley  House, 
in  the  Park,  to  get  a  sly  peep  at  the 
old  Duke  before  he  retired  for  the 
night,"  but  up  magnificent  staircases, 
through  rosewood-doors  and  palatial 
halls,  of  all  which  we  have  a  most 
florid,  high-flown,  and  classical  de- 


scription. Again  Bolton  leaves  himr 
after  being  very  oracular  and  myste- 
rious, and  giving  him  money  for  his 
journey  back  to  Liverpool,  and  a  letter 
which  he  is  to  leave  at  Bury,  should 
he  (the  aforesaid  Bolton)  not  return 
before  morning.  And  thereupon  he 
departs  with  the  almond-tree,  and 
Redbnrn  is  left  to  his  meditations,  and 
hears  dice  rattle,  has  visions  of  frantic 
men  rushing  along  corridors,  and 
fancies  he  sees  reptiles  crawling  over 
the  mirrors,  and  at  last,  what  with 
wine,  excitement,  and  fatigue,  he  falls 
asleep.  He  is  roused  by  Harry 
Bolton,  very  pale  and  desperate,  who- 
draws  a  dirk,  and  nails  his  empty 
purse  to  the  table,  and  whistles 
fiercely,  and  finally  screams  for 
brandy.  Now  all  this  sort  of  thing, 
we  can  assure  its  author,  is  in  the 
very  stalest  style  of  minor- theatre 
melodrama.  We  perfectly  remember 
our  intense  gratification  when  wit- 
nessing, at  country  fairs  in  our  boyish 
days,  a  thrilling  domestic  tragedy,  in 
which  the  murderer  rushes  on  the 
stage  with  a  chalked  face  and  a  gory 
carving-knife,  howling  for  "Brandy! 
Brandy ! ! "  swallows  a  goblet  of 
strong  toast  and  water,  and  is  tran- 
quillised.  But  surely  Mr  Melville 
had  no  need  to  recur  to  such  anti- 
quated traditions.  Nor  had  he  any 
need  to  introduce  this  fantastical 
gambling  episode,  unless  it  were  upon 
the  principle  of  the  old  cakes  of  roses 
in  the  apothecary's  shop — to  make  up  a 
show.  We  unhesitatingly  qualify  the 
whole  of  this  London  expedition  as 
utter  rubbish,  intended  evidently  to 
be  very  fine  and  effective,  but  which 
totally  misses  the  mark.  Why  will 
not  Mr  Melville  stick  to  the  ship? 
There  he  is  at  home.  The  worst 
passages  of  his  sea-going  narrative 
are  better  than  the  best  of  his  metro- 
politan experiences.  In  fact,  the 
introduction  at  all  of  the  male  brunette 
is  quite  impertinent.  Having  got 
him,  Mr  Melville  finds  it  necessary  to 
do  something  with  him,  and  he  is 
greatly  puzzled  what  that  is  to  be. 
Bolton's  character  is  full  of  inconsis- 
tencies. Notwithstanding  his  two 
voyages  to  the  East  Indies,  and  his 
great  notion  of  "  the  romance "  of 
working  his  passage  as  a  common 
sailor,  when  he  comes  to  do  duty  on 
board  the  Highlander  he  proves  him- 


1849.]  Across  the  Atlantic. 

self  totally  ignorant  of  nautical  mat- 
ters, and  is  so  nerveless  a  mari- 
ner that,  on  ascending  a  mast,  he 
nearly  falls  into  the  sea,  and  nothing 
can  induce  him  again  to  go  aloft. 
This  entails  upon  him  the  contempt 
and  ill-treatment  of  his  officers  and 
shipmates,  and  he  leads  a  dog's  life 
between  Liverpool  and  New  York. 
"Few  landsmen  can  imagine  the 
depressing  and  self- humiliating  effect 
of  finding  one's  self,  for  the  first  time, 
at  the  beck  of  illiterate  sea-tyrants, 
with  no  opportunity  of  exhibiting  any 
trait  about  yon  but  your  ignorance  of 
everything  connected  with  the  sea- 
life  that  you  lead,  and  the  duties  you 
are  constantly  called  on  to  perform. 
In  such  a  sphere,  and  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, Isaac  Newton  and  Lord 
Bacon  would  be  sea -clowns  and 
bumpkins,  and  Napoleon  Buonaparte 
be  cuffed  and  kicked  without  remorse. 
In  more  than,  one  instance  I  have 
seen  the  truth  of  this;  and  Harry, 
poor  Harry,  proved  no  exception." 
Poor  Harry,  nervous,  effeminate,  and 
sensitive,  was  worried  like  a  hare  by 
the  rude  sea-dogs  amongst  whom  he 
had  so  imprudently  thrust  himself. 
His  sole  means  of  propitiating  his 
tormentors  was  by  his  voice,  and 
"  many  a  night  was  he  called  upon  to 
sing  for  those  who,  through  the  day, 

li  oH        incmltaH       a«H        f\av\t\£\f\        Viiw»   " 


577 

and  volunteered  the  following  curious 
information : — 

"  In  some  places  in  England,  he  said, 
it  was  customary  for  two  or  three  young 
men  of  highly  respectable  families,  of 
undoubted  antiquity,  but  unfortunately 
in  lamentably  decayed  circumstances, 
and  threadbare  coats — it  was  customary 
for  two  or  three  young  gentlemen,  so 
situated,  to  obtain  their  livelihood  by 
their  voices  ;  coining  their  silvery  songs 
into  silvery  shillings.  They  wandered 
from  door  to  door,  and  rang  the  bell — 
Are  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  ?  Seeing 
them  at  least  gentlemanly-looking,  if  not 
sumptuously  apparelled,  the  servant 
generally  admitted  them  at  once  ;  and 
when  the  people  entered  to  greet  them, 
their  spokesman  would  rise  with  a  gentle 
bow,  and  a  smile,  and  say,  We  come, 
ladies  and  gentlemen)  to  sing  you  a,  song  ; 
ice  are  singers,  at,  your  service.  And  so, 
without  waiting  reply,  forth  they  burst 
into  song  ;  and,  having  most  mellifluous 
voices,  enchanted  and  transported  all 
auditors  ;  so  much  so,  that  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  entertainment  they  very 
seldom  failed  to  be  well  recompensed, 
and  departed  with  an  invitation  to  return 
again,  and  make  the  occupants  of  that 
dwelling  once  more  delighted  and  happy." 


had  insulted  and  derided  him. 
Amidst  his  many  sufferings,  Redburn 
was  his  only  comforter,  and  at  times, 
of  an  evening,  they  would  creep  under 
the  lee  of  the  long-boat  and  talk  of 
the  past,  and  still  oftener  of  the 
future ;  for  Harry  referred  but  unwill- 
ingly to  things  gone  by,  and  especially 
would  never  explain  any  of  the  mys- 
teries of  their  London  expedition,  and 
had  bound  Redburn  by  an  oath  not  to 
question  him  concerning  it.  He  con- 
fessed, however,  that  his  resources 
were  at  end  ;  that  besides  a  chest  of 
clothes — relics  of  former  finery — he 
had  but  a  few  shillings  in  the  world ; 
and,  although  several  years  his  senior, 
he  was  glad  to  take  counsel  of  the 
sailor  boy  as  to  his  future  course 
of  life,  and  what  he  could  do  in 
America  to  earn  a  living,  for  he  was 
determined  never  to  return  to  Eng- 
land. And  when  Redburn  sug- 
gested that  his  friend's  musical 
talents  might  possibly  be  turned  to 
account,  Harry  caught  at  the  idea, 


Should  it  not  be  added  that  these 
errant  minstrels  of   ancient  family, 
decayed  circumstances,   and  courtly 
manners,  had  their  faces  lampblacked, 
and  carried  bones  and  banjos,  and 
sang  songs  in  negro  slang  with  gurg- 
ling choruses  ?    Some  such  professors 
we  have  occasionally  seen  parading 
the  streets  of  English  towns,  although 
we  are  not  aware  of  their  being  cus- 
tomarily welcomed  in  drawing-rooms. 
We  ask  Mr  Herman  Melville  to  ex- 
plain to  us  his  intention  in  this  sort 
of  writing.     Does  it  contain  some 
subtle    satire,   imperceptible    to  our 
dull  optics  ?    Does  he  mean  it  to  be 
humorous?  Or  is  he  writing  seriously  ? 
(although  that  seems  scarcely  pos- 
sible,)  and   does  he  imagine  he  is 
here  recording    a    common   English 
custom?    If  this  last  be  the  case, 
we  strongly  urge  him  immediately  to 
commence  a  work  "  On  the  Manners 
and  Customs  of  the  British  Isles." 
We  promise  him  a  review,  and  gua- 
rantee the  book's  success.    But  we 
have   not  quite    done    with    Harry 
Bolton,  and  may  as  well  finish  him 
off  whilst  our  hand  is  in.    Objections 


578 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


[Xov. 


being  found  to  troubadourising  in 
Xew  York,  the  notion  of  a  clerkship 
is  started,  Harry  being  a  good  pen- 
man ;  and  this  brings  on  a  discussion 
about  hands,  and  Redburn  utterly 
scouts  the  idea  of  slender  fingers  and 
small  feet  being  indicative  of  gentle 
birth  and  far  descent,  because  the 
half-caste  paupers  in  Lima  are  dainty- 
handed  and  wee-footed,  and  more- 
over, he  adds,  with  crushing  force  of 
argument,  a  fish  has  no  feet  at  all ! 
But  poor  Harry's  tender  digits  and 
rosy  nails  have  grievously  suffered 
from  the  pollution  of  tar-pots,  and 
the  rough  contact  of  ropes,  and  often- 
times he  bewails  his  hand's  degrada- 
tion, and  sighs  for  the  palmy  days 
when  it  handed  countesses  to  their 
coaches,  and  pledged  Lady  Blessing- 
ton,  and  ratified  a  bond  to  Lord 
Lovely,  &c.  &c.  All  which  is  abun- 
dantly tedious  and  commonplace,  and 
will  not  bear  dwelling  upon. 

Part  of  the  Highlander's  cargo  on 
home- voyage  was  five  hundred  emi- 
grants, to  accommodate  whom  the 
"  between-decks  "  was  fitted  up  with 
bunks,  rapidly  constructed  of  coarse 
planks,  and  having  something  the 
appearance  of  dog-kennels.  The 
•weather  proved  unfavourable,  the 
voyage  long,  the  provisions  of  many 
of  the  emigrants  (who  were  chiefly 
Irish)  ran  short,  and  the  consequences 
were  disorder,  suffering,  and  disease. 
Once  more  upon  his  own  ground,  and 
telling  of  things  which  he  knows,  and 
has  doubtless  seen,  Mr  Melville  again 
rises  in  our  estimation.  His  details 
of  emigrant  life  on  board  are  good ; 
and  so  is  his  account  of  the  sailors' 
shifts  for  tobacco,  which  runs  short, 
and  of  Jackson's  selfishness,  and 
singular  ascendency  over  the  crew. 
And  also,  very  graphic  indeed,  is  the 
picture  of  the  steerage,  when  the 
malignant  epidemic  breaks  out,  and 
it  becomes  a  lazar-house,  frightful 
with  filth  and  fever,  where  the  wild 
ignorant  Irishmen  sat  smoking  tea 
leaves  on  their  chests,  and  rise  in 
furious  revolt,  to  prevent  the  crew 
from  taking  the  necessary  sanitary 
measures  of  purification,  until  at 
last  favourable  breezes  came,  and  fair 
mild  days,  and  fever  fled,  and  the 
human  stable  (for  it  was  no  better) 
was  cleansed,  and  the  Highlander 
bowled  cheerily  onwards,  over  a  plea- 


sant sea,  towards  the  much-desired 
haven.  Two  incidents  of  especial 
prominence  occur  during  the  voyage — 
one  at  its  outset,  the  other  near  its 
close.  Whilst  yet  in  the  Prince's 
Dock,  three  drunken  sailors  are 
brought  on  board  the  Highlander  by 
the  crimps.  One  of  them,  a  Portu- 
guese, senseless  from  intoxication,  is 
lowered  on  deck  by  a  rope  and  rolled 
into  his  bunk,  where  the  crimp  tucks 
him  in,  and  desires  he  may  not  be 
disturbed  till  out  at  sea.  There  he 
lies,  regardless  of  the  mate's  angry 
calls,  and  seemingly  sunk  in  a  trance, 
until  an  unpleasant  odour  in  the  fore- 
castle arouses  attention,  and  Jackson, 
discovers  that  the  man  is  dead.  Yet 
the  other  sailors  doubt  it,  especially 
when,  upon  Red  Max  holding  a  light 
to  his  face,  "  the  yellow  flame  wavered 
for  a  moment  at  the  seaman's  motion- 
less mouth.  But  then,  to  the  silent 
horror  of  all,  two  threads  of  greenish 
fire,  like  a  forked  tongue,  darted  out 
from  between  the  lips ;  and  in  a 
moment  the  cadaverous  face  was 
crawled  over  by  a  swarm  of  wormlike 
flames.  The  lamp  dropped  from  the 
hand  of  Max,  and  went  out,  which 
covered  all  over  with  spires  and 
sparkles  of  flame,  that  faintly  crackled 
in  the  silence  ;  the  uncovered  parts  of 
the  body  burned  before  us,  precisely 
like  a  phosphorescent  shark  in  a  mid- 
night sea."  Spirit- drinking,  the  sea- 
man's bane,  had  made  an  end  of 
Miguel  the  Portuguese.  What  shocked 
Redburn  particularly,  was  Jackson's 
opinion  "  that  the  man  had  been 
actually  dead  when  brought  on  board 
the  ship;  and  that  knowingly,  and 
merely  for  the  sake  of  the  month's 
advance,  paid  into  his  hand  upon  the 
strength  of  the  bill  he  presented,  the 
body-snatching  crimp  had  shipped  a 
corpse  on  board  the  Highlander." 
The  men  trembled  at  the  supernatural 
aspect  of  the  burning  body,  but  reck- 
less Jackson,  with  a  fierce  jeer,  bade 
them  hurl  it  overboard,  which  was 
done.  Jackson  knew  not  how  soon 
the  waves  were  to  close  over  his  own 
corpse.  Off  Cape  Cod,  when  the 
smell  of  land  was  strong  in  the  nos- 
trils of  the  weary  emigrants,  orders 
were  given,  one  dark  night,  in  a  stiff 
breeze,  to  reef  topsails ;  and  Jackson, 
who  had  been  deadly  ill  and  off  duty 
most  part  of  the  voyage,  came  upoii 


1849.] 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


579' 


deck,  to  the  surprise  of  many,  to  do 
his  duty  with  the  rest,  by  way  of 
reminder,  perhaps,  to  the  captain,  that 
he  was  alive  and  expected  his  wages. 
Having  pointed  pretty  freely  to  Mi- 
Melville's  defects,  it  is  fair  to  give  an 
example  of  his  happier  manner. 

"  At  no  time  could  Jackson  better 
signalise  his  disposition  to  work,  than 
upon  an  occasion  like  the  present  ;  which 
generally  attracts  every  soul  on  deck, 
from  the  captain  to  the  child  in  the 
steerage. 

"  His  aspect  was  damp  and  deathlike  ; 
the  blue  hollows  of  his  eyes  were  like 
vaults  full  of  snakes,  [another  of  Mr 
Melville's  outrageous  similes] ;  and,  issu- 
ing so  unexpectedly  from  his  dark  tomb  in 
the  forecastle,  he  looked  like  a  man 
raised  from  the  dead. 

"  Before  the  sailors  had  made  fast  the 
reef-tackle,  Jackson  was  tottering  up  the 
rigging  ;  thus  getting  the  start  of  them, 
and  securing  his  place  at  the  extreme 
weather  end  of  the  topsail-yard — which 
is  accounted  the  post  of  honour.  For  it 
was  one  of  the  characteristics  of  this  man, 
that,  though  when  on  duty  he  would  shy 
away  from  mere  dull  work  in  a  calm, 
yet  in  tempest  time  he  always  claimed 
the  van,  and  would  yield  it  to  none  ; 
and  this,  perhaps,  was  one  cause  of  his 
unbounded  dominion  over  the  men. 

"Soon  we  were  all  strung  along  the 
main-topsail  yard  ;  the  ship  rearing  and 
plunging  under  us,  like  a  runaway  steed ; 
each  man  griping  his  reef-point,  and 
sideways  leaning,  dragging  the  sail  over 
towards  Jackson,  whose  business  it  was 
to  confine  the  reef  corner  to  the  yard. 

"  His  hat  and  shoes  were  off  ;  and  he 
rode  the  yard-arm  end,  leaning  back- 
ward to  the  gale,  and  pulling  at  the 
earing-rope  like  a  bridle.  At  all  times, 
this  is  a  moment  of  frantic  exertion  with 
sailors,  whose  spirits  seem  then  to  par- 
take of  the  commotion  of  the  elements, 
as  they  hang  in  the  gale,  between  heaven 
and  earth — and  then  it  is,  too,  that  they 
are  the  most  profane. 

"'Haul  out  to  windward!'  coughed 
Jackson  with  a  blasphemous  cry,  and  he 
threw  himself  back  with  a  violent  strain 
upon  the  bridle  in  his  hand.  But  the 
wild  words  were  hardly  out  of  his  mouth 
when  his  hands  dropped  to  his  side,  and 
the  bellying  sail  was  spattered  with  a 
torrent  of  blood  from  his  lungs . 

"  As  the  man  next  him  stretched  out 
his  arm  to  save,  Jackson  fell  headlong 
from  the  yard,  and,  with  a  long  seethe, 
plunged  like  a  diver  into  the  sea. 

u  It  was  when  the  ship  had  rolled  to 
windward  ;  which,  with  the  long  projec- 


tion of  the  yard-arm  over  the  side,  made 
him  strike  far  out  upon  the  water.  His 
fall  was  seen  by  the  whole  upward-gaz- 
ing crowd  on  deck,  some  of  whom  were 
spotted  with  the  blood  that  trickled  from 
the  sail,  while  they  raised  a  spontaneous 
cry,  so  shrill  and  wild,  that  a  blind  man 
might  have  known  something  deadly  had 
happened. 

"  Clutching  our  reef-points,  we  hung 
over  the  stick,  and  gazed  down  to  the 
one  white,  bubbling  spot,  which  had 
closed  over  the  head  of  our  shipmate  ; 
but  the  next  minute  it  was  brewed  into 
the  common  yeast  of  the  waves,  and  Jack- 
son never  arose.  We  waited  a  few 
moments,  expecting  an  order  to  descend, 
haul  back  the  foreyard,  and  man  the 
boat  ;  but  instead  of  that,  the  next 
sound  that  greeted  us  was,  '  Bear  a 
hand,  and  reef  away,  men  ! '  from  the 
mate." 

If  it  be  possible  (we  are  aware  that 
it  is  very  difficult)  for  an  author  to 
form  a  correct  estimate  of  his  own 
productions,  it  must  surely  have 
struck  Mr  Melville,  whilst  glancing 
over  the  proof-sheets  of  Redburn, 
that  plain,  vigorous,  unaffected  writing 
of  this  sort  is  afar  superior  style  of  thing 
to  rhapsodies  about  Italian  boys  and 
hurdy-gurdies,  to  gairish  descriptions 
of  imaginary  gambling-houses,  and 
to  sentimental  effusions  about  Harry 
Bolton,  his  "  Bury  blade,"  and  his 
"  Zebra,"  as  he  called  him— the  latter 
word  beingused,we  suppose,  to  indicate 
that  the  young  man  was  only  one  re- 
move from  a  donkey.  We  can  assure 
Mr  Melville  he  is  most  effective  when 
most  simple  and  unpretending;  and 
if  he  will  put  away  affectation  and 
curb  the  eccentricities  of  his  fancy, 
we  see  no  reason  for  his  not  becoming 
a  very  agreeable  writer  of  nautical 
"fictions.  He  will  never  have  the 
power  of  a  Cringle,  or  the  sustained 
humour  and  vivacity  of  a  Marryat, 
but  he  may  do  very  well  without 
aspiring  to  rival  the  masters  of  the 
art. 

Redburn  is  not  a  novel ;  it  has  no 
plot ;  the  mysterious  visit  to  London 
remains  more  or  less  an  enigma  to 
the  end.  But  having  said  so  much 
about  Harry  Bolton,  the  author  deems 
it  expedient  to  add  a  tag  touching 
the  fate  of  this  worthy,  whom  Red- 
burn  left  in  New  York,  in  charge  of  a 
friend,  during  his  own  temporary  ab- 
sence, and  who  had  disappeared  on 


580 


Across  the  Atlantic. 


[Nov. 


his  return.  For  years  he  hears 
nothing  of  him,  but  then  falls  in, 
whilst  on  a  whaling  cruise  in  the  Pa- 
cific, with  an  English  sailor,  who  tells 
how  a  poor  little  fellow,  a  countryman 
of  his,  a  gentleman's  son,  and  who 
sang  like  a  bird,  had  fallen  over  the 
side  of  a  Nantucket  craft,  and  been 
jammed  between  ship  and  whale. 
And  this  is  Harry  Bolton.  A  most 
lame  and  impotent  conclusion,  and 
as  improbable  a  one  as  could  well 
be  devised,  seeing  that  a  sailor's  life 
was  the  very  last  the  broken  down 
gambler  was  likely  to  choose,  after 
his  experience  of  his  utter  incapacity 
for  it,  and  after  the  persecution  and 
torments  he  had  endured  from  his 
rude  shipmates  on  board  the  High- 
lander. 

When  this  review  of  his  last  work 
meets  the  eye  of  Mr  Herman  Melville, 
which  probably  it  will  do,  we  would 
have  him  bear  in  mind  that,  if  we 
have  now  dwelt  upon  his  failings,  it  is 
in  the  hope  of  inducing  him  to  amend 
them ;  and  that  we  have  already, 
on  a  former  occasion,  expended  at 
least  as  much  time  and  space  on  a 
laudation  of  his  merits,  and  many  un- 
deniable good  qualities,  as  a  writer. 
It  always  gives  ns  pleasure  to  speak 
favourably  of  a  book  by  an  American 
author,  when  we  conscientiously  can 
do  so.  First,  because  Americans, 
although  cousins,  are  not  of  the  house  ; 
although  allied  by  blood,  they  are  in 


some  sort  strangers  ;  and  it  is  an  act 
of  more  graceful  courtesy  to  laud  a 
stranger  than  one  of  ourselves.  Se- 
condly, because  we  hope  thereby  to 
encourage  Americans  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  literature — to  induce  some  to 
write,  who,  having  talent,  have  not 
hitherto  revealed  it ;  and  to  stimulate 
those  who  have  already  written  to 
increased  exertion  and  better  things. 
For  it  were  false  modesty  on  our  part 
to  ignore  the  fact,  that  the  words  of 
Maga  have  much  weight  and  many 
readers  throughout  the  whole  length 
and  breadth  of  the  Union — that  her 
verdict  is  respectfully  heard,  not  only 
in  the  city,  but  in  the  hamlet,  and 
even  in  those  remote  back-woods 
where  the  law  of  Lynch  prevails. 
And,  thirdly,  we  gladly  praise  an 
American  book  because  we  praise 
none  but  good  books,  and  we  desire 
to  see  many  such  written  in  America, 
in  the  hope  that  she  will  at  last  awake 
to  the  advantages  of  an  international 
copyright.  For  surely  it  is  little  cre- 
ditable to  a  great  country  to  see  her 
men  of  genius  and  talent,  her  Irvings 
and  Prescotts,  and  we  will  also  say 
her  Coopers  and  Melvilles,  publishing 
their  works  in  a  foreign  capital,  as 
the  sole  means  of  obtaining  that  fair 
remuneration  which,  although  it 
should  never  be  the  sole  object,  is 
yet  the  legitimate  and  honourable 
reward  of  the  labourer  in  literature's 
paths. 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


581 


PEACE  AND  WAR  AGITATORS. 


IF  the  experience  of  the  last  twelve 
months  has  not  opened  the  eyes  of 
the  most  inveterate  of  Mr  Cobden's 
quondam  admirers  to  the  real  quality 
of  their  idol,  we  very  much  fear  that 
such  unhappy  persons  are  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  moral  oculist.  From  the 
first  moment  of  his  appearance  upon 
the  political  stage,  while  yet  unbe- 
praised  by  Peel,  and  unrewarded  by 
that  splendid  testimonial,  accorded 
unto  him  by  judicious  patriots,  one 
moiety  of  whom  have  since  done 
penance  for  their  premature  liberality 
in  the  Gazette,  we  understood  the  true 
capabilities  of  the  man,  and  scrupled 
not  to  say  that  a  more  conceited  per- 
sonage never  battered  the  front  of  a 
hustings.  Some  excellent  but  decid- 
edly weak-minded  people  were  rather 
offended  with  the  freedom  of  our 
remarks  upon  the  self-sufficient  Cagli- 
ostro  of  free  trade,  in  whose  powers 
of  transmutation  they  were  disposed 
to  place  implicit  reliance  and  belief. 
The  Tamworth  certificate,  which  we 
shrewdly  suspect  its  author  would  now 
give  a  trifle  to  recall,  was  founded  on  as 
evidence  sufficient  to  condemn  our  ob- 
stinate blindness  and  illiberality ;  for 
who  could  doubt  the  soundness  of  an 
opinion  emanating  from  a  statesman 
who  was  just  then  depositing,  in  a 
mahogany  wheelbarrow,  the  first  sod, 
raised  with  a  silver  spade,  on  a  rail- 
way which,  when  completed,  was  to 
prove  a  perfect  California  to  the  share- 
holders? It  is  not  impossible  that, 
at  this  moment,  some  of  the  share- 
holders may  be  on  their  way  to  the 
actual  California  —  having  found, 
through  bitter  experience,  that  some 
kinds  of  diggings  are  anything  but  pro- 
ductive, and  having  learned  that  elderly 
orators,  who  make  a  practice  of  study- 
ing the  gyrations  of  the  weather-cock, 
may  be  sometimes  mistaken  in  their 
calculations.  Matters  fared  worse 
with  us,  when  it  was  bruited  through 
the  trumpet  of  fame,  that,  in  every 
considerable  capital  of  Europe,  multi- 
tudes had  assembled  to  do  homage  to 
the  apostle  of  the  new  era.  Our  com- 
passionate friends,  possibly  deeming 
us  irretrievably  committed  to  folly, 
put  on  mourning  for  our  transgres- 


sion, and  ceased  to  combat  with  our 
adversaries,  who  classed  us  with  the 
worst  of  unbelievers.  One  facetious 
gentleman  proposed  that  we  should 
be  exhibited  in  a  glass-case,  as  a 
specimen  of  an  extinct  animal ;  an- 
other, indulging  in  a  more  daring 
flight  of  fancy,  stigmatised  us  as  a 
caukerworm,  gnawing  at  the  root  of 
the  tree  of  liberty.  We  fairly  confess 
that  we  were  pained  at  the  alienation 
of  friends  whom  we  had  previously 
considered  as  staunch  as  the  steel  of 
Toledo :  as  for  our  foemen,  we,  being 
used  to  that  kind  of  warfare,  treated 
them  with  consummate  indifference. 
Yet  not  the  less,  on  that  account,  did 
we  diligently  peruse  the  journals, 
which,  from  various  lands,  winged 
their  way  to  the  table  of  our  study, 
each  announcing,  in  varied  speech, 
that  Richard  Cpbden  was  expatiating 
upon  the  blessings  of  free-trade  and 
unlimited  calico  to  the  nations.  These 
we  had  not  studied  long,  ere  we  dis- 
covered that,  upon  one  or  two  un- 
fortunate points,  there  was  a  want  of 
understanding  between  the  parties 
who  thus  fraternised.  The  foreign 
audiences  knew  nothing  whatever 
about  the  principles  which  the  orator 
propounded ;  and  the  orator  knew,  if 
possible,  still  less  of  the  languages  in 
which  the  compliments  of  the  audi- 
ences were  conveyed.  In  so  far  as 
any  interchange  of  ideas  was  con- 
cerned, Mr  Cobden  might  as  well 
have  been  dining  on  cold  roast  mon- 
key with  the  King  of  Congo  and  his 
court,  as"  with  the  bearded  patriots 
who  entertained  him  in  Italy  and 
Spain.  His  talk  about  reciprocity 
was  about  as  distinct  to  their  com- 
prehension, as  would  have  been  his 
definition  of  the  differential  calculus ; 
nevertheless  their  shoutings  fell  no 
whit  less  gratefully  on  the  ear  of  the 
Manchester  manufacturer,  who  inter- 
preted the  same  according  to  his  own 
sweet  will,  and  sent  home  bragging 
bulletins  to  his  backers,  descriptive  of 
the  thirst  for  commercial  interchange 
which  raged  throughout  Europe,  and 
of  the  pacific  tendencies  of  the  age. 
Need  we  remind  our  readers  of  what 
followed  ?  Never  had  unfortunate 


582 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nor, 


prophet  been  possessed  by  a  more 
lying  and  delusive  demon.  The 
words  were  hardly  out  of  his  month, 
before  the  thunderstorm  of  revolu- 
tion broke  in  all  its  fury  upon  France, 
and  rolled  in  devastating  wrath  over 
every  kingdom  of  the  Continent. 
Amongst  the  foremost  agents  in  this 
unholy  work  were  the  friends  and 
entertainers  of  Mr  Cobden,  for  whose 
tranquil  dispositions  he  had  been  fool- 
ish enough  to  volunteer  a  pledge. 
How  he  must  have  cursed  "  my 
friend  Cremieux, "  when  he  found 
that  unscrupulous  gentleman  giving 
the  lie  to  all  his  asseverations  !  No 
man,  unless  cased  in  a  threefold 
covering  of  brass,  could  have  held  up 
his  head  to  the  public,  after  so  tho- 
rough and  instantaneous  an  exposure 
of  his  miserable  fallacies.  But  our 
Richard  is  not  to  be  easily  put  down. 
No  one  understands  the  trade  of  the 
agitator  better  ;  for,  when  baffled, 
put  to  silence,  and  covered  with  ridi- 
cule on  one  topic,  he  straightway 
shifts  his  ground,  and  is  heard  de- 
claiming on  another.  It  is  his  mis- 
fortune that  he  has  been  compelled  to 
do  this  rather  frequently,  for  in  no 
one  single  instance  have  events  real- 
ised his  predictions.  Free  trade, 
which  was  to  make  every  man  rich, 
has  plunged  the  nation  in  misery. 
Reciprocity,  for  all  practical  purposes, 
is  an  obsolete  word  in  the  dictionary. 
The  Continental  apostles  of  commer- 
cial exchange  have  been  amusing 
themselves  by  cutting  each  others' 
throats,  and  hatching  villanous 
schemes  for  the  subversion  of  all 
government ;  nor  has  one  of  them  a 
maravedi  left,  to  expend  in  the  pur- 
chase of  calico.  The  colonies  are  up 
in  arms  against  the  policy  of  the 
mother  country.  Undismayed  by 
these  failures,  still  the  undaunted 
Cobden  lifts  up  his  oracular  voice, 
advocating  in  turn  the  extension  of 
the  suffrage,  the  abolition  of  standing 
armies,  financial  reform,  and  what 
not.  It  matters  not  to  him  that,  on 
each  new  attempt,  the  rotten  tub  on 
which  he  takes  his  stand  is  either 
kicked  from  under  his  feet,  or  goes 
crashing  down  beneath  the  weight  of 
the  husky  orator — up  he  starts  from 
the  mire  like  a  new  Antaeus,  and, 
without  stopping  to  wipe  away  the 
unsavoury  stains  from  his  visage,"holds 


forth  upon  a  different  text,  the 
paragon  of  pertinacious  preachers.  We 
could  almost  find  it  in  our  hearts  to  be 
sorry  that  such  singular  pluck  should 
go  without  its  adequate  reward.  But 
a  patriot  of  this  stamp  is  sure  to  be- 
come a  nuisance.  However  numerous 
his  audience  may  be  at  first,  they  are 
apt  to  decline  when  the  folly  of  the 
harangue  is  made  patent  to  the  mean- 
est capacity,  and  when  current  events 
everlastingly  combine  to  expose  the 
nature  of  the  imposture.  The  popu- 
larity of  Cobden,  for  some  time  back, 
has  been  terribly  on  the  wane.  Few 
and  far  between  are  his  present  poli- 
tical ovations ;  and  even  men  of  his 
own  class  begin  to  consider  him  a 
humbug.  We  are  given  to  under- 
stand that,  in  a  majority  of  the  com- 
mercial rooms,  the  first  glass  of  the 
statutory  pint  of  wine  is  no  longer 
graced  with  an  aspiration  for  his  pro- 
sperity and  length  of  years ;  and  some 
ungrateful  recreants  of  the  road  now 
hint,  that  to  his  baleful  influence  may 
be  attributed  the  woful  diminution  of 
orders.  That  exceedingly  mangy 
establishment,  ycleped  the  Free-trade 
Club,  of  which  he  was  the  father  and 
founder,  has  just  given  up  the  ghost ; 
and  great  is  the  joy  of  the  denizens  of 
St  James's  Square  at  being  relieved 
from  the  visitations  of  the  crew  that 
haunted  its  ungarnished  halls.  Ordi- 
nary men  might  be  disheartened  by  a 
succession  of  such  reverses — not  so 
Cobden.  Like  an  ancient  Roman,  he 
gathers  his  calico  around  him,  and 
announces  to  a  gratified  world  that  he 
is  ready  to  measure  inches  with  the 
Autocrat  of  all  the  Russias  ! 

Cobden  is  fond  of  this  kind  of  feat. 
About  a  year  ago  he  put  out  the  same 
challenge  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
and  the  Horse  Guards,  just  as  we  find 
it  announced  in  the  columns  of  BeWs 
Life  in  London,  that  Charles  Onions 
of  Birmingham  is  ready  to  pitch  in- 
to the  Champion  of  England  for  five 
pounds  a-side,  and  that  his  money  is 
deposited  at  the  bar  of  the  Pig  and 
Whistles.  But  even  as  the  said  cham- 
pion does  not  reply  to  the  defiance  of 
the  full-flavoured  Charles,  so  silent 
was  He  of  the  hundred  fights  when 
Richard  summoned  him  to  the  field. 
Failing  this  meditated  encounter,  our 
pugnacious  manufacturer  next  des- 
patches a  cartel  to  Nicholas,  and  iia 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


688 


response  having  arrived  from  St 
Petersburg,  he  magnanimously  pro- 
fesses himself  ready  to  serve  out  the 
house  of  Hapsburg !  Really  there  is 
no  setting  bounds  to  the  valour  or  the 
ambition  of  this  vaunting  Achilles, 
who,  far  stronger  than  his  prototype, 
or  even  than  the  fabled  Hercules, 
states  that  he  can  crumple  up  king- 
doms in  his  hand  as  easily  as  a  sheet 
of  foolscap.  We  stand  absolutely  ap- 
palled at  the  temerity  of  unappeasable 
Pelides. 

Our  readers  are  probably  aware 
that,  for  some  time  past,  there  has 
been  an  attempt  to  preach  up  a  sort  of 
seedy  Crusade,  having  for  its  osten- 
sible object  the  universal  pacification 
of  mankind.  With  such  an  aim  no 
good  man  or  sincere  Christian  can 
quarrel.  Peace  and  good-will  are  ex- 
pressly inculcated  by  the  Gospel,  and 
even  upon  lower  grounds  than  these 
we  are  all  predisposed  in  their  favour. 
So  that,  when  America  sent  us  a  new 
Peter  the  Hermit,  in  the  shape  of  one 
Elihu  Bnrritt,  heretofore  a  hammerer 
of  iron,  people  were  at  a  loss  to  com- 
prehend what  sort  of  a  mission  that 
could  be,  which,  without  any  fresh 
revelation,  was  to  put  the  matter  in  a 
clearer  light  than  was  ever  exhibited 
before.  We  care  not  to  acknowledge 
that  we  were  of  the  number  of  those 
who  classed  the  said  Elihu  with  the 
gang  of  itinerant  lecturers,  who  turn 
a  questionable  penny  by  holding  forth 
to  ignorant  audiences  upon  subjects 
utterly  beyond  their  own  contracted 
comprehension.  Nor  have  we  seen 
any  reason  to  alter  our  opinion  since ; 
for  the  accession  of  any  amount  of 
noodles,  be  they  English,  French, 
Dutch,  Flemish,  or  Chinese,  can  in 
no  way  give  importance  to  a  move- 
ment which  is  simply  and  radically 
absurd.  If  the  doctrines  and  precepts 
of  Christianity  cannot  establish  peace, 
check  aggression,  suppress  insubordi- 
nation, or  hasten  the  coming  of  the 
millennium,  we  may  be  excused  for 
doubting,  surely,  the  power  of  Peace 
Congresses,  even  when  presided  over 
by  so  saintly  a  personage  as  Victor 
Hugo,  to  accomplish  those  desirable 
ends.  We  do  not  know  whether  Alex- 
ander Dumas  has  as  yet  given  in  his 
adhesion.  If  not,  it  is  a  pity,  for  his 
presence  would  decidedly  give  addi- 
tional interest  to  the  meetings. 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX. 


Even  on  the  score  of  originality,  the 
founders  of  the  Peace  Associations 
cannot  claim  any  merit.  The  idea 
was  long  ago  struck  out,  and  promul- 
gated, by  that  very  respectable  sect 
the  Quakers ;  and  though  in  modern 
times  some  of  that  fraternity,  John 
Bright  for  example,  have  shown 
themselves  more  addicted  to  wrangling 
than  befits  the  lamb-like  docility  of 
their  profession,  we  believe  that  oppo- 
sition to  warfare  is  still  their  leading 
tenet.  We  can  see  no  reason,  there- 
fore, why  the  bread  should  be  so  un- 
ceremoniously taken  from  the  mouth 
of  Obadiah.  If  the  ingenious  author 
of  Lucretia  Borgia  and  Hans  of  Ice- 
land wishes  to  become  the  leader  of  a 
great  pacific  movement,  he  ought,  in 
common  justice,  to  adopt  the  uni- 
form of  the  existing  corps.  He  cer- 
tainly should  treat  the  promenaders 
of  the  Boulevards  to  a  glimpse  of 
the  broad-brimmed  hat  and  sober 
drab  terminations,  and  conform  to 
the  phraseology  as  well  as  the  ha- 
biliments of  the  followers  of  William 
Penn. 

It  may  be  questionable  whether,  if 
the  experiment  of  free  trade  had  suc- 
ceeded, Elihu  would  have  obtained 
the  countenance  of  so  potent  an  auxi- 
liary as  Cobden.  Our  powers  of 
arithmetic  are  too  limited  to  enable 
us,  at  this  moment,  to  recall  the  pre- 
cise amount  of  additional  annual 
wealth  which  the  member  for  the  West 
Riding,  and  the  wiseacres  of  The  Eco- 
nomist, confidently  predicted  as  the 
necessary  gain  to  the  nation ;  it  was 
something,  the  bare  mention  of  which 
was  enough  to  cause  a  Pactolus  to 
distil  from  the  chops  of  a  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  especially  if  he  be- 
longed to  the  Whig  persuasion,  and 
was,  therefore,  unaccustomed  to  the 
miracle  of  a  bursting  revenue.  But 
as  no  such  miracle  ensued ;  and  as,  on 
the  contrary,  Sir  Charles  Wood  was 
put  to  his  wit's  end — no  very  formi- 
dable stretch — to  diminish  a  horrible 
deficit  by  the  sale  of  rope-ends,  rusty 
metal,  and  other  material  which  was 
classed  under  the  head  of  government 
stores,  it  was  clearly  high  time  for  our 
nimble  Cobden  to  shift  his  ground. 
Accordingly  he  fell  foul  of  the  army, 
which  he  would  fain  have  insisted  on 
disbanding ;  and  this  move,  of  course, 
brought  him  within  the  range  of  the 
2Q 


584 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


orbit  already  occupied  by  the  eccentric 
Elihu. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  attain  to  a 
distinct  understanding  of  the  means 
which  the  Peace  Association  proposed 
to  adopt,  for  carrying  out  this  benevo- 
lent scheme.  Most  of  the  gentlemen 
who  have  already  figured  at  their  de- 
bates are  so  excessively  muddle- 
headed,  that  it  seems  impossible  to 
extract  from  their  speeches  the  vestige 
of  a  distinct  idea.  This  much,  however, 
after  diligent  study,  we  have  gathered, 
that  it  is  proposed  to  substitute  arbi- 
tration in  place  of  war,  and  to  render 
that  mode  of  arrangement  almost  ne- 
cessary by  a  general  European  disarm- 
ament. Nothing  could  tally  better 
with  the  views  of  Cobden.  A  higher 
principle  than  that  of  mere  retrench- 
ment is  thus  brought  to  bear  upon  his 
darling  scheme  of  wiping  off  the  army 
and  the  navy ;  and  we  must  needs 
confess  that,  to  a  considerable  propor- 
tion of  the  population  of  modern 
Europe,  the  scheme  must  be  extremely 
palatable. 

Standing  armies,  we  are  told,  are 
of  no  earthly  use  in  the  time  of  peace, 
and  their  expense  is  obviously  unde- 
niable. If  peace  could  be  made  uni- 
versal and  perpetual,  there  would  be 
an  end  of  standing  armies.  The  best 
means  for  securing  perpetual  peace  is 
to  do  away  with  standing  armies, 
because  without  standing  armies  there 
would  be  no  facilities  for  war.  This 
is  the  sort  of  argument  which  we  are 
now  asked  to  accept;  but,  unfortunate- 
ly, we  demur  both  to  the  premises  and 
the  conclusion.  Indeed,  in  a  matter 
of  this  kind,  we  utterly  repudiate  the 
aid  of  logic,  even  were  it  a  great  deal 
more  scientifically  employed.  That 
of  the  free-traders  is,  if  possible,  worse 
than  their  arithmetic,  though,  a  year 
or  two  ago,  they  were  ready  to  have 
staked  their  existence  on  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  latter. 

The  experience  of  the  last  eighteen 
months  has  given  us  all  some  tangible 
proof  of  the  advantages  of  standing 
armies.  Setting  aside  the  Denmark 
affair,  and  also  the  occupation  of  Rome, 
there  has  been  one  aggressive  war 
waged  in  Europe  by  sovereign  against 
sovereign.  That  war,  we  need  hardly 
say,  was  commenced  by  Charles  Albert 
of  Sardinia,  who,  basely  and  perfidi- 
ously availing  himself  of  the  intestine 


difficulties  of  Austria,  attempted  to 
seize  the  opportunity  of  making  him- 
self master  of  Lombardy.     We  need 
not  recapitulate  the  history  of  that 
campaign,  so  glorious  to  the  veteran 
Radetsky,  and  so  shameful  to  his  un- 
principled opponent :  but  it  is  well 
worth  remarking,  that  the  whole  of 
the  sympathies  of  Mr  Cobden  and  his 
radical  confederates  are  enlisted  on 
the  side  of  the  Italian  insurgents ;  and 
that,  with  all  their  professed  horror 
for  war,  we  never  hear  them  attribute 
the  slightest  blame  to  the  Sardinians 
for  having  marched  in  hostile  array 
across  the  frontier  of  a  friendly  power. 
Nor  is  this  all.    In  every  case  where 
the  torch  of  insurrection  has  been 
lighted,  we  find  the  advocates  of  peace 
clamorous  in  their  approbation  of  the 
movement.  Without  knowledge,  with- 
out judgment,  without  anything  like 
due  consideration  either  of  the  provo- 
cation given  on  the  one  side,  or  the 
license  claimed  on  the  other,  they  have 
invariably  lent  their  voices  to  swell 
the  revolutionary  cry,  and  backed  the 
drunken  populace  in  their  howl  against 
order  and  government.   Whoever  was 
loyal    and  true  has    been    branded 
as  a  ruffian  and  a  murderer.  Assassi- 
nation, when  it  proceeded  from  the 
mob,  was  in  their  eyes  no  offence  at 
all.    Some  of  them,  employing  terms 
which  we  never  thought  to  have  heard 
an  Englishman    utter,    have  rather 
chuckled  over  the  spectacle  of  nobles, 
priests,  and  statesmen  stabbed,  shot 
down,  hewn  with  axes,  or  torn  limb 
from  limb  by  savages,  whose  atrocity 
was  not  equalled  by  that  of  the  worst 
actors  in  the  early  French  Revolution, 
— and  have  not  been  ashamed  to  vindi- 
cate the  authors  of  such  hideous  out- 
rage. 

Aggressive  war  we  deprecate,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  as  strongly  as  any 
peace  orator  who  ever  spouted  from  a 
platform ;  but  we  by  no  means  think 
that  peace,  in  the  catholic  sense  of 
the  word,  can  be  at  all  endangered  by 
the  maintenance  of  standing  armies. 
So  far  as  the  military  establishment 
of  Great  Britain  is  concerned,  we  have 
already  had  occasion,  in  a  former 
paper,  to  show  that  it  is  barely  suffi- 
cient for  the  occupation  of  our  large 
and  numerous  colonies,  and  greatly 
inferior  in  proportion  to  that  of  any 
other  country  in  Europe.  We  cer- 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


585 


tainly  do  not  intend  to  resume  that 
discussion,  because  the  sense  of  the 
nation  has  unequivocally  condemned 
the  pragmatic  fools  who  provoked  it ; 
and  even  the  Whigs,  who  coquetted 
with  them,  have  seen  the  folly  of  their 
ways,  and  are  not  likely,  in  a  hurry, 
to  attempt  any  numerical  reduction. 
But  we  go  a  great  deal  farther. 
We  maintain,  that  without  the  assist- 
ance of  the  standing  armies  through- 
put Europe  during  the  late  critical 
juncture,  anarchy  would  now  have 
been  triumphant,  and  civilisation 
have  received  a  check  so  terrible,  that 
ages  might  have  elapsed  before  we 
could  have  recovered  from  its  effects. 
Revolution  is  incalculably  a  greater 
disaster  than  war ;  and  the  higher  the 
point  of  civilisation  to  which  a  nation 
has  attained  before  it  permits  the  de- 
mocratic flame,  smothering  beneath 
the  surface  of  all  society,  to  burst  out 
into  fury,  the  more  dangerous  and 
difficult  to  extinguish  must  be  the 
conflagration.  But  for  the  regular 
army  of  France,  red  republicanism 
would  now  be  triumphant,  and  a  new 
Reign  of  Terror  ha,ve  begun.  The 
armies  and  discipline  of  Prussia  alone 
preserved  the  Rhenish  provinces  and 
the  Palatinate  from  anarchy,  plunder, 
and  devastation  ;  and,  failing  those  of 
Austria,  Vienna  would  have  been  a 
heap  of  ashes.  Ultra-democrats,  in  all 
ages,  have  exclaimed  against  standing 
armies  as  instruments  of  tyranny  for 
suppressing  and  overawing  the  people, 
and  they  have  argued  that  such  a  force 
is  incompatible  with  free  institutions. 
Such  declamation  is  perfectly  natural, 
both  now  and  heretofore,  whea  we 
reflect  who  the  individuals  are  that 
use  it.  No  class  of  persons  are  more 
bitter  against  the  police  than  the 
professional  thieves.  To  them  the 
constable's  baton  also  is  an  emblem 
of  intolerable  tyranny,  because  it  in- 
terferes with  those  liberal  ideas  re- 
garding the  distribution  of  property 
which  have  been  philosophically  ex- 
pounded and  reduced  to  ethics  by 
certain  sages  of  the  socialist  school. 
The  democrat  hates  the  soldier,  because 
he  considers  him  an  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  that  political  regeneration 
which  is  merely  another  word  for  the 
institution  of  a  reign  of  terror. 

We  do  not,  however,  think  it  neces- 
sary to  enter  into  any  elaborate  exposi- 


tion of  the  idleness  of  the  peace  move- 
ment. So  long  as  the  gentlemen  who 
have  gratuitously  constituted  them- 
selves a  congress  exhibit  so  much  com- 
mon sense  as  to  retain  the  semblance 
of  consistency,  we  should  hardly  feel 
ourselves  called  upon  to  interfere  in 
any  way  with  their  arrangements. 
We  should  be  the  last  people  in  the 
world  to  grudge  to  Mr  Ewart,  or  any 
other  senator  of  such  limited  calibre, 
the  little  notoriety  which  he  may 
chance  to  pick  up  by  figuring  in  Paris 
as  a  champion  of  pacific  fraternity. 
The  paths  towards  the  Temple  of 
Fame  are  many  and  devious ;  and  if  a 
man  feels  himself  utterly  wanting  in 
that  intellectual  strength  which  is  ne- 
cessary for  attaining  the  summit  by 
the  legitimate  and  beaten  road,  he  is 
certainly  entitled  to  clamber  up  to  any 
odd  pinnacle  from  which  he  can  make 
himself,  for  a  moment,  the  object  of 
observation.  In  minor  theatres,  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  find  a  broken-down 
tragedian  attempting  to  achieve  some 
popularity  in  a  humble  line,  by  jump- 
ing as  Harlequin  through  a  clock,  or 
distorting  his  ochre- coated  visage  by 
grinning  magnanimously  as  the  clown. 
To  such  feats  no  fair  exception  can  be 
taken ;  and  we  doubt  not  that  a  roar 
of  laughter,  proceeding  from  the  throats 
of  the  most  ignorant  assemblage  of 
numskulls,  is  as  grateful  to  the  ears  of 
the  performer  as  would  be  the  applause 
of  the  most  enlightened  and  fastidious 
audience.  We  believe  that,  in  the 
case  of  the  Congress,  audience  and 
orators  were  extremely  well  suited  to 
the  capacity  of  each  other.  The  peo- 
ple of  Paris,  who  drank  in  the  rolling 
periods  of  the  pacificators,  were  ex- 
ceedingly-amused with  the  exhibition ; 
and  testified  their  delight,  by  greet- 
ing the  reproduction  of  the  farce,  in 
the  shape  of  a  Vaudeville  at  the 
The'atre  des  Varietes,  with  unextin- 
guishable  shouts  of  laughter ! 

Neither  shall  we  make  any  comment 
upon  the  singularity  of  the  time  se- 
lected for  these  demonstrations.  The 
members  of  the  Congress  expressly  set 
forth,  that  it  was  their  desire  to  impress 
upon  the  governments  of  Europe  the 
folly  of  maintaining  large  establish- 
ments, and  we  presume  that  they  en- 
tertained some  reasonable  hope  that 
their  remonstrances  might  at  least  be 
heard.  We  need  scarcely  point  out  to 


586 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


our  readers  the  eminent  fitness  of  the 
present  juncture  for  carrying  these 
views  into  effect.  We  have  great 
faith  in  the  extent  and  power  of  human 
idiocy,  but  we  hardly  supposed  that 
any  body  of  men  could  have  been  con- 
gregated, possessed  of  so  much  col- 
lective imbecility  as  to  conceive  that 
this  was  a  proper  moment  for  securing 
the  conviction,  or  enlisting  the  sym- 
pathies of  any  government  in  their 
scheme.  We  are,  however,  forced  to 
conclude,  that  a  good  many  of  them 
are  sincere ;  and,  believing  this,  our 
regard  for  their  honesty  rises  in  a  cor- 
responding ratio  with  the  decline  of 
our  respect  for  the  measure  of  their 
intellects.  It  would  probably  be  un- 
just and  wrong  to  confound  some  of 
these  simple  souls  with  men  of  the 
stamp  of  their  new  ally,  who  use  their 
association  merely  as  a  means  for  the 
promulgation  of  part  of  their  political 
opinions,  but  who,  in  reality,  are  so 
far  from  being  the  friends  of  peace, 
that  they  seem  bent  upon  using  their 
utmost  efforts  to  involve  the  whole  of 
Europe  in  a  new  and  desolating  war. 
While,  therefore,  we  drop  for  the  pre- 
sent any  further  notice  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Peace  Congress,  we  feel  it 
our  imperative  duty  to  trace  the  steps 
of  Mr  Cobden  since,  arrayed  in  sheep's 
clothing,  he  chose  to  make  his  appear- 
ance in  the  midst  of  that  innocent 
assembly. 

Whatever  sympathy  may  have  been 
shown  in  certain  quarters  towards  the 
Italian  insurgents,  that  feeling  has 
been  materially  lessened  by  the  awful 
spectacles  afforded  by  insurgent  rule. 
We  are,  in  this  country,  a  great  deal 
too  apt  to  be  carried  into  extravagance 
by  our  abstract  regard  for  constitu- 
tional freedom.  We  forget  that  our 
own  system  has  been  the  gradual 
work  of  ages ;  that  the  enlightenment 
and  education  of  the  people  has  inva- 
riably preceded  eveiy  measure  of  sub- 
stantial reform ;  and  that  it  is  quite 
possible  that  other  nations  may  not  be 
fitted  to  receive  like  institutions,  or  to 
work  out  the  social  problem,  without 
more  than  British  restraint.  Arbi- 
trary government  being  quite  foreign 
to  our  own  notions,  is  invariably  re- 
garded by  us  with  dislike ;  and  our 
decided  impulse,  on  the  appearance  of 
each  new  insurrection,  is  to  attribute 
the  whole  of  the  blame  to  the  inflexi- 


bility of  the  sovereign  power.  So 
long  as  this  feeling  is  merely  confined 
to  expression  of  opinion  at  home,  it  is 
comparatively,  though  not  altogether, 
harmless.  Undue  weight  is  attached 
abroad  to  the  articles  of  the  press, 
enunciated  with  perfect  freedom,  but 
certainly  not  always  expressing  the 
sense  of  the  community  ;  and  foreign 
statesmen,  unable  to  appreciate  this 
license,  have  ere  now  taken  umbrage 
at  diatribes,  which,  could  the  matter 
be  investigated,  would  be  found  to 
proceed  from  exceedingly  humble 
sources.  So  long,  however,  as  our 
government  professed  and  acted  upon 
the  principles  of  non-interference, 
there  was  little  likelihood  of  our  being 
embroiled  in  disputes  with  which  we 
had  no  concern,  simply  on  account 
of  liberal  meetings,  tavern  speeches, 
or  hebdomadal  objurgations  of  des- 
potism. 

The  real  danger  commenced  when 
a  government,  calling  itself  liberal, 
began  to  interfere,  most  unjustifiably 
and  most  unwisely,  with  the  concerns 
of  its  neighbours.  Powerless  to  do 
good  at  home,  the  Whigs  have  ever 
shown  themselves  most  ready  to  do 
mischief  abroad ;  and  probably,  in 
the  whole  history  of  British  diplo- 
macy, there  stands  recorded  no  trans- 
action more  deplorable,  from  first  to 
last,  than  the  part  which  Lord  Pal- 
merston  has  taken  in  the  late  Italian 
movements.  It  is  the  fashion  to  laud  the 
present  Foreign  Secretary  as  a  man  of 
consummate  ability  ;  nor  is  it  possible 
to  deny  that,  so  far  as  speech-making 
is  concerned,  he  certainly  surpasses  his 
colleagues.  We  were  almost  inclined 
to  go  farther,  and  admit  that  no  one 
could  equal  him  in  dexterity  of  read- 
ing official  documents,  so  as  to  mys- 
tify and  distort  their  meaning ;  but 
were  we  to  assign  him  pre-eminence 
in  this  department,  we  should  do  sig- 
nal injustice  to  Earl  Grey,  who  un- 
questionably stands  unrivalled  in  the 
art  of  coopering  a  despatch.  Ability 
Lord  Palrnerston  certainly  has,  but 
we  deny  that  he  has  shown  it  in  his 
late  Italian  negotiations.  Restless 
activity  is  not  a  proof  of  diplomatic 
talent,  any  more  than  an  appetite  for 
intrigue,  or  a  perverse  obstinacy  of 
purpose.  Men  of  the  above  tempera- 
ment have,  in  all  ages,  been  held  in- 
competent for  the  duties  of  so  delicate 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


587 


and  difficult  a  station  as  that  of  minis- 
ter of  foreign  affairs ;  and  yet  who 
will  deny  that  the  whole  course  of  our 
recent  diplomatic  relations  with  the 
south  of  Eui-ope,  has  been  marked  by 
an  unusual  display  of  restlessness,  ob- 
stinacy, and  intrigue?  Public  men 
must  submit  to  have  their  labours 
judged  of  by  their  fruits ;  it  is  the  pe- 
nalty attached  to  their  high  office,  and 
most  righteously  so,  since  the  des- 
tinies of  nations  are  committed  to  their 
hands.  Lord  Palmerston  may  pos- 
sibly have  thought  that,  by  dictating 
to  the  governments  of  Italy  the  na- 
ture of  the  relations  which,  in  his 
opinion,  ought  to  subsist  between 
them  and  their  subjects,  he  was  con- 
sulting the  honour  and  advantage 
of  England,  fulfilling  his  duty  to  the 
utmost,  and  providing  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  public  tranquillity  of 
Europe.  We  say  it  is  possible  that  such 
was  his  thought  and  intention ;  but,  if 
so,  surely  never  yet  did  a  man,  possess- 
ing more  than  common  ability,  resort 
to  such  extraordinary  means,  or  employ 
such  incapable  agents.  Of  all  the  men 
who  could  have  been  selected  for  such 
a  service,  Lord  Minto  was  incalcu- 
lably the  worst.  We  have  nothing 
whatever  to  say  against  that  noble- 
man in  his  private  capacity ;  but, 
throughout  his  whole  public,  we  can- 
not say  useful,  career,  he  has  never, 
on  one  occasion,  exhibited  a  spark 
«ven  of  ordinary  talent,  and  it  is  more 
than  questioned  by  many,  whether  his 
intelligence  rises  to  the  ordinary  level. 
Through  accident  and  connexion  he 
has  been  thrust  into  state  employ- 
ment, and  has  never  rendered  himself 
otherwise  remarkable  than  for  a  most 
egregious  partiality  for  those  of  his 
family,  kindred,  and  name.  And  yet 
this  was  the  accredited  agent  sent 
out  by  Lord  Palmerston  to  expound 
the  intentions  and  views  of  Great 
Britain,  not  only  to  the  sovereigns  of 
Italy,  but  also  to  their  revolted  sub- 
jects. 

We  say  nothing  of  the  diplomatic 
employment  of  such  a  representative 
.as  Mr  Abercromby,  at  the  court  of 
Turin.  The  correspondence  contained 
in  the  Blue  Books  laid  before  parlia- 
ment, shows  how  singularly  ignorant 
that  minister  was  of  the  real  posture  of 
affairs  in  Italy  ;  how  eagerly  he  caught 
-at  every  insinuation  which  was  thrown 


out  against  the  good  faith  and  pacific 
policy  of  Austria;  and  how  com- 
pletely he 'was  made  the  tool  and  the 
dupe  of  the  revolutionary  party.  It 
is  enough  to  note  the  fruits  of  the  Pal- 
merstonian  policy,  which  have  been, 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the  utter 
annihilation  of  all  respect  for  the  Bri- 
tish name  in  Italy,  insurrections,  wild 
and  wasting  civil  war,  and,  finally, 
the  occupation  of  Rome  by  the  French. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  pru- 
dence of  this  latter  move,  or  whatever 
may  be  its  remote  consequences,  this 
at  least  is  certain,  that,  but  for  Oudi- 
not  and  his  army,  the  Eternal  City 
would  have  been  given  up  as  a  prey 
to  the  vilest  congregation  of  ruffians 
that  ever  profaned  the  name  of  liberty 
by  inscribing  it  on  their  blood- stained 
banners.  To  associate  the  cause  of 
such  men  with  that  of  legitimate  free- 
dom is  an  utter  perversion  of  terms  ; 
and  those  who  have  been  rash  enough 
to  do  so  must  stand  convicted,  before 
the  world,  of  complete  ignorance  of  their 
subject.  No  pen,  we  believe,  could 
adequately  describe  the  atrocities 
which  were  perpetrated  in  Rome,  from 
the  day  when  Count  Rossi  fell  by  the 
poniard  of  the  assassin,  on  the  steps 
of  the  Quirinal  palace,  down  to  that 
on  which  the  gates  were  opened  for  the 
admittance  of  the  besieging  army. 
Not  the  least  of  Popish  miracles  was 
the  escape  of  Pius  himself,  who  be- 
held his  secretary  slain,  and  his  body- 
guard butchered  by  his  side.  Of  these 
things  modern  liberalism  takes  little 
note :  it  hears  not  the  blood  of  inno- 
cent and  unoffending  priests  cry  out 
for  vengeance  from  the  pavement ;  it 
makes  no  account  of  pillage  and  spo- 
liation,' of  ransacked  convent,  or  of 
harried  home.  It  proclaims  its  sym- 
pathy aloud  with  the  robber  and  the 
bravo,  and  is  not  ashamed  to  throw 
the  veil  of  patriotism  over  the  enor- 
mities of  the  brigand  Garibaldi ! 

When,  therefore,  not  only  a  consi- 
derable portion  of  the  press  of  this 
country,  but  the  government  itself,  is 
found  espousing  the  cause  of  revolu- 
tion in  the  south  of  Europe,  we  need 
not  be  surprised  if  other  governments, 
at  a  period  of  so  much  danger  and 
insecurity,  regard  Great  Britain  as  a 
renegade  to  the  cause  of  order.  Our 
position  at  present  is,  in  reality,  one 
of  great  difficulty,  and  such  as  ought 


588 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


to  make  us  extremely  cautious    of 
indulging    in   unnecessary   bravado. 
The  state  of  our  financial  affairs  is 
anything  but  encouraging.     We   are 
answerable  for  a  larger  debt  than  any 
other  nation  of  the  world ;  and  our 
economists    are    so    sensible  of  the 
weight   of   our    burdens,    that  they 
•would  fain  persuade  us  to  denude  our- 
selves even  of  the  ordinary  means  of 
defence.      Our    foreign   exports  are 
stationary  ;   our  imports  immensely 
increasing;  our  home  market  reduced, 
for  the  present,  to  a  state  of  terrible 
prostration.     Free  trade,  by  destroy- 
ing the  value  of  agricultural  produce, 
has  almost  extinguished  our  last  hope 
of  restoring  tranquillity  to  Ireland,  and 
of  raising  that  unhappy  country  to  the 
level  of  the  sister  kingdoms.     It  is  in 
vain  that  we  have  crippled  ourselves 
to  stay  the  recurring  famine  of  years, 
since  our  statesmen  are  leagued  with 
famine,  and  resolute  to  persevere  in 
their   iniquity.      The  old   hatred   of 
the  Celt  to  the  Saxon  is  still  burn- 
ing in  the  bosoms  of  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  misguided  population  of 
Ireland ;   and  were  any  opportunity 
afforded,  it  would  break  forth  as  vio- 
lently as  ever.     So  that,  even  within 
the  girdle  of  the  four  seas,  we  are  not 
exactly  in  that  situation  which  might 
justify    our    provoking    unnecessary 
hostility  from  abroad.     So  far  we  are 
entirely  at  one  with  the  Peace  Con- 
gress.    When  we  look  to  the  state  of 
our  colonies,  the  prospect  is  not  more 
encouraging.   Through  Whig  misrule, 
our  tenure  of  the  Canadas  has  become 
exceedingly  precarious.     The  West 
Indies  are  writhing  in  ruin ;  and  even 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Cape  are  ram- 
pant, from  the  duplicity  of  the  Colo- 
nial  Office.      Our   interest   is   most 
clearly  and  obviously  identified  with 
the  cause  of  order ;  for,  were  Britain 
once  actively  engaged  in  a  general 
war,  it  is  possible  that  the  presence 
of  her  forces  would   be  required  in 
more  than  a  single  point.     Of  the 
final  result,  in  the  event  of  such  a 
calamity,  we  have  no  doubt,  but  not 
the  less,  on  that  account,  should  we 
deeply  deplore  the  struggle. 

Such  being  our  sentiments,  it  is 
with  considerable  pain  that  we  feel 
ourselves  called  upon  to  notice  as 
strong  an  instance  of  charlatanism 
and  presumption  as  was  ever  exhi- 


bited in  this  country.  Fortunately, 
on  this  occasion,  the  offender  has 
gone  so  far  that  no  one  can  be 
blind  to  his  delinquencies ;  for,  if  there 
be  any  truth  in  the  abstract  principles 
of  the  Peace  Association,  their  last 
disciple  has  disowned  them ;  if  the 
doctrines  of  free  trade  were  intended 
to  have  universal  application,  Richard 
Cobden,  in  the  face  of  the  universe, 
has  entered  his  protest  against  them. 
It  signifies  very  little  to  us,  and  less 
to  the  powers  against  whom  he  has 
thundered  his  anathemas,  what  Mr 
Cobden  thinks  proper  either  to  profess 
or  repudiate ;  still,  as  he  has  been 
pleased  to  attempt  the  performance  of 
the  part  of  Guy  Fawkes,  we  judge  it 
necessary  to  conduct  him  from  the  coal- 
cellar,  and  to  throw  the  light  of  the 
lantern  upon  his  visage,  and  that  of 
his  accomplices.  And,  first,  a  word 
or  two  as  to  the  occasion  of  his  last 
appearance. 

The  recent  Hungarian  rising  is  by 
no  means  to  be  classed  in  the  same 
category  with  the  wretched  Italian 
insurrections.  Much  as  it  is  to  be 
deplored  that  any  misunderstanding 
should  have  arisen  between  the  Aus- 
trian cabinet  and  the  Hungarian  Diet, 
so  serious  as  to  have  occasioned  a 
war  ;  we  look  upon  the  latter  body  as 
uninfluenced  by  those  wild  democratic 
notions  which  have  been  and  are 
still  prevalent  in  the  west  of  Europe. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  case 
with  Kossuth,  and  some  of  his  more 
ambitious  confederates,  the  mass  of  the 
Hungarian  people  had  no  wish  what- 
ever to  rise  in  rebellion  against  their 
king.  Their  quarrel  was  that  of  aminor 
state  to  which  certain  privileges  had 
been  guaranteed ;  againstthe  presumed 
infringement  of  which,  by  their  more 
powerful  neighbour,  they  first  pro- 
tested, and  finally  had  recourse  to 
arms.  Their  avowed  object,  through- 
out the  earlier  part  of  the  struggle,  was 
not  to  overturn,  but  to  maintain,  cer- 
tain existing  institutions :  and  it  is 
remarkable  that,  from  the  day  on  which 
Kossuth  threw  off  the  mask,  and  re- 
nounced allegiance  to  his  sovereign, 
the  Hungarians  lost  confidence  in 
their  leader,  and  their  former  energy 
decayed.  We  need  not  now  discuss 
the  abstract  justice  of  the  Hungarian 
claims;  but  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  these,  we  must,  in  common  fairness 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


589 


to  Austria,  consider  her  peculiar  posi- 
tion at  the  time  when  they  were 
sought  to  be  enforced.  Concessions 
which,  during  a  season  of  tranquillity, 
might  have  been  gracefully  made,  were 
rendered  almost  impossible  when  de- 
manded with  threats,  in  the  midst  of 
insurrection  and  revolt.  It  was  but 
too  obvious  that  the  leaders  of  the 
Hungarian  movement,  forgetful  of  their 
fealty  to  the  chief  of  that  great  empire 
of  which  their  country  formed  a  part, 
were  bent  upon  increasing  instead  of 
lessening  the  difficulties  with  which 
Austria  was  everywhere  surrounded, 
and  eager  to  avail  themselves  of  dis- 
tractions elsewhere,  for  the  purpose  of 
dictating  insolent  and  exorbitant 
terms.  In  short,  we  believe  that  the 
real  claims  of  Hungary,  however  they 
may  have  formed  the  foundation  of 
the  discontent  which  ripened  into  war, 
were  used  by  Kossuth  and  his  col- 
leagues as  instruments  for  their  own 
ambition  ;  and  that,  by  throwing  off 
the  mask  too  precipitately,  they 
opened  the  eyes  of  their  followers  to 
the  true  nature  of  their  designs,  and 
forfeited  that  support  which  the  realm 
was  ready  to  accord  the  men  who, 
with  a  single  and  patriotic  purpose, 
demanded  nothing  more  than  the 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  their 
country. 

It  was  but  natural  that  the  inter- 
vention of  Russia  should  have  been 
viewed  with  some  uneasiness  in  the 
west  of  Europe.  Every  movement  of 
that  colossal  power  beyond  the  boun- 
daries of  its  own  territory  excites  a 
feeling  of  jealousy,  singularly  dispro- 
portionate to  the  real  character  of  its 
resources,  if  Mr  Cobden's  estimate  of 
these  should  be  adopted  as  the  true 
one ;  and  we  fairly  confess  that  we 
have  no  desire  to  see  any  considerable 
augmentation  made  to  the  territorial 
possessions  of  the  Czar.  But  the  as- 
sistance which,  on  this  occasion,  has 
been  sent  to  Austria  by  Russia,  how- 
ever much  we  may  regret  the  occasion 
which  called  the  latter  into  activity, 
cannot  surely  be  tortured  into  any 
aggressive  design.  Apart  from  all 
our  jealousies,  it  was  a  magnanimous 
movement  on  the  part  of  one  power- 
ful sovereign  in  favour  of  a  harassed 
ally;  nor  can  we  see  how  that  assist- 
ance could  have  been  refused  by 
Russia,  without  incurring  the  reproach 


of  bad  faith,  and  running  imminent 
risk  with  regard  to  her  own  dependen- 
cies. Those  active  revolutionists,  the 
Poles,  whose  presence  behind  every 
barricade  has  been  conspicuously 
marked  and  unblushingly  avowed, 
showed  themselves  foremost  in  all  the 
disturbances  which  threatened  the 
dismemberment  of  Austria.  By  them 
the  Hungarian  army  was  principally 
officered;  and  it  now  appears,  from  the 
intercepted  correspondence  of  their 
nominal  chief,  that  the  Hungarian  in- 
surrection was  relied  upon  as  the  first 
step  for  a  fresh  attempt  towards  the 
restoration  of  a  Polish  kingdom. 
Under  these  circumstances,  the  Czar 
felt  himself  imperatively  called  upon 
to  act;  and  his  honour  has  been  amply 
vindicated  by  the  withdrawal  of  his 
forces  after  his  mission  was  accom- 
plished, and  the  Hungarian  insurrec- 
tion quelled. 

It  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
far  more  satisfactory  to  every  one,  if 
the  differences  between  Austria  and 
Hungary  could  have  been  settled 
without  an  appeal  to  arms  ;  but  such 
a  settlement  was,  we  apprehend, 
utterly  beyond  the  powers  even  of  the 
Peace  Congress  to  effect;  and  the 
next  best  thing  is  to  know  that  tran- 
quillity has  actually  been  restored. 
That  a  great  deal  of  sympathy  should 
be  shown  for  the  Hungarians,  is,  un- 
der the  circumstances,  by  no  means 
unnatural.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say,  that  hardly  one  man  out  of  a 
thousand,  in  Britain,  comprehends  the 
merits  of  the  dispute,  or  is  able,  if 
called  upon,  to  give  an  intelligible  ac- 
count of  the  quarrel.  Such  amount 
of  knowledge,  however,  is  by  no 
means  necessary  to  qualify  a  platform  " 
orator  for  holding  forth  at  a  moment's 
notice ;  and,  accordingly,  meetings 
expressive  of  sympathy  with  the  per- 
secuted Hungarians  were  called  in 
many  of  our  larger  towns,  and  the 
usual  amount  of  rhodomontade  uttered, 
by  gentlemen  who  make  a  point  of 
exhibiting  their  elocutionary  powers 
upon  the  slightest  colourable  pretence. 
Had  these  meetings  been  held  earlier, 
they  might  have  been  worth  some- 
thing. We  shall  not  go  the  length  of 
assuring  the  very  shallow  and  con- 
ceited personages  who  constitute  the 
oratorical  rump,  or  public  debating 
society  of  Edinburgh,  that  their  opi- 


590 


Peace  and  TT  ar  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


nions  are  likely  to  be  esteemed  of  sur- 
passing importance,  even  if  they  were 
to  be  heard  of  so  far  as  St  Petersburg 
or  Vienna ;  for  their  utter  ignorance 
of  the  aspect  of  foreign  affairs  is  such 
as  would  excite  ridicule  in  the  bosoms 
of  those  whom  they  profess  to  patro- 
nise and  applaud.  But  if  they  really 
were  impressed  with  the  notion  that 
the  claims  of  Hungary  were  of  such 
mighty  importance,  how  was  it  that 
they  tarried  until  the  consideration  of 
all  constitutional  questions  had  been 
swallowed  up  in  war — until  those  who 
fully  understood  the  true  position  of 
Hungary,  and  her  rights  as  legally 
guaranteed  and  defined,  were  forced 
to  acknowledge  that,  through  the 
violence,  treachery,  and  ambition  of 
the  insurgent  nobles,  all  hope  of  a 
pacific  settlement  had  disappeared ; 
and  that  the  best  result  which  Europe 
could  hope  for,  was  the  speedy 
quenching  of  an  insurrection,  now 
broadly  revolutionary  and  republican, 
and  threatening  to  spread  still  wider 
the  devastating  flames  of  anarchy? 
The  explanation  we  believe  to  be  a 
very  simple  one.  Most  of  them  knew 
as  much  of  the  affairs  of  Cappadocia 
as  they  did  of  those  of  Hungary,  and 
-they  would  have  been  equally  ready 
to  spout  in  favour  of  either  country. 

Late  in  July,  Mr  Bernal  Osbome, 
backed  by  Mr  R.  M.  Milnes,  whose 
knowledge  of  politics  is  about  equal 
to  his  skill  in  the  construction  of  dac- 
tyls, brought  forward  the  Hungarian 
question  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  thereby  gave  Lord  Palmerston  an 
opportunity  of  unbosoming  himself  on 
that  branch  of  our  European  relations. 
His  lordship's  speech,  on  that  occasion, 
was  very  much  lauded  at  the  time  ; 
but  on  referring  to  it  now,  we  are 
somewhat  at  a  loss  to  understand  how 
it  could  have  given  satisfaction  to  any 
•one.  It  was,  indeed,  as  insulting  to 
Austria,  whose  back  was  then  supposed 
to  be  at  the  wall,  as  any  opponent  of 
constitutional  government  could  have 
desired.  Alliance  was  sneered  at,  as  a 
mere  empty  word  of  no  significance 
whatever :  nor  can  we  much  wonder 
at  this  ebullition,  considering  the 
manner  in  which  his  lordship  has 
thought  proper  to  deal  with  other 
powers,  who  attached  some  value  to 
the  term.  This  topic  was,  further,  a 
-congenial  one,  inasmuch  as  it  afforded 


the  Foreign  Secretary  an  opportunity 
of  gibing  at  his  predecessor,  Lord 
Aberdeen,  whose  sense  of  honour  does 
not  permit  him  to  identify  the  solemn 
treaties  of  nations  with  folios  of  waste 
paper ;  and  who,  therefore,  was  held 
up  to  ridicule  as  a  pattern  of  "anti- 
quated imbecility."  But,  after  all 
this  persiflage,  which  could  serve  no 
purpose  whatever,  save  that  of  giving 
vent  to  an  unusual  secretion  ofPalm- 
erstonian  bile,  it  appeared  that  his 
lordship  was  actually  to  do  nothing 
at  all.  He  regretted,  just  as  much  as 
we  do,  and  probably  not  more  than 
the  Austrian  cabinet,  that  no  accom- 
modation of  differences  had  taken 
place.  He  said,  very  truly,  that 
whatever  the  result  of  the  struggle 
might  be,  it  could  not  strengthen  the 
stability  of  the  Austrian  empire ;  but 
at  the  same  time  he  distinctly  repu- 
diated all  intention  of  interfering  be- 
yond mere  passive  advice,  and  he 
could  not  deny  the  right  of  Austria,  if 
it  thought  proper,  to  call  in  the  aid  of 
the  Russian  arms.  His  conclusion, 
in  short,  was  sound,  and  we  only  re- 
gret that,  while  it  was  so,  the  tone 
and  temper  of  his  speech  were  not 
equally  judicious.  This  debate  in  the 
House  of  Commons  was  immediately 
followed  up  by  a  public  meeting  at  the 
London  Tavern,  presided  over  by  Mr 
Alderman  Salomons. 

We  had  not  the  good  fortune  to  be 
present  on  that  occasion ;  but,  from  the 
accounts  contained  in  the  morning 
papers,  it  must  have  been  an  assem- 
blage of  a  singularly  motley  kind. 
There  was  a  considerable  muster  of 
Radical  members  of  parliament ;  the 
Financial  Reform  and  the  Peace  As- 
sociations were  respectively  represent- 
ed ;  Lord  Nugent  and  Mr  Milnes 
stood  forth  as  delegates  from  the 
Bards  of  Britain  ;  Julian  Haruey  and 
Mr  G.  TV.  M.  Reynolds  headed  a 
numerous  band  of  Chartists;  and  Lord 
Dudley  Stuart,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
was  surrounded  by  a  whiskered  pha- 
lanx of  Poles,  Hungarians,  Italians, 
Germans,  and  Sicilians,  each  one 
striving  to  look  more  patriotically 
ferocious  than  his  neighbour.  Thefirst 
sympathetic  resolution  was  moved  by 
a  Quaker,  and  seconded  by  no  less  a 
person  than  Richard  Cobden,  who 
had  only  been  prevented  from  attend- 
ing the  previous  debate  in  the  House 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


591 


of  Commons  by  a  swan-hopping  ex- 
pedition on  the  Thames. 

Then  it  was  that  Mr  Cobden  first 
favoured  the  world  with  some  econo- 
mical views,  so  exceedingly  novel  and 
startling,  as  to  excite,  even  in  that 
audience,  unequivocal  symptoms  of 
incredulity.  He  set  out  by  laying  it 
down  as  a  general  rule,  that  every 
separate  state  ought  to  be  left  to  the 
management  of  its  own  affairs,  with- 
out the  interference  of  any  foreign 
power  whatever.  "  If,"  said  he,"  this 
had  been  a  question  simply  between 
Hungary  and  Austria,  I  should  not 
have  appeared  here  to-day,  nor  in- 
deed would  it  have  been  necessary  for 
any  of  us  to  have  appeared  here  to- 
day. So  long  as  the  Hungarians  were 
left  to  settle  their  affairs  with  the 
government  of  Vienna,  they  were  per- 
fectly competent  to  do  it,  without  the 
interference  of  the  citizens  of  Lon- 
don." This  is  intelligible  enough. 
So  long  as  central  governments  are 
merely  fighting  with  their  own  depen- 
dencies, there  is  no  room  at  all,  ac- 
cording to  Mr  Cobden,  for  interfer- 
ence. It  matters  not  which  side  pre- 
vails :.  they  must  be  left  wholly  to 
themselves.  This  doctrine  could  not, 
we  think,  have  been  very  acceptable 
to  the  Poles ;  since  it  amounts  to  an 
entire  admission  that  Russia  has  a 
right  to  deal  with  them  at  her  plea- 
sure ;  neither  is  it  altogether  consis- 
tent with  our  ideas,  or  interpretation 
of  the  law  of  nations.  But  it  is  Cob- 
den's  view,  and  therefore  let  it  pass. 
To  him,  then,  it  mattered  nothing 
whether  Goth  or  Hun  prevailed  —  it 
was  the  intervention  of  Russia  that 
peremptorily  called  him  to  the  plat- 
form. Now  we  must  own,  that  we 
cannot  understand  this  sort  of  reason- 
ing, though  it  may  possibly  be  suited 
to  the  capacities  of  a  Manchester 
audience.  If,  as  many  people  no 
doubt  conscientiously  believe,  Austria 
was  trampling  upon  the  liberties  of  a 
brave  and  loyal  people,  not  only 
justice,  but  humanity  demands  that 
our  sympathies  should  be  enlisted  on 
their  side.  We  cannot  acquiesce  in  a 
doctrine  which  would  have  left  the 
Greeks  (lamentably  small  sense  as 
they  have  shown  of  the  benefits  of 
liberty)  to  toil  on  for  ever  under  the 
grievous  yoke  of  the  Ottoman  :  nor 
are  we  prepared  to  carry  our  apathy 


to  so  extreme  a  length.  The  in- 
tervention of  Russia  could  not,  by 
any  possibility,  alter  the  complexion 
of  the  quarrel.  It  might  either  crush 
freedom,  or  maintain  constitutional 
government  and  the  balance  of  power 
in  Europe  ;  but  the  principle  of  the 
contest,  whatever  that  might  be,  was 
declared  before  Russia  appeared,  and 
according  as  men  view  it,  so  should  their 
sympathies  be  given.  The  whole  ques- 
tion, however,  as  Mr  Cobden  put  the 
case,  turnedupon  Russian  interference. 
If  Mr  Cobden's  next  door  neigh- 
bour happened  to  have  a  dispute  with 
his  operatives,  touching  the  interpre- 
tation of  certain  points  of  the  Charter, 
and  if  the  latter,  in  their  zeal  for  en- 
lightenment, were  to  set  fire  to  their 
master's  premises,  we  apprehend  that 
the  honourable  member  for  the  West 
Riding,  (having  neglected  his  own 
insurance,)  might  blamelessly  bear  a 
hand  to  quench  the  threatening  con- 
flagration. Further,  if  he  were 
assured  that  the  said  operatives, 
assisted  by  a  gang  of  deserters  from 
his  own  mills,  were  trying  their  hands 
at  an  incendiary  experiment,  preli- 
minary to  operating  upon  his  calico 
warehouses,  how  could  he  be  blamed, 
if  he  sallied  to  attack  the  rioters  in 
their  first  position  ?  Yet,  if  we  are 
permitted  to  compare  very  great 
things  with  small,  this  was  precisely 
the  situation  of  Russia.  If  she  did 
not  assist  Austria,  the  flame  would 
have  been  kindled  in  her  own  provin- 
ces ;  if  the  Hungarian  insurrection 
had  triumphed,  Poland  would  have 
been  up  in  arms.  With  the  old  par- 
tition of  Poland  we  have  nothing  now 
to  do,  any  more  than  with  the  junction 
of  the  Slavonic  provinces  with  Aus- 
tria. Right  or  wrong,  these  have  long 
become  acknowledged  facts  in  Euro- 
pean history,  and  the  boundary  divi- 
sions have  been  acquiesced  in  by  a 
congress  of  the  assembled  nations. 
We  cannot  go  back  upon  matters  of 
ancient  right  and  occupation  ;  were 
we  to  do  so,  the  peace  of  every  nation 
in  Europe  must  necessarily  be  dis- 
turbed, and  no  alternative  would  re- 
main, save  the  Utopian  one  of  par- 
celling out  territory  according  to  the 
language  of  the  inhabitants.  Boun- 
daries must  be  settled  somehow. 
They  were  so  settled,  by  the  consent 
of  all  the  nations,  at  the  treaty  of 


592 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


Vienna ;  and  our  duty,  as  well  as  our 
interest,  is  to  adhere  to  that  arrange- 
ment. Russia,  by  assisting  Austria, 
has  in  no  way  contravened  any  of  the 
stipulations  of  that  treaty.  From  the 
moment  when  the  Hungarian  party  .de- 
clared their  country  independent,  and 
proclaimed  a  republic,  a  new  cause  of 
discord  and  misrule  was  opened  in 
the  east  of  Europe,  and  the  greatest 
of  the  eastern  potentates  was  not  only 
entitled  but  forced  to  interfere.  It  by 
no  means  follows  that  we,  who  uphold 
this  view,  have  any  partiality  or  liking 
for  Russian  institutions.  No  man 
who  lives  in  a  free  country,  like  ours, 
can  possibly  sympathise  with  despot- 
ism, serfism,  and  that  enormous 
stretch  of  feudal  power  which  is  given 
to  a  privileged  class — we  must  regard 
such  things  with  a  feeling  nearly 
akin  to  abhorrence  ;  nor  can  we,  with 
our  Saxon  notions,  fancy  existence 
even  tolerable  ia  such  a  state  of 
society.  But  our  likings  or  disgusts 
cannot  alter  matters  as  they  stand. 
We  cannot  force  other  nations  to  see 
with  our  eyes,  to  think  with  our 
thoughts,  or  to  adapt  their  constitu- 
tions according  to  the  measure  of  our 
accredited  standard  of  excellence. 
That  amount  of  irresponsible  and 
uncontrolled  action  which  we  term 
freedom,  presupposes  the  existence  of 
a  large  and  general  spread  of  intelli- 
gence throughout  the  community, 
fixed  laws  of  property,  consolidated 
social  relationship,  pure  administra- 
tion of  justice,  and  wisdom  and 
temperance  on  the  part  of  the 
governed  and  the  governor.  Such 
things  are  not  the  rapid  results  of 
months,  or  years,  or  centuries.  They 
are  of  slow  growth,  but  they  are  the 
inevitable  fruits  of  order;  and  very 
blind  and  ignorant  must  that  man  be 
who  does  not  see  the  hand  of  progress 
at  work  even  in  the  institutions  of 
Russia.  That  country  emerged  from 
barbarism  later  than  the  rest  of 
Europe,  but,  since  the  days  of  Peter 
the  Czar,  its  strides  towards  civilisa- 
tion have  been  most  rapid.  Com- 
merce has  been  established,  manu- 
factures introduced,  learning  and  the 
arts  cultivated,  and  such  a  foundation 
laid  as,  in  no  very  long  time,  must 
perforce  secure  to  all  ranks  of  the 
people  a  larger  share  of  freedom  than 
they  are  now  qualified  to  enjoy. 


Revolution  cannot  hasten  such  a 
state  of  matters,  but  it  may  materially 
retard  it.  Foolish  and  short-sighted 
men  seem  to  think  that  revolt  is  a 
synonymous  term  with  freedom,  and, 
accordingly,  they  hail  each  fresh  out- 
break with  shouts  of  indiscriminate 
approval.  They  can  draw  no  dis- 
tinction between  the  revolt  of  the 
barons  and  that  of  Jack  Cade  in 
England  ;  they  are  as  ready  to  applaud 
Spartacus  as  Brutus ;  they  think  a 
peasant's  war  as  meritorious  as  the 
up-raising  of  the  standard  of  the 
League.  They  never  stop  to  consider 
that  freedom  is  a  mere  relative  term, 
and  that  it  is  worse  than  useless  to 
pluck  down  one  form  of  government 
by  violence,  unless  a  better  is  to  be 
reared  in  its  stead.  And  who  can 
venture  to  say  that  this  would  have 
been  the  case  with  Hungary  ?  Who 
would  predict  it  with  certairity  even 
of  Poland,  were  that  dismembered 
kingdom  to  be  restored  ?  It  is  noto- 
rious that  Poland  went  to  pieces 
under  the  weight  of  its  elective  mon- 
archy, and  the  perpetual  feuds,  tur- 
bulence, and  tyranny  of  a  lawless  and 
fierce  aristocracy.  No  doubt,  men 
will  fight  for  these  things — they  will 
fight  for  traditions,  and  bad  ones  too, 
as  keenly  as  for  the  most  substantial 
benefits.  A  century  ago,  the  High- 
landers would  have  fought  to  the 
death  for  clanship,  chieftainship, 
heritable  jurisdictions,  and  the  right 
of  foray  and  of  feud ;  but  will  any 
man  now  raise  up  his  voice  in  favour 
of  the  old  patriarchal  constitution  ? 
In  Ireland,  at  this  moment,  we  believe 
that  a  large  body  of  the  Celts  is  will- 
ing to  stand  up  for  a  restoration  of 
the  days  of  Malachi  of  the  Golden 
Collar — a  form  of  government  which, 
we  presume,  even  an  O'Connell  would 
decline.  This  is  just  the  case  with 
our  sympathisers.  They  take  it  for 
granted  that,  because  there  is  revolt, 
there  must  be  a  struggle  for  freedom, 
and  they  are  perfectly  ready  to  accept, 
without  the  slightest  examination, 
any  legend  that  may  be  coined  for 
the  nonce.  Gullible  as  a  considerable 
number  of  the  British  public  may  be, 
especially  that  section  of  the  public 
which  -delights  in  platform  oratory, 
we  really  could  not  have  believed  that 
any  assemblage  could  be  so  utterly 
ignorant,  as  to  receive  a  statement  to 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


593 


the  effect  that  the  old  constitution  of 
Hungary  bore  a  close  resemblance  to 
our  own ! 

We  are  tempted  here  to  insert  an 
extract  from  the  works  of  a  popular 
writer  regarding  the  constitution  of 
Poland,  because  it  expresses,  in  ex- 
cellent language,  the  opinions  which 
we  are  attempting  to  set  forth  in  this 
article,  and  denounces  the  folly  of 
those  who  confound  the  term  freedom 
with  its  just  and  rational  application. 
Will  the  reader  favour  us  by  perusing 
the  following  passage  with  attention  ? 
— when  he  has  done  so,  we  shall  state 
from  whose  eloquent  pen  it  proceeded. 

"  Of  how  trifling  consequence  it 
must  be  to  the  practical  minded  and 
humane  people  of  Great  Britain,  or  to 
the  world  at  large,  whether  Poland  be 
governed  by  a  king  of  this  dynasty  or 
of  that — whether  he  be  lineally  de- 
scended from  Boleslas  the  Great,  or  of 
the  line  of  the  Jagellons — contrasted 
with  the  importance  of  the  inquiries 
as  to  the  social  and  political  condition 
of  its  people — whether  they  be  as  well 
or  worse  governed,  clothed,  fed,  and 
lodged  in  the  present  day  as  compared 
with  any  former  period, — whether  the 
mass  of  the  people  be  elevated  in  the 
scale  of  moral  and  religious  beings, — 
whether  the  country  enjoys  a  smaller 
or  a  larger  amount  of  the  blessings  of 
peace ;  or  whether  the  laws  for  the  pro- 
tection of  life  and  property  are  more  or 
less  justly  administered.  These  are  the 
all- important  inquiries  about  which 
we  busy  ourselves ;  and  it  is  to  cheat 
BS  of  our  stores  of  philanthropy,  by 
an  appeal  to  the  sympathy  with  which 
we  regard  these  vital  interests  of  a 
whole  people,  that  the  declaimers  and 
writers  upon  the  subject  invariably 
appeal  to  us  on  behalf  of  the  oppressed 
and  enslaved  Polish  nation — carefully 
obscuring,  amidst  the  cloud  of  epi- 
thets about  '  ancient  freedom, ' 
'  national  independence,'  '  glorious 
republic,'  and  the  like,  the  fact  that, 
previously  to  the  dismemberment,  the 
term  nation  implied  only  the  nobles  ; 
— that,  down  to  the  partition  of  their 
territory,  about  nineteen  out  of  every 
twenty  of  the  inhabitants  were  slaves, 
possessing  no  rights,  civil  or  political ; 
tli at  about  one  in  every  twenty  was  a 
nobleman — and  that  that  body  of 
nobles  formed  the  very  worst  aristo- 
cracy of  ancient  or  modern  times ; 


putting  up  and  pulling  down  their 
kings  at  pleasure ;  passing  selfish  laws, 
which  gave  them  the  power  of  life  and 
death  over  their  serfs,  whom  they 
sold  and  bought  like  dogs  or  horses  ; 
usurping,  to  each  of  themselves,  the 
privileges  of  a  petty  sovereign,  and 
denying  to  all  besides  the  meanest 
rights  of  human  beings ;  and,  scorning 
all  pursuits  as  degrading,  except  that 
of  the  sword,  they  engaged  in  inces- 
sant wars  with  neighbouring  states, 
or  plunged  their  own  country  into  all 
the  horrors  of  anarchy,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  employment  to  them- 
selves and  their  dependants."  And 
the  same  writer,  after  remarking  upon 
the  character  and  conduct  of  the  pri- 
vileged class  in  Poland,  in  language 
which  is  just  as  applicable  to  those 
of  the  Hungarian  nobles,  thus  ac- 
counts for  the  insurrection  in  1830. 
The  Italics  are  his  own.  "  We  hesi- 
tate not  emphatically  to  assert,  that  it 
was  wholly,  and  solely,  and  exclusively, 
at  the  instigation,  and  for  the  selfish 
benefit,  of  this  aristocratic  faction  of 
the  people,  that  the  Polish  nation 
suffered  for  twelve  months  the  horrors 
of  civil  war,  was  thrown  bach  in  her 
career  of  improvement,  and  has  since 
had  to  endure  the  rigours  of  a  con- 
queror's vengeance.  The  Russian 
government  was  aware  of  this ;  and 
its  severity  has  since  been  chiefly 
directed  towards  the  nobility."  And 
in  a  note  appended  to  the  above  para- 
graph he  says,  "  The  peasants  joined, 
to  a  considerable  extent,  the  standard 
of  revolt ;  but  this  was  to  be  expect- 
ed, in  consequence  of  the  influence 
necessarily  exercised  over  them  by  the 
superior  classes.  Besides,  patriotism 
or  nationality  is  an  instinctive  virtue, 
that  sometimes  burns  the  brightest  in 
the  rudest  and  least  reasoning  minds ; 
and  its  manifestation  bears  no  propor- 
tion to  the  value  of  the  possessions 
defended,  or  the  object  to  be  gained. 
The  Russian  serfs  at  Borodino,  the 
Turkish  slaves  at  Ismail,  and  the  laz- 
zaroni  of  Naples,  fought  for  their  mas- 
ters and  oppressors  more  obstinately 
than  the  free  citizens  of  Paris  or 
Washington  did,  at  a  subsequent 
period,  in  defence  of  those  capitals." 

And  who  was  the  author  of  these 
very  lucid  and  really  excellent  re- 
marks ?  We  reply,  RICHARD  COB- 
DEX,  ESQ.  The  curious  in  such 


594 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


matters  will  find  these,  and  many 
similar  passages,  in  a  pamphlet  entit- 
led Russia,  by  a  Manchester  Manufac- 
turer, which  was  published  in  1836, 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  that,  on 
the  whole,  it  would  be  an  advantage 
to  British  commerce  if  Russia  were 
to  lay  violent  hands  on  Turkey,  and 
possess  herself  of  Constantinople  ! 

But  it  is  time  we  should  return  to 
the  London  Tavern  meeting,  where 
we  left  Mr  Cobden,  this  time  denoun- 
cing the  active  interference  of  Russia. 
Here  the  apostle  of  peace  was  cer- 
tainly upon  ticklish  ground.  Large 
as  his  estimate  undoubtedly  is  of  his 
own  influence  and  power,  he  could 
hardly  expect,  that,  because  he  and 
some  other  gentlemen  of  inferior  en- 
dowments were  pleased  to  hold  a 
meeting  in  the  London  Tavern,  and 
pass  resolutions  condemnatory  of  the 
conduct  of  the  Czar,  the  immediate 
consequence  would  be  a  withdrawal 
of  the  Russian  forces.  Under  such 
circumstances,  as  he  must  have  per- 
fectly well  known,  the  expression  of 
his  opinion  was  not  worth  the  splinter 
of  a  rush  to  the  Hungarians,  unless, 
indeed,  he  were  prepared  to  follow  up 
his  words  by  deeds.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  debarred,  by  some  fifty 
public  declarations,  from  advocating 
the  propriety  of  a  war:  not  only 
upon  the  general  pacific  principle — for 
that  might  easily  have  been  evaded, 
— but  upon  economical  considerations 
connected  with  his  darling  scheme  of 
reducing  the  British  navy  and  army, 
which  would  be  clearly  incompatible 
with  the  commencement  of  a  general 
European  conflict.  An  ordinary  man, 
entertaining  such  views  and  senti- 
ments, would  probably  have  consi- 
dered himself  as  lodged  between  the 
horns  of  an  inextricable  dilemma. 
Not  so  Cobdeu,  whose  genius  rose  to 
the  difficulty.  The  experience  of  a 
hundred  platform  fights  had  taught 
him  this  great  truth,  that  no  proposi- 
tion was  too  monstrous  to  be  crammed 
down  the  public  throat,  provided  the 
operator  possessed  the  requisite  share 
of  effrontery;  and  he  straightway  pro- 
ceeded, secundum  artem,  to  exhibit  a 
masterpiece  of  his  skill. 

Probably  not  one  man  in  all  that 
room  but  had  been  impressed,  from 
his  youth  upwards,  with  a  wholesome 
.terror  and  respect  for  the  magnitude 


of  the  Russian  power.  That,  at  all 
events,  was  the  feeling  of  the  Poles, 
and  decidedly  of  the  Polish  cham- 
pions. But  in  less  than  an  instant 
they  were  disabused.  Most  of  our 
readers  must  have  seen  how  a  small 
figure,  painted  on  a  tiny  slip  of  glass, 
may,  when  passed  through  the  aper- 
ture of  a  magic  lantern,  be  made  to 
reflect  the  attitude  and  dimensions  of 
a  giant :  Cobden's  trick  was  exactly 
the  opposite  of  this ;  he  made  the 
actual  giant  appear  in  the  dwindled 
proportions  of  a  dwarf.  "  I  will  tell 
you,"  said  he,  "  how  we  can  bring 
moral  force  to  bear  on  these  armed 
despots.  We  can  stop  the  supplies. 
(Loud  cheers.)  Why,  Russia  can't 
carry  on  two  campaigns  beyond  her 
own  frontiers,  without  coming  to 
Western  Europe  for  a  loan.  She 
never  has  done  so,  without  being 
either  subsidised  by  England,  or  bor- 
rowing money  from  Amsterdam.  I 
tell  you  I  have  paid  a  visit  there,  and 
I  assert  that  they  cannot  carry  on 
two  campaigns  in  Hungary,  without 
either  borrowing  money  in  Western 
Europe  or  robbing  the  bank  at  St 
Petersburg.  (A  laugh,  and  a  cry  of 
'  Question.')  That  must  be  a  Russian 
agent,  a  spy,  for  this  is  the  question. 
I  know,"  continued  our  magniloquent 
Richard,  "  that  the  Russian  party, 
here  and  abroad,  would  rather  that  I 
should  send  against  them  a  squadron 
of  cavalry  and  a  battery  of  cannon, 
than  that  I  should  fire  off  the  facts 
that  I  am  about  to  tell  you.  I  say, 
then,  that  Russia  cannot  carry  on  two 
campaigns  without  a  loan."  We 
believe  that  the  latter  part  of  Mr 
Cobden's  statement  is  tolerably  accu- 
rate, so  that  he  need  not  give  himself 
any  further  trouble  about  the  produc- 
tion of  his  indicated  horse  and  artil- 
lery. We  agree  with  him  that  Russia 
might  be  puzzled  to  carry  on  two 
vigorous  campaigns  without  a  loan ; 
but  we  should  be  glad  to  know  what 
country  in  Europe  is  not  in  the  same 
predicament?  War,  as  everybody 
knows,  is  a  very  costly  matter — not 
much  cheaper  than  revolution,  though 
a  good  deal  more  speedy  in  its  results 
— and  every  nation  which  engages  in 
it  must,  perforce,  liquidate  the  ex- 
pense. Great  Britain  could  not,  any 
more  than  Russia,  go  to  war  without 
a  loan.  In  such  an  event,  the  only 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


595 


difference  would  be  that  the  British 
loan  must  necessarily  be  six  or  seven 
times  greater  than  that  of  Russia,  for 
this  simple  reason,  that  Russia  has  a 
large  standing  army  levied  and  pre- 
pared, •whereas  we  have  not.  Now 
what  is  there  to  prevent  Russia  from 
negotiating  a  loan  ?  The  first  ques- 
tion, we  apprehend,  is  the  state  of  her 
finances — let  us  see  whether  there  is 
any  symptom  of  approaching  bank- 
ruptcy in  these.  The  debt  of  Russia, 
according  to  the  most  recent  authori- 
ties, is  seventy-six  millions,  being  as 
near  as  possible  one  tenth  of  our  own. 
Her  revenue  is  about  seventeen  mil- 
lions, or  one-third  of  ours.  So  far, 
therefore,  as  the  mere  elements  of 
credit  go,  Russia  would,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  capitalist,  be  the  more  eligible 
debtor  of  the  two.  There  could,  we 
apprehend,  be  no  possible  doubt  of 
her  solvency,  for,  with  large  resources 
behind,  she  has  a  mere  fraction  of  a 
debt,  and  her  power  of  raising  reve- 
nue by  taxes  has  been  little  exercised. 
Our  readers  will  better  understand 
this  by  keeping  in  mind,  that,  while 
the  revenue  presently  levied  is  just 
one-third  of  ours,  the  population  of 
Russia  is  considerably  more  than 
double  that  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land. Mr  Cobden,  however,  accept- 
ing, as  we  presume  he  must  do,  the 
above  official  facts,  draws  from  them 
inferences  of  a  very  startling  charac- 
ter. "  Don't  let  any  one  talk,"  said 
he,  "  of  Russian  resources.  It  is  the 
poorest  and  most  beggarly  country 
in  Europe.  It  has  not  a  farthing. 
Last  year  there  was  an  immense  de- 
ficit in  its  income  as  compared  with 
its  expenditure,  and  during  the  pre- 
sent financial  year  it  will  be  far  worse. 
Russia  a  strong  political  power! 
Why,  there  is  not  so  gigantic  a  poli- 
tical imposture  in  all  Europe."  And 
again,  "  Russia  a  strong,  a  powerful, 
and  a  rich  country !  Don't  believe 
any  one  who  tells  you  so  in  future. 
Refer  them  to  me."  We  feel  deeply 
obliged  to  Mr  Cobden  for  the  last 
suggestion,  but  we  would  rather,  with 
his  permission,  refer  to  facts.  If  the 
poorest  and  most  beggarly  country  in 
Europe  has  contrived  to  rear  its  mag- 
nificent metropolis  from  the  marshes 
of  the  gelid  Neva,  to  create  and  main- 
tain large  and  well- equipped  fleets  in 
the  Baltic  and  the  Black  seas,  and  to 


keep  up  a  standing  army  of  about 
half  a  million  of  men,  without  increas- 
ing its  permanent  debt  beyond  the 
amount  already  specified,  all  we  shall 
say  is,  that  the  semi- civilised  Russian 
is  in  possession  of  an  economical 
secret  utterly  unknown  to  the  states- 
men of  more  favoured  climes,  and 
that  the  single  farthing  in  his  hand, 
has  produced  results  more  wonderful 
than  any  achieved  by  the  potency  of 
the  lamp  of  Aladdin.  But  the  climax 
has  yet  to  come.  Waxing  bolder  and 
bolder  on  the  strength  of  each  succes- 
sive assertion  of  Russian  weakness 
and  impotency,  the  Apostle  of  Peace 
assumed  the  attitude  of  defiance :  "  If 
Russia  should  take  a  step  that  re- 
quired England,  or  any  other  great 
maritime  power,  like  the  United 
States,  to  attack  that  power,  why,  we 
should  fall  like  a  thunderbolt  upon 
her.  You  would  in  six  months  crum- 
ple that  empire  up,  or  drive  it  into  its 
own  dreary  fastnesses,  as  I  now 
crumple  up  that  piece  of  paper  in  my 
hand ! ! !  "  Here  is  a  pretty  fellow 
for  you!  This  invincible  fire-eater 
is  the  same  man  who,  for  the  last 
couple  of  years,  has  been  agitating 
for  the  reduction  of  the  army  and 
navy,  on  the  ground  that  the  whole 
world  was  in  a  state  of  the  profound- 
est  peace,  and  likely  so  to  remain ! 
This  crumpler-up  and  defier  of  em- 
pires is  the  gentleman  who  held  forth 
this  by-gone  summer,  at  Paris,  on  the 
wickedness  of  war,  and  on  the  spread 
of  fraternity  and  brotherly  love  among 
the  nations!  Why,  if  old  Admiral 
Drake  had  risen  from  the  dead,  he 
could  not  have  spoken  in  a  more  war- 
like strain,  only  the  temper  and  tone 
of  his  remarks  would  have  been  diffe- 
rent. A  hero  is  bold  but  temperate :  a 
demagogue  blustering  and  pot-valiant. 
It  is  but  right  to  say,  that  this 
impudent  and  mischievous  trash, 
though  of  course  abundantly  cheered 
by  many  of  the  poor  creatures  who 
knew  no  better,  did  not  altogether 
impose  upon  the  meeting.  Mr  Bernal 
Osborne  could  not  find  it  in  his  con- 
science to  acquiesce,  even  tacitly,  in 
this  monstrous  attempt  at  imposition, 
and  accordingly,  though  "he  coincided 
in  much  that  had  been  said  by  the 
member  for  the  West  Riding,  he 
must  take  the  liberty  to  say  that,  in 
exposing  the  weakness  of  Russia,  he 


596 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


had  gone  rather  too  far.  Forewarned 
was  forearmed,  and  let  them  not  lay 
it  to  their  hearts  that  the  great  empire 
was  not  to  be  feared,  but  despised." 
And  therefore,  he,  Mr  Osborne, 
*'  would  be  sorry  if  any  man  in  the 
meeting  should  go  away  with  the 
impression  that  the  monstrous  Pan- 
sclavonic  empire  was  to  be  thoroughly 
despised."  Neither  did  the  chairman 
exactly  approve  of  the  line  of  discus- 
sion which  had  been  introduced  by 
Mr  Cobden.  He  said,  with  great 
truth,  that  they  had  nothing  to  do  at 
present  with  the  resources  of  Russia; 
their  business  being  simply  to  consider 
the  wrongs  of  Hungary,  and  to  give 
utterance  to  such  an  expression  of 
opinion  as  might  act  upon  the  British 
government.  Mr  Salomons  is  a  prac- 
tical man,  and  understands  the  use  of 
mob-meetings,  which  is  to  coerce  and 
compel  Whig  administrations  to  do 
precisely  what  the  frequenters  of  the 
London  Tavern  desire.  Better  versed, 
by  a  great  deal,  in  monetary  matters 
than  Mr  Cobden,  he  knows  that  finan- 
cial discussions  are  utterly  out  of  place 
in  such  an  assemblage ;  and,  moreover, 
•we  have  a  strong  suspicion  that  the 
latter  part  of  Mr  Cobden's  speech,  to 
which  we  are  just  about  to  refer,  must 
have  sounded  harshly  in  the  ears  of  a 
gentleman  of  the  Hebrew  persuasion, 
initiated,  after  the  custom  of  his  tribe, 
in  the  mysteries  of  borrowing  and 
lending.  Up  to  this  point  we  have 
considered  Mr  Cobden  in  the  united 
character  of  peace-maker  and  bully  : 
let  us  now  see  how  he  contrives  to 
combine  the  hitherto  antagonistic  qua- 
lities of  free- trader  and  restrictionist. 

Having,  satisfactorily  to  himself, 
demonstrated  the  pitiable  weakness  of 
Russia,  and  having  got  over  the 
notorious  fact  of  her  large  bullion 
deposit,  and  her  purchases  in  the 
British  funds,  by  explaining  that  the 
first  is  the  foundation  of  her  currency, 
and  the  second  a  private  operation  of 
tlie'^Bank  of  St  Petersburg — an  estab- 
lishment which,  according  to  his 
showing,  is  no  way  connected  with 
the  government — Mr  Cobden  proceed- 
ed to  unravel  his  schemes  for  paring 
the  claws  of  the  northern  Bear.  It 
has  the  merit  of  pure  simplicity.  Not 
one  penny  is  henceforward  to  be  lent 
to  the  Russian  government.  The 
capitalists  of  Europe  are  henceforth  to 


look,  not  to  the  security,  but  to  the 
motives  of  the  borrowing  power.     If 
they  think  that   the  money  required 
is  to  be  expended  in  purchasing  mu- 
nitions   of   war,    in   fitting    out  an 
armament,  or    in    any    other    way 
hostile  to  the  continuance  of  peace, 
they  are  grimly  to  close  their  cof- 
fers,  shake  their  heads,  and  refuse 
to    advance    one     single    sixpence, 
whatever  be  the  amount  of  percent- 
age offered  ;    and  this  kind  of  moral 
force,  Mr  Cobden  thinks,  would  not 
only    be    effectual,   but    can    easily 
be  brought  into  action.    Let  us  hear 
him.      "  Now,  will  any  one  in  the 
city  of  London  dare  to  be  a  party  to 
a  loan  to  Russia,  either  directly  or 
openly,  or  by  agency  and  copartner- 
ship with  any  house  in  Amsterdam  or 
Paris  ?    Will  any  one  dare,  I  say,  to 
come  before  the  citizens  of  this  free 
country,  and  avow  that  he  has  lent 
his  money  for  the  purpose  of  cutting 
the  throats  of  the  innocent  people  of 
Hungary?    I  have  heard  such  a  pro- 
ject talked  of.    But  let  it  only  assume 
a  shape,  and  I  promise  you  that  we, 
the  peace  party,  will  have  such  a 
meeting  as  has  not  yet  been  held  in 
London,  for  the  purpose  of  denouncing 
the  blood-stained  project  —  for    the 
purpose  of  pointing  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  the  house,  or  the  individuals,  who 
would  employ  their  money  in  such  a 
manner  —  for  the  purpose  of  fixing 
an  indelible  stigma  of  infamy  upon  the 
men  who  would  lend  their  money  for 
such  a  vile,  unchristian,  and  barbar- 
ous purpose.  That  is  my  moral  force. 
As  for  Austria,  no  one,  I  suppose, 
would    ever    think    of  lending   her 
money."    We  shall,  by-and-by,  have 
occasion  to  see  more  of  Mr  Cobden  in  • 
connexion  with  the  Austrian  loan ;  in 
the  mean  time,  let  us  keep  to  the  gene- 
ral proposition.    The  meaning  of  the 
above  unadorned  fustian  is    simply 
this — that  no  man  shall,  in  future,  pre- 
sume to  lend  his  money  without  con- 
sulting the  views  of  Mr  Cobden  and 
his   respectable  confederates.      This 
ukase — and  a  magnificent  one  it  is — 
was  rapturously  received  by  his  au- 
dience ;  a  fiat  of  approval  which  we 
set  no  great  store  on,  seeing  that,  in  all 
probability,  not  fifty  of  those  excel- 
lent philanthropists  could  command 
as  many  pounds  for  the  permanent 
purpose  of  investment.    But  the  idea 


1849.] 

of  controlling,  by  their  sweet  voices, 
the  monetary  operations  of  the  great 
banking-houses  of  the  world,  the 
Rothschilds,  the  Barings,  and  the 
Hopes,  was  too  delicious  a  hallucina- 
tion not  to  be  rewarded  with  a  cor- 
responding cheer.  Now,  setting  aside 
the  absolute  impudence  of  the  pro- 
posal—for we  presume  Mr  Cobden 
must  have  known  that  he  had  as  much 
power  to  stay  the  flux  of  the  tides,  as 
to  regnlate  the  actions  of  the  money- 
lenders— what  are  we  to  think  of  the 
new  principle  enunciated  by  the  ve- 
teran free-trader  ?  What  becomes 
of  the  grand  doctrine  of  buying  in 
the  cheapest  and  selling  in  the  dearest 
market,  without  the  slightest  regard 
to  any  other  earthly  consideration, 
save  that  of  price  ?  Will  Mr  Cobden 
NOW  venture  to  persuade  us  that  he 
had  some  mental  reservation,  when 
he  propounded  that  ever-memorable 
axiom ;  or  that  dealers  in  coin  were 
to  be  regulated  by  a  different  code  of 
moral  laws  from  that  which  was  laid 
down  for  the  use  of  the  more  fortunate 
dealers  in  calico  ?  We  presume,  that, 
without  cotton,  and  blankets,  and  ma- 
chinery exported  from  this  country, 
the  slaves  of  Cuba  could  hardly  be 
made  to  work — why,  then,  should  we 
not  clap  an  embargo  on  these  articles, 
and  point  with  the  finger  of  scorn, 
disgust,  and  execration,  to  every  man 
who  traffics  in  that  unholy  trade? 
And  yet,  if  our  memory  serves  us 
right,  no  very  long  time  has  elapsed 
since  we  beggared  our  West  Indian 
colonies,  solely  to  drive  a  larger  trade 
in  those  articles  with  the  slave  plan- 
tations, for  behoof  of  Messrs  Cobden 
and  Co.  Slavery,  we  presume,  is  an 
institution  not  congenial  to  the  mind 
of  Mr  Cobden — at  least  we  hope  not, 
and  we  are  sure  he  would  not  be  will- 
ing to  admit  it.  In  point  of  humanity, 
it  is  rather  worse  than  war ;  why  not, 
then,  let  us  have  a  strong  exercise  of 
moral  force  to  abolish  it,  by  stopping 
the  supplies  ?  The  withdrawal  of  our 
custom,  for  three  or  fouryears,  would  ef- 
fectually knock  Cubaon  the  bead.  Why 
not  try  it  ?  We  should  like  to  see  Mr 
Cobden's  face,  if  such  a  proposition 
were  made  in  Parliament ;  and  yet  is 
it  not  as  rational,  and  a  great  deal 
more  feasible,  than  the  other  ?  But  it 
is  a  positive  waste  of  time  to  dwell 
further  upon  such  a  glaring  absurdity 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


as  this.  Baron  Rothschild,  member- 
elect  though  he  be  for  the  city  of 
London,  will  care  very  little  for  the 
extended  digit  of  Mr  Cobden,  and 
will  doubtless  consult  his  own  interest, 
without  troubling  himself  about  Man- 
chester demagogues,  when  the  next 
Russian  loan  is  proposed. 

Having  delivered  himself  of  this 
remarkable  oration,  Mr  Cobden  very 
wisely  withdrew ;  perhaps  he  had  a 
slight  suspicion  of  the  scene  which 
was  presently  to  follow.  The  majority 
of  the  meeting  consisted  of  gentlemen 
whose  notions  about  moral  force  were 
exceedingly  vague  and  general.  Their 
strong  British  instincts,  inflamed  by 
the  stimulus  of  beer,  led  them  to 
question  the  use  of  abstract  sympathy, 
unless  it  was  to  be  followed  up  by 
action ;  and  accordingly  Mr  Reynolds, 
a  person  of  some  literary  as  well  as 
political  notoriety,  thought  it  his  duty 
to  give  a  more  practical  turn  to  the 
deliberations  of  the  meeting,  and 
thereby  cut  short  several  interesting 
harangues.  We  qnote  from  the  report 
of  the  Times  of  24th  July. 

"  Mr  G.  W.  M.  REYNOLDS,  whose  re- 
marks were  frequently  followed  by  inter- 
ruption and  cries  of  'question,'  next 
addressed  the  meeting.  He  avowed  his 
belief,  that  in  so  holy,  sacred,  and  solemn 
a  cause,  England  must  even  go  to  war  in 
defence  of  Hungary,  if  necessary.  (This 
assertion  was  received  with  such  hearty 
cheering  as  proved  that  the  speaker  had 
expressed  the  sentiments  of  the  vast  body 
of  the  meeting.)  All  the  moral  effects  of 
that  meeting  (continued  Mr  Reynolds) 
would  be  perfectly  useless,  unless  they 
were  prepared  to  go  further.  If  the 
government  would  employ  some  of  the 
ships  that  were  now  rotting  in  our  har- 
.bours,  and-  some  of  the  troops  now  march- 
ing about  London,  that  would  really 
benefit  the  Hungarians.  (Cheers.)  France 
used  to  be  regarded  as  a  barrier  against 
Russia,  but  France  was  no  longer  so, 
because  that  humbug  Louis  Napoleon 
(tremendous  cheers — and  three  hearty 
groans  for  Louis  Napoleon)— that  rank 
impostor  (continued  cheering) — 

"  The  CHAIRMAN  here  interfered,  and 
much  interruption  ensued.  If  anything 
could  disturb  and  injure  the  cause  which 
they  were  met  to  support,  it  was  such 
remarks  as  they  had  just  heard.  ("  No, 
no. ")  If  he  (the  Chairman)  were  a  spy 
of  Russia,  he  should  follow  out  the  course 
pursued  by  Mr  Reynolds.  (Much  con- 
fusion and  disapprobation.)" 


598 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nor, 


We  really  cannot  see  wherein  the 
author  of  the  Mysteries  of  London  vf  us 
to  blame.  His  proposition  had,  at  all 
events,  the  merit  of  being  intelligible, 
which  Mr  Cobden's  was  not,  and  he 
clearly  spoke  the  sentiments  of  the 
large  majority  of  the  unwashed.  He 
certainly  went  a  little  out  of  his  way, 
to  denounce  the  President  of  the 
French  Republic  as  an  impostor:  a 
deviation  which  we  regret  the  more,  as 
he  might  have  found  ample  scope  for 
such  expositions  without  going  further 
than  the  speeches  of  •  the  gentlemen 
who  immediately  preceded  him.  We 
need  not  linger  over  the  ensuing 
scene.  Mr  Duncan — "said  to  be  a 
Chartist  poet" — attempted  to  address 
the  meeting,  but  seems  to  have  failed. 
We  do  not  remember  to  have  met 
with  any  of  Mr  Duncan's  lyrics,  but 
we  have  a  distinct  impression  of  hav- 
ing seen  a  gentleman  of  his  name,  and 
imputed  principles,  at  the  bar  of  the 
High  Court  of  Justiciary  in  Edin- 
burgh. But  if  the  sacred  voice  of  one 
poet  was  not  listened  to,  the  same 
meed  of  inattention  was  bestowed 
upon  another.  The  arms  of  Mr  R. 
M.  Milnes  were  seen  hopelessly  gesti- 
culating above  the  press ;  and  Lord 
Dudley  Stuart,  for  once,  was  cut 
short  in  his  stereotyped  harangue. 
The  case  was  perfectly  clear :  Rey- 
nolds was  the  only  man  who  had 
enunciated  a  practical  idea,  and  ac- 
cordingly the  voice  of  the  meeting 
was  unequivocally  declared  for  war. 

We  hope  that  the  Peace  Congress, 
and  the  economists,  and  the  free- 
traders, are  all  equally  delighted  with 
this  notable  exhibition  of  their  hero. 
If  they  are  so,  we  certainly  have  no 
further  commentary  to  offer.  To  se- 
cure peace,  Mr  Cobden  openly  defies 
and  challenges  Russia ;  to  further 
economy,  he  does  his  best  to  inflame 
the  passions  of  the  people,  and  to  get 
up  a  cry  for  war;  to  vindicate  free 
trade,  he  proposes  henceforward  to 
coerce  Lombard  Street.  Is  there,  in 
all  the  history  of  imposture,  an  in- 
stance comparable  to  this  ?  Possibly 
there  maybe;  but,  if  so,  we  are  certain 
it  was  better  veiled. 

The  evil  luck  of  Mr  Cobden  still 
clung  to  him.  Within  a  very  short 
time  after  this  memorable  meeting 
was  held,  the  Hungarian  armies 
surrendered  at  discretion,  and  the  in- 


surrection was  thoroughly  quenched. 
Not  two,  not  even  one  complete  cam- 
paign, were  necessary  to  put  an  end  to 
an  ill-advised  struggle,  in  which  the 
hearts  of  the  Hungarian  people  were 
never  sincerely  enlisted ;  and  good 
men  hoped  that  the  sword  might  now 
be  sheathed  in  the  eastern  territories 
of  Europe.  That  portion  of  the  press 
which  had  sympathised  with  the  in- 
surgents, and  hailed  with  frantic  de- 
light the  suicidal  resolution  of  the 
Hungarian  chiefs  to  separate  them- 
selves for  ever  from  the  house  of 
Austria,  was  terribly  mortified  at  a 
result  so  speedy  and  unexpected ;  and 
did  its  best  to  keep  up  the  excitement 
at  home,  by  multiplying  special  in- 
stances of  cruelty  and  barbarity  said 
to  have  been  wrought  by  the  victors 
on  the  persons  of  their  vanquished 
foemen.  That  many  such  instances 
really  occurred  we  do  not  for  a 
moment  doubt.  When  the  passions 
of  men  have  been  inflamed  by  civil 
war,  and  whetted  by  a  desire  for  ven- 
geance, it  is  always  difficult  for  the 
authorities  to  preserve  a  proper  re- 
straint. This  is  the  case  even  among 
civilised  nations ;  and  when  we  reflect 
that  a  large  portion  of  the  troops  on 
either  side  engaged  in  the  Hungarian 
Avar,  cannot  with  any  justice  be  termed 
civilised,  it  is  no  wonder  if  deeds  of 
wanton  atrocity  should  occur.  Indeed, 
late  events  may  lead  us  to  question 
how  far  civilisation,  on  such  occasions, 
can  ever  operate  as  a  check.  Who 
could  have  believed  that  last  year,  in 
Frankfort,  a  young  and  gallant  noble- 
man, whose  sole  offence  was,  the  free 
expressions  of  his  opinions  in  a  par- 
liament convened  by  universal  suff- 
rage, should  have  been  put  to  death 
at  noonday  by  lingering  torments, 
and  his  groans  of  agony  echoed  back 
by  the  laughter  of  his  brutal  assassins? 
The  names  of  Felix  Lichnowsky  and 
Von  Auerswaldt  will  surely  long  be 
remembered  to  the  infamy  of  that 
city  which  was  the  birthplace  of 
Goethe,  and  boasted  of  itself  as  the 
refined  capital  of  the  Rhenish  pro- 
vinces. A  veil  of  mystery  still  hangs 
over  the  circumstances  connected  with 
the  assassination  of  Count  Latour;  and 
though  we  are  unwilling  to  give  cur- 
rency to  a  rumour,  which  would  entail 
infamy  on  the  memory  of  one  who 
has  since  passed  to  his  account,  the 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


victim    of    an   unbridled    ambition, 
strong  suspicions  exist  that  a  Hun- 
garian minister  was  directly  privy  to 
that  act  of  dastardly  and  cruel  mur- 
der.    But    there    is    no  manner    of 
doubt  at  all  as  to  the  atrocities  which 
were  committed  in  Vienna  when  that 
hapless  city  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
red  republicans  and  the  Poles.    Pil- 
lage, murder,  and  violation  were  crimes 
of  every-day  occurrence,  and  it  is  not 
wonderful    if   the  memory  of  these 
wrongs  has  in  some  instances  goaded 
on  the  victors  to  a  revenge  which  all 
must   deplore.     As  to  the  military 
executions  which  have  taken  place, 
we  have  a  word  to  say.    The  sup- 
pression of  almost  every  revolt  has 
been  followed  by  strong  measures  on 
the  part  of  the  conquerors,  against 
those  who  excited  the  insurrection. 
Our    own  history  is    full  of  them. 
Succeeding  generations,  according  to 
their  estimate  of  the  justness  of  the 
cause    which    they    espoused,    have 
blamed,  or  pitied,  or  applauded  the 
conduct  of  the  men  who  thus  perilled 
and  lost  their  lives  ;  but  the  necessity 
of  such  executions  has  rarely  or  never 
been    questioned.      We    allude,    of 
course,  to  those  who  have  been  the 
leaders  and  instigators  of  the  move- 
ment, and  upon  whom  the  responsi- 
bility,   and   the    expiation   for    the 
blood   which    has    been    shed  must 
fall ;  not   to  the   subordinates  who 
ought    to    be,   and    almost    always 
are,    the    proper  objects   of  mercy. 
The  most  ardent  Jacobite,  while  he 
deplored  the  death,  and  vindicated 
the  principles  of  Lords  Balmerino  and 
Kilmarnock,  never  thought  of  blaming 
the  government  of  the  day  for  having 
sent  those  devoted  noblemen  to  the 
block.    But  in  their  case  the  execu- 
tion assumed  the  character  of  a  ter- 
rible national  solemnity — not  hastily 
enacted,  but  following  after  a  delibe- 
rate trial  before  unprejudiced  judges, 
upon  which  the  attention  and  interest 
of  the  whole  country  was  concentrated. 
And,  therefore,  while  posterity  has 
been  unanimous  in  expressing  its  ab- 
horrence of  the  bloody  butcheries  of 
William,  Duke  of  Cumberland,  after 
the  battle  of  Culloden,  no  reflection 
has  been  thrown  upon  the  ministers  of 
George  II.  for  having  allowed  the  law 
to  take  its  course  against  the  more 
prominent  leaders  of  the  rebellion, 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX. 


599 

even  though  the  sympathies  of  many 
good  men  have  been  enlisted  on  the 
losing  side.    Now,  we  do  not  hesitate 
to  condemn  most  strongly  the  conduct 
of  Austria  on  the  present  occasion. 
No  judicial  process,  so  far  as  we  can 
learn,  has  been  instituted  against  the 
captive  chiefs,  save  that  which  is  equi- 
valent to  no  process  at  all — the  sen- 
tence of  a  court-martial.    Except  in 
cases  of  the  most  absolute  necessity, 
the  functions  of  the  soldier  and  the 
judge  ought  never  to  be  combined  and 
confounded.    When  the  flame  of  civil 
war  is  once  trodden  out,  the  civil 
law  ought  immediately  to  resume  its 
wonted  supremacy.    Treason  and  re- 
bellion are  undoubtedly  the  highest  of 
all  crimes ;  but,  being  the  highest,  it 
is  therefore  the  more  necessary  that 
they  should  be  subjected  to  the  gravest 
investigation ;  so  that  in  no  way  may 
the  punishment  inflicted,  on  account 
of  a  heinous  breach  of  the  law,  be 
mistaken,  even  by  the  most  ignorant, 
for  an  act  of  hurried  vengeance.    We 
may  perhaps  have  no  right  to  object 
to  the  measure  of  the  punishment. 
We  cannot  know  what  charges  were 
brought,  or  even  substantiated  against 
the  unfortunate  Hungarian  leaders  of 
Arad.    We  are  quite  unaware  what 
disclosures  may  have  been  laid  before 
the  Austrian  government  as  to  the 
participation  of  Count  Bathyany  in 
Kossuth's  republican  schemes.     One 
and  all  of  them  may  have  been  guilty 
in  the  worst  degree ;  one  and  all  of 
them  may  have  deserved  to  die ;  and 
it  is  even  possible  that  circumstances 
may  have  rendered  such  a  terrible 
example  necessary,  for  the  future  pre- 
servation, of  order ;   but  the  manner 
'in  which  the  punishment  has  been 
dealt,  is,  we  think,  wholly  indefens- 
ible.  It  is  no  answer  to  say,  that  the 
administration  of  the  laws  of  Austria 
is  different  from  that  of  our  own,  and 
that  we  are  not  entitled  to  apply  the 
measure  of  a  foreign  standard.    No 
point  of  legal  technicality,  or  even 
consuetude  is  involved ;  there  is  but 
one  law  which,  whatever  be  its  ex- 
trinsic form,  ought  to  regulate  such  a 
proceeding  as  this — a  law  which,  we 
trust,  is  acknowledged  in  Austria  as 
well  as  in  Britain — the  law  of  justice 
and  humanity.    The  most  suspected 
criminal,  when  arraigned  before  secret 
and   biassed  judges,  loses,    in   the 
2n 


600 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


estimation  of  the  public,  half  his 
imputed  criminality.  He  has  not 
had  a  fair  trial ;  and,  if  condemned, 
it  is  possible  that  his  execution  may 
be  considered  rather  as  a  case  of 
martyrdom,  than  as  one  of  righteous 
punishment.  A  court-martial  never 
is  a  satisfactory  tribunal ;  least  of  all 
can  it  be  satisfactory  when  the  object 
of  its  inquiry  arises  from  a  civil  war. 
The  judges  have  seen  too  much  of  the 
actual  misery  and  ruin  which  has 
occurred  to  be  impartial.  That  pro- 
pensity to  vengeance,  from  which  it 
can  hardly  be  said  that  even  the 
noblest  nature  is  altogether  exempt, 
so  nearly  akin  is  it  to  righteous  indig- 
nation, is  at  such  times  unnaturally 
excited.  The  fiery  zeal,  which  shows 
so  graceful  in  the  soldier,  is  utterly 
nnsuited  to  the  ermine ;  and  when  the 
ermine  is  thrown,  as  in  this  instance, 
above  the  soldier's  uniform,  there 
can  be  very  little  doubt  that  ancient 
habit  and  inflamed  passion  will 
supersede  judicial  deliberation.  By 
acting  thus,  we  conscientiously  believe 
that  Austria  has  inflicted  a  serious 
injury  on  herself.  She  has  given  to 
those  who  are  her  enemies  a  heavy 
cause  of  argument  and  reproach  against 
those  who  are  her  well-wishers  ;  and 
the  immediate  and  not  unnatural 
result  will  be  an  increased  amount  of 
sympathy  for  the  political  fugitives, 
and  a  great  disinclination  to  canvass 
their  true  motives  and  their  characters. 
Francis  Joseph  at  the  outset  of  his 
reign  will  be  stigmatised  —  most 
unjustly,  indeed,  for  the  fault  lies  not 
with  him — as  a  relentless  tyrant,  and 
all  who  escape  from  tyranny  are  sure 
of  popular  though  indiscriminate  com- 
passion. 

We  have  thought  it  our  duty  to 
make  those  remarks  at  the  present 
time,  because  out  of  this  Hungarian 
affair  a  question  has  arisen  in  which 
we  are  to  a  certain  extent  implicated, 
and  which  may  possibly,  though  we 
do  not  think  probably,  be  productive 
of  most  serious  results.  We  allude, 
of  course,  to  the  joint  demand  of 
Russia  and  Austria  upon  Turkey  for 
the  surrender  of  the  political  fugitives 
at  Widdin.  In  common  with  the 
whole  public  press  of  this  country,  we 
consider  such  a  demand,  on  general 
grounds,  to  be  unexampled  and  unjust. 
The  abstract  right  of  every  indepen- 


dent nation  to  afford  shelter  to  politi- 
cal fugitives,  has,  we  believe,  never 
been  questioned ;  but,  even  had  it 
been  doubtful,  there  are  very  many 
reasons,  founded  upon  humanity  and 
honour,  why  all  of  us  should  combine 
to  protest  against  a  claim  so  imperi- 
ously and  threateningly  advanced. 
Cases  may  arise,  and  have  arisen, 
where  the  privilege  has  been  scanda- 
lously abused.  For  example,  the 
Baden  insurgents  have  fled  for  shelter 
across  the  frontier  of  Switzerland,  and 
have  there  remained  hatching  treason, 
collecting  adherents,  and  waiting  for 
an  opportunity  of  renewing  their 
treasonable  designs.  In  such  a  case, 
we  conceive  that  the  threatened 
government  has  a  decided  right  to 
require  the  sheltering  country  to 
remove  or  banish  those  fugitives  from 
its  territory,  and  in  the  event  of  a 
refusal,  to  declare  that  a  proper 
cosus  belli.  But  this,  it  will  be  seen, 
is  widely  different  from  a  demand  for 
the  surrender  of  the  fugitives  ;  and  we 
presume  that,  in  the  case  of  the 
Hungarians,  no  allegation  can  be 
made,  that  they  have  sought  harbour, 
and  remain  in  Turkey,  with  a  view 
towards  renewing  their  attempt.  Un- 
questionably it  is  quite  competent  for 
states  to  enter  into  treaties  in  fulfil- 
ment of  which  political  fugitives  must 
be  surrendered  when  claimed.  Such 
a  treaty  is  said  to  exist  between 
Russia  and  Turkey ;  but  it  is  clearly 
not  applicable  in  the  case  of  such  of 
the  Hungarian  refugees  as  have  claim- 
ed the  shelter  of  the  latter  power. 
Russia,  in  this  quarrel,  appears  only 
as  the  ally  of  Austria  ;  and  she  can 
have  no  right  to  admit  the  latter  to  a 
direct  participation  in  any  of  the 
stipulations  contained  in  her  peculiar 
treaty.  No  Hungarian  is  a  subject  of 
Russia;  and,  therefore,  under  that 
treaty,  he  cannot  possibly  be  reclaim- 
ed. With  regard  to  the  Polish  refu- 
gees, there  certainly  does  seem  to  be 
a  difference ;  and  we  care  not  to  own, 
that  we  feel  far  less  interest  for  them 
than  for  the  Hungarians.  Their  own 
national  struggle  excited  throughout 
Europe  great  sympathy  and  compas- 
sion. No  matter  what  were  the 
merits  of  the  kind  of  government 
which  they  sought  to  restore — no  man 
could  be  cold-blooded  enough  to  forget 
that  the  kingdom  of  Peland  had  been 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


601 


violently  seized  and  partitioned  ;  and 
though  sober  reason,  and,  in  fact, 
good  faith,  compelled  us  to  abstain 
from  espousing  the  cause  of  those  who, 
by  solemn  European  treaty,  had  been 
confirmed  as  subjects  but  who  had 
risen  as  rebels,  we  yet  gave  our  hospi- 
tality to  the  fugitive  Poles  with  a 
heartiness  greater  and  more  sincere 
than  was  ever  accorded  on  any  other 
occasion.  All  ranks  in  this  country, 
and  in  France,  combined  to  do  them 
honour  ;  and  the  general  wish  in  both 
countries  was,  not  to  afford  them  a 
mere  temporary  shelter,  but  to  give 
them  a  permanent  habitation.  For 
this  purpose,  and  to  fit  them  for  indus- 
trial employment,  the  British  govern- 
ment gave  an  annual  grant  of  money, 
and  the  private  subscriptions  were 
munificent.  Some  of  the  exiles  most 
creditably  availed  themselves  of  the 
means  so  placed  within  their  reach, 
and  have  become  amongst  us  useful 
and  esteemed  citizens.  But  there 
were  others,  and  the  larger  number, 
who  utterly  misinterpreted  this  sym- 
pathy, and  never  would  abandon  their 
dreams  of  Polish  restoration.  For 
this  we  cannot  blame  them ;  and  we 
must  needs  allow  that  they  received 
much  encouragement  to  persevere  in 
those  dreams  from  men  who  ought  to 
have  been  wiser.  They  took  undue 
advantage  of  their  situation,  and  pre- 
ferred living  in  idleness,  though  cer- 
tainly not  in  affluence,  upon  eleemosy- 
nary aid,  to  gaining  their  bread 
honourably  by  active  industry  and 
exertion.  This  was  certainly  not  the 
best  way  of  securing  the  affection  of  a 
practical  people  like  the  British  to 
them  and  to  their  cause ;  and  the  result 
has  been,  that  the  moral  prestige  of 
the  Poles  has  greatly  declined  in  this 
country.  We  are  not  arguing  from 
inference,  but  from  facts ;  for  we  are 
perfectly  certain  that  if  the  Emperor 
Nicholas  had  made  his  visit  to  London 
in  1834,  instead  of  nine  or  ten  years 
later,  his  reception  by  the  public 
would  have  been  materially  different. 
Since  then,  the  Poles  have  altogether 
forfeited  the  esteem  of  the  friends  of 
order,  by  coming  forward  as  the 
most  active  agents  and  instigators 
of  revolution  all  over  the  continent 
of  Europe.  In  France,  in  Italy,  in 
Germany,  and  above  all,  in  Hungary, 
they  have  thrust  themselves  forward 


in  quarrels  with  which  they  had  no- 
thing to  do,  and  even  have  violated 
that  hospitality  which  was  accorded 
them  on  account  of  their  misfortunes. 
It  is  time  that  they  should  learn  that 
the  British  public  has  no  sympathy 
with  unprincipled  condottieri.  No 
amount  of  tyranny,  inflicted  by  one 
nation,  will  entitle  an  exile  deliberately 
to  arm  himself  against  the  constitu- 
tion of  another.  Foreign  service — 
manly  open  service  indeed  is  honour- 
able, but  foreign  conspiracy  is,  beyond 
all  doubt,  one  of  the  basest  and  the 
worst  of  crimes.  Now,  we  are  not 
versed  enough  in  treaties  to  know  what 
are  the  exact  terms  of  the  conditions 
made  between  Russia  and  Turkey. 
We  hope,  for  the  sake  of  Bern,  Dem- 
binski,  and  the  others,  that  they 
merely  apply  to  the  surrender  of  those 
who  shall  take  refuge  in  the  neigh- 
bouring territory  on  account  of  war 
waged,  or  revolt  raised,  against  their 
sovereigns  ;  and  though,  should  such 
be  the  nature  of  the  contract,  there 
may  still  be  a  doubt  whether  the  Poles 
are  entitled  to  plead  exemption  under 
it,  that  doubt,  we  presume,  will  be 
given  in  their  favour  by  the  sheltering 
power  ;  at  all  events,  we  think  it  very 
unlikely  that  any  distinction  will  be 
drawn  betwixt  the  two  classes  of 
refugees.  Still  we  are  compelled  to 
maintain  our  honest  and  sincere  con- 
viction that,  apart  from  other  and 
greater  considerations,  there  is  no- 
thing in  this  demand  of  Russia  and 
Austria,  to  justify  us  in  active  inter- 
ference. The  demand  has  not  been 
made  on  us;  it  does  not  refer  to 
British  subjects;  and  it  in  no  way 
concerns  pur  honour.  We  have  no- 
thing more  to  do  with  it,  in  the 
abstract,  than  if  it  was  a  demand 
made  by  the  Shah  of  Persia  upon  the 
Emperor  of  China.  We  beg  especial 
attention  to  this  point,  because  we 
observe  that  some  of  our  journalists 
assume  that  Great  Britain  and  France 
will  act  together  vigorously  in  resist- 
ing the  demand.  Now,  we  hold,  that, 
though  both  countries  may  have  a 
clear  right  to  protest  against  such  a 
demand,  on  the  ground  of  its  being 
at  variance  with  the  law  of  nations, 
neither  of  them  has  the  right  to  make 
that  a  pretext  for  ulterior  measures, 
or  for  resorting  to  the  desperate  ex- 
pedient of  a  war.  The  representatives 


602 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


of  both  powers,  it  is  said,  have  advised 
the  Porte  to  return  a  firm  refusal  to 
the  demand ;  and,  since  their  advice 
was  asked,  we  hold  that  they  were 
clearly  right  in  doing  so.  They  were 
acting  merely  as  assessors,  or  rather 
as  expounders  of  international  law. 
But  suppose  that  Russia  should  make 
this  declinature  a  casus  belli  with 
Turkey, — what  then?  We  have  in 
that  case  a  most  decided  interest ; 
because  it  is  part  of  our  policy  that 
Russia  shall  not,  under  any  pretext 
whatever,  lay  her  hand  upon  the 
Turkish  dominions,  or  force  the  pas- 
sage of  the  Dardanelles.  Our  policy 
may  be  wrong,  and  Mr  Cobden  thinks, 
or  thought  so :  still  we  are  committed 
to  that  view ;  and  we  can  hardly 
escape  from  interpreting  the  conduct  of 
Russia,  if  she  shall  persist  in  enforcing 
her  demand  by  dint  of  arms,  into  an 
overt  attempt  to  get  possession  of  the 
Turkish  territory.  But  France  has  no 
such  interest  as  we  have.  Our  reason 
for  disputing  the  possession  of  Turkey 
with  Russia  is  a  purely  selfish  one. 
We  wish  to  prevent  the  latter  power 
from  coming  into  dangerous  proximity 
with  Egypt,  and  we  have  a  kind  of 
vague  idea  that  some  attack  is  medi- 
tated upon  our  Indian  provinces.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  these  notions  may 
be  visionary  or  greatly  exaggerated, 
and  that  Russia  wants  nothing  more 
than  an  open  passage  from  the  Black 
Sea — a  right  which,  if  free-trade  doc- 
trines are  to  be  held  of  universal  appli- 
cation, it  does  seem  rather  hard  to  deny 
to  her.  Still,  such  is  our  idea,  and  in 
our  present  temper  we  shall  probably 
act  accordingly.  But  France  has  no 
real  interest  at  stake.  She  has  no- 
thing to  lose,  suppose  Russia  got  pos- 
session of  Turkey  to-morrow;  and  we 
are  very  much  mistaken  if  she  will  go 
to  war  from  a  mere  spirit  of  chivalry, 
and  in  behalf  of  a  few  refugees  with 
whom  she  is  in  no  way  connected. 
However  disturbed  may  be  the  state 
of  France,  or  however  inflammable 
may  be  the  minds  of  her  population, 
she  has  statesmen  who  will  not  suffer 
her  to  be  committed  to  so  egregious 
an  act  of  folly.  If  Russia  perseveres 
in  her  demand  to  the  utmost,  on 
Britain  will  fall,  in  the  first  instance 
at  least,  the  whole  weight  of  the  re- 
sistance. We  agree  with  the  Times, 
that  "  this  demand  for  the  surrender 


of  the  refugees,  is  either  a  wanton 
outrage  for  an  object  too  trifling  to  be 
insisted  on,  or  else  it  masks  a  more 
serious  intention  of  hostility  against 
the  Turkish  empire ;"  but  we  are  not 
prepared  to  adopt  the  conclusion  of 
that  able  journal,  that  "  the  govern- 
ments and  the  nations  of  Western 
Europe  are  resolved  to  oppose  that 
demand,  even  to  the  last  extremity." 
On  the  contrary,  we  believe  that  the 
opposition  would  be  left  to  Great 
Britain  alone. 

We  trust  no  apology  is  necessary 
for  having  wandered  from  our  text 
on  a  topic  of  so  much  interest ;  how- 
ever, we  ask  Mr  Cobden's  pardon 
for  having  left  him  uncourteously  so 
long. 

We  were  remarking  that  ill-luck 
in  the  way  of  prophecy  and  presenti- 
ment still  clung  to  Mr  Cobden,  even 
as  Care  is  said  to  follow  the  horseman. 
Hungary  speedily  succumbed,  and 
Russia  did  not  ask  for  a  loan.  Now 
that  the  Hungarians  were  beaten  and 
victory  impossible,  we  presume  the 
next  best  thing  for  that  unfortunate 
people  would  be  to  bind  up  their 
wounds,  and  let  them  return  as  speed- 
ily as  might  be  to  their  usual  industrial 
employments.  Austria,  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  contest,  finds  herself 
largely  out  of  pocket.  She  has  troops 
whose  pay  is  greatly  in  arrear,  and  she 
has  made  temporary  loans  which  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  discharge. 
She  might,  if  she  were  so  disposed, 
liquidate  the  claims  of  the  first,  by 
letting  them  loose  upon  the  conquered 
Hungarians,  from  whom  they  probably 
could  still  contrive  to  exact  a  fair 
modicum  of  booty ;  she  might  pay  off 
the  latter  by  resorting  to  wholesale 
confiscation,  and  by  sweeping  into 
her  public  treasury  whatever  the  war 
has  left  of  value.  But  Austria  has 
no  desire  to  proceed  to  either  extre- 
mity. She  knows  very  well  that  it  is 
not  for  her  interest  that  Hungary 
should  become  a  sterile  waste ;  and 
she  is  further  aware  that  the  best 
mode  of  securing  tranquillity  for  the 
future,  is  to  foster  industry,  and  to  ab- 
stain from  laying  any  additional  bur- 
den upon  the  already  impoverished 
people.  Therefore,  meditating  no 
further  conquest,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, anxious  to  sit  down  to  the 
sober  work  of  reparation,  Austria 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


603 


proposes  to  borrow  in  the  public 
money-markets  of  Europe  a  sum  of 
seven  millions.  The  advertisement 
meets  the  eye  of  Mr  Cobden,  who 
straightway  rose  in  wrath,  indited  a 
letter  to  a  certain  Mr  Edmund  Fry, 
ordaining  him  to  convene  a  public 
meeting  in  London,  for  the  purpose  of 
considering  the  said  advertisement, 
and  agreeing  "to  an  address  to  the 
friends  of  peace  and  disarmament 
throughout  the  world,  on  the  general 
question  of  loans  for  war  purposes," 
and  on  the  8th  October,  the  intrepid 
orator  again  mounted  on  the  platform. 
This  time,  we  are  sorry  to  remark, 
that  the  meeting  was  neither  so  vari- 
ously nor  so  interestingly  attended  as 
before.  The  Chartists  very  properly 
thought  that  they  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  foreign  loans ;  and, 
besides,  that  they  had  already  been 
regaled  with  an  ample  allowance  of 
Mr  Cobden's  eloquence  on  the  sub- 
ject. The  two  parliamentary  poets 
were  doubtless  writing  odes,  and  did 
not  come.  Also  there  was  but  a  poor 
sprinkling  of  M.P's  ;  but  Lord  Dudley 
Stuart  was  at  his  post,  and  Friend 
Alexander ;  and  beyond  these  twain 
there  appeared  no  notable  whomso- 
ever. Mr  Reynolds  must  have  been 
sadly  missed. 

Mr  Cobden's  first  speech  at  this 
meeting — for  the  lack  of  orators  was 
such,  that  he  was  compelled  to  indulge 
his  audience  with  two — was  a  very 
dull  and  dreary  affair  indeed.  He 
began  first  with  loans  in  general,  and 
went  on  in  his  usual  style  of  asseve- 
ration. "  I  say  that,  as  I  have  gone 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of 
this  country  with  Adam  Smith  in  my 
hand  to  advocate  the  principles  of. 
free  trade,  I  can  stand  here  with  Adam 
Smith  also  in  my  hand,  to  denounce, 
not  merely  for  its  inherent  waste  of 
national  wealth,  not  only  because  it 
anticipates  income  and  consumes  capi- 
tal, but  also  on  the  ground  of  injustice 
to  posterity,  in  saddling  upon  our 
heirs  a  debt  we  have  no  right  to  call 
upon  them  to  pay — the  loans  we  have 
this  day  met  to  consider."  It  is  very 
hard  that  unfortunate  Adam  Smith 
should  be  made  answerable  for  all  the 
eccentricities  of  Mr  Cobden.  Little 
did  the  poor  man  think,  whilst  ham- 
mering his  brains  at  Kirkcaldy,  that 
their  product  was  to  be  explained  at 


a  future  time,  according  to  the  sweet 
will  of  so  accomplished  a  commenta- 
tor! Adam  Smith  had  a  great  deal 
too  much  sense  to  expect  that  wars 
would  cease  to  arise,  and  government 
loans  to  be  contracted.  His  remark 
is  not  directed  against  loans,  but 
against  the  funding  or  accumulation 
of  them,  which  most  of  us,  in  the  pre- 
sent generation,  are  quite  ready  to 
admit  to  be  an  evil.  The  remedy  to 
which  he  pointed,  was  the  establish- 
ment of  a  sinking-fund  to  prevent 
debt  from  accumulating ;  but  so  long 
as  Mr  Cobden's  economical  views  are 
acted  on,  and  the  currency  maintained 
on  its  present  basis,  the  idea  of  a 
sinking-fund  is  altogether  visionary. 
The  evil  which  Adam  Smith  com- 
plains of  is  permanent  funding,  not 
loan.  There  is  nothing  imprudent  in 
a  man  borrowing  a  thousand  pounds 
from  his  banker,  if  he  regularly  sets 
apart  an  annual  sum  out  of  his  income 
for  its  repayment :  but  it  is  a  very 
different  thing  when  he  hands  over  the 
debt  undiminished  for  his  successor  to 
discharge. 

Having  preluded  with  this  little  piece 
of  hocus,  Mr  Cobden  came  to  the  point, 
and  attempted  to  show  that  Austria 
was  in  such  a  state  of  insolvency  that 
it  was  not  safe  for  any  one  to  lend 
money  to  her.  We  by  no  means 
object  to  this  sort  of  exposition.  If 
it  be  true  that  the  finances  of  the 
borrowing  party  are  in  a  dismal  state, 
we  are  none  the  worse  for  the  infor- 
mation ;  if  the  statement  is  false,  it  is 
sure  to  be  speedily  disproved.  We 
have  no  objection  to  concede  to  Mr 
Cobden  the  possession  of  that  almost 
preternatural  amount  of  knowledge, 
which  is  his  daily  and  perpetual  boast. 
When  he  tells  us  that  he  knows  all 
about  the  produce  of  the  mines  of 
Siberia,  because  "  I  have  been  there, 
and  I  know  what  is  the  value  of  those 
mines" — when  he  speaks  positively 
as  to  the  amount  of  specie  in  the 
vaults  of  the  fortress  of  St  Peters- 
burg, and  states  that  he  knows  it — 
"  because  I  have  been  on  the  spot, 
and  made  it  my  business  to  under- 
stand these  things  " — and  when,  with 
regard  to  the  general  question  of 
Russian  finance,  he  observes  that 
"  few  men,  probably  not  six  men  in 
England,  have  had  my  opportunities 
of  investigating  and  ascertaining  upon 


604 

the  best  and  safest  authority  on  the 
spot,  where  alone  you  can  properly 
understand  the  matter,  what  actually 
is  the  state  of  the  resources  of  Russia," 
— we  listen  with  a  kind  of  awe  to  the 
words  of  this  egotistical  Exile  of 
Siberia.  But  though  not  six  men  in 
England  are  qualified  to  compete  with 
him  in  his  knowledge  of  Russian  affairs, 
we  suspect  that  it  would  be  no  difficult 
matter  to  find  six  clerks  in  a  single 
banking  establishment  a  great  deal 
better  acquainted  with  the  state  of 
Austrian  finance  than  Mr  Cobden. 
His  object,  it  would  appear,  is  less  to 
warn  the  great  capitalists — who  indeed 
may  be  supposed  to  be  perfectly 
capable  of  taking  care  of  themselves — 
against  the  danger  of  handing  over 
their  money  to  Austria,  than  to  secure 
the  poor  labouring  man  with  ten 
pounds  to  spare,  against  defraudment. 
We  were  not  previously  aware  that 
people  with  ten  pounds  to  spare  were 
in  the  habit  of  investing  them  in  the 
foreign  funds.  We  hope  to  heaven 
such  is  not  the  case,  for  we  happen  to 
be  acquainted  with  several  very 
estimable  porters  and  Celtic  chairmen, 
who  have  saved  a  little  money ;  and, 
should  the  mania  for  foreign  invest- 
ment have  reached  them,  we  should 
tremble  to  approach  any  corner  of  a 
street  where  those  excellent  creatures 
are  wont  to  linger,  lest  we  should 
be  assailed  with  the  question,  "  Hoo's 
the  Peroovian  four  per  cents  ? " 
or,  "Div  ye  ken  if  they're  gaun 
to  pay  the  interest  on  the  New 
Bonos  Areas  bonds?"  We  have 
hitherto  been  labouring  under  the 
delusion  that  the  accumulations  of 
the  working  classes  were  safe  in  the 
British  Savings  Banks,  or  Funds ;  but 
we  are  now  sorry  to  learn  from  Mr 
Cobden  that  such  is  not  the  case.  u  I 
knew  myself,"  said  Mr  Cobden,  "many 
years  ago,  when  resident  in  the  city, 
a  man  who  worked  as  a  porter  on 
weekly  wages — his  family  and  him- 
self being  reduced  to  that  state  that 
they  had  no  other  earthly  dependence 
— and  yet  that  man  had  Spanish  bonds 
to  the  nominal  amount  of  £2000  in 
his  pocket.  They  were  not  worth 
more  than  waste  paper,  and  came 
into  the  hands  of  poor  men  like  this 
porter,  who  had  no  experience  and 
knowledge  in  such  matters  ;  and  it  is 
to  guard  such  poor  men  that  I  now 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


utter  the  voice  of  warning."  We 
have  not  read  anything  more  aifecting 
since  we  perused  The  Dairyman's 
Daughter.  Mr  Cobden  does  not  tell 
us  that  he  immediately  organised  a 
subscription  for  the  behoof  of  the 
wronged  individual;  but  we  think  it 
probable  that  he  did  so,  and,  if  it  be 
not  too  late,  we  shall  be  glad  to  con- 
tribute our  mite — on  one  condition. 
The  next  time  Mr  Cobden  tells  this 
story,  will  he  be  good  enough  to  spe- 
cify the  precise  sum  which  the  porter 
paid  for  those  bonds  ?  Our  reason 
for  requiring  particular  information  as 
to  this  point,  is  founded  on  a  fact 
which  lately  came  to  our  knowledge, 
viz.  that  the  name  of  a  promising 
chimney-sweep  stands  recorded  in  the 
books  of  a  certain  railway  company, 
which  shall  be  nameless,  as  the  pro- 
prietor of  stock  in  new  shares,  to  an 
amount  of  nearly  double  that  pos- 
sessed by  Mr  Cobdeu's  acquaintance. 
The  railway  has  not  paid  a  single 
farthing  of  dividend,  several  calls  are 
still  due,  and  the  market  price  of  those 
shares  is  considerably  below  zero. 
The  chimne3r-sweep  is  a  steady  young 
man,  whose  only  failing  is  an  inve- 
terate attachment  to  whisky :  he 
never  was  in  possession  of  five  pounds 
in  his  life,  except  on  the  day  when  he 
became  the  nominal  proprietor  of  that 
stock.  We  make  Mr  Cobden  a  pre- 
sent of  this  anecdote,  in  case  he 
should  have  occasion,  in  the  course  of 
some  future  crusade,  to  warn  labour- 
ing people  against  indulging  in  rail- 
waj  speculation.  It  is  quite  as  genuine 
and  forcible  an  illustration  as  his  own  ; 
and  we  suspect  that  for  one  person  in 
the  position  of  the  porter,  there  are 
at  this  moment  some  hundreds  in 
possession  of  transferred  certificates, 
like  the  chimney-sweep. 

In  sober  sadness,  it  is  pitiable  to 
see  a  man  reduced,  for  sheer  lack  of 
argument,  to  such  wretched  clap-trap 
as  this.  The  wildest  kind  of  rant 
about  freedom  and  tyranny  would 
have  been  more  to  the  purpose,  and 
infinitely  more  grateful  to  the  popular 
ear.  Mr  Cobden's  estimate  of  his 
own  position  and  European  impor- 
tance is  delicious.  "  I  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  saying  that  there  is  not  a 
government  in  Europe  that  is  not 
frowning  upon  this  meeting!"  What 
a  mercy  it  is  that  Nicholas  had  110 


1849.] 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


suspicion  of  the  tremendous  influence 
of  the  man  who  was  once  rash  enough 
to  trust  himself  in  his  dominions! 
We  positively  tremble  at  the  thought 
of  what  might  have  ensued  had  Mr 
Cobden  been  detected  on  his  visit  to 
the  Siberian  mines !  The  governments 
of  Europe  frowning  on  Mr  Cobden's 
meeting — what  a  subject  for  the  clas- 
sical painter ! 

We  need  hardly  trouble  our  readers 
•with  any  remarks  upon  the  speech  of 
Lord  Dudley  Stuart.  His  monomania 
on  Continental  subjects  is  well  known, 
and  he  carries  it  so  far  as  to  hazard 
the  most  extravagant  statements. 
For  example,  he  set  out  with  insinu- 
ating that  this  Austrian  loan  was 
neither  more  nor  less  than  a  deliberate 
attempt  at  swindling,  seeing  that  it  had 
not  received  the  sanction  of  the  Diet ; 
"  and,  consequently,"  said  Lord  Dud- 
ley, "nothing  could  be  easier  than 
for  the  Austrian  government,  when- 
ever they  found  it  inconvenient  to  pay 
the  interest  of  the  loan,  to  turn  round 
and  call  those  who  had  advanced  the 
money  very  simple  people,  and  tell 
them  that  they  ought  to  have  made 
due  inquiry  before  parting  with  it. 
It  might  be  said  that  this  would  be 
a  most  extraordinary  and  outrageous 
course  for  any  government  to  adopt ; 
but  they  lived  in  times  when  mon- 
archs  performed  acts  of  the  most 
unusual  and  the  most  outrageous 
description ;  and  it  seemed  almost 
as  if  the  dark  ages  had  returned,  such 
scenes  of  barbarity  and  cruelty  were 
being  enacted  throughout  Europe,  by 
order,  and  in  the  name  of  established 
governments."  Lord  Dudley  Stuart 
is  one  of  those  who  think  that  no 
crowned  head  can  sit  down  comfort- 
ably to  supper,  unless  he  has  pre- 
viously immolated  a  victim.  His 
idea  of  the  dark  ages  is  derived  from 
the  popular  legend  of  Raw-head  and 
Bloody-bones.  Confiding,  and  it 
would  appear  with  justice,  in  the  sin- 
gular ignorance  of  his  audience,  he 
went  on  to  say : — "  Certain  writers 
and  speakers  were  never  tired  of 
uttering  warnings  against  the  danger 
of  an  infuriated  mob.  But  had  any 
of  those  popular  outbreaks,  as  they 
were  called,  ever  been  attended  with 
an  amount  of  cruelty,  rapine,  and 
spoliation,  to  be  named  in  compari- 
son with  the  deeds  of  the  despots 


of  Europe?     At  Paris,  Vienna,  and 
Rome,  for  a  time,  power  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  people — the  wild  demo- 
cracy, as  it  was  called.     Where  were 
their  deeds  of  blood  and  spoliation  ?'" 
Lord  Dudley  Stuart  might   just   as 
well    have  asked,   where   were    the 
victims  of  the  guillotine  during  the 
supremacy  of  Robespierre.    We  have 
known  metaphysicians  who  could  not 
be    brought  to    an   acknowledgment 
that  the  continent  of  America  has  an 
actual  existence,  or  that  the  battle  of 
Waterloo  was  ever  fought,  owing  to 
what  they   were  pleased  to  style  a 
want  of  sufficient  evidence.      Lord 
Dudley  Stuart  is  precisely  in  the  same 
situation.    He  has  patronised  foreign 
patriots  to  such  an  extent,  that  he  be- 
lieves every  one  of  them  to  be  a  saint ; 
and  if  he  saw  with  his  own  eyes  a 
democrat     piking    a    proprietor,    he 
would  probably  consider  it  a  mere 
deceptio  visus.     Not  that  he  is  in  the 
slightest  degree  short-sighted,  or  in- 
credulous, whenever  he  can  get  hold  of 
a  story  reflecting  on  the  other  side.  On 
the  contrary,  he  favoured  his  audience 
with  a  minute  description  of  several 
floggings   and   executions,  which   he 
had,   tid   doubt,  received    from    his 
foreign  correspondents;  and  actually 
threw  the  blame  of  the  apostacy  of 
some  of  his  Polish  protegees  from  the 
Christian  faith  upon  the  Czar !     This 
is  a  topic  upon  which  we  would  rather 
not  touch.     Men  have  been  known  to 
deny  their  Saviour  for  the   sake  of 
escaping  from  the  most  hideous  per- 
sonal agony,  but  we  never  heard  before 
of  apostaey  committed  for  such  motives 
as  Lord  Dudley  has  assigned.  u  Some, 
but  very  few  men,  whose  lives  had 
been  devoted  to  fighting  against  Rus- 
sia, and  whose  religion  seemed  to  con- 
sist in  that  alone,  lured,  no  doubt,  by 
the  hope  of  entering  the  Turkish  army, 
and  again  waging  war  against  their 
implacable  enemies,  Russia  and  Aus- 
tria, had  been  induced  to  accept  the 
offers  of  the  Porte,  and  to  embrace 
Islamism."    We  hope  it  may  be  long 
before  we  shall  be  again  asked  to  ex- 
press our  sympathy  for  those  wretched 
renegades  from  their  faith. 

Mr  Cobden  having  gathered  wind, 
again  started  up ;  and  this  time  he  did 
not  confine  himself  to  mere  economi- 
cal prose.  We  rather  think  that  he 
felt  slightly  jealous  of  the  cheering 


606 


Peace  and  War  Agitators. 


[Nov. 


which  Lord  Dudley  Stuart's  more  ani- 
mated speech  had  elicited  ;  for  it  is  a 
well-known  fact  that  the  majority  of 
people  would  rather  listen  to  the 
details  of  an  atrocious  murder,  than 
to  a  dissertation  upon  Adam  Smith. 
Accordingly  he  came  out  hot,  furious, 
pugnacious,  and  withal  remarkably 
irrelevant.  Throwing  aside  all  con- 
sideration of  the  Austrian  loan,  he  fell 
foul  of  the  Czar,  whom  he  facetiously 
compared  to  Nebuchadnezzar.  Listen 
to  the  Apostle  of  peace  !  "  The  man 
was  incapable  of  appreciating  any- 
thing but  a  physical-force  argument, 
and  he  (Mr  Cobden)  did  not  think  he 
was  departing  from  his  peace  princi- 
ples, in  resorting  to  a  mode  of  admo- 
nition which  the  nature  of  the  animal 
was  capable  of  understanding.  He 
surely  might  be  excused  from  admo- 
nishing, if  it  were  possible,  a  wild 
bull,  that,  if  he  did  not  take  care,  he 
might  run  his  head  against  something 
harder  even  than  his  own  skull.  He 
therefore  said,  that  if  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  attacked  us,  we  might  herme- 
tically seal  the  ports  of  Russia,  and 
there  would  be  an  end  of  the  matter. 
There  could  be  no  fighting  between 
England  and  Russia.  If  the  question 
Avere  put  to  a  jury  of  twelve  compe- 
tent men,  belonging  to  any  maritime 
power,  who  were  perfectly  indifferent 
to  the  quarrel,  they  would  at  once  say 
that  as  England  and  Russia  could  not 
come  to  collision  by  land,  the  only 
question  was,  what  naval  force  would 
be  required  by  England  to  blockade 
Petersburg,  Archangel,  Odessa  and 
Riga  for  six  mouths  of  the  year,  and 


that  the  frost  would  keep  up  the 
blockade  for  the  other  six  months." 
But  the  best  is  37et  to  come.  Mr  Cob- 
den  is  perfectly  aware  that  the  senti- 
ments of  such  an  eminent  European 
personage  as  himself  must  have  terrible 
weight  on  the  Continent.  "When  the 
Czar  reads  the  report  of  the  speeches 
delivered  at  the  London  Tavern,  he  will 
burst  into  a  paroxysm  of  fury,  order 
some  hundred  serfs  to  be  instantly 
knouted  to  death,  and  send  for  the 
minister  of  marine.  When  it  is  known 
at  Vienna  that  Cobden  has  declared 
against  the  Austrian  loan,  Francis 
Joseph  will  gnash  his  teeth,  and  desire 
Jellachich,  Radetsky,  and  Haynau  to 
concert  measures  with  his  brother  em- 
peror for  taking  vengeance  for  this 
unparalleled  affront.  What,  then,  are 
we  to  do  ?  Is  there  no  danger  to  Great 
Britain  from  such  a  combination  ? 
None — for  AVC  have  a  guarantee.  A 
greater  than  Nicholas  has  promised  to 
stand  between  us  and  peril.  People 
of  Great  Britain  !  read  the  following 
paragraph,  and  then  lie  down  in  secu- 
rity under  the  charge  of  your  protect- 
ing angel. 

"  If  he  (Mr  Cobden)  were  told  that 
he  ran  the  risk  of  provoking  these  brutal 
tyrants  to  come  here  and  attack  this 
country,  HE  WOULD  REPLY  THAT  HE 

WAS  PREPARED  TO  TAKE  THE  RISK 
UPON  HIMSELF  OF  ALL  THAT  THEY 
COULD  DO  !  " 

After  this,  we  have  not  another 
word  to  say.  Yes — one.  Before  Mr 
Cobden's  meeting  broke  up,  the  Aus- 
trian loan  had  been  subscribed  for  to 
more  than  the  required  amount. 


1849.] 


The  French  Novels  of  1849. 


THE  FRENCH  KOVEL8  OF  1849. 


DURING  the  twelve  months  that 
have  elapsed  since  we  devoted  a  sheet 
of  Maga  to  a  flying  glance  at  French 
novels  and  novelists,  there  has  been  a 
formidable  accumulation  upon  our 
shelves  of  the  produce  of  Paris  and 
Brussels  presses.  Were  their  merit 
as  considerable  as  their  number,  the 
regiment  of  pink,  blue,  and  yellow 
octavos  and  duodecimos  would  need 
a  whole  magazine  to  do  them  justice. 
As  it  is,  however,  a  line  a  volume 
would  be  too  much  to  devote  to  some 
of  them.  The  lull  in  literature  which 
ensued  in  France,  on  the  shock  of  the 
February  revolution,  has  been  suc- 
ceeded by  a  revival  of  activity.  Most 
of  the  old  stagers  have  resumed  the 
quill,  and  a  few  "  green  hands"  have 
come  forward.  As  yet,  however,  the 
efforts  of  the  former  have  in  few 
instances  been  particularly  happy; 
whilst  amongst  the  latter,  there  is  no 
appearance  worthy  of  note.  Upon 
the  whole,  we  think  that  the  ladies 
have  been  at  least  as  successful  as  the 
men.  Here  is  a  trio  of  tales  from 
feminine  pens,  as  good  as  anything 
that  now  lies  before  us.  He'lene,  al- 
though it  may  not  greatly  augment 
the  well-established  reputation  of  that 
accomplished  authoress,  Madame 
Charles  Reybaud,  is  yet  a  very  pleas- 
ing novel,  approaching  in  character 
rather  to  a  graceful  English  moral 
tale,  than  to  the  commonly  received 
idea  of  a  French  romance.  It  is  a 
story  of  the  first  Revolution ;  the  scene 
is  in  Provence,  and  subsequently  at 
Rochefort,  on  board  ship,  and  in. 
French  Guiana.  The  chief  characters 
are  Helen,  and  her  father,  the  Count 
de  Blanquefort,  a  steadfast  royalist, 
who  traces  back  his  ancestry  to  the 
crusades;  her  lover,  a  plebeian  and 
Montagnard;  her  godmother,  Madame 
de  Rocabert,  and  Dom  Massiot,  a 
fanatic  priest.  Lovers  of  mysterious 
intrigues,  and  complicated  plots,  need 
not  seek  them  in  Madame  Reybaud's 
novels,  whose  charm  resides  for  the 
most  part  in  elegance  of  style,  grace- 
ful description,  and  delicate  and 
truthful  delineation  of  character.  In 
one  of  her  recent  tales — a  very  attrac- 
tive, if  not  a  very  probable  one — Le 


Cadet  de  Colobrieres,  she  admirably 
sketches  the  interior  of  a  poor  noble- 
man's dwelling,  where  all  was  pride, 
penury,  and  privation,  for  appearance 
sake.  The  companion  and  contrast  to 
that  painful  picture,  is  her  description 
of  the  domestic  arrangements  of 
Castle  Rocabert,  where  ease,  placi- 
dity, and  comfort  reign ;  where  the 
ancient  furniture  is  solid  and  hand- 
some, the  apartments  commodious, 
the  cheer  abundant ;  where  the  anti- 
quated waiting  women,  and  venerable 
serving  men,  are  clad  after  the  most 
approved  fashion  of  Louis  the  Fif- 
teenth's day,  and  disciplined  in  accor- 
dance with  the  most  precious  tradi- 
tions of  aristocratic  houses.  Madame 
de  Rocabert  herself  is  a  fine  portrait, 
from  the  old  French  regime.  Forty 
years  long  has  she  dwelt  in  her  lonely 
chateau,  isolated  from  the  world,  on 
the  summit  of  a  cloud-capped  rock. 
Widowed  at  the  age  of  twenty  of  an 
adored  husband,  she  shut  herself  up  to 
weep,  and,  as  she  hoped,  to  die* 
Contrary  to  her  expectation,  little  by 
little  she  was  comforted ;  she  lived, 
she  grew  old.  Time  and  religion  had 
appeased  her  sorrow,  and  dried  her 
tears.  There  is  a  tenderness  and 
grace  in  Madame  Reybaud's  account 
of  the  widow's  mourning  and  consola- 
tion, which  reminds  us  of  the  exqui- 
site pathos  and  natural  touches  of 
Madame  d'Arbouville.  That  such  a 
comparison  should  occur  to  us,  is  of 
itself  a  high  compliment  to  Madame 
Reybaud,  who,  however,  is  unques- 
tionably a  very  talented  writer,  and 
to  the  examination  of  whose  collective 
works  it  is  not  impossible  we  may 
hereafter  devote  an  article.  At  pre- 
sent, we  pass  on  to  a  lady  of  a  different 
stamp,  who  does  not  very  often  obtain 
commendation  at  our  hands ;  and 
yet,  in  this  instance,  we  know  not  why 
we  should  withhold  approval  from 
George  Sand's  last  novel,  La  Petite 
Fadette,  one  of  those  seductive  trifles 
which  only  Madame  Dudevant  can 
produce,  and  is  free  from  the  pernicious 
tendencies  that  disfigure  too  many  of 
her  works.  In  this  place  we  can  say 
little  about  it.  A  sketch  of  the  plot 
would  be  of  small  interest,  for  it  is 


608 

as  slight  and  inartificial  as  well  may 
be;  and  an  attempt  to  analyse  the 
book's  peculiar  charm  would  lead  us 
a  length  incompatible  with  the  onrni- 
um-gatherum  design  of  this  article. 
La  Petite  Fadette  is  a  story  of  peasant 
habits  and  superstitions,  and  these  are 
treated  with  that  consummate  artis- 
tical  skill  for  which  George  Sand  is 
celebrated — every  coarser  tint  of  the 
picture  mellowed  and  softened,  but 
never  wholly  suppressed.  Fadette,  a 
precocious  and  clever  child,  and  her 
brother,  a  poor  deformed  cripple, 
dwelt  with  their  grandmother,  a 
beldame  cunning  in  herbs  and  simples, 
and  who  practises  as  a  sort  of  quack 
doctress.  The  three  are  of  no  good 
repute  in  the  country-side ;  Fadette, 
especially,  with  her  large  black  eyes 
and  Moorish  complexion,  her  elf-like 
bearing  and  old-fashioned  attire,  is 
alternately  feared  and  persecuted  by 
the  village  children,  who  have  nick- 
named her  the  Cricket.  But  although 
her  tongue  is  sharp,  and  often  mali- 
cious, and  her  humour  wilful  and 
strange,  the  gipsy  has  both  heart  and 
head  ;  and,  above  all,  she  has  the  true 
woman's  skill  to  make  herself  beloved 
by  him  on  whom  she  has  secretly 
fixed  her  affections.  This  is  the  hero 
of  the  story — Landry,  the  handsome 
sou  of  a  farmer.  Love  works  miracles 
with  the  spiteful  slovenly  Cricket,  who 
hitherto  has  dressed  like  her  grand- 
mother, and  squabbled  with  all  comers. 
Although  the  style  of  George  Sand's 
books  is  little  favourable  to  extract, 
and  that  in  this  one  the  difficulty  is 
increased  by  the  introduction  of  pro- 
vincialisms and  peasant  phrases,  we 
will  nevertheless  translate  the  account 
of  Fadette's  transformation,  and  of  its 
effect  upon  Landry,  upon  whom,  as 
the  reader  will  perceive,  the  charm 
has  already  begun  to  work. 

"  Sunday  came  at  last,  and  Landry 
was  one  of  the  first  at  mass.  He 
entered  the  church  before  the  bells 
began  to  ring,  knowing  that  la  petite 
Fadette  was  accustomed  to  come 
early,  because  she  always  made  long 
prayers,  for  which  many  laughed  at 
her.  He  saw  a  little  girl  kneeling  in 
the  chapel  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  but  her 
back  was  turned  to  him,  and  her  face 
was  hidden  in  her  hands,  that  she 
might  pray  without  disturbance.  It 
was  Fadette's  attitude,  but  it  was 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


[Nov. 


neither  her  head-dress  nor  her  figure, 
and  Landry  went  out  again  to  see  if 
he  could  not  meet  her  in  the  porch, 
which,  in  our  country,  we  call  the 
guenilliere,  because  the  ragged  beggars 
stand  there  during  service.  But  Fa- 
dette's rags  were  the  only  ones  he 
could  not  see  there.  He  heard  mass 
without  perceiving  her,  until,  chancing 
to  look  again  at  the  girl  who  was 
praying  so  devoutly  in  the  chapel,  he 
saw  her  raise  her  head,  and  recognised 
his  Cricket,  although  her  dress  and 
appearance  were  quite  new  to  him. 
The  clothes  were  still  the  same — her 
petticoat  of  drugget,  her  red  apron, 
and  her  linen  coif  without  lace  ;  but 
during  the  week  she  had  washed  and 
re-cut  and  re-sewn  all  that.  Her  gown 
was  longer,  and  fell  decently  over  her 
stockings,  which  were  very  white,  as 
was  also  her  coif,  which  had  assumed 
the  new  shape,  and  was  neatly  set 
upon  her  well- combed  black  hair ;  her 
neckerchief  was  new,  and  of  a  pretty 
pale  yellow,  which  set  off  her  brown 
skin  to  advantage.  Her  boddice,  too, 
she  had  lengthened,  and,  instead  of 
looking  like  a  piece  of  wood  dressed 
up,  her  figure  was  as  slender  and 
supple  as  the  body  of  a  fine  honey-bee. 
Besides  all  this,  I  know  not  with  what 
extract  of  flowers  or  herbs  she  had 
washed  her  hands  and  face  during  the 
week,  but  her  pale  face  and  tiny  hands 
looked  as  clear  and  as  delicate  as  the 
white  hawthorn  in  spring. 

"  Landry,  seeing  her  so  changed, 
let  his  prayer-book  fall,  and  at  the 
noise  little  Fadette  turned  herself 
about,  and  her  eyes  met  his.  Her 
cheek  turned  a  little  red — not  redder 
than  the  wild  rose  of  the  hedges  ;  but 
that  made  her  appear  quite  pretty 
— the  more  so  that  her  black  eyes, 
against  which  none  had  ever  been 
able  to  say  anything,  sparkled  so 
brightly,  that,  for  the  moment,  she 
seemed  transfigured.  And  once  more 
Landry  thought  to  himself : 

"  '  She  is  a  witch;  she  wished  to 
become  pretty,  from  ugly  that  she 
was,  and  behold  the  miracle  has  been 
wrought ! ' 

"  A  chill  of  terror  came  over  him, 
but  his  fear  did  not  prevent  his  having 
so  strong  a  desire  to  approach  and  speak 
to  her,  that  his  heart  throbbed  with 
impatience  till  the  mass  was  at  an  end. 

"  But  she  did  not  look  at  him  again, 


1849.] 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


609 


and  instead  of  going  to  rnn  and  sport 
with  the  children  after  her  prayers, 
she  departed  so  discreetly,  that  there 
was  hardly  time  to  notice  how 
changed  and  improved  she  was. 
Landry  dared  not  follow  her,  the  less 
so  that  Sylvinet  would  not  leave  him 
a  moment ;  but  in  about  an  hour  he 
succeeded  in  escaping ;  and  this  time, 
his  heart  urging  and  directing  him,  he 
found  little  Fadette  gravely  tending 
her  flock  in  the  hollow  road  which 
they  call  the  Traine-au-  Gendarme, 
because  one  of  the  king's  gendarmes 
was  killed  there  by  the  people  of  La 
Cosse,  in  the  old  times,  when  they 
wished  to  force  poor  people  to  pay 
taillage,  and  to  work  without  wage, 
contrary  to  the  terms  of  the  law, 
which  already  was  hard  enough,  such 
as  they  had  made  it." 

But  it  is  not  sufficient  to  win 
Landry's  heart:  Fadette  has  much 
more  to  overcome.  Public  prejudice, 
the  dislike  of  her  lover's  family,  her 
own  poverty,  are  stumbling-blocks, 
seemingly  insurmountable,  in  her  path 
to  happiness.  She  yields  not  to  dis- 
couragement ;  and  finally,  by  her 
energy  and  discretion,  she  conquers 
antipathies,  converts  foes  into  friends, 
and  attains  her  ends — all  of  which  are 
legitimate,  and  some  highly  praise- 
worthy. The  narrative  of  her  tri- 
bulations, constancy,  and  ultimate 
triumph,  is  couched  in  a  style  of 
studied  simplicity,  but  remarkable 
fascination.  Slight  as  it  is,  a  mere 
bluette,  La  Petite  Fadette  is  a  graceful 
and  very  engaging  story ;  and  it  would 
be  ungrateful  to  investigate  too 
closely  the  amount  of  varnish  applied 
b}-  Madame  Dudevant  to  her  pictures 
of  the  manners,  language,  and  morals 
of  French  peasantry. 

La  Famille  Recour  is  the  last  book, 
by  a  lady  novelist,  to  which  we  shall 
now  refer.  It  is  the  best  of  a  series 
of  six,  intended  as  pictures  of  French 
society,  in  successive  centuries,  clos- 
ing with  the  nineteenth.  The  five  pre- 
vious novels,  which  were  published 
at  pretty  long  intervals,  being  of  no 
very  striking  merit,  we  were  agree- 
ably surprised  by  the  lively  and  well- 
sustaiued  interest  of  this  romance,  the 
last,  Madame  de  Bawr  informs  us, 
which  she  intends  to  offer  to  the  pub- 
lic. Paul  Recour,  the  penniless  ne- 
phew of  a  rich  capitalist,  is  defrauded 


by  a  forged  will  of  his  uncle's  inherit- 
ance, which  goes  to  a  worthless  cou- 
sin, who  also  obtains  the  hand  of  a 
girl  between  whom  and  Paul  an  ar- 
dent attachment  exists.  The  chief 
interest  of  the  tale  hinges  on  Paul's 
struggles,  after  an  interval  of  deep 
despondency,  against  poverty  and  the 
world  —  struggles  in  which  he  is 
warmly  encouraged  by  his  friend  Al- 
fred, a  successful  feuilletoniste  and 
dramatic  author ;  and  by  a  warm- 
hearted but  improvident  physician,  M. 
Duvernoy,  whose  daughter  Paul  ulti- 
mately marries,  out  of  gratitude,  and 
to  save  her  from  the  destitution  to 
which  her  father's  extravagance  and 
approaching  death  are  about  to  con- 
sign her.  Paul  is  a  charming  charac- 
ter— a  model  of  amiability,  generosity, 
and  self-devotion,  and  yet  not  too 
perfect  to  be  probable.  There  is  a 
strong  interest  in  the  account  of  his 
combat  with  adversity,  and  of  the  tri- 
bulations arising  from  the  folly  and 
thoughtlessness  of  his  wife,  and  the 
implacable  hostility  of  his  treacher- 
ous cousin.  How  the  story  ends 
need  not  here  be  told.  The  first  four- 
fifths  of  the  book  entitle  it  to  a  high 
place  amongst  the  French  light  litera- 
ture of  the  year  1849 ;  but  then  it 
begins  to  flag,  and  the  termination  is 
lame  and  tame — a  falling  off  which 
strikes  the  more  from  its  contrast  with 
the  preceding  portion.  The  author- 
ess appears,  in  some  degree,  conscious 
of  this  defect,  and  prepares  her  readers 
for  it  in  her  preface.  "  The  second 
volume,"  she  says,  "  was  written 
amidst  the  anguish  and  alarm  which 
revolutions  occasion  to  a  poor  old 
woman.  Although  but  ill-  satisfied  with 
my  work-,  I  have  not  courage  to  recom- 
mence it.  I  appeal,  then,  to  the  reader's 
indulgence  for  my  last  romance,  happy 
in  the  consciousness  that  my  pen  has 
never  traced  a  single  word  which  was 
not  dictated  by  my  lively  desire  to 
lead  men  to  virtue."  So  humble  and 
amiable  an  apology  disarms  criticism. 
Having  given  precedence  to  the  la- 
dies, we  look  around  for  some  of  their 
male  colleagues  who  may  deserve  a 
word.  Amongst  the  new  candidates 
for  the  favour  of  romance-readers  is 
a  writer,  signing  himself  Marquis  de 
Foudras,  and  whose  debut,  if  we  err 
not,  was  made  in  conjunction  with  a 
M.  de  Montepin,  in  a  romance  en- 


610 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


[Nov. 


titled  Les  Chevaliers  du  Lansquenet — 
a  long-winded  imitation  of  the  Sue 
school,  extremely  feeble,  and  in  exe- 
crable taste,  but  which,  nevertheless, 
obtained  a  sort  of  circulating  library 
success.  Encouraged  by  this,  Messrs 
Fondras  and  Montepin  achieved  a 
second  novel,  upon  the  whole  a  shade 
better  than  the  first ;  and  then,  dis- 
solving their  association,  set  off  scrib- 
bling, each  "  on  his  own  hook  ;"  and 
threaten  to  become  as  prolific,  although 
not  as  popular,  as  the  great  Dumas 
himself.  The  last  production  of  M. 
de  Foudras  bears  the  not  unattractive 
title  of  Les  Gentilhomm.es  Chasseurs. 
It  is  a  series  of  sporting  sketches  and 
anecdotes,  of  various  merit,  in  most 
of  which  the  author — who  would  evi- 
dently convince  us  that  he  is  a  genu- 
ine marquis,  and  not  a  plebeian  under 
apseudonyme — himself  has  cut  a  more 
or  less  distinguished  figure.  To  the 
curious  in  the  science  of  venery,  as 
practised  in  various  parts  of  France, 
these  two  volumes  may  have  some 
interest ;  and  the  closing  and  longest 
sketch  of  the  series,  a  tale  of  shoot- 
ing and  smuggling  adventures  in  the 
Alps,  is,  we  suspect,  the  best  thing 
the  author  has  written.  Unless,  in- 
deed, we  except  his  account  of  a  stag- 
hunt  in  Burgundy  in  1785,  in  which 
he  gives  a  most  animated  and  graphic 
account  of  the  mishaps  of  a  dull-dog 
of  an  Englishman,  who  arrives  from 
the  further  extremity  of  Italy  to  join 
the  party  of  French  sportsmen.  Of 
course  Lord  Henry  is  formal,  peevish, 
and  unpolished ;  the  very  model,  in 
short,  of  an  English  nobleman.  Dis- 
daining to  mount  French  horses, 
which,  he  politely  informs  his  enter- 
tainer, have  no  speed,  and  cannot 
leap,  he  has  had  four  hunters  brought 
from  England,  upon  one  of  which, 
"  a  lineal  descendant  of  Arabian  Go- 
dolphin,  and  whose  dam  was  a  mare 
unconquered  at  Newmarket,"  he  fol- 
lows the  first  day's  hunt,  by  the  side 
of  a  beautiful  countess,  by  whose 
charms  he  is  violently  smitten,  and 
who  rides  a  little  old  Limousin  mare,  of 
piteous  exterior,  but  great  merit.  The 
pace  is  severe,  the  country  heavy,  the 
Arabian's  grandson  receives  the  go-by 
from  the  Limousin  cob,  and  shows 
signs  of  distress.  The  following  pas- 
sage exhibits  the  author's  extraordi- 
nary acquaintance  with  the  customs 


and  usages  of  the  English  hunting- 
field, — "  We  were  still  ahead,  and 
had  leaped  I  know  not  how  many 
hedges,  ditches,  and  ravines,  when  I 
observed  that  Lord  Henry,  who  had 
refused  to  take  either  a  whip  or  spurs, 
struck  repeated  blows  on  the  flank  of 
his  horse,  which,  still  galloping, 
writhed  under  the  pressure  of  its  mas- 
ter's fist.  Looking  with  more  atten- 
tion, I  presently  discovered  in  milord's 
hand  a  sharp  and  glittering  object,  in 
which  I  recognised  one  of  the  elegant 
chased  gold  toothpicks  which  men  car- 
ried in  those  days.  I  saw  at  once  that 
poor  C(Eur-de-Lio7i  was  done  up."  In 
spite  of  the  toothpick,  Cceur-de-Lion 
refuses  a  leap,  whereupon  his  master 
hurls  away  the  singular  spur,  leaps 
from  his  saddle,  draws  his  hunting- 
knife,  and  plunges  it  to  the  hilt  in  the 
horse's  breast ! — with  which  taste  of 
his  quality,  we  bid  a  long  farewell  to- 
the  Marquis  de  Foudras. 

It  were  strange  indeed  if  the  name 
of  Dumas  did  not  more  than  once 
appear  on  the  numerous  title-pages 
before  us.  We  find  it  in  half-a-dozen 
different  places.  The  amusing  Char- 
latan, who,  in  the  first  fervour  and 
novelty  of  the  republican  regime, 
seemed  disposed  to  abandon  romance 
for  politics,  has  found  time  to  unite- 
both.  Whilst  writing  a  monthly 
journal,  in  which  he  professes  to  give 
the  detailed  history  of  Europe  day  by 
day— forming,  as  his  puffs  assure  us, 
the  most  complete  existing  narrative 
of  political  events  since  February  1848 
— he  has  also  produced,  in  the  course  of 
the  last  twelve  months,  some  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  volumes  of  frivolities. 
Thus,  whilst  with  one  hand  he  in- 
structs, with  the  other  he  entertains 
the  public.  For  our  part,  we  have 
enjoyed  too  many  hearty  laughs,  both 
with  and  at  M.  Dumas,  not  to  have 
all  inclination  to  praise  him  when 
possible.  In  the  present  instance,  and 
with  respect  to  his  last  year's  tribute 
to  French  literature,  we  regret  to  say 
it  is  quite  impossible.  He  has  been 
trifling  with  big  reputation,  and  with 
the  public  patience.  Since  last  we 
mentioned  him,  he  has  added  a  dozen 
volumes  to  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne, 
which  nevertheless  still  drags  itself 
along,  without  prospect  of  a  termina- 
tion. A  tissue  of  greater  improbabi- 
lities and  absurdities  we  have  rarely 


1849.] 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


Gil 


encountered.  Certainly  no  one  but 
Alexander  Dumas  would  have  ven- 
tured to  strain  out  so  flimsy  a  web  to 
so  unconscionable  a  length.  Are  there, 
we  wonder,  in  France  or  elsewhere,  any 
persons  so  simple  as  to  rely  on  his  re- 
presentations of  historical  characters 
and  events  ?  The  notions  they  must 
form  of  French  kings  and  heroes, 
courtiers  and  statesmen,  are  assuredly 
of  the  strangest.  We  doubt  if,  in  any 
country  but  France,  a  writer  could 
preserve  the  popularity  Dumas  enjoys, 
who  caricatured  and  made  ridiculous, 
as  he  continually  does,  the  greatest 
men  whose  names  honour  its  chronicles. 
Besides  the  wearisome  adventures 
of  Mr  Bragelonne  and  the  eternal 
Musketeers,  M.  Dumas  has  given  forth 
the  first  three  or  four  volumes  of  a 
rambling  story,  founded  on  the  well- 
known  affair  of  Marie  Antoinette's 
diamond  necklace.  Then  he  has  com- 
pleted the  account  of  his  Spanish 
rambles,  which  we  rather  expected 
he  would  have  left  incomplete,  seeing 
the  very  small  degree  of  favour  with 
which  the  first  instalment  of  those 
most  trivial  letters  was  received.  In 
the  intervals  of  these  various  labours, 
he  has  thrown  off  a  history  of  the 
regency,  and  a  historical  romance,  of 
Avhich  Edward  III.  of  England  is  the 
hero.  The  latter  we  have  not  read. 
On  French  ground,  M.  Dumas  is  some- 
times unsuccessful,  but  when  he  med- 
dles with  English  personages  he  is  in- 
variably absurd.  Finally,  and  we 
believe  this  closes  the  catalogue — 
although  we  will  not  answer  but  that 
some  trifle  of  half-a-dozen  volumes 
may  have  escaped  our  notice — M. 
Dumas,  gliding,  with  his  usual  facility 
of  transition,  from  the  historical  to  the 
speculative,  has  begun  a  series  of 
ghost-stories,  whose  probable  length 
it  is  difficult  to  foretell,  seeing  that 
what  he  calls  the  introduction  occu- 
pies two  volumes.  Some  of  these  tales 
are  tolerably  original,  others  are  old 
stories  dressed  up  a  la  Dumas.  They 
are  preceded  by  a  dedication  to  M. 
Dumas'  former  patron,  the  Duke  of 
Montpensier,  and  by  a  letter  to  his 
friend  Ve"ron,  editor  "of  the  Constitu- 
tionnel,  theatrical  manager,  &c.  These 
two  epistles  are  by  no  means  the  least 
diverting  part  of  the  book.  M.  Dumas, 
whom  we  heard  of,  twenty  months 
ago,  as  a  fervid  partisan  and  armed 


supporter  of  the  republic,  appears  to 
have  already  changed  his  mind,  and 
to  hanker  after  a  monarchy.     Some 
passages  of  his  letter  to  his  friend  are 
amusingly  conceited  and  characteris- 
tic.    "  My  dear  Veron,"  lie  writes, 
"  you  have  often  told  me,  during  those 
evening  meetings,  now  of  too  rare  oc- 
currence, where  each  man  talks  at 
leisure,  telling  the  dream  of  his  heart, 
following   the    caprice    of   his    wit. 
or  squandering  the  treasures  of  his 
memory — you  have  often  told  me,  that, 
since  Scheherazade,  and  after  Nodier, 
I  am  one  of  the  most  amusing  narra- 
tors you  know.    To-day  you  write  to 
me  that,  en  attendant  a  long  romance 
from  my  pen — one  of  my  interminable 
romances,  in  which  I  comprise  a  whole 
century — you  would  be  glad  of  some 
tales,  two,  four,  or  six  volumes  at 
most — poor  flowers  from  my  garden — 
to  serve  as  an  interlude  amidst  the 
political  preoccupations  of  the  mo- 
ment :  between  the  trials  at  Bourges, 
for  instance,  and  the  elections  of  the 
month  of  May.    Alas !  my  friend,  the 
times  are  sad,  and  my  tales,  I  warn 
you,  will  not  be  gay.   Weary  of  what 
I  daily  see  occurring  in  the  real  world, 
you  must  allow  me  to  seek  the  sub- 
jects of  my  narratives  in  an  imaginary 
one.    Alas!   I  greatly  fear  that  all 
minds  somewhat  elevated,  somewhat 
poetical  and  addicted  to  reverie,  arc 
now  situated  similarly  to  mine ;  in 
quest — that  is  to  say,  of  the  ideal — 
sole  refuge  left  us  by  God  against 
reality."    After  striking  this  despond- 
ing chord,   the  melancholy  poet  of 
elevated    mind    proceeds    to    regret 
the    good    old    times,    to    deplore 
the  degeneracy  of  the  age,  to  declare 
himself  inferior  to  his   grandfather, 
and  to  express  his  conviction  that  his 
son  will  be  inferior  to  himself.    We 
are  sorry  for  M.  Dumas,  junior.     "It 
is  true,"  continues  Alexander,  "  that 
each  day  we  take  a  step   towards 
liberty,    equality,    fraternity,    three 
great  words  which  the  Revolution  of 
1793 — you  know,  the  other,  the  dow- 
ager— let  loose  upon  modern  society 
as  she  might  have  done  a  tiger,  a  lion, 
and  a  bear,  disguised  in  lambskins ; 
empty  words,    unfortunately,  which 
were  read,  through  the  smoke  of  June, 
on  our  public  monuments  all  battered 
with  bullets."    After  so  reactionary  a 
tirade,  let  M.  Dumas  beware  lest,  in 


612 


The  French  Novels  c/1849. 


[Nov. 


the  first  fight  that  occurs  in  Paris 
streets,  a  Red  cartridge  snatch  him 
from  an  admiring  world.  His  moan 
made  for  republican  illusions,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  cry  the  coronach  over  French 
society,  unhinged,  disorganised,  de- 
stroyed, by  successive  revolutions. 
And  he  calls  to  mind  a  visit  he  paid, 
in  his  childhood,  to  a  very  old  lady,  a 
relic  of  the  past  century,  and  widow 
of  King  Louis  Philippe's  grandfather, 
to  whom  Napoleon  paid  an  annuity  of 
one  hundred  thousand  crowns — for 
what  ?  "  For  having/  preserved  in  her 
drawing-rooms  the  traditions  of  good 
society  of  the  times  of  Louis  XIV. 
and  Louis  XV.  It  is  just  half  what 
the  chamber  now  gives  his  nephew 
for  making  France  forget  what  his 
uncle  desired  she  should  remember." 
Take  that,  President  Buonaparte,  and 
go  elsewhere  for  a  character  than  to 
the  Debit  de  Romans  of  Mr  Alexander 
Dumas.  How  is  it  you  have  neglected 
to  propitiate  the  suffrage  of  the 
melancholy  poet  ?  Repair  forthwith 
the  omission.  Summon  him  to  the 
Elyse"e.  Pamper,  caress,  and  consult 
him,  or  tremble  for  the  stability  of 
your  presidential  chair !  After  Louis 
Napoleon,  comes  the  turn  of  the  legis- 
lative chamber ;  apropos  of  which  M. 
Dumas  quotes  the  Marquis  d'  Argen- 
son's  memoirs,  where  the  courtier  of 
1750  bewails  the  degeneracy  of  the 
times  neither  more  nor  less  than  does 
the  dramatic  author  of  a  century 
later.  "  People  complain,"  M.  d'Ar- 
genson  says,  "  that  in  our  day  there 
is  no  longer  any  conversation  in 
France.  I  well  know  the  reason.  It 
is  that  our  cotemporaries  daily  be- 
come less  patient  listeners.  They 
listen  badly,  or  rather  they  listen  not 
at  all.  I  have  remarked  this  in  the 
very  best  circles  I  frequent."  "  Now, 
my  dear  friend,"  argues  M.  Dumas, 
with  irresistible  logic,  "  what  is  the 
best  society  one  can  frequent  at  the 
present  day?  Very  certainly  it  is  that 
which  eight  millions  of  electors  have 
judged  worthy  to  represent  the  inte- 
rests, the  opinions,  the  genius  of 
France.  It  is  the  chamber,  in  short. 
Well !  enter  the  chamber,  at  a  ven- 
ture, any  day  and  hour  that  you 
please.  The  odds  are  a  hundred  to 
one,  that  you  will  find  one  man 
speaking  in  the  tribune,  and  five  or 
six  hundred  others  sitting  on  the 


benches,  not  listening,  but  interrupt- 
ing him.  And  this  is  so  true,  that 
there  is  an  article  of  the  constitution 
of  1848  prohibiting  interruptions. 
Again,  reckon  the  number  of  boxes 
on  the  ear,  and  fisticuff's  given  in  the 
chamber  during  a  year  that  it  has 
existed — they  are  innumerable.  All 
in  the  name — be  it  well  understood — 
of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  !  " 
Rather  strange  language  iu  the  mouth 
of  a  citizen  of  the  young  republic; 
and  its  oddness  diminishes  the  sur- 
prise with  which  we  find,  on  turning 
the  page,  the  captor  of  the  Tuileries 
paying  his  devoirs  to  the  most  pre- 
sently prosperous  member  of  the 
house  of  Orleans.  "  Monseigneur," 
he  says,  to  the  illustrious  husband  of 
the  Infanta  Louisa,  "  this  book  is 
composed  for  you,  written  purposely 
for  you.  Like  all  men  of  elevated 
minds,  you  believe  in  the  impossible," 
&c.  &c.  Then  a  flourish  about 
Galileo,  Columbus,  and  Fulton,  and 
a  quotation  from  Shakspeare,  some 
of  whose  plays  M.  Dumas  has  been 
so  condescending  as  to  translate  and 
improve.  Then  poor  Scheherazede  is 
dragged  in  again,  always  apropos  of 
"I,  Alexander,"  and  then,  the  flourish 
of  trumpets  over,  the  fun  begins  and 
phantoms  enter. 

Although  not  generally  partial  to 
tales  of  diablerie — a  style  which  the 
Germans  have  overdone,  and  in  which 
few  writers  of  other  nations  have  suc- 
ceeded— we  have  been  much  amused 
by  the  story  of  Jean  le  Trouveur,  in 
which,  upon  the  old  yarn  of  a  pact 
with  the  evil  one,  M.  Paul  de  Musset 
has  strung  a  clever  and  spirited  series 
of  Gil-Blas-like  adventures,  inter- 
spersed with  vivid  glimpses  of  histo- 
rical events  and  personages,  with  here 
and  there  a  garnishing  of  quiet  satire. 
"  The  life  of  Jean  le  Trouveur,"  says 
the  ingenious  and  painstaking  author 
of  these  three  pleasant  little  volumes, 
"  is  one  of  those  histories  which  the 
people  tell,  and  nobody  has  writ- 
ten. .  .  .  This  fantastical  personage 
is  known  in  several  countries,  under 
different  names.  In  Provence  he  is 
called  Jean  1'  Heureux  ;  in  Arragon, 
Don  Juan  el  Pajarero — that  is  to  say, 
the  Fowler  or  Birdcatcher ;  in  Italy 
Giovanni  il  Trovatore.  His  real  name 
will  be  found  in  the  course  of  the  fol- 


1849.] 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


613 


lowing  narration.  His  death  was 
related  to  me  in  Lower  Brittany, 
where  I  did  not  expect  to  meet  with 
him.  This  circumstance  decided  me 
to  write  his  history,  uniting  the  vari- 
ous chronicles,  whose  connexion  is 
evident."  That  accomplished  anti- 
quarian and  legendary,  M.  Prosper 
Merimee,  would  doubtless  be  able  to 
tell  us  whether  this  be  a  mere  author's 
subterfuge,  or  a  veritable  account  of 
the  sources  whence  M.  de  Musset  de- 
rived the  amusing  adventures  of  John 
the  Finder.  We  ourselves  are  not 
sufficiently  versed  in  the  traditions  of 
Provence  and  Italy,  Arragon  and 
Brittany,  to  decide,  nor  is  it  of  much 
interest  to  inquire.  M.  de  Musset 
may  possibly  have  found  the  clay,  but 
he  has  made  the  bricks  and  built  the 
house.  It  is  a  light  and  pleasant 
edifice,  and  does  him  credit. 

The  main  outline  of  the  story  of 
Jean  le  Trouveur  is  soon  told,  and 
has  no  great  novelty.  The  interest 
lies  in  the  varied  incidents  that  crowd 
every  chapter.  In  the  year  1699 
there  dwelt  at  Aries,  in  Provence, 
a  commander  of  Malta,  by  name 
Anthony  Quiqueran,  Lord  of  Beaujeu. 
After  an  adventurous  career,  and  in- 
numerable valiant  exploits  achieved 
in  the  wars  of  the  Order  against  Turks 
and  barbarians;  after  commanding 
the  galleys  of  Malta  in  a  hundred 
successful  sea-fights,  and  enduring  a 
long  captivity  in  the  fortress  of  the 
Seven  Towers,  this  brave  man,  at  the 
age  of  nearly  eighty  years,  dwelt 
tranquilly  in  his  castle  of  Beaujeu, 
reposing,  in  the  enjoyment  of  perfect 
health,  from  the  fatigues  of  his  long 
and  busy  life,  and  awaiting  with 
seeming  resignation  and  confidence 
the  inevitable  summons  of  death. 
Only  two  peculiarities  struck  the 
neighbours  of  the  old  knight :  one  of 
which  was,  that  he  avoided  speaking 
of  his  past  adventures ;  the  other, 
that  he  would  attend  mass  but  at  a 
particular  convent,  and  that  even 
there  he  never  entered  the  chapel, 
but  kneeled  on  a  chair  in  the  porch, 
his  face  covered  with  his  hands,  until 
the  service  was  concluded.  It  was 
supposed  by  many  that  he  was  bound 
by  a  vow,  and  that  his  conduct  was  a 
mark  of  penitence  and  humiliation. 
And  although  the  commander  never 
went  to  confession,  or  the  communion 


table,  his  life  was  so  pure,  his 
charities  were  so  numerous,  and  he 
had  rendered  such  great  sen-ices  to 
the  cause  of  religion,  that  none  ven- 
tured to  blame  his  eccentricities  and 
omissions.  But  one  stormy  day  a 
little  old  Turk,  the  fashion  of  whose 
garments  was  a  century  old,  landed 
from  a  brigantine,  which  had  made 
its  way  up  the  Rhone  in  spite  of  wind, 
and,  to  the  wonder  of  the  assembled 
population, approached  the  commander 
of  Malta,  and  said  to  him — "Anthony 
Quiqueran,  you  have  but  three  days 
left  to  fulfil  your  engagements."  An 
hour  later,  the  old  knight  is  in  the 
convent  chapel,  assisting  at  a  mass, 
which  he  has  requested  the  superior 
to  say  for  him.  But  when  the  priest 
takes  the  sacred  wafer  it  falls  from 
his  hands,  a  gust  of  wind  extinguishes 
the  tapers,  and  a  confused  murmur  of 
voices  is  heard  in  the  lateral  nave  of 
the  church.  In  spite  of  himself,  the 
officiant  utters  a  malediction  instead 
of  a  prayer,  and,  horror-stricken,  he 
descends  the  steps  of  the  altar,  at 
whose  foot  M.  de  Beaujeu  lies  sense- 
less, his  face  against  the  ground.  The 
ensuing  chapters  contain  the  com- 
mander's confession.  Long  previously, 
when  languishing  in  hopeless  cap- 
tivity in  a  Turkish  dungeon,  he  had 
made  a  compact  with  a  demon,  by 
which  he  was  to  enjoy  liberty  and 
health,  and  thirty  years  of  glory  and 
good  fortune.  At  the  end  of  that 
term  he  must  find  another  person  to 
take  his  place  on  similar  conditions, 
or  his  soul  was  the  property  of  the 
fiend.  Scarcely  was  the  bargain  con- 
cluded, when  he  doubted  its  reality, 
and  was  disposed  to  attribute  it  to 
the  delirium  of  fever.  In  the  uncer- 
tainty, he  studiously  abstained  from 
the  advantage  of  the  compact,  hoping 
thereby  to  expiate  its  sin.  His 
health  returned,  his  liberty  was  given 
him,  but  he  sought  neither  glory,  nor 
wealth,  nor  honours,  living  retired 
upon  ten  thousand  crowns  a-year,  the 
gift  of  the  King  of  France  and  other 
princes,  for  his  services  to  Christen- 
dom, practising  good  works,  and  cul- 
tivating his  garden.  He  began  to 
hope  that  this  long  course  of  virtue 
and  self-denial  had  redeemed  his  sin, 
when  the  warning  of  the  demon,  in 
the  garb  of  the  Turkish  captain, 
renewed  his  alarm,  and  the  inter- 


614 


Tlie  French  Novels  0/1849. 


[Nov. 


rupted  mass  convinced  him  of  the 
graceless  state  of  his  soul.    No  act 
of  penitence,  the  superior  now  assured 
him,   could  atone  his  crime.      Too 
high-minded  to  seek  a  substitute,  and 
endeavour  to  shift  its  penalty  upon 
another's  shoulders,  M.  de    Beaujeu 
attempts  the  only  reparation  in  his 
power,  by  bequeathing  half  his  wealth 
to  charities.      To  inherit  the  other 
moiety,  he  entreats  the  superior  to 
select   a    foundling  worthy  of  such 
good  fortune.    The  superior  is  not  at 
a  loss.     "I  have  got  exactly  what 
you  want,"  he  says ;  "  the  chorister 
who  answered  at  the  mass  at  which 
you  swooned  away  has  no  relations. 
I  picked  him  up  in  the  street  on  a 
winter's  night,   fourteen  years   ago, 
and  since  then  he  has  never  left  me. 
He  has  no  vocation  for  the  church, 
and  you  will  do  a  good  action  in  re- 
storing him  to  the  world."    The  cho- 
rister boy,  who  had  been  baptised 
Jean  le  Trouve,  is  sent  for,  but  cannot 
at  first  be  found ;  for  the  excellent 
reason  that,  hidden  in  the  recesses  of 
the  superior's  bookcase,  behind  a  row 
of  enormous  folios,  he  had  listened 
to  all  that  had  passed  between  the 
commander  and  the  monk.    As  soon 
as  he  can  escape  he  repairs  to  the 
castle  of  Beaujeu,  where  his  good 
looks,  his  simplicity  and  vivacity,  in- 
terest the  old  knight,  who  receives 
him  kindly,  resolves  to  make  him  his 
heir,  and  sends  him  back  to  the  con- 
vent to  announce  his  determination 
to  the  superior.     The  foundling  is 
grateful.     His  joy  at    his    brilliant 
prospects  is  damped  by  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  commander's  confession 
and  despair.    He  resolves  to  astonish 
his  benefactor  by  the  greatness  of  his 
gratitude.      The   following    extract, 
which  has  a  good  deal  of  the  Hoff- 
mannsche  flavour,  will  show  how  he 
sets  about  it. 

In  the  street  of  La  Trouille,  which 
took  its  name  from  the  fortress  built 
by  the  Emperor  Constantine,  dwelt  a 
barber,  who,  to  follow  the  mode  of 
the  barbers  and  bath-keepers  of  Paris, 
sold  wine  and  entertained  gamesters. 
Young  men,  sailors,  merchants,  and 
citizens  of  Aries,  resorted  to  his  shop — 
some  to  transact  business ;  others  to 
discuss  matters  of  gallantry  or  plea- 
sure; others,  again,  to  seek  dupes. 
Of  a  night,  sounds  of  quarrel  were 


often  heard  in  the  shop,  to  which  the 
town-archers  had  more  than  once 
paid  a  visit.  If  a  stranger  staked 
his  coin  on  a  turn  of  the  cards,  or 
throw  of  the  dice,  it  was  no  mere 
hazard  that  transferred  his  ducats  to 
the  pockets  of  the  regular  frequenters 
of  the  house.  Seated  upon  a  post, 
opposite  to  this  honest  establishment, 
John  the  Foundling  watched  each  face 
that  entered  or  came  out.  After 
some  time,  he  saw  approaching  from 
afar  the  captain  of  the  brigantine, 
with  his  flat  turban  and  his  great 
matchlock  pistol.  When  the  Turk 
reached  the  barber's  door,  John 
placed  himself  before  him. 

"  Sir  stranger,"  said  the  boy,  "  did 
you  not  arrive  here  this  morning  from 
the  East,  on  important  business  which 
concerns  the  Commander  deBeaujen?" 
"Si,"  replied  the  Turk;  "but  I 
may  also  say  that  it  is  business  which 
concerns  you  not." 

"  You  mistake,"  said  John  ;  "  it 
does  concern  me,  and  I  come  on  pur- 
pose to  speak  to  you  about  it." 

"  Tis  possible,"  said  the  old  cap- 
tain ;  "  ma  mi  non  voler,  mi  non  jjoter, 
mi  non  aver  tempo." 

"  Nevertheless,"  firmly  retorted 
John,  "  you  must  find  time  to  hear 
me.  What  I  have  to  communicate  to 
you  is  of  the  utmost  importance." 

"  Do  me  the  pleasure  de  andar  al 
didble  /"  cried  the  Turk,  in  his  Franco - 
Italian  jargon. 

"  I  am  there  already,"  replied  the 
lad  ;  "  rest  assured  that  I  know  who 
you  are.  I  will  not  leave  you  till 
you  have  given  me  a  hearing." 

The  old  Mussulman,  who  had  hither- 
to averted  his  head  to  try  to  break 
off  the  conversation,  at  last  raised  his 
melancholy  and  aquiline  countenance. 
With  his  yellow  eyes  he  fixed  an 
angry  gaze  upon  the  chorister,  and 
said  to  him  in  a  full  strong  voice  : — 
"  Well,  enter  this  shop  with  me. 
We  will  presently  speak  together." 

There  was  company  in  the  barber's 
shop  of  the  Hue  de  la  Trouille,  when 
little  John  and  the  captain  of  the 
brigantine  raised  the  curtain  of  checked 
linen  which  served  as  a  door.  In  a 
corner  of  the  apartment,  four  men, 
seated  round  a  table,  were  absorbed 
in  a  game  at  cards,  to  which  they 
appeared  to  pay  extreme  attention, 
although  the  stake  was  but  of  a  few 


18-19.] 


The  French  Novels  of  1849. 


615 


miserable  sous.  One  of  the  gamblers 
examined,  with  the  corner  of  his  eye, 
the  two  persons  who  entered ;  and, 
seeing  it  was  only  a  lad  and  a  Turk 
of  mean  and  shabby  appearance,  he 
again  gave  all  his  attention  to  the 
game.  The  master  of  the  shop  con- 
ceived no  greater  degree  of  esteem 
for  the  new  comers,  for  he  did  not 
move  from  the  stool  on  which  he  was 
sharpening  his  razors.  At  the  further 
end  of  the  apartment  a  servant  stood 
beside  the  fire,  and  stirred  with  a  stick 
the  dirty  linen  of  the  week,  which 
boiled  and  bubbled  in  a  copper  caldron. 
A  damaged  hour-glass  upon  a  board 
pretended  to  mark  the  passage  of 
time ;  and  small  tables,  surrounded 
with  straw-bottomed  stools,  awaited 
the  drinkers  whom  evening  usually 
brought.  Bidding  the  chorister  to  be 
seated,  the  captain  of  the  brigantine 
placed  himself  at  one  of  the  tables, 
and  called  for  wine  for  all  the  com- 
pany. The  barber  hasted  to  fetch  a 
jug  of  Rhone  wine,  and  as  many 
goblets  as  there  were  persons  in  the 
room.  When  all  the  glasses  were 
filled,  the  captain  bid  the  barber  dis- 
tribute them,  and  exclaimed,  as  he 
emptied  his  own  at  a  draft. — 

"  A  la  salute  de  Leurs  Seiyneuries  /" 
Thereupon  the  four  gamblers  ex- 
changed significant  glances,  whispered 
a  few  words,  and  then,  as  if  the 
politeness  of  the  Turkish  gentleman 
had  caused  them  as  much  pleasure  as 
surprise,  they  pocketed  their  stakes 
and  discontinued  their  game.  With 
gracious  and  gallant  air,  and  smiling 
countenance,  one  hand  upon  the  hip 
and  the  other  armed  with  the  goblet, 
the  four  gentlemen  approached  the 
old  Turk  with  a  courteous  mien,  in- 
tended to  eclipse  all  the  graces  of  the 
courtiers  of  Versailles.  But  there 
was  no  need  of  a  magnifying-glass  to 
discern  the  true  character  of  the  four 
companions ;  the  adventurer  was  de- 
tectible  at  once  in  their  threadbare 
coats,  their  collars  of  false  lace,  and 
in  the  various  details  of  their  dress, 
where  dirt  and  frippery  were  511  con- 
cealed by  trick  and  tawdry.  A  mode- 
rately experienced  eye  would  easily 
have  seen  that  it  was  vice  which  had 
fattened  some  of  them,  and  made 
others  lean.  The  most  portly  of  the 
four,  approaching  the  Turkish  gentle- 
man, thanked  him  in  the  name  of  his 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX. 


friends,  and  placed  his  empty  glass 
upon  the  table  with  so  polite  and 
kindly  an  air,  that  the  Turk,  touched 
by  his  good  grace,  took  the  wine  jug 
and  refilled  the  four  goblets  to  the 
brim.  Some  compliments  were  ex- 
changed, and  all  sorts  of  titles  used ;  so 
that  by  the  time  the  jug  was  empty 
they  had  got  to  calling  each  other 
Excellency.  The  barber,  putting  his 
mouth  to  the  captain's  ear,  with  such 
intense  gravity  that  one  might  have 
thought  him  angry,  assured  him  that 
these  gentlemen  were  of  the  very  first 
quality,  whereat  the  Turk  testified 
his  joy  by  placing  his  hand  on  his  lips 
and  ou  his  forehead.  In  proportion 
as  mutual  esteem  and  good  under- 
standing augmented,  the  contents  of 
the  jug  diminished.  A  second  was 
called  for ;  it  was  speedily  emptied  in 
honour  of  the  happy  chance  that  had 
brought  the  jovial  company  together. 
A  third  disappeared  amidst  promises 
of  frequent  future  meetings,  and  a 
fourth  was  drained  amidst  shaking  of 
hands,friendly  embraces,  and  unlimited 
oifers  of  service. 

The  barber,  a  man  of  taste,  ob- 
served to  his  guests,  that  four  jugs 
amongst  five  persons  made  an  uneven 
reckoning,  which* it  would  need  the 
mathematical  powers  of  Bareme  duly 
to  adjust.  For  symmetry's  sake, 
therefore,  a  fifth  jug  was  brought,  out 
of  which  the  topers  drank  the  health 
of  the  king,  of  their  Amphitryon,  and 
of  Bareme,  so  appositely  quoted.  The 
four  seedy  gentlemen  greatly  admired 
the  intrepidity  with  which  the  little 
old  man  tossed  off  his  bumpers. 
Their  project  of  making  the  captain 
drunk  was  too  transparent  to  escape 
any  spectator  less  innocent  than  the 
'  chorister ;  but  in  vain  did  they  seek 
signs  of  intoxication  on  the  imper- 
turbable countenance  of  the  old  Turk. 
In  reply  to  each  toast  and  protestation 
of  friendship,  the  captain  emptied  his 
glass,  and  said : — 

"  Much  obliged,  gentlemen ;  mitrop 
jlatte." 

No  sparkle  of  the  eyes,  no  move- 
ment of  the  muscles,  broke  the  mono- 
tony of  his  faded  visage.  His  parch- 
ment complexion  preserved  its  yellow 
tint.  On  the  other  hand,  the  cheeks 
of  the  four  adventurers  began  to  flush 
purple  ;  they  unbuttoned  their  doub- 
lets, and  used  their  hats  as  fans.  The 
2s 


616 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


[Xov. 


signs  of  intoxication  they  watched  for 
in  their  neighbour  were  multiplied  in 
their  own  persons.  At  last  they  got 
quite  drunk.  He  of  the  four  whose 
head  was  the  coolest  proposed  a  game 
at  cards. 

"  I  plainly  see,"  said  the  Turk,  ac- 
cepting, "  that  the  Sir/nori  n'esserpas 
joueurs  per  habitude.'1'' 

"  And  how,"  exclaimed  one  of  the 
adventurers,  "  did  your  excellency 
infer  from  our  physiognomy  that  in- 
contestible  truth  ?  " 

"  Perche,"  replied  the  Turk,  "  on 
my  arrival  you  broke  off  in  the  middle 
of  your  game.  A  professed  gambler 
never  did  such  a  thing." 

They  were  in  ecstasies  at  the  noble 
foreigner's  penetration,  and  they  called 
for  the  dice.  When  the  captain  drew 
forth  his  long  purse,  stuffed  with  geno- 
veses*  the  four  gentlemen  experienced 
a  sudden  shock,  as  if  a  thunderbolt 
had  passed  between  them  without 
toiiching  them,  and  this  emotion  half 
sobered  them.  The  Turk  placed  one 
of  the  large  gold  pieces  upon  the 
table,  saying  he  would  hold  whatever 
stake  his  good  friends  chose  to  venture. 
The  others  said  that  a  genovese  was  a 
large  sum,  but  that  nothing  in  the 
world  should  make  them  flinch  from 
the  honour  of  contending  with  so 
courteous  an  adversary.  By  uniting 
their  purses,  they  hoped  to  be  able  to 
hold  the  whole  of  his  stake.  And 
accordingly,  from  the  depths  of  their 
fobs,  the  gentlemen  produced  so  many 
six-livre  and  three-livre  pieces,  tha't 
they  succeeded  in  making  up  the 
thirty-two  crowns,  which  were  equi- 
valent to  the  genovese.  They  played 
the  sum  in  a  rubber.  The  Turk  won 
the  first  game,  then  the  second ;  and 
the  four  adventurers,  on  beholding 
him  sweep  away  their  pile  of  coin, 
were  suddenly  and  completely  sobered. 
The  captain  willingly  agreed  to  give 
them  their  revenge.  The  difficulty 
was  to  find  the  two-and-thirty  crowns. 
By  dint  of  rummaging  their  pockets, 
the  gentlemen  exhibited  four-and- 
twenty  livres :  but  this  was  only  a 
quarter  of  the  sum.  The  oldest  of  'the 
adventurers  then  took  the  buckle  from 
his  hat,  and  threw  it  on  the  table, 
swearing  by  the  soul  of  his  uncle  that 
the  trinket  was  worth  two  hundred 


livres,  although  even  the  simple  cho- 
rister discerned  the  emeralds  that 
adorned  it  to  be  but  bits  of  bottle- 
glass.  Like  a  generous  player,  the 
old  Turk  made  no  difficulties ;  he 
agreed  that  the  buckle  should  stand 
for  two  hundred  livres,  and  it  was 
staked  to  the  extent  of  twenty-four 
crowns.  This  time  the  dice  was  so 
favourable  to  the  captain,  that  the 
game  was  not  even  disputed.  His 
adversaries  were  astounded :  they 
twisted  their  mustaches  till  they 
nearly  pulled  them  up  by  the  roots ; 
they  rubbed  their  eyes,  and  cursed 
the  good  wine  of  Rhone.  In  the  third 
game,  the  glass  jewel,  already  pledged 
for  twenty-four  crowns,  passed  entire 
into  the  possession  of  the  Turk.  Then 
the  excited  gamblers  threw  upon  the 
table  their  rings,  their  sword-knots, 
and  the  swords  themselves,  assigning 
to  all  these  things  imaginary  value, 
which  the  Turk  feigned  to  accept  as 
genuine.  Not  a  single  game  did  they 
win.  The  captain  took  a  string,  and 
proceeded  to  tie  together  the  tinsel 
and  old  iron  he  had  won,  when  he 
felt  a  hand  insinuate  itself  into  the 
pocket  of  his  ample  hose.  He  seized 
this  hand,  and  holding  it  up  in  the 
air — 

"  Messirs,"  he  said,  "  vous  esserdes 
coquins.  Mi  saper  que  vous  aver 
triche." 

"  Triche  /"  cried  one  of  the  sharpers. 
He  strips  us  to  the  very  shirt,  and  then 
accuses  us  of  cheating!  Morbleu! 
Such  insolence  demands  punishment." 

A  volley  of  abuse  and  a  storm  of 
blows  descended  simultaneously  upon 
the  little  old  man.  The  four  adven- 
turers, thinking  to  have  an  easy  bar- 
gain of  so  puny  a  personage,  threw 
themselves  upon  him  to  search  his 
pockets ;  but  in  vain  did  they  ran- 
sack every  fold  of  his  loose  garments. 
The  purse  of  gold  genoveses  was  not 
to  be  found ;  and  unfortunately  the  old 
Turk,  in  his  struggles,  upset  the  tripod 
which  supported  the  copper  caldron. 
A  flood  of  hot  water  boiled  about  the 
legs  of  the  thieves,  who  uttered 
lamentable  cries.  But  it  was  far 
worse  when  they  saw  the  overturned 
caldron  continue  to  pour  forth  its 
scalding  stream  as  unceasingly  as  the 
allegoric  urn  of  Scamander.  The  four 


A  large  gold  coin,  then  worth  nearly  a  hundred  French  livres. 


1849.] 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


617 


sharpers  and  the  barber,  perched  upon 
stools,  beheld,  with  deadly  terror,  the 
boiling  lake  gradually  rising  around 
them.    Their  situation  resembled  that 
in  which  Homer  has  placed  the  valiant 
and  light-footed  Achilles ;  but  as  these 
rogues  had  not  the  intrepid  soul  of  the 
son  of  Peleus,  they  called  piteously 
upon  God  and  all  the  saints  of  para- 
dise ;    mingling,   from  the  force    of 
habit,  not  a  few  imprecations  with 
their  prayers.    The  wizened  carcase 
of  the  old  Turk  must  have  been  proof 
against  fire  and  water,  for  he  walked 
with  the  streaming  flood  up  to  his 
knees.    Lifting  the  chorister  upon  his 
shoulders,  he  issued,  dry-footed,  from 
the  barber's  shop,  like  Moses  from  the 
bosom  of  the  Red  Sea.    The  river  of 
boiling  water  waited  but  his  departure 
to  re-enter  its  bed.     This  prodigy 
suddenly  took  place,  without  any  one 
being  able  to  tell  how.    The  water 
subsided,  and  flowed  away  rapidly, 
leaving  the  various  objects  in  the  shop 
uninjured,  with  the  exception  of  the 
legs  of  the  four  adventurers,  which 
were  somewhat    deteriorated.     The 
servant,  hurrying  back  at  sound  of  the 
scuffle,  raised  the  caldron,  and  re- 
sumed the  stirring  of  her  dirty  linen, 
unsuspicious  of  the  sorcery  that  had 
just  been  practised.    The  barber  and 
the  four    sharpers  took  counsel  to- 
gether, and  deliberated  amongst  them- 
selves whether  it  was  proper  to  de- 
nounce the  waterproof  and  incom- 
bustible old  gentleman  to  the  authori- 
ties.   The  quantity  of  hot  water  that 
had  been    spilled  being  out  of   all 
proportion  with  the  capacity  of  the 
kettle,  it  seemed  a  case  for  hanging  or 
burning  alive  the  author  of  the  in- 
fernal jest.     The  barber,  however,  - 
assured  his  customers  that  learned 
physicians  had  recently  made  many 
marvellous  discoveries,  in  which  the 
old  Turk  might  possibly  be  versed. 
He  also  deemed  it  prudent  not  lightly 
to  put  himself  in  communication  with 
the  authorities,  lest  they  should  seek 
to  inform  themselves  as  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  cards  were  shuffled 
in  his  shop.    It  was  his  opinion  that 
the  offender  should  be  generously  par- 
doned, unless,  indeed,  an  opportunity 
occurred  of  knocking  him  on  the  head 
in  some  dark  corner.    This  opinion 
met  with  general  approbation. 

Whilst  this  council  of  war  is  held, 


Jean  and  the  old  Turk  are  in  con- 
fabulation, and  a  bargain  is  at  last 
concluded,  by  which  the  commander's 
soul  is  redeemed,  and  Jean  is  to  have 
five  years  of  earthly  prosperity,  at  the 
end  of  which  time,  if  he  has  failed  to 
find  a  substitute,  his  spiritual  part 
becomes  the  demon's  property.  Two 
years  later  we  find  Jean  upon  the 
road  to  Montpellier,  well  mounted  and 
equipped,  and  his  purse  well  lined. 
Although  but  in  his  eighteenth  year, 
he  is  already  a  gay  gallant,  with  some 
knowledge  of  the  world,  and  eager  for 
adventures.  These  he  meets  with  in 
abundance.  A  mark,  imprinted  upon 
his  arm  by  his  attendant  demon, 
causes  him  to  be  recognised  as  the  son 
of  the  Chevalier  de  Cerdagne.  Thus 
ennobled,  he  feels  that  he  may  aspire 
to  all  things,  and  soon  we  find  him 
pushing  his  fortune  in  Italy,  attached 
to  the  person  of  the  French  Marshal 
de  March  in,  discovering  the  Baron 
d'Isola's  conspiracy  against  the  life  of 
Philip  V.  of  Spain,  and  gaining  laurels 
in  the  campaigns  of  the  War  of  Suc- 
cession. There  is  much  variety  and 
interest  in  some  of  his  adventures,  and 
the  supernatural  agency  is  sufficiently 
lost  sight  of  not  to  be  wearisome. 
Time  glides  away,  and  the  fatal  term 
of  five  years  is  within  a  few  days  of 
its  completion.  But  Jean  le  Trouve, 
now  le  Trouveur,  is  in  no  want  of 
substitutes.  Two  volunteers  present 
themselves;  one  his  supposed  sister, 
Mademoiselle  de  Cerdagne,  whom  he 
has  warmly  befriended  in  certain  love 
difficulties ;  the  other  a  convent  gar- 
dener, whom  he  has  made  his  private 
secretary,  and  whose  name  is  Giulio 
Alberoni.  The  demon,  who  still  affects 
the  form  of  an  old  Turkish  sailor, 
receives  Alberoni  in  lieu  of  Jean,  to 
whom,  however,— foreseeing  that  the 
young  man's  good  fortune  may  be  the 
means  of  bringing  him  many  other 
victims — he  offers  a  new  contract  on 
very  advantageous  terms.  But  Jean 
de  Cerdagne,  who  is  now  Spanish 
ambassador  at  Venice,  with  the  title 
of  prince,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of 
immense  wealth,  refuses  the  offer, 
anxious  to  save  his  soul.  He  soon 
discovers  that  his  good  fortune  is  at 
an  end.  The  real  son  of  the  Cheva- 
lier de  Cerdagne  turns  up,  Jean  is 
disgraced,  stripped  of  his  honours  and 
dignities,  and  his  vast  property  is 


The  French  Novels  of 1849. 


[Nov. 


confiscated  by  the  Inquisition.  The 
<ix-ambassador  exchanges  for  a  squalid 
disguise  his  rich  costume  of  satin  and 
velvet,  and  we  next  find  him  a  mem- 
ber of  a  secret  society  in  the  thieves' 
quarter  of  Venice.  The  -worshipful 
fraternity  of  Chiodo — so  called  from 
their  sign  of  recognition,  which  is  a  rusty 
nail— live  by  the  exercise  of  various 
small  trades  and  occupations,  which, 
although  not  strictly  beggary  or  theft, 
are  but  a  degree  removed  from  these 
culpable  resources.  Jean,  whose  con- 
science has  become  squeamish,  will 
accept  none  but  honest  employment. 
But  the  malice  of  the  demon  pursues 
him,  and  he  succeeds  in  nothing.  He 
stations  himself  at  a  ferry  to  catch 
gondolas  with  a  boat-hook,  and  bring 
them  gently  alongside  the  quay ;  he 
stands  at  a  bridge  stairs,  to  afford 
support  to  passengers  over  the  stones, 
slippery  with  the  slime  of  the  lagoons ; 
he  takes  post  in  front  of  the  Doge's 
palace,  with  a  vessel  of  fresh  water 
and  a  well-polished  goblet,  to  supply 
passers-by.  Many  accept  his  stout 
arm,  and  drink  his  cool  beverage,  but 
none  think  of  rewarding  him.  Not 
all  his  efforts  and  attention  are  suffi- 
cient to  coax  a  sou  from  the  pockets 
of  his  careless  customers.  At  last, 
upon  the  third  day,  he  receives  a  piece 
of  copper,  and  trusts  that  the  charm 
is  broken.  The  coin  proves  a  bad  one. 
His  seizure  by  the  authorities,  and 
transportation  to  Zara,  relieve  him  of 
care  for  his  subsistence.  At  last, 
pushed  by  misery,  and  in  imminent 
danger  of  punishment  for  having  struck 
a  Venetian  officer,  Jean  succumbs  to 
temptation,  and  renews  his  infernal 
compact.  A  Venetian  senator  adopts 
him,  and  he  discovers,  but  too  late, 
that  had  he  delayed  for  a  few  minutes 
his  recourse  to  diabolical  aid,  he  would 
have  stood  in  no  need  of  it.  He 
proceeds  to  Spain,  where  he  has  many 
adventures  and  quarrels  with  his  for- 
mer secretary,  Alberoni,  now  a  power- 
ful minister.  His  contract  again  at 
an  end,  he  would  gladly  abstain  from 
renewing  it,  but  is  hunted  by  the  In- 
quisition into  the  arms  of  the  fiend. 
After  a  lapse  of  years,  he  is  again 
shown  to  us  in  Paris,  and,  finally,  in 
Brittany,  where  he  meets  his  death, 
but,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  disappoints 
the  expectant  demon,  (who  in  a  man- 
Jier  outwits  himself,)  and  re-enters 


the  bosom  of  the  church,  his  bad 
bargain  being  taken  off  his  hands  by 
an  ambitious  village  priest.  The 
book,  which  has  an  agreeable  viva- 
city, closes  with  an  attempt  to  explain 
a  portion  of  its  supernatural  incidents 
by  a  reference  to  popular  tradition 
and  peasant  credulity.  Near  the  ram- 
parts of  the  Breton  town  of  Guerande, 
an  antiquary  shows  M.  de  Musset 
a  moss-grown  stone,  with  a  Latin 
epitaph,  which  antiquary  and  no- 
velist explain  each  •  after  his  own 
fashion. 

"  Let  us  see  if  you  understand  that, 
M.  le  Parisien"  said  the  antiquary. 
"  Up  to  the  two  last  words  we  shall 
agree;  but  what  think  yon  of  the 
Ars.  Inf.  ?  " 

•  "  It  appears  to  me,"  I  replied, 
"  that  the  popular  chronicle  perfectly 
explains  the  whole  epitaph — Ars.  Inf. 
means  ars  inferno. ;  that  is  to  say, — 
'  Here  reposes  Jean  Capello,  citizen 
of  Venice,  whose  body  was  sent  to 
the  grave,  and  his  soul  to  heaven,  by 
infernal  artifices.' " 

"  Atranslation  worthy  of  a  romance 
writer,"  said  the  antiquary.  "  You 
believe  then  in  the  devil,  in  compact 
with  evil  spirits,  in  absurd  legends 
invented  by  ignorance  and  supersti- 
tion amidst  the  evening  gossip  of  our 
peasants?  You  believe  that,  in  1718, 
a  parish  priest  of  Guerande  flew  away 
into  the  air,  after  having  redeemed  the 
soul  of  this  Jean  Capello.  You  are 
very  credulous,  M.  le  Parisien.  This 
Venetian,  who  came  here  but  to  die,  was 
simply  poisoned  by  the  priest,  who 
took  to  flight ;  the  town  doctor,  hav- 
ing opened  the  body,  found  traces  of 
the  poison.  That  is  why  they  en- 
graved upon  the  tomb  these  syllables : 
Ars.  Inf.,  which  signify  arsenici  in- 
fusio,  an  infusion  of  arsenic.  I  will 
offer  you  another  interpretation— 
Jean  Capello  was  perhaps  a  saltmaker, 
killed  by  some  accident  in  our  salt- 
works, and  as  in  1718  labourers  of 
that  class  were  very  miserable,  they 
engraved  upon  this  stone,  to  express 
the  humility  of  his  station,  Ars.  Inf., 
that  is  to  say,  inferior  craft." 

"  Upon  my  word  !  "  I  exclaimed, 
"  that  explanation  is  perfectly  absurd. 
I  keep  to  the  popular  version :  Jean 
le  Trouveur  was  sent  to  heaven  by 
the  stratagems  of  the  demon  himself. 
Let  sceptics  laugh  at  my  superstition, 


1849.] 


The  French  Novels  0/1849. 


I  shall  not  quarrel  with  them  for  their 
incredulity." 

We  see  little  else  worthy  of  extract 
or  comment  in  the  mass  of  books 
before  us.  M.  Mery,  whose  extraor- 
dinary notions  of  English  men  and 
things  we  exhibited  in  a  former  article, 
has  given  forth  a  rhapsodical  history, 
entitled  Le  Transported  beginning 
with  the  Infernal  Machine,  and  end- 
ing with  Surcouf  the  Pirate,  full  of 
conspiracies,  dungeons,  desperate  sea- 
fights,  and  tropical  scenery,  where 
English  line-of- battle  ships  are  braved 
by  French  corvettes,  and  where  the 
transitions  are  so  numerous,  and  the 
variety  so  great,  that  we  may  almost 
say  everything  is  to  be  found  in  its 
pages,  except  probability.  Mr  Dumas 
the  younger,  who  follows  at  respect- 
ful distance  in  his  father's  footsteps, 
and  publishes  a  volume  or  two  per 
month,  has  not  yet,  so  far  as  we  have 
been  able  to  discover,  produced  any- 
thing that  attains  mediocrity.  M. 
Sue  has  dished  up,  since  last  we  have 
adverted  to  him,  two  or  three  more 
capital  sins,  his  illustrations  of  which 
are  chiefly  remarkable  for  an  appear- 
ance of  great  effort,  suggestive  of  the 
pitiable  plight  of  an  author  who,  hav- 
ing pledged  himself  to  public  and 
publishers  for  the  production  of  a 
series  of  novels  on  given  subjects,  is 
compelled  to  work  out  his  task,  how- 
ever unwilling  his  mood.  This  is 
certainly  the  most  fatal  species  of 
book-making — a  selling  by  the  cubic 
foot  of  a  man's  soul  and  imagination. 
Evil  as  it  is,  the  system  is  largely 
acted  upon  in  France  at  the  present 
day.  Home  politics  having  lost  much 
of  the  absorbing  interest  they  pos- 
sessed twelve  months  ago,  the  Paris 
newspapers  are  resorting  to  their  old 
stratagems  to  maintain  and  increase 
their  circulation.  Prominent  amongst 
these  is  the  holding  out  of  great  at- 


tractions in  the  way  of  literary 
feuilletons.  Accordingly,  they  con- 
tract with  popular  writers  for  a  name 
and  a  date,  which  are  forthwith 
printed  in  large  capitals  at  the  head 
of  their  leading  columns.  Thus,  one 
journal  promises  its  readers  six  vol- 
umes by  M.  Dumas,  to  be  published 
in  its  feuilleton,  to  commence  on  a 
day  named,  and  to  be  entitled  Les 
Femmes.  The  odds  are  heavy,  that 
Alexander  himself  has  not  the  least 
idea  what  the  said  six  volumes  are 
to  be  about ;  but  he  relies  on  his  fer- 
tility, and  then  so  vague  and  compre- 
hensive a  title  gives  large  latitude. 
Moreover,  he  has  time  before  him, 
although  he  has  promised  in  the  in- 
terval to  supply  the  same  newspaper 
with  a  single  volume,  to  be  called 
Un  Homme  Fort,  and  to  conclude  the 
long  procession  of  Fantomes,  a  thou- 
sand and  one  in  number,  which  now 
for  some  time  past  has  been  gliding 
before  the  astonished  eyes  of  the 
readers  of  the  Constitutionnel.  Other 
journals  follow  the  same  plan  with 
other  authors,  and  in  France  no 
writer  now  thinks  of  publishing  a 
work  of  fiction  elsewhere  than  at  the 
foot  of  a  newspaper.  To  this  feuille- 
ton system,  pushed  to  an  extreme, 
and  entailing  the  necessity  of  intro- 
ducing into  each  day's  fragment  an 
amount  of  incident  mystery  or  pun- 
gent matter,  sufficient  to  carry  the 
reader  over  twenty-four  hours,  and 
make  him  anxious  for  the  morrow's 
return,  is  chiefly  to  be  attributed  the- 
very  great  change  for  the  worse  that 
of  late  has  been  observable  in  the 
class  of  French  literature  at  present 
tinder  consideration.  Its  actual  con- 
dition is  certainly  anything  but  vigo- 
rous and  flourishing,  and  until  a 
manifest  improvement  takes  place, 
we  are  hardly  likely  again  to  pass  it 
in  review. 


620  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 


Uorcalcs* 

No.  V. 
CHRISTOPHER  UNDER  CANVASS. 

Camp  at  Cladich. 

SCENE  —  The  Pavilion.     TIME  —  After  breakfast. 
NORTH  —  TALBOYS  —  SEWAUD  —  BULLER. 


NORTH. 

I  begin  to  be  doubtful  of  this  day.  On  your  visits  to  us,  Talboys,  you  have 
been  most  unfortunate  in  weather.  This  is  more  like  August  than  June. 

TALBOYS. 
The  very  word,  my  dear  sir.    It  is  indeed  most  august  weather. 

NORTH. 

Five  weeks  to-day  since  we  pitched  our  Camp — and  we  have  had  the 
Beautiful  of  the  Year  in  all  its  varieties ;  but  the  spiteful  Season  seems  to 
owe  you  some  old  grudge,  Talboys — and  to  make  it  a  point  still  to  assail  your 
arrival  with  "  thunder,  lightning,  and  with  rain." 

TALBOYS. 

"I  tax  not  you,  ye  Elements!  with  unkindness."  I  feel  assured  they 
mean  nothing  personal  to  me — and  though  this  sort  of  work  may  not  be  very 
favourable  to  Angling,  'tis  quite  a  day  for  tidying  our  Tackle — and  making 
up  our  Books.  But  don't  you  think,  sir,  that  the  Tent  would  look  nothing 
the  worse  with  some  artificial  light  in  this  obscuration  of  the  natural  ? 

NORTH. 

Put  on  the  gas.  Pretty  invention,  the  Gutta  Percha  tube,  isn't  it  ?  The 
Electric  Telegraph  is  nothing  to  it.  Tent  illuminated  in  a  moment,  at  a  pig's 
whisper. 

TALBOYS. 

Were  I  to  wish,  sir,  for  anything  to  happen  now  to  the  weather  at  all,  it 
would  be  just  ever  so  little  toning  down  of  that  one  constituent  of  the  orches- 
tral harmony  of  the  Storm  which  men  call — howling.  The  Thunder  is  perfect 
— but  that  one  Wind  Instrument  is  slightly  out  of  tune — he  is  most  anxious 
to  do  his  best — his  motive  is  unimpeachable ;  but  he  has  no  idea  how  much 
more  impressive — how  much  more  popular — would  be  a  somewhat  subdued 
style.  There  again — that's  positive  discord — does  he  mean  to  disconcert  the 
Concert — or  does  he  forget  that  he  is  not  a  Solo  ? 

BULLER. 

That  must  be  a  deluge  of — hail. 

TALBOYS. 

So  much  the  better.  Hitherto  we  have  had  but  rain.  "  Mysterious  horrors ! 
HAIL  !" 

"  'Twas  a  rough  night. 
My  young  remembrance  cannot  parallel 
A  fellow  to  it." 

NORTH. 

Suppose  we  resume  yesterday's  conversation  ? 

TALBOYS. 

By  all  manner  of  means.  Let's  sit  close — and  speak  loud — else  all  will  be 
dumb  show.  The  whole  world's  one  waterfall. 

NORTH. 

Take  up  Knight  on  Taste.    Look  at  the  dog-ear. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  021 

TALBOY8. 

"  The  most  perfect  instance  of  this  kind  is  the  Tragedy  of  Macbeth,  in  which 
the  character  of  an  ungrateful  traitor,  murderer,  usurper,  and  tyrant,  is  made 
in  the  highest  degree  interesting  by  the  sublime  flashes  of  generosity,  magna- 
nimity, courage,  and  tenderness,  which  continually  burst  forth  in  the  manly 
but  ineffective  struggle  of  every  exalted  quality  that  can  dignify  and  adorn 
the  human  mind,  first  against  the  allurements  of  ambition,  and  afterwards 
against  the  pangs  of  remorse  and  horrors  of  despair.  Though  his  wife  has 
been  the  cause  of  all  his  crimes  and  sufferings,  neither  the  agony  of  his  distress, 
nor  the  fury  of  his  rage,  ever  draw  from  him  an  angry  word,  or  upbraiding 
expression  towards  her ;  but  even  when,  at  her  instigation,  he  is  about  to  add 
the  murder  of  his  friend  and  late  colleague  to  that  of  his  sovereign,  kinsman, 
and  benefactor,  he  is  chiefly  anxious  that  she  should  not  share  the  guilt  of  his 
blood : — *  Be  innocent  of  the  knowledge,  dearest  chuck !  till  thou  applaud  the 
deed.'  How  much  more  real  grandeur  and  exaltation  of  character  is  displayed 
in  one  such  simple  expression  from  the  heart,  than  in  all  the  laboured  pomp 
of  rhetorical  amplification." 

NORTH. 

What  think  you  of  that,  Talboys? 

TALBOYS. 

Why,  like  much  of  the  cant  of  criticism,  it  sounds  at  once  queer  and  com- 
mon-place. I  seem  to  have  heard  it  before  many  thousand  times,  and  yet 
never  to  have  heard  it  at  all  till  this  moment. 

NORTH. 

Seward? 

SEWARD. 

Full  of  audacious  assertions,  that  can  be  forgiven  but  in  the  belief  that 
Payne  Knight  had  never  read  the  tragedy,  even  with  the  most  ordinary 
attention. 

NORTH. 

Buller? 

BUTLER. 

Cursed  nonsense.  Beg  pardon,  sir — sink  cursed — mere  nonsense — out  and 
out  nonsense — nonsense  by  itself  nonsense. 

NORTH. 

How  so  ? 

BULLER. 

A  foolish  libel  on  Shakspeare.  Was  he  the  man  to  make  the  character 
of  an  ungrateful  traitor,  murderer,  usurper,  and  tyrant,  interesting  by  sublime 
flashes  of  generosity,  magnanimity,  courage,  and  tenderness,  and— do  I  repeat 
the  words  correctly? — of  every  exalted  quality  that  can  dignify  and  adorn  the 
human  mind. 

NORTH. 

Buller — keep  up  that  face — you  are  positively  beautiful — 

BULLER. 

No  quizzing — I  am  ugly — but  I  have  a  good  figjjre — look  at  that  leg,  sir ! 

NORTH. 

I  prefer  the  other. 

TALBOYS. 

There  have  been  Poets  among  us  who  fain  would — if  they  could — have  so 
violated  nature ;  but  their  fabrications  have  been  felt  to  be  falsehoods — and 
no  quackery  may  resuscitate  drowned  lies. 

NORTH. 

Shakspeare  nowhere  insists  on  the  virtues  of  Macbeth — he  leaves  their  mea- 
sure indeterminate.  That  the  villain  may  have  had  some  good  points  we  are 
all  willing  to  believe — few  people  are  without  them ; — nor  have  I  any  quarrel 
with  those  who  believe  he  had  high  qualities,  and  is  corrupted  by  ambition.  But 
what  high  qualities  had  he  shown  before  Shakspeare  sets  him  personally  before 
us  to  judge  for  ourselves  ?  Valour — courage — intrepidity — call  it  what  you 
will — Martial  Virtue — 


622  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Xov. 

"  For  brave  Macbeth,  (well  he  deserves  that  name,) 
Disdaining  fortune,  with  his  brandished  steel, 
Which  smoked  with  bloody  execution 
Like  valour's  minion, 

Carved  out  his  passage  till  he  faced  the  slave; 
And  ne'er  shook  hands,  nor  bade  farewell  to  him, 
Till  he  unseam'd  him  from  the  nave  to  the  chaps, 
And  fixed  his  head  upon  our  battlements." 

The  "  bleeding  Serjeant"  pursues  his  panegyric  till  he  grows  faint — and  is  led 
off  speechless  ;  others  take  it  up — and  we  are  thus — and  in  other  ways — pre- 
pared to  look  on  Macbeth  as  a  paragon  of  braverjr,  loyalty,  and  patriotism. 

TALBOYS. 

So  had  seemed  Cawdor. 

NORTH. 

Good.  Shakspeare  sets  Macbeth  before  us  under  the  most  imposing  circum- 
stances of  a  warlike  age ;  but  of  his  inner  character  as  yet  lie  has  told  us 
nothing — we  are  to  find  that  out  for  ourselves  during  the  Drama.  If  there 
be  sublime  flashes  of  generosity,  magnanimity,  and  every  exalted  virtue,  we 
have  eyes  to  see,  unless  indeed  blinded  by  the  lightning — and  if  the  sublime 
flashes  be  frequent,  and  the  struggle  of  every  exalted  quality  that  can  adorn 
the  human  mind,  though  ineffectual,  yet  strong — why,  then,  we  must  not 
only  pity  and  forgive,  but  admire  and  love  the  "  traitor,  murderer,  usurper, 
and  tyrant,"  with  all  the  poetical  and  philosophical  fervour  of  that  amiable 
enthusiast,  Mr  Payne  Knight. 

BULLER. 

Somehow  or  other  I  cannot  help  having  an  affection  for  Macbeth. 

NORTH. 

You  had  better  leave  the  Tent,  sir. 

BULLER. 

No.    I  won't. 

NORTH. 

Give  us  then,  My  dear  Buller,  your  Theory  of  the  Thane's  character. 

BULLER. 

"Theory,  God  bless  you,  I  have  none  to  give,  sir."  Warlike  valour,  as 
you  said,  is  marked  first  and  last — at  the  opening,  and  at  the  end.  Surely 
a  good  and  great  quality,  at  least  for  poetical  purposes.  High  general  repu- 
tation won  and  held.  The  opinion  of  the  wounded  soldier  was  that  of  the 
whole  army ;  and  when  he  himself  says,  "  I  have  bought  golden  opinions 
from  all  sorts  of  people,  which  would  be  worn  now  in  their  newest  gloss,  not 
thrown  aside  so  soon,"  I  accept  that  he  then  truly  describes  his  position  in 
men's  minds. 

NORTH. 

All  true.  But  we  soon  gain,  too,  this  insight  into  his  constitution,  that 
the  pillar  upon  which  he  has  built  up  life  is  Reputation,  and  not  Respect  of 
Law — not  Self-Respect ;  that  the  point  which  Shakspeare  above  all  others 
intends  in  him,  is  that  his  is  a  spirit  not  self-stayed — leaning  upon  outward 
stays — and  therefore — 

BULLER. 

Liable  to  all — 

NORTH. 

Don't  take  the  words  out  of  my  mouth,  sir ;  or  rather,  don't  put  them  into- 
my  mouth,  sir. 

BULLER. 
Touchy  to-day. 

NORTH. 

The  strongest  expression  of  this  character  is  his  throwing  himself  upon  the 
illicit  divinings  of  futurity,  upon  counsellors  known  for  infernal ;  and  you  see 
what  subjugating  sway  the  TJiree  Spirits  take  at  once  over  him.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  Thaness  is  self-stayed ;  and  this  difference  grounds  the  poetical 
opposition  of  the  two  personages.  In  Macbeth,  I  suppose  a  certain  splendour 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  623 

of  character — magnificence  of  action  high — a  certain  impure  generosity — 
mixed  up  of  some  kindliness  and  sympathy,  and  of  the  pleasure  from  self- 
elation  and  self-expansion  in  a  victorious  career,  and  of  that  ambition  which 
feeds  on  public  esteem. 

BULLER. 

Ay— just  so,  sir. 

NORTH. 

Now  mark,  Buller — this  is  a  character  which,  if  the  path  of  duty  and  the 
path  of  personal  ambition  were  laid  out  by  the  Sisters  to  be  one  and  the  same 
path,  might  walk  through  life  in  sunlight  and  honour,  and  invest  the  tomb 
with  proud  and  revered  trophies.  To  show  such  a  spirit  wrecked  and  hurled 
into  infamy — the  ill- woven  sails  rent  into  shreds  by  the  whirlwind — is  a  lesson 
worthy  the  Play  and  the  Poet — and  such  a  lesson  as  I  think  Shakspeare 
likely  to  have  designed — or,  without  preaching  about  lessons,  such  an  ethical 
revelation  as  I  think  likely  to  have  caught  hold  upon  Shakspeare's  intelli- 
gence. It  would  seem  to  me  a  dramatically-poetical  subject.  The  mightiest 
of  temptations  occurs  to  a  mind,  full  of  powers,  endowed  with  available  moral 
elements,  but  without  set  virtue — without  principles — "  and  down  goes  all 
before  it."  If  the  essential  delineation  of  Macbeth  be  this  conflict  of  Moral 
elements — of  good  and  evil — of  light  and  darkness — I  see  a  very  poetical  con- 
ception ;  if  merely  a  hardened  and  bloody  hypocrite  from  the  beginning,  I  see 
none.  But  I  need  not  say  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  all  this  is  as  far  as  may  be 
from  the  exaggerated  panegyric  on  his  character  by  Payne  Knight. 

TALBOYS. 

Macbeth  is  a  brave  man — so  is  Banquo — so  are  we  Four,  brave  men — they 
in  their  way  and  day — we  in  ours — they  as  Celts  and  Soldiers — we  as  Saxons 
and  Civilians — and  AVB  had  all  need  to  be  so — for  hark !  in  the  midst  of  ours, 
"  Thunder  and  Lightning,  and  enter  Three  Witches." 

BULLER. 

I  cannot  say  that  I  understand  distinctly  their  first  Confabulation. 

NORTH. 

That's  a  pity.  A  sensible  man  like  you  should  understand  everything.  But 
what  if  Shakspeare  himself  did  not  distinctly  understand  it  ?  There  may  have 
been  original  errata  in  the  report,  as  extended  by  himself  from  notes  taken  in 
short-hand  on  the  spot — light  bad — noise  worse — voices  of  Weird  Sisters 
worst — matter  obscure — manner  uncouth — why  really,  Buller,  all  things  con- 
sidered, Shakspeare  has  shown  himself  a  very  pretty  Penny-a-liner. 

BULLER. 

I  cry  you  mercy,  sir. 

SEWARD. 

Where  are  the  Witches  on  their  first  appearance,  at  the  very  opening  of  the 
wonderful  Tragedy  ? 

NORTH. 
An  open  Place,  with  thunder  and  lightning. 

SEWARD. 
I  know  that — the  words  are  written  down. 

NORTH. 
Somewhere  or  other — anywhere — nowhere. 

BULLER. 

In  Fife  or  Forfar  ?  OrAsome  one  or  other  of  your  outlandish,  or  inlaudish, 
Lowland  or  Highland  Counties  ? 

NORTH. 

Not  knowing,  can't  say.    Probably. 

SEWARD. 

"  When  the  Hurly  Burly's  done, 
When  the  Battle's  lost  and  won." 

What  Hurly  Burly  ?  What  Battle  ?  That  in  which  Macbeth  is  then  engaged  ? 
And  which  is  to  be  brought  to  issue  ere  "  set  of  sun  "  of  the  day  on  which 
"  enter  Three  Witches  ?" 


624  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

NORTH. 

Let  it  be  so. 

SEWARD. 

"  Upon  the  heath, 
There  to  meet  with  Macbeth." 

The  Witches,  then,  are  to  meet  with  Macbeth  011  the  heath  on  the  Evening  of 
the  Battle  ? 

NORTH. 

It  would  seeni  so. 

SEWARD. 

They  are  "posters  over  sea  and  land" — and,  like  whiffs  of  lightning,  can 
outsail  and  outride  the  sound  of  thunder.  But  Macbeth  and  Banquo  must 
have  had  on  their  seven-league  boots. 

NORTH. 

They  must. 

SEWARD. 

**  A  drum,  a  drum  ! 
Macbeth  doth  come." 

Was  he  with  the  advanced  guard  of  the  Army  ? 

NORTH. 

Not  unlikely — attended  by  his  Staff.  Generals,  on  such  occasions,  usually 
ride — but  perhaps  Macbeth  and  Banquo,  being  in  kilts,  preferred  walking  in 
their  seven-league  boots.  Thomas  Campbell  has  said,  "  When  the  drum  of 
the  Scottish  Army  is  heard  on  the  wild  heath,  and  when  I  fancy  it  advancing 
with  its  bowmen  in  front,  and  its  spears  and  banners  in  the  distance,  I  am 
always  disappointed  with  Macbeth's  entrance  at  the  head  of  a  few  kilted 
actors."  The  army  may  have  been  there — but  they  did  not  see  the  Weirds — 
nor,  I  believe,  did  the  Weirds  see  them.  With  Macbeth  and  Banquo  alone 
had  they  to  do :  we  see  no  Army  at  that  hour — we  hear  no  drums — we  are 
deaf  even  to  the  Great  Highland  Bagpipe,  though  He,  you  may  be  sure,  was 
not  dumb — all  "  plaided  and  plumed  in  their  tartan  array"  the  Highland  Host 
ceased  to  be — like  vanished  shadows — at  the  first  apparition  of  "  those  so 
withered  and  so  wild  in  their  attire" — not  of  the  earth  though  on  it,  and  alive 
somewhere  till  this  day — while  generations  after  generations  of  mere  Fighting 
Men  have  been  disbanded  by  dusty  Death. 

SEWARD. 

I  wish  to  know  where  and  when  had  been  the  Fighting  ?  The  Norwegian — 
one  Sweno,  had  come  down  very  handsomely  at  Inchcolm  with  ten  thousand 

dollars — a  sum  in  those  days  equal  to  a  million  of  money  in  Scotland 

NORTH. 

Seward,  speak  on  subjects  you  understand.  What  do  you  know,  sir,  of  the 
value  of  money  in  those  days  in  Scotland  ? 

SEWARD. 

But  where  had  been  all  the  Fighting?  There  would  seem  to  have  been  two 
hurley-burleys. 

NORTH. 

I  see  your  drift,  Seward.  Time  and  Place,  through  the  First  Scene  of  the 
First  Act,  are  past  finding  out.  It  has  been  asked — Was  Shakspeare  ever 
in  Scotland  ?  Never.  There  is  not  one  word  in  this  Tragedy  leading  a  Scots- 
man to  think  so — many  showing  he  never  had  that  happiness.  Let  him  deal 
with  our  localities  according  to  his  own  sovereign  will  and  pleasure,  as  a  pre- 
vailing Poet.  But  let  no  man  point  out  his  dealings  with  our  localities  as 
proofs  of  his  having  such  knowledge  of  them  as  implies  personal  acquaintance 
with  them  gained  by  a  longer  or  shorter  visit  in  Scotland.  The  Fights  at  the 
beginning  seem  to  be  in  Fife,  The  Soldier,  there  wounded,  delivers  his  rela- 
tion at  the  King's  Camp  before  Forres.  He  has  crawled,  in  half-an-hour,  or 
an  hour — or  two  hours — say  seventy,  eighty,  or  a  hundred  miles,  or  more — 
crossing  the  ridge  of  the  Grampians.  Rather  smart.  I  do  not  know  what  you 
think  here  of  Time  ;  but  I  think  that  Space  is  here  pretty  well  done  for.  The 
TIME  of  the  Action  of  Shakspeare's  Plays  has  never  yet,  so  far  as  I  know, 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  625 

been,  in  any  one  Play,  carefully  investigated — never  investigated  at  all ;  and 
I  now  announce  to  you  Three — don't  mention  it — that  I  have  made  discoveries 
here  that  will  astound  the  whole  world,  and  demand  a  New  Criticism  of  the 
entire  Shakspearean  Drama, 

BULLER. 

Let  us  have  one  now,  I  beseech  you,  sir. 

NORTH. 
Not  now. 

BULLER. 

No  sleep  in  the  Tent  till  we  have  it,  sir.  I  do  dearly  love  astounding  dis- 
coveries— and  at  this  time  of  day,  an  astounding  discovery  in  Shakspeare  ! 
May  it  not  prove  a  Mare's  Nest ! 

NORTH. 

The  Tragedy  of  Macbeth  is  a  prodigious  Tragedy,  because  in  it  the  Chariot 
of  Nemesis  visibly  rides  in  the  lurid  thunder-sky.  Because  in  it  the  ill  motions 
of  a  human  soul,  which  Theologians  account  for  by  referring  them  all  to  sug- 
gestions of  Beelzebub,  are  expounded  in  visible,  mysterious,  tangible,  terrible 
shape  and  symbolisation  by  the  Witches.  It  is  great  by  the  character  and 
person,  workings  and  sufferings,  of  Lady  Macbeth — by  the  immense  poetical 
power  in  doing  the  Witches — mingling  for  once  in  the  world  the  Homely- 
Grotesque  and  the  Sublime — extinguishing  the  Vulgar  in  the  Sublime — by  the 
bond,  whatsoever  it  be,  between  Macbeth  and  his  wife — by  making  us  toler- 
ate her  and  him 

BULLER. 

Didn't  I  say  that  in  my  own  way,  sir  ?  And  didn't  you  reprove  me  for 
saying  it,  and  order  me  out  of  the  Tent  ? 

NORTH. 

And  what  of  the  Witches  ? 

BULLER. 

Had  you  not  stopt  me.  I  say  now,  sir,  that  nobody  understands  Shak- 
speare's HECATE.  Who  is  SHE?  Each  of  the  Three  Weirds  is  =  one  Witch -t- 
one  of  the  Three  Fates — therefore  the  union  of  two  incompatible  natures — 
more  than  in  a  Centaur.  Oh !  Sir !  what  a  hand  that  was  which  bound  the 
two  into  one — inseverably !  There  they  are  for  ever  as  the  Centaurs  are. 
But  the  gross  Witch  prevails ;  which  Shakspeare  needed  for  securing  belief, 
and  he  has  it,  full.  Hecate,  sir,  comes  in  to  balance  the  disproporton — she 
lifts  into  Mythology — and  strengthens  the  mythological  tincture.  So  does  the 
"Pit  of  Acheron."  That  is  classical.  To  the  best  of  my  remembrance,  no 
mention  of  any  such  Pit  in  the  Old  or  New  Statistical  Account  of  Scotland. 

NORTH. 

And,  in  the  Incantation  Scene,  those  Apparitions !  Mysterious,  ominous, 
picturesque — and  self-willed.  They  are  commanded  by  the  Witches,  but 
under  a  limitation.  Their  oracular  pow.er  is  their  own.  They  are  of  unknown 
orders — as  if  for  the  occasion  created  in  Hell. 

NORTH. 

Talboys,  are  you  asleep — or  are  you  at  Chess  with  your  eyes  shut  ? 

TALBOYS. 

At  Chess  with  my  eyes  shut.  I  shall  send  off  my  move  to  my  friend  Stir- 
ling by  first  post.  But  my  ears  were  open — and  I  ask — when  did  Macbeth 
first  design  the  murder  of  Duncan?  Does  not  everybody  think — in  the  mo- 
ment after  the  Witches  have  first  accosted  and  left  him  ?  Does  not — it  may 
be  asked — the  whole  moral  significancy  of  the  Witches  disappear,  unless  the 
invasion  of  hell  into  Macbeth's  bosom  is  first  made  by  their  presence  and 
voices  ? 

NORTH. 

No.  The  whole  moral  significancy  of  the  Witches  only  then  appears,  when 
we  are  assured  that  they  address  themselves  only  to  those  who  already  have 
been  tampering  with  their  conscience.  "  Good  sir !  why  do  you  start,  and 
seem  to  fear  things  that  do  sound  so  fair  ?  "  That  question  put  to  Macbeth  by 
Banquo  turns  our  eyes  to  his  face — and  we  see  Guilt.  There  was  no  start 


626  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

at  "  Hail  to  thee,  Thane  of  Cawdor,"— but  at  the  word  "  King"  well  might 

he  start ;  for eh  ? 

TALBOYS. 
We  must  look  up  the  Scene. 

NORTH. 

No  need  for  that.    You  have  it  by  heart — recite  it. 

TALBOYS. 
"  Macbeth.  So  foul  and  fair  a  day  I  have  not  seen. 

Banquo.  How  far  is't  call'd  to  Forres  1 — What  are  these, 
So  wither'd,  and  so  wild  in  their  attire ; 
.That  look  not  like  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth, 
And  yet  are  on't  ?  Live  you  ?  or  are  you  aught 
That  man  may  question  ?  You  seem  to  understand  me, 
By  each  at  once  her  choppy  finger  laying 
Upon  her  skinny  lips: — You  should  be  women, 
And  yet  your  beards  forbid  me  to  interpret 
That  you  are  so. 

Macbeth.        Speak,  if  you  can ; — What  are  you  ? 

1st  Witcli.  All  hail,  Macbeth  !  hail  to  thee,  thane  of  Glamis  ! 

Id  Witch.  All  hail,  Macbeth  !  hail  to  thee,  thane  of  Cawdor  ! 

3d  Witch.  All  hail,  Macbeth  !  that  shalt  be  king  hereafter. 

Banquo.  Good  sir,  why  do  you  start;  and  seem  to  fear 
Things  that  do  sound  so  fair  ? — I'  the  name  of  truth, 
Are  ye  fantastical,  or  that  indeed 
Which  outwardly  ye  show  ?     My  noble  partner 
You  greet  with  present  grace,  aud  great  prediction 
Of  noble  having,  and  of  royal  hope, 
That  he  seems  rapt  withal;  to  me  you  speak  not: 
If  you  can  look  into  the  seeds  of  time, 
And  say  which  grain  will  grow,  and  which  will  not; 
Speak  then  to  me,  who  neither  beg,  nor  fear 
Your  favours  nor  your  hate. 

1st  Witch.  Hail ! 

3d  Witch.  Hail  ! 

3d  Witch.  Hail  ! 

1st  Witch.  Lesser  than  Macbeth,  and  greater. 

2d  Witch.  Not  so  happy,  yet  much  happier. 

3d  Witch.  Thou  shalt  get  kings,  though  thou  be  none: 
So,  all  hail,  Macbeth  and  Banquo  ! 

1st  Witch.  Banquo  and  Macbeth,  all  hail ! 

Macbeth.  Stay,  you  imperfect  speakers,  tell  me  more: 
By  Sinel's  death,  I  know,  I  am  thane  of  Glamis ; 
But  how  of  Cawdor  ?  the  thane  of  Cawdor  lives, 
A  prosperous  gentleman;  and  to  be  king, 
Stands  not  within  the  prospect  of  belief, 
No  more  than  to  be  Cawdor.     Say,  from  whence 
You  owe  this  strange  intelligence  ?  or  why 
Upon  this  blasted  heath  you  stop  our  way 
With  such  prophetic  greeting  ?— Speak,  I  charge  you. 

[  Witches  vanish. 

Banquo.  The  earth  hath  bubbles,  as  the  water  has, 
And  these  are  of  them : — Whither  are  they  vanish'd  ? 

Macbeth.  Into  the  air,  and  what  seem'd  corporal,  melted 
As  breath  into  the  wind.     'Would  they  had  staid  ! 

Banquo.  Were  such  things  here,  as  we  do  speak  about  ? 
Or  have  we  eaten  of  the  insane  root, 
That  takes  the  reason  prisoner. 

Macbeth.  Your  children  shall  be  kings. 

Banquo.  You  shall  be  king. 

Macbeth.  And  thane  of  Cawdor  too ;  went  it  not  so  2 

Banquo.  To  the  self-same  tune,  and  words."    . 
NORTH. 

Charles  Kemble  himself  could  not  have  given  it  more  impressively. 

BULLER. 
You  make  him  blush,  sir. 


1849.]  Cliristopher  under  Canvass.  627 

NORTH. 

Attend  to  that  "  start"  of  Macbeth,  Talboys. 

TALBOYS. 

He  might  well  start  on  being  told  of  a  sudden,  by  such  seers,  that  he  was 
hereafter  to  be  King  of  Scotland. 

NORTH. 

There  was  more  in  the  start  than  that,  my  lad,  else  Shakspeare  would  not 
have  so  directed  our  eyes  to  it.  I  say  again — it  was  the  start — of  a  murderer. 

TALBOYS. 

And  what  if  I  say  it  was  not  ?  But  I  have  the  candour  to  confess,  that  I 
am  not  familiar  with  the  starts  of  murderers — so  may  possibly  be  mistaken. 

NORTH. 

Omit  what  intervenes — and  give  us  the  Soliloquy,  Talboys.  But  before  yon 
do  so,  let  me  merely  remind  you  that  Macbeth's  mind,  from  the  little  he  says 
in  the  interim,  is  manifestly  ruminating  on  something  bad,  ere  he  breaks  out 
into  Soliloquy. 

TALBOYS. 

"  Two  truths  are  told, 
As  happy  prologues  to  the  swelling  act 
Of  the  imperial  theme. — I  thank  you,  gentlemen. — 
This  supernatural  soliciting 
Cannot  be  ill — cannot  be  good: — If  ill, 
Why  hath  it  given  me  earnest  of  success, 
Commencing  in  a  truth?     I  am  Thane  of  Cawdor: 
If  good,  why  do  I  yield*to  that  suggestion 
Whose  horrid  image  doth  unfix  my  hair, 
And  make  my  seated  heart  knock  at  my  ribs 
Against  the  use  of  nature?    Present  fears 
Are  less  than  horrible  imaginings: 
My  thought  whose  murder  is  yet  but  fantastical 
Shakes  so  my  single  state  of  man,  that  function 
Is  smothered  in  surmise ;  and  nothing  is, 
But  what  is  not." 

NORTH. 

Now,  my  dear  Talboys,  you  will  agree  with  me  in  thinking  that  this  first 
great  and  pregnant,  although  brief  soliloquy,  stands  for  germ,  type,  and  law 
of  the  whole  Play,  and  of  its  criticism — and  for  clue  to  the  labyrinth  of  the 
Thane's  character.  "  Out  of  this  wood  do  not  desire  to  go."  Out  of  it  I  do 
not  expect  soon  to  go.  I  regard  William  as  a  fair  Poet  and  a  reasonable  Phi- 
losopher; but  as  a  supereminent  Play-wright.  The  First  Soliloquy  must 
speak  the  nature  of  Macbeth,  else  the  Craftsman  has  no  skill  in  his  trade.  A 
Soliloquy  reveals.  That  is  its  function.  Therein  is  the  soul  heard  and  seen 
discoursing  with  itself — within  itself;  and  if  you  carry  your  eye  through — up 
to  the  First  Appearance  of  Lady  Macbeth — this  Soliloquy  is  distinctly  the 
highest  point  of  the  Tragedy — the  tragic  acme — or  dome — or  pinnacle — there- 
fore of  power  indefinite,  infinite.  On  this  rock  I  stand,  a  Colossus  ready  to  be 
thrown  down  by — an  Earthquake. 

DULLER. 

Pushed  off  by — a  shove. 

NORTH. 

Not  by  a  thousand  Buller-power.  Can  you  believe,  Buller,  that  the  word 
of  the  Third  Witch,  "  that  shalt  be  KING  Hereafter,"  sotvs  the  murder  in 
Macbeth's  heart,  and  that  it  springs  up,  flowers,  and  fruits  with  such  fearful 
rapidity. 

BTJLLER. 

Why — Yes  and  No. 

NORTH. 

Attend,  Talboys,  to  the  words  "  supernatural  soliciting."  What  "  super- 
natural soliciting"  to  evil  is  there  here?  Not  a  syllable  had  the  Weird 
Sisters  breathed  about  Murder.  But  now  there  is  much  soliloquising — and 
Cawdor  contemplates  himself  objectively — seen  busy  upon  an  elderly  gentleman 


628  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

called  Duncan — after  a  fashion  that  so  frightens  him  subjectively — that  Banquo 
cannot  help  whispering  to  Rosse  and  Angus — 

"  See  how  our  partner 's  rapt!" 
TALBOYS. 

"  My  thought  whose  murder 's  yet  fantastical."  I  agree  with  you,  sir,  in 
suspecting  he  must  have  thought  of  the  murder. 

NORTH. 

It  is  from  no  leaning  towards  the  Weird  Sisters — whom  I  never  set  eyes  on 
but  once,  and  then  without  interchanging  a  word,  leapt  momentarily  out  of 
this  world  into  that  pitch-pot  of  a  pond  in  Glenco — it  is,  I  say,  from  no  leaning 
towards  the  Weird  Sisters  that  I  take  this  view  of  Macbeth's  character.  No 
"  sublime  flashes  of  generosity,  magnanimity,  tenderness,  and  every  exalted 
quality  that  can  dignify  and  adorn  the  human  mind,"  do  I  ever  suffer  to  pass 
by  without  approbation,  when  coruscating  from  the  character  of  any  well- 
disposed  man,  real  or  imaginary,  however  unaccountable  at  other  times  his 
conduct  may 'appear  to  be;  but  Shakspeare,  who  knew  Macbeth  better  than 
any  of  us,  has  here  assured  us  that  he  was  in  heart  a  murderer — for  how  long 
he  does  not  specify — before  he  had  ever  seen  a  birse  on  any  of  the  Weird 
Sisters'  beards.  But  let's  be  canny.  Talboys — pray,  what  is  the  meaning  of 
the  word  "  soliciting,"  "  preternatural  soliciting," in  this  Soliloquy? 

TALBOYS. 

Soliciting,  sir,  is,  in  my  interpreting,  "  an  appealing,  intimate  visitation." 

NORTH. 

Right.  The  appeal  is  general — as  that  challenge  of  a  trumpet — Fairy  Queen, 
book  III.,  canto  xii.,  stanza  1 — 

"  Signe  of  nigh  battail  or  got  victorye  " — 

which,  all  indeterminate,  is  notwithstanding  a  challenge — operates,  and  is  felt 
as  such. 

TALBOYS. 

So  a  thundering  knock  at  your  door — which  may  be  a  friend  or  an  enemy. 
It  comes  as  a  summoning.  It  is  more  than  internal  urging  and  inciting  of  me 
by  my  own  thoughts — for  mark,  sir,  the  rigour  of  the  word  "  supernatu- 
ral," which  throws  the  soliciting  off  his  own  soul  upon  the  Weirds.  The 
word  is  really  undetermined  to  pleasure  or  pain — the  essential  thought  being 
that  there  is  a  searching  or  penetrating  provocative — a  stirring  up  of  that 
which  lay  dead  and  still.  Next  is  the  debate  whether  this  intrusive,  and  pun- 
gent, and  stimulant  assault  of  a  presence  and  an  oracle  be  good  or  ill  ? 

NORTH. 

Does  the  hope  live  in  him  for  a  moment  that  this  home-visiting  is  not  ill — 
that  the  Spirits  are  not  ill  ?  They  have  spoken  truth  so  far — ergo,  the  Third 
"  All  hail ! "  shall  be  true,  too.  But  more  than  that — they  have  spoken  truth. 
Ergo,  they  are  not  spirits  of  Evil.  That  hope  dies  in  the  same  instant,  sub- 
merged in  the  stormy  waves  which  the  blast  from  hell  arouses.  The  infernal 
revelation  glares  clear  before  him— ?a  Crown  held  out  by  the  hand  of  Murder. 
One  or  two  struggles  occur.  Then  the  truth  stands  before  him  fixed  and 
immutable — "  Evil,  be  thou  my  good."  He  is  dedicated :  and  passive  to  fate. 
I  cannot  comprehend  this  so  feeble  debate  in  the  mind  of  a  good  man — I  can- 
not comprehend  any  such  debate  at  all  in  the  mind  of  a  previously  settled  and 
determined  murderer ;  but  I  can  comprehend  and  feel  its  awful  significancy 
in  the  mind  of  a  man  already  in  a  most  perilous  moral  condition. 

SEWARD. 

The  "  start "  shows  that  the  spark  has  caught — it  has  fallen  into  a  tun  of 
gunpowder. 

TALBOYS. 

The  touch  of  Ithuriel's  spear. 

NORTH. 

May  we  not  say,  then,  that  perhaps  the  Witches  have  shown  no  more  than 
this — the  Fascination  of  Contact  between  Passion  and  Opportunity  ? 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  629 

SEWARD. 

To  Philosophy  reading  the  hieroglyphic ;  but  to  the  People  what?  To  them 
they  are  a  reality.  They  seize  the  imagination  with  all  power.  They  come 
like  "  blasts  from  hell  " — like  spirits  of  Plague,  whose  breath — whose  very 
sight  kills. 

«  Within  them  Hell 

They  bring,  and  round  about  them ;  nor  from  Hell 
One  step,  no  more  than  from  themselves,  can  fly." 

The  contagion  of  their  presence,  in  spite  of  what  we  have  been  saying,  almost 
reconciles  my  understanding  to  what  it  would  otherwise  revolt  from,  the  sudden- 
ness with  which  the  penetration  of  Macbeth  into  futurity  lays  fast  hold  upon 
Murder. 

BULLER. 
Pretty  fast — though  it  gives  a  twist  or  two  in  his  handling. 

8EWARD. 

Lady  Macbeth  herself  corroborates  your  judgment  and  Shakspeare's  on  her 
husband's  character. 

TALBOYS. 

Does  she  ? 

SEWARD. 

She  does.  In  that  dreadful  parley  between  them  on  the  night  of  the  Mur- 
der— she  reminds  him  of  a  time  when 

({ Nor  time  nor  place 

Did  then  adhere,  and  yet  you  would  make  both; 
They  have  made  themselves,  and  that  their  fitness  now 
Does  unmake  you." 
This — mark  you,  air — must  have  been  before  the  Play  began ! 

NORTH. 

I  have  often  thought  of  the  words — and  Shakspeare  himself  has  so  adjusted 
the  action  of  the  Play  as  that,  since  the  encounter  with  the  Weirds,  no  opportu- 
nity had  occurred  to  Macbeth  for  the  "  making  of  time  and  place."  There- 
fore it  must,  as  you  say,  have  been  before  it.  Buller,  what  say  you  now  ? 

BULLER. 

Gagged. 

NORTH. 

True,  she  speaks  of  his  being  "  full  of  the  milk  of  human  kindness."  The 
words  have  become  favourites  with  us,  who  are  an  affectionate  and  domestic 
people — and  are  lovingly  applied  to  the  loving ;  but  Lady  Macbeth  attached 
no  such  profound  sense  to  them  as  we  do ;  and  meant  merely  that  she  thought 
her  husband  would,  after  all,  much  prefer  greatness  unbought  by  blood ;  and, 
at  the  time  she  referred  to,  it  is  probable  he  would ;  but  that  she  meant  no 
more  than  that,  is  plain  from  the  continuation  of  her  praise,  in  which  her  ideas 
get  not  a  little  confused ;  and  her  words,  interpret  them  as  you  will,  leave 
nothing  "  milky"  in  Macbeth  at  all.  Milk  of  human  kindness,  indeed  I 

TALBOYS. 

"  What  thou  would'st  highly, 
That  would'st  thou  holily;  would'st  not  play  false, 
And  yet  would'st  wrongly  win:  thou'dst  have  great  Glamis, 
That  which  cries,  '  Thus  thou  must  do,  if  thou  have  it; 
And  that  which  rather  thou  dost  fear  to  do, 
Than  wishest  should  be  undone.' " 

Tliat  is  her  Ladyship's  notion  of  the  "  milk  of  human  kindness  "!  "I  wish 
somebody  would  murder  Duncan — as  for  murdering  him  myself,  I  am  much 
too  tender-hearted  and  humane  for  perpetrating  such  cruelty  with  my  own 
hand!" 

BULLER. 

Won't  you  believe  a  Wife  to  be  a  good  judge  of  her  Husband's  disposition  ? 

NORTH. 

Not  Lady  Macbeth.  For  does  not  she  herself  tell  us,  at  the  same  time, 
that  he  had  formerly  schemed  how  to  commit  Murder  ? 


630  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

BULLER. 
Gagged  again. 

NORTH. 

I  see  no  reason  for  doubting  that  she  was  attached  to  her  husband  ;  and 
Shakspeare  loved  to  put  into  the  lips  of  women  beautiful  expressions  of  love — 
but  he  did  not  intend  that  we  should  be  deceived  thereby  in  our  moral  judg- 
ments. 

SEWARD. 

Did  this  ever  occur  to  you,  sir?  Macbeth,  when  hiring  the  murderers  who 
are  to  look  after  Banquo  and  Fleance,  cites  a  conversation  in  which  he  had 
demonstrated  to  them  that  the  oppression  under  which  they  had  long  suffered, 
and  which  they  had  supposed  to  proceed  from  Macbeth,  proceeded  really  from 
Banquo  ?  My  firm  belief  is  that  it  proceeded  from  Macbeth — that  their  suspi- 
cion was  right — that  Macbeth  is  misleading  them — and  that  Shakspeare  means 
you  to  apprehend  this.  But  why  should  Macbeth  have  oppressed  his  inferiors, 
unless  he  had  been — long  since — of  a  tyrannical  nature  ?  He  oppresses  his 
inferiors — they  are  sickened  and  angered  with  the  world — by  his  oppression — 
he  tells  them  'twas  not  he  but  another  who  had  oppressed  them — and  that 
other — at  his  instigation — they  willingly  murder.  An  ugly  affair  altogether. 

NORTH. 

Very.  But  let  us  keep  to  the  First  Act — and  see  what  a  hypocrite  Mac- 
beth has  so  very  soon  become — what  a  savage  assassin !  He  has  just  fol- 
lowed up  his  Soliloquy  with  these  significant  lines — 

"  Come  what  come  may, 
Time  and  the  hour  run  through  the  roughest  day;" 

when  he  recollects  that  Banquo,  Rosse,  and  Angus  are  standing  near.  Richard 
himself  is  not  more  wily — guily — smily — and  oily ;  to  the  Lords  his  conde- 
scension is  already  quite  kingly — 

<c  Kind  gentlemen,  your  pains 
Are  registered  where  every  day  I  turn 
The  leaf  to  read  them" — 

TALBOYS. 

And  soon  after,  to  the  King  how  obsequious ! 

"  The  service  and  the  loyalty  I  owe, 

In  doing  it,  pays  itself.     Your  Highness'  part 
Is  to  receive  our  duties;  and  our  duties 
Are  to  your  throne  and  state,  children,  and  servants; 
Which  do  but  what  they  should  by  doing  everything 
Safe  toward  you  love  and  honour." 

What  would  Payne  Knight  have  said  to  all  that?  This  to  his  King,  whom 
he  has  resolved,  first  good  opportunity,  to  murder ! 

NORTH. 
Duncan  is  now  too  happy  for  this  wicked  world. 

"  My  plenteous  joys, 

Wanton  in  fulness,  seek  to  hide  themselves 
In  drops  of  sorrow." 

Invaders — traitors — now  there  are  none.  Peace  is  restored  to  the  Land — the 
Throne  rock-fast — the  line  secure — 

"  We  will  establish  our  estate  upon 

Our  eldest,  Malcolm  ;  whom  we  name  hereafter, 

The  Prince  of  Cumberland  :  which  honour  must 

Not,  unaccompanied,'  invest  him  only, 

But  signs  of  nobleness,  like  stars,  shall  shine 

On  all  deservers." 

Now  was  the  time  for  "  the  manly  but  ineffectual  struggle  of  every  exalted 
quality  that  can  dignify  and  exalt  the  human  mind " — for  a  few  sublime 
flashes  at  least  of  generosity  and  tenderness,  et  cetera — now  when  the  Gra- 
cious Duncan  is  loading  him  with  honours,  and,  better  than  all  honours, 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  631 

lavishing  on  him  the  boundless  effusions  of  a  grateful  and  royal  heart.  The 
Priuce  of  Cumberland!  Ha,  ha! 

"  The  Prince  of  Cumberland! — That  is  a  step 

On  which  I  must  fall  down,  or  else  o'erleap, 

For  in  iny  way  it  lies." 
But  the  remorseless  miscreant  becomes  poetical — 

"  Stars,  hide  your  fires  ! 
Let  not  light  see  my  black  and  deep  desires  : 
The  eye  wink  at  the  hand  !  yet  let  that  be, 
Which  the  eye  fears,  when  it  is  done,  to  see  !  " 

The  milk  of  human  kindness  has  coagulated  into  the  curd  of  inhuman  ferocity 
— and  all  this — slanderers  say — is  the  sole  work  of  the  Weird  Sisters  !  No. 
His  wicked  heart — because  it  is  wicked — believes  in  their  Prophecy — the  end 
is  assured  to  him — and  the  means  are  at  once  suggested  to  his  own  slaughter- 
ous nature.  No  supernatural  soliciting  here,  which  a  better  man  would  not 
successfully  have  resisted.  I  again  repudiate— should  it  be  preferred  against 
me — the  charge  of  a  tendresse  towards  the  Bearded  Beauties  of  the  Blasted 
Heath ;  but  rather  would  I  marry  them  all  Three — one  after  the  other — nay 
all  three  at  once,  and  as  many  more  as  there  may  be  in  our  Celtic  My- 
thology— than  see  your  Sophia,  Seward,  or,  Buller,  your — 

BULLER. 

"We  have  but  Marmy. 

NORTH. 

Wedded  to  a  Macbeth. 

SEWARD. 

We  know  your  affection,  my  dear  sir,  for  your  goddaughter.   She  is  insured > 

NORTH. 

Well,  this  Milk  of  Human  Kindness  is  off  at  a  hand-gallop  to  Inverness. 
The  King  has  announced  a  Royal  Visit  to  Macbeth's  own  Castle.  But  Cawdor 
had  before  this  despatched  a  letter  to  his  lady,  from  which  Shakspeare  has  given 
us  au  extract.  And  then,  as  I  understand  it,  a  special  messenger  besides", 
to  say  "  the  King  comes  here  to-night."  Which  of  the  two  is  the  more 
impatient  to  be  at  work  'tis  hard  to  say  ;  but  the  idea  of  the  murder  origi- 
nated with  the  male  Prisoner.  We  have  his  wife's  word  for  it — she  told  him 
so  to  his  face — and  he  did  not  deny  it.  We  have  his  own  word  for  it — he 
told  himself  so  to  his  own  face — and  he  never  denies  it  at  any  time  during  the 
play. 

TALBOYS. 

You  said,  a  little  while  ago,  sir,  that  you  believed  Macbeth  and  his  wife 
•were  a  happy  couple. 

NORTH. 

Not  I.  I  said  she  was  attached  to  him — and. I  say  now  that  the  wise  men 
are  not  of  the  Seven,  who  point  to  her  reception  of  her  husband,  on  his  arrival 
at  home,  as  a  proof  of  her  want  of  affection.  They  seem  to  think  she  ought 
to  have  rushed  into  his  arms — slobbered  upon  his  shoulder — and  so  forth.  For 
had  he  not  been  at  the  Wars  ?  Pshaw !  The  most  tender-hearted  Thanesses 
of  those  days — even  those  that  kept  albums — would  have  been  ashamed  of 
weeping  on  sending  their  Thanes  off  to  battle — much  more  on  receiving  them 
back  in  a  sound  skin — with  new  honours  nodding  on  their  plumes.  Lady  Mac- 
beth was  not  one  of  the  turtle-doves — fit  mate  she  for  the  King  of  the  Vul- 
tures. I  am  too  good  an  ornithologist  to  call  them  Eagles.  She  received  her 
mate  fittingly — with  murder  in  her  soul ;  but  more  cruel — more  selfish  than 
he,  she  could  not  be — nor,  perhaps,  was  she  less ;  but  she  was  more  reso- 
lute— and  resolution  even  in  evil — in  such  circumstances  as  hers — seems  to 
argue  a  superior  nature  to  his,  who,  while  he  keeps  vacillating,  as  if  it  were 
between  good  and  evil,  betrays  all  the  time  the  bias  that  is  surely  inclining 
him  to  evil,  into  which  he  makes  a  sudden  and  sure  wheel  at  last. 

BULLER. 

The  Weirds — the  Weirds ! — the  Weirds  have  done  it  all ! 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX.  2  T 


632  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

NORTH. 
Macbeth — Macbeth ! — Macbeth  has  done  it  all ! 

BULLER. 

Furies  and  Fates ! 

NORTH. 

Who  make  the  wicked  their  victims  ! 

SEWARD. 
Is  she  sublime  in  her  wickedness  ? 

NORTH. 

It  would,  I  fear,  be  wrong  to  say  so.  But  I  was  speaking  of  Macbeth's 
character — not  of  hers — and,  in  comparison  with  him,  she  may  seem  a  great 
creature.  They  are  now  utterly  alone — and  of  the  two  he  has  been  the  more 
familiar  with  murder.  Between  them,  Duncan  already  is  a  dead  man.  But 
how  pitiful — at  such  a  time  and  at  such  a  greeting — Macbeth's  cautions — 

"  My  dearest  Love, 
Duncan  comes  here  to-night ! 
Lady. — And  when  goes  hence  \ 
Macbeth,. — To-morrow,  as  he  purposes. 
Lady. — Oh,  never 

Shall  sun  that  morrow  see  !" 
Why,  Talboys,  does  not  the  poor  devil — 

TALBOYS. 

Poor  devil !    Macbeth  a  poor  devil  ? 

NORTH. 

Why,  Buller,  does  not  the  poor  devil  ? 

BULLER. 

Poor  devil !    Macbeth  a  poor  devil  ? 

NORTH. 

Why,  Seward,  does  uot  the  poor  devil — 

SEWARD. 

Speak  up — speak  out  ?  Is  he  afraid  of  the  spiders  ?  You  know  him,  sir — 
you  see  through  him. 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Seward — reserved  and  close  as  he  is — he  wants  nerve— pluck — he  is 
close  upon  the  coward — and  that  would  be  well,  were  there  the  slightest 
tendency  towards  change  of  purpose  in  the  Pale  Face ;  but  there  is  none — 
he  is  as  cruel  as  ever — the  more  close  the  more  cruel — the  more  irresolute  the 
more  murderous — for  to  murder  he  is  sure  to  come.  Seward,  you  said 
well — why  does  not  the  poor  devil  speak  up — speak  out  ?  Is  he  afraid  of  the 
spiders  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Murderous-looking  villain — no  need  of  words. 

NORTH. 

I  did  not  say,  sir,  there  was  any  need  of  words.  Why,  will  you  always  be 
contradicting  one  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Me  ?  I  ?  I  hope  I  shall  never  live  to  see  the  day  on  which  I  contradict 
Christopher  North  in  his  own  Tent.  At  least — rudely. 

NORTH. 

Do  it  rudely — not  as  you  did  now — and  often  do — as  if  you  were  agreeing 
with  me — but  you  are  incurable.  I  say,  my  dear  Talboys,  that  Macbeth  so 
bold  in  a  u  twa-haun'd  crack"  with  himself  in  a  Soliloquy — so  figurative — and 
so  fond  of  swearing  by  the  Stars  and  old  Mother  Night,  who  were  not  aware 
of  his  existence — should  not  have  been  thus  tongue-tied  to  his  own  wife  in 
their  own  secretest  chamber — should  have  unlocked  and  flung  open  the  door 
of  his  heart  to  her — like  a  Man.  I  blush  for  him— I  do.  So  did  his  wife. 

BULLER. 

I  don't  find  that  in  the  record. 

NORTH. 
Don't  you?    "  Your  face,  my  Thane,  is  as  a  book  where  men  may  read 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass-  638 

strange  matters."  She  sees  in  his  face  self-alarm  at  his  own  murderous  inten- 
tions. And  so  she  counsels  him  about  his  face — like  a  self-collected,  trust- 
worthy woman.  "  To  beguile  the  time,  look  like  the  time ;"  with  further  good 
stern  advice.  But — "  We  shall  speak  farther,"  is  all  she  can  get  from  him  in 
answer  to  conjugal  assurances  that  should  have  given  him  a  palpitation  at  the 
heart,  and  set  his  eyes  on  fire — 

"  He  that's  coming 

Must  be  provided  for ;  and  you  shall  put 
This  night's  great  business  into  my  despatch  ; 
Which  shall,  to  all  our  nights  and  days  to  come, 
Give  solely  sovereign  sway  and  Masterdom." 
There  spoke  one  worthy  to  be  a  Queen ! 

SEWARD. 
Worthy ! 

NORTH. 

Ay — in  that  age — in  that  country.  'Twas  not  then  the  custom  "  to  speak 
daggers  but  use  none."  Did  Shakspeare  mean  to  dignify,  to  magnify  Macbeth 
by  such  demeanour?  No — to  degrade  and  minimise  the  murderer. 

TALBOYS. 

My  dear  sir,  I  cordially  agree  with  every  word  you  utter.  Go  on — my  dear 
sir — to  instruct — to  illumine — 

SEWARD. 

To  bring  out  "  sublime  flashes  of  magnanimity,  courage,  tenderness,"  in 
Macbeth — 

BULLER. 

"  Of  every  exalted  quality  that  can  dignify  and  adorn  the  human  mind" — 
the  mind  of  Macbeth  in  his  struggle  with  the  allurements  of  ambition ! 

NORTH. 

Observe,  how  this  reticence — on  the  part  of  Macbeth — contrasted  with  his 
wife's  eagerness  and  exultation,  makes  her,  for  the  moment,  seem  the 
wickeder  of  the  two — the  fiercer  and  the  more  cruel.  For  the  moment  only ; 
for  we  soon  ask  ourselves  what  means  this  unhusbandly  reserve  in  him  who 
had  sent  her  that  letter — and  then  a  messenger  to  tell  her  the  king  was  coming 
— and  who  had  sworn  to  himself  as  savagely  as  she  now  does,  not  to  let  slip 
this  opportunity  of  cutting  his  king's  throat.  He  is  well-pleased  to  see  that 
his  wife  is  as  bloody-minded  as  himself — that  she  will  not  only  give  all  ne- 
cessary assistance — as  an  associate — but  concert  the  when,  and  the  where,  and 
the  how — and  if  need  be,  with  her  own  hand  deal  the  blow. 

8EWARD. 

She  did  not  then  know  that  Macbeth  had  made  up  his  mind  to  murder 
Duncan  that  very  night.  But  we  know  it.  She  has  instantly  made  up  hers 
— we  know  how ;  but  being  as  yet  unassured  of  her  husband,  she  welcomes 
him  home  with  a  Declaration  that  must  have  more  than  answered  his  fondest 
hopes ;  and,  therefore,  he  is  almost  mute — the  few  words  he  does  utter  seem 
to  indicate  no  settled  purpose — Duncan  may  fulfil  his  intention  of  going  in  the 
morning,  or  he  may  not ;  but  we  know  that  the  silence  of  the  murderer  now 
is  because  the  murderess  is  manifestly  all  he  could  wish — and  that,  had  she 
shown  any  reluctance,  he  would  have  resumed  his  eloquence,  and,  to  convert 
her  to  his  way  of  thinking,  argued  as  powerfully  as  he  did  when  converting 
himself. 

BULLER. 

You  carry  on  at  such  a  pace,  sir,  there's  no  keeping  up  with  you.  Pull  up, 
that  I  may  ask  you  a  very  simple  question.  On  his  arrival  at  his  castle, 
Macbeth  finds  his  wife  reading  a  letter  from  her  amiable  spouse,  about  the 
Weird  Sisters.  Pray,  when  was  that  letter  written  ? 

NORTH. 

At  what  hour  precisely?  That.I  can't  say.  It  must,  however,  have  been 
written  before  Macbeth  had  been  presented  to  the  King— for  there  is  no  allu- 
sion in  it  to  the  King's  intention  to  visit  their  Castle.  I  believe  it  to  have  been 
written  about  an  hour  or  so  after  the  prophecy  of  the  Weirds—either  in  some 


€34  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nor. 

place  of  refreshment  by  the  road- side — or  in  such  a  Tent  as  this — kept  ready 
for  the  General  in  the  King's  Camp  at  Forres.  He  despatched  it  by  a  Gilly 
— a  fast  one  like  your  Cornwall  Clipper — and  then  tumbled  in. 

DULLER. 
When  did  she  receive  it  ? 

NORTH. 

Early  next  morning. 

BXJLLER. 

How  could  that  be,  since  she  is  reading  it,  as  her  husband  steps  in,  well  ont 
as  I  take  it,  in  the  afternoon  ? 

NORTH. 

Buller,  you  are  a  blockhead.  There  had  she,  for  many  hours,  been  sitting, 
and  walking  about  with  it,  now  rumpled  up  in  her  fist — now  crunkled  up 
between  her  breasts — now  locked  up  in  a  safe — now  spread  out  like  a  sampler 
on  that  tasty  little  oak  table — and  sometimes  she  might  have  been  heard  by 
-the  servants — had  they  had  the  unusual  curiosity  to  listen  at  the  door — mur- 
muring like  a  stock-dove — anon  hooting  like  an  owl — by-and-by  barking  like 
an  eagle — then  bellowing  liker  a  hart  than  a  hind — almost  howling  like  a  wolf 
— and  why  not  ? — now  singing  a  snatch  of  an  old  Gaelic  air,  with  a  clear, 
wild,  sweet  voice,  like  that  of  "  a  human !" 

"  Glamis  thou  art.  and  Cawdor ;  and  shalt  be 
What  thou  art  promised." 

"  Hie  thee  hither, 

That  I  may  pour  my  spirits  in  thine  ear, 
And  chastise  with  the  valour  of  my  tongue, 
All  that  impedes  thee  from  the  golden  round, 
Which  Fate  and  metaphysical  aid  doth  seem 
To  have  thee  crown'd  withal." 
BULLER. 

Grand  indeed. 

NORTH. 

It  is  grand  indeed.  But,  my  dear  Buller,  was  that  all  she  had  said  to  her- 
self, think  you  ?  No — no — no.  But  it  was  all  Shakspeare  had  time  for  on 
the  Stage.  Oh,  sirs  !  The  Time  of  the  Stage  is  but  a  simulacrum  of  true 
Time.  That  must  be  done  at  one  stroke,  on  the  Stage,  which  in  a  Life  takes 
ten.  The  Stage  persuades  that  in  one  conversation,  or  soliloquy,  which  Life 
may  do  in  twenty — you  have  not  leisure  or  good- will  for  the  ambages  and 
iterations  of  the  Real. 

SEWARD. 

See  an  artist  with  a  pen  in  his  hand,  challenged  ;  and  with  a  few  lines  he 
•will  exhibit  a  pathetic  story.  From  how  many  millions  has  he  given  you — 
One  ?  The  units  which  he  abstracts,  represent  sufficiently  and  satisfactorily 
the  millions  of  lines  and  surfaces  which  he  neglects. 

NORTH. 

So  in  Poetry.  You  take  little  for  much.  You  need  not  wonder,  then,  that 
on  an  attendant  entering  and  saying,  "  The  King  comes  here  to-night,"  she 
cries,  "  Thou'rt  mad  to  say  it !"  Had  you  happened  to  tell  her  so  half-an- 
hour  ago,  who  knows  but  that  she  might  have  received  it  with  a  stately  smile, 
that  hardly  moved  a  muscle  on  her  high-featured  front,  and  gave  a  merciful 
look  to  her  green  eyes  even  when  she  was  communing  with  Murder ! 

NORTH. 

What  hurry  and  haste  had  been  on  all  sides  to  get  into  the  House  of  Murder ! 

"  Where's  the  Thane  of  Cawdor  ? 
We  coursed  him,  at  the  heels,  and  had  a  purpose 
To  be  his  purveyor :  but  lie  rides  well : 
And  his  great  love,  sharp  as  his  spur,  hath  holp  him 
To  his  home  before  us — Fair  and  noble  Hostess, 
We  are  your  guest  to-night." 

Ay,  where  is  the  Thane  of  Cawdor  ?   I,  for  one,  not  knowing,  can't  say.   The 
gracious  Duncan  desires  much  to  see  him  as  well  as  his  gracious  Hostess. 


1349.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  635 

"  Give  me  your  hand  : 

Conduct  me  to  mine  host :  we  love  him  highly, 

And  shall  continue  our  graces  towards  him. 

By  your  leave,  Hostess." 

Ay — where's  the  Thane  of  Cawdor?    "Why  did  not  Shakspeare  show  him  to 
us,  sitting  at  supper  with  the  King  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Did  he  sup  with  the  King  ? 

BULLER. 

I  believe  he  sat  down — but  got  up  again — and  left  the  Chamber. 

TALBOYS. 

His  wife  seeks  him  out.  "  He  has  almost  supped.  Why  have  you  left  the 
Chamber  ?"  "  Has  he  asked  for  me  ?  "  "  Know  ye  not  he  has  ?" 

NORTH. 

On  Macbeth's  Soliloquy,  which  his  wife's  entrance  here  interrupts,  how 
much  inconsiderate  comment  have  not  moralists  made!  Here — they  have" 
said— is  the  struggle  of  a  good  man  with  temptation.  Hearken,  say  they — 
to  the  voice  of  Conscience !  What  does  the  good  man,  in  this  hour  of  trial, 
say  to  himself?  He  says  to  himself — "  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to 
assassinate  my  benefactor  in  my  own  house — the  only  doubt  I  have,  is  about 
the  consequences  to  myself  in  the  world  to  come."  Well,  then — "We'd 
jump  the  world  to  come.  But  if  I  murder  him — may  not  others  murder  me? 
Retribution  even  in  this  world."  Call  you  that  the  voice  of  Conscience  ? 

SEWARD. 

Hardly. 

NORTH. 

He  then  goes  on  to  descant  to  himself  about  the  relation  in  which  he  stands 
to  Duncan,  and  apparently  discovers  for  the  first  time,  that  "  he's  here  in 
double  trust ;"  and  that  as  his  host,  his  kinsman,  and  his  subject,  he  should 
"  against  his  murderer  shut  the  door,  not  bear  the  knife  myself." 

SEWARD. 
A  man  of  genius. 

NORTH. 
Besides,  Duncan  is  not  only  a  King,  but  a  good  King — 

"  So  clear  in  his  great  office,  that  his  virtues 
Will  plead  like  angels,  trumpet-tongued,  against 
The  deep  damnation  of  his  taking-off." 

That  is  much  better  morality— keep  there,  Macbeth — or  thereabouts — and 
Duncan's  life  is  tolerably  safe — at  least  for  one  night.  But  Shakspeare  knew 
his  man — and  what  manner  of  man  he  is  we  hear  in  the  unbearable  context, 
that  never  yet  has  been  quoted  by  any  one  who  had  ears  to  distinguish  between 
the  true  and  the  false. 

"  And  pity,  like  a  naked  new-born  babe, 

Striding  the  blast,  or  heaven's  cherubim,  hors'd 

Upon  the  sightless  couriers  of  the  air, 

Shall  blow  the  horrid  deed  in  every  eye, 

That  tears  shall  drown  the  wind." 

Cant  and  fustian.  Shakspeare  knew  that  cant  and  fustian  would  come  at 
that  moment  from  the  mouth  of  Macbeth.  Accordingly,  he  offers  but  a  poor 
resistance  to  the  rhetoric  that  comes  rushing  from  his  wife's  heart— even  that 
sentiment  which  is  thought  so  fine — and  'tis  well  enough  in  its  way — 

"  I  dare  do  all  that  may  become  a  man; 
Who  dares  do  more  is  none" — 

is  set  aside  at  once  by — 

"  What  beast  was  it,  then, 
That  made  you  break  this  enterprise  to  me  1" 

We  hear  no  more  of  "  Pity  like  a  naked  new-born  babe" — but  at  her  horrid 
scheme  of  the  murder — 


636  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

"  Bring  forth  men-children  only ! 
For  thy  undaunted  mettle  should  compose 
Nothing  but  males  !" 

Shakspeare  does  not  paint  here  a  grand  and  desperate  struggle  between  good 
and  evil  thoughts  in  Macbeth's  mind — but  a  mock  fight ;  had  there  been  any 
deep  sincerity  in  the  feeling  expressed  in  the  bombast — had  there  been  any 
true  feeling  at  all — it  would  have  revived  and  deepened — not  faded  and  died 
almost — at  the  picture  drawn  by  Lady  Macbeth  of  their  victim — 

"  When  Duncan  is  asleep, 
Whereto  the  rather  shall  his  day's  hard  journey 
Soundly  invite  him," 

the  words  that  had  just  left  his  own  lips — 

"  His  virtues 

Will  plead  like  angels,  trumpet-tongued,  against 
The  deep  damnation  of  his  taking-off," 

would  have  re-rung  in  his  ears ;  and  a  strange  medley — words  and  music — 
would  they  have  made — with  his  wife's 

"  When  in  swinish  sleep 
Their  drenched  natures  lie,  as  in  a  death, 
What  cannot  you  and  I  perform  upon 
The  unguarded  Duncan  ?" 
That  is  my  idea  of  the  Soliloquy.    Think  on  it. 

TALBOYS. 

The  best  critics  tell  us  that  Shakspeare's  Lady  Macbeth  has  a  commanding 
Intellect.  Certes  she  has  a  commanding  Will.  I  do  not  see  what  a  com- 
manding Intellect  has  to  do  in  a  Tragedy  of  this  kind — or  what  opportunity 
she  has  of  showing  it.  Do  you,  sir? 

NORTH. 
I  do  not. 

TALBOYS. 

Her  Intellect  seems  pretty  much  on  a  par  with  Macbeth's  in  the  planning 
of  the  murder. 

NORTH. 

I  defy  any  human  Intellect  to  devise  well  an  atrocious  Murder.  Pray,  how 
would  you  have  murdered  Duncan  ? 

TALBOYS. 
Ask  me  rather  how  I  would — this  night — murder  Christopher  North. 

NORTH. 

No  more  of  that — no  dallying  in  that  direction.  You  make  me  shudder. 
Shakspeare  knew  that  a  circumspect  murder  is  an  impossibility — that  a  mur- 
der of  a  King  in  the  murderer's  own  house,  with  expectation  of  non-discovery, 
is  the  irrationality  of  infatuation.  The  poor  Idiot  chuckles  at  the  poor  Fury's 
device  as  at  once  original  and  plausible — and,  next  hour,  what  single  soul  in 
the  Castle  does  not  know  who  did  the  deed? 

SEWARD. 
High  Intellect  inde'ed ! 

TALBOYS. 

The  original  murder  is  bad  to  the  uttermost.  I  mean  badly  contrived.  What 
colour  was  there  in  colouring  the  two  Grooms?  No  two  men  kill  their  master, 
and  then  go  to  bed  again  in  his  room  with  bloody  faces  and  poignards. 

BULLER. 

If  this  was  really  a  very  bad  plot  altogether,  it  is  her  Ladyship's  as  much — 
far  more  than  his  Lordship's.  Against  whom,  then,  do  we  conclude?  Her? 
I  think  not — but  the  Poet.  He  is  the  badly- contriving  assassin.  He  does 
not  intend  lowering  your  esteem  for  her  Ladyship's  talents.  Am  I,  sir,  to 
think  that  William  himself,  after  the  same  game,  Avould  have  hunted  no  bet- 
ter? I  believe  he  would  ;  but  he  thinks  that  this  will  carry  the  Plot  through 
for  the  Stage  well  enough.  The  House,  seeing  and  hearing,  will  not  stay  to 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  687 

criticise.  The  Horror  persuades  Belief.  He  knew  the  whole  mystery  of 
murder. 

NORTH. 
My  dear  Buller,  wheel  nearer  me.    I  would  not  lose  a  word  you  say. 

BULLER. 

Did  Macbeth  commit  an  error  in  killing  the  two  Grooms  ?  And  does  his 
Lady  think  so  ? 

TALBOYS. 

A  gross  error,  and  his  Lady  thinks  so. 

BULLER. 

Why  was  it  a  gross  error— and  why  did  his  lady  think  so  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Because — why — I  really  can't  tell. 

BULLER. 

Nor  I.  The  question  leads  to  formidable  difficulties— either  way.  But 
answer  me  this.  Is  her  swooning  at  the  close  of  her  husband's  most  graphic 
picture  of  the  position  of  the  corpses — real  or  pretended  ? 

SEWARD. 

Keal. 

TALBOYS. 

Pretended. 

BULLER. 

Sir? 

NORTH. 

I  reserve  my  opinion. 

TALBOYS. 

Not  a  faint — but  a  feint.  She  cannot  undo  that  which  is  done ;  nor  hinder 
that  which  he  will  do  next.  She  must  mind  her  own  business.  Now  dis- 
tinctly her  own  business  is — to  faint.  A  high-bred,  sensitive,  innocent  Lady, 
startled  from  her  sleep  to  find  her  guest  and  King  murdered,  and  the  room  full 
of  aghast  nobles,  cannot  possibly  do  anything  else  but  faint.  Lady  Macbeth, 
who  "  all  particulars  of  duty  knows,"  faints  accordingly. 

NORTH. 

Seward,  we  are  ready  to  hear  you. 

SEWARD. 

She  has  been  about  a  business  that  must  have  somewhat  shook  her  nerves 
— granting  them  to  be  of  iron.  She  would  herself  have  murdered  Duncan  had 
he  not  resembled  her  Father  as  he  slept ;  and  on  sudden  discernment  of  that 
dreadful  resemblance,  her  soul  must  have  shuddered,  if  her  body  served  her 
to  stagger  away  from  parricide.  On  the  deed  being  done,  she  is  terrified  after 
a  different  manner  from  the  doer  of  the  deed ;  but  her  terror  is  as  great ;  and 
though  she  says — 

u  The  sleeping  and  the  dead 
Are  but  as  pictures — 'tis  the  eye  of  childhood 
That  fears  a  painted  Devil — " 

believe  me  that  her  face  was  like  ashes,  as  she  returned  to  the  chamber  to 
gild  the  faces  of  the  grooms  with  the  dead  man's  blood.  That  knocking,  too, 
alarmed  the  Lady — believe  me — as  much  as  her  husband  ;  and  to  keep  cool 
and  collected  before  him,  so  as  to  be  able  to  support  him  at  that  moment  with 
her  advice,  must  have  tried  the  utmost  strength  of  her  nature.  Call  her  Fiend 
— she  was  Woman.  Down  stairs  she  comes — and  stands  among  them  all,  at 
first  like  one  alarmed  only — astounded  by  what  she  hears — and  striving  to 
simulate  the  ignorance  of  the  innocent — "What,  in  our  house?"  "Too 
cruel  anywhere!"  What  she  must  have  suffered  then,  Shakspeare  lets  us 
conceive  for  ourselves ;  and  what  on  her  husband's  elaborate  description  of 
his  inconsiderate  additional  murders.  "  The  whole  is  too  much  for  her" — she 
"  is  perplexed  in  the  extreme" — and  the  sinner  swoons. 

NORTH. 

Seward  suggests  a  bold,  strong,  deep,  tragical  turn  of  the  scene — that  she 
faints  actually.  Well — so  be  it.  I  shall  say,  first,  that  I  think  it  a  weakness 


638  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

in  my  favourite  ;  but  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  add  that  I  can  let  it  pass  for  a  not 
unpardonable  weakness — the  occasion  given.  But  I  must  deal  otherwise  with 
her  biographer.  Him  I  shall  hold  to  a  strict  rendering  of  account.  I  will 
know  of  him  what  he  is  about,  and  what  she  is  about.  If  she  faints  really, 
and  against  her  will,  having  forcible  reasons  for  holding  her  will  clear,  she 
must  be  shown  fighting  to  the  last  effort  of  will,  against  the  assault  of  womanly 
nature,  and  drop,  vanquished,  as  one  dead,  without  a  sound.  But  the  Thaness 
calls  out  lustily — she  remembers,  "  as  we  shall  make  our  griefs  and  clamours 
roar  upon  his  death."  She  makes  noise  enough — takes  good  care  to  attract 
everybody's  attention  to  her  performance — for  which  I  commend  her.  Calculate 
as  nicely  as  you  will — she  distracts  or  diverts  speculation,  and  makes  an 
interesting  and  agreeable  break  in  the  conversation. — I  think  that  the  obvious 
meaning  is  the  right  meaning — and  that  she  faints  on  purpose. 

NORTH. 

Decided  in  favour  of  Feint. 

BTJLLER. 

You  might  have  had  the  good  manners  to  ask  for  my  opinion. 

NORTH. 
I  beg  a  thousand  pardons,  Buller. 

BDLLER. 

A  hundred  will  do,  North.  In  Davies'  Anecdotes  of  the  Stage,  I  remember 
reading  that  Garrick  would  not  trust  Mrs  Pritchard  with  the  Swoon — and  that 
Macklin  thought  Mrs  Porter  alone  coiild  have  been  endured  by  the  audience. 
Therefore,  by  the  Great  Manager,  Lady  Macbeth  was  not  allowed  in  the 
Scene  to  appear  at  all.  His  belief  was,  that  with  her  Ladyship  it  was  a  feint — 
and  that  the  Gods,  aware  of  that,  unless  restrained  by  profound  respect  for  the 
actress,  would  have  laughed — as  at  something  rather  comic.  If  the  Gods,  in 
Shakspeare's  days,  were  as  the  Gods  in  Garrick's,  William,  methinks,  would 
not,  on  any  account,  have  exposed  the  Lady  to  derision  at  such  a  time.  But 
I  suspect  the  Gods  of  the  Globe  would  not  have  laughed,  whatever  they  might 
have  thought  of  her  sincerity,  and  that  she  did  appear  before  them  in  a  Scene 
from  which  nothing  could  account  for  her  absence.  She  was  not,  I  verily  be- 
lieve, given  to  fainting — perhaps  this  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever  fainted 
since  she  was  a  girl.  Now  I  believe  she  did.  She  would  have  stood  by  her 
husband  at  all  hazards,  had  she  been  able,  both  on  his  account  and  her  own ;  she 
would  not  have  so  deserted  him  at  such  a  critical  juncture;  her  character  was 
of  boldness  rather  than  duplicity ;  her  business  now — her  duty — was  to  brazen 
it  out ;  but  she  grew  sick — qualms  of  conscience,  however  terrible,  can  be 
borne  by  sinners  standing  upright  at  the  mouth  of  hell — but  the  flesh  of  man 
is  weak,  in  its  utmost  strength,  when  moulded  to  woman's  form — other  qualms 
.assail  suddenly  the  earthly  tenement — the  breath  is  choked — the  "  distracted 
globe"  grows  dizzy — they  that  look  out  of  the  windows  know  not  what  they 
see — the  body  reels,  lapses,  sinks,  and  at  full  length  smites  the  floor. 

SEWARD. 

Well  said — Chairman  of  the  Quarter-sessions. 

BULLER. 

Nor,  with  all  submission,  my  dear  Sir,  can  I  think  you  treat  your  favourite 
murderess,  on  this  trying  occasion,  with  your  usual  fairness  and  candour.  All 
she  says,  is,  "  Help  me  hence,  ho  ! "  Macduff  says,  "  Look  to  the  Lady" — and 
Banquo  says,  "  Look  to  the  Lady" — and  she  is  "  carried  off."  Some  critic  or 
other — I  think  Malone — says  that  Macbeth  shows  he  knows  "  'tis  a  feint "  by 
not  going  to  her  assistance.  Perhaps  he  was  mistaken — know  it  he  could  not. 
And  nothing  more  likely  to  make  a  woman  faint  than  that  revelling  and 
wallowing  of  his  in  that  bloody  description. 

NORTH. 

By  the  Casting  Vote  of  the  President — Feint. 

TALBOYS. 

Let's  to  Lunch. 

NORTH. 

Go.    You  will  find  me  sitting  here  when  you  come  back. 


1849.]  Cliristopher  under  Canvass.  639 

SCENE  II. 

SCENE — The  Pavilion.    TIME — after  Lunch. 
NORTH — TALBOYS — BCXLER — SEWARD. 

NORTH. 

Claudius,  the  Uncle-king  in  Hamlet,  is  perhaps  the  most  odious  character 
in  all  Shakspeare.  But  he  does  no  unnecessary  murders.  He  has  killed  the 
Father,  and  will  the  Son,  all  in  regular  order.  But  Macbeth  plunges  himself, 
like  a  drunken  man,  into  unnecessary  and  injurious  cruelties.  He  throws  like 
a  reckless  gamester.  If  I  am  to  own  the  truth,  I  don't  know  why  he  is  so 
cruel.  I  don't  think  that  he  takes  any  pleasure  in  mere  cruelty,  like 
Nero — 

BULLER. 

What  do  we  know  of  Nero  ?    Was  he  mad  ? 

NORTH. 

I  don't  think  that  he  takes  any  pleasure  in  mere  cruelty,  like  Nero ;  but  he 
seems  to  be  under  some  infatuation  that  drags  or  drives  him  along.  To  kill  is, 
iu  every  difficulty,  the  ready  resource  that  occurs  to  him — as  if  to  go  on  murder- 
ing were,  by  some  law  of  the  Universe,  the  penalty  which  you  must  pay  for 
having  once  murdered. 

SEWARD. 

I  think,  Sir,  that  without  contradicting  anything  we  said  before  Lunch 
about  his  Lordship  or  his  Kingship,  we  may  conceive  in  the  natural  Macbeth 
considerable  force  of  Moral  Intuition. 

NORTH. 
We  may. 

SEWARD. 
Of  Moral  Intelligence  ? 

NORTH. 

Yes. 

SEWARD. 

Of  Moral  Obedience  ? 

NORTH. 
No. 

SEWARD. 

Moral  Intuition,  and  Moral  Intelligence  breaking  out,  from  time  to  time, 
all  through — we  understand  how  there  is  engendered  in  him  strong  self-dis- 
satisfaction— thence  perpetual  goadings  on — and  desperate  attempts  to  lose 
conscience  in  more  and  more  crime. 

NORTH. 

Ay — Seward — even  so.  He  tells  you  that  he  stakes  soul  and  body  upon 
the  throw  for  a  Crown.  He  has  got  the  Crown — and  paid  for  it.  He  must 
keep  it — else  he  has  bartered  soul  and  body — for  nothing !  To  make  his  first 
crime  good — he  strides  gigantically  along  the  road  of  which  it  opened  the 
gate. 

TALBOYS. 

An  almost  morbid  impressibility  of  imagination  is  energetically  stamped, 
nnd  universally  recognised  in  the  Thane,  and  I  think,  sir,  that  it  warrants, 
to  a  certain  extent,  a  sincerity  of  the  mental  movements.  He  really  sees  a  fan- 
tastical dagger — he  really  hears  fantastical  voices — perhaps  he  really  sees  a 
fantastical  Ghost.  All  this  in  him  is  Nature — not  artifice — and  a  nature 
deeply,  terribly,  tempestuously  commoved  by  the  near  contact  of  a  murder  im- 
minent— doing — done.  It  is  more  like  a  murderer  a-making  than  a  murderer 
made. 

SEWARD. 

See,  sir,  how  precisely  this  characteristic  is  proposed. 


640  Christopher  under  Canvass.  '[Nov. 

BULLER. 

By  whom  ? 

SEWARD. 

By  Shakspeare,  in  that  first  Soliloquy.  The  poetry  colouring,  throughout, 
his  discourse,  is  its  natural  efflorescence. 

NORTH. 
Talboys,  Seward,  you  have  spoken  well. 

BULLER. 

And  I  have  spoken  ill  ? 

NORTH. 

I  have  not  said  so. 

BULLER. 

We  have  all  Four  of  us  spoken  well — we  have  all  Four  of  us  spoken  ill — 
and  we  have  all  Four  of  us  spoken  but  so-so — now  and  heretofore — in  this 
Tent — hang  the  wind — there's  no  hearing  twelve  words  in  ten  a  body  says. 
Honoured  sir,  I  beg  permission  to  say  that  I  cannot  admit  the  Canon  laid 
down  by  your  Reverence,  an  hour  or  two  ago,  or  a  minute  or  two  ago,  that 
Macbeth's  extravagant  language  is  designed  by  Shakspeare  to  designate  hypo- 
crisy. 

NORTH. 

Why? 

BULLER. 

You  commended  Talboys  and  Seward  for  noticing  the  imaginative — the 
poetical  character  of  Macbeth's  mind.  There  we  find  the  reason  of  his  extra- 
vagant language.  It  may,  as  you  said,  be  cant  and  fustian — or  it  may  not — 
but  why  attribute  to  hypocrisy — as  you  did — what  may  have  flowed  from  his 
genius?  Poets  may  rant  as  loud  as  he,  and  yet  be  honest  men.  "  In  a  fine 
frenzy  rolling,"  their  eyes  may  fasten  on  fustian. 

NORTH. 

Good — go  on.    Deduct. 

BULLER. 

Besides,  sir,  the  Stage  had  such  a  language  of  its  own  ;  and  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  Shakspeare  often,  and  too  frankly,  gave  in  to  it. 

NORTH. 
He  did. 

BULLER. 

I  would,  however,  much  rather  believe  that  if  Shakspeare  meant  anything  by 
it  in  Macbeth's  Oratory  or  Poetry,  he  intended  thereby  rather  to  impress  on  us 
that  last  noticed  constituent  of  his  nature — a  vehement  seizure  of  imagination. 
I  believe,  sir,  that  in  the  hortatory  scene  Lady  Macbeth  really  vanquishes — as 
the  scene  ostensibly  shows — his  zVresolution.  And  if  Shakspeare  means 
imsolution,  I  do  not  know  why  the  grounds  thereof  which  Shakspeare  assigns 
to  Macbeth  should  not  be  accepted  as  the  true  grounds.  The  Dramatist  would 
seem  to  me  to  demand  too  much  of  me,  if,  under  the  grounds  which  he  expresses, 
he  requires  me  to  discard  these,  and  to  discover  and  express  others. 

SEWARD. 

I  do  not  know,  sir,  if  that  horrible  Invocation  of  hers  to  the  Spirits  of  Mur- 
der to  unsex  her,  be  held  by  many  to  imply  that  she  has  no  need  of  their  help  ? 

NORTH. 

It  is  held  by  many  to  prove  that  she  was  not  a  woman  but  a  fiend.  It 
proves  the  reverse.  I  infer  from  it  that  she  does  need  their  help — and,  what 
is  more,  that  she  (jets  it.  Nothing  so  dreadful,  in  the  whole  range  of  Man's 
Tragic  Drama,  as  that  Murder.  But  I  see  Seward  is  growing  pale — we  know 
his  infirmity — and  for  the  present  shun  it. 

SEWARD. 
Thank  you,  sir. 

NORTH. 
I  may,  however,  ask  a  question  about  Banquo's  Ghost. 

SEWARD. 
Well — well — do  so. 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  641 

TALBOYS. 

You  pat  the  question  to  me,  sir  ?  I  am  inclined  to  think,  sir,  that  no  real 
Ghost  sits  on  the  Stool — but  that  Shakspeare  meant  it  as  with  the  Daggers. 
On  the  Stage  he  appears — that  is  an  abuse. 

NORTH. 

Not  so  sure  of  that,  Talboys. 

TALBOYS. 

Had  Macbeth  himself  continued  to  believe  that  the  first-seen  Ghost  was  a 
real  Ghost,  he  would  not,  could  not  have  ventured  so  soon'after  its  disappear- 
ance to  say  again,  "  And  to  our  dear  friend  Banquo."  He  does  say  it — and 
then  again  diseased  imagination  assails  him  at  the  rash  words.  Lady  Macbeth 
reasons  with  him  again,  and  he  finally  is  persuaded  that  the  Ghost,  both  times, 
had  been  but  brain-sick  creations. 

"  My  strange  and  self-abuse 
Is  the  initiate  fear,  that  wants  hard  use  : — 
I  am  but  young  in  deed." 

BULLER. 

That  certainly  looks  as  if  he  did  then  know  he  had  been  deceived.  But 
perhaps  he  only  censures  himself  for  being  too  much  agitated  by  a  real  ghost. 

TALBOYS. 

That  won't  do. 

NORTH. 

But  go  back,  my  dear  Talboys,  to  the  first  enacting  of  the  Play.  What 
could  the  audience  have  understood  to  be  happening,  without  other  direc- 
tion of  their  thoughts  than  the  terrified  Macbeth's  bewildered  words  ?  He 
never  mentions  Banquo's  name — and  recollect  that  nobody  sitting  there  then 
knew  that  Banquo  had  been  murdered.  The  dagger  is  not  in  point.  Then 
the  spectators  heard  him  say,  "  Is  this  a  dagger  that  I  see  before  me  ?"  And 
if  no  dagger  was  there,  they  could  at  once  see  that  'twas  phantasy. 

TALBOYS. 

Something  in  that. 

BULLER. 

A  settler. 

NORTH. 

I  entirely  separate  the  two  questions — first,  how  did  the  Manager  of  the 
Globe  Theatre  have  the  King's  Seat  at  the  Feast  filled ;  and  second,  what 
does  the  highest  poetical  Canon  deliver.  I  speak  now,  but  to  the  first.  Now, 
here  the  rule  is — "  the  audience  must  understand,  and  at  once,  what  that  which 
they  see  and  hear  means" — that  Rule  must  govern  the  art  of  the  drama  in 
the  Manager's  practice.  You  allow  that,  Talboys  ? 

TALBOYS 

I  do. 

BULLER. 

Rash — Talboys — rash  :  he's  getting  you  into  a  net. 

NORTH. 

That  is  not  my  way,  Buller.  Well,  then,  suppose  Macbeth  acted  for  the 
first  time  to  an  audience,  who  are  to  establish  it  for  a  stock-play  or  to  damn 
it.  Would  the  Manager  commit  the  whole  power  of  a  scene  which  is  perhaps 
the  most — singly — effective  of  the  whole  Play — 

BULLER. 

No — no — not  the  most  effective  of  the  whole  Play — 

NORTH. 

The  rival,  then,  of  the  .Murder  Scene — the  Sleep-Walking  stands  aloof  and 
aloft — to  the  chance  of  a  true  divination  by  the  whole  Globe  audience? 
I  think  not.  The  argument  is  of  a  vulgar  tone,  I  confess,  and  extremely  lite- 
ral, but  it  is  after  the  measure  of  my  poor  faculties. 

SEWAUD. 

In  confirmation  of  what  you  say,  sir,  it  has  been  lately  asserted  that  one  of 
the  two  appearings  at  least  is  not  Banquo's — but  Duncan's.  How  is  that  to 
be  settled  but  by  a  real  Ghost — or  Ghosts  ? 


642  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Xov. 

NORTH. 

And  I  ask,  what  lias  Shakspeare  himself  undeniably  done  elsewhere  ?  In 
Henry  VIII.,  Queen  Katherine  sleeps  and  dreams.  Her  Dream  enters,  and 
performs  various  acts — somewhat  expressive — minutely  contrived  and  pre- 
scribed. It  is  a  mute  Dream,  which  she  with  shut  eyes  sees — which  you  in 
pit,  boxes,  and  gallery  see — which  her  attendants,  watching  about  her  upon 
the  stage,  do  not  see. 

SEWARD. 

And  in  Richard  III — He  dreams,  and  so  does  Richmond.  Eight  Ghosts 
rise  in  succession  and  speak  to  Richard  first,  and  to  the  Earl  next — each 
hears,  I  suppose,  what  concerns  himself — they  seem  to  be  present  in  the  two 
Tents  at  once. 

NORTH. 

In  Cymbeline,  Posthumus  dreams.  His  Dream  enters — Ghosts  and  even 
JUPITER!  They  act  and  speak  ;  and  this  Dream  has  a  reality — for  Jupiter 
hands  or  tosses  a  parchment-roll  to  one  of  the  Ghosts,  who  lays  it,  as  bidden, 
on  the  breast  of  the  Dreamer,  where  he,  on  awaking,  perceives  it !  I  call  all 
this  physically  strong,  sir,  for  the  representation  of  the  metaphysically 
thought. 

BULLER. 

If  Buller  may  speak,  Buller  would  observe,  that  once  or  twice  both  Ariel 
and  Prospero  come  forward  "  invisible."  And  in  Spenser,  the  Dream  of  which 
Morpheus  lends  the  use  to  Archimago,  is — carried. 

SEWARD. 

We  all  remember  the  Dream  which  Jupiter  sends  to  Agamemnon,  and  which, 
while  standing  at  his  bed's-head,  puts  on  the  shape  of  Nestor  and  speaks ; 
— the  Ghost  of  Patroclus — the  actual  Ghost  which  stands  at  the  bed's-head 
of  Achilles,  and  is  his  Dream. 

NORTH. 

My  friends,  Poetry  gives  a  body  to  the  bodiless.  The  Stage  of  Shakspeare 
was  rude,  and  gross.  In  my  boyhood,  I  saw  the  Ghosts  appear  to  John 
Kemble  in  Richard  III.  Now  they  may  be  abolished  with  Banquo.  So  may 
be  Queen  Katherine's  Angels.  But  Shakspeare  and  his  Audience  had  no  diffi- 
culty about  one  person's  seeing  what  another  does  not — or  one's  not  seeing, 
rather,  that  which  another  does.  Nor  had  Homer,  when  Achilles  alone,  in  the 
Quarrel  Scene,  sees  Minerva.  Shakspeare  and  his  Audience  had  no  difficulty 
about  the  bodily  representation  of  Thoughts — the  inward  by  the  outward. 
Shakspeare  and  the  Great  Old  Poets  leave  vague,  shadowy,  mist-shrouded, 
and  indeterminate  the  boundaries  between  the  Thought  and  the  Existent — 
the  Real  and  the  Unreal.  I  am  able  to  believe  with  you,  Talboys,  that 
Banquo's  Ghost  was  understood  by  Shakspeare,  the  Poet,  to  be  the  Phantasm 
of  the  murderer's  guilt-and-fear- shaken  soul ;  but  was  required  by  Shakspeare, 
the  Manager  of  the  Globe  Theatre,  to  rise  up  through  a  trap-door,  mealy- 
faced  and  blood-boultered,  and  so  make  "  the  Table  full." 

BULLER. 

Seward,  do  bid  him  speak  of  Lady  Macbeth. 

SEWARD. 

Oblige  me,  sir — don't  now — after  dinner,  if  you  will. 

NORTH. 

I  shall  merely  allude  now,  as  exceedingly  poetical  treatment,  to  the  discre- 
tion throughout  used  in  the  SHOWING  of  Lady  Macbeth.  You  might  almost 
say  that  she  never  takes  a  step  on  the  stage,  that  does  not  thrill  the  Theatre. 
Not  a  waste  word,  gesture,  or  look.  All  at  the  studied  fulness  of  sublime 
tragical  power — yet  all  wonderfully  tempered  and  governed.  I  doubt  if 
Shakspeare  could  have  given  a  good  account  of  everything  that  he  makes 
Macbeth  say — but  of  all  that  She  says  he  could. 

TALBOYS. 

As  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge,  she  but  once  in  the  whole  Play  loses  her  perfect 
self-mastery —  when  the  servant  surprises  her  by  announcing  the  King's 
coming.  She  answers,  '  thou'rt  mad  to  say  it ;'  which  is  a  manner  of  speaking 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  643 

used  by  those  who  cannot,  or  can  hardly  believe  tidings  that  fill  them  with 
exceeding  joy.  It  is  not  the  manner  of  a  Lady  to  her  servant  who  unex- 
pectedly announces  the  arrival  of  a  high — of  the  highest  visitor.  She  recovers 
herself  instantly.  '  Is  not  thy  master  with  him,  who,  wer't  so,  would  have 
informed  for  preparation?'  This  is  a  turn  colouring  her  exclamation,  and  is 
spoken  in  the  most  self-possessed,  argumentative,  demonstrative  tone.  The 
preceding  words  had  been  torn  from  her ;  now  she  has  passed,  with  inimitable 
dexterity,  from  the  dreamed  Queen,  to  the  usual  mistress  of  her  household — 
to  the  huswife. 

NORTH. 

In  the  Fourth  Act — she  is  not  seen  at  all.  Bat  in  the  Fifth,  lo !  and  be- 
hold !  and  at  once  we  know  why  she  had  been  absent — we  see  and  are  turned 
to  living  stone  by  the  revelation  of  the  terrible  truth.  I  am  always  in- 
clined to  conceive  Lady  Macbeth's  night- walking  as  the  summit,  or  top- 
most peak  of  all  tragic  conception  and  execution — in  Prose,  too,  the  crown- 
ing of  Poetry!  But  it  must  be,  because  these  are  the  ipsissima  verba — yea, 
the  escaping  sighs  and  moans  of  the  bared  soul.  There  must  be  nothing, 
not  even  the  thin  and  translucent  veil  of  the  verse,  betwixt  her  soul  show- 
ing itself,  and  yours  beholding.  Words  which  your  "  hearing  latches " 
from  the  threefold  abyss  of  Night,  Sleep,  and  Conscience !  What  place  for  the 
enchantment  of  any  music  is  here  ?  Besides,  she  speaks  in  a  whisper.  The 
Siddons  did — audible  distinctly,  throughout  the  stilled  immense  theatre.  Here 
music  is  not — sound  is  not — only  an  anguished  soul's  faint  breathings — gasp- 
ings.  And  observe  that  Lady  Macbeth  carries — a  candle — besides  washing 
her  hands — and  besides  speaking  prose — three  departures  from  the  severe  and 
elect  method,  to  bring  out  that  supreme  revelation.  I  have  been  told  that 
the  great  Mrs  Pritchard  used  to  touch  the  palm  with  the  tips  of  her  fingers, 
for  the  washing,  keeping  candle  in  hand  ; — that  the  Siddons  first  set  down  her 
candle,  that  she  might  come  forwards,  and  wash  her  hands  in  earnest,  one 
over  the  other,  as  if  she  were  at  her  wash-hand  stand,  with  plenty  of  water  in 
her  basin — that  when  Sheridan  got  intelligence  of  her  design  so  to  do,  he  ran 
shrieking  to  her,  and,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  besought  that  she  would  not,  at 
one  stroke,  overthrow  Drury  Lane — that  she  persisted,  and  turned  the  thou- 
sands of  bosoms  to  marble. 

TALBOYS. 

Our  dear,  dear  Master. 

NORTH. 

You  will  remember,  my  friends,  her  four  rhymed  lines — uttered  to  herself  in 
Act  Third.  They  are  very  remarkable — 

"  Nought's  had,  all's  spent, 
Where  our  desire  is  got  without  content: 
'Tis  safer  to  be  that  which  we  destroy, 
Than,  by  destruction,  dwell  in  doubtful  joy." 

They  are  her  only  waking  acknowledgments  of  having  mistaken  life !  So — 
they  forebode  the  Sleep-Walking,  and  the  Death — as  an  owl,  or  a  raven,  or 
vulture,  or  any  fowl  of  obscene  wing,  might  flit  between  the  sun  and  a 
crowned  but  doomed  head — the  shadow  but  of  a  moment,  yet  ominous,  for 
the  augur,  of  an  entire  fatal  catastrophe. 

SEWARD. 

They  do.  But  to  say  the  truth,  I  had  either  forgot  them,  or  never  dis- 
covered their  significancy.  O  that  William  Shakspeare ! 

TALBOYS. 

O  that  Christopher  North ! 

NORTH. 

Speak  so,  friends — 'tis  absurd,  but  I  like  it. 

TALBOYS. 

It  is  sincere. 

NORTH. 

At  last  they  call  him  "  black  Macbeth,"  and  "this  dead  Butcher."    Aud 


64:4  Christopher  under  Canvass,  [Nov. 

with  good  reason.    They  also  call  her  "  his  fiend-like  Queen,"  which  last 
expression  I  regard  as  highly  offensive. 

BTJLLER. 

And  they  call  her  so  not  without  strong  reason. 

NORTH. 

A  bold,  bad  woman — not  a  Fiend.  I  ask — Did  she,  or  did  she  not,  "  with 
violent  hand  foredo  her  life  ?  "  They  mention  it  as  a  rumour.  The  Doctor 
desires  that  all  means  of  self-harm  may  be  kept  out  of  her  way.  Yet  the  im- 
pression on  us,  as  the  thing  proceeds,  is,  that  she  dies  of  pure  remorse — 
which  I  believe.  She  is  visibly  dying.  The  cry  of  women,  announcing  her 
death,  is  rather  as  of  those  who  stood  around  the  bed  watching,  and  when  the 
heart  at  the  touch  of  the  invisible  finger  stops,  shriek — than  of  one  after  the 
other  coming  in  and  finding  the  self-slain — a  confused,  informal,  perplexing, 
and  perplext  proceeding — but  the  Cry  of  Women  is  formal,  regular  for  the 
stated  occasion.  You  may  say,  indeed,  that  she  poisoned  herself— and  so  died 
in  bed — watched.  Under  the  precautions,  that  is  unlikely — too  refined.  The 
manner  of  Seyton,  "  The  Queen,  my  Lord,  is  dead,"  shows  to  me  that  it  was 
hourly  expected.  How  these  few  words  would  seek  into  you,  did  you  first  read 
the  Play  in  mature  age !  She  died  a  natural  death— of  remorse.  Take  my 
word  for  it — the  rumour  to  the  contrary  was  natural  to  the  lip  and  ear  of 
Hate. 

TALBOY8. 

A  question  of  primary  import  is — What  is  the  relation  of  feeling  between  him 
and  her  ?  The  natural  impression,  I  think,  is,  that  the  confiding  affection — 
the  intimate  confidence — is  "  there  "—of  a  husband  and  wife  who  love  one  an- 
other— to  whom  all  interests  are  in  common,  and  are  consulted  in  common. 
Without  this  belief,  the  Magic  of  the  Tragedy  perishes — vanishes  to  me. 
"  My  dearest  love,  Duncan  comes  here  to-night."  "  Be  innocent  of  the  know- 
ledge, dearest  Chuck  " — a  marvellous  phrase  for  Melpomene.  It  is  the  full  union 
— for  ill  purposes — that  we  know  habitually  for  good  purposes — that  to  me 
tempers  the  Murder  Tragedy. 

NORTH. 

Yet  believe  me,  my  dear  Talboys — that  of  all  the  murders  Macbeth  may 
have  committed,  she  knew  beforehand  but  of  ONE — Duncan's.  The  haunted 
somnambulist  speaks  the  truth — the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 

TALBOYS. 

"  The  Thane  of  Fife  had  a  wife."  Does  not  that  imply  that  she  was  privy 
to  that  Murder  ? 

NORTH. 

No.  Except  that  she  takes  upon  herself  all  the  murders  that  are  the  off- 
spring, legitimate  or  illegitimate,  of  that  First  Murder.  But  we  know  that 
Macbeth,  in  a  sudden  fit  of  fury,  ordered  the  Macduffs  to  be  massacred  when 
on  leaving  the  Cave  Lenox  told  him  of  the  Thane's  flight. 

TALBOYS. 

That  is  decisive. 

NORTH. 

A  woman,  she  feels  for  a  murdered  woman.  That  is  all — a  touch  of  nature 
— from  Shakspeare's  profound  and  pitiful  heart. 

TALBOYS. 

"  The  Queen,  my  lord,  is  dead."  "  She  should  have  died  hereafter ;  There 
would  have  been  a  time  for  such  a  word" — Often  have  I  meditated  on  the  mean- 
ing of  these  words— yet  even  now  I  do  not  fully  feel  or  understand  them. 

NORTH. 

Nor  I.  This  seems  to  look  from  them — "  so  pressed  by  outward  besiegings, 
I  have  not  capacity  to  entertain  the  blow  as  it  requires  to  be  entertained. 
With  a  free  soul  I  could  have  measured  it.  Now  I  cannot." 

TALBOYS. 

Give  us,  sir,  a  commentary  on  the  Revelations  of  the  Sleeping  Spectre. 

NORTH. 

I  dare  not.  Let 's  be  cheerful.   I  ask  this— when  you  see  and  hear  Kenible- 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  (345 

Macbeth — and  Siddons-Macbeth — whom  do  you  believe  that  you  see 
and  hear  ?  I  affirm  that  you  at  one  and  the  same  instant — (or  at  the 
most  in  two  immediately  successive  instants — yet  I  believe  in  one  and  the 
same  instant) — know  that  you  see  and  hear  Kemble — or  if  that  accomplished 
gentleman  and  admirable  actor — Macready  be  performing  the  part — then 
Macready ; — and  yet  believe  that  you  see  and  hear  Lord  Macbeth.  I  aver 
that  you  entertain  a  mixt — confused — self-contradictory  state  of  mind — that 
two  elements  of  thought  which  cannot  co-subsist  do  co-subsist. 

TALBOYS. 

Dejure  they  cannot — DE  FACTO  they  do. 

NORTH. 
Just  go. 

TALBOYS. 

They  co-subsist  fighting,  and  yet  harmonising — there  is  half-belief— semi- 
illusion. 

NORTH. 

I  claim  the  acknowledgment  of  such  a  state — which  any  one  who  chooses 
may  better  describe,  but  which  shall  come  to  that  effect — for  the  lowest  sub- 
stratum of  all  science  and  criticism  concerning  POESY.  Will  anybody  grant 
me  this,  then  I  will  reason  with  him  about  Poesy,  for  we  begin  with  some- 
thing in  common.  Will  anybody  deny  me  this,  then  I  will  not  argue  with 
him  about  Poesy,  for  we  set  out  with  nothing  in  common. 

BULLER. 

We  grant  you  all  you  ask — we  are  all  agreed — "  our  unanimity  is  won- 
derful." 

NORTH. 

Leave  out  the  great  Brother  and  Sister,  and  take  the  Personated  alone.  I 
know  that  Othello  and  Desdemona  never  existed — that  an  Italian  Novelist 
began,  and  an  English  Dramatist  ended  them — and  there  they  are.  But  do  I 
not  believe  in  their  existence,  "  their  loves  and  woes  ?"  Yes  I  do  believe  in 
their  existence,  in  their  loves  and  woes — and  I  hate  lago  accordingly  with  a 
vicious,  unchristian,  personal,  active,  malignant  hatred. 

TALBOYS. 

Dr  Johnson's  celebrated  expression,  "  all  the  belief  that  Poetry  claims"—— 

BULLER. 

Celebrated !    Where  is  it  ? 

TALBOYS. 

Preface  to  Shakspeare — is  idle,  and  frivolous,  and  false  ? 

NORTH. 

It  is.  He  belies  his  own  experience.  He  cannot  make  up  his  mind  to 
admit  the  irrational  thought  of  belief  which  you  at  once  reject  and  accept. 
But  exactly  the  half  acceptance,  and  the  half  rejection,  separates  poetry  from 
— prose. 

TALBOYS.  * 

That  is,  sir,  the  poetical  from  the  prosaic. 

NORTH. 

Just  so.  It  is  the  life  and  soul  of  all  poetry — the  lusus — the  make-believe 
— the  glamour  and  the  gramarye.  I  do  not  know — gentlemen — I  wish  to  be 
told,  whether  I  am  now  throwing  away  words  upon  the  setting  up  of  a  pyra- 
mid which  was  built  by  Cheops,  and  is  only  here  and  there  crumbling  a  little, 
or  whether  the  world  requires  that  the  position  shall  be  formally  argued  and 
acknowledged.  Johnson,  as  yon  reminded  me,  Talboys,  did  not  admit  it. 

TALBOYS. 

That  he  tells  us  in  so  many  words.  Has  any  more  versed  and  profound 
master  in  criticism,  before  or  since,  authentically  and  authoritatively,  lumi- 
nously, cogently,  explicitly,  psychologically,  metaphysically,  physiosologically, 
psychogogically,  propounded,  reasoned  out,  legislated,  and  enthroned  the 
Dogma? 

NORTH. 

I  know  not,  Talboys.    Do  you  admit  the  Dogma  ? 


646  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

TALBOYS. 
I  do. 

NORTH. 

Impersonation — Apostrophe — of  the  absent ;  every  poetical  motion  of  the 
Soul ;  the  whole  pathetic  beholding  of  Nature— involve  the  secret  existence 
and  necessity  of  this  irrational  psychical  state  for  grounding  the  Logic  of 
Poesy. 

BTJLLEU. 

Go  on,  sir. 

NORTH. 

I  will — but  in  a  new  direction.  Before  everything  else,  I  desire,  for  the 
settlement  of  this  particular  question,  a  foundation  for,  and  some  progress 
in  the  science  of  MURDER  TRAGEDIES. 

SEWARD. 

I  know  properly  two. 

BULLER. 

Two  only  ?    Pray  same. 

SEWARD. 

This  of  Macbeth  and  Richard  III. 

BULLER. 

The  Agamemnon — the  Choephoraa — the  Electra — the  Medea — 

SEWARD. 

In  the  Agamemnon,  your  regard  is  drawn  to  Agamemnon  himself  and  to 
Cassandra.  However,  it  is  after  a  measure  a  prototype.  Clytemnestra 
has  in  it  a  principality.  Medea  stands  eminent — but  then  she  is  in  the  right. 

BULLER. 
In  the  right? 

SEWARD. 

Jason  at  least  is  altogether  in  the  wrong.  But  we  must — for  obvious  rea- 
sons— discuss  the  Greek  drama  by  itself;  therefore  not  a  word  more  about 
it  now. 

NORTH. 

Richard  III.,  and  Macbeth  and  his  wife,  are  in  their  Plays  the  principal 
people.  You  must  go  along  with  them  to  a  certain  guarded  extent — else  the 
Play  is  done  for.  To  be  kept  abhorring  and  abhorring,  for  Five  Acts 
together,  you  can't  stand. 

SEWARD. 

Oh !  that  the  difference  between  Poetry  and  Life  were  once  for  all  set  down 
— and  not  only  once  for  all,  but  every  time  that  it  comes  in  question. 

BULLER. 

My  dear  sir,  do  gratify  Seward's  very  reasonable  desire,  and  once  for  all  set 
down  the  difference. 

SEWARD. 

You  bear  suicides  on  the  stage,  and  tyrannicides  and  other  cides — all  simple 
homicide — much  murder.  Even  Romeo's  killing  Tybalt  in  the  street,  in  repara- 
tion for  Mercutio's  death,  you  would  take  rather  differently,  if  happening 
to-day  in  Pall  Mall,  or  Moray  Place. 

NORTH. 

We  have  assuredly  for  the  Stage  a  qualified  scheme  of  sentiment — grounded 
no  doubt  on  our  modern  or  every-day  morality — but  specifically  modified  by 
Imagination— by  Poetry — for  the  use  of  the  dramatist.  Till  we  have  set 
down  what  we  do  bear,  and  why,  we  are  not  prepared  for  distinguishing  what 
we  won't  bear,  and  why. 

BULLER. 
Oracular ! 

SEWARD. 

Suggestive. 

NORTH. 

And  if  so,  sufficient  for  the  nonce.  Hamlet's  uncle,  Claudius,  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  most  that  can  be  borne  of  one  purely  abhorrible.  He  is  made  disgust- 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  647 

ing  besides — drunken  and  foul.  Able  he  is — for  he  won  the  Queen  by 
"  witchcraft  of  his  wit ;"  but  he  is  made  endurable  by  his  diminisht  proportion 
in  the  Play — many  others  overpowering  and  hiding  him. 

BULLER. 

Pardon  me,  sir,  but  I  have  occasionally  felt,  in  course  of  this  conversation, 
that  you  were  seeking — in  opposition  to  Payne  Knight — to  reduce  Macbeth  to 
a  species  of  Claudius.  I  agree  with  you  in  thinking  that  Shakspeare  would 
not  give  a  Claudius  so  large  a  proportion  of  his  drama.  The  pain  would  be 
predominant  and  insupportable. 

NORTH. 

I  would  fain  hope  you  have  misunderstood  me,  Btiller. 

BULLER. 

Sometimes,  sir,  it  is  not  easy  for  a  plain  man  to  know  what  yon  would  be  at. 

NORTH. 
I? 

BULLER. 

Yea — you. 

NORTH. 

Richard  III.  is' a.  hypocrite — a  hard,  cold  murderer  from  of  old — and 
yet  you  bear  him.  I  suppose,  friends,  chiefly  from  his  pre-eminent  Intellectual 
Faculties,  and  his  perfectly  courageous  and  self-possessed  Will.  You  do 
support  your  conscience — or  traffic  with  it — by  saying  all  along — we  are  only 
conducting  him  to  the  retribution  of  Bosworth  Field.  But,  friends,  if  these  mo- 
tions in  Macbeth,  which  look  like  revealings  and  breathings  of  some  better  ele- 
ments, are  sheer  and  vile  hypocrisy — if  it  is  merely  his  manhood  that  quails, 
which  his  wife  has  to  virilify — a  dastard  and  a  hypocrite,  and  no  more — I 
cannot  abide  him — there  is  too  much  of  a  bad  business,  and  then  I  must 
think  Shaksperare  has  committed  an  egregious  error  in  Poetry.  Richard  III. 
is  a  bold,  heroic  hypocrite.  He  knows  he  is  one.  He  lies  to  Man — never 
to  his  own  Conscience,  or  to  Heaven. 

TALBOYS. 

What? 

NORTH. 

Never.  There  he  is  clear-sighted,  and  stands,  like  Satan,  in  open  and 
impious  rebellion. 

BULLER. 

But  your  Macbeth,  sir,  would  be  a  shuffling  Puritan— a  mixture  of  Holy 
"Willie  and  Greenacre.  Forgive  me 

SEWARD. 

Order — order — order. 

TALBOYS. 

Chair — chair — chair. 

BULLER. 

Swing — Swing — Swing. 

NORTH. 

My  dear  Buller — you  have  misunderstood  me — I  assure  you  you  have. 
Some  of  my  expressions  may  have  been  too  strong — not  sufficiently 
qualified. 

BULLER. 

I  accept  the  explanation.    But  be  more  guarded  in  future,  my  dear  sir. 

NORTH. 
I  will. 

BULLER. 

On  that  assurance  I  ask  you,  sir,  how  is  the  Tragedy  of  Macbeth  morally 
saved  ?  That  is,  how  does  the  degree  of  complacency  with  which  we  consider 
the  two  murderers  not  morally  taint  ourselves — not  leave  us  predisposed 
murderers  ? 

NORTH. 

That  is  a  question  of  infinite  compass  and  fathom — answered  then  only  when, 
the  whole  Theory  of  Poesy  has  been  expounded, 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCIX.  2  U 


CIS  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

BULLER. 
Whew! 

NORTH. 

The  difference  established  between  our  contemplation  of  the  Stage  and  of 
Life. 

BTJLLER. 

I  hardly  expect  that  to  be  done  this  Summer  in  this  Tent. 

NORTH. 

Friends!  Utilitarians  and  Eeligionists  shudder  and  shun.  They  consider  the 
Stage  and  Life  as  of  one  and  the  same  kind — look  on  both  through  one  glass. 

BULLER. 
Eh? 

NORTH. 

The  Utilitarian  will  settle  the  whole  question  of  Life  upon  half  its  data— 
the  lowest  half.  He  accepts  Agriculture,  which  he  understands  logically — 
but  rejects  Imagination,  which  he  does  not  understand  at  all — because,  if  you 
sow  it  in  the  track  of  his  plough,  no  wheat  springs.  Assuredly  not ;  a  different 
plough  must  furrow  a  different  soil  for  that  seed  and  that  harvest. 

BULLER. 

Now,  my  dear  sir,  you  speak  like  yourself.  You  always  do  so — the  rash- 
ness was  all  on  my  side. 

SE\VARI>. 

Nobody  cares — hold  your  tongue. 

NORTH. 

The  Religionist  errs  from  the  opposite  quarter.  He  brings  measures  from 
Heaven  to  measure  things  of  the  Earth.  He  weighs  Clay  in  the  balance  of 
Spirit.  I  call  him  a  Religionist  who  overruns  with  religious  rules  and  con- 
ceptions things  that  do  not  come  under  them — completely  distinct  from  the 
native  simplicity  and  sovereignty  of  Religion  in  a  piously  religious  heart.  Both 
of  them  are  confounders  of  the  sciences  which  investigate  the  Facts  and  the 
Laws  of  Nature,  visible  and  invisible — subduing  inquiry  under  precon- 
ception. 

BULLER. 

Was  that  the  Gong— or  but  thunder? 

NORTH. 

The  Gong. 

TALBOYS. 

I  smell  sea-trout. 


SCENE  HI. 
SCENE — Deeside.    TIME — after  Dinner. 

NORTH — BULLER — SEWARD — TALBOYS. 
NORTH. 

One  hour  more — and  no  more — to  Shakspeare. 

BULLER. 

May  we  crack  nuts  ? 

NORTH. 

By  all  means.    And  here  they  are  for  you  to  crack. 

BULLER. 
Xow  for  some  of  your  astounding  Discoveries. 

NORTH. 

If  you  gather  the  Movement,  scene  by  scene,  of  the  Action  of  this  Drama, 
you  see  a  few  weeks,  or  it  maybe  months.    There  must  be  time  to  hear  that 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  649 

Malcolm  and  his  brother  have  reached  England  and  Ireland — time  for  the 
King  of  England  to  interest  himself  in  behalf  of  Malcolm,  and  muster  his 
array.  More  than  this  seems  imrequired.  But  the  zenith  of  tyranny  to 
which  Macbeth  has  arrived,  and  particularly  the  manner  of  describing  the 
desolation  of  Scotland  by  the  speakers  in  England,  conveys  to  you  the  notion 
of  a  long,  long  dismal  reign.  Of  old  it  always  used  to  do  so  with  me ;  so 
that  when  I  came  to  visit  the  question  of  the  Time,  I  felt  myself  as  if  baffled 
and  puzzled,  not  finding  the  time  I  had  looked  for,  demonstrable.  Samuel 
Johnson  has  had  the  same  impression,  but  has  not  scrutinised  the  data.  He 
goes  probably  by  the  old  Chronicler  for  the  actual  time,  and  this,  one  would 
think,  must  have  floated  before  Shakspeare's  own  mind. 

TALBOYS. 

Nobody  can  read  the  Scenes  in  England  without  seeing  long-protracted 
time. 

*  Malcolm.  Let  us  seek  out  some  desolate  shade,  and  there 
Weep  our  sad  bosoms  empty. 

Macduff.  Let  us  rather 

Hold  fast  the  mortal  sword,  and,  like  good  men, 
Bestride  our  down-fallen  birthdom:  Each  new  morn, 
New  widows  howl ;  new  orphans  cry;  new  sorrows 
Strike  heaven  on  the  face,  that  it  resounds 
As  if  it  felt  with  Scotland,  and  yell'd  out 
Like  syllable  of  dolour." 

NORTH. 

Ay,  Talboys,  that  is  true  Shakspeare.  No  Poet — before  or  since — has  in 
so  few  words  presented  such  a  picture.  No  poet,  before  or  since,  has  used 
such  words.  He  writes  like  a  man  inspired. 

TALBOYS. 

And  in  the  same  dialogue  Malcolm  says — 

K  I  think  our  country  sinks  beneath  the  yoke ; 
It  weeps,  it  bleeds;  and  each  new  day  a  gash 
Is  added  to  her  wounds." 

NORTH. 

Go  on,  my  dear  Talboys.  Yoxir  memory  is  a  treasury  of  all  the  highest 
Poetry  of  Shakspeare.  Go  on. 

TALBOYS. 

And  hear  Rosse,  on  his  joining  Malcolm  and  Macduff  in  this  scene,  the 
latest  arrival  from  Scotland : — 

"  Macdvf.  Stands  Scotland  where  it  did  ? 
•  Rosse.  Alas,  poor  country  ! 

Almost  afraid  to  know  itself !  It  cannot 
Be  call'd  our  mother,  but  our  grave  :  where  nothing, 
But  who  knows  nothing,  is  once  seen  to  smile  ; 
Where  sighs  and  groans,  and  shrieks  that  rent  the  air, 
Are  made,  not  mark'd  ;  where  violent  sorrow  seems 
A  modern  ecstasy ;  the  dead  man's  knell 
Is  there  scarce  ask'd,  for  who ;  and  good  men's  lives 
Expire  before  the  flowers  in  their  caps, 
Dying,  or  ere  they  sicken." 

NORTH. 

Words  known  to  all  the  world,  yet  coming  on  the  ear  of  each  individual 
listener  with  force  unweaken'd  by  familiarity,  power  increased  by  repetition, 
as  it  will  be  over  all  Scottish  breasts  in  secula  seculorum. 

TALBOYS. 

By  Heavens  !  he  smiles  !  There  is  a  sarcastic  smile  on  that  incomprehen- 
sible face  of  yours,  sir — of  which  no  man  in  this  Tent,  I  am  sure,  may  divine 
the  reason. 

NORTH. 

I  was  not  aware  of  it.    Now,  my  dear  Talboys,  let  us  here  endeavour  to 


050  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

ascertain  Sliakspeare's  Time.  Here  we  have  long  time  with  a  vengeance — and 
here  we  have  short  time  ;  FOR  THIS  is  THE  PICTURE  OF  THE  STATE  OF  POOR 
SCOTLAND  BEFORE  THE  MURDER  OF  MACDUFF'S  WIFE  AND  CHILDREN. 

BULLER. 
What? 

SEWARD. 
Ell? 

NORTH. 

Macduff,  moved  by  Rosse's  words,  asks  him,  you  know,  Talboys,  "  how 
does  my  wife?"    And  then  ensues  the  affecting  account  of  her  murder,  which 
you  need  not  recite.    Now,  I  ask,  when  was  the  murder  of  Lady  Macduff 
perpetrated  ?    Two  days — certainly  not  more — after  the  murder  of  Banquo. 
Macbeth,  incensed  by  the  flight  of  Fleance,  goes,  the  morning  after  the  mur- 
der of  Banquo,  to  the  Weirds,  to  know  by  "  the  worst  means,  the  worst." 
You  know  what  they  showed  him — and  that,  as  they  vanished,  he  exclaimed — • 
"  Where  are  they?     Gone? — Let  this  pernicious  hour 
Stand  aye  accursed  in  the  calendar! — 
Come  in,  without  there ! 

Enter  LENOX. 

Len.  What's  your  grace's  will? 

Macb.  Saw  you  the  weird  sisters? 
Len.  No,  my  lord. 

Macb.  Came  they  not  by  you? 
Len.  No,  indeed,  my  lord. 

Macb.  Infected  be  the  air  whereon  they  ride ; 
And  damn'd  all  those  that  trust  them! — I  did  hear 
The  galloping  of  horse :  Who  was't  came  by  ? 

Len.  'Tis  two  or  three,  my  lord,  that  bring  you  word, 
MACDUFF  is  FLED  TO  ENGLAND. 
Macb.  Fled  to  England? 

Len.  Ay,  my  good  lord. 

Macb.  Time,  thou  anticipat'st  my  dread  exploits: 
The  flighty  purpose  never  is  o'ertook, 
Unless  the  deed  go  with  it:  from  this  moment, 
The  very  firstlings  of  my  heart  shall  be 
The  firstlings  of  my  hand.     And  even  now 
To  crown  my  thoughts  Avith  acts,  be  it  thought  and  done: 
The  castle  of  Macduff  I  will  surprise; 
Seize  upon  Fife ;  give  to  the  edge  o'  the  sword 
His  wife,  his  babes,  and  all  unfortunate  souls 
That  trace  his  line.     No  boasting  like  a  fool: 
This  deed  I'll  do,  before  this  purpose  cool." 

And  his  purpose  does  not  cool — for  the  whole  Family  are  murdered.  When, 
then,  took  place  -the  murder  of  Banquo  ?  Why,  a  week  or  two  after  the  Mur- 
der of  Duncan.  A  very  short  time  indeed,  then,  intervened  between  the  first 
and  the  last  of  these  Murders.  And  yet  from  those  pictures  of  Scotland, 
painted  in  England  for  our  information  and  horror,  we  have  before  us  a  long, 
long  time,  all  filled  up  with  butchery  over  all  the  land !  But  I  say  there  had 
been  no  such  butchery — or  anything  resembling  it.  There  was,  as  yet,  little 
amiss  with  Scotland.  Look  at  the  linking  of  Acts  II.  and  III.  End  of  Act 
II.,  Macbeth  is  gone  to  Scone— to  be  invested.  Beginning  of  Act  III.,  Ban- 
quo  says,  in  soliloquy,  in  Palace  of  Fores,  "  Thou  hast  it  now"  I  ask,  when 
is  this  NOW?  Assuredly  just  after  the  Coronation.  The  Court  was  moved 
from  Scone  to  Fores,  which,  we  may  gather  from  finding  Duncan  there  for- 
merly, to  be  the  usual  Royal  Residence.  "  Enter  Macbeth  as  King."  "  Our 
great  Feast" — our  "  solemn  Supper  " — "this  day's  Council" — all  have  the 
aspect  of  new  taking  on  the  style  of  Royalty.  "  Thou  hast  it  NOW,"  is  for- 
mal— weighed — and  in  a  position  that  gives  it  authority — at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  an  Act — therefore  intended  to  mark  time — a  very  pointing  of  the  finger 
on  the  dial. 

BULLER. 

Good  image — short  and  apt. 


1849.]  Christopher  tinder  Canvass.  651 

TALBOYS. 

Let  me  perpend. 

BULLER. 

Do,  sir,  let  him  perpend. 

NORTH. 

Baiiquo fears  "Thou  play'dst  most  foully  for  it;"  he  goes  no  farther — not 
a  word  of  any  tyranny  done.  All  the  style  of  an  incipient,  dangerous  Rule — 
clouds,  but  no  red  rain  yet.  And  I  need  not  point  out  to  you,  Talboys,  who 
carry  Shakspeare  unnecessarily  in  a  secret  pocket  of  that  strange  Sporting 
Jacket,  which  the  more  I  look  at  it  the  greater  is  my  wonder — that  Macbeth's 
behaviour  at  the  Banquet,  on  seeing  Banquo  nodding  at  him  from  his  own 
stool,  proves  him  to  have  been  then  young  in  blood. 

"  My  strange  and  self-abuse 
Is  the  initiate  fear  that  wants  hard  use. 
We  are  yet  but  young  in  deed." 

He  had  a  week  or  two  before  committed  a  first-rate  murder,  Duncan's — that 
night  he  had,  by  hired  hands,  got  a  second-rate  job  done,  Banquo's — and 
the  day  following  he  gave  orders  for  a  bloody  business  on  a  more  extended 
scale,  the  Macduifs.  But  nothing  here  the  least  like  Rosse's,  or  Macduffs,  or 
Malcolm's  Picture  of  Scotland — during  those  few  weeks.  For  Shakspeare  for- 
got what  the  true  time  was — his  own  time — the  short  time;  and  introduced 
long  time  at  the  same  time — why,  he  himself  no  doubt  knew — and  you  no  doubt, 
Talboys,  know  also — and  will  you  have  the  goodness  to  tell  the  "  why"  to  the 
Tent? 

TALBOYS. 

In  ten  minutes.    Are  you  done? 

NORTH. 

Not  quite.  Meanwhile — Two  Clocks  are  going  at  once — which  of  the  two 
gives  the  true  time  of  Day? 

BULLER. 
Short  and  apt.     Go  on,  Sir. 

NORTH. 

I  call  that  an  ASTOUNDING  DISCOVERY.  Macduff  speaks  as  if  he  knew 
that  Scotland  had  been  for  ever  so  long  desolated  by  the  Tyrant — and  yet  till 
Rosse  told  him,  never  had  he  heard  of  the  Murder  of  his  own  Wife !  Here 
Shakspeare  either  forgot  himself  wholly,  and  the  short  time  he  had  himself 
assigned — or,  with  his  eyes  open,  forced  in  the  long  time  upon  the  short — in 
wilful  violation  of  possibility !  All  silent  ? 

TALBOYS. 

After  supper — you  shall  be  answered. 

NORTH. 
Not  by  any  man  now  sitting  here — or  elsewhere. 

TALBOYS. 

That  remains  to  be  heard. 

NORTH. 

Pray,  Talboys,  explain  to  me  this.  The  Banquet  scene  breaks  up  in  most 
admired  disorder — "  stand  not  upon  the  order  of  your  going — but  go  at  once," 
— quoth  the  Queen.  The  King,  in  a  state  of  great  excitement,  says  to  her — 

*  I  will  to-morrow, 

(Betimes  I  will,)  unto  the  weird  sisters: 
More  shall  they  speak;  for  now  I  am  bent  to  know, 
By  the  worst  means,  the  worst:  for  mine  own  good, 
All  causes  shall  give  way ;  I  am  in  blood 
Stept  in  so  far,  that,  should  I  wade  no  more, 
Returning  were  as  tedious  as  go  o'er." 

One  might  have  thought  not  quite  so  tedious ;  as  yet  he  had  murdered  only 
Duncan  and  his  grooms,  and  to-night  Banquo.  Well,  he  does  go  "  to-morrow 
and  by  times  "  to  the  Cave. 


652  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov. 

"  Witch. — By  the  pricking  of  my  thumbs, 
Something  wicked  this  way  comes  : 
Open,  locks,  whoever  knocks. 
Macbeth. — How  now,  you  secret,  Black,  and  midnight  Hags  ?  " 

It  is  a  "  dark  Cave  " — dark  at  all  times — and  now  "  by  times  "  of  the  morn- 
ing !  Now — observe — Lenox  goes  along  with  Macbeth — on  such  occasions 
'tis  natural  to  wish  t<rone  of  ourselves  "  to  be  at  hand.  And  Lenox  had 
been  at  the  Banquet.  Had  he  gone  to  bed  after  that  strange  Supper  ?  No 
doubt,  for  an  hour  or  two — like  the  rest  of  "  the  Family."  But  whether  he 
went  to  bed  or  not,  then  and  there  he  and  another  Lord  had  a  confidential 
and  miraculous  conversation. 

TALBOYS. 

Miraculous  !    What's  miraculous  about  it  ? 

NOKTH. 

Lenox  says  to  the  other  Lord — 

"  My  former  speeches  have  but  hit  your  thoughts, 
Which  can  interpret  further  ;  only,  I  say, 
Things  have  been  strangely  borne  :  the  gracious  Duncan 
Was  pitied  of  Macbeth — marry  he  was  dead. 
And  the  right  valiant  Banquo  walked  too  late  ; 
Whom,  you  may  say,  if  it  please  you,  Fleance  killed, 
For  Fleance  fled" 

Who  told  him  all  this  about  Banquo  and  Fleance  ?  He  speaks  of  it  quite 
familiarly  to  the  "  other  lord,"  as  a  thing  well  known  in  all  its  bearings. 
But  not  a  soul  but  Macbeth,  and  the  Three  Murderers  themselves,  could 
possibly  have  known  anything  about  it !  As  for  Banquo,  "  Safe  in  a  ditch 
he  bides," — and  Fleance  had  fled.  The  body  may,  perhaps  in  a  few  days,  be 
found,  and,  though  "  with  twenty  trenched  gashes  on  its  head,"  identified  as 
Banquo's,  and,  in  a  few  weeks,  Fleance  may  turn  up  in  Wales.  Nay,  the 
Three  Murderers  may  confess.  But  now  all  is  hush ;  and  Lenox,  unless 
endowed  with  second  sight,  or  clairvoyance,  could  know  nothing  of  the 
murder.  Yet,  from  his  way  of  speaking  of  it,  one  might  imagine  crowner's 
'quest-  had  sitten  on  the  body — and  the  report  been  in  the  Times  between 
supper  and  that  after-supper  confab !  I  am  overthrown — everted — subverted — 
the  contradiction  is  flagrant — the  impossibility  monstrous — I  swoon. 

BULLER. 

Water — water. 

NORTH. 

Thank  you,  Buller.  That's  revivifying — I  see  now  all  objects  distinctly. 
Where  was  I  ?  O,  ay.  The  "  other  Lord"  seems  as  warlock-wise  as  Lenox 
— for  he  looks  forward  to  times  when 

"  We  may  again 

Give  to  our  tables  meat,  sleep  to  our  nights; 
Free  from  our  feasts  and  banquets  bloody  knives." 

An  allusion,  beyond  doubt,  to  the  murder  of  Banquo !  A  sudden  thought 
strikes  me.  Why,  not  only  must  the  real,  actual,  spiritual,  corporeal  Ghost  of 
Banquo  sate  on  the  stool,  but  "  Lenox  and  the  other  Lord,"  as  well  as 
Macbeth,  saw  him. 

BULLER. 
Are  you  serious,  sir  ? 

NORTH. 

So  serious  that  I  can  scarcely  hope  to  recover  my  usual  spirits  to-day. 
Have  you,  gentlemen,  among  you  any  more  plausible  solution  to  offer  ?  All 
mum.  One  word  more  with  you.  Lenox  tells  the  "  other  Lord  " 

"  From  broad  words,  and  'cause  he  fail'd 
His  presence  at  the  tyrant's  feast,  I  hear, 
MACDUFF  LIVES  IN  DISGRACE  ;  SIR,  CAN  you  TELL 
WHERE  HE  BESTOWS  HIMSELF  1 " 


1849.]  Christopher  under  Canvass.  653 

And  the  "other  Lord,"  who  is  wonderfully  well  informed  for  a  person 
"  strictly  anonymous, "  replies  that  Macduff — 

"  Is  gone  to  pray  the  holy  king,  (Edward)  on  his  aid 
To  wake  Northumberland,  and  warlike  Siward." 

Nay,  he  minutely  describes  Macduff's  surly  reception  of  the  King's  messenger, 
sent  to  invite  him  to  the  Banquet,  and  the  happy  style  of  that  official  on 
getting  the  Thane  of  Fife's  "  absolute,  Sir,  not  I,"  and  D.  I.  O. !  And  the 
same  nameless  "  Lord  in  waiting'!  says  to  Lenox,  that 

"  this  report 

Hath  so  exasperate  the  king,  that  he 
Prepares  for  some  attempt  of  war." 

I  should  like  to  know  first  where  and  when  these  two  gifted  individuals  picked 
up  all  this  information  ?  The  king  himself  had  told  the  Queen,  that  same 
night,  that  he  had  not  sent  to  Macduff— but  that  he  had  heard  "  by  the  way" 
that  he  was  not  coming  to  the  Banquet— and  he  only  learns  the  flight  of  Mac- 
duff  after  the  Cauldron  Scene — that  is  at  end  of  it : — 

"  Macbeth.  Come  in,  without  there  ! 
Enter  Lenox. 

Lenox.  What's  your  Grace's  will  ? 

Macbeth.  Saw  you  the  Weird  Sisters  ? 

Lenox.  No,  indeed,  my  Lord. 

Macbeth.  Infected  be  the  air  whereon  they  ride; 
And  damn'd  all  those  that  trust  them  ! — I  did  hear 
The  galloping  of  horse  :  Who  was't  came  by  ? 

Lenox.  'Tis  two  or  three,  my  Lord,  that  bring  you  word, 
MACDUFF  is  FLED  TO  ENGLAND. 

Macbeth.  FLED  TO  ENGLAND  ?" 

For  an  Usurper  and  Tyrant,  his  Majesty  is  singularly  ill-informed  about  the 
movements  of  his  most  dangerous  Thanes !  But  Lenox,  I  think,  must  have 
been  not  a  little  surprised  at  that  moment  to  find  that,  so  far  from  the  exas- 
perated Tyrant  having  "prepared  for  some  attempt  of  war"  with  England — he 
had  not  till  then  positively  known  that  Macduff  had  fled !  I  pause,  as  a  man 
pauses  who  has  no  more  to  say — not  for  a  reply.  But  to  be  sure,  Talboys 
will  reply  to  anything — and  were  I  to  say  that  the  Moon  is  made  of  green 
cheese,  he  would  say — yellow — 

TALBOYS. 

If  of  weeping  Parmesan,  then  I — of  the  "  cheese  without  a  tear" — Double 
Gloster. 

NORTH. 

The  whole  Dialogue  between  Lenox  and  the  Lord  is  miraculous.  It 
abounds  with  knowledge  of  events  that  had  not  happened — and  could  not 
have  happened— on  the  showing  of  Shakspeare  himself;  but  I  do  not  believe 
that  there  is  another  man  now  alive  who  knows  that  Lenox  and  the  "  other 
Lord"  are  caught  up  and  strangled  in  that  noose  of  Time.  Did  the  Poet  ? 
You  would  think,  from  the  way  they  go  on,  that  one  ground  of  war,  one 
motive  of  Macduff's  going,  is  the  murder  of  Banquo — perpetrated  since  he  is 
gone  off! 

TALBOYS. 

Eh? 

NORTH. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  given  you  a  specimen  or  two  of  Shakspeare's  way  of 
dealing  with  Time — and  I  can  elicit  no  reply.  You  are  one  and  all  durnb- 
foundered.  What  will  you  be — where  will  you  be — when  I — 

BULLER. 

Have  announced  "  all  my  astounding  discoveries!"  and  where,  also,  will 
be  poor  Shakspeare — where  his  Critics? 

NORTH. 

Friends,  Countrymen,   and  Romans,  lend  me  your  ears!     A  dazzling 


654  Christopher  under  Canvass.  [Nov.  1849. 

spell  is  upon  us  that  veils  from  our  apprehension  all  incompatibilities — all 
impossibilities — for  he  -dips  the  Swan-quill  in  Power — and  Power  is  that  which 
you  must  accept  from  him,  and  so  to  the  utter  oblivion,  while  we  read  or 
behold,  of  them  all.  To  go  to  work  with  such  inquiries  is  to  try  to  articulate 
thunder.  What  do  I  intend  ?  That  Shakspeare  is  only  to  be  thus  criticised  ? 
Apollo  forbid — forbid  the  Nine !  I  intend  Prolegomena  to  the  Criticism  of 
Shakspeare.  I  intend  mowing  and  burning  the  brambles  before  ploughing  the 
soil.  I  intend  showing  where  we  must  not  look  for  the  Art  and  the  Genius 
of  Shakspeare,  as  a  step  to  discovering  where  we  must.  I  suspect — I  know 
— that  Criticism  has  oscillated  from  one  extreme  to  another,  in  the  mind  of 
the  country — from  denying  all  art,  to  acknowledging  consummated  art,  and  no 
flaw.  I  would  find  the  true  Point.  Stamped  and  staring  upon  the  front  of  these 
Tragedies  is  a  conflict.  He,  the  Poet,  beholds  Life — he,  the  Poet,  is  on  the 
Stage.  The  littleness  of  the  Globe  Theatre  mixes  with  the  greatness  of  human 
affairs.  You  think  of  the  Green-room  and  the  Scene-shifters.  I  think  that 
when  we  have  stripped  away  the  disguises  and  incumbrances  of  the  Power,  we 
shall  see,  naked,  and  strong,  and  beautiful,  the  statue  moulded  by  Jupiter. 


Ptintcd  ly  William  Blacku-ood  and  Sons,  E<r 


BLACKWOOD'S 
EDINBURGH    MAGAZINE. 


No.  CCCCX. 


DECEMBER,  1849. 


VOL.  LXVI. 


THE  NATIONAL  DEBT  AND  THK  STOCK  EXCHANGK. 


THE  idea  of  associating  history  with 
some  specific  locality  or  institution, 
has  long  ago  occurred  to  the  skilful 
fabricators  of  romance.  If  old  walls 
could  speak,  what  strange  secrets 
might  they  not  reveal !  The  thought 
suggests  itself  spontaneously  even  to 
the  mind  of  the  boy ;  and  though  it 
is  incapable  of  realisation,  writers — 
good,  bad,  and  indifferent  —  have 
seriously  applied  themselves  to  the 
task  of  extracting  sermons  from  the 
stones,  and  have  feigned  to  repro- 
duce an  audible  voice  from  the  vaults 
of  the  dreary  ruin.  Such  was  at 
least  the  primary  idea  of  Scott,  in- 
comparably the  greatest  master  of 
modern  fiction,  whilst  preparing  his 
materials  for  the  construction  of  the 
Heart  of  Mid-Lothian.  Victor  Hugo 
has  made  the  Cathedral  of  Paris  the 
title  and  centre-point  of  his  most 
stirring  and  animated  tale.  Harrison 
Ainsworth,  who  seems  to  think  that 
the  world  can  never  have  too  much  of 
a  good  thing,  has  assumed  the  office  of 
historiographer  of  antiquity,  and  has 
treated  us  in  succession  to  Chronicles 
of  Windsor  Castle,  the  Tower,  and 
Old  St  Paul's.  Those  of  the  Bastile 
have  lately  been  written  by  an  author 
of  no  common  power,  whose  modesty, 
rarely  imitated  in  these  days,  has  left 
us  ignorant  of  his  name ;  and  we  be- 
lieve that  it  would  be  possible  to 
augment  the  list  to  a  considerable 


extent.  In  all  those  works,  how- 
ever, history  was  the  subsidiary, 
while  romance  was  the  principal  in- 
gredient ;  we  have  now  to  deal  with 
a  book  which  professes  to  abstain 
from  romance,  though,  in  reality,  no 
romance  whatever  has  yet  been  con- 
structed from  materials  of  deeper 
interest.  We  allude,  of  course,  to 
the  work  of  Mr  Francis  ;  Mr  Double- 
day's  treatise  is  of  a  graver  and  a 
sterner  nature. 

We  dare  say,  that  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  those  who  derive  their 
literary  nutriment  from  Maga,  may 
be  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  ele- 
ment of  romance  can  lie  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Stock  Exchange.  With 
all  our  boasted  education,  we  are,  in 
so  far  as  money-matters  are  con- 
cerned, a  singularly  ignorant  people. 
That  which  ought  to  be  the  study  of 
every  citizen,  which  must  be  the 
study  of.  every  politician,  and  without 
a  competent  knowledge  of  which  the 
exercise  of  the  electoral  franchise  is  a 
blind  vote  given  in  the  dark,  is  as 
unintelligible  as  the  Talmud  to  many 
persons  of  more  than  ordinary  ac- 
complishment and  refinement.  The 
learned  expounder  of  Thucydides 
would  be  sorely  puzzled,  if  called 
upon  to  give  an  explanation  of  the 
present  funding  system  of  Great 
Britain.  The  man  in  easy  circum- 
stances, who  draws  his  dividend  at 


A  Financial,  Monetary,  and  Statistical  History  of  England,  from  the  Revolution 
o/"1688  to  the  present  time.  By  THOMAS  DOUBLF.DAY,  Esq.  London:  1847. 

Chronicles  and  Characters  of  the  Stock  Exchange.  By  JOHN  FRANCIS,  Esq.  Lou- 
don:  1849. 

VOL.  LXVI.— NO.  CCCCX.  2  X 


656 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


[Dec. 


the  Bank,  knows  little  more  about 
the  funds  than  that  they  mysteriously 
yield  him  a  certain  return  for  capital 
previously  invested,  and  that  the 
interest  he  receives  comes,  in  some 
shape  or  other,  from  the  general 
pocket  of  the  nation.  He  is  aware 
that  consols  oscillate,  but  he  does 
not  very  well  understand  why,  though 
he  attributes  their  rise  or  fall  to 
foreign  news.  It  never  occurs  to  him 
to  inquire  for  what  reason  that  which 
yields  a  certain  return,  is  yet  liable 
to  such  surprising  and  violent  fluctua- 
tions ;  he  shakes  his  head  in  despair 
at  the  mention  of  foreign  exchanges, 
and  is  not  ashamed  to  avow  his  in- 
capacity to  grapple  with  the  recon- 
dite question  of  the  currency.  And 
yet  it  may  not  only  be  safely,  but  it 
ought  to  be  most  broadly  averred,  that 
without  a  due  comprehension  of  the 
monetary  system  of  this  country, 
and  the  general  commercial  princi- 
ples which  regulate  the  affairs  of  the 
world,  history  is  nothing  more  than  a 
tissue  of  barren  facts  and  perpetual 
contradictions,  which  it  is  profitless 
to  contemplate,  and  utterly  imposs- 
ible to  reconcile.  Nay  more,  all 
history  which  is  written  by  authors, 
who  have  failed  to  acknowledge  the 
tremendous  potency  of  the  monetary 
power  in  directing  the  destinies  of 
nations,  and  who  have  neglected  to 
scrutinise  closely  the  source  and 
operation  of  that  power,  must  neces- 
sarily be  fallacious,  and  can  only  mis- 
lead the  reader,  by  false  pictures  of 
the  condition  of  the  present  as  con- 
trasted with  that  of  a  former  age. 
!N~o  eloquence,  no  genius,  will  avail  to 
compensate  for  that  radical  defect, 
with  which  some  most  popular  writers 
are  justly  chargeable,  and  a  glaring 
instance  of  which  we  propose  to  exa- 
mine in  the  course  of  the  present 
paper. 

The  study  is  said  to  be  a  dry  one. 
Certainly,  until  we  have  mastered 
the  details,  it  does  look  forbidding 
enough ;  but,  these  once  mastered, 
our  eyes  appear  to  be  touched  witli 
fairy  ointment.  What  formerly  was 
confusion,  worse  than  Babel,  assumes 
a  definite  order.  We  behold,  in 
tangible  form,  a  power  so  terribly 
strong  that  with  a  touch  it  can 
paralyse  armies.  We  behold  it  gra- 
dually weaving  around  us  a  net, 


from  which  it  is  impossible  to  escape, 
and  claiming  with  a  stern  accent, 
Avhich  brooks  no  denial,  a  right  of 
property  in  ourselves,  our  soil,  our 
earnings,  our  industry,  and  our  child- 
ren. To  its  influence  we  can  trace 
most  of  the  political  changes  which 
perplex  mankind,  and  which  seem  to 
baffle  explanation.  Like  the  small 
reptile  of  the  old  Northumbrian 
legend,  it  has  grown  into  a  monstrous 
dragon,  capable  of  swallowing  up 
both  herd  and  herdsman  together. 
The  wisest  of  our  statesmen  have 
tried  to  check  its  advance  and  failed ; 
the  worst  of  them  have  encouraged  its 
growth,  and  almost  declared  it  harm- 
less ;  the  most  adroit  have  yielded 
to  its  power.  Interest  after  interest 
has  gone  down  in  the  vain  struggle 
to  oppose  it,  and  yet  its  appetite  still 
remains  as  keen  aud  insatiable  as 
ever. 

When,  in  future  years,  the  history 
of  this  great  nation  and  its  dependen- 
cies shall  be  adequately  written,  the 
annalist  must,  perforce,  give  due  pro- 
minence to  that  power  which  we 
weakly  and  foolishly  overlook.  He 
will  then  see,  that  the  matchless  in- 
dustry displayed  by  Great  Britain  is 
far  less  the  spontaneous  result  of  bold 
and  honest  exertion,  than  the  struggle 
of  a  dire  necessity  which  compels  us 
to  go  on,  because  it  is  death  and  ruin 
to  stand  still.  He  will  understand  the 
true  source  of  all  our  marvellous  ma- 
chinery, of  that  skill  in  arts  which  the 
world  never  witnessed  before,  of  our 
powers  of  production  pushed  to  the 
utmost  possible  extent.  And  he  will 
understand  more.  He  will  be  able  to 
comprehend  why,  within  the  circuit  of 
one  island,  the  most  colossal  fortunes 
and  the  most  abject  misery  should 
have  existed  together ;  why  Britain, 
admitted  to  be  the  richest  of  the 
European  states,  and  in  one  sense 
imagined  to  be  the  strongest,  should 
at  this  moment  exercise  less  influence 
in  the  councils  of  the  world  than  she 
did  in  the  days  of  Cromwell,  and, 
though  well  wcaponed,  bo  terrified  to 
strike  a  blow,  lest  the  recoil  should 
prove  fatal  to  herself.  The  knowledge 
of  such  things  is  not  too  difficult  for 
our  attainment;  and  attain  it  we  must, 
if,  like  sensible  men,  we  are  desirous 
to  ascertain  the  security  or  the  pre- 
cariousness  of  our  own  position. 


1849.] 


The.  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


657 


The  history  of  the  Stock  Exchange 
involves,  as  a  matter  of  necessity,  the 
history  of  our  national  debt.  From 
that  debt  the  whole  fabric  arose  ;  and, 
interesting  as  are  many  of  the  details 
connected  with  stock-jobbing,  state- 
loans,  lotteries,  and  speculative  manias, 
the  origin  of  the  mystery  appears  to 
us  of  far  higher  import.  It  involves 
political  considerations  which  ought 
to  be  pondered  at  the  present  time, 
because  it  has  lately  been  averred,  by 
a  writer  of  the  very  highest  talent, 
that  the  Revolution  of  1688  was  the 
cause  of  unminglcd  good  to  this 
country.  That  position  we  totally 
deny.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of 
the  folly  of  James  II.,  in  attempting 
to  force  his  own  religion  down  the 
throats  of  his  subjects — however  we 
may  brand  him  as  a  bigot,  or  de- 
nounce him  for  an  undue  exercise  of 
the  royal  prerogative — he  cannot  be 
taxed  with  financial  oppression,  or 
general  state  extravagance.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  revenue 
levied  by  the  last  of  the  reigning 
Stuarts  was  exceedingly  moderate  in 
amount,  and  exceedingly  well  ap- 
plied for  the  public  service.  J.t  was 
far  less  than  that  levied  by  the  Long 
Parliament,  which  has  been  estimated 
at  the  sum  of  £4,862,700  a-year. 
The  revenue  of  James,  in  1688, 
amounted  only  to  £2,001,855;  and 
at  this  charge  he  kept  together  a  strong 
and  well-appointed  fleet,  and  an  army 
of  very  nearly  twenty  thousand  men. 
The  nation  was  neither  ground  by 
taxes,  nor  impoverished  by  wars;  and 
whatever  discontent  might  have  been 
excited  by  religious  bickerings,  and 
even  persecution,  it  is  clear  that  the 
great  body  of  the  people  could  not  be 
otherwise  than  happy,  since  they 
were  left  in  undisturbed  possession  of 
their  own  earnings,  and  at  full  liberty 
to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  own  indus- 
try and  skill.  As  very  brilliant  pic- 
tures have  been  drawn  of  the  improved 
state  of  England  now,  contrasted  with 
its  former  position  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  James,  we  think  it  right  to 
exhibit  another,  which  may,  possibly, 
surprise  our  readers.  It  is  taken  from 
Mr  Doubleday's  Financial  History  of 
England,  a  work  of  absorbing  inter- 
est and  uncommon  research  :  we  have 
tested  it  minutely,  by  reference  to 
documents  of  the  time,  and  we  be- 


lieve it  to  be  strictly  true,  as  it  is  un- 
questionably clear  in  its  statements. 

"  The  state  of  the  country,"  says  Mr 
Doubleday,  "  was,  at  the  close  of  the  reign 
of  James  II.,  very  prosperous.  The  whole 
annual  revenue  required  from  his  subjects, 
by  this  king,  amounted  to  only  a  couple 
of  millions  of  pounds  sterling,  —  these 
pounds  being,  in  value,  equal  to  about 
thirty  shillings  of  the  money  of  the  pre- 
sent moment.  So  well  off  and  easy,  in 
their  circumstances,  were  the  mass  of  the 
people,  that  the  poor-rates,  which  were 
in  those  days  liberally  distributed,  only 
amounted  to  £300,000  yearly.  The 
population,  being  rich  and  well  fed, 
was  moderate  in  numbers.  No  such 
thing  as  'surplus  population'  was  even 
dreamed  of.  Every  man  had  constant 
employment,  at  good  wages;  bankruptcy 
was  a  thing  scarcely  known ;  and  nothing 
short  of  sheer  and  great  misfortune,  or 
culpable  and  undeniable  imprudence, 
could  drive  men  into  the  Gazette  bank- 
rupt-list, or  upon  the  parish-books.  In 
trade,  profits  were  great  and  competition 
small.  Six  per  cent  was  commonly  given 
for  money  when  it  was  really  wanted. 
Prudent  men,  after  being  twenty  years  in 
business,  generally  retired  with  a  com- 
fortable competence:  and  thus  competi- 
tion was  lessened,  because  men  went  out 
of  business  almost  as  fast  as  others  went 
into  it;  and  the  eldest  apprentice  was 
frequently  the  active  successor  of  his  re- 
tired master,  sometimes  as  the  partner  of 
the  son,  and  sometimes  as  the  husband 
of  the  daughter.  In  the  intercourse  of 
ordinary  life,  a  hospitality  was  kept  up, 
at  which  modern  times  choose  to  mock, 
because  they  are  too  poverty-stricken  to 
imitate  it.  Servants  had  presents  made 
to  them  by  guests,  under  the  title  of 
'  vails,'  which  often  enabled  them  to 
realise  a  comfortable  sum  for  old  age. 
The  dress.of  the  times  was  as  rich,  and  as 
indicative  of  real  wealth,  as  the  modes  of 
living.  Gold  and  silver  lace  was  com- 
monly worn,  and  liveries  were  equally 
costly.  With  less  pretence  of  taste  and 
show,  the  dwellings  were  more  substan- 
tially built  ;  and  the  furniture  was  solid 
and  serviceable,  as  well  as  ornamental — • 
in  short,  all  that  it  seemed  to  be." 

The  above  remarks  apply  princi- 
pally to  the  condition  of  the  middle 
classes.  If  they  be  true,  as  we  see 
no  reason  to  doubt,  it  will  at 
once  be  evident  that  things  have 
altered  for  the  worse,  notwithstand- 
ing the  enormous  spread  of  our  manu- 
factures, the  creation  of  our  machinery, 
and  the  constant  and  continuous  labour 
of  more  than  a  century  and  a  half. 


658 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


[Dec. 


But  there  are  other  considerations 
which  we  must  not  keep  out  of  view, 
if  we  wish  to  arrive  at  a  thorough 
understanding  of  this  matter.  Mr 
Macaulay  has  devoted  the  most  inte- 
resting chapter  of  his  history  to  an 
investigation  of  the  social  state  of 
England  under  the  Stuarts.  Many  of 
his  assertions  have,  as  we  observe, 
been  challenged ;  but  there  is  one 
which,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  has 
not  yet  been  touched.  That  is,  his 
picture  of  the  condition  of  the 
labouring  man.  We  do  not  think  it 
necessary  to  combat  his  theory,  as  to 
the  delusion  which  he  maintains  to  be 
so  common,  when  we  contemplate  the 
times  which  have  gone  by,  and  com- 
pare them  with  our  own.  There  are 
many  kinds  of  delusion,  and  we  sus- 
pect that  Mr  Macaulay  himself  is  by 
no  means  free  from  the  practice  of  using 
coloured  glasses  to  assist  his  natural 
vision.  But  there  are  certain  facts 
which  cannot,  or  ought  not,  to  be  per- 
verted, and  from  those  facts  we  may 
draw  inferences  which  are  almost  next 
to  certainty.  Mr  Macaulay,  in  estimat- 
ing the  condition  of  the  labouring  man 
in  the  reign  of  King  James,  very  proper- 
ly^selects  the  rate  of  wages  as  a  sound 
criterion.  Founding  upon  data  which 
are  neither  numerous  nor  distinct,  he 
arrives  at  the  conclusion,  that  the 
wages  of  the  agricultural  labourer  of 
that  time,  or  rather  of  the  time  of 
Charles  II.,  were  about  half  the 
amount  of  the  present  ordinary  rates. 
At  least  so  we  understand  him,  though 
he  admits  that,  in  some  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  wages  were  as  high  as  six, 
or  even  seven  shillings.  The  value, 
however,  of  these  shillings — that  is, 
the  amount  of  commodities  which 
they  could  purchase — must,  as  Mr 
Macaulay  well  knows,  be  taken  into 
consideration ;  and  here  we  apprehend 
that  he  is  utterly  wrong  in  his  facts. 
The  following  is  his  summary  : — 

"It  seems  clear,  therefore,  that  the 
wages  of  labour,  estimated  in  money, 
were,  in  1685,  not  more  than  half  of  what 
they  now  are  ;  and  there  were  few  articles 
important  to  the  working  man  of  which 
the  price  was  not,  in  1685,  more  than  half 
of  what  it  now  is.  Beer  was  undoubtedly 
much  cheaper  in  that  age  than  at  present. 
Meat  was  also  cheaper,  but  was  still  so 
dearthat  hundreds  of  thousands  of  families 
scarcely  knew  the  taste  of  it.  In  the  coft 
of  wheat  there  has  been  very  little  chanac. 


The  average  price  of  the  quarter,  during 
the  last  twelve  years  of  Charles  II., 
was  fifty  shillings.  Bread,  therefore, 
such  as  is  now  given  to  the  inmates  of  a 
workhouse,  was  then  seldom  seen,  even 
on  the  trencher  of  a  yeoman  or  of  a  shop- 
keeper. The  great  majority  of  the  nation 
lived  almost  entirely  on  rye,  barley,  and 
oats." 

If  this  be  true,  there  must  be  a  vast 
mistake  somewhere — a  delusion  which 
most  assuredly  ought  to  be  dispelled, 
if  any  amount  of  examination  can 
serve  that  purpose.  No  fact,  we  be- 
lieve, has  been  so  well  ascertained, 
or  so  frequently  commented  on,  as  the 
almost  total  disappearance  of  the  once 
national  estate  of  yeomen  from  the 
face  of  the  land.  How  this  could 
have  happened,  if  Mr  Macaulay  is 
right,  we  cannot  understand  ;  neither 
can  we  account  for  the  phenomenon 
presented  to  us,  by  the  exceedingly 
small  amount  of  the  poor-rates  levied 
during  the  reign  of  King  James.  One 
thing  we  know,  for  certain,  that,  in 
his  calculation  of  the  price  of  wheat, 
Mr  Macaulay  is  decidedly  wrong — 
wrong  in  this  way,  that  the  average 
which  he  quotes  is  the  highest  that  he 
could  possibly  select  during  two 
reigns.  Our  authority  is  Adam  Smith, 
and  it  will  be  seen  that  his  statement 
differs  most  materially  from  that  of 
the  accomplished  historian. 

"In  1688,  Mr  Gregory  King,  a  man 
famous  for  his  knowledge  of  matters  of 
this  kind,  estimated  the  average  price  of 
wheat,  in  years  of  moderate  plenty,  to  be 
to  the  grower  3s.  6d.  the  bushel,  or  elpht- 
and-twenty  shillings  the  quarter.  The 
grower's  price  I  understand  to  be  the 
same  with  what  is  sometimes  called  the 
contract  price,  or  the  price  at  which  a  far- 
mer contracts  for  a  certain  number  of 
years  to  deliver  a  certain  quantity  of  corn 
to  a  dealer.  As  a  contract  of  this  kind 
saves  the  farmer  the  expense  and  trouble 
of  marketing,  the  contract  price  is  gene- 
rally lower  than  what  is  supposed  to  be 
the  average  market  price.  Mr  King  had 
judged  eight-and-twenty  shillings  the 
quarter  to  be,  at  that  time,  the  ordinary 
contract  price  in  years  of  moderate 
plenty." — SMITH'S  Wealth  of  Nations. 

In  corroboration  of  this  view,  if  so 
eminent  an  authority  as  Adam  Smith 
requires  any  corroboration,  we  sub- 
join the  market  prices  of  wheat  at 
Oxford  for  the  four  years  of  James's 
reign.  The  averages  are  struck  from 


1849.] 


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C50 


t  he  highest  and  lowest  prices  calculated 
at  Lady-day  and  Michaelmas. 

1685,  .  .  43.8  per  qr. 

1686,  .  .  26.8     ... 

1687,  .  .  27.7     ... 

1688,  .  .  23.2     ... 

4)121.1     ... 
Average,  per  qr.,      30.3J   ... 

But  the  Oxford  returns  are  always 
higher  than  those  of  Mark  Lane,  which 
latter  again  are  above  the  average  of 
the  whole  country.  So  that,  in  form- 
ing an  estimate  from  such  data,  of  the 
general  price  over  England,  we  may 
be  fairly  entitled  to  deduct  two  shil- 
lings a  quarter,  which  will  give  a 
result  closely  approximating  to  that 
of  Gregory  King.  We  may  add,  that 
this  calculation  was  approved  of  and 
repeated  by  Dr  Davenant,  who  is 
admitted  even  by  Mr  Macaulay  to  be 
a  competent  authority. 

Keeping  the  above  facts  in  view, 
let  us  attend  to  Mr  Doubleday's 
statement  of  the  condition  of  the  work- 
ing men,  in  those  despotic  days,  when 
national  debts  were  unknown.  It  is 
diametrically  opposed  in  every  respect 
to  that  of  Mr  Macaulay :  and,  from 
the  character  and  research  of  the 
writer,  is  well  entitled  to  exami- 
nation : — 

"  The  condition  of  the  working  classes 
was  proportionably  happy.  Their  wages 
were  good,  and  their  means  far  above 
want,  where  common  prudence  was  joined 
to  ordinary  strength.  In  the  towns  the 
dwellings  were  cramped,  by  most  of  the 
towns  being  walled;  but  in  the  country, 
the  labourers  were  mostly  the  owners  of 
their  own  cottages  and  gardens,  which 
studded  the  edges  of  the  common  lands 
that  were  appended  to  every  township. 
The  working  classes,  as  well  as  the  richer 
people,  kept  all  the  church  festivals, 
saints'  days,  and  holidays.  Good  Friday, 
Easter  and  its  week,  Whitsuntide,  Shrove 
Tuesday,  Ascension-day,  Christmas,  &c., 
were  all  religiously  observed.  On  every 
festival,  good  fare  abounded  from  the 
palace  to  the  cottage ;  and  the  poorest 
wore  strong  broad-cloth  and  homespun 
linen,  compared  with  which  the  flimsy 
fabrics  of  these  times  are  mere  worthless 
gossamers  and  cobwebs,  whether  strength 
or  value  be  looked  at.  At  this  time,  all 
the  rural  population  brewed  their  own 
beer,  which,  except  on  fast-days,  was  the 
ordinary  beverage  of  the  working  man. 


Flesh  meat  was  commonly  eaten  by  all 
classes.  The  potato  was  little  cultivated; 
oatmeal  was  hardly  used ;  even  bread  was 
neglected  where  wheat  was  not  ordinarily 
grown,  though  wheaten  bread  (contrary 
to  what  is  sometimes  asserted)  was 
generally  consumed.  In  1 760,  a  later  date, 
when  George  III.  began  to  reign,  it  was 
computed  that  the  whole  people  of  Eng- 
land (alone)  amounted  to  six  millions. 
Of  these,  three  millions  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  were  believed  to  eat 
wheaten  bread ;  seven  hundred  and  thirty- 
nine  thousand  were  computed  to  use  bar- 
ley bread;  eight  hundred  and  eighty- 
eight  thousand,  rye  bread;  and  six  hun- 
dred and  twenty-three  thousand,  oatmeal 
and  oat-cakes.  All,  however,  ate  bacon 
or  mutton, and  drank  beer  and  cider;  tea 
and  coffee  being  then  principally  con- 
sumed by  the  middle  classes.  The  very 
diseases  attending  this  full  mode  of  living 
were  an  evidence  of  the  state  of  national' 
comfort  prevailing.  Surfeit,  apoplexy, 
scrofula,  gout,  piles,  and  hepatitis;  agues 
of  all  sorts,  from  the  want  of  drainage  j 
and  malignant  fevers  in  the  walled  towns, 
from  want  of  ventilation,  were  the  ordi- 
nary complaints.  But  consumption  in 
all  its  forms,  marasmus  and  atrophy, 
owing  to  the  better  living  and  clothing, 
were  comparatively  unfrequent :  and  the 
types  of  fever,  which  are  caused  by  want, 
equally  so." 

We  shall  fairly  confess  that  we 
have  been  much  confounded  by  the 
dissimilarity  of  the  two  pictures ;  fov 
they  probably  furnish  the  strongest 
instance  on  record  of  two  historians 
flatly  contradicting  each  other.  The 
worst  of  the  matter  is,  that  we  have 
in  reality  few  authentic  data  which 
can  enable  us  to  decide  between  them. 
So  long  as  Gregory  King  speaks  to 
broad  facts  and  prices,  he  is,  we  think, 
accurate  enough ;  but  whenever  he 
gives  way,  as  he  does  exceedingly 
often,  to  his  speculative  and  calculating 
vein,  we  dare  not  trust  him.  For  ex- 
ample, he  has  entered  into  an  elaborate 
computation  of  the  probable  increase 
of  the  people  of  England  in  succeed- 
ing years,  and,  after  a  show  of  figures 
which  might  excite  envy  in  the  breast 
of  the  Editor  of  The  Economist,  he  de- 
monstrates that  the  population  in  the 
year  1900  cannot  exceed  7,350,000 
souls.  With  half  a  century  to  run,  Eng- 
land has  already  more  than  doubled 
the  prescribed  number.  Now,  though 
King  certainly  does  attempt  to  frame 
an  estimate  of  the  number  of  those 


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[Dec. 


who,  in  his  tinie,  did  not  indulge  in 
butcher  meat  more  than  once  a  week, 
we  cannot  trust  an  assertion  which 
was,  in  point  of  fact,  neither  more  nor 
less  than  a  wide  guess ;  but  we  may, 
with  perfect  safety,  accept  his  prices 
of  provisions,  which  show  that  high 
living  was  clearly  within  the  reach  of 
the  very  poorest.  Beef  sold  then  at 
l^d.,  and  mutton  at  2^d.  per  Ib. ;  so 
that  the  taste  of  those  viands  must 
have  been  tolerably  well  known  to 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  families 
whom  Mr  Macaulay  has  condemned 
to  the  coarsest  farinaceous  diet. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  we  have  no 
clear  evidence  as  to  the  poor-rates, 
which  can  aid  us  in  elucidating  this 
matter.  Mr  Macaulay,  speaking  of 
that  impost,  says,  "  It  was  computed, 
in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  at  near 
seven  hundred  thousand  pounds  a- 
year,  much  more  than  the  produce 
either  of  the  excise  or  the  customs, 
and  little  less  than  half  the  entire 
revenue  of  the  crown.  The  poor-rate 
u'ent  on  increasing  rapidly,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  risen  in  a  short  time  to 
between  eight  and  nine  hundred  thou- 
sand a-year — that  is  to  say,  to  one- 
sixth  of  what  it  now  is.  The  popula- 
tion was  then  less  than  one-third  of 
what  it  now  is."  This  view  may  bo 
correct,  but  it  is  certainly  not  bome 
out  by  Mr  Porter,  who  says  that, 
"  so  recently  as  the  reign  of  George 
II.,  the  amount  raised  within  the  year 
for  poor-rates  and  county-rates  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales,  was  only  £730,000. 
This  was  the  average  amount  col- 
lected in  the  years  1748, 1749, 1750." 
To  establish  anything  like  a  rapid 
increase,  we  must  assume  a  much 
lower  figure  than  that  from  which  Mr 
Macaulay  starts.  A  rise  of  £30,000 
in  some  sixty  years  is  no  remarkable 
addition.  Mr  Doubleday,  as  we  have 
seen,  estimates  the  amount  of  the 
rate  at  only  £300,000. 

But  even  granting  that  the  poor- 
rate  was  considered  high  in  the  days 
of  James,  it  bore  no  proportion  to  the 
existing  population  such  as  that  of  the 
present  impost.  The  population  of 
England  has  trebled  since  then,  and 
we  have  seen  the  poor-rates  rise  to 
the  enormous  sum  of  seven  millions. 
Surely  that  is  no  token  of  the  superior 
comfort  of  our  people.  We  shall  not 
do  more  than-  allude  to  another  topic, 


which,  however,  might  well  bear  am- 
plification. It  is  beyond  all  doubt, 
that,  before  the  Revolution,  the  agri- 
cultural labourer  was  the  free  master 
of  his  house  and  garden,  and  had, 
moreover,  rights  of  pasturage  and 
commonty,  all  which  have  long  ago 
disappeared.  The  lesser  freeholds,  also, 
have  been  in  a  great  measure  absorbed. 
When  a  great  national  poet  put  the 
following  lines  into  the  mouth  of  one 
of  his  characters, — 

"  Even  therefore  grieve  I  for  those  yeomen, 
England's  peculiar  and  appropriate  sons, 
Known  in  no  other  land.     Each  boasts  his 

hearth 

And  field  as  free,  as  the  best  lord  his  barony, 
Owing  subjection  to  no  human  vassalage, 
Save  to  their  king  and  law.     Hence  are  they 

resolute, 

Leading  the  van  on  every  day  of  battle, 
As  men  who  know  the  blessings  they  defend  ; 
Hence  are  they  frank  and  generous  in  peace, 
As  men  who  have  their  portion  in  its  plenty. 
No   other  kingdom  shows  such  worth  and 

happiness 
Veiled  in  such  low  estate — therefore  I  raourri 

them," 

we  doubt  not  that  he  intended  to 
refer  to  the  virtual  extirpation  of  a 
race,  which  has  long  ago  been  com- 
pelled to  part  with  its  birthright,  in 
order  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  inexor- 
able Mammon.  Even  whilst  we  are 
writing,  a  strong  and  unexpected  cor- 
roboration  of  the  correctness  of  our 
views  has  appeared  in  the  public  prints. 
Towards  the  commencement  of  the 
present  month,  November,  a  deputa- 
tion from  the  agricultural  labourers  of 
Wiltshire  waited  upon  the  Hon.  Sid- 
ney Herbert,  to  represent  the  misery 
of  their  present  condition.  Then? 
wages,  they  said,  were  from  six  to 
seven  shillings  a- week,  and  they 
asked,  with  much  reason,  how,  upon 
such  a  pittance,  they  could  be  expected 
to  maintain  their  families.  This  is 
precisely  the  same  amount  of  nominal 
wage  which  Mr  Macanlay  assigns  to 
the  labourer  of  the  time  of  King  J  ames. 
But,  in  order  to  equalise  the  value?, 
we  must  add  a  third  more  to  the  lat- 
ter, which  is  at  once  decisive  of  the 
question.  Perhaps  Mr  Macaulay,  in  a 
future  edition,  will  condescend  to  ex- 
plain how  it  is  possible  that  the  la- 
bourer of  our  times  can  be  in  a  better 
condition  than  his  ancestor,  seeing 
that  the  price  of  wheat  is  nearly 
doubled,  and  that  of  butcher-meat 


184!).] 


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601 


fully  quadrupled  ?  We  are  content  to 
take  his  own  authorities,  King  and 
Davenant,  as  to  prices ;  and  the  re- 
sults are  now  before  the  reader. 

These  remarks  we  have  felt  our- 
selves compelled  to  make,  because  it 
is  necessary  that,  before  touching  upon 
the  institution  of  the  national  debt, 
\ve  should  clearly  understand  what  was 
the  true  condition  of  the  people.  We 
believe  it  possible  to  condense  the 
leading  features  within  the  compass  of 
a  single  sentence.  There  were  few 
colossal  fortunes,  because  there  was 
no  stock  gambling ;  there  was  little 
poverty,  because  taxation  was  ex- 
tremely light,  the  means  of  labour 
within  the  reach  of  all,  prices  mode- 
rate, and  provisions  plentiful :  there 
was  less  luxury,  but  more  comfort, 
and  that  comfort  was  far  more  equally 
distributed  than  no  w.  It  is  quite  true, 
that  if  a  man  breaks  his  arm  at 
the  present  day,  he  can  have  it  better 
set ;  but  rags  and  an  empty  belly  arc 
worse  evils  than  indifferent  surgical 
treatment. 

We  are  very  far  from  wishing  to 
attribute  this  state  of  national  com- 
fort— for  we  think  that  is  the  fittest 
word — to  the  personal  exertions  of 
James.  We  give  him  no  credit  for 
it  whatever.  Has  bigotry  was  far 
greater  than  his  prudence ;  and  he  for- 
feited his  throne,  and  lost  the  alle- 
giance of  the  gentlemen  of  England, 
in  consequence  of  his  insane  attempt 
to  thrust  Popery  upon  the  nation. 
But  if  we  regard  him  simply  as  a 
financial  monarch,  we  must  admit 
that  he  taxed  his  subjects  lightly, 
used  the  taxes  which  he  drew  judi- 
ciously for  the  public  service  and  es- . 
tablishment,  and  imposed  no  burden 
upon  posterity. 

The  peculiar,  and,  to  them,  fatal 
policy  of  the  Stuart  family  was  this, 
that  they  sought  to  reign  as  much  as 
possible  independent  of  the  control  of 
parliaments.  Had  they  not  been 
blinded  by  old  traditions,  they  must 
have  seen  that,  in  attempting  to  do 
so,  they  were  grasping  at  the  shadow 
without  the  possibility  of  attaining  the 
substance.  They  came  to  the  English 
throne  too  late  to  command  the  public 
purse,  and  at  a  period  of  time  when 
voluntary  subsidies  were  visionary. 
They  looked  upon  parliaments  with  an 
eye  of  extreme  jealousy ;  and  parlia- 


ments, iu  return,  were  exceeding!}' 
chary  of  voting  them  the  necessary 
supplies.  Corruption,  as  it  afterwards 
crept  into  the  senate,  was  never  used 
by  the  Stuarts  as  a  direct  engine  of 
power.  The  sales  of  dignities  by  the 
first  James,  detrimental  as  they  prov- 
ed to  the  dignity  of  the  crown,  were  in 
substitution  of  direct  taxation  from 
the  people.  When  supplies  were  with- 
held, or  only  granted  with  a  niggardly 
hand,  it  was  but  natural  in  the  mo- 
narch to  attempt  to  recruit  his  exche- 
quer by  means  of  extraordinary  and 
often  most  questionable  expedients. 
The  second  James,  had  he  chosen  to 
bribe  the  Commons,  might  have  been 
utterly  too  strong  for  any  combina- 
tion of  the  nobles.  William  III.  was 
troubled  with  no  scruples  on  the  score 
of  prerogative.  He  saw  clearly  the 
intimate  and  indissoluble  connexion 
between  power  and  money :  he  secured 
both  by  acquiescing  iu  a  violent  change 
of  the  constitution  as  it  had  hitherto 
existed ;  held  them  during  his  life,  and 
used  them  for  the  furtherance  of  his 
own  designs ;  and  left  us  as  his  legacy, 
the  nucleus  of  a  debt  constructed  011 
such  a  scheme  that  its  influence  must 
be  felt  to  the  remotest  range  of  poste- 
rity. 

That  the  exigencies  of  every  state 
must  be  met  by  loans,  is  a  proposi- 
tion which  it  would  be  useless  to 
question.  Such  loans  are,  however, 
strictly  speaking,  merely  an  anticipa- 
tion of  taxes  to  be  raised  from  the 
country  and  generation  which  reaps 
the  benefit  of  the  expenditure.  Such 
was  the  old  principle,  founded  upon 
law,  equity,  and  reason ;  and  it  sig- 
nifies nothing  how  many  instances  of 
forced  loans,  and  breach  of  repay- 
ment, may  be  culled  from  our  earlier 
history.  Mr  Macaulay  says,  "  From 
a  period  of  immemorial  antiquity,  it 
had  been  the  practice  of  every  Eng- 
lish government  to  contract  debts. 
What  the  Revolution  introduced  was 
the  practise  of  honestly  paying  them." 
This  is  epigrammatic,  but  not  sound. 
From  the  time  when  the  Commons 
had  the  power  of  granting  or  with- 
holding supplies,  they  became  the 
arbiters  of  what  was  and  what  was 
not  properly  a  state  obligation.  In 
order  to  ascertain  the  actual  value  of 
a  debt,  and  the  measure  of  the  credi- 
tor's claim;  we  must  necessarily  look 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


662 

to  the  nature  of  the  security  granted 
at  the  time  of  borrowing.  Forced 
extortions  by  kings  are  not  properly 
debts  of  the  state.  The  sanction  of 
the  people,  through  its  representa- 
tives, is  required  to  make  repayment 
binding  upon  the  people.  The  prac- 
tice which  the  Revolution  introduced 
was  the  contraction  of  debt,  not  in- 
tended to  be  liquidated  by  the  bor- 
rowing generation,  but  to  be  carried 
over  so  as  to  affect  the  industry  of 
generations  unborn ;  not  to  make  the 
debtor  pay,  but  to  leave  the  payment 
to  his  posterity. 

When  William  and  Mary  were  pro- 
claimed, there  was  no  such  thing  as 
a  national  debt.  We  may  indeed 
except  a  comparatively  small  sum, 
amounting  to  above  half  a  million, 
which  had  been  detained  iu  ex- 
chequer by  the  profligate  Charles  II., 
and  applied  to  his  own  uses.  But 
this  was  not  properly  a  state  debt, 
nor  was  it  acknowledged  as  such  till 
a  later  period. 

To  those  who  are  capable  of  appre- 
ciating that  genius  which  is  never  so 
strongly  shown  as  in  connexion  with 
political  affairs,  the  conduct  of  Wil- 
liam is  a  most  interesting  study.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  his 
qualities  of  clear-sightedness  and  de- 
cision ;  or  to  select  a  more  forcible 
instance  of  that  ascendency  which 
a  man  of  consummate  discernment 
and  forethought  may  attain,  in  spite 
of  every  opposition.  He  had,  in  truth, 
very  difficult  cards  to  play.  The  dif- 
ferent parties,  both  religious  and  poli- 
tical, throughout  the  nation,  were  so 
strongly  opposed  to  each  other,  that 
it  seemed  impossible  to  adopt  any 
line  of  conduct,  which  should  not,  by 
favouring  one,  give  mortal  umbrage 
to  the  others.  It  was  reserved  for 
William,  by  a  master-stroke  of  policy, 
to  create  a  new  party  by  new  means, 
which  in  time  should  absorb  the 
others;  and  to  strengthen  his  govern- 
ment by  attaching  to  it  the  commer- 
cial classes,  by  a  tie  which  is  ever  the 
strongest — that  of  deep  pecuniary  in- 
terest iu  the  stability  of  existing 
affairs.  At  the  same  time  he  was 
most  desirous,  without  materially  in- 
creasingthe  taxation  of  England,  to 
raise  such  sums  of  money  as  might 
enable  him  to  prosecute  his  darling 
object  of  striking  a  death-blow  at  the 


[Dec. 


ascendency  of  France.  The  scheme 
answered  well — possibly  beyond  his 
most  sanguine  expectation.  Nor  was 
it  altogether  without  a  precedent. 

"  la  Holland,"  says  Mr  DoubleJay, 
"  the  country  of  his  birth,  the  Dutch 
king  and  his  advisers  found  both  a  pre- 
cedent to  quote,  and  an  example  to  fol- 
low. By  its  position  and  circumstances, 
this  country,  inconsiderable  in  size  and 
population,  and  not  naturally  defensible, 
had  been  compelled  to  act  the  part,  for 
a  series  of  years,  of  a  leading  power  in 
Europe ;  and  this  it  had  only  been 
enabled  to  do,  by  that  novel  arm  which  a 
very  extensive  foreign  trade  is  sure  to 
create,  and  by  the  money  drawn  together 
by  successful  trading.  Venice  had  at  an 
earlier  period  played  a  similar  part  ;  but 
a  series  of  struggles  at  last  led  the  huck- 
stering genius  of  the  Dutch  into  a  system 
at  which  the  Venetian  public  had  not 
arrived  :  and  this  was  the  fabrication  of 
paper  money,  the  erection  of  a  bank  to 
issue  it,  and  the  systematic  borrowing  of 
that  money,  and  the  creation  of  debt  on 
the  part  of  government,  for  only  the 
interest  of  which  taxes  were  demanded 
of  the  people.  Here  was  machinery  set 
up  and  at  work ;  and,  in  the  opinion  of 
interested  and  superficial  observers,  work- 
ing successfully.  It  was,  accordingly, 
soon  proposed  to  set  up  a  copy  of  this 
machinery  ilPEngland,  and  in  1694,  the 
blow  was  struck  which  was  destined  to 
have  effects  so  monstrous,  so  long  con- 
tinued, and  so  marvellous,  on  the  fortunes 
of  England  and  her  people  ;  and  the 
establishment,  since  known  as  the  Bank  of 
England,  was  erected  under  the  sanction 
of  the  government." 

The  worst  and  most  dangerous 
feature  of  a  permanent  national  debt 
is,  that,  during  the  earlier  stages  of  its 
existence,  an  appearance  of  factitious 
prosperity  is  generated,  and  the  nation, 
consequently  blinded  to  its  remote 
but  necessary  results.  The  tendency 
to  such  a  delusion  is  inherent  in 
human  nature.  Apres  nous  le  deluge  ! 
is  a  sorry  maxim,  which  has  been 
often  acted  on,  if  not  quoted  by  states- 
men, who,  like  a  certain  notable  Scot- 
tish provost,  being  unable  to  discover 
anything  that  posterity  has  done  for 
them,  have  thought  themselves  en- 
titled to  deal  as  they  pleased  with 
posterity.  The  proceeds  of  the  earlier 
loans  enabled  William  to  carry  on  his 
wars  ;  and  the  nation,  puffed  up  with 
pride,  looked  upon  the  new  discovery 
as  something  far  more  important  and 


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663 


valuable  than  the  opening  of  another 
Indies.  Nor  did  William  confine 
himself  merely  to  loans.  Lotteries, 
tontines,  long  and  short  annuities, 
and  every  species  of  device  for  raising 
money,  were  patronised  and  urged  on 
by  the  former  Stadtholder,  and  the 
rage  for  public  gambling  became  un- 
controllable and  universal.  As  we 
have  just  emerged  from  one  of  those 
periodical  fits  of  speculation  which 
seem  epidemical  in  Great  Britain,  and 
which,  in  fact,  have  been  so  ever  since 
the  Revolution,  it  may  be  interesting 
to  the  reader  to  know,  that  the  intro- 
duction of  the  new  system  was  marked 
by  precisely  the  same  social  pheno- 
mena which  were  observable  four  years 
ago,  when  the  shares  in  every  bubble 
railway  scheme  commanded  a  ridicu- 
lous premium.  We  quote  from  the 
work  of  Mr  Francis  : — 

"  The  moneyed  interest— a  title  familiar 
to  the  reader  of  the  present  day — was 
unknown  until  1692.  It  was  then  arro- 
gated by  those  who  saw  the  great  advan- 
tage of  entering  iuto  transactions  in  the 
funds  for  the  aid  of  government.  The 
title  claimed  by  them  in  pride  was  em- 
ployed by  others  in  derision;  and  the 
purse-proud  importance  of  men  grown 
suddenly  rich  was  a  common  source  of 
ridicule.  Wealth  rapidly  acquired  has 
been  invariably  detrimental  to  the  man- 
ners and  the  morals  of  the  nation,  and  in 
1 692  the  rule  was  as  absolute'  as  now. 
The  moneyed  interest,  intoxicated  by  the 
possession  of  wealth,  which  their  wildest 
dreams  had  never  imagined,  and  incensed 
by  the  cold  contempt  with  which  the 
landed  interest  treated  them,  endeavoured 
to  rival  the  latter  in  that  magnificence 
which  was  one  characteristic  of  the  landed 
families.  Their  carriages  were  radiant 
with  gold;  their  persons  were  radiant 
with  gems ;  they  married  the  poorer 
branches  of  the  nobility;  they  eagerly 
purchased  the  princely  mansions  of  the 
old  aristocracy.  The  brush  of  Sir  God- 
frey Krteller,  and  the  chisel  of  Caius  Cib- 
ber,  were  employed  in  perpetuating  their 
features.  Their  wealth  was  rarely  grudged 
to  humble  the  pride  of  a  Howard  or  a 
Cavendish;  and  the  money  gained  by  the 
father  was  spent  by  the  son  in  acquiring 
a  distinction  at  the  expense  of  decency." 

It  is  curious  to  remark  that  the 
Stock  Exchange  cannot  be  said  to 
have  had  any  period  of  minority.  It 
leaped  out  at  once  full-armed,  like 
Minerva  from  the  brain  of  Jupiter. 
All  the  arts  of  bulling  and  bearing,  of 


false  rumours,  of  expresses,  combina- 
tions, squeezings — all  that  constitute 
the  mystery  of  Mammon,  were  known 
as  well  to  the  fathers  of  the  Alley,  as 
they  are  to  their  remote  representa- 
tives. Nay,  it  would  almost  appear  that 
the  patriarchal  jobber  had  more  genius 
than  has  since  been  inherited.  Wil- 
liam's retinue  did  not  consist  only  of 
mercenaries'  and  refugees.  Hovering 
on  the  skirts  of  his  army  came  the  sons 
of  Israel,  with  beaks  whetted  for  the 
prey,  and  appetites  which  never  can 
be  sated.  Vixere  fortes  ante  Agamem- 
nona — there  were  earlier  vultures  than 
Nathan  Rothschild.  The  principal 
negotiators  of  the  first  British  loan 
were  Jews.  They  assisted  the  Stadt- 
holder with  their  counsel,  and  a  Me- 
phistopheles  of  the  money-making 
race  attached  himself  even  to  the  side 
of  Marlborough.  According  to  Mr 
Francis :  —  "  The  wealthy  Hebrew, 
Medina,  accompanied  Marlborough  in 
all  his  campaigns ;  administered  to  the 
avarice  of  the  great  captain  by  an 
annuity  of  six  thousand  pounds  per 
annum ;  repaid  himself  by  expresses 
containing  intelligence  of  those  great 
battles  which  fire  the  English  blood 
to  hear  them  named ;  and  Ramilies, 
Oudenarde,  and  Blenheim,  admini- 
stered as  much  to  the  purse  of  the, 
Hebrew  as  they  did  to  the  glory  of 
England." 

It  has  been  estimated,  upon  good 
authority,  that  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
per  cent  of  every  loan  raised  in  Eng- 
land, has,  directly  or  indirectly,  found 
its  way  to  the  coffers  of  those  uncon- 
scionable Shylocks;  so  that  it  is  small 
wonder  if  we  hear  of  colossal  fortunes 
coexisting  with  extreme  national  de- 
preciation and  distress.  We  might, 
indeed,  estimate  their  profits  at  a  much 
higher  rate.  Dr  Charles  Davenant, 
in  his  essay  on  the  Balance  of  Trade, 
written  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  last 
century,  remarked  —  "While  these 
immense  debts  remain,  the  necessities 
of  the  government  will  continue,  inter- 
est must  be  high,  and  large  premiums 
will  be  given.  And  what  encourage- 
ment is  there  for  men  to  think  of 
foreign  tratfic  (whose  returns  for  those 
commodities  that  enrich  England  must 
bring  no  great  profit  to  the  private 
adventurers)  when  they  can  sit  at 
home,  and,  without  any  care  or  ha- 
zard, get  from  the  state,  by  dealing 


GG4 


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[Dec. 


with  the  exchequer,  fifteen,  and  some- 
times twenty,  thirty,  forty,  and  fifty 
per  cent?  Is  there  any  commerce 
abroad  so  constantly  advantageous?" 
We  apprehend  not.  Capital  is  defined 
by  the  economists  as  the  accumulation 
of  the  savings  of  industry.  Such  men 
as  Rothschild  have  no  doubt  been 
industrious,  but  not  according  to  the 
ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term. 
Their  industry  is  of  a  wholesale  kind. 
It  is  confined  to  a  resolute  and  syste- 
matic endeavour  to  avail  themselves 
of  the  savings  of  others ;  and  we  need 
hardly  state  that,  in  this  pursuit,  they 
have  shown  themselves  most  emi- 
nently successful. 

The  remarkable  change  which  took 
place  in  the  monetary  system  of  Eng- 
land, under  the  auspices  of  William, 
could  not,  of  course,  have  been  effected 
without  the  concurrence  of  parliament. 
That  body  had  certainly  no  reason  to 
charge  him  with  neglect  of  their  inter- 
ests. The  representatives  of  the 
people  for  the  first  time  began  to 
understand,  that  there  might  be  cer- 
tain perquisites  arising  from  their 
situation  as  men  of  trust,  which  could 
be  made  available  to  them,  provided 
they  were  not  too  scrupulous  as  to  the 
requirements  of  the  crown.  The  mas- 
tiff which  had  bayed  so  formidably  at 
James  and  his  predecessors,  because 
none  of  them  would  deign  to  cajole 
him,  became  at  once  amenable  to  a 
sop.  MrMacanlay  should  have  writ- 
ten: "  The  revolution  of  1688  did  not 
introduce  the  practice  of  regularly 
summoning  parliaments  ;  what  it  in- 
troduced was  the  practice  of  regularly 
bribing  them."  Mr  Francis,  though 
an  apologist  of  King  William,  who,  as 
he  thinks,  was  compelled  to  act  thus 
from  imperious  necessity,  is  not  blind 
to  this  stigma  on  his  memory.  He 
also  believes  that  the  settled  animosity 
between  England  and  France,  which 
has  caused  so  many  wars,  and  led  to 
such  an  extravagant  expenditure  of 
blood  and  treasure,  is  mainly  to  be 
attributed  to  the  persevering  efforts  of 
William  of  Orange.  The  following 
summary  is  of  much  interest : — 

"  The  parliamentary  records  of  Wil- 
liam's reign  are  curious.  The  demands 
which  he  made  for  money,  the  hatred  to 
France  which  he  encouraged,  and  the  fre- 
quent supplies  he  received,  are  remark- 
able features  in  his  history.  Every  art 


was  employed;  at  one  time  a  mild  remon- 
strance, at  another  a  haughty  menace,  at 
a  third  the  reproach  that  he  had  ventured 
his  life  for  the  benefit  of  the  country. 
The  bribery,  during  this  reign,  was  the 
commencement  of  a  system  which  has  been, 
very  injurious  to  the  credit  and  character 
of  England.  The  support  of  the  members 
was  purchased  with  places,  with  contracts, 
with  titles,  with  promises,  with  portions 
of  the  loans,  and  with  tickets  in  the  lot- 
tery. The  famous  axiom  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  was  a  practice  and  a  principle 
with  William;  he  found  that  custom  could 
not  stale  the  infinite  variety  of  its  effect, 
and  that,  so  long  as  bribes  continued,  so 
long  would  supplies  be  free.  Exorbitant 
premiums  were  given  for  money;  and  so 
low  was  public  credit,  that  ofjite  millions 
granted  to  carry  on  the;  tear,  only  two  and 
a  half  millions  reached  the  Exchequer.  Long 
annuities  and  short  annuities,  lottery 
tickets  and  irredeemable  debts,  made  their 
frequent  appearance ;  and  the  duties, 
which  principally  date  from  this  period, 
were  most  pernicious." 

These  things  are  elements  of  import- 
ance in  considering  the  political  his- 
tory of  the  country.  They  explain  the 
reason  why  the  great  bulk  of  the 
nation  never  cordially  supported  the 
new  succession ;  and  why,  for  the 
first  time  in  English  history,  their 
own  representative  house  lost  caste 
and  credit  with  the  commons.  Fifty 
3'ears  later,  when  Charles  Edward 
penetrated  into  the  heart  of  England, 
he  met  with  no  opposition.  If  the  in- 
habitants of  the  counties  through 
which  he  passed  did  not  join  his  stan- 
dard, they  thought  as  little  of  making 
any  active  opposition  to  his  advance ; 
thereby  exhibiting  an  apathy  totally 
at  variance  with  the  high  national  and 
independent  spirit  which  in  all  times 
has  characterised  the  English,  and  to 
be  accounted  for  on  no  other  ground 
than  their  disgust  with  the  new  sys- 
tem which,  even  then,  had  swollen  the 
amount  of  taxation  to  an  extent 
seriously  felt  by  the  commonalty,  and 
which  had  so  corrupted  parliament 
that  redress  seemed  hopeless  within 
the  peaceful  limits  of  the  constitution. 
The  proclamation  issued  by  the  prince, 
from  Edinburgh,  bore  direct  reference 
to  the  funded  debt,  and  to  the  noto- 
rious ministerial  bribery ;  and  it  must 
have  found  an  echo  in  the  hearts  of 
many,  who  began  to  perceive  that  the 
'  cry  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  is 
the  standard  stalking-horse  for  every 


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GC5 


revolution,  bnt  that  the  result  of  revo- 
lutions is  too  commonly  an  imperative 
demand  npoii  the  people  for  a  large 
augmentation  of  their  burdens,  backed 
too  by  the  very  demagogues  who  were 
the  instigators  of  the  violent  change. 
In  this  crisis,  the  moneyed  interest, 
•which  William  had  so  dexterously 
created,  saved  the  new  dynasty — less, 
certainly,  from  patriotism,  than  from 
the  fear  of  personal  ruin. 

It  is  a  memorable  fact  that,  from 
the  very  first,  the  Tory  party  opposed 
themselves  strenuously  to  the  creation 
aud  progress  of  the  national  debt.  It 
is  well  that  those  who,  in  our  own 
time.-;,  bitterly  denounce  the  system 
which  has  lauded  us  in  such  inextri- 
cable difficulties,  and  which  has  had 
the  effect  of  rearing  up  class  interests, 
irreconcilably  opposed  to  each  other, 
in  once- united  England,  should  re- 
member that  for  all  this  legacy  we  are 
specially  indebted  to  the  Whigs. 
Except  by  Tory  ministers,  and  in  one 
case  by  Walpole,  no  attempt  has 
been  made  to  stem  the  progress  of  the 
current;  and  this  consideration  is 
doubly  valuable  at  this  moment,  when 
it  is  proposed,  by  a  vigorous  effort,  to 
make  head  against  the  monster  griev- 
ance, and,  by  the  establishment  of  an 
inviolable  sinking-fund,  to  commence 
that  work  which  liberal  and  juggling 
politicians  have  hitherto  shamefully 
evaded.  It  is  more  than  probable  that 
"  the  moneyed  interest"  will  throw  the 
•whole  weight  of  their  influence  in 
opposition  to  any  such  movement ; 
unless,  indeed,  they  should  begin 
already  to  perceive  that  there  may  be 
worse  evils  in  store  for  them  than  a 
just  liquidation  of  their  claims.  Mat- 
ters have  now  gone  so  far  as  to  be 
perilous,  if  no  practicable  mode  of 
ultimate  extrication  can  be  shown. 
Real  property  cannot  be  taxed  any 
higher — indeed,  the  landowners  have 
claims  for  relief  from  pecnliar  burdens 
imposed  upon  them,  which  in  equity 
can  hardly  be  gainsaid.  The  property 
and  income-tax,  admittedly  an  im- 
politic impost  in  the  time  of  peace, 
cannot  remain  long  on  its  present  foot- 
ing. To  tax  professional  earnings  at 
the  same  rate  as  the  profits  of  accumu- 
lated capital,  is  amanifest  and  gross  in- 
justice against  which  people  are  begin- 
ning to  rebel.  There  is  no  choice  left, 
except  between  direct  taxation  and  a 


recurrence  to  the  system  which  we 
have  abandoned,  of  raising  the  greater 
part  of  our  revenue  by  duties  upon 
foreign  imports.  The  former  method, 
now  openly  advocated  by  the  financial 
reformers,  is,  in  our  opinion,  a  direct 
step  towards  repudiation.  Let  the 
fundholders  look  to  it  in  time,  and 
judge  for  themselves  what  results  are 
likely  to  accrue  from  such  a  policy. 
One  thing  is  clear,  that  if  no  effort 
should  be  made  to  redeem  any  portion 
of  the  debt — but  if,  on  the  contrary, 
circumstances  should  arise,  the  pro- 
bability of  which  is  before  us  even 
now,  to  call  for  its  augmentation,  and 
for  a  corresponding  increase  of  the 
public  revenue — the  financial  reformers 
will  not  be  slow  to  discover  that  the 
only  interest  hitherto  unassailed  must 
submit  to  suffer  in  its  turn.  The 
Whigs  are  now  brought  to  such  a  pass, 
that  they  cannot  hope  to  see  their 
way  to  a  surplus.  We  shall  have  no 
more  of  those  annual  remissions  of  du- 
ties, which  for  years  past  have  been 
made  the  boast  of  every  budget,  but  to 
which,  in  reality,  the  greater  part  of  our 
present  difficulties  is  owing.  Had  a 
sinking  fund  been  established  long 
ago,  and  rigidly  maintained,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  revenue  kept  full,  the  na- 
tion would  ere  now  have  been  reaping 
the  benefit  of  such  a  policy.  We  should 
have  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  our 
debt  annuallydiminishing,  and  the  inte- 
rest of  it  becomingless ;  whereas,  by  the 
wretched  system  of  fiddling  popularity 
which  has  been  pursued,  the  debt  has 
augmented  in  time  of  peace,  the  annual 
burdens  absolutely  increased,  ruinous 
competition  been  fostered,  and  inter- 
nal jealousies  excited.  The  Whigs, 
who  arrogate  for  themselves,  not  only 
now  bnt  in  former  times,  the  guardian- 
ship of  the  liberties  of  Britain,  have 
taken  especial  pains  to  conceal  the 
fact  that  they  were,  in  reality,  the 
authors  of  our  funding  system,  and 
the  bitterest  opponents  of  those  who 
early  descried  its  remote  and  ruinous 
consequences.  Their  motives  cannot 
be  concealed,  however  it  may  be  their 
interest  at  the  present  time  to  gloss 
them  over.  Lord  Bolingbroke  thus 
exposes  their  occult  designs,  in  his 
"  Letters  on  the  Use  of  History. " 

"  Few  men,  at  the  time  (1688),  looked 
forward  enough  to  foresee  the  necessary 
consequences  of  the  new  constitution  of 


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the  revenue  that  was  soon  afterwards 
formed,  nor  of  the  method  of  funding  that 
immediately  took  place  ;  which,  absurd 
as  they  are,  have  continued  ever  since, 
till  it  is  become  scarce  possible  to  alter 
them.  Few  people,  I  say,  saw  how  the 
creation  of  funds,  and  the  multiplication 
of  taxes,  would  increase  yearly  the  power 
of  the  Crown,  and  bring  our  liberties,  by 
a  natural  and  necessary  progression,  into 
more  real  though  less  apparent  danger 
than  they  were  in  before  the  Revolution  ! 
The  excessive  ill  husbandry  practised 
from  the  very  beginning  of  King  Wil- 
liam's reign,  and  which  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  all  we  feel  and  fear,  was  not  the 
effect  of  ignorance,  mistake,  or  what  we  call 
chance,  but  of  design  and  scheme  in  those 
who  had  the  sicay  at  the  time.  I  am  not 
so  uncharitable,  however,  as  to  believe 
that  they  intended  to  bring  upon  their 
country  all  the  mischiefs  that  we  who 
came  after  them  experience  and  appre- 
hend. No  :  they  saw  the  measures  they 
took  singly  and  unrelatively,  or  relatively 
alone  to  some  immediate  object.  The 
notion  of  attaching  men  to  the  new  go- 
vernment, by  tempting  them  to  embark 
their  fortunes  on  the  same  bottom,  was  a 
reason  of  state  to  some  ;  the  notion  of 
creating  a  new, that  is,  a  moneyed  interest, 
in  opposition  to  the  landed  interest,  or  as  a 
balance  to  it,  and  of  acquiring  a  superior 
interest  in  the  city  of  London  at  least,  by 
the  establishment  of  great  corporations,  was 
a  reason  of  party  to  others  :  and  I  make 
no  doubt  that  the  opportunity  of  amassing 
immense  estates,  by  the  management  of 
funds,  by  trafficking  in  paper,  and  by  all 
the  arts  of  jobbing,  was  a  reason  of  pri- 
vate interest  to  those  who  supported  and 
improved  that  scheme  of  iniquity,  if  not 
to  those  who  devised  it.  They  looked 
no  further.  Nay,  we  who  came  after 
them,  and  have  long  tasted  the  bitter 
fruits  of  the  corruption  they  planted, 
were  far  from  taking  such  alarm  at  our 
distress  and  our  dangers  as  they  de- 
served." 

In  like  manner  wrote  Swift,  and 
Hume,  and  Smith  ;  nor  need  we  won- 
der at  their  vehemence,  when  we  dir- 
ect our  attention  to  the  rapid  increase 
of  the  charge.  William's  legacy  was 
£16,400,000  of  debt,  at  an  annual 
charge  to  the  nation  of  about 
£1,311,000.  At  the  death  of  Queen 
Anne,  the  debt  amounted  to  fifty- four 
millions,  and  the  interest  to  three  mil- 
lions, three  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand— being  nearly  double  the  whole 
revenue  raised  by  King  James  !  The 
total  amount  of  the  annual  revenue 


under  Queen  Anne,  was  more  than 
five  millions  and  a  half.  Under 
George  I.,  singular  to  relate,  there 
was  no  increase  of  the  debt.  At  the 
close  of  the  reign  of  George  II.,  it 
amounted  to  about  a  hundred  and 
forty  millions  ;  and,  in  1793,  just  one 
hundred  years  after  the  introduction 
of  the  funding  system  in  Britain,  we 
find  it  at  two  hundred  and  fifty-two 
millions,  with  an  interest  approaching 
to  ten.  Twenty-two  years  later,  that 
amount  was  more  than  trebled.  These 
figures  may  well  awaken  grave  con- 
sideration in  the  bosoms  of  all  of  us. 
The  past  is  irremediable ;  and  it  would 
be  a  gross  and  unpardonable  error  to 
conclude,  that  a  large  portion  of  the 
sum  thus  raised  and  expended  was 
uselessly  thrown  away ;  or  that  the 
corruption  employed  by  the  founders 
of  the  system,  to  secure  the  acquies- 
cence of  parliament,  was  of  long  con- 
tinuance. On  the  contrary,  it  is  un- 
deniable that  the  result  of  many  of 
the  wars  in  which  Britain  engaged 
has  been  her  commercial,  territorial, 
and  political  aggrandisement ;  and  that 
bribery,  in  a  direct  form,  is  now  most 
happily  unknown.  The  days  have 
gone  by  since  the  parliamentary  guests 
of  Walpole  could  calculate  on  finding 
a  note  for  £500,  folded  up  in  their 
dinnernapkins— since  great  companies, 
applying  for  a  charter,  were  compelled 
to  purchase  support — or  when  peace 
could  only  be  obtained,  as  in  the  fol- 
lowing instance,  by  means  of  purchased 
votes  : — "  The  peace  of  1763,"  said 
John  Ross  Mackay,  private  secretary 
to  the  Earl  of  Bute,  and  afterwards 
Treasurer  to  the  Ordnance,  "  was  car- 
ried through,  and  approved,  by  a  pe- 
cuniary distribution.  Nothing  else 
could  have  surmounted  the  difficulty. 
I  was  myself  the  channel  through 
which  the  money  passed.  With  my 
own  hand  I  secured  above  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  votes  on  that  vital 
question.  Eighty  thousand  pounds 
was  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  Forty 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
received  from  me  a  thousand  pounds 
each.  To  eighty  others  I  paid  five 
hundred  pounds  a-piece."  Still  AVG 
cannot  disguise  the  fact,  that  a  vast 
amount  of  the  treasure  so  levied,  and 
for  every  shilling  of  which  the  indus- 
try of  the  nation  was  mortgaged, 
never  reached  the  coffers  of  the  state, 


1 849.]  The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


G67 


but  passed  in  the  shape  of  bonuses, 
premiums,  and  exorbitant  contracts, 
to  rear  up  those  fortunes  which  have 
been  the  wonder  and  admiration  of 
the  world.  Nor  is  it  less  palpable 
that  the  fortunes  so  constructed  could 
not  have  had  existence,  unless  ab- 
stracted from  the  regular  industry  of 
the  country,  to  the  inevitable  detri- 
ment of  the  labourer,  whose  condition 
has  at  all  times  received  by  far  too 
little  consideration.  Add  to  this  the 
spirit  of  public  gambling,  which,  since 
the  Revolution,  has  manifested  itself 
periodically  in  this  country — the  sud- 
den fever-fits  which  seem  to  possess 
the  middle  classes  of  the  community, 
and,  by  conjuring  np  visions  of  un- 
bounded and  unbased  wealth,  without 
the  necessary  preliminary  of  labour, 
to  extinguish  their  wonted  prudence 
—  and  we  must  conclude  that  the 
funding  system  has  been  pregnant 
with  social  and  moral  evils  which 
have  extended  to  the  whole  commu- 
nity. Before  we  pass  from  this  sub- 
ject— which  we  have  dwelt  upon  at  con- 
siderable length,  believing  it  of  deep 
interest  at  the  present  point  of  our 
financial  history — we  would  request 
the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the 
following  extract  from  the  work  of 
Mr  Francis,  as  condemnatory  of  the 
policy  pursued  by  recent  governments, 
and  as  tending  to  throw  light  on  the 
ultimate  designs  of  the  Financial  Re- 
form Associations.  It  is  quite  poss- 
ible that,  in  matters  of  detail,  we 
might  not  agree  with  the  writer — at 
least,  he  has  given  us  no  means  of 
ascertaining  upon  what  principles  he 
would  base  an  "  efficient  revision  of 
our  taxation ;"  but  we  cordially  agree . 
with  him  in  thinking  that,  as  we  pre- 
sently stand,  the  right  arm  of  Great 
Britain  is  tied  up,  and  the  Bank  of 
England,  under  its  present  restrictions , 
in  extreme  jeopardy  at  the  first  an- 
nouncement of  a  war. 

u  It  is  one  great  evil  of  the  present  age, 
that  it  persists  in  regarding  the  debt  as 
perpetual.  Immediately  the  expenditure 
13  exceeded  by  the  revenue,  there  is  a 
demand  for  the  reduction  of  taxation. 
We,  a  commercial  people,  brought  np  at 
the  feet  of  M'Culloch,  with  the  books  of 
national  debt  as  a  constant  study,  with 
the  interest  on  the  national  debt  as  a  con- 
stant remembrancer,  persist  in  scoffing  at 
any  idea  of  decreasing  the  encumbrance: 


and  when  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
proposes  a  loan  of  eight  millions,  we 
growl  and  grumble,  call  it  charitable, 
trust  for  better  times,  and  read  the  Oppo- 
sition papers  with  renewed  zest. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  resources 
of  the  nation  are  equal  to  far  more  than 
is  now  imposed  ;  but  it  can  only  be  done 
by  an  efficient  revision  of  our  taxation, 
and  this  will  never  be  effected  till  the 
wolf  is  at  the  door.  A  war  which  greatly 
increased  our  yearly  imposts  would,  with 
the  present  system,  crush  the  artisan, 
paralyse  the  middle  class,  and  scarcely 
leave  the  landed  proprietor  unscathed. 
The  convertibility  of  the  note  of  tbe  Bank 
of  England  would  cease  ;  and  it  would  be 
impossible  to  preserve  the  charter  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel  in  its  entirety,  while  twenty- 
eight  millions  were  claimable  yearly  in 
specie,  and  the  gold  of  the  country  went 
abroad  in  subsidies. 

"  In  an  earlier  portion  of  the  volume, 
the  writer  briefly  advocated  annuities  as 
one  mode  of  treating  the  national  debt. 
There  would  in  this  be  no  breach  of  faith 
to  the  present  public  ;  there  would  be  no 
dread  of  a  general  bankruptcy ;  there 
would  be  no  need  of  loans  ;  and,  had  this 
principle  been  carried  out,  the  national 
debt  would  be  yearly  diminishing.  In 
ten  years,  nearly  two  millions  of  termin- 
able annuities  will  expire,  and  it  behoves 
the  government  to  inquire  into  the  effect 
which  the  conversion  of  the  interminable 
debt  into  terminable  annuities  would 
have  on  the  money  market. 

"  It  is  absolutely  idle  for  the  Financial 
Reform  Association  to  think  of  effectually 
lowering  the  taxation  of  the  country, 
while  twenty-eight  millions  are  paid  for 
interest ;  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  great 
evil  will  accompany  whatever  good  they 
may  achieve.  That  there  are  many  offices 
which  might  be  abolished ;  that  it  is  a 
rule  in  England  that  the  least  worked 
should  be  best  paid  ;  that  an  extravagant 
system  of  barbaric  grandeur  exists ;  that 
the  army  and  the  navy,  the  pulpit  and  the 
bar,  are  conducted  unwisely ;  and  that 
great  men  are  paid  great  salaries  for  do- 
ing nothing, — is  indisputable;  but  it  is 
equally  so  that  great  savings  have  been 
effected,  and  that  greater  efforts  are 
making  to  economise  further.  There  is 
a  faith  pledged  to  the  public  servant  as 
much  as  to  the  public  creditor ;  and, 
whether  lie  be  a  colonel  or  a  clerk,  a 
man  of  peace  or  a  man  of  war,  it  is 
impracticable,  imprudent,  and  unjust  to 
attempt  that  which  would  as  much  break 
faith  with  him,  as  to  cease  to  pay  the 
dividends  on  the  national  debt  would  be 
to  break  faith  with  the  national  creditor. 
. "  These  things  are  paltry  and  puerile 


668 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


[Dec. 


compared  with  that  which,  excepting  a 
total  revision  of  taxation,  can  alone 
materially  meet  the  difficulties  of  Eng- 
land ;  and  the  gentlemen  of  the  Reform 
Association  are  aware  of  this.  They 
may  cut  down  salaries  ;  lower  the  de- 
fences of  the  country ;  abolish  expen- 
sive forms  and  ceremonies ;  amalgamate 
a  few  boards  of  direction  ;  reduce  the 
civil  list ;  and  do  away  with  all  sinecures. 
But  the  evil  is  too  vast,  and  the  diffi- 
culties are  too  gigantic,  to  be  met  in  so 
simple  a  manner.  Nor  will  these  gentle- 
men be  satisfied  with  it  while  there  are 
eight  hundred  millions  at  which  to  level 
their  Quixotic  spear.  Repudiation  was 
darkly  alluded  to  at  one  meeting  of  the 
Association,  and,  though  it  has  since  been 
denied,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  time  only 
is  required  to  ripen  the  attempt." 

Tnrn  we  now  from  the  national 
debt  to  its  eldest  offspring,  the  Ex- 
change. Marvellous  indeed  are  the 
scenes  to  which  we  are  introduced, 
whether  we  read  its  history  as  in  the 
time  of  William  of  Orange,  enter  it  at 
the  period  when  the  South  Sea  bubble 
had  reached  its  utmost  width  of  dis- 
tension, or  tread  its  precincts  at  a  more 
recent  date,  when  railway  speculation 
was  at  its  height,  and  the  Glenmutchkin 
at  a  noble  premium.  John  Bnnyan 
could  not  have  had  a  glimpse  of  it,  for 
he  died  in  1688:  nevertheless  his 
Vanity  Fair  is  no  inaccurate  prototype 
of  its  doings.  No  stranger,  indeed, 
may  enter  the  secret  place  where  its 
prime  mysteries  are  enacted :  if  any 
uninitiated  wight  should  by  chance  or 
accident  set  foot  within  that  charmed 
circle,  the  alarm  is  given  as  rapidly  as 
in  Alsatia  when  a  bailiff  trespassed 
upon  the  sanctuary.  With  a  shout  of 
"  Fourteen  hundred  fives ! "  the  slogan 
of  their  clan,  Jew,  Gentile,  and  prose- 
lyte precipitate  themselves  upon  the 
rash  intruder.  In  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  his  hat  is  battered  down,  and 
amidst  kicks,  cuffs,  and  bustling,  he  is 
ejected  from  the  temple  of  Mammon. 
But,  lingering  in  the  outer  court  and 
vestibule,  we  can  gain  some  glimpses 
of  the  interior  worship ;  imperfect, 
indeed,  but  such  as  may  well  deter  us 
from  aspiring  to  form  part  of  the  con- 
gregation. 

The  creation  and  transferable  cha- 
racter of  public  funds,  necessarily  in- 
volved the  existence  of  a  class  of  men 
who  deal  in  such  securities.  That  class 
multiplied  apace,  and  multiplied  so 


much  that,  after  a  time,  the  commis- 
sions exigible  for  each  bond  fide  trans- 
action could  not  afford  a  decent  sub- 
sistence for  all  who  were  engaged  in 
the  business.  People  who  buy  into 
the  stocks  with  a  view  to  permanent 
investment,  are  not  usually  in  a  hurry 
to  sell ;  and  this  branch  of  the  profes- 
sion, though,  strictly  speaking,  the 
only  legitimate  one,  could  not  be  very 
lucrative.  Gambling  was  soon  intro- 
duced. The  fluctuations  in  the  price 
of  the  funds,  which  were  frequent  in 
those  unsettled  times,  presented  an 
irresistible  temptation  to  buying  and 
selling  for  the  account — a  process  by 
means  of  which  a  small  capital  may  bo 
made  to  represent  fictitiously  an  en- 
ormous amount  of  stock :  no  transfers 
being  required,  and  in  fact  no  sales 
effected,  the  real  stake  being  the  dif- 
ference between  the  buying  and  the 
selling  prices.  But,  the  natural  fluc- 
tuations of  the  stocks  not  affording  a 
suflicient  margin  for  the  avarice  of  the 
speculators,  all  sorts  of  deep-laid 
schemes  were  hatched  to  elevate  or 
depress  them  unnaturally.  In  other 
words,  fraud  was  resorted  to,  from  a 
very  early  period,  for  the  purpose  of 
promoting  gain.  The  following  may 
serve  as  an  example: — "The  first 
political  hoax  on  record  occurred  in 
the  reign  of  Anne.  Down  the  Queen's 
road,  riding  at  a  furious  rate,  ordering 
turnpikes  to  be  thrown  open,  and  loudly 
proclaiming  the  sudden  death  of  the 
Queen,  rode  a  well-dressed  man,  spar- 
ing neither  spur  nor  steed.  From  west 
to  east,  and  from  north  to  south,  the 
news  spread.^  Like  wildfire  it  passed 
through  the  desolate  fields  where 
palaces  now  abound,  till  it  reached 
the  City.  The  train-bands  desisted 
from  their  exercise,  furled  their  colours, 
and  returned  home  with  their  arms 
reversed.  The  funds  fell  with  a  sudden- 
ness which  marked  the  importance  of 
the  intelligence ;  and  it  was  remarked 
that,  while  the  Christian  jobbers  stood 
aloof,  almost  paralysed  with  the  in- 
formation, Manasseh  Lopez  and  the 
Jew  interest  bought  eagerly  at  the 
reduced  price."  The  whole  thing  was 
a  lie,  coined  by  the  astute  Hebrews, 
who  then,  as  now,  accumulated  the 
greater  part  of  their  money  in  this 
disgraceful  and  infamous  mauuer,  and 
doubtless  had  the  audacity  even  to 
glory  in  their  shame.  A  more  ingeui- 


1849.] 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Excliange. 


669 


ous  trick  was  played  off  in  1715,  when 
n  sham  capture  was  made  in  Scotland 
of  a  carriage  and  six,  supposed  to 
contain  the  unfortunate  Chevalier  St 
George.  The  news,  being  despatched 
to  London,  instantly  elevated  the  funds, 
"and  the  inventors  of  the  trick  laughed 
in  their  sleeves  as  they  divided  the 
profit."  Modern  jobbers  will  doubtless 
read  these  records  with  a  sigh  for  the 
glory  of  departed  times,  just  as  a 
schoolboy  bitterly  regrets  that  he  was 
not  born  in  the  days  of  chivalry. 
Universal  rapidity  of  communication, 
and  the  power  of  the  press,  have  ren- 
dered snch  operations  on  a  large  scale 
almost  impossible.  The  electric  tele- 
graph has  injured  the  breed  of  carrier 
pigeons,  and  more  than  half  the  poetry 
of  fraudulent  stock-jobbing  has  dis- 
appeared. 

The  range  of  the  jobbers  speedily 
extended  itself  beyond  the  compari- 
tively  nairow  field  presented  by  the 
funds.  Exchequer  bills  with  a 
variable  premium  were  invented  and 
brought  into  the  market,  a  large  and 
lucrative  business  was  done  in  lottery 
tickets,  and  even  seats  in  parliament 
were  negotiated  on  the  Stock  Ex- 
change. Joint-stock  companies  next 
came  into  play,  and  these  have  ever 
since  proved  an  inexhaustible  mine 
of  wealth  to  the  jobbers.  Nor  were 
they  in  the  least  particular  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  commodity  in  which 
they  dealt.  Thomas  Guy,  founder 
of  the  hospital  called  after  his  name, 
acquired  his  fortune  by.  means  similar 
to  those  which  are  now  made  matter 
of  reproach  to  the  Jews  of  Portsmouth 
and  Plymouth.  It  is  a  curious  fea- 
ture in  the  history  of  mankind,  that 
money  questionably  amassed  is  more 
often  destined  to  pious  uses  than  the 
savings  of  honest  industry.  The  con- 
science of  the  usurer  becomes  alarmed 
as  the  hour  of  dissolution  draws  nigh. 
"  His  principal  dealings  were  in  those 
tickets  with  which,  from  the  time  of 
the  second  Charles,  the  seamen  had 
been  remunerated.  After  years  of 
great  endurance,  and  of  greater 
labour,  the  defenders  of  the  land  were 
paid  with  inconvertible  paper  ;  and 
the  seamen,  too  often  improvident, 
were  compelled  to  part  with  their 
wages  at  any  discount,  which  the  con- 
science of  the  usurer  would  offer. 
Men  who  had  gone  the  round  of  the 


world  like  Drake,  or  had  fought  hand 
to  hand  with  Tromp,  were  unable  to 
compete  with  the  keen  agent  of  the 
usurer,  who,  decoying  them  into  the 
low  haunts  of  Rothcrhithe,  purchased 
their  tickets  at  the  lowest  possible 
price ;  and  skilled  seamen,  the  glory 
of  England's  navy,  were  thus  robbed, 
and  ruined,  and  compelled  to  transfer 
their  services  to  foreign  states.  In 
these  tickets  did  Thomas  Guy  deal, 
and  on  the  savings  of  these  men  was 
the  vast  superstructure  of  his  fortune 
reared.  But  jobbing  in  them  was  as 
frequent  in  the  high  places  of  England 
as  in  'Change  Alley.  The  seaman 
was  poor  and  uninfluential,  and  the 
orders  which  were  refused  payment  to- 
him  were  paid  to  the  wealthy  jobber, 
who  parted  with  some  of  his  plunder 
as  a  premium  to  the  treasury  to  dis- 
gorge the  remainder."  But  frauds 
and  injustice,  even  when  counte- 
nanced by  governments,  have  rarely 
other  than  a  disastrous  issue  to  the 
state.  So  in  the  case  of  those  sea- 
men's tickets.  That  the  wages  due 
to  the  sailor  should  have  fallen  into 
arrears  during  the  reigns  of  Charles 
and  of  James,  need  excite  little  sur- 
prise, when  we  remember  that  the 
revenue  in  their  day  never  exceeded 
two  millions  annually.  But  that  the 
abuse  should  have  been  continued 
after  the  revolutionary  government 
had  discovered  its  easy  method  of 
raising  subsidies — more  especially 
when  ample  proof  had  been  given  of 
the  danger  of  such  a  system,  by  the 
want  of  alacrity  displayed  by  the 
English  seamen  when  the  Dutch  fleet 
burned  our  vessels  in  the  Thames  and 
threatened  Chatham — is  indeed  mat- 
ter of  marvel,  and  speaks  volumes  as 
to  the  gross  corruption  of  the  times. 
So  infamous  was  the  neglect,  that  at 
length  the  sailors'  tickets  had  accu- 
mulated to  the  amount  of  nine  millions 
sterling  of  arrears.  Not  one  farthing 
had  been  provided  to  meet  this  huge 
demand  ;  and  in  order  to  stay  the 
clamours  of  the  holders, — not  now 
mariners,  but  men  of  the  stamp  of 
Thomas  Guy,  —  parliament  erected 
them  into  that  body  known  as  the 
South  Sea  Company,  the  transactions 
of  which  will  ever  be  memorable  in 
the  commercial  history  of  Great 
Britain. 
The  existence  of  this  company 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


670 

dates  from  tbe  reign  of  Queen  Anne ; 
but  for  some  years  its  operations  were 
conducted  on  a  small  scale,  and  it 
only  assumed  importance  in  1719, 
when  exclusive  privileges  of  trading 
within  certain  latitudes  were  assured 
to  it.  We  quote  from  Mr  Doubleday 
the  following  particulars,  which  ut- 
terly eclipse  the  grandeur  of  modern 
gambling  and  duplicity. 

"  As  soon  as  the  act  had  fairly  passed 
the  Houses,  the  stock  of  the  company  at 
once  rose  to  three  hundred  and  nineteen 
per  cent ;  and  a  mad  epidemic  of  specu- 
lative gambling  seemed,  at  once,  to  seize 
the  whole  nation,  with  the  exception  of 
Mr  Hutchison,  and  a  few  others,  who  not 
only  preserved  their  sanity,  but  energeti- 
cally warned  the  public  of  the  ultimate 
fate  of  the  scheme  aud  its  dupes.  The 
public,  however,  was  deaf.  The  first 
sales  of  stock  by  the  Court  of  Directors 
were  made  at  three  hundred  per  cent. 
Two  millions  and  a  quarter  were  taken, 
and  the  market  price  at  one  reached 
three  hundred  and  forty — double  the  first 
instalment  according  to  the  terms  of 
payment.  To  set  out  handsomely,  the 
Court Jvoted  a  dividend  of  ten  per  cent 
upon  South  Sea  Stock,  being  only  a 
half-yearly  dividend,  payable  at  midsum- 
mer 1720.  To  enable  persons  to  hold, 
they  also  offered  to  lend  half  a  million 
on  security  of  their  own  stock  ;  and 
afterwards  increased  the  amount  to  a 
million,  or  nearly  so.  These  bold  steps 
gained  the  whole  affair  such  an  increase 
of  credit,  that,  upon  a  bare  notice  that 
certain  irredeemable  annuities  would  be 
received  for  stock,  upon  terms  hereafter 
to  be  settled,  numbers  of  annuitants  de- 
posited their  securities  at  the  South  Sea 
House,  without  knowing  the  terms  ! 
About  June,  wheu  the  first  half-yearly 
dividend  was  becoming  due,  the  frenzy 
rose  to  such  a  pitch,  that  the  stock  was 
sold  at  eight  hundred  and  ninety  per  cent.' 
This  extravagance,  howe  ver,made  so  many 
sellers,  that  the  price  suddenly  fell,  and 
uneasiness  began  to  be  manifested  ;  when 
the  Directors  had  the  inconceivable  auda- 
city to  propose  to  create  new  stock  at  one 
thousand  per  cent,  to  be  paid  in  ten  in- 
stalments of  one  hundred  pounds  each. 
Strange  to  relate,  this  desperate  villany 
turned  the  tide  again,  and,  to  use  the 
words  of  Anderson,  '  in  a  few  days  the 
hundred  pound  instalment  was  worth 
four  hundred ."" 

We  invariably  find  that  the  success, 
•whether  real  or  pretended,  of  any  one 
scheme,  gives  rise  to  ahost  of  imitations. 
If  any  new  company,  whatever  be  its 


[Dec- 


object,  is  started,  and  the  shares  are 
selling  at  a  premium,  we  may  look 
with  perfect  confidence  for  the  an- 
nouncement of  six  or  seven  others 
before  as  many  days  have  elapsed. 
This  is,  of  course,  partly  owing  to  the 
cupidity  of  the  public ;  but  that  cupidity 
could  not  manifest  itself  so  soon  in  a 
tangible  form,  but  for  the  machinations 
of  certain  parties,  who  see  their  way 
to  a  profit  whatever  may  be  the  re- 
sult of  the  speculation.  Amidst  the 
ruin  and  desolation  which  invariably 
follow  those  seasons  of  infuriated  and 
infatuated  gambling,  to  which  we  are 
now  almost  habituated,  such  men  pre- 
serve a  tranquil  and  a  calm  demean- 
our. And  no  wonder :  they  have 
reaped  the  harvest  which  the  folly  of 
others  has  sown.  At  the  hottest  and 
most  exciting  period  of  the  game, 
they  have  their  senses  as  completely 
under  control  as  the  sharper  who  has 
deliberately  dined  on  chicken  and 
lemonade,"  with  the  prospect  of  en- 
countering afterwards  an  inebriated 
victim  at  Crockford's.  They  may 
play  largely,  but  they  only  do  so  while 
their  hand  is  safe ;  the  moment  luck 
changes,  they  sell  out,  and  leave  the 
whole  loss  to  be  borne  by  the  unfor- 
tunate dupes,  who,  believing  in  their 
deliberate  falsehoods,  still  continue  to 
hold  on,  trusting  to  the  advent  of  those 
fabulous  better  times  which,  in  their 
case,  never  can  arrive.  It  has  been 
so  in  our  own  times,  and  it  was  so 
when  the  South  Sea  bubble  was  ex- 
panding on  its  visionary  basis.  Mul- 
titudes of  minor  schemes  were  pro- 
jected, subscribed  for,  and  driven  tip 
to  an  exorbitant  premium.  The 
shares  of  really  solid  companies  par- 
ticipated in  the  rise,  and  mounted 
correspondingly  in  the  market.  The 
nominal  value  of  all  the  sorts  of 
stock  then  afloat  was  computed  at  no 
less  than  five  hundred  millions;  being 
exactly  double  the  estimated  value  of 
the  whole  lands,  houses,  and  real  pro- 
perty in  the  kingdom ! 

The  collapse  came,  and  brought  ruin 
to  thousands  who  thought  that  they 
held  fortune  within  their  grasp. 
The  history  of  the  downfall  is  not  less 
suggestive  than  that  of  the  rapid  rise. 
It  has  had  its  parallel  in  our  days, 
when  the  most  rotten  and  unsubstan- 
tial of  companies  have  brazened  out 
their  frauds  to  the  last,  doctored 


1849.]  The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 

accounts,  declared  fictitious  dividends,     rouge-et-noir  or  roulette. 
and  threatened  witii  legal  prosecution 
those  who  had  the  courage  and  the 


C71 


honesty  to  expose  them. 

"  The  minor  bubbles  burst  first,  when 
the  South  Sea  schemers  were  foolish 
enough  to  apply  for  a  scire  facias  against 
their  projectors,  on  the  ground  that  their 
schemes  injured  the  credit  of  the  grand 
scheme.  This  turned  quondam  allies  into 
furious  enemies.  The  scire  facias  was  is- 
sued on  13th  August  1720,  when  the 
downfall  began;  and  Mr  Hutchison  saw 
his  predictions  completely  fulfilled.  The 
South  Sea  villains,  in  sheer  desperation, 
declared  a  half-yearly  dividend  of  thirty 
per  cent  due  at  Christmas,  and  offered  to 
guarantee  fifty  per  cent  per  annum  for 
twelve  years!  They  might  as  well  have 
declared  it  for  the  thirtieth  of  February. 
Everything  was  done  to  prop  the  repu- 
tation of  the  directors,  but  all  was  in  vain; 
and  when  the  stock  fell  at  last  to  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five,  a  panic  ensued, 
and  all  went  to  the  ground  together,  to- 
tally ruining  thousands,  and  nearly  drag- 
ging the  Bank  and  East  India  Company 
along  with  it." 

Mr  Francis  gives  us  some  interest- 
ing anecdotes  of  the  casualties  arising 
from  this  gigantic  scheme  of  impos- 
ture. Gay,  the  author  of  the  Beg- 
gar's Opera,  was  a  holder  of  stock, 
and  at  one  time  might  have  sold  out 
with  a  profit  of  twenty  thousand 
pounds — an  opportunity  very  rarely 
vouchsafed  to  a  poet.  In  spite  of 
shrewd  advice,  he  neglected  his  chance, 
and  lost  every  penny.  One  Hudson, 
a  native  of  Yorkshire,  who  had  suc- 
ceeded to  a  large  fortune,  went  deeply 
into  the  scheme.  From  a  million- 
uaire  he  became  a  beggar  and  insane, 
and  wandered  through  the  streets  of 
London  a  pitiable  object  of  charity. 
But  it  would  be  work  of  supereroga- 
tion to  multiply  instances  of  similar 
calamity.  They  are  reproduced  over 
and  over  again  at  the  conclusion  of 
every  fit  of  wild  and  reckless  specula- 
tion ;  and  yet  the  warning,  terrible  as 
it  is,  seems  to  have  no  effect  in  re- 
straining the  morbid  appetite. 

It  would,  we  apprehend,  be  impos- 
sible to  fintl  any  one  who  will  advo- 
cate gambling  upon  principle ;  though 
a  multitude  of  excellent  persons,  who 
would  shrink  with  horror  were  the 
odious  epithet  applied  to  them,  are, 
nevertheless,  as  much  gamblers  as  if 
they  were  staking  their  money  at 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCX. 


The  man 

who  buys  into  a  public  stock  with  the 
intention  of  selling  in  a  week  or  a 
fortnight,  in  the  expectation  of  do- 
ing so  at  an  advanced  price,  or  the 
other  who  sells  shares  which  he  does 
not  possess,  in  the  confident  belief  of 
a  speedy  fall,  is,  in  everything  save 
decency  of  appearance,  on  a  par  with 
the  haunter  of  the  casino.  He  may, 
if  he  so  pleases,  designate  himself  an 
investor,  but,  in  reality,  he  is  a  com- 
mon gamester.  This  may  be  a  hard 
truth,  but  it  is  a  wholesome  one,  and 
it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated,  at  a 
time  when  general  usage,  and  yield- 
ing to  temptation,  have  perverted 
words  from  their  ordinary  significance, 
and  led  many  of  us  to  justify  trans- 
actions wnich,  when  tried  by  the 
standard  of  morality,  and  stripped  of 
their  disguise,  ought  to  be  unhesita- 
tingly condemned.  "  He  that  lovetb 
gold  shall  not  be  justified,"  said  the 
son  of  Sirach.  f  Many  have  sinned 
for  a  small  matter ;  and  he  that  seek- 
eth  for  abundance  will  turn  his  eyes 
away.  As  a  nail  sticketh  fast  be- 
tween the  joinings  of  the  stones,  so 
doth  sin  stick  close  between  buying 
and  selling."  This  spirit,  when  it 
becomes  general  in  the  nation,  cannot 
be  otherwise  than  most  hurtful  to  its 
welfare,  since  it  diverts  the  thoughts 
of  many  from  those  industrial  pur- 
suits which  are  profitable  to  them- 
selves and  others,  and  leads  them 
astray  from  that  honourable  and  up- 
right course  which  is  the  sure  and 
only  road  to  wealth,  happiness,  and 
esteem.  This  has  been,  to  a  certain 
extent,  acknowledged  by  government, 
even  within  our  own  time.  The  per- 
nicious effect  of  the  lotteries,  originally 
a  state  device,  upon  the  morals  and 
condition  of  the  lower  classes,  as  tes- 
tified by  the  vast  increase  of  crime, 
became  at  length  so  glaring,  that  these 
detestable  engines  of  fraud  were  sup- 
pressed by  act  of  parliament.  They 
still  linger  on  the  Continent,  as  most 
of  us  have  reason  to  know  from  the 
annual  receipt  of  documents,  copiously 
circulated  by  the  Jews  of  Hamburg 
and  Frankfort,  offering  us,  in  ex- 
change for  a  few  florins,  the  chance  of 
becoming  proprietors  of  several  cha- 
teaux on  the  Rhine,  with  boar- forests, 
mineral  springs,  vineyards,  and  other 
appurtenances.  We  presume,  from 

2v 


072 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


[Dec. 


the  continuity  of  the  circulars,  that 
Israel  still  finds  its  dupes ;  but  we 
never  happened,  save  in  one  of  Charles 
Lever's  novels,  to  hear  of  any  person 
lucky  enough  to  stumble  on  the  ticket 
which  secured  the  right  to  Henkers- 
bcrg,  Bettlersbad,  or  Narrenstein.  The 
extent  to  which  lottery  gambling  was 
carried  in  this  country  seems  to  us 
absolutely  incredible.  Derby  sweeps 
were  nothing  to  ifc. 

11  In  1772,"  says  Mr  Francis,  "lottery 
magazine  proprietors,  lottery  tailors,  lot- 
tery staymakers,  lottery  glovers,  lottery 
hatmakers,  lottery  tea  merchants,  lottery 
barbers — where  a  man,  for  being  shaved 
and  paying  threepence,  stood  a  chance  of 
receiving  £10;  lottery  shoeblacks,  lottery 
eating-houses — where,  for  sixpence,  a 
plate  of  meat  and  the  chance  of  60  gui- 
neas were  given;  lottery  oyster-stalls — 
where  threepence  gave  a  supply  of  oysters, 
and  a  remote  chance  of  Eve  guineas,  were 
plentiful;  and,  to  complete  a  catalogue 
which  speaks  volumes,  at  a  sausage-stall, 
in  a  narrow  alley,  was  the  important  in- 
timation written  up,  that,  for  one  far- 
thing's worth  of  sausages,  the  fortunate 
purchaser  might  realise  a  capital  of  five 
shillings.  Quack  doctors,  a  class  which 
formed  so  peculiar  a  feature  in  village 
life  of  old,  sold  medicine  at  a  high  price, 
giving  those  who  purchased  it  tickets  in 
a  lottery  purporting  to  contain  silver  and 
other  valuable  prizes." 

A  new_  discovery  was  presently 
made,  which  had  a  serious  effect  upon 
trade.  Money-prizes  were  discon- 
tinued, and  shopkeepers,  parcelling 
out  their  goods,  disposed  of  them  by 
lottery.  As  a  matter  of  course,  this 
business,  commenced  by  disreputable 
adventurers,  proved  most  injurious  to 
the  regular  dealer.  People  refused  to 
buy  an  article  at  the  regular  price, 
when  it  might  be  obtained  for  next  to 
nothing.  They  were,  however,  utterly 
wrong,  for  the  staple  of  the  prize 
goods,  when  inspected,  proved  to  be 
of  the  most  flimsy  description.  Tickets 
in  the  state  lotteries  became  the  sub- 
ject of  pawn,  and  were  so  received  by 
the  brokers,  and  even  by  the  bankers. 
Suicide  was  rife ;  forgery  grew  com- 
mon ;  theft  increased  enormously. 
Husbands  and  fathers  saw  their  wives 
and  children  reduced  to  absolute  star- 
vation, and  weeping  bitterly  for  bread, 
and  yet  pawned  their  last  articles  of 
household  furniture  for  one  more  des- 
perate chance  iu  the  lottery.  Wives 


betrayed  their  husbands,  and  plunder- 
ed them  for  the  same  purpose.  Ser- 
vants robbed  their  masters  ;  commis- 
sions and  offices  were  sold.  Insu- 
rance was  resorted  to,  to  accommodate 
all  classes.  Those  who  had  not  money 
to  pay  for  tickets  might  insure  a  cer- 
tain number  for  a  small  sum,  and  thus 
obtain  a  prize ;  and  so  lottery  grew 
upon  lottery,  and  the  sphere  was  in- 
definitely extended.  It  was  not  un- 
til 1826  that  this  abominable  system 
was  finally  crushed.  The  image  of 
the  vans,  placards,  and  handbills  of 
Bish  is  still  fresh  in  our  memory ;  and 
we  pray  devoutly  that  succeeding  ge- 
nerations may  never  behold  a  similar 
spectacle. 

It  would  be  in  vain  for  us,  within 
the  limits  of  an  article,  to  attempt 
even  the  faintest  sketch  of  the  specu- 
lative manias  which,  from  time  to 
time,  have  affected  the  prosperity  of 
Great  Britain.  Some  of  these  have 
been  quite  as  baseless  as  the  South 
Sea  bubble,  and  may  be  directly  traced 
to  the  agency  and  instigation  of  the 
Stock  Exchange.  Otherswere  founded 
upon  schemes  of  manifest  advantage 
to  the  public,  and  even  to  the  pro- 
prietary, if  cautiously  and  wisely  car- 
ried out;  but  here  again  the  passion 
for  gambling  has  been  insanely  de- 
veloped, and  encouraged  by  those  who 
sought  to  make  fortunes  at  the  ex- 
pense of  their  dupes.  There  is  at  all 
times,  in  this  country,  a  vast  deal  of 
unemployed  capital,  which,  in  the 
cant  phrase,  "is  waiting  for  invest- 
ment," and  which  cannot  well  be  in- 
vested in  any  of  the  ordinary  channels 
of  business.  The  fact  is,  that  within 
the  area  of  Britain,  it  has  been  long 
difficult  for  a  capitalist  to  select  a 
proper  field  of  operation;  and  the 
tendency  of  recent  legislation  has 
materially  increased  the  dilficnlty.  The 
country,  in  fact,  may  be  considered  as 
entirely  made.  Agricultural  improve- 
ment, on  a  large  scale,  which  implied 
the  possession  of  a  tract  of  unprofit- 
able country,  was  considered,  even, 
before  the  repeal  of  the  com  laws,  as 
no  hopeful  speculation.  Since  that 
disastrous  event,  the  chances  have 
naturally  diminished ;  and  we  suspect 
that,  by  this  time,  very  few  people 
have  any  faith  in  Sir  Robert  Peel's  pro- 
posal for  establishing  new  colonies  in 
Connaught.  When  we  find  the  Whig 


1849.] 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


673 


Lord  Monteagle  denouncing  free 
trade  as  the  bane  of  Ireland,  we  may 
be  sure  that  few  capitalists  will  sink 
their  funds  in  the  western  bogs,  hoping 
that  they  may  appear  again  in  the 
shape  of  golden  grain  which  may  defy 
the  competition  of  the  fertile  valleys 
of  America.  We  have  quite  enough 
of  factories  for  all  the  demand  which 
is  likely  to  come  for  years :  instead  of 
building  new  ones,  it  is  always  easy, 
if  any  one  has  a  fancy  for  it,  to  pur- 
chase abandoned  mills  at  a  very  con- 
siderable discount;  but  we  do  not 
find  such  stock  eagerly  demanded  in 
the  market.  Foreign  competition  has 
extinguished  several  branches  of  in- 
dustry to  which  capital  might  be  pro- 
fitably applied,  and  materially  injured 
others;  so  that  moneyed  men  really  are 
at  a  loss  for  eligible  investment. 
This  want  has  been  felt  for  a  long 
time ;  and  the  uncertain  policy  of  our 
ministers,  with  regard  to  colonial 
affairs,  has  undoubtedly  had  an  in- 
jurious effect  upon  the  prosperity  of 
these  dependencies.  We  have  anni- 
hilated much  of  the  capital  invested  in 
the  West  Indies,  and  have  withdrawn 
a  great  deal  more.  It  is  long  since 
Adam  Smith  urged  the  propriety  and 
the  policy  of  identifying  some  of  our 
more  important  colonies  with  Great 
Britain,  by  the  simple  process  of  in- 
corporation, thus  extending  materially 
the  field  of  the  capitalist  upon  se- 
curity equal  to  that  which  he  can 
always  command  at  home.  Such  an 
opportunity  is  at  this  moment  afforded 
by  Canada ;  but  it  seems  that  we  will 
rather  run  the  risk  of  seeing  Canada 
merge  in  the  United  States  than  make 
any  sacrifice  of  our  pride,  even  where 
our  interest  is  concerned.  A  con- 
siderable deal  of  capital  has  gone  to 
Australia ;  but  we  suspect,  from  late 
events,  that  the  future  supply  will  be 
limited. 

Before  the  railways  opened  to  ca- 
pitalists a  channel  of  investment  which 
appeared  exceedingly  plausible,  and 
which  was, .  in  a  great  measure, 
guaranteed  by  the  result  of  experi- 
ment, vast  masses  of  realised  wealth 
accumulated  from  time  to  time.  Upon 
these  hoards  the  members,  myrmidons, 
and  jobbers  of  the  Stock  Exchange, 
cast  a  covetous  eye:  they  whispered 
to  each  other,  in  the  language  of  King 
John— 


_ "  Let  them  shake  the  bags 
Of  hoarding  abbots ;  angels  imprisoned 
Set  thou  at  liberty:  the  fat  ribs  of  peace 
Must  by  the  hungry  now  be  fed  upon : 
Use  our  commission  in  its  utmost  force." 

Acting  upon  this  principle,  they 
made  their  business  to  find  out  new- 
channels  of  investment  —  an  easier 
task  than  the  discovery  of  a  north- 
western passage  in  the  arctic  regions 
— and  to  represent  these  in  all  the 
glowing  colours  which  are  peculiar  to 
the  artists  of  'Change  Alley. 

The  year  1823  was  remarkable  for 
the  commencement  of  an  epidemic 
which  proved,  in  its  effects,  even  more 
disastrous  than  the  South  Sea  delusion. 
It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  or 
discuss  the  causes  which  led  to  this 
sudden  outburst ;  some  of  them  have 
been  indirectly  traced  to  the  operation 
of  Sir  Eobert  Peel's  famous  Currency 
Act  of  1819,  which  fettered  the  Bank 
of  England,  whilst  it  left  the  country 
bankers  free  to  issue  unlimited  paper, 
and  to  the  respite  of  the  smaller  notes 
which  had  been  previously  doomed  to 
extinction.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  cause,  speculation  began  and  in- 
creased at  a  rate  which  was  quite  un- 
precedented. All  kinds  of  ridiculous 
schemes  found  favour  in  the  public 
eye :  nothing  was  too  absurd  or  pre- 
posterous to  scare  away  applicants  for 
shares.  Mining,  building,  shipping, 
insurance,  railway,  colonising,  and 
washing  companies  were  established : 
even  an  association  for  the  making  of 
gold  was  subscribed  for  to  the  full 
amount,  and  doubtless  a  balloon  com- 
pany for  lunar  purposes  would  have 
been  equally  popular.  This  period 
was  marked  by  the  apparition  of  an 
entirely  new  animal  in  the  precincts 
of  the  Stock  Exchange.  Bulls,  bears, 
and  even  lame  ducks,  were  creatures 
coeval  with  its  existence;  but  the 
"  stag,"  in  its  humanised  form,  first 
appeared  in  1823.  The  following 
sketch  might  pass  for  a  view  of  Capel 
Court  some  two-and-twenty  years 
later: — 

"  The  readiness  with  which  shares  were 
attainable  first  created  a  class  of  specu- 
lators that  has  ever  since  formed  a  marked 
feature  in  periods  of  excitement,  in  the 
dabblers  in  shares  and  loans  with  which 
the  courts  aud  crannies  of  the  parent 
establishment  were  crowded.  The  scene 
was  worthy  the  pencil  of  an  artist.  With 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


[Dec. 


huge  pocket-book  containing  worthless 
scrip  ;  with  crafty  countenance  and  cun- 
ning eye;  with  showy  jewellery  and 
threadbare  coat ;  with  well-greased  locks, 
and  unpolished  boots  ;  with  knavery  in 
every  curl  of  the  lip,  and  villany  in  every 
thought  of  the  heart ;  the  stag,  as  he  was 
afterwards  termed,  was  a  prominent  por- 
trait in  the  foreground.  Grouped  together 
in  one  corner,  might  be  seen  a  knot  of 
boys,  eagerly  buying  and  selling  at  a  pro- 
fit which  bore  no  comparison  to  the  loss 
of  honesty  they  each  day  experienced. 
Day  after  day  were  elderly  men  with 
huge  umbrellas  witnessed  in  the  same 
spot,  doing  business  with  those  whose 
characters  might  be  judged  from  their 
company.  At  another  point,  the  youth 
just  rising  into  manhood,  conscious  of  a 
few  guineas  in  his  purse,  with  a  resolute 
determination  to  increase  them  at  any 
price,  gathered  a  group  around,  while  he 
delivered  his  invention  to  the  listening 
throng,  who  regarded  him  as  a  superior 
spirit.  In  every  corner,  and  in  every 
vacant  space,  might  be  seen  men  eagerly 
discussing  the  premium  of  a  new  com- 
pany, the  rate  of  a  newloan,  the  rumoured 
profit  of  some  lucky  speculator,  the 
rumoured  failure  of  some  great  financier, 
or  wrangling  with  savage  eagerness  over 
the  fate  of  a  shilling.  The  scene  has  been 
appropriated  by  a  novelist  as  not  un- 
worthy of  his  pen.  '  There  I  found  my- 
self,' he  writes,  '  in  such  company  as  I 
had  never  seen  before.  Gay  sparks,  with 
their  hats  placed  on  one  side,  and  their 
hands  in  their  breeches'  pockets,  walked 
up  and  down  with  a  magnificent  strut, 
whistling  most  harmoniously,  or  occasion- 
ally humming  an  Italian  air.  Several 
grave  personages  stood  in  close  consulta- 
tion, scowling  on  all  who  approached,  and 
seeming  to  reprehend  any  intrusion.  Some 
lads,  whose  faces  announced  their  Hebrew 
origin,  and  whose  miscellaneous  finery 
was  finely  emblematical  of  Rag  Fair, 
passed  in  and  out;  and  besides  these, 
there  attended  a  strangely  varied  rabble, 
exhibiting  in  all  sorts  of  forms  and  ages, 
dirty  habiliments,  calamitous  poverty, 
and  grim-visaged  villany.  It  was  curious 
to  me  to  hear  with  what  apparent  intelli- 
gence they  discussed  all  the  concerns  of 
the  nation.  Every  wretch  was  a  states- 
man; and  each  could  explain,  not  only 
all  that  had  been  hinted  at  in  parlia- 
ment, but  all  that  was  at  that  moment 
passing  in  the  bosom  of  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer.'" 

The  sketch  is  not  over-coloured. 
No  one  can  have  forgotten  the  sudden 
swarm  of  flesh-flies,  called  from  cor- 
ruption into  existence  during  the  heat 


of  the  railway  mania,  and  the  ridi- 
culous airs  of  importance  which  they 
assumed.  A  convulsion  of  this  kind 
— for  it  can  be  styled  nothing  else — 
does  infinite  injury  to  society ;  for  the 
common  greed  of  gain  too  often  breaks 
down  the  barriers  which  morality, 
education,  and  refinement  have  reared 
up,  and  proves  that  speculation,  as 
well  as  poverty,  has  a  tendency  to 
make  men  acquainted  with  strange 
companions. 

There  were,  however,  features  in  the 
mania  of  1823  which  distinguish  it  from 
every  other.  Thejoint-stock companies 
established  for  domestic  bubble  pur- 
poses engrossed  but  a  limited  share  of 
the  public  attention ;  though  the  ex- 
tent of  that  limitation  may  be  estimat- 
ed by  the  fact,  that  five  hundred  and 
thirty-two  new  companies  w  ere  proj  ect- 
ed,  with  a  nominal  subscribed  capital  of 
£441,649,600.  Of  course  only  a  mere 
fraction  of  this  money  was  actually 
put  down ;  still  the  gambling  in  the 
shares  was  enormous.  The  greater 
part  of  the  capital  actually  abstracted 
from  the  country  went  in  the  shape  of 
foreign  loans,  of  which  there  were  no 
less  than  twenty-six  contracted  during 
that  disastrous  period,  or  very  shortly 
before,  to  an  amount  of  about  fifty-six 
millions.  On  sixteen  of  these  loans 
interest  has  ceased  to  be  paid.  We 
find  among  the  borrowers  such  states 
as  Chili,  Buenos  Ayres,  Colombia, 
Guatemala,  Gunduljava,  Mexico, 
and  Peru,  not  to  mention  Greece, 
Portugal,  and  Spain,  countries  which 
have  set  to  Europe  a  scandalous  ex- 
ample of  repudiation.  Most  of  these 
loans  purported  to  bear  interest  at  the 
rate  of  six  per  cent,  and  some  of  them 
were  contracted  for  at  so  Iowa  figure  as 
68 ;  nevertheless,  with  all  these  seem- 
ing advantages,  it  appears  marvellous 
that  people  should  have  lent  their 
money  on  such  slender  security  as 
the  new  republics  could  offer.  We 
observe  that  Mr  Francis  has  revived 
the  antiquated  scandal  touching  Jo- 
seph Hume's  "  mistake"  with  regard 
to  the  Greek  bonds,  a  story  which 
has  been  a  sore  thorn  in  the  side  of 
the  veteran  reformer.  We  think  he 
might  have  let  it  alone.  The  real 
mistake  lay  on  the  part  of  those  who 
assumed  that  Joseph's  philanthropic 
interest  in  the  Greek  cause  was  so  in- 
tense as  to  suffer  him  for  one  moment 


1849.] 


TJie  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


to  lose  sight  of  his  own.  His  anxiety 
to  back  out  of  a  bad  bargain  was  per- 
fectly natural.  He  never  was  an 
Epaminondas,  and  he  felt  justly  irri- 
tated at  the  foolishness  of  the  Greeks 
in  persisting  that  he  should  sustain 
the  heroic  character,  at  the  expense 
of  his  privy  purse,  when  the  stock 
had  fallen  to  a  discount.  If,  when  it 
rose  again  to  par,  the  Greek  deputies 
were  weak  enough  to  repay  him  the 
amount  of  his  loss,  with  the  uttermost 
farthing  of  interest,  that  was  their 
concern.  When  a  senatorial  sympa- 
thiser gives  the  aid  of  his  lungs  to 
the  cause  of  suffering  humanity,  he 
has  surely  done  enough.  Why  mulct 
him  further  from  the  pocket  ? 

Those  foreign  loans,  and  the  drain 
of  bullion  which  they  occasioned, 
speedily  brought  on  the  crisis.  It 
was  a  very  fearful  one,  and  for  the 
second  time,  at  least,  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land was  in  danger.  It  was  then  that 
mighty  establishment  owed  its  safety 
to  the  discovery  of  a  neglected  box  of 
one  pound  notes,  which,  according  to 
the  evidence  of  Mr  Harmau,  one  of 
the  principal  directors,  saved  the  credit 
of  the  country.  The  coffers  of  the 
bank  were  exhausted,  almost  to  the 
last  sovereign ;  and  but  for  that  most 
fortunate  box,  cash  payments  must 
have  been  suspended  in  December 
1825,  a  position  of  affairs  the  issue  of 
which  no  human  intelligence  could 
predicate.  Subsequent  legislation  has 
not  been  able  to  guard  us  against  the 
possibility  of  a  similar  recurrence. 
All  that  has  been  done  is  to  insure 
the  certainty  of  an  earlier  and  more 
frequent  panic,  and  to  clog  the  wheels 
of  commerce  by  rendering  discounts 
impracticable  at  periods  when  no 
speculation  is  on  foot.  But  as  far  as 
regards  the  stability  of  the  Bank  of 
England,  under  our  present  monetary 
laws,  no  provision  has  been  made,  in 
any  way  commensurate  to  the  addi- 
tional risk  occasioned  by  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  twenty  millions  and  up- 
wards lodged  in  the  savings-banks, 
all  which  must,  when  required,  be 
repaid  in  the  precious  metals ;  and  in 
case  of  any  convulsion,  or  violent 
alarm,  it  is  clear  that  such  a  de- 
mand would  be  made.  The  experi- 
ence of  1832  has  clearly  demonstra- 
ted how  the  fate  of  a  ministry  may  be 
made  to  depend  upon  the  position 


675 

of  the  establishment  in  Threadneedle 
Street. 

It  is  perhaps  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that,  in  a  commercial  country  like 
ours,  wealth  should  command  that 
respect  and  homage  which,  in  other 
times,  was  accorded  to  the  possessors 
of  nobler  attributes.  We  make  every 
allowance  for  the  altered  circum- 
stances of  the  age.  High  and  heroic 
valour,  as  it  existed  before,  and  un- 
doubtedly still  does  exist,  has  not  the 
same  field  for  its  display  as  in  the  days 
when  Christendom  was  leagued  against 
the  Infidel,  or  even  in  those,  compara- 
tively later,  when  contending  factions 
made  their  appeal  to  arms.  Our  wars, 
when  they  do  occur,  are  matters  of 
tactics  and  generalship ;  and  physical 
courage  and  daring  has  ceased  ,to  be 
the  path  to  more  than  common  re- 
nown. Where  most  are  loyal,  and  no 
treason  is  at  hand,  loyalty  is  no  con- 
spicuous virtue.  Those  who  are  dis- 
tinguished in  the  walks  of  literature 
and  science  need  not  covet  adulation, 
and  very  seldom  can  command  it. 
Their  fame  is  of  too  noble  and  endur- 
ing a  quality  to  be  affected  by  ephe- 
meral applause;  and  it  is  good  for 
them  to  work  on  in  patience  and  in 
silence,  trusting  for  their  reward  here- 
after. The  substantiality  of  wealth, 
the  power  and  patronage  which  it 
commands,  will  inevitably  make  its 
possessor  more  conspicuous  in  the 
eyes  of  the'community,  than  if  he  were 
adorned  with  the  highest  mental  attri- 
butes. All  things  are  measured  by 
money :  and  when  money  is  acknow- 
ledged as  the  chief  motive  power,  he 
who  knows  best  how  to  amass  it  can- 
not fail'to  be  the  object  of  attention. 
But  the  marked  and  indiscriminate 
homage  which  is  paid  to  wealth  alone, 
without  regard  to  the  character  of  the 
possessor,  or  the  means  through  which 
that  wealth  has  been  acquired,  is,  in 
our  estimation,  a  feature  disgraceful 
to  the  age,  and,  were  it  altogether 
new,  would  justify  us  in  thinking  that 
the  spirit  of  independence  had  declined. 
We  shall  hold  ourselves  excused  from 
illustrating  our  meaning  by  making 
special  reference  to  a  recent  but  strik- 
ing instance,  in  which  wealth  suddenly 
acquired,  though  by  most  iniquitous 
means,  raised  its  owner,  for  a  time,  to 
the  pinnacle  of  public  observation. 
We  prefer  selecting  from  the  pages  of 


676 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


[Dec. 


Mr  Francis  the  portrait  of  a  man 
whose  character  displayed  nothing 
that  was  great,  generous,  benevolent, 
or  noble ;  whose  whole  life  and  whole 
energies  were  devoted  to  the  acqui- 
sition of  pelf;  whose  manners  were 
coarse ;  whose  person  was  unprepos- 
sessing ;  whose  mind  never  ranged 
beyond  its  own  contracted  and  money- 
making  sphere ;  and  who  yet  com- 
manded, in  this  England  of  ours,  a 
homage  greater  than  was  ever  paid  to 
virtue,  intellect,  or  valour.  Such  a 
man  was  Nathan  Meyer  Rothschild, 
the  famous  Jew  capitalist. 

Originally  from  Frankfort,  this  re- 
markable man  came  over  to  England 
towards  the  close  of  last  century,  and 
commenced  operations  in  Manchester, 
where  he  is  said  to  have  speedily 
trebled  his  first  capital  of  £20,000  :— 

"  This,"  says  Mr  Francis,  "  was  the 
foundation  of  that  colossal  fortune  which 
afterwards  passed  into  a  proverb  ;  and  in 
1800,  finding  Manchester  too  small  for 
the  mind  which  could  grapple  with  these 
profits,  Rothschild  came  to  London.  It 
was  the  period  when  such  a  man  was 
sure  to  make  progress,  as,  clear  and  com- 
prehensive in  his  commercial  views,  he 
was  also  rapid  and  decisive  in  working 
out  the  ideas  which  presented  themselves. 
Business  was  plentiful ;  the  entire  Conti- 
nent formed  our  customers  ;  and  Roths- 
child reaped  a  rich  reward.  From  bar- 
gain to  bargain,  from  profit  to  profit,  the 
Hebrew  financier  went  on  and  prospered. 
Gifted  with  a  fine  perception,  he  never 
hesitated  in  action.  Having  bought  some 
bills  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  at  a  dis- 
count— to  the  payment  of  which  the  faith 
of  the  state  was  pledged — his  next  ope- 
ration was  to  buy  the  gold  -which  was 
necessary  to  pay  them,  and,  when  he  had 
purchased  it,  he  was,  as  he  expected,  in- 
formed that  the  government  required  it. 
Government  had  it — but,  doubtless,  paid 
for  the  accommodation.  '  It  was  the  best 
business  I  ever  did!'  he  exclaimed  tri- 
umphantly ;  and  he  added  that,  when  the 
government  had  got  it,  it  was  of  no  ser- 
vice to  them  until  he  had  undertaken  to 
convey  it  to  Portugal." 

Rothschild  was,  in  fact,  a  usurer  to 
the  state,  as  greedy  and  unconscion- 
able as  the  humbler  Hebrew  who 
discounts  the  bill  of  a  spendthrift  at 
forty  per  cent,  and,  instead  of  hand- 
ing over  the  balance  in  cash  to  his 
victim,  forces  him  to  accept  the  moiety 
in  coals,  pictures,  or  cigars.  His 
information  was  minute,  exclusive, 


and  ramified.  All  the  arts  which  had 
been  employed  on  the  Stock  Ex- 
change in  earlier  times  were  revived 
by  him,  and  new  "  dodges"  intro- 
duced to  depress  or  to  raise  the  mar- 
ket. 

"  One  cause  of  his  success  was  the 
secrecy  with  which  he  shrouded  all  his 
transactions,  and  the  tortuous  policy  with 
which  he  misled  those  the  most  who 
watched  him  the  keenest.  If  he  pos- 
sessed news  calculated  to  make  the  funds 
rise,  he  would  commission  the  broker  who 
acted  on  his  behalf  to  sell  half  a  million. 
The  shoal  of  men  who  usually  follow  the 
movements  of  others  sold  with  him.  The 
news  soon  passed  through  Capel  Court 
that  Rothschild  was  bearing  the  market, 
and  the  funds  fell.  Men  looked  doubt- 
ingly  at  one  another;  a  general  panic 
spread ;  bad  news  was  looked  for  ;  and 
these  united  agencies  sank  the  price  two 
or  three  per  cent.  This  was  the  result 
expected ;  and  other  brokers,  not  usually 
employed  by  him,  bought  all  they  could 
at  the  reduced  rate.  By  the  time  this 
was  accomplished,  the  good  news  had  ar- 
rived; the  pressure  ceased;  the  funds 
rose  instantly;  and  Mr  Rothschild  reaped 
his  reward." 

The  morality  of  the  ring  has  some- 
times been  called  in  question ;  but  we 
freely  confess,  that  we  would  rather 
trust  ourselves  implicitly  to  the  ten- 
der mercies  of  the  veriest  leg  that 
ever  bartered  horse-flesh,  than  to 
those  of  such  a  man  as  "  the  first 
baron  of  Jewry" — a  title  which  was 
given  him  by  a  foreign  potentate,  to 
the  profanation  of  a  noble  Christian 
order. 

Such  were  the  doings  of  Rothschild: 
let  us  now  see  him  in  person.  "  He 
was  a  mark  for  the  satirists  of  the  day. 
His  huge  and  somewhat  slovenly  ap- 
pearance ;  the  lounging  attitude  he  as- 
sumed, as  he  leaned  against  his  pillar 
in  the  Royal  Exchange ;  his  rough  and 
rugged  speech ;  his  foreign  accent  and 
idiom,  made  caricature  mark  him  as 
its  own ;  while  even  caricature  lost 
all  power  over  a  subject  which  defied 
its  utmost  skill.  His  person  was  made 
an  object  of  ridicule ;  but  his  form 
and  features  were  from  God.  His 
mind  and  manners  were  fashioned  by 
circumstances ;  his  acts  alone  were 
public  property,  and  by  these  we  have 
a  right  to  judge  him.  No  great  benevo- 
lence lit  up  his  path  ;  no  great  charity 
is  related  of  him.  The  press,  ever 
ready  to  chronicle  liberal  deeds,  was 


1849.] 


The  National  Debt  and  the  Stock  Exchange. 


677 


almost  silent  upon  the  point ;  and  the 
fine  feeling  which  marked  the  path  of 
an  Abraham  Goldsmid,  and  which 
brightens  the  career  of  many  of  the 
same  creed,  is  unrecorded  by  the 
power  which  alone  could  give  it  pub- 
licity." 

Mr  Disraeli,  in  some  of  his  clever 
novels,  has  drawn  the  portrait  of  a 
great  Jew  financier  in  colours  at  once 
brilliant  and  pleasing.  His  Sidonia, 
whilst  deeply  engaged  in  money-mak- 
ing pursuits,  is  represented  as  a  man 
of  boundless  accomplishment,  ex- 
panded intellect,  varied  information, 
and  princely  generosity.  He  is  the 
very  Paladin  of  the  Exchange — a 
compound  of  Orlando  and  Sir  Moses 
Montefiore.  The  extravagance  of  the 
conception  does  not  prevent  us  from 
admiring  the  consummate  skill  of  the 
author,  in  adapting  his  materials  so  as 
to  elevate  our  ideas  and  estimate  of 
the  Hebrew  idiosyncrasy.  Sidonia  is 
as  much  at  home  in  the  palace  as  in 
the  counting-room  ;  his  great  wealth 
ceases  to  be  the  prominent  feature, 
and  becomes  the  mere  acetssory  of  the 
polished  and  intellectual  man  ;  avarice 
never  for  one  moment  is  permitted  to 
appear ;  on  the  contrary,  the  prodi- 
gality of  the  munificent  Hebrew  is 
something  more  than  Oriental.  We 
may  refuse  to  believe  in  the  reality  of 
such  a  character,  which  implies  a  com- 
bination of  the  most  antagonistic  pur- 
suits, and  a  union  of  mental  attributes 
which  could  not  possibly  coexist  5  but, 
this  difficulty  once  surmounted,"  we 
cannot  challenge  the  right  of  so  emi- 
nently gifted  an  individual  to  take  his 
place  among  the  true  nobility  of  the 
earth.  We  fear,  however,  that  such 
a  phoenix  of  Palestine  has  no  exist- 
ence, save  on  paper.  Certain  it  is, 
that  Rothschild  was  not  the  man ; 
and  yet  Rothschild,  in  his  day,  com- 
manded as  much  homage  as  the  novel- 
ist has  claimed  for  Sidonia.  Great  is 
the  power  of  money !  Princes  feasted 
with  him ;  ambassadors  attended  him 
to  the  tomb ;  and  yet,  for  all  we  can 
learn,  he  was  not  equal,  in  moral 
worth,  to  the  meanest  pauper  in  the 
workhouse.  He  would  at  times  give 
a  guinea  to  a  street  beggar,  not  for 
the  object  of  relieving  his  wants,  but 
to  enjoy  the  joke  of  seeing  him  run 
away,  under  the  apprehension  that 
the  donor  had  been  mistaken  in  the 


coin!  His  wealth  was  gained  by 
chicanery,  and  augmented  by  syste- 
matic deceit ;  and  yet  attend  to  the 
words  of  the  chronicler : — 

"  Peers  and  princes  of  the  blood  sat  at 
his  table  ;  clergymen  and  laymen  bowed 
before  him ;  and  they  who  preached  loud- 
est against  mammon,  bent  lowest  before 
the  mammon-worshipper.  Gorgeous  plate, 
fine  furniture,  an  establishment  such  as 
many  a  noble  of  Norman  descent  would 
envy,  graced  his  entertainments.  With- 
out social  refinement,  with  manners  which, 
offensive  in  the  million,  were  but  brusque 
in  the  millionnaire  ;  he  collected  around 
him  the  fastidious  members  of  the  most 
fastidious  aristocracy  in  the  world.  He 
saw  the  representatives  of  all  the  states 
in  Europe  proud  of  his  friendship.  By 
the  democratic  envoy  of  the  New  World, 
by  the  ambassador  of  the  imperial  Russ, 
was  his  hospitality  alike  accepted  ;  while 
the  man  who  warred  with  slavery  in  all 
its  forms  and  phases,  was  himself  slave  to 
the  golden  reputation  of  the  Hebrew. 
The  language  which  Mr  Rothschild  could 
use  when  his  anger  overbalanced  his  dis- 
cretion, was  a  license  allowed  to- his 
wealth  ;  and  he  who,  when  placed  in  a 
position  which  almost  compelled  him  to 
subscribe  to  a  pressing  charity,  could  ex- 
claim, "  Here,  write  a  cheque  —  I  have 
made  one — fool  of  myself  !  "  was  courted 
and  caressed  by  the  clergy,  was  feted  and 
followed  by  the  peer,  was  treated  as  an 
equal  by  the  first  minister  of  the  crown, 
and  more  than  worshipped  by  those  whose 
names  stood  foremost  on  the  roll  of  a  com- 
mercial aristocracy.  His  mode  of  dicta- 
ting letters  was  characteristic  of  a  mind 
entirely  absorbed  in  money- making  ;  and 
his  ravings,  when  he  found  a  bill  unex- 
pectedly protested,  were  translated  into 
mercantile  language  before  they  were  fit 
to  meet  a  correspondent's  eye.  It  is  pain- 
ful to  write  thus  depreciatingly  of  a  man 
who  possessed  BO  large  a  development  of 
brain  ;  but  the  golden  gods  of  England 
have  many  idolaters,  and  the  voice  of 
truth  rarely  penetrates  the  private  room 
of  the  English  merchant." 

Poor  as  Lazarus  may  be,  let  him  not 
envy  the  position  of  Dives,  Even  in 
this  world,  riches  cannot  purchase  hap- 
piness. Any  pecuniary  loss  was  enough 
to  drive  Rothschild  to  despair.  His 
existence  was  further  embittered  by 
the  dread  of  assassination— no  uncom- 
mon symptom,  when  the  mind  is  rarely 
at  ease ;  and  those  who  knew  him 
best,  said  that  he  was  often  troubled 
with  such  thoughts,  and  that  they 
haunted  him  at  moments  when  he 


678 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  IL 


[Dec. 


would  willingly  have  forgotten  them. 
"Happy!"  he  said,  in  reply  to  the 
compliment  of  a  guest — ic  me  happy! 
what !  happy  when,  just  as  you  are 
going  to  dine,  you  have  a  letter  placed 
In  your  hands,  saying,  '  If  you  do  not 
send  me  £500, 1  will  blow  your  brains 
out  ?  '  Happy ! — me  happy ! "  We  are 
not  compassionate  enough  to  wish  that 
it  had  been  otherwise.  Such  thoughts 
are  the  foreshadowing  of  the  end  of 
those  who  have  prospered  beyond  their 
deserts,  and  have  failed  in  making 
even  that  negative  expiation,  which 
conscience  sometimes  extorts  from  the 
apprehensions  of  unscrupulous  men. 

And  here  we  shall  close  our  re- 
marks. There  is  still  a  fertile  field 
before  us,  on  which  we  might  be 
tempted  to  enter ;  but  that  discussion 
would  bring  us  too  near  our  own  days, 
and  involve  the  resumption  of  topics 
which  have  already  been  handled  in 
Maga.  The  time  doubtless  will  come, 
when,  after  the  cessation  of  some  new 
fit  of  speculation,  and  when  men  are 
cursing  their  folly,  and  attempting  by 
late  industry  to  repair  their  shattered 
fortunes,  some  historian  like  Mr  Fran- 
cis shall  take  up  the  pen,  and  chron- 
icle our  weakness,  as  that  of  our  fathers 
is  already  chronicled.  In  the  mean- 
time, it  would  be  well  for  all  of  us 
seriously  to  lay  to  heart  the  lesson 


which  may  be  drawn  from  this  inter- 
esting record.  Speculation,  carried 
beyond  due  bounds,  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  a  repetition  of  the  old 
game  of  BEGGAR  MY  NEIGHBOUR, 
under  another  form.  To  fair  and 
legitimate  enterprise  we  owe  much  of 
our  modern  improvement ;  which  has 
been  further  rendered  necessary  by 
the  pressure  which  has  increased,  and 
is  increasing  upon  us.  To  unfair  and 
illegitimate  enterprise,  undertaken  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  immediate  gain, 
we  owe  nothing  save  periods  of  great 
misery  and  desolation.  The  game  of 
BEGGAR  MY  NEIGHBOUR  may  be 
played  privately  or  publicly.  Some 
of  us  have  taken  a  hand  in  it  privately, 
with  what  results  we  shall  keep  to 
ourselves.  For  several  years  back, 
our  statesmen  have  played  the  public 
game,  and  played  it  well.  They  have 
succeeded  in  inflicting  successively  a 
blow  upon  each  great  interest  of  the 
country,  by  dealing  with  each  sepa- 
rately, and  by  alienating  the  sympathy 
of  the  others.  The  game  is  now 
pretty  well  played  out ;  and  when  we 
come  to  reckon  our  counters,  it  is 
evident  from  the  result,  that  not  one 
of  the  parties  so  dealt  with  has  been 
a  winner!  Who,  then,  are  the  gainers? 
We  think  the  answer  is  plain.  They 
are  the  Capitalist  and  the  Foreigner. 


MY  PENINSULAR  MEDAL. 


BY  AN  OLD  PENINSULAR. 


PART  II. — CHAPTER  IV. 


WE  held  our  course,  after  part- 
ing with  our  friends  in  the  boat,  and 
were  soon  at  the  harbour's  mouth. 
The  breeze  continued  to  freshen,  and 
the  swell  to  increase.  Our  little 
Wilhelmina  now  began  to  give  us  a 
specimen  of  her  qualities  as  a  sea- 
boat.  Labouring  through  the  curled 
and  crested  seas,  creaking,  groaning, 
vibrating  from  stem  to  stern ;  now 
balancing,  with  her  keel  half  bare,  on 
the  summit  of  a  lofty  surge,  now  deep 
in  a  liquid  trough  ;  now  kicking  up 
behind,  uow  running  her  nose  bang 
into  a  bank  of  water ;  now  pointing 
skywards,  as  if  bound  to  the  moon, 
•and  not  to  Lisbon ;  now  pitching,  now 


jig-jigging  it,  she  simulated  the  paces 
of  a  Spanish  genet — a  great  deal  of 
action,  very  little  progress. 

By  the  time  we  were  clear  of  the 
harbour,  and  in  comparatively  smooth 
water,  the  wind  had  shifted  to  the 
north-west ;  our  course  lay  south, 
and,  being  sheltered  by  the  land,  we 
soon  exchanged  the  jig-jigging  of  our 
exit  from  port  for  a  far  more  agree- 
able, because  more  equable  motion, 
as  we  drove  over  ocean's  swell.  It 
had  already  become  palpably  evident 
that  none  of  our  military  friends  were 
good  sailors.  Now,  however,  they 
were  all  able  to  stand  without  hold- 
ing—all, I  should  say,  but  one  un- 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal.— Part  II. 


679 


happy  individual,  aud  that  was  Mr 
Commissary  Capsicum,  who  had  been 
reduced  to  a  miserable  state  of  disor- 
der by  the  active  movements  of  the 
brig,  and  whose  actual  symptoms 
were  by  no  means  those  of  convales- 
cence. 

Night  closed  in.  It  was  past  twilight, 
3^ct  not  wholly  dark — in  short,  that  in- 
terval between  twilight  and  perfect 
wight,  for  which  in  English  we  have  no 
word,  but  which  the  richer  language  of 
Burns  expressively  designates  as  "  the 
gloaming."  Little  more  than  enough 
of  it  to  fill  the  sails  and  give  the  vessel 
way,  the  wind  was  soft,  and  at  times 
scarcely  perceptible.  The  waves  heav- 
ed lazily ;  the  ship  surmounted  them 
with  measured  rise  and  fall ;  and, 
though  the  heavens  were  overcast,  a 
light,  different  from  that  of  day,  clear 
but  faint,  was  equably  diffused  on  all 
sides.  The  tremulous  surface  of  the 
ocean,  dark,  but  distinguishable  to  the 
horizon,  was  there  sharply  outlined 
against  the  pale  but  still  luminous 
sky. 

Since  we  left  port  in  the  morning, 
what  with  showers  and  spray,  wind 
and  sunshine,  I  had  been  more  than 
once  wet  through  and  dry  again.  The 
consequences  were  now  perceptible. 
I  shivered  inwardly.  My  mind,  too, 
was  ill  at  ease.  After  much  reflec- 
tion, and  some  self-examination,  I 
came  to  this  conclusion  :  that  some- 
thing was  requisite,  something  was  in- 
dispensable, in  my  actual  condition  both 
of  mind  and  body.  What  that  some- 
thing was,  did  not  instantly  occur  to 
me.  I  asked  myself  the  question 
point-blank  —  I  answered  it.  The 
problem  was  solved :  I  wanted  —  a 
nightcap.  Down  I  rushed  into  the 
cabin.  "  Steward,  bring  me  some  hot 
water  and  a  little  brandy." — "Yes, 
sir ;  a  glass  of  hot  brandy  and  water, 
sir  ;  coming  directly,  sir." — "  No,  no, 
steward ;  that's  not  what  I  called  for. 
Bring  the  brandy  and  the  hot  water 
separate.  I'll  mix  for  myself." 

"  Quite  right, "  growled  a  feeble 
voice.  It  was  poor,  unhappy,  still- 
very-fav-from-perfectly-recovered  Mr 
Capsicum's.  The  falling  of  the  wind 
had  so  far  abated  the  ship's  move- 
ments, that  his  worst  symptoms  were 
now  relieved.  Still,  however,  he  was 
far,  very  far,  from  well.  Most  of  the 
passengers  had  turned  in  ;  but  there, 


by  lamplight,  sat  poor  Capsicum  at 
the  cabin  table,  from  sheer  listless- 
ness,  destitute  of  sufficient  energies  to 
put  himself  to  bed,  a  lamentable  spec- 
tacle. 

"  Suppose  you  join  me,  then,"  said 
I.  "  Do  you  good." 

"  Can't,  can't,"  said  he,  plaintively. 
"Couldn't  get  it  down,  if  I  knew  it 
would  make  me  well  this  instant. 
Wish  I  could.  I'll  see  you  take 
yours,  though.  That'll  be  some  com- 
fort, anyhow." 

The  steward  now  brought  hot 
water,  half  a  lemon,  lump-sugar, 
tumbler  half  full  of  capital  brandy. — 
"  Here,  steward,  you  may  take  the 
lemon  away  with  you.  Don't  want 
it." 

"  Quite  right,"  grunted  Capsicum, 
who  thought  himself  a  connoisseur  in 
all  things  eatable  and  drinkable. 
"  Quite  right;  no  rum,  no  lemon." 
Spite  of  his  pitiful  plight,  he  now, 
con  amore,  set  himself  to  watch  my 
operations  critically;  as  if,  from  the 
brewing,  he  would  form  an  estimate  of 
my  judgment,  capabilities,  taste,  cha- 
racter, and  general  attainments. 

With  the  silver  tongs  I  extracted  a 
lump  of  crystal  sugar,  the  largest  in 
the  basin.  The  present  "  without" 
system  was  not  then  in  vogue,  nor 
have  I  adopted  it  yet.  But  now  there 
was  a  hitch — how  to  melt  the  sugar'. 
In  the  tumbler  it  must  not  go — there 
was  the  brandy  :  that  had  been  an  in- 
fringement of  all  the  laws  of  potatory 
combination.  I  felt  that  I  was  under 
observation,  and  that  my  character 
was  at  stake.  I  placed  the  sugar  in 
the  spoon.  "  Quite  right,"  said  Cap- 
sicum. • 

Yet  neither,  according  to  the  mo- 
dern practice,  did  I  wash  the  sugar, 
half  melted,  from  the  spoon  into  the 
tumbler,  with  a  stream  of  hot  water. 
That,  I  submit,  is  an  approximation 
to  the  error  of  immersing  the  sugar  in 
the  unmixed  brandy.  No,  no.  Hold- 
ing the  spoon  over  the  tumbler,  I 
carefully  dropped  upon  the  sugar  three 
drops  of  the  boiling  water.  It  was 
enough.  The  sugar  gradually  sub- 
sided into  a  pellucid  liquid,  which  filled 
the  spoon.  Capsicum,  who,  sick  as 
he  was,  still  watched  iny  proceedings 
with  the  deepest  interest,  and  with  a 
patronising  air  of  mild  benignity,  re- 
peated bis  testimonial — "Quite  right." 


C80 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


Waiting  till  the  sngar  was  wholly 
dissolved,  I  then  'at  length  infused 
sufficient  hot  water  to  scald  the  raw 
spirits,  then  added  the  sugar.  Two 
or  three  stirs  sufficed  ;  not  a  bead 
floated  on  the  surface.  The  mixture 
was  made — tumbler  about  half  an  inch 
from  full — a  "  stiff  un."  Capsicum 
raised  himself  from  the  table  on  which 
he  had  been  leaning,  with  folded  arms, 
like  a  cat  watching  a  mouse,  and  gave 
a  snort  of  approbation. 

"  You  and  that  white  fellow  old  ac- 
quaintance ?"  said  Capsicum. 

"  Our  acquaintance,"  replied  I, 
"  commenced  at  Falmouth  about  a 
week  ago." 

"  Oh !  thought  perhaps  he  was  some 
family  connexion,"  said  Capsicum. 

"  The  connexion  is  quite  recent,  as 
I  tell  you,"  said  I ;  "  but  I  certainly 
don't  mean  to  cut  it.  Hope  to  dine 
with  him  at  headquarters,  every  day 
I'm  disengaged." 

"  Dine  with  him  at  headquarters  ?" 
replied  Capsicum.  "  You'll  do  nothing 
of  the  kind,  I  can  tell  you  that,  sir. 
That  is,  you'll  dine  with  him  at  my 
table ;  pretty  often,  too,  I  trust.  Hope 
I  shall  frequently  have  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  you  both.  But  at  his  own 
table,  if  you're  twenty  years  at  head- 
quarters, you  won't  dine  with  him 
once  ;  take  my  word  for  that.  John 
Barrymore  wouldn't  suffer  it."  Here 
was  a  blow ! 

"  Well,  but  that's  a  thing  I  can't 
understand,"  said  I. 

"  Well  then,  I  must  make  you  un- 
derstand it,"  replied  Capsicum.  "  You 
are  going  out  on  an  appointment  as 
clerk  in  John  Barrymore's  Depart- 
ment. Isn't  it  so?"  I  bowed  as- 
sent. 

"  Very  well.  That  white  chap  does 
business  in  commissariat  bills.  When 
lie  gets  a  bill,  he's  dying  to  get  the 
cash.  Your  Department  pays  the 
cash.  Don't  you  see,  my  dear  sir? 
It  wouldn't  do.  It  would  be  utterly 
at  variance  with  all  the  rules  of  pro- 
priety, for  any  man  in  your  Depart- 
ment to  be  on  terms  of  intimacy  with 
any  man  who  does  business  in  bills. 
Besides,  it  would  be  contrary  to  head- 
quarters etiquette ;  everybody  would 
talk  about  it.  Now,"  added  Capsi- 
cum, with  a  self- approving  air,  "  now 
I've  done  my  duty  by  John  Barry- 
more.  Noticed  you  were  very  thick. 


Thought  I'd  tell  you,  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. Oh  me!  oh  me!"  (sighing, 
panting,  gasping,  pressing  his  hands 
on  his  stomach,  and  swaying  his  head 
from  side  to  side,)  "  how  very  ill  I  do 
feel !  Such  a  horrid  sensation !  a  don't- 
know-howishness — a  sort  of  a  come- 
overishness !  The  exertion  of  talking 
has  made  me  quite  bad  again.  Here, 
steward !  steward !  I  must  go  on 
deck  this  instant."  He  turned  ghastly 
green. 

"  Yet,"  said  I,  hoping  he  would 
soon  be  better,  "  Mr  Gingham,  it 
seems,  can  dine  with  J/OM,  without  any 
breach  of  propriety." 

"Yes,  yes,  to  be  sure  he  can," 
said  Capsicum  ;  "  and  so  can  you. 
Our  Department  don't  finger  the  cash. 
Don't  you  see?  That  makes  all  the 
difference.  Hope  you'll  both  dine 
with  me  often." 

"  Shall  be  very  happy,"  replied  I : 
"  much  obliged  for  your  kind  invita- 
tion. But  still  I  can't  understand. 
Mr  Gingham  has  been  at  headquarters 
before,  and  knows  headquarters.  He 
also  knows,  I  suppose,  that  your 
humble  servant  is  a  clerk  of  the  mili- 
tary chest.  Yet  it  was  he  himself 
who  made  the  proposal  that  he  and  I 
should  campaign  together." 

"  Can't  explain  that,"  said  Capsi- 
cum ;  "  must  leave  him  to  explain 
that  as  he  can.  Oh !  here  he  comes." 

Gingham,  before  he  turned  in,  had 
been  on  deck,  to  take  a  last  look  at  the 
weather,  to  commune  with  the  silent 
night,  to  scrutinise  the  horizon,  to  soli- 
loquise with  the  clouds,  and  perhaps 
for  some  better  and  more  solemn  pur- 
poses :  for  Gingham,  with  all  his  oddi- 
ties, was  a  man  of  religious  principle, 
and  of  devotional  feeling,  and  cared 
not  who  knew  it.  He  now  approached, 
and  seated  himself  with  us  at  the 
cabin  table. 

"Saw  you  at  Cadiz,"  said  Capsi- 
cum. ' '  Think  I  saw  you  at  Madrid." 

"  I  saw  yon  at  Canton,"  coolly  re- 
plied Gingham.  Capsicum  looked  a 
little  queer. 

"  At  Canton  ? "  said  Capsicum. 
"  Saw  me  at  Canton  ?  Did  you, 
though  ?  Come,  come,  now  you're 
joking,  you  know.  Did  you  though, 
really  ?  How  was  I  dressed  ?" 

"  You  were  dressed  like  what  yon 
were  ;  not  exactly  as  you  are  dressed 
now.  You  had  a  long,  taper  pigtail, 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal, — Part  II. 


reaching  down  to  your  heels ;  no  hair 
on  your  head  besides.  You  had  slip- 
pers, scarlet  and  gold,  turned  up  at 
the  toes.  You  earned  a  fan  ;  and 
didn't  I  once  or  twice  see  you  followed 
by  a  fellow  who  carried  a  parasol  over 
your  head  at  the  top  of  a  long  pole  ? 
You  had  — " 

"  I'll  tell  you  what,"  said  Capsicum 
precipitately ;  "  I'm  a  Christian  for 
all  that,  and  my  father  was  an  Eng- 
lishman. True,  I  was  bred  at  Can- 
ton ;  but  I  wasn't  born  there.  Born 
at  Macao.  My  mother  — " 

Here,  in  a  voice  which  ran  through 
all  the  notes  of  the  gamut,  not  how- 
ever in  due  order,  but  like  the  cat's 
minuet,  high  and  low  alternately, 
Gingham  struck  up  a  strange  out- 
landish sort  of  utterance,  whether 
talking  or  singing  I  could  not  tell , 
but,  if  singing,  it  was  the  rummest 
song  I  ever  heard — a  jumping,  disso- 
nant compound  of  bass  and  treble. 
Capsicum  responded  in  a  similar 
fugue.  The  two  funny  rogues  were 
speaking  Chinese !  The  discovery  of 
Capsicum's  semi-gentile  extraction 
tickled  my  fancy  not  a  little. 

"  So,"  said  Capsicum  to  Gingham, 
"  you  and  Johnny  intend  to  make  a 
joint  concern  of  it  at  headquarters." 

"  That's  how  we've  settled  it,"  re- 
plied Gingham. 

"  Can't  be,"  said  Capsicum. 
"  Thought  you  knew  all  headquarters' 
rules,  regulations,  and  observances." 

"  Thought  I  did  know  something 
about  them,"  replied  Gingham. 

"Well,  then,"  replied  Capsicum, 
"  don't  you  know  what  department 
young  Johnny  here  belongs  to  ?" 

"  Your  department,  the  commis- 
sariat department,  I  always  under- 
stood," replied  Gingham  ;  "  saw  his 
name  put  down  so  in  the  list  of  pas- 
sengers per  packet  at  Falmonth.  If 
Mr  Y —  will  oblige  me  by  referring  to 
a  document,  which  I  had  the  honour 
of  handing  him  before  dinner,  he  will 
find  himself  there  designated  accord- 
ingly." 

Sure  enough,  so  it  was  :  "  G.  Y — , 
Esq.,  Commissary- General's  Depart- 
ment, in  A.  C.,  with  Gingham  Ging- 
ham." 

"  But  didn't  you  happen  to  know 
that  Mr  Y — ,  as  you  call  him,"  said 
Capsicum,  "  was  John  Barrymore's 
own  nephew  ?" 


"  Of  that  circumstance  I  was  not 
cognisant,"  replied  Gingham,  "  till  I 
happened  to  become  aware  of  it  by 
the  conversation  during  dinner.  Still 
I  retained  my  former  impression,  that 
Mr  Y —  belonged  to  your  department, 
not  to  the  military  chest." 

"The  long  and  the  short  of  it," 
said  I  to  Gingham,  "  is  this.  Shirty 
here,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  gives  me  to 
understand  that,  at  headquarters,  as  I 
am  attached  to  the  military  chest,  and 
not  to  the  commissariat,  I  cannot  have 
the  pleasure  of  stretching  my  legs 
under  your  table,  when  you  give  a 
spread.  My  regret  is  undissembled 
and  profound." 

"  Nor,"  said  Gingham,  "  while  we 
both  retain  our  present  positions,  can 
we  be  more  than  common  acquaint- 
ance." 

The  shock  of  this  denouement  was 
diverted  by  Capsicum.  Spite  of  his 
sea- sickness  he  had  purpled  up ;  his 
eyes  flashed  and  twinkled  beneath  his 
massive  and  contracted  brows  ;  he 
growled,  he  grunted,  he  wheezed,  he 
snorted,  he  pufied  ;  for  a  time  he  could 
not  articulate.  Either  he  performed 
admirably,  or  he  was  regularly  riled. 
At  length,  recovering  his  breath,  not 
once  looking  at  me,  but  leaning  over 
to  Gingham  on  the  table,  he  whis- 
pered hurriedly,  "  What  does  he  mean 
by  that?  Shirty?  Who's  Shirty?" 
Again  he  turned  very  green,  and  sat 
back  in  his  chair,  panting,  and  sway- 
ing his  head,  like  a  man  ready  to 
faint. 

I  was  sorry  to  see  him  so  ill,  and 
begged  to  apologise.  He  with  the 
greatest  propriety  might  call  me 
"  Johnny  Newcome,"  yet  it  ill  became 
me  to  call  him  "  Shirty."  The  name 
was  casually  suggested  by  his  profu- 
sion of  frill,  &c.  &c.  &c. 

"  I'll  tell  you  what,  Mr  Johnny," 
said  Capsicum,  "  it's  well  for  you  I'm 
so  bad  as  I  am  :  wish  I  was  better, 
for  your  sake.  Wouldn't  I  pitch  into 
you  at  once,  and  give  you  a  precious 
good  hiding  ?  Oh  dear  !  oh  me  !  I  am 
so  very  bad  !"  Then,  rallying  again  : 
"  Ah,  I  wish  you  did  belong  to  my 
department !  Wouldn't  I  detach  yon 
on  outpost  duty?  Wouldn't  I  make 
you  ride  till  you  had  no  leather  loft  ? 
Wouldn't  I  send  you  bullock-hunting 
over  the  sierras  ?  Oh,  dreadful ! 
dreadful !  What  a  horrid  sensation  this 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


G82 

sea-sickness  is  !  Well,  good  night.  I 
suppose  I  shall  be  called  Shirty  as 
long  as  I  live."  He  tottled  off  to  his 
berth. 

"Yes,  you  may  say  that,"  said 
Joey,  from  behind  his  curtain.  Joey 
was  right.  Ten  years  after,  I  heard 
an  old  Peninsular  speak  of  Capsicum 
by  the  name  of  Shirty. 

There  is  certainly  something  very 
adhesive  in  a  sobriquet ;  that  is,  if  it 
happens  to  stick  when  first  applied. 
A  lubberly  big  boy  once  gave  me  a 
thrashing  at  school ;  and  I  gave  him 
— the  only  redress  in  my  power,  as 
we  were  not  allowed  to  throw  stones 
— the  name  of  "  Buttons."  He  had 
cheated  me  at  the  game  ;  and  he  had 
many  on  his  jacket.  "  Buttons"  was 
his  name,  to  his  dying  day. 

Gingham  and  I  remained  at  the 
table.  "  Mr  Capsicum  is  quite 
right,"  said  Gingham.  "  Very  pro- 
per it  should  be  so.  Not  the  less 
sorry  on  that  account.  At  Lisbon, 
you  will,  in  fact,  have  joined.  From 
the  time  we  land,  then,  our  commu- 
nications must  be  limited  to  the  ordi- 
nary civilities  of  social  life .-  until,"  he 
added,  with  a  confidential  look, 
"  having  digested  my  grand  financial 
project,  with  Lisbon  as  the  basis  of 
my  operations,  I  am  prepared  to  pro- 
mulgate it,  as  authorised,  at  the 
headquarters  of  the  British  army. 
Then,"  said  he,  proudly,  "I  shall 
take  such  an  entirely  different  foot- 
ing, so  high  above  the  vulgar  impu- 
tations which  always  attach  to  a 
dealer  in  bills,  that,  without  exposing 
either  you  or  myself  to  criticism,  I 
may  again  permit  myself  the  pleasure 
of  cultivating  your  acquaintance,  on 
our  present  terms  of  friendship — I 
may  say,  intimacy.  At  any  rate, 
while  we  remain  on  board  the  packet, 
that  intimacy,  I  trust,  will  experience 
no  diminution.  Good  night,  sir." 

We  shook  hands :  his  manner,  I 
thought,  a  little  stiff. 

Left  alone  in  the  cabin,  leaning  on 
the  table,  the  night-lamp  shedding  a 
dim  and  dubious  light,  my  small 
modicum  of  brandy-and-water  ex- 
pended, and  the  time  gone  by  for 
brewing  another,  as  the  steward  had 
turned  in,  I  sat  and  ruminated. 
Gingham,  watching  his  opportunity, 
had  benevolently  endeavoured  to 
make  me  sensible,  that,  as  a  clerk  on 


[Dec. 


actual  service,  I  should  soon  be  en 
gaged  in  duties  which  could  not  be 
performed  to  my  own  credit,  without 
care  and  circumspection  ;  and  that  1 
might  find  myself,  ere  long,  in  some 
responsible  situation,  demanding  the 
utmost  caution  and  energy,  to  compen- 
sate my  inexperience.  Since  the  morn- 
ing, for  we  had  been  much  together  dur- 
ing the  da}r,  through  his  friendly  sug- 
gestions, I  had,  in  a  measure,  become 
conscious  of  all  this :  I  was  beginning 
to  feel  the  value  of  such  a  monitor ; 
and  now,  it  appeared,  he  was  lost  to 
me  in  that  character!  Then  there 
were  other  considerations  of  a  deeper 
kind.  I  remembered  the  dinner  at 
the  hotel ;  I  remembered  the  break- 
fast; I  thought  of  the  travelling 
store-closet.  To  have  lost  such  a 
companion  of  my  first  campaign — it 
was,  indeed,  a  loss !  Had  I  never 
dined  with  him,  I  could  have  better 
borne  it ! 

At  length  I  came  to  this  conclu- 
sion; that,  as  all  the  other  passen- 
gers had  retired  to  rest,  I — had  better 
do  the  same.  I  was  about  to  put  my 
decision  in  execution,  when  my  atten- 
tion was  arrested  by  a  lamentable 
cry,  which  issued  from  the  berth  of 
poor  Mr  Commissary  Capsicum.  ' '  I 
can't — I  can't — I'm  stuck ! — weak  as 
a  rat !  Oh,  I  am  so  very  bad !  Here, 
steward!  steward!— ah!  oh!"  Hav- 
ing heard  his  monody  to  the  end,  and 
waited  in  vain  for  a  second  stave,  I 
flew  to  his  assistance. 

Poor  Mr  Commissary  Capsicum 
had  contrived  to  divest  himself  of  his 
diurnal  habiliments ;  and  was  now 
embellished  with  a  red  bonnet  de  nuit  ; 
and  an  elegant  night-shirt,  which  fit- 
ted— as  if  it  had  been  made  for  him. 
I  found  him — in  what  an  attitude ! 
One  leg  he  had  contrived  to  hoist 
into  his  berth.  Quoad  that  leg,  he 
was  kneeling  on  the  mattress.  The 
other  leg  was  stretched  towards  the 
floor,  which  he  barely  touched  with 
his  extended  and  agonised  toe.  In 
this  painful  position,  he  was  clawing 
with  both  hands  at  the  board  in- 
tended to  keep  him  in  bed,  equally 
unable  to  advance  and  to  recede. 
Something — either  the  wooden  tester 
— or  the  proximity  of  his  shake-down 
to  the  deck  above — or  what  else  I 
cannot  pretend  to  say — prevented  his 
further  movements.  He  wanted 


1819.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


683 


strength  ;  there  he  was,  literally,  as 
lie  expressed  it,  stuck.  I  expressed 
the  deepest  sympathy. 

Joey  whipped  on  his  drawers  and 
dressing-gown,  and  was  with  us  in  a 
twinkling.  Joey,  seeing  all  other 
expedients  vain,  brought  his  shoulder 
to  bear,  and  commenced  a  series  of 
well-directed  hoists,  each  hoist  accom- 
panied with  a  musical  "  Yeo-heave- 
ho."  I  laughed;  Joey  laughed;  poor 
Capsicum  himself  caught  the  infec- 
tion :  his  whining  and  whimpering 
gradually  glided  into  a  deep  pectoral 
chuckle.  The  object  was  at  length 
effected.  Capsicum  was  stowed  for 
the  night ;  but  not  without  vigorous 


and  long-continued  efforts,  both  on 
Joey's  part  and  mine.  "  Can't  ima- 
gine what  caused  the  obstruction," 
said  I ;  "  it's  prodigious ;  it's  incre- 
dible." "Incredible,  but  true,"  re- 
plied Joey ;  "  suppose  we  call  it '  A 
tail  founded  on  facts.' "  "  Good 
night."  Good  night,  Mr  Capsicum." 
"  Good  night,  Mr  Capsicum ;  good 
night."  "  Good  night ;  ah !  oh ! 
What  shall  I  do  ?  Suppose  I  should 
be  taken  bad  again  before  morning ! 
Thank  you  both.  Good  night.  Two 
impudent,  unfeeling  young  hounds. 
Good  night." 
So  terminated  our  first  day  afloat. 


CHAPTER  V. 


It  has  been  intelligently  remarked, 
that,  in  writing  travels  by  land  or  by 
sea,  the  traveller  has  only  to  jot  down 
everything  just  as  it  occurs,  and  he 
will  be  sure  to  produce  a  book  worth 
reading.  This  rule  may  be  excellent 
in  theory ;  but,  gertle  reader,  it  will 
not  do.  Only  look  here.  I  have  not 
jotted  down  one  tithe  of  the  incidents 
of  the  first  ten  hours  since  we  left  har- 
bour; and  see  what  a  long  yarn  it 
makes.  A  man  who,  in  travelling, 
really  registered  everything,  would 
yarn  away  at  the  rate  of  a  quarto  a 
week. 

There  is,  however,  an  observation 
which  is  much  more  to  the  purpose  ; 
namely,  that  one  day  at  sea  is  very 
like  another.  This  wo  certainly 
found  out,  in  our  voyage  from  Fal- 
mouth  to  Lisbon.  For,  with  the 
exception  of  changes  in  wind  and 
weather,  little  occurred  to  vary  our 
daily  existence ;  at  least  till  we  got 
off  Oporto,  and  took  in  fresh  passen- 
gers. During  the  first  night  after  we 
left  Falmouth,  the  wind  got  round  to 
the  S.W.  We  bad  three  days  of  it, 
regular  Channel  weather :  thick, 
cloudy,  squally — much  rain— the  ship 
pitching,  labouring,  creaking,  strain- 
ing, groaning — going  every  way  but 
the  way  we  wanted  to  go — all  the 
passengers,  except  Joey,  more  or  less 
indisposed — and  nobody  pleased  but 
the  skipper,  who  whistled  a  perpetual 
"  Yankee  doodle"  rondo,  and  seemed 
to  exult  in  our  miseries.  u  I  calcu- 
late," said  Joey,  "  if  this  lasts  much 


longer,  we  shall  come  to  anchor  in  the 
Downs."  For  want  of  anything  to 
relate,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the 
reader,  should  he  cross  "  the  Bay,"  I 
shall  here  beg  leave  to  say  a  few 
words  respecting  that  horrid  malady 
to  which  landsmen  are  subject  011 
board  ship,  and  respecting  my  own 
mode  of  dealing  with  it.  Experto 
crede. 

My  case  resembles  that  of  many 
other  persons ;  i.e.,  in  foul  weather 
on  board  ship,  yon  do  not,  we  will 
say,  at  puce  get  thoroughly  ill';  but 
certain  disagreeable  sensations,  quite 
sufficient  to  call  a  man's  attention  to 
himself,  such  as  giddiness,  prostration 
of  strength,  awful  depression  of  the 
whole  system,  and  still  more  awful 
sensations  at  the  pit  of  the  stomach, 
induce  the* painful  consciousness  that 
you  are.  very,  very  far  from  well,  and 
in  some  danger  of  being  worse  before 
you  are  better.  In  this  state  of  the 
case,  the  "  indication,"  as  the  doctors 
say,  is  to  keep  off  daddy  Neptune's 
last  outrage,  the  detested  crisis. 
Don't  give  car  to  the  good-natured 
friend  who  says,  "You  had  better  be 
ill  at  once,  and  get  it  over."  That 
may  do  very  well  in  a  sail  from  West 
Cowes  to  Alluni  Bay ;  but  it  won't 
answer  if  you  are  a  fortnight  at  sea. 
You  may  be  "  ill  at  once,"  if  you 
please;  but  don't  be  certain  "you'll 
get  it  over ;"  if  once  you  begin,  you 
may  go  on  for  a  week.  Keep  well, 
then,  if  you  can. 

Now,  as  long  as  you  can  keep  your 


684 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II, 


[Dec. 


legs,  and  keep  on  deck,  yon  can  gene- 
rally effect  this.  In  yonr  berth,  also, 
in  a  recumbent  postnre,  you  may 
manage  to  escape  the  dire  catas- 
trophe. The  real  difficulty  is  this : 
that,  in  passing  from  one  of  these 
states  to  the  other,  e.g.,  in  turning  in 
at  night,  or  turning  out  in  the  morn- 
ing, in  all  human  probability  you  be- 
come a  miserable  victim.  You  must 
dress— you  must  undress — and,  in  the 
course  of  doffing  or  donning,  ten  to 
one  your  worst  apprehensions  become 
a  reality.  What,  then,  is  the  remedy? 
Now,  don't  stare,  but  be  advised. 
Till  you  are  fairly  seasoned,  which 
you  probably  will  be  in  three  or  four 
days  if  you  do  as  I  tell  you,  don't  doff 
or  don  at  all.  Keep  on  deck  all  day, 
get  thoroughly  cold,  tired,  and  drowsy, 
rush  below  at  night,  throw  yourself 
on  your  mattress  as  you  are,  go  to 
sleep  at  once.  In  the  morning,  the 
moment  you  tui'n  out,  rush  on  deck. 
No  shaving;  no  titivating.  You 
must  wash,  must  you  ?  Go  forwards, 
then ;  wash  in  the  open  air ;  wash 
anywhere  but  below.  "Beastly, 
though,  to  go  day  after  day  without 
a  change."  Beastly,  I  admit;  but 
not  so  beastly  as  day  after  day  of 
convulsive  paroxysms  and  horrid 
heaviugs ;  and,  depend  upon  it,  if 
once  you  begin,  there  is  no  telling 
how  long  it  may  last.  Whereas  fol- 
low my  plan,  and  in  three  or  four 
days  you  are  all  right — you  are  sea- 
soned— the  ship  may  dance  a  polka, 
and  you  not  the  worse  for  it.  You 
may  then  go  below,  and  stay  below, 
with  perfect  impunity — treat  yourself 
to  a  grand  universal  scrub  and  a  clean 
sliirt — and,  if  you  are  a  shaver,  shave 
— only  remember  you  are  shaving  on 
board  ship,  and  mind  you  don't  cut 
off  your  nose.  After  all,  it's  a  matter 
of  taste,  I  admit:  and  tastes  are 
various.  If  you  consider  a  three-days' 
shirt,  and  a  rough  chin,  greater  evils 
than  vomitory  agonies,  and  spasms 
of  the  diaphragm,  why,  do  as  you 
like;  shave,  titivate,  change  your 
linen,  and  retch  your  heart  up. 

During  the  three  days  of  foul 
weather,  wind  S.W.,  I  contrived  to 
keep  about,  by  following  the  method 
indicated  above.  On  the  fourth,  the 
wind  returned  to  the  N.W.,  with  an 
occasional  brash  of  rain ;  and  we 
were  again  able  to  hold  our  course. 


I  was  then  myself  again,  past  the 
power  of  sea-sickness ;  and  could  walk 
the  deck  with  Joey,  cast  accounts 
with  Gingham,  sit  out  the  dinner 
without  declining  soup,  respectfully 
ogle  the  lovely  Juno,  and  occasionally 
extort  a  giggle.  On  the  morning  of 
this  same  day,  impelled  by  curiosity, 
I  approached  the  berth  where  lay  de- 
posited the  unhappy  Capsicum,  and 
drew  his  curtain.  Ah !  is  that  Cap- 
sicum? Alas,  how  changed!  He 
looked  like  death.  I  spoke  to  him. 
His  lips  moved,  but  his  voice  was  in- 
audible. I  felt  his  pulse.  It  was 
scarcely  perceptible.  He  was  in  a 
state  of  collapse! 

Deeming  the  exigency  cogent,  I 
fetched  Mr  Staff-surgeon  Pledget. 
Pledget,  after  due  examination,  pro- 
nounced it  a  serious  case,  prescribed 
a  restorative,  departed  to  compound, 
and  soon  came  back  with  it — only 
about  half  a  pint.  With  some  diffi- 
culty, poor  Capsicum  was  got  up  in 
his  berth,  and  the  restorative  was  got 
down.  Anticipating  recalcitration, 
Pledget  had  come  provided  with  a 
small  horn.  Having  swallowed  the 
dose,  Capsicum  found  his  voice. 
"  Ah  me  !"  he  feebly  whined,  with  a 
look  of  inexpressible  horror  and  dis- 
gust, and  his  hand  pressed  upon  the 
pit  of  his  stomach ;  "  ahj-me !  is  it  an 
aperient?"  Then,  in  a  low  and  indig- 
nant growl,  "  Never  took  physic  be- 
fore, in  all  my  life."  He  lay  back  on 
his  bolster,  with  closed  eyes,  in  feeble 
and  sulky  silence.  Pledget  withdrew, 
and  I  remained. 

Presently,  reopening  his  eyes,  he 
cautiously  looked  around.  "  Is  that 
fellow  gone  ?"  he  whispered.  I  nod- 
ded. "  Look  in  the  cabin,"  he  whis- 
pered again. 

"  Gone  on  deck,"  said  I ;  "not 
quite  right  yet,  himself.  Do  you  want 
him?  Shall  I  call  him  back?" 

"No,  no;  nonsense!  I  say,  you 
mix  me  a  glass  of  tliat — you  know 
what — the  same  you  took  yourself 
t'other  night." 

I  hesitated.  There  was  no  doubt 
in  the  world  it  woxild  do  him  a  deal 
of  good.  But  then  he  was  under 
treatment;  he  was  medically  ill. 
What  was  I  to  do  ? 

He  looked  at  me  appealing!}-, 
coaxingly,  touchingly.  "I'd  do  as 
much  for  you,"  said  he. 


My  Peninsular  Xleilal — Part  II. 


685 


There  was  no  standing  that.  I 
clancularly  gave  iny  orders  to  the 
steward.  The  steward  grinned,  and 
brought  the  materials.  In  due  time 
the  mixture  was  made ;  and,  in  a  very 
short  time  after,  the  patient  had  stowed 
it  away.  "  I  shall  get  up,"  said  he. 
"Just  help  me  out."  I  sent  the 
steward  to  request  the  aid  of  Joey. 

By  unshipping  the  board  at  the  side, 
we  got  Capsicum  out  of  his  crib,  far 
more  easily  than  we  had  got  him  in. 
But,  alas,  his  legs  doubled  under  him  ^ 
he  was  helpless  as  an  infant,  and  al- 
most fainted  away.  At  length  we 
managed  to  dress  him  ;  and  seated 
him  in  full  fig  at  the  cabin  table,  with 
his  enormous  snuff-box  open  before 
him.  At  dinner,  that  day,  he  managed 
the  wing  of  a  chicken  and  a  slice  of 
tongue.  Couldn't  a  currant  dumpling, 
though  —  was  set  against  it  by  the 
wine  sauce.  Pledget  had  the  credit 
of  the  cure. 

I  omit  to  relate,  in  extenso,  how  we 
were  chased  by  what  we  took  for  an 
American  sloop  of  war,  but  what 
proved  to  be  an  English  frigate ;  how 
the  arm-chest  was  got  upon  deck  when 
we  expected  to  be  brought  to  action  ; 
and  how  the  muskets  were  found,  like 
poor  Capsicum,  stuck  —  rusted  to- 
gether into  a  mass,  for  want  of  look- 
ing after  ;  how  badly  the  said  frigate 
threw  her  shot,  sending  ^f  first, 
which  ought  to  have  gone  ahead  of  us, 
slap  through  our  topsail,  and  the  se- 
cond, which  should  have  been  a  more 
direct  communication,  half  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  wide  ;  how  the  Major 
and  Captain  Gabion  saw  the  said  shot 
as  they  were  coming,  while  I  saw 
nothing  but  the  splash  in  the  water  ; 
how  our  leisure  hours  were  solaced  by 
two  combative  drakes,  shut  up  to- 
gether in  the  same  coop,  which  fought 
incessantly,  day  and  night,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  voyage — 
if  you  held  a  lantern  to  them  in  the 
dark,  they  were  still  fighting;  how, 
when  one  hen  laid  an  egg,  the  others 
pecked  at  it,  and  gobbled  it  up  ;  how 
the  skipper  was  rude  to  everybody 
on  board — to  the  Major,  it  appeared, 
grossly  so.  These  particulars,  with 
many  others,  I  defer  to  my  quarto 
edition. 

Yet  let  me  not  omit  the  skipper's 
confidence  to  Joey ;  how  he  thought 
passengers  should  be  victualled  on 


board  ship.  "  Fust,  good  flabby  pea- 
soup,  as  thick  as  batter — plenty  on  it 
— let  'em  blow  out  their  jecldts  with 
that.  When  it's  took  away,  why,  then 
perpose  a  glass  of  bottled  porter  all 
round.  Fust  dinner  aboard  ;  won' t  it 
make  some  on  'em  bolt  ?  " 

Perhaps,  my  dear  madam,  the  best 
way  of  giving  you  a  general  idea  of 
our  voyage,  will  be  to  present  you 
with  a  description  of  our^mode  of  life 
from  day  to  day.  The  rule  with  our 
military  friends  was,  to  take  fun  out 
of  everything ;  and  they  proved  them- 
selves perfect  adepts  in  all  the  means 
and  methods  thereto  available  ; 
hoaxing,  quizzing,  shaving,  imitating, 
trotting,  cajoling,  bamboozling.  Pled- 
get could  not  make  it  out — wondered 
what  it  all  meant ;  and  one  day 
gravely  asked  me,  if  I  could  explain 
the  nature  and  cause  of  laughter. 
Laughter  he  viewed  as  a  psycholo- 
gical problem  ;  we  had  plenty  onboard; 
but  he  could  not  solve  it.  The  best 
thing  was,  that  Pledget  himself 
caught  the  infection  at  last,  and  be- 
gan to  laugh.  It  was  curious  to 
watch  the  first  stirrings  of  nascent 
humour  in  Pledget's  mind.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  voyage  he  had  actu- 
ally, though  by  slow  degrees,  concoct- 
ed a  joke  ;  and,  had  our  passage 
been  to  the  West  Indies,  and  not  to 
Lisbon,  he  would  perhaps  have  got 
so  far  as  to  try  it  on.  The  victim  of 
the  said  joke  was  to  be  Capsicum. 
Capsicum's  birth  at  Macao,  and  breed- 
ing at  Canton,  .had  transpired  through 
Joey.  Pledget's  primary  idea  was, 
that  Capsicum  might  possibly  have  a 
penchant  for  a  dish  of  stewed  puppies. 
This  bold,,  ingenious,  and  comical 
conception,  as  he  fed  on  it  from  hour 
to  hour,  and  from  day  to  clay,  in 
about  three  days'  time  began  to  grow 
in  his  mind  ;  and,  as  it  grew,  it  rami- 
fied. From  one  thing  to  another,  at 
length  it  came  to  this :  that,  with  my 
co-operation,  -Joey's,  and  the  stew- 
ard's, Capsicum  was  to  be  persuaded 
that  a  batch  of  puppies  had  actually 
been  littered  on  board.  Capsicum, 
kept  momentarily  cognisant  of  the 
progress  of  Pledget's  plot,  by  the 
treachery  of  those  to  whom  it  was 
confided,  was  prepared  to  humour  the 
joke,  whenever  Pledget  commenced 
operations.  Pledget,  big  with  his 
own  idea,  walked  the  deck  for  hours 


686 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec, 


together,  rubbing  his  hands  in  an 
ecstasy,  and  laughing  till  he  whim- 
pered. When  Joey  or  I  took  a  turn, 
he  was  soon  by  our  side,  screeching 
in  a  rapidly  ascending  gamut,  with 
pungent  delight,  and  much  cachin- 
nation,  "Puppies!  puppies!  Oh,  sir, 
won't  they  be  nice  ?  Poor  old  Capsi- 
cum ! — puppies !  puppies! " 

The  day  before  we  made  the  coast 
of  Spain,  I  was  fairly  "trotted." 
You  must  know,  I  fancied  in  those 
days  I  could  sing.  Item,  my  dear 
father  had  brought  home,  from  the 
Peninsula,  some  very  pretty  Portu- 
guese airs,  of  the  kind  called  modi- 
nhas — which  modinhas  I  had  at  my 
fingers'  ends.  Now,  there  are  two 
very  distinct  ideas,  which  young 
people  are  apt  to  confound.  If  they 
happen  to  know  a  pleasing  song,  they 
fancy  themselves  pleasing  singers : 
often  quite  the  reverse  ;  the  finer  the 
song,  the  fouler  the  butchery.  I  wish 
singing  was  visible,  and  not  audible  ; 
for  then  we  could  keep  it  out  by 
shutting  our  eyes.  Well,  this  is  how 
it  was :  leaning,  as  I  was  wont, 
over  the  ship's  side,  my  face  to  the 
horizon,  my  back  to  the  company,  I 
won't  pretend  to  say  that  I  exactly 
sang  for  their  benefit :  oh  no ;  I  sang, 
as  I  had  right  to  do,  for  my  own 
amusement;  though  I  certainly  did 
sing  loud  enough  to  be  heard,  without 
being  listened  to.  Presently  by  my 
side  leaned  Captain  Gabion.  I  ceased. 
He  hummed  a  mellifluous  song  of 
Lusitania. 

"Pity  the  Lisbon  music-sellers 
don't  print  their  music,"  said  he ; 
"Write  it  all.  Quite  a  fuss,  some- 
times, to  get  a  song  you  fancy." 

"  That  explains  something  I  never 
understood  before,"  said  I.  "  All 
the  songs  I  have  received  from  Por- 
tugal are  in  manuscript.  Pray,  what 
is  a  modiuha,  strictly  speaking?" 

"  Why,  a  modinha,"  replied  he,  "  in 
common  parlance,  means  any  song 
that  you  happen  to  like.  Modinha  : 
a  little  mode ;  a  little  fashion ;  any 
little  fashionable  song.  But  the  grand, 
regular  music  of  the  Portuguese — 
oh !  that's  magnificent — their  church 
music  for  instance.  You  must  know, 
once  a-year,  in  one  of  the  Lisbon 
churches,  they  sing  a  grand  mass  for 
the  souls  of  deceased  musicians.  Of 
course,  on  such  an  occasion,  all  the 


living  forces  of  the  musical  world  are 
put  in  requisition.  The  last  time 
I  was  at  Lisbon,  I  attended — advise 
you,  as  a  musical  man,  to  do  the  same. 
Oh  !  wasn't  that  a  grand  harmonious 
crash?  Extraordinary  fellows,  some 
of  those  singing  monks  and  friars! 
Fancy  one  whole  side  of  an  immense 
church,  from  the  floor  to  the  roof,  a 
grand  bank  of  chorus- singers,  as  high 
as  Shakspeare's  Cliff;  each  bellowing 
like  a  bull ;  yet  each  with  a  voice  as 
finely  modulated  as  the  richest  violon- 
cello, touched  by  a  master's  hand. 
Then  there  was  one  fellow,  a  bass,  who 
stood  up  to  sing  a  solo.  Never  heard 
anything  like  that.  He  struck  off,  deep 
down  in  his  throat — yes,  sir ;  and 
deeper  down  in  the  scale,  too,  than  I 
ever  heard  any  man  go  before — with 
a  grand  magnificent  double  shake, 
like — like — like  the  flutter  of  an  eagle. 
Then  down — down — down  the  vil- 
lain dropped,  four  notes  lower,  and 
gave  such  another.  I  advised  him 
to  go  to  England.  His  name  was 
Naldi.  But  let  me  see — oh — we  were 
talking  about  modinhas.  Why,  sir, 
the  fact  is  this — if  you  want  to  hear 
what  I  call  the  vernacular  basis  of 
the  modinha,  you  must  go  up  among 
the  hills,  a  few  leagues  out  of  Lisbon." 

"I suppose," said  I,  "my  best  plan 
will  be  to  go  by  the  mail. " 

"Yes,"  replied  he;  "any  one  in 
Lisbon  will  show  you  the  booking 
office  :  unless,  by  the  bye,  you  prefer 
palanquin,  in  which  case  I  would 
advise  you  to  order  relays  of  black 
bearers  from  Jigitononha ;  or,  you 
might  do  it  on  two  donkeys.  Well, 
sir ;  when  you're  "up  there  in  the 
mountains,  among  the  goats,  wolves, 
wild  buffaloes  and  rhododendrons,  the 
altitude  about  corresponding  to  lati- 
tude 66°  N.  in  Europe,  and  to— let 
me  see — latitude— say  latitude  50°  in 
the  United  States — of  course  you'll 
feel  hungry.  Step  into  the  first  hotel. 
But  I'd  advise  you — don't  order  three 
courses ;  you'll  find  it  come  expensive  ; 
better  rough  it  with  something  light — 
say  a  beef-steak  and  a  bottle  of  port. 
That  buffalo  beef,  capital.  Port— let 
me  see — are  you  particular  in  your 
port?  Better  ask  for  the  Algarve 
sort.  Well,  sir ;  after  you  have  dined, 
just  step  out  into  the  village — walk 
into  the  first  wine-shop.  You'll  pro- 
bably find  half-a-dozen  peasants  there 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


687 


— big,  muscular,  broad-chested,  good- 
humoured-looking  fellows — goatherds 
and  all  that  kind  of  thing.  Look  out 
for  the  chap  with  the  guitar — you'll  be 
sure  to  fiud  him  in  the  wine-shop ; 
order  a  quart  tumbler  of  wine— just 
taste  it  yourself— then  hand  it  to  him 
— and  tell  him  to  play.  The  moment 
he  has  tossed  off  the  tipple,  he  begins 
tinkling.  The  other  six  fellows  stand 
up ;  throw  back  their  shoulders ;  bulge 
out  their  chests  ;  and  begin  smirking, 
winking  their  little  black  eyes,  snap- 
ping their  fingers,  and  screwing  their 
backs  in  such  an  extraordinary  man- 
ner as  you  never  beheld  —  all  in 
cadence  to  the  guitar.  That's  the 
first  access  of  the  musical  oestrum. 
The  guitar  goes  on — strum — strum — 
strum — alow  monotonous  jingle,  just 
two  or  three  chords.  That's  the  ac- 
companiment to  the  singing  that's 
about  to  begin.  At  length,  one  of  the 
fellows  commences — air  and  words 
both  ^xtempore  ;  perhaps  something 
nmatory,  Minha  Maria,  minha  querida ; 
or,  it  may  be,  something  satirical,  if 
they  see  anything  quizzable — some- 
thing about  yourself.  While  that 
first  fellow  is  singing,  the  chap  next 
him  stands,  still  winking,  screwing, 
smirking,  snapping  his  fingers ;  and 
begins,  as  soon  as  the  other  has  done. 
So  it  goes  on,  till  all  the  half-dozen 
have  had  their  turn.  But  the  curious 
thing  is  this  :  though  all  the  songs  are 
different,  different  in  the  tema,  dif- 
ferent in  the  style,  different  in  the 
compass  of  voice,  different  in  the  pitch, 
different  in  the  words,  the  same  ac- 
companiment does  duty  for  all :  the 
chap  with  the  guitar  goes  on,  just 
tinkling  the  same  chords,  till  the  whole 
is  finished.  Then,  if  you  want  it  da 
capo,  give  him  another  tumbler  of 
wine.  If  you've  had  enough,  why, 
then,  you  know,  you  can  just  fork  out 
a  moidore  or  two,  tell  them  to  divide 
it,  and  take  your  leave,  —  that  is,  if 
you  don't  want  to  see  the  fight  for  the 
money  :  but  that's  not  worth  your 
while ;  mere  rough  and  tumble,  with 
a  little  knifing.  Only  mind ;  don't 
give  dollars  or  patacas.  They  prefer 
gold." 

I  really  thought  I  was  now  trotting 
Captain  Gabion,  who  was  a  musical 
amateur.  Villain  !  he  was  operating 
to  clap  the  saddle  on  me,  in  a  way  I 
little  suspected.  "Then,"  said  I, 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCX. 


"  each  of  these  fellows,  I  suppose,  has 
sung  a  modinha. " 

"  Why,  no  ;  not  exactly  that, 
neither,"  said  the  Captain.  "  I'll  tell 
you.  Curious  sort  of  music  it  is, 
though  ;  the  national  music,  in  fact. 
When  you  see  one  of  those  big  athletic 
fellows  expanding  his  chest,  sucking 
his  breath,  his  whole  pulmonary  region 
heaving,  labouring  with  the  song  he  is 
going  to  sing,  why,  of  course  you'd 
expect  him  to  break  out  like  a  clap  of 
thunder.  But,  instead  of  that,  forth 
comes  from  his  big  throat  a  very 
mouse- like  issue  of  those  mountain 
throes ;  an  attenuated  stream,  not 
altogether  unmusical  though,  .of 
growling,  grunting,  squeaking  ca- 
dences— for  the  compass  of  their  voices 
is  perfectly  astonishing — a  string  of 
wild  and  rapid  trills,  very  short  notes, 
very  long  notes,  mostly  slurred,  never 
staccato;  and,  if  you  should  happen 
to  notice,  similar,  in  its  intervals,  to 
the  music  of  Scotland.  With  your 
musical  knowledge,  of  course  you 
understand  what  I  mean  by  intervals. 
Well,  sir;  that  sort  of  mountain  music 
is  what  I  call  the  national  basis  of  the 
Portuguese  modinha.  Take  one  of 
those  wild  airs,  arrange  it  scientifi- 
cally, with  suitable  symphonies,  ac- 
companiment, and  all  that  sort  of 
thing — no  difficulty  to  you — the  mo- 
dinha is  then  complete. " 

This  was  by  no  means  a  bad  theory 
of  the  modinha  of  those  days;  an 
Italian  graft  upon  the  native  stock  ;  a 
scientific  modification  of  the  music  of 
the  peasantry  ;  so  wild,  so  expressive, 
so  sweet,  so  thrilling,  never  have  I 
heard  songs  to  compare  with  those  old 
modinhas.  Once,  at  a  party  in  the 
house  of  a  Lisbon  lady,  we  persuaded 
her  married  daughter  to  sing;  a 
round,  fat,  rosy-brunette  little  dump 
of  a  woman,  famous  for  singing  mo- 
dinhas. She  kindly  took  her  guitar, 
spat  in  her  handkerchief,  and  gave  us 
them  in  such  style  as  I  have  never 
but  once  heard  since — and  then  the  fair 
vocalist  was  not  a  Portuguese.  Wh  at 
rich  expression,  what  rises  and  falls, 
what  rapid  execution,  what  accurate 
intonation,  what  power,  what  tender- 
ness, what  point,  in  that  soft,  flexible, 
delicate,  yet  rich,  full,  brilliant,  and 
highly-cultivated  voice !  Alas,  the 
modinha  of  that  day  is  rapidly  passing 
into  oblivion.  It  has  yielded  in  Lisbon 
2z 


688 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


society  to  a  new  style  of  songs,  Btill 
called  modinhas,  the  words  generally 
native,  as  they  used  to  be ;  but  the 
ninsic,  modern  Italian — utterly  des- 
titute of  sentiment ;  a  constant 
straining  at  effect,  and  a  constant 
failure. 

"  I  understand, "  said  I,  "  that  in 
every  part  of  the  Peninsula  you  meet 
with  a  kind  of  songs  that  may  be 
called  local. " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Captain  ;  "  all,  if 
I  may  so  say,  provincial ;  all  pecu- 
liar ;  all  highly  characteristic ;  and  all 
excellent.  Even  the  occasional  songs 
are  good  as  compositions ;  that  is  to 
say,  songs  which  refer  to  politics,  pass- 
ing events,  and  so  forth.  Did  you 
ever  hear  this  ?  "  He  gave  Ya  vienen 
los  Ingleses. 

"  Very  pleasing,  and  very  lively," 
said  I.  "  This  is  in  the  same  style." 
I  began  to  strike  up  Quando  el  Pepe 
Jose. 

"Don't  let's  have  any  more  Spa- 
nish," said  the  Captain.  "  Sing 
something  Portuguese."  I  gave  Os 
soldados  do  comer  do. 

"  Quite  humorous,"  said  he,  "  but 
very  pleasing  music.  This  is  the 
Portuguese  national  song/'  He  gave 
Eis,  Principe  excelso. 

"  Some  of  the  satirical  songs,"  said 
I,  "  are  very  well  set."  I  gave  Estas 
serilioras  da  moda.  The  Captain,  I 
observed,  looked  at  his  watch.  Little 
dreamt  I  the  traitor  was  working 
against  time. 

"This,  now,"  said  he,  "is  what 
may  be  called  the  sentimental  style  ; 
short,  but  expressive,  like  the  serious 
epigram  of  the  Greek  Anthology." 
He  gave  Tu  me  chamas  tua  vida. 

"  The  finest  I  have  heard,  though," 
said  I,  "  in  that  style,  is  the  Spanish 
song — " 

"  No,  no,"  said  the  Captain ;  "  give 
us  something  Portuguese ;  something 
by  an  old  Padre.  They  are  the  fel- 
lows that  knock  off  the  best  modiuhas." 
I  gave  Fui  me  confessar. 

The  conclusion  of  this  my  third 
song  was  followed  by  loud  shouts  of 
laughter,  a  general  clapping  of  hands, 
and  cries  of  "Encore!  encore!  bravo! 
viva !  encore !  encore !"  I  turned, 
and  stood  the  centre  of  a  semicircle ! 
Around  me  were  ranged  the  delighted, 
applauding  passengers  ;  the  Colonel, 
the  Major,  Capsicum,  Pledget,  Ging- 


ham, Mr  Belvidere,  Joey,  and,  oh ! 
leaning  on  Joey's  arm,  the  lovely 
Juno ;  the  whole  party,  at  my  ex- 
pense, in  the  highest  possible  state  of 
hilarity.  The  skipper  in  the  back- 
ground, leaning  on  the  binnacle,  stood 
surveying  the  whole  transaction  with 
his  face  set  in  a  sarcastic  scowl,  as 
though  it  had  first  been  cast  in  plaster 
of  Paris,  and  then  painted  with  red 
ochre.  Kitty's  bonnet  appeared  on 
the  level  of  the  deck,  projecting  from 
the  cabin  stairs.  Xear  her,  profnse 
in  soft  attentions,  stood  the  Colonel's 
flunkey,  lavishing  winks  and  winning 
simpers.  Immediately  above  me,  in 
the  shrouds,  with  his  face  downwards, 
like  a  monkey  in  a  tree,  hung  Snow- 
ball the  nigger ;  his  two  eyes,  full  of 
wonder  and  delight,  gloating  like  a 
basilisk's,  and  projecting  like  a  skinned 
rabbit's ;  his  mouth  extended  across 
his  face  in  so  broad  a  grin,  you'd  have 
thought  his  throat  had  been  cut  from 
ear  to  ear.  The  applause  having  a 
little  subsided,  each  in  turn  paid  me  a 
compliment.  Juno,  the  enchanting 
saucy  witch,  dropped  me  a  demure 
and  very  low  curtsy,  begged  to  thank 
me,  and  precipitately  put  her  hand- 
kerchief to  her  face.  Gingham  ad- 
vised me  to  cultivate  my  voice ;  begged 
to  assure  me  I  had  very  good  taste, 
and  only  wanted  modulation,  flexibi- 
lity, accuracy,  and  execution,  with  a 
little  attention  to  time  and  tune,  and 
care  to  avoid  passing  into  the  wrong 
key — nay,  had  no  doubt,  if  I  took 
pains,  I  should  some  day  acquire  an 
ear.  Just  when  I  was  annoyed  past 
bearing,  Pledget,  tittering  with  ec- 
stasy, whispered atmy  elbow,  "Capi- 
tal joke  !  the  Captain  did  it  admirably. 
Almost  as  good  as  puppies ! — puppies ! 
— puppies !" 

"  Your  compliment  last,  sir,"  said 
I,  "  comes  in  the  proper  place.  Allow 
me  to  designate  it  as  it  deserves — the 
ass's  kick." 

Pledget  turned  a  little  pale,  and 
drew  up  ;  said  something  that  seemed 
to  stick  in  his  throat,  about  "  lions 
roaring,  and  asses  braying." 

"VVe  were  on  the  edge  of  a  regular 
tiff,  The  general  garrulity  dropped 
into  a  dead  silence,  and  the  whole 
party  looked  concerned.  The  Colonel 
at  once  interposed,  and  insisted  on 
our  shaking  hands.  This  operation 
was  performed  accordingly,  as  in  such 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


689 


cases  provided,  with  immense  cordial- 
ity on  both  sides. 

"  Captain  Gabion,  I'll  trouble  you 
for  a  dollar,"  said  the  Major. 

"No,  no;  I'll  trouble  you  for  a 
dollar,"  replied  the  Captain. 

"How  do  you  make  that  out?" 
said  the  Major.  "  You've  lost ;  that's 
evident." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  lost  ?" 
said  Captain  Gabion.  "  Didn't  I 
make  Mr  T —  sing  three  songs 
within  the  given  time?  Hadn't  I  two 
minutes  over,  when  he  finished  the 
last?  Weren't  they  all  three  Portu- 
guese? I  took  good  care  of  that. 
Wasn't  that  our  bet?" 

"  Yes,  Captain ;  all  right,"  said  the 
Major.  "  But  one  of  your  songs  was 
Spanish.  That  was  an  infringement." 

"  Didn't  understand  any  condition 
of  that  sort,"  replied  Captain  Gabion. 
"  All  the  party  heard  the  bet.  Let 
the  company  decide." 

One  said  one  thing,  one  another. 
By  common  consent  it  was  referred  to 
Gingham,  who  had  held  his  tongue. 
Gingham  decided  that  the  Captain  had 
lost. 

"Very  well,"  said  the  Captain, 
"  then  I  have  had  all  my  trouble  for 
nothing.  Rather  hard,  though,  to 
sing  three  songs  yourself;  get  three 
more  out  of  a  gentleman  that  has  a 
particular  objection  to  singing,  in 
forty  minutes ;  and  then  have  to  pay 
a  dollar  besides.  However,  book  it, 
Major.  Very  kind  of  yon,  though, 
Mr  Y — :  equally  obliged.  Trust 
you'll  often  favour  us."  We  all  went 
below  to  prepare  for  dinner ;  but  I 
had  not  heard  the  last  of  my  singing. 

We  were  now  on  the  look-out  for 
Cape  Villano,  and  began  to  feel  the 
N.  wind  which  blows  down  the  W. 
coast  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula  ten 
months  in  the  year.  This  wind,  as 
you  get  further  to  the  S.,  is  generally 
attended  with  a  clear  sky.  But  in 
our  present  latitude,  meeting  the 
upper  or  S.W.  current  of  air,  which 
comes  charged  with  the  vapours  of 
the  Atlantic,  it  produced  incessant 
rain.  The  rain  commenced,  as  in- 
deed rain  often  does  commence,  about 
three  o'clock  P.M.,  and  kept  us  below 
all  the  evening;  obliging  us  also  to 
lay-to  till  daybreak,  as  the  skipper 
did  not  like  to  run  nearer  in  by  night, 
with  such  weather. 


From  dinner  to  tea  we  managed  to 
crack  on,  without  finding  the  time 
hang  heavy  on  our  hands.  After  tea 
the  conversation  was  resumed,  but  in 
the  course  of  an  hour  or  two  began  to 
flag ;  when  Gingham  enlivened  it  by 
volunteering  his  services  in  brewing 
a  bowl  of  punch.  The  offer  was  re- 
ceived with  tumultuous  applause ; 
except  that  Capsicum,  who  thought 
nobody  understood  brewing  so  well 
as  himself,  politely  expressed  a  doubt 
as  to  Gingham's  capabilities.  Ging- 
ham avowed,  with  much  seriousness, 
that  he  "  yielded  in  punch-making  to 
no  man."  A  discussion  arose,  in 
the  course  of  which  I  ventured  to 
move,  and  it  was  carried,  that  a  bowl 
of  punch  should  be  brewed  by  each, 
and  that  the  company  should  award 
the  palm  after  finishing  both. 

Capsicum  brewed  first.  The  ma- 
terials were  not  wanting.  The 
steward  brought  rum,  brandy,  lemons, 
all  the  etceteras.  Gingham,  chival- 
rous in  his  rivalry,  tendered  limes  in 
lieu  of  lemons:  "always  took  a  few 
when  he  travelled — got  them  in  Pud- 
ding Lane."  Capsicum's  sense  of  hon- 
our would  have  declined  the  limes ;  but 
the  company  ruled  otherwise.  The 
bowl  was  brewed — a  perfect  nosegay 
— and  stood  smoking  in  the  centre  of 
the  table.  In  a  very  short  time  after, 
each  man  had  his  quantum  before  him. 

"  Now,  gentlemen,"  said  the  Colonel, 
(chairman,)  "punch is  nothing  with- 
out hannony.  I  beg  leave  to  call  on 
Mr  Y —  for  a  song."  Much  applause. 
"Hear!  hear!  hear!  A  song  by  Mr 
Y — !  hear!  hear!  hear!" 

I  had  not  quite  recovered  the  ad- 
venture of  the  morning,  and  was  far 
from  disposed  to  sing.  Had  sung 
enough  for  one  day — felt  rather  hoarse 
— begged  to  decline — but  all  in  vain  : 
the  company  would  take  no  denial. 
I  was  obstinate.  Joey  began  to  talk 
of  keelhauling  ;  the  Major  suggested 
the  old  mess  fine,  a  sugared  oyster ; 
while  a  soft  admonition  was  heard  in 
the  distance,  "  The  bird  that  can 
sing,  and  that  won't  sing,  must  be 
made  to  sing." 

Not  to  sing  was  just  then  a  prin- 
ciple as  fixed  in  my  mind  as  any 
theorem  in  the  first  six  "books  of 
Euclid.  The  company  became  per- 
emptory. At  length,  tired  of  saying 
no,  I  rose,  and  begged  leave  to  ask 


'690 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


the  chairman  whether,  if  I  sang,  I 
should  have  the  usual  privilege  of 
calling  on  any  other  gentleman  pre- 
sent. The  chairman  hesitated  to  re- 
ply. He  saw  his  position :  I  might 
call  upon  him.  I  now  had  the  best 
of  it.  The  chairman  laughed,  leaned 
over  to  Capsicum,  and  whispered  a 
remark  about  "  generalship."  Capsi- 
cum growled  out  something,  of  which 
I  could  only  distinguish  "jockey"  and 
*'  young  fox." 


I  was  still  on  my  legs,  and  con- 
tinued,— "Well,  Mr  Chairman,  as 
my  very  equitable  proposal  is  not  met 
so  promptly  as  I  anticipated,  would  it 
not  be  better  if  the  company  resolve, 
instead  of  extorting  a  solitary  song 
from  an  individual  who  has  already 
contributed  largely  this  day  to  the 
common  stock  of  amusement,"  (hear! 
hear!  hear!)  "  that  every  person  pre- 
sent should  either  sing  a  song,  or  tell 
a  story  ?" 


CHAPTER    VI. 


The  Colonel  looked  quite  relieved  ; 
the  company,  also,  appeared  content. 
"Well,  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "as  it 
seems  to  meet  your  approval,  suppose 
we  accept  Mr  Y — 's  proposition.  I 
will  begin.  Sooner,  any  day,  tell  a 
dozen  stories,  than  sing  one  song. 
My  story,  at  any  rate,  like  Captain 
Gabion's  last  song  this  morning,  when 
he  had  only  twelve  minutes  to  spare, 
will  have  the  merit  of  being  short. — A 
little  more  punch,  if  you  please. — Al- 
low me,  then,  to  break  ground,  by 
relating  an  anecdote  of  my  esteemed 
and  much-lamented  friend 

MAJOR  KRAUSS. 

Some  of  you  knew  the  Major  well — 
are  doubtless  aware,  also,  that  in  a 
fit  of  excitement,  which  led  to  tempo- 
rary insanity,  he  fell  by  his  own  hand. 
The  circumstances,  however,  which 
gave  occasion  to  that  melancholy 
event  were  known  only  to  myself. 
At  the  time  when  we  were  forming 
and  drilling  the  Portuguese  army, 
which  afterwards  proved  so  effective 
in  the  field,  the  Major  and  I  were  both 
stationed  in  winter-quarters  at  L — . 
In  the  same  town  were  two  regiments 
of  newly-raised  Portuguese  cavalry, 
which  it  was  requisite  to  have  in  com- 
plete efficiency  against  the  opening  of 
the  campaign  in  the  spring.  The 
Major — a  stiff  hand  I  need  not  say,  a 
regular  Titan  of  tho  German  school — 
was  appointed  to  drill  one;  and  I, 
for  want  of  something  to  do,  under- 
took the  other.  In  this  duty,  there 
sprang  up  between  us  a  little  rivalry, 
amicable  of  course,  as  to  which  of  us 
should  first  have  his  regiment  ready. 
The  Major  had  his  own  ideas  ;  and,  I 
4hought,  teazed  his  men,  and  exacted 


too  much.  He  had  an  eye  to  a  field- 
day  ;  I  had  an  eye  to  actual  service. 
Foreigners  say,  we  teach  our  cavalry 
everything,  except  pulling  up.  But  I 
can  tell  you,  before  an  enemy  superior 
in  force,  and  pressing  you  too  close, 
nothing  acts  more  effectually  as  a 
check,  than  riding  through  them. 
Well,  we  both  drilled  according  to 
our  views.  One  morning  the  Major 
announced  to  me,  that  he  considered 
his  regiment  perfect,  and  that  I  must 
go  with  him  and  inspect  it.  We  went. 
He  put  them  through  ;  I  looked  on  ; 
they  performed  admirably.  Finally, 
he  drew  them  up  in  line.  Riding  to 
the  front,  he  surveyed  his  work  with 
pride.  Then,  taking  a  flank  position, 
he  made  me  notice  how  accurate  the 
perspective — every  sabre  sloped  at 
the  same  angle,  everything  in  its 
place — you  might  have  stretched  a 
gardening  line  from  one  end  of  the 
regiment  to  the  other.  Just  then,  un- 
fortunately, a  new  idea  entered  the 
Major's  mind  :  he  proposed  riding  to 
the  rear.  Away  we  went.  Alas !  his 
discipline  had  not  extended  to  the 
horses'  tails !  Every  tail  was  whisking  : 
horses,  Spanish  and  Portuguese — all 
long  tails,  no  cock-tails — every  tail  in 
motion.  In  front,  they  stood  like  a 
wall :  in  the  rear,  it  was  whisk,  whisk, 
whisk, — swirl,  swirl,  swirl — switch, 
switch,  switch — all  down  the  line.  It 
was  too  much  for  the  poor  Major.  He 
was  perfectly  dumfounded — looked 
like  a  man  out  of  his  wits — took  a 
hasty  leave— rode  home  to  his  billet, 
and  shot  himself.  I  now  beg  leave  to 
call  on  Mr  Y — ,  for  either  a  story 
or  a  song." 

"I thought  Major  Krauss  was  still 
living,"  said  Pledget. 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


691 


"Mr  Capsicum,  "  said  the  Colonel, 
"  have  the  kindness  to  fill  Mr  Pledget 
a  bumper.  Always  the  fine,  you  know, 
if  any  one  calls  a  statement  in  question, 
when  story-telling  is  going  on.  Now, 
if  you  please,  Mr  Y — . " 

"Gentlemen,"  I  said,  "  I  have  seen 
nothing  of  service,  and  little  of  the 
world.  Perhaps,  therefore,  you  will 
permit  me  to  relate  an  anecdote,  which 
I  had  from  a  near  relative  of  mine,  a 
naval  officer ;  and  which  remaikably 
illustrates  the  characteristic  coolness 
of  British  seamen.  It  was  the  act  of 
a  common  sailor,  who  bore  among  his 
messmates,  in  consequence,  the  name 
of 

SLUICY  SAM. 

"It  was  at  the  evacuation  of  Toulon. 
My  aforesaid  relative  was  then  a  lieu- 
tenant, and  had  been  landed  with  a 
party  from  his  ship,  to  take  charge  of 
one  of  the  forts  in  the  harbour. 
When  Buonaparte,  through  the  remiss- 
ness  of  our  Spanish  allies,  took  the 
hill  which  commanded  the  anchorage, 
and  we  were  forced  to  withdraw,  the 
lieutenant  received  orders  to  bring  off 
his  party,  and  the  ammunition  which 
had  been  landed  from  the  ship. 
There  were  several  barrels  of  gun- 
powder to  be  brought  away.  These 
were  stowed  in  the  after  part  of  the 
boat,  between  the  officers  and  the  men, 
to  be  under  inspection  ;  and  were  set 
on  end,  to  save  room.  In  pulling  for 
the  ship,  the  boat  had  to  pass  another 
fort,  which  was  on  fire.  The  English, 
you  know,  on  coming  away,  burnt 
everything  they  could — that  is,  I'- 
mean,  everything  connected  with  the 
public  service,  ships,  stores,  store- 
houses, buildings.  Just  as  the  boat 
was  passing,  the  fort  blew  up.  The 
fragments  of  the  explosion  filled  the 
air;  and  a  rafter  charred  with  fire 
fell  into  the  boat,  stove  in  the  head  of 
one  of  the  powder-barrels,  and  stood 
upright  in  the  powder.  Its  superior 
extremity  was  still  burning.  There 
was  a  dead  silence.  The  men  went 
on  pulling,  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
In  an  instant  they  might  all  be  blown 
to  atoms.  It  seemed  the  easiest  thing 
in  the  world  to  seize  the  smoking  and 
crackling  brand,  pluck  it  out  of  the 
powder,  and  throw  it  into  the  sea. 
But  that,  doubtless,  would  have  been 
instant  destruction ;  one  spark,  shaken 


off  in  the  operation  and  falling,  would 
have  done  the  business.  Everybody 
saw  the  hitch.  Still  the  men  pulled 
away.  It  wouldn't  do  to  stir  the 
brand  ;  and  it  evidently  wouldn't  do 
to  leave  it  where  it  was.  "  Ship  your 
oar,  Sam,"  said  the  lieutenant.  Sam 
did  so.  Not  a  word  more  was  spoken, 
or  necessary.  Sam  coolly  took  off 
his  hat,  dipped  it  into  the  sea,  filled  it,, 
carefully  and  thoroughly  sluiced  the 
whole  surface  of  the  exposed  powder 
in  the  barrel;  and  then,  having  in  this 
way  made  all  safe,  slowly  drew  the 
rafter  out  of  the  barrel,  and  pitched  it 
overboard. — I  beg  here  to  call  on  Mr 
Commissary  Capsicum." 

"  Well,  gentlemen,"  said  Capsi- 
cum, "  I  will  tell  you  another  boat- 
story  ;  and  though  the  care  of  Provi- 
dence was  singularly  illustrated  in  the 
wonderful  preservation  which  Johnny 
has  just  related,  I  think  it  appeared 
quite  as  remarkably  in  the  case  which 
I  am  about  to  relate,  of 

THE   MAN    THAT   WASN'T   DROWNED. 

"  I  am  now  a  military  commissary  ; 
I  was  once  a  naval  one.  I  made  my 
debut  in  the  British  service  as  a  cap- 
tain's clerk,  and  sailed  in  that  capa- 
city on  board  the  Negotiator,  74, 
which  was  under  orders  for  Lisbon. 
On  our  arrival  in  theTagus,  we  found 
there  the  Protocol,  120,  the  Pacifica- 
tor, 100,  the  Persuasive,  80,  the  Con- 
ciliator, 74,  the  Preliminary,  50,  the 
Envoy,  bomb,  and  the  Intervention, 
fire-ship.  The  next  day,  the  captain 
of  the  Protocol  came  on  board,  and 
was  invited  by  our  own  skipper  to 
stay  and  dine.  But  he  knew  the 
Lisbon  weather  too  well — foresaw  a 
gale ;  and,  not  relishing  the  idea  of 
getting  a  wet  jacket  in  returning  at 
night  to  his  ship,  persuaded  our  skip- 
per to  go  and  dine  with  him.  The 
Negotiator's  boat  was  to  fetch  the 
skipper.  Sure  enough,  the  wind  fresh- 
ened about  sunset,  and  in  an  hour  or 
two  it  began  to  blow  great  guns.  Our 
boat  went,  however,  as  arranged. 
Nasty  work,  boating  at  Lisbon.  You 
may  think  it's  nothing,  in  harbour. 
But  I  can  tell  you  this — whenever 
there's  a  storm  at  sea,  there's  sure  to 
be  a  little  hurricane  in  the  Tagus. 
No  matter  what's  the  direction  of  the 
wind  outside — in  the  Tagus  you  have 


692 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


it  right  up  or  right  down.  Well, 
gentlemen,  Protocol  advised  Nego- 
tiator not  to  think  of  returning  such, 
a  night  as  that — offered  him  a  shake- 
down on  board — assured  him  he'd  be 
swamped — all  to  no  purpose;  Nego- 
tiator would  go,  as  his  boat  was  come. 
Just  as  they  were  leaving  the  ship's 
side,  one  of  the  boat's  crew  fell  over- 
board. Every  effort  was  made  to 
recover  him,  but  with  what  success 
you  may  easily  suppose.  The  tide 
was  running  down  like  a  torrent ;  the 
wind  came  roaring  up  from  the  bar, 
and  lashed  the  water  into  froth  and 
fury ;  the  spray  half  filled  the  boat ; 
it  was  pitch-dark.  All  was  done  that 
could  be  done,  but  to  no  purpose  :  the 
man  was  given  up  for  lost ;  the  boat 
returned  to  the  ship.  The  skipper 
came  into  the  cabin  quite  sorrowful  - 
like,  that  he  had  lost  one  of  his  best 
men,  but  didn't  forget  to  tell  me  to 
jump  down  into  the  boat,  and  see  to 
the  handing  up  of  half-a-dozen  fine 
melons,  presented  to  him  by  Protocol. 
Down  I  went,  in  the  dark,  over  the 
ship's  side,  got  into  the  boat,  groped 
about,  found  five  melons  and  handed 
them  up  ;  couldn't  find  the  sixth.  I 
was  just  stepping  out  of  the  boat  to 
return  on  board,  when  the  thought 
struck  me,  what  a  blowing-up  I  should 
get  from  the  skipper,  when  I  told  him 
a  melon  was  missing.  I  paused,  re- 
newed my  search,  happened  to  put 
my  hand  down  to  the  gunnel  of  the 
boat,  to  support  myself  in  stooping. 
My  hand  lighted  upon  something ;  it 
wasn't  the  gunnel.  I  felt  it — pitch- 
dark  ;  couldn't  see  the  tip  of  my  own 
nose.  It  was  a  man's  foot !  I  felt 
further — a  man's  leg  !  Some  one  was 
hanging  on,  outside  the  boat,  with  his 
heel  uppermost,  and  his  head  under 
water.  I  held  him  fast  by  the  leg, 
and  sung  out  for  help.  The  man  was 
got  on  board  insensible,  and  to  all 
appearance  past  recoveiy.  When  he 
fell  overboard  alongside  the  Protocol, 
he  had  hooked  on  by  his  foot,  and  in 
that  way  had  been  dragged  under 
water  all  the  time  they  had  been  row- 
ing about  in  the  dark  to  find  him,  as 
well  as  afterwards,  while  they  were 
pulling  for  the  ship.  We  all  thought 
him  a  dead  man.  The  doctor  said, 
'  Xo  :  if  he  had  been,  he  would  have 
let  go.'  Doctor  ordered  a  sailor's 
flannel  shirt  and  a  kettle  of  boiling 


water :  had  the  patient  stripped,  and 
laid  in  hot  blankets ;  rolled  up  the 
flannel  shirt  into  a  ball,  poured  into  it 
the  boiling  water,  and  clapt  it  to  the 
pit  of  his  stomach."  (Here  Pledget 
took  out  his  tablets,  and  made  a 
note.)  "  What  with  this,  and  other 
gentle  restoratives,"  continued  Cap- 
sicum, "the  man  recovered.  The 
skipper,  glad  as  he  was  when  the 
doctor  reported  it,  didn't  forget  to 
give  me  a  good  blowing-up  for  the 
melon,  which  I  suppose  one  of  the 
boat's  crew  had  grabbed  in  the  dark." 

"  Of  course  he  didn't  forget  that," 
said  Joey,  who  had  listened  to  this 
narrative  with  professional  interest. 
"  Pray,  do  you  happen  to  know  what 
time  elapsed  from  the  man's  falling 
overboard  till  he  was  unhooked?" 

"  The  little  dog  forgot  to  mention," 
replied  Capsicum. 

"What  little  dog?"  said  Joey 
eagerly.  "  I  am  quite  an  animal  man. 
I  am  particularly  fond  of  dogs." 

"  The  little  dog  whose  tail  curled 
so  tight,  that  it  lilted  him  off  his  hind 
legs.  Will  you  oblige  us,  Mr  Ging- 
ham?" 

"  It  is  extraordinary  enough,  gen- 
tlemen," said  Gingham,  "that  though 
three  most  interesting  anecdotes  have 
been  related,  we  have  not  yet  had 
either  a  ghost  story,  a  love  story,  or  a 
touch  of  the  pathetic.  The  first  of 
these  omissions  I  will  now  endeavour 
to  supply,  by  relating  an  occurrence 
which  befel  me  during  the  short  time 
I  was  at  school,  and  in  which  the 
party  most  prominent  was  a  strange 
sort  of  an  individual,  who  went  among 
the  boys  by  the  name  of 

TUE    CONJUROR. 

"  He  was  our  writing-master.  He 
was  our  ciphering-master.  He  was 
also  our  drawing- master.  He  was  a 
foreigner.  Not  a  boy  in  the  school 
knew  whence  he  came ;  but  he  cer- 
tainly was  not  an  Englishman.  In 
person  he  was  gaunt  and  uncouth.  He 
was  a  mild,  quiet  sort  of  a  man  ;  but 
his  eye  had  a  sinister  expression, 
and  he  was  savage  when  pro- 
voked. It  was  commonly  reported 
among  the  boys,  not  only  that  he 
could  do  extraordinary  conjuring 
tricks,  but  that  he  was  a  master  of 
magic,  far  deeper  and  darker  than 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal, — Part  II. 


legerdemain.  He  lived  alone  in  a 
solitary  cottage,  which,  with  its  gar- 
den and  long  shrubbery,  skirted  the 
road,  about  a  mile  out  of  the  town 
where  was  our  school.  This  cottage 
had  never  been  entered  by  any  of  the 
boys ;  strange  stories  were  told  about 
it ;  and  we  viewed  it  with  a  sort  of 
awe.  You  must  know- the  gentleman 
in  question  had  a  remarkable  habit  of 
sitting.  When  he  came  to  us  at  one 
o'clock,  he  immediately  took  his  seat 
at  his  desk ;  and  never  rose  till  his 
two  hours  were  up.  This  circum- 
stance suggested  to  my  mind  a  con- 
juring trick,  to  be  played  off  on  the 
conjuror.  One  day,  just  before  hia 
arrival,  I  spread  some  shoemakers' 
wax  on  his  bench ;  and  afterwards, 
when  he  was  fairly  seated,  I  gave  out 
among  the  boys  that  I  had  conjured 
the  conjuror,  and  that  at  three  o'clock 
he  wouldn't  be  able  to  go.  The  boys 
were  all  expectation.  It  struck  three. 
He  attempted  to  rise — an  unseen 
power  held  him  fast.  At  length, 
amidst  much  tittering,  he  contrived 
to  get  free ;  but  only  by  extricating 
himself  from  that  part  of  his  habili- 
ments which  was  in  immediate  con- 
tact with  the  bench.  He  did  not 
exactly  pull  them  off ;  but,  poor  man ! 
he  was  obliged  to  pull  himself  out  of 
them.  The  master  lent  him  another 
pair  ;  he  went  home  filled  with  rage, 
but  perfectly  cool,  having  first  con- 
trived to  identify  the  culprit ;  and  his 
own,  having  been  carefully  detached 
with  a  hot  knife  by  the  master's 
daughter,  Miss  Quintilian,  as  the 
boys  called  her,  were  sent  after  him 
with  a  message  of  kind  condolence, 
packed  by  her  fail1  hands  in  a  brown 
paper  parcel,  into  which  I  contrived 
to  slip  a  fig-leaf.  Next  day  he  re- 
appeared at  the  usual  hour.  All 
went  on  smoothly  for  about  a  fort- 
night. At  the  end  of  that  time<  one 
afternoon  when  I  was  showing  up  my 
sum,  he  addressed  me,  observing  that 
I  had  always  been  particularly  dili- 
gent with  my  arithmetic,  and  that,  as 
the  holidays  were  at  hand,  he  hoped 
I  would  do  him  the  favour  of  drinking 
tea  with  him  that  evening.  Some  of 
the  boys  tried  to  frighten  me — said 
he  bottled  the  thunder  and  lightning, 
and  kept  it  corked  down,  ready  for 
use — oh,  wouldn't  he  give  me  a  touch 
of  it  ?  Others  encouraged  me.  I 


went.  Tea  over,  he  told  me  that  ho 
had  contrived  a  little  exhibition  for 
my  amusement ;  then  flung  open  the 
folding  doors  of  the  parlour,  and  dis- 
closed a  large  sheet,  hanging  as  a 
curtain  in  the  doorway.  '  I  must 
go  into  the  next  room,'  said  he,  'and 
take  the  candles  with  me,  or  you  will 
not  be  able  to  see  the  exhibition.'  He 
withdrew,  leaving  me  alone  in  the 
dark,  went  into  the  next  room,  and 
commenced  the  exhibition — a  sort  of 
phantasmagoria — to  me,  sufficiently 
surprising  ;  for  the  phantasmagoria 
had  not  at  that  time  been  brought 
before  the  public.  One  of  the  figures 
was  a  whole-length  likeness  of  my- 
self, which  suddenly  vanished,  'and 
was  replaced  by  a  skeleton.  The 
exhibition  finished,  the  conjuror  re- 
turned with  the  lights  ;  and,  by  way 
of  supper,  treated  me  to  a  glass  of 
negus  aad  a  slice  of  seed-cake.  He 
then  intimated  that  it  was  time  for 
me  to  think  of  playing  the  Bedford- 
shire march,  but  that  before  I  went 
he  had  something  to  say  to  me,  if  I 
would  follow  him  into  the  next  room. 
We  adjourned :  and  there,  amongst 
other  strange  sights,  I  saw  one  of  the 
identical  bottles  containing  the  thun- 
der and  lightning — expected  to  be 
blown  up  sky-high.  The  conjuror 
now  addressed  me.  Alluding  to  the 
unfortunate  affair  of  the  wax,  he 
remarked  that  his  conduct  to  me  had 
been  uniformly  kind ;  that  he  had 
always  encouraged  me,  commended 
my  diligence,  and  helped  me  in  my 
difficulties.  Then,  in  an  appealing 
tone,  he  inquired  how  I  could  have 
made  such  an  ungrateful  return,  as 
to  play  him  that  horrid  trick  of  the 
wax.  At  the  same  time  opening  a 
drawer,  and  producing  his  corduroys, 
he  pointed  out  to  me  their  damaged 
condition,  and  put  it  to  my  best  feel- 
ings, whether  that  was  the  way  to 
recompense  kindness  such  as  his.  I 
felt  at  once  that  my  conduct  had  been 
immeasurably  bad,  and  most  humbly 
expressed  my  compunction.  '  No,* 
said  he,  '  that  is  not  sufficient.  The 
oflfence  was  public,  so  should  be  also 
the  reparation.  Promise  me  that 
to-morrow,  before  the  whole  school, 
you  will  come  up  to  my  desk  and 
apologise.'  Perhaps  this  was  only 
just;  but  I  hesitated.  He  pressed 
me ;  but  I  would  make  no  such  pro- 


694 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


raise.  '  Very  well,'  said  he,  '  it  is 
now  time  for  you  to  think  of  returning. 
You  will  be  sorry  for  your  obstinacy, 
perhaps,  before  you  get  back  to  the ' 
school.'  He  then  accompanied  rae 
into  the  passage,  and  kindly  helped 
me  on  with  my  greatcoat.  '  The 
front  door,'  said  he,  '  is  fastened  for 
the  night.  Here,  step  out  this  way.' 
He  led  me  through  the  back  passage 
into  the  garden,  and  opened  the  gar- 
den-gate, outside  of  which  was  a  field. 
1  There,'  said  he,  '  follow  that  path, 
which  runs  along  by  the  side  of  the 
shrubbery.  When  you  have  got  to 
the  end  of  it  you  will  find  a  gate, 
which  will  let  you  into  the  road. 
Good  night.' 

"  The  night  was  splendid — a  sky 
without  a  cloud.  The  full  moon,  high 
up  in  the  heavens,  shed  a  lustre  which 
gave  to  every  prominent  object  the 
distinctness  of  day.  But  the  shrub- 
bery, as  I  skirted  it  to  gain  the  road, 
was  dark — dark — dark.  At  its  ex- 
tremity, however,  the  moment  I 
emerged  from  the  garden  into  the 
field,  I  descried  the  gate ;  and  to  that 
point,  with  my  eyes  fixed  upon  it,  I 
directed  my  steps.  Suddenly,  to  my 
no  small  surprise,  the  gate  began,  to 
clatter  and  rattle,  as  if  violently 
shaken  by  the  wind.  This  was  the 
more  extraordinary,  because  the  night 
was  as  calm  as  it  was  brilliant ;  not  a 
breath  of  air  was  stirring.  Nor  was 
any  creature  visible ;  yet  still  the  gate 
went  on,  rattle,  rattle,  clatter,  clatter, 
as  if  shaking  itself  for  its  own  amuse- 
ment. Presently,  as  though  violently 
pushed  by  invisible  hands,  the  gate 
swung  wide  open ;  then  began  swing- 
ing backwards  and  forwards,  swing, 
swing,  backwards  and  forwards,  first 
into  the  road,  then  into  the  field,  with 
a  bang  of  the  latch  at  every  swing. 
The  last  time  it  swung  fieldways,  it 
stood  open  of  itself;  suddenly  fixed 
by  an  unseen  power  at  its  utmost 
range.  Then  appeared  a  tall  dark 
form,  gliding  into  the  field  through 
the  gateway  from  the  road,  and  de- 
scending towards  me  by  the  path.  It 
was  the  form  of  the  conjuror  himself! 
Yet,  in  its  appearance,  there  was 
something  appalling,  and,  I  may  say, 
unearthly.  It  did  not  step  out, 
neither  did  it  altogether  glide.  With 
a  motion  compounded  of  the  two,  it 
first  advanced  one  leg,  then,  after  a 


long  interval,  the  other,  still  moving 
towards  me  at  a  slow,  uniform  rate. 
One  arm  was  solemnly  extended,  with 
the  forefinger  pointing  to  the  moon : 
and,  as  the  tall  image  approached  and 
passed  me,  I  could  distinctly  discern 
the  uplifted  visage  of  the  conjuror, 
stern  but  calm,  his  head  turned 
slightly  on  one  side,  his  brow  knit, 
his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  moon.  With- 
out looking  behind  me  to  see  what 
became  of  him  after  he  passed,  I 
hurried  on ;  and  had  already  arrived 
within  about  fifty  paces  of  the  gate, 
when  it  again  began  to  rattle  and 
swing  as  violently  as  at  first — again 
stood  open — and  again  the  same  form 
appeared,  gliding,  as  before,  from  the 
road  into  the  field,  and  descending 
towards  me  down  the  path.  The  arm 
was  still  extended ;  the  finger  still 
pointed  majestically  to  the  moon ;  the 
movement  also,  a  mixture  of  striding 
and  sliding,  was  still  the  same.  But 
the  conjuror's  face,  not  turned  as 
before  towards  the  moon,  was  this 
time  directed  towards  me.  The 
eyes  glared  full  in  mine — but,  oh, 
what  eyes!  They  had  stolen  the 
gleam  of  the  luminary  on  which  they 
were  fixed  before;  each  eye  was  a 
moon !  the  window  of  a  brain  that 
glowed  internally  with  a  white  heat! 
With  a  look  of  horrid  vacuity  fixed  on 
my  face,  again  it  passed  ;  and  I,  not 
at  all  coveting  a  third  interview,  cut 
away  for  the  gate,  and  up  the  road 
homewards.  I  had  no  recollection  of 
what  occurred  afterwards,  till  I  was 
roused  from  my  slumbers  next  morn- 
ing by  Miss  Quintilian,  who  stood  by 
my  bedside  with  a  lump  of  sugar  and 
something  nice  in  a  teacup,  which, 
she  said,  her  pa  had  ordered  me 
to  take.  We  broke  up,  returned  to 
school  after  the  holidays,  and  found 
a  new  writing-master,  the  conjuror's 
cottage  shut  up,  and  the  conjuror  him- 
self gone — nobody  knew  whither.  Miss 
Quintilian  said  she  would  tell  me  how 
he  went,  if  I  promised  not  to  mention 
it  to  her  pa : — she  had  seen  him  with 
her  own  eyes,  riding  away  over  the 
church,  astride  on  a  broomstick.— Now, 
sir,"  added  Gingham,  bowing  to  Mr 
Belvidere,  "I  trust  that  you  will 
favour  us.  By  the  bye,  Colonel,  before 
we  proceed,  hadn't  I  better  brew  my 
promised  bowl  of  punch  ?  " 

"  My  story  will  be  a  very  short 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


695 


one,"  said  Mr  Belvidere,  who  spoke 
little,  and,  as  it  afterwards  appeared, 
had  a  mighty  matter  on  his  mind. 

"  The  punch  will  take  no  time," 
said  Gingham.  "  I  have  everything 
ready." 

The  chairman,  governed  by  the  evi- 
dent sense  of  the  company,  awarded 
priority  to  the  punch.  Gingham 
stepped  aside,  the  steward  was  smart 
with  the  kettle,  and  in  less  than  two 
minutes  a  fresh  bowl  was  on  the  table. 
With  such  punch  in  Olympus,  suffice 
it  to  say,  nectar  had  soon  become  a 
drug.  The  chairman  now  called  on 
Mr  Belvidere,  who  proceeded  forth- 
M-itli  to  relate 

THE  TRIAL. 

"  I  was  once  staying  at  Bath,  about 
fifteen  years  ago,  and,  while  there, 
became  very  thick  with  the  officers  of 
an  English  cavalry  regiment.  One 
day,  when  I  dined  at  the  mess,  it  so 
happened  that  there  was  also  present 
a  young  gentleman,  a  sub,  who  had 
joined  that  morning.  It  was  a  prac- 
tice in  many  regiments,  in  those  days, 
I  suppose  I  need  not  mention,  when  a 
sub  joined,  to  take  the  first  oppor- 
tunity of  trying  him,  as  it  was  called — 
that  is,  trying  his  mettle.  In  the  pre- 
sent instance,  the  time  fixed  was  din- 
ner. The  youth  was  quiet  and  well- 
bred,  a  little  reserved,  and  apparently 
not  quite  at  home.  Doubts  were  ex- 
pressed whether  he  would  show  pluck. 
When  dinner  was  on  table,  and  we 
were  all  assembled,  the  senior  officer 
present  politely  requested  the  young 
stranger  to  take  the  office  of  vice ;  and 
he,  with  equal  politeness  assenting, 
seated  himself  at  the  bottom  of  the 
table.  A  grim-looking  countryman  of 
mine,  the  major  of  the  regiment,  a 
jovial  red-faced  off-hand  sort  of  a  per- 
sonage, full  of  whisky  and  waggery, 
was  the  individual  appointed  to  make 
the  customary  trial,  and  took  his  seat 
at  table  to  the  vice-president's  left. 
Soup  and  fish  removed,  an  attendant 
placed  before  the  young  gentleman  a 
boiled  leg  of  mutton.  Presently  the 
major,  addressing  him,  said,  '  I'll 
thank  you  for  a  bit  of  that  vale.' — '  I 
beg  your  pardon,'  said  Mr  Vice ;  '  I 
rather  think  it's  mutton,  not  veal: 
shall  I  have  the  pleasure  of  helping 
you?'  The  major  made  no  reply. 
Presently  the  major  began  again: 


Til  thank  you  for  a  bit  of  that  vale.1 
— '  I  tell  you,'  said  the  sub,  '  it's  not 
veal ;  it's  mutton.  Shall  I  give  you 
some?'  Again  the  major  was  silent. 
After  a"  pause,  the  major  renewed  the 
attack:  Til  thank  you  for  a  bit  of 
that  vale.' — '  I'll  soon  let  you  know 
whether  it's  veal  or  mutton,'  said  the 
newly-arrived,  jumping  up.  Then, 
with  one  hand  seizing  the  leg  of  mut- 
ton by  the  knuckle,  with  the  other 
the  major  by  the  collar,  and  wielding 
the  gigot  like  a  club,  he  banged  it 
about  the  major's  sconce  till  the  com- 
pany interposed.  The  major,  fairly 
basted  with  half-raw  gravy,  and 
dripping  with  caper-sauce,  flung  up 
both  his  arms  above  his  head,  in  an 
ecstasy  of  delight,  and,  exultingly 
waving  his  hands,  exclaimed  at  the 
top  of  his  voice,  '  He'll  do !  he'll  do !' 
Perhaps  we  shall  now  be  favoured 
with  a  story  or  a  song  by  Mr  Staff- 
surgeon  Pledget." 

"  Yes,  yes,  "said  the  Colonel,  laugh- 
ing, "  the  old  major  took  it  all  with  a 
very  good  grace ;  a  capital  fellow  he 
was,  too.  Sorry  to  say,  one  of  his 
peepers  got  a  little  damaged,  though, 
on  the  occasion.  I  could  not  do  that, 
now  that  I  am  minus  a  claw." 

"Why,  Colonel  d'Arbley!"  said 
Mr  Belvidere,  looking  the  Colonel 
very  hard  in  the  face,  "  I  really  ought 
to  apologise.  Wasn't  at  all  aware  that 
the  hero  of  my  story  was  sitting  at 
the  head  of  the  table.  Ah,  I  see — I 
recollect.  The  same  features ;  yesr 
exactly.  I  think,  though,  Colonel, 
you  were  not  then  quite  so  tall." 

"  Well,"  replied  the  Colonel,  "  I'm 
not  quite  sure  that  I  had  done  grow- 
ing. I  entered  the  service  young. 
Now,  Mr  Pledget,  sir,  if  you  please." 

"I  really  feel  quite  at  a  loss,  sir," 
said  Pledget.  "  I  have  served  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  world  ;  but  I  posi- 
tively never  met  with  anything  half  so 
curious  and  interesting  as  the  extra- 
ordinary incidents  which  I  have  heard 
this  evening." 

"  Why,  Pledget,  man,"  said  the 
Major,  "  you  were  on  the  expedition 
to  Buenos  Ayres.  Come,  tell  us  some- 
thing about  those  lassoing  fellows,  or 
the  lovely  sefioras,  with  their  fine- 
turned  ankles  and  slaughtering  eyes." 

'Til  tell  you,"  saidPledget,  "some- 
thing that  I  picked  up  at  the  Cape,  on 
the  passage.  It  relates  to  a  cele- 


COG 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


brated  traveller,  who  was  generally 
kno\yn  at  Cape  Town  by  the  name  of 

THE  NATURALIST. 

"While  we  were  lying  at  Table  Bay, 
I  resided  for  a  few  days  on  shore.  It 
so  happened  that  I  took  up  my  resi- 
dence in  the  same  lodgings  which  had 
formerly  been  occupied  by  the  travel- 
ler in  question,  the  well-known  Mons. 
V — .  The  landlord,  an  antiquated, 
good-huuioured  old  Dutchman,  de- 
lighted to  talk  of  his  illustrious  guest, 
and  told  me  anecdotes  of  him.  V — , 
it  appears,  afforded  the  household 
much  amusement.  One  day  he  had 
found  what  he  considered  a  veiy 
curious  green  bug,  which  he  placed, 
alive,  in  a  paper  box.  The  green  bug, 
however,  thought  fit  to  make  its 
escaps  from  the  box,  and  walked 
away.  Y — ,  soon  missing  the  fugi- 
tive, was  in  an  agony — searched  the 
room — searched  the  house — ran  about, 
asking  everybody  he  met,  had  they 
seen  his  green  bug?  Meanwhile, 
watching  an  opportunity  while  V — 's 
back  was  turned,  the  landlord's  son 
took  a  hair-pencil  of  green  paint,  and 
painted  on  a  panel  of  the  apartment 
an  exact  fac-simile  of  the  green  bug. 
Presently,  in  a  perfect  fever  of  excite- 
ment, the  naturalist  returned,  still 
inquiring  eagerly  for  his  green  bug. 
The  family  looked  innocent,  shook 
their  heads,  and  said  nothing.  V — 
again  began  to  search  the  room,  till  at 
length  his  eyes  lighted  on  the  panel. 
'  Ah ! '  he  exclaimed,  '  my  green 
bug!  Ah,  I  have  finded  you  now, 
my  dear  little  naughty  green  bug ! ' 
*  Ah  non!'  he  added,  after  two  or 
three  ineffectual  attempts  to  pick  the 
picture  off  the  panel — '  ah  non!  it 
not  is  my  littel  green  bug !'  Whether 
V —  was  near-sighted,  I  know  not. 
But,  if  so,  I  can  easily  account  for  his 
mistaking  a  painted  green  bug  for  a 
real  one  ;  for,  gentlemen,  I  am  slightly 
near-sighted  myself,"  said  Pledget ; 
u  and  last  autumn,  I  do  assure  you, 
while  I  was  out  shooting  on  my  bro- 
thers estate  in  Kent,  a  humble-bee 
got  up  right  under  my  nose,  and  I 
actually  blazed  away  at  it  with  both 
barrels,  mistaking  it  for  a  pheasant. 
I  know  it  was  nothing  but  a  humble- 
bee;  for  my  shooting  companion,  a 
young  Oxonian,  my  own  nephew  in 
fact,  positively  assured  me.  I  can't 


help  thinking  I  must  be  a  little  near- 
sighted. Well,  but  that  is  not  all 
about  V — .  The  Dutchman  one  day, 
observing  him  so  very  curious  in  ento- 
mology, collected  a  variety  of  richly- 
coloured  filaments  from  the  plumage 
of  birds,  shreds  of  silk,  &c. ;  then 
caught  some  fine  blue-bottles ;  fastened 
the  filaments  to  the  blue-bottles  with 
gum ;  and,  when  V —  was  out, 
turned  the  blue-bottles  loose  in  his 
bedroom.  V —  came  home — went 
direct  to  his  sleeping  apartment — tho 
whole  household,  assembled  and  lis- 
tening, stood  outside  in  the  passage. 
Presently  the  row  began.  V —  Avas 
heard  within,  first  uttering  cries  of  as- 
tonishment and  delight,  then  flouncing 
about  the  room,  jumping  over  the  bed, 
capsizing  the  water-jug,  in  hot  pur- 
suit of  the  nondescript  varieties  of  the 
blue-bottle.  At  length  a  heavy  bang 
was  followed  by  a  dead  silence ;  then 
came  a  cry  of  piteous  lamentation. 
The  family  entered,  with  sympathising 
looks.  Poor  V —  had  broken  his 
shin,  in  an  attempt  to  leap  the  table. 
The  females  rushed  for  brown  paper 
and  vinegar.  The  wounded  man  Avas 
extricated  from  the  upturned  legs  of 
the  table,  and  led  out  limping  into  the 
common  apartment,  to  be  doctored. 
The  landlord,  profiting  by  the  oppor- 
tunity, opened  the  bedroom  window, 
and  the  blue-bottles  escaped.  The 
naturalist,  who  never  knew  by  what 
means  he  had  been  beguiled,  made 
frequent,  and  I  need  not  say  vain,  in- 
quiries, for  similar  '  prit  littel  bottle 
blue  homing-beards.' — I  beg  leave  to 
call  on  my  friend  the  Major." 

"  I,"  said  the  Major,  "  as  well  as 
Captain  Gabion,  was  on  the  retreat  to 
Corunna,  and  now  beg  leave  to  relate 
an  incident  connected  with 

THE  EMBARKATION. 

"  After  we  had  served  out  the  French, 
on  the  heights  there,  just  above  the 
town,  we  had  no  farther  trouble  to 
signify,  so  far  as  the}'  were  concerned 
—a  pretty  deal,  though,  in  getting  our 
own  army  embarked.  I  was  the  last 
man  on  shore  but  two.  Towards  the 
close  of  the  business,  I  went  down  to 
the  place  of  embarkation — found  old 
Blue  Breeches  (a  sobriquet  which 
I  had  in  the  morning  been  scandal- 
ised by  hearing  applied  to  my  ho- 
noured father)  there,  the  officer  in 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


697 


charge,  superintending.  There  he 
was,  up  to  his  knees  in  the  surf,  giving 
his  orders,  helping  the  wounded  into 
the  boats  with  his  own  hands,  direct- 
ing everything.  Such  a  precious  scene 
of  noise  and  confusion  I  never  wit- 
nessed. '  Hadn't  you  better  embark 
at  once,  sir?'  said  he.  'No — I'd 
rather  wait  a  while,'  said  I.  '  Hadn't 
you  better  go  in  this  boat  ?'  said  he. 
'  No,  sir ;  I'll  go  in  the  boat  you  go 
in,'  said  I.  'Then  you'll  have  to 
wait  quite  to  the  last ;  I  intend  to  be 
the  last  man  off,'  said  he.  'Very 
well,'  said  I.  '  If  you  really  mean 
to  wait,  sir,  I  shall  have  to  request 
your  assistance,'  said  he.  Didn't 
quite  understand  what  that  meant, 
but  determined  to  stick  to  Old  Blue 
Breeches.  Don't  yon  see?  It  was 
my  best  card.  You  don't  suppose  I 
was  going  to  be  boated  oft"  to  a  tran- 
sport, when  I  could  go  home  in  a 
seventy-four?  Well,  sir,  at  length 
the  men  were  all  embarked — the  sick, 
the  wounded,  every  man  John  of 
them.  The  last  boat-load  had  shoved 
off,  and  there  now  only  remained  the 
captain's  own  gig,  ready  to  take  us 
on  board.  Of  course,  I  expected  we 
should  be  off,  like  the  rest,  without 
delay.  No,  no  ;  Old  Blue  Breeches 
had  a  different  way  of  doing  business. 
He  turns  round  to  me,  and  says,  '  I 
am  going  to  take  a  walk  through  the 
towrij  sir.  Will  you  favour  me  with 
your  company?'  'Should  hardly 
think  there  was  time  for  that,  sir,' 
said  I ;  '  but  if  it  will  answer  any 
purpose,  and  you  really  mean  to  go,  I 
shall  be  happy  to  go  with  yon.' 
Thought  some  of  the  French  might 
have  got  in.  'I  want  to  look  into 
the  different  wine-houses,'  said  he, 
4  just  to  see  if  there  are  any  stragglers. 
Am  ordered  to  bring  all  off:  shouldn't 
like  to  leave  a  man  behind.'  Away 
we  went — he,  I,  and  old  Towers,  the 
Irish  coxswain,  almost  as  rum  an  old 
chnp  as  Old  Blue  Breeches  himself. 
He  searched  all  the  Avine-shops  for 
stragglers — found  none.  Besides  our 
three  selves,  thore  wasn't  an  English- 
man in  Coruuna.  Came  back  through 
the  sally-port  that  opened  on  the 
place  of  embarkation.  At  the  sally- 
port Old  Blue  Breeches  made  a  halt, 
rummaged  in  his  pocket,  brought  out 
the  hc,y.  '  Took  care  to  secure  this 
yesterday,'  said  he:  'just  wait  a 


moment,  while  I  lock  the  door.'  lie 
locked  it,  and  brought  away  the  key. 
Down  we  went  to  the  boat.  I  hung 
behind,  wanting  to  be  the  last  man 
off.  Old  Powers  was  playing  the 
same  game,  but  it  wouldn't  do. 
'  Now,  sir,  if  you  please,'  said  Old 
Blue  Breeches  ;  '  company  first.'  In 
I  got.  '  Won't  I  help  yer  honour 
in? '  said  Powers  to  Old  Blue  Breeches. 
'  No,  no,  old  fellow,'  said  he  ;  '  that 
won't  do,  you  know.  Get  in  first 
yourself,  and  help  me  in  afterwards.' 
Powers  grinned,  and  tumbled  in  over 
the  stern.  Old  Blue  Breeches  got  in 
last.  We  shoved  off.  '  Three  cheers, 
ycr  honour  ? '  said  Powers,  as  he 
took  his  seat  by  the  tiller.  'Ay, 
ay ;  three  cheers,'  said  Old  Blue 
Breeches  ;  '  and  may  the  French  soon 
catch  such  another  whopping.'  Three 
hearty  cheers  by  the  boat's  crew,  and 
away  we  pulled  for  the  ship.  Old 
Blue  Breeches  and  I,  both  of  us  pretty 
considerably  done  up.  Neither  spoke 
for  some  minutes.  Thought  I  should 
like  to  have  that  key ;  took  a  fancy 
to  it.  '  I  suppose  you  mean  to  keep 
the  key  ? '  said  I.  '  Indeed  you  may 
say  that,'  said  he.  'I  do  mean  to 
keep  it;  and  I  have  got  another  to 
put  to  it.  Last  man  ashore  here  at 
Corunna;  so  I  was  at  Toulon,  in 
1798.  Then,  also,  I  locked  the  gate^ 
and  brought  away  the  kej'.'  Now 
that's  what  I  call  cool. — Will  you 
favour  us,  Captain  Gabion?" 

"I  should  esteem  it  a  favour," 
replied  the  Captain,  "if  I  might  be 
permitted  to  tell  my  story  last.  Per- 
haps the  gentleman  opposite  to  mo," 
(bowing  to  Joey,)  "will  have  the 
kindness  to  take  his  turn  now.  Mine 
will  then  be  the  only  one  remaining. 
Mr  Chairman,  will  you  sanction  this 
arrangement  ?  "  The  chairman  bow- 
ed. Joey  began : — 

"  A  previous  narrator  remarked, 
that  no  one  had  told  either  a  ghost- 
story,  a  love  story,  or  a  pathetic 
story.  The  first  deficiency  ho  himself 
supplied ;  and,  though  1  cannot  say 
that  I  ever  saw  a  ghost,  I  certainly 
never  experienced  anything  so  like 
seeing  one,  as  while  I  listened  to  that 
extraordinary  and  appalling  narra- 
tive. I,  gentlemen,  have  no  love 
story  to  tell,  but  I  have  a  story  of 
true  pathos ;  and  you  shall  hear  it,  if 
such  is  your  pleasure." 


C98 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


In  token  of  my  acquiescence,  I 
stepped  to  my  berth,  took  out  two  white 
pocket-handkerchiefs,  handed  one  to 
Joey,  and  kept  the  other  ready  for 
use. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Joey,  deposit- 
ing the  disregarded  cambric  on  the 
table,  "  I  will  tell  my  story,  but  only 
on  one  condition.  It  is  no  fiction ; 
and  what  I  stipulate  is  this — that, 
since  I  relate  it  with  a  heart  still 
wrung  by  recollection,  as  to  men  of 
manly  feeling,  and  in  perfect  good 
faith,  so  you  will  listen  with  serious- 
ness and  sympathy." 

We  looked  at  each  other.  Each 
made  up  a  face ;  all  were  grave,  or 
appeared  so ;  and  Joey,  with  great 
earnestness  of  manner,  and  a  voice 
husky  with  emotion,  commenced  the 
narrative  of 

THE  MONKEY  AND  THE  CAT. 

"  While  I  was  serving  on  board 
the  East  India  Company's  cruiser  the 
Jackal,  we  were  one  time  employed 
surveying  in  the  Persian  Gulf.  Being 
infested  with  rats,  we  one  day  re- 
quested our  interpreter,  when  he  went 
ashore,  to  bring  off  with  him  a  cat 
from  the  nearest  village.  He  return- 
ed, bearing  in  his  arms,  gentlemen, 
such  an  extraordinary  specimen  of 
feline  beauty  as,  I  will  venture  to 
say,  has  never  graced  a  British  mena- 
gerie ,  or  sat  upon  any  hearth-rug  in 
the  United  Empire.  Her  elegance, 
her  gentleness,  her  symmetry,  I  will 
not  wrong,  by  attempting  to  describe : 
I  should  feel  the  poverty  of  the  English 
language.  Her  two  eyes  had  each  a 
charm  peculiar  to  itself.  One  was  a 
pure  celestial  blue,  the  other  green  as 
an  emerald.  It  was  at  once  felt,  by 
every  officer  on  board,  that  a  creature 
so  superb  was  not  to  be  employed  in 
the  vulgar  office  of  catching  rats. 
Our  only  thought  was,  to  treat  her 
with  the  care  and  tenderness  which 
her  beauty  merited.  As  she  was  un- 
questionably the  princess  of  cats,  and 
as  her  coat  was  a  soft  tawny,  in  hue 
somewhat  resembling  the  odoriferous 
powder  of  which  our  friend  Mr  Cap- 
sicum makes  such  copious  use — com- 
bining the  two  circumstances,  we 
agreed  to  call  her  Princeza.  Prin- 
ceza  at  once  established  herself  as 
the  pet  of  the  ship.  What  wonder? 


We  had  no  other  domestic  animal  on 
board,  save  one  solitary  monkey — his 
name  Jocko,  his  character,  I  grieve 
to  say,  a  revolting  compound  of  arti- 
fice, egotism,  and  low  malignity. 

"But  now  a  new  circumstance  aroser 
which  increased  our  interest  in  the 
lovely  Princeza.  Almost  immediately 
she  arrived  on  board,  it  became  evi- 
dent, from  unmistakable  indications, 
that  she  was  about  to  be  a  mother. 
Her  interesting  situation,  indeed, 
might  have  been  detected  by  an 
observant  eye,  when  she  first  em- 
barked. In  anticipation  of  the 
earnestly  expected  event,  it  was 
decided  that  Princeza  should  be  pro- 
vided with  every  accommodation  in  the 
officers'  cabin.  A  basket,  appro- 
priated to  her  use,  was  lined  and  half- 
filled  with  the  warmest  and  softest 
materials ;  and  in  the  cabin  this  basket 
was  deposited.  Not  that  we  appre- 
hended injury  from  the  crew.  Oh  no ! 
our  only  fear  was,  that  Princeza  and 
her  expected  little  ones  would  be  over- 
nursed,  over -petted,  over-  fed  —  in 
short,  killed  with  kindness.  Judge, 
gentlemen,  what  were  my  emotions, 
when,  one  morning  early,  returning  to 
the  cabin  from  my  duty  on  deck,  I 
heard  Princeza  purring  in  her  basket 
with  more  than  usual  vehemence,  and 
discovered,  on  examination,  that  she 
had  become  the  happy  mother  of  four 
dear  little  lovely  kittens."  Here  Joey's 
voice  quite  broke  down.  At  length, 
mastering  his  emotions,  he  proceeded : 
"  Well,  gentlemen ;  anxious  to  ex- 
amine the  little  interesting  accessions, 
I  softly  introduced  my  hand  into  the 
basket.  But  Princeza  was  now  a 
mother,  and  had  a  mother's  feelings. 
Doubtless  apprehending  injury  to  her 
little  offspring  —  ah  !  could  I  have 
injured  them? — in  an  instant,  poor 
thing,  she  got  my  hand  in  chancery. 
Her  foreclaws,  struck  deep,  held  me 
faster  than  a  vice ;  with  her  hind  claws 
she  rasped  away  the  flesh,  spurring 
like  a  kangaroo ;  while,  with  her  for- 
midable teeth,  she  masticated  my 
knuckles.  After  admiring  awhile  this 
affecting  illustration  of  maternal  ten- 
derness, I  attempted  to  withdraw  my 
hand.  But  ah,  gentle  creature!  she 
only  struck  her  claws  the  deeper, 
spurred  more  vigorously,  and  chewed- 
with  redoubled  energy.  Only  by 
assistance  was  I  extricated ;  nor  was 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


699 


my  hand  perfectly  recovered,  till  a  fort- 
night after  Princeza  was  herself  no 
more !  Well,  gentlemen ;  for  greater 
security  it  was  now  resolved  that, 
every  night  at  eight  o'clock,  Princeza's 
basket  should  be  set  on  the  cabin  table. 
There  it  was  placed  the  first  night ; 
and  next  morning,  one  of  the  kittens 
was  found — can  I  utter  it? — dead! 
No  malice  was  suspected :  the  disaster 
was  attributed  to  natural  causes. 
Another  night  came.  We  used  no 
precautions.  In  the  morning,  we 
found  another  kitten — dead !  Sus- 
picion was  now  awake,  but  over- 
looked the  real  culprit.  The  third 
night,  I  determined  to  watch.  The 
basket  stood,  as  before,  upon  the 
table:  Princeza,  with  her  two  re- 
maining little  ones,  lay  snug  and 
warm  within :  a  lamp,  burning  near 
the  entrance,  shed  its  light  throughout 
the  cabin ;  and  I,  with  my  curtain  all 
but  closed,  kept  watch  within  my 
berth.  In  the  dead  of  the  night, 
when  all  between  decks  was  quiet, 
save  the  snoring  of  the  men,  the  flit- 
ting of  a  shadow  made  me  sensible 
that  same  one,  or  something,  was 
moving  in  the  cabin.  Presently, 
approaching  stealthily,  like  Tarquin, 
or  Shakspeare's  wolf,  appeared  — 
gentlemen,  I  saw  it  with  my  eyes — 
the  form  of  Jocko !  With  silent 
grimaces,  advancing  on  all  fours, 
stealthily,  stealthily,  a  step  at  a  time, 
he  approached,  he  reached  the  table. 
There  awhile  he  paused ;  then  threw 
a  somerset,  and  alighted  upon  it. 
The  moment  he  was  landed,  the  pricked 
ears  and  anxious  face  of  Princeza 
appeared  above  the  basket.  He  ap- 
proached. She  stirred  not,  but  con- 
tinued to  observe  him,  with  all  a 
mother's  fears  depicted  in  her  coun- 
tenance. Jocko  now  laid  one  paw 
upon  the  basket's  edge.  Still  Princeza 
moved  not.  Blackest  of  villains  !  he 
cuffed  her — cuffed  her  again — again  ; 
—  in  short,  repeated  his  cuffs,  till, 
terrified  and  bewildered,  the  unhappy 
mother  leaped  from  the  basket  on  the 
table,  from  the  table  on  the  floor,  and 
flew  out  of  the  cabin.  Then  did  that 
monster  in  a  monkey's  form  quietly 
take  her  place,  and  settle  himself  down 
for  a  night's  rest,  in  the  midst  of  the 
warmth  and  comfort  from  which  he 
had  ejected  the  lawful  tenant.  All 
was  now  discovered.  The  double 


murderer  of  the  two  preceding  nights 
lay  housed  and  genial  in  that  basket. 
Anxious  to  see  and  know  the  whole, 
up  to  this  moment  I  had  controlled 
myself.  But  now,  too  hastily,  I 
rushed  from  my  berth,  to  seize  the 
detected  culprit.  The  noise  alarmed 
him.  Snatching  up  a  kitten  iu  one 
paw  he  sprang  from  the  cabin — on 
deck  —  up  the  rigging.  Pursued, 
though  it  was  night,  he  dodged  his 
pursuers,  taking  advantage  of  the 
gloom.  At  length,  hard  pressed,  see- 
ing his  retreat  cut  off  and  his  capture 
inevitable,  he  dashed  the  kitten  into 
the  briny  deep,  and  suffered  himself 
to  be  taken.  With  difficulty  I  pre- 
served him  from  the  fury  of  the  men. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  night  he  was 
kept  close  prisoner  in  a  hencoop,  and, 
next  morning,  hanged.  But  oh,  how 
shall  I  relate  the  sequel?  The  re- 
maining kitten  was  found  severely 
injured,  crushed  doubtless  by  Jocko's 
incumbent  weight,  and  died  within 
eight-and-forty  hours.  The  mother, 
bereaved  of  all  her  little  ones,  went 
mewing  about  the  ship  as  if  in  search 
of  them,  languished  and  pined  away, 
refused  all  consolation,  and  expired 
about  eight  days  after.  We  now 
became  sensible  of  our  loss  in  its  full 
extent :  and  this,  gentlemen,  was  felt 
by  all  on  board  to  be  the  acme  of  our 
grief — the  ship  was  left  without  a 
pet!  Oh,  could  we  have  recalled 
Princeza  and  her  kittens !  Oh,  could 
we  have  recalled  even  Jocko !" 

At  the  conclusion  of  this  tragic  nar- 
rative, which  was  recounted  to  the 
end  with  unaffected  feeling,  the  com- 
pany awhile  remained  silent,  respect- 
ing Joey's  sensibilities.  Joey  looked 
very  much  as  if  my  tender  of  the  cam- 
bric had  not  been  altogether  superflu- 
ous. At  length  the  conversation  was 
renewed  by  Gingham. 

"  Your  truly  affecting  story  has  a 
moral,  sir.  I  am  an  observer  of  the 
habits  of  animals.  Monkeys  are  very 
fond  of  warmth." 

"  Well,  sir,"  replied  Joey,  with  a 
deep-drawn  sigh,  "  I  should  like  to 
hear  your  moral  at  any  rate." 

"  The  fact  is,  sir,"  said  Gingham, 
"  on  board  ship,  what  is  a  poor 
wretch  of  a  monkey  to  do  ?  At  night, 
probably,  he  is  driven  to  the  rigging. 
He  would  gladly  nestle  with  the  men, 
but  the  men  won't  have  him ;  for,  to 


700 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


say  nothing  of  the  general  ridicule  a 
fellow  would  incur  by  having  a  mon- 
key for  his  bedfellow,  ten  to  one  the 
poor  wretch  is  swarming  with  fleas 
as  big  as  jackasses,  to  say  nothing  of 
enormous  ticks  in  the  creases  of  his 
dirty  skin.  Monkeys,  sir,  like  dogs, 
scratch  themselves  a  great  deal,  but 
cleanse  themselves  very  little.  Now 
depend  upon  it,  when  the  weather  is 
cold  and  the  wind  high,  monkeys 
never  sleep  in  trees.  Is  it  likely  then, 
on  board  ship,  that  they  prefer  sleep- 
ing aloft  ? — that  is,  if  a  monkey  ever 
sleeps.  Did  you  ever  see  a  monkey 
asleep?" 

"  Can't  say  I  ever  did,"  replied 
Joey.  "  I  have  seen  them  nodding. 
But  the  moral?" 

"  The  moral,"  said  Gingham,  "  is 
simply  this.  The  next  time  you  sail 
with  a  monkey  and  a  cat  on  board,  if 
you  provide  a  basket  for  the  cat,  pro- 
vide another  for  the  monkey." 

"  Obviously!"  replied  Joey. 
"  "Would  we  had  thought  of  that  on 
board  the  Jackal !  Obviously  ! " 

"  May  I  ask,"  said  Gingham,  "  how 
yon  contrived  to  hang  the  monkey  ?  " 

"  Of  course,"  replied  Joey,  "  he 
was  first  pinioned." 

"  Exactly,"  said  Gingham ;  "  so 
I  conjectured.  Otherwise  I  should 
consider  the  hanging  of  a  monkey  no 
easy  matter." 

"  Now,  Captain  Gabion,  if  you 
please,"  said  the  Colonel,  inter- 
posing. 

"  The  punch  is  nearly  out,"  replied 
the  Captain,  "  and,  if  I  might  be  ex- 
cused, I  should  really  feel  thankful  for 
the  indulgence.  I  have  nothing  to 
tell  but  an  ngly  dream ;  and  that 
dream  relates  to  a  subject  which,  as  I 
believe  my  military  friends  here  pre- 
sent are  aware,  is  constantly  and  pain- 
fully present  to  my  mind.  The  less 
said  about  it  the  better." 

"  Come,  come,  Captain  Gabion," 
said  the  Colonel ;  "  never  think  of 
that,  man.  You'll  see  Old  England 
again,  I  tell  you,  and  rise  to  rank  in 
the  service.  Come,  give  us  your 
story." 

It  is  well  known  that,  among  the 
officers  who  embarked  for  the  Penin- 
sula, there  was  occasionally  one  who 
quitted  his  native  shores  with  a  strong 
presentiment  that  he  should  never  sec 
them  again,  but  fall  in  action.  In 


such  instances  the  mind  retained  the 
impression  almost  constantly.  It  was 
not  the  coward's  fear  of  death — far 
from  it.  If  ever  it  was  forgotten,  the 
moment  was  that  of  conflict  and  peril  ; 
and  then,  it  was  sometimes  realised. 

"  Come,  old  fellow,"  said  the  Colo- 
nel ;  "  your  story,  if  you  please." 

The  Captain  was  about  to  reply, 
when  a  musical  voice,  pitched  in  alto, 
was  heard  from  the  state-cabin : — 
"  Kitty,  Kitty,  come  down ;  conic 
down,  I  tell  you.  You'll  catch  your 
death  o'  cold,  standing  there  in  the 
draught  without  your  bonnet.  Come 
down,  child,  this  instant." 

Kitty  was  now  seen  gliding  from 
the  foot  of  the  cabin  stairs  into  her 
mistress's  apartment.  The  Colonel's 
keen  eye  glanced  in  that  direction; 
ours  took  the  same.  A  pair  of  legs  was 
distinctly  visible  at  the  bottom  of  the 
stairs. 

"  Cupid,  you  villain!  Cupid!" 
shouted  the  Colonel,  "  come  here ; 
come  directly,  sir.  Aboard  or  ashore, 
that  rascal  never  misses  an  opportu- 
nity of  making  love.  Here,  Cnpid! 
Cupid ! " 

The  Colonel's  gentleman,  with  in- 
nocence pictured  in  his  countenance, 
now  entered,  stepped  quietly  up  to  the 
foot  of  the  table,  and  respectfully 
twitched  his  forelock. 

"  What  are  you  about  there  on  tho 
cabin  stairs,  sir?"  said  the  Colonel. 
"  Can't  you  let  the  young  woman  be 
quiet,  and  be  hanged  to  ye  ?  " 

"  I  vos  owny  a-cummin  down  into 
the  cab'n,  yer  honour,  jist  to  see  if 
yer  honour  vaunted  hennythink  !  " 

The  Colonel's  gentleman,  I  oughfe 
to  have  stated  before  this,  was  an  old 
light  dragoon,  and  a  Cockney.  He 
had  lost  an  eye,  on  the  same  occasion 
when  the  Colonel  lost  an  arm ;  ob- 
tained his  discharge ;  and  from  that 
time  followed  the  Colonel's  fortunes. 
His  loss,  I  presume,  had  gained  him 
the  name  of  Cupid.  He  was  a  civil, 
well-behaved,  handy  fellow  enough  ; 
had  that  particular  way  of  speaking, 
emphatic  andgesticulatory,  which  dis- 
tinguishes old  soldiers  who  have  got 
their  discharge  ;  made  himself  univer- 
sally useful  to  the  Colonel,  and  helped 
him  to  dress  and  undress,  morning 
and  evening,  the  Colonel  being  de- 
pendent from  the  loss  of  a  fin.  Cupid, 
in  consequence,  was  a  privileged  per- 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


701 


son :  had  the  entree  of  the  cabin  at 
all  times  and  seasons ;  and,  being 
ready  and  sometimes  sentimental  in 
his  replies,  seldom  made  his  appear- 
ance amongst  us  without  being  as- 
sailed with  questions  on  all  sides.  The 
Colonel  was  now  about  to  give  him  a 
regular  jobatiou,  but  the  Major  struck 
in. 

"  I  say,  Cupid,  very  convenient  for 
courtship  those  cabin  stairs  in  rainy 
weather.  Eh,  Cupid?" 

"  Courtship,  yer  honour ! "  said 
Cupid.  "  I  vosn't  not  a-doin  nothink 
of  the  kind.  I  vos  owny  a-meditatin, 
like." 

"  Oh,  meditating  were  you,  though, 
Cupid  ?"  said  Captain  Gabion.  "Well, 
pray  what  were  you  meditating  about? 
Come,  tell  us  your  thoughts." 

"  Vhy,  sir,"  replied  Cupid,  "I  vos 
a-meditatin  upon  the  hair  and  upon 
the  sea.  Got  plenty  of  bofe  vhere 
ve  now  are ;  nothink  helse,  has  I  can 
see  ;  so  it  vos  owny  natral  I  should 
meditate.  And  I  vos  jist  a-thinkin 
this :  that  the  hah*  is  made  for  men, 
and  the  sea  is  made  for  fishes,  heach 
for  heach;  and  t'other  von't  do  for 
nayther.  Pull  a  fish  hout  of  liis  own 
heliment  hinto  the  hair,  and  he  dies. 
And  pitch  a  man  hout  of  his  own 
heliment  hinto  the  sea,  and  he's 
drownded." 

"Really,  Cupid,"  said  Capsicum, 
"  that  never  struck  me  before.  It's 
very  curious." 

"  Wherry,"  said  Cupid.  "  But, 
please  yer  honour,  I  thought  of  some- 
think  helse,  vitch  I  consider  it's  more 
kew-russer  still.  And  that's  this : 
that,  though  too  much  vorter  drownds 
a  man,  and  too  much  hair  kills  a  fish, 
yit  a  fish  can't  do  vithout  a  little  hair, 
and  a  man  can't  do  vithout  a  little 
drink."  Cupid's  eye,  as  if  he  had  said 
too  much,  dropped,  and  fell  upon  the 
punch-bowl. 

Amidst  the  general  applause  and 
merriment  excited  by  this  appeal,  I 
pushed  over  a  tumbler  to  Joey,  who 
took  up  the  punch-bowl,  and  soon 
transferred  its  remaining  contents  into 
the  glass,  which  he  handed,  brimming, 
to  Cupid.  The  next  moment  it  stood 
empty  on  the  table.  Cupid  smacked 
his  lips. 

"  Cupid,"  said  the  Colonel  in  a  tone 
of  authority,  "  what's  your  opinion  of 
that  punch  ?" 


"Pertickerly  obleeged  to  yer  ho- 
nour," replied  Cupid,  "and  to  haul 
the  company  vot's  present."  Cupid 
then  made  a  nip  at  his  knee,  as  if 
suddenly  bit ;  and,  availing  himself  of 
the  stoop, •whispered  Joey :  "Please, 
sir,  did  the  Cornal  brew  it  hisself?" 
With  a  twitch  of  the  mouth,  and  a 
twist  of  the  eye,  Joey  indicated 
Gingham. 

"  Come,  Cupid,"  said  the  Colonel, 
'I  want  a  direct  answer.  Tell  me 
your  opinion  of  that  punch."  The 
Colonel  had  a  plot. 

"  Bless  yer  art,  yer  honour,"  said 
Cupid. 

"  Come,  speak  up,  sir,"  said  the 
colonel. 

"Speak  up,  man,"  said  Gingham. 
"  Yell,  yer  honour,"  said  Cupid,  "  I 
haulvays  speaks  the  troof,  except  I'm 
hordered  the  contary.  Pleasant  tipple, 
wherry.  But  if  so  be  I  hadn't  not 
a'  seed  it  in  the  punch-bowl,  vhy,  I 
shouldn't  not  a'  knowed  it  vos  punch, 
not  no  ho\v." 

"What  drink  do  you  like  best, 
Cupid?"  said  the  Major.  "What 
d'ye  think  of  water,  now  ?" 

"  Vhy,  I  think  this,  yer  honour," 
replied  Cupid :  "  I'm  a  pertickler  dis- 
like to  vorter ;  that's  vot  I  think.  I 
vonldn't  ride  no  oss  into  no  vorter, 
no,  not  for  nothink." 

"  The  fact  is,  gentlemen,"  said  the 
Colonel,  "  Cupid  thinks  no  man  can 
brew  a  bowl  of  punch  like  himself. 
What  say  you  ? — shall  we  give  him  a 
trial  ?" 

Capsicum  consented  —  Gingham 
consented — we  all  consented.  The 
third  bowl  of  punch  was  carried  by 
acclamation.  Cupid  retired  to  brew. 
"  If  he'  beats  mine,"  said  Capsicum, 
"I'll  give  him  half-a-guinea  for  the 
recipe." 

"  A  guinea,"  said  the  Colonel, 
"  with  a  promise  not  to  communicate. 
Cupid  never  takes  less." 

Cupid  returned  with  the  punch- 
bowl, having  executed  the  arcana 
aside.  His  punch  had  the  aroma  of 
arrack,  though  not  arrack  punch  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  word.  Capsi- 
cum's was  a  nosegay ;  Gingham's  beat 
nectar;  but  Cupid's  put  them  both 
out  of  court,  by  consent  of  the  com- 
pany. "  Now,  Captain  Gabion,"  said 
the  Colonel,  "we'll  trouble  you  for 
your  story." 


702 


My  Peninsular  Medal. — Part  II. 


[Dec. 


"Without  disparagement  of  our 
previous  brewers,"  said  the  Captain, 
"  my  feeling  at  the  present  moment  is 
just  this,  that  I  never  drank  punch 
before.  "Well,  gentlemen,  if  you  will 
have  it  so,  I  proceed  to  refute 


MY  DREAM. 

"  Some  of  the  friends  here  assembled 
are  well  aware — why  should  I  conceal 
it  ? — that,  for  several  months  past,  a 
load  has  been  pressing  on  my  mind. 
They  are  also  aware  of  the  cause.  I 
certainly  have  an  impression  that  I 
shall  never  see  England  again.  But 
how  that  impression  began,  they  are 
not  aware.  What  I  am  now  about 
to  relate  will  afford  the  explanation. 
Yet  what  is  the  subject  of  my  narra- 
tive ?  A  dream — a  mere  dream  ;  and 
a  dream  easily  accounted  for  by  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  was  dreamt. 
So  it  is.  Colonel  d'Arbley  knows, 
the  Major  knows,  that  I  never  shrank 
from  peril.  I  have  faced  death ;  to 
all  appearance,  certain  death.  And, 
unless  I  felt  prepared  to  do  the  like 
again,  I  should  not  have  been  now 
returning  to  the  army ; — no,  I  would 
rather  have  quitted  the  service.  Death 
I  am  prepared  at  any  time  to  meet ; 
yet  this  presentiment  of  death  is  a 
burden  upon  my  spirits.  By  the  bye, 
my  glass  is  empty.  Hadn't  I  better 
replenish  it  ere  I  begin  ? 

"  You  are  aware,  sir,  that  ill  health, 
the  effect  of  hard  service  and  hard 
knocks,  obliged  me  to  return  to  Eng- 
land last  spring.  In  the  course  of 
the  autumn,  I  quitted  Cheltenham, and 
resided  at  Woolwich.  There,  I  was  at 
a  military  party.  We  kept  it  up  all 
night.  Next  morning,  I  was  unex- 
pectedly summoned  to  London;  and, 
on  my  arrival,  found  work  cut  out  for 
me, — papers  to  be  prepared — public 
offices  to  be  visited — lots  of  going 
about — lots  of  writing — all  wanted 
instantly.  Some  parliamentary  wretch 
had  moved  for  returns,  and  I  was  to 
get  them  up.  In  short,  the  work  could 
be  done  in  time  only  by  my  again 
sitting  up  all  night.  It  was  on  the 
day  after  these  two  sleepless  nights 
that  I  had  my  dream.  Where,  do 
you  think?  And  at  what  hour?  At 
noon,  with  the  sun  shining  above  my 
head,  on  a  bench  in  St  James's  Park. 

"I  had  just  been  calling  in  at  the 


Horse- Guards  for  a  chat,  my  business 
completed,  the  excitement  over,  and 
was  proceeding  west  ward  on  foot  along 
the  Birdcage  Walk,  when  I  began  to 
feel  nervous  and  done  up.  All  at  once, 
my  faculties  experienced  a  sort  of  col- 
lapse. My  whole  frame  was  seized 
with  a  deadly  chill ;  I  shivered  spas- 
modically ;  my  strength  seemed  gone ; 
and  Ibecame  most  enormously  drowsy. 
Just  at  that  moment — I  suppose  it 
was  some  anniversary,  a  birthday 
perhaps — bang,  bang,  the  Park  guns 
commenced  firing,  close  at  hand.  In 
the  midst  of  the  firing,  I  sat  down  on 
a  bench,  and,  in  no  time,  dropped 
asleep.  Then  began  my  dream. 
"  It  was  a  general  action.  The  curious 
circumstance  is,  that  I  was  still  in  the 
Park.  The  guns  firing  a  holiday 
salute  became  the  French  position, 
which  occupied  the  plateau  of  a  low 
range  of  hills.  At  the  foot  of  this 
range,  in  an  avenue  extending  along 
its  foot,  was  I  alone.  The  firing  went 
on,  bang-banging,  now  no  longer  a 
feu-de-joie  —  the  report  was  that  of 
shotted  guns.  I  heard  not  only  their 
discharge,  but  the  moan  of  the  balls, 
and  the  whisk  of  the  grape ;  yes,  and 
the  rattle  of  musketry,  the  shouts  of 
men  charging,  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing.  I  saw  the  dust,  the  smoke, 
the  occasional  flash,  quite  as  much  as 
you  can  see  of  any  battle  if  you're  in 
it.  Yet,  all  this  time,  I  knew  I  was 
in  the  Birdcage  AValk.  Presently,  in 
the  direction  of  the  Green  Park,  I 
heard  a  more  distant  cannonade,  which 
was  that  of  the  British  position.  It 
was  now  time  to  change  mine;  for 
some  of  the  shot  from  our  guns  began 
to  pass  up  the  avenue,  close  to  me, 
tearing,  rasping  up  the  gravel,  crash- 
ing among  the  trees,  cutting  down 
boughs,  and  rifting  the  trunks.  Yet 
something  kept  me  fixed.  At  length, 
looking  in  the  direction  of  the  British 
position,  I  distinctly  saw  a  round-shot 
come  hopping  up  the  avenue — hop — 
hop — hop  —  nearer  and  nearer — but 
slowly — slowly — slowly ;  it  seemed  all 
but  spent.  Just  when  I  thought  it 
had  done  hopping,  it  took  one  more 
jump,  and,  with  a  heavy  pitch,  fetched 
me  an  awful  polt  in  the  right  side. 
That  moment  I  felt  that  I  was  a  dead 
man ;  killed  in  action,  yet  by  a  friendly 
ball,  and  while  sitting  on  a  bench  in 
St  James's  Park!  The  vision  now 


1849.] 


My  Peninsular  Medal — Part  II. 


703 


passed.  The  noise  and  firing  ceased; 
troops,  smoke,  dust — all  the  concomi- 
tants of  combat  vanished ;  the  Bird- 
cage Walk  and  its  beautiful  environs 
resumed  their  ordinary  appearance. 

"  Presently,  while  still  sitting  on  the 
bench,  I  was  accosted  by  a  tall  sallow- 
looking  gentleman  in  black,  who 
smirked,  bowed,  and  handed  me  a 
letter  with  a  broad  black  border — the 
seal,  a  tombstone  and  a  weeping  wil- 
low. It  was  addressed  to  myself — 
an  invitation  to  attend  a  funeral.  I 
pleaded  my  engagements — wanted  to 
get  back  to  AVoolwich — begged  to  be 
excused.  '  Sir,'  said  he,  in  courteous 
accents,  '  you  really  must  oblige  us. 
Unless  you  are  present,  the  funeral 
cannot  take  place.  Hope  you  won't 
disappoint  us,  sir.  I  am  the  under- 
taker, sir.'  I  somehow  felt  that  I  had 
no  choice,  and  went.  The  gentleman 
in  black  met  me  at  the  door. 

"  Other  parties  were  assembled  at  the 
mansion ;  but  not  one  of  the  company 
— I  thought  it  rather  strange — either 
spoke  to  me,  or  looked  at  me,  or 
showed  the  least  consciousness  of  my 
presence.  The  undertaker  was  all 
attention;  handed  round  black  kid 
gloves;  fitted  first  one  with  a  hatband, 
then  another;  and,  last  of  all,  ad- 
dressed me :  '  Now,  sir,  if  you  please, 
this  way,  sir ;  we  only  wait  for  you, 
sir.'  I  followed  him.  He  led  me  into 
an  adjoining  apartment,  where  stood 
the  coffin,  surrounded  by  mutes.  I 
wished  to  read  the  name  on  the  lid, 
but  was  prevented  by  the  pall. 

"  How  we  got  to  the  place  of  inter- 
ment, I  recollect  not.  The  only  thing 


I  remember  is  this:  as  I  saw  the 
coffin  carried  down  stairs,  hoisted  iuto 
the  hearse,  conveyed,  hoisted  out,  and 
at  last  deposited  by  the  side  of  the 
grave — every  movement,  every  jolt, 
every  thump,  seemed  to  jar  my  whole 
system  with  a  peculiar  and  horrid 
thrill.  The  service  was  performed, 
the  coffin  was  lowered,  the  grating  of 
the  ropes  grated  upon  my  very  soul ; 
and  the  dust  sprinkled  by  the  sexton 
on  its  lid  blew  into  my  mouth  and 
eyes,  as  I  stood  by  the  brink  of  the 
grave,  and  looked  on.  The  service 
concluded,  the  undertaker,  attendants, 
and  company  withdrew;  and,  what 
d'ye  think  ? — there  was  I  left  remain- 
ing in  the  burial-ground,  with  no  com- 
panion but  a  solitary  gravedigger! 
He  set  to  work,  and  began  shovelling 
in  the  clods,  to  fill  the  grave.  I  heard 
their  thud;  I  seemed  to  feel  it,  as 
they  rattled  in  quick  succession  on  the 
lid  of  the  coffin. 

"  '  You'll  soon  be  filled  in  and  all 
right,  old  feller,'  said  the  gravedigger, 
as  he  proceeded  with  his  work. 

"A  strange  idea  had  gradually  occu- 
pied my  mind.  It  seemed  absurd — 
impossible ;  and  yet  it  offered  the 
only  conceivable  solution  of  my  sen- 
sations at  that  horrid  moment.  I 
addressed  the  gravedigger, — 

" '  My  friend,'  said  I,  '  have  the 
goodness  to  inform  me  WHOSE  funeral 
this  is.' 

"'Whose  funeral?'  replied  the 
gravedigger.  "  Come,  that's  a  good 
un.  Vhy,  it's  YOUR  OWN.' — I'll  trouble 
you  for  a  little  more  punch." 


VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCX. 


701 


Spain  under  Narcaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


SPAIN  UNDER  NARVAEZ  AND  CHRISTESTA. 


THE  condition  of  Spain  since  the 
last  French  revolution,  and  especially 
since  the  commencement  of  the  present 
year,  has  been  taken  as  a  theme  of 
unbounded  self-gratulation  by  persons 
who  ascribe  her  tranquillity  and 
alleged  prosperity  to  their  own  patriot- 
ism and  skill.  For  many  months 
past,  the  friends,  organs,  and  adherents 
of  the  dominant  Camarilla  have  not 
ceased  to  call  attention  to  the  flourish- 
ing state  of  the  country ;  repeatedly 
challenging  the  Continent  to  produce 
such  another  example  of  good  govern- 
ment, internal  happiness,  and  external 
dignity,  as  is  now  afforded  by  the 
fortunate  land  which  their  patrons  and 
masters  rule.  When  so  many  Euro- 
pean states  are  revolutionised  and 
unsettled,  it  is  indeed  pleasant  to  hear 
this  good  report  of  one  which  we  have 
not  been  accustomed  to  consider  a 
model  for  the  imitation  of  its  neigh- 
bours. Delightful  it  is  to  learn  that 
Spain  has  cast  her  blood-stained 
slough  of  misrule,  discord,  and  corrup- 
tion, and  glitters  in  renovated  come- 
liness, an  example  to  the  nations,  a 
credit  and  a  blessing  to  herself,  a 
monument  of  the  disinterested  exer- 
tions and  unwearied  self-devotion  of 
her  sage  and  virtuous  rulers.  We  are 
anxious  to  believe  that  these  glowing 
accounts  are  based  upon  fact,  and 
worthy  of  credence — not  a  delusion 
and  a  blind  ;  and  that  the  happiness 
and  prosperity  so  ostentatiously 
vaunted  exist  elsewhere  than  in  the 
invention  of  those  interested  in  pro- 
claiming them.  But  we  cannot  forget 
that  the  evidence  produced  is  entirely 
ex-parte,  or  lose  sight  of  the  great 
facility  with  which  the  French  and 
English  press  and  public  accord  credit 
and  praise  to  the  present  government 
of  Spain,  simply  on  its  own  or  its 
partisans' assertions  of  the  great  things 
it  has  done,  and  is  about  to  do.  It  is 
not  easy  to  obtain  a  correct  knowledge 
of  the  condition  of  the  bulk  of  the 
Spanish  nation.  That  the  country 
prospers  means,  in  the  mouths  of  the 
schemers  and  place-hunters  of  Madrid, 
and  of  the  smugglers  of  the  frontier, 
that  there  is  a  brisk  flow  of  coin  into 
their  own  pockets.  That  it  is  tranquil 


signifies  that  no  rebellious  banner  is 
openly  displayed  in  its  territory.  No 
matter  that  the  government  is  earned 
on  by  shifts,  by  forced  loans  and  fore- 
stalled taxes  and  ruinous  contracts  ; 
that  the  public  servants  of  all  grades, 
irregularly  paid,  and  with  bad  ex- 
amples before  them,  peculate  and  take 
bribes ;  that  the  widow  and  the  orphan, 
the  maimed  soldier  and  the  super- 
annuated pensioner,  continually  with 
long  arrears  due  to  them,  are  in  rags, 
misery,  and  starvation ;  that  to  the 
foreign  creditor  is  given,  almost  as  a 
favour,  no  part  of  the  interest  due  upon 
the  capital  he  has  disbursed,  but  the 
interest  on  a  small  portion  of  the 
accumulation  of  unpaid  dividends; 
that  the  streets  and  highways  swarm 
with  mendicants,  and  are  perilous  from 
the  multitude  of  robbers;  that  the 
insecurity  of  life  and  property  in 
country- places  drives  the  rich  proprie- 
tors into  the  towns,  and  prevents  their 
expending  their  capital  in  the  improve- 
ment of  their  property ;  and  that  the 
peasantry,  deprived  of  instruction, 
example,  and  encouragement,  deprived 
too,  by  the  badness  and  scarcity  of 
the  communications,  of  an  advanta- 
geous market  for  their  produce,  sink, 
as  a  natural  consequence,  daily  deeper 
into  sloth,  ignorance,  and  vice.  What 
matter  all  these  things  ?  The  miseries 
of  the  suffering  many  are  lightly 
passed  over  by  the  prosperous  few: 
in  Spain  the  multitude  have  no  voice, 
no  remedy  but  open  and  armed  resis- 
tance. Thus  it  is  that  Spanish  revo- 
lutions and  popular  outbreaks  startle 
by  their  suddenness.  Until  the  vic- 
tim openly  rebels,  his  murmurs  are 
unheard :  the  report  of  his  musket  is 
the  first  intimation  of  his  misery.  In 
England  and  in  France,  abuses,  op- 
pression, and  injustice,  of  whatever 
kind,  cannot  long  be  kept  from  the 
light.  It  is  very  different  in  Spain, 
under  the  present  regime.  There  the 
liberty  of  the  press  is  purely  nominal, 
and  no  newspaper  dares  denounce  an 
abuse,  however  flagrant,  or  speak  above 
its  breath  on  subjects  whose  discussion 
is  unpleasing  to  the  governing  powers. 
On  the  first  indication  of  such  pre- 
sumption, number  after  number  of  the 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


705 


offending  journal  is  seized,  fines  are 
inflicted,  and  if  the  editors  audaciously 
persevere,  they  may  reckon  with 
tolerable  certainty  on  exile  or  a  prison. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  ministerial  and 
Camarilla  organs,  those  of  the  Duke 
of  Valencia  and  of  Seiior  Sartorius, 
and  of  the  dowager  queen,  and  even 
of  the  dowager's  husband — for  his 
Grace  of  Klanzares  follows  the  fashion, 
and  has  a  paper  at  his  beck,  (partly 
for  his  assistance  in  those  stock  ex- 
change transactions  whose  pursuit 
has  more  than  once  dilapidated  his 
wife's  savings,) — papers  of  this  stamp, 
we  say,  carefully  disguise  or  distort 
all  facts  whose  honest  revelation 
would  be  unpleasant  or  discreditable 
to  their  employers.  From  the  garbled 
and  imperfect  statements  of  these 
journals,  which  few  Frenchmen,  and 
scarcely  any  Englishmen,  ever  see,  the 
"  Madrid  correspondents  "  of  French 
and  English  newspapers — not  a  few 
of  whom  reside  in  Paris  or  London — 
compile  their  letters,  and  editors 
derive  their  data  (for  want  of  better 
sources)  when  discussing  the  condition 
and  prospects  of  Spain.  Hence  spring 
misapprehension  and  delusion.  Spain 
is  declared  to  be  prosperous  and  happy; 
and  Spanish  bondholders  flatter  them- 
selves, for  the  hundredth  time,  with 
the  hope  of  a  satisfactory  arrangement 
— to  which  their  great  patience  cer- 
tainly entitles  them,  and  which  they 
might  as  certainly  obtain  were  the  ill- 
administered  revenues  of  Spain  so 
directed  as  to  flow  into  the  public 
coffers,  and  not  into  the  bottomless 
pockets  of  a  few  illustrious  swindlers, 
and  of  the  legion  of  corrupt  underlings 
who  prop  a  system  founded  on  immo- 
rality and  fraud.  The  system  is  rotten 
to  the  core,  and  the  prosperity  of  Spain 
is  a  phantom  and  a  fallacy.  Not  that 
she  is  deficient  in  the  elements  of 
prosperity  :  on  the  contrary,  the 
country  has  abundant  vitality  and 
resource,  and  its  revenue  has  been  for 
years  increasing,  in  the  teeth  of  mis- 
government,  and  of  a  prohibitive 
tariff,  which  renders  the  customs' 
revenue  almost  nominal.  But  it  mat- 
ters little  how  many  millions  are  col- 
lected, if  they  be  intercepted  on  their 
way  to  the  exchequer,  or  squandered 


and    misappropriated    as    soon     as 
gathered  in. 

In  the  absence  of  better  evidence  as 
to  the  real  state  of  the  country  than, 
that  whose  untrustworthiness  we  have 
denounced,  the  narrative  of  an  unpre- 
judiced and  intelligent  traveller  in 
Spain  has  its  value ;  and  although  the 
title  of  a  recently  published  book  by 
Mr  Dundas  Murray,*  proclaimed  it  to 
refer  but  to  one  province,  yet,  as  that 
province  comprises  many  of  the  prin- 
cipal Spanish  posts  and  cities,  we 
hoped  to  have  found  hi  his  pages  con- 
firmation or  correction  of  our  opinion 
as  to  the  true  condition  of  the  nation, 
and  more  particularly  of  those  mid- 
dling and  lower  classes  whose  wel- 
fare is  too  frequently  lost  sight  of  in 
the  struggles  and  projects  of  political 
factions.  Since  those  pleasant  "  Ga- 
therings" in  which  many  home-truths 
were  told  with  a  playful  and  witty 
pen,  no  book  on  Spain  worth  naming 
has  appeared;  and  if  Mr  Murray's 
visit  be  recent,  which  he  does  not  en- 
able us  to  -decide,  he  had  abundant 
opportunity  during  his  pretty  long 
residence  and  active  rambles — aided, 
as  we  learn  he  was,  by  thorough 
familiarity  with  the  language — to  col- 
lect materials  for  a  work  of  no  com- 
mon interest  and  importance.  He  has 
preferred,  however,  to  skim  the  sur- 
face :  the  romantic  and  the  picaresque, 
sketches  on  the  road  and  traditions  of 
Moorish  Spain,  are  evidently  more  to 
his  taste  than  an  investigation  of  the 
condition  of  the  people,  and  an  expo- 
sure of  social  sores  and  official  cor- 
ruption. His  book  is  a  slight  but 
unaffected  production,  containing 
much  that  has  been  said  before,  a 
little  that  has  not,  some  tolerable  de- 
scriptions of  scenery,  a  number  of 
legends  borrowed  from  Conde  and 
other  chroniclers,  and  here  and  there 
a  little  personal  incident  which  may 
almost  pass  muster  as  an  adventure. 
Young  Englishmen  of  Mr  Murray's 
class  and  standard  of  ability,  who 
start  on  a  tour  in  Spain,  arc  of  course 
on  the  look-out  for  the  picturesque, 
and  think  it  incumbent  on  them  to 
embody  their  experiences  and  obser- 
vations in  a  book.  Such  narratives 
are  usually  praiseworthy  for  good 


*  The  Cities  and  Wilds  of  Andalusia. 
London:  1849. 


By  the  Honourable  R.  DUNDAS  MURRAY. 


706 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


feeling  and  gentlemanly  tone;  and 
indeed  would  be  almost  perfect,  did 
they  combine  with  those  qualities  the 
equally  desirable  ones  of  vigour  and 
originality.  But  doubtless  we  shall 
do  well  to  take  them  as  they  come, 
and  be  thankful ;  for  it  is  not  every 
one  who  has  fortitude  and  courage  to 
travel  for  any  length  of  time  in  the 
flea-and-robber-ridden  land  of  Spain. 
And  as  we  cannot  expect  to  meet 
every  day  with  a  Widdrington,  a 
Carnarvon,  or  a  Ford,  so  we  must 
welcome  a  Murray  when  he  presents 
himself,  look  leniently  upon  his  repe- 
titions, and  be  grateful  if  he  occasion- 
ally affords  us  a  hint  or  a  text.  It  is 
perhaps  a  pity  that  Englishmen  do 
not  more  frequently  turn  their  steps 
towards  the  Peninsula,  instead  of  per- 
tinaciously pursuing  the  beaten  tracks 
of  Italy,  Switzerland,  the  Levant; 
the  furthest  of  which  is  now  within 
the  leave-of-absence  ramble  of  a  de- 
sultory guardsman  or  jaded  journalist, 
Covetous  of  purer  air  than  Fleet  Street 
or  St  James's  aiford.  Spain,  we  can 
assure  all  who  are  rovingly  inclined — 
and  Mr  Murray,  we  are  certain,  will 
corroborate  our  word — has  at  least  as 
much  to  interest  as  any  of  the  above 
regions,  and  much  more  than  most  of 
them.  And  assuredly  an  influx  of 
British  travellers  would,  by  putting 
piastres  into  the  pockets  of  the  abori- 
gines, do  more  than  anything  else  to- 
wards improving  roads,  towards 
cleansing  ventas  of  the  chinches  and 
other  light  cavalry,  against  whose 
assaults  Mr  Murray  was  fain  to  cuirass 
himself  in  a  flannel  bag,  towards 
ameliorating  the  Iberian  cuisine,  and 
diminishing  the  numbers  and  audacity 
of  the  knights  of  the  road.  For,  as 
regards  the  last-named  peril,  greatly 
increased  by  the  dispersion  of  the  re- 
publican and  Carlist  bands,  and  by 
the  misery  prevalent  in  the  country, 
Englishmen,  if  they  have  the  reputa- 
tion of  travelling  with  well-filled 
pockets  and  portmanteaus,  have  also 
that  of  fighting  stoutly  in  defence  of 
their  property  ;  and  if  they  would 
make  it  a  rule  to  travel  two  or  three 
together,  with  light  purses,  a  sharp 
look-out,  and  a  revolver  a-piece — or, 
as  Mr  Murray  and  his  companion  did, 
each  with  a  double-barrel  on  his 
shoulder — they  might  rest  assured 
there  are  not  many  bands  of  brigands 


on  Spanish  roads  bold  enough  to  bid 
them,  in  the  classical  phrase  of  those 
gentry,  "Boca  abajo!"  which  means, 
freely  interpreted,  "  Down  in  the 
dust,  and  rcith  the  dust !"  But  let  the 
traveller  be  on  his  guard  against  a 
surprise,  and,  to  that  end,  avoid  as 
much  as  possible  all  night-travelling, 
especially  by  diligence,  which  to 
many  may  seem  the  safest,  on  account 
of  the  society  it  insures,  but  which  is 
in  reality  the  most  dangerous  mode  of 
journeying,  for  there  the  pusillanimous 
hamper  and  impede  the  resistance- 
contemplated  by  the  bold,  and  the 
bravest  man  can  do  little  when  jammed 
in  amongst  screaming  women  and 
terrified  priests,  with  a  carbine  point- 
ing in  at  each  window  of  the  vehicle. 
We  find  Mr  Murray  and  his  friend 
riding  unmolested  through  an  ambus- 
cade where,  a  couple  of  hours  later, 
three  calesas  full  of  travellers,  in- 
cluding a  colonel  in  the  army,  were 
assailed  by  no  more  than  three  high- 
waymen, and  deliberately  and  unre- 
sistingly plundered.  For  the  travel- 
ler in  Spain  there  is  nothing  like  the 
saddle,  whether  for  safety,  indepen- 
dence, or  comfort ;  and  as  to  time, 
why,  if  he  is  short  of  that,  he  had 
better  not  visit  the  country,  for  there 
all  things  go  despacio,  which  means 
not  with  despatch  but  leisurely,  and 
for  one  "  to-day"  he  will  get  twenty 
"  to-morrows,"  and  most  of  these 
will  never  come.  And,  above  all,  let 
him  put  no  faith  in  the  word  police, 
which,  in  Spain,  is  a  mere  figure  of 
speech,  the  thing  it  indicates  never 
appearing  until  it  is  not  wanted ;  and 
let  him  not  reckon  on  an  escort, 
which  is  rarely  to  be  obtained  even 
by  paying,  and  on  roads  notoriously 
dangerous,  except  by  tedious  formal- 
ity of  application,  to  which  few  will 
have  patience  to  submit.  And  even 
if  granted,  it  usually,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  calesas  above  cited,  is  either  too 
weak  to  be  useful,  or  lags  behind,  or 
fairly  turns  tail.  To  which  prudent 
course  it  is  more  than  suspected  that 
the  faithless  guards,  who  are  mostly 
pardoned  robbers,  are  frequently  sti- 
mulated by  promise  of  a  share  of  the 
spoil.  Nor  are  they,  if  all  tales  be 
true,  the  only  class  in  Spain  whose 
duty  it  is  to  protect  the  public,  and 
who  foully  betray  their  trust.  Dur- 
ing this  present  year  of  1849,  cited  as 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


707 


so  prosperous  a  one  in  Spain,  rob- 
beries in  the  capital,  and  on  the  roads 
within  a  radius  of  twenty  leagues 
around  it,  have  been  so  numerous  and 
audacious,  and  perpetrated  with  such 
impunity,  that  the  finger  of  public 
suspicion  has  pointed  very  high,  and 
the  strangest  tales — which  to  English 
ears  would  sound  incredible — have 
been  circulated  of  the  collusion  of  per- 
sonages whose  rank  and  position 
would,  in  any  other  country,  preclude 
the  idea  of  participation,  however 
secret  and  indirect,  in  gains  so  lawless 
and  iniquitous.  But  in  this,  as  in 
many  other  matters  peculiar  to  the 
Peninsula,  although  the  few  may  be 
convinced,  the  many  will  always 
doubt,  and  proof  it  is  of  course 
scarcely  possible  to  obtain.  In  so 
extensive  and  thinly  peopled  a  land 
as  Spain,  and  which  has  been  so  long 
a  prey  to  civil  war  and  insurrection, 
security  of  travelling  in  rural  dis- 
tricts, and  on  cross  roads,  is  only  to 
be  obtained  by  increased  cultiva- 
tion of  the  soil,  and  by  improving  the 
condition  of  the  peasantry.  But  in 
the  capital,  and  on  the  roads  leading 
to  it,  and  in  the  towns  and  villages, 
some  degree  of  law  and  order  might 
be  expected  to  prevail.  A  glance  at 
the  Spanish  papers,  any  time  for  the 
last  six  months,  proves  the  contrary 
to  be  the  case.  Their  columns  are 
filled  with  accounts  of  atrocious  assas- 
sinations and  barefaced  robberies  in 
the  very  streets  of  Madrid ;  of  dili- 
gences stopped,  and  travellers  plun- 
dered and  abused ;  of  fanners  and 
others  carried  off  to  the  mountains  in 
open  day,  and  detained  until  ran- 
somed ;  and  with  letters  from  all  parts  . 
of  the  country,  complaining  of  the  in- 
security of  life  and  property,  and  of 
the  sluggishness  and  inefficiency  of 
the  authorities.  Such  statements  are 
of  course  rarely  admitted  into  the 
ministerial  prints,  to  read  which  one 
would  imagine  that  the  very  last 
malefactor  in  the  country  had  just 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  guardias 
civiles,  and  that  a  virgin  might  conduct 
a  gold-laden  mule  from  Santauder  to 
Cadiz,  unguarded  and  unmolested. 

Since  the  death  of  Ferdinand,  no 
such  opportunity  of  improving  and 
regenerating  Spain  has  been  afforded 
to  a  Spanish  ministry,  really  solicitous 
of  their  country's  good,  as  during  the 


present  year.  It  opened  inauspiciously 
enough  ;  with  an  impoverished  exche- 
quer,  a  ruinously  expensive  army, 
Cabrera  and  ten  thousand  Carlists  in 
arms  in  eastern  Spain,  and  with  insur- 
gent bands,  of  various  political  deno- 
minations, springing  up  in  Navarre 
and  other  provinces.   There  was  every 
prospect  of  a  bloody  civil  war  in  early 
spring.    But  causes,  similar  to  those 
which,  on  former  occasions,  had  frus- 
trated their  efforts,  again  proved  fatal 
to  the  hopes  of  the  Carlist  party. 
With  great  difficulty,  and  with  little 
aid  beyond  that  of  contributions  levied 
in  Catalonia,  Cabrera  had  subsisted 
his  troops  through  the  winter.    But, 
when  spring  approached,  money  was 
needed  for  other   purposes    besides 
mere  rations.    In  the  civil  wars  of 
Spain,  gold  has  often  been  far  more 
efficacious  than  steel  to  overcome  dif- 
ficulties and  gain  a  point.    But  gold 
was  hard  to  pMain.    Revolutions  had 
raised  its  valfw;  and  those  who  pos- 
sessed it  were  loath  to  embark  it  in  so 
hazardous  a  speculation  as  the  resto- 
ration of  Count  Montemolin.    This 
prince,  who,  for  a  Spanish  Bourbon, 
is  not  deficient  in  natural  ability,  has 
one  unfortunate  defect,  which  more 
than  counterbalances  his  good  quali- 
ties.   Infirm  of  purpose,  he  is  led  by 
a  clique  of  selfish  and  unworthy  ad- 
visers, some  of  whom — evil  counsel- 
lors   handed    down   to   him   by  his 
father — have  retained  all  the  influence 
they  acquired  over  him  in  his  child- 
hood.   Amidst  the  petty  wranglings 
and  deplorable  indecisions  of  these 
men,  time  wore  away.     A  sum  of 
money  (no  very  large  one)  was  all 
that  was  needed  to  achieve  a  great 
object,  which  would  at  once  have  mul- 
tiplied fifty-fold  the  prestige  of  the 
Montemolinist  cause,  and  have  placed 
vast  resources  at  the  disposal  of  its 
partisans.    Between  the  sum  required 
and  the  advantage  certain  to  be  ob- 
tained, the  disproportion  was  enor- 
mous.    Letter  after  letter  was  re- 
ceived from  Cabrera  and  other  pro- 
moters of   the  Montemolinist  cause 
in  France  and  Spain,  urging  and  im- 
ploring that,    at    any  sacrifice,  the 
money  should  be  procured.    But  this 
was  beyond  the  power  of  the  incapable 
ojalateros  who  surrounded  the  young 
pretender.     Without  conduct,  energy, 
or  dignity,  they  had  not  a  single  qua- 


708 


Spam  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


lity  calculated  to  obtain  credit  or  induce 
confidence.  In  all  their  attempts  they 
miserably  failed.  At  last,  towards 
the  end  of  March,  a  rumour  was  spread 
abroad  that  Count  Montemolin  was 
on  his  way  to  Catalonia,  to  head  his 
faithful  adherents.  Soon  this  was 
confirmed  by  newspaper  paragraphs, 
and  presently  came  a  romantic  account 
of  his  arrest  on  the  frontier,  when 
about  to  enter  Spain.  The  next  news 
was  that  of  his  return  to  England, 
which  was  almost  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  an  article  in  a  London  paper, 
denying  point-blank  that  he  had  ever 
left  this  country,  declaring  that  the 
journey  was  a  hoax,  and  that  the 
Spanish  prince  had  been  arrested  by 
proxy.  And  although  this  article, 
which  was  extensively  copied  by  the 
press  of  England  and  the  Continent, 
elicited  an  angry  contradiction  from 
a  hanger-on  of  Count  Montemolin, 
yet  many  persons,  of  those  most  versed 
in  the  intricacies  of  Spanish  intrigue, 
were  convinced  that  its  statements 
were  founded  on  fact,  and  that  the 
Count  was  in  reality  secreted  in  Lon- 
don at  the  very  time  he  was  supposed 
to  be  travelling  towards  the  Pyrenees. 
And  some  of  his  own  partisans,  who 
credited  the  reality  of  the  journey,  de- 
clared their  conviction  from  the  first 
to  have  been,  that  ho  would  be  be- 
trayed before  he  got  through  France, 
since  by  that  means  only  could  certain 
individuals,  who  dared  not  refuse  to 
accompany  him,  hope  to  return  to 
the  flesh-pots  and  security  of  their 
London  home,  and  to  avoid  encottn- 
tering  the  perils  and  hardships  of 
mountain  warfare.  The  abortive 
journey  or  clumsy  hoax,  whichever 
it  was,  gave  the  finishing  stroke 
to  the  Catalonian  insurrection.  Ca- 
brera, seeing  plainly  that  nothing  was 
to  be  hoped  from  the  feeble  and 
pusillanimous  junta  of  advisers  who 
swayed  and  bewildered  Count  Mon- 
temolin by  their  intrigues  and  dis- 
sensions, found  it  necessary,  after 
sending  repeated  and  indignant  letters 
and  messages  to  London,  to  abandon 
a  contest  which  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  maintain  single-handed,  and 
from  which  many  subordinate  chiefs, 
and  a  large  portion  of  his  troops,  had 
already  seceded.  His  little  army  fell 
to  pieces,  and  he  himself  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  French  authorities,  by 


whom,  after  a  brief  detention,  he  was 
allowed  to  go  at  large.  The  game 
was  now  good  for  General  Concha  and 
his  fifty  thousand  men.  The  scatter- 
ing and  hunting  down  of  the  broken 
bands  of  insurgents  was  exactly  the 
sort  of  amusement  they  liked  ;  a  fine 
pretext  for  magnificent  bulletins,  and 
the  easiest  possible  way  of  gaining 
praise,  honours,  and  decorations.  Be- 
fore summer  came,  Catalonia  was 
quiet.  The  most  vigorous  effort  made 
by  the  Carlists  since  the  Convention 
of  Bergara ;  the  one  offering  the  best 
chances  of  success,  and  on  which  the 
very  last  resources  of  the  party, 
(even,  it  is  said,  to  a  few  jewels  and 
pictures  of  price — the  last  relics  of 
princely  splendour,)  had  been  ex- 
pended ;  the  effort,  in  short,  of  whose 
happy  issue  such  sanguine  expecta- 
tions were  entertained,  that  some  of 
the  leading  adherents  of  the  cause  de- 
clared that,  "  if  they  failed  this  time, 
they  deserved  never  to  succeed,"  had 
terminated  in  complete  abortion.  On 
the  sierras  of  Spain  not  a  Carlist 
cockade  was  to  be  seen  ;  in  the  coffers 
of  the  party  not  a  dollar  remained. 
Many  of  its  most  valued  members, 
disgusted  by  the  weakness  of  their 
prince,  and  by  the  baseness  of  his  coun- 
cillors, withdrew  from  its  ranks,  and 
made  their  peace  with  the  existing 
government.  And  now  the  most 
steadfast  well- wishers  of  Count  Mon- 
temolin are  compelled  to  admit,  that 
few  contingencies  are  less  probable 
than  his  installation  on  the  Spanish 
throne. 

Delivered  from  the  disquietude  and 
expense  of  civil  war,  backed  by  an 
overwhelming  majority  in  the  Cham- 
bers, and  having  no  longer  anything 
to  fear  from  that  "  English  influence," 
of  which  the  organs  of  Christina  and 
Louis  Philippe  had  made  such  a  bug- 
bear, the  Spanish  government,  it  was 
expected,  would  deem  the  moment 
favourable  for  those  reforms  so  greatly 
needed  by  the  country.  It  was  full 
time,  and  it  was  now  quite  practicable, 
to  adopt  extensive  and  systematic 
measures  of  retrenchment  in  the 
various  departments  of  the  adminis- 
tration ;  to  reduce  the  army;  to  regu- 
larise and  lessen  the  expense  of  col- 
lecting the  revenue,  which,  like  a  crop 
intrusted  to  negligent  and  dishonest 
reapers,  is  wasted  and  pillaged  in  the 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


709 


gathering  ;  to  encourage  labour  and 
industry  ;  to  stimulate  private  enter- 
prise, to  which  the  tranquillity  of 
Spain  was  sure  to  give  a  first  impetus ; 
to  encourage  and  co- operate  in  the 
formation  of  roads  and  canals,  so 
essential  to  agriculture,  which  there 
languishes  for  want  of  them  ;  to  give 
a  death-blow  to  smuggling  by  an 
honest  and  sweeping  reform  of  the 
absurd  tariff ;  and,  if  they  could  not 
give  money  to  the  public  creditor,  at 
least  to  come  to  a  loyal  understanding 
and  arrangement  with  him,  instead  of 
vexatiously  deluding  him  with  fair 
promises,  never  kept.  Instead  of  at 
once,  and  in  good  faith,  setting  about 
these,  and  many  other  equally  requi- 
site reforms,  in  whose  prosecution 
they  would  have  been  supported 
by  a  large  number  of  their  pi'esent 
political  opponents;  instead  of  riveting 
their  attention  on  the  internal  mala- 
dies and  necessities  of  the  country, 
and  striving  strenuously  for  their  cure, 
— turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  clamorous 
voices  abroad  in  Europe,  and  thank- 
ing heaven  that  the  position  and 
weakness  of  their  country  allowed  her 
to  stand  aloof  from  the  struggles  of 
her  neighbours — what  did  the  Spanish 
government?  They  acted  like  a 
needy  spendthrift  who,  having  sud- 
denly come  into  possession  of  a  little 
gold,  fancies  himself  a  Croesus,  and 
squanders  it  in  luxurious  superfluities. 
They  had  come  into  possession  of  a 
little  tranquillity — in  Spain  a  treasure 
far  rarer  and  more  precious  than 
gold  —  and,  instead  of  using  it  for 
their  necessities,  they  lavished  it 
abroad.  Aping  wealthy  and  power- 
ful nations,  they  aspire  to  interfere  in 
the  domestic  aifairs  of  others,  before 
thinking  of  putting  their  own  house 
in  order.  Home  is  to  be  the  scene  of 
their  exploits,  religion  their  pretext, 
the  Pope  the  gainer  by  their  exertions. 
From  their  eagerness  in  the  crusade, 
it  might  be  supposed  that  Rome  and 
the  pontiff  had  some  great  and  peculiar 
claim  on  the  gratitude  and  exertions 
of  Spain;  with  which  country,  on  the 
contrary,  ever  since  the  death  of  Ferdi- 
nand of  petticoat- making  memory,  un- 
til qnite  recently,  they  have  been  on  the 
•worst  possible  terms — the  Holy  See 
having  openly  supported  the  cause  of 
Don  Carlos,  refused  the  recognition  of 
Isabella,  and  the  investiture  of  the 


prelates  she  appointed,  and  played  a 
variety  of  unfriendly  pranks,  of  no 
material  consequence,  but  yet  exceed- 
ingly painful  and  galling  to  the 
bigoted  portion  of  the  nation,  who 
considered  their  chances  of  salvation 
not  a  little  compromised,  so  long  as 
their  government  was  thus  in  evil 
odour  and  non- communication  with 
the  head  of  the  Church.  Altogether, 
the  attitude  assumed  by  Rome  to- 
wards Spain,  since  1833,  was  most 
detrimental  to  Queen  Isabella,  because 
it  sent  a  vast  number  of  priests  (al- 
ways active  and  influential  partisans) 
to  the  side  of  the  Pretender.  Con- 
sidering these  circumstances,  when 
Rome  at  last,  at  its  own  good  time, 
and  in  consideration  of  concessions, 
and  also  because  it  suffered  pecuniarily 
by  the  duration  of  the  rupture,  again 
took  Spain  into  favour,  and  acknow- 
ledged her  queen  as  Most  Catholic, 
Spain,  in  her  impoverished  condition, 
would  surely  have  sufficiently  re- 
sponded by  her  best  wishesfor  the  pros- 
perity of  the  Pope,  and  for  the  safety  of 
his  pontifical  throne.  She  might  also, 
if  it  was  desired,  have  sent  that  poeti- 
cal statesman,  M.  Martinez  do  la  Rosa, 
to  display  his  eloquence  in  Italian 
counsels.  But  Spanish  pride,  the 
bigotry  of  the  queen-mother  and  her 
son-in-law,  the  fanaticism  of  some, 
and  the  hypocrisy  of  others,  could 
not  be  contented  with  this.  Pinched, 
starved,  indebted,  as  Spain  is,  nothing 
would  serve  but  to  despatch  to  Italy, 
at  heavy  cost,  a  useless  corps  darmee. 
Little  enough  has  it  achieved.  The 
troops  have  got  a  bad  name  by  their 
excesses,  and  the  generals  have  been 
treated  slightingly,  almost  contemp- 
tuously, by  the  French  commanders, 
who,  doubtless,  at  sight  of  the  half- 
disciplined  Dons,  felt  old  animosities 
revive,  and  thought  how  much  they 
should  prefer  a  trip  to  the  Trocadero 
to  this  inglorious  and  unprofitable 
Italian  campaign.  To  console  Ge- 
neral Cordova  and  his  staff,  however, 
for  the  necessity  of  playing  second 
fiddle  to  the  French,  they  have  been 
praised,  and  caressed,  and  decorated 
by  his  Holiness,  and  by  that  enlight- 
ened monarch,  Ferdinand  of  Naples  ; 
and  they  have  been  allowed  to  send 
an  aide-de-camp  to  Barcelona  for 
three  nice  little  Spanish  uniforms,  % 
which  they  are  to  have  the  honour  of ' 


710 


Spain  tinder  Narvafz  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


presenting  to  three  nice  little  Neapoli- 
tan princes.  Whilst  this  popinjay 
general  and  his  men-at-arms  idle  their 
time,  and  spend  their  pay,  in  Italian 
quarters,  the  Moors  besiege'and  can- 
nonade the  Spanish  possessions  in 
Africa,  within  sight  of  the  Andalusian 
coast,  whence  not  a  soldier  is  sent  to 
the  assistance  of  the  beleaguered  gar- 
risons. A  most  characteristic  sample 
of  "  things  of  Spain."  In  this  country 
we  are  blind  to  the  propriety  of  leav- 
ing your  own  barn  to  be  pulled  down, 
whilst  you  build  up  your  neighbour's 
mansion.  And,  to  our  matter-of-fact 
comprehension,  it  seems  dishonest 
to  waste  money  in  a  frivolous  for- 
eign expedition,  when  starving  credi- 
tors are  knocking  at  the  door.  But 
we  are  a  shop -keeping  people,  and  it 
is  folly  to  subject  Spanish  chivalry  to 
the  gauge  of  such  grovelling,  mer- 
cantile ideas. 

Notwithstanding  the  draft  of  troops 
to  Italy,  the  Spanish  government  has 
ventured  to  decree  an  extensive  reduc- 
tion in  the  army.  In  view  of  the  penury 
of  the  exchequer,  of  the  total  suppres- 
sion of  the  Carlist  insurrection,  and 
of  thesmall  probability  of  any  fresh  out- 
break in  a  country  worn  out  as  Spain 
is  by  civil  wars  and  commotions,  they 
could  not,  in  common  decency,  avoid 
some  such  economical  measure.  So  a 
third  of  the  army  has  been  formed 
into  a  reserve,  which  means  that 
the  officers  retain  their  full  pay — with 
the  exception  of  those  who  volun- 
tarily exchange  from  the  active  army 
into  the  reserve,  thereby  putting 
themselves  on  half-pay— and  that  the 
sergeants  and  privates,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  a  skeleton  staff,  return  to 
their  homes,  and  no  longer  receive 
pay  or  rations  ;  but  are  to  hold  them- 
selves in  readiness,  until  theregular ex- 
piration of  their  term  of  service,  to  join 
their  colours  when  required.  From  this 
measure  the  government  anticipates  a 
great  saving,  and  their  partisans  hint  a 
million  sterling  as  its  probable  amount. 
But  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  Spanish  admi- 
nistration that  the  real  economy  of  a 
change  of  this  kind  can  never  be  as- 
certained, even  approximatively,  until 
it  has  been  for  some  time  in  force, 
By  a  strange  fatality,  the  most  brilliant 
theoretical  retrenchments  crumble  into 
dust  when  reduced  to  practice.  This 
-has  been  so  repeatedly  the  case  in  Spain , 


that  we  receive  such  announcements 
with  natural  distrust.  In  this  in- 
stance, however,  it  is  impossible  to 
doubt  that  there  will  be  a  considerable 
saving,  although  far  less  than  would  at 
first  sight  be  expected  from  the  reduc- 
tion, by  nearly  one- third,  of  an  army  of 
120,000  men.  The  reduction  will  de 
/actobe  confined  to  the  soldiers  and  non- 
commissioned officers;  for,  half-pay  iu 
Spain  being  a  wretched  pittance,  and 
usually  many  months  in  arrear,  few- 
officers  are  likely  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  option  afforded  them.  With  refe- 
rence to  this  subject,  we  shall  quote  an 
extract  from  a  Madrid  newspaper, 
a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  present 
government,  but  whose  statistics  we 
have  never  found  otherwise  than  trust- 
worthy ;  and  which,  in  this  case, 
would  hardly  venture  to  mis-state 
factsso  easyof  investigation.  "  Calcu- 
lating," says  the  Clamor Publico  of  the 
30th  October  1849,  "  that  the  reduc- 
tion in  the  active  army  amounts  to 
40,000  men,  there  still  remain  80,000, 
too  great  a  number  for  a  nation  which 
yields  no  more  than  90,000  electors  of 
deputies  to  the  Cortes  ;  besides  which 
there  should  also  be  reductions  in  the 
staff.  In  Spain  there  is  a  general  for 
every  four  hundred  soldiers — [we  be- 
lieve the  Clamorto  be  mistaken,  and  the 
proportions  of  generals  to  be  even  larger 
than  here  stated ;]  and  although  we  do 
not  possess  any  great  magazines  of 
clothing,  arms,  ammunition  and  other 
military  stores,  our  army  is  yet  the- 
dearest  of  the  whole  European  con- 
tinent, as  is  proved  by  the  following 
statement.  [A  statement  follows  of 
the  annual  cost  of  a  soldier  in  the 
principal  Continental  services,  showing 
the  Spanish  soldier  to  be  the  most 
expensive  of  all.]  From  all  which 
we  infer  that  the  economy  decreed  is 
by  no  means  that  required  by  the  con- 
dition of  the  treasury,  and  permitted 
by  our  present  state  of  profound  peace. 
The  Spanish  nation  cannot  maintain 
the  immense  army  with  which  it  is 
burdened.  Retain,  by  all  means, 
the  artillery,  the  engineers,  the  staff- 
corps,  and  the  other  elements  of  war 
which  cannot  be  created  at  brief 
notice.  Keep  up,  on  full  pay,  the 
framework  of  officers  necessary  to 
form,  at  two  months'  notice,  an  army 
of  one  hundred  thousand  men  on  a  war 
establishment,  whenever  it  may  be 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


711 


necessary;  but,  whilst  we  are  at  peace, 
restore  to  agriculture  and  the  arts  a 
portion  of  the  men  now  employed  in 
carrying  arms."  Under  the  regency 
of  Espartero,  the  Spanish  army  was 
reduced  to  50,000  men,  and  that  when 
the  country  was  far  less  tranquil 
than  at  present,  when  a  Moderado 
junta  was  plotting,  at  Paris,  the 
downfall  of  the  government,  and 
Christina  and  Louis  Philippe  fur- 
nished abundant  means  of  corruption. 
Then  such  an  army  was  too  small ; 
now  it  might  well  be  deemed  ample 
for  a  country  that  at  most  contains 
thirteen  or  fourteen  millions  of  inha- 
bitants, with  few  fortresses  to  garri- 
son, few  large  towns  in  which  to 
guard  against  insurrection,  and,  above 
all,  with  a  population  that  would  evi- 
dently rather  submit  to  misgovern- 
ment  than  plunge  again  into  war. 
From  external  foes  Spain  has  nothing 
to  fear ;  and,  even  if  she  had,  we  are 
by  no  means  sure  that,  paradoxical 
as  it  may  seem,  a  reduction  in  her 
army  would  not  be  one  of  the  best 
means  of  guarding  against  them.  For 
retrenchments  that  would  enable  her 
to  acquit  herself,  at  least  in  part,  to- 
wards her  foreign  creditors,  would 
assuredly  procure  her,  in  the  hour  of 
need,  friends  and  allies  far  more  effi- 
cient in  her  defence  than  her  own 
armies  could  possibly  be.  For  how- 
ever prone  the  Spaniards  as  a 
people  are  to  exaggerate  their  power 
and  means  of  self-defence,  it  must 
surely  be  patent  to  the  sensible  por- 
tion of  the  nation  that,  in  case  of  ag- 
gression from  without,  they  must  look 
for  aid  to  France  or  England.  And 
although  it  will  doubtless  confirm  the 
opinion  of  Spanish  Modcrados  and 
French  Orleanists  as  to  the  invariably 
mercenary  motives  of  Great  Britain, 
we  will  not  conceal  our  conviction 
that  the  readiness  of  this  country  to 
succour  Spain  would  be  much  greater 
if  she  were  paying  her  debt  to  English 
bondholders,  than  if  she  were  still  inher 
present  state  of  disreputable  insolvency. 
At  least  we  are  quite  certain  that 
"the  pressure  from  without"  would 
be  materially  influenced  by  such  a 
consideration.  And  this  reflection 
naturally  leads  us  to  ask  in  what 


position  Spain  would  have  found  her- 
self, had  the  projected  expedition  from 
the  United  States  against  Cuba  taken 
place  and  succeeded.  The  danger 
appears  at  an  end  for  the  present; 
but  it  may  recur,  under  the  rule  of  an 
American  president  who  will  not  in- 
terfere to  prevent  the  piratical  enter- 
prise. As  to  its  chances  of  success, 
we  find  some  striking  facts  whereon 
to  base  an  opinion,  in  a  recently 
published  book  on  Cuba,  the  work  of 
an  intelligent  and  practical  man,  on 
whose  statements  and  opinions  we  are 
disposed  to  set  a  high  value.*  From 
MrMadden's  evidence  it  is  quite  plain 
that  the  Spanish  colonial  government 
is  admirably  calculated  to  excite  a 
desire  of  independence,  or,  failing 
that,  of  annexation  to  America,  in  the 
breasts  of  the  people  of  the  Havana  ; 
and  what  is  more,  that  it  has  already 
done  so,  and  that  a  body  of  liberators 
from  the  States  might  confidently 
reckon  on  being  received  with  open 
arms  by  a  very  considerable  fraction 
of  the  inhabitants.  When  the  mother 
country  is  deplorably  misruled,  it  is  not 
to  be  expected  that  the  dependencies 
should  be  models  of  good  government. 

"In  1812,"  says  Mr  Madden,  "the 
constitution  being  proclaimed  in  Spain, 
the  whole  people  of  the  colonies  were 
assimilated  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  mo- 
ther country,  with  respect  to  representa- 
tion  In  1818,  the  good  effects  of 

colonial  representation  were  manifested 
in  the  successful  efforts  of  Senor  Arango 
with  the  king,  Ferdinand  VII.,  for  Cuban 
interests.  He  obtained  a  royal  ordinance 
from  his  majesty  for  the  abolition  of  re- 
strictions on  Cuban  commerce.  From  this 
epoch,  the  prosperity  of  the  island  may 
be  dated.  Instead  of  being  a  charge  to 
the  imperial  government,  it  began  to  re- 
mit large  sums  of  money  yearly  to  Spain; 
instead  of  having  authorities  and  troops 
paid  by  the  latter,  both  were  henceforth 
paid  by  Cuba.  An  army  of  25,000  men, 
sent  from  Spain  in  a  miserable  plight, 
was  maintained  in  Cuba,  in  a  few  years 
entirely  equipped  and  clothed,  and  dis- 
ciplined in  the  best  manner, without  cost- 
ing a  real  to  the  Spanish  government. 
From  1830,  the  treasury  of  the  Havana, 
in  every  embarrassment  of  the  home 
government,  furnished  Spain  with  means, 
and  was,  in  fact,  a  reserved  fund  for  all 
its  pressing  emergencies.  When  the  civil 


*  The  Island  of  Cuba  :  its  Resources,  Progress,  and  Prospects.    By  R.  R.  MADDEN, 
M.R.I.A.     London:  18-19. 


712 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec, 


list  failed  Queen  Christina,  Cuba  furnished 
the  means  of  defraying  the  profuse  expen- 
diture of  the  palace.  The  contributions 
arising  from  the  island  formed  no  small 
portion,  indeed,  of  the  riches  bequeathed 
by  Ferdinand  VII.  to  his  rapacious  widow, 
and  to  his  reputed  daughters." 

In  1841,  the  same  writer  says,  Cuba 
yielded  a  net  revenue  to  Spain  of  a 
million  and  a  quarter  sterling,  fur- 
nished timber  and  stores  largely  for  the 
Spanish  navy,  and  entirely  supported 
the  Spanish  army  in  Cuba.  From 
the  amount  here  stated,  deductions 
had  to  be  made,  or  else  the  revenue 
has  diminished  since  that  date ;  for  Mr 
Madden  subsequently  sums  up  by  say- 
ing, that "  Cuba  produces  a  revenue  of 
from  ten  to  fifteen  millions  of  dollars ; 
of  this  amount,  upwards  of  three  mil- 
lions (£600,000  sterling)  are  remitted 
to  Madrid ;  and  these  three  millions  of 
taxes  are  paid  by  a  class  not  exceed- 
ing four  hundred  thousand  inhabitants, 
of  free  persons  of  all  complexions." 
A  Spanish  writer  estimates  the  reve- 
nue, in  1839,  at  eleven  millions  of  dol- 
lars ;  *  and  an  English  one,  who  had 
good  opportunities  of  obtaining  infor- 
mation, although  he  is  sometimes  ra- 
ther loose  in  his  statements,  declared, 
six  years  later,  that  "  Cuba  contri- 
butes fifty  millions  of  reals,  or  £500,000 
sterling,  of  clear  annual  revenue  to 
the  Spanish  crown."t  From  this  con- 
current testimony,  the  sum  annually 
pocketed  by  the  mother  country  may 
be  estimated  at  £500,000  to  £600,000 
sterling;  an  important  item  in  the 
receipts  of  the  Madrid  government 
— more  so,  even,  from  its  liquid  and 
availablenature,than  from  its  amount. 
Moreover  the  revenues  of  Cuba,  like 
the  mines  of  Almaden,  are  a  ready 
resource  as  security  for  a  loan.  But 
how  has  Spain  requited  the  services 
of  her  richest  colony?  Of  course 
with  gross  ingratitude.  Strange  to 
say,  the  equality  of  rights  sanctioned 
by  the  despotic  Ferdinand  was  arbi- 
trarily wrenched  from  Cuba  by  the 
liberal  government  that  succeeded 
him. 

"  The  new  Spanish  constitution  shut 
out  the  colonists  from  the  imperial  repre- 
sentation. This  most  unjust,  impolitic, 
and  irritating  measure  affords  a  fair  spe- 


cimen of  the  liberality  and  wisdom  of 
Spanish  liberalism.  It  produced  a  feel- 
ing of  hatred  against  the  mother  country 
that  never  before  existed  in  Cuba.  In 
1836-7-8-9,  [years  passed  by  Mr  Mad- 
den in  the  Havana,]  a  general  feeling 
of  disaffection  pervaded  the  whole  white 
Creole  community  of  Cuba.  All  the  intel- 
ligence, education,  worth,  and  influence 
of  the  white  natives  of  the  island  (or 
Creoles,  as  they  are  there  called)  was 
enlisted  against  the  government  and  the 
sovereign  of  Spain,  and  an  intense  desire 
for  independence  excited.  The  old  rapa- 
cious policy  of  Spain  was  renewed,  of 
considering  every  species  of  Cuban  pro- 
duce as  a  commodity  of  a  distant  region, 
that  it  was  legitimate  to  burden  with 
oppressive  taxes."  J 

Now,  it  appears  that  by  one  of  those 
strange  absurdities  which  are  of  no 
unfrequent  occurrence  in  Spanish  go- 
vernments, American  settlers  in  Cuba 
have  been,  and  still  are,  exempt 
from  a  variety  of  personal  contribu- 
tions and  other  imposts,  which  the 
natives  have  to  pay.  The  laws  of  the 
island  forbid  the  establishment  of 
foreigners  in  Cuba;  and  though  the 
settlement  of  Americans  has  been 
connived  at,  out  of  respect  to  the  laws 
the  settlers  were  supposed,  by  a  curi- 
ous fiction,  not  to  exist.  Hence  the 
exemption. 

"  This  immunity,"  says  Mr  Madden, 
(p.  83,)  "  drew  great  numbers  of  settlers 
to  Cuba,  from  the  Southern  States  of 
America;  so  that  some  districts  on  the 
northern  shores  of  the  island,  in  the  vici- 
nity, especially,  of  Cardenas  and  Matan- 
zas,  have  more  the  character  of  American 
than  Spanish  settlements.  The  prosperity 
of  the  island  has  derived  no  small  advan- 
tage from  those  numerous  American  esta- 
blishments. Improved  modes  of  agricul- 
ture, of  fabrication,  of  conveyance,  were 
introduced  by  the  Americans.  Several 
railways  have  been  made.  In  the  course 
of  ten  years,  no  less  than  ten  have  been 
carried  into  effect.  At  the  opening  of  the 
first,  from  Havana  to  Guines,  in  1837,1 
was  present.  To  American  enterprise 
and  energy  solely,  I  have  reason  to  know, 
this  great  undertaking  was  indebted.  The 
loan  for  it  was  made  in  England;  but  the 
projectors,  the  share-jobbers,  the  engineer, 
and  the  overseers,  were  Americans.  .  .  . 
Cuba,  ever  since  I  knew  it,  has  been 
slowly  but  steadily  becoming  American- 


*  MAELIANI,  ii.  472. 


f  HUGHES'  Revelations  of  Spain,  ii.  383. 
The  Island  of  Cuba,  pp.  55-6. 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


713 


ised.  I  pestered  my  superiors  -with  my 
opinions  on  this  subject  in  1836-7-8-9. 
*  Liberayi  animam  meam '  might  be  fairly 
said  by  me,  if  the  star-spangled  banner 
were  floating  to-morrow  on  the  Moro 
Castle^  or  flaunting  in  the  breeze  at  St 
lago  de  Cuba.  In  the  course  of  seven 
years  a  feeling,  strongly  prevalent  in  the 
colony,  in  favour  of  independence,  has 
been  changed  into  a  desire  for  connexion 
with  the  United  States.  It  is  needless 
for  recent  political  writers  on  Cuba  to 
deny  the  existence  of  a  strong  feeling  of 
animosity  to  the  mother  country,  and  a 
longing  desire  for  separation.  From  my 
own  intimate  knowledge  of  these  facts,  I 
epeak  of  their  existence.  If  England 
could  have  been  induced,  in  1837,  to  gua- 
rantee the  island  of  Cuba  from  the  inter- 
vention of  any  foreign  power,  the  white 
inhabitants  were  prepared  to  throw  off 
the  Spanish  yoke.  There  was  then  a 
Spanish  army  nominally  of  twenty  thou- 
sand men  in  the  island,  but  the  actual 
number  of  native  Spaniards  in  it  did  not 
exceed  sixteen  thousand.  The  leading 
men  of  the  Creoles  had  then  little  appre- 
hensions of  the  result  of  an  effort  for  in- 
dependence. A  liberal  allotment  of  land 
in  the  island,  for  the  soldiers  who  might 
be  disposed  to  join  the  independent  party, 
was  a  prospect,  it  was  expected,  which 
would  suffice  to  gain  over  the  army.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  to  England,  now,  that  the  white 
natives  of  Cuba  look  for  aid  or  counte- 
nance in  any  future  effort  for  independ- 
ence. It  is  to  America  that  they  now 
turn  their  eyes;  and  America  takes  good 
carp  to  respond  to  the  wishes  that  are 
eecretly  expressed  in  those  regards." 

These  are  the  opinions  of  a  man 
several  years  resident  in  Cuba,  evi- 
dently a  shrewd  observer,  and  who 
can  hardly  be  suspected  of  misrepre- 
sentation on  this  bead;  and  we  do 
not  hesitate  to  place  confidence  in 
them  in  preference  to  the  rose-tinted 
acconnts  of  the  Madrid  Heraldo,  and 
other  official  prints,  according  to 
which  the  present  happiness,  pros- 
perity, and  loyalty  of  the  Havaneros 
are  such  as  were  never  surpassed  in 
the  annals  of  colonies.  Mr  Madden, 
we  have  seen,  is  of  opinion  that  the 
Creoles  and  resident  Americans,  if 
guaranteed  from  foreign  intervention, 
are  of  themselves  a  match  for  Spain, 
and  could  throw  off  her  yoke  and  defy 
her  efforts  to  reimpose  it.  What, 
then,  would  be  the  state  of  affairs,  if 
three  or  four  thousand  Yankee  volun- 
teers, who,  by  themselves,  we  suspect, 
could  give  occupation  to  all  the  dis- 


posable part  of  the  sixteen  thousand 
Spaniards  in  garrison,  were  suddenly 
to  drop  upon  the  Cuban  shore,  by 
preconcerted  arrangement  with  the 
disaffected?  In  1849  this  has  been 
within  an  ace  of  occurring;  in  a  future 
year,  not  very  remote,  it  may  actually 
occur.  What  would  Spain  do,  when 
news  were  brought  her  that  the  red- 
and-yellow  banner  was  replaced  by 
the  speckled  bunting  of  the  States? 
Would  she  declare  war  against  Ameri- 
ca, on  the  strength  of  the  war- 
steamers  she  has  been  lately  building 
with  her  creditors'  money?  Brother 
Jonathan,  we  suspect,  would  mightily 
chuckle  at  the  notion,  and  immediately 
seize  Puerto  Rico,  and  perhaps  make 
a  dash  at  the  Philippines.  But  the 
Spanish  government,  loud  as  they  can 
bluster  when  sure  of  impunity,  would 
hardly  render  themselves  so  ridicu- 
lous. No;  in  the  hour  of  their  dis- 
tress they  would  piteously  look  abroad 
for  succour,  and  turn  their  discomfited 
countenance  to  the  old  ally  to  whom, 
in  'their  brief  day  of  seeming  pros- 
perity, they  forgot  their  numerous 
obligations.  It  is  our  belief  their  ap- 
peal would  not  be  made  in  vain.  But 
although  this  country,  being  great  and 
powerful,  could  afford  to  forget  its 
cause  of  complaint — as  a  man  over- 
looks the  petulance  of  a  froward  child 
— it  would  be  right  and  fitting  that 
an  amende  honorable  should  previously 
be  exacted  from  Spain,  and  that 
humiliation  should  be  inflicted  on  her 
arrogant  government,  for  an  insult 
which,  let  them  mis-state  the  circum- 
stances as  they  like,was  far  from  justi- 
fied by  the  alleged  provocation.  And 
moreover,  before  a  move  was  made, 
or  a  note  transmitted  by  the  British 
government  on  behalf  of  Spain-robbed- 
of-its-Cuba,  a  solid  guarantee  should 
unquestionably  be  exacted  for  an 
equitable  and  speedy  adjustment  of 
the  claims  of  the  ill-nsed  holders  of 
Spanish  bonds. 

These  gentlemen,  roused  at  last  by 
a  long  series  of  neglect  and  broken 
promises  to  depart  from  the  suaviter 
in  modo,  and  to  substitute  an  energetic 
remonstrance  for  the  honeyed  and 
complimentary  epistles  they  have  been 
wont  to  address  to  the  president  of 
the  Spanish  council,  are  raising  a  fund 
to  be  employed  in  the  advocacy  of 
their  claims  by  an  agent  in  Madrid. 


7U 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


Although  the  gradual  progress  of  the 
subscription  does  not  bespeak  the 
fund-holders  very  sanguine  in  their 
hopes,  they  may  rest  assured  that  this 
is  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  Their 
only  hope  is  in  agitation — in  keeping 
their  just  and  shamefully-neglected 
claims  before  the  world,  and  in  such  a 
conjunction  of  circumstances  as  may 
enable  the  cabinet  of  St  James's  to 
put  on  the  screw,  and  compel  the 
Spanish  government  to  be  honest. 
As  to  an  appeal  to  arms,  however  it 
might  be  justified  in  equity,  and  by 
references  to  Vatel  and  other  great 
authorities,  it  would  hardly  be  con- 
sonant with  prudence,  or  with  the 
spirit  of  the  times :  but  other  means 
may  be  devised ;  and  in  the  event  of 
a  European  war,  we  can  imagine  more 
than  one  circumstance  in  which,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  seizure  of  Cuba  by 
America,  Spain  would  be  too  happy 
to  subscribe  to  the  just  conditions  this 
country  might  impose  for  the  settle- 
ment of  English  claims.  But  there  is 
danger  in  delay;  and  if  we  are  un- 
willing to  believe  that  Spain  is,  in  the 
words  of  one  who  knows  her  well, 
"irremediably  insolvent,"*  there  is 
no  doubt  she  must  speedily  become 
so,  unless  some  radical  change  takes 
place  in  the  views  and  system  of  her 
rulers.  What  she  needs  is  an  honest 
government,  composed  of  men  who 
will  make  their  own  advantage  sub- 
servient to  their  country's  weal.  "  My 
firm  conviction,"  says  Marliani,  "is, 
that  when  the  day  comes  that  men  of 
heart  and  head  shall  seize,  with  a  firm 
grasp,  the  rudder  of  this  vessel  now 
abandoned  to  the  uncertain  move- 
ment of  the  political  waves,  they  will 
take  her  into  port.  Spain  is  in  the 
best  possible  position  to  make  a  giant's 
stride  in  the  path  of  prosperity.  She 
offers  to  the  foreigner  a  thousand 
honourable  and  profitable  specula- 
tions ;  the  application  of  capital  to 
public  works,  to  agriculture,  to  mines, 
will  be  an  inexhaustible  source  of 
profit."!  "NVhen  M.  Marliani  wrote 
this,  capitalists  were  more  prone  to 
embark  their  money  in  distant  specu- 
lations than  at  the  present  day.  But 
still  the  principle  holds  good;  and 
there  can  be  no  question  in  the  minds 


of  any  who  have  studied  Spain,  that 
an  honest  and  moderately  able  govern- 
ment is  all  that  is  wanted  to  develop 
her  vast  resources,  and  enable  her  to 
come  to  an  honourable  compromise 
with  her  creditors,  who,  there  can  be 
little  doubt,  would  show  themselves 
accommodating,  if  they  saw  evidence 
of  a  desire  to  pay,  and  had  some  cer- 
tainty that,  when  they  had  accepted 
an  arrangement  advantageous  to 
Spain,  it  would  not  be  broken  in  a 
few  months,  leaving  them  in  worse 
plight  than  before.  How  this  has  been 
repeatedly  done  was  lately  clearly- 
exhibited  in  a  letter  addressed  by  a 
Spanish  bondholder  to  the  Times,  of 
which  we  here  quote  a  portion : — 

"Between  1820  and  1831,  Spain  con- 
tracted loans  as  follows,  [detail  given], 
to  the  amount  of  157,244,210  dollars. 
And  on  no  portion  of  these  loans  does 
Spain  now  pay  interest.  In  1834  there 
was  owing,  in  interest  upon  those  loans, 
49,541,352  dollars  ;  and  the  Spanish  go- 
vernment then  offered,  at  a  meeting  of 
bondholders,  held  at  the  City  of  London 
Tavern,  to  give  for  all  those  loans,  and  the 
interest  upon  them,  new  stock,  on  the 
following  terms  : — A  new  active  five  per 
cent  stock,  upon  which  the  interest  should 
be  always  punctually  paid,  for  two-thirds 
of  the  capital ;  a  new  passive  stock  for 
the  remaining  third ;  and  a  deferred  stock 
for  the  overdue  interest,  on  condition  that 
they  had  a  new  loan  of  £4,000,000  ster- 
ling. These  terms  were  agreed  to,  and 
the  conversion  took  place ;  and.there  were 
issued  in  exchange  for  the  old  loans  and 
overdue  interest,  £33,322,890  five  per 
cent  active  stock;'  £12,696,450  passive 
stock;  and  £13,215,672  deferred  stock. 
These  are  the  stocks  now  in  the  market, 
in  addition  to  the  £4,000,000  loan  then 
granted.  In  two  years  after  this  tran- 
saction, the  Spanish  government  stopped 
payment  again,  and  left  the  bondholders 
in  the  same  situation,  with  one-third  of 
their  capital  cancelled,  or  made  passive 
stock,  which  bears  no  coupons,  and  is, 
consequently,  not  entitled  to  claim  in- 
terest. In  1841,  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment paid  the  active  bondholders  four 
years'  interest;  i.e.,  from  1836  to  1840, 
in  a  three  per  cent  stock,  instead  of  cash, 
and  which  produced  the  holders  about 
four  shillings  in  the  pound  ;  (this  is  the 
three  per  cent  stock  now  in  the  English 
market,  on  which  the  interest  is  paid.)';J 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  get  at  infor- 


FORD'S  Gatherings  from  Spain. 

Histoire  Politique  de  VEspagne  Moderne,  ii.  424. 

City  article  of  the  Times,  September  14,  1849. 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


715 


niation  about  the  amount  of  Spanish 
debts,  accumulated  dividends,  and  so 
forth ;  but  the  above  lucid  statement 
of  the  liabilities  to  foreign  creditors, 
combined  with  the  testimony  of  other 
authorities  before  us,  leads  to  an  ag- 
gregate estimate  of  the  whole  debt, 
external  and  internal,  at  upwards  of 
one  hundred  and  twenty  millions  ster- 
ling,— probably  at  the  present  time 
nearly  or  quite  one  hundred  and 
thirty  millions,  unpaid  interest  being 
added.  Without  entering  into  the 
intricate  complications  of  the  ques- 
tion, we  shall  not  be  very  wide  of  the 
mark  in  asserting,  that  less  than  three 
millions  sterling  per  annum,  in  the 
shape  of  dividends,  would  constitute 
an  arrangement  surpassing  the  wildest 
dreams  in  which,  for  a  long  time  past, 
sane  bondholders  can  possibly  have 
indulged ;  in  fact  that,  considering  the 
amount  of  passive  stock,  and  the  con- 
cessions that  would  willingly  be  made, 
it  would  pay  what  would  pass  muster 
as  the  full  dividends.  An  enormous 
sum  for  Spain — will  be  the  remark  of 
many.  We  beg  to  differ  from  this 
opinion.  An  enormous  sum,  certain- 
ly, for  a  dishonest  Spanish  govern- 
ment. Charity  begins  at  home  in 
Spain  as  much  as  anywhere ;  and  if 
people  squander  their  cash  in  paying 
creditors,  how  shall  they  enjoy  their 
little  comforts  and  luxuries,  and  make 
up  a  purse  for  a  rainy  day?  How 
shall  the  royal  family  of  a  poor  and 
insolvent  kingdom  have  a  civil  list  of 
half  a  million  sterling,  besides  crown 
property  and  appanages  to  Infantes  ? 
— how  shall  Queen  Christina  and  her 
uncle,  the  ex-king  of  the  French,  be 
repaid  the  sums  they  lavished  to  oust 
Espartero,  and  to  bring  about  the  in- 
famous Spanish  marriages?  —  how 
shall  the  same  illustrious  lady  make 
her  investments  in  foreign  funds,  and 
add  to  her  hoard  of  jewellery,  already, 
it  is  said,  the  most  valuable  in 
Europe? — how  shall  Duke  Mniloz 
play  at  bulls  and  bears  on  the  Bolsa, 
and  give  millions  of  francs  for  French 
salt-works? — how  shall  the  Spanish 
ministers,  men  sprung  from  nothing, 
and  who  the  other  day  were  penniless, 
maintain  a  sumptuous  state  and  realise 
princely  fortunes  ? — how,  finally,  shall 
the  government  exercise  such  influence 


at  elections  as  to  reduce  the  numerous 
and  powerful  party  opposed  to  them 
in  the  country  to  utter  numerical  in- 
significance in  the  legislative  assembly, 
and  to  fill  every  municipal  office  with 
their  own  creatures  and  adherents? 
It  is  a  very  singular  fact  that,  al- 
though for  many  years  past  the  reve- 
nue of  Spain  has  been  steadily  increas- 
ing, the  annual  deficit  always  conti- 
nues about  the  same.  Thus  much  can 
be  discerned  even  through  the  habitual 
exaggerations  and  hocus-pocus  of 
Spanish  financial  statements.  M. 
Mendizabal,  in  his  budget  for  1837,  (in 
the  very  heat  and  fury  of  the  Carttst 
warj  showed  a  deficiency  of  seven 
millions  sterling,  the  revenue  then 
being  about  £8,700,000  sterling.  In 
1840,  the  minister  of  finance  stated 
the  deficit  at  £6,800,000  sterling,  the 
revenue  having  then  risen  to  upwards 
of  ten  millions.*  And  since  then  the 
deficiency  has  averaged  about  five 
millions  sterling ;  and  even  now,  that 
Spain  is  declared  so  prosperous,  will 
not  be  rightly  stated  at  a  much  lower 
figure,  although  financeministers  resort 
to  the  most  ingenious  devices  to  prove 
it  much  less.  But  if  it  is  so  trifling  as 
they  would  have  us  believe,  why  do 
they  not  pay  their  dividends  ?  Forced 
loans,  anticipated  imposts,  unpaid 
pensions,  and  shabby  shifts  of  every 
kind,  show  us  how  far  we  are  to  credit 
their  balance-sheets.  One  financier — 
that  very  slippery  person,  Senor  Car- 
rasco — actually  showed  a  surplus — 
upon  paper.  "  The  present  revenue," 
wrote  Mr  Ford  in  1846,  "  may  be 
taken  at  about  twelve  or  thirteen  mil- 
lions sterling.  But  money  is  compared 
by  Spaniards  to  oil — a  little  will  stick  to 
the  fingers  of  those  who  measure  it 
out ;  and  such  is  the  robbing  and  job- 
bing, the  official  mystification  and 
peculation,  that  it  is  difficult  to  get  at 
facts  when  cash  is  in  question."  The 
sum  stated,  however,  is  about  the 
mark,  and  bears  out  Lord  Clarendon's 
often-quoted  declaration  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  that  the  Spanish  revenue  is 
one-half  greater  than  it  was  ever  be- 
fore known  to  be.  Few  men  have  had 
better  opportunities  than  Lord  Claren- 
don of  acquiring  information  on  the 
affairs  of  Spain  ;  and  his  well-known 
friendly  feeling  towards  her  present 


MARLUNI,  ii.;  430  and  471. 


716 


Spain  tinder  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


rulers  precludes  the  suspicion  of  his 
giving  a  higher  colouring  than  the 
strictest  truth  demands  to  any  state- 
ment likely  to  be  prejudicial  or  un- 
pleasant to  them.  It  i.s  a  fact  that  the 
revenue  is  still  upon  the  increase :  and 
it  has  augmented,  in  the  last  fifteen 
years,  by  more  than  one-half,  for 
in  1835  it  was  but  seven  hundred 
and  fifty -nine  millions  of  reals,  or,  in 
roundnumbers, £7,600,000 sterling.  It 
certainly  seems  strange  that,  with  an 
increase  of  revenue  of  at  least  four 
millions,  the  decrease  of  deficit  should 
barely  amount  to  two,  although  the 
country,  at  the  former  period,  was 
plunged  in  a  most  expensive  war,  and 
had  an  enormous  army  on  foot ;  the 
estimate  for  the  war  department  alone, 
forl837 — according  to  MrMendizabal's 
budget  already  quoted,  presented  to 
the  Cortes — being  upwards  of  seven 
and  a-half  millions  sterling,  or  within 
one  million  of  the  total  amount  of  esti- 
mated revenue.  Thus  we  see  that  Spain 
presents  the  curious  phenomenon  of  an 
expenditure  augmenting  in  proportion 
as  the  revenue  increases.  In  most 
countries  the  puzzle  is  the  other  way; 
and  how  to  force  the  revenue  up  to  the 
expenditure,  is  the  knotty  point  with 
statesmen.  The  most  benevolent  can 
hardly  help  suspecting  that  some  foul 
play  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  augmenta- 
tive propensity  of  Spanish  financial 
outgoings.  But  Spain  is  par  excel- 
lence the  country  of  itching  palms ; 
and  in  view  of  the  statements  we 
have  here  made,  and  which  defy  refu- 
tation, most  persons  will  probably 
agree  with  a  writer  already  cited,  when 
he  says  that,  "  with  common  sense 
and  common  honesty,  much  might  be 
done  towards  releasing  Spain  from  her 
financial  embarrassments.  Perhaps 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  a  vigor- 
ous government,  capable  of  enforcing 
taxation,  might,  with  integrity  and 
energy,  and  a  forgetfulness  of  selfish 
gams,  provide  for  the  interest  of  every 
portion  of  her  debt,  and,  in  the 
end,  pay  off  the  principal.  .  .  . 
If  Spanish  finance  ministers,  and  the 
capitalists  and  sharpers  by  whom 
they  are  surrounded,  could  bring 
themselves  to  think  of  their  own  for- 
tunes less  and  of  the  nation's  more, 


we  should  hear  very  little  of  new  fo- 
reign loans.  A  virtuous  native  effort 
is  wanted;  themselves  must  strike 
the  blow !  All  governments  are  bound 
to  support  their  several  departments, 
and  obtain  a  sufficient  revenue  ;  and 
the  administration  of  Mon  and  JSTar- 
vaez  has  not  the  excuse  of  want  of 
power."*  This  is  the  language  uni- 
versally held  by  all  persons  acquaint- 
ed, from  actual  observation,  with  the 
extent  and  abuse  of  Spain's  resources. 
The  taxes  in  Spain  are  exceedingly 
light  in  proportion  to  the  population, 
but  they  are  unfairly  distributed,  and 
most  iniquitously  collected — the  state 
paying  an  enormous  percentage  on 
most  of  them,  and  being  besides 
scandalously  robbed  by  officials  of 
every  grade.  But  the  inequality  of 
taxation  in  Spain,  which  presses  (by 
the  threefold  means  of  direct  impost, 
excise,  and  exorbitant  import  duties 
upon  manufactures)  especially  on  the 
peasant  and  agriculturist — crushing 
the  very  nerve  and  right  arm  of  Spa- 
nish prosperity — brings  us  to  the  con- 
sideration of  a  recent  measure,  from 
which  much  good  has  been  predicted, 
and  from  which,  as  we  trust  and  be- 
lieve, advantage  will  ultimately  be  ob- 
tained. 

An  ably  conducted  French  perio- 
dical, which  acquired  considerable 
weight  under  Louis  Philippe,  from  the 
circumstance  that  its  closing  article 
expressed,  eveiy  fifteen  days,  the 
views  and  opinions  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  which,  since  it  ceased  to  be 
official,  has  shown  a  strong  Orleanist 
leaning,  put  forth  in  a  recent  num- 
ber a  glowing  statement  of  the  im- 
mense advantages  to  be  derived  by 
Spain  from  the  newly  promulgated 
tariff  bill.f  Prepared  by  a  previous 
article  in  the  same  review,  which  had 
taken  for  its  base,  and  accepted  as  in- 
controvertible, a  tissue  of  scurrilous 
and  mendacious  statements  strung 
together  by  a  Salamanquino  doctor, 
and  notoriously  instigated  by  a  Spa- 
nish minister  and  ambassador,  with 
reference  to  the  suspension  of  relations 
between  England  and  Spain,  we  were 
no  way  surprised  to  find,  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  internal  situation  of  the 
latter  country,  implicit  reliance  placed 


*  Revelations  of  Spain,  365-6. 

t  Revue  des  DeuxMondes,  let  AoAt  1849. 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


717 


on  the  figures  and  assumptions  of 
Spanish  financiers,  and  a  most  naive 
conviction  that  their  showy  theories 
and  projects  would  be  honestly  and 
effectually  put  in  practice.  Under 
the  ingenious  one-sidedness  and  appa- 
rent good  faith  of  the  writer,  it  was 
not  difficult  to  discern  an  inspiration 
derived  from  Claremont  or  the  Hotel 
Sotomayor.  The  object  of  the  article 
was  to  prove  that  Spain,  relieved  from 
the  incubus  of  English  influence,  and 
blessed  with  an  enlightened  and  ho- 
nest government,  is  rapidly  emerging 
from  her  political,  social,  and  financial 
difficulties  ;  nay,  that  this  astound- 
ing progress  is  half  accomplished,  and 
that  the  despised  land  has  already 
risen  many  cubits  in  the  European 
scale.  "  We  ask,"  says  the  writer, 
after  summing  up  at  great  length  the 
benefits  conferred  on  Spain  by  the 
Narvaez  cabinet — benefits  which,  for 
the  most  part,  have  got  no  further 
than  their  project  upon  paper — "  Wo 
ask,  is  not  Spain  sufficiently  revenged 
for  thirty  years  of  disdain  ?  Would 
not  this  Job  of  the  nations  have  a 
right,  in  its  turn,  to  drop  insult  upon 
the  bloody  dunghill  whereon  display 
themselves  these  haughty  civilisations 
of  yesterday's  date  ?  "  Having  given 
this  brief  specimen  of  style,  we  will 
now  confine  ourselves  to  figures, 
for  most  of  which  the  writer  in  the 
Revue  appears  to  be  indebted  to  Mr 
Mon.  The  result  of  his  very  plau- 
sible calculations  is  an  immediate 
annual  benefit  of  thirty-four  million, 
francs  to  the  consumers  of  foreign 
manufactures,  ninety- two  millions  to 
the  country  at  large,  in  the  shape  of 
increased  production,  and  a  clear  gain 
of  sixty- three  millions  to  the  public 
treasury.  We  heartily  desire,  for  the 
sake  both  of  Spam  and  of  her  credi- 
tors, that  this  glorious  prospect  may 
be  realised.  If  this  is  to  be  the  result 
of  what  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes 
admits  to  be  but  a  timid  step  from  the 
prohibitive  to  the  protective  system, 
what  prosperity  may  not  be  prophe- 
sied to  Spain  from  further  progress  in 
the  same  path?  Nor  are  these  a  tithe 
of  the  benefits  foretold,  and  which 
we  refuse  ourselves  the  pleasure 
of  citing,  in  order  to  make  room  for 
a  few  remarks  as  to  the  probable 
realisation  of  those  already  referred 
to.  And  first,  we  repeat  our  previous 


assertion,  that  in  Spain  the  real  bene- 
fit of  such  a  measure  as  the  new  tariff 
can  never  be  rightly  estimated  till 
the  law  has  been  for  some  time  in 
force.  There  is  so  much  tampering 
and  corruption  in  such  cases,  so  many 
interests  and  persons  must  be  satisfied 
and  get  their  share  of  the  gain, 
that  such  reforms,  when  they  come, 
often  prove  very  illusory.  With  re- 
spect to  the  tariff,  we  will  take  no 
heed  of  the  statements  of  the  Spanish 
opposition,  who  denounce  it  as  a  most 
defective  and  bungling  measure,  from 
which  little  is  to  be  expected.  In 
Spain,  as  much  as  in  any  country, 
the  men  out  of  power  will  admit  little 
good  to  be  done  by  those  who  are  in. 
Neither  do  we  profess  to  have  digested 
and  formed  our  own  opinion  upon  the 
probable  working  of  a  tariff  which 
comprises  1500  articles,  (about  twice 
and  a  half  as  many  as  the  British 
tariff,)  and  whose  complications  and 
conditions  are  anything  but  favourable 
to  its  easy  comprehension  and  appre- 
ciation. We  can  argue,  therefore, 
only  from  analogy  and  precedent;  the 
latter,  especially,  no  unsafe  guide  with 
a  people  so  wedded  as  the  Spaniards 
to  old  habits  and  institutions.  The 
pacific  manner  in  which  the  great 
army  of  Spanish  smugglers  have  re- 
ceived the  tariff,  is  a  strong  argu- 
ment against  its  practical  value.  The 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  estimates  the 
number  of  smugglers  in  Spain  at  sixty 
thousand.  This  is  far  itnder  the 
mark ;  and  it  is  the  first  time  we  have 
known  the  Spanish  smugglers  to  be 
reckoned  at  less  than  one  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  men,  whereas  we 
have  seen  them  rated  as  high  as  four 
hundred  thousand,  which,  however, 
could  only  be  explained  by  including 
all  those  persons  in  the  countiy  who 
are  directly  or  indirectly  connected 
with  the  contraband  trade.  But  the 
figure  is  not  important.  The  principal 
point,  andthatAvhichnonewill  dispute, 
is  that  the  Peninsular  smugglers  form 
a  powerful  army,  including  the  finest 
men  in  the  countiy,  and  capable,  as 
we  fully  believe,  if  assembled  and  with 
the  advantage  of  a  little  drill,  of 
soundly  thrashing  an  equal  number  of 
Spanish  soldiers,  detachments  of  whom 
they  not  unfrequently  do  grievously 
ill-treat.  Now  how  is  it,  we  ask,  that 
this  formidable  and  generally  turbulent 


718 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


body  have  submitted  without  an  indi- 
cation of  revolt  to  the  passing  of  a 
law  which,  if  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  is  right,  will  entirely  take 
away  their  occupation?  The  self- 
styled  manufacturers  of  Catalonia, 
most  of  whom  are  extensive 
smugglers,  are  as  acute  judges  of 
their  own  interests  as  any  men  in 
Spain.  In  Andalusia,  on  the  Portu- 
guese frontier,  in  nearly  every  frontier 
province  in  short,  men  of  wealth, 
ability,  and  consideration  are  at  the 
head  of  the  contraband  traffic.  It  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  ail  these  have 
their  eyes  shut  to  the  meditated  de- 
struction of  their  interests,  or  that 
they  thus  tranquilly  receive  a  blow 
which  they  believe  will  be  fatal.  It 
will  be  remembered  by  many  that 
when  first  the  new  tariff  was  seri- 
ously brought  forward,  and  appeared 
likely  to  become  the  law  of  the  land, 
the  Catalan  newspapers  and  other 
organs  of  the  smuggling  interest  were 
furious  in  their  denunciation  of  it : 
alarming  rumours  were  set  abroad, 
insurrections  were  talked  of,  and  there 
seemed  a  very  pretty  chance  of  a 
pronunciamiento  in  favour  of  prohibi- 
tive duties  and  contraband  trade. 
But  suddenly  modifications  were 
talked  of,  the  publication  of  the  bill 
was  postponed,  the  storm  was  allayed 
and  has  not  again  arisen.  There  was 
something  so  remarkable  in  this  sudden 
stilling  of  the  troubled  waters,  that 
persons,  who  are  either  very  malicious 
or  better  versed  than  their  neighbours 
in  the  ways  of  Spain,  did  not  scruple 
to  assert  that  there  had  been  buying 
and  selling,  that  weighty  arguments 
had  been  advanced  and  had  prevailed, 
and  that  the  result  was  to  be  the 
emasculation  of  the  tariff  bill.  No 
trifling  consideration  would  suffice  to 
clench  such  a  bargain,  and  doubtless 
the  concession,  if  obtained,  was  well 
paid  for ;  but  what  of  that  ?  The 
trade  of  a  smuggler  is  the  most  pro- 
fitable in  Spain,  excepting,  perhaps, 
that  of  a  cabinet  minister;  and  it  was 
•worth  a  sacrifice  to  retain  a  traffic 
whose  profits,  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  assures  us,  range  from  60  to 
90  per  cent  on  the  value  of  the  cotton 
tissues  introduced,  and  a  lower  per- 
centage on  silks,  woollens,  and  other 
goods,  of  greater  value  in  proportion 
to  then-  bulk,  weight,  and  difficulty  of 


transport.  For  this  percentage,  the 
master-smuggler  receives  the  goods 
without  the  frontier,  and  delivers  them 
within,  supporting  all  charges,  and 
running  all  risks  :  it  is  a  premium  of 
insurance,  as  regularly  fixed  as  that 
of  any  marine  risk  at  Lloyd's.  But 
does  the  Revue  suppose  that  the  pre- 
sent very  high  charge  for  passage  will 
not  be  materially  reduced,  sooner  than 
altogether  relinquished  ?  Spanish 
smuggling  requires  capital  and  sta- 
bility, on  the  part  of  those  undertaking 
it  on  a  large  scale,  and  is  a  sort  of 
monopoly  in  the  hands  of  a  certain 
number  of  individuals  and  companies. 
These  pay  the  working  smugglers  (the 
men  who  lift  the  bales,  and  drive  the 
mules,  and  fight  the  custom-house 
officers)  a  few  reals  a-day,  a  few 
dollars  a  ran,  and  pocket  enormous 
profits.  Amongst  themselves,  they 
are  leagued  to  maintain  the  high  rates 
of  insurance.  But  now  that  the  cus- 
tom-house steps  into  the  field  as  a 
competitor,  removing  prohibition  and 
lowering  duties,  we  may  be  well  as- 
sured the  smugglers  have  lowered 
theirs  ;  and  an  inquiry  at  Perpignan, 
Oleron,  Mauleon,  on  the  Five  Can- 
tons at  Bayonne,  or  in  any  other 
smuggling  depot  on  the  Pyreneau 
frontier,  would,  we  doubt  not,  satisfy 
the  Revue  of  the  fact.  The  Spanish 
custom-house  must  cut  lower  yet  to 
beat  the  smuggler.  The  Revue  ad- 
mits that,  on  certain  articles  of  great 
consumption,  (silk,)  the  difference  is 
still  in  favour  of  the  contrabandist, 
even  at  the  duty  of  thirty  to  forty- 
five  per  cent  ad  valorem,  fixed  by 
the  tariff  bill,  and  at  the  old  high  pre- 
mium of  smuggling  insurance.  But 
whilst  we  insist  and  are  confident 
that  the  latter  will  be  reduced,  (and 
therein  find  one  reason  of  the  tranquil 
indifference  with  which  the  tariff  has 
been  received  by  the  smuggling  popu- 
lation of  the  Peninsula,)  we  are  by  no 
means  certain  that  the  former  has  not 
been  considerably  raised  by  the  altera- 
tions and  modifications  that  took 
place  in  the  tariff,  between  the  date  of 
its  passing  the  chambers  and  that  of 
its  publication  by  the  government ; 
alterations  by  which  the  ad  valorem 
duties  imposed  on  several  important 
classes  of  merchandise  have  been  con- 
verted into  fixed  duties.  This  change, 
which  may  very  well  prove  a  juggle 


1849.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


719 


brought  about  by  the  golden  wand  of 
the  smuggling  fraternity,  at  once  in- 
validates the  calculations  of  the  Revue, 
which  are  all  based  upon  the  ad 
valorem  percentage  originally  pre- 
scribed by  the  tariff  law,  and  upon 
the  assumption  that  the  high  contra- 
band premiums  are  immutable  and 
unreducible. 

Setting  aside  the  mere  financial 
consideration  of  the  tariff  question; 
losing  sight,  for  a  while,  of  the  great 
accession  of  revenue  it  is  universally 
admitted  that  Spain  would  derive  from 
an  honest  and  effectual  reduction  of 
her  import-duties  on  manufactures, 
which  she  herself  can  produce  only  of 
inferior  quality  and  at  exorbitant 
rates  ;  losing  sight,  also,  of  the  moral 
obligation  there  is  upon  her  to  adopt 
all  such  measures,  not  injurious  to 
any  great  class  of  the  community,* 
as  shall  enable  her  to  pay  her  way, 
and  acquit  her  debts  to  home  and 
foreign  creditors, — temporarily  avert- 
ing our  view,  we  say,  from  these 
considerations,  we  fix  it  upon  others 
whose  weight  none  will  deny.  What 
are  the  chief  causes  to  which  the 
major  part  of  the  crime,  misery,  and 
degradation  prevalent  amongst  the 
lower  classes  in  Spain,  is  attributed, 
by  all  impartial  observers  of  her  social 
condition  ?  They  are  three  in  num- 
ber. The  demoralisation  produced  by 
smuggling ;  the  burdens  upon  agri- 
culture, and  impediments  to  its  pro- 
gress ;  the  high  prices  the  peasant  is 
compelled  to  pay  for  the  most  neces- 
sary manufactures.  Upon  the  evil  of 
smuggling  we  need  not  dwell,  nor 
dilate  upon  the  ease  of  the  transi- 
tion from  defrauding  the  government 
to  robbing  upon  the  highway,  and 
from  shooting  a  douanier  to  murder- 
ing the  traveller  who  may  be  so  rash 


as  to  defend  his  purse.  By  the  lower 
classes  in  Spain  the  smuggler  is  ad- 
mired and  respected,  and  his  calling 
is  deemed  gallant  and  honourable ; 
by  the  classes  above  him  he  is  toler- 
ated, and  often  employed.  His  ran- 
dom, perilous,  fly-by-night  manner  of 
life,  made  up  of  alternate  periods  of 
violent  exertion  and  excitement,  and 
perfect  idleness  and  relaxation,  exact- 
ly suits  his  taste  and  temperament : 
it  will  be  hard  to  wean  him  from  his 
illicit  pursuits,  though  they  should  so 
decline  in  profit  as  only  to  yield  him 
bread,  garlic,  and  tobacco.  You 
must  find  him  occupation  profitable 
and  to  his  taste  before  you  can 
reclaim  him  ;  for  he  will  not  dig, 
and  would  rather  rob  than  beg. 
Whenever  such  import-duties  are 
adopted  in  Spain  as  will  really  stop 
smuggling,  there  will  undoubtedly  be 
a  great  increase  of  crimes  against 
property,  innumerable  bands  of  rob- 
bers will  spring  up,  and  probably 
there  will  also  be  risings  under  poli- 
tical banners.  The  present  moment 
is  by  no  means  unpropitious  for  the 
experiment.  The  government  of 
Spain  has  perhaps  the  power,  but  we 
doubt  that  it  has  the  will.  We  have 
shown  cause  for  believing  that  the 
recent  change  will  prove  delusive,  and 
of  small  benefit.  If  we  are  mistaken 
— and  it  is  very  difficult  to  decide 
beforehand  of  the  result  of  Spanish 
measures — we  shall  sincerely  rejoice. 
We  have  already  observed  that, 
whilst  the  brunt  of  taxation  is  borne 
in  Spain  by  agriculture,  that  interest 
obtains  in  return  scarcely  any  of  the 
facilities  and  encouragements  to  which 
it  is  fairly  entitled.  Spain  is  the  rash 
child  that  would  run  before  it  can 
walk,  and  consequently  falls  upon  its 
face.  She  dashes  headlong  at  the. 


*  At  the  first  hint  of  a  project  of  reform  in  the  tariff,  the  cry  in  Spain,  and  especi- 
ally in  Catalonia,  has  invariably  been, — "  Protection  for  our  manufactures!"  So  loud 
was  the  clamour,  that  it  might  have  been  imagined  millions  of  mouths  were  depend- 
ent for  bread  on  the  fabrication  of  Spanish  calicoes.  Now,  the  Retue  des  Deux 
Monties  estimates  the  total  number  of  hands  employed  in  these  much-vaunted  cotton 
manufactures  at  thirty-one  thousand;  and  even  this  number  we  are  induced  to  believe 
considerably  over-estimated,  from  minute  and  interesting  information  on  the  subject 
we  have  recently  obtained  from  an  intelligent  Spaniard,  long  resident  in  Catalonia. 
And  amongst  the  manufacturers  are  a  number  of  Frenchmen,  and  other  foreigners  ; 
for,  in  fact,  Spaniards  Lave  little  taste  for  mechanical  occupations,  and  have  too  fine 
a  climate  not  to  love  the  open  air.  So  the  "  protection,"  so  violently  insisted  upon, 
is  for  this  handful  of  operatives,  who  make  bad  calicoes  at  exorbitant  prices;  or 
rather,  if  the  truth  be  told,  it  is  for  the  master-manufacturers,  most  of  whom  arc 
also  master-smugglers. 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCX.  3  B 


720 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


greatest  and  most  costly  improve- 
ments realised  by  other  countries  ; 
forgetting  that  she  has  stood  still 
whilst  they  moved  onwards,  and  that 
a  wise  man  gets  a  bed  to  lie  upon 
before  troubling  himself  about  a  silken 
coverlet.  In  all  the  ails  of  life  Spain 
is  immeasurably  inferior  to  most  other 
European  nations.  In  agricultural 
implements,  in  carts  and  other 
vehicles  of  transport,  in  her  methods 
of  elaborating  her  products,  and  her 
means  of  carrying  them,  she  is  cen- 
turies behind  all  the  world.  Vast 
tracts  of  her  territory  are  desolate  for 
want  of  that  irrigation  for  which  mo- 
dern ingenuity  and  invention  have 
devised  such  great  facilities :  the 
broad  waters  of  her  mighty  rivers, 
which  in  other  countries  would  be 
alive  with  traffic  and  bordered  with 
villages,  are  choked  and  desolate. 
"  The  Guadalquivir,  navigable  in  the 
time  of  the  Romans  as  far  as  Cordova, 
is  now  scarcely  practicable  for  sailing 
vessels  of  a  moderate  size  up  to 
Seville." *  Few  are  the  boats,  scanty 
the  dwellings,  upon  the  green  waves 
and  flower-grown  shores  of  Tagus  and 
Ebro.  When  these  glorious  natural 
arteries  are  thus  neglected, we  need  not 
expect  artificial  ones.  Canals  are  sadly 
wanted,  and  have  been  often  planned, 
but  they  have  got  no  farther  than  the 
want  and  the  project.  As  to  roads, 
the  main  lines  are  good,  but  they  are 
few,  diverging  from  the  capital  to  the 
various  frontiers ;  and  the  cross-roads 
(where  there  are  any,)  and  the  coun- 
try tracks,  are  mostly  execrable,  and 
often  impassable  for  wheels.  But  all 
this,  we  are  informed  by  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes,  is  on  the  eve  of  a 
thorough  change.  "  Labour,  like 
credit,"  says  that  periodical,  in  its 
article  on  Spain,  "  has  received  a 
beneficial  impulse.  The  roads  are 
repaired,  the  means  of  water-convey- 
ance are  being  improved  or  terminat- 
ed, railroads  are  begun.  The  creation 
of  a  vast  system  (ensemble)  of  ad- 
jacent roads  will  soon  connect  all  parts 
of  the  territory  with  these  vivifying 
arteries."  We  scarcely  know  which 
is  most  admirable ;  the  cleverness  that 
contrives  to  condense  so  many  mis- 
statements  into  so  few  words,  or  this 
tone  of  candour,  conviction,  and  phi- 


lanthropical  exultation.  As  regards 
the  impulse  given  to  Spanish  credit, 
it  is  but  a  few  days  since  we  read, 
with  some  astonishment  at  the  barba- 
rity and  impudence  of  the  plan  (ema- 
nating though  it  does  from  a  Spanish 
finance  minister),  the  arrangement  by 
which  Mr  Bravo  Murillo,  in  order  to 
diminish  the  acknowledged  deficit  in 
the  budget  for  the  year  1850,  mulcts 
the  army  and  state  functionaries  of  a 
month's  pay,  and  pensioners  and  half- 
pay  men  of  two  months'  means  of 
subsistence,  besides  wiping  mit,  in  a 
still  more  unceremonious  manner, 
other  pressing  claims  upon  the  trea- 
sury. The  budget  itself  is  a  truly  cu- 
rious document.  The  customs'  reve- 
nue is  swollen  by  the  supposed  profits 
of  the  new  tariff;  the  expenses  of  the 
war  department  are  boldly  set  down  at 
a  reduction  which  must  accord  rather 
with  Mr  Mnrillo's  wish  than  with  his 
expectations.  On  the  debit  side  figure 
also  the  claims  of  the  public  creditor, 
for  much  less  than  is  due,  certainly,  but 
for  far  more  than  will  be  paid.  The 
result  of  the  estimate  is,  as  usual,  most 
satisfactory,  or  would  be  so,  at  least, 
if  there  were  the  slightest  chance  of 
its  justification  by  the  actual  receipts 
and  expenditure  of  the  year  for  which 
it  is  made.  To  return,  however,  to 
the  improvements  and  public  works 
announced  by  the  Rcime  des  Deux 
Mondes.  We  certainly  find  in  the 
budget  a  sum  of  about  three  hundred 
thousand  pounds — something  more 
than  half  the  involuntary  contribution 
wrung  from  the  unhappy  employes  and 
pensioners — set  down  to  roads,  rail- 
ways, and  canals.  Is  this  magnificent 
sum  to  complete  the  valuable  water- 
communications  and  the  network  of 
roads  promised  to  expectant  Spain? 
Hardly,  even  if  applied  as  appro- 
priated, which  little  enough  of  it 
ever  will  be.  As  to  railways,  they 
are  certainly  begun,  but  that  is  as 
much  as  can  be  said.  There  is  a 
thirty  mile  railroad  open  between  Bar- 
celona and  Mataro,  upon  which  acci- 
dents seem  of  pretty  frequent  occur- 
rence ;  and  that  said,  we  have  said 
all.  A  good  many  others  have  been 
planned,  involving  the  most  magni- 
ficent projects  of  tunnels  through 
chains  of  mountains,  viaducts  over 


FORD,  p.  26. 


18-19.] 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


721 


great  rivers,  cuttings  through  dense 
forests,  and  the  like  ;  and  at  some  of 
these  there  may  be  attempts  at  work, 
enough  to  justify  demands  for  funds  ; 
but  their  termination  is  altogether  an- 
other  matter  in    a    country  where, 
according    to  its    national    proverb, 
things    are    begun    late,   and   never 
finished.     Doubtless  it  is  a  satisfac- 
tion to  Spanish  pride,  when  it  sees 
other  European  countries  veined  with 
iron   tracks,  to   be   able  to  talk  of 
Spanish  railroads   as  things  that  are 
not  only  projected,  but  begun.     A 
great  country  like  Spain  must  not  lag 
behind  in  the  race  of  improvement, 
and  its  natives  would  deem  themselves 
humiliated  if  they  did  not  attempt  to 
have  what  England,  France,  and  Ger- 
many   enjoy.      Nothing  can    escape 
these  ambitious  hidalgos.    They  have 
heard  of  the  electric  telegraph,  and  it 
is  easy  to  discern,  by  newspaper  pa- 
ragraphs, that  they  are  agog  for  the 
novelty,  although  the  country  has  just 
been  put  to  considerable  expense  by 
the  completion  and  improvement  of 
the  aerial  semaphores.     These  work 
very   well,   the  Diario  Alercantil   of 
Valencia  told  us  the  other  da}- ;  but 
fogs  are  a  great  nuisance,  the  elec- 
tric plan  is  much  better  and  surer,  and 
a  German  company  has  offered  to  lay 
any  length  of  wires  at  the  rate  of  two 
hundred  pounds  sterling  per  league ; 
and  the  Diario  trusts  the  government 
will  keep  the  matter  in  view,   and 
adopt  the  new  system,  if  it  can  be 
done  without  obstacles  arising  from 
political  disturbances,   and  from  the 
ignorance    and    malevolence    of  the 
people.  If  the  electric  telegraph  were  to 
await  the  completion  of  the  "vivifying 
arteries  "  of  railroad  promised  by  the 
more  sanguine  friends  of  Spain,  the 
German  company  would  do  well  to 
offer  its  services  elsewhere  ;  but  evi- 
dently there  is  some  notion  of  carry- 
ing the  posts  and  wires  across  coun- 
try,   over   sierras    and   despoblados, 
with  boards,  no  doubt,  affixed  here 
and  there,   requesting  the  public  to 
"  protect  the  telegraph."  How  long  the 
posts  would  stand — how  long  the  wires 
might  escape  injury  from  the  super- 
stitious peasantry,  or  from  robbers  and 
smugglers,  interested  in  retarding  the 
transmission  of  their  misdeeds,  is  an- 
other question.    Really,  to  use  a  po- 
pular comparison,  the  establishment 


of  electric  telegraphs  on  Spanish  soil 
seems  to  us  about  as  necessary  and 
sensible  as  to  affix  a  gilt  handle  to 
the  door  of  a  pig-stye.  Not  that  we 
would,  in  any  way,  assimilate  to 
the  unclean  beast  our  friends  the 
Spaniards,  whom  we  greatly  esteem, 
and  desire  to  see  more  prosperous  : 
but  thus  it  is  with  them  ever.  They 
would  fain  pass  over  the  rudiments, 
and  attain  at  a  bound  that  height  of 
civilisation  which  other  nations  have 
reached  only  by  a  toilsome  and  pa- 
tient progress. 

The  dearness  of  most  manufactured 
goods  in  Spain,  and  especially  of  the 
commonest  and,  as  Englishmen  would 
consider,  most  essential  articles  of 
clothing,  is,  we  are  fully  convinced,  a 
grave  impediment  to  the  moral  and 
physical  progress  of  the  lower  classes 
of  Spaniards.  If,  quitting  certain 
frontier  districts,  where  smuggling 
gains  diffuse  a  fallacious  appearance 
of  prosperity,  we  penetrate  into  the 
interior  of  the  country,  we  behold  a 
rural  population  sunk  in  filth  and 
sloth,  wrapped  in  squalid  woollen 
rags,  basking  listlessly  in  the  sun, 
dwelling  oftentimes  in  community 
with  their  domestic  animals.  Yet, 
give  him  bat  the  means,  and  no 
man  more  than  this  self-same  Spanish 
peasant  loves  clean  linen  and  neat 
attire.  If  he  is  dirty  and  shirtless, 
and  afflicted  with  vermin  and  impuri- 
ties, it  is  because  he  has  never  had 
the  means  of  being  otherwise.  How- 
can  he,  out  of  his  scanty  earnings, 
supply  himself  with  the  calico  shirt 
and  clean  jacket  of  jean  or  flannel 
which,  in  the  countries  of  their  manu- 
facture, are  within  the  reach  of  the 
poorest  labourer,  but  whose  price  is 
trebled,  before  they  reach  him  in 
Spain,  by  exorbitant  smuggling  pre- 
miums or  import-duty,  and  by  an 
expensive  and  defective  system  of 
transport.  We  cannot  agree  with 
those  who  assert  the  Spaniard  of  the 
lower  class  to  be  a  born  idler,  who 
will  never  willingly  do  more  work 
than  procures  him  the  day's  frugal 
meal.  We  have  too  great  faith  in  his 
natural  good  qualities  to  receive  this 
opinion  otherwise  than  as  a  calumny. 
At  any  rate,  before  deciding  thus 
harshly,  give  him  a  chance,  which  he 
has  never  yet  had  ;  show  him  the 
possibility,  which  he  has  never  yet 


Spain  under  Narvaez  and  Christina. 


[Dec. 


seen,  of  attaining,  by  his  own  exer- 
tions, to  comfort  and  respectability ; 
put  the  necessaries  of  life  within  his 
reach,  which  they  have  never  yet 
been,  and  spur  him,  with  his  own 
pride,  to  cleanliness  and  industry. 
Teach  him,  in  short,  self-respect, 
which  he  can  hardly  feel  in  his 
present  sunken  condition,  and,  rely 
upon  it,  he  will  make  an  effort  and 
take  a  start. 

It  is  not  our  intention  to  dwell  up- 
on the  recent  temporary  displacement 
of  the  Karvaez  ministry,  at  the  very 
moment  when  its  stability  and  power 
seemed  most  assured,  when  the  ex- 
ultation of  its  partisans  was  the  loud- 
est, and  the  subjection  of  the  nation 
most  .complete.    The  singular  manner 
of  the  change,  the  ignoble  agents  by 
whom  it  was  immediately  effected, 
the  obscurity  and  inaptitude  of  the 
individuals  who  for  a  moment  made 
their  apparition  at  the  helm,  to  be  at 
the    next    thrown    overboard  ;     the 
strangely  heedless    and  inconsistent 
conduct  of  the  young  Queen,  and  the 
ambiguous  attitude  of   her  mother, 
have  found  abundant  commentators, 
and  the  whole  episode  has  been  wittily 
and  not  unjustly  compared  to  one  of 
•  those  old  Spanish  comedies  based  on 
a  palace  intrigue.    We  cannot,  how- 
ever, admit  that  the  entire  glory  of 
the  curious  and  abortive  plot  belongs 
to  the  apostolical  camarilla  which  is 
alleged  to  exist  in  the  palace,  and  to 
consist,  amongst  others,  of  the  feeble 
and  bigoted  king-consort,  of  a  fana- 
tical confessor,   a  hysterical  nun,  a 
Jesuitical  secretary,  and  others  of  simi- 
lar stamp.    Time  will  probably  dissi- 
pate part  of  the  mystery  that  now 
envelops  the  affair ;  but,  even  now, 
those  accustomed  to  watch  the  show 
will  have  shrewd  suspicions  whose  are 
the  hands  that  pulled  the  wires  and 
made  the  dull  puppets  dance.    The 
hands  showed  little  skill,  it  will  per- 
haps be  urged,  in  the  selection  and 
manoeuvring  of  the  dolls.    This  ob- 
jection will  hardly  stand.    When  a 
juggler  misses  his  trick,   it  is    still 
something  if  he  hides  his  arm  from 
his  audience.     And  as  to  the  incapa- 
city of  the  agents,  they  were  probably 


not  employed  until  others,  abler  but 
less  docile,  had  refused  to  act.    Wo 
entertain  little  doubt  in  what  quarter 
the    attempt  was  fostered — perhaps 
concerted.     Notwithstanding  the  out- 
ward cordiality  of  the  French   and 
Spanish  governments,  it  is  notorious 
that  the  old  alliance  between  Queen 
Christina  and  a  lately  deposed  mon- 
arch still  exists,  for  the  attainment  of 
objects  dear  to  both  their  hearts.     In 
what  manner  these  objects  were  to  be 
advanced  by  the  recent  shuffle  of  the 
Spanish  political  cards,  is  not  at  first 
sight  apparent.      But  we  entertain 
scarcely  the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  that 
the  arch-plotter  whose  influence  has 
more  than  once  wrought  evil  to  Spain, 
had  a  hand  in  the  game.    We  would 
be  the  last  to  press  hardly  upon  the 
fallen.    Did  we  feel  tempted  so  to  do, 
we  should  truly  feel  ourselves  rebuked 
by  the  noble  example  of  that  illustrious 
Lady,  who  has  forgotten  the  treachery 
of  the  king  in  the  sorrows  of  the  exile, 
and  has  extended  that  sympathy  and 
kindness  to  the  dweller  in  the  English 
cottage,  which  she  could  not  have 
been  expected  again  to  show  to  the 
inmate  of  the  French  palace.    We  arc 
guarded,  then,  in  the  expression  of  our 
regret,  that  one  who,  by  the  pursuit 
of  purely  personal  objects,  has  been 
the  cause  of  great  calamities  to  his 
native  land,  should  still  indulge  his 
dynastic  ambition  at  the  expense  of 
the  tranquillity  of  another  country, 
previously  indebted  to  him  for  much 
discord  and  misery.     And  we  deem  it 
a  painful  sight  Avhen   a  man  whose 
years  already  exceed  the  average  span 
of  human  existence  is  still  engrossed 
by  plans  of  unscrupulous  aggrandise- 
ment, still  busied  with  Machiavelian 
intrigues,  still  absorbed  in  the  baser 
things  of  earth,  instead  of  addressing 
himself  to    considerations   of  higher 
import,  earning  by  his  virtues  in  ad- 
versity that  respect  refused  to   his 
conduct  in  prosperity,  and  passing  the 
last  days  of  his  life — the  posthumous 
ones  of  his  royalty — resigned,  revered, 
and  beloved,  like  one  who  preceded 
him  on  his  throne  and  in  his  banish- 
ment, and   whose   name  was  on  his 
lips  in  the  hour  of  his  fall. 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  «  Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


723 


THE  GREEN  HASUX 


A  "SHORT"  YARN. — PART  VI. 


"WELL,  ma'am,"  continued  the 
naval  man,  on  again  resuming  his 
narrative,  "  as  I  told  you,  the  sudden 
hail  of  '  Laud !'  brought  us  all  on  deck 
in  a  twinkling,  in  the  midst  of  my 
ticklish  conversation  with  the  Judge. 
'•  Hallo!  you  aloft!"  shouted  the  chief 
officer  himself,  u  d'ye  hear,  sirrah !  use 
your  eyes  before  hailing  the  deck ! " 
"  Land,  sir ! "  came  falling  down  again 
out  of  the  sunlight ;  "  land  it  is,  sir, 
— broad  away  on  our  larboard  bow, 
sir." 

By  this  time  it  was  about  half-past 
nine,  or  ten  o'clock,  of  the  morning. 
Heading  nearly  due  south-east,  as  we 
now  were,  the  Indiaman's  bowsprit 
ran  up  into  the  full  white  blaze  of  light, 
in  which  her  flying  jib-boom  seemed 
to  quiver  and  writhe  far  away  from 
her  like  an  eel  in  water ;  while  the 
spread  of  her  sails  against  it  loomed 
twice  as  large  as  ordinary,  from  the 
sort  of  hazy  double- edged  look  they 
had,  with  a  twinkling  thread  of  sun 
drawing  all  round  them  like  a  frame, 
as  if  one  saw  through  a  wrong-screwed 
glass.     You'd  have  thought  by  the 
glance  under  the  fore- course,  over  the 
ship's  head-gratings,  she  was  travel- 
ling off  quietly  into  some  no-man's- 
land  or  other,  where  it  would  be  so 
bright  we  should  all  have  to  wear 
green  spectacles  :     the  light  breeze 
being  almost  direct  from  nor'west,  and 
so  fairly  in  her  favour,  with  the  help 
of  her  studding-sails  she  was  making 
wonderful  progress  for  such  a  mere 
breath — about  four  knots  to  the  hour, 
as  I  reckoned.    The  air  aloft  appeared 
in  the  mean  time  to  be  steadying  and 
sucking,  though  the  water  kept  smooth, 
and  her  bows  scarce  made  a  noise  in 
it :  the  wide  soft  swells  of  the  sea  just 
floated  up  of  a  pale  blue,  and  lifted  her 
on,  till  she  went  seething  gently  down 
into  it  again ;    only,  if  you  put  your 
head  over  the  starboard  side,    and 
listened,  you  thought  you  heard  a  sort 
of  dull  poppling  ripple  coming  along 
the  bends  from  round  her  counter. 
As  for  the  line  of  horizon  on  one  bow 
or  the  other,  'twas  hardly  to  be  made 
out  at  all,  with  a  streaky  white  haze 


overlying  it,  up  in  the  sky  as  it  were, 
on  both  sides,  behind  the  dazzle  of 
light.    However,  the  passengers  were 
fancying  all  kinds    of  fine  tropical 
matters  lay  hidden  thereaway;  and 
in  fact,  what  with  the  notion  of  laud 
after  a  long  voyage,  and  what  with 
the  faint  specks  of  bright  cloud  that 
seemed  to  be  melting  far  off  in  the 
glare— to  any  one  last  from  Gravesend, 
that  had  never  seen  anything  stranger 
than  Richmond  Hill  of  a  Sunday,  the 
whole  thing  ahead  of  the  ship  would 
have  rather  an  enchanted  sort  of  a  look. 
At  length  the  third  mate  was  seen  to 
shove  his  spy-glass  together  in  the  top- 
gallant cross-trees,  and  came  slowly 
down  the  rigging.      "  Well,  Mr  Rick- 
ett?" said  the  chief  officer,  meeting 
him  as  he  landed  on  deck.    "  Well, 
sir,"  said  Rickett,  "  it  is  land  after  all, 
Mr  Finch !  "    The  mate  rapped  out 
an  oath,    and    took    another   turn : 
Macleod  screwed  his  mouth  as  if  he- 
were  going  to  whistle,  then  pulled  his 
red  whiskers  instead,  and  looked  queer 
at  Rickett ;  while  Rickett  stood  peer- 
ing into  his  spy-glass  as  he  would  hare- 
done  into  his  hat,  had  he  still  been  a 
foremast-man.    The  mate's  eye  met 
his,  then  turned  to  the  passengers  lean- 
ing over  the  poop-railing ;  and  they  all 
three  walked  to  the  capstan,  where 
they  began  to  overhaul  the  charts,  and 
laid  their  heads  together  out  of  ear- 
shot. 

Now,,  whether  this  said  land  just 
made  out  on  the  north-east,  trend- 
ed away  back  to  south-east,  as  the 
clearer  look  of  the  horizon  to  star- 
board made  one  think,  it  was  hard  to 
say — though  in  that  way  of  it,  there 
were  seemingly  two  plans  for  widening 
her  distance.  Either  Finch  might 
think  it  better  to  keep  hold  of  a  fair 
wind,  and  just  edge  her  off  enough  to 
drop  the  point  on  her  weather  quar- 
ter— when,  of  course,  if  things  stood 
as  they  were,  we  sheuld  soon  set  a 
good  stretch  of  water  betwixt  us  and 
the  coast;  or  else  they  might  brace 
direct  round  on  the  other  tack,  and 
head  right  south-west'ard,  out  to  sea 
again :  though  if  we  were  still  in  it, 


724 


The  Green  Hand— A  "S/wrt"  Yam.— Part  VI. 


[Dec. 


the  current  would  set  us  every  bit  as 
much  in  its  own  direction  as  ever.  Ac- 
cordingly I  sidled  nearer  to  the  capstan, 
and  watched  anxiously  for  what  the 
third  mate  had  to  propose,  after  hum- 
ming and  hawing  a  little,  and  scratch- 
ing his  head  under  his  cap  for  half  a  mi- 
nute. "At  any  rate,  Mr  Finch,  sir," 
said  lie,  "  more  especially  the  captain 
being  off  charge,  I  may  say,  why,  I'd 

advise  ye,   sir,   to ."      Here  he 

dropped  his  voice  ;  but  Finch  appar- 
ently agreed  to  what  he  said. 

"  Ready  about  ship  there ! "  said  the 
second  mate  aloud  to  the  boatswain 
forward ;  and  in  ten  minutes  afterwards 
the  Seringapatam  was  fairly  round,  as  I 
had  expected,  heading  at  a  right  angle 
to  her  former  course,  with  the  breeze 
before  her  starboard  beam,  and  the 
sun  blazing  on  the  other.  I  walked 
forward  to  the  bows,  and  actually 
started  to  hear  how  loud  and  clear  the 
ripple  had  got  under  them  of  a  sudden  ; 
meeting  her  with  a  plash,  as  if  she 
were  making  six  or  seven  knots  head- 
way, while  the  canvass  seemed  to 
draw  so  much  stiffer  aloft,  you'd  have 
supposed  the  breeze  had  freshened  as 
soon  as  the  helm  was  put  down.  The 
mates  looked  over  the  side  and  aloft, 
rubbing  their  hands  and  smiling  to 
each  other,  as  much  as  to  say  how 
fast  she  was  hauling  off  the  bad  neigh- 
bourhood she  was  in,  though  the  heat 
was  as  great  as  ever,  and  you  didn't 
feel  a  breath  more  air  below,  nor  see 
the  water  ruffle.  To  my  notion,  in 
fact,  it  was  just  the  set  of  the  current 
against  her  that  seemingly  freshened 
her  way,  the  ship  being  now  direct  in 
its  teeth  ;  so  that,  of  course,  it  would 
keep  bearing  her  up  all  the  time  away 
north-eastward,  with  her  own  leeway 
to  help  it;  and  the  less  could  any  one 
notice  the  difference  betwixt  the  water 
going  past  her  side,  and  her  passing 
the  water.  This  tack  of  hers,  which 
Eickett,  no  doubt,  thought  such  a  safe 
plan,  might  be  the  very  one  to  put  her 
in  a  really  dangerous  way  yet ;  for 
when  they  did  discover  this  under-tow, 
how  were  they  to  take  her  out  of  it, 
after  all?  Probably  by  trying  to 
stand  fair  across  the  stream  of  it  to 
southward,  which,  without  three  times 
the  wind  we  had,  would  at  best  take 
us  out  many  miles  nearer  the  land  it 
set  upon,  or  leave  us  perhaps  becalmed 
in  the  midst  of  it. 


The  truth   was,    that   although  I 
hadn't  seen  what  like  the  land  was, 
and  couldn't  have  said,  by  the  chart, 
where  we  were,  I  began  to  have  a  faint 
notion   of  whereabouts  we  possibly 
soon  might  be,  from  what  I  remem- 
bered hearing  an  old  quartermaster  in 
the  Iris  say,  a  couple  of  3*ears  before, 
regarding   a  particular  spot   on   the 
south-west  coast,  where  the  currentsat 
some  seasons,  as  he  phrased  it,  made  a 
regular  race-course  meeting.    The  old 
fellow  gave  me  also,  at  the  time,  some 
bearings  of  the  nearest  coast,  with  the 
landmarks  at  the  mouth  of  a  river  a 
little  farther  north — which,  he  said,  he 
would  know  if  you  set  him  down  there 
of  a  dark  night,  though  he  had  been 
in  his  bed  at  Gosport  the  minute  be- 
fore, if  there  was  just  a  right  streak 
of  sky  to  the  eastward — namely,  a  big 
black  rock  like  two  steps,  and  a  block 
at  the  foot  of  them,  somewhat  the 
shape  of  a  chipped  holy-stone,  run- 
ning down  on  one  side  out  of  a  high 
headland,   like   an   admiral's  cocked 
hat,  with  six  mop-headed  trees   up- 
on the  root  of  the  rock,  for  all  the 
world  like  hairs  on  a  wart.     Here  I 
recollected  how  my  worthy  authority 
pointed  modestly  for  example  to  a 
case  of  the  kind  on  his  own  nose. 
The  opposite  shore  of  its  mouth  was 
flat,  with  a  heavy  white  surf ;  but  it 
shut  in  so  far  upon  the  other,  he  said, 
that,  steering  from  the  south'ard,  one 
would  never  know  there  was  a  river 
there  at  all.     The  Bambar  he  called 
it ;  but  if  he  meant  the  Bembarooghe, 
we  could  scarcely  be  near  it,  or  that 
much  toward  being  abreast  of  St  He- 
lena.   For  all  I  saw,  indeed,  we  might 
have  nothing  to  eastward  of  us  save 
a  hard  coast,  or  else  the  sandy  coast 
farther  down,  shoaling  out  of  sight  of 
land !    At  any  rate  I  knew  we  must 
have  got  into  the  tail  of  the  great  sea- 
stream  from  round  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  which  would,  no  doubt,  split  out 
at  sea  onViana's  Bank,  and  turn  partly 
to   north-eastward    thereabouts ;    so 
that  it  wasn't   a  very  bad  guess  to 
suppose  we  were  getting  up   some- 
where near  Cape  Frio,  the  likeliest 
place  in  the  world  to  find  old  Bob 
Martin's  "  maze,"  which  we  used  to 
joke  about  so  in  the  Iris. 

What  was  done,  though,  required 
to  be  done  quickly,  and  I  looked  about 
for  Tom  West-wood,  till  I  saw  him  on 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yam.— Part  VI. 


725 


the  poop  amongst  the  rest,  talking 
again  to  Miss  Hyde,  as  they  all  crowd- 
ed towards  the  lee-quarter  to  watch 
the  land-haze  seemingly  dropping 
astern.  My  heart  swelled  as  it  were 
into  my  throat,  however,  at  such  an 
appearance  of  good  understanding  be- 
twixt the  two, — whereas  there  was 
she,  an  hour  ago  that  very  morning, 
would  scarce  favour  me  with  a  look 
or  a  word ! — and,  for  the  life  of  me,  I 
couldn't  have  spoken  to  Westwood  at 
the  time,  much  less  gone  hand  in 
hand  ;  for  that  matter,  he  didn  t  seem 
to  be  suspecting  aught  wrong  to 
trouble  himself  about.  What  to  say 
or  do,  either,  I  couldn't  think  ;  since 
the  more  he  cut  me  out,  and  the  less 
friendly  I  felt  to  him,  the  less  could  I 
risk  the  chance  of  showing  us  both  up 
for  what  we  were, — which,  of  course, 
would  bring  him  in  for  the  worst  of 
it ;  as  if  /,  by  Jove,  were  going  to 
servo  him  some  low  trick  for  the  sake 
of  shoving  him  out  with  the  young 
lady.  Meantime  I  kept  fidgeting 
about,  as  if  the  deck  were  too  hot  for 
me,  snatching  a  glance  now  and  then, 
in  spite  of  myself,  at  Violet  Hyde's 
fairy-like  figure ;  so  different  from 
the  rest  of  them,  as  she  stretched 
eagerly  from  below  the  awning  over 
the  ship's  quarter-gallery,  trying  to 
make  out  where  the  land  lay, — now 
putting  her  little  hand  over  her  eyes 
to  see  better,  then  covering  them  alto- 
gether from  the  dazzle,  as  she  drew 
in  her  head  again  and  shook  her  bright 
brown  hair  in  the  shadow,  answering 
Westwood — confound  him  !  The  In- 
dian servant  each  time  carefully  pok- 
ing out  the  red  and  yellow  punkah- 
fringe  for  a  cover  over  her,  while  the 
passengers  were  one  and  all  ready  to. 
•cry  at  not  seeing  the  land,  and  leav- 
ing it  behind.  The  Judge  himself 
was  the  only  man  that  seemed  to  have 
a  dim  notion  of  something  queer  in 
the  whole  case ;  for  every  few  minutes 
lie  walked  quietly  to  the  break  of  the 
poop,  where  I  noticed  him  cast  a 
doubtful  look  down  upon  the  "  chief 
officer  ; "  and  when  the  surgeon  came 
up,  he  asked  anxiously  how  Captain 
Williamson  was,  and  if  he  couldn't  be 
seen  below.  However,  the  surgeon 
told  him  the  captain  had  just  fallen 
for  the  first  time  into  a  good  sleep, 
and  there  was  no  admittance,  but 
Le  was  likely  to  be  much  better  soon. 


By  this  time  there  was  no  standing 
out  from  under  the  awnings,  and  the 
quarterdeck  and  poop  had  to  be  well 
swabbed  to  keep  them  at  all  cool,  the 
steam  of  it  rising  inside  with  a  pitchy 
hempen  sort  of  smell  you  never  feel 
save  in  the  Tropics ;  the  Seringapatam 
still  feeling  the  breeze  aloft,  and  lift- 
ing on  the  water  with  a  ripple  forward, 
although  her  big  courses  went  lapping 
fore  and  aft  eveiy  time  she  swung. 
The  long  white  haze  on  the  horizon 
began  to  melt  as  the  sun  heightened, 
clearing  from  under  the  wake  of  the 
light,  till  now  you  could  fairly  see  the 
sky  to  eastward.  Near  noon,  in  fact, 
we  had  almost  dropped  the  haze  alto- 
gether on  the  ship's  quarter ;  and  at 
first  I  was  glad  to  see  how  much  way 
she  had  made  in  the  two  hours,  when, 
on  second  thoughts,  and  by  noticing 
some  marks  in  the  loom  of  it,  I  had 
no  doubt  but  though  she  might  be 
farther  off,  why  it  was  only  while  she 
set  more  up  to  north-eastward,  — 
so  that  we  were  actually,  so  to  speak, 
leaving  it  by  getting  nearer !  How- 
ever, as  the  men  were  at  dinner,  and 
most  of  the  passengers  gone  off  the 
poop,  down  to  "  tiffin,"  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  tiy  what  I  could  do  in  a  quiet 
way,  towards  making  the  mate  think 
of  it  more  seriously. 

"  Ah,"  said  I,  in  a  would-be  brisk 
and  confidential  kind  of  way,  "  glad 
we're  leaving  that — a — you  know,  that 
land,  Mr  Finch."  "  Indeed,  sir,"  said 
he  indifferently.  "Oh,  you  know," 
said  I,  "it's  all  very  well  for  tl\epassen>- 
gers  there  to  talk  fine  about  land — land 
— but  you  and  I,  Mr  Finch,  don't  need 
to  be  told  that  it's  always  dangerous 
at  sea,  you  know."  The  mate  lifted 
his  head  and  eyed  me  for  a  moment 
or  two,  between  the  disgust  a  sailor 
feels  at  seeing  a  fellow  pretend  to 
aught  like  seamanship,  and  a  parti- 
cular sort  of  spite  toward  me  which 
I'd  noticed  growing  in  him  for  the 
last  few  days, — though  I  daresay  my 
breakfasting  that  morning  in  Sir 
Charles's  cabin  might  have  brought  it 
to  a  height. 

"  Land  dangerous,  sir  !  "  answered 
he  carelessly,  as  he  went  on  wiping 
his  quadrant  again ;  "  who  put  that 
into  your  head?"  "Oh,  well,"  re- 
turned I,  just  as  carelessly,  "  if  it's  to 
leeward  of  course, — or  with  a  current 
taking  you  towards  it, — only  then. 


726 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


[Dec. 


But  I've  no  doubt,  Mr  Finch,  if  this 
wind  were,  to — ah — you  know,  heave 
more  abaft,  that's  to  say,  get  stronger, 
the  craft  would  at  least  stand  still, 
till  you  got  her  —  "  "  What  on 
earth  are  you  talking  about,  Mr 
Ford — Collins,  I  mean  ?  "  asked  he 
sharply.  "  Reallj,  sir,  I've  got  some- 
thing more  to  attend  to  at  present, 
than  such  trash  about  a  current,  and 
the  devil  knows  what  else !  "  "  How, 
why,  Mr  Finch ! "  said  I,  seemingly 
surprised  in  my  turn,  "  are  we  not  in 
a  current  just  now,  then  ?  "  "  Cur- 
rent ! "  replied  Finch,  almost  laugh- 
ing outright,  "  what  does  the  man 
mean?"  "Why  every  one  thinks 
so,  in  the  cuddy,"  said  I,  as  if  rather 
taken  aback,  and  venturing  what 
you  fair  ladies  call  a  '  fib,' — "  ever 
since  we  picked  up  the  bottle  last 
night."  This,  by  the  bye,  had  got 
spread  through  some  of  the  men  to 
the  passengers,  though,  of  course, 
nobody  knew  what  had  been  in  it 
yet.  "  There,  I  declare  now,"  con- 
tinued I,  pointing  to  our  lee-bow, 
where  I'd  had  my  eyes  fixed  during 
the  five  minutes  we  spoke,  "  we  can 
try  it  again ;  do  you  see  that  bird 
yonder  on  the  water  ?  "  The  mate 
turned  his  head  impatiently,  and 
"  Look,  watch  him,  sir,"  said  I.  This 
was  a  tired  man-o'-war  bird  afloat 
about  twenty  fathoms  off,  with  its 
sharp  white  wings  stretched  just 
clear  of  the  water,  and  its  black  eye 
sparkling  in  the  sunlight,  as  it  came 
dipping  on  the  long  smooth  hot-blue 
swell  into  the  lee  of  the  ship's  lofty 
hull,  till  you  saw  its  very  shadow  in 
the  glitter  below  it.  The  Indiaman 
seemed  to  pass  him  as  if  he  rode 
there  at  anchor ;  only  the  curious 
thing  was,  that  the  bird  apparently 
neared  her  up  from  leeward,  crossing 
her  larboard  quarter  within  a  fathom 
or  two,  when  all  of  a  sudden  he  got 
becalmed,  as  it  were,  in  the  wake 
right  astern,  and  by  the  time  either 
of  us  could  walk  to  the  ship's  taffrail, 
she  was  close  over  him ;  as  if,  when- 
ever her  hull  was  end-on,  it  took  his 
surface-drift  away  from  him,  and, 
what  was  more,  as  if  the  ship  kept 
hold  of  it — her  eighteen  feet  or  so  to 
his  little  inch  of  a  draught— for  it 
couldn't  be  owing  to  the  wind.  How- 
ever, the  man-o'-war  bird  took  offer 
of  the  next  swell  to  get  air  in  his 


wings,  and  rose  off  the  heave  of  it 
with  a  sharp  bit  of  a  scream,  away 
after  some  black  boobies  diving  for 
fish,  which  no  doubt  he  would  catch, 
as  they  dropped  them  at  sight  of 
him. 

The  mate  upon  this  started  and 
looked  round,  then  aloft.  "  Con- 
found it !  "  said  he  to  himself,  "  if 
this  breeze  would  only  freshen ! 
There  is  a  sort  of  set  on  the  surface 
just  now,"  continued  he  to  me,  coolly 
enough,  "  though  how  you  idlers 
happened  to  have  an  idea  of  it,  puz- 
zles me,  unless  because  you've  no- 
thing else  to  do  but  watch  the  water. 
Currents  are  pretty  frequent  here- 
abouts, however."  "  Dear  me !  " 
said  I,  "  but  if  we  should  — " 
"Stuff,  sir!"  said  he  quickly,  "the 
coast  here  must  be  steep-to  enough, 
I  should  think,  since  if  it  weren't  for 
the  haze,  we'd  have  sighted  it  thirty 
miles  off!  What  we  want  is  wind 
— wind,  to  let's  cross  it."  "  But 
then  a  calm,  Mr  Finch,"  I  said;  "  I'm 
hanged  afraid  of  those  calms ! " 
"  Well,  well,  sir,"  said  he,  not  liking 
just  to  shake  me  off  at  once,  after  my 
proving  less  of  a  ninny  in  sea  mat- 
ters than  he  had  supposed,  "these 
long  currents  never  set  right  ashore  : 
even  if  we  lose  the  wind,  as  we  may 
soon,  why,  she'll  take  off  into  the 
eddy  seaward,  sir,  if  you  must  know, 
—  the  dead-water  in-shore,  and  the 
ebb-tide,  always  give  it  a  safe  turn ! " 
All  this,  of  course,  was  as  much  to 
satisfy  himself  as  me.  "  Well,  that's 
delightful ! "  said  I,  as  if  quite  con- 
tented, and  Mr  Finch  walked  away 
hastily  down  one  of  the  poop-ladders, 
no  doubt  glad  to  get  rid  of  me  in  a 
decent  manner,  though  I  saw  him 
next  minute  glancing  in  at  the  com- 
pass-boxes. "  Keep  her  up  to  her 
course,  sirrah ;  luff,  d'ye  hear !  "  said 
he  to  Jacobs,  who  was,  perhaps,  the 
best  helmsman  aboard.  "She  falls 
off  tremendous  bad,  sir,"  answered 
Jacobs,  with  another  whirl  of  the 
spokes ;  her  want  of  actual  headway 
making  the  Indiaman  sag  dead  away 
to  leeward,  as  she  shoved  into  the 
force  of  the  sea-stream,  running  more 
and  more  direct  upon  her  starboard 
bow.  One  minute  the  courses  would 
sink  in  with  a  long  sighing  fall  to  the 
lower-masts,  the  next  her  topsails 
would  flutter  almost  aback,  arid  the- 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


727 


beat  even  in  the  shadow  of  her  awn- 
ings was  extreme,  yet  she  still  seemed 
to  have  a  breeze  through  the  white 
glare  aloft.  I  was  determined  to 
bring  things  to  a  point  somehow  or 
another,  so  I  followed  the  mate  down 
the  steps.  "  Oh,  by  the  bye,  Mr 
Finch  !  "  said  I  eagerly,  "  suppose 
one  of  those  dreadful — what  do  you 
call  'em — ah,  tornadoes — were  to  come 
on  !  I  understand  this  is  just  the  way, 
near  Africa — baffling  breeze — heat 
suffocating — hazy  atmosphere — long 
swell — and  current  rising  to  the  sur- 
face !  "  At  this  Finch  stood  up  in  a 
perfect  fury.  "  What  the  devil  d'ye 
mean,  sir,"  said  he,  "  by  dodging  me 
about  the  decks  in  this  fashion,  with 
these  infernally  foolish  questions  of 
yonrs?"  "Oh,  my  fine  fellow," 
thought  I,  "  you  shall  settle  with  me 
for  that."  "Tornadoes  never  blow 
hereabouts,  except  off-shore,  if  you 
must  know,  sir ! "  he  rapped  out, 
sticking  his  hands  in  his  jacket-pock- 
ets as  he  said  so,  and  taking  a  turn 
on  the  quarterdeck.  "  That's  quite 
a  mistake,  I  assure  you,  sir !  "  said  I, 
carried  away  with  the  spirit  of  the 
thing :  "  I've  seen  the  contrary  fifty 
times  over,  and,  from  the  look  of  the 

sky  aloft  just  now,  I'd  bet " here 

I  stopped,  recollected  myself,  put  the 
top  of  my  cane  iii  my  mouth,  and 
peered  under  the  awning  at  the  sea 
with  my  eyes  half-shut,  as  sleepily 
as  usual  with  my  messmates  the 
cadets.  The  chief  officer,  however, 
stepped  back  in  surprise,  eyed  me 
sharply,  and  seemed  struck  with  a 
sudden  thought.  "  Why,  sir,"  said 
he  rather  anxiously,  "  who  may — 
what  can  you  know  of  the  matter  ?  " 
"Pooh!"  replied  I,  seeing  some  of 
the  passengers  were  coming  on  deck, 
"  I'm  only  of  an  inquiring  turn  of 
mind !  You  seafaring  persons,  Mr 
Finch,  think  we  can't  get  any  of  that 
kind  of  knowledge  on  land ;  but  if 
you  look  into  Johnson's  Dictionary, 
why,  you'll  find  the  whole  thing 
under  the  word  Tornado :  'twas  one 
of  the  pieces  I'd  to  get  by  heart  be- 
fore they'd  admit  me  into  our  yacht- 
club — along  with  Falconer's  Ship- 
wreck, you  know ! "  "  Indeed !  " 
said  the  mate,  slowly,  with  a  curl  of 
his  lip,  and  overhauling  me  from 
head  to  foot  and  up  again  ;  "  ah,  in- 
deed !  That  was  the  way,  was  it, 


sir  ?  "  I  saw  'twas  no  use.  I  dare 
say  he  caught  the  twinkle  in  my 
eye ;  while  Jacob's  face,  behind  him, 
was  like  the  knocker  on  a  door  with 
trying  to  screw  it  tight  over  his  quid, 
and  stufling  the  knot  of  his  necker- 
chief in  his  mouth. 

"  Of  course,  sir,"  answered  I,  let- 
ting my  voice  fall ;  "  and  the  long 
and  the  short  of  it  is,  Mr  Finch,  the 
sooner  you  get  your  ship  out  of  this 
current  the  better !  And  what's  more, 
sir,  I  daresay  I  could  tell  you  how  I " 
Whether  he  was  waiting  for  what 
I'd  to  say,  or  thinking  of  something 
just  occurred  to  him,  but  Finch  still 
gazed  steadily  at  me,  without  saying 
a  word  ;  so  I  went  on.  "  You  must 
know  I  had  an  old  uncle  who  was 
long  in  his  Majesty's  royal  navy, 
and  if  there  was  one  point  he  was 
crazy  upon,  'twas  just  this  very  matter 
of  currents — though,  for  my  part,  Mr 
Finch,  I  really  never  understood  what 
he  meant  till  I  made  a  voyage.  He 
used  to  tell  my  mother,  poor  woman, 
— who  always  fancied  they  had  some- 
what to  do  with  puddings, — that  he'd 
seen  no  less  than  half-a-dozen  ships 
go  on  shore,  owing  to  currents.  Now, 
Jane,  he'd  say,  when  you're  fairly  in 
a,  current,  never  you  try  to  cross  out 
of  it,  as  folks  often  do,  against  the  run 
of  it,  for  in  that  case,  unless  the 
wind's  strong  enough,  why,  instead  of 
striking  the  eddy  to  take  your  craft 
right  off-shore,  it'll  just  set  you  over 
and  over  to  the  inside.  You'll  cross, 
in  the  end,  no  doubt — but  ten  to  one 
it's  exactly  where  the  water  begins  to 
shoal;  whereas,  the  right  plan's  as 
simple  as  daylight,  and  that's  why  so 
few  know  it  I  Look  ye,  he'd  say, 
always  you  cross  with  the  stream — 
no  matter  though  your  head  seems  to 
make  landward  ;  why,  the  fact  is,  it'll 
jast  set  you  outside  of  itself,  clear  into 
its  own  bight,  when  you  can  run  off  to 
seaward  Avith  the  eddy,  if  ye  choose. 
Thafs  the  way  to  cross  a  current,  my 
uncle  used  to  say,  provided  you've 
but  a  light  wind  for  handling  her  with ! 
Now,  Mr  Finch,"  added  I,  coolly,  and 
still  mouthing  my  stick  as  before — for 
I  couldn't  help  wishing  to  give  the 
conceited  fellow  a  rub,  while  I  lent 
him  a  hint—"  for  my  own  part,  I  can't 
know  much  of  these  things,  but  it  does 
seem  to  me  as  if  my  uncle's  notions 
pretty  well  suited  the  case  in  hand ! " 


728 


The  Green  Hand^-A  "  Short"  Yam.— Part  VI. 


[Dec. 


Finch  was  too  much  of  a  fair  seaman 
not  to  catch  my  drift  at  once,  but  in 
too  great  a  passion  to  own  it  at  the 
time.  "  D'ye  think,  sir,"  said  he,  with 
a  face  like  fire,  "  so  much  sense  as 
there  is  in  this  long  rigmarole  of  yours, 
that  I'm  such  a — that's  to  say,  that  I 
didn't  know  it  before,  sir  ?  But  what 
I've  got  to  do  with  you,  Mr  Collinsou, 
or  whatever  your  name  may  be — you 
may  have  been  at  sea  twenty  years, 
for  aught  I  care — but  I'd  like  to  know 
roliy  you  come  aboard  here,  and  give 
yourself  out  for  as  raw  a  greenhorn 
as  ever  touched  ropes  with  a  kid 
glove  ?"  "  Well,  Mr  Finch,"  said  I, 
*'  and  what's  that  to  you,  if  I  choose  to 
be  as  green  as  the  North  Sea  whaling- 
ground?"  "Why,  sir,"  said  Finch, 
working  himself  up,  "  you're  devilish 
cunning,  no  doubt,  but  perhaps  you're 
not  aware  that  a  passenger  under  a 
false  rig,  in  an  Indiaraan,  may  be 
clapped  in  limbo,  if  the  captain  thinks 
fit?  Who  and  what  arc  you,  I  ask? 
— some  runaway  master's  mate,  I 
suppose,  unless  you've  got  something 
deeper  in  hand  !  Perhaps,"  ended  he, 
with  a  sneer,  "  a  pickpocket  in  dis- 
guise ?  "  "  Sir,"  said  I,  getting  up  off 
the  buhvark  I'd  been  leaning  upon, 
"  at  present  I  choose  to  be  a  cadet, 
but,  at  any  rate,  you  shall  make  an 
apology  for  what  you  said  just  now, 
sir!"  "Apology!"  said  the  mate, 
turning  on  his  heel,  "  I  shan't  do  any- 
thing of  the  sort !  You  may  be 
thankful,  in  the  mean  time,  if  I  don't 
have  you  locked  up  below,  that's  all ! 
Perhaps,  by  the  bye,  sir,  all  }-ou  want- 
ed was  to  show  off  your  seamanship 
before  the  young  lady  in  the  round- 
house there  ?"  Here  the  glance  the 
fellow  gave  me  was  enough  to  show 
he  knew  pretty  well,  all  the  while, 
•what  we  were  matched  against  each 
other  for. 

I  could  stand  this  no  longer,  of 
course ;  but,  seeing  that  one  or  two  of 
the  passengers  were  noticing  us  from 
the  poop,  1  looked  as  polite  as  possible 
to  do  when  you've  lost  your  temper; 
and,  in  fact,  the  whole  disappointment 
of  this  hair-brained  cruise  of  mine — 
not  to  speak  of  a  few  things  one  had 
to  stand — carried  me  away  at  the 
moment.  There  was  no  scheme  I 
wouldn't  rather  have  been  suspected 
of,  by  this  time,  than  the  real  one — 
namely,  having  gone  in  chase  of  Violet 


Hyde.  I  took  a  card  out  of  my  pocket, 
and  handed  it  quietly  to  Mr  Finch. 
"  You  don't  seem  able  to  name  me, 
sir,"  said  I :  "  however,  I  give  you 
my  word,  you  may  trust  that  bit  of 
pasteboard  for  it ;  and  as  I  take  you 
to  be  a  gentleman  by  your  place  in 
this  ship,  why,  I  shall  expect  the 
satisfaction  one  gentleman  should  give 
another,  the  first  time  we  get  ashore, 
although  it  should  be  to-morrow  morn- 
ing!" And  by  Jove!  thought  I,  I 
hope  I'm  done  with  the  cursedest 
foolish  trick  ever  a  fellow  played  him- 
self!  The  man  that  ventures  to  call 
me  green  again,  or  look  at  me  as  if  he 
wanted  to  cool  his  eyes,  hang  me  if  he 
shan't  answer  for  it !  As  for  a  woman, 
thought  I — but  oh,  those  two  blue 
eyes  yonder— confound  it !  as  I  caught 
sight  of  a  white  muslin  skirt  in  the 
shade  of  the  poop-awning  above. 
I  must  say,  for  Finch,  he  took  my  last 
move  coolly  enough,  turning  round  to 
give  me  another  look,  after  glancing 
at  the  card.  "  Indeed  !"  said  he.  as 
if  rather  surprised ;  "  well,  sir,  I'm 
your  man  for  that,  though  it  can't  be 
just  so  soon  as  to-morrow  morning  ! 
A  Company's  officer  may  meet  a  lieu- 
tenant in  the  navy  any  time — ay,  and 
take  his  ship  off  the  land  too,  I  hope, 
sir !"  and  with  that  he  walked  off 
forward.  Lieutenant !  said  I  to  my- 
self ;  how  did  he  give  me  my  commis- 
sion so  pat,  I  wonder  ?  and  I  pulled 
out  another  card,  when  I  found,  to 
my  great  annoyance,  that,  in  my  hurry 
that  morning,  I  had  happened  to  put 
on  a  coat  of  Westwood's  by  mistake, 
and,  instead  of  plain  "  Mr  Collins," 
they  were  all  "  Lieutenant  West- 
wood,  B.N."  Here's  another  con- 
founded mesa !  thought  I,  and  all  will 
be  blown  in  the  end !  However,  on, 
second  thoughts,  the  notion  struck  me, 
that,  by  sticking  to  the  name,  as  I 
must  do  now  at  any  rate,  why,  I 
should  keep  Westwood  clear  of  all 
scrapes,  which,  in  his  case,  might  be 
disagreeable  enough  ;  whereas,  at  pre- 
sent, he  was  known  only  as  the 
Reverend  Mr  Thomas — and,  as  for  his 
either  shamming  the  griffin,  or  giving 
hints  how  to  work  the  ship,  he  was  one 
of  those  men  you'd  scarce  know  for  a 
sailor,  by  aught  in  his  manner,  at 
least ;  and,  indeed,  Tom  Westwood 
always  seemed  to  need  a  whole  fri- 
gate's ways  about  him,  with  perhaps 


1840.] 


TJic  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


729 


somewhat  of  a  stir,  to  show  what  he 
really  was. 

Five  minutes  or  so   after  this,  it 
didn't  certainly  surprise  me  much  to 
see  the  Indiaman  laid  on  the  opposite 
tack,  with  her  head  actually  north- 
by-east,  or  within   a  few  points  of 
where  the  light  haze  faded  into  the 
sky  ;  the  mate  seeming  by  this  time 
to  see  the  matter  clearly,  and  quietly 
making  his  own  of  it.     The  ship  be- 
gan to  stand  over  towards  the  outer 
set  of  the  current,  which  could  now 
be  seen  rippling  along  here  and  there 
to  the  surface,   as    the   breeze    fell 
slowly :  you  heard  nothing  save  the 
faint  plash   of  it   astern   under  one 
counter,  the  wafting  and  rustling  of 
her  large  main-course  above  the  awn- 
ings, for  she  was  covered  over  like  a 
caravan, — the  slight  flap  of  her  jibs 
far  ahead  on  the  bowsprit  startled 
you  now  and  then  as  distinctly  as  if 
yon  got  a  fillip  on  your  own  nose  ; 
the  stunsail,  high  up  beside  the  weather- 
leech  of  her  fore-topsail,  hung  slack 
over  the  boom,  and  one  felt  each  use- 
less jolt  of  the  wheel  like  a  foot-slip 
in  loose  sand  when  you  want  to  run, 
— all  betwixt  the  lazy,  listless  voices 
of  the  passengers,  dropping  and  drop- 
ping as  separate  as  the  last  sands  in 
an  hour-glass.     Still  every  minute  of 
air  aloft  helped  her  nearer  to  where 
you  saw  the  water  winding  about  the 
horizon  in  long  swathes,  as  it  were, 
bluer    than  the    rest,   and    swelling 
brim-fall,  so  to  speak,  out  of  a  line  of 
light ;  with  the  long  dents  and  bits  of 
ripple  here  and  there  creeping  towards 
it,  till  the  whole  round  of  the  surface, 
as  far  as  you  could  see,  came  out  into 
the  smooth,  like  the  wrinkles  on  a 
nutmeg.     Four  bells  of  the  afternoon 
watch  had  struck — two  o'clock  that  is 
— when  Rickett  the  third  mate,  and 
one  or  two  men,  went  out  to  the  arm  of 
the  spritsail-yard  across  the  bowsprit, 
where  they  lowered  away  a  heavy 
pitch-pot  with  a  long  strip  of  yellow 
bunting  made  fast  to  it,  and  weighted 
a  little  at  the  loose  cud,  to  mark  the 
set  of  the  current:    and  as  the  pot 
sank  away  out  on  her  larboard  bow, 
one  could  see  the  bright-coloured  rag 
deep   down   through    the   clear  blue 
water,  streaming  almost  fairly  north. 
She  appeared  to  be  nearing  the  turn 
of  the  eddy,   and  the  chief  officer's 
spirits  began  to  rise  :  Rickett  screwed 


one  eye  close,  and  looked  out  under 
his  homy  palm  with  the  other,  doubt- 
ful, as  he  said,  that  we  should  "  sight 
the  land  off-deck  before  that.  As 
for  this  trifle  of  an  air  aloft,  sir,"  said 
he,  "  I'm  afraid  we  won't" — "  Hoot, 
Mr  Reckett,"  put  in  Macleod,  stepping 
one  of  his  long  trowser-legs  down 
from  over  the  quarterdeck  awning, 
like  an  ostrich  that  had  been  aloft, 
"  ye're  aye  afraid  ;  but  it's  not  easy 
to  see,  aloft,  Mr  Fench,  sir."  "  How- 
does  the  land  lie  now,  Mr  Macleod  ?  " 
asked  the  first  officer.  "  Well,  I 
wouldn't  wonder  but  we  soon  dropped 
it,  sir — that's  to  eastward,  I  mean," 
replied  he  ;  "  though  it's  what  we  call 
a  bit  mountainous,  in  Scotland — not 
that  unlike  the  Grampians,  Mr  Fench, 
ye  know ! "  "  Hang  your  Grampians, 
man  ! — what's  aJiead  of  us,  eh  ?  "  said 
the  mate  hastily.  "  Why,  sir,"  said 
the  Scotchman,  there  is  some  more  of 
it  on  the  nor'east,  lower  a  good  deal 
— it's  just  flush  with  the  water  from 
here,  at  present,  Mr  Fench — with  a 
peak  or  two,  trending  away  too'ard 
north ;  but  the  light  yonder  on  our 
starboard  bow  makes  them  hard  for 
to  see,  I  may  say." 

In  fact,  some  of  the  men  forward 
were  making  it  out  already  on  the 
starboard  bow,  where  you  soon  could 
see  the  faint  ragged  shape  of  a  head- 
land coming  out,  as  it  were,  of  the 
dazzle  beyond  the  water,  which  lay 
flickering  and  heaving  between,  from 
deep-blue  far  away  into  pale ;  while 
almost  at  the  same  time,  on  her  star- 
board quarter,  where  there  was  less 
of  the  light,  another  outline  was  to  be 
seen  looming  like  pretty  high  land, 
though  still  fainter  than  the  first.  As 
for  the  space  betwixt  them,  for  aught 
one  could  distinguish  as  yet,  there 
might  bo  nothing  there  except  air  and 
water  over  against  the  ship's  side. 
"  Well,"  said  the  mate  briskly,  after 
a  little,  "  we're  pretty  sure,  now,  to 
have  the  laud- breeze  to  give  us  sea- 
room,  before  two  or  three  hours  are 
over, — by  which  time,  I  hope,  we'll 
be  in  the  eddy  of  this  infernal  current, 
at  any  rate  !"  However,  I  was 
scarce  sure  he  didn't  begin  to  doubt 
the  plan  I'd  given  him  ;  whereas  had 
he  known  the  whole  case  in  time,  and 
done  the  thing  then,  it  was  certain 
enough, — and  the  best  thing  he  could 
do,  even  as  it  was :  but  what  troubled 


730 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


[Dec, 


me  now,  why,  suppose  anything  hap- 
pened to  the  ship,  mightn't  he  turn 
the  tables  on  me  after  all,  and  say  I 
had  some  bad  design  in  it  ?  I  loitered 
about  with  my  arms  folded,  saying 
never  a  word,  but  watching  the  whole 
affair  keener  than  1  ever  did  one  of 
Shakspeare's  plays  in  the  theatre  after 
a  dull  cruise  ;  not  a  thing  in  sea,  sky, 
or  Indiaman,  from  the  ripples  far  off 
on  the  water  to  ugly  Harry  hauling 
taut  the  jib -sheet  with  his  chums,  but 
somehow  or  other  they  seemed  all  to 
sink  into  me  at  the  time,  as  if  they'd 
all  got  to  come  out  again  strong. 
You  hardly  knew  when  the  ship  lost 
the  last  breath  of  air  aloft,  till,  from 
stealing  through  the  smooth  water, 
she  came  apparently  to  a  stand-still, 
everything  spread  broad  out,  not  even 
a  flap  in  the  canvass,  almost,  it  had 
fallen  a  dead  calm  so  gradually. 

However  my  troubles  weren't  seem- 
ingly over  yet,  for  just  then  up  came 
the  Judge's  dark  kitmagar  to  the 
gangway  where  I  was,  and,  from  the 
sly  impudence  of  the  fellow's  manner, 
I  at  once  fancied  there  was  something 
particular  in  the  wind,  as  if  he'd  been 
seeking  me  about-decks.  "S'laam, 
mistrce !"  said  he,  with  but  a  slight 
duck  of  his  flat  brown  turban,  "  Judge 
sahib  i-send  Culley  Mistree  his  chup- 
prass," — message,  forsooth  ! — "  sah'b 
inquire  the  flavour  of  gently  man's  Ees- 
Inchee  Coompanee,  two-three  mo- 
ment !"  "  The  flavour  of  my  East- 
India  company,  you  rascal!"  said  1 
laughing,  yet  inclined  to  kick  him  aft 
again  for  his  impertinent  look ;  "  speak 
for  yourself,  if  you  please !"  In  fact  the 
whiff  of  cocoa-nut  oil,  and  other  dark 
perfumes  about  him,  came  out  in  a 
hot  calm  at  sea,  when  everything 
sickens  one,  so  as  to  need  no  inquiry 
about  the  matter :  however,  I  walked 
straight  aft  to  the  round-house,  and 
in  at  the  open  door,  through  which  Sir 
Charles  was  to  be  seen  pacing  from 
one  side  of  his  cabin  to  the  other,  like 
a  Bengal  tiger  in  a  cage.  "  Harkye, 
young  man,"  said  he  sternly,  turning 
as  soon  as  I  came  in,  with  my  hat  in 
my  hand,  "  since  I  had  the  honour  of 
your  company  here  this  morning,  I 
have  recollected — indeed  I  find  that 
one  of  my  servants  had  done  the  same 
— that  you  are  the  person  who  molested 
my  family  by  various  annoyances 
beside  my  garden  at  Croydon,  sir!" 


"  Indeed,  Sir  Charles !"  said  I  coolly, 
for  the  bitter  feeling  I  had  made  me 
cool :  "  they  must  have  been  uninten- 
tional then,  sir !     But  I  was  certainly 
at  Croydon,  seeing  my  mother's  house 
happens  to  be  there."    "  You  must 
have  had  some  design  in  entering  this 
vessel,  sir !"  continued  the  Judge,  in  a 
passion  ;  "  'gad  sir,  the  coincidence  is 
too  curious !    Tell  me  what  it  is  at 
once,  or  by — "    "My  design  was  to 
go    to  India,  sir,"    answered  I,   as 
quietly  as  before.  "  In  what  capacity  ? 
— who  are  you? — what — who — what 
do  you  want  there,  eh  ?"  rapped  out 
the  Judge.      "I'm  not  aware,  sir," 
said  I,  "what  right  yoii've  got  to 
question  me ;  but  I — in  fact  I'll  tell 
so  much  to  any  man — why,  I'm  an 
officer  in  the  navj7."     Sir    Charles 
brought  short  up  in  his  pacing  and 
stamping,  and  stared  at  me.     "  An 
officer  in  the  navy!"  repeated  he; 
"but  yes— why — now  I  think,  I  do 
remember  something  in  your  dress, 
sir, — though  it  wasthe/ace  that  struck 
me!     In  short  then,  sir,  this  makes 
the  case  worse :  you  are  here  on  false 
pretences — affecting  the  very  reverse, 
sir — setting  yourself  up  for  a  model  of 
simplicity, — alaughing-stock  indeed !" 
"  I  had  reasons  for  not  wishing  my 
profession  to  be  known,  Sir  Charles," 
said  I ;  "  most  special  reasons.  They're 
now  over,  however,  and  I  don't  care 
who  knows  it!"     "May  I  ask  what 
these  were?"  said  the  Judge.     "  That 
I'll  never  tell  to  any  man  breathing!" 
I  said,   determinedly.      The    Judge 
walked  two  or  three  times  fore  and 
aft ;  then  a  thought  seemed  to  strike 
him — he  looked  out  as  if  at  the  decks 
and  through  below  the  awnings,  then 
shut  the  door  and  came  back  to  me 
again.     "  By  the  way,"  said  he  seri- 
ously, and  changing  his  tone,  "  since 
this   extraordinary    acknowledgment 
of  yours,  sir,  something  occurs  to  me 
which  makes  me  almost  think  your 
presence  in  the  vessel,  in  one  sense, 
opportune.     I  have  reason  to  entertain 
a  high   opinion  of  naval  officers  as 
technical  men,  professionally  educated 
in  his  Majesty's  regular  service,  and 
— you  look  rather  a  young  man — but 
have  you  had  much  experience,  may  I 
ask?"      "I  have  been  nine  or  ten 
years  at  sea,  sir,"  replied  I,  a  little 
taken  aback,  "  in  various  parts  of  the 
world!"      "I  have   some    suspicion 


1849.] 


Tfte  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


lately,"  he  went  on,  "  that  this  vessel 
is  not  navigated  in  a — in  short,  that 
at  present,  probably,  we  may  be  in 
some  danger, — do  you  think  so,  sir  ?" 
"No,  Sir  Charles,"  I  said,  "I  don't 
think  she  is,  as  matters  stand, — only 
in  a  troublesome  sort  of  quarter, 
which  the  sooner  she's  out  of,  the 
better."  "  The  commander  is,  I  find, 
dangerously  unwell,"  continued  he, 
"  and  of  the  young  man  who  seems  to 
have  the  chief  care  of  the  vessel,  I 
have  no  very  high — well — that,  of 
course  I —  Now  sir,"  said  he,  looking 
intently  at  me,  "  are  you  capable  of—  in 
short  of  managing  this  Company's 
vessel,  should  any  emergency  arise? 
I  have  seen  such,  myself, — and  in  the 
circumstances  I  feel  considerable 
alarm  —  uneasiness,  at  least! — Eh, 
sir  ?"  "  Depend  upon  it,  Sir  Charles," 
I  said,  stepping  toward  the  door,  "  in 
any  matter  of  the  kind  I'll  do  my  best 
for  this  ship!  But  none  knows  so 
well  as  a  seaman,  there  are  cases 
enough  where  your  very  best  can't  do 
much !"  The  Judge  seemed  rather 
startled  by  my  manner — for  I  did  feel 
a  little  misgiving,  from  something  in 
the  weather  on  the  whole ;  at  any 
rate  I  fancied  there  was  a  cold-blood- 
edness in  every  sharp  corner  of  his 
face,  bilious  though  his  temper  was, 
that  would  have  let  him  see  me  go  to 
the  bottom  a  thousand  times  over, 
had  I  even  had  a  chance  with  his 
daughter  herself,  ere  he'd  have  yielded 
me  the  tip  of  her  little  finger :  accord- 
ingly 'twas  a  satisfaction  to  me,  at  the 
moment,  just  to  make  him  see  he 
wasn't  altogether  in  his  nabob's 
chair  in  Bengal  yet,  on  an  elephant's 
back ! 

"  Ah,  though  !"  said  he,  raising  his 
voice  to  call  me  back,  "  to  return  for 
an  instant — there  is  one  tiling  I  must 
positively  require,  sir — which  you  will 
see,in  the  circumstances,  to  be  unavoid- 
able. As  a  mere  simple  cadet,  observe 
sir,  there  was  nothing  to  be  objected 
to  in  a  slight  passing  acquaintance — 
but,  especially  in  the — in  short  equi- 
vocal— sir,  I  must  request  of  you  that 
you  will  on  no  account  attempt  to  hold 
any  communication  with  my  daughter, 
Miss  Hyde — beyond  a  mere  bow,  of 
course !  'Twill  be  disagreeable,  I  as- 
sure you.  Indeed,  I  shall — "  "  Sir, " 
said  I,  all  the  blood  in  my  body  going 
to  my  face,  "  of  all  things  in  the  world, 


that  is  the  very  thing  where  your  views 
and  mine  happen  to  square  ! "  and  I 
bowed.    The  man's  coolness  disgusted 
me,  sticking  such  a  thing  in  my  teeth, 
after  just  reckoning  on   my  services 
with  the  very  same  breath, — and  all 
when  it  wasn't  required,  too !     And 
by  heaven!    thought    I,    had    she 
shoM'n  me  favour,   all  the  old   na- 
bobs in  Christendom,  and  the  whole 
world  to  boot,  shouldn't  hinder  me 
from  speaking  to  her !      What  I  said 
apparently  puzzled  him,  but  he  gave 
me  a  grand  bow  in  his  turn,  and  I  had 
my  hand  on  the  door,  when  he  said, 
"  I  suppose,  sir,  as  a  naval  officer,  you 
have  no  objection  to  give  me  your 
name  and  rank  ?     I  forget  what — " 
Here  I  remembered  my  mistake  with 
the  mate,  and  on  the  whole  I  saw  I 
must  stick  by  it  till  I  was  clear  of  the 
whole  concern, — as   for   saying  my 
name  was  Westwood,  that  I  couldn't 
have  done  at  the  time  for  worlds,  but 
I  quietly  handed  him  another  card  ; 
meaning,  of  course,  to  give  Westwood 
the  cue  as  shortly  as  possible,  for  his 
own  safety.     The  Judge  started  on 
seeing  the  card,  gave  me  one  of  his 
sharp  glances,  and  made  a  sudden  step 
towards  me.    "  Have  you  any  relation 
in  India,  Mr  Westwood?"  said  he, 
slowly  ;  to  which  I  gave  only  a  nod. 
"What  is  he,  if  I  may  inquire?" 
asked  he  again.      "  A  councillor  or 
something,  I  believe,"  said  I  care- 
lessly.     "  Thomas  Westwood  ?"  said 
Sir  Charles.     "  Ah,"  said  I,  wearied 
of  the  thing,  and  anxious  to  go.     "  An 
uncle,  probably,  from  the  age? "he 
still  put  in.     "Exactly,  that's  it!" 
I   said.       "Why — what! — why  did 
you  not  mention  this  at  first?"  he 
broke  out  suddenly,  coming  close  up ; 
"  why,  Councillor  Westwood  is  my 
very  oldest  friend  in  India,  my  dear 
sir !    This  alters  the  matter.    I  should 
have  welcomed  a  nephew  of  his  in  my 
house,  to  the  utmost !     Why,  how 
strange,  Mr  Westwood,  that  the  fact 
should  emerge  in  this  curious  manner ! " 
—  and  with   that   he   held   out   his 
hand.     "Of  course, "  said  he,   "no 
such  restriction  as  I  mentioned  could 
for  a  moment  apply  to  a  nephew  of 
Councillor  Westwood !  "    I  stared  at 
him  for  a  moment,  and  then — "  Sir," 
said  I,  coolly,  "  it  seems  the  whole 
matter  goes  by  names ;  but  if  my  name 
were  the  devil,  or  the  apostle  Paul,  I 


732 


TJie  Green  Hand— A  "  Short  "  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


[Dec, 


don't  see  how  it  can  make  a  bit  of 
difference  in  me :  what's  more,  sir, " 
said  I,  setting  ray  teeth,  "  whatever 
my  name  may  be,  depend  upon  it,  I 
shall  never  claim  acquaintance  either 
•with  you  or — or — Miss  Hyde ! "  With 
that  I  flung  straight  out  of  the  cabin, 
leaving  the  old  gentleman  bolt  upright 
on  the  floor,  and  as  dumb  as  a  stock- 
fish, whether  with  rage  or  amazement 
I  never  stopped  to  think. 

I  went  right  forward  on  the  India- 
man's  forecastle,  clear  of  all  the  awn- 
ings, dropped  over  her  head  out  of 
sight  of  the  men,  and  sat  with  my  legs 
amongst  the  open  wood- work  beneath 
the  bowsprit,  looking  at  the  calm, — 
nobody  in  sight  but  the  Hindoo  figure, 
who  seemed  to  be  doing  the  same. 
Wesiirood !      thought      I     bitterly; 
then  in  a  short  time,  when  the  mis- 
take's found  out,  and  he  got  safe  past 
the  Cape,  perhaps, — it'll  be  nothing 
but  Westwood !    He'll  have  a  clear 
stage,  and  all  favour ;  but  at  any  rate, 
Jhoweuer  it  may  be,  /'U  not  be  here, 
by  heaven !  to  see  it.    That  cursed 
councillor  of  his,  I  suppose,  is  another 
nabob, — and  no  doubt  he'll  marry  her, 
all    smooth !      Uncles  be —     I  little 
thought,  by  Jove!  when  I  knocked  off 
that  yarn  to  the  mate  about  my  uncle 
— but,  after  all,  it's  strange  how  often 
a  fellow's  paid  back  in  his  own  coin  ! 
The  heat  at  the  time  was  unbearable, 
— heat,  indeed  !  'twasn't  only  heat, — 
"but  a  heavy,  close,  stifling  sort  of  a 
feeling,  like  in  a  hot-house,  as  if  you'd 
got  a  weight  on  your  head  and  every 
other  bit  of  you  :  the  water  one  time 
so  dead-blue  and  glassy  between  the 
windings  of  it,  that  the  sky  seemed 
to  vanish,  and  the  ship  looked  float- 
ing up  into  where  it  was, — then  again 
you  scarce  knew  sea  from  air,  except 
by  the  wrinkles  and  eddies  running 
across  each  other  between,  toward  a 
sullen    blue  ring  at  the  horizon, — 
like  seeing  through  a  big  twisted  sieve, 
or  into  a  round  looking-glass  all  over 
cracks.     I  heard  them  clue  up  every- 
thing aloft,  except  the  topsails, — and 
they  fell  slapping  back  and  forward  to 
the  masts,  every  now  and  then,  with  a 
thud  like  a  thousand  spades  clapped 
down  at  once  over  a  hollow  bit   of 
ground — till   all   seemed  as  still  be- 
tween as  if  they'd  buried  something. 
I  wished  to  heaven  it  were  what  I 
fdt  at  the  time,  and  the  thought  of  Vio- 


let Hyde,  that  I  might  be  as  if  I  never 
had  seen  her, — when  on  glancing  up, 
betwixt  the  figure-head  and  the  ship's 
stern,  it  struck  me  to  notice  how  much 
the  land  on  her  starboard  bow  and 
beam  seemed  to  have  risen,  even  dur- 
ing the  last  hour,  and  that  without 
wind  ;  partly  on  account  of  its  clear- 
ing in  that  quarter,  perhaps  ;  but  the 
nearest  points  looked  here  and  there 
almost  as  if  yon  could  see  into  them, 
roughening  barer  out  through  the  hue 
of  the  distance,  ,like  purple  blotches 
spreading  in  it.     Whereas,  far  away 
astern  of  us,  when  I  crossed  over  her 
head  works,  there  were  two  or  three  thin 
white  streaks  of  haze  to  be  seen  just 
on  the  horizon,  one  upon  another,  above 
which  you  made  out  somewhat  like  a 
dim  range  of  peaked  laud,  trending 
one  couldn't  say  how  far  back — all 
showing  how  fairly  the  coast  was  shut- 
ting her  in  upon  the  south-east,  as 
she  set  farther  m-shore,  even  while 
the  run  of  the  current   bade  fair  to 
take  her  well  clear  of  it  ahead  ;  which 
was  of  course  all  we  need  care  for  at 
present.    Her  want  of  steerage-way, 
however,    let    the    Indiaman    sheer 
hither  and  thither,  till  at  times  one 
was  apt  to  get  confused,  and  suppose 
her  more  in  with  the  land-loom  than 
she  really  was.    Accordingly  the  mate 
proved  his  good  judgment  by  having 
a  couple  of  boats  lowered  with  a  tow- 
line,  to  keep  her  at  least  stern- on  to 
the  current, — although  the  trouble  of 
getting  out  the  launch  would  have 
more    served  his  purpose,   and  the 
deeper  loaded  the  better,  since  in  fact 
there  were  two  favourable  drifts  instead 
of  one,  between  every  stroke  of  the 
oars.    The  men  pulled  away  rather 
sulkily,   their  straw  hats  over  their 
noses,   the  dip  of  the  hawser  scarce 
tautening   at    each   strain,    as    they 
squinted  up  at  the  Seringapatam's  idle 
figure-head.  For  my  part  I  had  thought 
it  better  to  leave  him  by  himself,  and 
go  below. 

When  I  went  into  the  cuddy,  more 
for  reliefs  sake  than  to  dine,  the  pas- 
sengers were  chattering  and  talking 
away  round  the  tables,  hot  and  chok- 
ing though  it  was,  in  high  glee  be- 
cause the  land  was  in  sight  from  the 
starboard  port-window,  and  they  fan- 
cied the  officers  had  changed  their 
mind  as  to  "  touching  "  there.  Every 
now  and  then  a  cadet  or  two  would 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


735 


start  up,  with  their  silver  forks  in 
their  hands,  and  put  their  heads  out ; 
some  asked  whether  the  anchor  had 
been  seen  getting  ready  or  not ; 
others  disputed  about  the  colour  erf 
tropical  trees,  if  they  were  actually 
green  like  English  ones,  or  perhaps  all 
over  blossoms  and  fruit  together — the 
•whole  of  them  evidently  expecting 
bands  of  negroes  to  line  the  shore  as 
we  came  in.  One  young  fellow  had 
taken  a  particular  fancy  to  have  an 
earthworm,  with  earth  enough  to  feed 
it  all  the  rest  of  the  voyage,  otherwise 
he  couldn't  stand  it ;  and  little  Tom- 
my's mother  almost  went  into  hys- 
terics again,  when  she  said,  if  she 
could  just  eat  a  lettuce  salad  once 
more,  she'd  die  contented ;  the  mis- 
sionary looking  up  through  his  spec- 
tacles, in  surprise  that  she  wasn't 
more  interested  about  the  slave-trade, 
•whereof  he'd  been  talking  to  her.  As 
for  Westwood,  he  joined  quietly  in 
the  fun,  with  a  glance  now  and  then 
across  to  me ;  however,  I  pretended 
to  be  too  busy  with  the  salt  beef,  and 
was  merely  looking  up  again  for  a 
moment,  when  my  eye  chanced  to 
catch  on  the  swinging  barometer  that 
hung  in  the  raised  skylight,  right 
over  the  midst  of  our  noise.  By 
George !  ma'am,  what  was  my  horror 
when  I  saw  the  quicksilver  had  sunk 
so  far  below  the  mark,  probably  fixed 
thers  that  morning,  as  to  be  almost 
shrunk  in  the  ball!  Whatever  the 
merchant  service  might  know  about 
the  instrument  in  those  days,  the  Afri- 
can coast  was  the  place  to  teach  its 
right  use  to  us  in  the  old  Iris.  I  laid 
down  my  knife  and  fork  as  carelessly 
as  I  could,  and  went  straight  on 
deck. 

Here  I  sought  out  the  mate,  who 
was  forward,  watching  the  land — and 
at  once  took  him  aside  to  tell  him  the 
fact.  "Well,  sir,"  said  he  coolly,  "  and 
what  of  that  ?  A  sign  of  wind,  cer- 
tainly, before  very  long ;  but  in  the 
meantime  we're  sure  to  have  it  off  the 
land."  "  That's  one  of  the  very  rea- 
sons," said  I,  "  for  thinking  this  will 
be  from  seaward — since  towards  even- 
ing the  land'll  have  plenty  of  air  with- 
out it !  But  more  than  that,  sir,"  said 
I,  "I  tell  you,  Mr  Finch,  I  know  the 
west  coast  of  Africa  pretty  well— and 
so  far  south  as  this,  the  glass  falling  so 
low  as  twenty-seven,  is  always  the  sign 


of  a  norVesterly  blow!  If  you're  a 
wise  man,  sir,  you'll  not  only  get  your 
upper  spars  down  on  deck,  but  you'll 
see  your  anchors  clear !  "  Finch  had 
plainly  got  furious  at  my  meddling 
again,  and  said  he,  "  Instead  of  that, 
sir,  I  shall  hold  on  everything  aloft,  to 
stand  out  when  I  get  the  breeze ! " 
"  D'ye  really  think,  then,"  said  I, 
pointing  to  the  farthest-off  streak  of 
land,  trending  away  by  this  time 
astern  of  us,  faint  as  it  was  ;  "  do  you 
think  you  could  ever  weather  that 
point,  with  anything  like  a  strong 
nor'-wester,  besides  a  current  heading 
you  in,  as  you  got  fair  hold  of  it 
again  ?  "  "  Perhaps  not,"  said  he, 
wincing  a  little  as  he  glanced  at  it, 
"  but  you  happen  always  to  suppose 
what  there's  a  thousand  to  one  against, 
-sir !  Why,  sir,  you  might  as  well  take 
the  command  at  once  !  But,  by  G — ! 
sir,  if  it  did  come  to  that,  I'd  rather 
— I'd  rather  see  the  ship  lost — I'd  ra- 
ther go  to  the  bottom  with  all  in  her, 
after  handling  her  as  I  know  well 
how,  than  I'd  see  the  chance  given  to 
you  /"  The  young  fellow  fairly  shout- 
ed this  last  word  into  my  very  ear — 
he  was  in  a  regular  furions  passion. 
"  You'd  better  let  me  alone,  that's  all 
I've  got  to  say  to  you,  sir !  "  growled 
he  as  he  turned  away ;  so  I  thought  it 
no  use  to  gay  more,  and  leant  over 
the  bulwarks,  resolved  to  see  it  out. 

The  fact  was,  the  farther  we  got  off 
the  land  now,  the  worse — seeing  that 
if  what  I  dreaded  should  prove  true, 
why,  we  were  probably  in  thirty  or 
forty  fathoms  water,  where  no  anchor 
could  hold  for  ten  minutes'  time — if  it 
ever  caught  ground.  My  way  would 
have  been,  to  get  every  boat  out  at 
once,  and  tow  in  till  you  could  see  the 
colour  of  some  shoal  or  other  from 
aloft,  then  take  my  chance  there  to 
ride  out  whatever  might  come,  to  the 
last  cable  aboard  of  us.  Accordingly 
I  wasn't  sony  to  see  that  by  this  timo 
the  whole  bight  of  the  coast  was  slowly 
rising  off  our  beam,  betwixt  the  high 
land  far  astern  and  the  broad  bluffs 
upon  her  starboard  bow ;  which  last 
came  out  already  of  a  sandy  reddish 
tint,  and  the  lower  part  of  a  clear 
blue,  as  the  sun  got  westward  on  our 
other  side.  What  struck  me  was,  that 
the  face  of  the  water,  which  was  all 
over  wrinkles  and  winding  lines,  with 
•here  and  there  a  quick  ripple,  when  I 


734 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


[Dec. 


went  below,  had  got  on  a  sudden  quite 
smootli  as  far  as  you  could  see,  as  if 
they'd  sunk  down  like  so  many  eels  ; 
a  long  uneasy  ground-swell  was  be- 
ginning to  heave  in  from  seaward,  on 
which  the  ship  rose ;  once  or  twice  I 
fancied  I  could  observe  the  colour 
different  away  towards  the  land,  like 
the  muddy  chocolate  spreading  out 
near  a  river  mouth  at  ebb-tide, — then 
again  it  was  green,  rather ;  and  as  for 
the  look  of  the  coast,  I  had  no  know- 
ledge of  it.  I  thought  again,  certainly, 
of  the  old  quartermaster's  account  in 
the  Iris,  but  there  was  neither  any- 
thing like  it  to  be  seen,  nor  any  sign 
of  a  break  in  the  coast  at  all,  though 
high  headlands  enough. 

The  ship  might  have  been  about 
twelve  or  fourteen  miles  from  the 
north-east  point  upon  her  starboard 
bow,  a  high  rocky  range  of  bluffs, — 
and  ratherless  from  the  nearest  of  what 
lay  away  off  her  beam, — but  after  this 
you  could  mark  nothing  more,  except 
it  were  that  she  edged  farther  from  the 
point,  by  the  way  its  bearings  shifted 
or  got  blurred  together:  either  she 
stood  still,  or  she'd  caught  some  eddy 
or  under-drift,  and  the  mate  walked 
about  quite  lively  once  more.  The 
matter  was,  how  to  breathe,  or  bear 
your  clothes — when  all  of  a  sudden  I 
heard  the  second  mate  sing  out  from 
the  forecastle — "  Stand  by  the  braces, 
there !  Look  out  for  the  topes'l  hawl- 
yairds  ! "  He  came  shuffling  aft  next 
moment  as  fast  as  his  foundered  old 
shanks  could  carry  him,  and  told  Mr 
Finch  there  was  a  squall  coming  off 
the  land.  The  mate  sprang  up  on  the 
bulwarks,  and  so  did  I  —  catching 
a  glance  from  him  as  much  as  to 
say — There's  your  gale  from  seaward, 
you  pretentious  lubber !  The  lowest 
streak  of  coast  bore  at  present  before 
our  starboard  quarter,  betwixt  east 
and  south-east'ard,  with  some  pretty 
high  land  running  away  up  from  it, 
and  a  sort  of  dim  blue  haze  hanging 
beyond,  as  'twere.  Just  as  Macleod 
spoke,  I  could  see  a  dusky  dark  vapour 
thickening  and  spreading  in  the  haze, 
till  it  rose  black  along  the  flat,  out  of 
the  sky  behind  it ;  whitened  and  then 
darkened  again,  like  a  heavy  smoke 
floating  up  into  the  air.  All  was  con- 
fusion on  deck  for  a  minute  or  two — 
off  went  all  the  awnings — and  every 
hand  was  ready  at  his  station,  fisting 


the  ropes ;  when  I  looked  again  at 
the  cloud,  then  at  the  mates,  then  at 
it  again.  "  By  George!"  said  I, 
noticing  a  pale  wreath  of  it  go  curling 
on  the  pale  clear  sky  over  it,  as  if  to 
a  puff  of  air, — "  it  is  smoke  !  Some 
niggers,  as  they  so  often  do,  burning 
the  bush ! "  So  it  was ;  and  as  soon  as 
Finch  gave  in,  all  hands  quietly  coiled 
up  the  ropes.  It  was  scarce  five 
minutes  after,  that  Jacobs,  who  was 
coiling  up  a  rope  beside  me,  gave  me 
a  quiet  touch  with  one  finger — "  Mr 
Collins,  sir,"  said  he  in  a  low  voice, 
looking  almost  right  up,  high  over 
toward  the  ship's  larboard  bow,  which 
he  couldn't  have  done  before,  for  the 
awnings  so  lately  above  us, — "  look, 
sir — there's  an  ox-eye ! "  I  followed 
his  gaze,  but  it  wasn't  for  a  few 
seconds  that  I  found  what  it  pointed 
to,  in  the  hot  far-off- like  blue  dimness 
of  the  sky  overhead,  compared  with 
the  white  glare  of  which  to  westward 
our  canvass  aloft  was  but  duly  gray 
and  yellow. 

'Twas  what  none  but  a  seaman 
would  have  observed,  and  many  a 
seaman  wouldn't  have  done  so, — but 
a  man-o'-war's-man  is  used  to  look 
out  at  all  hours,  in  all  latitudes, — and 
to  a  man  that  knew  its  meaning,  this 
would  have  been  no  joke,  even  out  of 
sight  of  land:  as  it  was,  the  thing 
gave  me  a  perfect  thrill  of  dread. 
High  aloft  in  the  heavens  northward, 
where  they  were  freest  from  the  sun — 
now  standing  over  the  open  horizon 
amidst  a  wide  bright  pool  of  light, — 
you  managed  to  discern  a  small  silvery 
speck,  growing  slowly  as  it  were  out 
of  the  faint  blue  hollow,  like  a  star  in 
the  day-time,  till  you  felt  as  if  it 
looked  at  you,  from  God-knows  what 
distance  away.  One  eye  after  another 
amongst  the  mates  and  crew  joined 
Jacobs's  and  mine,  with  the  same  sort 
of  dumb  fellowship  to  be  seen  when  a 
man  in  London  streets  watches  the 
top  of  a  steeple ;  and  however  hard 
to  make  out  at  first,  ere  long  none  of 
them  could  miss  seeing  it,  as  it  got 
slowly  larger,  sinking  by  degrees  till 
the  sky  close  about  it  seemed  to 
thicken  like  a  dusky  ring  round  the 
white,  and  the  sunlight  upon  our  sea- 
ward quarter  blazed  out  doubly 
strong — as  if  it  came  dazzling  off  a 
brass  bell,  with  the  bright  tongue 
swinging  in  it  far  off  to  one  side, 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short "  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


735 


where  the  hush  made  you  think  of  a 
stroke  back  upon  us,  with  some  terri- 
fic sound  to  boot.  The  glassy  water 
by  this  time  was  beginning  to  rise 
under  the  ship  with  a  struggling 
kind  of  unequal  heave,  as  if  a  giant 
you  couldn't  see  kept  shoving  it  down 
here  and  there  with  both  hands,  and 
it  came  swelling  up  elsewhere.  To 
north-westward  or  thereabouts,  be- 
twixt the  sun  and  this  ill-boding  token 
aloft,  the  far  line  of  open  sea  still  lay 
shining  motionless  and  smooth ;  next 
time  you  looked,  it  had  got  even 
brighter  than  before,  seeming  to  leave 
the  horizon  visibly ;  then  the  streak 
of  air  just  above  it  had  grown  gray, 
and  a  long  edge  of  hazy  vapour  was 
creeping  as  it  were  over  from  beyond, 
— the  white  speck  all  the  while  tra- 
velling down  towards  it  slantwise 
from  nor'ard,  and  spreading  its  dark 
ring  slowly  out  into  a  circle  of  cloud, 
till  the  keen  eye  of  it  at  last  sank  in, 
and  below,  as  well  as  aloft,  tlic  whole 
north-western  quarter  got  blurred 
together  in  one  gloomy  mass.  If 
there  was  a  question  at  first  whether 
the  wind  mightn't  come  from  so  far 
nor'ard  as  to  give  her  a  chance  of 
running  out  to  sea  before  it,  there 
was  none  now, — our  sole  recourse  lay 
either  in  getting  nearer  the  land 
meanwhile,  to  let  go  our  anchors  ere 
it  came  on,  with  her  head  to  it, — or 
we  niight  make  a  desperate  trial  to 
weather  the  lee- point  now  far  astern. 
The  fact  was,  we  were  going  to  have 
a  regular  tornado,  and  that  of  the 
worst  kind,  which  wouldn't  soon  blow 
itself  out ;  though  near  an  hour's 
notice  would  probably  pass  ere  it  was 
on. 

The  three  mates  laid  their  heads 
gravely  together  over  the  capstan  for 
a  minute  or  two,  after  which  Finch 
seemed  to  perceive  that  the  first  of 
the  two  ways  was  the  safest ;  though 
of  course  the  nearer  we  should  get  to 
the  land,  the  less  chance  there  was  of 
clearing  it  afterwards,  should  her 
cables  part,  or  the  anchors  drag.  The 
two  boats  still  alongside,  and  two 
others  dropped  from  the  davits,  were 
manned  at  once  and  set  to  towing  the 
Indiaman  ahead,  in-shore;  while  the 
bower  and  sheet  anchors  were  got 
out  to  the  cat-heads  ready  for  letting 
go,  cables  overhauled,  ranged,  and 
clinched  as  quickly  as  possible,  and 

VOL.  LXVI. — xo.  ccccx. 


the  deep-sea  lead  passed  along  to  take 
soundings  every  few  minutes. 

On  we  crept,  slow  as  death,  and 
almost  as  still,  except  the  jerk  of  the 
oars  from  the  heaving  water  at  her 
bows,  and  the  loud  flap  of  the  big 
topsails  now  and  then,  everything 
aloft  save  them  and  the  brailed  fore- 
sail being  already  close  furled  ;  the 
clouds  all  the  while  rising  away  along 
our  larboard  beam  nor'west  and 
north,  over  the  gray  bank  on  the 
horizon,  till  once  more  you  could 
scarce  say  which  point  the  wind 
would  come  from,  unless  by  the  huge 
purple  heap  of  vapour  in  the  midst. 
The  sun  had  got  low,  and  he  shivered 
his  dazzling  spokes  of  light  behind 
one  edge  of  it,  as  if  'twere  a  moun- 
tain you  saw  over  some  coast  or  other : 
indeed,  you'd  have  thought  the  ship 
almost  shut  in  by  land  on  both  sides 
of  her,  which  was  what  seemed  to 
terrify  the  passengers  most,  as  they 
gathered  about  the  poop-stairs  and 
watched  it, — which  was  the  true  land 
and  which  the  clouds,  'twas  hard  to 
say, — and  the  sea  gloomed  writhing 
between  them  like  a  huge  lake  in  the 
mountains.  I  saw  Sir  Charles  Hyde 
walk  out  of  the  round-house  and  in 
again,  glancing  uneasily  about :  his 
daughter  was  standing  with  another 
young  lady,  gazing  at  the  land  ;  and 
at  sight  of  her  sweet,  curious  face,  I'd 
have  given  worlds  to  be  able  to  do 
something  that  might  save  it  from  the 
chance,  possibly,  of  being  that  very 
night  dashed  amongst  the  breakers  on 
a  lee-shore  in  the  dark — or  at  best, 
suppose  the  Almighty  favoured  any 
of  us  so  far,  perhaps  landed  in  the 
wilds  of  Africa.  Had  there  been 
aught  man  could  do  more,  why,  though 
I  never  should  get  a  smile  for  it,  I'd 
have  compassed  it,  mate  or  no  mate ; 
but  all  was  done  that  could  be  done, 
and  I  had  nothing  to  say.  Westwood 
came  near  her,  too,  apparently  seeing 
our  bad  case  at  last  to  some  extent, 
and  both  trying  to  break  it  to  her  and 
to  assure  her  mind ;  so  I  folded  my 
arms  again,  and  kept  my  eyes  hard 
fixed  upon  the  bank  of  cloud,  as  some 
new  weather-mark  stole  out  in  it,  and 
the  sea  stretched  breathless  away  be- 
low, like  new-melted  lead.  The  air 
was  like  to  choke  you — or  rather  there 
was  none — as  if  water,  sky,  and  every- 
thing else  wanted  life,  and  one  would 
3c 


73G 


77ic  Green  Hand— A  "  Short"  Yam.— Part  VI. 


fain  have  caught  the  first  rush  of  the 
tornado  into  his  mouth  —  the  men 
emptying  the  dipper  on  deck  from  the 
cask,  from  sheer  loathing.  As  for  the 
land,  it  seemed  to  draw  nearer  of  it- 
self, till  every  point  and  wrinkle  in 
the  headland  off  our  bow  came  out  in 
a  red  coppery  gleam — one  saw  the 
white  line  of  surf  round  it,  and  some 
blue  country  beyond  like  indigo  ;  then 
back  it  darkened  again,  and  all  aloft 
was  getting  livid-like  over  the  bare 
royal  mast-heads. 

Suddenly  a  faint  air  was  felt  to 
flutter  from  landward  ;  it  half  lifted 
the  top-sails,  and  a  heavy  earthy 
swell  came  into  your  nostrils — the  first 
of  the  land-breeze,  at  last ;  but  by 
this  time  it  was  no  more  than  a  sort 
of  mockery,  while  a  minute  after  you 
might  catch  a  low,  sullen,  moaning 
sound  far  off  through  the  emptiness, 
from  the  strong  surf  the  Atlantic  sends 
in  upon  the  West  Coast  before  a  squall. 
If  ever  landsmen  found  out  what  land 
on  the  wrong  side  is,  the  passengers 
of  the  Seringapatam  did,  that  moment ; 
the  shudder  of  the  top -sails  aloft 
seemed  to  pass  into  every  one's 
shoulders,  and  a  few  quietly  walked 
below,  as  if  they  were  safe  in  their 
cabins.  I  saw  Violet  Hyde  look 
round  and  round  with  a  startled  ex- 
pression, and  from  one  face  to  another, 
till  her  eye  lighted  on  me,  and  I 
fancied  for  a  moment  it  was  like  put- 
ting some  question  to  me.  I  couldn't 
bear  it ! — 'twas  the  first  time  I'd  felt 
powerless  to  offer  anything ;  though 
the  thought  ran  through  me  again  till 
I  almost  felt  myself  buffeting  among 
the  breakers  with  her  in  my  arms. 
I  looked  to  the  land,  where  the  smoke 
we  had  seen  three-quarters  of  an 
hour  ago  rose  again  with  the  puff  of 
air,  a  slight  flicker  of  flame  in  it,  as  it 
wreathed  off  the  low  ground  toward 
the  higher  point, — when  all  at  once  I 
gave  a  start,  for  something  in  the 
shape  of  the  whole  struck  me  as  if  I'd 
seen  it  before.  Next  moment  I  was 
thinking  of  old  Bob  Martin's  particular 
landmarks  at  the  river  mouth  he  spoke 
of,  and  the  notion  of  its  possibly  being 
hereabouts  glanced  on  me  like  a  god- 
send. In  the  unsure  dusky  sight  I 
had  of  it,  certainly,  it  wore  somewhat 
of  that  look,  and  it  lay  fair  to  leeward 
of  the  weather;  while,  as  for  the  dead 
phut-in  appearance  of  it,  old  Bob  had 


[Dec, 

specially  said  you'd  never  think  it  was 
a  river :  but  then  again  it  was  more 
like  a  desperate  fancy  owing  to  our 
hard  case,  and  to  run  the  ship  straight 
for  it  would  be  the  trick  of  a  bed- 
lamite. At  any  rate  a  quick  cry  from, 
aft  turned  me  round,  and  I  saw  a  blue 
flare  of  lightning  streak  out  betwixt 
the  bank  of  gray  haze  and  the  cloud 
that  hung  over  it — then  another,  and 
the  clouds  were  beginning  to  rise 
slowly  in  the  midst,  leaving  a  white 
glare"  between,  as  if  you  could  see 
through  it  towards  what  was  coming. 
The  men  could  pull  no  longer,  but 
ahead  of  the  ship  there  was  now  only 
about  eight  or  ten  fathoms  water, 
with  a  soft  bottom.  The  boats  were 
hoisted  in,  and  the  men  had  begun  to 
clue  up  and  hand  the  topsails,  which 
were  lowered  on  the  caps,  when,  just 
in  the  midst  of  the  hubbub  and  con- 
fusion, as  I  stood  listening  to  every 
order  the  mate  gave,  the  steward  came 
up  hastily  from  below  to  tell  him  that 
the  captain  had  woke  up,  and,  being 
much  better,  wanted  to  see  him  im- 
mediately. Mr  Finch  looked  sur- 
prised, but  he  turned  at  once,  and 
hurried  down  the  hatchway. 

The  sight  which  all  of  us  who 
weren't  busy  gazed  upon,  over  the 
larboard  bulwarks,  was  terrible  to  see : 
'twas  half  dark,  though  the  sun,  drop- 
ping behind  the  haze-bank,  made  it 
glimmer  and  redden.  The  dark  heap 
of  clouds  had  first  lengthened  out 
blacker  and  blacker,  and  was  rising 
slowly  in  the  sky  like  a  mighty  arch, 
till  you  saw  their  white  edges  below, 
and  a  ghastly  white  space  behind,  out 
of  which  the  mist  and  scud  began  to 
fly.  Next  minute  a  long  sigh  came 
into  her  jib  and  foresail,  then  the 
black  bow  of  cloud  partly  sank  again, 
and  a  blaze  of  lightning  came  out  all 
round  her,  showing  you  every  face  on 
deck,  the  inside  of  the  round-house 
aft,  with  the  Indian  Judge  standing  in 
it,  his  hand  to  his  eyes, — and  the  land 
far  away,  to  the  very  swell  rolling  in 
to  it.  Then  the  thunder  broke  over- 
head in  the  gloom,  in  one  fearful  sud- 
den crack,  that  you  seemed  to  hear 
through  every  corner  of  cabins  and 
forecastle  below, — and  the  wet  back- 
fins  of  twenty  sharks  or  so,  that 
had  risen  out  of  the  inky  surface, 
vanished  as  suddenly.  The  Indiainan 
had  sheered  almost  broadside  on  to 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Stort"  Yarn.— Purl  VI. 


7:17 


the  clouds,  her  jib  was  still  up,  and  I 
knew  the  next  time  the  clouds  rose  we 
should  fairly  have  it.  Flash  after  Hash 
came,  and  clap  after  clap  of  thunder, 
such  as  you  hear  before  a  tornado — 
yet  the  chief  officer  wasn't  to  be  seen, 
and  the  others  seemed  uncertain  what 
to  do  first ;  while  every  one  began  to 
wonder  and  pass  along  questions 
where  he  could  be.  In  fact,  he  had 
disappeared.  For  my  part,  I  thought 
it  very  strange  he  staid  so  long ;  but 
there  wasn't  a  moment  to  lose.  I 
jumped  down  off  the  poop-stairs, 
walked  forward  on  the  quarterdeck, 
and  said  coolly  to  the  men  nearest 
me,  "  Run  and  haul  down  that  jib 
yonder — set  the  spanker  here,  aft. 
You'll  have  her  taken  slap  on  her 
beam :  quick,  my  lads !"  The  men 
did  so  at  once.  Macleod  was  calling 
out  anxiously  for  Mr  Finch.  "  Stand 
by  the  anchors  there !"  I  sang  out, 
"  to  let  go  the  starboard  one,  the 
moment  she  swings  head  to  wind !" 
The  Scotch  mate  turned  his  head ;  but 
Rickett's  face,  by  the  next  flash,  show- 
ed he  saw  the  good  of  it,  and  there 
was  no  leisure  for  arguing,  especially 
as  I  spoke  in  a  way  to  be  heard.  I 
walked  to  the  wheel,  and  got  hold  of 
Jacobs  to  take  the  weather-helm.  We 
were  all  standing  ready,  at  the  pitch 
of  expecting  it.  Westwood,  too,  hav- 
ing appeared  again  by  this  time  beside 
me,  I  whispered  to  him  to  run  for- 
ward and  look  after  the  anchors — 
when  some  one  came  hastily  up  the 
after-hatchway,  with  a  glazed  hat  and 
pilot-coat  on,  stepped  straight  to  the 
binnacle,  looked  in  behind  me,  then 
at  the  black  bank  of  clond,  then  aloft. 
Of  course  I  supposed  it  was  the  mate 
again,  but  didn't  trouble  myself  to 
glance  at  him  further — when  "Hold 
on  with  the  anchors  !"  he  sang  out  in 
a  loud  voice — "hold  on  there  for  your 
lives !"  Heavens !  it  was  the  captain 
himself ! 

At  this,  of  course,  I  stood  aside  nt 
once;  and  he  shouted  again,  "Hoist 
the  jib  and  fore-topmast-staysail — 
stand  by  to  set  fore-course !"  By 
Jove!  this  was  the  way  to  pay  the 
ship  head  off,  instead  of  stern  off, 
from  the  blast  when  it  came — and  to 
let  her  drive  before  it  at  no  trifle  of  a 
rate,  wherever  that  might  take  her ! 
*'  Down  with  that  spanker,  Mr  Mac- 
leod, d'ye  hear!"  roared  Captain 


Williamson  again  ;  and  certainly  I  did 
wonder  what  he  meant  to  do  with  the 
ship.  But  his  manner  was  so  decided, 
and  'twas  so  natural  for  the  captain  to 
strain  a  point  to  come  on  deck  in  the 
circumstances,  that  I  saw  he  must 
have  some  trick  of  seamanship  above 
7«f,  or  some  special  knowledge  of  the 
coast,— and  I  waited  in  a  state  of  the 
greatest  excitement  for  the  first  stroke 
of  the  tornado.  He  waved  the  second 
and  third  mates  forward  to  their  posts 
— the  Indiaman  sheering  and  backing, 
like  a  frightened  horse,  to  the  long 
slight  swell  and  the  faint  flaw  of  the 
land  air.  The  black  arch  to  windward 
began  to  rise  again,  showing  a  terrible 
white  stare  reaching  deep  in,  and  a 
blue  dart  of  lightning  actually  ran. 
zig-zag  down  before  our  glaring  fore- 
to'gallant-mast.  Suddenly  the  cap- 
tain had  looked  at  me,  and  we  faced 
each  other  by  the  gleam  ;  and  quiet, 
easy-going  man  as  he  was  commonly, 
it  just  flashed  across  me  there  was 
something  extraordinarily  wild  and 
raised  in  his  pale  visage,  strange  as 
the  air  about  us  made  every  one 
appear.  He  gave  a  stride  towards  me, 
shouting  "Who  are — "when  the  thun- 
der-clap took  the  words  out  of  his 
tongue,  and  next  moment  the  tornado 
burst  upon  us,  fierce  as  the  wind  from 
a  cannon's  mouth.  For  one  minute 
the  Seringapatarn  heeled  over  to  her 
starboard  streak,  almost  broadside  on, 
and  her  spars  toward  the  land, — all 
on  her  beam  was  a  long  ragged  white 
gush  of  light  and  mist  pouring  out 
under  the  black  brow  of  the  clouds, 
with  a  trampling  eddying  roar  up  into 
the  sky.  The  swell  plunged  over  her 
weather-side  like  the  first  break  of  a 
dam,  and  as  we  scrambled  up  to  the 
bulwarks,  to  hold  on  for  bare  life,  yon 
saw  a  roller,  fit  to  swamp  us,  coming 
on  out  of  the  sheet  of  foam — when 
crash  went  rnizen-topmast  and  main- 
to'gallant-mast :  the  ship  payed  swiftly 
off" by  help  of  her  head- sail?,  and,  with 
a  leap  like  a  harpooned  whale,  off  she 
drove  fair  before  the  tremendous 
sweep  of  the  blast. 

The  least  yaw  in  her  course,  and 
she'd  have  never  risen,  unless  every 
stick  went  out  of  her.  I  laid  my 
shoulder  to  the  wheel  with  Jacob?, 
and  Captain  Williamson  screamed 
through  his  trumpet  into  the  men's 
ears,  aud  waved  his  hands  to  rido 


738 


The  Green  Hand— A  " 


down  the  fore-sheets  as  far  as  they'd 
go ;  which  kept  her  right  before  it, 
though  the  sail  could  be  but  half-set, 
and  she  rather  flew  than  ran — the 
sea  one  breadth  of  white  foam  back  to 
the  gushes  of  mist,  not  having  power 
to  rise  higher  yet.  Had  the  foresail 
been  stretched,  'twould  have  blown 
off  like  a  cloud.  I  looked  at  the  cap- 
tain :  he  was  standing  in  the  lee  of  the 
round-house,  straight  upright,  though 
now  and  then  peering  eagerly  for- 
ward, his  lips  firm,  one  hand  on  a 
belaying-pin,  the  other  in  his  breast — 
nothing  but  determination  in  his 
manner  ;  yet  once  or  twice  he  started, 
and  glanced  fiercely  to  the  after- 
hatchway  near,  as  if  something 
from  below  might  chance  to  thwart 
him.  I  can't  express  my  contrary 
feelings,  betwixt  a  sort  of  hope  and 
sheer  horror.  We  were  driving  right 
towards  the  land,  at  thirteen  or  four- 
teen knots  to  the  hour, — yet  could 
there  actually  be  some  harbourage 
hereaway,  or  that  said  river  the 
quarter-master  of  the  Iris  men- 
tioned, and  Captain  Williamson  know 
of  it  ?  Something  struck  me  as  won- 
derfully strange  in  the  whole  matter, 
and  puzzling  to  desperation, — still  I 
trusted  to  the  captain's  experience. 
The  coast  was  scarce  to  be  seen 
ahead  of  us,  lying  black  against  an 
uneven  streak  of  glimmer,  as  she 
rushed  like  fury  before  the  deafening 
howl  of  wind  ;  and  right  away  before 
our  lee-beam  I  could  see  the  light 
blowing,  as  it  were,  across  beyond 
the  headland  I  had  noticed,  where 
the  smoke  in  the  bush  seemed  to  be 
still  curling,  half-smothered,  along  the 
flat  in  the  lee  of  the  hills,  as  if  in 
green  wood,  or  sheltered  as  yet  from 
seaward,  though  once  or  twice  a 
quick  flicker  burst  up  in  it.  All 
at  once  the  gust  of  the  tornado  was 
seen  to  pour  on  it,  like  a  long  blast 
from  some  huge  bellows,  and  up  it 
flashed — the  yellow  flame  blazed  into 
the  smoke,  spread  away  behind  the 
point,  and  the  ruddy  brown  smoke 
blew  whitening  off  over  it : — when, 
Almighty  power !  what  did  I  see  as  it 
lengthened  in,  but  part  after  part  of 
old  Bob's  landmarks  creep  out  ink- 
black  before  the  flare  and  the  streak 
of  sky  together — first  the  low  line  of 
ground,  then  the  notch  in  the  block, 
the  two  rocks  like  steps,  and  the 


Short  "  Yarn.— Part  VI.  [Dec. 

sugar-loaf  shape  of  the  headland,  to 
the  very  mop-headed  knot  of  trees  on 
its  rise  !  No  doubt  Captain  William- 
son  was  steering  for  it  ;  but  it  was 
far  too  much  on  our  starboard  bow — 
and  in  half  an  hour  at  this  rate  we 
should  drive  right  into  the  surf  you 
saw  running  along  to  the  coast  ahead 
— so  I  signed  to  Jacobs  for  god-sake 
to  edge  her  off  as  nicely  as  was  pos- 
sible. Captain  Williamson  caught 
my  motion.  "Port!  port,  sirrah  !" 
he  sang  out  sternly ;  '•'•back  with  the 
helm,  d'ye  hear  ! "  and,  pulling  out  a 
pistol,  he  levelled  it  at  me  with  one 
hand,  while  he  held  a  second  in  the 
other.  "  Land !— land,  by  G— d ! " 
shouted  he,  and  from  the  lee  of  the 
round-house  it  came  more  like  a  shriek 
than  a  shout — "  I'll  be  there  though 
a  thousand  mutineers — "  His  eye 
was  like  a  wild  beast's.  That  moment 
the  truth  glanced  across  me — this  was 
the  green  leaf,  no  doubt,  the  Scotch 
mate  talked  so  mysteriously  of.  The 
man  was  mad!  The  land-fever  was 
upon  him,  as  I'd  seen  it  before  in  men 
long  off  the  African  coast;  and  he 
stood  eyeing  me  with  one  foot  hard 
stamped  before  him.  'Twas  no  use 
trying  to  be  heard,  and  the  despera- 
tion of  the  moment  gave  me  a  thought 
of  the  sole  thing  to  do.  I  took  off  my 
hat  in  the  light  of  the  binnacle,  bowed, 
and  looked  him  straight  in  the  face 
with  a  smile — when  his  eye  wavered, 
he  slowly  lowered  his  pistol,  then 
laughed,  waving  his  hand  towards  the 
land  to  leeward,  as  if,  but  for  the  gale, 
you'd  have  heard  him  cheer.  At  the 
instant  I  sprang  behind  him  with  the 
slack  of  a  rope,  and  grappled  his  arms 
fast,  though  he'd  got  the  furious 
power  of  a  madman,  and,  during  half 
a  minute,  'twas  wrestle  for  life  with 
me.  But  the  line  was  round  him,  arm 
and  leg,  and  I  made  it  fast,  throwing 
him  heavily  on  the  deck,  just  as  one 
of  the  mates,  with  some  of  the  crew, 
were  struggling  aft,  by  help  of  the  be- 
laying-pins,  against  the  hurricane, 
having  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  thing 
by  the  binnacle-light.  They  looked 
from  me  to  the  captain.  The  ugly  top- 
man  made  a  sign,  as  much  as  to  say, 
knock  the  fellow  down  ;  but  the  whole 
lot  hung  back  before  the  couple  of 
pistol-barrels  I  handled.  The  Scotch 
mate  seemed  awfully  puzzled  ;  and 
others  of  the  men,  who  knew  from 


1849.] 


The  Green  Hand— A  "  Short  "  Yarn Part  VI. 


739 


Jacobs  what  I  was,  came  shoving 
along,  evidently  aware  what  a  case 
we  were  in.  A  word  to  Jacobs  served 
to  keep  him  steering  her  anxiously, 
so  as  to  head  two  or  three  points  more 
south-east  in  the  end,  furiously  as  the 
wheel  jolted.  So  there  we  stood,  the 
tornado  sweeping  sharp  as  a  knife 
from  astern  over  the  poop-deck,  with 
a  force  that  threw  any  one  back  if  he 
left  go  his  hold  to  get  near  me,  and 
going  up  like  thunder  aloft  in  the 
sky.  Now  and  then  a  weaker  flare 
of  lightning  glittered  across  the  scud  ; 
and,  black  as  it  was  overhead,  the  ho- 
rizon to  windward  was  but  one  jagged 
white  glare,  gushing  fall  of  broad 
shifting  streaks  through  the  drift  of 
foam  and  the  spray  that  strove  to  rise. 
Our  fore-course  still  held;  and  I  took 
the  helm  from  Jacobs,  that  he  might 
go  and  manage  to  get  a  pull  taken  on 
the  starboard  brace,  which  would  not 
only  slant  the  sail  more  to  the  blasts, 
but  give  her  the  better  chance  to  make 
the  sole  point  of  salvation,  by  helping 
her  steerage  when  most  needed.  Ja- 
cobs and  Westwood  together  got  this 
done  ;  and  all  the  time  I  was  keeping 
my  eyes  fixed  anxiously  as  man  can 
fancy,  on  the  last  gleams  of  the  fire 
ashore,  as  her  head  made  a  fairer  line 
with  it;  but,  by  little  and  little,  it 
went  quite  out,  and  all  was  black — 
though  I  had  taken  its  bearings 
by  the  compass — and  I  kept  her  to 
that  for  bare  life,  trembling  at  every 
shiver  in  the  foresail's  edge,  lest  either 
it  or  the  mast  should  go. 

Suddenly  we  began  to  get  into  a 
fearful  swell — the  Indiaman  plunged 
and  shook  in  every  spar  left  her.  I 
could  see  nothing  ahead,  from  the 
wheel,  and  in  the  dark :  we  were  getting 
close  in  with  the  land,  and  the  time 
•was  coming ;  but  still  I  held  south- 
east-by-east  to  the  mark  of  her  head 
in  the  compass  box,  as  nearly  as  might 
and  main  could  do  it,  for  the  heaves 
that  made  me  think  once  or  twice 
she  was  to  strike  next  moment.  If 
she  went  ashore  in  my  hands !  why,  it 
was  like  to  drive  one  mad  with  fear  ; 
and  I  waited  for  Jacobs  to  come  back, 
with  a  brain  ready  to  turn,  almost  as 
if  I'd  have  left  the  wheel  to  the  other 
helmsman,  and  run  forward  into  the 
bows  to  look  out.  The  captain  lay 
raving  and  shouting  behind  me,  though 
Jio  one  else  could  either  have  heard  or 


seen  him  ;  and  where  the  chief  officer 
was  all  this  time,  surprised  me,  unless 
the  madman  had  made  away  with  him, 
or  locked  him  in  his  own  cabin,  in  re- 
turn for  being  shut  up  himself, — which 
in  fact  proved  to  be  the  case,  cunning 
as  it  was  to  send  for  him  so  quietly.  At 
length  Jacobs  struggled  aft  to  me  again , 
and  charging  him,  for  heaven's  sake, 
to  steer  exactly  the  course  I  gave,  I 
drove  before  the  full  strength  of  the 
squall  along-decks  to  the  bowsprit, 
where  I  held  on  and  peered  out. 
Dead  ahead  of  us  was  the  high  line  of 
coast  in  the  dark — not  a  mile  of  swell 
between  the  ship  and  it.  By  this  time 
the  low  boom  of  the  surf  came  under 
the  wind,  and  you  saw  the  breakers 
lifting  all  along, — not  a  single  opening 
in  them  !  I  had  lost  sight  of  my  land- 
marks, and  my  heart  gulped  into  my 
mouth — what  I  felt  'twould  be  vain  to 
say, — till  I  thought  I  did  make  out 
one  short  patch  of  sheer  black  in  the 
range  of  foam,  scarce  so  far  on  our 
bow  as  I'd  reckoned  the  fire  to  have 
been  :  indeed,  instead  of  that,  it  was 
rather  on  her  weather  than  her  lee 
bow ;  and  the  more  I  watched  it,  and 
the  nearer  we  drove  in  that  five  mi- 
nutes, the  broader  it  was.  "  By  all 
that's  good!"  I  thought,  "if  a  river 
there  is,  that  must  be  the  mouth  of 
it ! "  But,  by  heavens !  on  our  present 
course,  the  ship  would  run  just  right 
upon  the  point, — and,  to  strike  the 
clear  water,  her  fore-yard  would  re- 
quire to  be  braced  up,  able  or  not, 
though  the  force  of  the  tornado  would 
come  fearfully  on  her  quarter,  then. 
There  was  the  chance  of  taking  all  the 
masts  out  of  her  ;  but  let  them  stand 
ten  minutes,  and  the  thing  was  done, 
when  we  opened  into  the  lee  of  the 
points— otherwise  all  was  over ! 

I  sprang  to  the  fore-braces  and  be- 
sought the  men  near  me,  for  God's  sake, 
to  drag  upon  the  lee  one — and  that  a.s 
if  their  life  hung  upon  it — when  West- 
wood  caught  me  by  the  arm.  I  merely 
shouted  through  my  hands  into  his 
ear  to  go  aft  to  Jacobs  and  tell  him  to 
keep  her  head  a  single  point  up,  what- 
ever might  happen,  to  the  last,— then 
I  pulled  with  the  men  at  the  brace  till 
it  was  fast,  and  scrambled  up  again  to 
the  bowsprit  heel.  Jove!  how  she 
surged  to  it :  the  little  canvass  we  had 
strained  like  to  burst;  the  masts 
trembled,  and  the  spars  aloft  bent  like 


740 


The  Green  Hand— A  "Short"  Yarn.— Part  VI. 


[Dec. 


whip-shafts,  everything  below  groan- 
ing again  ;  while  the  swell  and  the 
blast  together  made  you  dizzy,  as  you 
watched  the  white  eddies  rising  and 
boiling  out  of  the  dark — her  cutwater 
shearing  through  it  and  the  foam,  as  if 
you  were  going  under  it.  The  sound 
of  the  hurricane  and  the  surf  seemed 
to  be  growing  together  into  one  awful 
roar, — my  very  brain  began  to  turn 
with  the  pitch  I  was  wrought  up  to — 
and  it  appeared  next  moment  we 
should  heave  far  up  into  the  savage 
hubbub  of  breakers.  I  was  wearying 
for  the  crash  and  the  wild  confusion 
that  would  follow — when  all  of  a  sud- 
den, still  catching  the  fierce  rush  of 
the  gale  athwart  her  quarter  into  the 
fore-course,  which  steadied  her  though 
she  shuddered  to  it — all  on  a  sudden 
the  dark  mass  of  the  land  seemed  as 
it  were  parting  ahead  of  her,  and  a 
gleam  of  pale  sky  opened  below  the 
dusk  into  my  very  face.  I  no  more 
knew  what  I  was  doing,  by  this  time, 
nor  where  we  were,  than  the  spar 
before  me, — till  again,  the  light  broad- 
ened, glimmering  low  betwixt  the  high 
land  and  a  lump  of  rising  level  on  the 
other  bow.  I  hurried  aft  past  the 
confused  knots  of  men  holding  on  to 
the  lee  of  the  bulwarks,  and  seized  a 
spoke  of  the  wheel.  "  Tom,"  shouted 
I  to  Westwood,  "  run  and  let  free  the 
spanker  on  the  poop  !  Down  with  the 
helm — down  with  it,  Jacobs,  my  lad!" 
I  sang  out ;  "  never  mind  spars  or 
canvass  !"  Down  went  the  helm— the 
spanker  helped  to  luff  her  to  the 
strength  of  the  gust — and  away  she 
went  up  to  port,  the  heavy  swells 
rolling  her  in,  while  the  rush  into  her 
staysail  and  forccourse  came  in  one 
terrible  flash  of  roaring  wind, — tearing 
first  one  and  then  the  other  clear  out 
of  the  bolt-ropes,  though  the  loose 
spanker  abaft  was  in  less  danger, 
and  the  way  she  had  from  both  was 
enough  to  take  her  careening  round 
the  point  into  its  lee.  By  heavens  ! 
there  were  the  streaks  of  soft  haze 
low  over  the  rising  moon,  under  the 


broken  clouds,  beyond  a  far  line  of 
dim  friugy  woods,  she  herself  just 
tipping  the  hollow  behind,  big  and  red 
— when  right  down  from  over  the 
eloud  above  us  came  a  spout  of  rain, 
then  a  sheet  of  it  lifting  to  the  blast 
as  it  howled  across  the  point.  "  Stand, 
by  to  let  go  the  larboard  anchor !  "  I 
sang  out  through  the  trumpet ;  and 
Jacobs  put  the  helm  fully  down  at  the 
moment,  till  she  was  coming  head  to 
wind,  when  I  made  forward  to  the 
mates  and  men.  u  Let — go  !  "  I 
shouted :  not  a  look  turned  against 
me,  and  away  thundered  the  cab!& 
through  the  hawse-hole ;  she  shook 
to  it,  sheered  astern,  and  brought  up 
with  her  anchor  fast.  By  that  time 
the  rain  was  plashing  down  in  a  per- 
fect deluge — you  couldn't  see  a  yard 
from  you — all  was  one  white  pour  of 
it ;  although  it  soon  began  to  drive 
again  over  the  headland,  as  the  tor- 
nado gathered  new  food  out  of  it. 
Another  anchor  was  let  go,  cable  payed 
out,  and  the  ship  soon  began  to  swing- 
the  other  way  to  the  tide,  pitching  all 
the  while  on  the  short  swell. 

The  gale  still  whistled  through  her 
spars  for  two  or  three  hours,  during 
which  it  began  by  degrees  to  lull. 
About  eleven  o'clock  it  was  clear 
moonlight  to  leeward,  the  air  fresh  and 
cool :  a  delicious  watch  it  was,  too. 
I  was  walking  the  poop  by  myself, 
two  or  three  men  lounging  sleepily 
about  the  forecastle,  and  Rickett  be- 
low on  the  quarterdeck,  when  I  saw 
the  chief  officer  himself  rush  up  from, 
below,  staring  wildly  round  him,  as 
if  he  thought  we  were  in  some  dream 
or  other.  I  fancied  at  first  the  mate 
would  have  struck  Rickett,  from  the 
way  he  went  on,  but  I  kept  aft  where 
I  was.  The  eddies  ran  past  the 
Indiam an's  side,  and  you  heard  the 
fast  ebb  of  the  tide  rushing  and  rip- 
pling sweetly  on  her  taut  cables  ahead, 
plashing  about  the  bows  and  bends. 
We  were  in  old  Bob  Martin's  river, 
whatever  that  might  be. 


18-19.] 


The  Visi&n  of  Sudden  Death. 


741 


T1IE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 

[The  reader  is  to  understand  this  present  paper,  in  its  two  sections  of  The 
Vision,  £c.,  and  The  Dream-Fugue,  as  connected  with  a  previous  paper  on 
The  English  Mail- Coach,  published  in  the  Magazine  for  October.  The  ulti- 
mate object  was  the  Dream-Fugue,  as  an  attempt  to  wrestle  with  the  utmost 
efforts  of  music  in  dealing  with  a  colossal  form  of  impassioned  horror.  The 
Vision  of  Sudden  Death  contains  the  mail-coach  incident,  which  did  really 
occur,  and  did  really  suggest  the  variations  of  the  Dream,  here  taken  up  by 
the  Fugue,  as  well  as  other  variations  not  now  recorded.  Confluent  with 
these  impressions,  from  the  terrific  experience  on  the  Manchester  and  Glasgow 
mail,  were  other  and  more  general  impressions,  derived  from  long  familiarity 
with  the  English  mail,  as  developed  in  the  former  paper;  impressions,  for 
instance,  of  animal  beauty  and  power,  of  rapid  motion,  at  that  time  unprece- 
dented, of  connexion  with  the  government  and  public  business  of  a  great 
nation,  but,  above  all,  of  connexion  with  the  national  victories  at  an  unex- 
ampled crisis, — the  mail  being  the  privileged  organ  for  publishing  and  dispers- 
ing all  news  of  that  kind.  From  this  function  of  the  mail,  arises  naturally  the 
introduction  of  Waterloo  into  the  fourth  variation  of  the  Fugue  ;  for  the  mail 
itself  having  been  carried  into  the  dreams  by  the  incident  in  the  Vision,  natu- 
rally all  the  accessory  circumstances  of  pomp  and  grandeur  investing  this 
national  carriage  followed  in  the  train  of  the  principal  image.] 


WHAT  is  to  be  thought  of  sudden 
death  V  It  is  remarkable  that,  in  dif- 
ferent conditions  of  society,  it  has 
been  variously  regarded,  as  the  con- 
summation of  an  earthly  career  most 
fervently  to  be  desired,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  that  consummation 
which  is  most  of  all  to  be  deprecated. 
Caesar  the  Dictator,  at  his  last  dinner 
party,  (ceena,)  and  the  very  evening 
before  his  assassination,  being  ques- 
tioned as  to  the  mode  of  death  which, 
in  his  opinion,  might  seem  the  most 
eligible,  replied — "  That  which  should 
be  most  sudden."  On  the  other 
hand,  the  divine  Litany  of  our  Eng.- 
lish  Church,  when  breathing  forth 
supplications,  as  if  in  some  represen- 
tative character  for  the  whole  human 
race  prostrate  before  God,  places  such 
a  death  in  the  very  van  of  horrors. 
"  From  lightning  and  tempest ;  from 
plague,  pestilence,  and  famine  ;  from 
battle  and  murder,  and  from  sudden 
death,  —  Good  Lord,  deliver  us." 
Sudden  death  is  here  made  to  crown 
the  climax  in  a  grand  ascent  of 
calamities  ;  it  is  the  last  of  curses  ; 
and  yet,  by  the  noblest  of  Romans,  it 
was  treated  as  the  first  of  blessings. 
In  that  difference,  most  readers  will 
see  little  more  than  the  difference  be- 
tween Christianity  and  Paganism. 
But  there  I  hesitate.  The  Christian 
church  may  be  right  in  its  estimate  of 
sudden  death  ;  and  it  is  a  natural 
feeling,  though  after  all  it  may  also 
be  an  infirm  one,  to  wish  for  a  quiet 


dismissal  from  life — as  that  which 
seems  most  reconcilable  with  medita- 
tion, with  penitential  retrospects,  and 
with  the  humilities  of  farewell  prayer. 
There  does  not,  however,  occur  to  me 
any  direct  scriptural  warrant  for  this 
earnest  petition  of  the  English  Litany. 
It  seems  rather  a  petition  indulged  to- 
human  infirmity,  than  exacted  from 
human  piety.  And,  however  that  may 
be,  two  remarks  suggest  themselves 
as  prudent  restraints  upon  a  doctrine, 
winch  else  may  wander,  and  has  wan- 
dered, into  an  uncharitable  supersti- 
tion. The  first  is  this :  that  many 
people  are  likely  to  exaggerate  the 
horror  of  a  sudden  death,  (1  mean  tho 
objective  horror  to  him  who  contem- 
plates such  a  death,  not  the  subjec- 
tive horror  to  him  who  suffers  it) 
from  'the  false  disposition  to  lay  a 
stress  upon  words  or  acts,  simply 
because  by  an  accident  they  have 
become  words  or  acts.  If  a  man 
dies,  for  instance,  by  some  sudden 
death  when  he  happens  to  be  in- 
toxicated, such  a  death  is  falsely 
regarded  with  peculiar  horror ;  as 
though  the  intoxication  were  sud- 
denly exalted  into  a  blasphemy. 
But  that  is  unphilosophic.  The  man 
was,  or  he  was  not,  habitually  a 
drunkard.  If  not,  if  his  intoxication 
were  a  solitary  accident,  there  can  be 
no  reason  at  all  for  allowing  special 
emphasis  to  this  act,  simply  because 
through  misfortune  it  became  his  final 
act.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  if  it 


742 

were  no  accident,  but  one  of  his 
habitual  transgressions,  will  it  be  the 
more  habitual  or  the  more  a  traps- 
gression,  because  some  sudden  cala- 
mity, surprising  him,  has  caused  this 
habitual  transgression  to  be  also  a 
final  one?  Could  the  man  have  had 
any  reason  even  dimly  to  foresee  his 
own  sudden  death,  there  would  have 
been  a  new  feature  in  his  act  of  in- 
temperance— a  feature  of  presumption 
and  irreverence,  as  in  one  that  by  pos- 
sibility felt  himself  drawing  near  to 
the  presence  of  God.  But  this  is  no 
part  of  the  case  supposed.  And  the 
only  new  element  in  the  man's  act  is 
not  any  element  of  extra  immorality, 
but  simply  of  extra  misfortune. 

The  other  remark  has  reference  to 
the  meaning  of  the  word  sudden.  And 
it  is  a  strong  illustration  of  the  duty 
which  for  ever  calls  us  to  the  stern 
valuation  of  words — that  very  pos- 
sibly Caesar  and  the  Christian  church 
do  not  differ  in  the  way  supposed ; 
that  is,  do  not  differ  by  any  diffe- 
rence of  doctrine  as  between  Pagan 
and  Christian  views  of  the  moral 
temper  appropriate  to  death,  but 
that  they  are  contemplating  different 
eases.  Both  contemplate  a  violent 
death  ;  a  Biadavaros  —  death  that  is 
BMUOJ  :  but  the  difference  is — that  the 
Roman  by  the  word  "  sudden  "  means 
an  unllngering  death  :  whereas  the 
Christian  litany  by  "  sudden  "  means 
a  death  without  warning,  consequently 
without  any  available  summons  to 
religious  preparation.  The  poor  mu- 
tineer, who  kneels  down  to  gather 
into  his  heart  the  bullets  from  twelve 
firelocks  of  his  pitj'ing  comrades,  dies 
by  a  most  sudden  death  in  Ca?sar's 
sense  :  one  shock,  one  mighty  spasm, 
one  (possibly  not  one)  groan,  and  all 
is  over.  Bftt,  in  the  sense  of  the 
Litany,  his  death  is  far  from  sudden  ; 
his  offence  originally,  his  imprison- 
ment, his  trial,  the  interval  between 
his  sentence  and  its  execution,  having 
all  furnished  him  with  separate 
warnings  of  his  fate  —  having  all 
summoned  him  to  meet  it  with  solemn 
preparation. 

Meantime,  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  a  sudden  death  as  a  mere  variety 
in  the  modes  of  dying,  where  death  in 
some  shape  is  inevitable — a  question 
which,  equally  in  the  Roman  and  the 
Christian  sense,  will  be  variously  an- 
swered according  to  each  man's  variety 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


[Dec. 


of  temperament — certainly,  upon  one 
aspect  of  sudden  death  there  can  be 
no  opening  for  doubt,  that  of  all 
agonies  incident  to  man  it  is  the  most 
frightful,  that  of  all  martyrdoms  it  is 
the  most  freezing  to  human  sensibili- 
ties— namely,where  it  surprises  a  man 
under  circumstances  which  offer  (or 
which  seem  to  offer)  some  hurried  and 
inappreciable  chance  of  evading  it. 
Any  effort,  by  which  such  an  evasion 
can  be  accomplished,  must  be  as 
sudden  as  the  danger  which  it  affronts. 
Even  that,  even  the  sickening  neces- 
sity for  hurrying  in  extremity  where 
all  hurry  seems  destined  to  be  vain, 
self-batHed,  and  where  the  dreadful 
knell  of  too  late  is  already  sounding  in 
the  ears  by  anticipation— even  that 
anguish  is  liable  to  a  hideous  exaspe- 
ration in  one  particular  case,  namely, 
where  the  agonising  appeal  is  made 
not  exclusively  to  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  but  to  the  conscience,  on 
behalf  of  another  life  besides  your  own, 
accidentally  cast  upon  your  protection. 
To  fail,  to  collapse  in  a  service  merely 
your  own,  might  seem  comparatively 
venial ;  though,  in  fact,  it  is  far  from 
venial.  But  to  fail  in  a  case  where 
Providence  has  suddenly  thrown  into 
your  hands  the  final  interests  of  an- 
other— of  a  fellow- ere  at  ure  shuddering 
between  the  gates  of  life  and  death ; 
this,  to  a  man  of  apprehensive  con- 
science, would  mingle  the  misery  of  an 
atrocious  criminality  with  the  misery 
of  a  bloody  calamity.  The  man  is 
called  upon,  too  probably,  to  die ;  but 
to  die  at  the  very  moment  when,  by 
any  momentary  collapse,  he  is  self- 
denounced  as  a  murderer.  He  had 
but  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  for  his 
effort,  and  that  effort  might,  at  the 
best,  have  been  unavailing ;  but  from 
this  shadow  of  a  chance,  small  or 
great,  how  if  he  has  recoiled  by  a 
treasonable  Idchete  ?  The  effort  might 
have  been  without  hope;  but  to 
have  risen  to  the  level  of  that 
effort  —  would  have  rescued  him, 
though  not  from  dying,  yet  from 
dying  as  a  traitor  to  his  duties. 

The  situation  here  contemplated 
exposes  a  dreadful  ulcer,  lurking  far 
down  in  the  depths  of  human  nature. 
It  is  not  that  men  generally  are  sum- 
moned to  face  such  awful  trials.  But 
potentially,  and  in  shadowy  outline, 
such  a  trial  is  moving  subterraneonsly 
in  perhaps  all  men's  natures — mutter- 


1849.] 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


743 


ing  under  ground  in  one  world,  to  be 
realised  perhaps  in  some  other.  Upon 
the  secret  mirror  of  our  dreams  such 
a  trial  is  darkly  projected  at  intervals, 
perhaps,  to  every  one  of  us.  That 
dream,  so  familiar  to  childhood,  of 
meeting  a  lion,  and,  from  languishing 
prostration  in  hope  and  vital  energy, 
that  constant  sequel  of  lying  down 
before  him,  publishes  the  secret  frailty 
of  human  nature — reveals  its  deep- 
seated  Pariah  falsehood  to  itself — 
records  its  abysmal  treachery.  Per- 
haps not  one  of  us  escapes  that  dream ; 
perhaps,  as  by  some  sorrowful  doom 
of  man,  that  dream  repeats  for  every 
one  of  us,  through  every  generation, 
the  original  temptation  in  Eden. 
Every  one  of  us,  in  this  dream,  has  a 
bait  offered  to  the  infirm  places  of  his 
own  individual  will ;  once  again  a 
snare  is  made  ready  for  leading  him 
into  captivity  to  a  luxury  of  ruin ; 
again,  as  in  aboriginal  Paradise,  the 
man  falls  from  innocence;  once  again, 
by  infinite  iteration,  the  ancient  Earth 
groans  to  God,  through  her  secret 
caves,  over  the  weakness  of  her  child ; 
"Nature  from  her  seat,  sighing  through 
all  her  works,"  again  "  gives  signs  of 
woe  that  all  is  lost ;"  and  again  the 
counter  sigh  is  repeated  to  the  sorrow- 
ing heavens  of  the  endless  rebellion 
against  God.  Many  people  think  that 
one  man,  the  patriarch  of  our  race, 
could  not  in  his  single  person  execute 
this  rebellion  for  all  his  race.  Perhaps 
they  are  wrong.  But,  even  if  not, 
perhaps  in  the  world  of  dreams  every 
one  of  us  ratifies  for  himself  the  ori- 
ginal act.  Our  English  rite  of  "  Con- 
firmation," by  which,  in  years  of 
awakened  reason,  we  take  upon  us 
the  engagements  contracted  for  us  in 
our  slumbering  infancy, — how  sublime 
a  rite  is  that!  The  little  postern 
gate,  through  which  the  baby  in  its 
cradle  had  been  silently  placed  for  a 
time  within  the  glory  of  God's  coun- 
tenance, suddenly  rises  to  the  clouds 
as  a  triumphal  arch,  through  which, 
with  banners  displayed  and  martial 
pomps,  we  make  our  second  entry  as 
crusading  soldiers  militant  for  God, 
by  personal  choice  and  by  sacramen- 
tal oath.  Each  man  says  in  effect — 
*'Lo!  I  rebaptise  myself;  and  that 
which  once  was  sworn  on  my  behalf, 
now  I  swear  for  myself."  Even  so  in 
dreams,  perhaps,  under  some  secret 


conflict  of  the  midnight  sleeper,  lighted 
up  to  the  consciousness  at  the  time, 
but  darkened  to  the  memory  as  soon  as 
all  is  finished,  each  several  child  of  our 
mysterious  race  completes  for  himself 
the  aboriginal  fall. 

As  I  drew  near  to  the  Manchester 
post-office,  I  found  that  it  was  con- 
siderably past  midnight ;  but  to  my 
great  relief,  as  it  was  important  for 
me  to  be  in  Westmorland  by  the 
morning,  I  saw  by  the  huge  saucer 
eyes  of  the  mail,  blazing  through  the 
gloom  of  overhanging  houses,  that  my 
chance  was  not  yet  lost.  Past  the 
time  it  was ;  but  by  some  luck,  very 
unusual  in  my  experience,  the  mail 
was  not  even  yet  ready  to  start.  I 
ascended  to  my  seat  on  the  box,  where 
my  cloak  was  still  lying  as  it  had  lain 
at  the  Bridgewater  Arms.  I  had  left 
it  there  in  imitation  of  a  nautical  dis- 
coverer, Avho  leaves  a  bit  of  bunting 
on  the  shore  of  his  discovery,  by  way 
of  warning  off  the  ground  the  whole 
human  race,  and  signalising  to  the 
Christian  and  the  heathen  worlds, 
with  his  best  compliments,  that  he 
has  planted  his  throne  for  ever  upon 
that  virgin  soil;  henceforward  claim- 
ing the  jus  dominii  to  the  top  of  the 
atmosphere  above  it,  and  also  the 
right  of  driving  shafts  to  the  centre  of 
the  earth  below  it ;  so  that  all  people 
found  after  this  warning,  either  aloft 
in  the  atmosphere,  or  in  the  shafts,  or 
squatting  on  the  soil,  will  be  treated 
as  trespassers — that  is,  decapitated  by 
their  very  faithful  and  obedient  ser- 
vant, the  owner  of  the  said  bunting. 
Possibly  my  cloak  might  not  have 
been  respected,  and  the  Jus  gentium 
might  have  been  cruelly  violated  in 
my  person — for,  in  the  dark,  people 
commit  deeds  of  darkness,  gas  being 
a  great  ally  of  morality — but  it  so 
happened  that,  on  this  night,  there  was 
no  other  outside  passenger;  and  the 
crime,  which  else  was  but  too  pro- 
bable, missed  fire  for  want  of  a  crimi- 
nal. By  the  way,  I  may  as  well 
mention  at  this  point,  since  a  circum- 
stantial accuracy  is  essential  to  the 
effect  of  my  narrative,  that  there  was 
no  other  person  of  any  description 
whatever  about  the  mail — the  guard, 
the  coachman,  and  myself  being 
allowed  for— except  only  one — ahorrid 
creature  of  the  class  known  to  the 
world  as  insiders,  but  whom  young 


742 

were  no  accident,  but  one  of  his 
habitual  transgressions,  will  it  be  the 
more  habitual  or  the  more  a  trans- 
gression, because  some  sudden  cala- 
mity, surprising  him,  has  caused  this 
habitual  transgression  to  be  also  a 
final  one?  Could  the  man  have  had 
any  reason  even  dimly  to  foresee  his 
own  sudden  death,  there  would  have 
been  a  new  feature  in  his  act  of  in- 
temperance— a  feature  of  presumption 
and  irreverence,  as  in  one  that  by  pos- 
sibility felt  himself  drawing  near  to 
the  presence  of  God.  But  this  is  no 
part  of  the  case  supposed.  And  the 
only  new  element  in  the  man's  act  is 
not  any  element  of  extra  immorality, 
but  simply  of  extra  misfortune. 

The  other  remark  has  reference  to 
the  meaning  of  the  word  sudden.  And 
it  is  a  strong  illustration  of  the  duty 
which  for  ever  calls  us  to  the  stern 
valuation  of  words — that  very  pos- 
sibly Caesar  and  the  Christian  church 
do  not  differ  in  the  way  supposed ; 
that  is,  do  not  differ  by  any  diffe- 
rence of  doctrine  as  between  Pagan 
and  Christian  views  of  the  moral 
temper  appropriate  to  death,  but 
that  they  are  contemplating  different 
eases.  Both  contemplate  a  violent 
death  ;  a  Biadavaros  —  death  that  is 
Eiaios  :  but  the  difference  is — that  the 
Roman  by  the  word  "  sudden  "  means 
an  unlingering  death  :  whereas  the 
Christian  litany  by  "  sudden  "  means 
a  death  without  warning,  consequently 
without  any  available  summons  to 
religious  preparation.  The  poor  mu- 
tineer, who  kneels  down  to  gather 
into  his  heart  the  bullets  from  twelve 
firelocks  of  his  pitying  comrades,  dies 
by  a  most  sudden  death  in  Caesar's 
sense  :  one  shock,  one  mighty  spasm, 
one  (possibly  not  one)  groan,  and  all 
is  over.  Bftt,  in  the  sense  of  the 
Litany,  his  death  is  far  from  sudden  ; 
his  offence  originally,  his  imprison- 
ment, his  trial,  the  interval  between 
his  sentence  and  its  execution,  having 
all  furnished  him  with  separate 
warnings  of  his  fate  —  having  all 
summoned  him  to  meet  it  with  solemn 
preparation. 

Meantime,  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  a  sudden  death  as  a  mere  variety 
in  the  modes  of  dying,  where  death  in 
some  shape  is  inevitable — a  question 
which,  equally  in  the  Roman  and  the 
Christian  sense,  will  be  variously  an- 
swered according  to  each  man's  variety 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


[Dec. 


of  temperament — certainly,  upon  one 
aspect  of  sudden  death  there  can  be 
no  opening  for  doubt,  that  of  all 
agonies  incident  to  man  it  is  the  most 
frightful,  that  of  all  martyrdoms  it  is 
the  most  freezing  to  human  sensibili- 
ties— namely,where  it  surprises  a  man 
under  circumstances  which  offer  (or 
which  seem  to  offer)  some  hurried  and 
inappreciable  chance  of  evading  it. 
Any  effort,  by  which  such  an  evasion 
can  be  accomplished,  must  be  as 
sudden  as  the  danger  which  it  affronts. 
Even  that,  even  the  sickening  neces- 
sity for  hurrying  in  extremity  where 
all  hurry  seems  destined  to  be  vain, 
self-baffled,  and  where  the  dreadful 
knell  of  too  late  is  already  sounding  in 
the  ears  by  anticipation — even  that 
anguish  is  liable  to  a  hideous  exaspe- 
ration in  one  particular  case,  namely, 
where  the  agonising  appeal  is  made 
not  exclusively  to  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  but  to  the  conscience,  on 
behalf  of  another  life  besides  your  own, 
accidentally  cast  upon  your  protection. 
To  fail,  to  collapse  in  a  service  merely 
your  own,  might  seem  comparatively 
venial ;  though,  in  fact,  it  is  far  from 
venial.  But  to  fail  in  a  case  where 
Providence  has  suddenly  thrown  into 
your  hands  the  final  interests  of  an- 
other— of  a  fellow-creature  shuddering 
between  the  gates  of  life  and  death : 
this,  to  a  man  of  apprehensive  con- 
science, would  mingle  the  misery  of  an 
atrocious  criminality  with  the  misery 
of  a  bloody  calamity.  The  man  is 
called  upon,  too  probably,  to  die ;  but 
to  die  at  the  very  moment  when,  by 
any  momentary  collapse,  he  is  self- 
denounced  as  a  murderer.  He  had 
but  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  for  his 
effort,  and  that  effort  might,  at  the 
best,  have  been  unavailing ;  but  from 
this  shadow  of  a  chance,  small  or 
great,  how  if  he  has  recoiled  by  a 
treasonable  lachete  ?  The  effort  might 
have  been  without  hope ;  but  to 
have  risen  to  the  level  of  that 
effort  —  would  have  rescued  him, 
though  not  from  dying,  yet  from 
dying  as  a  traitor  to  his  duties. 

The  situation  here  contemplated 
exposes  a  dreadful  ulcer,  lurking  far 
down  in  the  depths  of  human  nature. 
It  is  not  that  men  generally  are  sum- 
moned to  face  such  awful  trials.  But 
potentially,  and  in  shadowy  outline, 
such  a  trial  is  moving  subterraneously 
in  perhaps  all  men's  natures — mutter- 


1849.] 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


ing  under  ground  in  one  world,  to  be 
realised  perhaps  in  some  other.  Upon 
the  secret  mirror  of  our  dreams  such 
a  trial  is  darkly  projected  at  intervals, 
perhaps,  to  every  one  of  us.  That 
dream,  so  familiar  to  childhood,  of 
meeting  a  lion,  and,  from  languishing 
prostration  in  hope  and  vital  energy, 
that  constant  sequel  of  lying  down 
before  him,  publishes  the  secret  frailty 
of  human  nature — reveals  its  deep- 
seated  Pariah  falsehood  to  itself — 
records  its  abysmal  treachery.  Per- 
haps not  one  of  us  escapes  that  dream ; 
perhaps,  as  by  some  sorrowful  doom 
of  man,  that  dream  repeats  for  every 
cue  of  us,  through  every  generation, 
the  original  temptation  in  Eden. 
Every  one  of  us,  in  this  dream,  has  a 
bait  offered  to  the  infirm  places  of  his 
own  individual  will ;  once  again  a 
snare  is  made  ready  for  leading  him 
into  captivity  to  a  luxury  of  ruin; 
again,  as  in  aboriginal  Paradise,  the 
man  falls  from  innocence;  once  again, 
by  infinite  iteration,  the  ancient  Earth 
groans  to  God,  through  her  secret 
caves,  over  the  weakness  of  her  child ; 
"Nature  from  her  seat,  sighing  through 
all  her  works,"  again  "gives  signs  of 
woe  that  all  is  lost ;"  and  again  the 
counter  sigh  is  repeated  to  the  sorrow- 
ing heavens  of  the  endless  rebellion 
against  God.  Many  people  think  that 
one  man,  the  patriarch  of  our  race, 
could  not  in  his  single  person  execute 
this  rebellion  for  all  his  race.  Perhaps 
they  are  wrong.  But,  even  if  not, 
perhaps  in  the  world  of  dreams  every 
one  of  us  ratifies  for  himself  the  ori- 
ginal act.  Our  English  rite  of  "  Con- 
firmation," by  which,  in  years  of 
awakened  reason,  we  take  upon  us 
the  engagements  contracted  for  us  in 
our  slumbering  infancy, — how  sublime 
a  rite  is  that!  The  little  postern 
gate,  through  which  the  baby  in  its 
cradle  had  been  silently  placed  for  a 
time  within  the  glory  of  God's  coun- 
tenance, suddenly  rises  to  the  clouds 
as  a  triumphal  arch,  through  which, 
with  banners  displayed  and  martial 
pomps,  we  make  our  second  entry  as 
crusading  soldiers  militant  for  God, 
by  personal  choice  and  by  sacramen- 
tal oath.  Each  man  says  in  effect — 
*'Lo!  I  rebaptise  myself;  and  that 
which  once  was  sworn  on  my  behalf, 
now  I  swear  for  myself."  Even  so  in 
dreams,  perhaps,  under  some  secret 


conflict  of  the  midnight  sleeper,  lighted 
up  to  the  consciousness  at  the  time, 
but  darkened  to  the  memory  as  soon  as 
all  is  finished,  each  several  child  of  our 
mysterious  race  completes  for  himself 
the  aboriginal  fall. 

As  I  drew  near  to  the  Manchester 
post-office,  I  found  that  it  was  con- 
siderably past  midnight ;  but  to  my 
great  relief,  as  it  was  important  for 
me  to  be  in  Westmorland  by  the 
morning,  I  saw  by  the  huge  saucer 
eyes  of  the  mail,  blazing  through  the 
gloom  of  overhanging  houses,  that  my 
chance  was  not  yet  lost.  Past  the 
time  it  was ;  but  by  some  luck,  very 
unusual  in  my  experience,  the  mail 
was  not  even  yet  ready  to  start.  I 
ascended  to  my  seat  on  the  box,  where 
my  cloak  was  still  lying  as  it  had  lain 
at  the  Bridgewater  Arms.  I  had  left 
it  there  in  imitation  of  a  nautical  dis- 
coverer, who  leaves  a  bit  of  bunting 
on  the  shore  of  his  discovery,  by  way 
of  warning  off  the  ground  the  whole 
human  race,  and  signalising  to  the 
Christian  and  the  heathen  worlds, 
with  his  best  compliments,  that  he 
has  planted  his  throne  for  ever  upon 
that  virgin  soil;  henceforward  claim- 
ing the  jus  dominii  to  the  top  of  the 
atmosphere  above  it,  and  also  the 
right  of  driving  shafts  to  the  centre  of 
the  earth  below  it ;  so  that  all  people 
found  after  this  warning,  either  aloft 
in  the  atmosphere,  or  in  the  shafts,  or 
squatting  on  the  soil,  will  be  treated 
as  trespassers — that  is,  decapitated  by 
their  very  faithful  and  obedient  ser- 
vant, the  owner  of  the  said  bunting. 
Possibly  my  cloak  might  not  have 
been  respected,  and  iliejus  gentium 
might  have  been  cruelly  violated  in 
my  person — for,  in  the  dark,  people 
commit  deeds  of  darkness,  gas  being 
a  great  ally  of  morality — but  it  so 
happened  that,  on  this  night,  there  was 
no  other  outside  passenger ;  and  the 
crime,  which  else  was  but  too  pro- 
bable, missed  fire  for  want  of  a  crimi- 
nal. By  the  way,  I  may  as  well 
mention  at  this  point,  since  a  circum- 
stantial accuracy  is  essential  to  the 
effect  of  my  narrative,  that  there  was 
no  other  person  of  any  description 
whatever  about  the  mail — the  guard, 
the  coachman,  and  myself  being 
allowed  for — except  only  one — a  horrid 
creature  of  the  class  known  to  the 
world  as  insiders,  but  whom  young 


744 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


[Dec, 


Oxford  called  sometimes  "  Trojans," 
in  opposition  to  our  Grecian  selves, 
and  sometimes  "  vermin."  A  Turkish 
Effendi,  who  piques  himself  on  good- 
breeding,  will  never  mention  by  name 
a  pig.  Yet  it  is  but  too  often  that 
he  has  reason  to  mention  this  animal ; 
since  constantly,  in  the  streets  of 
Stamboul,  he  has  his  trousers  deranged 
or  polluted  by  this  vile  creature  run- 
ning between  his  legs.  But  under 
any  excess  of  hurry  he  is  always  care- 
ful, out  of  respect  to  the  company  he 
is  dining  with,  to  suppress  the  odious 
name,  and  to  call  the  wretch  "  that 
other  creature,"  as  though  all  animal 
life  beside  formed  one  group,  and  this 
odious  beast  (to  whom,  as  Chrysippus 
observed,  salt  serves  as  an  apology 
for  a  soul)  formed  another  and  alien 
group  on  the  outside  of  creation. 
Now  I,  who  am  an  English  Effendi, 
that  think  myself  to  understand  good- 
breeding  as  well  as  any  son  of  Othman, 
beg  my  reader's  pardon  for  having 
mentioned  an  insider  by  his  gross 
natural  name.  I  shall  do  so  no  more : 
and,  if  I  should  have  occasion  to 
glance  at  so  painful  a  subject,  I  shall 
always  call  him  "that  other  creature." 
Let  us  hope,  however,  that  no  such 
distressing  occasion  will  arise.  But, 
by  the  way,  an  occasion  arises  at  this 
moment ;  for  the  reader  will  be  sure 
to  ask,  when  we  come  to  the  story, 
"Was  this  other  creature  present?" 
He  was  not ;  or  more  correctly,  per- 
haps, it  was  not.  We  dropped  the 
creature — or  the  creature,  by  natural 
imbecility,  dropped  itself — within  the 
first  ten  miles  from  Manchester.  In 
the  latter  case,  I  wish  to  make  a 
philosophic  remark  of  a  moral  ten- 
dency. When  I  die,  or  when  the 
reader  dies,  and  by  repute  suppose  of 
fever,  it  will  never  be  known  whether 
we  died  in  reality  of  the  fever  or  of 
the  doctor.  But  this  other  creature, 
in  the  case  of  dropping  out  of  the 
coach,  will  enjoy  a  coroner's  inquest ; 
consequently  he  will  enjoy  an  epitaph. 
For  I  insist  upon  it,  that  the  verdict 
of  a  coroner's  jury  makes  the  best  of 
epitaphs.  It  is  brief,  so  that  the 
public  all  find  time  to  read  it ;  it  is 
pithy,  so  that  the  surviving  friends 
(if  any  can  survive  such  a  loss)  re- 
member it  without  fatigue ;  it  is  upon 
oath,  so  that  rascals  and  Dr  Johnsons 
cannot  pick  holes  in  it.  "  Died  through 


the  visitation  of  intense  stupidity,  by 
impinging  on  a  moonlight  night  against 
the  off  hind  wheel  of  the  Glasgow  mail! 
Deodand  upon  the  said  wheel — two- 
pence.'1 What  a  simple  lapidary 
inscription !  Nobody  much  in  the 
wrong  but  an  off- wheel ;  and  with  few 
acquaintances ;  and  if  it  were  but 
rendered  into  choice  Latin,  though 
there  would  be  a  little  bother  in  find- 
ing a  Ciceronian  word  for  "off-wheel," 
Morcellus  himself,  that  great  master 
of  sepulchral  eloquence,  could  not 
show  a  better.  Why  I  call  this  little 
remark  moral,  is,  from  the  compen- 
sation it  points  out.  Here,  by  the 
supposition,  is  that  other  creature  on, 
the  one  side,  the  beast  of  the  world ; 
and  he  (or  it)  gets  an  epitaph.  You 
and  I,  on  the  contrary,  the  pride  of 
our  friends,  get  none. 

But  why  linger  on  the  subject  of 
vermin  ?  Having  mounted  the  box,  I 
took  a  small  quantity  of  laudanum, 
having  already  travelled  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles — viz.,  from  a  point 
seventy  miles  beyond  London,  upon  a 
simple  breakfast.  In  the  taking  of 
laudanum  there  was  nothing  extraor- 
dinary. But  by  accident  it  drew  upon 
me  the  special  attention  of  my  asses- 
sor on  the  box,  the  coachman.  And 
in  that  there  was  nothing  extraordi- 
nary. But  by  accident,  and  with 
great  delight,  it  drew  my  attention  to 
the  fact  that  this  coachman  was  a 
monster  in  point  of  size,  and  that  he 
had  but  one  eye.  In  fact  he  had  been 
foretold  by  Virgil  as — 

"  Monstrum  horrendum,  infonne,  ingens, 
cui  Inmen  ademptum." 

He  answered  in  every  point — a  mon- 
ster he  was — dreadful,  shapeless,  huge, 
who  had  lost  an  eye.  But  why  should 
that  delight  me  ?  Had  he  been  one  of 
the  Calendars  in  the  Arabian  Xights, 
and  had  paid  down  .his  eye  as  the 
price  of  his  criminal  curiosity,  what 
right  had  /to  exult  in  his  misfortune? 
I  did  not  exult:  I  delighted  in  no- 
man's  punishment,  though  it  were 
even  merited.  But  these  personal 
distinctions  identified  in  an  instant  an 
old  friend  of  mine,  whom  I  had  known 
in  the  south  for  some  years  as  the  most 
masterly  of  mail-coachmen.  He  was 
the  man  in  all  Europe  that  could  best 
have  undertaken  to  drive  six-in-hand 
full  gallop  over  Al  Sir  at— that  famous 


1849.] 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


745 


bridge  of  Mahomet  across  the  bottom- 
less gulf,  backing  himself  against  the 
Prophet  and  twenty  such  fellows.  I 
used  to  call  him  Cyclops  mastigophorus, 
Cyclops  the  whip-bearer,  until  I  ob- 
served that  his  skill  made  whips  use- 
less, except  to  fetch  off  an  impertinent 
fly  from  a  leader's  head  ;  upon  which 
I  changed  his  Grecian  name  to  Cy- 
clops diphrelates  (Cyclops  the  chario- 
ter.)  I,  and  others  known  to  me,  studied 
tinder  him  the  diphrelatic  art.  Ex- 
cuse, reader,  a  word  too  elegant  to  be 
pedantic.  And  also  take  this  remark 
from  me,  as  a  gage  dCamitie — that 
no  word  ever  was  or  can  be  pedantic 
which,  by  supportingadistinction,  sup- 
ports the  accuracy  of  logic;  or  which 
fills  up  a  chasm  for  the  understanding. 
As  a  pupil,  though  I  paid  extra  fees, 
I  cannot  say  that  I  stood  high  in  his 
esteem.  It  showed  his  dogged  ho- 
nesty, (though,  observe,  not  his  dis- 
cernment,) that  he  could  not  see  my 
merits.  Perhaps  we  ought  to  excuse 
his  absurdity  in  this  particular  by  re- 
membering his  want  of  an  eye.  That 
made  him  blind  to  ny  merits.  Irri- 
tating as  this  blindness  was,  (surely 
it  could  not  be  envy  ?)  he  always 
courted  my  conversation,  in  which  art 
I  certainly  had  the  whip-hand  of  him. 
On  this  occasion,  great  joy  was  at  our 
meeting.  But  what  was  Cyclops  do- 
ing here  ?  Had  the  medical  men  re- 
commended northern  air,  or  how  ?  I 
collected,  from  such  explanations  as 
he  volunteered,  that  he  had  an  interest 
at  stake  in  a  suit-at-law  pending  at 
Lancaster ;  so  that  probably  he  had 
got  himself  transferred  to  this  station, 
for  the  purpose  of  connecting  with  his 
professional  pursuits  an  instant  readi- 
ness for  the  calls  of  his  law-suit. 

Meantime,  what  are  we  stopping 
for  ?  Surely  we've  been  waiting  long 
enough.  Oh,  this  procrastinating 
mail,  and  oh  this  procrastinating  post- 
office  !  Can't  they  take  a  lesson  upon 
that  subject  from  me?  Some  people 
have  called  me  procrastinating.  Now 
you  are  witness,  reader,  that  I  was 
in  time  for  them.  But  can  they  lay 
their  hands  on  their  hearts,  and  say 
that  they  were  in  time  for  me  ?  I, 
during  my  life,  have  often  had  to  wait 
for  the  post-office  :  the  post-office 
never  waited  a  minute  for  me.  What 
are  they  about  ?  The  guard  tells  me 
that  there  is  a  large  extra  accumula- 


tion of  foreign  mails  this  night,  owing 
to  irregularities  caused  by  war  and  by 
the  packet-service,  when  as  yet  no- 
thing is  done  by  steam.  For  an  extra. 
hour,  it  seems,  the  post-office  has 
been  engaged  in  threshing  out  the 
pure  wheaten  correspondence  of  Glas- 
gow, and  winnowing  it  from  the  chaff 
of  all  baser  intermediate  towns.  Wo 
can  hear  the  flails  going  at  this 
moment.  But  at  last  all  is  finished. 
Sound  your  horn,  guard.  Manches- 
ter, good  bye;  we've  lost  an  hour  by 
your  criminal  conduct  at  the  post- 
office  :  which,  however,  though  I  do- 
not  mean  to  part  with  a  serviceable 
ground  of  complaint,  and  one  which 
really  is  such  for  the  horses,  to  me 
secretly  is  an  advantage,  since  it  com- 
pels us  to  recover  this  last  hour 
amongst  the  next  eight  or  nine.  Off 
we  are  at  last,  and  at  eleven  miles 
an  hour :  and  at  first  I  detect  no 
changes  in  the  energy  or  in  the  skill 
of  Cyclops. 

From  Manchester  to  Kendal,  which 
virtually  (though  not  in  law)  is  the 
capital  of  Westmoreland,  were  at  this 
time  seven  stages  of  eleven  miles  each. 
The  first  five  of  these,  dated  from 
Manchester,  terminated  in  Lancaster, 
which  was  therefore  fifty- five  miles 
north  of  Manchester,  and  the  same 
distance  exactly  from  Liverpool.  The 
first  three  terminated  in  Preston 
(called,  by  way  of  distinction  from 
other  towns  of  that  name,  proud  Pres- 
ton,) at  which  place  it  was  that  the 
separate  roads  from  Liverpool  and 
from  Manchester  to  the  north  became 
confluent.  Within  these  first  three 
stages  lay  the  foundation,  the  progress, 
and  termination  of  our  night's  adven- 
tnre.  During  the  first  stage,  I  found 
out  that  Cyclops  was  mortal :  he  was 
liable  to  the  shocking  affection  of 
sleep — a  thing  which  I  had  never  pre- 
viously suspected.  If  a  man  is  addicted 
to  the  vicious  habit  of  sleeping,  all 
the  skill  in  aurigation  of  Apollo  him- 
self, with  the  horses  of  Aurora  to  exe- 
cute the  motions  of  his  will,  avail  him 
nothing.  "  Oh,  Cyclops ! "  I  exclaim- 
ed more  than  once,  "  Cyclops,  my 
friend  ;  thou  art  mortal.  Thou  snor- 
est."  Through  this  first  eleven  miles, 
however,  he  betrayed  his  infirmity — 
which  I  grieve  to  say  he  shared  with 
the  whole  Pagan  Pantheon — only  by 
short  stretches.  On  waking  up,  ho 


746 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


[Dec. 


made  an  apology  for  himself,  which, 
iustead  of  mending  the  matter,  laid  an 
ominous  foundation  for  coming  dis- 
asters. The  summer  assizes  were 
now  proceeding  at  Lancaster :  in  con- 
sequence of  which,  for  three  nights 
and  three  days,  he  had  not  lain  down 
in  a  bed.  During  the  day,  he  was 
waiting  for  his  uncertain  summons  as 
a  witness  on  the  trial  in  which  he 
was  interested ;  or  he  was  drinking 
with  the  other  witnesses,  under  the 
vigilant  surveillance  of  the  attorneys. 
During  the  night,  or  that  part  of  it 
when  the  least  temptations  existed  to 
conviviality,  he  was  driving.  Through- 
out the  second  stage  he  grew  more 
and  more  drowsy.  In  the  second 
mile  of  the  third  stage,  he  surrendered 
himself  finally  and  without  a  struggle 
to  his  perilous  temptation.  All  his 
past  resistance  had  but  deepened  the 
weight  of  this  final  oppression.  Seven 
atmospheres  of  sleep  seemed  resting 
upon  him  ;  and,  to  consummate  the 
case,  our  worthy  guard,  after  singing 
"  Love  amongst  the  Hoses,"  for  the 
fiftieth  or  sixtieth  time,  without  any 
invitation  from  Cyclops  or  myself, 
and  without  applause  for  his  poor 
labours,  had  moodily  resigned  himself 
to  slumber — not  so  deep  doubtless  as 
the  coachman's,  but  deep  enough  for 
mischief;  and  having,  probably,  no 
similar  excuse.  And  thus  at  last, 
about  ten  milas  from  Preston,  I  found 
myself  left  in  charge  of  his  Majesty's 
London  and  Glasgow  mail  then  run- 
ning about  eleven  miles  an  hour. 

What  made  this  negligence  less 
criminal  than  else  it  must  have  been 
thought,  was  the  condition  of  the  roads 
at  night  during  the  assizes.  At  that 
time  all  the  law  business  of  populous 
Liverpool,  and  of  populous  Manchester, 
with  its  vast  cincture  of  populous 
rural  districts,  was  called  up  by  an- 
cient usage  to  the  tribunal  of  Lillipu- 
tian Lancaster.  To  break  up  this  old 
traditional  usage  required  a  conflict 
with  powerful  established  interests,  a 
large  system  of  new  arrangements,  and 
a  new  parliamentary  statute.  As 
things  were  at  present,  twice  in  the 
year  so  vast  a  body  of  business  rolled 
northwards,  from  the  southern  quarter 
of  the  county,  that  a  fortnight  at 


least  occupied  the  severe  exertions  of 
two  judges  for  its  despatch.  The 
consequence  of  this  was — that  every 
horse  availablefor  such  a  service,  along 
the  whole  line  of  road,  was  exhausted 
in  canying  down  the  multitudes  of 
people  who  were  parties  to  the  diffe- 
rent suits.  By  sunset,  therefore,  it 
usually  happened  that,  through  utter 
exhaustion  amongst  men  and  horses, 
the  roads  were  all  silent.  Except 
exhaustion  in  the  vast  adjacent  county 
of  York  from  a  contested  election, 
nothing  like  it  was  ordinarily  wit- 
nessed in  England. 

On  this  occasion,  the  usual  silence 
and  solitude  prevailed  along  the  road. 
Not  a  hoof  nor  a  wheel  was  to  be 
heard.  And  to  strengthen  this  false 
luxurious  confidence  in  the  noiseless 
roads,  it  happened  also  that  the  night 
was  one  of  peculiar  solemnity  and 
peace.  I  myself,  though  slightly 
alive  to  the  possibilities  of  peril,  had 
so  far  yielded  to  the  influence  of  the 
mighty  calm  as  to  sink  into  a  pro- 
found reverie.  The  month  was  Au- 
gust, in  which  lay  my  own  birth-day ; 
a  festival  to  every  thoughtful  man 
suggesting  solemn  and  often  sigh- 
born  thoughts.*  The  county  was  my 
own  native  county — upon  which,  in  its 
southern  section,  more  than  upon  any 
equal  area  known  to  man  past  or 
present,  had  descended  the  original 
curse  of  labour  in  its  heaviest  form, 
not  mastering  the  bodies  of  men  only 
as  of  slaves,  or  criminals  in  mines, 
but  working  through  the  fiery  will. 
Upon  no  equal  space  of  earth,  was,  or 
ever  had  been,  the  same  energy  of 
human  power  put  forth  daily.  At 
this  particular  season  also  of  the 
assizes,  that  dreadful  hurricane  of 
flight  and  pursuit,  as  it  might  have 
seemed  to  a  stranger,  that  swept  to 
and  from  Lancaster  all  day  long, 
hunting  the  county  up  and  down,  and 
regularly  subsiding  about  sunset, 
united  with  the  permanent  distinction 
of  Lancashire  as  the  very  metropolis 
and  citadel  of  labour,  to  point  the 
thoughts  pathetically  upon  that 
counter  vision  of  rest,  of  saintly  re- 
pose from  strife  and  sorrow,  towards 
which,  as  to  their  secret  haven,  the 
profounder  aspirations  of  man's  heart 


*  "Sigh-bom:"  I  owe  the  suggestion  of  this  word  to  an  obscure  remembrance  of 
&  beautiful  phrase  in  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  viz.,  tuspiriosce  cogitationes. 


1849.] 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


747 


arc  continually  travelling.  Obliquely 
we  were  nearing  the  sea  upon  our 
left,  which  also  must,  under  the  pre- 
sent circumstances,  be  repeating  the 
general  state  of  halcyon  repose.  The 
sea,  the  atmosphere,  the  light,  bore 
an  orchestral  part  in  this  universal 
lull.  Moonlight,  and  the  first  timid 
tremblings  of  the  dawn,  were  now 
blending;  and  the  blendings  were 
brought  into  a  still  more  exquisite 
state  of  unity,  by  a  slight  silvery 
mist,  motionless  and  dreamy,  that 
covered  the  woods  and  fields,  but 
with  a  veil  of  equable  transparency. 
Except  the  feet  of  our  own  horses, 
which,  running  on  a  sandy  margin  of 
the  road,  made  little  disturbance, 
there  was  no  sound  abroad.  In  the 
clouds,  and  on  the  earth,  prevailed 
the  same  majestic  peace ;  and  in  spite 
of  all  that  the  villain  of  a  schoolmaster 
has  done  for  the  ruin  of  our  sublimer 
thoughts,  which  are  the  thoughts  of 
our  infancy,  we  still  believe  in  no 
such  nonsense  as  a  limited  atmo- 
sphere. Whatever  we  may  swear 
with  our  false  feigning  lips,  in  our 
faithful  hearts  we  still  believe,  and 
must  for  ever  believe,  in  fields  of  air 
traversing  the  total  gulf  between 
earth  and  the  central  heavens.  Still, 
in  the  confidence  of  children  that 
tread  without  fear  every  chamber  in 
their  father's  house,  and  to  whom  no 
door  is  closed,  we,  in  that  Sabbatic 
vision  which  sometimes  is  revealed 
for  an  hour  upon  nights  like  this, 
ascend  with  easy  steps  from  the  sor- 
row-stricken fields  of  earth,  upwards 
to  the  sandals  of  God. 

Suddenly  from  thoughts  like  these, 
I  was  awakened  to  a  sullen  sound,  as 
of  some  motion  on  the  distant  road. 
It  stole  upon  the  air  for  a  moment ; 
I  listened  in  awe ;  but  then  it  died 
away.  Once  roused,  however,  I 
could  not  but  observe  with  alarm  the 
quickened  motion  of  our  horses.  Ten 
years'  experience  had  made  my  eye 
learned  in  the  valuing  of  motion ;  and 
I  saw  that  we  were  now  running 
thirteen  miles  an  hour.  I  pretend  to 
no  presence  of  mind.  On  the  con- 
trary, my  fear  is,  that  I  am  miserably 
and  shamefully  deficient  in  that  qua- 
lity as  regards  action.  The  palsy  of 


doubt  and  distraction  hangs  like  some 
guilty  weight  of  dark  unfathomed  re- 
membrances upon  my  energies,  when 
the  signal  is  flying  for  action.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  this  accursed  gift 
I  have,  as  regards  thought,  that  in  the 
first  step  towards  the  possibility  of  a 
misfortune,  I  see  its  total  evolution  : 
in  the  radix,  I  see  too  certainly  and 
too  instantly  its  entire  expansion ;  in 
the  first  syllable  of  the  dreadful 
sentence,  I  read  already  the  last.  It 
was  not  that  I  feared  for  ourselves. 
What  could  injure  us  ?  Our  bulk  and 
impetus  charmed  us  against  peril  in 
any  collision.  And  I  had  rode 
through  too  many  hundreds  of  perils 
that  were  frightful  to  approach,  that 
were  matter  of  laughter  as  we  looked 
back  upon  them,  for  any  anxiety  to 
rest  upon  our  interests.  The  mail 
was  not  built,  I  felt  assured,  nor  be- 
spoke, that  could  betray  me  who 
trusted  to  its  protection.  But  any 
carriage  that  we  could  meet  would  be 
frail  and  light  in  comparison  of  our- 
selves. And  I  remarked  this  ominous 
accident  of  our  situation.  We  were 
on  the  wrong  side  of  the  road.  But 
then  the  other  party,  if  other  there 
wasr  might  also  be  on  the  wrong 
side ;  and  two  wrongs  might  make  a 
right.  TJiat  was  not  likely.  The- 
same  motive  which  had  drawn  us  to 
the  right-hand  side  of  the  road,  viz., 
the  soft  beaten  sand,  as  contrasted 
with  the  paved  centre,  would  prove 
attractive  to  others.  Our  lamps,  still 
lighted,  would  give  the  impression  of 
vigilance  on  our  part.  And  every 
creature  that  met  us,  would  rely  upon 
us  for  quartering.*  All  this,  and  if 
the  separate  links  of  the  anticipation 
had  been  a  thousand  times  more,  I 
saw — not  discursively  or  by  effort — 
but  as  by  one  flash  of  horrid  intui- 
tion. 

Under  this  steady  though  rapid 
anticipation  of  the  evil  which  might 
be  gathering  ahead,  ah,  reader !  what 
a  sullen  mystery  of  fear,  what  a  sigh 
of  woe,  seemed  to  steal  upon  the  air, 
as  again  the  far-off  sound  of  a  wheel 
was  heard !  A  whisper  it  was — a 
whisper  from,  perhaps,  four  miles  off 
— secretly  announcing  a  ruin  that, 
being  foreseen,  was  not  the  less  inevit- 


*  "  Quartering" — this  is  the  technical  word  ;  and,  I  presume^  derived  from  the 
French  cartayer,  to  evade  a  rut  or  any  obstacle. 


7-18 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


[Dec. 


able.  What  could  be  done — who  was 
it  that  could  do  it — to  check  the 
storm-flight  of  these  maniacal  horses  ? 
What !  could  I  not  seize  the  reins 
from  the  grasp  of  the  slumbering  coach- 
man ?  You,  reader,  think  that  it 
would  have  been  in  your  power  to  do 
so.  And  I  quarrel  not  with  your 
estimate  of  yourself.  But,  from  the 
way  in  which  the  coachman's  hand 
was  viced  between  his  upper  and  lower 
thigh,  this  was  impossible.  The  guard 
subsequently  found  it  impossible,  after 
this  danger  had  passed.  Not  the 
grasp  only,  but  also  the  position  of  this 
Polyphemus,  made  the  attempt  im- 
possible. You  still  think  otherwise. 
See,  then,  that  bronze  equestrian 
statue.  The  cruel  rider  has  kept  the 
bit  in  his  horse's  mouth  for  two  cen- 
turies. Unbridle  him,  for  a  minute, 
if  you  please,  and  wash  his  mouth 
with  water.  Or  stay,  reader,  unhorse 
me  that  marble  emperor :  knock  me 
those  marble  feet  from  those  marble 
stirrups  of  Charlemagne. 

The  sounds  ahead  strengthened, 
and  were  now  too  clearly  the  sounds  of 
wheels.  Who  and  what  could  it  be  ? 
Was  it  industry  in  a  taxed  cart  ? — was 
it  youthful  gaiety  in  a  gig  ?  Whoever 
it  was,  something  must  be  attempted 
to  warn  them.  Upon  the  other  party 
rests  the  active  responsibility,  but 
upon  us — and,  woe  is  me !  that  us 
was  iny  single  self — rests  the  respon- 
sibility of  warning.  Yet,  how  should 
this  be  accomplished  ?  Might  I  not 
seize  the  guard's  horn  ?  Already,  on 
the  first  thought,  I  was  making  my 
way  over  the  roof  to  the  guard's  seat. 
But  this,  from  the  foreign  mails  being 
piled  upon  the  roof,  was  a  difficult, 
and  even  dangerous  attempt,  to  one 
cramped  by  nearly  three  hundred 
miles  of  outside  travelling.  And, 
fortunately,  before  I  had  lost  much 
time  in  the  attempt,  our  frantic  horses 
swept  round  an  angle  of  the  road, 
which  opened  upon  us  the  stage  where 
the  collision  must  be  accomplished, 
the  parties  that  seemed  summoned  to 
the  trial,  and  the  impossibility  of  sav- 
ing them  by  any  communication  with 
the  guard. 

Before  us  lay  an  avenue,  straight 
as  an  arrow,  six  hundred  yards,  per- 
haps, in  length  ;  and  the  umbrageous 
trees,  which  rose  in  a  regular  line 
from  either  side,  meeting  high  over- 


head, gave  to  it  the  character  of  a 
cathedral  aisle.  These  trees  lent  a 
deeper  solemnity  to  the  early  light ; 
but  there  was  still  light  enough  to 
perceive,  at  the  further  end  of  this 
gothic  aisle,  a  light,  reedy  gig,  in. 
which  .were  seated  a  young  man,  and, 
by  his  side,  a  young  lady.  Ah,  young 
sir !  what  are  you  about  ?  If  it  is 
necessary  that  you  should  whisper 
your  communications  to  this  J7ou»g 
lady — though  really  I  see  nobody  at 
this  hour,  and  on  this  solitary  road, 
likely  to  overhear  your  conversation 
— is  it,  therefore,  necessary  that  you 
should  carry  your  lips  forward  to  hers? 
The  little  carriage  is  creeping  on  at 
one  mile  an  hour ;  and  the  parties 
within  it,  being  thus  tenderly  engaged, 
are  naturally  bending  down  their 
beads.  Between  them  and  eternity, 
to  all  human  calculation,  there  is  but 
a  minute  and  a  half.  What  is  it  that 
I  shall  do  ?  Strange  it  is,  and  to  a 
mere  auditor  of  the  tale,  might  seem 
laughable,  that  I  should  need  a  sug- 
gestion from  the  Iliad  to  prompt  the 
sole  recourse  that  remained.  But 
so  it  was.  Suddenly  I  remembered 
the  shout  of  Achilles,  and  its  effect. 
But  could  I  pretend  to  shout  like  the 
son  of  Peleus,  aided  by  Pallas  ?  No, 
certainly :  but  then  I  needed  not  the 
shout  that  should  alarm  all  Asia  mi- 
litant ;  a  shout  would  suffice,  such  as 
should  carry  terror  into  the  hearts  of 
two  thoughtless  young  people,  and  one 
gig  horse.  I  shouted — and  the  young 
man  heard  me  not.  A  second  time  i 
shouted — and  now  he  heard  me,  for 
now  he  raised  his  head. 

Here,  then,  all  had  been  done  that, 
by  me,  could  be  done :  more  on  my 
part  was  not  possible.  Mine  had  been 
the  first  step :  the  second  was  for  the 
young  man  :  the  third  was  for  God. 
If,  said  I,  the  stranger  is  a  brave 
man,  and  if,  indeed,  he  loves  the 
young  girl  at  his  side — or,  loving  her 
not,  if  he  feels  the  obligation  pressing 
upon  every  man  worthy  to  be  called 
a  man,  of  doing  his  utmost  for  a  wo- 
man confided  to  his  protection — he 
will  at  least  make  some  effort  to  save 
her.  If  that  fails,  he  will  not  perish 
the  more,  or  by  a  death  more  cruel,  for 
having  made  it ;  and  he  will  die,  as 
a  brave  man  should,  with  his  face  to 
the  danger,  and  with  his  arm  about  tho 
woman  that  he  sought  in  vain  to  save. 


1840.] 


Tht  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


741) 


Bat  if  he  makes  no  effort,  shrinking, 
without  a  struggle,  from  his  duty,  he 
himself  will  not  the  less  certainly 
perish  for  this  baseness  of  poltroonery. 
He  will  die  no  less :  and  why  not  ? 
Wherefore  should  we  grieve  that  there 
is  one  craven  less  in  the  world  ?  No ; 
let  him  perish,  without  a  pitying 
thought  of  ours  wasted  upon  him ; 
and,  in  that  case,  all  our  grief  will  be 
reserved  for  the  fate  of  the  helpless 
girl,  who,  now,  upon  the  least  shadow 
of  failure  in  him,  must,  by  the  fiercest 
of  translations — must,  without  time 
for  a  prayer — must,  within  seventy 
seconds,  stand  before  the  judgment- 
seat  of  God. 

But  craven  he  was  not:  sudden 
had  been  the  call  upon  him,  and 
sudden  was  his  answer  to  the  call. 
He  saw,  he  heard,  he  comprehended, 
the  ruin,  that  was  coming  down :  al- 
ready its  gloomy  shadow  darkened 
above  him ;  and  already  he  was  mea- 
suring his  strength  to  deal  with  it. 
Ah !  what  a  vulgar  thing  does  courage 
seem,  when  we  see  nations  buying  it 
and  selling  it  for  a  shilling  a-day :  ah ! 
what  a  sublime  thing  does  courage 
seem,  when  some  fearful  crisis  on  the 
great  deeps  of  life  carries  a  man,  as 
if  running  before  a  hurricane,  up  to  the 
giddy  crest  of  some  mountainous  wave, 
from  which,  accordingly  as  he  chooses 
his  course,  he  descries  two  courses, 
and  a  voice  says  to  him  audibly — 
"  This  way  lies  hope ;  take  the  other 
way  and  mourn  for  ever ! "  Yet,  even 
then,  amidst  the  raving  of  the  seas 
and  the  frenzy  of  the  danger,  the  man 
is  able  to  confront  his  situation — is 
able  to  retire  for  a  moment  into  soli- 
tude with  God,  and  to  seek  all  his 
counsel  from  Irim!  For  seven  seconds, 
it  might  be,  of  his  seventy,  the  stranger 
settled  his  countenance  steadfastly 
upon  us,  as  if  to  search  and  value 
every  clement  in  the  conflict  before 
him.  For  five  seconds  more  he  sate 
immovably,  like  one  that  mused  on 
some  great  purpose.  For  five  he  sate 
with  eyes  upraised,  like  one  that  pray- 
ed in  sorrow,  under  some  extremity  of 
doubt,  for  wisdom  to  guide  him  to- 
wards the  better  choice.  Then  sud- 
denly he  rose;  stood%upright ;  and, 
by  a  sudden  strain  upon  the  reins, 
raising  his  horse's  forefeet  from  the 
ground,  he  slewed  him  round  on  the 
pivot  of  his  hind  legs,  so  as  to  plant 


the  little  equipage  iu  a  position  nearly 
at  right-angles  to  ours.  Thus  far  his 
condition  was  not  improved ;  except 
as  a  first  step  had  been  taken  towards 
the  possibility  of  a  second.  If  no 
more  were  done,  nothing  was  done ; 
for  the  little  carnage  still  occupied 
the  very  centre  of  our  path,  though 
in  an  altered  direction.  Yet  even 
now  it  may  not  be  too  late :  fifteen 
of  the  twenty  seconds  may  still  be 
unexhausted ;  and  one  almighty  bound 
forward  may  avail  to  clear  the  ground. 
Hurry  then,  hurry!  for  the  flying  mo- 
ments— they  hurry !  Oh  hurry,  hurry, 
my  brave  young  man !  for  the  cruel 
hoofs  of  our  horses — they  also  hurry  I 
Fast  are  the  flying  moments,  faster 
are  the  hoofs  of  our  horses.  Fear  not 
for  him,  if  human  energy  can  suffice : 
faithful  was  he  that  drove,  to  his 
terrific  duty  ;  faithful  was  the  horse 
to  his  command.  One  blow,  one 
impulse  given  with  voice  and  hand 
by  the  stranger,  one  rush  from  the 
horse,  one  bound  as  if  in  the  act  of 
rising  to  a  fence,  landed  the  docilo 
creature's  fore-feet  upon  the  crown  or 
arching  centre  of  the  road.  The 
larger  half  of  the  little  equipage  had 
then  cleared  our  over- towering  shadow: 
that  was  evident  even  to  my  own 
agitated  sight.  But  it  mattered  little 
that  one  wreck  should  float  off  in. 
safety,  if  upon  the  wreck  that  per- 
ished were  embarked  the  human 
freightage.  The  rear  part  of  the 
carriage — was  that  certainly  beyond 
the  line  of  absolute  ruin?  What  power 
could  answer  the  question  ?  Glance 
of  eye,  thought  of  man,  wing  of  angel, 
which  of  these  had  speed  enough  to 
sweep  between  the  question  and  the 
answer,  and  divide  the  one  from  the 
other?  Light  does  not  tread  upon 
the  steps  of  light  more  indivisibly, 
than  did  our  all- conquering  arrival 
upon  the  escaping  efforts  of  the  gig. 
That  must  the  young  man  have  felt 
too  plainly.  His  back  was  now  turned 
to  us;  not  by  sight  could  he  any 
longer  communicate  with  the  peril ; 
but  by  the  dreadful  rattle  of  our  har- 
ness, too  truly  had  his  ear  been  in- 
structed— that  all  was  finished  as 
regarded  any  further  effort  of  his. 
Already  in  resignation  he  had  rested 
from  his  struggle  ;  and  perhaps,  in  his 
heart  he  was  whispering — "Father, 
which,  art  above,  do  thou  finish 


750 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


[Dec. 


iu  heaven  what  I  on  earth  have 
•attempted."  We  ran  past  them 
faster  than  ever  mill-race  in  our 
inexorable  flight.  Oh,  raving  of 
hurricanes  that  must  have  sounded  in 
their  young  ears  at  the  moment  of 
our  transit !  Either  with  the  swingle- 
bar,  or  with  the  haunch  of  our  near 
leader,  we  had  struck  the  off- wheel  of 
the  little  gig,  which  stood  rather 
obliquely  and  not  quite  so  far  advanced 
as  to  be  accurately  parallel  with  the 
near  wheel.  The  blow,  from  the 
fury  of  our  passage,  resounded  terri- 
fically. I  rose  in  horror,  to  look  upon 
the  ruins  we  might  have  caused. 
From  my  elevated  station  I  looked 
down,  and  looked  back  upon  the  scene, 
which  in  a  moment  told  its  tale,  and 
wrote  all  its  records  on  my  heart  for 
ever. 

The  horse  was  planted  immovably, 
with  his  fore-feet  upon  the  paved 
crest  of  the  central  road.  He  of  the 
whole  party  was  alone  untouched  by 
the  passion  of  death.  The  little 
cany  carriage — partly  perhaps  from 
the  dreadful  torsion  of  the  wheels  in 
its  recent  movement,  partly  from  the 
thundering  blow  we  had  given  to  it — 
as  if  it  sympathised  with  human 
horror,  was  all  alive  with  tremblings 
and  shiverings.  The  young  man  sat 
like  a  rock.  He  stirred  not  at  all. 
But  his  was  the  steadiness  of  agitation 
frozen  into  rest  by  horror.  As  yet 
he  dared  not  to  look  roiind ;  for  be 
knew  that,  if  anything  remained  to 


do,  by  him  it  could  no  longer  be  done. 
And  as  yet  he  knew  not  for  certain  if 
their  safety  were  accomplished.  But 
the  lady 

But  the  lady !  Oh  heavens !  will 

that  spectacle  ever  depart  from  my 
dreams,  as  she  rose  and  sank  upon  her 
seat,  sank  and  rose,  threw  up  her  arms 
wildly  to  heaven,  clutched  at  some 
visionary  object  in  the  air,  fainting, 
praying,  raving, despairing!  Figure  to 
yourself,  reader,  the  elements  of  the 
case ;  suffer  me  to  recal  before  your 
mind  the  circumstances  of  the  unpar- 
alleled situation.  From  the  silence 
and  deep  peace  of  this  saintly  sum- 
mer night, — from  the  pathetic  blending 
of  this  sweet  moonlight,  dawnlight, 
dreanilight, — from  the  manly  tender- 
ness of  this  flattering,  whispering, 
murmuring  love, — suddenly  as  from 
the  woods  and  fields, — suddenly  as 
from  the  chambers  of  the  air  opening 
in  revelation, — suddenly  as  from  the 
ground  yawning  at  her  feet,  leaped 
upon  her,  with  the  flashing  of  cata- 
racts, Death  the  crowned  phantom, 
with  all  the  equipage  of  his  terrors, 
and  the  tiger  roar  of  his  voice. 

The  moments  were  numbered.  In 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  our  flying 
horses  had  carried  us  to  the  termina- 
tion of  the  umbrageous  aisle ;  at  right- 
angles  we  wheeled  into  our  former 
direction ;  the  turn  of  the  road  carried 
the  scene  out  of  my  eyes  in  an  instant, 
and  swept  it  into  my  dreams  for 
ever. 


DREAM-FCGUE. 


ON  THE  ABOVE  THEME  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 

"  Whence  the  sound 

Of  instruments,  that  made  melodious  chime, 
Was  heard,  of  harp  and  organ;  and  who  mov'd 
Their  stops  and  chords,  was  seen;  his  volant  touch 
Instinct  through  all  proportions,  low  and  high, 
Fled  and  pursued  transverse  the  resonant  fugue." 


Par.  Lost,  B.  xi. 


Tumultuosissimamente. 


Passion  of  Sudden  Death!  that  once  Rapture  of  panic  taking  the  shape, 
in  youth  I  read  and  interpreted  by  which  amongst  tombs  in  churches  I 
the  shadows  of  thy  averted*  signs; —  have  seen,  of  woman  bursting  her 

t  "Diverted  signs."' — I  read  the  course  and  changes  of  the  lady's  agony  in  the  suc- 
cession of  her  involuntary  gestures  ;  but  let  it  be  remembered  that  I  read  all  this 
from  the  rear,  never  once  catching  the  lady's  full  face,  and  even  her  profile  imper- 
fectly. 


1849.] 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


751 


sepulchral  bonds — of  woman's  Ionic 
form  bending  forward  from  the  ruins 
of  her  grave,  with  arching  foot,  with 
eyes  upraised,  with  clasped  adoring 
hands — waiting,  watching,  trembling, 
praying,  for  the  trumpet's  call  to  rise 
from  dust  for  ever ; — Ah,  vision  too 
fearful  of  shuddering  humanity  on  the 
brink  of  abysses!  vision  that  didst 
start  back — that  didst  reel  away — like 
a  shrivelling  scroll  from  before  the 
wrath  of  fire  racing  on  the  wings  of 
the  wind !  Epilepsy  so  brief  of  horror 
— wherefore  is  it  that  thou  canst  not 
die  ?  Passing  so  suddenly  into  dark- 
ness, wherefore  is  it  that  still  thou 
sheddest  thy  sad  funeral  blights  upon 
the  gorgeous  mosaics  of  dreams '? 
Fragment  of  music  too  stern,  heard 
once  and  heard  no  more,  what  aileth 
thee  that  thy  deep  rolling  chords  come 
up  at  intervals  through  all  the  worlds 
of  sleep,  and  after  thirty  years  have 
lost  no  element  of  horror  ? 


1. 

Lo,  it  is  summer,  almighty  summer ! 
The  everlasting  gates  of  life  and  sum- 
mer are  thrown  open  wide;  and  on 
the  ocean,  tranquil  and  verdant  as  a 
savannah,  the  unknown  lady  from  the 
dreadful  vision  and  I  myself  are  float- 
ing :  she  upon  a  fairy  pinnace,  and  I 
upon  an  English  three-decker.  But 
both  of  us  are  wooing  gales  of  festal 
happiness  within  the  domain  of  our 
common  country — within  that  ancient 
watery  park — within  that  pathless 
chase  where  England  takes  her  plea- 
sure as  a  huntress  through  winter  and 
summer,  and  which  stretches  from  the 
rising  to  the  setting  sun.  Ah  !  what 
a  wilderness  of  floral  beauty  was  hid- 
den, or  was  suddenly  revealed,  upon 
the  tropic  islands  through  which  the 
pinnace  moved.  And  upon  her  deck 
what  a  bevy  of  human  flowers — young 
women  how  lovely,  young  men  how 
noble,  that  were  dancing  together,  and 
slowly  drifting  towards  MS  amidst 
music  and  incense,  amidst  blossoms 
from  forests  and  gorgeous  corymbi 
from  vintages,  amidst  natural  caroling 
and  the  echoes  of  sweet  girlish  laugh- 
ter. Slowly  the  pinnace  nears  us, 
gaily  she  hails  us,  and  slowly  she  dis- 
appears beneath  the  shadow  of  our 
mighty  bows.  But  then,  as  at  some 
signal  from  heaven,  the  music  and  the 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCX. 


carols,  and  the  sweet  echoing  of  girl- 
ish laughter — all  are  hushed.    What ' 
evil  has  smitten  the  pinnace,  meeting 
or  overtaking  her  ?    Did  ruin  to  our 
friends  couch  within  our  own  dreadful 
shadow  ?    Was  our  shadow  the  sha- 
dow of  death?    I  looked  over  the 
bow  for  an  answer ;  and,  behold !  the 
pinnace  was  dismantled ;  the  revel  and 
the  revellers  were  found  no  more ;  the 
glory  of  the  vintage  was  dust ;  and  the 
forest  was  left  without  a  witness  to  its 
beauty  upon  the  seas.   "  But  where," 
and  I  turned  to  our  own  crew — ' '  where 
are  the  lovely  women  that  danced: 
beneath  the  awning  of  flowers  and 
clustering  corymbi?    Whither  have 
fled  the  noble  young  men  that  danced 
with  them  ?  "   Answer  there  was  none. 
But  suddenly  the  man  at  the  mast- 
head, whose    countenance    darkened 
with  alarm,  cried  aloud — "  Sail  on  the 
weather-beam !     Down    she    comes 
upon  us ;  in  seventy  seconds  she  will 
founder!" 

2. 

I  looked  to  the  weather-side,  and 
the  summer  had  departed.  The  sea 
was  rocking,  and  shaken  with  gather- 
ing wrath.  Upon  its  surface  sate 
mighty  mists,  which  grouped  them- 
selves into  arches  and  long  cathedral 
aisles.  Down  one  of  these,  with  the 
fiery  pace  of  a  quarrel  from  a  cross- 
bow, ran  a  frigate  right  athwart  our 
course.  "  Are  they  mad?"  some 
voice  exclaimed  from  our  deck.  "  Are 
they  blind?  Do  they  woo  their  ruin?" 
But  in  a  moment,  as  she  was  close  upon 
us,  some  impulse  of  a  heady  current 
or  sudden  vortex  gave  a  wheeling  bias 
to  her  course,  and  off  she  forged  with- 
out a  shock.  As  she  ran  past  us, 
high  aloft  amongst  the  shrouds  stood 
the  lady  of  the  pinnace.  The  deeps 
opened  ahead  in  malice  to  receive 
her,  towering  surges  of  foam  ran  after 
her,  the  billows  were  fierce  to  catch 
her.  But  far  away  she  was  borne 
into  desert  spaces  of  the  sea  :  whilst 
still  by  sight  I  followed  her,  as  she  ran 
before  the  howling  gale,  chased  by 
angry  sea-birds  and  by  maddening 
billows ;  still  I  saw  her,  as  at  the  mo- 
ment when  she  ran  past  us,  amongst 
the  shrouds,  with  her  white  draperies 
streaming  before  the  wind.  There  she 
stood  with  hair  dishevelled,  one  hand 
clutched  amongst  the  tackling — rising, 

3D 


752 


TJie  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


sinking,  flattering,  trembling,  pray- 
ing—there for  leagues  I  saw  her  as 
she  stood,  raising  at  intervals  one 
hand  to  heaven,  amidst  the  fiery  crests 
of  the  pursuing  waves  and  the  raving 
-of  the  storm ;  until  at  last,  upon  a 
sound  from  afar  of  malicious  laughter 
and  mockery,  all  was  hidden  for  ever 
in  driving  showers  ;  and  afterwards, 
but  when  I  know  not,  and  how  I  know 
not, 

3. 

Sweet  funeral  bells  from  some  in- 
calculable distance,  wailing  over  the 
dead  that  die  before  the  dawn, 
awakened  me  as  I  slept  in  a  boat 
moored  to  some  familiar  shore.  The 
morning  twilight  even  then  was 
breaking  ;  and,  by  the  dusky  revela- 
tions which  it  spread,  I  saw  a  girl 
adorned  with  a  garland  of  white 
roses  about  her  head  for  some  great 
festival,  running  along  the  solitary 
strand  with  extremity  of  haste.  Her 
running  was  the  running  of  panic  ; 
and  often  she  looked  back  as  to  some 
dreadful  enemy  in  the  rear.  But  when 
I  leaped  ashore,  and  followed  on  her 
steps  to  warn  her  of  a  peril  in  front, 
alas !  from  me  she  fled  as  from  another 
peril ;  and  vainly  I  shouted  to  her  of 
quicksands  that  lay  ahead.  Faster 
and  faster  she  ran ;  round  a  promon- 
tory of  rock  she  wheeled  out  of  sight ; 
in  an  instant  I  also  wheeled  round  it, 
but  only  to  see  the  treacherous  sands 
gathering  above  her  head.  Already 
her  person  was  buried ;  only  the  fair 
young  head  and  the  diadem  of  white 
roses  around  it  were  still  visible  to 
the  pitying  heavens  ;  and,  last  of  all, 
was  visible  one  marble  arm.  I  saw 
by  the  early  twilight  this  fair  young 
head,  as  it  was  sinking  down  to  dark- 
ness— saw  this  marble  arm,  as  it  rose 
above  her  head  and  her  treacherous 
grave,  tossing,  faultering,  rising, 
clutching  as  at  some  false  deceiving 
hand  stretched  out  from  the  clouds — 
saw  this  marble  arm  uttering  her  dying 
hope,  and  then  her  dying  despair.  The 
head,  the  diadem,  the  arm, — these 
all  had  sunk  ;  at  last  over  these  also 
the  cruel  quicksand  had  closed ;  and 
no  memorial  of  the  fair  young  girl 
remained  on  earth,  except  my  own 
solitary  tears,  and  the  funeral  bells 
from  the  desert  seas,  that,  rising 
again  more  softly,  sang  a  requiem 


[Dec. 


over  the  grave  of  the  buried  child, 
and  over  her  blighted  dawn. 

I  sate,  and  wept  in  secret  the  tears 
that  men  have  ever  given  to  the  me- 
mory of  those  that  died  before  the 
dawn,  and  by  the  treachery  of  earth, 
our  mother.  But  the  tears  and  funeral 
bells  were  hushed  suddenly  by  a  shout 
as  of  many  nations,  and  by  a  roar 
as  from  some  great  king's  artillery  ad- 
vancing rapidly  along  the  valleys,  and 
heard  afar  by  its  echoes  among  the 
mountains.  "  Hush !  "  I  said,  as  I 
bent  my  ear  earthwards  to  listen — 
"hush! — this  either  is  the  very 
anarchy  of  strife,  or  else" — and  then 
I  listened  more  profoundly,  and  said  as 
I  raised  my  head —  "  or  else,  oh  hea- 
vens !  it  is  victory  that  swallows  up 
all  strife." 

4. 

Immediately,  in  trance,  I  was  car- 
ried over  land  and  sea  to  some  distant 
kingdom,  and  placed  upon  a  triumphal 
car,  amongst  companions  crowned 
with  laurel.  The  darkness  of  gather- 
ing midnight,  brooding  over  all  the 
land,  hid  from  us  the  mighty  crowds 
that  were  weaving  restlessly  about  our 
carriage  as  a  centre — we  heard  them, 
but  we  saw  them  not.  Tidings  had 
arrived,  within  an  hour,  of  a  grandeur 
that  measured  itself  against  centuries ; 
too  full  of  pathos  they  were,  too  full 
of  joy  that  acknowledged  no  fountain 
but  God,  to  utter  themselves  by  other 
language  than  by  tears,  by  restless 
anthems,  by  reverberations  rising 
from  every  choir,  of  the  Gloria  in 
excelsis.  These  tidings  we  that  sate 
upon  the  laurelled  car  had  it  for 
our  privilege  to  publish  amongst  all 
nations.  And  already,  by  signs 
audible  through  the  darkness,  by 
snortings  and  tramplings,  our  an- 
gry horses,  that  knew  no  fear  of 
fleshly  weariness,  upbraided  us  with 
delay.  Wherefore  rras  it  that  we 
delayed?  We  waited  for  a  secret 
word,  that  should  bear  witness  to  the 
hope  of  nations,  as  now  accomplished 
for  ever.  At  midnight  the  secret 
word  arrived  ;  which  word  was  — 
Waterloo  and  Eecovered  Christen- 
dom! The  dreadful  word  shone  by 
its  own  light;  before  us  it  went; 
high  above  our  leaders'  heads  it  rode, 
and  spread  a  golden  light  over  the 
paths  which  we  traversed.  Every 


1849.] 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


city,  at  the  presence  of  the  secret 
word,  threw  open  its  gates  to  receive 
us.  The  rivers  were  silent  as  we 
crossed.  All  the  infinite  forests,  as 
we  ran  along  their  margins,  shivered 
in  homage  to  the  secret  word.  And 
the  darkness  comprehended  it. 

Two  hours  after  midnight  we  reach- 
ed a  mighty  minster.  Its  gates,  which 
rose  to  the  clouds,  were  closed.  Bat 
when  the  dreadful  word,  that  rode 
before  us,  reached  them  with  its 
golden  light,  silently  they  moved 
back  upon  their  hinges ;  and  at  a 
flying  gallop  our  equipage  entered  the 
grand  aisle  of  the  cathedral.  Head- 
long was  our  pace  ;  and  at  every  al- 
tar, in  the  little  chapels  and  oratories 
to  the  right  hand  and  left  of  our 
course,  the  lamps,  dying  or  sickening, 
kindled  anew  in  sympathy  with  the 
secret  word  that  was  flying  past. 
Foity  leagues  we  might  have  run  in 
the  cathedral,  and  as  yet  no  strength 
of  morning  light  had  reached  us,  when 
we  saw  before  us  the  aerial  galleries 
of  the  organ  and  the  choir.  Every 
pinnacle  of  the  fret-work,  every  sta- 
tion of  advantage  amongst  the  tra- 
ceries, was  crested  by  white-robed 
choristers,  that  sang  deliverance ;  that 
wept  no  more  tears,  as  once  their 
fathers  had  wept ;  but  at  intervals 
that  sang  together  to  the  generations, 
saying— 

"  Chaunt  the  deliverer's  praise   in  every 
tongue," 

and  receiving  answers  from  afar, 

"  such  as  once  in  heaven  and  earth  were 

sung." 

And  of  their  chaunting  was  no  end  ;  of 
our  headlong  pace  was  neither  pause 
nor  remission. 

Thus,  as  we  ran  like  torrents — thus, 
as  we  swept  with  bridal  rapture  over 
the  Campo  Santo*  of  the  cathedral 


753 

graves— suddenly  we  became  awaro 
of  a  vast  necropolis  rising  upon  the 
far-off  horizon — a  city  of  sepulchres, 
built  within  the  saintly  cathedral  for 
the  warrior  dead    that  rested  from 
their  feuds  on  earth.    Of  purple  gra- 
nite was  the  necropolis  ;  yet,  in  the 
first  minute,  it  lay  like  a  purple  stain 
upon  the  horizon — so  mighty  was  the 
distance.    In  the  second  minute  it 
trembled    through    many    changes, 
growing  into  ten-aces  and  towers  of 
wondrous  altitude,  so  mighty  was  the 
pace.    In  the  third  minute  already, 
with  our  dreadful  gallop,  we   were 
entering  its  suburbs.      Vast  sarco- 
phagi  rose    on    every  side,  having 
towers   and  turrets    that,  upon  the 
limits  of  the  central  aisle,  strode  for- 
ward with  haughty  intrusion,  that  ran 
back  with  mighty  shadows  into  an- 
swering recesses.    Every  sarcophagus 
showed  many  bas-reliefs — bas-reliefs 
of  battles — bas-reliefs  of  battle-fields  ; 
of  battles  from   forgotten    ages — of 
battles   from   yesterday — of   battle- 
fields that,  long  since,   nature    had 
healed  and  reconciled  to  herself  with 
the  sweet  oblivion  of  flowers— of  bat- 
tle-fields that  were  yet   angry    and 
crimson  with  carnage.  Where  the  ter- 
races ran,  there  did  we  run ;  where  the 
towers  curved,  there  did  u-e   curve. 
With  the  flight  of  swallows  our  horses 
swept  round  every  angle.   Like  rivers 
in  flood,  wheeling  round  headlands ; 
like  hurricanes  that  ride  into  the  se- 
crets of  forests  ;  faster  than  ever  light 
unwove  the  mazes  of  darkness,  our 
flying  equipage  carried  earthly  pas- 
sions— kindled    warrior    instincts — 
amongst  the  dust  that  lay  around  us ; 
dust  oftentimes  of  our  noble  fathers 
that  had  slept  in  God  from  Creci  to 
Trafalgar.    And  now  had  we  reached 
the  last  sarcophagus,  now  were  we 
abreast  of  the  last  bas-relief,  already 
had  we  recovered  the  arrow-like  flight 


*  Campo  Santo. — It  is  probable  that  most  of  iny  readers  will  be  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa — composed  of  earth  brought  from  Jerusalem 
for  a  bed  of  sanctity,  as  the  highest  prize  which  the  noble  piety  of  crusaders  could  ask 
or  imagine.  There  is  another  Campo  Santo  at  Naples,  formed,  however,  (I  presume,) 
on  the  example  given  by  Pisa.  Possibly  the  idea  may  have  been  more  extensively 
copied.  To  readers  who  are  unacquainted  with  England,  or  who  (being  English)  are 
yet  unacquainted  with; the  cathedral  cities  of  England,  it  may  be  right  to  mention 
that  the  graves  within-side  the  cathedrals  often  form  a  flat  pavement  over  which  car- 
riages and  horses  might  roll  ;  and  perhaps  a  boyish  remembrance  of  one  particular 
cathedral,  across  which  I  had  seen  passengers  walk  and  burdens  carried,  may  have 
assisted  my  dream. 


754 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


[Dec. 


of  the  illimitable  central  aisle,  when 
coming  tip  this  aisle  to  meet  us  we  be- 
held a  female  infant  that  rode  in  a  car- 
riage as  frail  as  flowers.  The  mists, 
which  went  before  her,  hid  the  fawns 
that  drew  her,  but  could  not  hide  the 
shells  and  tropic  flowers  with  which 
she  played  — but  could  not  hide  the 
lovely  smiles  by  which  she  uttered 
her  trust  in  the  mighty  cathedral,  and 
in  the  cherubim  that  looked  down 
upon  her  from  the  topmost  shafts  of 
its  pillars.  Face  to  face  she  was  meet- 
ing us ;  face  to  face  she  rode,  as  if 
danger  there  were  none.  "  Oh  baby  !" 
I  exclaimed,  "  shalt  thou  be  the  ran- 
som for  Waterloo?  Must  we,  that 
carry  tidings  of  great  joy  to  every 
people,  be  messengers  of  ruin  to  thee  ?" 
In  horror  I  rose  at  the  thought ;  but 
then  also,  in  horror  at  the  thought, 
rose  one  that  was  sculptured  on  the 
bas-relief— a  Dying  Trumpeter.  So- 
lemnly from  the  field  of  battle  he  rose 
to  his  feet ;  and,  unslinging  his  stony 
trumpet,  carried  it,  in  his  dying  an- 
guish, to  his  stony  lips — sounding 
once,  and  yet  once  again  ;  proclama- 
tion that,  in  thy  ears,  oh  baby !  must 
have  spoken  from  the  battlements  of 
death.  Immediately  deep  shadows 
fell  between  us,  and  aboriginal  silence. 
The  choir  had  ceased  to  sing.  The 
hoofs  of  our  horses,  the  rattling  of  our 
harness,  alarmed  the  graves  no  more. 
By  horror  the  bas-relief  had  been  un- 
locked into  life.  By  horror  we,  that 
were  so  full  of  life,  we  men  and  our 
horses,  with  their  fiery  fore-legs  rising 
in  mid  air  to  their  everlasting  gallop, 
were  frozen  to  a  bas-relief.  Then  a 
third  time  the  trumpet  sounded  ;  the 
seals  were  taken  off  all  pulses ;  life,  and 
the  frenzy  of  life,  tore  into  their  chan- 
nels again  ;  again  the  choir  burst  forth 
in  sunny  grandeur,  as  from  the  muf- 
fling of  storms  and  darkness  ;  again 
the  thunderings  of  our  horses  carried 
temptation  into  the  graves.  One  cry 
burst  from  our  lips  as  the  clouds, 
drawing  off  from  the  aisle,  showed  it 
empty  before  us — "  Whither  has  the 
infant  fled  ? — is  the  young  child  caught 
up  to  God  ?  "  Lo  !  afar  off,  in  a  vast 
recess,  rose  three  mighty  windows  to 
the  clouds ;  and  on  a  level  with  their 
summits,  at  height  insuperable  to 
man,  rose  an  altar  of  purest  alabaster. 
On  its  eastern  face  was  trembling  a 
crimson  glory.  Whence  came  that? 


Was  it  from  the  reddening  dawn  that 
now  streamed  through  the  windows  ? 
Was  it  from  the  crimson  robes  of  the 
martyrs  that  were  painted  on  the  win- 
dows ?  Was  it  from  the  bloody  bas- 
reliefs  of  earth?  Whencesoever  it 
were — there,  within  that  crimson  ra- 
diance, suddenly  appeared  a  female 
head,  and  then  a  female  figure.  It 
was  the  child — now  grown  up  to  wo- 
man's height.  Clinging  to  the  horns 
of  the  altar,  there  she  stood — sinking, 
rising,  trembling,  fainting — raving, 
despairing  ;  and  behind  the  volume  of 
incense  that,  night  and  day,  streamed 
upwards  from  the  altar,  was  seen  the 
fiery  font,  and  dimly  was  descried 
the  outline  of  the  dreadful  being  that 
should  baptise  her  with  the  baptism  of 
death.  But  by  her  side  was  kneeling 
her  better  angel,  that  hid  his  face 
with  wings ;  that  wept  and  pleaded 
for  her ;  that  prayed  when  she  could 
not ;  that  fought  with  heaven  by  tears 
for  her  deliverance  ;  which  also,  as  he 
raised  his  immortal  countenance  from 
his  wings,  I  saw,  by  the  glory  in  his 
eye,  that  he  had  won  at  last. 

5. 

Then  rose  the  agitation,  spreading 
through  the  infinite  cathedral,  to  its 
agony  ;  then  was  completed  the  pas- 
sion of  the  mighty  fugue.  The  golden 
tubes  of  the  organ,  which  as  yet  had 
but  sobbed  and  muttered  at  intervals 
— gleaming  amongst  clouds  and  surges 
of  incense — threw  up,  as  from  foun- 
tains unfathomable,  columns  of  heart- 
shattering  music.  Choir  and  anti- 
choir  were  filling  fast  with  unknown 
voices.  Thou  also,  Dying  Trumpeter ! 
— with  thy  love  that  was  victorious, 
and  thy  anguish  that  was  finishing, 
didst  enter  the  tumult :  trumpet  and 
echo  —  farewell  love,  and  farewell 
anguish — rang  through  the  dreadful 
sanctus.  We,  that  spread  flight  be- 
fore us,  heard  the  tumult,  as  of 
flight,  mustering  behind  us.  In  fear 
we  looked  round  for  the  unknown 
steps  that,  in  flight  or  in  pursuit,  were 
gathering  upon  our  own.  Who  were 
these  that  followed  ?  The  faces,  which 
no  man  could  count — whence  were 
they?  "  Oh,  darkness  of  the  grave !" 
I  exclaimed,  "  that  from  the  crimson 
altar  and  from  the  fiery  font  wert  vi- 
sited with  secret  light — that  wert 
searched  by  the  effulgence  in  the  an- 


1849.] 


The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death. 


755 


gel's  eye — were  these  indeed  thy 
children  ?  Pomps  of  life,  that,  from 
the  burials  of  centuries,  rose  again  to 
the  voice  of  perfect  joy,  could  it  be  ye 
that  had  wrapped  me  in  the  reflux  of 
panic  ?"  What  ailed  me,  that  I  should 
fear  when  the  triumphs  of  earth  were 
advancing  ?  Ah !  Pariah  heart  within 
me,  that  couldst  never  hear  the  sound 
of  joy  without  sullen  whispers  of 
treachery  in  ambush ;  that,  from  six 
years  old,  didst  never  hear  the  pro- 
mise of  perfect  love,  without  seeing 
aloft  amongst  the  stars  fingers  as  of 
a  man's  hand  writing  the  secret  le- 
gend— u  ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust!" 
— wherefore  shouldst  thou  not  fear, 
though  all  men  should  rejoice?  Lo  ! 
as  I  looked  back  for  seventy  leagues 
through  the  mighty  cathedral,  and 
saw  the  quick  and  the  dead  that  sang 
together  to  God,  together  that  sang 
to  the  generations  of  man — ah!  raving, 
as  of  torrents  that  opened  on  every 
side :  trepidation,  as  of  female  and 
infant  steps  that  fled — ah !  rushing,  as 
of  wings  that  chased !  But  I  heard  a 
voice  from  heaven,  which  said — "  Let 
there  be  no  reflux  of  panic — let  there 
be  no  more  fear,  and  no  more  sudden 
death !  Cover  them  with  joy  as  the 
tides  cover  the  shore ! "  That  heard 
the  children  of  the  choir,  that  heard 
the  children  of  the  grave.  All  the 
hosts  of  jubilation  made  ready  to 
move.  Like  armies  that  ride  in  pur- 
suit, they  moved  with  one  step.  Us, 
that,  with  laurelled  heads,  were  pass- 
ing, from  the  cathedral  through  its 
-eastern  gates,  they  overtook,  and,  as 


with  a  garment,  they  wrapped  us 
round  with  thunders  that  overpowered 
our  own.  As  brothers  we  moved  to- 
gether ;  to  the  skies  we  rose — to  the 
dawn  that  advanced — to  the  stars  that 
fled  :  rendering  thanks  to  God  in  the 
highest — that,  having  hid  his  face 
through  one  generation  behind  thick 
clouds  of  War,  once  again  was  ascend- 
ing— was  ascendingfrom  Waterloo — in 
the  visions  of  Peace  : — rendering 
thanks  for  thee,  young  girl!  whom 
having  overshadowed  with  his  inef- 
fable passion  of  Death — suddenly  did 
God  relent ;  suffered  thy  angel  to 
turn  aside  his  arm ;  and  even  in  thee, 
sister  unknown !  shown  to  me  for  a 
moment  only  to  be  hidden  for  ever, 
found  an  occasion  to  glorify  his 
goodness.  A  thousand  times,  amongst 
the  phantoms  of  sleep,  has  he  shown 
thee  to  me,  standing  before  the  golden 
dawn,  and  ready  to  enter  its  gates — 
with  the  dreadful  Word  going  before 
thee — with  the  armies  of  the  grave 
behind  thee  ;  shown  thee  to  me,  sink- 
ing, rising,  fluttering,  fainting,  but 
then  suddenly  reconciled,  adoring:  a 
thousand  times  has  he  followed  thee 
in  the  worlds  of  sleep  —  through 
storms  ;  through  desert  seas  ;  through 
the  darkness  of  quicksands  ;  through 
fugues  and  the  persecution  of  fugues ; 
through  dreams,  and  the  dreadful  re- 
surrections that  are  in  dreams — only 
that  at  the  last,  with  one  motion  of 
his  victorious  arm,  he  might  record 
and  emblazon  the  endless  resurrec- 
tions of  his  love ! 


756 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


FREE  TRADE  AT  ITS  ZENITH. 


IT  was  observed  by  Sir  Kobert 
Peel,  in  his  speech  on  the  subject  of 
Free  Trade  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
in  the  last  session  of  parliament,  that 
those  who  reproached  the  new  system 
with  all  the  suffering  the  country  had 
undergone  during  the  last  three  years, 
forgot  or  concealed  the  fact,  that  that 
system  was  partially  introduced  by 
the  tariff  of  1842,  which  so  materially 
diminished  the  import- duties  on  rude 
produce  in  that  year;  and  that  the  three 
following  years  (those  of  1843,  1844, 
and  1845)  were  the  most  prosperous 
that  Great  Britain  has  ever  experi- 
enced. Is  it  then  just,  he  added,  when 
quasi  free  trade  in  1842  produced  such 
beneficial  results,  to  charge  complete 
free  trade  in  1846  with  the  subsequent 
distress  which  has  occurred ;  the  more 
especially  as  adventitious  causes — in 
particular,  the  Irish  famine  of  1846, 
and  the  European  revolutions  of  1848 
— -amply  account  for  the  change,  with- 
out supposing  that  the  same  princi- 
ples, when  carried  into  practice  in 
1846,  produced  such  widely  different 
results  from  those  which  had  attended 
their  adoption,  to  a  certain  extent, 
four  years  before. 

The  observation  is  a  fair  one,  and 
apparently  of  material  weight  in  the 
great  question  now  at  issue  in  the 
nation.  When  properly  considered, 
it  gives  no  countenance  to  the  free- 
trade  measures  which  the  right  hon. 
baronet  has  introduced,  but  only 
shows  that  it  is  to  the  combination  of 
those  measures,  with  another  element 
of  still  more  general  and  potent 
agency,  that  the  disaster  has  been 
owing.  In  the  interval,  be  it  recol- 
lected, between  1842  and  1846,  the 
new  currency  restriction  bills  were 
passed.  The  Bank  Charter  Bill  of 
England  received  the  royal  assent 
in  1844,  that  of  Scotland  and  Ireland 
in  1845.  Free  trade  in  grain  was 
introduced  in  July  1846  ;  in  sugar,  in 
May  1847  ;  in  shipping,  in  May  1849. 
The  harvests  of  the  years  from  1846 
to  1849  have  been,  as  usual  in  this 
climate,  checkered :  that  of  1846  was 
fair  in  grain,  but  sadly  deficient  in 
potatoes;  that  of  1847  was  above  an 
average  in  both  ;  that  of  1848,  defi- 


cient in  the  south  of  England  in  corn ; 
that  of  1849,  generally  very  good. 
The  years  from  1842  to  1846,  there- 
fore, were  not  a  trial  of  free  trade  and 
a  restricted  currency,  acting  simulta- 
neously— they  were  a  trial  only  of 
semi-free  trade,  without  the  new  mo- 
netary laws,  coexisting  with  a  rail- 
way mania  in  the  palmy  days  of  its 
progress,  and  other  favourable  cir- 
cumstances, which  concealed,  as  will 
be  immediately  shown,  its  actual  ten- 
dency. Real  free  trade  has  begun  to 
act,  along  with  a  restricted  currency, 
for  the  first  time,  in  1846.  The  har- 
vests since  have  been,  on  the  whole, 
average  ones  —  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  generally  may,  in  this 
variable  climate,  be  expected  in  future 
years.  It  is  since  1846,  therefore, 
that  we  are  to  look,  in  this  climate, 
for  the  real  proof  of  the  effects  of  the 
combined  free-trade  and  currency  mea- 
sures which  Sir  Robert  Peel  has  in- 
troduced ;  and  unless  they  are  taken 
together,  the  practical  tendency  of 
both  will  be  entirely  misunderstood. 
The  right  hon.  baronet  has  done  a 
great  service  to  the  cause  of  truth,  by 
pointing  out  the  difference  in  the  state 
of  the  country  before  and  after  1846; 
and  we  shall  endeavour  to  follow  up 
the  subject  by  tracing  the  difference 
to  its  real  source,  and  endeavouring; 
to  detach  from  the  question  the  simul- 
taneous circumstances  which  have 
been  so  often  referred  to  as  explaining 
the  phenomena.  The  inquiry  is  the 
more  important,  that  the  Protection 
party  as  a  body  have,  with  a  few 
striking  and  illustrious  exceptions, 
never  seen  the  currency  question  in 
its  true  light,  as  accompanied  with  that 
of  free  trade,  and,  by  not  doing  so, 
have  both  voluntarily  relinquished 
the  most  powerful  lever  wherewith  to 
shake  the  strength  of  their  opponents, 
and  failed  in  instructing  the  public 
mind  either  in  the  real  causes  of  their 
sufferings,  or  the  means  by  which  they 
are  likely  to  be  alleviated. 

Various  circumstances  have  been 
studiously  kept  out  of  view  by  the 
free-trade  party,  in  reference  to  the 
years  from  1842  to  1846,  which  really 
were  mainly  instrumental  in  produc- 


1849.]  Free  Trade 

ing  the  prosperity  of  that  period.  And 
many  others  have  been  emphatically 
dwelt  upon,  in  reference  to  the  years 
since  1846,  which  really  had  very 
little  hand  in  producing  these  disas- 
ters. 

The  first  circumstance  which  had  a 
powerful  influence  in  producing  the 
prosperity  from  1842  to  1846,  was  the 
return  of  fine  seasons  after  five  bad 
harvests  in  succession,  which  closed 
in  1841.  The  summer,  and  still  more 
the  autumn,  of  1842,  was  a  long  and 
unbroken  period  of  sunshine,  which 
gladdened  the  hearts  of  men  after  the 
long  series  of  dreary  and  cheerless 
years  which  had  preceded  it.  The 
subsequent  years,  from  1842  to  1846, 
•were  very  fine  seasons,  the  harvests 
of  which  were  all  above  an  average. 
This  is  decisively  proved  by  a  compa- 
rison of  the  average  prices  of  grain 
for  the  years  from  1839  to  1841,  and 
from  1842  to  1845.*  The  tariff  of 
1842  without  doubt  contributed  to 
bring  about,  in  some  degree,  this  re- 
duction of  prices ;  but  still,  as  the 
slidiug-scale  was  then  in  operation, 
and  the  import  duties  were  iu  general 
8s.  and  9s.  the  quarter,  the  effect 
must  have  been  mainly  owing  to  the 
succession  of  fine  seasons.  No  one 
can  have  lived  through  that  period, 
without  recollecting  that  this  was  the 
case.  But  the  cheap  prices  which 
result  from  abundant  harvests  and 
improved  cultivation  at  home,  are  the 
greatest  of  all  public  blessings,  as 
much  as  the  cheap  prices  arising  from 
an  extended  foreign  importation  and 
declining  agriculture  at  home,  are  the 
greatest  of  all  curses.  The  first  en- 
riches the  manufacturer,  by  the  pre- 
vious comfort  of  the  farmer,  and  the 
plenty  diffused  through  the  land  by 
his  exertions;  the  last  gives  a  tem- 
porary stimulus  to  the  manufacturer, 
by  the  cheapness  which  is  fatal  to  the 
domestic  cultivator,  and,  by  abridging 
the  home  market,  speedily  makes  the 
manufacturer  share  in  his  ruin. 

The  second  circumstance  which 
tended  to  produce  the  prosperity  from 


at  its  Zenifli. 


757 


1842  to  1845,  was  the  glorious  suc- 
cesses which,  in  the  first  of  these 
years,  succeeded  to  the  Affghanistaun 
disasters.  We  all  recollect  the  throb 
of  exultation  which  beat  in  the  breast 
of  the  nation  when  the  astonishing 
news  arrived,  in  November  1842, 
that  a  single  Delhi  Gazette  had  an- 
nounced the  second  capture  of  Cabul, 
in  the  centre  of  Asia,  and  the  dictating 
a  glorious  peace  to  the  Celestial  Em- 
pire, under  the  walls  of  Nankin.  Not 
only  was  our  Indian  empire  secured 
for  a  long  period,  by  those  astonishing 
triumphs,  but  its  strength  was  demon- 
strated in  a  way  of  all  others  the  best 
calculated  to  insure  confidence  in  its 
future  prosperity.  The  effect  of  this 
upon  our  manufacturing  and  commer- 
cial prosperity  was  great  and  imme- 
diate. Confidence  revived  from  so 
marvellous  a  proof  of  the  resources 
and  spirit  of  the  nation,  which  had  so 
speedily  risen  superior  to  so  terrible  a 
disaster.  Speculation  was  renewed 
on  a  great  scale,  from  the  sanguine 
ideas  entertained  of  the  boundless 
markets  opened  for  our  manufactures 
in  the  centre  of  Asia,  and  in  the 
Chinese  dominions.  Sir  Robert  Peel 
is  entitled  to  great  credit  for  the 
glorious  turn  thus  given  to  our  East- 
ern affairs,  and  the  gleam  of  sun- 
shine which  they  threw  upon  the 
affairs  of  the  nation ;  for  his  fortitude, 
when  the  previous  disastrous  news 
arrived,  was  mainly  instrumental  in 
producing  it.  But  free-trade  prin- 
ciples, and  the  tariff  of  1842,  had  no 
more  to  do  with  it  than  they  had  with 
the  affairs  of  the  moon. 

The  third  circumstance  which  tended 
to  bring  about  the  prosperity  from 
1842  to  1845,  was  the  revival  in  the 
home  market,  which,  on  the  first 
gleam  of  returning  prosperity,  arose 
with  redoubled  energy  from  the 
very  magnitude  of  previous  dete- 
rioration and  suffering.  During  the 
long  train  of  disasters  which  fol- 
lowed the  great  importation  of  grain, 
and  consequent  exportation  of  the  pre- 
cious metals,  in!839 — which  compelled 


*  Average  price  of  wheat  in  London  in  — 

s. 

d. 

j. 

d. 

1838, 

-        -        -        57 

11 

1842, 

49 

0 

1839, 

68 

7 

1843, 

47 

4 

1840, 

65 

8 

1844, 

46 

8 

1841, 

54 

6 

1845, 

50 

10 

758 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


the  Bank  of  England,  for  the  first  time 
recorded  in  history,  to  have  recourse 
to  the  Bank  of  France  for  assistance — 
all  classes  of  the  people  had  under- 
gone very  severe  privations.  The 
depression  had  been  general  in  extent, 
and  unprecedented  in  duration,  till  it 
was  entirely  thrown  into  the  shade  by 
the  effects  of  the  terrible  monetary 
crisis  of  October  1847.  Stocks  of 
goods  were  reduced  to  the  lowest 
amount  consistent  with  the  keeping  up 
even  a  show  of  business  ;  comforts  of 
various  sorts  had  been  long  abandoned 
by  a  large  portion  of  the  middle  and 
working  classes.  At  the  same  time, 
capital,  in  great  part  unemployed,  ac- 
cumulated in  the  hands  of  moneyed 
men,  and  the  competition  for  safe 
investment  loAvered  the  rate  of  in- 
terest. It  was  soon  down  to  3 
and  2£  per  cent.  In  these  circum- 
stances, the  revival  of  trade,  owing  to 
the  Eastern  victories  and  fine  harvest 
of  1842,  acted  immediately,  and  with 
the  most  vivifying  effect,  on  the  home 
market.  A  rush  took  place  to  replace 
worn  out  garments,  to  revive  long 
abandoned  but  unforgotten  enjoy- 
ments. This  result  always  ensues, 
and  is  attended  with  very  important 
effects,  after  a  long  period  of  depres- 
sion and  suffering.  It  is  beginning, 
though  in  a  slight  degree,  and  from 
the  same  causes,  amongst  us  at  this 
time.  But  no  opinion  can  be  formed, 
of  the  extent  or  probable  duration  of 
such  revived  activity,  from  its  intensity 
on  its  first  appearance. 

The  last,  and,  without  doubt,  the 
most  important  circumstance  which 
produced  the  great  prosperity  from 
1842  to  1845,  was  the  monetary 
change  produced  by  the  Bank  Charter 
Act  of  1844. 

Sir  Robert  Peel  admitted,  in  the 
debate  on  the  currency  at  the  opening 
of  last  session  of  parliament,  that  the 
act  of  1844  had  failed  in  one  of  its 
principal  objects  —  viz.,  the  dis- 
couraging of  perilous  and  irrational 
speculation.  He  might  have  gone  a 
step  farther,  and  admitted  that  it  had 
been  the  greatest  possible  encourager, 
for  a  short  season,  of  the  most  absurd 
and  dangerous  undertakings.  The 
proof  of  this  is  decisive.  The  Bank 
Charter  Act  was  passed  in  May  1844, 
and  from  that  time  till  the  first  check 
experienced  in  October  1845,  was, 


beyond  all  comparison,  the  wildest 
and  most  absurd  season  of  specula- 
tion ever  known  in  English  history. 
Among  others,  railways,  to  the  amount 
of  £363,000,000  sterling,  received  the 
sanction  of  the  legislature,  within  two 
years  after  the  new  Bank  Charter 
Act  had  passed.  And  so  far  was 
government  from  giving  any  check  to 
these  undertakings — the  results  of 
which,  monstrous  when  co-existing 
with  a  fettered  currency,  are  apparent 
in  the  present  wreck  of  railway  pro- 
perty— that  they  gave  them  the  utmost 
encouragement,  both  by  lowering  the 
sum  required  for  deposits  from  ten  to 
five  per  cent,  and  by  bestowing,  at  once 
in  public  and  private,  the  most  lavish 
encomiums  on  the  immense  present 
and  prospective  blessings  they  would 
confer  upon  the  country.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  a  government,  looking 
only  to  temporary  objects,  did  so ; 
for  the  railway  mania,  while  it  lasted, 
and  before  the  ruinous  effects  in  which 
it  necessarily  terminated,  when  fet- 
tered by  the  currency  laws,  had  de- 
veloped themselves,  gave  a  passing 
stimulus  to  the  demand  for  labour, 
and  increase  to  industry,  which  ren- 
dered men  blind  to  the  whole  conse- 
quences of  the  course  on  which  they 
were  launched.  Sir  Robert  Peel  ably 
and  emphatically  enforced  the  favour- 
able condition  of  the  nation,  and  dwelt 
with  peculiar  emphasis  on  the  dimi- 
nution in  criminal  commitments 
through  the  country,  in  his  opening 
speech  of  the  session  of  1846 — although 
he  ascribed  it  to  the  free-trade  mea- 
sures, not  the  first  effect  of  the  gene- 
ral insanity  on  the  subject  of  railways. 
It  is  now  perfectly  apparent,  and  is 
generally  understood,  that  the  fatal 
Bank  Charter  Act  was  the  main  cause 
of  the  ruinous  railway  mania  which 
has  since  spread  distress  and  ruin  so 
widely  through  the  countiy.  The 
reason  is  evident.  It  at  once  eman- 
cipated the  Bank  directors  from  every 
consideration,  except  that  of  making 
the  most,  as  ordinary  bankers,  of  their 
capital ;  and  subjected  them  to  such 
heavy  expenses,  from  the  vast  quan- 
tity of  specie  they  were  obliged  to 
keep  in  their  vaults,  as  rendered  a 
very  extensive  pushing  of  their  busi- 
ness in  every  direction  a  matter  of 
necessity.  The  effect  of  these  con- 
curring circumstances  was  soon  appa- 


1849.] 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


759 


rent.  Interest  was  lowered,  immedi- 
ately after  the  passing  of  the  Bank 
Charter  Act,  to  two  per  cent  for  first- 
class  bills,  or  still  lower,  as  appears 
from  the  subjoined  table  furnished  by 
Messrs  Gurney  and  Overend,  "the 
greatest  bill-brokers  in  the  world."  * 
The  facility  of  getting  discounts  in- 
creased beyond  all  precedent  the  issues 
of  the  banks.  Those  of  the  Bank  of 
England  rose  to  £21,000,000 ;  and  of 
all  country  bankers  in  a  similar  pro- 
portion. The  total  notes  in  circula- 
tion, in  England  alone,  reached 
£28,000,900 ;  in  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land they  exceeded  £39,000,000.  It 
was  this  copious  issue  of  notes  which 
gave,  for  the  time  at  least,  nearly 
sufficient  accommodation  for  the  im- 
mense undertakings  which  were  set 
on  foot ;  which,  beyond  all  doubt,  both 
gave  birth  to,  and  nurtured  the  in- 
fancy of  that  vast  network  of  railways 
which  so  soon  overspread  the  country, 
and,  while  it  was  in  course  of  forma- 
tion, diffused  such  general  prosperity 
over  the  land. 

Had  the  impulse  thus  given  to  in- 
dustry, and  the  enormous  domestic 
undertakings  thus  set  on  foot  by  the 
sanction  and  with  the  approbation  of 
government,  been  cautiously  sustained, 
as  a  similar  impulsehadbeenduringthe 
war,  by  a  corresponding  increase  of 
the  circulation,  based  on  a  footing 
which  was  not  liable  to  be  contracted 
by  a  failure  of  the  harvest,  or  an 
enhanced  demand  for  gold  in  foreign 
states,  it  might  have  been  the  com- 
mencement of  an  era  of  prosperity, 
and  a  general  spread  of  happiness, 
unprecedented  in  British  annals.  It 
had  one  immense  advantage,  which 
distinguished  it  both  from  the  previous 
lavish  expenditure  during  the  war, 
and  the  extravagant  South  American 
speculations  which  ended  in  the  mone- 
tary catastrophe  of  December  1825. 
The  money  was  all  expended  at 
home,  and  on  undertakings  useful 
to  the  nation.  No  man  will  dis- 
pute, that,  whether  or  not  all  the 
railways  undertaken  during  that  pe- 
riod were  in  themselves  reasonable, 


or  likely  to  yield  a  dividend  to 
the  shareholders,  they  were  beyond 
all  doubt,  one  and  all  of  them,  advan- 
tageous to  the  public.  They  afforded 
facilities  for  the  transit  of  goods  and 
the  conveyance  of  passengers,  which 
were  not  only  an  immense  advantage 
to  individuals,  but  a  great  relief  and 
benefit  to  the  commerce  and  manu- 
factures of  the  country.  So  far  from 
being  blamed,  government  deserve  the 
very  highest  credit  for  having  given 
this  direction  to  the  industry  and 
expenditure  of  the  nation.  Their 
fault  consisted  in  the  simultaneous 
and  fatal  measures  they  adopted  re- 
garding the  currency. 

Having  taken  this  great  step  in 
the  right  direction,  it  became  the  first 
and  most  important  duty  of  govern- 
ment to  have  provided,  simultaneously 
with  the  commencement  of  the  under- 
taking, a  currency  independent  of 
foreign  drains,  commensurate  to  the 
vast  addition  made  to  the  industry 
and  engagements  of  the  nation.  Its 
capital  was  far  more  than  adequate  to 
the  undertakings,  how  vast  soever. 
This  is  now  decisively  proved  by  tho 
event.  Two-thirds  of  the  railways  are 
finished;  the  remaining  third  is  in 
course  of  construction ;  and  interest  is 
in  London  from  three  to  two-and-a-half 
per  cent.  But  capital  alone  is  not  suf- 
ficient for  carrying  on  undertakings. 
Currency  also  is  requisite ;  and  if  that 
be  deficient,  the  most  boundless  over- 
flow of  capital  will  not  avert  a 
monetary  crash,  or  save  the  nation 
from  the  most  dreadful  calamities. 
Here,  too,  the. event  has  thrown  a 
broad  and  decisive  light  on  this  vital 
question,  and  the  cause  of  our  calami- 
ties. Interest  was  fixed  by  govern- 
ment, after  the  crash,  for  advances  by 
the  Bank  of  England,  in  October  1847, 
at  eight  per  cent ;  it  rose,  in  private 
transactions,  to  twelve  and  fifteen  per 
cent.  Why  was  that  ?  Not  because 
capital  was  awanting,  but  because  the 
bankers,  from  the  drain  of  specie  to 
buy  foreign  grain,  and  the  operation 
of  the  Bank  Charter  Acts  of  1844  and 
1845,  could  not  venture  to  issue  notes 


*  Rate  of  discount  of  first-class  bills  at  the  undermentioned  periods: — 


Jan. 

Feb. 

March. 

April. 

May. 

June. 

July. 

Aug. 

Sept. 

Oct. 

NOT. 

Dec. 

1844 

2* 

2 

2 

2 

If 

2 

2 

If 

2 

If 

If 

If 

760 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


to  their  customers.  The  nation  resem- 
bled a  great  army,  in  which  vast  stores 
of  provisions  existed  in  the  magazines 
at  its  disposal,  but  a  series  of  absurd 
regulations  aifecting  the  commissariat 
prevented  the  grain  they  contained 
being  issued  to  the  soldiers.  Accord- 
ingly, when  the  absurd  restrictions 
were  removed,  things  soon  began  to 
amend.  When  the  Bank  Charter 
Act  was  pro  tempore  repealed,  by  Lord 
John  Russell's  famous  letter  of  Octo- 
ber 1847,  the  effect  was  instantaneous 
in  allaying  the  panic,  and  interest 
gradually  fell,  until  now  money  has 
become  overflowing,  and  it  is  to  be 
had  at  two  per  cent,  although  the 
years  since  that  time  have  been  the 
most  disastrous  to  capital  ever  known 
in  the  British  annals,  so  that  no  sub- 
sequent increase  has  been  possible. 

What  government  should  have  done, 
when  they  engaged  the  nation  in  the 
vast  system  of  inland  railways,  was 
what  Pitt  actually  did,  with  such 
happy  effect,  when  its  currency  was 
exposed  to  a  similar  strain  from 
foreign  expenditure,  and  immense  en- 
gagements, in  1797.  They  should 
have  provided  a  currency  under  pro- 
per control  as  to  amount,  but  capable 
of  being  increased,  according  to  the 
•wants  and  engagements  of  society, 
and,  above  all,  not  liable  to  be  with- 
drawn by  the  mutations  of  com- 
merce, or  the  demand  for  gold  in 
foreign  states.  The  example  of  Great 
Britain  during  the  war,  when  a  gigan- 
tic expenditure,  varying  from  eighty 
to  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions 
yearly,  was  carried  on  for  twenty 
years  with  the  aid  of  such  an  expan- 
sive domestic  currency — not  only  with- 
out any  lasting  distress,  save  from  the 
stoppage  of  foreign  markets,  but  with 
the  utmost  prosperity  and  happiness  to 
all  classes,  although  guineas  had  al- 
together disappeared  from  the  circu- 
lation— was  not  only  an  example  of 
what  was  required,  but  the  best  indi- 
cation of  how  it  was  to  be  done.  No 
period  more  loudly  called  for  such  a 
precautionary  measure  than  one  in 
which,  under  the  sanction  of  govern- 
ment, no  less  than  £363,000,000  was 
to  be  expended  on  railways  in  the 
short  space  of  four  years — a  sum 
equal,  if  the  change  in  the  value  of 
money  is  taken  into  consideration,  to 
£500,000,000  during  the  war— at  a 


time  when  all  other  branches  of  in- 
dustry, foreign  and  domestic,  were  in 
an  unusual  state  of  activity,  from  the 
sudden  return  of  prosperity  after  a 
long  period  of  suffering.  To  expect 
that  the  nation,  without  some  addi- 
tion to  its  currency,  could  cany  out 
so  great  an  increase  in  its  under- 
takings, was  as  hopeless  as  to  imagine 
that  an  army,  with  a  half  added  to  its 
mouths,  is  to  go  on  successfully  with 
no  addition  made  to  its  distribution  of 
rations.  And  it  is  evident  that  this 
addition  to  the  currency  could  be 
effectually  made  only  by  extending 
the  paper  circulation  on  a  scale  pro- 
portioned to  the  increase  of  work 
undertaken.  By  no  possible  means 
could  gold,  in  adequate  quantities, 
be  brought  to  the  scene  of  activity, 
the  place  where  it  was  required  ;  and 
even  if  brought  there,  no  reliance 
could  be  placed  on  its  continuing  there 
for  any  length  of  time.  On  the  con- 
trary, nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  it  would  speedily  be  re-exported 
to  other  countries  where  it  was  less 
plentiful,  and,  therefore,  more  valua- 
ble ;  and  thus  its  support  would  have 
been  lost  at  the  very  time  when  it  was 
most  required. 

The  rise  of  prices  during  the  war, 
when  such  a  domestic  currency  was 
provided  by  government  in  adequate 
quantities,  was  really  owing,  not  so 
much  to  the  circulation  having  be- 
come redundant,  as  to  its  having  per- 
mitted an  adequate  remuneration  to 
be  given  to  industry.  This  is  a  most 
important  consideration,  which  Mr 
Taylor  has  most  ably  illustrated? 
The  proof  that  the  circulation  had  notr 
like  the  assignats  of  France,  become 
redundant,  is  to  be  found  in  two 
things  which  are  decisive  of  the  point : 
1.  At  no  period  of  the  war  was  there 
any  difference  between  the  price  of  an 
article  when  paid  in  bank  notes  and 
when  paid  in  silver.  No  man  ever 
saw  the  price  of  anything  five  pounds 
in  bank  notes,  and  four  pounds  ten 
shillings  in  silver.  Gold  bore  an  en- 
hanced price,  because  it  was  required 
urgently  for  the  operations  of  the  Con- 
tinental armies.  2.  The  increase  in 
the  paper  circulation,  considerable  as 
it  was,  was  yet  not  so  great  as  the 
parallel  and  simultaneous  increase  in 
our  national  industry,  as  measured 
by  our  exports,  imports,  and  public 


1849.] 

expenditure.*  Prices  rose,  therefore, 
and  reached,  for  a  time,  more  than 
doable  their  level  anterior  to  the  con- 
test, not  because  too  much  paper  had 
been  put  in  circulation,  but  because 
enough  had  been  issued  to  let  the  de- 
mand for  labour  keep  pace  with  the 
enlarged  undertakings  of  the  nation. 

Instead  of  imitating  this  great  and 
decisive  example  of  wise  and  states- 
manlike policy,  what  did  Sir  Robert 
Peel  and  the  Free-traders  do,  on  the 
commencement  of  a  similar  period  of 
vastly  augmented  national  industry  ? 
Why,  they  did  just  the  reverse.  Not 
only  did  they  make  no  provision  for 
enlarging  the  currency  of  the  nation 
•at  the  time,  when  they  themselves 
had  occasioned  or  sanctioned  so  im- 
mense an  increase  to  its  undertakings, 
but  they  took  the  most  effectual  mea- 
sures possible  to  contract  the  circula- 
tion, both  in  gold  and  paper,  directly 
iii  proportion  to  the  necessity  for  its 
expansion.  They  first  passed  a  law 
•which  limited  the  circulation  of  the 
Bank  of  England,  irrespective  of  the 
notes  issued  on  the  basis  of  gold  in  their 
coffers,  to  £14,000,000;  and  that  of  the 
whole  banks  in  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land to  about  £32,000,000;  and  then 
they  introduced  a  system  of  free  trade 
which  permitted  the  unlimited  entrance 
of  foreign  agricultural  produce  at  a  no- 
minal duty,  and  thereby  sent  nearly 
half  the  gold  headlong  out  of  the 
country.  Under  the  influence  of  this 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


761 


monstrous  system,  the  gold  in  the 
vaults  of  the  Bank  of  England  was  pro- 
gressively diminished,  until,  in  the  end 
of  October  1847,  it  was  reduced  to 
£564,000  sterling  in  the  banking  de- 
partment ;  at  the  very  time  that,  by  the 
same  judicious  law,  above  £8,000,000 
of  sovereigns  were  lying  useless,  and 
locked  up  in  the  issue  department  of  the 
same  establishment.  The  governor  of 
the  bank  very  candidly  admitted,  in 
his  examination  before  the  House  of 
Lords,  that  the  bank,  under  the  exist- 
ing system,  might  have  broke  while 
there  were  still  £8,000,000  of  sove- 
reigns lost  to  them  and  the  nation  in 
the  cellars  of  the  issue  department.f 
Of  course  the  whole  banks  of  the 
country  were  compelled  instantly  to 
contract  their  credits,  and  force  pay- 
ment of  their  debts,  and  thence  the 
universal  distress  and  ruin  which 
ensued.  And  all  this  took  place  at  the 
very  time  that  the  bank  had  eight 
millions  of  sovereigns  chained  tip  by 
act  of  parliament  in  its  cellars,  at 
the  issue  end  of  the  building;  and 
when  the  government,  which  so 
chained  it  up,  had  landed  the  nation, 
by  act  of  parliament,  in  engagements 
requiring  an  expenditure  on  railway 
shares  of  £363,000,000  in  the  next 
four  years.  You  may  search  the 
annals  of  the  world  in  vain  for  a  simi- 
lar instance  of  infatuation  in  the 
rulers  of  a  nation,  and  self-immolation, 
in  a  people. 


*  Years. 

Bank  Notes  in  Cir- 
culation —  Total. 

Exports. 
Official  Value. 

Imports. 
Declared  Value. 

Revenue. 

1797 
1798 
1799 

£10,542,365 
13,695,830 
12,959,800 

£28,917,010 
27,317,087 
29,556,637 

£21,013,956 
25,122,203 
24,066,700 

£19,852,646 
30,492,995 
35,311,018 

1813 

23,120,930 

Records  destroyed 
by  fire. 

68,302,861 

1814 
1815 

24,801,000 
27,261,651 

51,358,398 
57,420,437 

32,622,771 
31,822,053 

70,240,313 
72,203,142 

—ALISON'S  Europe,  c.  41,  §  69. 

•f-  In  reference  to  this  state  of  things,  the  following  important  evidence  was  given 
by  the  governor  and  deputy-governor  of  the  Bank  of  England  : — 

"  You  had  only  £1,600,000  in  the  banking  department  for  the  payment  of  your 
liabilities  ? — Yes. 

"  If  anybody  had  called  upon  you  for  anything  beyond  that  million  and  a  half,  you 
must  have  stopped  payment? — Yes,  we  must. 

"  At  the  same  time,  if  there  had  been  no  separation  between  the  two  departments,, 
and  the  Bank  of  England  had  been  conducted  on  its  old  principle,  instead  of  being 
within  one  million  and  a  half  of  stopping,  there  would  have  been  very  nearly 
£8,500,000  of  treasure  in  your  vaults? — We  should  have  had  £8,500,000  in  our 
vaults." — Lords'  Report,  1848. 


762 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


It  will  be  said  that  the  vast  impor- 
tation of  grain,  in  the  course  of  1847, 
was  a  matter  of  necessity,  from  the 
failure  of  the  potato  crops  in  Ireland 
in  the  preceding  autumn ;  and  that, 
be  the  consequences  what  they  may, 
they  cannot  be  ascribed  to  Sir  Robert 
Peel  or  the  Free-traders.  In  one  sense 
this  is  undoubtedly  true.  It  is  certain 
that  the  most  staunch  Protectionists 
would  never  have  objected  to  the 
largest  importation  of  grain,  and  ex- 
portation of  sovereigns,  in  a  period 
such  as  that  of  severe  and  unlooked- 
for  scarcity.  It  was  the  precise  object 
of  the  sliding-scale  to  admit  grain,  in 
periods  of  scarcity,  free  of  all  duty. 
But  what  the  Free-traders  and  Sir  Ro- 
bert Peel  are  chargeable  with,  is  hav- 
ing established  a  system  of  currency  so 
fettered  and  restricted  by  absurd  regu- 
lations, that  the  exportation  of  sove- 
reigns led  necessarily  and  inevitably  to 
a  contraction  of  paper  accommodation, 
and  a  shock  to  credit  over  the  whole 
country;  and  aggravated  the  danger  by 
a  monstrous  regulation,  which  exposed 
the  bank  to  the  risk  of  stopping  pay- 
ment when  they  had  still  eight  mil- 
lions in  gold — enough  to  have  enabled 
them,  perhaps,  to  go  on — at  one  end  of 
their  establishment.  They  are  respon- 
sible for  the  dreadftfberror  of  having 
not  only  done  nothirigtoX3xtend  and  se- 
cure the  currency  from  being  exported 
or  contracted,  when  they  had  added  so 
enormously  to  the  internal  engage- 
ments of  the  kingdom,  but  done  every- 
thing, by  the  establishment  of  a  perma- 
nent system  of  free  trade,  and  a  per- 
manently fettered  currency,  to  secure 
its  reappearance  on  occasion  of  every 
future  recurrence  of  an  indifferent 
liarvest,  or  any  continuance  of  a  great 
importation. 

It  is  the  consciousness  of  this  ter- 
rible calamity,  impending  over  the  na- 
tion, which  terrifies  all  the  directors  of 
banks,  and  paralyses  industry  in  so 
grievous  a  manner  over  the  whole 


country.  If  you  ask  any  moneyed 
man,  what  is  the  cause  of  the  insecu- 
rity so  universally  complained  of  in 
money  transactions  over  the  country, 
and  the  reluctance  of  bankers  to  .ad- 
vance largely,  even  when  their  coffers 
are  overflowing,  to  persons  of  the  best 
credit  ?  they  will  invariably  answer, 
that  they  are  afraid  of  a  commercial 
crisis ;  that  they  do  not  know  when  it 
may  come  on  ;  and  that  they  must  be, 
at  all  times,  prepared  for  a  storm.  It  is 
this  indefinite  dread,  the  natural  re- 
sult of  the  catastrophe  of  1847,  which 
renders  them  so  cautious,  and  keeps 
the  nation  starved  of  accommodation, 
at  the  very  time  that  Lombard  Street 
is  overflowing  with  money  seeking  for 
investment.  It  is  no  wonder  they  are 
afraid.  The  sword  of  Damocles  is  sus- 
pended over  their  heads,  and  thence 
their  terror.  Theyknowthat  the  heavy 
rains,  and  consequent  importation  of 
grain,  in  1839  into  the  British  islands, 
forced  the  Bank  of  England  to  apply 
for  aid  to  the  Bank  of  France,  caused 
the  United  States  Bank  of  America  to 
stop  payment,  and  rendered  three- 
fourths  of  the  traders  in  the  United 
States  bankrupt.  The  recollection  of 
the  dreadful  crisis  of  1847,  brought  on 
by  the  great  importation  of  grain  and 
exportation  of  sovereigns  in  that  year, 
is  fresh  in  their  minds.  They  see  the 
importations  of  food  going  on  without 
intermission,  in  the  face  of  exceed- 
ingly low  prices,  at  the  rate  of  fifteen 
millions  of  quarters  a-year,  being 
nearly  quadruple  that  of  1839,  whicii 
was  four  million  quarters.*  They 
know  that  the  grain  countries  will  take 
our  gold  to  any  amount,  but  not  our 
manufactures,  because  they  do  not 
want  them,  or  are  too  poor  to  buy 
them  ;  and  they  ask,  How  is  all  this 
grain  to  be  paid  ?  In  what  is  all  this 
to  end  ?  How  are  the  bills,  drawn  to 
pay  for  these  exports,  to  be  met?  So 
general  is  this  feeling  of  dread,  from 
the  effects  of  a  drain  on  our  metallic 


All  kinds  of 

Flour. 

*    Imported,  month 

Grain. 

Cwt. 

Total. 

Authoritj. 

ending  — 

Qrs. 

April  5,  1849,  .     . 

1,110,306 

320,764 

1,213,888 

London  Gazette,  April  20,  1849. 

Aug.  5,  1849,    .     . 

990,270 

295,667 

1,088,776 

Ditto,          Aug.  20,  1849. 

Sept.  5,  1849,    .    . 
Oct.  10,  1849,  .     . 

928,258 
1,123,434 

332,434 
290,713 

1,039,269 
1,213,640 

Ditto,           Sept.  20,  1849. 
Ditto,          Oct.    30,1849. 

1849.] 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


763 


resources  to  pay  for  the  vast  importa- 
tions of  grain  going  forward,  that  when 
the  author,  in  the  beginning  of  last 
autumn,  said  to  the  chief  officer  of  one 
of  the  first  banking  establishments  in 
Britain,  that  "  three  weeks'  rain  in 
August  would  render  half  the  mer- 
chants in  England  bankrupt,"  he  re- 
plied— "  Sir,  three  weeks'  rain  in 
August  will  make  half  the  merchants 
in  Europe  bankrupt." 

That  it  is  this  fatal  dependence 
of  the  currency,  and  consequent  credit 
of  the  country,  on  the  retention  of  its 
gold  circulation,  under  circumstances 
when,  from  the  vast  importation  of 
grain  going  forward,  it  is  impossible  to 
retain  it,  which  is  the  real  cause  of  the 
calamitous  state  of  the  country  for  the 
last  three  years,  and  not  either  the 
potato  rot  or  the  European  revolutions, 
to  which  the  Free-traders  ascribe  it,  is 
evident  from  the  slightest  considera- 
tion. The  potato  rot  of  1846,  which 
has  been  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  Free- 
traders ever  since — the  scapegoat 
which  they  hoped  would  answer  for 
all  their  sins — was  never,  by  the  most 
determined  of  their  party,  set  down 
as  having  occasioned  a  loss  of 
above  £15,000,000  sterling.  Call  it 
£20,000,000  to  avoid  cavil.  The 
strength  of  the  case  will  admit  of  any 
concession.  Now,  the  value  of  the 
agricultural  produce  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  prior  to  the  free  trade  in 
grain,  was  generally  estimated  at 
£300,000,000.*  A  deficiency  of 
£20,000,000,  or  a  fifteenth  part, 
might  occasion,  doubtless,  the  most 
acute  local  distress  in  the  districts  in 
which  it  was  most  severely  felt ;  but  it 
could  never,  irrespective  of  its  action  on 
the  currency,  occasion  a  general  mone- 
tary and  commercial  crisis.  England 
and  Scotland  exported  little  or  nothing 
to  the  boys  of  Munster  andConnaught, 
where  the  failure  occurred.  There  is  no 
more  reason,  had  it  not  been  for  the  cur- 
rency laws,  why  a  failure  of  the  potato 
crop  in  Ireland  should  have  produced 
a  monetary  crisis  in  Great  Britain, 


than  a  failure  in  the  potato  crop   of 
Norway. 

Again,  the  revolutions  in  Europe  in 
1848,  of  which  so  much  has  been  said 
to  account  for  the  distress,  are  equally 
inadequate  to  explain  the  phenome- 
non. They  could,  of  course,  affect 
the  European  market  for  our  export 
goods  only ;  and  they,  taken  altogether, 
only  amount,  to  the  countries  affected 
by  the  revolutions,  to  £13,000,000— 
little  more  than  a  fourth  part  of  our  ex- 
ports, which  vary  from  £51,000,000 
to  £60,000,000.  Supposing  a  half  of 
this  export,  or  £7,000,000,  had  been 
lost,  during  the  year  1848,  by  the 
French,  German,  and  Italian  revolu- 
tions ;  what  is  that  amidst  the  mass, 
thirty-fold  greater,  of  our  total  manu- 
factures, which  some  years  ago  were 
estimated  at  £133,000,000  for  the 
home  market,  and  £50,000,000  for 
the  foreign.  They  are  now  unques- 
tionably above  £200,000,000  annually. 
But  let  it  be  supposed  that  the  whole 
defalcation  of  our  exports,  from 
£60,000,000  in  1845,  to  £53,000,000 
in  1848,  was  owing  to  the  European 
revolutions,  and  none  at  all  to  the 
paralysis  of  domestic  industry  by  the 
effects  of  free  trade  and  a  fettered 
currency — seven  millions  deficit,  out 
of  £200,000,000  annual  produce  of 
manufactures,  is  only  a  twenty-ninth 
part.  Is  it  possible  that  so  trifling  a 
deficit  can  have  been  the  cause  of  the 
terrible  calamity  which  overtook  the 
country  in  1848  and  1849,  the  more 
especially  as  the  harvest  of  1847  was 
so  good,  that,  by  orders  of  govern- 
ment, a  public  thanksgiving  was  re- 
turned for  it?  That  calamity  was 
unparalleled  in  point  of  extent,  and 
has,  in  two  years,  swept  away  at  least 
one  half  of  the  whole  commercial  and 
manufacturing  wealth  of  the  kingdom. 
The  thing  is  perfectly  ridiculous.  The 
failure  of  an  eighth  part  of  our  annual 
export,  and  a  twenty-ninth  part  of 
our  annual  creation  of  manufactures, 
might  occasion  considerable  distress 
in  the  particular  places  or  branches  of 


*  Viz.— 19,135,000  arable  acres,  at  £7  each, 
27,000,000  acres  of  grass,  at  £6  each, 
15,000,000  do.  wastes, 


— PORTER'S  Progress  of  the  Nation,  158;  2d  edition. 


£133,94o,000 

102,000,000 

5,000,000 

£300,945,000 


764 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


manufacture  principally  affected,  but 
it  could  never  explain  the  universal 
paralysis,  affecting  the  home  trade 
even  more  than  the  foreign,  which 
followed  the  monetary  crisis  of  Octo- 
ber 1847. 

Again,  as  to  the  European  revolu- 
tions of  1848,  although,  undoubtedly, 
they  largely  contributed  to  interrupt 
the  commerce  of  this  country  with 
central  Europe,  and  may  fairly  be 
considered  as  the  principal  cause  of 
the  decline  in  the  exports  of  that  year, 
yet  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
influx  of  wealth,  from  the  distracted 
monarchies  of  Europe,  which  they  oc- 
casioned, did  not  more  than  counter- 
balance that  disadvantage.   England, 
during  the   convulsions    of  France, 
Germany,  and  Italy,  became  the  bank 
of  Europe.   Wealth  flowed  in  from  all 
quarters,  for  investment  in  the  only 
capital  left  which  held  out  the  pros- 
pect of  security.      The  solid  specie 
which  then  was  brought  to  London 
for  purchase  into  the  British  funds,  in 
the  course  of  1848,  has  been  esti- 
mated, by  competent  authorities,  at 
£9,000,000    sterling.       Beyond    all 
doubt,  this  great  influx  of  the  precious 
metals  from  continental  Europe — at  a 
time  when  it  was  so  much  required,  in 
consequence  of  the  enormous  exporta- 
tion of  specie  which  free  trade  was 
inducing,  and  the  monstrous  monetary 
laws  which  contracted  the  paper  cir- 
culation in  proportion  as  it  was  with- 
drawn— had  a  powerful  effect  in  coun- 
teracting the  evils  we  had  brought 
upon  ourselves,   and  sustaining  the 
currency  and  national  credit,  which 
the  Free-traders  had  done  so  much  to 
destroy.    And  as  this  was  an  allevia- 
tion of  the  evil  at  its  fountain-head, 
it  is  next  to  certain  that  the  European 
revolutions  of  1848,  so  far  from  hav- 
ing occasioned  the  distress  in  Great 
Britain  in  that  year,  had  a  material 
effect  in  abating  it. 

It  is  vain,  therefore,  for  the  Free- 
traders to  push  forward  extraneous 
and  separate  events,  as  the  cause  of 
the  dreadful  calamities  which  have 
overtaken  the  country  since  October 
1847;  calamities  which  all  the  wit- 
nesses examined  in  both  Houses  of 
Parliament,  in  the  committees  on 
commercial  distress,  described  as  alto- 
gether unparalleled.  They  arose,  evi- 
dently, not  from  the  failure  of  crops  in 


a  particular  place,  or  the  temporary 
stoppage  in  the  foreign  vent  for  a  par- 
ticular branch  of  manufacture — causes 
which  only  touched  the  extremities — 
but  from  some  great  cause  affecting 
the  heart  of  the  empire,  and  which 
through  it  paralysed  all  its  members. 
And  when  it  is  recollected  that,  after 
having  landed  the  nation  in  extra  do- 
mestic engagements,  for  the  next  four 
years,  to  the  amount  of  £360,000,000, 
the  government  adopted  the  most 
decisive  and  effective  measures  to 
contract  the  currency,  and,  after  mak- 
ing it  mainly  dependant  on  the  reten- 
tion of  gold  in  the  country,  they  took 
steps  which  sent  that  gold  headlong 
abroad — in  exchange  for  enormously 
increased  importations,  the  fruit  of 
free  trade — it  is  not  difficult  to  dis- 
cover what  that  cause  was. 

But  all  these  evils,  it  is  said,  are 
over.  We  have  passed  through  the 
desert,  and  arrived  at  the  promised 
land.  Free  trade,  disjoined  from  the 
extraneous  circumstances  which  have 
hitherto  concealed  its  real  effect,  is  at 
length  beginning  to  appear  in  its  true 
colours.  The  Continent  is  pacified; 
the  trade  to  France  and  Germany  has 
revived;  the  revenue  is  improving; 
the  exports  in  September  were 
£2,000,000  more  than  in  the  corres- 
ponding month  of  last  year :  wait  a 
little  and  we  shall  soon  be  in  Elysium, 
and  free  trade  and  a  fettered  currency 
will  realise  all  their  promised  advan- 
tages. We  are  not  unaware  of  the  Io 
Paeans  which  are  already  sung  from 
the  Liberal  camp  on  this  subject,  and 
it  is  precisely  for  that  reason  that, 

When  FREE  TRADE  IS  AT  ITS  ZE- 
NITH, we  have  taken  the  oppor- 
tunity to  examine  its  effects.  We 
have  seen  that  the  prosperity  from 
1842  to  1845  arose  from  extraneous 
causes,  with  which  the  tariff  of  the 
first  of  these  years  had  nothing  to  do : 
and  that  the  disasters  from  1847  to 
1849  were  not  in  any  sensible  degree 
owing  to  external  or  separate  cala- 
mities, but  were  the  direct  and  ine- 
vitable effect  of  the  establishment  of 
a  system  of  free  trade,  at  the  very 
time  when  the  industry  of  the  nation 
was  manacled  by  the  restriction  of 
absurd  and  destructive  monetary 
laws.  Let  us  now  examine  our  pre- 
sent condition,  and  see  whether  or 
not  we  are  in  an  enviable  position  at 


1849.] 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith* 


765 


home  or  abroad ;  whether  the  industry 
of  the  country  can  possibly  survive, 
or  its  revenue  be  maintained,  under 
the  present  system ;  and  whether  the 
seeds  of  another  catastrophe,  as  ter- 
rible as  that  of  1847,  are  not  already 
spread  in  the  land. 

In  one  particular  the  Free-traders 
are  unquestionably  right.  Beyond 
all  doubt,  the  external  circumstances 
of  the  nation,  at  present,  are  in  the 
highest  degree  favourable  to  its  manu- 
facturing and  trading  interests.  We 
are  at  peace  with  all  the  world,  and, 
thank  God,  there  is  no  immediate 
appearance  of  its  being  broken.  The 
markets  of  continental  Europe  have, 
'  for  six  months  past,  been  entirely  laid 
open  to  our  merchants,  by  the  settle- 
ment of  France  under  the  quasi 
empire  of  Louis  Napoleon,  and  the 
extinction  of  the  war  in  Italy  and 
Germany.  Home  is  taken ;  Hungary 
is  subdued ;  Baden  is  pacified ;  the 
war  in  Schleswig  is  at  an  end ;  the 
Danish  blockade  is  raised ;  California 
has  given  an  extraordinary  impulse 
to  activity  and  enterprise  in  the 
West ;  the  victory  of  Goojerat  has 
extinguished,  it  is  to  be  hoped  for  a 
long  period,  all  appearance  of  distur- 
bance in  the  East.  The  harvest, 
just  reaped,  has  been  uncommonly 
fine  in  grain,  both  in  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland:  that  of  the  potatoes 
above  an  average  in  the  latter  island. 
The  Chartists  of  England  and  Scot- 
land, astounded  at  the  failure  of  all 
their  predictions  and  the  defeat  of  all 
their  hopes,  are  silent ;  the  revolu- 
tionists of  Ireland,  in  utter  despair, 
are  leaving  the  Emerald  Isle.  Amidst 
the  general  pacification  and  cessation 
of  alarms,  old  wants  and  necessities 
begin  to  be  felt,  Men  have  disco- 
vered that  revolting  will  not  mend 
their  clothes  or  fill  their  bellies.  New 
garments  are  required,  from  the  old 
being  worn  out ;  the  women  are  cla- 
morous for  bonnets  and  gowns ;  the 
men  are  sighing  for  coats  and  waist- 
coats. Provisions  are  cheap  to  a  de- 
gree unexampled  for  fourteen  years ; 
wheat  is  at  41s.  the  quarter,  meat 
at  5d.  a  pound.  Capital  in  London 
can  be  borrowed  at  2£  per  cent,  in 
the  provinces  at  3£.  That  great  Liberal 
panacea  for  all  evils,  a  huge  importa- 
tion of  foreign  produce,  is  in  full  ope- 
ration. This  year  it  will  probably 
reach  in  value  at  least  £100,000,000 


sterling.  Let  us  then,  in  these  emi- 
nently favourable  circumstances,  ex- 
amine the  effects  of  the  free-trade 
system. 

First,  with  regard  to  the  revenue, 
that  never-failing  index  of  the  national 
fortunes.  The  revenue  for  the  yearend- 
ing  Oct.  10, 1849,  being  the  last  quar- 
ter that  has  been  made  up,  was  only 
£236,000  more  than  that  for  the  year 
ending  Oct.  10, 1848.  That  is  to  say, 
during  a  year  when  free  trade  was  act- 
ing under  the  most  favourable  possible 
circumstances,  and  when  the  pacifica- 
tion of  the  world  was  reopening  mar- 
kets long  closed  to  our  manufactures, 
the  revenue  only  rose  a  mere  trifle 
above  what  it  had  been  in  the  year 
wasted  by  the  triple  curse  of  a  mone- 
tary crisis,  European  revolutions, 
Chartist  disturbances  and  Irish  rebel- 
lion. Why  is  this?  Evidently  be- 
cause the  effect  of  free  trade  and  a 
restricted  currency  acting  together, 
and  the  dread  of  a  fresh  monetary 
crisis  hanging  over  our  heads  from  the 
unprecedented  magnitude  of  our  im- 
portations in  every  branch  of  com- 
merce, have  depressed  industry  at 
home  to  such  a  degree,  that  even  the 
reopening  of  all  the  closed  markets  of 
the  world,  and  the  rush  to  fill  up  the 
void,  created  during  fifteen  months  of 
stoppage  of  intercourse,  has  been  able 
to  produce  no  sensible  addition  to  the 
public  revenue. 

Next,  as  to  the  exports.  The  re- 
opening of  the  Continental  markets, 
the  pacification  of  India  by  the  vic- 
tory of  Goojerat,  and  the  impulse 
given  to  American  speculation  by  the 
gold  of  California,  has  occasioned  a 
considerable  increase  in  our  exports, 
on  which  the  Free-traders  are  pluming 
themselves  in  an  extraordinary  de- 
gree. We  should  be  glad  to  know 
in  what  way  free  trade  pacified  India, 
extinguished  revolution  in  Europe, 
and  vivified  America  by  the  Califor- 
nian  diggings.  And  yet,  had  these 
distant  and  adventitious  occurrences 
not  taken  place,  would  we  have  had 
to  congratulate  the  manufacturers  on 
a  rise  of  two  millions  in  September, 
and  a  rise  of  seven  or  eight  millions  on 
the  whole  year  ?  And  what,  after  all, 
is  a  rise  of  our  exports  from 
£53,000,000  to  £60,000,000  or  even 
£63,000,000  in  a  year,  to  the  total 
manufacturing  industry  of  the  country, 
which  produces  at  least  £200,000,000 


766 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


annually  ?  It  is  scarcely  the  addition 
of  a  thirtieth  part  to  the  annual  manu- 
factured production.  The  Free-traders 
are  hard  pushed,  indeed,  when  they 
are  constrained  to  exult  in  an  addi- 
tion to  the  national  industry  so  trifling, 
and  wholly  brought  about  by  fortu- 
nate external  events  entirely  foreign 
to  their  policy. 

In  the  immense  and  increasing 
amount  of  our  IMPORTS,  however,  the 
Free-traders  may  indeed  see,  as  in  a 
mirror,  the  real  and  inevitable  result 
of  their  measures.  Their  amount  for 
this  year  is  of  course  not  yet  known ; 
although,  from  the  returns  already 
procured,  it  is  certain  that  they 
will  greatly  exceed  the  level  of 
last  year,  which  reached  £94,000,000. 
In  all  probability  they  will  con- 
siderably exceed  £100,000,000.  In- 
deed, in  the  single  article  of  grain, 
the  excess  of  1849  over  1848,  since 
the  one  shilling  duty  began  in  Feb- 
ruary, has  been  so  great  as  much  to 
exceed  in  value  the  augmentation 
which  has  taken  place  in  our  exports.* 
The  importation  of  grain  in  the  first 
eight  months  of  1849  has  been  more 
than  double  what  it  was  in  the  cor- 
responding period  of  1848,  and  that 
in  the  face  of  a  fine  harvest,  and 


prices  throughout  the  whole  period 
varying  from  forty-five  to  forty-one 
shillings  a  quarter  of  wheat.  The 
importation  at  these  low  prices  has 
settled  down  to  a  regular  average 
of  about  1,200,000  quarters  of  all 
sorts  of  grain  a-month,  'or  between 
fourteen  and  fifteen  millions  of  all 
sorts  of  grain  in  a  year.  This  is 
jnst  &  fourth  of  the  annual  subsistence, 
estimated  in  all  sorts  of  grain  at 
60,000,000  of  quarters.  This  im- 
mense proportion  free  trade  has 
already  caused  to  be  derived  from 
foreign  supplies,  though  it  has  only 
been  three  years  in  operation,  and  the 
nominal  duties  only  came  into  opera- 
tion in  February  last. 

So  vast  an  increase  of  importation 
is  perhaps  unprecedented  in  so  short 
a  period;  for,  before  the  change 
was  made,  the  importation  was  so 
trifling  that,  on  an  average  of  five 
years  ending  in  1835,  it  had  sunk 
to  398,000  quarters.  Indeed,  the 
importation  before  the  five  bad  har- 
vests, from  1846  to  1840,  had  been  so 
trifling,  that  it  had  become  nominal 
merely,  and  the  nation  had  gained  the 
inestimable  advantage  of  being  self- 
supporting.f  With  truth  did  that 
decided  free-trader,  Mr  Porter,  say, 


*  In  the  eight  months  up  to  the  5th  of  September  1849,  the  quantities  of  foreign 
food  taken  out  for  kome  consumption  hare  been  — 

Foreign  wheat,        .       3,387,596  qrs.  Maize,     .        .        .       1,735,778  qrs. 

Foreign  flour,          .      2,956,878  cwt.          Foreign  bacon,         .          349,727  cwt. 

Foreign  barley,        .       1,018,858  qrs.  Salted  beef,     .        .         319,867    „ 

Foreign  oats,  .         869,077    „  Salted  pork,    .        .         306,400    „ 

Foreign  rye,  .         219,810    „  Eggs,  (number)        .     73,605,759 

All  these  amounts  arc   largely,  and   the  most  important  of  them  very  largely,  in 
advance  of  the  imports  of  the  first  eight  months  of  1848. 

Abstract  of  grain  imported  in  quarters  in  seven  months  of  free  trade  — 

Wheat,  .         .         3,387,596  qrs.        Rye,  .         .         .         219,810  qrs. 

Flour,  (2,956,878  cwt.,)      985,293   „          Maize,        .         .         .       1,735,778   „ 

Barley,  .         .         1,018,858   „ 

Oats,        .        .        .  869,077,,  In  eight  months, 

seven  of  free  trade, 


o91641oai.q 
W1**' 


t  Quarters  of  wheat  and  wheat-flour  imported  into  Britain  from  1807  to  1836,. 
both  inclusive  : — 

Quarters. 


1807,- 379,833 

1808, „      — 

1809 424,709 

1810^,,_U,491,341* 

1811, 238,366 

1812, 244,385 

1813, 425,559 

1814, 681,333 

1815 — 

181 6, 227,263 

1817,— ,.1,020,949* 
1818, 1,593,518* 


Quarters. 
1,122,133 
34,274 


1821,  

2 

1822,  

— 

1823,  

~.  12,137 

1824.«^ 

~   15,777 

1825,'  

.„  525,231 

1826,  

^  315,892 

1827,  

-.  772,133 

1828,  

~,  842,050 

1829,,,,,, 

~JL,364,220' 

1830,  

«.1,701,889< 

1  001 

1  O  «J  1  '+fff 

1832,™ 

1833, 

1834, 

1835, 

1836, 

1837, 


1838, 
1839, 
1840,. 


Quarters. 
1,491,631 

325,425 
82,346 
64,653 
28,483 
24,826 

244,087 


,1,834,452* 
,2,590,734* 
,2,389,732* 


*  Bad  seasons. 


1849.] 

in  the  last  edition  of  his  valuable 
work,  entitled  the  Progress  of  the 
Nation — "  The  foregoing  calculations 
show  in  how  small  a  degree  this 
country  has  hitherto  been  dependent 
upon  foreigners,  in  ordinary  seasons, 
for  a  due  supply  of  our  staple  article  of 
food.  These  calculations  are  brought 
forward  to  show  how  exceedingly 
great  the  increase  of  agricultural  pro- 
duction must  have  been,  to  have  thus 
effectively  kept  in  a  state  of  indepen- 
dence a  population  which  has  advanced 
with  so  great  a  degree  of  rapidity. 
To  show  the  fact,  the  one  article  of 
wheat  has  been  selected,  because  it  is 
that  which  is  the  most  generally  con- 
sumed in  England ;  but  the  position 
advanced  would  be  found  to  hold  good, 
were  we  to  go  through  the  whole  list 
of  the  consumable  products  of  the 
earth.  The  supply  of  meat,  during 
the  whole  years  comprised  in  this 
inquiry,  has  certainly  kept  pace  with 
the  growth  of  the  population ;  and,  as 
regards  this  portion  of  human  food, 
our  home  agriculturists  have,  during 
almost  the  whole  period,  enjoyed  a 
strict  monopoly."  * 

Things,  however,  are  now  changed. 
Protection  to  domestic  industry,  at 
least  in  agriculture,  is  at  an  end ; 
prices  are  down  to  forty  shillings  the 
quarter  for  wheat,  and  half  that  sum 
for  oats  and  barley;  the  prices  of 
sheep  and  cattle  have  fallen  enor- 
mously to  the  home-grower,  though 
that  of  meat  is  far  from  having  de- 
clined in  the  same  proportion ;  and, 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


7G7 


as  all  this  has  taken  place  during  a 
season  of  prices  low  beyond  example, 
it  is  evident  that  it  may  be  expected 
to  be  still  greater  when  we  again 
experience  the  usual  vicissitudes  of 
bad  harvests  in  our  variable  climate. 
The  returns  prove  that  ever  since  the 
duties  on  foreign  grain  became  no- 
minal, in  the  beginning  of  February 
last,  the  importation  of  corn  and 
flour  into  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land has  gone  on  steadily  at  the 
rate  of  1,200,000  quarters  a-month ; 
and  that  now  seven-eighths  of  the 
supply  of  the  metropolis,  and  of 
all  our  other  great  towns,  comes 
from  foreign  parts,  f  How  British 
agriculture  is  to  go  on  staggering 
under  such  a  frightful  load  of  foreign 
importation  into  its  best  markets, 
it  is  not  difficult  to  foresee.  Every 
scholar  knows  how  Italian  agricul- 
ture decayed,  under  a  similar  impor- 
tation of  grain  from  the  distant  pro- 
vinces of  the  Roman  empire ;  and 
how  directly  the  fall  of  the  empire 
was  owing  to  that  fatal  change. 

Putting  aside  all  minor  considera- 
tions, which  crowd  upon  the  mind  in 
considering  the  probable  effects  of 
this  prodigious  change,  there  are  three 
of  paramount  importance  which  force 
themselves  on  the  attention,  any  one 
of  which  holds  the  fate  of  the  empire 
suspended  in  a  doubtful  balance. 

The  first  is,  How  is  the  revenue  of 
£55,000,000,  and  the  interest  of  mort- 
gages at  least  half  as  much  more,t 
to  be  provided  for  under  so  great  a 


AVERAGE  QUARTERS. 

1801  to  1810, 600,946  183i;to  1835,~~~ 398,509 

1811  —  1820, 458,578    .        1836  —  1840, 1,992,548* 

1821  —  1830, „„„    534,292  *  Five  bad  years  in  succewion. 

— PORTER'S  Progress  of  the  Nation,  137,  138,  second  edition. 
*  PORTER'S  Progress  of  the  Nation,  second  edition,  p.  139. 

t  Take  as  an  example  the  importation  into  London,  from  24th  to  29th  September 
1849  :  prices  being — wheat,  41s.  9d.;  barley,  27s.;  oats,  17s.  lOd. 

FORKIGV.  BRITISH. 

Qrs.  Qrs. 

Wheat,    .        .        .        18,028  All  kinds  of 

Barley,     .        .        .          8,319 

Oats,        .        .        .        23,408  7)129 


Beans, 


2,620 


52,375 

—  Week  from  Oct.  29  to  Not.  3. 

J  The  mortgages  of  England  alone  are  estimated,  by  the  best  authorities,  at 
£400,000,000.  Those  of  Ireland  and  Scotland  are  certainly  at  least  half  as  much 
more,  or  £200,000,000.  Indeed,  out  of  the  rental  of  £14,000,000  a-year,  now  in 
part  become  nominal  in  the  former  country,  it  is  usually  reckoned  that  £10,000,000 
go  to  the  holders  of  mortgages. 

VOL.  LXVI. — NO.  CCCCX.  3  E 


768 


Free  Trade,  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


reduction  in  the  value  of  the  staple 
articles  of  British  agricultural  pro- 
duce? It  has  been  seen  that  the  total 
value  of  the  agricultural  produce  of 
the  empire  was,  anterior  to  the  late 
changes,  about  £300,000,000.  If 
prices  fall  on  an  average  a  fourth,  in 
consequence  of  foreign  importations, 
which  is  a  most  moderate  supposition, 
probably  much  within  the  truth,  this 
£300,000,000  will  be  reduced  at  once 
to  £225,000,000.  But  the  disastrous 
effect  of  such  a  reduction  is  not  to  be 
measured  by  its  absolute  amount,  con- 
siderable as  that  amount  undoubtedly 
is.  Its  dreadful  effect  lies  here,  that 
the  £75,000,000  thus  cut  off',  absorb 
nearly  the  whole  profits  of  cultivation, 
out  of  which  both  the  rent  is  paid  to 
the  landlord,  and  the  farmer  obtains 
the  means  of  livelihood.  The  re- 
mainder is  the  cost  of  production,  and 
it  is  not  lowered  in  any  sensible 
degree.  Thus  the  whole  loss  falls  on 
the  cultivators.  This  is  just  what  has 
happened  under  a  similar  course  of 
policy  in  the  West  Indies,  where  the 
indolent  habits  of  the  emancipated 
slaves,  and  free  trade  in  sugar,  acting 
together,  have  destroyed  the  profits 
of  agriculture ;  and  of  course  the 
islands  are  rapidly  returning  to  the 
jungle  and  the  forest. 

Now,  if  a  deficiency  at  all  approach- 
ing to  this  occurs  in  the  revenue  de- 
rived from  land — the  sources  of  three- 
fifths  of  the  income  of  the  United 
Kingdom — how,  in  the  name  of  com- 
mon sense,  is  the  revenue  to  be  paid  ? 
How  are  the  jointures  of  the  widows, 
the  interest  of  mortgages,  and  the 
other  charges  on  the  land,  to  be  made 
good,  when  the  change  of  prices  has 
absorbed  nearly  the  whole  profit  of 
cultivation?  If  they  are  recovered, 
what  is  to  remain  to  the  landlord? 
How  are  the  home  manufacturers,  and 
the  numerous  class  of  shopkeepers  in 
towns,  and,  above  all,  in  the  metropo- 
lis, who  are  supported  by  their  expen- 
diture, to  be  maintained?  It  is  very 
easy  to  say  the  fall  of  rents  is  a  land- 
lord's question,  and  the  mass  of  the 
people  have  no  interest  in  it.  Who 
support  the  manufacturers  and  shop- 
keepers over  the  country  ?  The  land- 
lords and  holders  of  securities  over  the 
land  furnish  at  the  very  least  a  half 
of  that  support.  Of  the  £5,400,000 
a-year,  which  the  Income  Tax  pro- 


duces, £3,200,000,  or  more  than  a 
half,  comes  from  the  land.  How 
wide-spread,  then,  will  be  the  distress 
produced  over  the  community,  and, 
above  all,  to  the  shopkeepers  in  towns, 
from  a  change  which  threatens  to  dry 
up  the  principal  sources  from  which 
their  sales  are  paid. 

In  the  next  place,  How  is  the  na- 
tional independence  to  be  maintained 
when  we  come  to  import  so  large  a 
proportion  as  from  a  fourth  to  a  third 
of  our  subsistence  from  foreign  states? 
If  the  chances  of  war,  or  a  Continental 
blockade,  interrupt  our  usual  sources  of 
supply,  what  is  to  come  of  the  people? 
Who  is  to  guarantee  us  against  fa- 
mine prices  on  any  deficiency  of  our 
usual  supply  from  abroad,   and  our 
people   from    becoming,  as  the  Ro- 
mans were  in  former  days,  the  sport 
of  the  winds  and  the  waves?  Observe, 
nearly  all  our  foreign  supply  comes 
from  two  countries  only,  Russia,  or 
Prussia,  whom  it  influences,  and  Ame- 
rica.   If  we  lose  our  maritime  supe- 
riority— and  who  will  secure  its  conti- 
nuance, now  that  the  Navigation  Laws 
are  repealed? — we  may  be  at  once 
blockaded  in  our  harbours,  and  re- 
duced in  three  months  to  the  alterna- 
tive of  starvation  or  submission.    But 
supposing  we  are  not  at  once  reduced  to 
so  humiliating  an  alternative,  is  it  not 
clear  that,  when  we  have  come  prac- 
tically to  depend  for  the  food  of  a  third 
of  our  people  on  two  foreign  states,  we 
are  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  those  two 
countries,  and  can  never  venture  to 
assert,  even  in  form,  our  independence 
against  them?    Without  fitting  out  a 
ship    of  the   line,    or    equipping    a 
battalion,  they    can,    by   the    mere 
threat  of  closing  their  harbours,  at 
any  time  starve  us  into  submission. 
And  what  are  the  nations  beneath 
whose  feet  proud  Albion  is  thus  con- 
tent to  place  her  neck?    Russia  and 
America,  the  two  most  rising  coun- 
tries in  existence,  and  both  of  which 
are  actuated  by  the  strongest  and  the 
most  undying  jealousy  of  the  ancient 
glory  and    maritime   preponderance 
of  this  country. 

Mr  Gurney,  "the  greatest  bill- 
broker  in  the  world,"  has  emphati- 
cally declared  in  public,  on  more  than 
one  occasion,  that  the  country  cannot 
go  on  with  its  present  expenditure  ; 
that  £  15,000,000  a-year,  on  the  charges 


1849.] 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


769 


of  the  army  and  navy,  is  more  than 
can  possibly  be  afforded  ;  and  that,  if 
a  great  reduction  is  not  made,  we  shall 
become  bankrupt.  His  remedy  for 
this  is  to  disband  our  troops,  sell  our 
ships  of  the  line,  and  establish  the 
reign  of  peace  and  bill-broking  through- 
out the  world.  On  the  other  hand, 
"  the  greatest  captainin  theworld,"the 
Duke  of  Wellington,has  made  the  fol- 
lowing remonstrance  to  several  suc- 
cessive administrations,  on  the  total 
inadequacy  of  our  present  establish- 
ments, by  sea  and  land,  to  secure  the 
national  independence  in  the  political 
changes  which  may  be  anticipated  in 
the  lapse  of  time : — 

"  I  have  in  vain  endeavoured  to  awaken 
the  attention  of  different  administrations 
to  this  state  of  things,  as  well  known  to 
our  neighbours  (rivals  in  power,  at  least 
former  adversaries  and  enemies)  as  it  is 
to  ourselves. 

"  We  ought  to  be  with  garrisons  as  fol- 
lows at  the  moment  war  is  declared  : — 

Men. 

Channel  Islands  (besides  the  mili- 
tia of  each,  well  organised, 
trained,  and  disciplined)  10,000 

Plymouth        10,000 

Milford  Haven          5,000 

Cork 10,000 

Portsmouth 10,000 

Dover 10,000 

Sheerness,  Chatham,    and   the 

Thames     10,000 

"  I  suppose  that  one-half  of  the  whole 
regular  force  of  the  country  would  be 
stationed  in  Ireland,  which  half  would 
give  the  garrison  for  Cork.  The  remain- 
der must  be  supplied  from  the  half  of  the 
whole  force  at  home,  stationed  in  Great 
Britain. 

"The  whole  force  employed  at  home 
in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  would  not 
afford  a  sufficient  number  of  men  for  the 
mere  defence  and  occupation,  on  the 
breaking  out  of  a  war,  of  the  works  con- 
Btructed  for  the  defence  of  the  dockyards 
and  naval  arsenals,  without  leaving  a 
tingle  man  disposable. 

"  The  measure  upon  which  I  have 
earnestly  entreated  different  administra- 
tions to  decide,  which  is  constitutional,  and 
has  been  invariably  adopted  in  time  of 
peace  for  the  last  years,  is  to  raise, 
embody,  organise,  and  discipline  the  mi- 
litia of  the  same  number  for  each  of 
the  three  kingdoms  united,  as  during 
the  late  war.  This  would  give  an  organ- 
ised force  amounting  to  about  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  men,  which  we 


might  immediately  set  to  work  to  disci- 
pline. This  amount  would  enable  us  to  esta- 
blish the  strength  of  our  army.  This,  with 
an  augmentation  of  the  force  of  the  regu- 
lar army,  which  would  cost  £400,000, 
would  putthe country  onitslegs  in  respect 
to  personal  force,  and  I  would  engage 
for  its  defence,  old  as  I  am. 

"  But  as  we  stand  now,  and  if  it  be 
true  that  the  exertions  of  the  fleet  alone 
are  not  sufficient  to  provide  for  our  de- 
fence, we  are  not  safe  for  a  week  after  the 
declaration  of  war." 

"  I  shall  be  deemed  foolhardy  in  engag- 
ing for  the  defence  of  the  empire  with  an 
army  composed  of  such  a  force  as  militia. 
I  may  be  so.  I  confess  it,  I  should  in- 
finitely prefer,  and  should  feel  more  con- 
fidence in,  an  army  of  regular  troops. 
But  I  Tcnow  that  I  shall  not  have  these. 
I  can  have  the  others;  and  if  an  addition 
is  made  to  the  existing  regular  army  al- 
lotted for  home  defence  of  a  force  which 
would  cost  £400,000  a-year,  there  would 
be  a  sufficient  disciplined  force  in  the  field 
to  enable  him  who  should  command  it  to 
defend  the  country. 

"  This  is  my  view  of  our  danger  and 
of  our  resources.  I  am  aware  that  our 
magazines  and  arsenals  were  very  inade- 
quately supplied  with  ordnance  and  car- 
riages, as  well  as  stores  of  all  denomina- 
tions, and  ammunition. 

"  The  deficiency  has  been  occasioned  in 
part  by  the  sale  of  arms,  and  of  various 
descriptions  of  ordnance  stores,  since  the 
termination  of  the  late  war,  in  order  to 
diminish  the  demand  of  supply  to  carry 
on  the  peace  service  of  the  ordnance,  in 
part  by  the  conflagration  of  the  arsenal 
which  occurred  in  the  Tower  some  years 
ago,  and  by  the  difficulty  under  which  all 
governments  in  this  country  labour  in 
prevailing  upon  parliament,  in  time  of 
peace,  to  take  into  consideration  measure* 
necessary  for- the  safety  of  the  country  in 
time  of  war." 

"  I  am  bordering  upon  77  years  of  age 
passed  in  honour.  I  hope  that  the  Al- 
mighty may  protect  me  from  being  again 
witness  of  the  tragedy  which  I  cannot 
persuade  my  contemporaries  to  take 
measures  to  avert." 

These  are  strong  words,  as  all  those 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  all 
other  men  of  powerful  and  clear  intel- 
lect, are,  when  they  are  roused  and 
thoroughly  in  earnest.  But  when 
charged  with  such  a  subject,  the 
means  of  defence  and  independence  to 
his  country,  would  a  man  of  his  pa- 
triotic feeling  use  expressions  less 
strong,  when  he  saw  both  endangered 
by  the  weakness  of  successive  admin- 


770  Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith, 

istrations,  acting  in  obedience  to  the 
dictates  of  a  blind  and  infatuated 
people  ?  But  if  our  independence  has 
been  thus  menaced  by  the  inadequacy 
of  our  defensive  armaments  by  sea  and 
land  in  time  past,  what  is  it  likely  to 
be  in  days  to  come,  when  the  public 
revenue,  and  the  resources  of  the  king- 
dom, are  prostrated  by  the  combined 
action  of  a  currency  fettered  by  the 
acts  of  1844  and  1845,  and  national 
industry  overwhelmed  with  foreign 
competition  under  the  free-trade  sys- 
tem of  1846? 

In  truth,  the  peace  congresses  which 
now  amuse  the  world,  and  give  an 
opportunity  for  clever  but  chimerical 
and  ignorant  men  to  declaim  upon 
the  speedy  advent  of  a  political  mil- 
lennium, are  nothing  more  than  an 
effort,  on  the  part  of  the  free-trade 
party,  to  escape  from  the  consequences 
of  their  own  measures.  Mr  Cobden 
and  the  Free-traders  of  England  now 
see  as  clearly  as  any  body,  that 
cheap  prices  and  a  large  revenue, 
either  to  individuals  or  nations,  can- 
not by  possibility  co- exist ;  that  the 
£100,000,000,  promised  us  from  the 
abolition  of  the  corn  laws,  have  van- 
ished into  thin  air,  and  that  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  income  of  the  whole  classes 
of  society  under  its  operation  will  be 
so  considerable,  that  it  is  quite  im- 
possible the  national  expenditure  can 
be  maintained.  As  the  touching  of 
the  dividends  is  not  for  a  moment  to 
be  thought  of — as  that  would  be  bring- 
ing the  tempest  back  with  a  venge- 
ance on  the  moneyed  class  who  evoked 
it — his  only  resource,  to  make  our 
expenditure  square  with  our  reduced 
income,  is  in  disbanding  the  soldiers, 
instituting  a  national  guard,  and  sell- 
ing our  stores  and  ships  of  war.  He 
is  quite  serious  in  that ;  and,  like  all 
other  fanatics,  he  is  not  in  the  slight- 
est degree  influenced  by  the  decisive 
refutation  of  his  principles,  which  the 
universal  breaking  out  of  hostilities, 
and  arming  of  the  world,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  French  Revolution  of 
1848,  and  the  momentary  triumph  of 
liberal  principles,  has  afforded.  He 
is  perfectly  aware,  that  if  industry 
was  protected,  and  we  had  a  currency 
equal  to  the  wants  and  necessities  of 
the  nation,  we  might,  with  our  ex- 
tended population,  raise  £100,000,000 
a-year,  with  more  ease  than  we  now 


[Dec. 

do  fifty  millions,  and  thus  secure  the 
independence  of  the  country,  and  bid 
defiance  to  all  our  enemies.  But  that 
would  lower  the  value  of  money  in 
the  hands  of  the  great  capitalists,  and 
would  amount  to  an  admission  that 
he  had  been  wrong ;  and,  rather  than 
risk  that,  he  is  content  to  prostrate 
the  national  defences,  and  hand  us 
over,  unarmed,  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
the  Chartists  and  Repealers  at  home, 
and  the  Red  Republicans  or  Cossacks 
abroad. 

The  more  intelligent  of  the  Liberal 
party  are  now  intent  on  a  different 
object,  but  one  equally  descriptive  of 
their  secret  sense  of  the  failure  of  their 
grand  panacea  of  free  trade.  They 
are  full  of  the  incalculable  effects  of 
the  application  of  science  to  agricul- 
ture ;  expatiate  largely  on  the  analysis 
of  soils  and  liquid  manures,  and 
indulge  in  learned  disquisitions  on 
the  application  of  the  refuse  of  towns 
and  common-sewers  to  the  improve- 
ment and  fertilisation  of  the  soil. 
From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  which 
treats  its  readers  to  a  learned  expose 
of  Liebig's  principles,  to  Sir  R.  Peel's 
protege,  the  Dean  of  Westminster, 
who  boasts  of  having  tripled  the  pro- 
duce of  his  land  by  liquid  manure, 
this  is  the  grand  remedy  for  the  evils 
which  they  now  see  they  have  intro- 
duced. It  is  singular,  if  there  is  any 
truth  in  these  discoveries,  that  though 
man  has  been  labouring  at  the  soil  for 
four  thousand  years,  and  during  that 
time  had  an  ample  supply  of  these 
fertilising  streams,  they  have  never 
been  brought  to  light  till  free  trade 
made  them  a  question  of  life  and 
death  to  a  powerful  party  in  the  state. 
Having  had  ample  experience  of  the 
application  of  these  liquid  manures  on 
the  largest  and  most  favourable  scale, 
we  are  able  to  give  a  decided  opinion 
on  this  subject.  Liquid  manures  are 
of  great  service  in  enriching  meadow 
lands,  or  forcing  up  coarse  but  luxuri- 
ant crops  of  vegetables,  such  as  cabbage 
or  cauliflower,  of  which  the  leaves  or 
stems,  not  the  seeds  or  roots,  form  an 
article  of  food.  But  they  do  not  per- 
manently  enrich  the  soil :  their  effect 
is  over  in  a  few  weeks.  A  fresh  inun- 
dation of  the  fertilising  stream  is  then 
requisite,  the  effects  of  which  are 
speedily  evaporated.  On  this  account 
they  are  wholly  inapplicable  to  grain 


1849.] 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


771 


crops,  and  of  very  doubtful  service  to 
potatoes  or  turnips.  In  the  emphatic 
language  of  farmers,  they  put  no 
heart  into  the  ground.  The  vegeta- 
tion they  force  on  is  entirely  in  leaves 
and  steins,  not  iu  seeds  or  roots. 
If  they  come  into  general  use,  they 
may  increase  the  determination  of  the 
agricultural  industry  of  the  country  to 
grass  cultivation,  and  render  England 
in  modern,  as  Italy  was  in  ancient 
times,  one  great  sheet  of  pasturage ; 
but  they  will  never  overcome  the 
difficulties  with  which  free  trade  has 
environed  our  fanners  in  the  raising 
of  grain  crops,  or  enable  them  to  com- 
pete with  the  harvests  of  the  Ukraine, 
or  the  basin  of  the  Mississippi. 

In  the  third  place — and  this  is  per- 
haps a  more  vital  consideration  than 
any — How  is  the  constant  recurrence  of 
monetary  crises,  similar  to  that  which 
has  left  such  woful  desolation  behind 
it,  to  be  avoided  upon  every  recur- 
rence of  a  deficient  harvest  at  home, 
or  a-  straitened  importation  from 
abroad?  The  people  of  England  arc 
sensitively  alive  on  this  subject.  They 
watch  the  rain  iu  autumn  with  the 
most  intense  anxiety ;  and,  if  it  falls 
a  few  days  more  than  usual,  the  ut- 
most alarm  pervades  all  classes.  They 
know  well  what  rain  in  autumn  por- 
tends. They  sec  rising  up,  in  dismal 
perspective  before  them,  a  great  im- 
portation of  grain,  a  vast  export  of 
sovereigns,  the  screw  put  on  by  the 
Bank  of  England,  a  contraction  of 
credits  by  every  bank,  every  man 
finding  his  creditors  on  his  back,  and 
one-half  of  his  debtors  bankrupt.  All 
this  they  see,  and  see  clearly  ;  but  the 
minds  of  a  large  portion  of  them  are  sa 
benighted  by  the  free-trade  dogmas, 
that  it  never  occurs  to  them  that  all  this 
is  the  creation  of  their  own  policy,  and 
is  in  no  degree  imputable  to  the  laws 
of  Providence.  They  think  the  thing 
is  inevitable.  They  believe  that  there 
is  a  natural  connexion  between  three 
weeks'  rain  in  August  and  a  monetary 
crisis,  just  as  there  is  between  a  simi- 
lar deluge  and  flooded  meadows,  or 
destroyed  bridges.  The  evil,  how- 
ever, is  entirely  of  human  creation, 
and  may,  with  absolute  certainty,  be 
avoided  by  human  means.  There  is 
no  more  reason  why  three  weeks'  rain 
in  August  should  produce  a  monetary 
crisis,  than  three  weeks' rain  in  Novem- 


ber. It  is  our  ruinous  monetary  laws 
which  render  them  cause  and  effect. 

But  assuming  that  the  monetary 
laws  are  to  continue,  and  free  trade  to 
be  persisted  in,  it  will  become  the 
people  of  this  country,  and  especially 
the  trading  classes,  to  consider  well 
the  inevitable  effect  of  such  a  state  of 
things  on  the  monetary  concerns  of  the 
country,  and,  through  them,  on  the 
solvency  of  every  one  of  themselves. 
We  have  seen  that  the  heavy  rains 
and  large  importations  of  grain  in 
1839  produced  the  severe  and  long- 
protracted  period  of  distress  from  1839 
to  1842  ;  and  that  the  potato  failure 
in  1846,  acting  on  the  Bank  Charter 
Act  of  1844,  occasioned  the  terrible 
catastrophe  of  October  1847.  But 
what  was  the  importation  of  grain,  in 
either  of  these  periods  of  distress  or 
famine,  to  that  which  is  now  taking 
place,  and  has  become  habitual  iu 
the  face  of  exceedingly  low  prices? 
In  1839,  the  whole  grain  of  all  kinds 
imported  was  4,000,000  quarters,  an 
amount  in  those  days  unprecedented. 
In  1846  and  1847,  12,000,000  quar- 
ters, under  the  stimulus  of  famine 
prices,  was  imported  in  fifteen  months. 
But  now,  after  a  fine  harvest,  and 
with  wheat  at  41s.  a  quarter,  we  are 
importing  annually,  as  our  average 
amount,  fifteen  millions  of  quarters  of 
foreign  grain !  How  are  the  most 
terrible  commercial  disasters  to  be 
averted,  if  this  immense  amount  re- 
ceives any  augmentation  from  bad 
seasons?  Nay,  how  are  they  to  be 
averted  even  in  ordinary  seasons,  with 
so  immense  a  drain  on  the  metallic 
resources  of  the  country?  This  is 
a  question  in  which  the  mercantile 
classes  are  far  more  interested  than  the 
agricultural — for  with  them  a  mone- 
tary crisis  is  an  affair  of  life  and  death. 
With  landholders,  cheap  prices,  unless 
very  long  continued,  are  merely  au 
affair  of  temporary  loss  of  income, 
because  the  laud  itself  remains,  and 
it  is  the  value  of  the  annual  fruits 
only  that  is  affected. 

To  compensate  so  many  perils,  past, 
present,  and  to  come,  have  free  trade 
and  a  fettered  currency,  since  they 
were  simultaneously  brought  into 
action  iu  this  couutrj7,  afforded  such 
a  spectacle  of  internal  prosperity  and 
concord  as  to  render  them  on  the  whole 
worth  persisting  in,  at  such  hazard 


772 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


to  our  national  independence,  and 
even  existence?  Alas!  the  view  is 
now,  if  possible,  more  alarming  than 
the  prospect  of  dangers  to  come,  so 
much  have  the  realised  and  experi- 
enced evils  of  the  new  system  exceeded 
what  the  most  sombre  imagination, 
fraught  with  the  most  gloomy  images, 
could  have  anticipated.  Amidst  the 
infinite  variety  of  topics  bearing  on 
this  subject,  we  select  the  five  fol- 
lowing, as  bearing  decisively  on  the 
subject : — The  increase  of  the  poor- 
rate,  both  in  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land ;  the  increase  in  emigration  ;  the 
increase  of  crime  ;  the  decline  in  rail- 
way travelling,  and  the  ruin  of  agri- 
culture in  Ireland. 

With  regard  to  the  increase  of  the 
poor-rate,  since  free  trade  and  the 
new  monetary  system  were  intro- 
duced, we  have  the  best  possible 
authority  in  the  following  statement 
in  the  last  number  of  a  leading 
journal.  "It  appears,"  says  the  Edin- 
burgh Review, l '  from  Mr  Commissioner 
Symmon's  report  on  pauperism,  that 
the  poor-rate  in  England  has  now  be- 
come heavier  them  it  was  before  1835 
when  the  New  Poor  Law  was  intro- 
duced. It  was,  in  1834,  £7,373,807  ; 
it  was  in  1848,  £7,817,459.  Every 
ninth  person  now  in  England  is  now 
a  pauper :  and  the  increase  of  paupers 
during  the  last  two  years  has  been 
double  in  proportion  to  the  rela- 
tive numbers  of  criminals."*  In  Ire- 
land, above  2,000,000  persons  are 
paupers ;  and  the  poor-rate  since 
1846  has  risen  from  £260,000  a-year 
to  £1,900,000,  though  it  was  in  the 
first  of  these  years  only  (1846)  that 
there  was  any  general  failure  of  the 
potato  crop.  In  Scotland  the  poor- 
rate  has  nearly  tripled  in  the  last 
three  years ;  it  has  risen  from  £185,000 
a-year  to  £560,000.  In  Glasgow,  the 
poor-rates,  which  anterior  to  1846 
were  under  £30,000  yearly  for  the 
city  and  suburbs,  rose  in  the  year 
1848-9  to  £200,000,  and  in  the 
present  year  (1849-50)  amount  to 
£138,500.  Nor  is  it  wonderful  that 
assessments  have  increased  so  pro- 
digiously, when  the  augmentation  of 
paupers  has  been  so  alarming.  The 
following  is  the  increase  in  the  city 
of  Glasgow  parish,  being  about  a 


[Dec. 

half  of  the  city  and  suburbs,  during 
the  last  three  years  : — 

Year.  Total  number  of  Paupers. 

1845-6,  .  7,454 

1846-7,  .          15,911 

1847-8,  .          51,852 

The  total  number  of  paupers  relieved 
in  the  city  of  Glasgow  and  suburbs 
in  the  year  1848-9  was  122,000; 
being  exactly  a  third  of  the  popula- 
tion receiving  parochial  relief. 

The  enormous  and  unprecedented 
increase  of  emigration  in  the  last  three 
years  is  still  more  alarming  and  de- 
scriptive of  the  fatal  disease  under 
which  the  body  politic  is  labouring. 
Previous  to  1 846  the  annual  emigra- 
tion had  stood  thus : — 

1838,  33,222 

1839,  62,207 

1840,  90,743 

1841,  118,592 

1842,  128,344 
1343,  57,212 

1844,  70,686 

1845,  93,501 

1846,  129,851 
But  free  trade  and  a  fettered  currency 
soon  doubled  these  numbers.      The 
emigration  stands  thus  in  round  num- 
bers :  — 


1847, 
1848, 


258,461 
248,582 


For  1849  the  numbers  have  not  yet 
been  made  up ;  but  that  they  have 
much  exceeded  300,000  is  Avell  known, 
and  may  be  judged  of  by  the  follow- 
ing facts.  From  the  ofiicial  return 
niade  up  at  New  York,  and  published 
in  the  New  York  Herald  of  October 
10,  it  appears  that,  up  to  that  date, 
there  had  landed,  in  that  harbour  alone, 
238,487  emigrants,  of  whom  no  less 
than  189,800  were  Irish.  If  to  these 
is  added  the  emigrants  who  went  to 
Boston — where  13,000  landed  in  tho 
same  period,  and  those  who  have  gone 
to  Canada,  where  above  60,000  landed 
last  year — it  is  evident  that  the  total 
emigrants  from  the  United  Kingdom 
this  year  must  have  considerably  ex- 
ceeded 300,000;  being  probably  the 
greatest  emigration,  from  any  country 
in  a  single  year,  in  the  whole  annals 
of  the  world.  It  considerably  exceeds 
the  annual  increment  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  United  Kingdom,  which  is 


Edinburgh  Reticle,  October  1848,  p.  524. 


1849.] 

about  230,000:  so  that,  under  the 
combined  action  of  free  trade  and  a 
fettered  currency,  THE  POPULATION  OF 
GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND,  WHICH 
FOR  THREE  CENTURIES  HAD  CONTI- 
NUALLY BEEN  ADVANCING,  HAS  FOR 
THE  FIRST  TIME  DECLINED.  The  Free- 
traders may  boast  of  an  exploit  which 
all  the  enemies  of  England  have  never 
been  able  to  effect.  This  has  become 
so  notorious,  that  it  has  passed  into  au 
ordinary  newspaper  paragraph;  which, 
without  attracting  the  least  attention 
—though  it  is  the  most  striking  thing 
that  has  occurred  in  English  history 
for  five  centuries — is  now  making  the 
round  of  the  public  prints. 

It  is  in  vain  to  put  this  dismal  fact 
down  to  the  account  of  the  Irish  fa- 
mine. That  occurred  in  the  winter  of 
1846-7,  three  years  ago,  since  which 
period  we  have  had  good  harvests ; 
notwithstanding  which  the  emigra- 
tion has,  since  that,  been  constantly 
about  250,000  ;  and  this  year,  in  the 
midst  of  a  fine  harvest,  has  turned 
300,000. 

The  increase  of  orime  during  the 
last  three  years  has  been  equally 
alarming,  and  illustrative  of  the  griev- 
ous distress  which,  for  that  period,  has 
affected  the  industrial  interests  of  the 
empire.  Having,  in  the  last  Number 
of  this  magazine,  fully  discussed  this 
subject,  we  shall  only  observe  that, 
duriag  the  last  three  years,  the  in- 
crease of  crime  in  the  two  islands  has 
been  nearly  50  per  cent.  Sir  R.  Peel, 
in  spring  1846,  when  the  railway 
mania  was  at  its  height,  and  full  em- 
ployment was  given  to  railway  labour- 
ers and  mechanics  in  every  part  of  the 
country,  dwelt  with  peculiar  emphasis 
and  complacency  on  the  diminution 
of  commitments  which  appeared  in  the 
preceding  year,  as  the  most  decisive 
proof  of  the  beneficial  effect  of  his 
measures  in  1842.  We  hope  he  will 
dwell  with  equal  emphasis  on  the  in- 
crease of  crime  since  that  time,  and 
draw  from  it  the  appropriate  conclu- 
sion as  to  the  wisdom  of  his  subse- 
quent measures. 

The  Avoful  state  of  the  railway 
interests  throughout  the  country,  and 
the  steady  and  alarming  decrease  of 
the  mileage  profits,  on  an  average  of 
all  the  lines,  is  another  internal  symp- 
tom of  the  dreadful  effects  of  the  new 
system  which,  within  the  last  three 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


773 


years,  has  been  introduced.  Railway 
property,  within  the  last  three  years, 
has  almost  everywhere  declined  to  a 
half,  in  many  great  lines  to  a  third  of 
its  former  value.  In  one  of  the  greatest 
lines  in  the  kingdom,  the  £50  shares, 
all  paid  up,  are  now  selling  at  £14, 
and  were  even  lately  down  as  low  as 
£10.  The  following  is  taken  from  the 
Times  of  October  21 : — 

"  The  subjoined  table  exhibits  the  num- 
ber of  miles  opened  at  Michaelmas  in 
seven  consecutive  years,  and  the  average 
traffic  per  mile  during  the  first  nine 
months  in  each  year  : — 

Years.  Miles  opened.       Traffic  per  mile. 

1843  ..        1,586  £2,330 

1844  ..        1,770  2,500 

1845  ..        2,033  2,640 

1846  ..        2,498  2,560 

1847  ..        3,375  2,200 

1848  ..       4,178  1,965 

1849  ..        4,980  1,780 
The  decline  in  the  last  column,  from  1845 
to  the  present  year,  is  sufficiently  alarm- 
ing, and  looks  like  a  sinking  to  zero." 

To  what  is  this  lamentable  sinking 
of  property,  in  so  important  a  branch 
of  public  investment,  to  be  ascribed? 
We  are  aware  that  much  of  it  is  owing 
to  unproductive  branch  lines;  but 
what  is  the  main  cause  of  these  branch 
lines  having,  contrary  to  general  ex- 
pectation, proved  so  unproductive? 
It  is  in  vain  to  ascribe  it  to  the 
cholera:  that  only  temporarily  af- 
fected parts  of  the  kingdom ;  and,  at 
any  rate,  it  is  now  over,  and  govern- 
ment have  very  properly  appointed  a 
public  thanksgiving  for  its  termina- 
tion. It  is  equally  in  vain  to  ascribe 
it  to  the  monetary  crisis  of  1847 ;  that 
is  long  since  past :  capital  is  overflow- 
ing, and  interest  in  London  is  again 
down  to  3  and  2£  per  cent.  It  is  evi- 
dently owing  to  one  cause,  worse  than 
plague,  pestilence,  and  famine  put 
together — viz.  the  wasting  away  of 
the  internal  resources  of  the  country, 
under  the  combined  operation  of  free 
trade  and  a  restricted  currency :  free 
trade  deluging  us  with  foreign  goods 
in  every  department  of  industry,  and 
a  restricted  currency  paralysing  every 
attempt  at  competition  in  our  own. 
We  are  very  complacent :  we  not 
only  present  our  shoulders  bare  to  the 
blows  of  the  enemy,  but  we  tie  up  our 
own  hands,  lest,  under  the  smart  of  the 
injury,  we  should  be  tempted  to  re- 
turn them. 


774 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


But  by  far  the  most  deplorable 
eft'ect  of  free  trade  and  a  fettered  cur- 
rency is  to  be  seen  in  Ireland,  where, 
for  the  last  three  years,  misery  unex- 
ampled and  unutterable  has  existed. 
We  shall  mention  only  three  facts  of  a 
general  nature,  descriptive  of  the  state 
of  that  unhappy  country  since  the 
simoom  of  the  new  principles  blew  over 
it,  and  leave  our  readers  to  judge  of 
the  state  of  things  to  which  they  point. 

In  the  first  place  it  appears,  from  a 
parliamentary  return,  that  the  holders 
of  farms  who,  in  1845,  were  310,000 
over  the  Emerald  Isle,  had  sunk  in 
1848  to  108,000.  Two  hundred  and 
two  thousand  cultivators  of  land  have 
disappeared  in  three  years,  and  with 
them  at  least  half  of  the  capital  by 
means  of  which  the  land  was  made  to 
produce  anything. 

In  the  second  place,  as  we  noticed 
in  our  last  Number,  the  bank  re- 
turns corroborate,  in  the  most  fearful 
manner,  this  alarming  decrease  in  the 
agricultural  capital  and  industry  of  the 
country.  Ireland,  it  is  well  known,  is 
almost  entirely  an  agricultural  country. 
Now,  from  the  returns  of  the  bank- 
notes in  circulation  in  Ireland,  as  made 
to  government  in  terms  of  the  act  of 

1845,  it  appears  that,  while  in  August 

1846,  there  were  £7,500,000,  they  had 
sunk,  in  August  1849,  to  £3,833,000.' 
Othello's  occupation  is  gone  !    The 
bank-notes  can  find  no  employment : 
the  bankers  no  customers.  Free  trade 
and  the  bank  restrictions  have  in  three 
years  reduced  the  circulation  which 
the  country  could  take  off  to  half  of  its 
former  amount. 

In  the  third  place,  if  we  cast  our 
eyes  across  the  Atlantic,  we  shall  see 
where  the  cultivators  and  agricultural 
capital  of  Ireland  have  gone.  During 
the  years  1847  and  1848,  out  of  the 
250,000  emigrants  who  annually  left 
the  British  Isles,  about  180,000  were 
from  Ireland.  But  this  year  1849, 
when  the  duties  on  grain  became 
nominal  in  February,  outdid  all  its 
predecessors  in  the  magnitude  of  the 
stream  of  human  beings  which  it 
caused  the  Emerald  Isle  to  send  across 
the  Atlantic.  It  has  been  already 
mentioned  that,  up  to  October  10, 
1849,  189,800  Irish  emigrants  had 
landed  at  New  York,  besides  10,000 
at  Boston.  If  to  these  we  add  the 
probable  number  to  Canada,  perhaps 


30,000,  we  shall  have  at  least  230,000 
Irish  who  have  emigrated  in  one  year 
to  America  —  and  that  a  year  of 
general  peace,  a  fine  harvest,  reopen- 
ed Continental  markets,  and  revived 
manufacturing  industry  in  the  empire. 
And  the  Irish  county  members  formed 
a  large  part  of  Sir  R.  Peel's  majority 
which  carried  free  trade  in  1846. 
Truly  they  have  smote  their  consti- 
tuents hip  and  thigh. 

After  these  facts,  and  the  woful  one, 
that  about  2,000,000  paupers  are  kept 
alive  in  Ireland  by  a  poor-rate  of 
£1,900,000  a-year,  which  is  crushing 
the  little  that  remains  of  industry  and 
cultivation  in  the  country,  it  is  super- 
fluous to  go  into  details.  But  the  fol- 
lowing extracts  from  that  powerful 
free-trade  journal,  The  Times,  are  so 
graphic  and  characteristic  of  the  effect 
of  its  own  favourite  measures,  that  we 
cannot  forego  the  satisfaction  of  pre- 
senting them : — 

"  The  landed  gentry  and  farmholders  in 
this  county,  [Limerick,]  impelled  by  3 
national  calamity,  now  at  a  crisis  with- 
out example  in  Ireland,  have  in  contem- 
plation a  meeting  to  represent  to  his  Ex- 
cellency the  Lord-Lieutenant  the  utterly 
-  prostrate  condition  of  all  agricul- 
tural property,  and  the  universal  fail- 
ure of  every  expedient  in  the  best 
rural  economy  to  sustain  the  Irish 
farmer  —  destitute  of  capital,  bereft  of 
legitimate  protection,  and  overwhelmed 
by  poor-rates  and  taxes  —  against  the 
free-trade  imports  of  the  whole  world. 
The  ministerial  policy  of  Great  Britain, 
under  sanction  of  a  law  which  thousands 
of  her  loyal  subjects  deprecated,  invites 
the  foreign  trader  from  all  ports  known  to 
the  eompasi  to  import  at  a  nominal  duty, 
and  then  suffers  him  to  export  in  ipecie 
only,  for  his  own  country/  What  other 
ballast  have  the  fleets  of  foreign  vessels 
conveyed  from  our  shore  for  the  last  three 
years  but  metallic  and  bank  currency  • 
With  such  immeasurably  unequal  com- 
petition at  his  very  door,  the  native 
grower  finds  no  market  for  the  produce  of 
his  honest  industry,  unless  at  a  price  wholly 
incompatible  with  the  position  of  a  solvent 
man.  He  sells,  alas  !  only  to  lose,  and 
the  selfish  foreigner  is  sure  of  profit  on 
every  cheap  venture  ;  while  his  specula- 
tion renders  no  equivalent  whatever  to 
the  revenue  or  taxation  of  that  state 
which  encourages  his  importations  at  the 
expense  of  our  own  independence  ;  for  the 
permanent  independence  of  those  king- 
doms implies  the  prosperity  of  Irish  pro- 
duce, and  its  preference  iu  the  English 


1849.] 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


773 


market.  Ireland,  unfortunately,  has  no 
trade  or  manufacture  to  employ  her  peo- 
ple, and  wherefore  is  best  known  to  Eng- 
land ;  but  her  only  staple,  agriculture, 
which  all  nations,  ancient  and  modern, 
loved  to  cultivate,  will  soon  be  little  more 
than  a  name.  The  causes  and  effects  of 
this  disastrous  revolution  the  philosopher 
and  historian  will  hereafter  do  justice  to. 
A  preparatory  meeting,  relative  to  the 
above,  is  now  being  held,  with  closed 
doors,  in  the  county  court,  Lord  Mon- 
teagle  in  the  chair.  Poor-rale  was  the 
monster  grievance  of  discussion.  The 
meeting  broke  up  at  3  o'clock,  it  having 
been  decided  to  collect  facts  from  every 
district  of  the  country  in  connexion  with 
taxation  and  valuation  of  property." — 
Limerick  Chronicle,  of  Saturday,  Oct.  2G. 

"  THE  LAND  QUESTION. — A  letter  from 
Kilrush,  dated  the  27th  inst.,  and  pub- 
lished in  the  Clare  Journal,  says  : — '  So 
eager  are  the  country  farmers  to  make 
sale  of  their  grain,  that  every  day  is  a 
market.  Two  causes  seem  to  influence 
them  ;  first,  their  present  and  urgent 
necessities  press  upon  them,  and,  secondly, 
an  opinion  prevails,  which  appears  not  to 
be  confined  to  the  west,  that  it  is  more 
eecure  to  have  the  money  in  their  pockets 
than  to  leave  the  crop  to  become  a  prey 
to  agent  or  poor-rate  collector  ;  and  also 
that,  in  the  event  of  no  reduction  being 
made  in  the  annual  rent,  they  may  have 
110  difficulty  in  walking  off.  Such  are  the 
feelings  operating  on  the  minds  of  the 
majority  of  the  farmers  in  this  locality. 
It  is  now  too  plain  and  obvious,  that 
should  a  reduction  in  the  rents  take  place 
here,  it  will  come  two  years  too  late,  as 
the  greater  number  of  the  farmers  (for- 
merly comfortable)  have  not  as  much  as 
would  support  their  families  for  half  the 
coming  year.  This  is  a  sad  but  true 
state  of  things,  in  a  district  where,  some 
few  years  since,  the  rents  were  paid,  per- 
haps, more  regularly  than  in  any  other 
part  of  the  south  of  Ireland.  A  few  have 
left  their  holdings,  after  selling  every 
article,  leaving  the  naked  walls  of  a  house 
to  the  landlord,  and  gone  to  a  neighbour- 
ing townland,  where  the  quality  and 
cheapness  of  the  land  presented  a  greater 
encouragement ;  but  such  cases  of  flying 
tenants  have  become  so  common  of  late, 
that  every  paper  teems  with  similar  state- 
ments. If  we  are  to  have  the  land  culti- 
vated here,  the  rents  must  not  only  be  re- 
duced to  half  the  former  price,  but  the 
tenant  must  be  assisted  to  set  the  crop, 
and  encouraged  to  introduce  a  proper 
method  of  cultivation,  otherwise  the  land 
will  be  left  idle,  and  the  majority  of  the 
present  occupiers  will  become  inmates  of 
the  workhouse.'  "—Times,  Oct.  31, 1849. 
"  There  must  also  be  taken  into  account 


the  dire  domestic  privations  endured  for 
the  last  three  years  of  famine,  the  general 
flight  of  tenants  with  the  landlords'  rent, 
the  desertion  of  the  land,  impoverished  to 
the  last  degree  by  the  runaways,  yet  for 
whose  dishonesty  and  abuse  of  solemn 
contract  the  unfortunate  proprietor  is  held 
responsible — the  abandoned  farms  being 
still  subject  to  accumulation  of  poor-rate 
and  taxes.  Then  come  the  distraint,  the 
impounding,  the  sale  and  sacrifice  of  pro- 
perty ;  while  the  home  market,  twamped 
by  free  trade  with  foreigners,  has  left  land- 
lord and  farmer  no  help  or  resource  what- 
ever to  bear  up  against  the  intolerable  op- 
pression of  financial  burdens,  sanctioned  by 
law,  under  the  free  constitution  of  Great 
Britain  !  One  case  of  grievous  suffering 
by  a  respectable  family  in  this  county  was 
communicated  to  the  preparatory  meeting 
on  Saturday  last,  by  one  of  the  gentlemen 
present.  The  possessor  of  a  rent-roll  of 
£1500  a-year  landed  estate,  which  netted 
£1200  annually  four  years  ayo,  was  abso- 
lutely compelled  to  subsist  with  his  wife  and 
seven  children  for  three  months  of  the  past 
twelre,  without  the  ordinary  comfort  of  a 
meat  dinner ;  a  cup  of  weak  tea  or  coffee, 
and  the  vegetables  of  the  kitchen-garden, 
commonly  furnishing  the  table  of  this 
most  wretched  household  !  Incredible 
and  appalling  as  this  may  appear,  we 
have  been  assured  it  is  not  a  solitary  in- 
stance of  the  excessive  want  and  privation 
known  to  exist." — Times,  Nov.  4, 1849. 

So  much  for  the  working  of  free 
trade  and  a  restricted  currency  in  tho 
Emerald  Isle.  One  would  suppose, 
in  reading  these  melancholy  accounts, 
we  were  not  dealing  with  any  people 
in  modern  times,  but  transported  back 
to  those  dismal  periods,  after  the  fall 
of  the  Roman  empire,  when  the  con- 
temporary annalists  contemplated  the 
extinction  of  the  human  race,  from  tho 
desolation  of  some  of  its  provinces. 

This  dreadful  state  of  things  iu  Ire- 
land is  but  a  repetition  of  what,  under 
the  operation  of  these  causes,  aided  by 
the  fatal  step  of  unqualified  emancipa- 
tion, has  for  some  years  been  going  on 
in  the  West  Indies.  We  have  not 
room  to  enlarge  on  this  prolific  subject, 
teeming  as  it  does  with  facts  illustra- 
tive of  the  effects  of  the  free-trade 
system.  They  are  generally  known. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  the  West  Indies  are 
totally  ruined.  British  colonies,  on 
which  £120,000,000  sterling  has  been 
expended,  and  which  fifteen  years 
ago  produced  £22,000,000  worth  of 
agricultural  produce  annually,  have 
been  irrecoverably  destroyed.  Tho 


776 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


[Dec. 


fee-simple  of  all  the  estates  they  con- 
tain would  not  sell  for  £5,000,000 
sterling.  We  kuow  an  estate  in  the 
West  Indies,  which  formerly  used  to 
net  £1500  a-year,  and  to  which  £7000 
worth  of  the  best  new  machinery 
was  sent  within  the  last  five  years, 
which  the  proprietor  would  be  too  hap- 
py to  sell,  machinery  andall, for  £5000. 
CANADA  has  lately  shared  largely 
in  the  moral  earthquake  which  has  so 
violently  shaken  all  parts  of  the  Brit- 
ish empire.  We  subjoin  an  extract 
from  the  temperate  and  dignified 
statement  of  their  grievances,  lately 
published  by  350  of  the  leading  men 
at  Montreal,  to  show  how  largely 
free  trade  enters  into  them. 

"  Belonging  to  all  parties,  origins,  and 
creeds,  but  yet  agreed  upon  the  advantage 
of  co-operation  for  the  performance  of  a 
common  duty  to  ourselves  and  our  country, 
growing  out  of  a  common  necessity,  we 
have  consented,  in  view  of  a  brighter  and 
happier  future,  to  merge  in  oblivion  all 
past  differences,  of  whatever  character,  or 
attributable  to  whatever  source.  In  ap- 
pealing to  our  fellow-colonists  to  unite 
with  us  in  this  our  most  needful  duty, 
we  solemnly  conjure  them,  as  they  desire 
a  successful  issue,  and  the  welfare  of  their 
country,  to  enter  upon  the  task,  at  this  mo- 
mentous crisis,  in  the  same  fraternal  spirit. 

"  The  reversal  of  the  ancient  policy  of 
Great  Britain,  whereby  she  withdrew  from 
the  colonies  their  wonted  protection  in  her 
markets,  has  produced  the  most  disastrous 
effects  upon  Canada.  In  surveying  the 
actual  condition  of  the  country,  what  but 
ruin  or  rapid  decay  meets  the  eye?  Our 
provincial  government  and  civic  corpor- 
ations embarrassed ;  our  banking  and 
other  securities  greatly  depreciated  ;  our 
mercantile  and  agricultural  interests  alike 
unprosperous  ;  real  estate  scarcely  sale- 
able upon  any  terms  ;  our  unrivalled 
rivers,  lakes,  and  canals  almost  unused; 
while  commerce  abandons  our  shores,  the 
circu  lating  capital  amassed  under  a  more 
favourable  system  is  dissipated,  with  none 
from  any  quarter  to  replace  it !  Thus, 
without  available  capital,  unable  to  effect 
a  loan  with  foreign  states,  or  with  the 


mother  country,  although  offering  security 
greatly  superior  to  that  which  readily 
obtains  money  both  from  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain,  when  other  than  col- 
onists are  the  applicants  :— crippled, 
therefore,  and  checked  in  the  full  career 
of  private  and  public  enterprise,  this 
possession  of  the  British  crown  —  our 
country — stands  before  the  world  in 
humiliating  contrast  with  its  immediate 
neighbours,  exhibiting  every  symptom  of 
a  nation  fast  sinking  to  decay. 

"  With  superabundant  water-power 
and  cheap  labour,  especially  in  Lower 
Canada,  we  have  yet  no  domestic  manu- 
factures ;  nor  can  the  most  sanguine,  un- 
less under  altered  circumstances,  antici- 
pate the  home  growth,  or  advent  from 
foreign  parts,  of  either  capital  or  enter- 
prise to  embark  in  this  great  source  of 
national  wealth.  Our  institutions,  unhap- 
pily, have  not  that  impress  of  permanence 
which  can  alone  impart  security  and  inspire 
confidence,  and  the  Canadian  market  is  too 
limited  to  tempt  the  foreign  capitalist. 

"  While  the  adjoining  states  are  cov- 
ered with  a  network  of  thriving  railways, 
Canada  possesses  but  three  lines,  which, 
together,  scarcely  exceed  fifty  miles  ia 
length,  and  the  stock  in  two  of  which  is 
held  at  a  depreciation  of  from  50  to  80 
per  cent — a  fatal  symptom  of  the  torpor 
overspreading  the  land." — Times,  Oct.  31. 

In  what  graphic  terms  are  the  in- 
evitable results  of  free  trade  and  a  re- 
stricted currency  here  portrayed  by 
the  sufferers  under  their  effects! 
Colonial  protection  withdrawn  ;  home 
industry  swamped  by  foreign  ;  canals 
unused ;  banks  alarmed ;  capital  dis- 
sipated ;  rivers  and  harbours  unten- 
anted  ;  property  unsaleable  !  One 
would  have  thought  they  were  tran- 
scribing from  this  magazine  some  of 
the  numerous  passages  in  which  we 
have  predicted  its  effects.  And  let 
England  recollect,  Canada  now  em- 
ploys 1,100,000  of  the  tonnage  of 
Great  Britain.  Let  it  be  struck  off, 
and  added  to  the  other  side,  and  the 
British  tonnage,  employed  in  carrying 
on  our  trade,  will,  in  a  few  years,  be 
made  less  than  the  foreign.* 


British  tonnage.       Foreign. 

British  tonnage  to  British  North  American  colonies,  1846,  1,076,162 
To  United  States  of  America,     ....        205,123          435,399 
Total  tonnage  in  British  trade  to  all  countries,  .     4,294,733       1,806,282 

Deduct  Canadian  tonnage,  ....     1,076,162 

British  tonnage  after  losing  Canada,        .  .  .     3,228,571 

Foreign  tonnage  after  gaining  Canada, 
— PORTEJVS  Parliamentary  Tables,  1846,  p.  52. 


1,076,162 
The  repeal  of  the  Navigation  Laws  in  1847  gave  such  an  impulse  to  foreign  ship- 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenith. 


1849.] 

One  would  have  thought,  from  the 
present  state  of  Canada,  that  onr  co- 
lonial secretary  had  followed  the  ad- 
vice of  Franklin  in  his  "  Kules  for 
making  a  great  Entire  a  small  one." 

"If  you  are  told  of  discontents  in  your 
colonies,  never  believe  that  they  are  gene- 
ral, or  that  you  have  given  occasion  for 
them  ;  therefore,  do  not  think  of  applying 
any  remedy  or  of  changing  any  offensive 
measure.  Redress  no  grievance,  lest  they 
should  be  encouraged  to  demand  the  re- 
dress of  some  other  grievance.  Yield  no 
redress  that  is  just  and  reasonable,  lest 
they  should  make  another  demand  that  is 
unreasonable.  Take  all  your  informations 
of  the  state  of  your  colonies  from  your 
governors  and  officers  in  enmity  with 
them. 

"  If  you  see  riral  nations  rejoicing  at 
the  prospect  of  your  disunion  with  your 
provinces,  and  endeavouring  to  promote 
it — if  they  translate,  publish,  and  applaud 
all  the  complaints  of  your  discontented 
colonists,  at  the  same  time  privately 
stimulating  you  to  severer  measures — 
let  not  that  alarm  or  offend  you.  Why 
should  it  ?  You  all  mean  the  same  thing." 
—(Rules  16  and  17.) 

If  our  rulers  had  followed  the  ad- 
vice of  the  sages  of  former  times,  in- 
stead of  the  theories  of  modern  bul- 
lionists  and  interested  parties,  they 
would  have  avoided  this  unparalleled 
accumulation  of  disasters.  Hear  the 
greatest  and  wisest  of  men,  Lord 
Bacon,  on  the  subject : — 

"  '  For  the  home  trade  I  first  commend 
to  your  consideration  the  encouragement  of 
tillage,  which  will  enable  the  kingdom  to 
provide  corn  for  the  natives,  and  to  spare 
for  importation ;  and  I  myself  have  known 
more  than  once,  when  in  times  of  dearth, 
in  Queen  Elizabeth's  days,  it  drained  much 
coin  of  the  kingdom  to  furnish  us  with 
corn  from  foreign  parts.' 

"  He  added  also — 

"  '  Let  the  foundation  of  a  profitable 
trade  be  so  laid  that  the  exportation  of 
home  commodities  be  more  in  value  than 
the  importation  of  foreign,  so  we  shall  be 
sure  that  the  stocks  of  the  kingdom  shall 
yearly  increase,  for  then  the  balance  of 
trade  must  be  returned  in  money.' 

"  And  Lord  Bacon  went  on  to  give  this 
•wholesome  piece  of  advice  : — 

* '  Instead  of  crying  up  all  things  which 
are  either  brought  from  beyond  sea  or 


777 


wrought  by  the  hands  of  strangers,  let  us 
advance  the  native  commodities  of  onr 
own  kingdom,  and  employ  our  own 
countrymen  before  strangers.'  " — Bacon'* 
Essays. 

"  Trade,"  says  Locke,  "  is  necessary  to 
the  production  of  riches,  and  money  to  the 
carrying  on  of  trade.  This  is  principally 
to  be  looked  after,  and  taken  care  of;  for 
if  this  be  neglected,  we  shall  in  vain,  by 
contrivances  among  ourselves,  and  shuf- 
fling the  little  money  we  have  from  one 
hand  to  another,  endeavour  to  prevent 
our  wants :  decay  of  trade  will  quickly 
waste  all  the  remainder ;  and  then  the 
landed  man,  who  thinks,  perhaps,  by  the 
fall  of  interest,  to  raise  the  value  of  his 
land,  will  find  himself  cruelly  mistaken, 
when,  the  money  being  gone,  (as  it  will  be 
if  our  trade  be  not  kept  up,)  he  can  get 
neither  farmer  to  rent,  nor  purchaser  to 
buy,  his  land."  .... 

"  If  one-third  of  the  money  employed 
in  trade  were  locked  up  or  gone  out  of 
England,  must  not  the  landlords  receive 
one-third  less  for  their  goods,  and,  conse- 
quently, rents  fall — a  less  quantity  of 
money  by  one-third  being  to  be  distri- 
buted amongst  an  equal  number  of  re- 
ceivers ?  Indeed,  people,  not  perceiving 
the  money  to  be  gone,  are  apt  to  be  jea- 
lous, one  of  another ;  and  each  suspecting 
another's  inequality  of  gain  to  rob  him  of 
his  share,  every  one  will  be  employing  his 
skill  and  power,  the  best  he  can,  to  re- 
trieve it  again,  and  to  bring  money  into 
his  pocket  in  the  same  plenty  as  formerly. 
But  this  is  but  scrambling  amongst  our- 
selves, and  helps  no  more  against  our 
wants  than  the  pulling  of  a  short  coverlid 
will,  amongst  children  that  lie  together, 
preserve  them  all  from  the  cold — some 
will  starve,  unless  the  father  of  the  family 
provide  better,  and  enlarge  the  scanty 
covering.  This  pulling  and  contest  is 
usually  between  the  candid  man  and  the 
merchant." — LOCKE'S  Works,  v.  14,  70, 
71.  Considerations  on  Kate  of  Interest 
and  liaising  the  Value  of  Honey. 

We  add  only  the  opinion  of  a  great 
authority  with  the  Free-traders,  Mr 
Malthus,  -which  seems  almost  pro- 
phetic of  what  is  now  passing  in  this 
country.  We  are  indebted  for  it  to 
the  Morning  Post,  which  has  consis- 
tently argued  the  doctrines  of  protec- 
tion and  an  adequate  currency  since 
they  were  first  assailed. 

"  If  the  price  of  corn  were  to  fall  to  50s. 


ping,  that,  in  the  first  year  after  the  loss  of  Canada,  the  foreign  shipping  employed  in 
our  trade  would  exceed  the  British,  even  supposing  we  only  lost  two-thirds  of  Cana- 
dian trade  by  its  independence. 


Free  Trade  at  its  Zenitli. 


a  quarter,  and  labour  and  other  commodi- 
ties nearly  in  proportion,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  stockholder  would  be  bene- 
fited unfairly  at  the  expense  of  the  in-  • 
dustrious  classes  of  society.  During  the 
twenty  years,  beginning  with  1794,  and 
ending  with  1813,  the  average  price  of 
wheat  was  about  83s. ;  during  ten  years, 
ending  with  1813,  92s.  ;  and  during  the 
last  five  years  of  this  same  twenty,  the 
price  was  108s.  In  the  course  of  these 
twenty  years,  government  borrowed  near 
£500,000,000  of  real  capital,  exclusive  of 
the  sinking  fund,  at  the  rate  of  about  five 
per  cent  interest.  But  if  corn  shall  fall 
to  50s.  a  quarter,  and  other  commodities 
in  proportion,  instead  of  an  interest  of 
five  per  cent.,  the  government  will  really 
pay  an  interest  of  seven,  eight,  and  nine, 
and  for  the  last  £200,000,000,  of  ten  per 
cent.  This  must  be  paid  by  the  industrious 
classes  of  society,  and  by  the  landlords  ; 
that  is,  by  all  those  whose  nominal  incomes 
vary  with  the  variations  in  the  measure  of 
value  ;  and  if  we  completely  succeed  in 
the  reduction  of  the  price  of  corn  and 
labour,  this  increased  interest  must  be 
paid  in  future  from  a  revenue  of  about 
half  the  nominal  value  of  the  national 
income  in  1813.  If  we  consider  with 
what  an  increased  weight  the  taxes  on 
tea,  sugar,  malt,  soap,  candles,  &c.,  would 
iu  this  case  bear  on  the  labouring  classes 
of  society,  and  what  proportion  of  their 
income  all  the  active,  industrious  middle 
orders  of  the  state,  as  well  as  the  higher 
orders,  must  pay,  in  assessed  taxes  and 
the  various  articles  of  custom  and  excise, 
the  pressure  will  appear  to  be  absolutely 
intolerable.  Indeed,  if  the  measure  of 
value  were  really  to  fall  as  we  have  sup- 
posed, there  is  great  reason  to  fear  that 
the  country  would  be  absolutely  unable  to 
continue  the  payment  ofthepresent  interest 
of  the  national  debt." — Malthus's  Etsays. 

This  was  Mr  Malthus's  anticipation 
of  the  effect  of  wheat  falling  to  50s. 
What  would  he  have  said  of  it  at  40s., 
its  present  average  price?  We  recom- 
mend the  concluding  paragraph  to  the 
notice  of  the  fund-holders,  by  whose 
influence  the  late  changes  have  main- 
ly been  introduced. 

But  let  the  Free-traders  be  of  good 
cheer — they  have  done  marvellous 
things.  They  have  accomplished  what 


[Dec. 

no  British  statesmen,  since  the  days 
of  Alfred,  have  been  able  to  effect. 
They  have  stopped  the  growth  of  our 
population,  and,  for  the  first  time  for 
four  centuries,  rendered  it  retrograde. 
They  have  sent  from  two  hundred 
and  fifty  to  three  hundred  thousand 
people  yearly  out  of  the  country,  for 
three  years,  in  search  of  food.  They 
have  lowered  the  Irish  circulation 
of  notes  a  half.  They  have,  with 
one  blow,  swamped  the  Poor-law 
Amendment  Act  in  England,  and  ren- 
dered rates  higher,  even  with  prices 
extremely  low,  than  they  ever  were 
in  English  history.  They  have  ex- 
tirpated 200,000  cultivators  in  Ireland. 
They  have  cut  £80,000,000  a-year  off 
from  the  remuneration  of  cultivation 
and  the  encouragement  of  the  home 
market  to  our  manufactures  in  Great 
Britain.  They  have  lowered  railway 
property  more  than  a  half.  They 
have  destroyed,  at  least,  a  half  of  the 
whole  commercial  and  trading  wealth 
of  the  manufacturing  towns.  They 
have  made  the  nation  dependant,  in 
two  years,  for  a  fourth  of  its  subsis- 
tence on  foreign  states.  They  have 
rendered  the  maintenance  of  the  na- 
tional independence,  if  the  present 
system  is  persisted  in,  impossible. 
They  have  destroyed  £100,000,000 
worth  of  property  in  the  West  Indies. 
They  have  sown  the  seeds  of  revolt  in 
Canada,  and  rendered  its  separation, 
at  no  distant  period,  from  Great  Bri- 
tain a  matter  of  certainty.  They 
have  repealed  the  Navigation  Laws, 
and  thereby  cut  off  the  right  arm  of 
our  naval  strength.  They  are  fast 
laying  the  seeds  of  dismemberment  in 
our  colonial  empire.  They  will  soon 
reduce,  if  unchecked  in  their  career, 
the  immense  empire  of  England  to 
two  islands,  oppressed  with  taxes, 
eaten  up  by  paupers,  importing  a  third 
of  their  annual  subsistence  from  for- 
eign states,  brought  in  in  foreign  bot- 
toms. Thesa  are  the  effects  of  FREE 

TRADE    AT   ITS    ZENITH.        What   Will 

they  be  at  its  Nadir? 


INDEX  TO  VOL.  LXVL 


Abercromby,  Mr,  in  Sardinia,  587. 

ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC,  567. 

^Eneas,  Payne  Knight's  criticisms  on,  375. 

Africa,  Jonathan  in,  172 — its  deserts,  464. 

Agricultural  interest,  overthrow  of,  by  tho 
free-traders,  1 1 5 — population  of  Wales, 
character,  &c.  of  the,  330. 

Agriculture,  alleged  injury  from  the  game 
laws  to,  73— distressed  state  of,  in  Ire- 
land, 774— and  Spain,  719. 

ALBUM,  OUR,  for  the  last  page  of,  205. 

Alfieri,  the  autobiography  of,  294. 

Alison  on  taste,  remarks  on,  13 — on  Vir- 
gil, 246— on  Homer,  255. 

America,  increase  of  its  shipping  under  the 
reciprocity  system,  117,  118 — cost  of 
raising  grain  in,  120 — forests  of,  464. 

Andalusia,  Mr  Dundas  Murray's  work  on, 
705. 

Anne,  Queen,  national  debt  under,  666. 

Anti-game  law  association,  the,  63. 

Antro  de  Nettuno  in  Sardinia,  the,  40. 

Ardara,  early  paintings  in,  46. 

Army,  Cobden's  crusade  against  the,  584. 

Art,  specimens  of  early,  in  Sardinia,  46 — 
influence  of  religion  on,  261. 

Artist,  the,  not  a  mere  imitator,  412. 

Asia,itsmountains,  462 — table-lands,463. 

Assignment  system  for  convicts,  advan- 
tages of  the,  532. 

Atala  et  Rene",  Chateaubriand's,  301. 

Atheism,  Christopher,  &c.  on,  31. 

Attitu  in  Sardinia,  the,  43. 

Audiganne,  M.,  on  the  state  of  France,  233. 

Australia,  commerce  of,  in  relation  to  the 
convict  system,  527 — exports  per  head 
to,  ib. — obstacles  to  free  emigration  to} 
533. 

Austria,  the  contest  between,  and  Hun- 
gary, 589— Cobden  on,  591. 

Austrian  loan,  Cobden  on  the,  602. 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY — CHATEAUBRIAND'S  ME- 
MOIRS, 292. 

Bacon,  Lord,  on  the  principles  of  trade, 
777. 

Bad  temper,  Christopher  on,  5. 
BADEN  INSURRECTION",  the,  206 — as  one 
result  of  the  revolutionary  movement, 
429 — its  causes,  &c.,  ib. 
Baden-Baden,  state  of,  431. 
Baltic  shipping,  increase   of,   under  the 

reciprocity  system,  1 1 7, 1 1 8. 
Banditti,  Sardinian,  41. 
Bank,  danger  of  the,  in  1823,  675— char- 
ter act  of  1844,  the,  758. 
Barton,  Bernard,  letters  of  Lamb  to,  149. 


Bawr,  Madame,  tale  by,  609. 

Beattie,  Dr,  on  Gray's  elegy,  242. 

Beauty,  Christopher  on  the  faculty  of, 
29 — relations  of  virtue  to,  259. 

Blair,  Dr,  on  Virgil's  description  of  thun- 
der, 12. 

Blanc,  Louis,  his  "  Protest,"  234. 

Blind,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents,  208. 

Bolingbroke  on  the  national  debt,  665. 

Boroughs,  predominance  given  by  the 
Reform  Bill  to,  113. 

Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  on,  296. 

Botany  Bay,  effects  of  the  transportation 
system  on,  528. 

Braybrooke  Lord,  his  edition  of  Pepys' 

Diary,  501. 
,  Bread  stuffs,  importation  of,  766. 

Brentano,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents, 
206,207,208,211,215. 

Brigands,  Spanish,  706. 

Bright,  Mr,  motives  of,  in  his  anti-game- 
law  agitation,  63 — on  poaching,  70. 

Brougham,  Lord,  on  the  marriage  law  of 
Scotland,  269 — on  transportation,  Ac., 
525. 

Brown,  Dr  Thomas,  on  Gray's  elegy,  241. 

Bugeaud,  Marshal,  227. 

Buonaparte  and  the  Bourbons,  Chateau- 
briand's pamphlet  called,  304. 

Burritt,  Elihu,  583. 

Bute,  Lord,  bribery  under,  666. 

Butler's  Analogy,  the  argument  for  im- 
mortality from,  311. 

Byron,  on  a  passage  from,  367 — his  de- 
scription ofVelino,  372 — his  autobio- 
graphy, 295. 

Cabrera,  the  last  insurrection  of,  707. 

Cadet  de  Colobrieres,  the,  607. 

Caesar's  Commentaries,  on,  292. 

Campbell,  Lord,  attack  on  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst  by,  131 — on  the  Scottish  marriage 
bill,  265,  273. 

Canaanites,  presumed  relics  of  the,  in 
Sardinia,  36. 

Canada  bill,  debates  on  the,  131 — com- 
merce of,  in  relation  to  the  convict 
system,  527 — exports  per  head  to,  ib. — 
effects  of  free  trade  on,  776. 

CANADAS,  CIVIL  REVOLUTION  IN — A  RE- 
MEDY, 471. 

Cape,  commerce  of,  in  relation  to  the  con- 
vict system,  527 — resistance  in,  to  its 
being  made  a  penal  settlement,  535. 

Cardiganshire,  rarity  of  the  English  lan- 
guage in,  328. 

Carlist  movement,  the  late,  in  Spain,  707. 


780 


Index. 


[Dec. 


Carlsruhe,  the  revolt  at,  206 — capture  of, 
by  the  Prussians,  215. 

Carta  de  Logu  of  Sardinia,  the,  40. 

Carthaginians  in  Sardinia,  the,  34 — their 
disappearance,  36. 

Castlemaine,  Lady,  516. 

Cavaignac,  General,  during  the  June  con- 
flict, 231,  232. 

CAXTONS,  the,  Part  XIV.  chap.  Ixxx.,  48 
— chap.  Ixxxi.,  55 — chap.  Ixxxii.,  59 — 
chap.  Ixxxiii.,  60  —  Part  XV.  chap. 
Ixxxiv.,  151 — chap.  Ixxxv.,  152 — chap. 
Ixxxvi.,  Vivian — at  the  entrance  of  life 
sits  the  mother,  ib.— chap.  Ixxxvii., 
The  preceptor,  155 — chap.  Ixxxviii., 
The  hearth  without  trust,  and  the  world 
without  a  guide,  157 — chap.  Ixxxix., 
The  attempt  to  build  a  temple  to  for- 
tune out  of  the  ruins  of  home,  159 — 
chap,  xc.,  The  results — perverted  am- 
bition, &c.,  160 — chap,  xci.,  164 — chap, 
xcii.,  165  —  chap,  xciii.,  167  —  chap, 
xciv.,  171 — Part  XVI.  chap,  xcv.,  277 
— chap,  xcvi.,  283 — chap,  xcvii.,  285 — • 
chap,  xcviii.,  286 — chap,  xcix.,  289 — 
chap,  c.,  290 — Part  the  Last,  chap,  ci., 
391— chap,  cii.,  393 — chap,  ciii.,  394— 
chap,  civ.,  396 — chap,  cv.,  397 — chap, 
cvi.,  400 — chap,  cvii.,  403— -chap,  cviii., 
405. 

Celtic  race,  character  of  the  Welsh,  335. 

Chapman's  Homer,  on,  257. 

Charles  II.,  sketches  of  the  time  of,  501, 
et  seq. 

CHARLES  LIMB,  133. 

Chartism,  prevalence  of,  in  Wales,  337. 

CHATEAUBRIAND'S  MEMOISS,  292. 

Chauteaubriand,  vanity  of,  300 — his  suc- 
cessive works,  301. 

Chatham,  Lord,  his  system  of  colonial 
policy,  471. 

Christ's  Hospital,  Charles  Lamb  at,  135. 

Christianity,  Christopher  on,  30. 

Christian  morality,  on,  30. 

Christina,  Spain  under,  704. 

CHRISTOPHER  UNDER  CANVASS,  tee  DIES 
BOREALES. 

Christopher  in  the  Sulks — a  sketch,  3. 

Church  of  England,  state  of  the,  in  Wales, 
333 — of  Scotland,  opposition  of,  to  the 
marriage  and  registration  bills,  266. 

CIVIL  REVOLUTION  IN  THE  CANADAS — A 
REMEDY,  471. 

Clamor  Publico,  the,  710. 

Classes  at  Yverdun,  the,  104. 

Classical,  on  the  significance  of,  25. 

Claudius  in  Hamlet,  on,  639,  646. 

Close  boroughs,  advantages  of  the,  111. 

Coal,  export  of,  from  Wales,  329,  330. 

Cobden,  review  of  the  career  of,  581, 
ct  seq. — speech  of,  at  the  Hungarian 
meeting,  591. 

Cockburn  of  Ormiston,  character  of,  351. 

Coleridge,  intimacy  of  Lamb  with,  136 — 
Talfourd's  account  of,  142. 

Colonial  policy,  British  system  of,  471. 


Colonies,  effects  of  the  protective  system 
on,  110 — virtually  disfranchised  by  the 
Reform  Bill,  113  —  influence  of  the 
transportation  system  on  their  com- 
merce, 527. 

Comic,  present  rage  for  the,  145. 

Commerce,  effects  of  the  protection  sys- 
tem on,  110 — effects  of  the  new  cur- 
rency system  on,  123 — colonial,  influ- 
ence of  the  transportation  system  on, 
527. 

Commons,  house  of,  all  classes  represented 
in,  prior  to  the  Reform  Bill,  111. 

Confiscations,  the  revolutionary,  in 
France,  225. 

Conjuror,  the,  692. 

Constitution,  the  German,  and  its  rejec- 
tion, 425. 

Consumer  and  producer,  different  in- 
terests of,  112. 

Convict  system,  general  review  of  the, 
519,  et  seq. 

Convicts,  instruction  of,  in  a  trade,  520. 

Copper,  smelting,-  £c.  of,  in  Wales,  329, 
330. 

Cordova,  General,  in  Italy,  709. 

Corn  Laws,  the  abolition  of  the,  115. 

Corunna,  the  embarkation  at,  G96. 

Cotton  manufactures,  profits  &c.  on,  in 
America,  473. 

Cowan,  Mr,  on  the  game  laws,  68. 

Crichton,  Mr,  on  game-law  prosecutions, 
70. 

Crime,  increase  of,  126,  773 — statistics  of, 
for  Wales,  332 — statistics  of  recent, 
519. 

Criminals,  reformation  of,  in  New  South 
Wales,  526. 

CROWNING  OF  THE  COLUMN,  the,  and  th 
Crushing  of  the  Pedestal,  108. 

Cruachan,  thunder-storm  on,  8. 

Cuba,  state  of,  prospects  of  its  separation 
from  Spaiu,  &c.,  Tll.et  seq. 

Cunninghame,  Mr,  on  the  reformation  of 
convicts,  526. 

Currency  system,  the  new,  and  its  effect?, 
122,  756,  759,  et  seq. 

Davenant,  Dr  Charles,  on  the  national 
debt,  663. 

Dead,  mourning  for  the,  in  Sardinia,  43.  ' 

Death,  Butler's  argument  regarding,  382. 

Delta,  Disenchantment  by,  563. 

Democracy,  error  of  principle  of,  222. 

Democratic  tendencies  in  Wales,  influ- 
ence of  dissent  on,  337. 

De  Ruyter,  Admiral,  511. 

DIARY  OF  SAMUEL  PEPYS,  501. 

Dickens,  the  works  of,  380. 

Dies  Boreales,  No.  I.,  sonnet  on  reading,  18. 

DIES  BOREALES,  No.  II.  Christopher 
under  canvass,  1 — Christopher  in  the 
sulks,  a  sketch,  3 — on  temper,  5 — a 
thunder-storm,  6,  et  seq. — Virgil's  de- 
scription of  thunder,  11 — Lucretius', 
15— Thomson's,  16— arrival  of  Talboy.?, 
17 — on  the  signification  of  classical,  25 


1849.]  Index. 

— on  scholarship,  27 — on  beauty  and 
morals,  29 —  Christianity  and  its 
morality,  30 — Scepticism  and  its  re- 
sults, 31 — No.  III.,  on  impersonation, 
238— Shakspeare,  239 — Inishail  and 
its  churchyard,  240 — Gray's  elegy,  ib. — 
on  Alison  and  Virgil,  246 — on  a  pas- 
sage in  Hamlet,  252 — and  one  in 
Homer,  255 — the  self-snstaimnent  of 
the  Homeric  heroes,  258 — Alison's 
Essay  on  Taste,  259— -on  virtue  and 
vice,  2GO — influence  of  religion  on  art, 
26 1— on  materialism,  262— No.  IV.  363 
— a  rain  storm,  364 — on  angling,  366 
— on  Byron's  description  of  the  Cli- 
tumnus,  367 — and  of  Velino,  372 — on 
immortality,  and  Butler's  argument  for 
it,  380— No.  V.  on  Macbeth,  620.  j 

DISENCHANTMENT,  by  A,  563. 

Disraeli's  Essay  on  the  literary  character, 
297. 

Dissent,  statistics  of,  in  Wales,  333— fos- 
tering of  chartism  by,  there,  338. 

DOMINIQUE,  a  sketch  from  life  :  the  two 
students,  77 — Mother  and  Son,  79 — 
The  double  duel,  83 — Five  years  later, 
85 — The  Horse-riders,  87 — Foes  and 
Friends,  91. 

Dormitory  at  Yverdun,  the,  99. 

DOUBLEDAY'S  FINANCIAL  HISTORY  OP  ENG- 
LAND, review  of,  655. 

Dream- Fugue  on  sudden  death,  a,  75Q. 

Dreams,  the,  in  Shakspeare,  642. 

Drysdale  versus  Jamieson,  game-law  de- 
cision in,  75. 

Dudevant,  Madame,  La  Petite  Fadette 
by,  607. 

Dumas,  Alexandra,  recent  novels  of,  610 

—works  announced  by,  619. 

Dutch,  naval  contests  of  the,  with  Eng- 
land, 509. 

Dyer,  George,  141. 

Earth,  peninsular  tendency  in  the,  461 — 
its  interior,  462. 

Eas-a-Bhrogich,  cave  at,  9. 

Ecclesiastical  property,  abuses  connected 
with,  in  Wales,  354. 

Economists,  rise  of  the,  113. 

Education,  sketches  of  the  Pestalozzian 
system  of,  93,  et  seq. — relations  of  crime 
in  Great  Britain  to,  520. 

Ehrenberg,  discoveries  of,  regarding  the 
Infusoria,  466. 

Eichbald,  Lieutenant,  in  Baden,  208, 210. 

Eleanora,  Guidicessa  of  Sardinia,  39. 

Electric  Telegraph,  proposed  introduction 
of,  into  Spain,  721. 

Embarkation,  the,  696. 

Emigrants,  annual  number  of,  5  37. 

Emigration,  increase  of,  under  the  free- 
trade  system,  126,  77'2 — its  expense  to 
different  localities,  533. 

Emulation,  rejection  of,  by  Pestalozzi,  95. 

Enfant  Trouve*  of  Paris,  the,  226. 

Enghien,  the  Due  d',  conduct  of  Chateau- 
briand on  the  murder  of,  304. 


781 

England,  growth  of,  under  the  navigation 
laws  and  restrictive  system,  108 — feel- 
ing of  alienation  in  Wales  from,  327 — 
crime  in,  compared  with  Wales,  332 — 
the  naval  contest  of,  with  the  Dutch, 
509 — statistics  of  crime  in,  519. 

ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH,  or  the  glory  of 
motion,  485 — going  down  with  victory, 
496 — continuation  :  the  Vision  of  Sud- 
den Death,  741. 

English  autobiographies,  rarity  of,  299 — 
language,  partial  diffusion  of  the,  in 
Wales,  328. 

Enzio,  King  of  Sardinia,  sketch  of,  38. 

Erbe,  one  of  the  Bad«n  insurgents,  203. 

Essai  Historique,  Lamartine's,  301. 

Evelyn,  the  diary  of,  502 — account  of 
Lady  Frances  Stuart  by,  515. 

Expatriation,  effects  of,  in  reforming  cri- 
minals, 525,  et  seq. 

Exports,  decrease  of,  123 — colonial,  influ- 
ence of  the  transportation  system  on, 
527 — influence  of  free  trade  on,  765. 

Famille  Recour,  the,  609. 

Farmers,  alleged  injury  from  game  to  the, 
73 — and  farming  in  Wales,  state  of, 
330 — of  Canada,  effects  of  the  restric- 
tive system  on,  476. 

Female  characters  of  Shakspeare,  the,239- 

Fergusson  on  Gray's  elegy,  242. 

Feudal  system,  alleged  origin  of  the 
game  laws  with  the,  66. 

Fickler,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents,  206, 
208,  211. 

Finance,  importance  of  the  subject  of,  and 
general  ignorance  regarding  it,  655. 

Finances,  the  French,  effects  of  the  late 
revolution  on,  232 — the  Russian,  Cob- 
den  on,  595 — the  Spanish,  statistics  re- 
garding, 711,e«  seq. 

Fire  of  London,  the,  508. 

Fleet,  the  English,  state  of,  under  Charles 
II.  510. 

Foreign  interference,  Whig,  586. 

Foreign  shipping,  increase  of,  under  the 
reciprocity  system,  117. 

Foudras,  the  Marquis  de,  novels  of,  609. 

Foundlings,  numbers  of,  in  Paris,  226. 

Fountainhall's  diary,  on,  502. 

FRANCE,  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1848  IN, 
Lamartine's  account  of,  219. 

Franchise,  practical  extent  of  the,  before 
the  Reform  Bill,  111. 

FRANCIS'  CHRONICLES  OF  THE  STOCK  EX- 
CHANGE, review  of,  655. 

Frankfort  parliament, the, and  itsfall,425. 

Frankfort,  occupation  of,  by  the  Prussians, 
427 — atrocities  of  the  Red  republicans 
in,  598. 

FREE  TRADE  AT  ITS  ZENITH,  756. 

Free  trade,  review  of  the  effects  of,  108. 

FRENCH  NOVELS  OF  1849,  the,  607— auto- 
biographies, multitude  and  character 
of,  298 — materialism,  on,  261. 

Frbbel,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents,  208. 

Funding  system,  general  ignorance  re- 


HAS 

and 


garding  the,  655 — evils  accruing  from 
it,  666. 

Fuorisciti  in  Sardinia,  the,  41.' 

Gagern,  Herr  von,  435. 

Game,  increased  consumption  of,  71. 

GAME  LAWS  IN  SCOTLAND,  the,  63 — exa- 
mination of  the  arguments  against,  68 
— alleged  cost  of  prosecutions  under,  69. 

Gang  system  for  convicts,  evils  of  the,  532. 

Gayford,  Mr,  on  the  injury  done  by  game, 
69. 

Genie  du  Christianisme,  Chateaubriand's, 
301. 

Gentilhommes  Chasseurs,  the,  610. 

Gentry,  the  Welsh,  character  of,  335,  338. 

Geography,  physical  and  general,  distinc- 
tion between,  460,  461. 

George  II.,  debt  contracted  under,  666. 

German  unity,  failure  of  the  realisation 
of,  424. 

GERMANY,  REVOLUTIONARY,  WHAT 
SHE  ATTAINED  ?  424 — northern 
southern,  disunion  between,  428. 

Gibbon's  autobiography,  on,  292. 

Girardin,  M.  during  the  revolution  of 
1848,227. 

Girondists,  Lamartine's  History  of  the, 
220,  221. 

Giudici  in  Sardinia,  the,  37. 

Glasgow,  increase  of  pauperism  in,  127, 
772 — the  Queen's  visit  to,  361. 

Godwin,  William,  Talfourd's  sketch  of, 
141. 

Goegg,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents,  206, 
208,  211. 

Goethe,  on  the  autobiography  of,  295 — 
the  centenary  of,  435. 

Good  temper,  Christopher  on,  5. 

Gore  district  in  Canada,  state  of,  473. 

Government,  indifference  of  the,  to  Scot- 
tish affairs,  264. 

Grain,  importation  of,  under  the  free-trade 
system,  118, 119,  766. 

Grammont's  memoirs,  on,  501. 

GRANGE,  LADY,  new  light  on  the  story  of, 
347. 

Gravitation,  Sir  J.  Herschel  on,  459. 

Gray's  Elegy,  on,  240. 

Great  Britain,  progress  of,  under  the 
navigation  laws,  108  —  her  colonial 
policy,  471 — her  position  in  relation  to 
the  continental  powers,  587 — origin  of 
the  national  debt  of,  657,  662— state  of, 
under  James  II.,  657 — progress  of  the 
national  debt,  666. 

Greeks  and  their  poetry,  Christopher  on, 
25 — emblems  employed  by  the,  for  im- 
mortality, 380. 

GREEX  HAND,  the,  Part  III.,  183— Part 
IV.,  305— Part  V.,  436— Part  VI.,  723. 

Grey,  Earl,  on  the  Reform  Bill,  146. 

Groben,  General  Von,  in  Baden,  214. 

Grove,  Mr,  on  the  co-relation  of  the  phy- 
sical sciences,  460. 

Gurney,  Mr,  on  the  cost  of  the  army.  &c., 
763. 


Index.  [Dec. 

Guy,  Thomas, founder  of  the  hospital,  669. 
Gwynne,  Nell,  Pepys'  account  of,  516. 
Hamlet,  on  a  passage  in,  252. 
Hazlitt,  Talfourd's  account  of,  143. 
Hecate  of  Shakspeare,  the,  625. 
Hecker-Lied,  the,  435. 
Heidelberg,  the  insurrection  in,   206 — • 

entrance  of  the  Prussians  into,  214. 
Helene,  remarks  on,  607. 
Herschel,  Sir  J.,  on  gravitation,  459. 
Heskir,  imprisonment  of  Lady  Grange  at, 

347. 
Hesse-Darmstadt,  revolutionary  attempt 

at,  208. 

Heyne  on  the  Homeric  heroes,  257. 
Highlanders,  improvement  in  the  charac- 
ter of  the,  336. 

Himalayas,  heights,  &c.,of  the,  462. 
Hirschfeld,  General,  in  Baden,  212. 
History,  association  of,  with  locality,  655. 
H'Lassa,  city  of,  463. 
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen,  acquisition  of, 

by  Prussia,  434. 
Homer,  the  dreams  in,  642. 
Hope  of  Rankeillour,  connexion  of,  with 

the  case  of  Lady  Grange,  348,  350. 
Hospitality,  Sardinian,  anecdotes  of,  42. 
Hugo,  Victor,  and  the  Peace  Congress, 

583— his  Notre  Dame,  655. 
Humboldt's  Cosmos,  remarkson,456,ef*ey. 
Hume's  Autobiography,  on,  293. 
Hungary,  the  movement  in,  its  objects, 

&c.,  588 — meeting  to  sympathise  with 

it,  590 — the  executions  in,  599. 
Hay,  Lord,  353,  355. 
Imitation  not  the  perfection  of  art,  412. " 
Immortality,  Christopher  on,  32 — Butler's 

argument  for,  380,  et  seq. 
Impersonation,  on,  238,  645,  646. 
Imports,  increase  of,  123,  766. 
Imprisonment,  experienced  inefficiency  of, 

519 — its  expense,  521 — causes  of  its 

failure,  522. 
India,  completion  of  the  British  empire 

in,  108. 
Industry,  effects  of  the  late  revolution  on, 

in  France,  233. 
Inishail,  churchyard  in,  240. 
Insects,  formation  of  rocks  by,  465,466  — 

those  of  America,  467. 
INSURRECTION  IN  BADEN,  the,  206. 
Intellect,  predominance  of,  in  France, 299. 
Ireland,  the  round  towers  of,  36 — the 

Queen's  visit  to,  361 — recent  statistics 

of  crime  in,  522 — depressed  state  of 

agriculture  in,  774. 
Irish,  resemblance  of  the  Sardes  to  the,  40 

— transported  convicts,  superiority  of, 

and  its  causes,  531. 

Iron,  produce,  &c.,  of,  in  Wales,  329, 330. 
Irreligion,  influence  of,  in  France,  224. 
Italy,  proceedings  of  Lord  Minto  in,  587 

— the  Spanish  army  in,  709. 
James  II.,  revenue,  &c.,  of  Great  Britain, 

under,  657. 
Jean  le  Trouveur.  romance  of,  612. 


1849.] 


Index. 


783 


Jeffrey's  exposition  of  Alison  on  Taste,  on, 
13. 

Jews,  revolutionary  tendency  of  the,  in 
Germany,  435 — early  connexion  of  the, 
with  stock -jobbing,  663. 

Johnson,  BoswelPs  life  of,  296. 

JOHNSTON'S  PIIYSICAL  ATLAS,  review  of, 
456. 

Joint-stock  companies,  rise  of,  669 — those 
of  1823,  &c.,  673. 

JONATHAN  IN  AFRICA,  172. 

Journalists,  the,  the  leaders  of  revolution 
in  France,  219 — their  political  predo- 
minance there,  299. 

KALOOLAH,  review  of,  172. 

Kames,  Lord,  on  Virgil's  description  of 
thunder,  12. 

Khoouawur,  pass  of,  463. 

Knight,  Payne,  on  Virgil's  ^Eneas,  375 — 
on  Macbeth,  621. 

Kossuth,  views  of,  in  Hungary,  589. 

Krauss,  Major,  690. 

Labouchere,  Mr,  on  Canada,  478. 

Ladenburg,  skirmish  at,  212. 

LAMARIINE'S  REVOLUTION  OF  1848,  219  — 
on  his  history  of  the  Girondists,  220, 
221 — his  Confidences,a,ud  Raphael,  298, 
301— his  vanity,  300. 

LAMB,  CHARLES,  133 — Miss  Mary,  137. 

Lamoriciere,  General,  during  the  June 
conflict,  231. 

Land,  the  protective  system  in  its  rela- 
tions to,  111. 

Landed  interest,  predominance  given  by 
the  Reform  Bill  over  the,  113. 

Landscape  painter,  qualifications  neces- 
sary for  the,  412. 

Language,  effects  in  Wales  of  the  differ- 
ences of,  327. 

La  Patrie  on  the  industrial  state  of 
France,  233. 

Laudenbach,  revolutionary  attempt  at, 
208. 

Lawrence,  (U.S.,)  rise  of,  472. 

Le  Grice,  Mr,  account  of  Charles  Lamb 
by, 135. 

Leiningen,  Prince,  manifesto  of,  434. 

Lloyd,  Charles,  139. 

Locke  on  the  principles  of  trade,  777. 

London,  consumption  of  game  in,  72 — 
importation  of  grain  into,  120 — the 
great  plague  of,  506— the  fire  of,  508— 
importation  of  grain  into,  767. 

London  Tavern,  Hungarian  meeting  at, 
590. 

Long  Parliament,  revenue  raised  by  the, 
657. 

Lopez,  Mannasseh,  stock  exchange  fraud 
by,  668. 

Lord  Advocate,  the,  his  Marriage  and 
Registration  bills,  263. 

Lotteries,  evils,  &c.,  of  the,  671. 

Louis  Philippe,  conduct  of,  during  the 
revolution  of  1848,  227,  228-  intrigues 
of,  in  Spain,  722. 
VOL.  LXVI. — KO.  CCCCX. 


Lovat,  Lord,  connexion  of,  with  the  case 
of  Lady  Grange,  347. 

Lowell,  rapid  progress  of,  472. 

Lucretius,  description  of  thunder  by,  15. 

Lyell,  Mr,  on  gradual  subsidence  and  up- 
heaval, 465. 

Lyndhurst,  Lord,  Lord  Campbell's  attack 
wn,  131. 

LYNMOUTH  REVISITED,  412. 

Macaulay,  Mr,  examination  of  his  picture 
of  England  under  the  Stuarts,  658. 

Macbeth,  criticisms  on  tragedy  of,  621, 
et  seg. — Lady,  on  the  character  of,  622. 

Mackay,  J.  R.,  revelations  of  parliamen- 
tary bribery  by,  666. 

M'Neill,  Mr,  on  the  proposed  Marriage 
and  Registration  bills,  266,  270. 

Madden,  Mr,  on  the  state  of  Cuba,  711, 
et  seq. 

MAIL-COACH,  the,  or  the  glory  of  motion, 
485 — going  down  with  victory,  496 — 
continued,  741. 

Malta,  proposed  to  be  made  a  penal  colony, 
535. 

Malte  Brun  on  the  transportation  system, 
528. 

Malthus,  Mr,  on  the  corn-law  question, 
777. 

Man  that  wasn't  drowned,  the,  691. 

Manasa,  lake  of,  463. 

Manchester,  (U.S.,)  rise  of,  472. 

Manning,  letters  of  Lamb  to,  147. 

Manufactures,  protective  system  toward, 
110 — French,  effects  of  the  late  revolu- 
tion on,  233 — progress  of,  in  the  United 
States,  471 — profits  on  them  there,  473 
— of  Spain,  the,  719. 

Manufacturing  population  of  Wales,  cha- 
racter, &c.,  of  the,  329. 

Mar,  the  Earl  of,  352 — Lady,  354,  et  seq. 

Mardi,  remarks  on,  IT 2. 

Marriage  bill,  the  proposed  Scottish,  263. 

Massachusetts,  advantages  from  manu- 
factures to,  472. 

Materialism,  on,  261. 

MAYO'S  KALOOLAH,  review  of,  172. 

.Medina  the  Jew,  CO 3. 

Meiroslawski,  the  leader  of  the  Baden  in- 
surgents, 210,  212. 

MELVILLE'S  REDBURN,  review  of,  567 — 
Mardi,  remarks  on,  172. 

Mery,  M.,  le  Transporte  by,  619. 

Metternich,  a  Baden  leader,  208. 

Meyer,  Dr,  329. 

Military,  revolt  of  the,  in  Baden,  430. 

Milnes,  R.  M.,  the  Hungarian  question 
brought  forward  by,  590. 

Miners  of  Wales,  character  of  the,  329, 33 1 . 

Miuto,  Lord,  proceedings  of,  in  Italy,  587. 

Mitford,  Rev.  Mr,  on  Gray's  elegy,  242. 

Monetary  crises,  danger  of,  762,  771. 

Moneyed  interest,  rise  of  the,  112 — its 
origin  with  the  Revolution,  663. 

Monitorial  system,  the,  as  used  by  Pesta- 
lozzi,  95. 

3F 


784 


Index. 


[Dec. 


Monkey  and  the  cat,  the,  698. 

Monmouth,  the  Duke  of,  Pepys'  account 
of,  51fi. 

Montemolin,  the  Count,  character,  &c.  of, 
707. 

Montpensier,  the  Due  de,  weakness  of, 
during  the  Revolution,  228. 

Moore's  life  of  Byron,  on,  295. 

MORAL  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITION  OF  WALES, 
the,  326. 

Morality,  state  of,  in  Wales,  333. 

Morals,  impossibility  of  a  definite  stan- 
dard of,  29. 

Moroseness,  Christopher  on,  5. 

Mosquito,  the,  467. 

Motion,  the  glory  of,  485. 

Mountains,  Mrs  Somerville,  &c.  on,  462. 

Murder  tragedies,  on,  646. 

Murillo,  financial  schemes,  &c.  of,  720. 

Murray,Mr  Dundas,  his  "Andalusia,"  705. 

My  Dream,  702. 

MY  PENINSULAR  MEDAL,  Part  I.,  chap,  i., 
539 — chap,  ii.,  544 — chap,  iii.,  556 — 
Part  II.  chap,  iv.,  678 — chap,  v.,  683— 
chap,  vi.,  690. 

Napoleon,  Chateaubriand's  account  of,  303. 

NARVAEZ,  SPAIN  UNDER,  704 — ministry, 
the  recent  displacement  of,  722. 

National  character,  the  Welsh,  335. 

National  debt,  introduction  of  the,  by 
William  III.,  662— its  progress,  666— 
the  Spanish,  714. 

NATIONAL  DEBT  AND  STOCK  EXCHANGE, 
the,  655. 

National  guard  of  Paris,  desertion  of  the 
Assembly  by  the,  229. 

National  independence,  danger  to  the,  768. 

Natural  children,  numbers,  &e.  of,  in 
Paris,  226. 

Naturalist,' the,  696. 

Nature  as  a  revelation,  on,  31. 

Navigation  laws,  growth  of  England  un- 
der, and  effects  of  their  repeal,  108. 

Nelson  on  the  importance  of  Sardinia,  33. 

Nemours,  the  Due  de,  229. 

New  South  Wales  and  the  convict  system, 
on,  526,  et  seq. — resolutions  of  council 
of,  in  favour  of  transportation,  529. 
Nicholl's  diary,  on,  502. 
Niti  pass,  the,  463. 
Nobility,  present    powerlessness    of,    in 

France,  219. 

Noraghe  of  Sardinia,  the,  34,  35. 
North  American  colonies,  present  state  of 

the,  471. 

Oakville,  village  of,  its  history,  &c.,  473. 
Obscurity  as  an  element  of  the  sublime, 

on,  33. 

Ofienburgjthe  democratic  meeting  at,206. 
Orleans, the  Duchesse  d',her  heroism,  229. 
Osborne,  Mr  B.,  on  the  Hungarian  ques- 
tion, 590 — on  Russia,  595. 
Paci  in  Sardinia,  the,  41. 
Palmerston,  Lord,  the  interference  sys- 
tem of,  587 — on  the  Hungarian  ques- 
tion, 590. 


Paris,  number  of  foundlings,  £c.  in,  226 
— Lamartine's  account  of  the  June  con- 
flict in,  231 — finances  of,  after  the  Re- 
volution, 232 — the  peace  congress  at, 
583,  585. 

Parliament,   all   classes  represented   in, 
before  the  Reform  Bill,  111 — justice  of 
colonial  representation  in,  477 — bribing 
of,  under  William  III.,  664. 
Pauperism,  increase  of,  127. 
Payne  Knight,  see  KNIGHT. 
PEACE  AND  WAR  AGITATORS,  581. 
Peace  congress  at  Paris,  the,  583,  585. 
Pearson,  Mr,  on  the  state  of  crime,  520. 
Peasantry,  depressed  condition  of  the,  in 

Spain,  719 

Peel,  Sir  R.,  review  of  his  free-trade  mea- 
sures, 114,  756,  et  seq. 
Peninsulas,  Mrs  Somerville  on,  461. 
PEPYS,  DIARY  OF,  501. 
PESTALOZZIANA,  93 — the  dormitory,  99 — 

the  refectory,  101 — classes,  104. 
Peter,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents,  206, 

208,211. 

Petite  Fadette,  the,  607. 
Peucker,  General,  in  Baden,  214. 
PHILLIPS'  WALES,  &c.,  review  of,  32G. 
Phoenicians,  probable  settlement  of  the, 

in  Sardinia,  34. 
PHYSICAL  GEOGRAPHY,  456. 
Pinna  Marina,  the,  40. 
Pitt's  currency  system,  contrast  between, 

and  Peel's,  760. 
Plague  of  London,  the,  506. 
Planets,  irregularities  among  the,  459. 
Plutarch's  Lives,  on,  292. 
Poaching,  proportion  of  prosecutions  for, 

70. 

Poetry,  modern,  affectations  of,  340. 
Poetry,  For  the  last  page  of  our  album, 

205 — Disenchantment,  563. 
Poland,  Cobden  on,  593. 
Poles,  revolutionary  efforts  of  the,  601. 
Political  economy,  rise  of,  with  Adam 

Smith,  113. 

Pomptilla,  monument  to,  47. 
Poor-rates,  present  amount  of  the,  126, 772 
— progress  of  the,  from  James  II.,  660. 
Pope,  the,  Spanish  intervention  on  behalf 

of,  709. 

Population,  diminution  of  the,  773. 
Potato  rot,  alleged  influence  of  the,  763. 
Poussin,  Gaspar,  the  landscape  of,  413. 
Press,  the  Spanish,  state  of,  705. 
Prisoners,  advantages  of  industrial  in- 
struction to,  530. 
Producer  and  consumer,different  interests 

of,  112. 
Proprietors,  number  of,  iu  France,  and  its 

influence,  225. 
Protective  system,  growth   of  England 

under  the,  108. 

Prussia,  overthrow  of  the  Baden  insur- 
gents by,  212 — new   constitution    of, 
428 — occupation  of  Baden,  &c.  by,  433. 
Prussia,  the  Prince  of,  in  Baden,  212. 


1849.] 


Index. 


785 


Radicalism,  prevalence  of,  in  Wales,  337. 
Radnorshire,  predominance  of  English  in, 

328. 

Ragionatori  in  Sardinia,  41. 
Railroads  in  Massachusetts,  origin,  &c.  of 

the,  472. 

Railway  mania,  causes  of  the,  753. 
Railways,  depreciation  in,  773. 
Rain,  picture  of  a  storm  of,  364. 
Rainbow,  a,  10. 
Rastadt,  revolt   of,  430— its  surrender, 

431. 

Raveau,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents,  208. 
Reciprocity  system,  effects  of,  on  British 

and  foreign  shipping,  117. 
Red  republicans,   resistance  of  Lamar- 

tine  to  the,  230. 
REDBURN,  review  of,  567. 
Refectory  at  Yverdun,  the,  101. 
Reform  Bill,  change  as  regards  represen- 
tation by  the,  111,  113. 
Registration  bill,  the  proposed  Scottish, 

263. 
Religion,  influence  of,  on  art,  26'1 — state 

of,  in  Wales,  333. 

Representation,  practical  universality  of, 
before  the  Reform  Bill,  111 — justice  of 
colonial,  477. 

Revenue,  influence  of  free  trade  on,  765. 

Revolution,  class  by  which  headed,  in 

France,  219 -comparison   between  it 

and  war,  585. 

Revolution  of  1688,  origin  of  the  national 

debt  with  it,  657. 
Revolutions  of  1848,  alleged  influence  of 

the,  763. 
Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  the,  on  Spain, 

717. 
Reybaud,  Madame  Charles,  Helene,  &c. 

by,  607. 
Reynolds,  G.  W.  M.  at  the  Hungarian 

meeting,  597. 

Richard  III.,  on,  646,  647. 
Robbery,  prevalence  of,  in  Spain,  707. 
Roman  law,  the,  in  regard  to  game,  66. 
Rome,  effects  of  free  trade  in  grain  on, 
109 — the  insurgent  party  in,  587 — in- 
tervention of  Spain  in  affairs  of,  709. 
Romish  superstitions,  on,  44. 
Rosa,  Salvator,  the  landscape  of,  4 1 2. 
Rothschild,  Nathan,  sketch  of,  676. 
ROYAL  PROGRESS,  the,  359. 
Rousseau's  autobiography,  on,  293. 
"  Russia,  by  a  Manchester  manufacturer," 

extract  from,  594. 

Russia,  growth  of,  under  the  protective 
system,  109 — her  intervention  in  Hun- 
gary, 589 — Cobden  on  it,  591 — and  on 
her  finances,  594. 

Rutherford,  Mr,  his  Marriage  and  Regis- 
tration bills,  263. 
Sailors'  tickets,  jobbing  in,  669. 
St  Kilda,  Lady  Grange  imprisoned  at,  347. 
Salem,  (U.S.,)  rapid  progress  of,  472. 
Salomons,  Mr,  at  the  Hungarian  meeting, 
590,  596. 


Sand,  George,  La  Petite  Fadette,  by,  607. 

Sandwich,  the  Earl  of,  504. 

Sardes,  probable  origin  of  the,  34 — their 
resemblances  to  the  Irish,  40 — cus- 
toms, character,  &c.  of,  42. 

SARDINIA,  the  island  of,  33. 

Sardinia,  proceedings  of  Mr  Abercromby 
in,  587. 

Saxons,  crossing,  &c.,  of  the,  in  Britain, 
337. 

Scholar,  Christopher,  on  the,  27,  et  seq. 

Science,  rapid  revolutions  in,  458. 

Scotch,  races  from  which  derived,  337 — 
transported  convicts,  inferiority  of,  and 
its  causes,  531 — law,  principle  of  the, 
relative  to  game,  66. 

SCOTLAND,  THE  GAME  LAWS  IN,  63 — propor- 
tion of  game-law  prosecutions  in,  70 — 
necessity  of  a  secretary  of  state  for,  264 
— the  Queen's  visit  to,  1849,359 — recent 
statistics  of  crime  in,  519 — expense  of, 
the  imprisonment  system  in,  521. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  autobiography  of,  293 
— on  his  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian,  655. 

SCOTTISH  MARRIAGE  AND  REGISTRATION 
BILLS,  the,  263. 

Secondary  punishments,  best  system  of, 
519. 

Sepolture  de  is  Gigantes  in  Sardinia,  the, 
34,  36. 

Shakspeare,  on  the  female  characters  of, 
239 — criticisms  on  his  Macbeth,  62), 
etseq. — the  dreams  in,  642 — his  Richard 
III.,  646,  647. 

Sheerness,  capture  of,  by  the  Dutch,  511. 

Shepherd,  Mr,his  essay  on  the  game  laws, 
64,  69,  72. 

Shipping  interest,  effects  of  the  Reform 
Billon,  114— of  the  reciprocity  system, 
117. 

Sigel,  lieutenant,  one  of  the  Baden  insur- 
gents, 208,  209,  210. 

Sketcher,the,Lynmouth  revisited  by,  412. 

Sketching,  preparation  necessary  for,  413. 

Slaver,  sketches  on  board  of  a,  177. 

Sleep-walking  scene  in  Macbeth,  the,  643. 

Sluicy  Sam,  691. 

Smith,  Adam,  influence  of  his  Wealth  of 
Nations,  113—  free-trade  movement  due 
to,  219 — on  the  price  of  wheat,  658. 

Smith,  Bobus,  15. 

Smith  of  Chichester,  painting  by,  414. 

Smugglers,  the  Spanish,  717. 

Solar  system",  irregularities  in  the,  459. 

SOMERVILLE'S  PHYSICAL  GEOGRAPHY,  re- 
view of,  456. 

Sonnet,  "  A  friend  returned,"  18. 

South  sea  company,  origin  and  history  of 
the,  669. 

SPAIN  UNDER  NARVAEZ  AND  CHRISTINA, 
704. 

Spanish  bondholders,  proceedings  of  the, 
713. 

Speculation,  mania  for,  and  examples  of 
it,  672,  et  seq. 

Stag,  the  stock  exchange,  673. 


786 


Index. 


[Dec.  1849. 


Stalactite  cave  in  Sardinia,  a,  40. 
Stanley,  Lord,  reply  to  Lord  Campbell 

by,  131. 
Stevenson,   C.,  on  the  injury   done  by 

game,  69. 
Stock  exchange,  sketches  of  the,' 655 — 

frauds  on  it,  668. 
Stock-jobbing,  rise  of,  668. 
Storm,  gathering  of  a,  6. 
STRAYED  REVELLER,  the,  review  of,  340. 
Struve,  the  Baden  insurgent,  208,  211. 
Stuart,  Lord  Dudley,  605. 
Stuart,  the  Lady  Frances,  515. 
Stutgardt,  meeting  of  the  German  parlia- 
ment at,  425,  426. 
SUDDEN  DEATII,  VISION  OF,  741 — Dream  - 

fugue  on  it,  750. 
Sulkiness,  Christopher  on,  3. 
Superstitions,  Sardinian,  45. 
Sweden,  upheaval  and  subsidence  in,  465. 
Sznayda,  General,  in  Baden,  212. 
TALFOURD'S  FINAL  MEMORIALS  OF  LAMB, 

review  of,  133. 
Tariff,  the  new  Spanish,  717. 
Taste,  impossibility  of  a  standard  of,  29. 
Temper,  Christopher  on,  3,  et  seq. 
Tenant,  alleged  injury  from  the   game 

laws  to,  73. 
Thames,  entrance  of  the  Dutch  fleet  into 

the,  511. 
Thiers,  views  of,  on  the  first  Revolution, 

224— his  conduct  in  that  of  1848, 227. 
Thirlwall,  Dr,  329. 

Thomson's  description  of  thunder,  on,  16. 
Thunder,  Virgil's,  &c.,  descriptions  of,  1 1, 


Thunder-storm,  a  Highland,  6,  et  seq. 

Tibet,  fertility,  &c.,  of,  463. 

Times,  influence  of  the,  in  England,  219 

— account  of  the  state  of  France  by, 

232 — on  railway  depreciation,  773 — on 

Ireland,  774. 
Tin,  exportation,  &c.,  of,  from  Wales, 

330. 
Tories,  the, -early  opposition  of,  to  the 

national  debt,  665. 
Trade,  state  of,  123,  et  seq. 
TRANSPORTATION  QUESTION,  the,  519. 
Travellers,  intolerance  of,  toward  Romish 

superstitions,  44. 
Trial,  the,  695. 
Trout,  best  size  of,  22. 
Trutschler,  one  of  the  Baden  insurgents, 

208. 

Tunny  fishing  in  Sardinia,  40. 
Turkey,  position  of,  regarding  the  Hun- 
garian fugitives,  600. 
TVNDALE'S  SARDINIA,  review  of,  33. 
United    States,    system     of,    regarding 

manufactures,  471 — exports  per  head 

to,  527. 
Upper  Canada,  contrast  between,  and  the 

States,  473. 


Van  Diemen's  Land,  excess  of  convicts 
sent  to,  534. 

Vanity,  displays  of,  in  French  autobio- 
graphies, 298. 

Vegetable  life,  distribution,  &c.,  of,  468. 

Velino,  on  Byron's  description  of,  372. 

Vendetta  in  Sardinia,  the,  41. 

Vice,  relations  of,  to  beauty,  259. 

Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,  the,  610. 

Vienna,  atrocities  of  the  Red  republicans 
in,  599. 

Vincent,  the  Chartist  lecturer,  338. 

Virgil,  Alison  on,  criticised, 246 -Payne 
Knight  on,  375. 

Virtue,  relations  of,  to  beauty,  259. 

VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH,  THE,  741. 

Volcano,  changes  wrought  by  the,  465. 

Wages,  relations  of  prices  of  wheat  to, 
124. 

WALES,  THE  MORAL  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITION 
OF,  326 — the  report  of  the  commission- 
ers on,  ib. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  352,  353— parlia- 
mentary bribery  under,  666. 

War,  the  agitation  against,  581 — com- 
pared with  revolution,  585. 

Webster,  Mr,  on  American  manufactures, 
473. 

Welford  on  the  game  laws,  65. 

Wellington,  measures  of  national  defence 
urged  by,  769. 

Welsh  language,  predominance  of  the,  in 
Wales,  328. 

Wemyss,  Captain,  game-law  case  of,  75. 

West  Indies,  effects  of  negro  emancipa- 
tion on  the,  114 — free-trade  policy  to- 
ward, and  its  effects,  115,  775 — depre- 
ciation in,  116,  note — exports  per  head 
to,  527. 

Westminster  school,  taking  leave  of,  94. 

WHAT  HAS  REVOLUTIONISING  GERMANY 
ATTAINED  ?  424. 

Wheat,  prices  of,  at  various  times,  658 — 
average  price  of,  in  London,  757,  note. 

Whigs,  foreign  interference  system  of  the, 
586. 

White,  Jem,  a  friend  of  Lamb's,  136. 

William  III.,  introduction  of  the  national 
debt  and  the  bribery  system  under,  662. 

Wilson,  R.,  on  the  game  laws,  65. 

Witches  in  Macbeth,  on  the,  623,  625. 

Words,  Christopher  on  the  knowledge  of, 
27. 

Wordsworth,  letter  from  Lamb  to,  149. 

Working  classes,  condition  of  the,  under 
the  Stuarts,  659. 

Wortley  Montague,  Lady  Mary,  354,  et 
seq. 

Wurtemberg,  the  new  constitution  in,  42.0. 

Young,  Mr,  on  the  effects  of  the  recipro- 
city system,  &c.,  117. 

Yverdun,  Pestalozzi's  establishment  at,  93. 

Zund-nadel  musket,  the,  214. 


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