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rm-:

ALPHEUS FELCH HISTOfiOL LIBRAfir

BEQUEATHED

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN '

HON. ALPHEUS FEL.CH.

THE

ECLECTIC MAGAZINE

FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

MAY TO AUGUST, 1862.

'J -r-

W. H. BIDWELL, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED AT No. 5 BEEKMAN STREET

186 2.

JOHN A. GBAT,

PRIlfTBBy StBRKOTTPBR, AND BlKOBB,
Corecr of Frankfort nd Jacob 8V««C^
mS-PBOOr BUILDXBCi.

INDEX.

EMBELLISHMENTS.

1. Thk Tranplatorb of the Biblk — Rkv. Elias

Ri<;gs, D.D., Rev. William Goodbll, D.D.,
Rev. William Gottlieb SoBACFrLXR, D.D.
Engraved by Georiie E. Ferine. >

2. Hffi Royal Highness Prince Albert. Eagrayed

by George E. Ferine.
8. Fbof. S. F. B. Morse. Engraved by John Sar-

tain.
4. Captain John Ericsson. Engraved by George

E. Ferine.

African Population, 144

Alliteration, Specimen of, . . . . 430
Arctic Adventure, a Day of — St, Jameis Maga-
zine, 130

Armies of Europe, 287

Army and Navy Estimates — JhtbUn University

Magazine^ 26T

Artillery Prospects — Dublin Univertity Maga-
zine, 178

Ascents of the Volcano Orizava — Cotbum^B New

J/ontfUy, 91

Astronomy of the Ancients, Sir G. C. Lewis on —

North British Review, . . . 433

Austrian Rule in Tuscany — Chambers* $ Journal^ 122

Basilisk, the Modem — Chamberi^a Jounud^ 30

Bible Translators, 112

Biograpliical Sketches and Brief Memoranda of —
Albert, Prince, 283

Alfred the Great,

Belgiojoso, Madame la Prlncesse

Frivulce de,
Bonaparte, Louis Lucien, .
Bonaparte, Charles Louis, (Emperor,)
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,
Brunei, Sir Marc Isambard,
Charles II. of Spain,
Ericsson. Captain John,
Forbes, £Idward,
Goodell, William,
Irving, Washington, .
Lamb, Charles,
Larrey, ....
Hontauban, General, .
Morse, Samuel Finlcy Breese,
Keaselrode, Count,
Peabody, George,
Pitt. WUIiam, .
Richard III., .
Biggs, Ellas,

24
Christine

1
148
144

74
418
468
666
166
114
136

68
118
141
416
286
141
876
865, 659
116

Sehaufflcr, William Gottlieb, . . 115
Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Clercl de, 17
Wa erloo, the Prince of, (Wellington,) 140
Windischgratz, Prince, . . 285

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett — British Quar-
terly, 74 .

Browning's, Mrs., Last Poems — L^mdmi Eclectic, 851

Brunei, Sir Marc Isambard — Colhum's New
MonMy 418

By-gone Manners and Customs — Dublin Uni-
versity Magazine, . . . 842, 619

Canterbury and its Archbishops — BenHey's Mis-
cellany, 236

Casket of Jewels — Dublin University Mayazhie, 104
Charles II. of Spain, the Court of — National He-
view, 468

City of the Sun — Fraser's Magazine, . 178

Concerning the Sorrows of Childhood — Fraser's

Magazine, 78

CoT'templations of the Heavens, . . 146
Crystal Palace for the Parisians, . . 144
Curious Document, 144

Dinner-Tables and Table-Talkers — London Eclec-
tic, 191

Discoveries — ^New or OX^-^British Quarterly, 60
Dreamland — Beniley's Miscellany, . . 402

Electric Telegrap\i, 142

Electricity at WoA— McMillan's Magazine, 478
Engineers, Lives of the — British Quarterly, 328, 464
England, Comprehetoive History of — London

EeUetie, 101

Ethnologists, Battle of the— Temple Bar Maga-
zine, 331

Exhibition, the Great-^Openiog Ceremonial —
London Times^ 424

Fish, a Witness in a Court of Justice, . 286
Forbes, Edward, the Naturali8tw^«n//tf^5 Mis-
cellany, 166

Four-fold Biography — British Quarterly, . 208
French Clergy, Present Movements among the —
North Bntish Revieio, ... 864

INDEX.

Gfirdens on the Thames 431

Guses, Diffusion of, iu relation to Social Life —

Fraser^tt Magazine^ , . . . 835
Geistertodtenglocke, die — Dublin University

Magazine f 210

Gentle Voice, 287

GibralUr. Taking of, 143

Going On — Ftcuter's Magazin$, . . . 498
Great Scholars and Great Eaters, . • 550

Hares racing with Railway Trains,

Heart, the Human — Popular Science Review^

Humming-Birds — Freuer's Magasinc^

143
306
263

Jangle, in Regent's Park,.

286

LiTBRART Miscellanies — 140-144; 284-288;

428-432; 670-672

Lock- Jaw Cured, 432

London, the Growth of— 5/. Jamtit Magaxine^ 643

Madagascar, 143

Martyrs iu Palestine, History of the— Xomfon

Bevitw^ 813

Merrimac and Monitor^-L<>micm Quarterly^ 628

Mexico, Picture of, 187

Modern Philos'»phy. • 667

Monthly Science and Art — Chambers^ a Journal^ 263
Monument^ Great, in Russia, . . 140

Music and the Lyric Drama— ^o^umoi Review^

217, 815
Mj First and Last Partner — CharnJbtrs^s Jew-

nal, 274

Kon-Combatant Hero— C%am6«rt*t Journal, 118

Papal States, the Recent Rerolution in — Britieh

Quarterly^ 225

Paupers in England and Wales, . . 140

Phosphorescence of the Sea — Popular Science

Review^ 241

Physiological Phenomena — Ooiignani, , 481
Pitt, WilTiam, the Latter Teari of— Z>u6/m Uni-

vereity Magazine, . / • . 876

Poetry —

Death Ship, the— BmOfy** MieceOany, 184

I would not call thee mine, . . 141

Lamb's Epitaph — WOLiAif Wordsworto, 60
Last of his Race— J. W. Thirlwall, . 142
Life-Boat of Merey, the— Colburn'e Kew

Monthly, 90

Melancholy — ^Thomas Hood, 68

Near and the Heavenly Horixons — Lar,d<m

Review 804

Ocean, 430

Polar Stai^— WstTBT GiBSOV, . 287

Queen's Message, the, ... 88

Tempting Angel, the — St, Jamet^e Maga-
zine, 637

Waking Visions — Dublin Univereity Maga-
zine, 642

Water-Drinker's Song— Waifs and Strays, 298

Presence of Mind, 142

Prince, the, and the Jews at Jerusalem, . 430
Python and Pythoness — Chambert^s Journal, 301

Queen Victoria and the New Mausoleum, . 288

Railways, Facts about — British Quarterly, . 42

Regalia of England — Leisure Hour, . 413

Reign of Terror, the — Fraser's Magazim, . 483

Replanting France, 432

Richard the Third, Memoirs ot—Edinhwrgh Re-
view, 355, 669

Russia, its Weakness. See Plain Truths plainly
Spoken, 288

Syd Side of the Humorist's Life — London Eclec-
tic 57

Safety- Lamp, the First, .... 141
Savoy, House of-^North British Review, . 1
Social Life in Medieval England — British Quar-
terly, 289, 618

Statistics of 1862, 140

Stones, Artificial Precious — Popular Science Re-
view, 299

Sim's Atmosphere — Chambers^s Journal^ . 404
Suo, the, and Solar Phenomena— PopWar Sci-

ence Review, 247

Sun, tbe^ — what is it made of? — Leisure Hour, 460

Telescope, Mammoth, .... 286
Thousand Yean Ago ; or, Alfred the Great —

TUan, 24

Time and Space— 5^. Jameses Magazine, . 407
Tip-Top Styla, Samplt o( .... 148

Under the Sea and through the Barih^St.
Jamtiife Magamne^ .... 688

Virginia, the True Founder of— 5ir. Jameds Mag-

azMie,

893

Weddings and Funerals in Poland — Dublin Uni-
versity Maganne, .... 84

Whales, Enormous Capture of — Shetland Adver-
tiser, 430

Wind the Vital Current of the World— C%am-
berds Journal, 400

Woman, the True, 481

FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

MAY, 18 6 3.

HOUSE OF SAVOY,

The Princess Belgiojoso is one of the
most striking and original figures in co-
temporary biogiaphy ; and the vai-ied and
remarkable Incidenta in her career might
claim a prominent place in the annals of a
far more romantic age than that in which
she lives. Nobly born, ricli, and beauti-
ful, with every temptation to a life of ease
and luxury, she has again and again risk-
ed rank, and wealth, and life in the cause
of Italian independence; has undergone
the vicissitudes and liardahipa of poverty
and exile, rather than submit to the Aus-
trian yoke; Las lived to see the triumph
of that cause to wliich she has devoted
her existence; and has now the happiness
of beholding the whole of Italy, with the
exception of Rome and Venice, anited

■ Huloirt de la JUaiian dt Savoit. Par Mmc. U
PriDccwe Cbiutikb Tbitulce de Beloiojobo.
Faria: Uicbel L6^j Fibres, Libraires - Editeun.
18«0.

TOI* LVL— HO. I

under the constitutional scepter ofVictor
Emmanutl. She is the daughter of Gero-
nimo-Isidoro, Marquis of Trivnlzio, and
was born in Lombardy in the summer of
1608. In 1824, she married the Piince of
Barbian and Belgiojoso. During the
earher part of her married life, ber high
rank, wit, and varied accomplishments
rendered her the object of general admir-
ation and homage; and at Milan, the
ancient and beautiful capital of Lombar-
dy, she was a leader of fashion, and a dis-
tinguished patroness of artists and men
of letters. But she soon became dissatis-
fied with such a career, and, deeply sen-
sible of the wrongs oK Italy, determined
to devote all the energies of her life to the
cause of Italian freedom.

For the last thirty yet^is she has been ':.
one of the moat zealous supporters of tha %;
party of action, and has rehiuned true to ^ .
It through every fiuctuattoo of fortune.

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

[May,

Weaned of a tranquil and luxurious life
at Milan, she went to reside in Paris,
where her talents and political opinions
l)rocured her the friendship of the most
distinguished writers and statesmen of the
day, particularly of Mignet, and of Augus-
tine Thierry. In 1848, she returned to
Milan, and entered heart and hand into
the ill-planned and worse conducted Ital-
ian revolution. At her own expense she
raised and equipped a body of cavalry,
which, according to some accounts, she
led in person against the Austrians ; and
during her brief military career, she is
said to have displayed, on several occa-
sions, a courage and presence of mind that
would have done credit to the most exper-
ienced soldier. After the total defeat of
the Italians by Radetzky, she was banish-
ed from Italy, and her possessions were
confiscated by the Austrian government.
She then sought an asylum in the East,
and during her exile, often endured great
hardships, though she was generously
treated by the Sultan, whd gave her a
grant of land on the Gulf of Nicomedia
for herself and the banii^ed Italians who
had followed her fortunes.

It was about this time that she began
to distinguish herself by her literary aWl-
ities. In 1850, her Souvenirs d* Mcil2L\^'
• o^red in the National; and an account
of her voyage to Asia Minor was subse-

** quently published in the Revue des deux
ifondes^ to which she has since been a
frequent contributor. In 1855, she was
permitted to return to Italy, and her pos-
sessions were restored by the amnesty of
the Emperor Francis Joseph. But suffer-
ings, misfortunes, and the progress of
years had so little cooled the ardor of her
patriotism, that previously to the war
which finally destroyed the Austrian as-
cendency in Italy, she was one of the
most active and indefatisAble agents of
the late lamented Count Cavour — travel-
ing from place to place, holding confer-
ences, smoothing differ^ces, reconciling
republicans and constitutionalists, and
gaining new friends and allies. In 1858
she lost her husband ; but she still contin-
ues to devote herseff with characteristic
activitv to politics and literature.

A history of the House of Savoy comes
with singular grace and appropriateness
from this Italian heroine, who for so many
years has been one of the steadiest sup-

' porters of the cause of unity and independ
ence^ as well as one of the most devoted

adherents of that great old family ; and
who, to an intimate acquaintance with the
politics and history of Italy, unites liter-
ary abilities which have won the approba-
tion of the best judges of literary merit
both in Italy and in France. We do not,
indeed, think that the Princess has added
much to the information contained in
Guichenon's learned, elaborate, and costly
work on the House of Savoy, and in Gal-
lenga's more accessible and popular His-
tory of Piedmont. But she has succeed-
ed in compressing within the compass of
a single volume, a distinct and well-writ-
ten account of one of the most illustrious,
and certainly the most ancient, of the
reigning houses of Europe. The narra-
tive in which she recounts the events of
the long period of upward of eight cen-
turies, during which, more than forty an-
cestors of the present King of Italy have
swayed the scepter of Savoy, as Counts,
Dnkes, or Kings, is always clear and often
picturesque. Happily for the interest of
her work, the great majority of these
Princes have been wise, brave, and for-
tunate ; while the lives of several of the
Counts are full of romance and adventure,
and abound in instances of personal prow-
ess and gallant achievements in Europe, in
the Holy Land, in the Greek Empire, and
in the islands of the Mediterranean. Yet
even these, though gallant knights ns ever
couched lance, and strongly imbued with
the chivalrous madness of the age in which
they lived, were at the same time distin-
guished by the common-sense, and cau-
tious, far-sighted policy, that has since
characterized their descendants. While
fighting for the cause of heaven, they nev-
er lost sight of the interests of earth, and
seldom suffered themselves to be dazzled
or seduced into forgetfulness of the essen-
tial interests of their dynasty.

A circumstance that can not fail to strike
even the most superficial student of the
history of the House of Savoy, is the un-
usually large number of distinguished men
it has produced. In the history of most
other sovereign houses such men are the ex-
ception ; here they are the rule. It might
be possible to point out other dynasties
that have risen from smaller beginnings
to greater power, but it would not be
easy to fix upon any where territorial ag-
grandizement and political influence have
been more manifestly the results of wis-
dom and valor. It i:^ in consequence of
this union of political sagacity and war-

1862.]

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

like conracfe that the descendant of Hum-
bert the White-handed, the founder of the
family, who was lord of only a small Al-
pine territory environed by more power-
ful states, now rules over twenty millions
of subjects, and the whole of the fair Ital-
ian peninsula, with the exception of Rome
and Venice. The Princess Belgiojoso,
whose most cherished aspiration is the
fusion of the different nationalities of Italy
into one great people, and the destruction
of all foreign rule, sees in the history of
the House of Savoy the finger of Provi-
dence visibly marking it out as the destin-
ed regenerator of Italy ; and her chief ob-
ject in publishing the present volume is
to influence public opinion in Europe in
favor of her views, by a popular'narrative
of the too little known history of the an-
cestors of Victor Emmanuel.

We propose at present — taking the
Princess Belgiojoso for our guide — 16 nar-
rate some of the most interesting and ro-
mantic incidents in the history of the
House of Savoy, and to sketch the carder
of some of its greatest Princes. The earr
liest sovereigns were simply Counts of
Savoy and Slaurienne, owning a sterile
domain in the heart of the Cottian Alps,
and twelve towns, of which Cliambery and
Geneva were the chief The period occu-
pied by the history of the Counts extends
from the reign of Humbert I. — who, in
common with the Electoral House of
Saxony, was a descendant of the great
Duke Wittikind, cotemporary with Charle
magne — to that of Araadeus VIII., created
Duke of Savoy by the Emperor Sigismund
in the early part of the fitleenth century.
The ducal period extends over throe cen-
turies, from Amadeus VIIL, to Victor
Amadeus I., who received the royal title
by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The
kingly period comprehends a century and
a half; and its most remarkable incident
unquestionably is the exchange, by the
present representative of the house, of the
title of King of Sardinia for the far nobler
one of King of Italy. The name of Vic-
tor Emmanuel will go down, with that of
Amadeus VIII., who raised his country
to a dukedom, and that of Victor Amad-
eus I., who raised the dukedom to a king-
dom, as having contributed even more
than they to the fortune of his dynasty,
by raising a third-rate monarchy to the
rank of a iirst-rate European power.

Humbert, the progenitor of the race,
was one of the most gallant warriors of

the early part of the eleventh century,
and the territories he received from the
Emperor Conrad , were the reward of
long and valuable services. His son Otto
married, in 1044, Adelaide, Countess of
Susa, daughter and heiress of Manfred,
Count of Turin and Marquis of Italy ; and
by this marriage acquired for his house a
great accession of power and territory.
The House of Savoy, like that of Austria,
has been singularly fortunate in its mat-
rimonial alliances. Guichenon gives a
list of forty royal or ducal houses who
have contracted alliances with it. " There
are," he says, " few sovereign houses in
Christendom who have not descendants
from the illustrions stock of Savoy. Six
Kings of Portugal have descended from
it ; six emperors of the East; seven Kings
of England ; four Kings of Arragon,
three of Sicily, four of Castile ; six Dukes
of Bavaria ; three Dukes of Milan, and
^ve Dukes of Ferrara." But, to a native
of this country, one of the most interesting
paits of the history of the Counts of Savoy
IS that which relates to the close connec-
tion which they for a long time maintain-
ed with the Royal House of England. In
1236, Eleanor, granddaughter of Count
Thomas I., praised by the old chroniclers
as a princess of marvelous beauty, married
Hfenry HI., of England ; while her si^l? r
wag wedded to his brother Richard Earl
of Cornwall, afterward elected Emperor ol
Gertaany.* For the accommodation of
his numerous relatives belonging to the
House of Savoy, Henry built the palace
in the Strand known as the " Savoy," the
last relics of which, with the exception of
the chapel, were pulled down in 1816, at
the time \)f the construction of Waterloo
Bridge. ^lany adventurers from Savoy
intermarried with the richest heiresses in
England, thus — according to Matthew
Paris — contaminating the best blood in
the kingdom by "the admixture of the
impure dregs of aliens." The names of
several of th^e Savoyard gentlemen
4 .

* The two remaiiKng granddaughters of Count
Thomas were married, Ihe one to Louis IX., King of
France, and the other t^ his brother Charles of An-
jou, afterward King of ^aples ; so that this whole
family of Savoyard rrinoe^ses attained the royal dig-
nity by their fortunate itarriages. Beatrice, the
wife of Charles of Aniou, h^ three granddaughters.
of whom two were Queens ^nd one on Empress ;
and Guichenon teHs us that fi^pm her were descend-
ed seven Kings of France, sev^i Kings of England,
three Kings of Sicily, and six ^pLings or Queens of
Hungary and Poland.

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

[May,

are perpetuated in existing families ; for
example, in Grandison, Fletcher, and But-
ler — originally Grandson, Butiller, and La
Flechiere. The Savoyards of these days
were among the most gallant knights in
Europe, and full of the chivalrous extrava-
gance of the age. On his first arrival in
England, Peter II., with fifteen Savoyard
and Vaudois knights, proposed to hold
the lists at Northampton against the whole
chivalry of England. Henry III. was
prodigal of his favor to this Count Peter,
conferring on him the manor of Richmond
and the earldom of Essex, and furnishing
him with large sums of money to enable
him to prosecute his ambitious designs in
Savoy and Switzerland. For a long time
the alliance between England and Savoy
continued unbroken ; but the Counts at
length, seduced by the pressing instances
of the French Kings, espoused the canse
of France, and often fought in her quarrel
against their former friends. Thus, at the
siege of Bruckberg, toward the close of
the fourteenth century, Amadeus VII.,
surnamed the Red Count, during a tour-
nament held before the walls of the place,
is said to have defeated the Earl of Hunt-
ingdon with the lance^ and the Earls of
Arundel and Pembroke with sword and
battle ax.

One of the most glorious names in the
history of the Counts of Savoy is that of
Amadeus v., surnamed the Great, (1285-
1323.) Like several of his predecessors,
he was upon intimate terms with the royal
family of England, and was employed in
impoitant negotiations between the Kings
of England and France. He was present
at the marriage of Edward H. with Isa-
bella of Valois, and alsoal Ed\rard's cor-
onation. He was a firm adherent of the
Emperor of Germany, and received from
him many marks of distinction and re-
gard. His most famous exploit was his
expedition to Rhodes, to aid the knights
of St. John against the infidels — an expe-
dition, however, which belongs rather to
the domain of romance than to that of
history. But it is peculiarly dear to the
chroniclers of his hause, according to
whom, Amadeus conducted in 1316, a
powerful armament to Rhodes, then be-
leaguered by the Turks, and compelled
them to raise the Aege. During this ex-
pedition, he 18 said to have substituted a
white cross on a red shield for the im-
perial eagle, the original cognizance of
the House of Savoy, and to have adopted

for his motto the mysterious device F. E.
R. T., interpreted by the chroniclers to
mean "Fortitudo ejusRhodnm tenuit" —
his valor saved Rhodes. In the reign of
Count Aymon the Pacific began the long
wars between England and France — aris-
ing out of the claims of Edward III. to
the French crown, in right of his mother
Isabella of Valois — which lasted, with
brief intervals of peace, for one hundred
years. During these wars, Count Aymon,
in spite of the long and close alliance of
his family with England, yielded to the
pressing solicitations of the French king,
and joined him in Flanders, at the head
of a noble train of knights and men-at-
arms. He was afterward one of the
deputies on the part of France for con-
cluding peace with England.

Our limits allow us only to allude to
the reign of Amadeus VI., called, from
the color of his armor, the Green Count,
one of the most brilliant knights of the
fourteenth century, among whose gallant
exploits the rescue of the Greek Emperor,
John PalsBologus, stands conspicuous. Un-
der his successor, Amadeus VIL, "the
Red Count," another chivalrous knight,
the towns of Nice and Barcelonette were
added to the dominions of the family.
This count fell a victim, in his thirtieth
year, to the nostrums of a Bohemian
quack, named John of Granville, who had
promised to give him a luxuriant head of
hair and a florid complexion.

We now come to the reign of Amadeus
VIII., the last of the counts and first of
the dukes; under whom, after long wars
and protracted negotiations. Savoy and
Piedmont were firmly united into one
state. Amadeus deserves to be consider-
ed one of the three greatest princes of
Savoy — the others being Emmanuel-Phili-
bert (1553-1580) and Victor-Amadeus II.
(1675-1730.) His career was most varied
and remarkable. He died in 1451 ; hav-
ing ruled Savoy as count and duke for
forty years ; having held the popedom for
nine, though a layman, a widower, and the
father of nine children ; and having been
first cardinal and legate of the Holy See
for eighteen months. In 1413, Amadeus
entertained the Emperor Sigismund with
splendid hospitality, on his passage into
Italy ; and, in requital, the Emperor ele-
vated him in 1416 to the rank of duke.
It was during this fifteenth century, which
witnessed the elevation of Savoy from a
county to a duchy, that her priuces found

1862.]

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

their plans of aggrandizement arrested —
on the north-west by the increasing power
of the great French monarchy, and on
the north-east, by the formation of the
Swiss confederacy. They therefore, with
the astute policy characteristic of their
race, determined foi* the future to aim at
the gradual acquisition of Lorabardy,
which still remamed open to them, and
which one of their number compared to
** an artichoke which the House of Savoy
was to have leaf by leaf."

In 1434, Amadeus VIII. formed the sin-
gular resolution of abdicating the throne,
which he caried into execution by retiring
to the Hermitage of Ripaille, near Ge-
neva, accompanied by six gentlemen of
his household, whom he afterward consti-
ted into the order of chivalry of St.
Maurice, the patron saint of Savoy. He
appointed his eldest son guardian of his
states, and gave himself up to study and
devotion in his chosen retreat. But he
was again destined to fill a prominent
place in the eye of the world ; for in
1439, the Council of Basle deposed Pop^
Eugenius IV., and elected Amadeus Pope
in his stead. It has been said that their
reason for this extraordinary proceeding
was, that Amadeus, having one foot in
Italy and the other in France, might be
of great service to the Church in the cri-
tical state of the times. The coronation of
the new Pope was celebrated at Basle with
great magnificence in the presence of more
than fifty thousand spectators. He as-
sumed the name of Felix V. Pope Eu-
genius, however, did not submit to the
decision of the Council which deposed
him, but maintained his place at Rome ;
thus causing a schism in the Church,
which lasted nine years. On the death
of Eugenius, his partisans elected Nico-
las V. as his successor. At length a coun-
cil met at Lyons to put an end to the
schism ; and on the joint representations
of the ambassadors of England, France,
and Sicily, Amadeus was induced to resign
the papacy. This he did on very favor-
able conditions, being created Cardinal of
St. Sabina, and appointed Apostolic Le-
gate in Upper Italy. Pope Nicolas also,
by various bulls, confirmed all that he had
done during his pontificate. Under Ama-
deus Vin., Savoy was one of the most
powerful of the Italian states, and could
bring eight thousand men-at-arms into the
field, at a period when the utmost force of

France or England did not amount to more
than thirty thousand.

The ducal period of the history of the
House of Savoy extends from the reign of
Amadeus VIII. to the peace of Utrecht
in 1713, when the important acquisition
of the fair island of Sicily changed the
ducal coronet of Victor Amadeus into
a kingly diadem. It was during this pe
riod that the long wars between Aus-
tria and France, K>r supremacy in the-
Italian peninsula, began to make the po-
sition of the princes of Savoy between
the two contending parties critical and
dangerous ; and forced upon them an
ever-vaiying and shifting policy, in or-
der to preseiTe the national existence of
their country. As the Prince de Ligne
remarked of them, with equal wit and
truth : '* Geography hardly allowed them
to behave like honest men." During the
reign of Duke Louis there was war with
Charles VII. of France, which lasted for
thirteen years, when it was ended by the
submission of the Duke, who had pro-
voked it by en unjustifiable invasion of
the French province of Dauphin y. In
this reign the dominions of the House of
Savoy were declared inalienable by sol-
emn edict, like those of the crown of
France. The recent cession of Nice and
S^voy furnishes a sad commentary on the
ineflSciency of all such declarations, where
thete is on one side want of strength
to i|iaintain them, and, on the other,
streneth, ambition, and utter want of
principle.

The ^acquisition of the kingdom of Cy-
prus founs a curious episode in the his-
tory ot^ this family. Louis IL, son of
the first ^uke of that name, and grandson
of Amadous VIIL, married Charlotte,
daughter %nd heiress of John, King of

aprus, whv died in 1458 ; and, shortly
er his dei^ease, his daughter and her
husband were^ solemnly crowned at Nico-
sia, the capitaV of the island, as King and
Queen of Cypius, Jerusalem, and Arme-
nia — high-sound\ng titles, which the lapse
of a few years resolved into mere words.
The title of the i^w sovereigns was dis-
puted by James, afiatural son of the last
king ; who, by the assistance of the Sol-
dan of Egypt, was enabled to land in Cy-
prus at the head of s^ strong force, with
which he carried all\ before him, and
compelled Louis of SavW and his queen
to fly from the island. \n 1470, the vic-

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

[May,

torious bastarfl, then absolute master in
Cyprus, married Catherine Cornaro,
daughter of Mark Cornaro, a Venetian
gentleman; and the fair Catherine was
thereupon adopted, by the wily and un-
scrupulous republic of Venice, as a daugh-
ter of St. Mark. In 1473, the bastard
died, as was generally supposed, of poi-
son administered by the agents of the re-
public ; and the Venetian government
lost no time in sending an array into Cy-
prus, and proclaiming Catherme regent
of the island. After the death of her
husband she gave birth to a child, who
lived only two years and three months,
but was proclaimed King of Cyprus,
and named James, after his father. His
premature death, like that of his father,
was generally imputed to the Venetian
republic. His two uncles, who might
have been in the way, assuredly died
in a Venetian prison ; and the repub-
lic, having procured from Catherine a
cession of her rights to the kingdom of
Cyprus, immediately removed her from
the island, and assigned her the castle of
Azzola, in the Trevisan, as her place of
residence, where she was entirely in their'
power. They then seized upon, or, iil
the politer phrase of the present day, an-
nexed Cyprus, to the prejudice of the
only lawful heir, Charles, Duke of Savoy,
nephew of Queen Charlotte, daughter of
John, the last legitimate king of 'the
island. She died in 1487 ; and with her
expired the illustrious family of Lusig-
nan, who had swayed the scepter 6f Cy-
prus for three hundred years. A few
years before her death, howevef, in the
church of St. Peter at Rome, she made a
solemn donation of the kingdom of Cy-
prus to her nephew Charles, " io him and
his successors, Dukes of Savo^ ;" so that
the present King of Italy has a plausible
political title to one of the fairest portions
of the Sultan of Turkey's insular do-
minions — at least, a much ^orse one has
often served as a pretext for annexation.
It is impossible, at this distance of time,
to decide whether the Venetian govern-
ment were really guilty of all the crimes
. imputed to them. Pdisoning in Italy at
t^at era was nearly as common as cook-
ing; the persons removed undoubtedly
stood between the Venetian goverament
and a rich inheritance ; and, remember-
ing the annals df the republic, we can
scarcely believe that the Venetian oli-
garchs would rtirink from any scheme of

political aggrandizement, merely because
it led them through the paths of crime.

In the reign of Duke Charles III., sur-
named the Good, Savoy and Piedmont
suffered ternbly from the ravages of the
French and Imperialists during the long
and bloody wars between Francis I. and
his great rival Charles V. Duke Charles
was one of the few princes of his i*ace
both physically and intellectually weak ;
and during his reign, of nearly half a cen-
tury, the power of the House of Savoy
was so greatly reduced, that at the period
of his death, in 1558, Piedmont was in the
possession of the Austrians, and Savoy in
the hands of the French ; while he him-
self, of all the dominions of his house, re-
tained only the town and castle of Nice,
and a few places of minor importance.
Indeed, but for the heroic resistance of
the Nizzards, their Duke would not have
had a foot of territory or a place of refuge
left to him. In 1538, the garrison held
out against Pope, King, and Emperor ;
and refused to deliver up the citadel even
on the mandate of the weak Duke himself,
willing as he was to have placed it in the
hands of the Emperor and the Pope, who
had undertaken to act as liis mediators
with the French monarch. In 1543, Nice
a^ain made a gallant defense against the
lilies of France and the Turkish crescent,
united under the Duke d'Enghien and
the famous corsair Barbarossa,the scourge
of the Mediterranean. The French arma-
ment consisted of forty ships, and seven
thousand land troops ; while Barbarossa
had one hundred and fifty-two vessels,
and fifteen thousand soldiers. But the
town and castle were defended by men
worthy of the occasion, and well fitted to
make good the last stronghold of the
House of Savoy. Their commander,
when summoned to surrender, returned
as his only reply : " My name is Montfort,
and my motto, *Il me faut tcnir.'"
Around this gallant leader was a chosen
band of the chivalry of Piedmont and
Savoy, many of whom had fought bravely
against the infidels as knights of St. John
at Rhodes. On the fifteenth of August,
after a terrific cannonade which had lasted
for five days, the Turks stormed one of
the bastions and planted on it the banner
of the crescent. But the sight of the in-
fidel flag on the battlements of their town
drove the inhabitants to fury ; they rush-
ed to the rescue, headed by a heroine
named Catherine Sigurana, whose ax

1862.]

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

struck down standard and standard-bear-
er; and after a desperate conflict, drove
the assailants in rout and confusion from
the blood-stained ramparts. On the
twentieth, however, the town was com-
pelled to capitulate ; but the inhabitants
withdrew into the citadel, taking with
them all their valuables, and even the
bells from the church-steeples. The be-
siegers then directed all their efforts to
the reduction of the citadel ; but it held
out nobly until the month of September,
when the approach of Andrea Doria by
sea, and Duke Charles and the Impe-
nalists by land, compelled the French
and their infidel allies to beat a hasty
retreat.

On the death of Duke Charles, in 1553,
the lustre of the star of Savoy seemed
almost extinguished. But better days
were at hand. To the weak Charles suc-
ceeded Emmanuel - Philibert, his eldest
son, the greatest prince of his race, equally
accomplished in peace and war, the strong-
est hand and the clearest head in Europe.
He was born at Chambery, the capital
of Savoy, in July, 1628 ; and his future
greatness is said to have been predicted
even before his birth, for Duke Charles,
and his wife Marguerite of France, having
jjone to consult the celebrated astrologer
Xostradamus, then at the hight of his
prophetical fame, in order to ascertain
the sex of the child about to be born to
the Duchess, received the response that
she would have a male child, who would
become the greatest captain of his age.
When the treaty of Nice, in 1544, dispos-
sessed his father of the greater part of his
dominions, Emmanuel-Philibert, then only
seventeen years old, determined to quit
his oppressed and down-trodden country,
and learn the art of war under his rela-
tive Charles V. He early displayed all
those qualities which constitute the cha-
racter of a great captain ; and as these
became developed by experience and op-
portunity, he soon rose to the highest
military rank. He remained a steady ad-
herent of the imperial cause — which was
indebted to his valor and genius for some of
its most brilliant triumphs — and never suf-
fered himself to be seduced by the tempt-
ing offers repeatedly addressed to him by
the King of France. At the time when the
saccesfflon of the dukedom of Savoy open-
ed to him, he inherited little more than a
barren title. All that remained to him of
Savoy aod Piedmont, were the towns of

Nice, Coni, Fossano, and Chcrasco, and
the territories of Aosta and Asti. Under
these circumstances, he determined to go
where he could increase his influence with
the Emperor and the Elinor of France,
who might justly be considered as the
arbiters of his destiny. He hoped to
procure important advantages from the
gratitude of^the one for the services of so
great a captain, and from the fears of the
other for the hostility of so dangerous an
enemy. Nor was he disappointed, though
he had long to wait. Charles V, was
much attached to Emmanuel-Philibert,
and had the highest opinion of his abili-
ties ; so much so, that when he abdicated
his throne in 1556, he strongly recom-
mended his son and successor, Philip II.,
to listen to his counsels and avail himself
of his remarkable military genius. The
event proved the wisdom of this advice. In
1557, Emmanuel-Philibert won for Spain
the great victory of St. Quentin ; and, had
his advice been followed by Philii), who re-
paired to his camp immediately after the
battle, the victorious Spaniards would
have abandoned the siege of St. Quen-
tin, and marched straight upon Paris,
before the French had time to recover
frpm the shock of the terrible defeat
which they had sustained. But Philip
II. was a very different man from his
great father. To all the instances of the
Piince of Savoy he replied, " That it was
bad policy to push a vanquished foe to
extremity," and so allowed the golden
opportunity to pass away. How differ-
ently Qiarles V. would have acted, may
be gathered from his conduct on receiv-
ing the djspatch containing the account
of the batj,le of St. Quentin. Before he
had half re^d it, he paused, and — turning
to the messenger — eagerly inquired, " Is
my son at ^aris ?" and, on being an-
swered in thj negative, instantly retired
into his cabii^et, without deigning to
cast another g\ance on the narrative of
the great victovy so ill-improved. The
war between Spft}n and France still con-
tinued with varying fortune — the Duke
of Savoy being sviccessful wherever he
commanded, and th^ other Spanish gen-
eral being as constantly beaten — until *
1559, when it was pu\an end to by the
Treaty of Chateau-Catabresis, which re-
stored the Duke of SsSroy to his domin-
ions, and bestowed on hiny^thehand of Mar •
guerite of France, sister \o King Henry
11. The French and Imj^prialists, how-

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

[May,

ever, 8till retained possession of many
important towns in Piedmont and Savoy,
which were not entirely freed from foreign
occupation until 1574.

When Emmanuel - Philibert returned
to his ancestral dominions, from which
he had been absent for fourteen years,
he found them in a deplorable state of
disorder and exhaustion, the results of
twenty-five years of hostile occupation ;
and it is the proudest achievement of
his great career, that, by his talents as
economist, legislator, and reformer, he
raised them fi'om that state of humilia-
tion, and restored them to more than
their former social well-being and politi-
cal importance. He also granted greater
liberty of conscience and worship to his
subjects than they had ever before en-
joyed ; and, in spite of the pressing
representations that were made to him,
would never consent to withdraw the free-
dom of serving God in their own way,
which he had accorded to the professors
of the Reformed religion. Throughout
his dominions he found the country de-
vastated and the roads destroyed ; in-
dustry and capital alike fled; the popu-
lation so reduced, as to be unable to
furnish an army for their own defense,
or taxes sufficient to defray the cost of
government, and entirely dependent on
a nobility bought over by by foreign
gold ; the frontiers uncovered, the towns
in ruin, respect for the laws and the sov-
ereign enfeebled or forgotten, and the
civil and criminal administration of just-
ice extinct. Far from being dismayed
by such a complication of evils, he only
set himself the more vigorously to cure
them, with that iron strength di purpose
which marked his character. He abol-
ished the old States-General 'which used
to assemble in every town under the
direction of the nobility, and retained
only those of Chambery and Turin, the
capitals of Savoy and Piedmont. He
appointed a commission, Composed of the
most eminent jurists, tO/i'evise and codify
the laws of the realnf. He introduced
the cultivation of the mulberry and the
manufacture of silk. , He opened up roads
and harboi's. He repaired the towns
that had suffered during the war, and
fortified the passes and frontiers. He es-
tablished a magnificent hospital at Turin.
He furnished the prototype of the na-
tional guard of the nineteenth century,
by the foundition of what was then

termed, the national militia, which con-
sisted of upward of thirty thousand
well-trained citizens ; and he also laid
the foundation of the navy of Savoy,
which took part during his reign in the
glorious battle of Lepanto, that gave so
temble a blow to the naval power of
the Ottoman Empire. All these improve-
ments were equally well planned and suc-
cessfully carried out. And such was the
beneficial result of his efforts to restore
and elevate his country, that the reve-
nue, which on his return to his dominions
had dwindled down to two hundred
thousand crowns per annum, had risen,
twenty years later, to eicht hundred
thousand. The nationalization of Piod-
mont, by fixing the seat of government
at Turin, was one of the most important
acts o/ this reign. The Italian language
was now also substituted for the Latin
in public acts, except in Savoy, wheic
French was allowed to be used. All
pretensions to Geneva were finally aban-
doned ; and the rulers of Savoy, having
flxed themselves at Turin, felt that they
were for the future Italian princes.

Emmanuel-Philibert finished his useful
and glorious life in 1580, at the early
age of fifty-two. His personal character
and habits have been minutely described
by cotemporary historians. He was some-
what below the middle stature, but with
broad shoulders, and a frame iimred to
hardships by early military training. He
had a small, round, compact head — he
was surnamed "Iron-head" — fair curling
hair, short thick beard, and gray eyes.
No man had a firmer or more graceful
seat in the saddle, or greater power of
enduring fatigue. None had manners
more courteous or word more sacred.
He allowed himself only five hours for
sleep, and kept a strict account of hi.5
time ; spoke fluently five languages —
Italian, French, Flemish, German, and
Spanish — and was so fastidious or self-
reliant, that he carried on his extensive
correspondence unaided, although he had
three secretaries in his pay.

During the long reign of Charles Em-
manuel L, the son and successor of Em-
manuel-Philibert, there were almost con-
stant wars with Geneva, Montserrat,
Genoa, and France. He was an able and
ambitious prince, and an accomplished
general, but somewhat rash in his
schemes, and always unable to confine
his undertakings within the limits of his

1862.1

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

resources. At one penod, his designs
upon Lorabardy seemed likely to be
crowned with success. By the Treaty of
Brussol, 25th April, 1610, it was agreed
between him and Henry IV. of France,
that they should unite their forces to
drive the Spaniards from the Italian
peninsula ; that the Duke of Mantua
should exchange the province of Casal
for that of Cremona ; that the Milanese
and Montserrat should be united to Pied-
mont ; that Victor Emmanuel should re-
ceive the crown of the ancient realm of
Lombardy, thus reconstituted ; that Hen-
ry should give his daughter in marriage
to Victor Amadeus, Pnnce of Piedmont;
and that the King of France, the Pope,
and the Republic of Venice should guar-
antee to the Duke of Savoy the title of
King of Lombardy. But this promising
scheme was rudely dashed to the ground
by the assassination of Henry I v., A?ho
perished under the dagger of Ravaillac
the month after the conclusion of the
Treaty of Brussol. Charles Emmanuel^
died in his camp in 1630, while engaged
in making war against France ; and at his
death the greater number of the towns
and fortresses in Savoy and in Upper
Piedmont were in the possession of
French troops.

Under the reign of his son and suc-
cessor, Victor Amadeus I., there was an
alliance with France ; and the politic Car-
dinal Richelieu, bent on breaking the
power of the House of Hapsburg, dazzled
the eyes of the Piedmontese Prince by
the promise of the crown of Lombardy.
He offered to revive the Treaty of Brus-
sol, but coupled it with the condition
that Piedmont, on receiving Lombardy,
should cede Savoy to France. So that
Franco seems to have had her eyes fixed
on Savoy nearly as long as those of Pied-
mont have been fixed on Lombardy.

The armies of Louis XIV. overran, and
for some time kept possession of. Savoy ;
and he had, at one period, three Pied-
montese regiments hghting under the
French standard in Flanders. He also
compelled the Duke of Savoy to imitate
his persecuting and 'short sighted policy
toward his Protestant subjects, and to
exterminate or expel them from their
homes among the valleys of the Alps.
In 1690, Victor Amadeus H., who chafed
under this degrading thraldom, and long-
ed to emancipate himself from the yoke
of France, joined the League of Augsburg

against Louis XIV., and, in the course of
the wars which followed, his territories
were repeatedly invaded and ravaged by
the superior armies of France. His
strongholds were destroyed or captured,
and his towns occupied, till at last he
was reduced to as great straits as his an-
cestor, Charles the Good, and had noth-
ing left to him but Coni and Turin. In
1706,the latter was besieged by an army of
sixty thousand Frenchmen, with two hun-
dred pieces of artillery. To resist this over-
whelming force, there was but a scanty
garrison of nineteen regiments of regular
troops. But these were relieved and assist-
ed by seven companies of armed citizens,
while a band of three hundred w^omen, and
even the poor from the almshouses, and
the convalescents in the hospitals, joined
in the defense. The invaders experienced
a desperate resistance, and the defense
was signalized by many instances of hero-
ism and self-devotion. Victor Amadeus
himself was always at the post of danger,
and his courage, coolness, and inspiriting
words did much to cheer and animate the
courage of his people. Three terrible as-
saults were made upon the town, whose
walls and bastions had crumbled under
the long cannonade, and whose defenders
were thinned by the sword, and worn
out by watching and fatigue. The last
and niost desperate of tluese was repelled
with extreme difficulty, and was illus-
trated' by an example of heroism worthy
of the best days of antiquity. Pierre
Mica, a private in the corps of engineers,
observing a party of French troops about
to discover a mine, called out to his com-
rades to retire, and, as soon as he found
himself alohe, applied the lighted match,
and perished in the ruins along with the
whole of the^ hostile detachment. But
succor came at length to the beleaguered
and exhausted defenders. The brave
Eugene of Sa\oy, the ally of Marl-
borough, and coi^sin to Duke Amadeus,
arrived before Tuyin in the beginning of
September, at the i^ead of a gallant army
of forty thousand Imperialists. Under
the combined attack of Prince Eugene
and the Duke of Sfivoy, the French
were entirely defeated^ eight thousand
lay dead on the ba\tle-lield, and a
great number were iWade prisoners.
The whole of Piedmoni was speedily
restored to its Duke. In\many of the
towns the populace rose v against the
French garrisons, as soon as they heard

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

[Mny,

of the great victory of their Prince, and
expelled them. The invaders them-
selves voluntarily evacuated some of the
strongest fortresses, glad to escape with
their lives to their own country. Scarce-
ly a half of the magnificent army that had
encamped before Turin survived to re-
cross the French frontier.

Peace was restored to Piedmont by
the Treaty of Utrecht, 31st March, 1713.
"The first peace," says the Princess
Belgiojoso, " concluded between France
and Austria, in which the House of Savoy
was not sacrificed." That treaty ele-
vated the Dukes of Savoy to the rank
of kings, by bestowing on them the rich
island of Sicily, in whose beautiful capital
Victor Amadeus and his wife, Anne of
Orleans, were solemnly crowned in De-
cember, 1713. Queen Anne was the
daughter of Philip Duke of Orleans, and
Henrietta Anne, of England, daughter
of the unfortunate Charles I. Sicily
did not long remain in the possession of
its new masters. In the summer of 1718,
an imposing Spanish fleet appeared of^
the coasts of the island, and landed an
array of fifty thousand men, who in a short
time made themselves^ masters of the whole
country, expelling the Marquis Maffei,
lieutenant of Victor Amadeus, who with
difficulty succeeded in extricating the
Piedmontese fleet from the overwhelming
force of the Spaniards. In 1720, peace
was restored by the quadruple alliance.
Spain gave up Sardinia and Sicily, and re-
ceived the reversion of Tuscany, Parma,
and Piacenza ; while Amadeus was com-
pelled to cede Sicily to Austria^ obtaining
m exchange the paltry and inadequate
compensation of the island of Sardinia.

Subsequently to this period, we behold
almost the whole Italian peninsula, pros-
trate and helpless, beneath the iron heel
of Austria, Piedmont alone preserving a
firm and independent attitude. By a rare
combination of sagacity and valor on the
part of her sovereign, who had beaten the
oest generals of his day on the battle field,
and the wisest statesmen in the cabinet,
she had acquired important acquisitions of
territory, and had emerged from nearly a
century and a haK* of warfare with reno-
vated vitality and increased resources.
We can not do .more than advert in pass-
ing to the wise reforms, social and admin-
istrative, which Victor Amadeus intro-
duced into Us dominions, and to his long
quarrel witk the See of Rome, whose cen-

sures he set at naught, and whose ecch -
siastical thunders he despised, causing all
the churches to be opened and divine ser-
vice to be celebrated as usual, while his
kingdom was lying under an interdict, and
he himself was excommunicated. He
showed equal firmness in his contest with
the Jesuits, whom he removed from all
the offices which thev held in the various
educational institutions throughout the
kingdom of Sardinia. According to Vol-
taire, he was the first royal personage who
emancipated his conscience from Jesuit
control — a wise and bold measure, which
he was led to adopt in consequence of a
conversation which is said to have taken
place at' the death-bed of his Jesuit con-
fessor.. The dying man requested the
Prince to send every one out of the room ;
and, when they were left alone, thus ad-
dressed him : " Grateful for all the kind-
ness I have experienced at your hands, I
can not show my gratitude more strong-
ly than by giving you one parting coun-
sel, so valuable that it will discharge my
debt of kindness toward you. Never
have a Jesuit for a confessor. Ask me
not the motives for this counsel, for it is
not permitted to me to disclose them."

Among the social benefits which Sar-
dinia owed to Amadeus, we may reckon
the abolition of the system of feudality ;
the improvement of the public finances ;
the foundation of an Hotel des Invalides
for his army ; the establishment of a board
of health ; the creation of public archives ;
the codification of the laws of Savoy in
the three volumes termed the Victorian
Code ; and the reconstitution and enlarge-
ment of the University of Turin.

There is no more melancholy narrative
in history than that of the abdication and
death of this great monarch. When up-
ward of sixty years old, he married his
mistress, the Countess of Saint Sebastian,
and soon afterward, by a solemn and public
ceremonial, abdicated the throne in favor
of his son Charles Emmanuel I. He reserv-
ed to himself a revenue of fifty thousand
crowns, and left Tunn to reside at Cham-
bcry along with his wife, on whom he had
conferred the marquisate of Spino. Mat-
ters, for some time, went on smoothly
enough. The old King seemed contented
in hb retirement, and the young monarch
was actively and successfully engaged in
discharging the important duties which
had devolved upon him. Bat this did
not last long. The wife for whom Victor

18G2.]

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

Amadeas bad sacrificed so much was a
pTond and ambitious woman, who was
discontented with her private position,
and left no means untried to induce him
to adopt violent measures for the recov-
ery of the kingly power, which he had
voluntarily and solemnly resigned. For
a time, her efforts were unsuccessful.
But a shock of apoplexy, which greatly
shattered the health and impaired the
self-control of the old King, assisted her
designs, and increased her ascendency, so
that she was at length able to persuade
him to attempt to resume the reins of gov-
ernment. A time was fixed for the exe-
cution of this scheme during the absence
of the yoimg King from Turin ; aud, but
for the accidental circumstance of a priest's
overhearing part of a conversation be-
tween the ambitious Marchioness and her
husband, and repoiling it immediately to
the young monarch, the whole kingdom
might have been distracted by an unnat^
ural civil war between father and son.
This, however, was prevented by the
promptitude of the measures of Charles
Emmanuel. He instantly left Evian,
where he had been residing when the
news of his father's intentions reached
hiTO, and hastened to Turin, where he ar-
rived lust as the old King had entered
the neighboring castle of Kivoli. An in-
tervieWj which subsequently took place
between the father and son, was produc-
tive of no good results ; and soon after-
ward, Victor Amadeus demanded from
the Marquis del Borgo the surrender of
the act of abdioation, which, but a year
before, he had placed in his bands. With
this demand, tne Marquis, fearing to in-
crease the violence of the old King, prom-
ii»ed compliance, but lost no time in inform-
iog Charles Emmanuel of what had taken
place. ^ few hours after this interview
with the Marquis del Borgo, Victor Ama-
deas monnted his horse, and, followed by a
single attendant, presented himself at the
gates of the citadel of Turin, and demand-
ed that they should be opened to him.
This was, however, refused by the com-
mandant, who represented that he had
been placed there by Charles Emmanuel,
and could admit no one without his express
orders. This reply convinced Victor Amor
dens that his intended coup de main had
failed, and he lost no time in retiring
to the caatle of Moncalieri. Meanwhile
Charles Emmanuel asked the advice of
his coartiers, and the magistrates and

clergy of Turin. Yielding to their re-
presentations and advice, the young King,
after long hesitation, and with unfeigned
reluctance, signed the order for his father's
arrest. The castle of Moncalieri was sur-
rounded, and Victor Amadeus and the
Marchioness surprised in bed. The lat-
ter — the authoress of their unnatural con-
flict — \V^as seized and sent under a strong
guard to the castle of Cena, while the
old King was conveyed to that of Rivoli,
where he was closely watched, subjected
to considerable restraints and privations,
and guarded by a force of six hundred
men. During the earlier part of his con-
finement, he was liable to sudden trans-
ports of fury, during which the utmost
precautions were necessary to prevent him
from destroying his own life. After-
ward he became calmer ; and as his fits
of fury abated in violence, the rigor of
his captivity was relaxed, and he was
allowed books, papers, and the company
of the Marchioness. Latterly, he was
removed to the castle of Moncalieri,
where he died on the thirty-first Octo-
ber, 1732. Thus perished, in sadness and
captivity, Victor Amadeus, the first and
greatest King of Sardinia, whom Sis-
morfdi truly terms " the ablest, most war-
like, ^and most ambitious monarch of his
age." He was buried in the magnificent
church of the Supcrga, which he himself
had built on the highest summit of a hill
near Turin, in fulfillment of a vow he had
made, as he stood there beside his cousin
Prince Eugene, and concerted the plan
of operations which resulted in the total
defeat of the French army, and the rescue
of the metropolis of Piedmont. Little
thought the triumphant victor of that
gi-eat day of battle, that a few years later
he should be fi'^tting away his soul in sor-
row and hopeleds captivity, a prisoner in
one of his own tostles, with his own son
for his jailer. \

Several years ^f the long reign of
Charles Emmanuels I. (1730-1 773) were
occupied by the wate of the Polish and
Austrian succession. \But from the close
of the latter in 1748^ by the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, down t^ 1792, there was,
for Italy Qnd Piedmont, )^ period of forty-
four years of profound an^ uninterrupted
peace. Between 1792 a^d 1814, how-
ever, the star of Piedraoit^ suffered an
eclipse. During the wars xwith repub-
lican France, from 1792 to V796, Savoy
and Nice were conquered ; but vhe French

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

[May,

formed so high an opinion of Piedraon-
tese valor, that, during the negotiations
which preceded the peace of Paris, they
offered Lombardy to King Victor Ama-
deus II., on condition that he would as-
sist them in its conquest with a detach-
ment of his troops ; and Bonaparte strong-
ly recommended the Directory to pur-
chase, on any reasonable terms, the alli-
ance of the King of Sardinia, as his ex-
cellent troops might prove of great as-
sistance to France. The reign of Charles
Emmanuel II. opened amidst the mo-
mentous events that followed the great
French Revolution. By the Treaty of
Paris, the duchy of Savoy, and the coun-
ties of Nice, Tenda, and Breuil had been
ceded in perpetuity to France. Bat this
unfortunate monarch was destined to suf-
fer still deeper humiliations at the hands
of his powerful and unscrupulous neigh-
bor than any which his predecessor had
undergone. The conduct of the French
republic toward him was marked by an
almost incredible desfree of baseness and
perfidy. In 1798, a French garrison was
admitted into the citadel of Turin, and
Guingene, the Republican ambassador,
became the real king of Sardinia. Short-
ly afterward, strong bodies of French
troops, under the command of Joubort,
invaded Piedmont at various points ;
and, at the close of the year, Charles
Emmanuel was compelled to sign an act
resigning the government of his con-
tinental dominions into the hands of the
French republic. Yet it was only after
all these deeds of violence had been con-
summated, that the formal declaration
of war by France was sent to Turin.
The unfortunate King, thus perfidiously
stripped of his territories^ took refuge
in the island of Sardinia ;'and from that
period till the restoratioa of his brother
and successor in 1814,, the national his-
tory of Piedmont prestnts a mere blank.
It was occupied by the French for six-
teen years; gnd, in 1802, was parceled
out into six departments, and formally
annexed to France. In 1814, a Pied-
montese contingevt, in the pay of Eng-
land, took the ^Id under the ancient
flag of Savoy ; and in the summer of that
year Victor Emmanuel I. sailed from
Cagliari, landid at Genoa, and reenter-
ed Turin, where he was received by his
enfranchised subjects with transports of
enthusiasm. By the Treaty of Vienna,
the Hous^ of Savoy obtained important

compensations for its long sufferings and
humiliations, receiving Genoa and the
Riviera, and the reversion of the succes-
sion to Parma and Piacenza. From this
period dates the naturalization of Pied-
mont as an Italian state.

The reigns of Charles Emmanuel, Vic-
tor Emmanuel, and Charles Felix, the
three sons of Victor Amadeus II., extend
from 1796 to 1831. They were princes
of but moderate abilities, and, terrified
by their bitter experience of the effects
of revolutionary principles, followed, on
the whole, a retrograde system of policy.
They all married, but none of them had
issue. Two of them abdicated the throne.
Charles Emmanuel renounced the crown
in favor of his brother in June, 1802,
and entered a Jesuit convent, where
he died in October, 1819. Victor Em-
manuel abdicated in 1821 in favor of
his brother Charles Felix. If to these
we add Charles Albert, who, after the
abortive Italian revolution of 1848-9, ab-
dicated in favor of the present king, we
have the singular spectacle of three out
of the four last monarchs of Piedmont
abdicating from disappointment and hope
deferred, or from the pressure of political
circumstances. Charles Felix was the
last sovereign of the main line ; the last
of thirty-eight generations of that prince-
ly race whose ashes slumber under the
sepulchral monuments of the Abbey of
Hautecombe, * and in the vaults of the
beautiful church of the Superga. At his
death the succession devolved upon his
cousin Charles Albert, Prince of Carig-
nan, in spite of the intrigues of Austria,
who, suspecting Charles Albert of a lean-
ing to liberalism, left no efforts untried
to induce his predecessor to disinherit
him, and bequeath the crown to the
Duke of Modena, one of the worst rulers
in Italy, but the son of a princess of Sa-
voy, and — what was more to the purpose
— an Austrian archduke. To Charles
Albert, however, the crown of Sardinia
proved but a crown of thorns. For more
than fifteen years he was compelled to

* The Abbey of Hautecombe was founded by
Count Amadeus III. in 1125. It stands in the very
heart of Savoy, on the western bank of the Lake of
Bourget, at the foot of the steep Mont <du Chat. It
is the Escurial of the House of Savoy, where rest
the bodies of most of its princes. So that when
Victor Emmanuel ceded Savoy to Fmnce. he aban-
doned not only the cradle, but the burial-place, of
his race.

1862.]

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

temporize and dissemble. The necessi- 1
ties of his position were too strong to
permit him to follow the bent of his in-
clinations. He had to choose — as he
himself expressed it — " between the choc-
olate of the Jesuits and the dagger of the
Carbonari." When such were the alter-
natives presented to him, we can scarcely
wonder that he was in no hurry to make
a choice. Soon after his accession to the
throne, Mazziui commenced his calami-
tous career, and selected Savoy for the
theater of his operations. Mazziui's at-
tempt upon the kingdom of Sardinia
proved a total failure. He did, indeed,
succeed in forming a fraction of a repub-
lican party. But Charles Albert — rally-
ing around him the liberal-royalist party,
which had always existed in Piedmont —
easily crushed the nascent rebellion, and
punished, with perhaps too great sevei'i*
ty, those who had taken part in it.

During the three preceding reigns, the
kingdom of Sardinia had made scarcely
any progress in social and material civili-
zation. The army was inefficient; edu-
cation was entirely under the control of
the Jesuits ; and too much power was
possessed by the nobility and clergy.
Charles Albert clearly saw that nothing
could be effected with a state so ill regu-
lated and so imperfectly organized; he
therefore devotea himself, firmly and pa-
tiently, to reform abuses, reconcile hostile
factions, and, above all, to increase his
army and bring it into a state of disci-
pline and efficiency. His labors were ul-
timately crowned with success ; and, after
years of patient effort, he found himself
at the head of a compact, thoroughly or-
ganized state, and of a well-disciplined
army.

It is unnecessary here to detail the
well-known circumstances which led to
the Italian rising against the Austrians in
1848. For a time Charles Albert hesitat-
ed to identify himself with the party of
action, and to declare war against Aus-
tria,* even after he had commenced a lib-
eral policy in Sardinia, and granted many
privileges to his people. He left the Mi-
lanese unaided for a time, after they had
opened the revolution of 1848 by the
memorable five days at Milan, where a
half^armed and undisciplined populace,
after a desperate and protracted struggle
succeeded in driving out thirty thousand

* Gvierrieri, L'Auttria e /a Lombardia,

regular soldiers in spite of every advan-
tage of discipline, arms, and position. At
length, however, he declared in favor of
the national movement ; and, crossing
the Ticino, at the head of his army, com-
menced that campaign which, though
successful in its opening, ended so fatally
five months later. Want of union was,
indeed, the great cause of the failure of
the revolution of 1848-9. Turin distrust-
ed Rome ; Rome feared Turin ; while the
King of Naples was alike afraid of the
aggrandisement of the House of Savoy
and the increasing popularity of Pius IX.
Austria was not slow to avail herself of
these feelings of mutual jealousy and dis-
trust, and her intrigues soon produced a
rupture among the different members of
the national league. Disunion once sown
among the Italians, her triumph was as-
sured. Victorious at Goito and Pastren-
go, the King of Sardinia was defeated at
Custoza and under the walls of Milan,
and compelled to conclude a capitulation.
In the spiing of 1849, however, he again
took the field, but with no better success.
His army was imperfectly officered, and
composed in part of half-disciplined Lom-
bard volunteers, who were no match for
the veteran battalions of Radetzky. At
Mortara and La Bicocca the Austrians
were victorious ; and the terrible defeat
of KoVara — where ten thousand corpses
strewn on the battle -field, attested the
desperate nature of the strife — gave the
finishing-T^low to the revolution of 1849.
On the twenty-third of March of that
year, Charles Albert abdicated the throne
of Sardinia, and retired to Lisbon, where
he died som« months afterward, in sor-
row and exilfii, in his fifty-second year.

No sooner was the triumph of Austria
secure, than sh^ began to avenge herself
for the alarm she had suffered, and the
losses she had sustained. Every species
of exaction, oppression, and cruelty was
practiced in Northern Italy, and in the
other parts of the peninsula subject to
her control. In Lombardy, the forced
contributions for 1841 amounted to one
hundred and forty millions of livres,
twenty - three millions \being levied in

Milan alone.* The storming and sack

. i

* One of the most revolting instances of Austrian
cruelty and oppression occurred ibi this city a few
months after the defeat of the Italian revolution.
On the eighteenth of August, 1849, \he anniversary
of the birth of the late Emperor of Austria, a cour-
tesan of Milan, named Olivari, displayeil an Austrian

THE HOUSE OF HATOY.

of Brescia, by the orders of Haynaii,
where one fourth of the populalion was
butchered aftei- all resistance had ceased ;
the massacre at Leghoro by the troops of
GcDcrol Aspre; and the judicial tortures
and murders by Austrian military iribu-
Dals at Bologna and FeiTara in 1833-4 —
are a few, out of many, examples of tlie
reign of terror by which Ausiria aoaght
to compel the Italians to bow to her
yoke. Indeed, it may safely be ajlirmed,
that from 1849 to 1859 a stale of siege
was the permanent condition of the wliolc
of Austrian Italy. It was in the midtt of
such reverses and disasters, amidst the
prostration of liberty and the triumph
of despotism, that the present monarch
of Italy succeeded to the throne of Sard!
DJa. Immediately after his accession, hi
gave a noble proof of that sincerity and
trutlifulnces which so eminently maik liii
character. Marshal Radetzky, in treating
for the ransom of Piedmont, offered lo
the young King, then only twenty-nine
years of age, to withdraw the Austrian
troops, and to forego all the results of his
victories, on condition that he would coo-
sent to abolish the constitution (statuto
tbndamentale) of Charles Albert ; to which '
the youthful monarch made the memora- 1
ble reply : " Oui' race knows the path of
exile, but not that of dishonor!" This ^
noble answer cost him sixty millions of
francs. j

The following bi-illiant though perhaps

flag from the balcony of her house. Thfewaa himert
bj the crond; upon which a Dumber'of AuBtrian
BOlJisrs nuhed oul from th« adjaceot caT^s, and
seiiing proniUcuouHlj on several pasaers-bj, hurriad
Ihem off lo the ensile, where they were tried by a '
militarj tribunal, and coniJeroned, leventeen to the j
bastinado, from twenty five to &ny Btrokos each,
and three to various periods or impriaonment. The !
floggings were iiiimoitiulfly inRictMl in the court-yard |
of the caalle, in the presence of inumbcr of Austrian
officers, who jeered at the Bufferinga of the helpless
It^iana. Among those who ButTered this degrad-
ing punishment, were two yijang female opera-sing-
era — Emesta Galii, of Crcmeua, and Maria Conti, of
Florence, the fonner aged twenty, and the latter
eighteen yi«ra. They received, the one forty, and
the other Ihirtj laahes, and were a long lime in
recoTering from the effMts of the brutal treatment lo
whiuh they had been Bibjected. The military com-
mandant of ifilan Bub»equently Bent in an account of
one hundred and Dinttj-unc francs to the municipal-
ity of the town, "fo- thceipenscof iee" (applied to
the mangled flesh of the rictims in order to prevent
guignme] "and *f rods used and broken in the
ponuhment of ths seditious of the eighteenth of Au-
gust," Finally, Hanhal Itadetikj ordered the town
to indemnify tke courtesan Olirari bjagift of thirty I
thoosand lirrol. C^i AiUruJiKnt tt L'llalit, par
C. de la Tannii«, trdstime 6ditiim, Pvto, I80«.)

LMaj-,

somewhat highly-colored picture of the
subsequent conduct of the King of Sardi-
nia, and bis great minister Count Camillo
Cavour, is drawn by the Princess Bel-

giojoso :

"DuHag the ten years between 1840 an*)
I8S9, Victor Emmanuel followed loyally and
conscientiously tha path traced out tor bira by
the constitution, ihu< showing himself to Italy
■S the liberal sovereign who offered her, under
the shelter of hU throne, » glorious future
of independence, concord, and greatness. The
Brm character and enlightened intelligence of
the monarch, however, could not accomplish in
ten years the mighty work which we to-day ad-
mire. It was Providence, therefore, that placed
beside that Kiag so loyal, so brave, «nd so tender-
ly beloved a minister, who can not be compared
to any of those to whom history has accorded
' the m"Bt splendid eulogies. He surpasses them
' all : some, by the grandeur of his thoughtfi and
' the extent of his views; others, by the purity
I of the means which he employs; alt, or nearly
all indeed, by disinterestedness and abnegation.
Victor Emmanuel, seconded by Count (Jamillo
Cavour, has during these ten years, restored to
Piedmont the prosperity of which the procedin;;
disasters had deprived her. They have opened
roads ; undertaken the gigantic work of piercing
the Alps; encouraged agriculture, commerce,
and industry ; fortified, according to the most
approved rules of modern science, the chief
cities; increased the staff of the army, and im-
proved its discipline, its instruction, and its
equipment They have triumphed over party
extremes, and have molded the Piedmontese
into a compact nation, liberal and monarchical,
knowing their rights ond their duties, attached
to their king and their institutions, and rendy
to sacrifice every thing in their defense. They
have convinced the great majority of the Italians
that there can be for them neither independence
nor liberty, norany of the innumerable blessings
that flow from them, except by confiding their
destinies to the House of Savoy, by rallying
around it, foi^tfulof all municipal jealousy, all
provincial or state rivalry, by refusing all spe-
cial denominations of Lombards, Venetians, or
Tuscans, in order to accept that of Italians, and
to constitute themselves into an Italian nation,
under the scepter of the loyal and gallant sol-
dier' king. VictorEmmanueland Count Cavour
have done yet more : they have secured Che
strict alliance of France, and the assistance of
her army."

Dnring the Italian revolution of 1848-9,
the nobles, the middle classes, and a por-
tion of the clergy were at the hea^ of
the movement, while the mass of the peo-

Ele took comparatively tittle interest in it.
iut ten years longer of Austrian domina-
tion had, in ld59, united all classes in a
common hatred of their oppressors. In
the beginoiDg of that year, all was pre-

1862.]

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.

pared for a fresh struggle for Italian in-
dependence. The efforts of General La
Marmora, and the dear-bought experience
of the Crimean war — which cost Sardinia
foar thousand men and fifty millions of
francs — had disciplined and hardened the
Piedmontese army ; while Lombardy and
the provinces of Central Italy wanted but
the signal to rise in arms. The Sardinian
parliament met on the tenth of January,
and was opened by Victor Emmanuel in
a speech, which, though guarded in its
terms, sounded not unlike a challenge to
Austria and a summons to Italy. " Our
country," he said, '* small in point of ter-
ritory, has increased in weight in the
councils of Europe, because it is great by
the ideas it represents and the sympathies
it inspires. Such a position is not free
from dangers; because, though we re-
spect treaties, we are not, on the other
hand, insensible to the cries of grief
which are directed toward us from so
many parts of Italy." The actual signal
for the commencement of hostilities was
not, however, given by the Sardinians,
but by the Austrians, who committed the
foolish and fatal blunder of crossing the
Ticino and invading Piedmont in April,
1 859. This brought the armies of France
upon the scene ; and Lombardy became
again, what she has been for two thou-
sand years, the battle-ground of nations.
The subsequent events of that war — the
battles of Montebello, Palestro, Magenta,
Malegnano, and Sollerino — the sudden
and mysterious peace of Villafranca,
which gave the lie to the declaration
that Italy should be free from the Alps
to the Adriatic — the determined and
spontaneous movement by which the

Eiople of the Duchies, Tuscany, and the
egations, repudiated the arrangements
of that peace, and united themselves to
the constitutional monarchy of Sardinia —
the exploits of Garibaldi in Sicily and
Naples — the defeat of General Lamor-
iciere aod the papal army at Castelfidar-
do — the capture of Ancona and Gaeta —
and the final annexation of the whole pe-
ninsula, excepting Rome and Venice, to
the new kingdom of Italy — are events of
yesterday, and fresh in the memory of
every one. There is, however, one epi-
sode connected with the war of Italian
independence which we would willingly
forget, and that is the cession of Savoy
and Nice to France. Both the fact of
the cession and the way in which it was

brought about were alike discreditable to
Sardinia. The cradle of the House of
Savoy, the nursery of her choicest sol-
diers, and the town which had repeated-
ly made a glorious stand for the honor
and existence of that House when every
other stronghold had yielded to the foe,
should not have been lightly parted with.
It may be that the sacritice was rendered
imperative by the irresistible pressure of
political circumstances, and that the fair
kingdom of Italy was cheaply purchased
at the price of a few sterile Alpine val-
leys. Yet we can not help sympathizing
in the vehemence with which, on the
opening of the first Italian parliament.
Garibaldi — the greatest man to whom
Nice has given birth — denounced the
cession to France of an integral part of
the ancient dominions of the House of
Savoy.

Victor Emmanuel, the most fortunate
and powerful of the kings of the House
of Savoy, has been aptly termed the
Henry IV. of Italy. He has all the gal-
lantry and warlike ardor that distin-
guished the great French monarch, the
same frankness and loyalty of character,
the same good-nature and affability, and
the same gift of personal fascination. By
his Piedmontese subjects, and especially
by the Piedmontese army, he is adored";
and his recent progresses through his
newly-acquired Italian dominions have
excited a popular fervor and enthusiasm,
rarely displayed, in these da>s, toward
a crowned head. His broad chest and
shoulders, his complexion embrowned by
the suns of Palestro and San-Martino,
his firm and easy seat on horseback, his
frank and ^ood-natured smile, were all
calculated to please the multitude, and
win the suffrages of the crowd ; who
hailed him, not with the official cry of
"Long live the King!" but with shouts
of "Long liv^ Victor Emmanuel!"
"Long live the King of Italy!" "Long
live the Corporal of Zouaves!" "Long
live the soldier of independence !" The
following characteristic anecdote of this
gallant monarch must close our sketch of
the history of the House of Savoy :
Among the Piedmontese soldiers who
particularly distinguished themselves in
the Italian campaign of \859, was a ser-
geant of artillery, named Vigna, whose
lefl arm was shattered by a bullet at the
battle of San-Maitino. The day after
the engagement, Victor Emmanuel, while

THE HOUBE OF SAVOY.

[May,

visiting tho wounded, remarked the inter-
esting countenance of this young man,
and his air of cheei*fulness, and asked him
whether he had been only slightly wound-
ed. "Not very badly, sire," replied
Vigna, raising the bed-clothes and show-
ing the stump of his arm enveloped in
bloody bandages. The King then left
the place; and after making the necessa-
ry inquiries, gave orders that the brave
sergeant of artillery should receive an of-
ficer's commission. Soon afterward, the
wounded man was sent to Brescia ; and,
some weeks later, the King, during an in-
spection of the hopitals, recognized him,
and inquired whether he had received his
promotion and was satisfied with it ? Vig-
na had received nothing. The King then
issued fresh orders on the spot regarding
his promotion, and went away, believing
that they would be immediately execut-
ed. Some months afterward, however,
during a review at Turin, he observed a
non-commissioned officer approach him,
and extend the empty sleeve of his left
arm, on which still appeared a sergeant's
badge. Victor Emmanuel has a quick
eye and a tenacious memory, and he was
not long of recalling to mind the artillery
sergeant of San-Martino and Brescia ;
and, replying to the reproachful gesture
by a simple hiclination of the head, he
returned to the palace, and immediately
sent for the Minister at War. M. de la
Marmora perfectly remembered the cir-
cumstance about which the King in-
quired ; but the nomination of the ser-
geant had been shelved by the bureaux
under the pretext of economy. The for-
mal and absolute order of the King now,
however, required obedience ; and, a week
later, a royal aid-de-camp brought to Vig-
na his commission as sub-lieutenant, and
informed him at the same time that his
majesty desired to see him as soon as he
had got his new uniform. The young
lieutenant, full of joy snd gratitude, lost
no time in equipping himself and repair-
ing to the royal presence. The King,
after complimenting him on his appear-
ance, inquired if he tiad a horse ? " Not
yet, sire." "Go down to my stables
then, choose one, and try it under my
window." Vigua believed himself in a
dream; but forthwith hastened to the

royal stables, where he selected and
mounted a superb thorough-bred, which
he put through its paces in front of the
open windows of the palace, from which
the King was watchins: him, " Well,"
at length inquired the King, " what think
you of the horse ?" " Ah ! sire I what a
pity that so handsome an animal should
be skittish ! It is very embarrassing for
the squadron." " Go back, then and try
another." This time Vigna returned
mounted on a splendid chestnut, full of
fire and strength, but perfectly obedient
to the hand, and passing all obstacles
without being scared by them. " Sire,"
he said, " here is a capital charger I" "I
well believe it," answered Victor Em-
manuel, smiling ; " I rode him for twelve
hours at Palestro, and he never stumbled.
You have made a fortunate choice ; keep
him, and adieu till we meet again."

We have now followed the House of
Savoy through the eight centuries of its
historical existence. Perhaps the most
wonderful feature of its history is, that
after so very lengthened a past, it should
now seem in the very flower and vigor of
youth, at the threshold of a new career,
full of labor and full of promise, and bid-
ding fair in its new position, to cam a
distinction that shall throw all its past
glories into the shade. Unlike the Bour-
bons, the Stuarts, and the Hapsburgs,
the princes of this house have ever been
friends to the moral and material inter-
ests of their race. Victor Emmanuel has
already identified his name with those
principles of civil liberty and religious
toleration which are the true foundation of
national greatness and prosperity. The
political and religious emancipation of the
Waldensian Church in Italy, is a good
omen for religious liberty ; while the
freedom of debate in the Italian parlia-
ment, and the liberty enjoyed by the
press, afibrd guarantees for the preser-
vation of political freedom. All eyes
are fixed with intense interest on the
new kingdom of Italy, and many are the
prayers that its gallant King may yet sur-
mount all the difficulties that surround
him, and inaugurate, in the best sense,
Italy's golden age.

18W.]

MEMOIRS OF DIB TOCQUEVILLE.

From the British Quarterly.

MEMOIRS OF DE TOCQUEVILLE.

Alexis Chables Henri Clsbel de
TocQTJEviLLB wos bom in Paris on July
29th, 1805. His &ther was of an ancient
and noble family, deriving its name from
hereditary estates near Cherbourg. His
mother was a granddaughter of the il-
lustrious Malesherbes. Alexis was the
youngest of their three sons, and his
early education — all, at least, which
usually passes for such — was a good deal
neglected. He was never thoroughly
grounded in the classics, and, till his
fifteenth or sixteenth year, seems to have
remained in ignorance of even their ru-
diments. At that time his father became
prefect of Metz, and Alexis entered the
Imperial Academy there. His deficiencies
in other respects were partially compen-
sated by the excellence of his French,
and, in 1822, the termination of his acade-
mical studies was signalized by his carry-
ing off the first rhetoric prize. After a
blank of about four years, we find him
traveling in Italy and Sicily with his
elder brother, now Viscount de Tocque-
yille, and he returns to France in the
spring of 1827, on occasion of being ap-
pointed one of the Jugea Auditeures of
the tribunal of Versailles. " Had he been
an ordinary man," says M. de Beaumont,
"his destiny would have been ready
traced " by this appointment as a junior
magistrate.

"His name, his family, his social position,
bis profession pointed out his path. Grandson
of Malesherbes, t he would have been sure of
attidning the highest places in the magistrature,
e?en without an effort, merely trusting to the
lapse of time. Young, agreeable, connected
with all the great families, fitted to aspire to
the most brilliant alliances, of which many had

^CSuvres et Correspondanee Ineditea ^Alexis de
Tocqueville. Publiees et preeed^ee d'une Notice.
Par GusTATi de Beaujcont. Merabre de rioetitut.
Deox tomes. Paris: L6yy Frdres. 1861.

Memoirs, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de
ToeqtieviUe. Translated from the French. With
large additions. Two volames. London and Cam-
bridge: llacmiUan k Co.

f A mistake, which the translator has repro-
duoed. It should be great^andaoo.

VOL. LVL— NO. 1

already been proposed to him, he would have
married some rich heiress. Uis life, confined
by narrow prescribed limits, would have glided
by, at any rate, calmly and honorably, in the
regular discharge of toe duties of his office, in
the comfortable enjoyment of a large salary,
amidst the narrow but never failing interests of
the judicial bench, and in the sober, peaceful
happiness of private life."

Such was one of the paths open to
De Tocqueville ; and though it seemed
for a while that he had definitively adopt-
ed it, there was gradually opening to
him another, a far more difficult and
laborious path, yet which seemed to him
on every account preferable. The circum-
stances under which he came finally to
choose it ; the bearings of that choice
upon his own life and character, and his
birth thereby to a higher and nobler form
of manhood ; are all most necessary to
be understood, and we shall endeavor
to unfold them accordingly. In order
to this, it is indispensable to get some
comprehension of the times which had
recently passed over France, and which
were still, passing over it.

During the whole interval between the
overthrow of the empire in 1815, and the
death of Louis XVIII., in 1824, the move-
ment in French politics had been retro-
gressive. A selfish, ignorant, but respect-
able king, who had been raised to the
throne on the explicit pledge of govern-
ing constitutionally, had been growing
every year stronger, alike by infatuation
and by the mere lapse of time, to govern
unconstitutionally. The interests of the
crown and of the beneficed clergy were
strengthened and extended, till they
threatened to absorb or tb destroy all
other interests.

When Charles X. came to the throne,
he persisted in the course which had been
already marked out for liim by the policy
of hisbrotherjbut with accelerated speed,,
and a more resolute selfishness. Embold-
ened by the impunity of the last few years,
and by the encouragement of the new
King, the Jesuits poured back into the
2

MEMOIRS OF DE TOCQUEVILLE.

[May,

cities and thrust themselves into the nu-
meroas posts of authority from which the
revolution had expelled them, and the
empire had effectually forbidden them.
They swarmed in Paris, pestered the Par-
liament, were the most assiduous of cour-
tiers, and were supreme in the closet of
Charles. They procured the creation of
twenty -one new bishops, and moved for the
restoration of the revenues which had been
confiscated in 1780, and which it is certain
could not have been diverted back to
their ancient channels without endanger-
ing both the Church and the State. The
creation of the twenty-one spiritual peers
was followed by the creation of seventy-
six temporal peers, in order to the more
complete securing of court supremacy in
the Upper House. Priestcraft and king-
craft were to be the two elements of the
new reign. Charles really believed him-
self a skillful politician, and desired to be
absolute. He was equally unfortunate in
exaggerating his own abilities, and in de-
preciating the worth and the might of the
nation he ruled. He was no less a stran-
ger to wisdom in his projects, than to com-
mon prudence in the selection of means.
He was perpetually repeating to himself
and to otners, " On ne reussit que par la
vigueur/^^ (no success without energy;)
and if he had lived till now, he would
have been repeating it still, only lament-
ing that he had not been energetic enough.
" The party of the Congregation," as
the leaders and tools of the Jesuits were
called, obliged the government to bring
forward a bill making sacrilege a capital
crime — the theft of a ragged surplice
from a church-vestry punishable with
death and mutilation, mort avec le poing
coupe I MortiBed by the defeat which
this impious rashness procured, " le parti-
prStre " proceeded for a time more cau-
tiously, and then, with the willing assist-
ance of the King, constrained the minis-
try to introduce a measure for the ef-
fectual, and even ignominious destruc-
tion of the liberty of the press. The
designs of the reactionists had now be-
come transparent, and Paris was in all
but open uproar. The common sentiment
of common danger united all classes in op-
position to the measure, and produced a
unanimity of indignation and of action
that might have led one to fancy, says M.
Lacreteile, *' that all France lived by the
press." The French Academy — surely
one of the proper and most responsible

guardians of the freedom now attacked —
proposed to remonstrate against the meas-
ure, and was threatened with dissolution
by royal edict if it should. Two of the
three members who were appointed to
draw up its protest, MM. Villemain and
Lacreteile, were dismissed from their
posts as Masters of Requests, and the
third, none other than Chateaubriand,
would have had to share their " disgrace,"
only that he had been " disgraced " al-
ready. With the Chamber of Peei-s the
bill would have occasioned no difficulty ;
in the Chamber of Deputies it was treated
exactly as it deserved. A sufficiently full
account of the discussion it provoked there
may be found in Lacreteile.* Keen, fierce,
and brilliant as was the whole debate,
it may be doubted whether it contained
any thing better than the speech of the
venerable and eloquent Royer-Collard —
a man whom one always feels safe to love.
In his exordium there was an exquisite
mixture of gravity and ridicule, which we
find extremely refreshing: "According
to the real sentiments of this bill," said
he, " there was on the great day of the
creation a want of foresight in letting man
escape into the midst of this universe in
possession of freedom, and endowed with
intelligence. Evil and error have been
the consequences. But a higher wisdom
proposes to repair this fault of Providence
— ^to curtail its imprudent liberality — and,
by wisely maiming our humanity, to do it
the kindness of raising it, at length, to the
happy innocence — of brutes I" It scarcely
need be added that this "law of justice and
mercy," as the government had called it
in the Moniteur^ perished utterly. What
is more to the purpose, it had discovered
the designs of the party in power. It was
impossible afler this, to lull the nation into
that slumber of security which had been
so rudely disturbed, and which was indis-
pensable to its being robbed and insulted
with impunity. It did not take much
rubbing of the eyes to make men see clear-
ly enough now why Beranger's ballads
had been suppressed ; why it was propos-
ed to readjust and amend the established
order of trial by jury ; why the bench of
bishops was being recruited with addi-
tions every year ; why four of those pre-
lates had been elevated in a batch to the
rank of ministers of state ; why it was de-

* UisUnre th France depuia la JUstauratiot^
Tome iv. ch. xxxiy. Parii, 1835.

1862.]

MEMOIBS OF D£ TOOQUEVILLE.

sired to reestablish the law of primogenl-
tare ; why it was proposed to make the
dn ration of Parliament septennial, on the
express condition that the very Parlia-
ment which was to pass this law, should
itself break all law by acting on it with-
oat first resigning its trust into the hands
of its constituents ; why Manuel, one of
the most eloquent and distinguished mem-
bers of the Constitutional Opposition, had
been dragged from the Chamber by physi-
cal force for making a speech which could
not otherwise be answered ; and why a
hundred other things had been done
which were thought, at the time, to be
only freaks of power or errors of judg-
ment^ but not or intention. The National
Guard was haughtily and summarily dis-
missed ; the Villele ministry fell, and was
quickly followed by that of Martignac;
and while men were wondering what was
to be next, Prince Polignac, the man after
Charles's own heart, was smuggled into the
palace like a bale of stolen goods, and was
then made Premier of France.

As this period was, in fact, the very
making of De Tocqueville, it needs no
excuse that we wish it to be strongly
placed before the reader's mind. So far
as we know, it has not yet been sufficiently
considered in this respect. M. de Beau-
mont, however, has not failed to observe
it in some part, and if his brief but glowing
description excludes all reference to par-
ticulars, it may well be because such in-
formation was less necessary in France,
than must unavoidably be the case with
t nation that was, at that time, only too
fully occupied with its own affairs.

'^ Those who did not witness that period,'* he
writes, "(from 1827 to 1828,) and who are ac-
guainted only with the languor and the indif-
ference of our own, will hardly comprehend its
exdtement Twelve years had elapsed since
the fall of the empire. For the first time France
had kno?m liberty, and had loved her. This
liberty, a comfort to some, the greatest of bless-
ings to others, had created for all a new coun-
7. Institutions were substituted for the will
one man ; new habits arose amidst profound
peace. The development of instincts, feelings,
and wants, till then unnoticed, had contributed
to awaken a new life in a regenerate nation.
Yes, it must be acknowledged that, setting aside
the old revolutionary and imperial parties,
whose liberalism was a lie, and in spite of the
disagreements in^scparable from freedom, France
was at that time sincerely liberal, passionately
attached to her new institutions, jealous in
mtintaining them, quickly alarmed by the dan-
gers which threatened them, and ready to see

in their destruction or preservation her own de-
gradation or grandeur. Now, for the first time,
the great problem of constitutional liberty was
seriously stated in France. The country seem-
ed to feel the peril of the experiment With
what anxiety she watched its progress! with
what emotion she looked for the slightest symp-
toms of a storm, whether coming from the
people or the sovereign ! What interest was
then taken in the smallest incidents of public
life — the arbitrary act of an official, a prosecu-
tion for libel, the verdict of a jury, a new book,
a word let fall in one of the Chambers, some-
times a newspaper article !^^

The whole period, indeed, but espe-
cially from 1827 to 1830, marks one of
the greatest and most striking progresses
in French intellect. Men awoke to a life
to which they had hitherto been stran-
gers. De Tocqueville was of their num-
ber. The irresistible forces which then
swayed France, reached not only to the
seats of justice^usually inaccessible — but
to all other seats ; and dead things were
quickened into life, and old things either
passed away, or endured an ordeal which
pronounced them fit to live.

Then came the Three Days of July,
1830, and the flight of the unhappy King
— another minor revolution in the grand
revolution not yet finished. De Tocque-
ville was only in his twenty-sixth year,
but showed that he had already been
a careful student of his age. A new
phase of existence opened to him; yet he
proved that he had not in the desirable
lost sight of the possible or the proba-
ble. His views were practical and those
of common-sense. He had examined most
profoundly into the character of his coun-
trymen, and, having attained to a wide
and comprehensive knowledge both of
history and of mankind, he could not but
watch the advent and the action of the
new revolution with .anxiety and fear.
When it came, he deliberately, but with-
out enthusiasm, joined the ranks of the
government, and when Louis Philippe
had become the successor of Charles, he
gave a free but sorrowful adhesion to the
new King, hoping against hope for the
best, and feeling how dangerous to con-
stitutional liberty — or, in other words, to
the moral and intellectual salvation of his
country — might easily be a system directly
inaugurated by popular power, and which
promised to become neither stronger nor
better than that which had produced it.

Six months later, De Tocqueville was
on his way to America. He had an irre

HBHOntS OF DK TOCQOETILLE.

Etstible desire to study the nature and
character of democratic institutions, in
the only country in which they might bt
seen nnlrammeled and entire. Ho pro-

KQsed his plan to his friend and colleague,
[. de Beaumont, who eagerly approved
it; and baring procnred an official mission
to study on the spot the United States
Penitentiary System, the two young ma-
gistrates obtained the necessary leave of
absence, and in May, 1831, found them-
selves in New York.

It is not needful to dwell in detail on
what De Tocqneville saw and did in Am
erica. It may suffice to note that the
twelve months to which his visit extended,
were passed in incessant activity, travel,
inquiry, observation. The official mission
of the two friends was fully accomplished,
and, on their return, they published an
elaborate Report on it, under the title of
The PetiiteiUiary Sy»tem of the United
States, and of its Application in l-^ance.
It was speedily translated into German
and English, and occapies a high place
among the works of its class.

During the whole time of his travels
in America, materials had been accu-
mulating in the mind of De Tocqueville
for another work of a totally different,
and of a much more important and diffi-
cult character. He was resolved to write
a book on democracy. He felt that,
whether for good or harm, for blessing
or curse, democracy was the one grand '
and central fact of modern state-life and
politics. He saw that there was in it
much which had never been investigated, ,
and never understood. He found that,
no more in our language than his own, '
no more in America than in Europe, |
was there a complete and philosophical i
explication of it as a fact — an unfolding
of it from its principles — a display of its
essential tendencies, of its real nature
and character. Such fact he had set
himself to study, and such a book he
would endeavor to write. Happily for
us, his official duties at Versailles were
intermpted, and he thus obtained the
leisure necessary to his task. It would
be an erroneous omission not to describe
the manner in which this interruption
occurred. M. de Beaumont's narrative
■ of it suggests more than the manliness
find courage of those immediately con- :
cemed. He writes :

" The resumptJon of his magisterial duties at
F«rsHlle6 loight have proved an obstacle^ or at <

pUay,

least a rival, to the protreas of the work. An
accident removed it His friend, H. de Beau-
mont, who bad returned to bis official post,
refused to speak on an occasion when the part
which the miniatere public had to play appear-
ed to him discreditable, and had, for this reason,
been dismissed, Tocqueviile, considering him-
self itfected by the blow which struck his friend,
immediately sent in his resignatioD, in these

'" Toulon, May 21st, 1833.

"'HoxsisuB LB PaocuKEUB General : Being
now at Toulon, engaged in inspecting the Bagnio
and other prisons of the toffn, it was only to-
day that 1 learnt, from the Maniteur of the 1 6th
of May, the severe, and, I venture to say, unjust
sentence pronounced by M. le Garde det Seeata
on U. Q. de Beaumont.

'"Long united in intimatefriendship with the
person who has ju«t been dismissed trota his
functions, whose opinions I hold, and whose
conduct I approve, I think mjself bound volun-
tarily to share his lot, and to abandon with him
a career in which neither active service nor
upright conduct is a security against unmerited
disgrace.

" ' [ have the honor, therefore, to request you,
M. le ProewrmiT General, to have the goodness
to lay before M. le Garde da Seeaux Tnj resigna-
tion of the office of j "9« tu^feant at the tribunal
of Versailles -

" 'I have the honor to be, etc.'"

Hero, with an emphasis, were fruits of
the change through which De Tocque-
viile had passed during the ripening of
the revolution of July, 1830, and which
had only been confirmed and completed
by what he had seen and espericnced
abroad. Thus was the first path aban-
doned, and the second one openly aad
forever preferred.

And now came to De Tocqueviile two
or three years of the greatest happiness
which life could afford. Emancipated from
the doubts which had formerly oppress-
ed him, with health of body and a fully
occupied and powerful mind, with a de-
finite subject and a reasonable abundanoe
of appliances for its study, De Tocque-
viile energized freely and with pleas-
ure,* laboring hard, but with the clastic
and cheerful vigor of a man consdous of
strength, and assured of reward. The
result was the first two volumes of
his Demotracy in America. They were
published in January, 1835, and achieved
m immediate and unparalleled success.
■' Since Montescjuien there has been noth-
ing like it," said Koyer-Collard ; and if

i8e2.1

MEMOIRS OF D£ TOCQUEVILLE.

in any thing Europe and America have
£uled exactly to indorse this dictum, it
has been because they have felt that, as
a whole, not even Montesquieu may ad-
vantageously compare with De Tocque-
ville.

Profoundly gratified by a success which
silenced every misgiving as to his own
powers, and which had made him illus-
trious, De Tocqueville rested, visited
England, (whither his fame had preceded
him,) marned, traveled, and, in due time,
settled himself anew to the studies which
were requisite to the completion of his
task. He felt that it would not do merely
to equal what he had already done. He
knew, moreover, that success sometimes
leads to undue confidence; and placing
clearly before himself the object he de-
signed to accomplish, and the dangers
and temptations which might stand in
the way of it, he girded himself for
long and patient labor, resolved that
neither indolence, nor confidence, nor
haste, should defraud him of his aim.
Five whole years did he devote to the
preparation of the last two volumes.
They contain not a sentence which was
not profoundly pondered as to its matter,
and most carefully elaborated to chaste-
ness and perfection of style. The mul-
titude of books he read at this time is
said to have been something prodigious.
Avoiding such as bore directly on his
subject, he seized on every thing else
with eagerness and delight. The great
writers of the seventeenth century were
never out of his hands. Bourdaloue, in
particular, he seems to have studied much
as Horace bids one study the models of
Greece — not so much for opinions as for
a mastery in art and style which appear-
ed the nearest approach to pei-fection.
" Plato, Plutarch, Machiavel, Montaigne,
Rousseau, and their fellows,^' says his
biographer, "he may be said to have
devoured." In a letter to his friend De
Kergorlay, he says himself: "I pass a
short portion of every day with three
men — Pascal, Montesquieu, and Rous*
seau." His labor was incessant, pro-
tracted, intense, and was directed to its
proper end with the precision and insight
peculiar to genius. In the case of some
men, the outcome of it all would have
been a pile of tomes that it would be
almost as &tiguing to read as to write.
With De Tocqueville, it was two small
volumes, from which not a word could

be omitted without loss, or transposed
without detriment ; in . which thought
succeeds thought in perfect and rigorous
sequence ; and which form a whole of pro-
portioned symmetry and strength such ns
It is scarcely possible should be surpassed.
When he published the second part of
his Democracy in Am^ca^ De Tocque-
ville had been for several years resident
in the country, though spending his win-
ters in Paris. Family arrangements made
after the death of his mother in 1836, left
him possessor of the old family-seat, the
" Chateau de Tocqueville," situate on the
peninsula of which Cherbourg is the ex-
tremity. His house and grounds com-
manded the finest views of both land and
sea. He found it by no means a hin-
drance to his studies that he had to de-
vote some portion of every day to the
care of his estate and to the repair of the
old chateau. Another thing which added
to his contentment in the country was,
that political life was strongly attracting
him, and that residence on his own pro-
perty has always been one of the best
means by which a good landlord may en-
ter it.

** * It is certain/ writes M. Beaumont, * that if
he had not sought political life, it would have
sought him ; for in a free country, any thing that
raises a man above the crowd, draws to him pub-
lic attention, and Tocqueville was already illus-
trious. But, in fact, he desired it Tocqueville
had much ambition — not the vulgar ambition
which feeds on money or on place, or is satis-
fied by empty honors — ^such ambition he knew
only to despise it" *

In March, 1839, accordin<jly, he was sin-
cerely gratified by his election to the
Chamber of Deputies for the arrondisse-
m^nt of Valogncs, and he continued to re-
present the same constituency till 1848,
regularly voting with the constitutional
opposition.

It will do any thing but surprise oiu:
readers to learn that, as a speaker in Par-
liament, De Tocqueville had no success.
The functions of writer and orator have
certainly much in common, but they have
almost as much in difference. It is not
necessary to discuss and discriminate them
here, though M. de Beaumont has done
so in his memoir. His afiectionate and
jealous solicitude to do justice to the me-
mory of his friend, has led to an agreea-
ble digression, describing exactly how it
was that De Tocqueville was not an ora-
tor, and gently urging an acknowledgment

■EHOIRS OF DE TOCQUEVILLE.

[May,

jre have no nnwillingneRS to make, that a
^reat book demands for ite proiluction
higher and finer qualities than a power-
ful speech.

At the end of De Tocqtieville'a nine
years' representation of Valognes, came
the Revolution of 1848. It filled him
with indescribable pain, though it failed
to take him by surprise. Indued, he had
already, and in the most explicit terms,
warned the Chamber of its near approach
some four weeks prior to its outbreak.
He foretold the truth, though, like sun-
dry other prophets, he was not believed.
No one can suppose ihatby sucha man as
De TocqueviUe, such a prediction would
be rashly and wickedly hazarded. To
htm there was no hazard in the question.
He did not guess, or augur, or conjec-
ture, or merely expect, a revolution; he
perceived it. It was as if he had marked
the birth of a cyclone, and, by the infalli-
ble laws of storms, had announced the
place over which it would burst. The
gift was in seeing the birth, not in fore-
telling the crash. How truly De Tocque-
viUe saw it may be gathered from the fol-
lowing extract from a speech be deliver-
ed in the Chamber on January twenty-
seventh. The commencement of the Rev-
ohition was February twenty-fourth.

"'.... It is supposed,' said he, ' that there
is no danger because there is no collisi <n. It is
Slid that as there is no actual disturbance of
the surface ofsociety, revolution is far off.

" ' Gentlemen, allow me to tell you that I be-
lieve you deceive yourselves. Wilhout doubt
the disorder does not break out in overt acts,
but it has sunk deeply Into the minds of the
people. Look at ivhat is passing in the breasts
of the working classes — as yet, I own, tranquil.
It is true the? are not now inflamed by purely
political passions in tho same dei;ree as former-
ly, but do you not observe th«t tbeir pa'sions
froni political have become social * Do jou not
see gradually pervading theiD opinii.ns and ideas,
whoso object is not merely to overthrow a law,
a ministry, or even a dynasty, but society itself?
to shako the very roundations on which it now
rests f Doyou not listen to their perpetual cry?
Do you not bear incessantly repeated that all
those above them are incapable and unworthy
of governing them? that the present distribu-
tion of wealth in the world is unjust, that pro-
perty rests upon no equitable basis ? And do
jou not believe that when such opinions take
root, when they spread till they have almost
become general, when they penetrate deeply
into the masses — that they must lead sooner or
later — I know not when, I know not bow, but I
that sooner or later they must lead— to the
most formidable revolations t '

I " * Such, gentlemen, is my de^ conviction ; I
believe tliat at the present moment we are
slumbering on ■ volcano, (miu'murs ;) of this I
am thoroughly convinced, (excitemeoL}' "

De Tocqueville's conduct nnder the
new and trying circumstances which at-
tended the expulsion of the Bourbons, so
truly illustrates the whole character aliko
of his intelligence and his heart, and baa
been so ably summed up by his biograph-
er, that we gladly pi'eseat the account
of it.

" De TocqueviUe had not been bound by any
close or peculiar tie to the fallen dynasty ; ho
WHS attached to it in a merely constitutional
point of view ; but his ejeat intelligence had,
from the first, appreciated the danger to liberty
caused by the revolution.

"Tho danger he considered immeasurable,
and tho consequent mischief the greatest pos-
sible. To avert, in the midst of so much irre-
mediable misery and ruin, this lost and greatest
danger, seemed to be all that remained for him
to attempt. Therefore, after an attentive study
of tho events passing before bim, atlcr consider-
ing the raging passions, the divisions of party
in the country, divisions which were faithfully
represented in the Assembly, be became, whe-
ther rightly or wrongly, convinced of two thingn
—first, that the only and, perhaps, the last
chance of liberty for Franco lay in the establish-
ment of a republic; Kecond, that every attempt
to prevent its success would end in the ruin of
the republic in favor of the power of a single
person. In so judging, he was assuredly not
carried away by enthusiasm. His instinct and
bis reason were equally offended by the republic
of 1848 ; the violent and surreptitious origin of
the revolution — its authors — tho licentious the-
ories and even the absurd phraseology that it
hod brought forth — were thoroughly repugnant
to his nature, and would have- held him aloof
from the republic, had it not been for the extent
of the evil from which he thought that the e&-
tablishmcnt of the republic alone could save
France. TocqueviUe would have done any
thing to obriate it, because he felt that ils natu-
ral consequence would be to drive France into
an abyss of misery-, but now that the republic
was estJiblished, be saw safety in its mainten-
ance. Was he wrong? Was the permanence
of the republic a chimera? One must beware
of Judging every thing by the result Many
declared the rcpubhc to be impossible, who pro-
claimed still more impassible the permanence of
absolute power. However that may be, it is
essential to make known the convictions of
TocqueviUe, as they only can furnish the key
to his conduct at this important epoch of recent
history. These convictions reiculated all his
acts 1 and it is remarkable that, in the midst of
the most perplexing circumstances, TocqueviUe
hod not one instant of hesitation or weakness,
but appeared invariably more energetic and
more i^olute than ever.^

1862.]

MEMOIRS OF DE TOCQUEVILLE.

Thas making the best of what he would
fain have had otherwise and better, De
Tocqaeville will need no vindication for
having supported, to the extent of his
ability, the only government which then
seemed possible. After his return to the
Constituent Assembly as representative
of the department of La Manche, and
when it had become necessary to elect a
President, DeTocqueville appears to have
considered that General Cavaignac was
the man best fitted to be the chief of the
infant republic. In so thinking, he was
only of the same mind with the best in-
formed and ablest politicians on both
sides the channel. This, however, did
Dot hinder him from supporting the gov-
ernment of Odillon Barrot, nor from obey-
ing the summons which he received
while traveling on the Rhine with his
wife, and which required his return to
Paris as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
He dealt with the questions which came
before him in this new capacity with rare
ability and success, but at the end of only
five months, we believe, circumstances
obliged him to give up his portfolio. He
continued to sit in the Assembly till it
had drae^ged its miserable existence almost
out, and then, with worn-down health
and an utterly jaded mind, he hastened
to Sorrento to recruit both. But not
even Sorrento — which wife, friends, books,
society, climate, scenery, all combined to
make the most charming retreat in the
world — could do more than partially, and
for a while, blunt the anguish with which
he watched Paris and France, and the
man who was destined to be master of
both. He saw the gathering of the
storm, appreciated the danger which
would attend its outburst, and could no
longer rest in the security of his Italian
retreat. He felt it would be almost like
stealing away from a duty to remain
there ; and, taking a hasty leave, he ar-
rived in Paris in time to be in his place
on the second of December, 1851. What
took place on that darkest of days is
needless to recapitulate. De Tocque-
ville shared the lot of his colleagues, be-
ing one of the Two Hundred who were
marched as prisoners to the barracks on
the Quai d'Orsay, whence they were at
nicfht removed to Vincennes.

Immediately on regaining his personal
liberty, De Tocqueville withdrew to his
estate in Normandy. The silence and
quiet of uninterrupted communion with

^Tature were what he deeply needed,
though at first he was unable to enjoy
them. There was too fierce a fever
within to admit of more than a toleration
of the profound tranquillity without.* It
was only by degrees that the gentler in-
fluences began to prevail, and, even then,
but partially. It is certain that thou|2:h
he so much strove to repress them, De
Tocqueville was never able completely to
subdue the repugnance and impatience
with which, on this occasion, he yielded
to what he was unable to prevent. Com-
bining with his sense of powerlessness,
these feelings often amounted to absolute
torture ; and we doubt whether, at the
best, he ever attained to more than a du-
bious and paradoxical sort of resignation
which, though refusing to be openly
swayed by passion, was withal consistent
with an ever - present consciousness of
utter injustice, of being one, and only
one, of the victims of the most gigantic
and successful outrage of modern times.
Some of the letters written about this
time evince only too plainly the keenness
and depth of the anguish ho endured.
We can find space for only a portion of
one of them ; it dates five months later
than the Coup d*JEtat^ and from Paris.
De Tocqueville had returned. thither from
the country to gather materials for the
new book he was meditating. He wrote
no phrased sentiment, but only what,
under such circumstances, a great-souled
and profoundly sensitive and noble man
could do no other than feel :

" .... All work is for the present impossi-
ble. Being in Paris, I attribute my incapacity

♦ •* Go out/* says one who was richly competent
to write of this point, *^ go out into the woods and
Talleys when your heart is rather harassed than
bruised, and when you suffer from vexation more
than grief. Then the trees all hold out their arms
to relieve you of the burden of your heavy thoughts;
and the streams under the trees glance at you as they
run by, and will carry away your trouble with the
fallen leaves ; and the sweet-breathing fur will draw
it off together with the silver multitudes of the dew.
But let it be with anguish or remorse in your heart
that you go forth into Nature, and instirad of your
spealdng her language, you make her speak yours.
Your distress is then infhsed through all things, and
Nature only echoes, and seems to autheniicate,
your self loathing or your hopelessness. Then you
find the device of your sorrow on the argent shield
of the moon, and see all the trees of the field weep-
ing and wringing their hands with you, while the
hills, seated at yoiu- side in sackcloth, look down
upon you prostrate, and reprove you like the com-
forters of Job." — Hours with the My9tie9» 1st ed.
vol. i. pp. 88, 84.

ALFBED THE GREAT.

IMay,

to the events that I see, and to the exciting con-
yersations of erery day. If I were in the
country, I should attribute it to solitude. The
truth is, that it arises from a sickness at heart,
and will not cease till this is cured, which can
be the work only of time, the great healer of
^ief, as every one knows. I must try to wait
patiently for the cure. And yet I cherish this
grief as one does every real sorrow to which
one has a right, bitter though it be. The sight
of all that is going on, and especially of the way
in which it is regarded, hurts every feeling of
pride, honor, and delicacy. I should be sorry
to bo less sad. In this respect, I ought to be
thoroughly satisfied, for, indeed, I am sad unto
death. I have reached my present age, and
passed through all sorts of circumstances, advo-
cating always the same cause — ^regulated liberty.

Can this cause be lost forever ? I began to feai^
it in 1848, 1 fear it now still more ; not that I
am convinced that this country will never again
possess constitutional institutions, but will th^
last, or will any others ? It is a moving sand.
The question is, not whether it can be fixed,
but what will be the winds that will toss it
about?

" Still I try to work. Every day I spend two
or three hours in the library or the Rue de
Richelieu. In spite of my endeavors to turn
my thoughts in another direction, a profound
sadness sometimes steals over me ; and if I allow
it to seize upon me unawares, I am lost for the
rest of the day. My life might be pleasant,
but if I look aside from my book, I am cut to
the heart"

[to be concluded.]

From Titan.

A THOUSAND YEARS AGO; OR, ALFRED THE GREAT.

About the year 855, an Anglo-Saxon
king is in Rome, visiting the churches
and laying costly offerings upon their
altars. He is a man of a sorrowful coun-
tenance : he looks as though he had run
away from trouble, and as if he were try-
ing to hide his bewildered head beneath
the shadow of him who sits as Bishop
upon the seven hills of old Rome. The
clamor of those fearful northmen " whose
cry is in their ships," is still ringing in
his ears ; and he even now has the scared
look of one who listens to a distant echo.
The marauding Danes had harried the
lands of this poor West-Saxon king, un-
til, remembering the vows which in his
early youth he had taken upon him, and
sighing for the cowl which he had put on
in love, and been forced to throw off in
haste under pressure of state necessity,
the royal devotee has made a pilgrimage
to Rome in order to tell his beads in
peace. Wherever he goes, from shrine
to shrine, he leads by the hand a fair
boy of six years, bis fifth, but fiivorite
son.

Is there any thing in that young child's
face which hints at future greatness?
Doubtless there is an inscription written

there which, like the invisible ink some-
times employed in secret correspondence,
will start out into meaning as soon as it
be subjected to the strong light of the
full day, or to the fiery heat of maturing
circumstances. That' fair-haired child,
born in the year of grace 849, at a place
called Wantage, in that part of the
West-Saxon kingdom now known as
Berkshire, is one of that small brother-
hood who are known to all posterity by
the title of " Great." No doubt that
title" might be read even now, either in
the molding of the brow, in the clear
light of the eye, or in the firm chiseling
of the little mouth. Perhaps even the
childish step has the expression of great-
er decision than has the wavering, incon-
sequent gait of that care-worn Saxon
father, as the two strangers pace the
round pavement of the Appian Way, or
climb the broad stair which leads up to
the Capitol. Young ^fflfred is the future
founder of a long-lived kingdom, the skill-
ful architect of a noble constitution, the
brave deliverer of an oppressed people,
the calm sage who weds liberty to securi-
ty, the enlightened foster-father of learn-
ing — himself scholar, poe,t| and minstr^.

1862.]

ALFRED THE GREAT.

Bat the credentials which that child has
to show are as yet a sealed packet ; and
as to futare kingship, there are turbulent
brothers betwixt Alfred and the throne
of Wessex ; there were four elder breth-
ren once — one is now dead ; but the re-
maining brethren must each have his
turn upon that unstable seat — and young
Alfred will resolutely serve them all, with
strict loyalty, until God call him to the
foremost place.

The father and son spend a whole year
in Rome, though England is miserably
devoured by the Danish Raven during
the weak king's absence. The banner of
these terrible Northmen was a Raven,
enwrought by the hands of the three fell
sisters of Inguar, Hubba, and Halfdene,
children of the famous Regnar Lodbrog,
the most formidable of all sea-kings. It
was a labor of revenge, finished m one
noontide ; and they said that the mystic
Raven would always clap his black wings
when he scented victory on the breeze,
and always drooped his head when disas-
ter was at hand. The Raven is in full
feather now, while the recreant Ethel-
wolf is rebuilding the school of " Thomas
the Holy" at Rome, sealing the grant of
" Peter-Pence," and promising to pay
yearly a subsidy of three hundred marks
to the rising Bishop of Rome — one hun-
dred of these to glide into his privy-
purse, one hundred to feed the lamps
of St. Peter's on Easter eve, and the
last hundred to light the lamps of " St.
Paul without the Walls." " This is the
Bride," as said old John Speed, in speak-
ing of the Romish Church, " the Bride
that evermore must be kissed and dow-
ered."

Alfred, young as he is, is quite at
home in the city of the Caesars. His
father Had once before sent the child of
his hopes thither on pilgrimage, when he
was but four years old. The little Anglo-
Saxon had traveled down through France,
and over the snowy mountains, into the
beautiful land of the south, attended by
a stately retinue. The Pope of the day
is not likely to have had a prophetic
view of the child's coming greatness:
but it is probable that a secret message
from so faithful a son of the Church as
Ethelwolf, bad induced him to anoint, as
future monarch of England, the favorite
child of the West-Saxon king. However
Uiis might be, it was the policy of a
growing hierarchy to ocQupy every foot

of vantage-ground, and to claim every
imaginable power over kings and peoples.
The chrism which has anointed that
child's head in the Church of " St. John
Lateran," the mother church of Rome,
may perhaps stand him in good stead
some day, when rights are weighed in the
uncertain balances of opinion.

But to return to the royal father and
his favorite son. Rome is at last left,
and the homeward journey is made
through France. A new fascination
awaits the widowed king as he pauses to
rest at the Court of Charles the Bald.
Here there is a beautiful maiden, the
daughter of Charles, the near descendant
of Charlemagne ; and the old king is in
desperate love. It takes some time to
persuade the royal beauty to become the
wife of an elderly monarch who has
grown-up sons at home, the eldest of
whom is rebellious, ambitious, and al-
ready plotting to seize the throne of his
loitering father — that throne, too, totter-
ing from external assaults, as well as
heaving from internal commotion. The
fair Judith allows herself to be wooed
from July to October of the year 856,
and then she accompanies her husband
and little step - son to England. So
charmed is the monarch with his young
Prankish bride, that he insists on sharing
with her his royal dignity ; and a cere-
monious coronation of the queen-consort
takes place, though for some time past
the Anglo-Saxon queens had been re-
duced to a very subordinate position.
But the sight of a crown on the head of
his youthful step-mother, and the know-
ledge that the anointing oil had been
poured on the head of his youngest
brother, only further irritate the turbu-
lent Ethelbald : and so strong grows the
rebellion, that the weak monarch is fain
to give over the half of his kingdom to
his wayward son, for the dear love of
peace. That wretched compromise will
not wear well. The old king dies in two
years' space, leaving a divided house and
a vexed kingdom. Strange things and
unlawful follow; for Ethelbald outrages
law, custom, and religious institutions, by
taking to wife this very lady, whose com-
ing and whose crown had so deeply
moved his jealous nature. They say
that Swithin, Prior of Winchester, the
tearful saint, so wrought upon the mind
of the reprobate, that he consented to
put i^w^y his wife, and otherwise to mend

ALFRED THE GREAT.

[May,

hia ways. But" ho only survived his
father about three years ; and his broth-
ers, Ethelbert and Etheh-ed, successive-
ly reigned in his stead.

All this while youncr Alfred's mind is
molding under the hard hand of adver-
sity, while it receives a finer finish from
the lighter touch of woman's infiuence.
The Lady Osburga, his own mother, a
woman of excellent gifts, had died when
he was yet in early childhood ; but
the influence and the example of the ac-
complished step-mother are highly stimu-
lating to his young intellect. The " in-
tellectual Paladins " of the court of
Charlemaijno had left behind them a
standard of education far higher than
that which obtained in England ; and
when Alfred was lingering with his father
the while he paid court to the Princess
Judith of France, he probably caught
something of the tone of mind wliich
prevailed around him. Certain it is,
however, that not even a monkish tutor
had been found to teach the boy to read
up to his twelfth year ; and but for the
incident which follows, well known, truly,
but one which will bear repeating in all
the school-rooms of the nineteenth cen-
tury, Alfred, the scholar, the poet, and
the minstrel-king, might have been left
to sign his after-edicts with tooth and
nail, like his rude " forebears," leav-
ing the impress of a royal front tooth
and a thumb-nail upon the soft wax.
The other boys, his brothers, have grown
up in profound ignorance of their letters,
but here sits the beautiful Frankish step-
mother in one of the rush-strewn halls of
her rude English palace. She has just
laid aside the royal standard which she
has been " embroidering," whereon the
"White Horse of the Saxons is making
ready to confront the Black Raven of
Denmark. Her household is grouped
around her — the ladies at iheir spinning-
wheels, the eorls and thanes lounging in
listless ^' idlesse." Judith draws out an
illuminated manuscript of Saxon poetry,
and she reads aloud. The verses have no
classic elegance, but they have a stately
rhythm of their own ; and the thoughts,
though rude, are stirring and heroic.
The boy Alfred listens with an intensity
shared by no other of the gronp. The
royal lady looks around, holds out the
book in her hand, and promises that he
shall own the manuscript who first learns
to read it. The rebel son, king as he is,

cares not to enter such lists as these, and
the others hold their peace likewise.
With flushed brow the boy Alfred leans
forward and asks : " Wilt thou in very
deed give the book to whomsoever shall
first read and repeat it?" The queen
confirms her promise. The Frankish Ju-
dith, like the wife of Heber the Kenite,
has driven a nail into a sure place. Al-
fred takes the precious volume and slips
away. He goes about seeking for some
one to teach him to read his own mother-
tongue, and it is no easy quest at an An-
glo-Saxon court in that year 861. At last
the young student returns, triumphantly
recites the poem, and claims the reward.
"The child is" indeed "father of the
man," and that man will be one of the
great ones of the earth. In the teaching
drama of that one life, the much talked
of "unities" were singularly preserved
throughout ; the " days," from childhood
to advanced manhood, being

" Bound each to each by natural piety."

That boy will live to translate with his
own band into his vernacular tongue, a
book which became his dear friend and
companion. It was Boetius' De Cofiaola-
tione Philosophies / and in peace or in
war Boetius was carried about in his bo-
som ; nay, he will never rest until he
hath given to his country, in Saxon ver-
sions, the histories of Orosius and of
Bede, the Greek fables of iEsop, and
Gregory's Pastoral ; and he will instruct
and refine his ignorant people by the
graceful teachings of his own muse. It
is even said that he rendered into Saxon
the Old and New Testaments ; but it is
not credible that so vast a labor could
have been accomplished in the intervals
of outward distraction. We honor him
in that he had it in his heart to do this ;
and we know that when the pen and the
scepter dropped together from the hand
of the dying monarch in the fifty-second
year of his age, he had half-completed
his version of the Book of Psalms. These
are brilliant results of that memorable
hour in the rush-strewn hall, when the
young step-mother held up her prize-
book for competition amongst the unlet-
tered youth of a kingdom I If histoiy
dealt more with such noble conquests as
these, and somewhat less exclusively
with the flapping of a raven's wing, the
prancing of a mystio horse, the triumphant

1862.]

ALFRED THE GREAT.

swoop of an ea^le, or the culminating of
a crescent ; in line, if we had more of the
moral and intellectual history of men and
peoples, and rather less of the physical,
we might be wiser students than we now
are.

At last Alfred is called to the throne
in preference to the children of an elder
brother, by the sanction of his father's
will, and by the call of a whole nation
speaking as with the Toice of one man.
He is twenty-two years of age now, of a
countenance open and engaging, in figure
and bearing noble and dignified, in temper
singularly mild, and with intellectual gifts
and moral qualities such as furnish the
very ideal of Christian chivalry. And
truly he has fallen upon proving times!
The metal he is made of will be tried by
almost every conceivable test, saving that
most searching one of all — a long summer
day of prosperity. He began to reign
quasi invitus^ as his trustworthy bio
grapher, Asser, says of him, so that we
may believe that the step out into great-
ness was unwillingly taken ; and forth-
with the sword must be buckled on I

For the first seven years of his reign
there is no great proof of skill displayed
in the handling of either scepter or sword.
He is learning bitter lessons of humilia-
tion, while he makes worthless truces
with the treacherous Northmen, who are
stalking over the land pillaging, burning,
and killing wherever they go. Alfred's
friends are even emigrating to other
lands in despair, and leaving him alone to
face the storm; and we catch an occa-
sional glimpse of a fugitive who is angling
in a stream for a dinner, hunting in a woo3
in hope of breaking a long fast, or hiding
in the tangled bushes of a marsh ; some-
times with a few haggard comrades, at
others in lonely misery; and yet dividing
his last loaf with some beggar-subject
whose face is yet more sharply cut by
famine than his own. Then comes the re-
treat to Athelingay, the " Isle of Nobles,"
with the one narrow pathway to his hid-
ing-place, stealing through the alder-
growth of the bogs ; and then that long
year's residence in this " moated grange,"
where he waited drearily for better days,
and "yet they came not." The story
of the burnt cakes is such a household
word in the million homes of the Anglo-
Saxon race, that it may not be rehearsed
here, lest perchance some ragged school-
boy might consider himself qualified to

set the sketcher right in some minor de-
tail of the picture.

But now at last, after the seven years
of apprenticeship to misfortune, come the
brighter days. Hope rises amidst the
mists of the isle of Nobles ; a handful of
followers has threaded the wet path lead-
ing to the " moated grange ;" they are
throwing up little earthworks, making
mud entrenchments, running out unexpect-
edly, beating the astounded Danes, and
vanishing again, nobody knows whither !
This brisk exercise stretches the enfeebled
limbs of depression, and gives more mus-
cular strength to the new-born confidence
of the bog-folk and their king. Then en-
sues the poetical little episode of the harp-
er, who drew such melody from his strings,
and sang so deliciously to their music, that
he is bidden to the banquet-board of the
Danish King as he carouses in his entrench-
ed camp of Eddendune, near Westbury.
Like Gideon, Alfred listens to the dreams
of intoxicate security, and soon makes
ready to break the sorry pitcher which
hides his lamp. Whether Alfred, upon
this, sent round, as signs and tokens, some
of his neatherd's brown cakes, like the
handing about of the " chupatties," which
were the signal of Indian outbreak the
other day, the Saxon chronicle hath not
recorded ; but, by some sign or other, the
English were suddenly awakened out of
the sleep of exhaustion by the word :
"The King yet lives in Athelingay ; the
stone of Egbert is the place of meeting.''
The tryst is joyfully kept, and, for the two
days of muster, the blowing of horns is
prodigious. The down-trampled Saxons
are springing up in all directions, and
hurrying in arms to the rendezvous in the
willow-thickets of Selwood forest. In one
of Alfred's successful sallies from the fens
of Athelingay, he had surprised and ear-
ned off the famous " Reafen," that en-
chanted Raven standard of the Danes, so
that he has a pledge of future victory to
display to his people when they flock to
his side at the " stone of Egbert." He
has also a dream to tell, which marvelous-
ly helps his cause — how that Neot, the
Cornish saint, at whose shrine he had once
knelt in bodily anguish, and risen up much
the better for the appeal, had come in the
visions of the night and had promised vic-
tory. Some say that Cuthbert, the stem
Saint of Lindisfarn, had taken the trouble
to come and whisper encouragement.

The two days have passed, and on the

ALFHED THE 6RBAT.

[May,

third the Anglo-Saxons march to Edden-
dune. Alfred is undisputed chief of the
Saxon interest in England, because all the
kingdoms of the old Heptarchy have now
died out, leaving him the representative
man. The King says a few words of stir-
ring appeal to his people, and then leads
them against the uncounted masses of the
Northmen. The Danes fight well ; but
they are inwardly terror-stricken; be-
cause, as " Alfred ! Alfred I" is the cry,
they think that the grave has opened, and
sent him forth to their destruction ; while
he himself points, with a confident finger,
at a standard-bearer who heads one divi-
sion of his army, and cries : " Saint Neot
has come with victory 1" Each of these
fancies does its work on the excited brain
of Dane and of Saxon ; it was as the shade
of Theseus at Marathon. The Northmen
are fiiUing or flying, and before night all
who are not lying on that encumbered
plain are strengthening themselves in a
neighboring entrenchment. Alfred, now
King of all England, is beleaguering the
Danes, and keeping stern watch about
them for a fortnight. While they are
growing hungry and heartless, making
ready to sue for mercy, mayhap a detach-
ment of Alfred's men is cutting the turf
on the hillside above Westbury, and
shaping out the great " white horse " on
the chalk, to mark the field of E<1 den-
dune. But here comes Godrun the Dane,
humbly and " delicately." It is well for
him that no righteous Samuel is nigh to
" hew Agag to pieces." Alfred, instead
thereof, exacts oaths and hostages, and
one other surrender, at whose precipitan-
cy we certainly demur. Godrun and his
Pagan chiefs must go with Alfred to the
neighborhood of the Isle of Nobles, and
there, clad in white garments, profess
Christianity, and receive the seal of bap-
tism. Alfred himself stands godfather to
the unreclaimed-looking candidate, and
then away go Godrun and his fierce fel-
low-converts to find spades and pickaxes
wherewith to cultivate their new allot-
ment of East- Anglia. As much to our sur-
prise as to our pleasure, we find that the
bold scheme answers. Godrun becomes a
respectable colonist, a worthy agricultur-
ist ; and when a great fleet of the North-
men, under Hastings, the famous hero of
Scandinavian romance, soon afterward
comes sailing boldly up the Tiiamcs,
thinking to be eagerly joined by their
old confederates, they find the sea-king

settled down as a reputable country
squire, amidst his broad acres, and his
promising crops. He can not spare time
to go harrying the land as of old. He has
a vested interest in the prosperity of the
country ; goes soberly to church on Sun-
days, and sits in the squire^s pew. No !
Godrun at le^st prof esses to fear God and
honor the King; and so the strangers
spend a dull winter at Fulham, and then
sail away to seek better luck in Flanders.

Hastings will come again in force ; but
in the mean time the land will have rest ;
and the great Alfred will so strengthen
himself in his kingdom and in the hearts of
his people, that when the terrible North-
man reappears, he will be hunted down
until he swim that same river Thames
like a wounded stag. Even his wife and
children will be seized, baptized, and re-
turned to their chafed lord loaded with
the gifts of royal generosity. This is heap-
ing coals of fire on an enemy's head ; but
they fail to melt his hard nature — they only
scorch the revengeful brain of the north-
ern pirate. That man will chasten Al-
fred's prosperity, and call out the marvel-
ous resources of his great intellect, until
the afternoon, if not the very evening, of
his day. True, there was a golden sun-
set ; and the calm hours of his closing day
were spent in maturing his admirable in-
stitutions, and in teaching his beloved
people the lessons of wisdom which he
had painfully learned in camp, in court,
and in hiding-place. Even when he was
breathing the disheartening mists of the
fenny Athelingay, he was fortifying him-
self against the miseries of the present,
and educating himself for the call of the
future, by learning the precious wisdom
of the past. He had carried his books
with him into his covert — the annals
of his poor distracted country — hymns,
religious poetry, and, best of all, the
manuscript of Holy Scripture. He was
sitting apart and reading, when the beau-
tiful incident occurred of the starving
beggar, and the halving of the last loan
David, the minstrel-king of Israel, was
the model which he h^ set before his
eyes for imitation ; and visions of future
victory, of spiritual as well as temporal
peace, when God should give him rest
from his enemies, may have lighted his
dreary " Cave of Adullam."

So illiterate were even the clergy of
England when Alfred began to reign,
that ^^verj few there were," as he has

1852.]

ALFRED THE GItEAT.

2»

. Inmself recorded, " who conld under-
stand their daily prayers in English, or
translate anj writing from the Latin."
He adds : '^ I, indeed, can not recollect
one single instance on the south of the
Thames when I took the kingdom." Bat
he soon tut-ned his realm into an adalt
school ; for he made even the poor old
nobles learn to read as well as the clerks.
Slow scholars doubtless they were ; and
the King, like his step-mother, must needs
hold out many a prize in order to stimu-
late their tardy ambition. The learned
men of the past day had almost all per-
ished together with their books ; and
Alfred had to search all England, and
to send literary embassies to foreign
lands, in order to secure teachers for
himself and for his new University of
Oxford. Asser, his future friend and
biographer, was found somewhere in the
western part of Wales. Grimbald, a
learned monk, who had treated with
kindness the little Anglo-Saxon Prince
of four years, when he was traveling
through Fi-ance, on his early mission to
Rome, was sought and found. Perhaps
Grimbald's gift of sweet song was re-
membered after those many troublous
years. He became one of Alfred's most
congenial companions, and used to soothe
the King with his melodious voice. But
it was Asser who taught Alfred to keep
a Commonplace Book. The Welshman
chanced to make a quotation which struck
the royal ear. Alfred drew from his bosom
his little manual of devotion, and asked
Asser to write it down. It was full, and
so Asser proposed to make an album,
which should receive the stray scraps
of learning, that nothing might be lost.
The idea takes, and volume after volume
is stored with fragmentary wisdom. Now
it is a text from Holy Scripture ; and
then it is some fine classic thought, which
the royal scholar renders into his own
terse Saxon.

Another important acquisition was the
celebrated Johannes Erigena, so called
because of his Irish descent. He was
a monk of extraordinary acquirements,
a learned linguist, and a man whose
acute intellect had been turned to the
study of the sciences and the arts, as
well as literature. He taught geometry
and astronomy in Alfred's rising univer-
rity ; while Asser gave lessons in gram-
mar and rhetoric, and John of Saint
Bavid'ft in logic, arithmetio, and music.

But learned factions must have run high
at that day ; for John Erigena, either at
Oxford or at Malmesbury Abbey, where
some assert that he taught, was one day
set upon by his enraged pupils, and act^
ually stabbed to death with pen-knives !

But it is time to glance at the Great
Alfred as the statesman and the legi^
later, as well as the warrior and the man
of letters. And it is right that the noble
sentiment of him, who was the true founder
of the British monarchy, should here be re-
corded, that " The English should forever
remain as free as their own thoughts /"
And yet so firm was the hand with which
he administered the laws he had himself
made, that he caused golden bracelets
to be suspended above the highways, as
a test of the supremacy of order ; and
behold! there was not an arm in Eng-
land bold enough to dare to take them
down. Every where law was triumph-
ant, and the rights of property secured.
The land was mapped out into counties,
the counties were parceled into hundreds,
and the hundreds subdivided into tith-
ings. Regular courts of justice were es
tablished ; and that noble institution,
to which the Englishman clings as the
anchor by which he may safely ride in
storm or calm, trial by jury, became the
law of the land. And if the accused
could not safely trust his rights to the
consideration of twelve reputable men,
his own peers in life, he might appeal
onward, from court to court, in the
ascending scale of dignity. Thus the
wise edicts of the minstrel-king of the
ninth century, became the basis of that
body of legislation which, a thousand
years further on in the life of nations,
is known by the name of our Common
Law.

His encouragement of learning was so
marked that he used to sit, as an eager
listener, while the learned men, whom
he had trained in his own kingdom or
allured from other lands, lectured from
the chairs which he had set up in the
halls of his beloved Oxford. The language
of one of his edicts is iso remarkable, that
it must here be quoted : " Wee will and
command, that all free men of our king-
dome whosoever, possessing two hides
of land, shall bring up their sonnes in
learning till they be fifteene years of
age at- least, that so they may be trained
to know God, to be men of understand-
ings and to live happily; for^ of a man

THE MODERN BASILISK.

[May,

tbat is borne free, and yet illiterate, we
repute no otherwise than of a beast, or a
brainlesse body, and a very sot.*'

When Alfred was lying hid amidst the
dank thickets of the Isle of Nobles, accom-
panied by the Lady Alswitha, the nobly
bat not royally born wife, who shared
his hard crust, he had vowed a vow unto
his God. He promised that if God should
give him rest from his enemies round
about, and should set him up on high
above them that hated him, he would
dedicate to His service a third part of
his time. The vows of adversity com-
monly become the broken promises of
prosperity; but not so with Alfred. And
now see him in the stone-built palace of
his kingdom — stone-built, for he sets his
face against the wooden houses which had
previously satisfied an oppressed people,
and which used to burn like touchwood
at the kindling of the Danes. He is care-
fully measuring the twenty-four hours of
the day and night into three equal por-
tions. There is not a clock in the land
to toll the burial of one hour and the
birth of the next. There is not even an
hour-glass to be turned by Alfred's watch-
ful hand. No dial-plate has ever mapped
out the mystic journey of the day ; and
perhaps the shadow of some ancestral
oak, as it silently moves across the face
of a sleeping pool, is the only gnomon
which graduates the swift procession of
the hours. What will Alfred do? There
are six wax candles in the royal chapel,

each of them a foot long, with the inches
carefully marked by lines of different col-
ors. Each of these burns for four hours,
three inches an hour, the six wax candles
thus living through a night and a day.
"They did orderly burn foure hours a
piece," says Spelman,and it was the duty
of the keepers of the chapel-royal to go
and advertise the King how the colored
hour-lines were consuming in their turn.
To shield this little torch of Time from
wavering before the breath of chance-
winds, it was placed in a lantern of thip
white horn with a frame of wood, the
King's own happy contrivance, and thus
the thrifty economist knew when to give
his eight hours to God in devotional
services or pious works ; his eight to
the affairs of his kingdom, and the re-
maining eight to a short sleep, to hasty
meals, and to some precious hours of
study. This was the man who had fought
fifty-six pitched battles with the Danish
invaders, and whose days and nights
were passed in almost continuous suffer-
ing from some incurable malady 1

But the candle of the great King's
mortal life, with its many-colored hour-
lines, at last burnt down into the socket.
The hours of service to his people, and
the hours of devotion to his God on
earth, were told out when he had but
just reached the fifty-second year of his
age, and the twenty-ninth of his reign ;
and so, in the year 900, the Great Alfred
entered upon the hours of his rest.

From Ohambers*s Journal.

THE MODERN BASILISK.

EvKRY body has heard of the basilisk,
which was supposed to fascinate you with
its eye ; but the basilisk that has appeared
in our day has no eyes, and fascinates
one — I don't know how. It has five digi-
tal members, which I am sorry — for eu-
phony's sake — ^to say are called toes; these
are connected by joints to an undulating
body which terminates — what a horrible

language the English is I — in a heel ; and
the whole is attached, I am happy to say,
to an ankle. These several items, when
encased in a covering of kid — which mat-
ter-of-fact Crispins harshly term a boot —
fastened by means of a lace which runs
through brass-protected holes, covered
with patent leather at the extremity, and
provided at the heel with a sole d la mtli-

1862.]

THE MODERN BASILISK.

tenre — a very nice way of doing a sol
form altogether a very formidable basi-
lisk. The priest, the warrior, and the
philosopher own it is irresistible. I have
myself heard priests acknowledge as
much ; warriors make no secret of it ; and
the philosopher is notoriously the first to
snecumb to its inflaence, probably because
in pensive meditation his eyes are ever
downward — for it is most frequently seen
tripping over the ground. It attaches itself,
with singular good sense, exclusively to the
gentler sex ; indeed, many ladies carry a
couple with them wherever they go ; and
many who are not ladies are accompanied
by the same number, for the basilisk is
by no means of an exclusive character.
It is very seldom found in quite a perfect
form : it is, judges will tell you, either too
long or too short ; too broad or too nar-
row ; too taper in front, or too protuber-
ant behind ; but even modifications of the
model shape possess vast fascinatory pow-
ers, and hold the helpless gazer spell-
bound. In a fashionable promenade, it is
no uncommon thing to see quite a crowd
of people, with their eyes riveted upon
one of these charming objects, whilst the
owner is herself (apparently) unconscious
of the eye-compelHng properties of that
which she exhibits. It is set off by what
mortals with material minds do not hesi-
tate to term a stocking, which Is white or
party-colored, plain or open-worked, ac-
cording to taste and fashion ; and it is
overshadowed by — may one say a crino-
line? — which, particularly when formed
of a scarlet substance, has been known to
add much to the otherwise bewitching
creation. Beneath this drapery the basi-
lisk sometimes lurks, and sometimes peeps
suddenly forth with a very startling effect.
It assumes a diversity of positions, each
full of grace and enchantment. It is seen
to very great advantage when resting upon
the step of a carriage ; and such was the
shock to a young friend of mine who dis-
covered one supporting itself on the draw-
ing-room fender, for the sake of the genial
warmth, that he was seized with a violent
palpitation of the heart, and though gen-
erally very talkative, was reduced to per-
fect silence ; for if you can only find power
of speech, the spell is broken, and your
eyes are withdrawn.

It has not the baleful influence of the
fiibled basilisk : it checks not the growth
of children ; hideed, it is credibly reported
to be an incentive to marriage : peers and

men of fortune, commoners of eminence
and men of no fortune, have had no bet-
ter excuse for matrimony : to the spinster
with riches, it often refuses its aid ; whilst
to the spinster with none, it is often a
dowry, and a very handsome dowry too.
Scarborough is the favoi-ite resort of the
basilisk ; it issues daily from the '^ Queen"
during the autumn, and disports itself
among the rocks ; and it entraps many
victims upon the " Spa." In the win-
ter, the lover of natural history will do
well to look after it at Brighton; and
during the London season, it principally
delights in the " drive" and Kensington
Gardens. Wherever a military band
plays, exquisite specimens of it are sure
to be obseived ; and a trustworthy news
paper lately gave an account of the
strange fascination which it exercised up-
on a Rifle Volunteer. Among the patriot-
ic lady-visitors who came to smile approval
upon the drill of a certain regiment, was
a beautiful young creature who possessed
two of those pretty satellites, one of which
she considerately displayed for the encou-
ragement of the whole company. Num-
ber Twenty immediately was " struck ;"
his eyes remaining fixed upon the basilisk
before him. " Eyes right I" roared the
sergeant who was superintending the
drill. Number Twenty considered that
his eyes were decidedly "right." " Eyes
left I" bellowed the sergeant ; but Number
Twenty couldn't do it. " Number Twenty,
ten paces forward." Number Twenty
obeyed with alacrity, for it brought him
nearer to his object. The sergeant then
gave the order to " wheel " and " quick
march," and Number Twenty was left so-
litary. The young lady withdrew the
basilisk beneath the drapery before allud-
ed to, and Number Twenty with a sigh
found his optics free to act. Lonely, he
wended his way homeward, and resigned
his position as lull private in the aforesaid
volunteers.

I have myself fallen under this influ-
ence and narrowly escaped unpleasant
consequences. Melancholy news had
summoned me on that occasion to Hast-
ings; and having been in no humor to
court enchantment, I am at liberty to aver
that my bewitchment was involuntary.
Scarcely before the train started did I
reach the well-known platform at the
London bridge terminus ; hastily was I
inducted into a carriage, and more hastily
did I fling my lighted cigar out of the

THE MODERN BAlmiSK.

window, (for, ates ! I Was young, and had
been inveigled into smoldng,) when I
found that all the places except one were
occupied, and occuf>ied, too, by ladies. It
was evident that my entry was unfavor-
ably regarded ; and I heard disheartening
whispers of " dissipated young man ;*'
handTkerchiefe, too, superabundantly scent-
ed, were applied to olfactory organs, in
an insin native and aggravating manner;
nor could I help saying to myself, (in
private extenuation,) " their abominable
scent may be as disagreeable to me as ray
tobacco is infamous to them." I tried,
however, to make peace with my fellow-
travelers in every way I could think of. I
offered one old lady the TVmw, and was stiff-
ly informed that she never read any paper
but the Record, To another I presented,
with my very best bo w,the last issue of a hu-
morous publication, which she just glanced
at, and then returned to me with a smile
of pity and disdain. A third assured me
that she was very much obliged to me,
but never could read in a railway car-
riage. A fourth said bluntly that "it
smelt of smoke, and she supposed I didn't
wish to make her ill ;" and the fifth, to
whom I sat opposite, I dared not address,
she had upon her countenance so heart-
rending an expression of ineffable con-
tempt. I don*t think I shall ever forget
her, and reasonable people will consider
it wonderful if I should. She was — I
don't know how old, for of course I didn't
ask her, and I'm not an (Edipus, but I
should say — about eighteen. She was
very delicate evidently, and very pretty,
also evidently, and she put forward, as if
to daunt me, the daintiest pair of basilisks
whioh I ever saw in my life ; and they cer-
tainly did daunt me. I drew my clumsy
muddy boots back as far as I could, and
thrust them under the seat upon which I
sat until my knee-caps suffered grievously,
but as for withdrawing my eyes from the
enchanting objects, it was almost an im-
possibility. I considered it a providential
arrangement that she should be going, as
in the sequel appeared to be the case, to
Hastings, whither I was bound, for I
firmly believe that wherever they got
out, I should have got out and followed
them until they disappeared. It was of
no earthly use attempting to extricate
myself: if I looked at the roof, my eyes
were brought down, as if by physical
force, until they rested upon the magic
spot ; if I made a feeble effort to admire

[May,

the country throiigh the Window, the re-
sult was the same ; and if I essayed to
read either of my ill-treated papers, every
word was transmogrified into "boots.**
So I resigned myself to my fate ; and it
was not a very harsh fate either. Once
I fancied I saw her smile slightly, as she
observed my frantic efforts for freedom
of vision, and the despairing manner in
which I yielded to destiny ; but it was
any thing but an encouraging smile, and
was succeeded by a most significant ap-
plication to her smelling-bottle, as if to
remind me of that horrid cigar. I made
an inward resolve never to smoke again,
though a Cubana king should be the
temptation ; but I shall not make an affi-
davit that I have kept that resolve ; for
I considered that the melancholy event
with which my journey was brought to a
close, left me perfectly fi^ee to injure my
health in that manner as much as I pleas-
ed. There were prophetic warnings and
portents as we jolted along, which would
have been sufficient, under any other
circumstances, to make me very cautious
and watchful ; but I was now in that com-
fortable state of mind, or absence of mind,
which is popularly supposed to belong to
him " quem Deus vult perdere." I fancy
I must have felt very like Merlin, after
he had been subjected to the " charm of
woven paces and of waving hands," for
what with the melancholy telegram which
had summoned me from town, and the
sneers of the anti-cigar party, and the
pangs of conscienoe, and the fascination
to which I was exposed, I felt — to use a
more expressive than learned phrase — ex-
actly "as if I couldn't help it."

At Reigate there was an evil omen :
the lady who read no paper but the He-
cord inquired of me wnat station it was.
I answered, carelessly, " Boots !'*

" Sir I" says she.

" I beg your pardon," said I ; " did I
say ' Boots ' ?"

"You did, indeed, sir; and I don't
know what to understand."

" I assure you, ma'am," said I, " my
head is so confused that I hardly know
what I am saying ; pray, excuse me. The
station is Reigate."

On we rocked, and I knew the eyes of
the Record ite were upon me, though mine
were constnuned to continue their task
of involuntary, inevitable staring; and I
beard from the bum of voices around me
that they were converslDg of lunatics and

1862.]

THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE.

idiot asylums, and it struck me I had set
their ideas running in that direction.

" Pray, sir," said the severe old lady who
had objected point-blank to the smell of
my papers, " did you ever visit one ?"

" Yes, ma'am," said I, " I have been to
Colney Hatch," (significant smiles ex-
changed,) " and very much pleased I was
with my visit. It is very interesting to
watch the eagerness with which, the poor
creatures pursue any study which by
much toil and trouble they have been
brought to master, and the patience and
attention displayed by the teachers is
really a very great lesson,"

"Did you observe any thing which
particularly struck you, sir ?"

*' Oh I yes. There was an orphan girl
who very much attracted my notice ; she
looked so sweet, and gentle, and innocent,
it seemed to me a pity to attempt to
teach her any thing ; and " (here my vu-
Orvis put one boot over the other) *' she
had such dear little feet I"

Just as I had finished this observation,
which my questioner evidently considered
quite irrelevant, for she didn't believe in

any kind of witchery, we grated into the
Hastings station. Sly vis-d-via now for
the first time opened her lips.

*' Will you be kind enough, sir," said a
soft sweet voice, " to give me my parcel
from under the seat ?" Like lightning I
bent forward, and senselessly supposmg
that she meant under her seat, caught hold
of — gracious goodness! the two pretty
things which had been enchanting me. It
was only for a moment ; there was a little
shriek of horror from her, and a look of
wonder from our fellow-passengers. " Un-
der your seat, sir, of course," said she, " I
can't think how you could make such a
mistake !"

But as it evidently was a mistake, and
as I apologized in a manner more than
abject, and as my f^ow-passen^ers were
kind enough, notwithstanding the matter
of the smoke, to advocate my cause, she
with a musical laugh forgave me, and
hoped I should know better another time.
For my part, though I daredn't say so,
I feel convinced it was fascination, and
that I was under an irresistible influence.

THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE.

While the fate of the two hundred un-
fortunate miners, lately killed at Hartley
Colliery, was still uncertain, a telegram was
dispatched to the North from Osborne,
inquiring by her Majesty's command: " Is
there hope ?" The following lines, by Isa,
have appeared in the Scotsman^ in com-
memoration of this touching incident :

Not to her Peers or Parliament,

Her soldiers or her lords,
Not to the waiting nations went

Our Sovereign Lady^s words :
She claimed no loyal service.

No love or honor due —
mourning wives and mothers !

Her message is for you?

Where Eneland^s richest harvests

Are gathered 'neath the soil,
More than two hundred men and boys

Went to their daily toil ;
Down in the earth's dark cbambcrF,

Thev wrought till fell the doom ;
And the pit shut its yawning mouth

Upon their living tomb.

VOL. LVL—NO. 1

And swiftly spread the tidings,

First told with bated breath ;
** More than two hundred living souls

Down there shut up with death."
There ran a thrill of horror.

Through idl above the ground.
Up to our mourning Queen, who rose

Amid her grief profound.

" Is there hope ?" she asked — the question
They ask, with pleading eye,
In palace and in cottage,
Who stand where death is nigh.
** No !" all around the pifs mouth
The wailing women go ;
Till they who toil to rescue
Sob out the dreaded '" No !'*

The message of our widowed Queen

Came to each widow there ;
" My heart bleeds," suffering sister,

In your grief I have a share.
Oh I when such holy healing

Did royal lips impart ?
Thy message, Sovereign Lady, made

A nation of one heart

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

[May,

From the Dublin University Magasine.

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

It was the morning of a lovely day in
the month of July, 1849. I am particular as
to the date, because the great and destruc-
tive fire, which I hope some time to de-
scribe, occurred in the following year. The
sun had risen on the city of Cracow, which
never looks so beautiful as in these early
hours, when the strong brilliant rays,
streaming down on the gilded towers and
spires of the numerous public buildings
and sacred edifices, cause them to gleam
and fiash here and there all over the
whole area of the city as if they were the
footprints of the sun — when the crafts in
the broad glowing river swing idly in their
moorings — when the rosy clouds spread
themselves like a curtain over the sum-
mits of the mountains, while the varied
and gorgeous tints of the woods which
lie at the base and stretch far up the
sides, resemble the luminous foliage in the
pictures of Claude, who spent whole days
in watching the effect of atmospheric
changes on forest scenery, leaving, as the
result of his life-long observations, finished
studies of leaves, and a landscape which
he considered his chef d^oeuvre^ in which
the infinite variety of trees reminds one
of the garden planted eastward in Eden.

I was dressed, and partaking of a deli-
cious breakfast, consisting of tea, choco-
late, fresh bread, fresh butter, honey in
the comb, and a variety of light cakes,
before the first sweet tones of the church
bells filled the silent city with harmony.
There is less difficulty in having a com-
fortable early breakfast in Poland than in
any other country I know of— -England
not excepted — the custom, in all well-re-
gulated houses being to prepare it with
the earliest dawn, lay it out with unspar-
ing profusion in the dining-hall, and allow
each member of the family to partake of
it when most convenient. Thus, in the
establishment of a nobleman, the family
physician very frequently is the first to
breakfast, passing the quiet hours, before
the clamor of the awakening of a great
household commences, in his study, or in
visiting the sick poor. The head of the

family n^y have his sent up to his cham-
ber, or with his sons he may partake of it
in the breakfast-room previous to joining
the hunt, while their beautiful Ukraine
coursers paw the gravel in front of the
windows, or shaking their long manes and
tossing up their intelligent-looking heads,
express by their neighings their impa-
tience for the chase. The ladies are the
last to appear, and as in general they at-
tend mass before they oreakfast, their
tardiness can hardly be considered repre-
hensible.

I may as well mention here that some
of the finest horses in the world, and some
of the best horsemen, are to be found in
Poland. The Hungarian proverb, " Lora
termett a Magyar," is equally true as ap-
plied to the Poles. The very term " eques^
trian order," used to distinguish their no-
bles, proves the value set upon good
horsemanship by a people who once re-
warded with a throne the victor at a
horse-race. The fortunate winner was
Duke Leek, and though it is said he gain-
ed the prize by stratagem, he proved
himself a wise and valiant monarch. He
was cotemporary with Charlemagne, over
whom, Polish historians say, he gain-
ed two great victories. The point from
which Leek, and the others who competed
with him, are said to have started, is
marked by a little cairn on the bank of
an inconsiderable rivulet about two Eng-
lish miles from Cracow, while the place of
the stone pillar on which the ensigns of
royalty were laid, and which Leek had
touched with his hand before the others
rode up, is covered by the handsome
Porte de St. Florian.

But to return to the events of the bright
July morning. I was engaged to be pre-
sent at a marriage in the family of a Po-
lish nobleman, residing some miles to the
north-west of the city, and a young friend,
Jozef Nowozielski, who had also received
an invitation, had oflTered to drive me
there in his own little carriage. Imme-
diately after I had breakfasted, I sent a
servant to Pan Nowosielski's villa in the

1862.]

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

Przedmiescie, or suburbs, with a small
portmanteau, myself following on foot.
There were but few persons traversing
the streets, and most of these were enter-
ing the wide open doors of the churches.
Many of the shops were closed, while
others were half-open, and the light was
struggling in an^ glancing on pretty Pa-
risian bijoutene, which women in bright,
but singularly negligent-looking morning
dresses, were rearranging and freeing
from dust. I went on, the sun was rising
higher, and country people, with their
farm produce, were coming in, looking
cheerful and talking gayly, as people will
look and talk in the morning, when they
are feeding on pleasant hopes, which the
day's experience may destroy. I, too,
was gay as the gayest, forgetting that
the shadow of death had ever fallen on
the earth, when suddenly I found myself
face to face with the reality. I had turn-
ed out of Grodzka street, near the magni-
ficent church of St. Peter, in order to get
to the Boulevards, and through it to the
Przedmiescie, when, before I was aware
of its proximity, I almost touched a cof-
fin-lid, which was laid against the wall of
a house, the second or third from the
comer. Had I been in ray own country,
I would have passed on, my spirits check-
ed no doubt by a memento so melancholy
and so suggestive, but in Cracow I fol-
lowed the example of others, and stopped
to read.

On the lid was a mourning card, on
which was inscribed the name of the de-
ceased, her age, the hour of her death, and
the time appointed for her interment, fol-
lowed by an invitation to " the public" to
attend the funeral and join in the services
then being performed in the house. Above
the card hung a beautiful myrtle wreath,
tied with broad white ribbon, symbolizing
the youth of the departed, and that she
had died unmarried. No one passed by
without reading, many who read entered
the house, while of those who did not en-
ter there were but few who did not mur-
mur " Requiescat in pace," as they hurried
on in pursuit of life's business or amuse-
ments.

I entered. A servant in deep mourn-
ing stood near a door to the right in the
hail, over which hung a heavy black cur-
tain ; he lifted this, and opening the door,
I stood in the castrum doloris, a large
room from which the beautiful light of
heaven was shut out, and the strange un-

earthly glare of numerous yellow wax ta-
pers in tall candlesticks substituted. In
the center, on a catafalque, was a coffin
lined with fine white cloth, at the head
was a pillow covered with the finest
lawn, trimmed with the richest and most
delicate lace of Mechlin, and stuffed with
the softest down ; pressing heavily on this
was the fair young head of Panna Marysia
Sobolska. She was dressed as if for a morn-
ing fete : the high robe of rich white satin
fitted closely to her beautiful throat, the
plaits of the full body lay gracefully over
the exquisitely formed bust, and the folds
of the ample skirt were arranged with
perfect simplicity and taste, giving a
mocking expression of life to the dead.
Her small delicate hands, which even the
pencil of Vandyck could not rival, clasped
a crucifix, which rested on her bosom.

As I stood gazing on that melancholy
picture, I was for some moments uncon-
scious of the continued sound of one voice,
until the sweet tinkling of a small silver
bell, accompanied, or rather immediately
followed, by a low murmur of many
voices, caused mc to turn suddenly roimd,
when I perceived that I had been stand-
ing with my back to an altar, at which a
Roman Catholic clergyman was celebrat-
ing the mass for the dead.

I moved at once from the foot of the
catafalque, and then my eyes rested on
a scene never to be forgotten. The young
dead — the sorrowing friends, their eyes
fixed with a sad, questioning gaze on the
motionless form — tlie strangers, some like
myself, unused to such ceremonies, stand-
ing silently but reverently apart, otiiers
joining in the services — the small chastely
ornamented altar, with its mourning dra-
peries — the priest in his black pluvials,
and his attendant acolytes — and with
these, the dreamy, monotonous voice, and
the low, soil chanting. A gentle touch
on the shoulder from one beside whom I
had been standing, recalled my attention
to the circumstances passing around ine.
The priest who had ofiiciated was ap-
proaching the faldstool near to which I
stood at the head of the bed, followed by
his attendants. I moved aside. The
priest knelt for a moment, then arose,
and bending slightly over the unmoved
upturned face of the dead, pronounced
the benediction. Sweet voices took up
his last words, singing: "Come to her
succor, ye saints of God ; run to meet her,,
ye angels of the Lord ; taking up her

•

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

[May,

soul and presenting it before the face of
the Most High."

I waited only for the conclusion of this
ohant. Lifting the black curtain, I passed
throucrh the dim hall into the life and
bustle of the street.

My friend's carriage was at the door
when I arrived, after a hurried walk, dur^
ing which I had neither looked to the
right hand nor the left, after I had quitted
the house where lay the young dead.
He was pacing up and down with a quick
step unaer the handsome piazza of bis
house, and as he seemed impatient at
my being so much later than I had pro-
mised, I jumped at once into my place,
reserving my apologies for a more propi-
tious moment. A description of the va-
rfous scenes and scenery of that one
morning would fill a large-sized volume ;
and as such is not ray present object, I
shall pass on, just glancing at the various
styles of architecture which occur be-
tween Cracow and the Okrugi, or district,
in which Count Andreas Zalnzianski,
whose . summons we were attending, re-
sided.

Near the city, handsome cottages are
general, some with picturesque porticoes,
adding considerably to the elegant ap-
pearance of the exterior of the buildings,
but greatly impairing the cheerfulness of
the interior, by excluding a considerable
proportion of the beautiful sunlight ; while
others, like the enchanting abodes in the
valley of the Rhone, are covered with
lattice-work and roses. As you advance
into the country, villas, having some
pretension^ to being extensive piles of
building, occur at frequent intervals,
many of them weather-stained, though
not ancient, bear the stamp of Italian
taste in the tall fluted columns of the
piazzas, having masks and busts for capi-
tals Others are more modern, and one
can easily trace the skill and judgment of
vhe French in structures which combine
ornament and utility with strength. Less
numerous than the villas are the gray
mansions whose simple grandeur is shad-
ed, but not hidden, oy the magnifi-
cent pleasure-grounds which partly sur-
round them ; and as we drove past, we
more than once had glimpses of tne ruins
of palatial residences in the dark pine
forests which crown the rising grounds at
the rear. Many of these are Grecian in
character, belonging to the time when
Boleslaus the Third, after a short resi-

dence in the Greco-Russian town of Kiew.
introduced into Poland a taste for impos-
ing and picturesque architecture ; while a
few are of the era when the lovely, grace-,
less Bona Sforza endeavored to create in
Poland scenes similar to those she had
loved in her early youth in beautiful
Milan.

These Italian palaces are much more
crushed by Time's footsteps than any of
the other ruins ; and in close proximity
to more than one of them, are majestic
and extensive chateaux, not crumbling to
decay, but in their pristine strength and
grandeur, challenging our admiration, and
recalling the memory of that sad romantic
episode in histoiy, when the structures
were raised under the direction tf the
gifted Barbara RadzviiJ — the hated
daughter-in-law of Bona Sforza — the ador-
ed wife of King Sigismund Augustus,
whose emphatic reply to Primate Dzievz-
gowski, when he tried to induce him to
consent to a divorce, offering to distri-
bute, like small dust, on the heads of his
enemies, his sinsof perjury and desertion,
consisted in placing the regal diadem on
her brows.

It was past noon when we stopped to
give our horses rest. We had been for
some time on the broad road which winds
round the base of the Wenda, slightly
ascending. It is a pleasant, well-engineer-
ed road, made by the Austrians, being
one of the very few benefits for which the
Poles are indebted to them. On one
hand the dark pines stretch to the top-
most bights of the mountain, raising their
feathery heads in triumph into the upper
air; on the other lie meadows clothed
with short succulent grass, and fields of
the rich Sandomir wheat, known amongst
us under the general name of Polish
wheat. A bright streamlet, sparkling
and murmuring, as if giving utterance to
its gladness at escape from the dark mazes
of the forest, led to our choice of a resting-
place. Disappearing beneath the road
for a moment, it comes babbling up on
the other side, illumining the meadows as
it sparkles through them, till il joins an-
other bright little stream, which turns a
mill near the city. Just where this tiny riv-
ulet escapes from the wood, there is a stone
set up, pointed out to travelers as " Wen-
da's Chair," but whether or not theprincess
(after whom the mountain is named) rest-
ed her weary limbs on this rude seat be-
fore she sought delusive rest for her

1862.]

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

still more weary heart in the mountain
torrent, which tradition makes this
stream of old, it would be difficult now
to determine. It answered all the pur-
poses of a table lor us, while sitting
eastern fashion we dispatched biscuits
and wine; and had it, like our own ^' Lia
fail," which now lies under the corona-
tion-chair at Westminster Abbey, the
power of uttering sounds, it mighty as it
is the trysting-place of all the young
peasants in the district of Cracow, have
amused us by the revelation of many a
history as strange as Wenda^s, who gave
the homage of her heart to one to whom
she was an idol, of whom all her people
approved, and yet whom she rejected
and repelled, because he betrayed, before
he had the right to rule, his opinions of a
wife's obedience.

Prince Rudiger was a German. Had
he been a Pole, a Frenchman, or an
Irishman, he would never have fled from
love to war ; he wonld have remained to
calm and soothe and win instead of leav-
ing a breaking heart behind him, which
in folly and ire he collected troops to
conquer. Wenda met him in the field
surrounded by a numerous army. She
advanced to the front, pale but looking
more lovely than ever. The victory was
won. Love's vengeance — if love can
seek it or accept it — was complete. Ru-
diger's soldiery refused to acknowledge
any other cause but Wcnda's, and while
he stood motionless, as if not knowing
what course to pursue, he was cut in
pieces by over-zealous courtiers, who,
too late, heard the despairing shriek
with which " spare him — save him," was
uttered.

In the pale starlight of the next night
young fishermen drew from the mountain
torrent the stiffened dripping form of
Wenda, Duchess of Cracow, and daugh-
ter of Krakus, the founder of the city.

This story is perfectly true, though
omitted in some histories, and in others
rendered doubtful by &bulou8 embellish-
ments.

Having poured some wine, according
to custom, on the '' chair," we proceeded
to walk through the wood, ordering the
groom to take the carriage round to a
certain point to meet us. We were goon
in shade, but not in gloom, for the sun
was glancing down through the feathery
canopy, and reminding us of his presence
by little bits of brightness here and there.

The path was broad and well trodden,
and my friend was as well acquainted
with its intricacies and windings as the
mountaineers whose wooden huts are
scattered up and down even to the top
of the highest peaks. Very soon we
heard the woodman's ax, and in another
direction the song of the barkers ; then,
almost suddenly, we came on a group of
five or six men down in a dell, formed on
one side by a great rock covered with
moss and lichens, and on the other by a
high ridge and a cluster of oak trees, of
which there are only a few hundred in
the forest. The men, who were hardy,
fine-looking fellows, were dressed in the
peculiarly picturesque costume of Carpa-
thian mountaineers — a close-fitting white
leather suit, a loose graceful-looking short
brown cloth cloak, round broad brimmed
hat, and brown sandals. The long tan-
gled locks of these men, which descended
to their girdles, seemed to stand misera-
bly in need of the good offices of a bar-
ber.

I asked Pan Nowosielski if he was not
of my opinion.

" No," he replied, " the services of a
hiurdresser would by no means be appre-
ciated by these primitive fellows. I shall
give you an apropos instance. A young
friend of mine, who once, I dare say, en-
tertained your views on the subject, made
an excursion some short time ago into the
Carpathians. He wore his hair, as all our
artists usually do, rather long. His
mountain guide noticed it, and one
morning remarked, ^ that to make it
look so nice he must brush it frequent-

ly-'

" *More than once a day,' was the re-
ply.

" ' Ah ! how your head must ach^ {'
answered the other, with a look of ddep
commiseration.

" * Why ?" inquired young Grzebski,
in unfeigned surprise.

" ' Because, sir, I, though I only brush
mine thoroughly once a yeaL for the
Easter holydays, have such paUis in my
head for six months afterward.'"

While listening to Pan Nowosielski's
amusing anecdote, I was intently watch-
ing the men. They had fallen into a cir-
cle, each of them holding in his hand a
wooden shovel, having a handle three
yards long. From the eenter which ^^^
they surrounded, I could see now and ^f
then flames bursting up, and licking the J •

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

[May,

side of a huge caldron which was partly
buried in the earth. After a few moments
one of them stooped and looked cunning-
ly into the great pot, and then every one
plunged in his wooden shovel, and began
to move round, thus causing a rotatory
motion to the contents of the caldron.

" They are making pswidtta," observed
my friend, in answer to my inquiry as to
what they were doing.

Pswidtta, as I afterward learned, is a
jam made of Hungarian plums, and al-
ways manufactured in the way I then
witnessed. The plums are first well
washed by laying them in wicker bas-
kets placed in a running stream. They
are then put in caldrons sunk in deep
holes made in the ground, with sufficient
space left under them for a good fire.
As soon as the fruit begins to boil, it is
stirred with wooden shovels until it be-
comes quite thick. The plums are so
ripe and so sweet that no sugar is re-
quired, and the sale for it is very con-
siderable, especially amongst the poorer
classes, during Advent and Lent.

The love of these mountaineers for
their twilight homes is astonishing; they
seem never to have a wish to look on the
broad expanse of the sky, to see the
earth in the soft fresh beauty of spring,
or in the glow of summer loveliness, or in
the richer and riper beauty of the au-
tumn — to gaze on the lakes when a rose-
ate calm rests on them, while every ob-
ject in remote perspective is bathed in
the intense azure which reminds one of
the pictures of Poussin, who transfused
the very hues of the elements into the
background of his wonderful landscapes.
Even those whose homes are not under
the shadow of trees but whose wretch-
ed wooden huts hang on the bare rugged
sides of the mountains, dwell up there
in the brown world in a state of con-
tentment so perfect, that I know of no
nearer approach to happiness than that
they enjoy on this side the grave, until
the first keen blasts of winter come with
their wailing sounds through the trees,
and the snow has appeared on the top-
most peaks; then they descend unwill-
ingly to the valley, from which all beauty
has passed away, and hasten to the towns
and villages in search of homes and sub-
sistence during the winter.

The warning for their migration is the
first fall of snow, and this occurs so fre-
quently on or near St. Martin's Day, that

it has given rise to the popular saying :
"St. Martin arrives on a white horse."
On the same day it is usual, at least
among the agricultural classes, to serve
a goose for dinner, and afterward to
draw conclusions from the color of the
breast-bone relative to the approaching
season. When the bone exhibits a good
fair color, a heavy fall of snow is predict-
ed ; but if it is dark, a long continuance
of frost may be expected. On the eve of
St. Martin's Day, the daughters and
maid-servants of farmers pretend to de-
termine, by the appearance of the sky,
the amount of profit which they may ex-
pect through the winter from their dairy
and poultry. A clear blue vault affords
the pleasant hope of an abundance of
milk and butter, while a firmament span-
gled with myriads of stars, indicates an
ample supply of eggs. The mountaineerp,
however, have neither herds nor fiocks,
and consequently have no interest in, and
almost no knowledge of, the superstitions
of the people of the plains.

The imagination can picture nothing
more singular than the appearance of a
number of families descending from their
hights, burthened with all their worldly
goods. The snow generally meets them
half-way, if it is not already lying calm
and cold a few inches in depth on the
ground before they set out. All — men,
women, and children — carry bundles or
packs suited to their strength and size ;
but as none of them ever carry either bed
or bedding, I suspect that, like the Israel-
ites of old, the garments they wear dur-
ing the day, serve them for covering at
night.

Many of the women have two, or even
three little children tied on their backs ;
others trip lightly under the weight of

food sized panniers filled with stnngs of
ried mushrooms which they hope to sell
to the people in the towns ; boys are lad-
en with mousetraps, their own manufac-
ture, or carry huge though light piles
of kitchen utensUs which they have
assisted in the making of; while men
trudge along, having boxes strapped to
their backs resembling those of our own
itinerant tinkers, only larger, and filled
with instruments necessary for mending
broken crockery and tin-ware, or bend
under the weight of long linen bags
filled with dried pears or plums. Lo-
quacious and happy, on they go in a
straggling body, the crisp snow under

1862.]

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

their feet making melody to their ears,
and the leaden sky being no more than
they expected. As soon as they come
to a village or to the *^ Przedmiescie "
(which simply means ^ before town ^)
of either Cracow, Kielce, or any other
considerable place, they separate, each
family shifting for themselves.

It was late in the evening when we
reached the chateau of Count Zaluzi-
anski, where we were received at the
door by the domestic chaplain. We
entered a spacious hall, literally crowd-
ed with servants, not standing idle, or
making a display of their usetulness by
moving obsequiously aside as we passed,
or gliding before us to open doors, or
to announce our presence, but absolutely
flying from place to place with counte-
nances expressive of utter bewilderment.
Whether, however, this was owing to
the amount of miscellaneous duties im-
posed on each, or to household misman-
agement, or to the bustle inseparable
from a marriage, or to all these causes
united, the reader may decide, after I
shall have enumerated the usual number
of individuals forming the establishment
of people of distinction.

The domestic chaplain, the family phy-
sician, the tutor and governess I regard
as members of the family, as forming a
portion of the exclusive little clique, whose
wants, real or artificial, require the at-
tendance of the following individuals :
First the maitre d'hotel, who has the
charge of the whole house and household
in general, and of the numerous foot-
men in particular. He receives, frpm the
heads of the family, all the orders which
they deem it necessary to issue, and is
required not only to transmit them to
those who are under him, but to watch
that they are properly executed. When
visitors are expected, it is the maitre
d'hotel, and not the housekeeper, who
selects the rooms to be appropriated to
each, and then makes out a list for the
storekeeper of bedding, and a certain
number of towels, and toilette -covers,
with curtains and other draperies, suited
to the size and decoration of the rooms.
The writing-tables in the bedrooms or
dressing-rooms are always particularly
attended to in Poland, and these also
are under the supenntendence of the
maitre d'hotel, who furnishes them lav-
Ui^J with pens, ink, and paper, besides a

variety of pretty seals, of all which he
keeps a large store.

Next in importance to this personage
is the " credencier," to whom is intrusted
the care of the plate, china, and glass.
A novitiate of many years is necessary
to entitle a servant to this post, ana
none are ever placed in it whose future
may not confidently be anticipated from
the r^ort of the past. Strange as it
may seem, it is the credencicr and not
the cook who prepares breakfast, and
who may be seen at early dawn following
the footmen into the breakfast-room, to
see that the appointments and arrange-
ments of the table are complete, and that
nothing has been forgotten necessary
either as aliment or ornament. The
housekeeper rankii next ; she has the
charge of the house-linen, and of a largo
proportion of the stores. The valets fol-
low — my lord's valet, whose duties and
functions are, I suppose, the same all
over the world — and my lady's valet, to
whom Polish etiquette assigns the exer-
cise of various personal attentions. His
hand alone offers my lady her letters,
takes from her those to be dispatched,
dusts the bijouterie of her boudoir, keeps
her wriling-table supplied, and arranges
her books, removing those to which she
appears indifferent, and replacing them
with others either more popular, of later
date, or more beautifully bound.

The waiting-maids, and the footmen,
of whom there are a perfect mob, fill the
next station. The head cook and head
coachman rank after these, then the head
groom and his staff — the chambermaids,
who have the unique duty to perform
of ironing every morning all the under-
clothing worn by my lord and my lady
and all their children and guests on the
previous day — the laundress and her as-
sistants — the cook's assistants — the little
maids who wait on the other maids, run
errands, and gather flowers for the va-
rious rooms — the postman — the watch-
man — the water-carrier, and the man who
sweeps the corridors, brings wood from
the cellar, and heats the stoves. Over
all these, ranking next to the physician,,
are the cashier and the booK- keeper,
taking precedence of even the maitre
d'hotel. Many who will read these
pages may perhaps conjecture, that in.
this enumeration I have drawn on my
imagination, that I am guilty of the error

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

[May,

of ^' causing to appear," as established
facts, circumstances which have no ex-
istence except in my own mind. To
such, (if there are any such,^ I admit
that the roll is not perfect, but its defects
are not the result of my inventive facul-
ties, but of my bad memory. I had for-
gotten the gardener and his staff — the
baker and his helpers — ^the woman and
her assistants who mind the poultry —
the people who have the charge of the
dairy — the men who clean knives and
polish boots — and the throng, whom I
am at a loss how I should designate, of
the servants of the servants.

As I have already stated, we were
met at the hall-door by the chaplain,
who politely remained with us until our
portmanteaux had been taken from the
carriage and placed in the hands of two
footmen, who passed them on to two
others, who gave them to the valets
appointed to wait on ufi. These men,
with a bow which reminded me of the
deferential French servants, passed on
before us, leading us to our respective
apartments. Some hours afler I was in
the grand saloon, making one of a bril-
liant company assembled to witness the
next day's solemn event. A glance at
the furniture of the gorgeous room, and
the dresses of those who occupied it, satis-
fied me of the low condition of the in-
dustrial and commercial state of Poland.
Vienna, Berlin, Paris had each contributed
to create the rare and tasteful splendor
which surrounded me — Cracow nothing.

In the deep recess of a window, almost
concealed by a snowy alabaster vase from
which blushing flowers diffused sweetest
odors, sat the bride, a pale, handsome
girl, with hope sparkling m her intensely
blue eye, ana the most perfect calm rest-
ing on her fair open brow. Several
young friends were standing or sitting
near her, but her betrothed was at a
distance, leaning over the back of her
mother's chair. In the course of the
evening music was introduced, and the
exquisitely beautiful national melodies of
Niemcewicz, the "Tommy Moore" of
Poland, shared the admiration of the
guests with the ballads of Casimir Brod-
^ski, the warrior-poet, who, in early life,
mistaking his vocation, believed that the
trumpet-peal and the clash of cymbals were
the only sounds to which his heart could re-
spond ; but, living to discover his mistake,
he had the noble courage to acknowledge

it, and giving up the sword for the pen, the
trumpet-blast for the warble of the flute,
he has left an undying reputation in his
sweet " village songs," and the admirable
tragedy of " Barbara Radziwill."

Tableaux vivants succeeded music, and
some of the dazzling creations of Yladis-
laf Oseroff were represented to perfec-
tion ; but the picture of the evening,
strange to say, was taken from Rileyeff^s
historical poem, JValet/veko^ the Hetman
of the Ukraine. In this piece the gifted
author prophesied his own tragical death
in the speech which he puts into the
mouth of the rebel hero, when admonish-
ed of the danger of his enterprise by a
priest to whom he confessed his intention
of raising the standard of revolt, and
leading Uie people against their Polish
oppressors :

'' Midst the dread batUo's bloody tide, there let
me find a grave,

If but my country's chains are rent, and free-
dom glads the slave.

In the yawning trench, in the deadly breach,
let Naley veko falL

Let a felon's death on the scaffold high pro-
claim aloud to all

That a patriot's bosom knows no fear, no duty
but to die,

When his bleeding countrv's cause is lost,
and crushed for liberty.

A few years after the publication of
this piece, Rileyeff was executed for head-
ing a conspiracy against the Emperor of
Russia, while many a young brow which
I had seen that evening flush with enthu-
siasm at the mute delineation of the
thrilling incidents of the story of The
Hetman of the UTcraine^ before the sun
had run another course, was laid in the

'* sacred grave
Of the last few who, vainly brave.
Die for the land they can not save."

•

There was no dancing, and we sepa-
rated early. I do not know whether many
of the guests slept well that night; I
only know that I did not; that I was
conscious of hearing all through li^ht
steps along the corridors, whispering
voices, doors opening and closing stealth-
ily, and the tiuKling sounds of plate and
glass borne from the stores of the cre-
dencier and housekeeper to the dining-
rooms. At length the dawn appeared,
and presently after it was clear day.
The sofl rosy morning light is very brief
in Poland. The grand broad disk no

1 862.]

WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN POLAND.

sooner appears above the horizon than
light in its fullness and strength is around
us. With the night departed all neces-
sity for hushed words and heedful move-
ments. The tread of men was heard in
the halls ; the voices of gentlemen came
up like rich music from the lawn, while
light, quick footsteps and soft, joyous
tones were echoing from every dressing-
room, and passing continuously through
the corridors.

I shall never forget my feeling of amaze-
ment while traversing the passages and
halls, on that eventful morning, which led
from my dressing-room to the saloon in
which the sumptuous breakfast had been
prepared. When I opened mv door I
stepped into a bower. Along the whole
length of all the noble corridors, galleries,
staircases, and halls, there were placed, at
frequent intervals, vases of costly porce-
lain, urns of pure marble, baskets of deli-
cate alabaster, all of them filled with or-
ange blossoms, roses, and other flowers of
rare beauty and perfume. Over the doors
and windows garlands hung gracefully
amidst the drapery, the pilars were
wreathed, and even the statues were
made to harmonize with the fanciful lux-
ury of the occasion, by the delicate taste
which had strewn rosebuds at their feet,
or placed pale blossoms amongst their
marble wreaths. Imagine the whole
house, from the cellars to the attics, thus
embellished, as if the earth had been ran-
sacked to render its floral splendor per-
fect; and imagine it then peopled with
nymphs in the brightest and most fanciful
of national costumes, and having their
hsur, ornamented with flowers, falling in
masnve braids on their shoulders. These
were the servants, flitting from room to
room, assisting the ladies in their toilettes,
or merely gratifying their own curiosity,
being always allowed considerable liber-
ties on the occasion of a man*iage, when
almost the only rule which thev may not
transgress with impunity is that which
prescribes the national costume, and from
this no one dares to deviate except the
housekeeper and ladies' maids, who are
privileged to appear in the grosser splen-
dors of silks and velvets, being usually
the wives and daughters of the poorer
class of the noblesse.

At about eleven o'clock the carriages
were brought up, one after another, in
dashing style to the door, rich white rib-
bon streaming from the horses' heads.

Every one knows what the pleasant con-
fusion of such a moment is in Britain, and
in Poland it is in nothing different. The
bride and bridegroom had been, as is usu-
al, at an early mass in the private chapel,
at which but a few of the near relatives
had been present ; had made confession
of their sins, and received the communion ;
they were now to plight to each other their
troth in the parish chapel, in the presence
of their assembled friends and acquaint-
ances. We drove off in high spirits, our
path was strewn with flowers to the door
of the church, and besides this, young girls
with baskets on their arms were stationed
along the road, flinging handful s of roses
under the horses' feet, as the bride's car-
riage rolled onward.

On arriving at the church, I was amazed
to see, that instead of the bridegroom, two
young unmarried men advanced to the
bride's carriage, and assisting her to alight,
led her to the altar, where the bridegroom
and bridemaids stood awaiting her. As
soon as the parties were properly placed,
the service commenced, and the noble har-
monies which had filled the church died
away. The ceremony was simple, differ-
ing m nothing from the usual form used
in all Roman Catholic countries, except
that, instead of a plain gold circlet bein^
placed on the bride's finger, as a symbol
of eternity, and of the intention of both
parties to keep forever the solemn cove-
nant into which they have entered before
God, and of which it is the pledge, there
was an exchange of rings. The priest
paused in the service when he came to
the words, "With this ring," etc., and
then one of the bridemaids came timidly
and gracefully forward, and placed two
rings on the open book which he held in
his hand. He took them up, one after an-
other, in his right hand, offering up sol-
emn prayers, and pronouncing a blessing
over them. He then gave the small one,
which had engraved on it the bride-
groom's name, Mauritius Moebnacki,
and the date of the year, to the bride-
groom ; and the large one, having the
name Jahasie Zalvzianski, to the bride.
For one moment, while he pronounced a
few words in a solemn tone, they retain-
ed them, and then Jahasie, lifting her
eyes to the bridegroom's, as if to gather
strength and firmness for the last solemn
act, they exchanged them — the small one,
having his name, shone on her finger —
while the larger ring encircled his.

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYS.

[May,

Immediately on entering the ch&teaa
the bride's vail and wreath were removed
by a married lady and replaced by a cap
ornamented with orange blossoms, entire-
ly concealing her beautiful tresses. Mean-
time, the bridemaids had been flitting
around her, laughing, whispering, blush-
ing. Presently she took the wreath which
one of them had disengaged from her vail,
and flinging it amongst them, it fell on the
shoulders of a beautiful girl, who was at
once pronounced the " bride of the next
wedding." Just then several beautiful
children of about ten years, having on
their arms small silver-filasrree baskets

filled with tiny bouquets of choice exotics,
entered the saloon, and, going round
through the guests, presented one to
each, with a gold pin to fasten it, having
a head in the form of a hexagon, each of
the sides of which was delicately en-
graven.

On one side were the initials of the
bride ; on the second, those of the bride-
groom ; on the third, the day of the week ;
the fourth, the day of the month ; flflh,
the date of the year ; sixth, the name of
the district in which the ceremony had
been performed, of which they are ever
after to be preserved as mementoes.

From the British Qumrterlj.

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYS.*

A SHORT time since one of our judges
intimated that a certain witness, who had
been detected in the act of studying
JBradshaw for twenty minutes at a time,
was disqualified for giving evidence, and
a fit subject for a commission de lunatico
inquirendo. We are so unfortunate as
to difler from the learned gentleman.
We arc even ready to agree with a face-
tious friend who asserts that, in the cate-
gory of accomplishments set forth in the
prospectuses ot our schools, a place might
be advantageously assigned to " the use
of the globes and Bradahaw?'* At any
rate, if not strictly an elegant art, and if
not quite so exacting a mental discipline
as algebra, it would be a great acquisition
of useful knowledge to render less inscru-
table the quarter of a million of dates,
blanks, and hieroglyphics that stud the

IMgcs of that volume, and thus to enable
Paterfamilias more readily to ascertain
the quickest and cheapest routes between,

♦ Jietums for the Year ending thirty-fnt Decem-
ber^ 1859. rresented to both HouseB of Parliament
by command of her Mojeaty. 1861.

Half'yearlff Reports of London and North' Wett-
em, Oreat Western^ Oreat Northern^ and Midland
Railways. Submitted to Proprietora. 1861.

Bradshaw's Ge^ural Railway and Steam Naviga-
tu>n Ouide. December, 1861.

we will say, Norwich and Shrewsbury,
Penzance and Dundee, or Yapton and
Bell Busk.

It seems but the other day since our
colossal railway system was in its infancy.
In strictness, it may be said to have had
a long childhood, and then almost over-
leaping youth, to have risen rapidly to
maturity. The Liverpool and Manches-
ter line was not opened till 1830 ; but as
early as 1813 Sir Richard Phillips had
watched a horse-railway near Croydon,
the trace of which may still be detected
by the Brighton Railway traveler on the
hillside to the south of the town.

"I found delight," said Sir Richard, 'Mn
witnessing, at Wandsworth, the economy of
horse-labor on the iron railway. Yet a heavy
sigh escaped me, as I thought of the inconceiv-
able millions of money which had been spent
about Malta ; four or five of which might have
been the means of extending double lines of
iron railway from London to Edinburgh, Glas-
gow, Holyhead, Milford, Falmouth, Yarmouth,
Dover, and Portsmouth. A reward of a single
thousand would have supplied coaches and
other vehicles, of various degrees of speed, with
the best tackle for readily turning out ; and we
might ere this have witnessed our maU-coaches
running at the rate of ten miles an hour, drawn
by a single horse, or impelled fifteen miles
an hour by Blenkinsop's steam-engine. Such

1862.]

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYS.

would have been & Ie<^timate motive for over-
stepping the income of a nation ; and the com-
pletion of so great and useful a work would
have afforded rational ground for public triumph
in general jubilee.'*

In 1814 Stephenson's "Puffing Billy,"
as it was called, began to runjpn the Kil-
lingworth Railway ; the humole precur-
sor of a mighty race who, with ribs of
iron, and bowels of brass and fire, and
breath of steam, were destined to revolu-
tionize the commercial and social relations
of many a land. But when the skill of
engineers had at length overcome the
scientific difficulties in the establishment
of railways, a new host of enemies had to
be encountered. So intense was the preju-
dice against their introduction, that town
and country joined against the invasion.
Landlords appealed to their tenants, and
servants and laborers armed themselves
with pitchforks and guns to repel the in-
vading surveyors. Mr, George Stephen-
son was threatened with the perils of a
horse-pond. Prophets predicted that the
bubble of railway-traveling would soon
burst. Adverse petitions were prepared
for presentation to Parliament ; public
subscriptions were opened to give effect
to the opposition. Newspaper editors and
pamphleteers ridiculed the delusiveness
of the project. Householders were as-
sured that their homes would be hourly
in danger of beins: burned to the ground.
The Duke of Cleveland opposed the
Stockton and Darlington line because it
would pass near one of his fox covers.
Farmers declared that neither would hens
lay, nor cows graze, and that game would
fall dead to the ground if they attempted
to fly over the poisoned breath exhaled
by the engines. Poets indignantly de-
manded —

'* Is there no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault f *

Politicians declared that the railway sys-
tem was " a monopoly the most secure,
the roost lasting, the most injurious that
can be conceived to the public good;"
and that directors were " induced by no
motive to action but their own selfishness,
swayed by every gust of prejudice and
passion, and too often as profoundly igno-
rant of even their own real interest, as they
are exclusively devoted to its advance-
ment." Medical men asserted that the
gloom and damp of tunnels, and the deaf-
ening peal, the clanking chains, and the

dismal glare of the locomotives would be
disastrous alike to body and mind. An
eminent parliamentary lawyer affirmed
that it would be an impossibility to start
a locomotive in a gale of wind, " either by
poking the fire, or keeping uj) the pres-
sure of steam till the Doiler is ready to
burst." A well-known engineer depre-
cated " the ridiculous expectations, or ra-
ther professions, of the enthusiastic spe-
culator, that we shall see engines traveling
at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen,
or twenty miles an hour. Nothing could
do more harm toward their general adop-
tion and improvement than the promul-
gation of such nonsense." And The
Quarterly Review exclaimed : " What
can be more palpably absurd and ridicu-
lous than the prospect held out of loco-
motives traveling twice as fast as stage-
coaches ! We should as soon expect the
people of Woolwich to suffer themselves
to be fired off upon one of Congrove's
ricochet rockets as trust oureelves to the
mercy of such a machine going at such a
rate."

A few short years, and all was changed.
Opposition was silenced, perseverance
was rewarded, and the highest hopes of
the most sanguine friends of railways
were more than realized ; and though a
network of lines has now spread over the
land, new ones are constantly being pro-
jected ; and the influences they exercise,
the capital they absorb, the authority
they exert, and the army they employ,
are ever increasing. Six years ago,
£286,000,000 had been devoted to railway
construction; and each succeeding year
has added some £10,000,000 to that
amount. No less than £200,000,000 have
been expended by some twelve compa-
nies ; their lines radiate in all directions
over the land, and their managers exer-
cise the powers of a gigantic monopoly
over trade, commerce, and social life. So
vast an agency may well deserve the at-
tention of all thoughtful men ; and the
recent publication of the half-yearly re-
ports of the different railway companies,
and the more recent issue of the report of
the Board of Trade, furnish us with some
interesting data to which wo may now
advert.

In illustration of the colossal nature of
these undertakings, we may refer to the
London and North - Western Railway.
At one time it consisted of only the Lon-
don and Birmingham, Grand Junctioui

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYS.

[May,

and Manchester and Liverpool lines ; but
now, with its tiibutarics, it extends from
London to Carlisle, and from Peterbo-
rough and Leeds in the east, to Holyhead
in the west. Its Board rules over more
than 1000 miles of railway, and marshals
an army of nearly 20,000 servants. On
its construction more than £36,000,000
have been expended. Some of its items
of revenue for the half-year ending June
thirtieth, 1861, were as follows:

£825,405
71,670
24,286
66,708

1,196,896
57,645

Passengers, .

Parcels,

Horses, carriages, and dogi^

liails, ....

Merchandise and minerals,

Live stock, .

besides dividends received from various
lines with which the North- Westein has
working and other agreements, ^f With
o^er items, and some deductions, there
is a total of gross receipts for the hal^
year of £2,179,494, or nearly £84,000 a
week, or £12,000 a day, or £500 every
hour, both day and night. The law ex-
penses of this company amount to some-
thing like £1000 a week. Its return of
working stock is as follows :

Locomotive engines, (passenger and goods,) 926
Tenders, 917

Coaching :

First-class, mails, and composite, . 779

Second-class, 655

Third-class, 476

Traveling Post -Offices and Post -Office

tenders, 48

Horse-hozes, 338

Carriage-trucks, 272

Guards' hresUc, and parcel-vans, . . 335

Parcel-carts, etc., 34

Merchandise —

Wagons, 14,803

Cattle- wagons, 1417

Sheep-vans, 295

Coke-wagons, 1491

Carts and carries, .... 166

Sheets, 11,314

Horses, 416

The new state carriage cost £3000 ; and
in order to be prepared for the increased
traffic of the International Exhibition
next year, the company has ordered
£100,000 worth of new engines and car-
riages.

Of course it could not be reasonably
expected that, with the extension of the
line over less populous and wealthy dis-
tricts, the original value of shares and
dividends could be maintained. The traf-

fic on a cross-country road can not be
equal to that of a turnpike, and the shares
of the Londod and North-Western have
fallen as the area of the railway increased,
from £240 per £100 share, to 92 or 93,
and tne dividend has receded from 10
per cent W^i. The present depresAn
IS, howev9^ partially the result nf nnjpnl
causes. ^

Turning from the London and North-
western line to the railways of the Uni-
ted Kingdom generally, we find that
down to the close of 1860 there had been
raised for railway construction no less than
£348,130,127. Of this amount

£190,791,067 was in ordinary shares,
67^873.840 in preference shares,
7,576,874 in debenture stock,
81,888,546 in loans.

It is, however, easier to write these fig-
ures than to realize their vast meaning.
The total is iHifflj half the amount of the
National Debt. It is nearly five times
Xhe amount of the annual rent-roll of all
the real property in Great Britain.

Other statistics of railway constructioa
are on the same colossal scale. From the
Parliamentary Returns recently issued, it
appears that the length of double Une
open in Great Britain at the close of 1 860
was 6690 miles ; of single line, 3743 ;
total, 10,433. This gives altogether some
17,000 miles of rsdlway ; and to this must
be added one third more for sidings, bring-
ing up the total to more than 22,000 miles
of line actuallv in operation. All this has
been the work of thirty years, and makes
an average of 733 miles a year. But be-
fore these rails could be laid an enormous
amount of work must be completed. Six
years ago Mr. Robert Stephenson stated,
that there were then nearly 70 miles of
railway tunnels, 25,000 bridges, besides
numerous viaducts, one of which, at Lon-
don, extended for nearly eleven miles.
The earthworks alone average 70,000 cu-
bic yards a mile, which Mr. Stephenson es-
timated would amount to 550,000,000 cu-
bic yards ; and which, reared in the foim of
a pyramid, would dwarf St. Paul's cathe-
dral into the merest pigmy, since it would
be half a mile in diameter, and a mile and
a half in hight — a mountain of earth which
would scarcely find room for its base in
Saint James's Park, between the Horse
Guards and Buckingham Palace. And
since this computation was made, the
amount of railway constructed has been
increased more than a third.

1862J

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYS.

We have seen that there are some 22,000
miles of single line in existence, or 44,000
miles of single rail. These rails would re-
quire no less than 2,765,500 tons of iron ;
would rest on 60,000,000 iron chairs,
weighing some 900,000 tons ; and would
consume more than 3,660,000 tons of iron
for the permanent way. Nor 4k this all.
There is a constant waste of iron, hy wear
and tear, oxidation, and loss in remanufac-
ture, which must be supplied. It has been
ascertained that in passing over sixty miles
an engine abrades from the rails 2*2 pounds,
each empty carriage or wagon four ounces
and a hdf, and each ton of load an ounce
and a half; that ordinary rails will be
worn out by the transit of some 360,000
trains ; and that they would be servicea-
ble, for instance, on the London and
North-Western line for twenty years.
The total wear from all causes may be es-
timated at about half a pound a yard an-
nually ; it requires about 24,000 tons to
be every year replaced, and 240,000 every
year to be rolled again. Other parts of
the "permanent" way are, of course,
eaually perishable. The rails are support-
ea by some 30,000,000 timber sleepers,
which must be renewed at the rate of
more than 2,400,000 a year; to provide
which 360,000 trees must be felled, each
yielding six sleepers, and occupying 6000
acres of land on which to grow.

But when the line is completed, the
rolling stock has to be supplied ; and the
10,433 miles of railway opened at the close
of 1860, had no fewer than 5801 locomo-
tives, or more than one for every two
miles of line. We need scarcely remark
that these are expensive structures ; the
first engine, costing £550, of five or six
tons' weight, and running on four wheels,
has been gradually superseded by loco-
motives ofsplendid power, some of which
cost £3000 each, can draw thirty pas-
senger-carriages, weighing five tons and
a half each, at thirty miles an hour, or
five hundred tons of goods at twenty
miles an hour. Thus, the larger engines
on the Great Western, of which the
"Lord of the Isles" may be regarded
as the type, can take a passenger train
of a bnndred and twenty tons at an
average speed of sixty miles an hour;
its evaporation is equal to 1000 horse-
power, and its weight is thirty -five tons.
The "Liverpool," belonging to the North-
Western, ^ves an evaporation, when at
fall work, equal to 1140 horse -power.

Before stalling, such an engine is sup-
plied with a ton of coals and from 1100
to 1500 gallons of water for the journey.
Every engine consists of no fewer than
5416 parts, and must ^*be put together
as carefully as a watch," since the failure
of a screw, or the bending of a rod, may
bring destruction, not only upon the
beautiful and costly mechanism, but on
the property and lives of the passengers.
The momentum of a train at a high
velocity is immense. To accomplish a
speed of seventy miles an hour, a space
has to bo traversed of about 105 feet
per second ; that is to say, thirty -five
yards must be passed between the tick-
ings of the clock. If two trains crossed
one another, each at this rate, and one
of them be seventy yards long, it would
fiash by the other in a single second.
Now, as the flight of a cannon-ball, with
a range of 6700 feet, occupies a quarter
of a minute, which is at the rate of five
miles a minute, or 300 miles an hour, it
follows that a railway train moving at
fifty miles an hour has one sixth the
velocity of a cannon-ball. But the ball
weighs, perhaps, only thirty-two pounds,
while the engine and train weigh pro-
bably 100 tons; so that the momentum
of the train would equal that of an iron
ball, weighing twenty tons, fired from a
piece of artillery! If an engine could
walk through the fourteen-inch wall of
the Camden engine-house, without having
a dozen yards on which to get up its
speed ; if in an ordinary accident hap-

Eening to a luggage-train near Lough-
orough, the wagons mounted one upon
another, till the uppermost was forty
feet above the rails ; what is the momen-
tum of an express train, as it rushes at
full speed, through a roadside station,
it is almost impossible to realize ; and
what would be its destructive power, if
it were to dash unrestrained upon some
interposing body, it is feai-ful to imagine.
The ordinary cost of a narrow-gauge
engine, with a cylinder of sixteen inches
diameter, is rather more than £2000 ;
and of an eighteen-inch, £2500. If we
take the average to be £2200 each, then
the outlay on 5801 engines is more than
£12,'700,000; while if they were formed
into a train, it would reach from London
to Brighton, a distance of fifty-one miles.
Every minute of time throughout the
year four or five tons of fuel are flashing
some twenty or tive-and-twenty tons of

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYS.

[May,

water into steam, and are thus supplying
the motive energy of these legions of
iron steeds. Mr. Robert Stephenson re-
marks that the water thus turned into
steam would furnish an adequate supply
each day to the entire population of Liver-
pool, and the fuel employed is almost
equal to the amount of coal exported
four years a^o from Great Britain to
foreign countries, and more than half the
whole consumption of the metropolis.
Some economy has, however, lately been
introduced by the general burning of coal
instead of coke — the locomotives being,
by courtesy, supposed to be furnished
with smoke-consuniing furnaces.

Besides engines, there are also 15,076 pas-
senger-carriages, and 180,674 wagons for
goods traffic. A first-class carnage costs
some £380 ; a second-class, £260 ; other
passenger-carriages, about £100; horse-
Dozes, about £160. If we average pas-
senger and goods' vehicles at £100 each,
their cost amounts to nearly £20,000,000.
If a train were made of the passenger-car-
riages on our various railroads, it would
extend from London to Huntingdon or
Oxford ; if of goods - wagons, it would
i^ach from London beyond Perth ; while
a train made of engines, carriages, and
goods-trucks, would occupy the whole
down-line from Brighton to Aberdeen,
more than 600 miles. Upward of 10,000
trains run every day ; which is an average
of more than seven starting every minute
of the fourand-t wen ty hours. Altogether
nearly 4,000,000 trains ran in the course
of last year. Compared with the year
previous, the passengers were more nu-
merous by nearly 14,000,000, the minerals
by 8,600,000 tons, the distance traveled
by trains by nearly 9,000,000 miles, and
431 miles of additional i-ailway were open-
ed. The number of passengers was as
follows :

20,625,851 first-class,
49,041,814 second-class,
98,768,013 third class and parliamentary;

163,435,678 total.

Besides these, nearly 50,000 holders of
season and periodical tickets made very
numerous journeys ; a large proportion,
doubtless, traveling twice almost every day
in the week. These totals will show that
an average of some six journeys in the
year have been made by every individual
in the kingdom. The trains, passengers,

and goods traveled more than 100,000,000
miles, which is further than 4000 times
round the world; and to accomplish which
more than three miles of railway must
be covered by trains during every second
of time throughout the year. More than
260.000 excursions were made bv horses,
and 350,(100 by dogs ; and for the latter
some £20,000 were received. Twelve mil-
lions of cattle, sheep, and pigs made rail-
\vay journeys, and 90,000,000 tons of mer-
chandise and minerals were conveyed ;
of this amount, the minerals were doable
the quantity of general merchandise, and
they were carried at about a quarter of
the cost. The total receipts were :

£3,170,935 for first-class passengers,
3,944,713 for second-class "
4,162,487 for third-class and parliamentary,
272,807 for holders of season and period-
ical tickets,

£11,550,942

1,008,892 for excess luggage, parcels, car-
riages, horses, dogs, etc.,
525,922 for mails.

£13,085,756 for passengers.

From this statement it will be seen that
though third-class passengers ride in car-
riages ingeniously contrived to be uncom-
fortable, and in trains studiously arranged
to start at inconvenient hours, and to
travel slowly, they are the most important
of the patrons of railways, whether we
regard their numbers or their payment.
Thus Parliament has compelled the com-
panies to adopt a measure by which their
own interests are advanced, and some ac-
commodation — if such a term may be em-
ployed — is provided for the poorer classes
of the community.

The total traffic receipts from all sources
for last year were £28,000,000 sterling,
being an increase of £2,000,000 above
the preceding year.

From this enormous revenue serious
items of expenditure have to be deducted
before we arrive at the balance available
as profit for shareholders. The amount
of working expenses varies on different
lines. The Midland Company expends
only 41 per cent of their receipts ; the
Lancashire and Yorkshire, 42 per cent ;
the West-Midland, 46 per cent ; and the
Great Northeni, 65 to 66 per cent. The
average working expenditure on all the
lines amounted last year to £13,187,368,
or 47 per cent of the receipts, omitting
only three small lines of little importance.

1862.]

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYa

Of this expenditure—

£2,437,362 was for permanent way,
3,801,282 for locomotive power,
1,118,784 for renewals of carriages and

wagons,
8,699,708 for traffic charges,
517,365 for rates and taxes,
363,174 for government duty,
181,170 for compensation for accidents
and losses,
1,068,521 miscellaneous.

£13,187,366

But while the railway companies have
had intrusted to them enormous powers,
and while they render inestimable ser-
vices, it must be remembered that they
are invested with a coiTelative responsi-
bility, and must be regulated by corre-
sponding checks and limitations. When
a traveler, who is hurrying across the
country, finds he has to wait five or six
hours at a junction, because the train by
which he expected to proceed has been
designedly dispatched just before he ar-
rived, it is small comfort to him to be
informed by sympathizing subordinates,
that the directors of the two companies
have recently had some " unpleasantness,"
and that this is their method of expressing
their displacency. When a hamper of
provisions, or a barrel of oysters, comes
from a friend fifty or a hundred miles ofl^
after being a week on the journey, and is
found to be in a state of moldiness or
putridity, it is poor consolation to the in-
dignant recipient to be assured by some
energetic trafiic manager, that he can not
possibly guarantee any more expeditious
delivery. When a signal distance goes
out, and an express dashes into a cattle-
train, which is shunting into a siding,
and a number of fellow-creatures are hur-
ried, without a moment's warning, into
eternity, it seems rather a mockery than
a satisfaction, to the bereaved in particu-
lar, and to travelers in general, to be told,
that oil-lamps taill sometimes go out in
frosty nights. When one train is dis-
patched only five minutes ahead of an-
other, and, being a little delayed by the
slipperiness of the rails, is overtaken and
run into by the second train within half a
mile of the terminus, it is not enough to
be informed that there were only a few
*• eontnsed knees," and " cut faces," and
other ** injuries of a superficial character,"
as the result. When a signalman is de-
tained at his work some sixteen hours a
day for seven days a week, and the mo-

notony of duty is diversified only by pe-
riodically keeping him twenty-four hours
consecutively at his post, and when, on
an emergency, his presence of mind for-
sakes him, and some five-and-twenty pas-
sengers are killed, and three times as
many are wounded, it is small comfort for
the coroner's jury to find a verdict, how-
ever terrible, against the company. When
the iron roads that connect Liverpool
and Manchester are so over-loaded that
the station-masters actually refuse to re-
ceive another package, however urgent
the necessity for its dispatch, people with
only plain common-sense to guide them
will be apt to conclude that soUie amend-
ment ought to be made.

Nor are these instances merely hypo-
thetical; they are all actual. To say
nothing of lesser annoyances constantly
arising in the transit of passengers and
goods by the mal-adjustment of branch
and cross-country trains, the public are
ever and anon alarmed with tidings of
accidents of a distressing and disastrous
nature. Of course we admit a distinction
between those that arise from carelessness
and those which are occasioned by un-
foreseen contingencies. But we leam
that an effort is about to be made by the
railway companies to avert from them-
selves the measure of responsibility by
which they have hitherto been checked ;
that a "case" is to be presented to Parlia-
ment, and that it is to be proposed that
the example of the United States should
be followed, in which the value of any
human life is estimated at 1250 dollars;
and that, however guilty may be the
folly of the company, juries are to be
limited in the amount of the damages
they award by some low pecuniary esti-
mate of the life that has been needlessly
sacrificed. We trust that Parliament will
not forget that railways have their duties
as well as their rights, and that the only
check that the public exercises over rail-
way administration is through the ver-
dicts of juries.

Nor is there any immediate probability
of the cessation of railwav extension. A
glance at Bradshaw^s railway map will
show th^ new lines that are being con-
structed. Fresh powers have since been
obtained from Parliament; and while wo
write, the advertising columns of the pa-
pers are occupied with notices of 175 new
railways bills which will be introduced
during the next session. One of the most

FACTS ABOUT BAILWAYa

[MajTi

novel of these is for a Hoc exclusively in-
tended to connect the northern coal-nelds
with London, running along an almost
dead level from Darlington, and joining
the Eastern Counties near March. But
perhaps no railway extensions are more
needed than those of the metropolis, and
which are being pressed forward with un-
exampled rapidity in anticipation of the
extraordinary traffic of the present year.
To relieve the undue and increasing press-
ure of its streets, to draw the existing
suburbs closer to the city, and to change
the neighboring counties into the environs
of London, wiU be to effect a great and
useful change. The most remarkable of
these lines will doubtless be that which is
known as the Metropolitan Subterranean
line. This scheme presented unusual dif-
ficulties of construction. It was not an
easy task to delve beneath the thorough-
fares and bouses, and among a labyrinth
of gas-mains, water-pipes, and sewers, to
erect a spacious, well-lishted and venti-
lated subterranean way. Many conflicting
vested interests had also to be adjusted ;
vestries, boards, and companies to be ap-
peased ; the Board of Works to be pro-
pitiated. But by the first of May next.
It is expected that it will be completed,
extending from the Great Western ter-
minus at Paddington, having excellent
working junctions with the North-West-
ern at Eustqn, and the Great Northern
at King's Cross, to the Victoria station —
as it is to be called — ^near Holborn. Here
the line is to have two branches, one inter-
secting Skinner street, and meeting the
Chatham and Dover Railway, which is to
cross the Thames at Blackfriars. The oth-
er branch is to run north of Smithfield
into Finsbury Circus, whence doubtless
various extensions wiU be made. Nearly
half the line will be above ground ; and
the tunneling works are admirably con-
structed to bear the superincumbent
pressure. The lines are laid for both
broad and narrow - gauge, and engines
have been built to consume their own
steam and smoke, and leave the air of the
tunnels un contaminated and transparent.
We are assured that a single trip will
disarm the most fastidious of any pre-
judice they may cherish against subter-
ranean railways in London; while the
facilities they will afford for traveling in
and through the metropolis will be of in-
estimable value. Passengers from the
north will be able to book ^' through " to

Dover or Southampton ; suburban resi-
dents may be set down at their office-
doors ; time, cost, and irritation will be
avoided. Other lines will soon be com-
pleted, which will meander among the
lonely hills and dales of the Principality,
linking together its mineral districts with
the port of Liverpool and the manufactor-
ies of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and sup-
plying both with the agricultural produce
of the intermediate regions.

The creation of the railway system has
produced many a silent revolution in the
trade and social life of the community.
Towns have risen into existence or have
stagnated and dwindled, as they heard or
failed to hear the weird voice of the loco-
motive. The London and Birmingham
line would have passed through North-
ampton ; but so powerful an opposition
was raised to the daring intrusion on the
sylvan solitudes of that boot and shoe-
making town, that the projectors were
compelled to distort the line so as to pass
by way of Blisworth, at an additional and
unnecessary cost of £600,000, and to pen-
etrate the Kilsby ridge by a tunnel 2400
yards in length, 160 feet below the surface,
the mere brick- work of which required
36,000,000 bricks — enough to make afoot-
path a yard wide from London to Aber-
deen. The people at Northampton re-
pented their decision when too late. In-
stead of being the chief intermediate sta-
tion between London and Birmingham,
they have had to solace themselves with
a branch and some subordinate extensions ;
and the great engineering establishment
of the southern division of the North-
western has been built at Wolverton,
instead of Northampton. Other towns
showed as little foresight. Eton and Ox-
ford would not allow the Great Western
bill to pass \vithout the insertion of spe-
cial clauses to prohibit the formation of
any station at Slough, or any branch to
Oxford; and when the directors subse-
quently ventured merely to stop their
trains to take up and set down pas-
sengers, proceedings were commenced
against them in Chancery by the author-
ities at those seats of learning, and they
were interdicted from even making a
pause. Both these town have since
gladly availed themselves of branch lines,
though of course they have to endure the
inconveniences of their subordination.
The same spirit was manifested else-
where. When it was contemplated to

1802.]

FACTS ABOUT RAILWAYS.

carry a line across Kent and through the '
coonty-town of Maidstone, a public
meeting unanimously resented the prop-
osition, and the railway had to be made
at a distance. Subsequently the towns-
people grew clamorous for a branch ; and
when that was completed, they complain-
ed that the route to the metropolis was
circuitous. On the other hand, some
towns have been the creation of railways.
Crewe, with a population of some 10,000
sonls, and Wolverton, have been built by
the North-Western ; and Swindon, with
its 2000 or 3000 artisans, has been origin-
ated by the Great Western. More than
100,000 men are computed to be in the
employ of the various railway companies,
representing a population of 600,000 souls.
Many other changes have also been oc-
casioned by the extension of railways and
the competition between companies. Some
towns, for instance, being left without rail-
way accommodation, the tide of trade
flowed into other channels; while the
opening of new lines has restored them
to more than their former importance.

of the most in:iccessible of towns, for it
could be reached only by a branch from
the South-Western, at Bishopstoke, and
was connected with the south, north, and
west only by second rate coaches ; but the
opening of the direct Londt>n and Exeter
line, from Basingstoke, through Salisbury
and Sherborne, and of branches from the
Great Western at Bath and Chippenham,
have conferred upon it special advantages
both for passenger traffic and trade, and
the town has felt a fresh impulse of pros-
perity. As an illustration of the effects
of competition, it may be mentioned that
the third-class passenger may now travel
for a penny a mile from London to Exeter
by the eleven o'clock morning train, which
is one of the fastest trains on the line. On
the other hand, the Midland Railway,
having little competition, often charges
almost as much for second - class fare as
North - Western and other railways re-
qnire for first class, and nearly all its trains
stop at nearly all the stations. Thus,
the quickest train between towns so im-
portant as Derby and Lincoln, a distance of
forty-five miles, occupies two hours and
twenty minutes. Another illustration of
the cbanj^es in the accossibility of towns
is supplied by Market ITurborough. For
some years it lay out of the route of any
railway, and for several more it could be
VOU LVL— NO. 1

reached only by the Rugby and Stamford
branch ; but lately another branch has been
opened to Northampton, and the Midland
Company has also completed a direct line
from Leicester through Harborough to
Hitchiu. By these means the 633 miles
of the Midland railway are brought within
thirty- two miles of the metropolis, and
that company has now to pay a toll to
the Great Northern only from Hitchin
to L »ndon, instead of, as formerly, from
Rugby to London.

The changes, however beneficent and
mighty which railways have produced,
have for the most part been gradual and
silent. They have not come with obser-
vation. That a merchant may take tea
in London, and without any special effort,
inconvenience, or cost, sup in Liverpool ;
and that another may reside at Brighton,
and occupy little more time to reach his
office in the city than his clerk takes to
walk from Camber well ; these are doubt-
less great achievements of science and
art. But incomparably greater than any
merely isolated triumph^ over space or

Thus, Salisbury was for several years one "iime is the swift and constant intercourse

of mind with mind and nation with nation,
and the facile interchange of the produc-
tions 'of the loom and the soil, the water
and the mine, the province and the clime,
by which man is comforted and enriched.
The journeys performed throughout the
kingaom have increased at the rate of
nearly 10,000,000 a year ; the number
has more than doubled in ten years ; and
whereas in 1851 the various railways
could bring to and take away from the
metropolis only 40,000 persons a day, they
can now bring 140,000 I

Nor is it one of the least remarkable
results of these new means of locomotion,
that, instead of destroying, they have
enhanced the value of some that were
formerly in use. Even the inestimable
advantages of our postal system are
mainly attributable to the facilities afford-
ed by railways. It is easy to put on six or
eight additional vans to the Friday night
mail of the North-Western; but if we
were still dependent on coaches, Mr. R.
Stephenson assures us, that no fewer than
fourteen or fifteen would have been needed
six years ago to carry on the postal service
between London and Birmingham alone.
The country may now be traversed iu
every direction in a few hours, so that
its extremities are as accessible to the
metropolis as its suburbs were two huu-
4

DISCOVERIES— MEW OR OLD.

[May,

dred years ago. We enjoy the compact-
ness of a city with the space and resources
of an empire. Nineveh was a city of
three days' journey — Great Britain can
be nearly spanned in one. For questions
of distance Cbe country is almost as avail-
able as if it were only one of the Channel
Islands. One circumvallation includes all
our cities. ^^A hundred opposite ports
are blended into one Piraeus, and to every
point • of the compass diverge the ofl-tra-
versed long walls that unite them with our
enprded Acropolis."

Thus the benefits of railways are ex-
tending far and wide, and we ti*ust will
extend; drawing together the bands of
empire and the family of man. The
schemes that were suggested a few years
since in derision are now being executed.
A submarine railway between England
and France is seriously contemplated.
£urope is uniting its great cities and
ports by links of iron. India is enjoying
facilities by which herself and the world
will be enriched. We already hear of a

^^ deviation " to Ephesus ; we may before
long hear of a station at Antiod), or of
a Jerusalem junction. The physician
will soon be ordering bis patient a change
of air in the ancient garden of Eden, or
a fishing-trip to the Euphrates. An ac-
quaintance may give point to his after-
dinner convei-sation by reciting an adven-
ture he had the other day as he was on
an excursion about the thirtieth degree
of longitude. The valetudinarian may
live, like the swallow, in perpetual sum-
mer. We all increasingly sympathize
with the saying of Burton coooeming
the traveler : '^ He took great content,
exceeding delight, in that his voyage.
And who doth not,* who shall attempt
the like ? For peregrination charms oar
senses with such unspeakable and sweet
variety, that some count him unhappy
who never traveled, a kind of prisoner ;
and pity his case, that from his cradle to
his old age he beholds the same — still,
still, still the same, the same !"

From the British Quarterly.

DISCOVERIES- NEW OR OLD.t

The telegraph affords an excellent il-
lustration of our preceding observation,
that when the time and occasion have
come, a discovery arises frequently from
several quarters at the same time, each
one being independent of the others,
and by no means necessarily, or in many
cases even probablv, implying plagiarism.
It appears that MM. Gauss and Weber
actually communicated signals having the
significance of letters, at Gottingen, as
early as 1833 ; but the year 1837 " is the
date of the realized electric telegraph.
We find three distinct claimants, of whose
independent meiits there is no reason
whatever to doubt, though how much of

•X« VieuX'Neuf: Uistoire ancienne des Inventions
et Deeouvertes modemts. Par Edouard Foubxiee.
f Coueluded fiom page 88S, last volume.

the merit of all must bo considered due
to MM. Gauss and Weber, who first
made the experiment, though they did
not offer it for general adoption in a
convenient form, is a matter we need not
here decide. The three independent in-
ventors (I name them alphabetically) are
Mr. Morse, of the United States, M.
Stfiinheil, of Munich, and Mr. Wheat-
stone, of London."* Professor Forbes
appears to give the preference to Mr.
Wheatstone^s invention, and thinks that
no other inventor has shown such perse-
verance and skill in overcoming difficul-
ties, although Mr. Morse's is naturally
preferred in America.

Whilst men waited for the telegraph,

* Professor Forbes'a Inaugwral IHiMrtatitm'
p. yds.

DI3C0VEKIES— NEW OR OLD.

IMS.]

there were roiuiy deTieas for direct com-
manication proposed, more or lees amus-
ing. Sympathetic mails, of which we
have heard somewhat of late years, appear
to bare been as old as Paraoelsns ; per-
haps not altogether satisfactory in their
results, or certain in their indications ;
for they soon were neglected for more
complicKted proceedings. Two friends
who wished for direct correspondence
when parted, were advised to cut from
the arm of each a piece of skin of equal
size ; these were to be exchanged, and
ffigrafted each on to the other's arm.
When the wonnds were healed, the ap-
paratus to save postage was complete.
If one wished to apeak to the other, he
had but to trace on the boriowed skin,
with the point of a needle, the letters
of the sentence in order ; and these would
at once be recognixed by a corresponding
sensation on his own skin now on the
arm of his friend. On which Mr. Four-
nier remarks that the idea is ingenious,
and the proceeding simple ; there is but
one difficulty — which is, to believe in it.
Then suooeeded the idea that two mag-
nets might be so dmilarly prepared that,
when apart, whatever direction one was
placed in, the other would sponlaoeonsly
asanme ; and so the basis of direct com-
mnnicatiou might be formed. Strada,
who relates this, regrets only that he fears
no magnet oan be found possessed of such
virtue ; and ezdaims :

" Oh ! ntioam bac scribendi prodsat usu,
Cautior «t citior propercnt epiatolee."

Some writers of eminence, amongst
whom is enumerated even Kepler, appear
to have placed some &ith in this plan.
But although they knew in that age some-
thing of electricity and eomething of mag-
netism, the time had not yet come for
their combination.

The electric nature of lightning, and
the efficacy of lightning-conductors, ap-
pear also to have been known for long
ages :

" Longbefore the kites of Romas and of Frank-
Kn, th« priests of Etmria knew how to see the
thooderWt in the clouds, and to bring it to the
gronitd. Nama was one of the initiated m tliis.
marvelous science ; and the prodigies that he
performed thereby caused the people to believe
— ••'• »»™— -^ with the gods. TuUus Hos-

that he had brought down .... the elec-
tric current wandered from the iron point and
the badlf-amoged conductors, and lullus was

Whether the passage in Livyf will
itrictiy bear this interpretation may fairly
be questioned ; but there can be no doubt
that the knowledge of this matter is of
very ancient date. The passage just cited
continues thas:

Amongst the Celte, ancestors of the Etnts-
cans, these practices, employed to bring down
the lightning, were ahua^t known. If we may
believe the old alchemists, not only did they
know the method of thus preserving their
dwellings, hut by forring these divine sparks to
fall into their l^eg and fountains, they formed
blocks of gold I"

Holfengen says that the pieces of gold
fonnd in their lakes were nothing more
than concrete lightning; the consideration
of which statement may tend, perhaps, to
throw some discredit npon the rest of their
knowledge of the subject. Another quo-
tation is more definite and curious:

" During all theUiddle Ages, the tradition of
this knowledge, common to the Jews and the
Etmscans, and perpetuated amongst the Ro-
mans, was preserved in a comer of Italy. Fnjm
time immemorial, on the summit of the highest
bastion of the casUe of Durino, on the border
of the Adriatic, a long rod of iron was fixed.
It served, during the itarutj days of summer,
to announce the approach of a tempest A sol-
dier was always near when such an occurrence
seemed to threaten. From time to time he,
pointed the iron head of his long javelin to this
rod. Whenever a spark passed between these
metals, he sounded the gong, which was near,
to advertise the Osbennen of the approach of
the storm ; and at this well-known signal they
all hasted to the land."

To turn to another department of
science — there are two supposed discov-
eries of the present century which belong
especially to medicine, but have become
so popularized as to be complele'y pnblic
property : we refer to vaccination and the
administration of anesthetics, especially
chloroform. An inquiry into their his-
tory leads us to some curious revelations.
We have said they belong to this cen-
tury, for although it was four years be-
fore the expiration of the last that Jenner
commenced hia investigations, we may
consider vaccination as belonging essen-

'LtVinx-yeu/, rvl. 1. p. IB!, f '^^*'- i- cap. 31.

DISCOVERIES-NEW OR OLD.

tially to the nineteenth. What sajB M.
Foiirnier?

The traditions of the East often con-
tain more wisdom than we have in our
books. Of this, vaccination is a proof :
how many ages of contagion and mortali-
ty have we had to endnre, before finding
the counter poison to this terrible virus
— how many futile and useless attempts P
The wished-for antidote, however, was in
the hands of the Hindoos and Persians
from time immemorial. Dhanwantari,
the Hindoo Esculapins, spoke of it in his
sacred book, the Satej/a Grantham, and
from that time it was not only a social,
but a religions obligation to resort to the
divine remedy. M. Fournier quotes the
following passage as from the Sibliothi-
yue Britannique, torn, xxz, p. 134 :

" Tbe Hindoos dip a. thread in the pustule of
a cow, and keep this thremd, which enables them
to give the eruption easily to any child present-
ed to them ; pusing it inlo a needle, they insert
it between the skin and the flesb of the upper
part of the arm of the infant This is done to
both arms, and never fails to produce a mild
eruption ; and no one thus treated ever dies of
the disease."

Bat it n oold be very hard that France
should have no abate in a discovery of
such importance, and utterly bard would
it be upon our author's theory, if an Eng-
lishman had not subsequently stolen the
invention, this being the natural order of '
things. M. Fournier confesses that the
English, " who already possessed Hindo-
stan, might Lave learnt the secret theie,
and, according to their custom, passed ii
off as their own in Europe ;"" and did he
" not know the whole truth, he would be
resdy to swear that vaccination came to
us tliis way, and do other." But not ho ;
it itas a Frenchman &om whom the Eng-
lish borrowed or stole the idea, and a
Frenchman, loo, who had neither been in
India, nor read the Sattua Grantham.
His name was Rabaut, ana he was a Pro-
testant minister, near Lanel, in 1784,
where the small-pox was raging violently
and fatally. He observed the analogy
between the mild picote of cows and the
small poT, and considered within himself
whether inoculation with the matter of
the former would not be as efficacious as
that with the real pustule, and also less
dangerous. Following still the recital of
our author, it appears that M. Ralant

• Lt Vuv:-yettf, vol. i. p. 278.

[May,

formed an acquaintance with two Englioh
gentlemen who went to winter at Mont-
[leliiT — Mr. Ireland, a Bristol merchant,
and I)r, Pugh, of London — and to them
he eomrounicated this idea of his. Dr.
Ptigii w:is so struck with the notion, that
l.c promised to mention it to his Mend
Jennei'. He did so, and the idea germin-
ated an<l brought forth vaccination, of
which "Jenner assumed all the glory,
nnd the name of the real inventor waa
left to oblivion."

Tlii» differs moch from onr own histo-
ric!' of .Tenner's discovery, and the anthori-
ty for it all appears to be extremely slight.
In l':icc, the story rests almost entirely
n[ion a letter presumed to have beon
wiiiton in 1811, perhaps five andtwenty
years .ifter these events, by Mr. Ireland
to M. Habaut, acknowled^ng the oonver-
snlions between himseH| T)r. Pugb, and
SI. Hiibant — a letter, too, which does not
seem In have been printed or published
until 1S24, some time after the death of
X. Ii:il>ant. "We conjecture that such
evideiieo as this would Jail to convince M.
Fournier, were the suspected plagiarism
10 ht; reversed.

Treating of anesthetics, M. Fonmier, in
a ve^ry few lines, settles tbe much-vexed
question of priority of discovery in favor
of Ids countryman, M. Sonbeii-an, but can-
didly confesses that the secret and prao-
tiet- of administering drinks and vapors to
produce insensibility during operaUon had
Ixi-ii known for perhaps decades of centu-
rlop. That universal genius, Papin, in
Ui8i, wrote a treatise upon " operations
MJiliOut pain," which was lost, and has
.iiily leceully been re-discovered. In the
Sliddlf! Ages, mandragora was given ex-
teii-ively for anesthetic purposes. "The
bark of mandragora, infused in wine, is
pveii to patients whose limbs may have
III be amputated, in order that they may
iiiit leel the pain."* M. Baspail states
this iiaM by no means a discovery of the
.Middle Ages, but dated from the ancients.
Ill' reti'T-s us back to Dioscorides, Matthi-
olus, and Pliny.

|)i'. Simpson acknowledges that from a
very eirly period "different medicinal
nf,'ents seem to have been suggested, and
I'nipliiyod, too, for the purpose of produc-
ing a St ate of anesthesia during surgical op-
eralions. These agents were sometimes
used in the form of odors or vapors, or by

• See Z< Vieui-Xeuf, tuL L p. 01, for lefcraoceik

1862.]

DISCOVERIES— NEW OR OLD.

inbalation, and som^imes they were ad- 1
ministered by the Btomaeh."* Of these
the principal were the mandragora and the
Indian hemp, which latter is by repute
known to us under various preparations
and names — as bang, hachisch, etc. ^' M.
Jallien lately pointed out to the French
Academy an old Chinese work, proving
that 1500 years ago a preparation of hemp,
or ma-yo, was employed medicinally in
China to annul the pain attendant upon cau-
terization and surgical operations."! FVom
this work M. Fournier gives a quotation,
prefaced by the statement that the indi-
vidual referred to was a physician named
Hao-Tlio, who lived in the third ceptury
of our era, and who always resorted to
this expedient when performing any
grave operation.

" He gave to the patient a preparation, called
ma-yo^ who after a few instants became as in-
sensible as if drunk or dead. Then Hao-Tho
practiced his incisions, or amputations, put in
the sutures, and applied the dressings. After a
certain number of oavs, the patient found him-
self cured, without haying suffered the least
pain during the operation."!

But even at this remote period it might
still have been said of this practice, Be-
hold ! it has been in the old time before
us. Homer describes very closely the ef-
fect of hemp, under the name of Nepen-
thes, {toithout affliction,) upon Ulysses and
his companions. The occasion was on the
arrival ofTelemachus at Sparta, when, to
assuage his sorrow,

Bright Helen mixed a mirth-inspiring bowl ;
Ten4>ered with drugs of sovereign use, t' as-
suage
The boiling bosom of tumultuous rage ;
To clear the cloudy front of wrinkled Care,
And dry the tearful sluices of Despair;
Charmed with that virtuous draft, th' exalt-
ed mind
All sense of woe delivers to the wind.
Though on the blazing pile his parent la^,
Or a loved brother groaned his life away.
Or darliog son, oppressed by ruffian force,
Fell breaUiless at his feet, a mangled corse ;
From morn to eve, impassive and serene.
The man entranced would view the deathful
scene."§

The secret of these drugs Helen is said
to have Idamed from the wife of Thone,
the King of Egypt, which Thon, or Tho-

* Art ** Chloroform/' Eneydopodia Britannicai
▼ol. vi. p. 632.
t Ibid. loc. cit.

iXe Vlmu>Neuf, vol i. p. 96.
Od^ey^ Book IV. Pope's translation.

nis, or Thoon, is supposed to have been
the inventor of physic in Egypt. Con-
cerning their nature there has been much
dispute, some inclining altogether to an
allegorical interpretation of the word
Nepenthe; but it is very generally be-
lieved now that the drugs in question
were chiefly the Indian hemp, or Canrui'
bis . Indica, the anesthetic and inebriating
effects of which have been long known in
Egypt and . the East. It appears from
Herodotus that the effect or the inhala-
tion of the vapor of hemp was well knowii
to, and used by, the Scythians and Mais-
sagetans for purposes of excitement and
intoxication. But our actual modern
method of inducing anesthesia appears
to have been used as early as the twelfth
century by Hugo of Lucca, who used a
kind of sponge dipped in opium, mandra-
gora, etc., " the vapors raised from which,
when inhaled, were capable of setting pa-
tients into an anesthetic sleep during sur-
gical operations."* The idea appears
never to have been lost for any long pe-
riod. Again and again do we find reier-
ences to the practice in the older writers,
and it even was popularly known and re-
cognized. Middleton, in his tragedy of
Womeriy beware Women, published in
1657, pointedly and directly alludes, in
the following lines, to the practice of
anesthesia in ancient surgery :

" ril imitate the pities of old surgeons
To this lost limb— who, ere they show their

art,
Cast one asleep, then cut the diseased part'*

'^ Indeed the whole past histoiy of anes-
thetics is interesting as a remarkable il-
lustratioa of the acknowledged fact that
science has sometimes for a long season
altogether lost sight of great practical
thoughts, from being unprovided with
proper means and instruments for carry-
ing out these thoughts into practical exe-
cution ; and hence it ever and anon oc-
curs that a supposed modein discovery
is only the re-discovery of a principle
already sufficiently known to other ages,
or other remote nations of men.'' f

The use of gas for the purposes of illu-
tnination is another of the almost inter-
minable catalogue of ideas that have been
known to the world in a crude state for
indefinite periods, and the syBt^*"

* Dr. Simpson, op, eit, f Dr.

DISCOVERIES— NEW OR OLD.

[May,

utilization of which has been reserved for
the present century. As is frequently
the case in matters of invention, we
find mention of the Chinese amongst
those who were the earliest acquainted
with its properties ; not as a matter of
industry m tne present instance, but as a
natural production. On the general relar
tions oi this people to discovery, M.
Fonrnier remarlcs :

*' As regards science and industry, these par-
adoxical people are every thing and nothine —
every thing as to the eerm of the idea ; nothing
as to its practical elaboration. Their mummy-
like civilization has often preserved what has
been lost elsewhere — but how ? In a state of
petrifoction. Every thing is preserved, not by
living experience, but by routine, that rust of
progress, as Chaptal has so well said: Poor
people, who for centuries have not made a sin-
gle step in advance, of their own accord I And
how should they advance, when they commence
by suppressing the feet V *

An argument more epigrammatic than
cogent. But in the matter of gas, nature
has supplemented their energies. For an
unknown period they have had what are
called fire-pits ; into which they have but
to bore and insert a tube — though some-
times to the immense depth of fifteen
hundred feet — and from them they obtain
an impure inflammable gas, which burns
sufficiently well for purposes of lighting,
and certain industrial occupations requir-
ing this substitute for fires. With it
they evaporate salt-brine, and also light
their streets and houses ; the lowest of the
poor use it for warmth in the open air.
From all this, however, the Chinese have
derived no further advantages ; they have
neither sought to purify the gas they
have, nor to make it artificially.

Burning springs were also known long
ago in Europe, but their existence was
not suffered to remain an isolated fact.
Men reasoned upon it, investigated its
source, and attempted, with ultimate suc-
cess, to imitate its nature, and improve
upon its results. The writers upon Gas-
light in the Encyclop(Bdia JJritannica^\
claim for the Rev. John Clayton the dis-
covery of coal-gas. His experiments ap-
pear to have been performed certainly
before 1691 — since they are detected in a
letter written to the Hon. Robert Boyle,
who died in that year — although not pub-
lished until 1739. He states that having

* Le Vuux-yeuf, vol. i. p. 114.
f Br. Anderaon and Profeasor Tomlinson*

introduced a quantity of coal into a re-
tort, and placed it over an open fire, ^^ at
first there came over only phlegm, after-
ward a black oil,'and then likewise a spir-
it arose, which I could no ways condense ;
but it forced mv lute and broke my
glasses. Once when it had forced my
mte, coming close thereto in order to try
to repair it, I observed that the spint
which issued caught fire at the flame of
the candle, and continued bumiog with
violence as it issued out in a stream,
which I blew out and lighted again sev-
eral times. I then had a mind to try if I
could save any of this spirit, in order to
which I took a turbinated receiver, and
putting a candle to the pipe of the re-
ceiver whilst the spirit rose, I observed
that it catched name, and continued
burning at the end of the pipe, though
you could not discern what fed the flame.'*
He then relates how he filled manv blad-
ders with this gas, which he calls the
spirit^ and how he could not condense it,
but used to amuse his friends by pricking
holes in the bladders, and lighting the
jets of air which came from them.

Here then is the discovery of gas, com-
plete and perfect as to all essentials. Yet
it appears to have slumbered for a centu-
ry, when Mr. Murdoch revived the idea,
and systematically investigated the sub-
ject ; and it was not until an early part
of the present century that any progress
in a practical direction was made. Let
us do M. Foumier the justice to state,
that while he acknowledges Mr. Clayton's
discovery, he does not in this insUmce
charge him with having stolen it. Of
course a Frenchman had been on the
same track nearly a century before — ^M.
Jardin having obtained an inflammable
gas by the destructive distillation of ^^ oil,
alcohol, bitumen, and other matters," in
1618 — but Mr. Clayton may have made
his discovery, "for the second time,"
without knowing any thing about his
predecessor. Connected with lightning
and plagiarism, we find that the renowned
argand lamp was originally stolen by a
M. Quinquet from M. Argand of Geneva,
and was long called by his name. We
mention it because it is aeaiii pleasant to
find, that if we English do steal all upon
which we can lay our hands, there are at
least others who do likewise.*

* It may be added that if priority of use const*-
tutes inTention, neither H. Argand nor M. Quinquet
invented the lamp called by the name of the former.

DISCOVERIES— NEW OR OLD.

1862.]

M. Foornier strongly approves of re-
presentative government, but equally
strongly objects to its being considered
a moaern idea. He traces It back as far
as the Pythagoreans, but we have not
space for his oertainly learned history.
Trial by jury he considers S necessary
corollary to this, and allows for once that
England had the priority. He allows
hnw, in the fourteenth centnry, Etienne
Marcel wonld have introduced it into
France, but was too hasty — the time was
not ripe.

"To conclude by a truth, so true that it is
banaU — every thing requires ils own day sod
hoar. Blienne Utrcel went too fast; }lke all
impatient reformers, like all improvisers of re-
volntioDB, he must &II. The best proof that
the greater part of those tbingB which we
wished to impose upon France were only Sve
centuritw too Eoon, is (bund in the fact, that at
the present time some are not yet ripe, v, for
iosUnce, progreesive taxation. Nevertheleas,
imposts are amongBt those things that ripen
the quidtesL Oovemments, especially despotic
KOVemmenta, have In this matter an unparal-
leled aptness of invention and promptitude of
execution. Witness the Romans; they have
left US little to discover in this department
We have only to study their system to learn,
with ite thousand modes of pressure, the art de
/aire wuer h eoatribuable par Una let port*."

But the opposition of the people is
strong and heartfelt, so that practice is
not always able to keep pace with theory :

" The principle of the budget was positively
recognised during the middle ages, but it is
onlf in our own day that it has become a reality.
GolWt conceived in its entirety, with its thou-
■and complications, the financial system that
now governs us; but to whom do we owe its
practical application T — to Napoleon,"*

If in some of our political institutions
we have preceded France, it seems that
we have again borrowed, or, as M. Four-
nier has it, atokn from them oiir ideas on
political economy. Adam Smith {he says)
demonstrated the effects of division of
labor ; so had Aristotle and Xenophon
before him ; and to modernize and trans-
late ancient ideas ia legitimate borrowing,
{emprunt Ugilime;) but "is it so to take
from the moderns without acknowledg-
ment ; to take advaDta^ge of a great repu-
tation and a strong Voice to drown that
of the veritable author; and to cause

The prindple of its conitniction ippeara in the lamp
lUacribed by Castiodorua, about a.d. fiflS; and the
Bomans had certainly lued much the same kind of
li^t before him.

• £e Vieui-yeuf, voL 1. p. 878.

these borrowed ideas to pass as his own ?
Is this loyal and lawful ? I trow not ;
yet it is this that Adam Smith has done."*
In short, Adam Smith is supposed to have
seen and conversed with M, Turgot, who
published a book in 1766, " upon the
formation and distribution of riches ;" but
not content with this conversatioii, he

lited until the book appeared, which he
digested at leisure, and then published
the ideas as his own in 1775. But as
there are certain propositions and con-
clasions in this work of our countrymaD,
cot found in Turgot's book, these are all
supposed to be taken from a work by
another Frenchman, Bosnier de I'Orme,
npon PolUical Government— plagiat o»
vol taciU. For all this, there is a most
portentous lack of proof| and we may
safely trnst the reputation of Adam Smith
to bear np under the accusation.

The most interesting feature of M.
Fournier's book is that which illustrates
the constant tendency of the hnman mind
to run in definite tracks, and to work
round to given pointa by cycles of opinion
and invention : to-day is but the plagiar-
ism of former times; and " human inven-
tion, limited with regard to little things
ss well as great, seems to reproduce
without cessation a movement similar to
that of the cylinder of popular organs, or
hurdygurdies, which the last revolution
bringsback always to its first refrain."f la
nothing is this more remarkable than in
dresa and fashion ; a &ct which gave oc>
cssion to the celebrated mot of the mo-
diste of Marie Antoinette : " There is no-
thing new but that which ia forgotteD."t
How correct the idea is, reqtures scarcely
an illustration ; we need only refer to the
constant pro-and-con discnsuons on the
crinoline of the present day, and compare
them with the letters and essays on hoops
in the days of Addison and Steele ; both
these being nothing more than repetitions
or reproductjons of the vertuffoies of the
sixteenth century.

In connection with dress, it may be
also noticed that there are one or two in-
ventions which seem to be lost to us of
the present century. In 1743, in the
Chroniqne du Rigne de Louis XV., there
is mention made of an individual who had
presented to the Queen a robe of cloth
of gold, woven without scam, by a method

DISCOVERIES— NEW OR OLD.

[May,

invented for the occasion. The " garment
without seam" we also know to have been
in occasional use above seventeen centu-
ries before this time ; but, so far as we
know, the secret has not come down to our
times. Certain spear and shot-proof gar-
ments are said also to have been known of
old. which are unknown now. The pilema
of the Greeks is said to have been made of
material so solidly felted together, that
the point of the sharpest dart would not
penetrate it — a manufacture which mo-
derns have tried often (according to M.
Foumier) to imitate, but without much
success. In 1780, however, a M. Doffe-
mont appears to have accomplished some-
thing of the same kind, consisting of silks
so united as to resist pistol or musket-
balls. The balls only struck the outer
layers, and then fell back. The cuirasses
made of this material were said to be
only one half the weight of those of iron
that were equally effective ; the secret is
not now known.

We will briefly notice, without any
attempt at order, a few other modern in-
ventions borrowed from the ancients. Of
iron ships, conceraing which we English
are said by M. Foumier to pride ourselves
BO much, they are merely a plagiarism
from the seventeenth century, and of
course from a Frenchman. In 1644, M.
Mersenne had mentioned to Descartes
some such project. Curiously enough, no
one had heard of it before. The purifi-
cation of sea-water by distillation is not
by any means a modern discovery. Aris-
totle* hinted at it, not distinctly ; and St.
Basil said that in his day they rendered
sea-water fit to drink by boiling it, and
collecting the vapor in sponges.

M. Foumier attributes the invention of
what we call Congreve rockets to the
Spaniards ; the accoant is to be found in
the Manned of AttiUery^ composed by
Louis Collado in 1586. Sir William Con-
greve himself is said, by the same author-
ity, to hjfve learnt the secr«-t of their
composition by examining the extinct
tubes of the projectiles directed by the
Mahrattas against our troops.

** Is it not singular that the Europeans should
find in the hands of these people one of the
most terrible applications of gunpowder — this
force which they (the Europeans) conceive
themselves to have invented, and to have taught
to the Easterns ? It is a new proof that this In-
dian Foil is not so effete as one might think. In-

* Problemat. zxU. cap. 18.

telligence has not lost all its vigor ; it may still
create, as it created aforetime; and from the
genius of its sages may yet spring ideas like to
those which are the germs of so manv great
discoveries, the glory of our philosophers —
phrenology, for example, the first hint of which
is found in a book of India; vaccination, which
was only too long a secret of the Brahmins ;
and mutual instruction, (enseignement mutuel,)
which has for so many ages popularized the
reading of the sacred books, under the eyes of
the Bells and the Lancasters of Hindostan.'*'*'

Breech-loading guns, now so much in
question, were known in the sixteenth
century, and are mentioned by P. Daniel,
who does not, however, give the name of
the inventor. They were forgotten, and
reinvented in 17 77, by the Chevalier D'Ar-
cy ; but only to be again either forgotten
or neglected. In that prolific sixteenth
century also was invented what is now
known as the " infernal machine.'^ It
was contrived as a method for private
vengeance by one Chantpie ; it missed
fire in some unexplained way, and its in-
ventor was broken on the wheel. About
the same time, air-guns were first con-
trived also.

Not the least strange amongst the
phenomena connected with new inven-
tions is this, that they may be introduced,
and their utility recognized, and yet
they vanish aller a time from causes not
easily discoverable, to bo re-discovered
and made permanent in afler-times. The
omnibus and the metropolitan postage
system in France both passed through
these stages. So early as 1662, Paris bad
its system of omnibuses, invented, as it is
said, by the great Pascal; yet twenty
years afterward there was not one, even
after its popularity had been fully estab-
lished. The ^' petite poate^^* similar to our
London " twopenny post," was introduced
into Paris in 1653, and the proposal for
its working was more perfect in some re-
spects than those of more modern date,
inasmuch as it provided for the convey-
ance of small parcels at a very cheap
rate, as may be seen by the following odd
announcement from a sort of rhyming
newspaper of August sixteenth, 1653 :

" On ra bient6t mettre en pratique,
Pour la commodite publique,
Un certain 6tablissement,
(Biais c^est pour Paris seulement,)
Des boites nombreuses et drues,
Auz grandes et petites rues,
Ou par soi-m^me ou ses laquais,

•Le VieuxKeuf, vol. i. p. 267.

1862.1

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

On poarra p<»'ter des paqueU^
Avis, billets, missives, lettres,
Que des gens commis pour cela,
Iront chercher et prendre \k ;
Pour d'une diligence habile,
Les porter par toute la ville.
Et Bi Ton Teut s'avoir cotnbien,
Coutera le port d'un lettre,
Chose qu'il ne faut pas obinettre,
A6n que nul n*j soit tromp^
Ce ne sera qu*un sou tape.

The plan was carried into execution,
bat there was no trick too ridicnloas to
be played upon it, no objectionable mat-
ter that was not put into the boxes under
the semblance of parcels. Moreover,
those who sent lettera by them too fre-
quently found that, instead of arriving at
their destination, they were eaten up by
mice, that boys, and perhaps children of
larger growth, had put in by way of mal-
ice. And so ended the petite poste^ for
that period at least.

We shall conclude our illustrations of
old novelties, or new antiquities, by a re-
ference to the antiquity of the modern
system of table-turning and spirit-rapping,
which arts of imposture or delusion seem^
to have been as successfully practiced
many centuries ago as now. We have
before casually alluded to an account
given by Marcellinus. It refers to a con-
spiracy against Yalens ; in which divina-
tion by table-turning played an important
part. But the conjurors were caught,
and made to confess that they had con-
structed their table to give any indi-
cations that might be desired. They
also had their lettei*s of the alphabet

•

placed round some kind of metal basin or
vessel, the letters of which were rapped
out by a ring artfully suspended to a
thread. We have not space for the de-
tails, which may be found in this author's
History of the Roman MnperorSy b. xxix.
ch.iii. In Thibet, also, table-turning and
moving, and the discovery of theffc by
such means, have been in use from time
immemorial, as may be seen by reference
to M. Fournier's second volume, p. 350, or
to the Thibetan Encyclopaedia^ in one
hundred and eight volumes, of which the
first volume contains one thousand and
eighty-eight pages I Spirit-rapping is of
as ancient date, and with phenomena and
tricks very similar to those produced and
practiced in the present day. It would
appear, therefore, that we are as much
indebted to antiquity for our follies as for
our more serious inventions, of which po-
sition numberless illustrations might be
given.

M. Fournier's work contains a great
mass of learning, and many valuable con-
tributions to a history of science and art ;
it would be more reliable were he more
cosmopolitan in idea, and more charitable
in judgment. His proofs almost force us
to acknowledge that our century is not
remarkable for absolute novelty of inven-
tion ; but to it alone belongs the credit of
having made art keep pace with science,
of having utilized all Knowledge, and of
having sought up the dry bones of ab-
stract theory to make them practically
subservient to the moral and intellectual
as well as physical well-being of our race.

From the London Bclectle.

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORIST'S LIFE.*

We have often said there are few
things to us more mysterious, we some-
times think we may even say few things
more solemn, than laughter. The popu-

• The Wark$ of Charles Lamb. In Pour Vol-
fiane*. Moxod.

Memcrialt of Thoman Hood,

lar impression of it, we believe, is, that
it is something that has sin for a father,
and folly for a mother, and the doctrine
is supported by venerable authority,
which says : " I said of laughter that it is
mad." That last sentence is perhaps
what we even desire to maintain. That

THE SAD SIDE OF TEE HUMORISTS LIFE.

[Mny,

laughter has its sprini^ in a cei*tain kind of
insanity we do not cloubt. Bat it flows
out for healing the heart's wounds ; and
thus, while the highest laughter certainly
springs from roots of sadness and sorrow,
one might almost say that, as the heart
must ache, its pains turn into experiences ;
and as they are uttered to the outer
world, they become grotesquely mirth-
ful, cheering the sufferer first in himself,
and then in his audience.

Thus Lord Shaftesbury's wellknown
conclusion, that laughter is born of sur-
prise, if true, as no doubt it is, is still only
half the truth ; it does not look far down
into the roots of our nature. There is a
wonderful affinity between the things of
sorrow and the things of laughter, and
mad merriment is sometimes, and often
at no great distance, from the saddest fel-
lowship with human tears.

It is Thomas Hood, one of the kings of
laughter, who has so truly said :

** All things are touched with melancholy,
B-jm of the secret soul's mistrust,
To feel her fair, ethereal wings
Weighed down with vile, degraded dust,
E'en the bright extremes of Joy
Bring on conclusions of disgust
Like the sweet blossoms of the May,
Whose fragrance ends in must
Oh I give her then her tribute just,
Her sighs and tears and musings holy.
There is no music in the life
That sounds with idiot laughter solely :
There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy."

There is no character in our English
literature exactly like Charles Lamb — we
have no humorist of so subtle and pensive
and refined an order. There are few cha-
racters, who have enhanced the sweetness
and the lustre of our literature wo love as
we love Charles ^Lamb. And to us that
character has a sanctity which perhaps it
may be difficult for all our readers to for-
give us for feeling. We narrow-minded
sectaries limit our sympathies within so
contracted a space, that many who have
unfortunately lived in a distant fold can
not enlist our more sacred and religious
love. Yet Charles Lamb has ours. His
griefs make him most venerable to us.
His frailties — we press our fingers on our
lips when they are mentioned to us. We
will not hear them spoken of but with awe
and with fear. His laughter is very sol-
emn to us, it has a melancholy cadence :

it is even like an ancient masque set to a
solemn music.

Heroism is a mofe common yirtne
than we believe it to be. Perhaps the

freatest reason of our disbelief is, that we
ave been, and are capable, most of us, of
being heroes ourselves at a pinch. We
are all heroes when we overcome that
which threatens to overcome us ; we are
all heroes when we arc able to chain some
darling desire, or to sav to some power-
ful passion, Be thou still— I disown thee.
Charles Lamb, the poor East-India clerk,
with his thin, shivering, timid-looking
frame and features — he was a hero : he
gave himself no heroic nirs — he affected
nothing, and he spoke in no heroic tones ;
but he had that soul which could sustain
itself in good convictions in spite of cir-
cumstances. This it is to be a hero.
Those of you who have read that big,
but somewhat unprofitable book — the
Life of Moore — may remember his sneers
at Lamb. They met tw6 or three times,
but there could be but little affinity with
each other. How could there be? If
there was a footman among poets, Thomas
Moore was the man. He was not a poet
laureate, but what we may rather call a
kind of poet lord-mayor ; he had an amas-
ing love for the mansion-house, and the
lace, and the gold chain, and especially
the turtle-soup. We don't think a man
in our age, with any genius, could at all
match him for the large capacity of appe-
tite he had for these pleasant things. That
literary exquisite, who could never dine
comfortably unless he dined at least with a
lord, mentions that once upon an occasion
he condescended to what he called *' a sin-
gular company" — in tact, Rogers, Words-
worth, Coleridge, and Charles Lamb!
Certainly, we should also say, and not
with a sneer, a singular company. Charles
Lamb was, he says, " a clever fellow cer-
tainly; and his sister, the poor woman
who went mad with him in the diligence
on his way to Paris," etc. These are the
words in which this insufferable puppy
alludes to one of the most touching stor-
ies of human sorrow and of human sereni-
ty possible to be told. We will try to
tell this story to our readers. We have
no sentimental Thomas Moores among
them, or we would not profane the story
by reciting it to them. It is a story of
insanity. How is it that insanity has
such a fascination for us? Hereafter,

1862.]

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

wbeo oar health shall be ftillj restored,
we shall learn for the first time what it is
to be insane. How is it that, as we ap-
proach the insane, a higher veneration of
a more tender pity seems to flow over us
than when we approach any other kind of
human sorrow? And perhaps there is
nothing that tends more to right a mind
hovering on the dizziness of some great
darkness than some call out of the mind
upon its watchfulness and sympathy.
Lamb experienced both these states, he
knew the dreadfulness of insanity, and
he knew that strong reaction from the
painful sense of our own being which
comes from the claim presented to us by
another.

Lamb was a Londoner. He loved Lon-
don with a passion as Wordsworth loved
the lakes and as Tom Moore loved a lord.
He writes to Wordsworth :

" Separate from the pleasures of your oom-
pany, I don't now care if I never see a moun-
tain in my life. I have passed all my days in
London, until I have formed as many and in-
tense local attachments as any of you mountain-
eers can have done with dead nature. The
lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet street, the
innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers,
coaches, wagons, play-houses ; all the bustle and
wickedness round about Covent Grarden; the
watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles ; life awake,
if you awake, at all the hours of the night ; the
impossibility of being dull in Fleet street,
the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun
shining upon houses and pavements, the print-
shops, the old book-stalls, parsons cheapening
books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitch-
ens, the pantomimes — London itself a panto-
mime and a masquerade — all these things work
themselves into my mind, and feed me without
a power of satiating me. The wonder of these
sights impels me into night-walks about her
crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the
motley Strand from fullness of joy at so much
life. All these emotions must be strange ; so
are your rural emotions to me. But consider,
what must I have been doing all my life, not to
have lent great portions of my heart with usury
to such scenes f '

Lamb confessed to a weakness to ^^a
town-life and a hot supper." He says
again:

^ I must confess that I am not romance-bit
about Nature, The earth, the sea, and sky,
(when all is said,) is but a house to dwell in.
If the inmates be courteous, and good liquors flow
like the conduits at an old coronation, if they
can talk sensibly, and feel properly, I have no
need to stand staring upon the gilded looking-
g^bas, (that strained my friend^s purse strings

in the purchase,) nor his five-shilling print over
the mantle-piece of old Nabbs the carrier, (which
only betrays his false taste.) Just as important
to me (in a sense) is all the furniture of my
world; eye-pampering, but satisfies no heart
Streets, streets, streets, markets, theaters,
churches, Covent (hardens, shops sparkling
with pretty fiu;es of industrious milliners, neat
seamstresses, ladies cheapening, gentlemen be-
hind counters lying, authors in the streets with
spectacles, (you may know them by their gait,)
lamps lit at night, pastry-cook and silver-smith
shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise
of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchmen
at night, with bucks reeling home drunk; if
you happen to wake at midnight, cries of fire
and stop ^ief ; inns of court, with their learn-
ed air, and halls, and butteries, just like Cam-
bridge colleges; old book* stalls, * Jeremy Tay-
lors, * Burtons on Melancholy,' and * Religio
Medicis,' on every stall. These are thy pleas-
ures, London, with the many sins ! city

abounding in 1 for these may Keswick and

her giant brood go hang ?"

'^ God made the country, and man made
the town," and for this very reason it is
that roan will like the town the best. It
must be a simple and an innocent, if a
high nature, that can endure a life in the
country ; it is a test of mental health to
grow there. Luxury, no doubt, finds it-
self most at home in London, in the gay
town ; so also does the nature fearful of
itself. Prone to humanity, Lamb lived in
London before London had stepped out
to the suburbs on every side. London is,
no doubt, the very metropolis of cheap
pleasures — it spoils us for other living;
but what are all these compared to its
painful interests, its many - voiced, its
many-featured humanity — its loud-sound-
ing and most tragic woes — its lighter
shades of pleasant comedy — its glaring
streets — its darker lanes — its illuminated
bridges — its dear, magnificent, gloriously
nasty river — ^its rural retreats on every
side ? Don't talk to us of mountains ;
there is one thing in our streets you shall
look for in vain in country towns or rural
scenes — the dear, quaint, beautiful, old
book-stall.

Christ's School was, we dare to say, a
very different-looking building eighty
years since. While the great city still
roared around, there were two lads in
that school destined to paths in life how
different, yet to be linked together by
friendship till dissolved by death in
1834 ; one of them has, in grand words,
immortalized by a graphic touch the
other. "Come back into memory, like

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORIST'S LIFE.

[May,

Jis thon wert in the dayspring of thy
fancies, with hope like a fiery column
hefore thee, the dark pillar not yet
turned — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, logi-
cian — metaphysician — ^bard! How have
I seen the casual passers through the
cloisters stand still entranced with ad-
miration (while he weighed the dispro-
portion between the speech and the garb
of the young Mirandula) to hear thee
unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations,
the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus
— for even in those days thou waxedst
not pale at such philosophic drafts —
or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pin-
dar, while the walls of the old Gray
Friars reechoed to the accents of the
inspired charity^oy t*'* So spake the one
school-fellow of the other. He who so
spake was, at that period, a gentle, amia-
ble boy ; he had been bom in Crown
Office Row, in the inner Temple ; he had
thus moved from cloister to cloister ; his
weak and nervous frame rendered him unfit
for the athletic exercises of his comrades,
and so, by master and by scholars, he was
an indulged lad ; he had an infirmity of
speech too, but his gentleness was such that
one of his school-fellows testifies of him he
never heard his name mentioned without
the addition of Charles, although he was
the only boy of his name in the school.
'' While others were all fire and play, he
stole along with all the self-concentration
of a young monk ;" " his countenance was
so mild — his complexion clear brown,
with an expression which might lead you
to think he was of Jewish descent ; his
eyes were not of the same color: one was
hazel, the other had specks of gray in
the iris ; his step was slow and peculiar,
adding to the staid appearance of the fig-
ure." Without doubt, what some would
call a milksop of a boy — without energy
or fitness for the great work of life. We
shall see. This lad, the school-fellow and
the friend and eulogist of Coleridge, the
young monk, the lonely stutterer, was
Charles Lamb. When Lamb left Christ's
Hospital, he very shortly obtained some
trifling appointment, first in the South-
Sea House, and afterward in the East-
India House. Wiien Lamb died, his sis-
tor survived him. Judge Talfourd wrote
his Hie and edited his remains ; but when
Mary Lamb died, the same admiring and
admirable editor published another vol-
ume, and then all about Lamb was fully
known, and thon for the first time was

understood the foundation of that rever-
ent eulogy which William Wordsworth
placed upon rthe cofiin of his friend
" Lamb, the frolic and the gentle :"

" To a good man of most dear memory
This stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where be first drew

breath,
Was reared and taught, and humbly earned

his bread,
To the strict labors of the merchant's desk
By duty chained. Not seldom did those

tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent

depress
His spirit; but the recompense was hi^h —
Firm Independence, Bounty*s rightful sire ;
Affections warm as sunshine, free as airt
And when the precious hour of leisure came.
Knowledge and wisdom, gained fW>m oon-

verse street
With books, or while he ranged the crowded

streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart;
So genius triumpheil over seeming wrong.
And poured out truth in works by thought-
ful love
Inspired — works pote&t over smiles and tears.
And as round mountain-tops the lightning

pUys,
Thus innocently sported, breaking forth
As from a cloud of some grave sympathy,
Humor and wild instinctive wit, and all
The vivid flashes of hiR spoken words.
From the most gentle creature nursed in

fields
Had been derived the name he bore — a

name,
Wherever Christian altars have been raised,
Hallowed to meekness and to innocence;
And if in hi to meekness at times gave way.
Provoked out of herself by troubles strange,
Many and strange, that hung about his li& ;
Still, at the center of his being, lodged
A soul by resignation sacrificed :
And if too often, self-reproached, he felt
That innocence belongs not to our kind,
A power that never ceased to abide in him,
Chanty, 'mid the multitude of sins
That she can cover, left not his exposed
To an unforgiving judgment from just heaven.
Oh ! he was good, if e'er a good man lived t^' '

We lay our hand upon those two vol-
umes, and they seem to us cheer*
fully, painfully affecting. So we say we
have all our published and unpublish-
ed life ; there are our works which the
world sees, and criticises, and rudely com-
ments upon ; but beneath all that, in all
of us there is a better life. Poor Lamb I
his essays and his poems are very droll
and quaint, weird, quiet, wonderful things
in their way — things that some of us do

1862.]

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

for our parts distinctly prefer to Macaa-
laj's Essays, and Childe Harolds, and
Giaours, and things of that sort ; and the
writer, a qnaint, queer, black dwarf sort
of a roan, somehow suggesting a deform,
ity altogether in providential plans, a
sort of thing for sentimental Tom Moores
to shoot their peas at, a kind of book-
stall-haunting scarecrow, with that wild,
frightened, timid look of his ; a man
lonely, reserved, just keeping himself in
his plain way in quiet London apartments
with his sister — sometimes too, we fear
to say, a little the worse for

Well, we must be ungenerous ; Lamb
was really no teetotaler. And then he
dies, and his sister dies, and then it^ is
found that this poor great soul has been
the center of tragedies which make Shak-
speare's light in comparison, that all life
long the curtains of a lonely woe hung
round him, that all life long he was listen-
ing to the voice of love informing his
sense of duty, and that all life long he
was shadowed by evils which sometimes
compelled him to infirmities — ^a poor, meek
spirit, fainting oflen beneath a load too
hard almost to bear.

** Islington," writes Lamb to Coleridge,
" possibly you would not like, to me 'tis
classical ground." And we know some-
thing that will make all grounds classical,
do we not ? There was a fair-haired maid,
one Anna, of whom we hear very little ;
but there are two or three sweet sonnets
addressed rather to a memory than to
her. The young man was walking about
Islington fields, in 1795 and 1796, and
looking forward to promotion in the India
House, and to the pleasant sweetness of
coming times. At this time he lodged
with his father and mother and sister, in
Little Queen street, Holborn ; there had
been insanity in the family — Lamb him-
self had not escaped. But in 1796, the
whole current of his life was changed ; his
sister, in a fit of insanity, killed their
mother. The father was a poor, bed-rid-
den man, the mother had been an infirm
invalid ; and the way in which Charles now
rose to the greatness of the tnal, was as
sublime as is the record of his feelings. A
jury instantly returned a verdict ot insan-
ity ; he wrote to Coleridge: *' My poor,
dear, dearest sister the unhappy ana un
conscious instrum t of the Almighty's
judgments on our house, is restored to
her senses." His had been the hand
which had snatched the knife from his

sister's grasp, " I hope," he says, " for
Mary I can answer, but I hope that
through life Zshall never haveless recollec-
tion, nor a fainter impression of what has
happened, than I have now. It is not a
light thing, nor meant by the Almighty
to be received lightly ; I must be serious,
circumspect, and deeply religious through
life ; ana by such means, may both of us
escape madness in future, if it so please
the Almighty." " He wrested," says
Judge Talfourd, his leisure hours now
from Coleridge and poetry to amuse the
dotage of his father ; and he watched over
his own returning sense of enjoyment,
when it came after a long interval, with a
sort of holy, jealous apprehension lest he
should forget too soon the terrible visita-
tion of heaven. We must not have our
readers think hard things of Mary Lamb,
poor thin^ I do we not know that it is in
madness, m insanity, that souls of gentlest
mold rush forth with most fierce and
cruel heat ? do not mock us when we say
that Mary Lamb was as gentle as her
name. How Wordsworth and his sister
loved her, and Bernard Barton and his sis-
ter, and Talfourd — they all loved the
meek, gentle, unconscipus victim of so
dreadful a deed ; you will call it hallucina-
tion ; but the poor creature always believ-
ed that a short time after the tragedy her
mother came to her in her dreams, and
forgave her and blessed her. " She never
shrank," says Talfourd, "from alluding to
her mother when any topic connected with
her own youth made such a reference in
other respects natural." She shared her
brother's genius, and her Tales from
Shakspearey and Mrs. Leicester's School^
and her Poems for Childrefi^ have made
her name the favorite in a select, if not a
large circle of readers. After the tragedy,
poor Charles began to study for the fam-
ily ; their means were very limited, but he
determined that his sister should not go to
Bethlem, but to an hospital or private asy-
lum. *' If," said he, " my father, an old
servant-maid, and I, can't live, and live
comfortably, on £130 or £120 a year, we
ought to bum by slow fires ; and I almost
would, that Mary might not go to Bclh-
lem." And he consecrated himself as by
a sacramental vow, to become henceforth
through life the protector of his sister.
There was another brother, John Lamb; he
was well-to-do — he had taken his ease in
the world, he was not fit himself to strug-
gle with dif^culties, nor was he accustom-

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISrS LIFE.

[May,

ed to throw himself in their way, he said :
" Charles, you must take care of yourself,
you must not abridge yourself of a single
pleasure you have been used to," etc.
With his rich brother, Charles stands in
very strong and beautiful contrast. Hb
letters to Coleridge in those days are very
painful. " With me," he says, " the form-
er things have passed away, and I have
somethmg more to do than to feel."

"Ihftve never," he says, "been otherwise
than collected and calm ; I preserved a tran(]uil-
lity which bystanders may have construed mto
indifference. Is it folly or sin to say that ituxu
a religious principle that most supported me f
I felt that I had something else to do than to re-
eret On that first evening my aunt was l^ing
insensible, to all appearances like one dying ;
my father, with his poor forehead plastered
over, from a wound he had received firom a
daughter, dearly loved by him, and who loved
him no less dearly ; my mother, a dead and mur-
dered corpse in the next room ; yet I was won-
derfully supported. I dosed not my eyes in
sleep that night but lay without terrors and
without despair.'*

In the same letter he says again:

** Within a day or two after the fatal one, we
dressed for dinner a tongue, which we had salt-
ed for some time in the house. As I sat down,
a feeling like remorse struck me; this tongue
poor Mary got for me, and can I partake of it now
when she is far away ? A thought occurred and
relieved me ; if I give in to this way of feeling
there is not a chair, a room, an object in our
rooms that will not awaken the keenest griefs ;
I must rise aboTe such weaknesses. I hope this
was not want of true feeling."

On another occasion, where it seemed
that some who had come to visit were too
unmindful of the presence of death, he
says : " In an agony of emotion, I found
my way mechanically to the adjoining
room, and fell on my knees by the side
of her coffin, asking forgiveness of heaven
and sometimes of her for forgetting her
so soon."

By and by his father died. Until this
took place, the release of his sister was
impossible. Even then her other brother
opposed her discharge, and there was
some terror last the parish authorities
might institute proceedings, placing her
life at the disposal of the crown. But
Charles came to her deliverance ; he sat-
isfied all parties who had power to op-
pose her release by his solemn engagement
that he would take her under his care for
life. He faithfully kept his word ; she
left the asylum, and took x\p her abode

for life with her brother. His income
then was little more than one hundred
pounds a year — he was about twenty-two
years of age ; so they set forth together
on their journey, his companion thns en-
deared to him by the strange calamity.
Moreover, love has not been thought an
easy thing to overcome; he had been,
with all the tenderness of his nature, pas-
sionately attached to a young lady resid-
ing among the '^ pleasant Islington fields "
Our readers will not call him a dreaming
poet — will they ? — when we tell them
that he renounced all those hopes. There
were woods not fisur from Islington then,
it seems, and the foolish fellow frequented
these ^' shades that mocked his step with
many a wandering glade," and wrote
sonnets to the past, and so on. We think,
reader, you will not judge him venr
harshly ; perhaps you will even think
with us, that there was nobility and mar-
tyrdom in this. In those days he tried
to appropriate to himself the language of
John . Woolman : '* Small treasure to a
resigned mind is sufficient. How happy
is it to be content with a little ; to live
in humility, and feel that in us which
breathes out this language, Abba, Father."
And again he says : *^ I am recovering —
God be praised for it — a healthiness of
mind, something like calmness; but I
want more religion — I (Mm jealous qf hu-
man helps and leaning-pUices. I rejoice
in your good fortunes. May God at the
last settle you ! You have had many and
painful trials ; humanly speaking, they
are going to end; but we should ra-
ther pray thai discipline may attend us
through the whole of our lives, A care-
less and a dissolute spirit has advanced
upon me with la^6 strides; pray God
that my present afflictions may be sancti-
fied to me !" He says again : ^^ It is a
great object with me to live near town,
where we shall be much more private,
and to quit a house and neighborhood
where poor Mary's disorder, so frequently
recurring, has made us a sort of marked
people ; we can be nowhere private, ex-
cept in the midst of London." He speaks
of a visit paid to Oxford, particularly
gratifying to him, but he says : " It was to
a family where I could not take Mary
with me, and I am afraid there is some-
thing of dishonesty in any pleasures I
take without A^." Coleridge had been
desirous to receive her into his house, but
Lamb replied : ^^ I consider her as perpe*

1 862.]

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

toally CO the brink of madness. I think
joa would almost make her dance within
an inch of the precipice; she must be
with duller fancies and cooler intellects.
I know a young man of this description,
who has suited her these twenty years,
and may do so stili, if we are one day re-
stored to each other.'' We have quoted
these passages from Lamb's letters, be-
cause they illustrate the sweet tenderness
of that gentle nature: and so, from
twenty to sixty, they went forth to-
gether.

We have already ssud that Mary Lamb
shared the literary leisure of her brother :
in the composition of Mrz, Z/eicester^s
School^ that charming thing, and the St(h
ries from Shakspearey some hours were
passed. But there was another side to
their lovely devotedness, and the giant
sorrow was constantly impending over
them through life ; often she had to leave
her brother — she learned to know the
premonitory symptoms of an attack.
When the holidays came round, the re-
lief and the charm of the year, they set
forth together, but if they ventured to
do so. Miss Lamb carefully packed herself
a strait waktcoat in their trunk ; it was
their constant companion. As the symp-
toms made themselve&( known by restless-
ness, low fever, inabilitv to sleep, she
gently prepared her brother for the terri-
ble duty he had to perform; and thus,
unless he could stave off the terrible sepa-
ration till Sunday, obliged him to ask
leave of absence from the office as if for a
day's pleasure, some quaint and witty
dissimulation hiding the bleeding heart.
*^ There was no tinge of insanity discern-
ible in her manner to the most observant
eye ; not even in the distressful periods
when premonitory symptoms apprized her
of its approach ;" and when the fearful
time came upon her, she poured forth all
the memories of events and persons of her
younger years ; then, too, in her rambling
and broken words she would give brilliant
descriptions of by -gone days, fancying
herself with the richly brocaded dames of
the times of Queen Anne and George L
Talfourd speaks of these as jeweled words
and speeches, like those running through
the works of the old masters of comedy.
These were the states in which she was
separated from her brother. On one oc-
eadon, Mr. Charles Lloyd, a well-known
name and well-loved friend, met them
slowly pacing together a little footpath

in Hoxton fields, built over now : they
were both weeping bitterly. When he
joined them he found they were taking
their solemn way to the accustomed
asylum. Is not such grief as venerable
as it is awful ? and do you not love al-
ready and revere Charles Lamb ?

Thus, however slight hitherto may
have been the reader's acquaintance with
Lamb, we must have interested him in
the writings as well as the character of
one of the mightiest masters of humor.
Perhaps the reader will ask us, What is
humor? Humor, then, is the crief of
life — ^as satire is the wrath of life. Hu-
mor is, therefore, the literature of tears,
as satire is the literature of a fiery scorn.
He to whom has been given a tender na-
ture, a large sympathy with the grief of
others, and a quicK wit to seize and place
in juxtaposition ideas, will be a humorist.
Such natures interpret universal agonies
by their own ; the anguish they feel, but
can not relieve, produces in them a di-
vine hysteria, a misery over the anguish
of the world. This is really the pleasure
of the pun — this is the pleasure of the
practical joke and of the rich humors in
such passages as these, in which our
writer laments the abolition of the cus-
tom of observing saints' days in public of-
fices:

*'Not that, in my anxious detail of the many
commodities incidental to the life of a public
office, I would be thought blind to certain flaws,
which a cunning carper might be able to pick
in this Joseph's vest And here I must have
leave, in the fullness of my soul, to regret the
abolition, and doing away with altogether, of
those consolatory interstices, and sprinklings of
freedom through the four seasons — the red-let-
ter days^ now become, to all intents and pur-
poses, dead-letter da/yB. There was Paul, and
Stephen, and Barnabas —

Andrew and John, men fkmooa in old tunes

—we were used to keep all their days holy, as
long back as I was at school at Christ's. I re-
member their effigies, by the same token, in the
old Basket PrayeinBook. There hung Peter in
his uneasy posture — ^holy Bartlemy in the trou-
blesome, act of flaying after the famous Marsyas

by Spagnoletti. ^I honored them all, and

could atmoit have wept the drfaleation of Is
cariot — do much did we lave to he^ holy memo-
ries sacred : only methought I a little grudged
at the coalition of the letter Jude wi^ Simon
— clubling {as it were) their sanctities together^
to make vp one poor gaudy day between them —
M an economy unworthy qf the dispensation.^^

We have always felt that the most

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

[May,

painful feature in the humor of Lamb is '
its intense secretiveness ; surprise, and
therefore secretiveness is the element, the
very aroma of all humor, of all wit — what
we have just called the unexpected juxta-

Eosition of ideas ; but the secretiveness of
iamb was, even for a humorist, in whom
Ave expect it, extraordinary. We have
no doubt that, originally, he had a nature
singularly brooding, and perhaps even to
be called reserved, but by the possession
of his sorrows he became himself con-
scious of a territory of internal emotion.
All his essays read like that quiet humor
which a man enjoys to himself, whether
any one enjoys with him or not ; few
writings ^trike us as having such inward-
ness — hence what subtle weird touches
abound in those pages. Who has not
felt that subtle sentiment he expresses in
his papers on the Quakers' Meetmg, when
he says :

" There are wounds which an imperfect soli-
tude can not heal. By imperfect I mean that
which a man enjoy eth by himself. Can there
be DO sympathy without the gabble of words ?
away with this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-
cayem-huntiDg solitariness. Give me. Master
Zimmcrmann, a sympathetic solitude. To pace
alone in the cloisters, or side-aisles of some ca-
thedral, time-stricken :

' Or under banging mountains,
Or by the faXL of fountaina ;'

is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that
which those enjoy who come together for the
purpose of mQr«9 complete, abstracted solitude.
This is the loneliness ' to be felt* The Abbey
Church of Westminster hath nothing so solemn,
so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and
benches of a Quaker^s meeting. Here are no
tombs, no inscription,

* sands, ignoble things,
Dropped from the ruined sides of kings ' —

but here is something, which throws antiquity
herself into the foreground — Silence — eldest of
things — language of old Night — primitive dis-
courser — to which the insolent decays of mold-
ering grandeur have but arrived by a violent,
and, as we may say, unnatural progression."

We think there is no paper more
touching, than that by our beloved pen-
man, called Dream Children. We think
it reminds us that the gentle Anna, the
fair-haired maid with whom he wandered
through the fields and woods about Isl-
ington, oflen came to his memory. He
tells us in the Essays of Elia how, as
children love to listen to stories about

their elders, when they were children*
how his little ones came one night
thronging about him to hear about their
great grandmother Field, and the great
house in Norfolk : oh ! it is pitiful the
way he went on with those children —
how he told them stories about their
pretty dead mother — how for seven long
years, in hope sometimes, yet persisting
ever, he courted the fair Alice ; then he
suddenly turns to little Alice, and saw the
soul of the first Alice looking out of her
eyes with such reality of re-present-
ment —

**That I became in doubt which of them
stood there before me, or whose that bright hair
was; and while I stood gazing, both the child-
ren gradually grow fainter to my view, receding
and still receding, till nothing at last but two
mournful features were seen in the uttermost
distance, which, without speech, strangely im-
pressed upon me the effects of speech : * We ar«
not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at
all. The children of Alice call Bartrum, father.
We arc nothing, less than nothing, and dreams.
We are only what might have been, and must
wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe, millions
of ages before we have existence and a name/

and immediately awaking, I found myself

quietly seated in my bachelor's arm-chair,
where I had fallen asleep with the faithful
Bridget unchanged by my side."

This is the very trick of humor ; and
we have another illustration in the essay
on the Behavior of Married People to
each other in Company :

*' But what I complain of is, that they carry
this preference so undisguisodly, they perk it
up in the faces of us single people so shameless-
ly, you can not be in their company a moment
without being made to feel, by some indirect
hint or open avowal, that you are not the ob-
ject of this preference. Now there are some
things which give no offense, while implied or
taken for granted merely ; but expressed, thero
is much offense in them. If a man were to ac»
cost the first homely-featured or plain-dressed
young woman of his acquaintance, and tell her
bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich
enough for him, and he could not marry her,
he would deserve to be kicked for his fli-man-
ners ; yet no less is implied in the fact, that,
having access and opportunity of putting the
Question to her, he has never yet thought fit to
ao it The young woman understands this as
clearly as if it were put into words ; but no
reasonable young woman would think of mak-
ing this the ground of a quarrel. Just as little
right have a married couple to tell me bj
speeches, and looks that are scarce less plain
than speeches, that I am not the happy man—
the lady^s choice. It is enough that t know I

1802.]

•m Dot; I do not want this perpetuil ranind-
ing."

" Hotbing ia to me mora distaatefiil than that
entire complacencj and satisfaction which beam
in the countenancea of a new-mBiried couple —
in that of the ladj particulariy ; it tells jaa,
that her lot is diapiwed of in this world: that
you can have no hopes of her. It ia true, I
have none; nor wishes either, perhaps; but
this is one of those truths which ought, aa I
said twfbrei to be taken for granted, not es-

"But what I have spoken of hitherto is
nothing to the airs which these creatures give
themselTcs when thej come, as they geoerallj
do, to haTe cbildren. When I consider how
tittle of a nritj children are — that ever^ street
and blind allej swarms with them— that the
poorest people commonly have them in most
Sundance— that there are few marriaeeB that
are not blest with at least one of these bargains
— bow often they turn out ill, and defeat the
fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious
courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the
gallows, etc, I can not for my life tell what
cause for pride there can possibly be in having
them. If they were young pbiBaixes, indeed,
that were bom butonein a year, there might be

a pretext, hut when they are so common "

" 'Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant
even BO are the young children :' so says the
excellent office in our Prayer-book appointed
for the churching of women. ' Happy is the
man that hath his quiver fuU of them. So say
I ; but then don't let him discharge his quiver
upon us that are weaponl^s ; let them be ar-
rows, but not to gall and stick us."
This ia the consolation for that eriet of
life ; thus, while it sits before theXla^oe
coal and makes faces in fire forms of old
days, old sweethearts or wives, dead and
buried — disappointments — rising — fall-
ing, built and vanishing in the firelight —
while the candle burns to the socket, the
reality of re presentment comes, and first
one hot tear, then another, tliea another,
for those drops are too thick to come in a
shower — they trickle like water from a
well dug in the sand, then fancy unites
itself with hnmor, and both flow in upon
the tear and unite in one drop ; and pic-
tures cheerful, and perhaps almost fercical,
of what might have been start to the eye,
and the heart relieves itself by its dreams,
dreams like all dreams — grotesque, be-
cause born of aberration. Despair was
the cnnvas on which they were limned,
^id grief painted them, and emotion
gave colors to them, and ignorance
laughed at them, and said, Ah lah ! the
merry humorist, what a happy, light-
hearted creature he is! while he was
"sitting alone and keeping silence, be-
TOU LTIv— NO. 1

Teb saj) side of the huuobist's life.

cause he had borne it on him," his hands
pressed upon eyes, and the tears bursting
through them, and a groan bursting from
his heart and the exclamation : " O God !
why hast thou made all men in vain."
Such is the humorist.

Thus we have maintained that the Iiu>
morist is born and taught — he is the re-
presentative of the grief of life. It is the
fruit of excitement, the nerves roused to
intensity on fire. Who does not know
how excitement produces its own reac-
tion ? There are no leLtei-s in our lan>
gnage which so oversow with the keen-
est and richest fun as those of Lamb : it
is not merely that we have here a light
sportful grace, like those of Madame Se-
vtgne ; on;en from some queer and droll as-
sociation the more serious underlying pur-
pose is most visible. Ho was never want-
ing in what at any time compelled hilari-
ous laughter. He wrote to Moxon ; " We
sleep three in a bed here ; my bed-fellows
arecongh and cramp." He whs a remorse-
less punster ; indeed he could scarcely
open his lips without dropping out some
queer incongruity ; he sometimes almost
seemed to labor after those most laugha-
ble by their very absurdity. His ideas
startled by their remoteness — it did some-
times seem that his humors took strange
flights. It will be readily noticed, that
in his humor of character he desci;nds
into the nicest detail ; like Dickens, he
interests his readers in a large variety
of varied people, and their idiosyncrasies
are sketched with a fine, subtle, discrimi-
nating hand ; but from these he starts at
a bound to aome of the most perplexing
casuistical questions — yet they are rather
suggested than discussed. The judgment
of Lamb was remarkable for its healthy,
synthetic unity, while his humor was full
of the finest and nicest personal analysis ;
he was a shrewd observer, if observa-
tion that can be called which receives its
knowledge rather by painful sympathy
than by any close or pointed scrutiny.
How mucb of this appears in that sin-
gular piece :

" I chanced upon the prettiest, oddest, fan-
tastical thing of a dream the other night, that
you shall hear of. I had been reading Lortt of
th« AngeU, and went to bed with my head full
of speculations, suggested by that extraordinary
legend. It hud f-iven birth to innumerable
conjectures; and t remember the lost waking
thought which I gave expression to on my pil-

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

[Biayi

low wail a sort of wonder * what could come
of it.'

^* I was suddenly transported, how or whither
I could scarcely make out — but to some celestial
region. It was not the real heavens neither —
not the downright Bible heaven — ^but a kind of
fairy-land heaven, about which a poor human
fancy may have leave to sport and air itself, I
will hope, without presumption.

** Metbought — what wild things dreams are—
I was present— at what would you imagine ? —
at an angePs gossiping.

" Whence it came, or how it came, or who
bid it come, or whether it came purely of its
own head, neither you nor I know ; but there
lay, sure enough, wrapt in its little cloudy
swaddling-bands — a ChildnAngel.

"Sun -threads — filmy beams — ran through
the celestial napery of what seemed its princely
cradle. All the winged orders hovered round^
watching when the new-born should open its
yet closed eyes: which, when it did, first one,
and then the other — with a solicitude and ap-
prehension, yet not such as, stained with fear,
dim the expanding eyelids of mortal infants,
but as if to explore its path in those its unhere-
ditary palaces — ^what an inextinguishable titter
that time spared not celestial visages t Nor
wanted there to my seeming — oh 1 the inexpli-
cable simpleness of dreams ! — bowls of that
cheering nectar,

—which mortala caudle call below.

Nor were wanting faces of female ministrants —
stricken in years, as it might seem — ^so dexter-
ous were those heavenly attendants to counter-
feit kindly similitudes of earth, to greet, with
terrestrial child-rites the young present, which
earth had made to heaven.

** Then were celestial harpings heard, not in
full symphony as those by which the spheres
are tutored ; but, as loudest iostruments on
earth speak oftentimes, muffled ; so to accom-
modate their sound the better to the weak ears
of the imperfect-bom. And, with the noise of
those subdued soundings, the Angelet sprang
forth, fluttering its rudiments of pinioos — but
forthwith flagged and was recovered into the
arms of those full-winged angels. And a won-
der it was to see how, as years went round in
heaven — a year in dreams is as a day — con-
tinually its white shoulders put forth buds of
wings, but wanting the perfect angelic nutri-
ment, anon was shorn of its aspiring, and fell
fluttering — still caught by angel hands — forever
to put forth shoots, and to fall fluttering, be-
cause its birth was not of the unmixed vigor of
heaven.

^.;** And a name was given to the Babe Angel,
and it was to be called Oe- Urania, because its
production was of earth and heaven.

" And it could not taste of death, by reason
of its adoption into immortal palaces ; but it
was to know weakness, and reliance, and the
shadow of human imbecility ; and it went with
a lame gait ; but in its goings it exceeded all

mortal children in grace and swiftness. Then
pity first sprang up in angelic bosoms; and
yearnings (like the human) touched them at the
sight of the immortal lame one.

*^ And with pain did then first those Intui-
tive Essences, with pain and strife, to tiieir
natures (not grieQ put back their bright intel-
ligences, and reduce their ethereal min£, school-
ing them to degrees and slower processes, so to
adapt their lessons to the gradual illumination (as
must needs be) of the half-earth-bom ; and what
intuitive notices they could not repel (by reason
that their nature is to know all things at once)
the half-heavenly novice, by the better part of
its nature aspired to receive into its under-
standing ; so that Humility and Aspiration went
on even -paced in the instruction of the glorious
Amphibium.

** But by reason that Mature Humanity is too
gross to breathe the air of that super-subtile
region, its portion was, and is, to be a duld
forever.

'* And because the human part of it might
not press into the heart and inwards of the
palace of its adoption, those full-natured angels
tended it by turns in the purlieus of the palace,
where were shady groves and rivulets, like this
green earth firom which it came : so Love, with
Voluntary Humility, waited upon the entertain-
ment of the new-adopted.

**And myriads of years rolled round, (in
dreams Time is nothing,) and still it kept, and
is to keep, perpetual childhood, and is the Tute-
lar Genius of Childhood upon earth, and still
goes lame and lovely.

" By the banks of the river PUon is seen,
lone sitting by the grave of the terrestrial Adah,
whom the angel Nadir loved, a Child ; but not
the same which I saw in heaven. A mournful
hue overcasts its lineaments; nevertheless, a
correspondency is betw^n the child by the
grave, and that celestial orphan, whom I saw
above ; and the dimness of the grief upon the
heavenly, is a shadow or emblem of that which
stains the beauty of the terrestrial. And this
correspondency is not to be understood but by
dreams.

** And in the archives of heaven I had grace
to read, how that once the angel Nadir, being
exiled from his place for mortal passion, up-
springing on the wings of parental love, (such
power had parental love for a moment to sus-
pend the else irrevocable law,) appeared for a
brief instant in his station, and depositing a
wondrous Birth, straightway disappeared, and
the palaces knew him no more. And this charge
was the self-same Babe, who goeth lame and
lovely — but Adah sleepeth by the river Pison."

Thomas Hood and Charles Lamb were
friends. In the peculiarity of their genius,
there was much that was atwin. Both
were humorists; both were most incor-
rigible and preeminent punsters. We
have always felt that Hood did injustice
to the higher forms of his genius by

18G2.]

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

his incessant panning. Now, there can
be no doubt this spirit of fun -seeking
does produce a most unhealthy state of
mind. We confess, while we do enjoy a
piece of mere drollery in verse as much
as most, it is to us quite mournful to see
genius expending itself on incessant work
like this. We can enjoy an Ingoldsby
Legend. A volume of them, and a vol-
ume of them by a clergyman, is too
mnch. Some men have some distressing
personal deformity of eye or lip. If they
choose to turn this for a moment into a
matter of personal joke, we may admire
the heroism ; but if they prefer to make
it the topic for a continued table talk,
it becomes disgusting, and gives, to our
mind, an unpleasant impression of moral
sensibility. Some of the "Miscellanies"
of Mr. Thackeray are in this way, we
will maintain it, miserable trash, very
unworthy of the high artist-power of the
author of Vanity Fair. The professed
punster — ^we do not mean the cheerful
and sunny heart, compelled frequently
to see a drollery, and to say it, and to
charm a company by it, but we say the
professed punster — is like the editor of
Funchj he is compelled to look especially
afier the funny side of things ; and while
these gentlemen sneer at those who are
perpetually taking the serious side of
fife, we think they will also admit that
it can not be morally invigorating to be
perpetually assuming the funny side of
life. Such is not the character of the
true humorist. Such men can not claim
Shakspeare as of their side and school.
There are many infinite varieties of dis-
tance between the drollery of a clown
at the country fair and the Voyages of
Captain Lemuel GuUiver, Yet even poor
clown at the covmtry fair, who shall eay
to what extent the pinchings of poverty
and the sense of moral degradation, in a
nature originally cast in a mold of gen-
tleness and thought, have produced all
those spasmodic contortions of body and of
speech ? We have seen those poor things
and have always felt that these, too, were
some of the writhings of a soul in pain.
We care little what our friends will think
or say : the comicalities of Thomas Hood
are of little worth in our mind compared
with the Bridge ofSighs^ or the Haunted
House. But now it becomes quite notice-
able that, in his soul, the frolicsomeness
of which for the most part was only seen,
there was within the soul the tragic ele-

ment. The soul of the true humorist
comes out in the Dream of Eugene
Aram^ and in a multitude of other things
and lines which convey the sense of awe
and mystery. No true humorist ever
spoke long without showing to you how
he was smitten with the sense of the
solemnity of life and its infinite environ-
ments. Thomas Hood seems to revel in
a sea of funny and comical suggestion ;
but this will certainly not be the prin-
cipal impression produced by his writings.
The briffht things in HoodPs Own go
fizzing about like squibs and crackers
on a Fifth of November night. It may
seem a singular thing to say, but Hood
had not the intense humanness, the pity-
ing interest of Lamb. What roused him
^as injustice, and wrong, and sorrow.
To Lamb, every body was interesting,
and he made every being he saw, or
attempted to describe, most human and
interesting. He had in this particular
the faculty of Dickens and Shakspeare.
The humor of Hood lay nearer to the
ahstra^U He saw the pitiful conditions
of things, and of persons, but he did not
see " every man in his own humors ;"
and while he was assuredly a humorist,
and not a satirist, his genius drew nearer
to the satiiic form. This is well illustrated
in the two polemical "Disputations" of
Lamb in reply to Southey, and Hood
in reply to Rae Wilson. Both are re-
markable. Hood's Ode is well known.
Some passages are among the happiest
of our author's efforts ; but they are so
very well known, that it would only be a
waste of our limited space to quote what
all our readers have in their memory.
Lamb, in his reply to Southey, stands
on higher ground, and expresses himself
with his more refined and subtler sense.
Southey had, in a semi-jocular vein, hint-
ed in the Quarterly that Lamb, in the
Essays of Elia^\i2k^ manifested only "a
want of sounder religious feeling to be as
delightful as it was original." It was a
most unkind and unjust remark, especially
unwarranted from such a man. Lamb
felt it severely. He wrote to Bernard
Barton ;

** He might have spared an old friend such a
construction of a few careless flights that meant
no harm to religion. If all his unguarded ex-
pressions on the subject were to be collected —
but I love Southey, and will not retort. I hate
his Review, and his being a reviewer. The hint
he has dropped will knock the sale of the book

THR SAD SIDE OF THE HUUORrsrS LIFE.

on tbe head, which was almOBt tX * stop before.
Let it stop I There ia com in "Egypt, while
there's cuih in Lesdenballl Ton and I are
sonethiDg besides being writers, thank Ood I"

But he did retott, in one of the most
remai-kable pieces of composition in our
language, of course in prose — a piece of
aly, dexterous English. It is, as in a mir-
ror, the mind of Lamb. All his droil,
half-hesitating, reserved humors, and bis
half-uitered religious doubts and trem-
blings. Suddenly, he impales poor South-
er on the spear-nead of some of his hap-
- piesi hits. As when in allusion to many
of Southey's Poems, ho says: "You have
all your life long been makingajest of the
devil. You have been hia jester, volun-
teer laureate, and self-elected court-poet
to Beelzebub:" '

"You have never ridiculed, T believe, what
you thought to be religion, but jou are always
girding at trhat some pious, but perhaps mis-
taken folks think to be so. For this reason I ,
am sorry to hear that you are engaged upon
a lifd of George Poi. I know you will fall
into the error of intermixing some comic Stuff
with jour seriousness. TheQuakers tremhleat
the subject in your hands. The Uethodists are
shy of you, on account of thtir founder. But,
aboTO all, our Popish brethren ore most in your
debt The errors of that Church have proved a
A-uicful source to your scofBng vein. Their Le-
gend has been a golden one to you. And here
your friend*, sir, have noticed a notable incon-
sistency. To the imposing rites, (he solemn
penances, devout austerities of that communion ;
the affecting though erring piety of their her-
mits ; the silence and solitude of the Chartreui
— their crossings, their holy waters, their Virgin
and their saints — to these, they say, you have
been indebted for tbe best feelings and the rich-
eat imagery of your epic poetry. You have
drawn copious drafts upon Loretto. We thought
at one time yon were tioing post to Rome — but
that in the facetious comqientaries, which it is
your custom to append so plentifully, and (some
say) injudiciously, to your loftiest performances
in thiji kind, you spurn the uplifted toe, which
you but just now seemed to court, leave his
Holiness in the lurch, and show him a fair pair
of Protestant heels under your Romish vest-
ment When we think you already at the wick-
et, suddunly a violent cross-wind blows you
transverse —

" ' Ten thousand leagnra awrj

Tlicn mt^twc see

Covin, lioudit, anilbabits, will) their wearcn, tost

And Hullvred into rags ; then reliques, beads,

]iidulgein*i<, dispenses, pardons, bulls.

The Eporl of winds.'
You pick up ponce by showing the hallowed
hones, shrine, and crucifix; and you take mo-
ney a seoond time by exposing the trick of

them afWward. Ton carry your rerae to Cas-
tle Angelo for sale in a morning; and swifter
than a peddler can transmute his pack, you are
at Cauterbuiy with, your prose ware before

The following is in a more sad and sol-
emn vein :

" I amat a loss what particular essay you had
it) view (if my poor ramblings amount to that
appellation) when you wer« in such a hurry to
thrust in your objection, like bad news, fore-
most Perhaps the paper on 'fSaying Graces '
was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavored
there to rescue a voluntary duty-^-good in place,
but never, as I remember, literally commanded
— from the charge of an undecent formality.
Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against
graces, but want of grace — not against tbe cere-
mony, but the carelessness and slovenlineu so
often observed in the performance of it.

"Or was it that on the ' New Year,' in which
I have described the feelings of the merely nat-
urtil man, on a consideration of the amazing
change, which is supposable to take place on our
removal from this fleshly scene 1 If men would
honestly confess their misgivings, {which few men
will,)therearetimeswheu the strongest Christian
of UH, 1 believe, has reeled under questionings
of such staggering obscurity. I do not accuse
you of this weakness. There are some who
tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the
guidanw of faith — others who stoutly venture
into (he dark, (their Human Confidence their
leader, whom they mistiUte for Faith ;) and, in-
vesting themselves beforehand with cherubic
wJDgs, as (hey fancy, find their new robes aa
famuiar and fitting to their supposed growth
and stature in godliness, as the coat the; left off
yesterday — some whose hope totters upon
crutches—others who stalk into futurity upon
stilts.

" The contemplation of a Spiritual World—
which, without the addition of a misgiving con-
science, is enough to shake some natures to
their foundation — is smoothly got over by oth-
ers, who shall float over the black billows, in
their little boat of No- Distrust, sa unconcerned-
ly as over a summer sea. The difference is
chiefly constitutionaL

" One man shall love his friends and his
friend's faces ; and under the uncertainty of con-
versing with them again, and in the same man-
ner and fumiliar circumstances of sight, speech,
etc, as upon earth — in a moment of no irrev*
erent weakness — for a dream-while — no more
— would be almost content for a reward of a life
of virtue, (if ha could ascrit>e such acceptance
to his lame performances,) to take up his por-
tion with those he loved, and was made to love,
in this good world, which he knows — which was
created so lovely, beyond his deservings. An-
other, embracing a more exalted vision — so that
ho might receive indefinite additlaments of now-
cr, knowledge, beauty, glory, elc. — is ready (o
f)rego the recognition of humbler Individuali-
ties of earth, and the old familiar bees. Th«

TBE SAD SIDE OF THE HUUORISTB LIFE.

1962.]

sbapingsof our he»venB are the modifications of
our coDBtitution ; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or Mr.
Great Heart, is born in everj one of us."

We think we would point to that let-
ter as contaioiag some of Lamb's quaint-
est and queerest conceits. The letter is,
however, full of the writer's amiable hu-
mor. He says:

" Sir, you were pleased (you know whore) to
inrite me lo a compliance with the wholesome
formsanddoctrinesoftheChurchof England. I
talcs your advice with as much kindness as it
was meant But I must think the invitation
rather more kind than seasonable. I am a

Dissenter Perhaps I have scruples

to some of your forms and doctrines. But if I
come, am I secure ofciiil treatment f — The last
time I was in any of your places of worship was
on Easter Sunday last I had the satisfaction
of listening to a very sensihle sermon of an ar-
gumentative turn, delivered with grott propri-
ety by one of your bishops. The place was
Westminster Abbey, As such religion as I
have has always acted on me more by way of
sentiment than argumentative process, I was not
unwilling, after sermon ended, by no unbecom-
ing transition, to pass over to some serious reel-
ings, impossible to be disconnected from the
sight of those old tombs, etc But, hy whose
orier I know not, I was debarred that privilege
even for so short a space as a few minutes ; and
turned like a dog or some profane person, out
into the common street; with feelings which I
could not help, but not very congenial to the
day or the discourse. I do not know that I
shall ever venture myself agun iuto one of your
churches."

All LamVs writings look old. It is
scarcely possible to believe, if we did not
know, that they are the prodnct of our
time. They sound like words of the ago
ofold Faller.orSirTbomasBrowne. His
words and essays are like those of a man
thinkiDg aloud — words taken down by a
reporter behind the bookshelves or the
cmtains. There is abont him always a
kind of fear lest yon should find him out.
He is always gentlemanly, polite, learned,
find pleasant. But if you catch him talk-
ing about himself, it is in a kind of solilo-
<juy. Such people are always a problem.
We look forward to t/ieir journals with
avidity. Tlie diary of Talkaiive has its
interest, but the diary of a speechless
thinker would be &r more so. " Man is
dear to man ;" and those writers are dear-
est to us to whom man has been most
dear — dear, not as an idealization, or an
abstraction, or a theory ; men who can not
either get out of their own souls, or tell
us what tbey caa do with them; men

who are a perpetual puzzle to themselves ;
men who, daeed at the mystery of their
own being — at the mystery of being
i|i itself— turn, by way of refreshment
and rest, to other beings like themselves.
A man in a c^e is always an interest-
ing object. When we were a youngster,
we saw regularly pass our door a rough
fellow, who certainly never excited our
attention or regard, but he committed
some breach of the peace — was looked in
the old cage in the broadway, as was the
wont in those times, when policemen and
station-houses were not ; and then we,
and many others like ourselves, went and
stood gaping at the poor fellow, safe in
that mystery behind the bars. He, like
all reserved natures, had suddenly become
most interesting to us by his immurement.
This is the interest of many lives. They
charm awa^ the spell of soma of the more
heavy and iion |>adloGk secrets, and hand-
cuff mysteries of the soul, by carrying
about with them a bunch of private keys,
with which tbey admit their friends into
strange little secret ciypts and wards,
while yet the great hidden inner city of
theirsoul,tbrougb which they are constant-
ly walking, remains unexplored and un-
known. And here again is the humorist's
grief of life. As we have hinted. Hood
strikes us by no means as so awful a be-
ing as Lamb. He had never been smit-
ten, stricken, snd afflicted as Lamb was,
and he walked more among all soi-ts of
men than Lamb did ; and his works show
less culture of the mystery within us. Of
course, when sorrow strikes, what it
evokes depends as much upou what is
stricken as upon that which gives the
blow. He had his grie&. They were
like those we all have known, or may
know — griefs like those which appear in
his recently published letters. His excel-
lent and ingenious son, for whom we will
all wish a heart, and life, and fame as no-
ble and stiuntess as his father's, says that,
looking over soma old papers of his fa-
ther's, ne found a few tiny curls of golden
hair, as sofl as the finest silk, wrapped in
a yellow and time-worn paper, inscribed
in his father's handwriting :

" Little eyes that scarce did see,
Little lips that never smiled ;
Alasl my little dear dead child,

Death is thy father, and not me ;

I but embraced thee soon as he."

Are they not very swoet and natural

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORIST'S LIFE.

lines, on the little first-born child ? And
these, and the like of these he knew well.
Hood was a noble being, bat he struck
the popular nerve — we do not mean the
human nerve — more immediately than
Lamb. We have already said that his
genius was nearer than Lamb^s to the
wrath of life, to passion, and to satire.
His gentleness might be roused to indig-
nation. We have no knowledge that
Lamb's ever was. Hood's, when poverty
was injured, as we know, leapt into flame
and smote the wrong.

Hood had a nimble-footed vei'se, that
could run, leap, trot, gallop, and also
kick. He could do all things with that
same verse of his. He might have been
the Sam Butler of his a^a^e ; and, indeed,
his ode to Rae Wilson is not wanting in
some certain Hudibrastic characteristics.
We suppose one great feature in the
writings of Hood is that, in a very me
morable way he hit hard blows on some
of the sins of society, espepially on some
of the religious sins. We know that we
religious people — for wk are religious —
we know that we suppose ourselvc-s to be
very faultless — snow white. Our gar-
ments are all made of bishops' lawn —
coats, gowns, breeches, bonnets, and all —
and mud won't stick upon them. Still, some
people say to the contrary. It has been
thought that we occasionally need preach-
ing to a little. It has been supposed that
we have'our peccadilloes. Then, as it is
a well known and carefully ascertained
fact, that preachers can not talk plainly
to their own people — people could scarce-
ly be expected to take sittings to be spo-
ken with plainly — why, we must e'en per-
mit the Iloods to preach for us ; at any
rate, to let us all know what the world out-
side thinks of some of our ways. We must
confess that we can take little exception to
most of Hood's sermons ; but, then, we
are said to be latitudinarian. We could
have wished sometimes less bitterness.
We can not say that we like Thomas
Hood's "tract." Charles Lamb would
have answered that troublesome old lady
better, and have made her feel more. We
have taken up our testimony against dis-
agreeable Christians. There arc some
whose type of Christian life is distrusting
to us. It simply turns the milk of young
souls sour. These people do

** Think they're pious, when they're only
bilious."

Thomas Hood was so unfortunate af
see religion principally from this side,
is no wonder that he made his ▼
manifest upon the unfortunates whf
tured to interfere with him. W
said that his life was checkered /
adversities, lightened also by i/
and some sweet gleams of sunshi.
this man, whom some religious ^ ^
wells were persecuting on account of .
merry and cheerful words, with theii..
sneers and gibes, his son says:

** As a little child, my first prayer was learnt
from mj/ather^s lips; my first introduction to
the Bible, which he honored too much to make
a task-book, was from spelling out the words of
the first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount,
as it lay on his study-table ; my earliest lessons
of the love and beauty hid in every created
thing, were from the stores of bis observant
mind* my deepest and holiest teachings, too
sacred for more than a mere allusion, were
given often in the dead of the night, when I
was sitting up sometimes alone, by my &ther's
dying-bed."

This was the man to whom some dis-
gusting thing in petticoats said, as snch
mipertinents will say: "Mr. Hood, are
you an infidel?" As he drew near to
death, he manifested that presence of
mind which is, we think, especially the
property of those in tro visionary and in-
trospective and secluded spitits. Of
course he was of a nervous nature. His
son sivys :

*' One night I was sitting up with him, my
mother having gone to rest for a few hours,
worn out with fatigue. He was seized about
twelve o'clock with one of his alarming attacks
of hemorrhage from the lungs. When it had
momentarily ceased, he motioned for paper and
pencil, and asked *if I was too frightened to
stay with him.' I was too used to it now, and
on my replying, *No,' he quietly and calmly
wrote down his wishes and directions on a slip
of paper, as deliberately as it it were an ordina*
ry matter. He forbade me to disturb my moth*
er. When the doctor came, he ordered ice to be
applied. My father wrote to remind me of a
pond close by where ice could be procured. Nor
did he forget to add a hint for refreshments to
be prepared for the surgeon, who was to wait
some hours to watch the case. This was in
the midst of a very sudden and dangerous attack,
that was, at the time, almost supposed to be
his last"

To this period also belong the well-
known lines

FAREWELL, LIFE.

" Farewell, Life I my senses swim,
And the world is growing dim :

TBX SAD SIDE OF THE HUHORlBra LOT.

1862.]

ThroDKiDg ahtdows cloud the light,
Like Uke kdveat of the night —
Colder, colder, colder still,
ITpwud steals ■ Tapor chill ;
StroDE the earthy odor grows —
I ain^ the mold kbove the rose 1

** Welcome, Life ! the Spirit Btrives I
Streaetb returns knd bope revives ;
Cloudy fMTS and shapes forlorn
FI7 like shadows at the mom.
O'er fbe earth there comes a bloom ;
SuoDf light Ibr sullen gloom,
Warm [MrfunM for Tapor cold —
I smell the rme above the mold I"

And when the close came, lie clasped
bis wife's hand, and said : " Remember 1
Jane, I fot^ve all, aU, as I hope to be
for^ven.'' And the sweet and full and 1
tender attachment to his wife, forbids ns
to conclude that he was thinking of more |
than some of his saintly persecutors ; and
then lying for some time peacefnily and I
anietly, bat bre^biag slowly and with {
difficulty, his wife bent over bim, and '
beard him say : " Lord ! say, Arise,
take np thy cross, and follow me." His
last words were, " Dying, dyinc I" as if
glad to realize the rest implied in them,
and shortly after he sank into peaceful
sleep, without a struggle or a sigh.

We honor and love Thomas Hood ;
bat if the trnth must be told, we seem
to know Charles Lamb better. Some-
bow we think we should hare got on
better with him ; if it is not an anoadons
thing to say — 'perhapa we might have
found some things m common. Lamb
loved old books. He was an old book-
collector. We also have some old folios
npon whose merits we might have be-
come vain in talking with the old man.
We think we should have disoonrsed to-
gether of the merits of Mather's " Mag-
nalia," or "Sir Kenelm Digby on the
Soul ;" of the " Poems of the rare Dnch-
ess of Newcastle," of Davenant and Stir-
ling, of Wither and Quarles, of James
Howell and John Ooodman. Lamb was
a haunter of book-Btall& Alas I there are
no cheap old books now. The value of
the gold is known, and the book-worms
find that they can only burrow into that
fine old earth throngh a gold mine.

We enjoy his triumphs :

*"I have Just come fh>m town,' Bays he^
' where I have been to get my bit of qoarterly

Einsion, and have brought home from stalls in
wbkao, the Old PUgrim:* Progrem, vritb the

priots, Vimity Fair, etc., now scarce — four
shillings. Cheap. And also one of whom I
have often hear^, and had dreame, but never
jaw in the flesh — that Ls in the sheepskin—
' The Whole Theological Works of

Thomas Aquinas 1 '

Uy anns ached with, lu^ng it a mile to the
stAge ; but the burden was a pleuure, such as
old Anchlses was to the shoulders of ^neas, or
the lady to her lover in the old romance, who,
having to carry her to the top of a high moun-
tain, the price of obtaining her, clambered with
tier to the top, and f«U dead with htiguo.

' the glorioos old schoolmen 1' '

So this singular couple went through
life together, we have no doubt, provok-
ing, by their quaint, queer, old-world
ways, many suoli oontemptnons remarks
and witty asides from heartless jokers
like the man Moore; but, indeed, it is
very much so with ns all. How prompt
we are to turn each other's eccentricities
into a mockery. My friend has discov-
ered some little parlor or fireside vicious-
ness in us, and ho says to his wife:
" What a goose that Wilson makes of
himself. " Pity that he doesn't sec.
Meantime that's the very thing I have
been remarking to my wife aooul my
friend ; and meantime if both of as
knew what these things are the relics of,
we should tonch each other's faults more
tenderly. Ah I poor things that we are.
We are all sore with many bruises and
wounds. The marvel is, that our own
tenderness does not make as tender to all
others.

Lamb and his sister changed their reu-
dence several times in forty years ; but
as long as he was able well to do so, he
clung to the city. Late in life be re-
moved to Enfield, but fi'om its fields he de-
clared he could be *' abundantly satisfied
by the patches of long waving grass, and
the stunted trees, that blacken in the old
churchyard nooks which yon may yet find
bordenne on Thames Street." He visit-
ed the lakes, and he says: " I have satis-
fied myself there is such a thing as that
which tourists call the romantic, which I
very much suspected before, they make
such a spluttering about them. Still
after all, although Skiddaw is a fine crea-
ture, I could not live on Skiddaw. If I
had not a prospect of seeing Fleet Street
I should mope and pine away, I know."
Lamb of course, we know, was mblaken

72 THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE. [May,

in all this, if he were mistaken, and it refuge from his terrified being and disap-

were not the humor of the beautiful crea- pointed affections. That paper of his on

ture, but he was the very genius of lo- "Now- Year's Eve," it gives to us all these

cal attachments. He writes to Words- impressions, and more. The bells, most

worth : solemn of all bells — new year's bells — have

- The room where I was bom-the furniture ^afted his spirit back again to his old be-

which has been before my eyes all my life-a J"^' ^e reviews his life. He would not

book-case which has followed me about like a "^^^ ^"7 ^» ^"^^e untoward accidents and

faithful dog (only exceeding him in knowledge) events of life reversed. Better, he thuiks,

— wherever I have moved, old chairs, old tables, to have pined away seven of his goldcnest

— streets, squares, where I have sunned myself years, wnen he was thralled to the fair

— my old school -- these are my mistresse^ tair and fairer eyesof Alice, than to have

Haven'tlenoughwithoutyourmountoms? I lost that love. "Better that our family

Korth^^Th^ind'S^^^ ^^oum^T missed that legacy which ol5

thing. Your sun, and moon, and skies, and I^orrell cheated us out of, than be worth

hills, and lakes, affect me no more or scarcely two thousand pounds and be without the

come to me in more venerable characters, than idea of that specious old rogue." And

as a gilded room, with tapestry and tapers, then follow those strange questions on the

where I might live with handsome visible oh- being yet to be :
jects. I consider the douds above me but as a

S: mS"s;ffij'S»n'l"£''d^£S ".Anfferation on thisejrU. of mine, in diet

been the beauties of n*tare, as they hare been ?? '" ^"^te' ilS"'*? !""*,*Tr?l"!5 z""!*

c^anedly called; so. eve? ftesh.^uid green. Mj, hou^hoW gods plant •temWe fixed foot,

and w.™, are .1 the inrentions of meVand S^^L^wSmLrJ!! ?L^Unl„~?*- a^*^
assemblies' of men in this great city." Ji^VtSSl.^S^i'r'*'' "'""" ^ "*^
__, ^ , „ . *T o a " Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary
What shall we say to this? bome walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness
perhaps may treat with contempt the of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and
strange fascination of the man. i es, but fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and
believe him not too utterly. It was all candle-light, and fireside conversations, and in-
true ; but there was a deeper truth. The noce^t vanities, and jests, and irony itself—do
intense humanity of the man was such, these things go out of life ? . , .^

that he could iot trust himself alone ,:;!f *A«n f o,?L n'l^'p^Uh^^^^ ^''''^

• J ^ ai_ a. • n -a. j /• 1 !• Sides, when you are pleasea with him r

amidst those too intinite and awtul soli- a j^^ ^^^^ „,y midnight darUngs, my Folios I

tudes. It was the wise instinct of the must I part with the intense delight of having

soul within tracing its way back to sani- you (huge armfuls) in my embrace ? Must

ty, safety, and health ; it was because knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by

from the hills there looked out no human some awkward experiment of intuition, and no

countenances on the gentle and afiTection- ^^^^l by this familiar proce^ of reading ?

ate creature ; it was because the sense of *;?^»".I/.°J^J fnendship there, wanting the

^ •! ^^\. r 1 ^^4. ^ u-^ •* smihng indications which point me to tbem

a silence too awful smote upon him-it here-the recognizable fece-^the * sweet assur-

was too dreadful a world. When we anceof alook — ?"
look upon his face, a startled and a fearful

expression wems to cover it ; the eyes g^^^ impressions as these bring also

are sad; and the mouth even m the pic- „ore vividly before oar heart those fine

tare, reveals the nervoas twitching of the ^^^ ^^.^ y^^ .

lips. Lamb could have well understood ^

those of us who, frightened at our own sen- .. ^, ^^ familiar f acb.
sations, are even every day and in the sun-
light, terrified as we were when in child- "I have had playmates, I have had com-
hood we cowered beneath the bed-clothes panions, ,.,,.,. . ^ , ,^ ,
and shrank from the presence we felt to I" "I"^^* ""^ childhood, m my joyful school
be in the room. There are no essays we ^„ ^/^ ^^ ^,^ ^^^ ^^^
know of that seem so to trail after them, ' ** ^

.^ we read the subtle presence of an un- „ j ^^^ ^^^ j^ l^. j j^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^

defined and shapeless dread. Have we j^^^ ° **

•not all known what it is to fly to com- Drmking late, sitting late, with my bosom

£any from the dread of our own presence ? cronies ;

iamb sought in the humors of the city a All, all are gone, the old &miliar faces.

1862.1

THE SAD SIDE OF THE HUMORISTS LIFE.

^ I loved a love once, fiiirest among women I
Closed are her doors on me — I must not see

her,
All, all are gone, the old familitr fiices.

** I have a friend — a kinder friend has no man ;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly —
Left him to muse on the old fiimiliar faees.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my
childhood !

Earth seemed a desert I was bound to tra-
verse,

Seeking to find the old familiar fiices.

** Friend of my bosom I thou more than a bro-
ther!

Why wert not thou bom in my fiither^s dwell-
ing?

So might we talk of tlie old familiar faces.

'* How some they have died, and some they

have left me.
And some are taken from me ; all are depart-

ed;
All, are gone, the old familiar faces."

So time went on — it was long before
*' the old familiar faces" quite faded away
— ^in the Temple in Islington. Lamb was
the center of a pleasant London circle ;
to bim, and to bis gentle Mary, most be-
loved, came Coleridge, and Wordsworth,
and Hazlitt, and Godwin, and Talfourd,
and Edward Irving, and royal evenings
they bad together. The simple, unpre-
tending host, throwing abroad bis puns
and bis problems — Coleridge pouring
forth bis golden monologue — -Hazlitt db-
coursing of art — and Godwin rousing a
universal defiance by bis wild political
theories — ^Talfourd, a young man, then
dtting modestly by, and listening first,
surviving last of all to memoriahze the
scene, and then himself fading away the
last. Many years bad gone by since the
domestic tragegy. msLvy Lamb was
loved and reverenced as much, perhaps
even more, than her brother. The story
was an indistinct legend, just such as we
see it bad somehow floated to the ears of

the poetical lace manufacturer, Moore.
Lamb at last was liberated from the East-
India House on a pension, he then re-
sided at Enfield — among the fields with
the dear old folios, but he sighed for
London, and the hurry and the lights of
the great city. Even in those days the
coach was bandy, and be oflen fled to old
streets, and the old pleasant book-stalls.
We must not linger. He died after only
one or two days' illness, of erysipelas.
His beloved companion, Mary, survived
him many years, still the center of the af-
fection of all the survivors of the old cir-
cle, especially of Talfourd. At last she
died, and went to take up with her bro-
ther, their last lodging in Edmonton
Churchyard.

And then was given to the world the
story, singularly reserved from public
knowledge for nearly fifty years. Then
was more truly understood the reverence
with which Wordsworth and Coleridge
had mentioned the honored name of the
author of JSlia. Homage to the heart
that quietly took up and fulfilled its great
burden of duty, only lightened by love.
Then was understood more of the singu-
lar humor, the lonely disquiet of the man,
and here it was that for those forty years
he bad walked though the world with
the dread of insanity upon his own nature,
and the spectacle of possible insanity dai-
ly by his side. And then that volume
of letters and characterizations, hitherto
withheld, was given to the world, and
the sad side of the humorist's life more
clearly known.

And we have written this paper because
we, for our parts, when we love a man,
strive to make our friends love him too.
We have said little of his frailties ; other
and colder pens, of which there are plen-
ty, may do that. Enough for us to have
seen a great simple nature, meeting its
duties quietly, if tearfully performing
them.

ELIZABETH BAREETT BROWXIKO.

[May,

From the Britlih Quarterly.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.*

At the time of the appearance of
Aurora Leigh^ if we may trust our own
memory, there were no two opinions
expressed by the leading organs of our
periodical literature. AH admitted the
power and pathos, and even depth of
thought, displayed in many an individual
passage. All condemned the structure of
the story. Some of the events imagined
were deemed grossly improbable, others
painfully revolting, and the character of
Romney, the chief person in the book,
was, or might have been, very justlv
described as a quite impossible compound,
inasmuch as he is at one moment repre-
sented to us as a hard-headed, practical
philanthropist, and the next, as a fanatic,
half mad about some dream of equality.
A man of cultivated mind and tastes
arranging his marriage in St. James's
Church, with the child of a tramper,
that he might symbolize before all Eng-
land the blending of the two classes of
society, can only be described as a mono-
maniac. We entirely agree both with
the favorable and unfavorable portions
of this criticism. With the exception
of Aurora Leigh herself the characters
do not strike us as lifelike, nor is the story
well contrived or the events well selected.
But the individual passages, admirable in
every respect, that mi^t be extracted
from it are numerous ; and we may say,
in general, that wherever Aurora Leigh
speaks of herself the poetry rises to the
highest excellence.

The great general idea which pervades
the poem, and which is from time to time
most ably expressed, is that in your
anxiety to minister to the material wants
of your fellow-creatures, in your most
rational desire that all should be well
fed, well clothed, well housed, you must
not overlook or disparage that mental
culture without which, you will find,
when you have thoroughly mastered
your problem, that even the material

^Aurora Leigh, By Elizabkth Babritt Brown-
ing. London : ChapmaQ k HaU.

wants of society will never be satisfactorily
supplied. Mrs. Browning has here struck
a blow, and struck it ably, on one of the
most flagrant errors of Socialism. There
are men who would stop the cultivation
of the refined classes till they had fed all
the hungry. It is that cultivation which
has induced this great desire to feed all
the hungry ; put a stop to it, and you
check the philanthropic movement alto-
gether. Again, the great thing is to get
people to take care of themselves and
of their own offspring, and this intelligent
and prospective care of themselves will
never be extracted out of ignorant people.
And again, if the industry and intelligence
of society could be successfully addressed
to the one subject only of providing for
all the primary requisitions of physical
well-being, this would result in a most
impoverished human life. Let the edu-
cated philanthropist think for a moment
how he would like his own life, and the
lives of all his associates, reduced to the
level of mere phvsical enjoyment, and
the industry that is to procure it. And
therefore the poet is rignt in vindicating
himself and his own poetic work, even
though there are still about him open
mouths clamoring for food, and cold limbs
shivering for raiment. Aurora Leigh
says :

" A starved man
Exceeds a fat beast ; we'll not barter, sir,
The beautiful for barley. And even so,
I hold you will not compass your poor ends
Of barley-feeding and material ease,
Without A poet*8 individualism
To work your universal. It takes a soul
To move a body : it takes a highsouled man
To move the masses ^-— "

And when Romney comes to himself,
he, too, denounces his own error :

'* I heard the cries
Too close : I could not hear the angels lift
A fold of rustling air, nor what they said
To help my pitv. I beheld the world
As one great famishing, carnivorous mouth —
A huge, deserted, callow, black, bifd Thing

1862.] ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 75

With piteous open beak that hurt mj heart,
Till dovrn upon the filthy ground I dropt,
And tore the yiolets up to get the worms.
Worms* worms, was all mj cry : an open

mouth,
A gross want bread to fill it to the lips,
No more I That poor men narrowed their de-
mands
To such an end was virtue, I supposed

ease in all the tasks and feminine accom-
plishments prescribed for her, and also in
secret hours to carry on her own peculiar
culture of mind. She steals many an hour
in the morning before the household is
astir for unrestrained communion with
nature, and she stealthily abstracts, from
a neglected package of her late father's^
many a book of a deeper cast of thought
than those generally recommended to the

I did not push the case
Up higher, and ponder how it answers, when

The rich Uke up the wme cy for themseWe. ^cwmpii'shl'd young lady."

ProTessing equally — * an open mouth, ^ j e> j

A gross w%nt, food to fill us, and no more !" " But I could not hide

. , J 1. 1. ^y quickening inner life from those at watch.

In one pomt of view, and that the They saw a light at a window now and then

most agreeable, Aurora Leigh may be They had not set there. Who had set it there !

considered as the imaginary autobio- My father's sister started when she caught

graphy of a young poetess, in which she ^f ^oul agaze in my eyes. She could not say

reveals her aspirations, her desponden- I t«d no business in th a sort of soul,

cies; vindicates for herself and for her But plainly she objected."

sex the rieht to stand apart, lyre in hand, * , * • ^j -. • * j *
an independent and eaVnest artist; and A pleasant incident introduces us to
also touSingly intimates that such stand- ?,^J\«>" Romney, and leads to a very spir-
ing apart is a trying attitude to all hearts, '^ conversation between the two. Au-
anl not least to thi feminine. Aurora i^ '"^^ ^^ '^'' ^wi,^^^ twentieth birthday
the child of an Englishman who marries "^^ "^^ ^*^^ ^^^ ^*^°-
and settles in Italy. At an .early age she „ j 1 d th t d
is orphaned of both her parents, is brought ^he June was in me withllte^mulUtude^^'
to iLngland, ana put under the care of a Of nightingales all singing in the dark,
maiden aunt. The aunt is thus described : I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God !

I bounded forth

" She had lived, well say, At early morning — would not wait so long

A harmless life, she called a virtuous life. As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings,

A quiet life, which was not life at all, But, brushing a green trail across the lawn

SJut that, she had not lived enough to know,) With my gown in the dew, took will and way
etween the vicar and the county squires. Among the acacias of the strubberies
The lord-lieutenant looking down sometimes To fly my fancies in the open air
From the empyreal, and in the abyss And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke
The apothecary looked on once a year, To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmur-
To prove the soundness of their humility. ed on

The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves."
Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats,

?t^'i!irL'rfl*'L°T/''^K' '''*'■'''' She thinks how worthiest poets have

And need one flannel, (with a proper sense xv *• ^ t. j *'ii j »i.

Ofdifference in the quality.) Shibad lived oftentimes not been crowned till death

A sort of cage-bird life, bom in a cage, "^^ ^^^^ ^^eir brows insensible to the

Accounting that to leap from perch to perch laurel-leaf— had been crowned only in the

Was act and joy enough for any bird. marble bust — and she determines, in sport,

Dear Heaven, how silly are the birds that live to crown herself by anticipation that day,

In thickets, and eat berries! while the young forehead could still feel

A MJ V J 1 ^j J L*'*®L* X the most pleasurable wreath. She plucks

"" heJlgT" ''*' ? ^""^"^^ ^^ ^^y' ^°^ ^^^^°S wreathed it

And she was there to meet me. Very kind. *^ ^^^ ^^^^ s^e turns and faces — her

Bring the clean water; give out the fresh seed.'* cousin Romney ! He had come early to

congratulate her on her birthday, and

The wild bird, if it was to develop had followed her to this retreat. He

itself in such a cage, was likely to lead finds her playing at this poet's coronation,

a miserable life enough, and to vex be- His own mind is full of grave, practical

yond measure the methodical spirit of her objects, and his heart at this moment is full

guardian. But it happens, fortunately also of one tender project. The incident

f<>r Aurora, that she is able, from the rare immediately gives rise to an animated dia-

uuiversalityof her talents, to succeed with logue. Romney wants his cousin to be-

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

[May.

come his wife, and share in all his philan- 1
thropic labors. Aurora has her own life to
live, has her own poet's aspirations, refuses
to be absorbed in the existence of another.
All oar sympathies are with the young
girl, Romney loves his cousin, and has
noble objects of his own ; but he lacks
the generosity or justice to acknowledge
that she also has her own separate nobility
of soul, and an intellectual career of her
own. He should have let her sing her
song in peace — he would have found, in
the end, the companion and fellow-laborer
he sought fbr. Bent as he was on assim-
ilating her mind in all points to his own,
we see that they must inevitably part ;
the philanthropist to his charity-schools
and public-baths, the poet to her medi-
tations and the music of her verse. Rom-
ney is made to say — for the sake, we pre-
sume, of the indignant answer — that we
want the best only in art, and that woman
is intellectually too weak for the highest,
whether in art or philosophy, or in any of
the walks of genius. Therefore, when he
proceeds to ask for help and fellowship,
and the sustaining love of a wife, he re-
ceives this merited retort :

"* What help ri asked.
You'd scorn my help — as Nature's self; you

say,
Has scorned to put her music in my mouth,
Because a woman. Do you now turn round
And ask for what a woman can not give i

*Now,' I said, * my God,
Be witness 'twixt us two !' and with the word
Meseemed I floated into sudden light
Above his stature—* am I proved too weak
To stand alone, yet strong enough to bear
Such leaners on my shoulder ? Poor to think,
Tet rich enough to sympathize with thought f

* You forget too much
That CTery creature, female as the male,
Stands single in responsible act and thought,
As also in birth and death. Whoever says
To a loyal woman, Love and work with me,
Will get fair answer, if the work and love,
Being good themselves, are good for her — the

best
She was bom for. Women of a softer mind,
Surprised by men when scarcely awake to life,
Will sometimes only hear the first word, love,
And catch up with it any kind of work.
Indifferent, so that dear love go with it I
I do not blame such women, though, for love,
They pick much oakum. Me your work
Is not the best for. Ah ! you force me, sir,
To be over-bold in speaking of myself —
I too have my vocations — work to do
That heaven and earth have set me.' *'

So the suit of Romney is inevitably re-

jected. The aunt dies; Aurora refusing
the generous offers of her cousin, who
would have still shared at least his fortune
with her, goes forth alone and poor, re-
solved to pursue her poet's vocation.
The poet succeeds better than the philan*
thropist, who contrives, by his irrational
theories and schemes, to ronse the suspi-
cions and animosity of the very class he is
laboring to serve. We need not tell the
absurd story of his intended marriage
with Marian, nor how his country-house,
which he has converted into some sort of
phalanst^re^ is burnt down by the mob,
and he himself loses his sight in the scene
of uproar and outrage that ensues. Au-
rora writes her book in her solitude, and
succeeds. She is, in a measure, famous.
But the work done, the solitude remains,
and then comes the sad reaction, which
many have felt, but none so touchingly re-
vealed.

"'Is this all? All thafs done! and all that's

gained?
If this tben be success, 'tis dismaler
Than any failure.

my God, my God!
O supremo Artist ! who, as sole return
For all the cosmic wonder of thy work,
Demandest of us just a word — a name,
'My Father!' — thou hast knowledge, only

thou.
How dreary 'tis for women to sit still
On winter nights, by solitary fires,
And hear the nations praising them far off,
Too far ! ay, praising our quick sense of love,
Our very heart of passionate womanhood,
Which could not beat so in the verse without
Being present also in the unkissed lips,
And e^es undried because there's none to ask
The reason they grew moist

' To sit alone
And think, for comfort, how, that very night,
Affianced lovers, leaning face to fiice.
With sweet half-listenings for each other's

breath.
Are reading haply from some page of ours —

' To have our books
Appraised by love, associated with love,
While toe sit loveless ! Is it hard, you think ?
At least, 'tis mournful. Fame, indeed, 'twas

said.
Means simply love. It was a man said that.
And then there's love and love ; the love of

all,
(To risk in turn a woman's paradox,)
Is but a small thing to the love of one.
You bid a hungry child be satisfied
With a heritage of many cornfields ; nay,
He says he's hungry — ^he would rather have
That little barley-cake you keep from him
While reckoning up bis harvests.' "

ELIZABETH BABRETT BROWKINQ.

186S.]

The story eo^fl, as onr readers are
Aware, in the DnioD of Romney and An-
rorA, who, however they may have misun-
derstood, really loved each olher. Eaeh
ftcknowledgea his error, or rather eaoh
has learned the truth that the Other only
had seen before. Romney admits that
his hasty scheme of raechanica) orgttniza-
tioQ had ^led — he has learned that the
better social life he was so anxious to in-
augurate, "must develop from within,"
And Aurora, dissaUsSed with her own sno-
oess, has been brought to confess that
"Art is much, bnt love is more." There
is great beauty and tenderness in the last
conversation between them ; but it is too
long, and they talk tU erot* purposes,
which is always wearisome to the reader,
nnleas it is sktUfally and briefiy manned.
Aurora not only supposes, daring the
greater part of the couversstiou, that
Romney is married to Lady Waldemar,
but she talks to him by the hour togeth-
er without discovering that he is blind I

We must not forgot to mention that
the authoress of Aurora Leigh has the
merit of some originality in the form of
ber poem. She has converted the mod-
em novel into a sort of domestic epic. In
this she has already had imitators. The
LttciUe of Owen Meredith is also a novel
inverse. We had stories in verse of most
kinds — stories of knights and of peas-
ants. Crabbe has given us the annals of
the poor. But cotemporary life as display-
ed iu the fashionable novel, with its lords
and ladies, and sprightly dialogne, its plot
and its intrigue, had not previously been
carried into verse. Whether the invention
is to be applauded or not, we may venture
to say that^wroro ici^Awill be the first
of a very numerous class.

Thongh not successful, as we think, in
the plot of her story or the invention of
her moidents, it will be admitted that she
has imitated very skillfully in her blank
verse the conversational tone of society-
as witness the play of wit, or the spright-
Itnesa that passes for wit, amongst the
fashionable ladies who are waiting the ar-
rival of the bride in St. James's Church.
Aud yet again we can not help noting
that there are two long letters, one from
Lady Waldemar to Aurora, and one from
Aurora in answer to it, which we venture
to say are not tike any thing which two
English ladies, under the same circum-
stances, would have written. We can
not, however, aSbrd space by lengthened

quotations to justify the impression they
made on us. At all events, we quite ap-
prove of her design to represent the very
age in which she is living, its manners
and its thoughts. She says very justly :

' I do distrust the poet who discerns
No chAruter or glory in his. times :
But trundles back his soul fire hundred yeftrs.
Put moat snd drawbri^e, into caede-courts."

As we have already intimated, Mrs.
Browning isoapableoccasionally of awild
metaphorical style — a mere jungle of rank
In^iagery, that would excite onr wonder if
we did not know that the genius of even
the greatest poets will sometime^ stumble
on such faults. The same ardent temper-
Eiment that elevates a writer to the sub-
will sometimes betray him into non-
sense and rodomontade. We have no
wish to pick out instances of this fault ; if
we wore challenged, we could make no
very scanty collection. Let the following
passage suffice to show what can be done
in this hazy metaphorical style. It holds
a conspicuous place, being the opening
sentence of the Fiilh Book :

" Aurora Leigh, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems iu raysteriouB tune
With msn and nature — with the lava-nympta
That trickles (i-om successive galaxies,
Still drop by drop adown the finger of Qod,
In sliU new worlds f"

Robert Montgomery never perpetrated
any thing worse than this. But instead
of selecting individnal passages that are
censurable in point of taste, it may be
more instructive to notice a peculiarity in
the very tissue of the thought itself,
which sometimes mars an otherwise ex-
cellent passage. It is this: A writer
very familiar with certain poetic concep-
tions, or mere imaginations, will intro-
duce these side by side with actual detuls
taken from real life ; so that a desoHption
shall be made up partly of what is most
true to nature, and partly of what is most
false and fictitious. We can only explain
ourselves by an instance. Here is one in
the firat page of Aurora Leigh. It will
be observed that tho first part of our quo-
tation is a mere figment of the imagina-
tion, borrowed, it seems, from Words-
worth, and treated aa a fact ; the second
part is a beautiful touch of truthful de-
scription. They are unwisely blended to-
gether :

CONCEBNma THE SOBROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

[May,

^ I, writing thus, am still what mon call yoang.
I hare not so iar left the coasts of life
To travel inward, that lean not hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep^
When iJDondered at /or smiling ; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up :

* Hush, hush ; here's too much noise !^ while her

sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot"

Nothing can be more real and touching
than the last part of this Quotation ; it is
taken from the very life. Why is it found
in Juxtaposition with the silly fiction, that
babies are especially familiar with the In-

finite ? The writer remembered the moth-
er's form at the nursery-door ; she certain-
ly did not remember having very clear
conceptions of the Infinite at that timer.
We say to all young poets, when vou un-
dertake to describe or tell the truth about
any thing, adhere to nature. Do not pre*
tend to see what you never saw, or to
think what you never cot<^ have thought.
If you want to say how old you are, do
not intimate your youth by telling us that

J'ou can still hear that murmur of the outer
nfinite which sets babies smiling ! Do not
make up your descriptions half of truths
of nature and half of figments of the
poets.

»^ »

Vrom Vrater*! Magaiine.

CONCERNING THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

Once upon a time, Mr, Smith, who is
seven feet in bight, went out for a walk
with Mr. Brown, whose stature is three
feet and a half It was in a distant age,
in which people were diflferent from what
they are now ; and in which events oc-
curred such as do not usually occur in
these days. Smith and Brown, having
traversed various paths, and having passed
several griffins, serpents, and mail - clad
knights, came at length to a certain river.
It was needful that they should cross it ;
and the idea was suggested that they
should cross it by wading. They pro-
ceeded, accordingly, to wade across ; and
both arrived safely at the farther side.
Tlie water was exactly four feet deep;
not an inch more or less. On reaching
the other bank of the river, Mr. Brown
said : " This is awful work ; it is no joke
crossing a river like thcU. I was near-
ly drowned. "Nonsense," replied Mr.
Smith, " why make a fuss about crossing
a shallow stream like this ? Why, the
water is only four feet deep ; t?uU is no-
thing at all!" "Nothing to you, per-
haps," was the response of Mr. Brown,
" but a serious matter for me. You ob-
serve," he went on, " that water four feet |

deep is just six inches over my head.
The river may be shallow to you, but it
is deep to me." Mr. Smith, like many
other individuals of great physical bulk
and strength, had an intellect not much
adapted for comprehending subtle and
difficult thoughts. He took up the ground
that things are what they are in them-
selves, and was incapable of grasping the
idea that greatness and littleness, depth
and shallowness, are relative things. An
altercation ensued, which resulted in
threats on the part of Smith that he
would throw Brown into the river ; and
a coolness was occasioned between the
friends which subsisted for several days.

The acute mind of the reader of this
page, will perceive that Mr. Smith was
m error ; and that the principle asserted
by Mr. Brown was a sound and true one.
It is unquestionable that a thing which is
little to one man may be great to another
man. And it is just as really and cer-
tainly great in this latter case as any thing
ever can be. And yet, many people do
a thing exactly analogous to what was
done by Smith. They insist that the
water which is shallow to them shall be
held to be absolutely shallow ; and that if

1862.]

CONGEBNING THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

smaller men declare that it is deep to
themselves, these smaller men shall be
regarded as weak, fanciful, and mistaken.
Many people, as they look back upon the
sorrows of their own childhood, or as they
look round upon the sorrows of existing
childhood, think that these sorrows are
or were very light and insignificant,
and their causes very small. These peo-
ple do this, because to them, as they are
now ^ly people^ (to use the expressive
phrase of childhood,) these soitows would
be light if they should befall. But though
these sorrows may seem light to us now,
and their causes small, it is only as water
four feet in depth was fallow to the tall
Mr. Smith. The same water was very
deep to the man whose stature was three
feet and a half; and the peril was as great
to him as could have been caused by
eight feet depCh of water to the man
seven feet high. The little cause of trou-
ble was great to the little child. The
little heart was as full of grief, and fear,
and bewilderment, as it could hold. Yes,
I stand up agunst the common belief
that childhood is our happiest time. And
whenever I hear grown-up people say
that it is so, I think of Mr. Smith, and
the water four feet deep. I have always,
in my heart, rebelled against that common
delusion. I recall it, as if it were vester-
day, a day which I have left behmd me
more than twenty years. I see a large
hall, the hall of a certain educational in-
stitution, which helped to make the pre-
sent writer what he is. It is the dav of
the distribution of the prizes. The hall
is crowded with little boys, and with the
relations and friends of the little boys.
And the chief magistrate of that ancient
town, in all the pomp of civic majesty,
has distributed the prizes. It is neither
here nor there what honors were borne
off by me ; though I remember well that
thcU day was the proudest that ever had
come in my short life. But I see the face
and hear the voice of the kind-hearted
old dignitary, who has now been for
many years in his grave. And I recall
especially one sentence he said, as he
made a few eloquent remarks at the close
of the day's proceedings. " Ah I boys,"
said he, ^^ I can tell you this is the hap-
piest time of all your life !" ^' Little you
know about the matter," was my inward
reply. I knew that our worries, fears,
and sorrows, were just as great as those
of any one else. The sorrows of child-

hood and boyhood are not sorrows of
that complicated and perplexing nature
which sit heavy on the heart in after
years ; but in relation to the little hearts
that have to bear them, they are very
overwhelming for the time. As has been
said, great and little are quite relative
terms. A weight which is not absolutely
heavy, is heavy to a weak person. We
think an industrious flea draws a vast
weight if it draw the eighth part of an
ounce. And I believe that the sorrows
of childhood task the endurance of child-
hood as severely as those of manhood do
the endurance of the man. Yes, we look
back now, and we smile at them, and at
the anguish they occasioned, because they
would be no great matter to us now. Yet
in all this we err just as Mr. Smith the tall
man erred, in that discussion with the lit-
tle man, Mr. Brown. Those early sor-
rows were great things then. Very bit-
ter grief may be in a very little heart.
" The sports of childhood," we know
from Goldsmith, " satisfy the child." The
sorrows of childhood overwhelm the poor
little thing. I think a sympathetic reader
would hardly read, without a tear as well
as a smile, an incident in the early life of
Patrick Fraser Tytler, recorded in his
biography. When five years old, he got
hold of the gun of an elder brother, and
broke the spring of its lock. What an-
guish the little boy must have endured I
what a crushing sense of having caused
an irremediable evil, before he sat down
and printed in great letters the fol-
lowing epistle to his brother, the owner
of the gun : ^^ O Jamie ! think no more of
guns, for the mainspring of that is broken,
and my heart is broken /" Doubt-
less the poor little fellow fancied that for
all the remainder of his life he never
could feel as he had felt before he touched
the unlucky weapon. And looking back
over many years, most of us can remem-
ber a child crushed and overwhelmed by
some trouble which it thought could never
be got over; and we can feel for our
early self as though sympathizing with
another being.

What I wish in this essay is, that we
should look away along the path we have
come in life ; and that we should see that
though many cares and troubles may now
press upon us, still we may well be con-
tent. I speak to ordinary people, whoso
lot has been an ordinary lot. I know
there are exceptional cases ; but I firmly

CONCERNING THE SOBBOWS OF CHILDHOOD.

[May.

believe that as for most of us, we never
have seen better days than these. No
doubt, in the retrospect of early youth,
we seem to see a time when the summer
was brighter, the flowers sweeter, the
snowy days of winter more cheerful, than
we ever find them now. But, in sober
sense, we know that it is all an illusion. It
is only as the man traveling over the burn-
ing desert sees sparkling water and shady
trees where he knows there is nothing
but arid sand.

I dare say you know that one of the
acutest of living men has maintained that
it is foolish to grieve over past suffering.
He says, truly enough in one sense, that
the suflTering which is past is as truly non-
existent as the suffering which has never
been at all ; that, in fact, past suffering is
now nothing, and is entitled to no more
consideration than that to which nothing
is entitled. No doubt, when bodily pain
has ceased, it is all over : we do not feel
it any more. And you have probably
observed that the impression left by b<>-
dily pain passes very quickly away. The
sleepless night, or the night of torment
from toothache, which seemed such a dis-
tressing reality while it was dragging
over, looks a very shadowy thing the
next forenoon. But it may be doubted
whether you will ever so far succeed in
overcoming the fancies and weaknesses
of humanity, as to get people to cease to
feel that past sufferings and sorrows are a
great part of their present life. The re-
membrance of our past life is a great part
of our present lire. And, indeed, the
greater part of human suffering consists
in its anticipation and in its recollection.
It is 60 by the inevitable law of our being.
It is because we are rational creatures
that it is so. We can not help looking
forward to that which is coming, and
looking back on that which is past ; nor
can we suppress, as we do so, an emotion
corresponding to the perception. There
is not the least use in telling a little
boy who knows that he is to have a
tooth pulled out to-morrow, that it is ab-
surd in him to make himself unhappy to-
night through the anticipation of it. x ou
may show with irrefragable force of rea-
son, that the pain will last only for the two
or three seconds during which the tooth
is being wrenched from its place; and
that it will be time enough to vex him-
self about the pain when he has actually
to feel it. But the little fellow will pass

but an unhappy night in the dismal pros-

Eect ; and by the time the cold iron lays
old of the tooth, he will have endured
by anticipation a vast deal more suffering
than the suffering of the actual operation.
It is so with bigger people, looking for*
ward to greater trials. And it serves no
end whatever to prove that all this ought
not to be. The question as to the emo-
tions turned off in the workings of the
human mind, is one of &ct. It is not
how the machine ought to work, but how
the machine does work. And as with the
anticipation of suffering so with its retro-
spect. The great grief which is past, even
though its consequences no longer direct-
ly press upon us, casts its shadow over
afler- years. There are, indeed, some
hardships and trials upon which it is pos-
sible that we may look back with satisfac-
tion. The contrast with them enhances
the enjoyment of better dajs. But these
trials, it seems to me, must be such as
come through the direct intervention of
Providence; and they must be clear of
the elements of human cruelty or injust-
ice. I do not believe that a man who
was a weakly and timid boy can ever
look back with pleasure upon the ill-usage
of the brutal bully of his school-days ; or
upon the injustice of his teacher in
cheating him out of some well-earned
prize. There are kinds of fipreat suffering
which can never be thought of without
present suffering, so long as human nature
continues what it is. And I believe that
past sorrows are a great realitv in our
present life, and exert a great influence
over our present life, whether for good or '
ill. As you may see in the trembling
knees of some poor horse, in its drooping
head, and spiritless paces, that it was
over-wrought when young ; so if the hu-
man soul were a thing that could be seen,
^ou might discern the scars where the
iron entered into it long ago ; you might
trace not merely the enduring remem-
brance, but the enduring results, of the
incapacity and dishonesty of teachers, the
heartlessness of companions, and the idiot-
ic folly and cruelty of parents. No, it
will not do to tell us that past sufferings
have ceased to exist, while their remem-
brance continues so vivid, and their re-
sults so great. Ton are not done with
the bitter frosts of last winter, though it
be summer now, if your blighted ever-
greens remain as their result and memo-
rial. And the man who was brought up

1882.]

CONCERNING THE SORROWS OP CHILDHOOD.

in an unhappy home in childhood, will
never feel that that unhappy home has
ceased to be a present reality, if he knows
that its whole discipline fostered in him a
spirit of distrust in his kind, which is not
yet entirely got over; and made him set
himself to the work of life with a heart
somewhat soared, and prematurely old.
The past is a great reality. We are here
theliving embodiment of all we have seen
and felt through all our life; fashioned
into our present form by millions ot little
touches ; and by none with a more real
result than the hours of sorrow we have
known.

One great cause of the suffering of boy-
hood, is the bully in c^ of bigger boys at
school. I know nothing practically of
the English system o^ fagging at public
schools, but I am not prepared to jom out
and out in the cry against it. I see many
evils inherent in the system ; but I see that
various advantages may result from it too.
To organize a recognized subordination of
lesser boys to bigger ones, must unques-
tionably tend to cut the ground from un-
der the feet of the unrecognized, unau-
thorized, private bully. But I know that
at large schools where there is no fagging,
bullying on the part of youthful tyrants
prevails to a great degree. Human na-
ture is beyond doubt fallen. The system-
atic cruelty of a school-bully to a little
boy is proof enough of that^ and presents
one of the very hatefulest phases of hu-
man character. It is worth v of notice
that, as a general rule, the higher you as-
cend in the social scale among boys, the
less of bullying there is to be found.
Something of the chivalrous and the mag-
nanimous comes out in the case of the sons
of gentlemen : it is only among such that
you will ever find a boy, not personally
interested in the matter, standing up
against the bully in the interest of right
and justice. I have watched a big boy
thrashing a little oik», in the presence of
half a dozen other big boys, not one of
whom interfered on behalf of the oppress-
ed little fellow. You may be sure I did
not watch the transaction longer than was
necessary to ascertain whether there was
a grain of generosity in the hulking
boors; and you may be sure, too, that
that thrashing of the little boy was, to
the big bully, one of the most unfor-
tunate transactions in which he had en-
gaged in his bestial and blackguard,
though brief life, /took care of thxit^ you
VOL LVL— NO. 1

may rely on it. And I favored the bul-
ly's companions with my sentiments as to
their conduct, with an energy of state-
ment that made them sneak off, looking
very like whipped spaniels. My friend-
ly reader, let us never fail to stop a bully,
when we can. And we very often can.
Among the writer's possessions might
be found, by the curious inspector, sever-
al black kid-gloves, no longer fit for use,
though apparently not very much worn.
Surveying these integuments minutely,
you would find the thumb of the right
hand rent away, beyond the possibility of
mending. Whence the phenomenon ? It
comes of the writer's determined habit of
stopping the bully. Walking along the
street or the country road, I occasionally
see a big blackguard fellow thrashing a
boy much less than himself. I am well
aware that some prudent individuals would
pass by on the other side, possibly ad-
dressing an admonition to the big black-
guard. But I approve Thomson's state-
ment, that " prudence to baseness verges
still ;" and I follow a different course.
Suddenly approaching the blackguard, by
a rapid movement, generally quite unfore-
seen by him, I take him by the arm, and
occasionally (let me confess) by the neck,
and shake him till his teeth rattle. This
being done with a new glove on the right
hand, will generally unfit that glove for
further use. For the bully must be taken
with a gripe so firm and sudden, as shall
serve to paralyze his nervous system for
the time. And never once have I found
the bully fail to prove a whimpering cow-
ard. The punishment is well deserved, of
course ; ana it is a terribly severe one in or-
dinary cases. It is a serious thing, in the
estimation both of the bully and his com-
panions, that he should have so behaved
as to have drawn on himself the notice of
a passer-by, and especially of a parson.
The bully is instantly cowed ; and by a few
words to any of his school associates who
may be near, you can render him imenvia-
bly conspicuotis among them for a week or
two. I never permit bullying to pass un-
checked ; and so long as my strength and
life remain I never will. I trust you nev-
er will. If you could stand coolly by, and
see the cruelty you could check, or the
wrong you could right, and move no fin-
ger to do it, you are not the reader I want,
nor the human being I choose to know. I
hold the cautious and sagacious man who
can look on at an act of bullying without
6

C0NCERKIN6 THE BORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

IMay,

stopping it and pnnishing it, as a worse
and more despicable animal than the bully
himself.

Of course you must interfere with
judgment ; and you must follow up your
interference with firmness. Don't inter-
meddle, like Don Quixote, in such a man-
ner as to make things worse. It is only
in the case of continued and systematic
cruelty that it is worth while to work
temporary aggravation, to the end of ul-
timate and entire relief. And sometimes
that is unavoidable. You remember how,
when Moses made his application to Pha-
raoh for release to the Hebrews, the first
result was the aggravation of their bur-
dens. The supply of straw was cut off,
and the tale of bricks was to remain the
same as before. It could not be helped.
And though things came right at last, the
immediate consequence was that the He-
brews turned in bitterness on their intend-
ing deliverer, and charged their aggravat-
ed sufferings upon him. Now, my friend,
if you set yourself to the discomfiture of a
bully, see you do it effectually. If need
ful, follow up your first shaking. Find
out his master, find out his parents; let
the fellow see distinctlv that your inter-
ference is no passing funcy. Make him
understand that you are thoroughly de-
termined that his bullying shall cease.
And carry out your determination un-
flinchingly.

I frequently see the boys of a certain
large public school, which is attended by
boys of the better class; and judging
from their cheerful and happy aspect, I
judge that bullying among boys of that
condition is becoming rare. Still I doubt
not there yet are poor little nervous fel-
lows whose school life is embittered by
it. I don't tliiuk any one could read the
poet Cowper's account of how he was
bullied at school, without feeling his blood
a good deal stirred, if not entirely boil-
ing. If I knew of such a case within a
good many miles, I should stop it ; though
1 never wore a glove again that was not
split across the right palm.

But, doubtless, the greatest cause of
the sorrows of childhood is the misman-
agement and cruelty of parents. You will
find many parents who make favorites of
some of their children to the neglect of
others ; an error and a sin which is bit-
lerly felt by the children who are held
down, and which can never by possibility

result in good to any party concerned.
And there are parents who deliberately
lay themselves out to torment their childf*
ren. There are two classes of parents
who are the most inexorably cruel and
malignant ; it is hard to say which class
excels, but it is certain that both classes
exceed all ordinary mortals. One is the
utterly blackguard ; the parents about
whom there is no good nor pretense of
good. The other is the wrong-headedly
conscientious and religious ; probably,
afler all, there is greater rancor and mal-
ice about these last than about any other.
These act upon a system of unnatural re-
pression, and systematized weeding out of
all enjoyment from life. These are the
people whose very crowning act of hatred
and malice toward any one, is to pray for
him, or to threaten to pray for him.
These are the people who, if their child-
ren complain of their bare and joyless
life, say that such complaints indicate a
wicked heart, or Satanic possession ; and
have recourse to farther persecution to
bring about a happier frame of mind.
Yes ; the wi-ong-headed and wrong-heart-
ed religionist is probably the very worst
type ot man or woman on whom the sun
looks down. And oh ! how sad to think
of the fashion in which stupid, conceited,
malicious blockheads set up their own
worst passions as the fruits of the work-
ing of the Blessed Spirit ; and caricature,
to the lasting injury of many a young
heart, the pure and kindly religion of the
Blessed Redeemer 1 These are the folk
who inflict systematic and ingenious tor-
ment on their children ; and, unhappily,
a very contemptible parent can mflict
much suffering on a sensitive child. But
of this there is more to be said hereafter ;
and before going on to it, let us think of
another evil influence, which darkens and
embitters the early years of many.

It is the cruelty, injustice, and incom-
petence of many schoolmasters. I know
a young man of twenty-eight, who told
me that when at school, in a certain large
city in Peru, (let us say,) ho never went
into his class any day without feeling
quite sick with nervous terror. The
entire class of boys lived in that state
of cowed submission to a vulgar, stupid,
bullying, flogging barbarian. If it pre-
vents the manners from becoming brutal,
diligently to study the ingenuous arts, it
appears certain that diligently to teach
ihcm sometimes leads to a directlv con-

1862.]

COKCERNIKG THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

trary resnlt. The bullying schoolmas-
ter has now become an almost extinct
animal ; but it is not very long since the
^irit of Mr. Squeers was to be found,
in its worst manifestations, far beyond
the precincts of Dotheboys Hall. You
would find fellows who showed a grim
delight in walking down a class with a
cane in their hand, enjoying the evident
feir they occasioned as they swnn^ it
about, occasionally coming down with a
savage whack on some poor fellow who
was doing nothing whatsoever. These
brutal teachers would flog, and that till
compelled to cease by pure exhaustion,
not merely for moral offenses, which pos-
sibly deserve it, (though I do not believe
any one was ever made better by flog-
ging,) but for making a mistake in saying
a lesson, which the poor boy had done
his best to prepare, and which was driven
out of his head by the fearful aspect of
the truculent blackguard with his cane
and his hoarse voice. And how indig-
nant, in after-years, many a boy of the
last generation must have been, to find
that this tyrant of his childhood was in
truth a humbug, a liar, a fool, and a
sneak! Yet how that miserable piece
of humanity was feaixjd I How they
watched his eye, and laughed at the old
idiot's wretched jokes I I have several
friends, who have told me such stories
of their schooldays, that I used to wonder
that they did not, after they became men,
return to the schoolboy spot that they
might heartily shake their preceptor of
other years, or even kick him I

If there be a thing to be wondered
at, it is that the human race is not much
worse than it is. It has not a fair chance.
I am not thinking now of an orimnal
defect in the material provided : I am
thinking only of the kind of handling
it gets. I am thinking of the amoant
of judgment which may be found in
most parents and in most teachers ; and
of the degree of honesty which may
be found in many. I suppose there is
no doubt that the accursed system of
the cheap Yorkshire schools was by no
means caricatured by Mr. Dickens in
Nicholas NiMeby. I believe that starv-
ation and brutality were the rule at
these institutions. And I do not think
it says much for the manliness of York-
shire men and of Yorkshire clergymen,
that these foul dens of miserv ana wick-
edoess were suffered to exist so long,

without a voice raised to let the world
know of them. I venture to think that
if Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh, had lived
any where near Greta Bridge, Mr. Squeers
and his compeers would have attained a
notoriety that would have stopped their
trade. I can not imagine how any one,
with the spirit of a man in him, could
sleep and wake within sight of one of these
schools, without lifting a band or a voice
to stop what was gomg on there. But
without supposing these extreme cases,
I can remember what I have myself seen
of the incompetence and injustice of
teachers. I burn with indignation yet
as I think of a malignant blockhead who
once taught me for a few months. I
have been at various schools, and I spent
six years at one venerable university,
(where my instructors were wise and
worthy ;) and I am now so old, that
I may say, without any great exhibition
of vanity, that I have always kept well
up among my school and college com-
panions ; but that blockhead kept me
steadily at the bottom of my class, and
kept a frightful dunce at the top of it,
by his peculiar system. I have observ-
ed (let me say) that masters and pro-
fessors who are stupid themselves have
a great preference for stupid fellows,
and like to keep down clever ones. A
professor who was himself a dunce at
college, and who has been jobbed into
his chair, being quite unfit for it, has a
fellow-feeling for other dunces. He is
at home with them, you see ; and is not
afraid that they see through him and
despise him. The injustice of the malig-
nant blockhead who was my early in-
structor, and who succeeded in making
several months of my boyhood unhappy
enough, was taken up and imitated by
several lesser blockheads among the boys.
I remember particularly one sneaking
wretch, who was occasionally set to mark
down on a slate the names of such boys
as talked in school ; such boys being
punished by being turned to the bottom
of their class. I remember how that
sneaking wretch used always to mark
my name down, though I kept pei-fectly
silent : and how he put my name last on
the list, that I might have to begin the
lesson the very lowest in my form. The
sneaking wretch was bigger than me,
so I could not thrash him ; and any
representation I made to the malignant
blockhead of a schoolmaster was entirely

CONCERNING THB SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

[May,

disre^rded. I can not think, but with
considerable ferocity, that probably there
are many schools to-day in Britain con-
taining a master who has taken an un-
reasonable dislike to some poor boy, and
who lays himself out to make that poor
boy unhappy. And I know that such
may be the case where a boy is neither
bad nor stupid. And if the school be
one attended by a good many boys of the
lower grade, there are sure to be several
sneaky boys among them who will devote
themselves to tormenting the one whom
the master hates and torments.

It can not be denied that there is a
generous and magnanimous tone about
the boys of a school attended exclusively
by the children of the better classes,
which is unknown among the children
of uncultivated boors. I have observed
that if you offer a prize to the cleverest
and most industrious boy of a certain
form in a school of the upper class, and
propose to let the prise bo decided by
the votes of the boys themselves, you
will almost invariably find it fairly given :
that is, ^iven to the boy who deserves
it best. If you explain, in a frank, manly
way, to the little fellows, that in asking
each for whom he votes, you are asking
each to say, upon his honor, whom he
thinks the cleverest and most diligent
boy in the form, nineteen boys out of
twenty will answer honestly. But I have
witnessed the signal failure of such an
appeal to the honor of the bumpkins of a
country school. I was once present at the
examination of such a school, and remark-
ed carefully how the boys acquitted them-
selves. Afler the examination was over,
the master proposed, very absurdly, to
let the boys of each class vote the prize
for that particular class. The voting
began. A class of about twenty was
called up : I explained to the boys what
they were to do. I told them they were
not to vote for the boy they liked best ;
but were to tell me faithfully who had
done best in the class lessons. I then
asked the first boy in the line for whom
he gave his vote. To my moitification,
instead of voting for a little fellow who
had done incomparably best at the ex-
amination, he gave his vote for a big,
sullen-looking blockhead, who had done
conspicuously ill. I asked the next boy,
and received the same answer. So all
round the class : all voted for the big sul-
len-looking blockhead. One or two did

not give their votes quite promptly ; and
I could discern a threatening glance cast at
them by the big sullen-looking blockhead,
and an ominous clenching of the block-
head's right fist. I went round the class
without remark ; and the blockhead made
sure of the prize. Of course this would
not do. The blockhead could not be suf-
fered to get the prize ; and it was expe-
dient that he should be made to remem-
ber the occasion on which he had sought
to tamper with iustice and right. Ad-
dressing the blockhead, amid the dead si-
lence of the school, I said : ^^ You shall not
get the prize, because I can judge for my-
self that you don't deserve it. I can see
that you are the stupidest boy in the class ;
and I have seen reason, during this voting,
to believe that you are the worst. You
have tried to bully these boys into voting
for you. Their votes go for nothing ; for
their voting for you proves either that
they are so stupid as to think you deserve
the prize, or so dishonest as to say they
think so when they don't think so." Then
I inducted the blockhead into a seat where
I could see him well, and proceeded to
take the votes over again. I explained
to the boys once more what they had to
do ; and explained that any boy would be
telling a lie who voted the prize unfairly.
I also told them that I knew who deserv-
ed the prize, and that they knew it too,
and that they had better vote fairly.
Then, instead of saying to each boy, For
whom do you vote ? I said to each : Tell
me who did best in the class during these
months past ? Each boy in reply named
the boy who really deserved the pi*ize ;
and the little fellow got it. I need not
record the means I adopted to prevent
the sullen-looking blockhead from carry-
ing out his purpose of thrashing the little
fellow. It may suffice to say that the
means were thoroughly effectual ; and
that the blockhead was very meek and
tractable for about six weeks afler that
memorable day.

But, afler all, the great cause of the
sorrows of childhood is unquestionably
the mismanagement of parents. You hear
a ^reat deal about parents who spoil their
chddren by excessive kindness ; but I ven-
ture to think that a greater number of
children are spoiled by stupidity and
crueltv on the part of their parents. You
may find parents who, having started
from a humble origin, have attained to
wealth ; and who, instead of being glad

1862.]

CONCERNING THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

to think that their children are better off
than they themselres were, exhibit a dia-
bolical jealousy of their children. You
will find such wretched beings insisting
that their children shall go through need-
less trials and mortifications, because they
themselves went through the like. Why,
I do not hesitate to say that one of the
thoughts which would most powerfully
lead a worthy man to value material pros-
perity, would be the thought that his
Doys would have a fairer and happier
start in life than he had ; and would be
saved the many difficulties on which he
still looks back with pain. You will find
parents, especially parents of the Pharisai-
cal and wrongheadedly religious class,
who seem to hold it a sacred duty to
make the little things unhappy ; who sys-
tematically endeavor to render life as
bare, ugly, and wretched a thing as pos-
sible; who never praise their children
when they do right, but punish them
with great severity when they do wrong ;
who seem to hate to see their children
lively or cheerful in their presence ; who
thoroughly repel all sympathy or confi-
dence on the part of their children, and
then mention as a proof that their child-
ren are possessed by the devil, that their
children always like to get away from
them ; who rejoice to cut off anv little en-
joyment ; rigidly carrying out into prac-
tice the fundamental principle of their
creed, which undoubtedly is, that "no-
body should ever please himself, neither
should any body ever please any body
else, because in either case he is sure to
displease God." No doubt Mr. Buckle,
in his second volume, caricatured and mis-
represented the religion of Scotland as a
country ; but he did not in the least de-
gree caricature or misrepresent the reli-
gion of some people in Scotland. The
great doctrine, pnderlying all other doc-
trines, in the creed of a few unfortunate
beings, is that God is spitefully angry to
see his creatures happy ; and of course the
practical lesson follows, that they are fol-
lowing the best example when they are
spitefully angry to see their children
happy.

Then a great trouble, always pressing
heavily on many a little mind, is that it is
overtasked with lessons. You still see
here and there idiotic parents striving to
make infant phenomena of their children,
and recording with much pride how their
children could read and write at an un-

naturally early age. Such parents are
fools — not. necessarily malicious fools, but
fools beyond question. The great use to
which the first six or seven years of life
should be given, is the laying the founda-
tion of a healthful constitution in body
and mind, and the instilling of those first
principles of duty and religion which do
not need to be taught out of any books.
Even if you do not permanently injure
the young brain and mind by premature-
ly overtasking them — even if you do not
permanently blight the bodily health, and
break the mind's cheerful spring — you
gain nothing. Your child at fourteen
years old is not a bit further advanced in
his education than a child who began his,
years after him ; and the entire result of
your stupid driving has been to overcloud
some days which should have been among
the happiest of his life. It is a wofiil sight
to me to see the little forehead corrugated
with mental effort, though the effort be to
do no more than master the multiplication-
table. It was a sad story I lately heard
of a little boy repeating his Latin lesson
over and over again in the delirum of the
fever of which he died, and saying pite-
ously, that indeed he could not do it bet-
ter. I don't like to see a little face look-
ing unnaturally anxious and earnest about
a horrible task of spelling ; and even when
children pass that stage, and grow up into
schoolboys who can read T^itcydidea and
write Greek iambics, it is not wise in par-
ents to stimulate a clever boy's anxiety
to hold the first place in his class. That
anxiety is strong enough already ; it needs
rather to be repressed. It is bad enough
even at college to work on late idto the
night ; but at school it ought not to be suf-
fered for one moment. If a lad takes his
place in his class every day in a state of
nervous tremor, he may be in the way to
get his gold medal, indeed ; but he is in
the way to shatter his constitution for life..
We all know, of course, that children
are subjected to worse things than these.
I think of little things, early set to hard
work, to add a little to their parents'*
scanty store. Yet if it be only work,
they bear it cheerfully. This afternoon,
I was walking through a certain quiet
street, when I saw a little child standing-
with a basket at a door. The little man
looked at various passers-by; and I am
happy to say that when he saw me, he
asked me to ring the door-bell for him..
For though he had been sent with that

coycERNma the sorrows of childhood.

[Mayt

basket, which was not a light one, he
could not reach up to the bell. I asked
him how old he was, " Five years past,"
said the child, quite cheerfully and inde-
pendently. God help you, poor little man,
I thought ; the doom of toil has fallen
early upon youl If you visit much
among the poor, few things will touch
you more than the unnatural sagacity
and trustworthiness of children who are
little more than babies. You will find
these little things left in a bare room by
themselves; the eldest six yeai*s old ; while
the poor mother is out at her work. And
the eldest will reply to your questions in a
way that will astonish you, till you get ac-
customed to such things. I think that
almost as heart-rending a sight as you will
readily see, is the misery of a little thing
who has spilt in the street the milk she was
sent to fetch, or broken a jug ; and who is
silting in despair beside the spilt milk or
the broken fragments. Good Samaritan,
never pass by such a sight ; bring out
your two-pence; set things completely
ri^ht ; a small matter and a kind word
will cheer and comfort an overwhelmed
heart. That child has a truculent step-
mother or (alas I) mother at home, who
would punish that mishap as nothing
should be punished but the gravest moral
delinquency. And lower down the scale
than this, it is awful to see want, cold,
hunger, rags, in a little child. I have
seen the wee thing, shuffling along the
pavement in great men^s shoes, holding
up its sorry tatters with its hands; and
casting on the passengers a look so eager
yet so hopeless as went to one's heart.
Let us thank God that there is one largo
city in the empire where you need never
see such a sight ; and where, if you do,
you know how to relieve it eiTectually ;
and let us bless the name and the labors
and the genius of Thomas Guthrie I It is
a sad thing to see the toys of such little
children as I can think of. What curious
things they are able to seek amusement
in ! I have known a brass button at the
end of a string a much-prized possession.
I have seen a grave little boy standing
by a broken chair in a bare garret, sol-
emnly arranging and rearranging two
pins upon the broken chair. A machine
much employed by poor children in coun-
try places, is a slate tied to a bit of string.
This being drawn along the road, consti-
tutes a cait ; and you may find it attend- 1
• ed by the admiration of the entire young '

population of three or four cottages^
standing in the moorland miles from any
neighbor.

You will not unfrequently.find parents
who, if they can not keep back their
children from some little treat, will try to
infuse a sting into it, so as to prevent the
children from enjoying it. They will im-
press on their children that they must be
very wicked to care so much about going
out to some children's party ; or they wiU
insist that their children should return
home at some preposterously early hour,
so as to lose the best part of the fun, and so
as to appear ridiculous in the eyes of their
young companions. You will find this
amiable tendency in people intrusted with
the care of older children. I have heard
of a man whose nephew lived with him,
and lived a very cheerless life. When
the season came round at which the lad
hoped to be allowed to go and visit his
parents, he ventured, after much hesitar
tion, to hint thb to his uncle. Of course
the uncle felt that it was quite right the
lad should go, but he grudged him the
chance of the little enjoyment ; and the
happy thought struck him that he might
let the lad go, and at the same time make
the poor fellow uncomfortable in going.
Accordingly he conveyed his permission
to the lad to go by roaring out in a savage
manner : " Begone I " This made the
poor lad feel as if it were his duty to
stay, and as if it were very wicked in him
to wish to go ; and though he ultimately
went, he enjoyed his visit with only half
a heart. There are parents and guard*
ians who take great pains to make their
children think themselves very bad ; to
make the little things grow up in the en-
durance of the pangs of a bad conscience.
For conscience, in children, is a quite ar-
tificial thing; you may dictate to it what
it is to say. And parents, oflen injudi-
cious, sometimes malignant, not seldom
apply hard names to their children, which
sink down into the little heart and memo-
ry "far more deeply than they think. If a
child can not cat fat, you may instill into
him that it is because he is so wicked ;
and he will believe you for a while. A
favorite weapon in the hands of some
parents, who have devoted themselves
diligently to making their children miser-
able, is to frequently predict to the child-
ren the remorse which they (the children)
will feel, after they (the parents) are

1862.]

CONCERNING THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

dead. In such cases, it would be diffi-
cult to specify the precise things which
the children are to feel remorseful about.
It must just be, generally, because they
were so wicked, and because they did not
sufficiently believe the infallibility and
impeccability of their ancestors. I am
reminded of the woman mentioned by
Sam Weller, whose husband disappeared.
The woman had been a fearful terma-
gant ; the husband, a very inoffensive
man. After his disappearance, the woman
issued an advertisement, assuring him
that if he returned he would be fully for-
given ; which, as Mr. Weller justly re-
marked, was very generous, seeing he
had never done any thing at all.

Yes, the conscience of children is an ar-
tificial and a sensitive thing. The other
day a fnend of mine, who is one of the
kindest of parents and the most amiable of
men, told me what happened in his house
on a certain Fast-day, A Scotch Fast-
day, you may remember, is the institution
which so completely puzzled Mr. Buckle.
That historian fancied that to fast means
in Scotland to abstain from food. Had
Mr. Buckle known any thing whatever
about Scotland, he would have known
that a Scotch fast-day means a week-day
on which people go to church; but on
which (especially in the dwellings of the
clergy) there is a better dinner than
usual. I never knew man or woman in
all my life who on a fast-day refrained
from eating. And quite right too. The
growth of common-sense has gradually
abolished literal fasting. In a warm
Oriental climate, abstinence from food
may give the mind the preeminence over
the body, and so leave the mind better
fitted for religious duties. In our country,
literal fasting would have just the contrary
effect ; it would give the body the mastery
over the soul ; it would make a man so
physically uncomfortable, that he could
not attend with profit to his religious du-
ties at all. I am aware, Anglican reader,
of the defects of my countrymen ; but
commend me to the average Scotchman
for sound practical sense. But to return.
These fast-days are by many people ob-
served as rigorously as the Scotch Sun-
day. On the forenoon of such a day, my
friend's little child, three years old, came
to him in much distress. She said, as one
who had a fearful sin to confess, " I have
been playing with my toys this morn-
ing ;" and then began to cry as if her lit-

tle heart would break. I know some
stupid parents who would have strongly
encouraged this needless sensitiveness ;
and who would thus have made their
child unhappy at the time, and prepared
the way for an indignant bursting of
these artificial trammels when the child
had grown up to maturity. But my
friend was not of that stamp. He com-
forted the little thing, and told her
that though it might be as well not to
play with her toys on ,a Fast-day, what
she had done was nothing to cry about.
I think, my reader, that even if you were
a Scotch minister, you would appear
with considerable confidence before your
Judge, if you had never done worse than
failed to observe a Scotch Fast-day with
the covenanting austerity.

But when one looks back and looks
round, and tries to reckon up the sorrows
of childhood arising from parental folly,
one feels that the task is endless. There
are parents who will not suffer their
children to go to the little feasts .which
children occasionally have, either on that
wicked principle that all enjoyment is
sinful, or because the children have re-
cently committed some small offense,
which is to be thus punished. There are
parents who take pleasure in informing
strangers, in their children's presence,
about their children's faults, to the ex-
treme bitterness of the children's hearts.
There are parents who will not allow their
children to be taught dancing, regarding
dancing as sinful. The result is, that the
children are awkward, and unlike other
children ; and when they are suffered to
spend an evening among a number of
companions who have all learned dancing,
they suffer a keen mortification which
older people ought to be able to under-
stand. Then you will find parents, pos-
sessing ample means, who will not dress
their children like others, but send them
out in very shabby garments. Few things
cause a more painful sense of humiliation
to a child. It is a sad sight to see a
little fellow hiding round the corner when
some one passes who is likely to re-
cognize him ; afraid to go through the
decent streets, and creeping out of sight
by back-ways. We have all seen that.
We have all sympathized heartily with
the reduced widow who has it not in
her power to dress her boy better ; and
we have all felt lively indignation at the

CONCERNING THB SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

[May,

parents who had the power to attire
their children becomingly, but whose
heartless parsimony made the little things
go about under a constant sense of painful
degradation.

An extremely wicked way of punish-
ing children is by shutting them up in a
dark place. Darkness is naturally fearful
to human being;), and the stupid ghost
stories of many nurses make it especially
fearful to a child. It is a stupid and
wicked thing to« send a child with a
message out into a dark night. I do not
remember passing through a greater trial
in my youth, than once walking three
miles alone (it was not going a message)
in the dark, along a road thickly shaded
with trees. I was a little fellow ; but I
got over the distance in half an hour.
Part of the way was along the wall of a
churchyard, one of those ghastly, weedy,
neglected, accursed-looking spots, where
stupidity has done what it can to add
circumstances of disgust and horror to
the Christianas long sleep. No body ever
supposed that this walk was a trial to a
boy of twelve years old ; so little are the
thoughts of children understood. And
children are reticent; I am telling: now
about that dismal walk for the very first
time. And in the illnesses of childhood,
children sometimes get very close and
real views of death. I remember, when
I was nine years old, how every evening
when I lay down to sleep, I used for
about a year to picture myself lying
dead, till I felt as though the coffin were
closing round me. I used to read at that
period, with a curious feeling of fasci-
nation, Blair's poem, The Grave. But I
never dreamed of telling any body about
these thoughts. I believe that thought-
ful children keep most of their thoughts
to themselves ; and in respect of the
things of which they think most, are as
profoundly alone as the Ancient Mariner
in the Pacific. I have heard of a parent,
an important member of a very strait
sect of the Pharisees, whose child, when
dying, begged to be buried not in a
certain foul, old, hideous churchyard, but
in a certain cheerful cemetery. This re-
quest the poor little creature made with
all the energy of terror and despair. But
the strait Pharisee refused the dying re-
quest ; and pointed out with polemical
bitterness to the child that he must bo
verv wicked indeed to care at such a

time where he was to be buried, or

what might be done with his body after
death. How I should enjoy the spectacle
of that unnatural, heaitless, stupid wretch
tarred and feathered ! The dying child
was caring for a thing about which Shak-
speare cared ; and it was not in mere
human weakness, but ^^ by faith,'' that
" Joseph, when he was dying, gave com-
mandment concerning his bones."

I believe that real depression of spirits,
usually the sad heritage of after-years^
is often felt in very early youth. It
sometimes comes of the child's belief
that he must be very bad, because he is
so frequently told that he is so. It some-
times comes of the child's fears, early
felt, as to what is to become of him.
His parents, possibly, with the good
sense and kind feeling which distinguisi)
various parents, have taken pains to
drive it into the child that if his father
should die, he will certainly starve, and
may very probably have to become a
wandering beggar. And these sayings
have sunk deep into the little heait. I
remember how a friend told me that his
constant wonder, when he was twelve or
thirteen years old, MVAthis: If life was
such a burden already, and so miserable
to look back upon, how could he ever bear
it when he had grown older ?

But now, my reader, I am going to
stop. I have a great deal more marked
down to say ; but the subject is growing
so thoroughly distressing to mo as I go
on, that 1 shall go on no farther. It
would make me sour and wretched for
the next week, if I were to state and
illustrate the vaned soitows of childhood
of which I intended yet to speak : and
if I were to talk out my heart to you
about the people who cause these, I fear
my character for good nature would be
gone with you forever. "This genial
writer,*' as the newspapers call me, would
show but little geniality: lam aware, in-
deed, that I have already been writing in a
style which, to say the least, is snappish.
So I shall say nothing of the first death
that comes in the family in our childish
days : its hurry, its confusion, its awe-
struck mystery, its wonderfully vivid
recalling of the words and looks of the
dead. Nor of the terrible trial to a little
child of being sent away from home to
school : the heart-sickness, and the weary
counting of the weeks and davs befi>re
the time of returning home ag:un. But

1862.]

CONCERNING THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD.

let me say to every reader who has it
in his power directly or indirectly to do
80 : Oh ! do what you can to make chil-
dren happy : oh ! seek to give that great
enduring blessing of a happy youth I
Whatever after-life may prove, let there
be something bright to look back uy)on
in the horizon of our early time ! You
may sour the human spirit forever by
ci*ueUy and injustice in youth. There is
a past sufferujg which exalts and purities ;
but this leaves only an evil result ; it
darkens all the world, and all our views
of it. Let us try to make every little
child happy. The most selfish parent
might try to please a little child, if it
were only to see the fresh expression
of unblunted feeling, and a liveliness of
pleasurable emotion which in afler-years
we shall never know. I do not believe
a great English barrister is so happy
when he has the Great Seal committed
to him, as two little and rather ragged
urchins whom I saw this very afternoon.
I was walking along a country road, and
overlook them. They were about five
years old. I walked slower, and talked
to them for a few minutes, and found
that they were good boys, and wont to
Bchool every day. Then I produced two
coins of the copper coinage of Britain :
one a large penny of ancient days, another
a small penny of the present age. "There
is a penny for each of you," I said with
some solemnity : " one is large, you see,
and the other small ; but they are each
worth exactly the same. Go and get
something good." I wi>h you had seen
them go off! It is a choap and easy
thing to make a little heart happy. May
this hand never write another essay if it

ever willfully miss the chance of doing
so ! It is all quite right in afler-years
to be careworn and sad. We understand
these matters ourselves. Let others bear
the burden which we ourselves bear, and
which is doubtless good for us. But the
poor little things ! I can enter into the
feeling of a kind-hearted man who told
me tliat he never could look at a number
of little children but the tears came into
his eyes. How much these young crea-
tures have to bear yet ! I think you
can, as you look at them, in some degree
understand and sympathize with the
Redeemer, who, when he "saw a great
multitude was moved with compassion
toward them !" Ah ! you smooth little
face, (you may think,) I know what years
will make of you, if they find you In this
world. And you, light little heart, will
know your weight of care !

And I remember, as I write these con-
cluding lines, who they were that the
Best and Kindest this world ever saw
liked to have near Him ; and what the
reason w^as he gave why He felt most in
his element when they were by his side.
He wished to have little children round
him, and would not have them chidden
away ; and this because there was some-
thing about them that reminded him of
the place from which he came. He liked
the little faces and the little voices — He
to whom the wisest are in understanding
as children. And oftentimes, I believe,
these little ones still do his work. Often-
times, I believe, when the worn Man is
led to Him in childlike confidence, it is
by the hand of a little child,

A. K. H. B.

THE LIFE-BOAT OP MERCY.

[May,

From Colbarn^s New Monthly

THE LIFE-BOAT OF MEIICY.*

There could scarcely be a more appro-
priate name given to a Life-boat than that
of the " Boat of Mercy," nor could the
poetic abilities of the long-tried and well-
known Mr. Nicholas Michell have been
devoted to a better cause than pleading
the claims of the Royal National Life-
Boat Institution, by portraying one scene
out of many that occur almost daily on
our iron-bound coast, and which (while
depicting most others) came as a Coi^
nishman under his own particular observ-
ation. The moment, too, has been most
opportune, just as all England was griev-
ing at the records of the most numerous
and lamentable disasters that have visited
our seafaring population and ship-owners
for many a long year. It is a sad, sad
scene that of helpless shipwreck : death
in its wildest, sternest form ! What a
beautiful picture is that painted by Nicho-
las Michell of the mighty ocean in its
tranquillity, and then again of *^ night at
sea :"

*' No garish beams, but all around
A crystal plain without a bound,
Awing us like eternity.^'

But how fearful is the change when that
same ocean is presented to us in vivid
and tumultuous verse, lashed by the fu-
rious storm, and bearing all before it to
destruction :

'* O^er foam-topped, mountain billows bounding,
The tempest loud his trumpet sounding,
Like a wild race-horse to the goal,
A passion that defies control,

The vessel shoreward sweeps ;
The wrathful seas her sides are lashing,
The breakers rolling, maddening, flasliing.
Then o*er the crags in thunder dashing.

But still that course she keeps."

Then come the tearful, heart-rending part-
ing : " What all life's kisses to our last ?"
and the " mother's love more strong than

• 7^e Wreck of the HomevHird' Bound ; or. The
Boat of Mercy. By Nicholas Michell, Anihor of
Ruins of Many Lands, Pleasure, etc. With an
IllustratioD. Liondou: William Tegg. 18C2.

death !" But at that supreme moment,
when all is given up as lost, and grim and
ghastly death is treading the deck in an-
ticipatory triumph, lo ! the Boat of Mercy
arrives :

" 'Tis done— despite the winds, the roll
Of that storm-maddened, fearful sea,

Bravery hath snatched each shivering soul,
greedy death ! from thee.

Not yet the wife shall press her pillow

Beneath the cold and dreary billow ;

The mother and her bud of bloom

Go down embracing into gloom :

Earth yet its joys, its sweets will give,

rapture ! still to live — ^to live I

** They reach the shore where waves in thunder,

Are rolling, rolling — and the foam
Is mounting high, while caverns under

The beetling cliffs, the mermaid's home.
Rebellow to the frantic blast.
But safe that shore they tread at last
See I beaming eyes to heaven they raise,
Pouring their souls in thanks and praise ;
Then the rough seamen's hands they wring,

And some, o'erpowcred by bursting feeling,
Their arms around them wildly fling,

While tears down many a cheek are
stealing,
They bless them for their noble deed.
True saviours sent in hour of need ;
If God rewards high acts below,
Their souls shall every rapture know.

" But now spectators on the shore

Shout their applause ; the heart - raised
cheer
Is heard above the ocean's roar ;

* The Life boat !' thunders far and near.
That bark of slender, fragile form.
Battles triumphant with the storm, j

Lives when the ship no more can ride,
But founders in her strength and pride ;
The dove sent forth, rejoiced to bear
The branch of hope to pale despair ;
The rainbow in the cloud of gloom.
Deliverer from the threatening tomb ;
Her generous mission is to save.
The guardian angel of the wave."

Laying aside its merits as a poetic
and at once a truthful and touching
portraiture of scenes which all should
treasure up aud learn to sympathize with,

1 862.]

ASCENTS OP THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

if they have not done so before, Mr.
Nicholas MichelPs poem is printed for
the benefit of that most admirable and
praiseworthy society, the National Life-
JBoat Institution, and is therefore doubly
worthy of popularity. Too much publi-
city can not be given to an institution
supported by voluntary contributions,

which has one hundred and twenty life-
boats stationed on the coasts of Great
Britain and Ireland, and yet wants many
more, and which has saved thousands of
lives since its commencement. We sin-
cerely hope that Mr. Michell's heart-
stirring and touching appeal will be the
means of doing much good.

From Colbnrn^i New Monthly.

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

THE LOFTIEST OF THE ANDES IN MEXICO.

The workings of Nature in her pro-
fouqdest laboratories are, it has been just-
ly observed, concealed from us. It is
true that science teaches us that the me-
tallic bases of the earths, which constitute
the solid crust of the globe, are combusti-
ble when exposed to the action of air or
water, and their oxyds give birth to
quartz or silex, to feldspar and clay, to
lime, and to other rocky bases, and it is
therefore presumed that these substances
may exist in their metallic form in the
center of the earth; but this is as yet
conjectural ; nor does such a theory pre-
cisely account for all the phenomena of vol-
canoes, or the production of certain simple
combustible bodies, as sulphur, fluor, or
phthore, and others ; possibly, however,
because their metallic bases have not
yet been eliminated. But, granting all
this, still the real fact itself, and the man-
ner in which volcanic action is actually
brought about, have not yet been unfold-
ed to us, although now so readily conjec-
tured at.

The results of volcanic action are, how-
ever, every where present. The mighty
forces of subterranean agency are to be
seen in the inclined strata and disturbed
disposition of the sedimentary rock for-
mations almost all over the earth^s surface,
and elsewhere in the heaving up of is-
lands or mountains from the abyss, or the
crumbling them to atoms, or the emission

of smoke, flames, cinders, and lava from
their ignivimous mouths, or in the vents
established by their own forces between
the interior and the exterior.

In Mexico vast revolutions have been
effected by volcanic agency ; the Cyclo-
pean forges are, indeed, for the most part
cold, but the subterranean forces are not
every where extinct, and occasionally
burst forth here or there, committing the
most extensive ravages, or convulsing the
earth with terrific spasms.

In the south a succession of volcanoes,
passing from Onjaca through Chiapas, are
connected with the burning mountains of
Guatemala. Compoaltepec, one of the
loftiest points of the Cordilleras of Oaja-
ca, is a volcanic cone ; the frequent earth-
quakes on the plateaus of Oajaca always
appear at the same time as those of Gua-
temala, so that a complete assemblage of
volcanic agencies would appear to exist
there.

The chief ran^e of the Mexican volca-
noes lies between the nineteenth and
twentieth degrees of north latitude, and
may be traced from the Atlantic to the
South Sea, across the whole country.
Near the gulf-shores, about sixty miles
from Vera Cruz, the isolated mountain-
range of Tnstla, or San Martin, rears it-
self above the plain. It is evident that
the whole ranj^e must have swollen up
like a vast bladder, and subsequently

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

[May,

have been cleft by repeated eruptions and
fallings in. The highest point is about
three thousand feet above the sea ; seve-
ral craters are visible, and also a round,
very deep lake of fresh water, on a little
plateau on the south-west side, indicating
a sunken hollow. The last recorded
eruption of this volcano took place in
1789. It was preceded by an earthquake
and subterranean thunder. A vast cloud
of ashes was cast up to an incredible
hight, and carried off by the current of
air that sets in from east to west. The
ashes lay several inches deep in the streets
and on the roofs of houses in towns situat-
ed twenty miles to the west, and even on
the opposite side of the mountain, eight
miles off, in the village of Perote, every
thing was covered with aslies. Since
then the volcano has been at rest, but
sounds as of distant thunder have been
heard in the depths. The natives then
say, " The Tustla growls !" The dwellers
in the Tustla itself, however, aver that
the sounds come from the direction of
the Peak of Orizava, and call it the thun-
der of Oiizava. It is hence deduced that
a subterranean communication exists be-
tween the two mountains, a circumstance
rendered all the more probable, not only
by several volcanic summits rising up on
the line, but also by the fact that earth-
quakes are felt most distinctly in the same
direction.

Orizava, the loftiest mountain of the
eastern chain, exhibits at the first glance
its volcanic origin ; it forms a majestic
cone, whilst on the magnificent snowy
peak, somewhat to the east of the highest
ridge, the vast crater is distinctly seen.
An eruption that lasted almost without
interruption for twenty years took place
fifty years after the arrival of the Span-
iards in Mexico, in 1669, but it does not
appear to have been accompanied by a
discharge of lava. The opinion which
was entertained in the following centuries
that the ascent of the mountain was im-
possible, is supposed by some to be de-
rived from the long duration of this erup-
tion.

In 1848 some North-American officers
were said to have attained the summit,
but Sartorius, in his excellent work on
Mexico and the Mexicans^ says that no
one in the country believed it. Three
years later, on the twenty-sixth of March,
1851, a party of eighteen young men
undertook the ascent. They passed the

night at the point where vegetation
ceases, and next day they reached the
ice, where the perilous part of their
enterprise began, by sunrise. After a
short struggle, one half of the party,
which comprised various nationalities,
(two Frenchmen, one Englishman, one
American, one Belgian, and thirteen
Mexicans,) gave up the attempt and re-
turned exhausted. Six of them succeed-
ed in reaching a ridge of rocks, about
half-way up to the snowy cone, on the
north side, whence the ascent took place,
and which can be perceived from the sea.
Here they rested, enjoyed the prospect,
and then returned.

One of the Frenchmen, however — Al-
exandre Doignon by name — reached the
highest point, after a further fatisjuing
ascent of five hours and a half. He de-
scribed the day as being perfectly clear,
the air pure and transparent, and not the
slightest cloud obscuring the lowlands.
To the east the blue surface of the Atlan-
tic and Yera Cruz were distinctly seen ;
the whole of the coast and the bright
prairies ; the towns of Orizava and Cor-
dova, St. Juan, Huatusco and Jalapa, the
indented mountain-chain, stretching north
and south, and the table-lands, with their
numerous villages and lakes, bounded by
the snowy range of Popocatepetl, consti-
tuted an immense landscape that extend-
ed before the astonished gaze of the in-
trepid traveler like a gigantic drawing.

The crater he described as lying some-
thing to the south-east of the highest
point, and as being some hundred feet
lower down. He also found at its edge a
flag-staff, six feet long, bearing the date
1848, and part of a North Amencan flag,
affording proof that the honor of having
made the first ascent is due to the Amer-
icans. Only two of Doignon*s companions,
Majorus, a'Belgian, and Contreras, a Mex-
ican, reached the edge of the crater, and
they were completely exhausted ; the rar-
ity of the atmosphere rendered respira-
tion exceedingly difficult, and blood flow-
ing from their mouths, they were soon
forced to return. Severe headache and
extremely painful inflammation of the eyes,
lasted long after the descent. The eleva-
tion of the peak was estimated upon this
occasion by boiling-point thermometer,
to be eighteen thousand one hundred and
seventy-eight feet.

The inhabitants of the little town of St.
Andres Chalohicomula, on the west side

1862.]

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

of the volcano, having doubted the truth
of Doignon's story, he was incited to ven-
ture on a second ascent a week subsequent
to the first, or on the fourth of April, 1861.
He was accompanied on this occasion by
a number of Mexicans, who, however, gave
up the undertaking the moment they
reached the snow. This time the ascent
was attended with great risk. Fresh
snow had fallen and covered the former
track, the chasms and fissures were con-
cealed by it, and our adventurer sank in at
almost every step, carrying with him a
flagstaff, as also a large flag, which he
had wound about his body like a scarf.

Having attained the pile of rocks that
jut out of the snow in safety, he here un-
fortunately missed his way, and getting
more to the eastward, or on the lefl side,
than the first time, he found his progress
impeded by an enormous chasm twenty-
five feet wide and four hundred deep, and
consisting within of terrace-like masses of
ice. This chasm extended about half a
league in a semi - circle. Some fragile
bridges of ice affording the only means of
passage, Doignon ventured over these, but
even then he met with and had to cross
several other dangerous fissures, in doing
which he had to encounter the greatest
dangers. When just nearing the summit, a
steep wall of ice interposed itself between
him and the accomplishment of his hopes.
Calling forth all his remaining energies,
exhausted, trembling, eveiy moment in
peril of being precipitated into the abyss,
ne at length surmounted this last obsta-
cle, and was able then to rest for a time.

At first our adventurer was shrouded
in a dense fog, which, however, soon fell
below the snowy cone. To the north-east
he perceived a succession of isolated rocks,
several hundred feet high, rising like a
ruined wall. The snow extended to the
edge of the crater, within which, on the
north side, were deep fissures reaching to
the top. A rock at the edge of the crater,
fifteen feet thick, is described as being
quite hot, as was the soil round the same,
and even the ground is said to have trem-
bled slightly at this spot, but it was more
probably the spectator. There was no
snow, only sand and volcanic ashes. A
powerful smell of sulphur is also described
as proving the ceaseless activity of the fire
within, and both the interior of the crater
and the highest westerly point of the
mountain (which we shall find Baron de
MUller justly designating as the upper

walls of the crater) were covered with sul-
phur, the soil being also heated Several
rocks were also glazed on the surface, (vit-
reous lava, or obsidian,) but within they
were whitish, like burnt lime. The cra-
ter itself had an oval shape, with two in-
lets to the south and east. (This is also
corroborated by Baron Miiller.) The di-
ameter at the top was estimated by Doig-
non at about two thousand metres, and
the circumference six thousand five hun-
dred. (Miiller's estimate coincides close-
ly with this, being six thousand metres.)

This great crater presented a terrific
abyss, with almost perpendicular sides,
furrowed by black burnt fissures. " We
look down," says the narrator, " into a
fearful gul^ which on the east side may
be about five hundred and fifty feet deep.
In this gulf enormous black pyramidal
rocks are seen, dividing into three open-
ings, two smaller ones to the south, the
larger one to the east. On the north
side, about one hundred and fifty feet
from the edge of the crater, a gigantic
black cleft rocky pyramid rises to the
hight of more than four hundred feet.
From the large opening to the east, vol-
umes of steam, strongly impregnated
with sulphur, constantly rise as from a
flue. A low rumbling is heard in the
depths, causing a feeling of anxiety in
the lifeless wilderness." The sides of
the crater to the west and south-west
were less steep, and covered with snow.

Doignon had planted his flag on the
loftiest pinnacle, but a brisk ice-wind made
him fear that it had been overthrown.
He therefore once more returned to the
summit, and believed, for a time, that he
should be forced to pass the night at the
foot of the warm rocks ; the wind falling,
however, he commenced his descent at
four o'clock in the afternoon. He had to
clamber downward amidst wondrous per-
ils, having been actually reduced in places
to feel his way from the darkness in which
he was enveloped. Happily at eight
o'clock he joined his companions at the
foot of the glaciers. His great exertions
in the snow-fields were succeeded by a
night of much pain, and by a recurrence
of the inflammation of the eyes which was
severer than the first time. In a few
days he was recovered, and the gallant
young man was honored with a splendid
banquet, and even valuable presents were
made him by the inhabitants of St. An-
I dres Chalchicomula, who were cured of

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO OfilZAYA.

[Majr,

their incredality by seeing the banner
waving above the peak.

This, it is to be observed, was in March
and April, 1851. A still more recent as-
cent has been effected at a different sea-
son of the year, in the month of August,
1856, by Baron Muller, who had only ar-
rived that month at Vera Cruz from an
exploring journey in Canada and the Uni-
ted States.

The learned traveler issued forth from
the small town of Orizava to effect the as-
cent on the morning of the thirtieth of
August, accompanied by Mr. A., a Swed-
ish gentleman, Malm^'o, and a graduate
of the University of Berlin.

The party, provided with all that was
necessary for their undertaking, took the
direction of the volcano across narrow but
rapid streams and barancas — the teiTible
chasms or ravines that intersect the up-
lands — and which they found difficult to
cross even with the aid of the well-train-
ed Mexican horses. They arrived the
first day at the hacienda, or farm of To-
qnila, near San Juan Coscomatepes, where
they passed the night, and laid in a fur-
ther stock of provisions. Beyond this they
reached the Indian village of Alpatlahua,
where they obtained native guides, who
led them by rocky pathways along the
beds of torrents and over rocky crests, but
still amidst a luxuriant vegetation.

The plain, says the Baron, was now far
below us, the lightning flashed and the
thunder rolled beneath our feet, for we
had attained an elevation of two thousand
six hundred and sixty metres. At this
elevation vegetation had changed its as-
pect, creepers and climbers had disappear-
ed, but the orchidiceaB still clung to the
trees. After passing the night in a ran-
cho, or shepherd's hut, they made an
early start on the morning of the first of
September, and soon reached the region
of pines. They passed on their way nu-
merous crosses raised to the memory of
travelers who had fallen victims to ban-
ditti or to the climate. It is the custom
with wayfarers to scatter flowers over the
tombs of these unfortunate persons. By
nine in the morning they arrived at the
rancho of Grecale, three thousand three
hundred metres above the level of the sea.
The road kept increasing in difficulty, and
was now intersected by horrible barancas.

'* At ten and a half," says Baron Muller,
we reached the end of the baranca of
Trinchera, and the sources of the Rio de

la Soledad. Not far from thence was the
rancho of Jamapa, the aim of that day's
excursion : it consisted of a few wooden
huts, the proprietor of which, a Mexican
in rags, received us with the most polish-
ed dignity, placing every thing at our
disposal — that is to say, a hut which serv-
ed as a barn, and which he hospitably
announced to us to be an holstery. We,
however, refreshed ourselves at this sta-
tion, washing down our meals with lata-
lan, (a strong Spanish brandy,) and sleep-
ing soundly. The next day, on our de-
parture, we saw the colossal head of the
volcano glittering with the reflected light
of the sun in an azure blue sky. Soon
vegetation ceased entirely, we were sur*
rounded by nothing but rocks of gneiss,
of trachyte, and of hornblende, with vol-
canic sand and cinders."

At eleven the travelers arrived at the
base of the peak properly so called. The
view to the westward is described as be-
ing magnificent; the Popocatepetl and
the Malinche towered out of the lofty
upland of Mexico, whose surface seemed
to be dotted with lakes that glittered
like so many precious stones. To the
east the landscape was buried in fog
and cloud. A sharp wind gave addi-
tional intensity to the cold, and the
Indian guides were dispatched into a
forest below to bring up wood to con-
struct a hut and make a fire. They did
this with great alacrity. A lofty rock of
granite served as a gable ; another of less
dimensions filled up one of the sides ; the
opposite corner was supported by a stake
made firm with stones, for the soil was
too hard frozen to permit of a hole being
made in it ; the cross-beams were made
fast with ropes, and the whole was cover-
ed with straw matting.

Although a little too airy, this rustic
mansion protected the travelers from the
excess of cold. But the rarefied atmos-
phere rendered their breathing frequent
and irregular, and all were more or less
feverish, and suffering from headache.
The elevation they had attained already
exceeded that of Mont Blanc. The ther-
mometer indicated ten degrees below
zero — a temperature which, contrasted
singularly with the twenty-nine degrees
of heat experienced a short time previous-
ly in the terra caliente. The hut was
surrounded at night-time by wolves at-
tracted by the odor of good things.

Next moraing the party made their last

1862.]

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

E reparations for the asoent of the peak,
laden with provisions and with astrono-
mical and meteorological instraments,
provided with thick green leaves of fern,
and armed with Alpine staves and hooks,
they started with a slow and steady step
at seven in the morning. Their way lay
at first over loose soil, with here and there
a patch of snow, after which they had to
climb over rocky boulders and hnge de-
tached stones, amid deep crevices and ra-
vines. Arrived at this point, one of the
guides declared that he would go no far-
ther, so they had to leave him behind,
and to carry the instruments themselves.

After two hours of the most painful
toil, they had attained an elevation of
only three hundred and sixty yards above
whence they had started, and had reached
the line of perpetual snow. At this point
the second guide gave in, and the travel-
ers had to carry his share of the burden
by turns. The ascent was so abrupt that
they did not advance more than eight or
ten feet in twenty-five paces, and after
each such exertion they had to rest them-
selves awhile. The brilliant light reflect-
ed from the snow added to their discom-
fort by dazzling their eyes and affecting
the sight. This snow was covered with a
thin coating of ice, which often gave way
beneath their feet.

" We were nearing the crater," Baron
Miiller relates, " when I heard Malmsjo
call out from behind. I turned round,
and saw that he had sunk into the snow
up to his armpits ; and at the very mo-
ment one of my legs^ broke through the
ice deep into the snow below. I, how-
ever, succeeded in getting to Malmsjo,
when he showed me the hole he had fallen
into. I shall never forget the impression
made upon me by the sight. I felt a cold
perspi ration pervade my whole body. We
were, in fact, standing over a vast abyss,
from which we were separated by only a
thin coating of snow and ice. It was in
vain that the eyes sought for indications
of rock or soil, columns of ice and crystals
filled the depths beyond, and the abyss,
instead of being dark, was splendidly lit up
by some subterranean or subnival source
of light — probably the sun's rays that fell
upon the snow. Fear paralyzed our every
movement. After having raised ourselves
up with the utmost caution, we spread out
our arms, at all risks, over the snow, and
then we let ourselves slide slowly down.
After having thus descended some hun-

dred paces, we arrived at a spot that ap-
peared to be firm. There we held a de-
liberation, for it was necessary to deter-
mine by which side it was best to tum
the abyss in order to reach the cra-
ter.'* But suddenly a strong wind arose,
and bore up thick clouds, which so en-
veloped them that they could not see one
another at a distance of three paces. It
was impossible to ascend any further in
such a snow - storm, so that they were
obliged to retrace their steps without
guides or provisions, for in saving them-
selves from the abyss they had unfortu-
nately let the provision-basket fall.

They arrived at four in the aftenioon at
the extempoi-ized hut where they had
spent the previous evening. This night
was still more painftil and distressing than
the previous one. The determination of
blood to the head injected their eyes till
they were quite red, and an inflamma-
tion, attended with the most severe pain,
manifested itself in the instance of Sonntag
and Malmsjo, and what was their horror,
when daylight came, to find that they
were perfectly blind ! Their eyelids were
glued by a kind of earthy humor, and
even when that was removed, they could
scarcely discern the light of day. As a
culminating point of their misfortunes,
the provisions were exhausted, while an
Indian added to their discomfort by an-
nouncing that a numerous band of rob-
bers were awaiting them in the woody
zone below.

All these untoward circumstances com-
bined, induced Baron Miiller to attempt
the passage to the west, toward San An-
dres Ohalchicomula. As the Orizava ap-
S roaches nearest to the high upland of
lexico on that side, the travelers would
have two thousand metres less distance
to go to reach the table-land. They had
to lead the blind across a most difficult
country covered with rolled stones and
volcanic cinders, till, after an hour's toil,
they reached the limits of vegetation,
and soon afterward the shelter of a fine
pine-forest.

The farther they got down the denser
the forest became, but the silence of the
dark and gloomy recesses was broken by
innumerable parrots that find sustenance
in the fir-cones. Now and then an open-
ing presented itself which allowed the
green pastures that flank the blue moun-
tains of the Mexican table-land to be
discerned. A cross raised over a mound

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

[May,

of fresh earth bore a record upon it of
the death of between twenty and thirty
individuals at that spot. It was a melan-
choly relic of the last pronunciamiento.
Long after civil war has been brought
to a conclusion in this unfortunate coun-
try, bands of partisans continue to infest
the roads and commit robberies under the
shelter of politics.

Alter having traversed a cultivated plain
enlivened here and there by ranches, our
travelers reached the small town of San
Andres Chalchicomula the same evening.
Sundry washings, performed near an
aqueduct, upon tlie eyes of the sufferers,
had enabled them to see a little better.

From information which they obtained
at this place, it appeared that the ascent
of the mountain was much more prac-
ticable from the south, and Baron Mtlller
was determined to try again forthwith.
But, notwithstanding a few days' repose,
M. MalmsjO and M. Sonntag were too ill
to i(»in him ; two other persons, however
— Mr. Campbell, an inspector of tele-
graphs, and M. de la Huerta — volunteer-
ed to accompany him.

The Citaltepetl, " the mountain of the
star," as the Indians call the Orizava, or,
as some have it, Orizaba, was enveloped
in dense clouds the morning of the eighth
of September, 1 856, Baron M&Uer relates,
when he bade farewell to his friends, and
left San Andres Chalchicomula amidst
the good wishes of the inhabitants.

"Two courageous and experienced
Indians, whose services had been obtain-
ed for me by the prefect, had been sent
on beforehand in order to lay in provisions
of wood and water, and deposit the same
in a grotto that was situated on the south
side of the mountain, just below the limits
of perpetual snow, and where we were
to spend the first night. My party was
composed of Mr. Campbell, M. de la Huer-
ta, and two attendants, all four on horse-
back ; and we had, beside, a mule laden
with provisions.

" Starting with spirit, we soon attained
a table-land, the surface of which was
diversified by a great number of volcanic
hills of little elevation, and beyond which
were fine forests of pine and fir ; but our
way was not more obstructed by fallen
trees than it was by occasional deep
ravines and the necessity there was for
following the most impracticable and
dangerous pathways.

" At about five in the evening, as wo '

were thus toiling along the side of a
baranca, the horse that Dore M. Huerta
lost its footing, and fell. He was near
me, and as he fell on a small, smooth
rock, I expected to see him hurled into
the depths of the abyss below ; but the
Mexican horses are extraordinarily saga-
cious, and the poor brute extricated itself
and its rider from their perilous position
with marvelous promptitude and address.
Without even excepting the Arab horses,
I know of no better steeds for traveling
purposes than the Mexican. They are
also well made, of good shape, intelligent,
and exceedingly faithful and obedient.^'

It was late at night before our travelers
reached the grotto. It was not dark,
however, the firmament being lit up by
a tropical moon.

" Our little party," says the Baron, " pi-e-
sented at that moment so picturesque a
group, that it really ravished me. Al-
though I had been disillusionized of ro-
mance by my numerous travels, the spec-
tacle of that evening was well adapted
to arouse the dreams of the most capri-
cious fancy. A clear fire blazed away at
the entrance of the grotto and lit up the
interior, the projections of rock casting
dark and strange shadows into the seroi-
obscuritv. Drops of water fell like dia-
monds rrom the roof on the floor. The
Indians, and other attendants with their
Mexican costumes, were busy with the
horses, that were left ready saddled, and
we ourselves, with our traveling accou-
terments and glittering arms, rather re-
sembled bandits than peaceful travelers.

" Without the grotto, the spectacle of
nature had a majesty about it that pro-
duced a deep impression upon our minds.
The moon shone mildly to the south-
east, and its light penetrated through
the dark pines ; to the west, the gigantic
volcano, almost vailed in fog, reflected
the rays of the moon, and it appeared
even more majestic than ever by that
mysterious light."

The preparations for the ascent were
commenced by the earliest dawn on the
ensuing day, and, afler an hour's toil,
they reached the last limits of vegetation,
and then the zone of perpetual snow.
The horses wore so thoroughly done up,
that they had to be sent back to the
grotto.

*'The atmosphere," says Baron Miiller,
" was so rarefied that our poor steeds
could scarcely inhale a suflicient quanti-

1862.]

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

ty of oxygen, and their breathing was
as deep and difficult, as if they had
galloped a long stage. The men were
also sensible of the same influence, but
birds seem to be indifferent to it, for
here, at an elevation of five thousand five
hundred yards, I saw two falcons playing
In the air full seven hundred yards above
me."

The travelers arrived without any in-
cidents at the fields of snow, out of which
pieces of rock jutted here and there, and
helped them much in their scramble up-
ward. By noon they had attained a
little platform covered with snow. This
point, which presented a smooth surface
of a few feet square, was the last where
there was any possibility of reposing
themselves before reaching the volcano,
so they accordingly rested here a few
moments to refresh themselves.

"Below us," says the Baron, "in a
south-westerly direction, we could see a
red-hot crater surrounded by serrated
and perpendicular rocks. I estimated the
bight of its most elevated peak, called
the Cerro del Mono, at four thousand
three hundred metres. In the direction of
the Valle de Lopos, where we passed the
night, was the Sierra Negra, which was
not covered with snow, although it must
exceed four thousand eight hundred feet
in elevation. Hence its name, the * Black
Mountain.'

" The ascent was recommenced after a
quarter of an hour's rest, but the depths
of the snow presented extraordinary ob-
stacles to our progress. We went up to
our knees at every step, and as the slope

fenerally exceeded an angle of forty-five
egrees, we had to crawl on all-fours.
The chief difficulty was to breathe, and
we could not get over twenty or twenty-
five paces without rest. Spite of a vail
and of green spectacles, my eyes suffered
this time; but even the pain derived
from that affliction was surpassed by an
attack I experienced at about two
o'clock. It came on like the sensation of
a red-hot iron searing my lungs, and from
that moment, every time I took a breath,
I experienced agonizing pains in the
chest, and which, with intervals of relief,
became so acute at times as to leave me
perfectly senseless. My two friends and
the Indian guides were so terri^ed at the
intensity of the attacks, that they wished
to return, but I would not consent to
that.''

VOL. LVI.— NO. 1

The sun had at least warmed the trav-
elers up to that time, but the heavens
coming on clouded, they now began to
experience a sharp cold. Sometimes a
wall of snow presented itself in front of
them, which they had great difficulty in
turning. A violent storm then broke far
beneath them, the thunder of which was
only like so many cracks. They now be-
gan to feel alike wearied and discouraged,
the day was already far advanced, the
summit was still far off, and the Indian
guides refused to go any farther. Even
the companions of the Baron began to
lose courage. It was only upon the lat-
ter's declaring that, if left alone, he would
still persevere in the ascent, that they
consented to remain with him. In order
to render their progress less irksome, one
of the Indian guides was sent with a long
knotted rope in advance ; this he fastened
with a stick tightly into the ice, and then
the travelers pulled themselves up from
knot to knot. But the Baron's pains in
his chest continued as bad as ever, and
were now followed by the loss of blood
and fainting-fits. A last annoyance was
reserved for the travelers in the shape of
a very fine frozen snow that had begun to
fall, and crept into their clothes and to
their very flesh. It was not till after un-
heard-of efforts, and the most indomita-
ble perseverance, that, almost utterly ex-
hausted, and yet full of a firm resolve to
succeed, the Baron attained the brim of
the crater at forty-five minutes past five
in the afternoon.

" Success had crowned my efforts,"
says M. de Miiller, " and my joy was so
great, that for a moment I forgot all my
sufferings, but I was soon recalled to a
sense of my weakness by a fainting-fit and
the pouring forth of torrents of blood
from my mouth.

" When I came to myself again I was
still on the borders of the crater, and I
summoned together all my strength to
look around me and observe as much as
I could. I proximatively determined the
form of the crater ; but my weakness was
so great, and the fall of snow continued
so dense, that I could not fix its precise
circumference with the aid of a sextant.
Nor was it in my power to make a topo-
graphical survey of the regions below, fcr
nothing could be plainly discerned.

" The crater has an irregular elliptical
form ; its chief axis is from west-north-
west to east southeast, but it curves a

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

[May,

little more to the southward ; its length
may be about two thousand five hundred
metres. Two other axes, running nearly
from north to south, have very different
lengths : the greatest to the east is about
five hundred French yards ; the lesser
one to the west about one hundred and
fifty yards. I estimate the whole circum-
ference of the volcano at six thousand
metres.

" The extent of this circumference is
perfectly incomprehensible to any one who
contemplates the mountain from below
from the north-west or south-west; the
summit appears much too small to pos-
sess so capacious a crater; but, from
above, it is seen that the mouth of the
crater has a considerable slope in the di-
rection of the south-east, and that at once
explains the deception. That which is
taken as viewed from the sea, from Vera
Cruz, from Cordova, and from Orizava,
for a perpendicular wall situated without
the crater, is nothing else than the inter-
nal lining of the crater itself.

^' My pen fails me in attempting to de-
pict the appearance presented by this
great crater, or the impression that it
produced upon mc. It was as the gate-
way to the infernal regions closely guarded
by Night and TeiTor personified. What
terrible power has been evoked to raise
and break up such enormous masses, to
melt them, to pile them up one upon an-
other, tower-like, till they cooled in such
a position and retained their existing
shapes !

" A bed of yellow sulphur covered the
inner walls at different places, and little
volcanic cones rose out of the bottom.
The soil of the crater was, however,
mostly clad with snow as far as I could
see, and was not therefore warm ; but
the Indians assured me that a warm air
issues from the crevices in various places.
Although I did not verify their statement,
it appears to me all the more credible,
as I have frequently observed the same
thing to be the case in the Popocatepetl.

"A project which I had entertained
from the first of passing the night upon
the crater had, by the force of imperious
circumstances, been superseded. Twi-
light, which, as is well known, is under
such latitudes very brief, had already set
in, and there was no alternative but to re-
turn at once. The two Indian guides
rol'ed the petaita^ or straw mats, which
they bad brought with them, into the

' shape of a kind of sleigh or sledge ; we
then took our seats upon these, and
spreading out our legs, had nothing to do
but let the vehicles thus extemporized
glide down. But, as may be imagined,
the rapidity with which we were thus
hurried along soon increased to such an
extent, that our descent resembled rather
a fall in the air than any other system of
locomotion; and we were carried in a
few minutes over the same distance that
had taken us five hours to climb up.''

Arrived at the limit of perpetual snow,
after having effected their dangerous de-
scent, which the Baron designates as a
schulte^ not without some slight accidents
and still more serious perils, our travelers
had to accomplish the remainder of their
journey on foot. At half-past eight they
were cheered by the vision of the fire
burning in the grotto of the Valle de Lo-
pos, and they were safely ensconced in it
an hour afterward.

" The scene," says M. de Mtlller, " was
singularly changea since the previous
evening. The snow had fallen m every
direction, and the floor of the grotto had
been converted into mud by the increased
quantity of water that had filtered into
it. Our clothes were also wet through
and through, and yet our eyes were so
bad that we durst not approach the fire.
All we cared for, after fourteen hours' ar-
duous toil, was to lie down and repose
ourselves. So we took off the creater
portion of our clothes, and let the Indians
dry them at the fire, whilst we sought re-
fuge, half-naked, in the driest corners ol
the OTOtto. Water was, at the same
time, oeing boiled, so as to make a strong
decoction of tea mixed with wine. An
hour afterward we had had our tea, oar
clothes were partially dried, and so happy
did we feel, compared with the dangers
we had just surmounted, that we slept
better than princes buried in sheets of
cambric.

" Our sleep was broken next morning
by a cheerful sun. The snow of the pre-
vious evening was in great part molten,
and, strengthened by a good sleep and a
good chocolate, we took the road that we
had followed on our ascent. About two
in the afternoon, as we wore approaching
San Andres Chalchicomula, I was surpris*
cd at seeing the whole population of the
town coming out with music and banners
to congratulate us on our success. One
of our Indian guides had started off from

1862.]

ASCENTS OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

the grotto of Valle de Lopos by a short
en t and with a quick step, and had spread
the news of our successful ascent some
time before." After having briefly re-
posed themselves, Mr. Campbell and M.
de la Huerta went to the prefect, and
made an affidavit as to the positive ascent
having been accomplished.

The affidavit was so far correct, but we
have seen that the worthy Baron was
mistaken when he supposed that he was
the first person who had effected an as-
cent of the Peak of Orizava. The very
details which he gives serve to corrobo-
rate the correctness of the descriptions
given by those who preceded him. The
abyss over which he and M. Malmsjd
found themselves suspended by a thin
coating of snow, and which defeated their
first attempt at ascending the peak, seems
to have been the same " enonmous chasm"
tbat is described by Doignon as extend-
ing about half a league in a semicircle,
and which the French traveler crossed on
a fragile bridge of ice. We have also
before noticed other corroborations. It
is only surprising that the authorities and
inhabitants of San Andres Chalchicomula
should have left the Baron and his friends
in ignorance of the previous successful
ascents made, and the last of which they
rewarded by their acclamations and their
presents.

According to Doignon^s measurement,
the bight of the Peak of Orizava is eight-
een thousand one hundred and seventy-
eight feet English ; Ferrar found it to be
seventeen thousand eight hundred and
eighiy-five feet ; and the North-Amencan
engineers, seventeen thousand eight hun-
dred and nineteen feet. Baron Miiller
estimated the hight at five thousand five
hundred and twenty-seven metres, and
"I think," he adds, "I can affirm that no
one had the curiosity to explore the sum-
mit before us." This estimated hight ap-
proximates to those previously obtained,
and if we adopt the least of the calcula-
tions, it would appear that Orizava is the
highest point of the Mexican Andes.

These ascents, and especially Doignon's,
which were accomplished under more fa-
vorable circumstances and with less ex-
haustion than Baron Mflller's, affi^rd proof
that the subterranean fire in this volcano,
or rather the sources whence its volcanic
action are derived, are not extinguished
or exhausted, and that the lurking mon-
ster, like Etna and Vesuvius, may again

terrify those dwelling on or near it, even
after a lapse of three centuries.

The base of the giant is likewise sur-
rounded for a considerable distance with
smaller volcanoes. To the north - east
and east we see a whole group of blunted
cones between steep calcareous mountains,
some of which have cast up lava, others
mud and ashes; at all events, the last
appears to be distinctly indicated in the
strata of the sloping plain, stretching
eastward from the base of the volcanic
mountain Acatepec. To the south and
south-east are various craters, hot sul-
phur-springs, and springs which burst
lorth from rocky cavities like brooks.
The course of the streams has also been
much altered by volcanic action. Two
rivers, which rise on the east side of Ori-
zava, suddenly disappear. The larger
one, Jamapa, plunges into a fissure on the
right banic of a deep ravine, and reap-
pears three miles farther off, on the other
side of a range of limestone mountains,
not in the ravine, but issuing from a cave
more to the south. From the point
where the river qjjits it, the bed of the
ravine is dry. The other, called Tliapa,
after foaming as a raging torrent over the
rocks, disappears near Cordova, at the
western base of a range of hills, and then
reappears as a deep vortex in a steep
rocky inlet near the mountain • pass of
Chiquihuite, at a distance of two miles on
the east side. This rivulet has, further,
the peculiarity that the chief source,
which is high up in the pine-forests of
Orizava, has milk-white, lukewarm water
in winter, whilst in the rainy season it is
clear and very cold.

On the west side of the Peak of Oriza-
va, toward the table-lands, several vol-
canic appearances are also met with.
Sulphureous vapors rise from a shrubless
hill. The Indians use these warm sulphur
exhalations to obtain vapor-baths. They
dig pits three feet deep, and as many
wide, then sit down in them and cover
up the top, so as to leave the head free.
Not far off there is also a group of moun-
tains called Los Derrumbatos, one of
which is cleft, and frequently belches
forth flame.

In the plain at the foot of Orizava,
toward the west, near the village of AIjo-
juca, is a crater filled with water, which
tastes rather brackish, but can still be
used for drinking. This round pool is
about one eighth of a mile in circumfer-

100

AS0EKT8 OF THE VOLCANO ORIZAVA.

[May,

eoce, with perpendicular rocky sides. A
path made by the ancient Indians leads
down into the hollow. Farther on, the
steep cones of Pizarro and Tepeyacuaico
rear their summits above the plain, and a
mass of lava serves them for a pedestal.

It is pretty generally admitted by geo-
logists that, as expounded at length by
the illustrious Humboldt, the forces of
volcanic action are undergoing diminu-
tion. Every thing tends to show that
the crust of the globe has gone through
changes which are gradually arriving at a
certain point of consistency. But there
are speculations which militate against
this view of the subject. It is, for exam-
ple, supposed that in the constant march
of creation and disintegration, the great
alluvial beds deposited by rivers, and the
vast lythophytic or coralline growths in
the Pacific, remain to be tilted up from be-
low by volcanic action before they can take
their place, some future day, as islands or
continents. Be this as it may, and even
granting the limitation of volcanic action,
there is nothing to show that the country
now in question may not yet be some day
the seat of some terrific convulsions of
nature, and yet these may be, compara-
tively speaking, slight, as contrasted with
such as have preceded them. Further,
were eruptions to ensue u|>on such efforts
of nature to relieve itself, they would,
from what has been previously noted, be
more likely to occur in the table-lands,
the sides of mountains, or in lesser ranges,
than from the crater of Orizava.

As this lofty volcano has been succeed
ed by smaller volcanoes and other cones
and craters, as above described, so it ap-
pears to have itself succeeded its ancient
rival Naucamputcpetl, or the Coffer of
Perote, in the principal mountain chain,
and which appears to have been in part
destroyed by lateral eruptions, that have
occurred at an epoch posterior to when it
was itself an active volcano, just as we
see going on in the present day with re-
gard to Mount Vesuvius. On the north
side of the mountain is the so-called Mai
Pais, a broad stream of lava, nearly ten
miles in length, whose glazed scoriaceous
mass bears every indication of a molten
state, while the pumice-stones, scattered
tar and wide, distinctly prove that a dis-
cliarge took place in that direction. The
mountain is most shattered on the south-

east side, where it has an appearance as
though an explosion from the summit to
the base had hurled one whole side of the
crater to the east. The whole form of
the crater and the destruction of the
mountain are best seen at certain bights
of the sun, when the lights and shade are
distinctly brought out. A beautiful plain,
remarkable for its great fertility, was pro-
duced at its base by this falling in, as abo
bv the streams of lava and the dbcbargea
o^ ashes and mud. The mightiest trees
flourish there, and for more than a oentu-
ry maize has been annually sown in the
same ground without manuring.

The perpendicular rocky walls, from a
thousand to two thousand feet high, of
the profound barancas, ravines, or chasms,
which every where intei*seot this region,
also enable us to form some idea of the
might of volcanic ravages. They are
compact masses of firm conglomemte,
with larger or smaller fragments of ba-
salt, or a jumble of volcanic tufa. The
upper covering is argillaceous of all colors,
but mostly ferruginous, and wherever
water can exert its influence, isorine, or
crystals of magnetic iron, are washed out
in great quantities, as in other countries
similarly circumstanced. The breaking
up of these mountains must have happen-
ed at a very remote period, for horizon-
tal stratification may be observed, or at
all events divisions into separate stones,
marking, probably, different epochs of
eruption and cataclysm, and tnere are
deep caves and grottos at their base.

It only remains to be remarked that the
lofty Popocatepetl, (seventeen thousand
seven hundred and seventy-three feet,)
though quiescent, is still active, and close
by it is the snow-mountain IztaccihuatI,
which bears the same relation to Popo-
catepetl as the Coffer of Perote does to
Orizava : it is a ruined flue of the same
furnace. Nearer to the Pacific two more
volcanoes are still active, namely, Jorullo
and Colima, the latter since the earliest
known periods, the other a recent produc-
tion of the mighty subterranean fires,
which in the middle of the last century
called forth terror and dismay on all
sides. It is not impossible that this line
of volcanic country, stretching from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, indicates an occa-
sional subterranean connection or filtra-
tion between the two oceans. •

1862.]

GOMPREHEXSIVE HISTORY OF EKGLAKD.

101

From the London Eclectic.

COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.*

In the literature of any people, the
first place must be given to their national
history. Such a history, if it be worthy
of the name, must have for its chief
object to bring into view the social,
intellectual, and moral development of
the people ; to place in its true light their
roaiily struggle for freedom and inde-
pendence, rather than the intrigues of
courts and cabinets ; to show the progress
of the peaceful arts, rather than the
strides of conquest and the spoils of
war ; to set forth the workings of a free
and spiritual Christianity, rather than the
platform of any particular ecclesiastical
polity. If history be a mirror in which
we see the past, and if it be impossible
for us to break the link which connects
us with the ages and the men who have
gone before, then it is at least worthy
of remembrance, that the past has given
its impression to the present, to ourselves,
our institutions, our government, our
literature, our religion, and our morality ;
so that the new is but a farther and fuller
development of the old. Never, there-
fore, did Schleiermacher utter a more
profound truth than when he said, that
''^ whatever makes its appearance in any
department of history as an individual
momentum, is capable of being viewed
either as a sudden organization, or as
a gradual development and further pro-
gress/' All national life and progress
has its origin in the individual mind.
The advancement of the race is depend-
ent on a few master-minds, and these
confined to no rank or condition of life.
Nor can we refrain from adding that, but
for the principle of supreme selfishness,
and the obstructive tendency of all class

*Tke Comprehensive HUtory of England; CivU
and Military, Religiotu, Jntellectital, and Social,
From the earliest period to the Suppression of tfte
Sepoy Mevolt. By Cbablbs Macfablani and the
Rev. Thomas Tbomsox. Illnstrattd by above One
Thousand Engravings. In Foar Volumes. Lon-
don : Blackie A Sod, Paternoster Row ; and Glas-
gow and Edinburgh. 1S61.

I interests, how different would have been
the history of nations ! Happily for our
age, and happily for the ages yet to
come, the spirit of progress, governed
and directed by a Power that is omni-
potent and irresistible, is conducting the
historic life of the world into a new
channel altogether, and in which it is
destined to flow in ever-deepening force
and fullness. So that if history be what
Cromwell said, in the years long ago,
it was '^ God manifesting himself," then,
just as we can view it in this light, and
as a whole — as one grand unity — em-
bracing all nations and all events, and
running on to one great final consum-
mation, can its study be either intelligible
or interesting.

After a careful examination of The Com-
prehensive History of JEhigland, which
now lies before us, we are free to ac-
knowledge that, to a large extent, it
meets our idea, and fulfills our expecta-
tion. We have taken some of the more
critical periods in our national life and
development to test the fidelity of the
authors, and, with a very few exceptions,
we have found them quite equal to their
arduous task. At the same time we are
not prepared to say that the unfortunate,
unhappy Mary, Queen of Scots, has re-
ceived the justice which she deserves at
their hands. Let any one read her Let-
ters and Memoirs by the Prince Alex-
andre LabanofiT, and I)ow different will
be the estimate of her character I With
all her Popish prejudices and predilec-
tions, she was a deeply -injured woman.
If her amorous connections and matri-
monial alliances be incapable of defense,
equally indefensible is the conduct of
those who, instead of standing by her
in her weakness and her wrongs, first
deceived her, and then hunted her to
death. We are not the apologists of
Mary's life and character ; but we claim
for her even-handed justice from the pen
of every historian. The conduct of Eliza-
beth toward this unhappy woman can

102

COMPREHENSI\^ HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

[May,

never be forgotten ; and it has left a '
deep, dark blot on her memory, which
time can never efface. We know of
no words in our niotlier-tongue strong
enough to express the duplicity, treacliery,
and cruelty of the groat Virgin Queen
toward the lovely daughter of the fillh
James. For nearly twenty years, and
without the shadow of pretense, she
kept Mary a prisoner, and during her
imprisonment treated her with every
possible indignity. She then brought
ner to a public trial, and accepted evi-
dence on which the life of a dog might not
have been suspended. After sentence of
death was passed, she was afraid to carry
it into execution, and encouraged a private
aSvHHssination. To remove all blame from
herself, she employed her ministers to lead
on the guard and keepers of the royal
prisoner to perpetrate the deed ; and
when these latter instinctively shrank from
taking the life of Mary, she upbraided
them with weakness and infidelity. She
then turned a deaf ear to the intercession
of a son on behalf of his mother, denied
the condemned Queen the offices of a
priest, and suffered her to go to the
scaffold the victim of her jealousy and
revenge. After the execution, she hypo-
critically affected that Mary had been
put to death without her knowledge,
and against her inclination ; imprisoned
and fined her secretary Davidson, under
pretense of having exceeded his com-
mission ; sent a special ambassador to
James, to apologize for this " unhappy
accident," and feigned her grief in sighs
and the outward garb of mourning.
Never were professions more hollow !
Never was woman's conduct more hjeart-
less I We have no wish to depreciate
the virtues of Elizabeth, as the sovereign
and the mother of her country ; but her
treatment of 3Iary will remain as a blot
on her character and her reign till time
shall be no more. Nor can we dispossess
ourselves of the thought that, if Mary
had not been so conscientiously and in-
alienably attached to the Romish com-
munion, Scotland would never have suf-
fered her to be so treated by any sov-
ereign on earth. We have no faith in
Popery ; but still less have we faith in
persecution on the ground of religious
belief. It is possible that a man's theo-
logical creed may lead him to political
wrong-doing, and in punishing tlie wrong-
ug his creed may appear to suffer; but

the distinction is eternal between what
is civil and what is sacred, and, had this
distinction not been overlooked, we think
that the lovely and accomplished Queen
of the Scots would never have come to
so melancholy an end.

In speaking of the suppression of feu-
dalism in England as leading to an in-
crease of the royal authority, as '* the
inevitable result of the destruction, or,
at least, the suspension of that middle or
balancing power by which the despotism of
the king and the democracy of the people
had been ultimately held in check," and
as involving a conflict which now " lay
between the monarch and his subjects —
between the one man who ruled with
unchecked and unlimited authority, and
the masses who had not yet fully learned
their own power, or the mode of using
it" — our authors are not slow to admit
that the Tudor dynasty well knew how
to avail themselves of such an exercise
of regal authority. It signally marked
the reign of Henry VIII., and not less so
that of his high-minded daughter Eliza-
beth. *' Such was the despotism of her
rule and the success of her measures,
that both Parliament and people were
willing to concede to her the same des-
potic authority that had been granted to
her predecessoi*s."

But for this concession, she could never
have filled the throne for such a length
of yeara. She was surrounded by those
who paid her the most abject adulation ;
looked upon her as the incarnation of all
truth and wisdom — the representative of
God himself, if not the embodiment of
his essential divinity ! Hence the per-
secution and the wrong, the suffering
and the martvrdom which characterized
her reign. Hers was a character and a
j>olicy with which every historian should
faithfully deal. The facts on which that
character and policy are founded are
))atent and incontrovertible, and it is
by these we must form our estimate of
the Queen. For any such estimate, wo
look in vain to the volumes before us ;
and this we deem a defect. History,
to be of any value, ought, in every
point and particular, to be faithful and
true, as just and impartial in dealing
whh character, as fair and unbiased in
dealing with statement. We mean not
to infer that our authors have t^aid a
single word to give a false impression of
Elizabeth's character on the one side or

ises.]

the other. They have left it jiiat as iliey
found it ; and it iB of this we complin.
While they have left us in no doubt as
to the despotism of ber rule, they have
yet refrained from toucliing those moral
elements of her character which were so
conspictiouB in her life, and whicli gave
their impression to her court, her 8ul>-
jcctB, and her age. Her reign wSs an
epoch in English history, and was ftaught
with immense, incalculable good to the
country ; bnt the picture has another
dde.

To us, the least satisfactory chapter in
these volumes is that on Cromwell and
the Commonwealth. The state of al!Uira
in the time of the first Charles demands
at the hand of every historian the most
sifting, searching examination. Xor till
this process of investigation is faithfully
gone through and finished are we in a
position to hail the appearance of Crom-
well on the great open stage of life.
Then we have lo take into account the
BinguJarity of the circumstances in which
he was placed; the part which he had to
jwrform ; the men with whom he had to
deal ; with the impossibility of maintain-
ing his ground and saving his country
otiiei'wtse than by arrogating to himself
a plenitude and prerogative of power,
which, in almost any other circumstances
and for any other end, would have been
dangerous in the extreme In the hand of
any one single man. His only alternative
was so to act, or to sacrifice the dearest
and most sacred ioterests of his country.
The destinies of England were in his
hand ; and had he either faltered or
failed, the consequences would have been
iDcalcalable. Yet he has been publicly
reprehended and condemned for the part
which he performed in the most eventful
crisis in our national existence. Men,
either unwilling or unable to realise his
position, have traced his whole line of
action to the lowest, basest, and most '
selfish motives. In later years, it ia true,
he lias found an able advocate to defend
bis name and character ; and it may bo '
that the authors of these volumes thought I
enough had been done by Thomas Carlyle
to vindicate the man Crorawell in the
judgment of the English people, and
of all people, not only now, but in all
future time; and hence their comparative
ulence. Now, if any where, it is on the
page of our national history, that the
name of Cromwell should be written

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

103

'in no blurred or blotted characters, in
no faint or indistinct terms ; but clear
and distinct, full, hold, and unmistakable.
He had his weak points and assailable, as
have all true men ; hut henceforth no one
dare to write him hypocrite, usurper,
murderer. " It would be a lie in the face
of God's bright sun.

To show the spirit which animated the
men of thai age, scarcely had Charles the
Second been restored to the throne, and
little more than two years had rolled
away since the grave had closed on one
of the greatest men the world ever saw,
when, on December the eighth, 1660, the
Convention Parliament proceeded to at-
taint Crorawell, Ireton, and Bradshaw ; on
which proceeding our authors jointly say :

" This vote had another metning beside that
of the rorfeitiire of the property of the dead,
which was too insignificant k> excite the cupid-
ity of the wasteful and needy Charles, or the sel-
fish, mean-souled courtiers. On the thirtieth of
January, of the following year, the anniversary
of the death of Charles [., the solemn recesses
of Westminster Abbey were invaded by a brutal
crevr, acting by the authority of the restored
king and clergy ; the graves were broken open,
the coffins of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw,
were put upon hurdles anddragged to Tjbura ;
there, being pulled out of their coffins, tbemold-
cring bodies were banged ' at theseveral angles
of ^e triple tree' till suoset, when they were
taken down and beheaded. Their bodies — or,
as the Court Chronicle calls them, their loath-
some carcasses-— were thrown into a i?eep hole
under the gallows; their heads were set upon
poles on the top of Westminster Hall. With
the same decent loyalty, the Dean and Chapter
of Westminster, acting under his majesty's and
their own leal, afterward eihuroed the bodies
of all who had been buried in the Abbey since
the beginning of the Civil Wars, and threw
them into a deep pit dug in St Margaret's
Churchyard. Among others, the inofiensive
remains of Oliver Cromwell's mother and daugh-
ter, who had both been models of domestic vir-
tue; ofDorislaus, one of the lawyers employed
on the trial of the late king, who bad been base-
ly murdered in Holland by the retainers of the
present king; of Hay, the accomplished trans-
lator of the Fharialia, and historian of the
Long Parliament, whose mild and comprehen-
sive language we have so frequently quoted; of
Pjm, that great and learned champion of Eng-
lish liberty ; and of Blake, the renowned and
honest-beajted, the first of naval heroes — ^wero
torn from the sacred asylum of the tomb, and
cost like dogs into that foul pit"

In thus referring to these two most
pregnant periods in our national history.
It is not lo find fault with the compilers

104

THE CASKET OF JEWEL&

[Blay,

of this invalaable work. As a whole,
they have performed their task with gyeat
fidelity and corresponding ability. That
no one will join issue with them on some,
perhaps many, points, is more than they
can fairly expect. Still we can- confident-
ly recommend this comprehensive history
as a faithful record, well written, beauti-
fully and truthfully illustrated, and woi^
thy of 2\ place in every library, private and
public, which is entitled to the name. If
no man should be without the history of
his country, then we trust that, with the
progress of education, and amid the mani-

fold developments of onr common hnman-
ity, the people will betake themselves to
the stuay of this comprehensive history,
that they may learn how the generations
which preceded them worked their way,
througn untold difficulties, to a proud pre-
eminence, and so be stimulatea to press
forward in the race of social, intellectual,
and moral improvement, that our country
may still preserve its advanced position
among the nations for all that is pure in
virtue, independent in liberty, and exalt-
ed in character.

From the Dublin UniTersity Ifagailne.

THE CASKET OF JEWELS.

They were very precious, and repre-
sented four thousand pounds, money
value. There were two sprays to encircle
the head like a wreath. There was a
comb, a necklace, car-rings, and a brooch.
They all lay nestling together in little
creeks and burrows of nch blue velvet,
shining like glow-worms. The casket lay
before me open, on the table — before
mey the constituted guardian of these
treasures.

There was to be a wedding far away in
the great Pontifical city, and these pre-
cious gifls were to be poured out into the
bride's lap on the eve of the nuptials. In
the pardonable lunacy of this period — at
which he himself will perhaps wonder
some years later — ^the rapturous husband
had ordered out these treasures, and kept
his jewelers working double tides to have
them ready. They have just been brought
homo under convoy, and the casket lies
open before me. This is Tuesday even-
ing. On Monday next the marriage
takes place outride the walls of the city of
the Popes, and I, the friend of this hus-
l>and in possCy have consented to take
rpersonal charge of this precious load.

There arc locks and double-locks — the
casket itself mimicking the outside of a
dispatch-box respectably. Some one sug-

I gested an outer skin or case ; but the
head of the firm, in consultation, pro-
nounced that such defense would be no
real protection, and that the simple sham-
ming of a dispatch-box would be the
most effectual security. And it was
decided accordingly that, disguised as
a dispatch-box it should go, with no
more than half an inch of wood or leather
between it and the outside world. From
the date of this ominous discussion, held
at about six p.m. on the Tuesday evening
— the Dover mail going down at half-past
eight — ^I began to feel sensible symptoms
of uneasiness, not unlike the early qualms
of sea-sickness. Fresh from the Lniver-
sity, young, full of hope, I relished this
guardianship amazingly at a distance ;
but it was not until the moment of dopar^
ture, when I took the casket by its stiflf
leathern strap into my hand to descend
to the cab, that the serious responsibility
first flashed upon me ; it then occurring
to me that peace of mind and tolerable
assurance of its safety were only to be pur-
chased by never relaxing my fingers for an
instant from the stiffstrap. This disagreea-
ble notion took possession of my fancy, and
worked itself into a hundred awful shapes,
and before we had reached Dover a sort of
nightmare conviction had taken possession

1862.1

THE CASKET OF JEWELS.

lOA

of me, that in all haman probability there
was to be for the wretched guardian, no
sleeping, no eating, save under conditions
of strictest inconvenience; no walking,
no lying down ; in short, he was to be
chained like a felon to this odious yet
precious companion. These unpleasant
shapes were afterward modified consider-
ably, and did not in reality embody such
inconveniences. Down to the town of
Dover, where we embarked on board
H. M. Royal Mail Steamer, a period of
over two hours, the casket lay upon my
knees, my fingers firmly clutched upon the
strap ; and I could see, with uneasiness,
that it excited the curiosity of the five
other passengers, to whom I then imputed
the most felonious designs, but who, I
am now convinced, were simply mystified
by its eccentric and conspicuous position,
and the astonishing power of endurance
in the knees that bore it.

How in the cabin of H. M. royal mail-
packet I leant back in a seat with the
casket still upon my knee, and how in
that fatal position, conceded by all to be
one of encouragement to the fell enemy
of those who go down to the sea in ships,
I did battle with the gradual encroach-
ments of sickness, need not be told here ;
how I at last, after the regular period of
suffering, dropped asleep for an instant,
and awoke with a shriek, clutching at
every object near at hand, need not either
be let out. With the morning, and with
the sun, I took a brighter and less hypo-
chondriacal view of things. I carried the
casket from the packet to the station at
Calais. I carried the casket tenderly
from the station in Paris to a cab, select-
ing a cabman with a look of primeval in-
nocence. I carried it from the cab to
that other station of the Lyons Railway.
I ate a hasty portion of roll, and butter
upon it ; I drank a hastier cup of coffee,
upon it ; at times I sat upon it ; at times I
put my feet upon it ; at times I laid it
under the seat. Yet, having to go down
every three minutes or so, to feel if it
was safe ; it seemed wiser to restore it to
its old position. At times I placed it
in the network over my head, straining
my neck every moment to see that it was
safe, and finally at the Empereur Hotel
at Marseilles, I actually took it to bed
with me, and in the morning was con-
scions of acute suffering, and severe
abrasion in the left side, from a sudden

thrust of a sharp corner of the casket in
the night.

The packet sailed at noon on Thurs*
day ; the casket still never lefl my sight.
At eleven a. m. it took breakfast with me
in a private chamber, occupying a chair
beside me, all to itself; we took another
cab together down to the "Docques,"
casket and I inside, the heavier baggage
outside ; we got on board together safely,
went down into the cabin, secured our
beith, and at last, in a tolerable security, I
breathed a free breath.

But, before having got thus far on the
journey, there were one or two things
which I had time to take note of, even
while suffering this grleyous peine forte et
dure. The first wa8, that on the platform
at London-bridge I had seen a huge truck
of luggage, clearly of the monstrous femi-
nine character ; black funereal chests,
more tall than broad, containing who
knows how many mysteries. Perhaps
— into this shape it worked itself during
the qualms and horrors of the middle
passage — perhaps the damning evidence of
some fearful crime. But in the fact of
female luggage monstrously developed,
overgrown, unfairly out of proportion,
there was surely no marvel ; it was the
two figures that walked behind, following
the heap close, that attracted me. One
was a tall burly man, much swollen afler
the fashion of fat foreigners, when they
incline to obesity, and which gives more
the idea of distention than of sound honest
fat ; not unconnected, too, with a suspicion
of bracing. His £ice, also, was round
and tallowy, and smoothly shaven, save
only so far as a trim and square mous-
tache, and he wore a comfoitable travel-
ing-cap, with a tassel.

There was a lady with him in a round
velvet hat, and a vail down, that came
exactly to her mouth, and tantalized, and
at the same time discouraged. The con-
trast to the burly barytone — for so I dub-
bed him — was striking indeed ; she was
so slightly made, so gi*aceful, moved so
airily, and as to all that could be seen of
her face, possessed the most exquisitely
rounded chin. Looking afler them as
they passed— barytone, baggage, and the
beautiful chin — I almost forgot for a few
seconds the precious deposit in my hand.

I saw them next at Paris, in the Cus-
toms' Oftioe, where the huge trunks were
being disemboweled. The huge trunks

106

THE. CASKET OF JEWELa

[May.

seemed bursting with precious things.
One of tbe disembowelers, having done
his savage work, sweeps away the huge
inonsier to make room for others, and
thus brings the direction close under my
eye — a coronet also under it — " S. E. Le
Comte Becco, Palazzo Becco, Firenze."

I say to myself, still clutching the dia-
mond casket, that it was easy to see the
tokens of rank and breeding. Do as you
will, you can not hide such things under
a bushel. Ancient lineage always - will
betray itself. It did not occur to me at
the moment that this betrayal was owing
to a very conspicuous card, and was in
that sense no self-betraval ; and also that
I had previously set down the Count him-
self as a burly barytone, and busily asso-
ciated him with the Royal Italian Opera.

I saw them again at Marseilles. The
monster trunks were being tilted up on
the roof of the huge omnibus for Service
du Cheniin de Fer. I saw them at the
door; and presently the round velvet
hat, with vail siill down to her chin, got
in. After her toiled up the steps the
portly barytone Count. It was a business
of much heat and struggle. A sadly ill-
conditioned aristocrat, as I could well
make out. A fellow wrapped up in his
own comforts and selfish humors, as in
that heavy braided Arab's wrapper in
which he was swathed. /SA^ wasan anjcrel
of sweetness and good temper. But
what situation did she fill about his
odious person — companion, daughter,
waiting- woman, wife, drudge — all con-
vertible terms with him f

There was a scent-bottle — a flask of eau
de cologne — presently dropped by his
odious fingers — omnibus by this time roll-
ing away down into the town. It had roll-
ed away under the seat where she sat, and
was for the moment irrecoverable. This
set him grumbling — launching out by-and-
by into louder abuse, sprinkled with plen-
tiful French oaths ; though it was plain
that it was his own clumsy fingers, and
they alone, that were accountable fur the
mischief. She never spoke nor remon-
strated ; but accepted this cruti treatment
with sweetest resii^nation.

"Stupid !•' I heard him say, sputtering
the words under his breath ; " did I not
tell you to take charge of it before I got
in. You will never attend to what I say,
with that mawkish air of yours. Bah ! I
have no patience with you !"

The injustice of this attack was so fla-

grant, I could not forbear ; and with a
glance at the precious casket, still across
my knees, I said : " Patience, sir, a little
patience. A ^^vi minutes more and we
shall be at the hotel, and you will have
your perfume-bottle. Rest assured that
it is in safety under some corner of the
seat, unless time has, indeed, decayed
away the floor of this ancient vehicle, and
it has fallen through."

The only reply he gave me was a scowl.
She lifted her vail, and repaid me with a
view of a charming face, perft-ctly con-
sistent with that promise in the chin. I
encouraged her — poor child — with a
smile ; and I could see she was reassured
by the notion, that at least so far as the
hotel she should not want a protector, or
a sort of moral support.

Here then was the Emporeur Hotel,
and here we descended for the night.
Obese Count Barytone and his white
slave, it appears, were to put up here also.
Happily, he did not discover that I was
about to stop there until his heavy bag-
gage was got in ; for he made no conceal-
ment of his disgust when I brushed by
him in the passage. I openly smiled,
with ill-concealed contempt ; to her I cast
another of those reassuring glances of
comfort, as who should say : " l3e of good
cheer, lovely one ; there is a protector for
you under the roof, and the number of
that protector's chamber is foi*ty-nine,
numero quarante neiif. Fear nothing."
All this I threw into one glance of aston-
ishing meaning, and I think she under-
stood me.

At twelve o'clock sailed the Capitole,
" Direct Service^^^ in the slang of their
ticket. A lovely day. Sun shining on
the gay streets of Marseilles, as in a
scone out of an opera. As before stated,
I shared my couch with the precious dia-
mond casket, and passed a night of sad
discomfort ; for there were two things on
my mind — the diamonds and the diamond
eyes — the dull insensate precious stones,
and that other living cisket, infinitely
more precious, whose accredited protec-
tor and knight-chevalier I now considered
myself in a sort of sacred sense. '^ Sleep,
gentle lady," I found myself murmuring,
^^ the flowei*s are closing. Good night !
Good night, beloved. To be near thee ;
to be near thee," I murmured, adapt-
ing Longfellow's well-known lines to tbe
situation.

By noon then, as stated, I was in a cab,

18G2.]

THE GASKET OF JEWELS.

107

inaking for the " Docqnes ;" and should I
have made the Doeqiies very speedily,
but for a siow-goin^, heavily-laden vehi-
cle, which kept before us persistently ;
no doubt, also making for the Docques.
There was a physiognomy about one of
the Patagonian trunks standing up gaunt-
ly on the roof, which I thought I recog-
nized. A strange feeling came over me.
Could there be truth in that sense of a
mysterious chain that links kindred hearts
together — unseen, unfrlt — yet drawing
the two by a wonderful law ? It made me
thrill ; and thouah at the moment I was
conscious of a kind of lumbar soreness,
reaching even to acute pain, owing to
carrying a heavy casket so many hours
on my knees, I almost immediately forgot
all sense of suffering.

In a few moments we had passed the
hugely-laden cab triumphantly, yet not
without a sad protest on my part. Be of
good cheer, I said, (internally,) as we
went by, (keeping myself carefully con-
cealed,) He is with thee, and watching
over thee from afar.

From the bright decks of the Capitole
I saw them arrive ; I saw their heavy
baggage swing over into the hold, and
the huge Patagonian chest {Her box ;
tenderly, more tenderly, ye bearded sail-
ors!) tilted down into Erebus. Then I
saw bulky Count Barytone toil up the
steps painfully, discharging his venom as
he ascended. Him followed closely, ac-
cepting all sweetly, and without a mur-
mur, that tender Cenci face. No name is
as yet known to me for her. Let me
hold you at the font, gentle maid, and
christen you, temporarily, " Cenci." You
shall be known to me evermore as Cenci.

I shall not forget the look of Count
Barytone as he reached the deck, and
his eye fell on me. His lips moved with
a shower of indistinct oaths, and I could
see we were to dislike each other cor-
dially from that moment. Gladly I ac-
cepted his defiance of hate, and was glad
to meet him any where, on ship-deck or
dry land, ready to do battle. But for
Cenci, a tinge of pale color lighted up
her cheek ; for she knew that her cham-
pion and standard-bearer was with her.
Unconsciously thus, and though it were
fated that I was never to address a single
word to her, still this sense of moral
support thus imparted, must have been

of inestimable value, as to strengthening
and comforting her.

I approached them, and spoke words,
of course. Why should I be deterred by
the brutal humors of the man? "The
man at the wheel tells me," I said, as-
suming a nautical manner ; " the man at
the wheel tells me that we shall have
what he calls a Beau trajet, I concur
with the man at the wheel ; we shall have
a beau trajet — we ought to — have — a —
Beau trajet !" This was said slowly, and
with a strange meaning.

What I sought to convey, thinly dis-
guised under the forms of an indifferent
remark, was that there w\as an influence
" aboard," (not (m board,) superior to
the vulgar force of storms and tempest,
and which would send us gliding over
the smooth waters, not to be disturbed
by a ruffle. This compliment was so
delicately implied, that I think it was
imperceptihle to the dull appreciation of
the monster.

She understood me. "The wind," I
continued, ''isNor-nor-east. The wind
is favorable — very favorable" — (another
meaning look condensed here.) This
while I was standing with the casket
hanging conspicuously from one hand,
and my arm was gi'owing a little fatigued.

" Come down," growled the Count.
" Come away — why do you keep me ?"

"In an instant, dear," she said : '"first
let me thank this gentleman, who was so
kind about the s